BY A. J. CRONIN 44 страница

They were silent as he drew near, directing their eyes away from him towards the green, disowning him, but still failing to perturb him as, oscillating slightly, he stood encompassing them with his sneer.

"Dear, dear," he snickered, "we're very engrossed in watching the wee, troolin' balls. It's a grand, excitin' pastime. We'll be lookin' on at a game o 1 peever next if we're not careful, like a band o' silly lassies." He paused and queried pertinently, "Who has won, Provost? Will ye tell me you that's such a grand spokesman for the town?"

"This game's not finished yet," replied Grierson after a moment's hesitation, and still with his eyes averted. The spite which he had once entertained against Brodie now found nothing in the other's wretched condition with which to justify itself and seemed suddenly to have evaporated. Besides, was he not the Provost? "Nobody has won yet," he added more affably.

"This game's not won yet," echoed Brodie sardonically. "Well, well! I'm sorry to hear it. But I can tell ye a game that is won!"

He glared round them all and, his anger rising at their indifference, shouted:

"It's the Latta I'm talkin' about. Maybe ye think it's like this rotten game of bowls that you're watchin' not finished yet. But I tell you it is finished finished and done wi' and it's my Nessie that's won it!"

"Hush, man, hush!" exclaimed Gordon, who sat immediately confronted by Brodie. "I can't see the play for ye. Sit down or stand aside and don't blatter the ears off us."

"I'll stand where I like. Shift me if ye can," retorted Brodie dangerously. Then he sneered: "Who are you to talk, anyway? You're only the ex-provost you're not the king o' the castle any more it's our dear friend Grierson that's got your shoes on now and it's him I'm wantin' to speak to." He directed his sneering gaze at Grierson and addressed him: "Did you hear what I said about the Latta,

Provost? No! Dinna start like that I havena forgotten about that braw son o' yours. I know well that he's gone up for it. Provost Grierson's son is up for the Latta. God! It must be as good as in his pocket."

"I never said that yet," replied Grierson, provoked in spite of himself. "My boy can take his chance! It's not as if he was needin' the money for his education, onyway."

Brodie ground his teeth at the sharp implication in the other's careless words and tried fiercely to force his brain to contrive some devastating reply, but as always, when opposing Grierson, he could find no suitable expression of his wrath. The thought that he, who had advanced a moment ago in lordly indifference, had been rendered impotent by a word, goaded him, and, sensing also that he was not creating the impression upon them which he had wished, his temper overcame him and he shouted:

"Why did ye ask me to withdraw my daughter if ye didna want your whelp to win it? answer me that, you sneakin' swine! You stopped me at the Cross and asked me to keep back my Nessie."

"Tuts! Don't shout like that at my ear, man," retorted Grierson coolly. "I don't like the reek o' your breath. I told ye before I was thinkin' of your Nessie. Somebody that's qualified to speak asked me to mention it to ye. I wasna wantin' to do it and now I'm sorry I did mention it."

"You're a liar!" bawled Brodie. "You're a damned mealy-mouthed liar!"

"If ye've come here to force a quarrel on me, I'll not let ye do it," returned Grierson. "There's no lying about the matter and no secret either. Now that your daughter has gone up, I don't mind tellin’ you it was Doctor Renwick asked me to speak to ye."

"Renwick!" exclaimed Brodie incredulously. He paused; then, as a light dawned upon him, he shot out, "I see! I see it plain. You put him up to it. He's hand in glove with you against me. He hates me just as much as do as much as ye all do." He swept his arm blindly around them. "I know you're all against me, you jealous swine, but I don't care. Ill win through. Til trample over ye all yet. Have any of ye got a daughter that can win the Latta? Answer me that!"

"If your daughter does win the Latta," cried some one, "what the de'il does it matter to us? Let her get it and good luck to her. I don't give a tinker's curse who wins it."

Brodie gazed at the speaker.

"Ye don't care?" he replied slowly. "Ye do care you're leein' to me. It'll spite the faces off ye if a Brodie wins the Latta."

"Away home, man, for God's sake," said Gordon quietly. "You're not yourself. You're drivelin'. You can't know what you're sayin'.”

"I'll go when I like," mumbled Brodie. The stimulation of the drink suddenly left him, his fierceness waned, he no longer desired to rush upon Grierson and tear him apart, and, as he gazed at their varying expressions of unconcern and disgust, he began to feel profoundly sorry for himself, to ask himself if this could be the same company which he had dominated and overawed in the past. They had never liked him but he had controlled them by his power, and now that they had escaped from out his grasp, his sympathy towards himself grew so excessive that it reached the point of an exceeding sorrow which sought almost to express itself in tears.

"I see how it is," he muttered gloomily, addressing them at large. "Ye think I'm all over and done wi'. I'm not good enough for ye now. God! If it didna make me laugh, it would make me greet. To think that ye should sit there and look down your noses at me at me that comes of stock that's so high above ye they wouldna even use ye as doormats." He surveyed them each in turn, looking vainly for some sign of encouragement, some indication that he was impressing them. Then, although no sign came, he still continued, more slowly and in a dejected, unconvincing tone:

"Don't think that I'm finished! I'm comin' up again. Ye can't keep a good man down and ye'll not keep me down, however much ye may try. Wait and see what my Nessie will do. That'll show ye that stuff that's in us. That's why I came here. I don't want to know ye. I only wanted to tell ye that Nessie Brodie would win the Latta, and now that I've done it, I'm satisfied!" His moody eye swept them, then finding that he had nothing more to say, that they too were silent, he moved off; yet after a few paces he arrested himself, turned, opened his mouth to speak; but no speech came and at length he lowered his head, swung around, and again shambled off. They let him go without a word.

As he left the confines of the Green and proceeded along the road, nursing bitterly his wounded pride, he suddenly perceived in the distance the dim figures of his two daughters approaching him from the station. He stared at them almost stupidly, at Nessie and Mary Brodie, both of them his children, as though the strange sight of them together in the public street confused him. Then all at once he realised that Nessie was returning from her examination, that Mary had disobeyed him by meeting the train. No matter! He could deal later with Mary, but now he desired urgently to know how Nessie had fared, to appease his wounded vanity in the knowledge of her success, and walking forward quickly, he met them, confronted them in the middle of the pavement. There, absorbing eagerly every detail of the younger girl's tired face, he cried:

"How did ye get on, Nessie? Quick! Tell me was everything all right?"

"Yes," she murmured. "Everything was all right."

"How many books did ye fill? Was it two or three?"

"Books?" she echoed faintly. "I only wrote in one book. Father."

"Only one book!" he exclaimed. "Yc only filled one book for all the time ye've been away." He considered her in astonishment, then, his face slowly hardening, he demanded harshly, "Can ye not speak, woman? Don't ye see I want to know about the Latta. I’m asking you for the last time. Will you tell me once and for all how ye got on?"

With a great effort she controlled herself, looked at him out of her placating eyes and, forcing her pale lips into a smile, cried:

"Splendid, Father! I got on splendid. I couldn't have done better."

He stared down at her for a long time, filled by the recollection of the arrogance with which he had proclaimed her success, then he said slowly, in an odd, strained voice:

"I hope ye have done splendid. I hope so! For if ye haven't, then, by God! it'll be the pity of ye!"

IT WAS the Saturday following that of the examination for the Latta, the time half-past ten in the morning. Nessie Brodie stood looking out of the parlour window with an expression of expectation upon her face mingled, too, by a hidden excitement which made her eyes shine bright and large out of her small face, as though they awaited the appearance of some sudden, thrilling manifestation in the empty roadway that lay before them. The face, despite its ingenuous weakness, wore something of an unguarded look, for the consciousness that she was alone in the room and unobserved allowed a freer and more unrestrained display of these emotions that she had carefully concealed during the course of the past uneasy week. During that week her father's attitude to her had been insupportable, alternating between a fond complacency and a manner so disturbing and threatening that it terrified her; yet she had borne it, comforting herself in the knowledge that she possessed a strategy more subtle, more effective than all his bluster and his bullying. She thought she had won the Latta, had experienced, indeed, with the passage of each of the seven days since the examination, a growing certainty that she had won it. It was impossible that all her work, the compulsory toil, all these long, cold hours of endurance in this same parlour could go unrewarded, and although a feeling of dissatisfaction with her own paper had possessed her when she left the University last week, now her confidence was completely restored; she felt that she must have taken the Bursary to use her father's phrase in her stride. Still, there was always the chance, the faint unreasonable chance, that she might not have been successful! It was unthinkable, impossible, yet it was against this chance that by some strange, astute working of her mind she had so cleverly formulated her precaution. They thought, both Mary and her father, that the result of the Latta would not be announced for another week she had told them so and they had believed her but she knew better than that, knew that the result would reach her this morning. She was expecting it immediately, for the forenoon delivery of letters at eleven o'clock contained the Glasgow mail, and from enquiries which she had made at the University she knew that the results of the examination had been posted to each competitor on the evening of the day before.

She smiled slyly, even now, at the consideration of her own cleverness in deluding them all. It had been a brilliant idea and daring too not unlike the sudden sending of that letter to Mary yet she had accomplished it. Her father had so crushed and oppressed her with the preparation for the examination that she had wanted room to breathe, space to think; and now she had contrived it for herself. It was a triumph. She had a whole week to herself before he would demand threateningly to see the evidence of her success, an entire week during which she could think and cleverly contrive some means of escape from him, should she have failed. But she had not failed she had succeeded and instead of using every moment of that precious week to prepare herself against her father's anger, she would treat it like a hidden happiness, treasuring her secret until she could no longer contain it, then delivering it unexpectedly, triumphantly, upon their astounded ears. They would not know until she enlightened them; nobody must know, not even Mary, who had been so good, so kind and loving to her. Surely she should have told Mary? No! That would have spoiled the entire plan. When she did speak she would tell her first, but now everything must be kept secret and sealed within her own mind; she wanted no one peering over her shoulders when she opened that letter; she must be alone, secluded from prying glances that might watch the trembling of her fingers or the eagerness of her eyes.

As she stood there, suddenly she started and a faint tremor passed over her as she observed an indistinct blue figure at the foot of the road the postman, who would, in the slow regularity of his routine, reach her within the space of half an hour. In half an hour she would be receiving the letter; must, moreover, be alone to receive it undisturbed! With an effort she withdrew her eyes from the distant figure of the postman and involuntarily, almost automatically, turned and advanced to the door, altering her expression so that her features lost their revealing look, became secretive, blank, then drew slowly into a frown. This troubled frown intensified as she entered the kitchen and went up to Mary when, pressing her hand against her brow, she exclaimed wearily:

"That headache is on me again, Mary! Worse than ever this time."

Mary looked at her sister sympathetically.

"My poor, wee Nessie!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry about that! I thought you had got rid of them for good."

"No! No!" cried Nessie. "It's come back. It's hurting me give me one of my powders, quick!"

From under the cover of her hand she watched Mary as she went to the white cardboard box that stood always on the mantelpiece, observed her open the box and discover that it was empty, then heard her exclaim condolingly:

"They're all finished, I'm afraid! I'm sorry, dear! I was sure you had one or two left."

"Finished?" exclaimed Nessie. "That's terrible. I can't do without them. My head's bursting. I must have one at once."

Mary looked at her sister's lowered face with solicitude, as she remarked:

"What can I do for you, dear? Would you like a cold cloth and vinegar on it?"

"I told you those were no good," cried Nessie urgently. "You'll need to get me a powder. Go out this very minute for me."

Mary's expression grew doubtful and, after a pause, she said:

"I can hardly go out just now, dearie. There's the dinner to make and everything. Lie down a little and I'll rub your head."

"Away and get the powder," the other burst out. "Can ye not do that one little thing for me you that's aye sayin' you want to help me? I'll not be right till I get one ye know that it's the only thing that eases me."

After a moment's hesitation, during which she gazed compassionately at Nessie, Mary moved her hands slowly to the strings of her apron and untied them even more slowly.

"All right, dear! I can't see you suffer like that. I'll go and get them made up for you right away;" then, as she went out of the room, she added sympathetically, "I'll not be a minute. Lie down and rest till I come back."

Nessie lay down obediently, realising with an inward satisfaction that the minute would be a full hour, that she would have ample time to receive her letter and compose herself again before Mary could make the journey to the town, wait tediously at the chemist's for the compounding of the prescription, and return to her. She smiled faintly as she heard the front door close behind her sister; and this smile again unlocked her restraint, for that strangely artful expression returned to her face and she jumped up and ran eagerly into the parlour.

Yes! There was Mary going down the road, hurrying the poor thing to secure the powders, as though there were not two still in the house hidden in the dresser drawer, and passing actually, without a sign, the postman as he made his way towards her. He had something in his bag that would bring more relief than all the powders that Lawrie could ever give her. How slow he was, though!

It was, she perceived, Dan, the older of the two postmen who came upon this round, and the very one who used to hand in Matt's letters with such an air of consequential dignity, exclaiming importantly:

"Something worth while in that one by the look o' it." No letter of Matt's had ever been so important as this one! Why did he not hurry? As she remained there, she felt vaguely that under the same circumstances of excitement and anticipation she had once before stood at this window in the parlour, and she became aware suddenly, without consciously seeking in her mind, that it had been on that day when Mamma had received the wire that had so upset her. She recollected the delicious thrill it had given her to hold the orange slip within her hand and remembered, too, how cleverly she had manoeuvred to ascertain the ignorance of Grandma Brodie upon the matter. Now she did not fear that her letter would be discovered by the old woman who, half blind and almost wholly deaf, kept to her room except when the call of meal times withdrew her from it.

Dan was getting nearer, leisurely crossing and recrossing the street, hobbling along as though he had corns upon every toe, wearing his heavy bag on his bent back like a packman. Still, how slow he was! Yet now, strangely, she did not wish quite so ardently that he should hurry, but rather that he should take his time and leave her letter till the last. Everybody in the road seemed to be getting letters to-day, and all, as she desired, before she received hers. Would John Grierson have had his yet? Much good it would do him if he had. She would have liked dearly to see the chawed look upon his face when he opened it. As for herself, she did not now want a letter at all; it was upsetting and she knew so well she had won the Latta that it was not worth the trouble of opening an envelope to confirm it. Some envelopes were difficult to open!

Yet here was Dan actually advancing to her house, causing her to tremble all over, making her gasp as he passed the gate carelessly as if aware that there could now be no letters for the Brodies then, as he stopped suddenly and returned, sending her heart leaping violently into her throat.

An age passed before the doorbell rang; but it did ring and she was compelled, whether she now wished it or not, to pull herself away from the window and advance to the door not with the skipping eagerness that she had displayed when fetching the telegram but slowly with a strange detached sense of unreality as though she still stood by the window and watched her own form move deliberately from the room.

The letter, long, stiff and important, with a blue shield upon the back, was in Dan's hand and her gaze became fixed upon it as she stood, unconscious of the smile which crinkled his veined, russet cheek and showed his tobacco-stained teeth, almost unconscious of the old postman himself yet dimly hearing him say, even as she expected, "Something worth while in that one, by the look o' it."

Now it was her hand which was cognisant of the letter, her fingers sensitively perceiving the rich, heavy texture of the paper, her eyes observing the thin, copperplate inscription of her own name which ran accurately across the centre of its white surface. How long she regarded her name she did not know, but when she looked up Dan had gone, without her having thanked him or even spoken to him, and, as she glanced along the vacant roadway, she felt a vague regret at her lack of courtesy, considered that she must make amends to him in some fashion, perhaps apologise or give him some tobacco for his Christmas box. But first she must open this that he had given her.

She turned, closing the door behind her, and, realising that she need not return to that dismal parlour which she hated so much, traversed the hall without a sound and entered the empty kitchen. There she immediately rid her hand of the letter by placing it upon the table. Then she returned to the door by which she had just entered, satisfied herself that it was firmly shut, advanced to the scullery door, which she inspected in like fashion, and finally, as though at last convinced of her perfect seclusion, came back and seated herself at the table. Everything was as she desired it, everything had befallen as she had so cleverly foreseen, and now, alone, unobserved, concealed, with nothing more to do, nothing for which to wait, she was free to open the letter.

Her eye fell upon it again, not fixedly as when she had received it, but with a growing, flickering agitation. Her lips suddenly felt stiff, her mouth dried up and she shook violently from head to foot. She perceived not the long, white oblong of the letter but her own form, bent eternally over a book, at school, at home, in the examination hall of the University, and always overcast by the massive figure of her father, which lay above and upon her like a perpetual shadow. The letter seemed to mirror her own face which looked up, movingly, telling her that all she had worked for, all she had been constrained to work for, the whole object of her life, lay there upon the table, crystallised in a few written words upon one hidden sheet of paper.

Her name was upon the envelope and the same name must be upon that hidden sheet within, or else everything that she had done, her very life itself, would be futile. She knew that her name was inside, the single name that was always sent without mention of the failures, the name of the winner of the Latta, and yet she was afraid to view it.

That, clearly, was ridiculous! She need not be afraid of her name which, as her father rightly insisted, was a splendid name, a noble name, and one of which she might justly be proud. She was Nessie Brodie she was the winner of the Latta! It had all been arranged months beforehand, everything had been settled between her father and herself. My! But she was the clever, wee thing the smartest lass in Levenford the first girl to win the Bursary a credit to the name of Brodie! As in a dream, her hand stole towards the letter. How curious that her fingers should tremble in this strange fashion as, under her own eyes, they opened the stiff envelope. How thin her fingers were! She had not willed them to open the letter and yet they had done so; even now they held the inner sheet in -their faintly trembling clasp.

Well! She must see her name the name of Nessie Brodie. That, surely, was no hardship to view for one moment her own name. That moment had come!

With a heart that beat suddenly with a frantic, unendurable agitation, she unfolded the sheet and looked at it.

The name which met her shrinking gaze was not hers, it was the name of Grierson. John Grierson had won the Latta!

For a second she regarded the paper without comprehension; then her eyes filled with a growing horror which widened her pupils until the words before her blurred together, then faded from her view. She sat motionless, rigid, scarcely breathing, the paper still within her grasp, and into her ears flowed a torrent of words uttered in her father's snarling voice. She was alone in the room, he at the office a mile away yet in her tortured imagination she heard him, saw him

vividly before her.

"Grierson's won it! You've let that upstart brat beat you. It wouldna have mattered so much if it had been anybody else but Grierson the son o' that measly swine. And after all I've talked about ye winnin' it. It's damnable! Damnable, I tell ye! You senseless idiot after the way I've slaved with ye, keepin' ye at it for all I was worth! God! I canna thole it. I'll wring that thin neck o' yours for ye."

She sank deeper into her chair, shrinking from his invisible presence, her eyes still horrified, but cowering too, as though he advanced upon her with his huge open hands. Still, she remained motionless; even her lips did not move, but she heard herself cry feebly:

"I did my best, Father. I could do no more. Don't touch me, Father."

"Your best," he hissed. "Your best wasna good enough to beat Grierson. You that swore ye had the Latta in your pocket! I've got to sit down under another insult because of ye. I'll pay ye. I told ye it would be the pity of ye if ye failed."

"No! No! Father," she whispered. "I didn't mean to fail. I'll not do it again I promise you! You know I've always been the top of the class. I've always been your own Nessie. You wouldna hurt a wee thing like me. Ill do better next time."

"There'll be no next time for you," he shouted at her. "I’ll… I'll throttle ye for what you've done to me."

As he rushed upon her, she saw that he was going to kill her and, while she shrieked, closing her eyes in a frantic, unbelievable terror, the encircling band that had bound her brain for the last weary months of her study snapped suddenly and gave to her a calm and perfect peace. The tightness around her head dissolved, she was unloosed from the bonds that had confined her, her fear vanished and she was free. She opened her eyes, saw that her father was no longer there, and smiled an easy, amused smile which played over her mobile features like ripples of light and passed insensibly into a high, snickering laugh. Though her laughter was not loud, it moved her like a paroxysm, making the tears roll down her cheeks and shaking her thin body with its utter abandon. She laughed for a long time, then, as suddenly as her mirth had begun it ceased, her tears dried instantly, and her face assumed a wise, crafty expression like a gigantic magnification of that slight artfulness which it had worn when she stood thinking in the parlour. Now, however, clearly guided by a force within her, she did not think; she was above the necessity for thought. Pressing her lips into a prim line, she laid the letter, which had all this time remained within her grasp, carefully upon the table like a precious thing, and rising from her chair, stood casting her gaze up and down, moving her head like a nodding doll. When the nodding ceased, a smile, transient this time, flickered across her face and whispering softly, encouragingly to herself, "What ye do. ye maun do well, Nessie, dear", she turned and went tiptoeing out of the room. She ascended the stairs with the same silent and extravagant caution, paused in a listening attitude upon the landing, then, reassured, went mincing into her room. There, without hesitation, she advanced to the basin and ewer, poured out some cold water and began carefully to wash her face and hands. When she had washed meticulously, she dried herself, shining her pale features to a high polish by her assiduous application of the towel; then, taking off her old, grey beige dress she took from her drawer the clean cashmere frock which was her best. This apparently did not now wholly please her, for she shook her head and murmured:

"That's not pretty enough for ye, Nessie dear. Not near pretty enough for ye now!" Still, she put it on with the same unhurried precision and her face lightened again as she lifted her hands to her hair. As she unplaited it and brushed it quickly with long, rapid strokes, she whispered from time to time softly, approvingly, "My bonnie hair! My bonnie, bonnie hair!" Satisfied at last with the fine, golden sheen which her brushing had produced, she stood before the mirror and regarded herself with a far-away, enigmatical smile; then, taking her only adornment, a small string of coral beads, once given her by Mamma to compensate for Matthew's forgetfulness, she made as though to place them around her neck, when suddenly she withdrew the hand that held them. "They're gey and sharp, these beads," she murmured and laid them back gently upon her table.

Without further loss of time she marched softly out of her room, descended the stairs, and in the hall put on her serge jacket and her straw hat with the brave, new, satin ribbon that Mary had bought and sewn for her. She was now dressed completely for the street in her best dressed, indeed, as she had been on the day of the examination. But she did not go out of the house; instead, she slid stealthily back into the kitchen.

Here her actions quickened. Taking hold of one of the heavy wooden chairs, she moved it accurately into the centre of the room, then turned to her heaped books upon the dresser and transferred these to the chair, making a neat, firm pile which she surveyed with a pleased expression, adjusting some slight deviations from the regular symmetry of the heap with light, fastidious touches of her fingers. "That's a real neat job, my dear," she murmured contentedly. "You're a woman that would have worked well in the house." Even as she spoke, she moved backwards from the chair, still admiring her handiwork, but when she reached the door she turned and slipped lightly into the scullery. Here she bent and rummaged in the clothes basket at the window, then straightening up with an exclamation of triumph, she returned to the kitchen, bearing something in her hand. It was a short length of clothes line. Now her movements grew even more rapid. Her nimble fingers worked feverishly with one end of the thin rope, she leaped on the chair and, standing upon the piled books, corded the other end over the iron hook of the pulley on the ceiling. Then, without descending from the chair, she picked up the letter from the table and pinned it upon her bosom, muttering as she did so, "First prize, Nessie! What a pity it's not a red card."

Дата добавления: 2015-08-20