BY A. J. CRONIN 18 страница

But this animadversion had no effect upon their activities, serving only, or so it seemed to him, to stimulate these, and moodily he observed thick, scintillating plate-glass windows of a green translucency come into place, rich show cases appear like mushrooms in the space of a night, an ornately lettered signboard emerge glittering! Finally, under his eyes, in broad daylight the crowding anathema a nodel of a huge top hat, sumptuously and opulently gilt, was erected above the doorway, where it swung jauntily from its supporting pole with every breath of air. Brodie's demeanour to the town during this period gave, in general, no marked indication of the emotions which he repressed. He manifested outwardly only calm indifference, for his very pride forbade him to speak; and to his acquaintances who rallied him on the matter of the encroachment he exhibited an air of profound contempt towards the new company, met Grierson's gall- dipped witticisms at the Philosophical Club with the assumption of a careless and superior unconcern.

The general opinion was that Brodie would undoubtedly carry the day against the invaders.

"I give them six months," remarked Provost Gordon judiciously, to the select junta of the club one evening, in Brodie's absence, "before Brodie drives them out. He's an unco' deevelish man that, for an enemy. Dod, he's quite capable o' layin' a charge o' gunpowder under their braw new shop."

" 'T would be a risky job wi' that sparky temper o' his," inserted Grierson.

"He'll spark them out," replied the Provost. "He fair beats me, does James Brodie. I know of no man alive who would have come through a' that awf u' pother and disgrace about his daughter without turnin' a hair, or once hangin' his heid. He's a black deevil when his purpose is set."

"I'm not so sure, Provost; na, na, I'm not just so sure," drawled the other, "that the very deliberateness o' him michtna thwart its ain purpose, for he's that obstinate he would try to outface a mule. Forbye, Provost, he's gotten so big for his shoes now that folks aye, even the county folks who liket it at first are beginnin' to get a wheen sick o' it. That grand style o' his is juist like the lordly salmon; a wee bittie is all right, but if ye get it served up a' the time, man, ye get awfu' scunnered by it."

Seeing himself thus the object of their speculation and sensing its slightly favourable tone, Brodie began to feel that the public eye was turned encouragingly towards him as a defender of the old, solid order of the Borough against the invasion of the trumpery new, and he became, in his appearance, even more of the dandy, ordered two new suits of the finest and most expensive cloth, bought himself in the jeweller's at the Cross a smart, opal tie-pin which he now wore in place of his plain, gold horseshoe. This pin was immediately the object of criticism amongst the cronies and was passed from hand to hand in admiration.

" 'Tis a bonnie stone although I'm no judge," tittered Gricrson. "I hope it hasna ruined you to buy it."

"Don't judge my savings by yours. I know weel enough what I can afford," retorted Brodie roughly.

"Na! Na! I wouldna dream o' doin' that. Ye're so lavish wi' your money ye maun be worth a mint o' it. I'll warrant ye'll have a wheen o' siller stowed away for a rainy day," lisped Grierson ambiguously, as his eye flicked Brodie's with ironic insight.

"They say an opal's gey unlucky. The wife's sister had an opal ring that brought her a heap o' misfortune. She had an unco' bad slip the very month she got it," demurred Pax ton.

"That'll no' happen to me," replied Brodie coarsely.

"But are ye not feared to wear it?" persisted Paxton.

Brodie looked at him fixedly.

"Man," he said slowly, "you ought to know I'm feared of nothing on this God's earth."

Curiously, although he directed the most scrupulous attention towards his own attire and personal appearance, he would not for an instant entertain the idea of sprucing up his business premises by renewing the drab aspect of his shop, but seemed actually to glory in its unalterable, but recently accentuated, dinginess. When Perry, who had cast a persistently envious eye upon the growth of the dazzling magnificence next door, remarked upon the contrast and timidly suggested that perhaps a touch of paint might benefit the exterior, he said, impressively, "Not a finger do we lay on it. Them that wants to buy their hats in a painted panopticon can do so, but this is a gentleman's business and I'm going to keep it so." In this attitude he waited the first attack of the enemy.

With the final steps of restoration and reconstruction completed, at last the opening day of the rival establishment arrived. Astonishing progress had been made during the last week of March and a full blaring column in the Advertiser had announced that the first of April would mark the inauguration of the new establishment. Behind the thick, green blinds and shuttered entrance, a feeling of occult mysticism had prevailed during the whole of the previous day, and through this veil the district manager of the company, who had been deputed to take charge of the local branch for the initial months, had been observed flitting restlessly, like a shadow, symbolic of secrecy. Obviously the policy of the Mungo Company was to dazzle Levenford by their display in one sudden, blinding revelation; they would rend the cover from the windows and the Borough as a whole would be staggered by the vision of what it saw.

Such, at least, were Brodie's ironic thoughts as, on the first of April, he left his house at 9.30 to the second, no sooner, no later, and began the usual walk to his business in exactly his usual manner. As he came down the High Street in perfect composure he looked, although his manner was perhaps a trifle over emphasised, the least perturbed man in Levenford. The satirical nature of his reflections fed his vanity and consolidated his rooted belief in himself, stifling the vague misgiving that had for days fluttered at the back of his brain. Now that the moody period of waiting was at an end and the fight actually begun, he became once more the master of his fate and his bearing now seemed to say, "Let me get at it. I've been waitin' on this. And now you're ready for me, by God, I'm ready for you." He loved a fight. Furthermore, he felt spurred in this incentive to contest by his additional anticipation that the heat of the battle would remove his mind from the dull depression into which the blow to his intimate family pride had recently plunged him. Already his heart lifted to the joy of the fight as he told himself that he would show them the stuff that James Brodie was made of, would demonstrate again to the town the spirit that was in him, would, by a crushing defeat to the Mungo up- starts, restore his prestige in the eyes of the Borough to even a higher level than before. With a stiff back and expanded chest, with his stick cocked over his shoulder an exultant mannerism he had not indulged in for months he strode confidently along the street. He reached the new shop, saw instantly that, at last, it was open.

Whilst a lesser man might have, more circumspectly, completed his inspection by peering from the corner of his eye as he walked past, this prying was not in Brodie's nature, and he arrested himself openly, ostentatiously, in the middle of the pavement, and with his stick still upon his shoulder, his feet planted firmly apart, his massive head thrown back, he gazed sardonically at the double-fronted spectacle before him. A deliberate smile spread over his features. A ponderous guffaw shook him. His whole attitude became expressive of his delightful realisation that the display before him was more trashy and newfangled than he had dared to hope, more ludicrous than he had preconceived even in his wildest expectations. One window was crammed from floor to ceiling with hats, hats of every conceivable form, variety and style, mounting upwards in graduated tiers amongst festoons of ties and sprouting bouquets of coloured handkerchiefs, ornamented at tasteful intervals by garlands of socks and stockings, and embellished by an array of gloves arranged like fern fronds, with

limp yet politely extended fingers. The indication that the purpose of this strikingly artistic exhibition was not purely decorative was clearly, yet tactfully, conveyed by the fact that each article bore a small ticket stamped M.H.H., with the price in plain red figures below. But although he perceived this composite tableau, it was, however, the other window which riveted Brodie's quizzical attention, where his contemptuous eyes observed the unthoupht of novelty of two wax figures. Wax figures incredible! Still, there they were, a gentleman of perfect complexion and address gazing with fixed, ambiguous fondness upon the form of a small boy who, from his clear skin, wide blue eyes, and bland innocuous simper was undoubtedly the model son of this model father. They stood, the right hand of the father and the left hand of the son extended with the same delicate gesture, as if to say, "Here we are. Gaze upon us. We are here for your admiration."

Their clothing was immaculate, and Brodie's eye travelled from the creases of their trousers to the brilliance of their ties, over the glaze of their collars, the snowy whiteness of their prominent handkerchiefs, the sheen of sock and stocking, to the curly-brimmed Derby on the parental brow and the natty pill box upon the juvenile head, until finally it rested upon the neat card on which was printed:

"Dressed by the M. H. H. Co. Let us do the same for you."

"Dummies," muttered Brodie. "Demned dummies. It's not a hat shop; it's a demned waxworks." They represented to him the joke of a lifetime, for these figures had never been seen in Levenford although it had been recently rumoured that such innovations were appearing in the larger Glasgow warehouses and he considered that they would soon be the laughingstock of the Borough.

As he remained in arrogant contemplation, suddenly a man came out of the shop, carrying a brown paper parcel. Instantly Brodie's sneer was transfixed by a sudden mortifying apprehension and a pang shot through him like a knife stab. Had they, then, begun to do business already? He had never seen the man before and he tried to reassure himself that, in all probability, this was merely a belated workman, performing some omitted task or collecting his forgotten gear; nevertheless, the neat parcel aroused his suspicion, disturbed him deeply, and in a less arrogant manner, he moved his firmly rooted limbs and went slowly through his own doorway.

Perry, inevitably, was there to greet him, moved this morning, by the progress of current events, to a more obsequious deference, and bearing in his mind perhaps the faint aspiration that he might, in the face of this new opposition, have the opportunity to show to his patron something of his real value, to achieve in some measure a realisation of his blighted hopes.

"Good morning to you, Mr. Brodie, sir." For this especial occasion Perry had concocted a mild witticism which he considered in his own mind both clever and amusing, and, plucking up all his courage, he now had the temerity to liberate it upon Brodie. "This is the first of April, sir," he said nervously. "Do you observe the inference, since they," he always referred to his new neighbours in this ambiguous manner "since they have opened on All Fools' Day."

"No," growled Brodie, looking from under his brows, "but tell me, you that's so clever."

"Well, it's all through the town, Mr. Brodie, that you'll make April gowks of them," gushed Perry, and, as he saw the effect of his remark, he tittered sympathetically, then writhed in the exuberance of his satisfaction, for Brodie had laughed shortly, pleased by the notion of the general adulation of the town implied in Perry's flattering, but, though he knew it not, fabricated remark. His huge fingers flexed in slowly on his palm.

"Ay, I'll mak' a gowk o' them, right enough! I'll take some o' the conceit out o' them, take some o' the gilt off their gingerbread. They don't know who they're up against yet, but, by gad, I'll learn them." How, exactly, he did not quite know, but at this moment, although he had no vestige of a settled policy in his brain, his confidence in his own ability to crush the opposition was supreme.

"Did ye notice the stookies in the window?" he queried absently.

"Yes! Oh yes! Mr. Brodie. A new idea from the larger houses. Rather original, of course, and up to date." In the first flush of his conversational success he had almost the optimism to hope that "the guv'nor" might perhaps order a brace of these intriguing models on the spot. His eyes glowed enthusiastically, but he had perforce to lower them under Brodie's glower, realising that he had this time said, apparently, the wrong thing.

"Up to date, ye say. It's like a deshed museum! They'll have a crowd round that bulter of a window o' theirs."

"But, sir," ventured Perry timidly, "is that not desirable? If you would attract people and draw their attention outside, they're more likely to come inside. It's a sort of advertisement."

Brodie looked at him obtusely for a moment, then growled angrily,

"Has the same bug been bitin' you, that you're itchin' for the common herd to batter at our doors? If it has, get the poison out your system quick, or it'll be as much as your job is worth."

Perry looked at him humbly and observed meekly, "It's all grist to your mill though, sir." Then, removing himself to safer ground, he hastened to observe, "I see they're going in for a sort of general out fitting as well, Mr. Brodie, sir."

Brodie nodded sullenly.

"You wouldn't care to branch out with a few extra lines yourself sir, a novelty or two perhaps. Say a brace or a smart glove! Very refined indeed, a nice glove, sir." Perry almost pleaded at the bubbling urge of all the ideas repressed within him.

But his bright, insinuating suggestions fell on deaf ears. Brodie paid no heed to him, but stood, moved by an unusual impulse of self-analysis, absorbed in the contemplation of his strange departure from his invariable routine. Why, he asked himself, was he hanging about the shop instead of entering his office with his usual imperial negligence? He was going to smash them next door, of course, but would he do it by sitting calmly at his desk, attempting to read the Glasgow

Herald? He felt he must do something, take some definite line of conduct, but as he moved about, chafing at his desuetude, his sluggish mentality offered him no tangible suggestions towards the powerful action which he craved. If only he could have used the terrific strength of his body in this present cause, then he would have toiled till the sweat poured from him, till his joints cracked with the strain of his effort; he would willingly have embraced the supporting pillars of the opposing shop and, uprooting them, have dragged down the entire edifice about him; but some dim perception of the uselessness of his brute force dawned upon him and stung him bitterly.

At this point a woman, holding by the hand a small child of about six years of age, entered the shop. She was obviously of a poor class and advanced to Perry who greeted her deferentially.

"I wanted a bonnet for ma wee boy. He's goin' to the school next week!" she said confidentially.

Perry beamed upon her.

"Certainly, Madam! What can I show you for the little man?" Suddenly a strange impulse, a fierce inclination against his hated opposition, seized Brodie, and, although these customers were obviously of an inferior class and clearly of that type whom he invariably left to his assistant, he was impelled to go forward.

"Let me do it," he said, in a harsh, unreal tone.

The woman gazed at him timidly and, instinctively in awe of him, her lightly worn assurance fell from her; she became, not a lady who was selecting yes and paying for a hat to set her son bravely out upon the adventure of school, that first step upon the mysterious highway of life, but merely a mean, shabby, workman's wife.

"This young gentleman served me the last time," she whispered irresolutely, indicating Perry. "I was in last year and he suited me nicely."

The little boy instantly sensed his mother's discomfiture, felt also the lowering oppression of the huge, dark figure above him, and, burying his face in his mother's dress, he began to whine plaintively.

"Mammie! Mammie, I want to go hame," he sobbed. "I don't want to stay here. I want hame."

"Stop greetin' now. Stop your greetin' at once, will ye." The poor woman, utterly humiliated, stood discomposed and faltering, whilst the wailing child burrowed his head dourly into the sanctuary of her person; she shook him, and the more fiercely she shook him the louder he howled; her face coloured with shame and annoyance; she herself was near enough to tears. "Can that black-browed Brodie not keep out o' the place? it's the bairn's hat I wanted not him," she thought angrily, as she lifted the yelling child in her arms and said

with great embarrassment, "I better come back another time. He's a bad boy. I'll come again when he can behave himself." While she cast, for appearance' sake, this specious aspersion against her own child, her outraged maternal instinct assured her that she would never return. She had turned to go and would have vanished irrevocably, when Perry in a low, tactful voice suggested tentatively from the background:

"Perhaps a sweetie?" And from an unsuspected recess in a drawer he adroitly produced a large peppermint drop and poised it prominently, alluringly, between his finger and thumb. Instantly the child stopped crying and, exposing one large, brimming, doubtful eye from out the folds of its mother's bodice, lifted it calculatingly towards the sweet. The mother, at this indication of trust, halted, questioningly regarding the child.

"Would you?" she queried.

With a final, convulsive sob the boy nodded his head trustingly towards Perry and stretched forward a small, avid claw. They returned. The sweet quickly bulged the wet, shining, young cheek, and, peace now being restored, Perry continued to soothe the child, to propitiate the mother, to minister to them both until, finally, the notable purchase, for such he now made them feel it to be, was satisfactorily effected. As they departed, he showed them to the door with the same ubiquitous courtesy, receiving the mother's last grateful glance upon the top of his lowered unassuming head, whilst Brodie, who had moved sullenly, ponderously, to the background, looked on gloomily.

Perry returned, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Strange young man that he was, he built his conceit only upon his imaginary powers and took no credit for the undoubted attributes of quickness and intuition which were actually his; though he had just achieved a triumph of diplomacy and tact, yet his sole feeling was a humble satisfaction that he had saved the customer for Brodie before the eyes of the august master himself. He glanced up deferentially as the other spoke.

"I didna know we gave away sweeties wi' our hats," was all that Brodie said, as he turned sombrely into his office.

The day had begun; and it wore steadily on, with Brodie remaining still shut up in his room, immersed in his own intimate thoughts. Across his stern face shadows drifted like clouds across the face of a dark mountain. He suffered. Despite the iron hardness of his will, he could not prevent his responsive ears from quickening to every sound, from anticipating the gradual halting of footsteps as they drew near his shop, from analysing the lightest noise without his office, as if to differentiate the entry of a customer from Perry's restless

pacings; yet, to-day, he felt that, though he had never before consciously noted them, the sounds were few and unsuggestive. The sun poured through the window upon him, the slush of the thaw which had succeeded the long frost was now completely gone, and the day was crisply dry, yet warm, so that in this dawning hint of spring the streets would, he knew, fill with people, happy, eager, thronging the shops; yet no chatter of enquiring voices broke the outer silence.

The blank, dividing wall which stood before him seemed to dissolve under his piercing gaze and reveal, in the premises next door, a bustling and successful activity. A reaction from his sneering confidence of the morning took him and he now morbidly visioned crowds of people jostling each other there in a passionate eagdness to buy. Savagely he bit his lip and again picked up his discarded paper in an effort to read; but in a few moments, to his annoyance, he returned to himself to find that he was gazing stupidly at the wall in front: as though it hypnotised him.

Moodily, he reflected how delightful it had been in the past to lie back in his chair for what else had he done with an eye through the half-open door, lording it over Perry and those who entered his domain. The menial duties of the business were entirely Perry's, who fetched and carried to his royal word, and he himself had not mounted the steps or lifted his hand to the shelves, or bound

up a parcel for longer than he could remember. Most customers he ignored; with some he would stroll in whilst they were being served, nod casually, pick up the hat under review, pass his hand over its nap or bend the brim in haughty approval of his own merchandise, saying with his air, "Take it or leave it, but ye'll not get a better hat anywhere." Towards only a few, a handful from the best families of the county, did he actually direct his personal service and attention.

It had then been so delightful to feel assured that people must come to him, for, in his blind autocratic way, he had scarcely realised, had not paused to consider, that the absence of competition and lack or choice might drive many people to him, that necessity might be the mainstay of his business; but now, as he sat alone, he became unhappily aware that, for the time being at least, his monopoly was at an end. Nevertheless he would not, he firmly determined, alter his conduct; if he had not been obliged to run after people to solicit their paltry custom, he would not now be coerced into so doing; he had run after no man in his life and he now swore a solemn oath that he would never do so.

The dim, early days of his beginning in Levenford, so long since that he had almost forgotten, returned mistily to him; but through these mists he saw himself as a man who had never curried favour, nor fawned, nor acted the subservient toady. Though there had been no Perry then, he had been upright and honest and determined, had worked hard and asked no favour. And he had succeeded. He glowed as he thought of his slow rise in importance and consequence, of his recognition by the Council, his election to the Philosophical Club, of the gradual conception of his house, of its building and, since that date, of the growing and subtle change in his situation to that unique, isolated, notable position which he now held in the town. It was, he told himself, the good blood that ran in his veins which had done that for him, which had brought him to the top, where he belonged, despite the handicaps which had beset him in his youth, that blood of his ancestors which as in a noble horse would always tell and which would not fail him now.

Waves of anger at the injustice of his present position swept in on him and he jumped to his feet. "Let them try to take it from me," he cried aloud, raising up his fist; "let them all come! I'll wipe them out like I destroy all who offend me. There was a rotten branch on the tree of my name," he shouted loudly, "and I cut it off. I'll smash everybody that interferes with me. I am James Brodie and be damned to everybody and everything. Let them try to hinder me, to thieve my trade from me, try to take all I've got; let them do it! Whatever comes, I am still myself."

He subsided in his chair, unconscious of the fact that he had arisen, unaware that he had shouted to the empty room, but hugging only, with a gloating satisfaction, that last precious thought. He was himself James Brodie no one but he understood, could ever comprehend, the full comfort, the delicious pride which that possession gave him. His thoughts rioted away from his present vicissitudes into a land of exalted dreams and longings, and, with his head sunk in his chest, he lost himself in the sublime contemplation of some future day when, unchecked, he would unleash the uncontrolled desires of his pride, when he would appease to satiation his craving for eminence and homage.

At last he sighed and, like a man awakening from the dreams of a drugged sleep, he blinked and shook himself. He looked at his watch, realised with a start that the end of this day, and of his self-ordained seclusion, was approaching. He arose slowly, yawned prodigiously, stretched himself, and, banishing from his features all traces of his recent indulgent reverie, stiffened his face again into a mask of hard indifference and went into the shop to review, as was his custom, the business of the day. This was invariably a pleasant duty, into which

he infused a lordly dignity, giving himself the air of a feudal ruler receiving tribute from his vassal. Always Perry had a heap of gleaming silver, often a few gleaming sovereigns and sometimes a rustling bank note to be transferred to the master's deep, hip pocket; and, when this had been effected, Brodie would run a casual eye over the list of sales casual, inasmuch as he recognised that Perry would never cheat him it would, in his own words "have been a pity for the little runt had he tried" would slap his bulging pocket, assume his hat and, with a last curt command, be off, leaving Perry to close up and shutter the shop.

But, to-night, an unusual air seemed to cling to Perry, giving him an aspect at once blurred and disconsolate. Usually he opened the cash drawer with a proud and subservient flourish, as though to say, "We may not be much, but this is what we've done for you to-day, Mr. Brodie, sir." Now, however, he pulled the drawer timidly open, with a faint deprecating twitch.

"A very quiet day, sir," he said meekly.

"The weather's been good," remonstrated Brodie testily. "What have you been playin' at? There's been plenty of folks about."

"Oh! There's been a stir on the streets," replied Perry, "but quite a number that's to say, a few have gone in " He faltered. "They had an attractive window," he concluded lamely.

Brodie looked down at the drawer. Only six, miserable silver shillings lay in the till.

IV

THE Levenford Philosophical Club was in convocation. Although to-night the session was by no means a plenary one, the room was comfortably filled by smoke and by a gathering of six members who, ranged in comfortable chairs around the cordial fire which blazed upon the hearth, philosophised in this congenial atmosphere at their ease. Of those present, two were engaged upon a silent game of draughts, easy, harmonious, relaxed, whilst the others lay back, smoked, talked, and wooed the inspiration of worthy thoughts by frequent, comforting sips of their grog.

The conversation was sporadic, the pauses, despite the choice richness of the language employed, sometimes more pregnant than the actual spoken words, the wave of a pipe more pungent than a pithy adjective, the glances of the members abstract, cogitative and intellectually remote. Wearing modestly the distinction of their higher cerebration, they sat within the hallowed precincts of the club the rallying point of all these honest burghers in Levenford who might claim to be more notable than their fellow men and, in the consciousness of their distinction, were at least content. To have achieved this club was, in itself, a feat which immediately conferred a cachet upon these happy individuals and rendered each the envy of less fortunate beings. To these the member would remark, of an evening, with, perchance, a nonchalant yawn, "Well! I think I'll away down to the club. There's a bit discussion on the night", and saunter off, whilst jealous eyes followed him down the street. To outsiders, those not of the elect, the social prestige of the club loomed largely, but so, also, did the suggestion of its profound intellectual significance, for the sonorous name Philosophical breathed of the rarer and more refined realms of pure reason.

True, a classical master who had come to the Levenford Academy, bearing the letters of a degree of Oxford University after his name, had remarked to a colleague, "I was keen to join when I heard the name but to my disgust, I discovered it was nothing more than a smoking and drinking clique."

Дата добавления: 2015-08-20