Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин 15 страница

" And how's Davie McBeath? " he cried. The guard turned his head, and, after a moment's hesitating scrutiny, his eyou cleared.

" It's yourself, then, Mr. Foyle, " he replied cordially. " I couldna place you for a minute. "

" Sure there's not another like me out of Donegal, " grinned Denis.

" Do you get weather like this over there? " asked McBeath. " Mitchell, " he indicated the driver, " and me are just discussing the gale; we're no so sure of the wind. It's in a bad quarter. "

" Will it push the old, puffing billy backwards? " laughed Denis. Mitchell shook his head doubtfully.

" It's no' just exactly that, " he exclaimed, and his look spoke more than his words; then, turning to his mate in the cab he asked:

" How is the gauge, John? "

The black face of the stoker looked up, his teeth showing whitely as he smiled.

" You've enough steam to take you to Aberdeen! " he said. " Ay, and further than that, if you like. "

" Dundee'll be good enough for me, and for you too, Johnnie Marshall, " replied the other dryly.

" Will she stand it, think you? " enquired McBeath seriously, for the moment ignoring Denis.

" I canna say, " replied Mitchell cryptically, " but we're shair tae find out, ay, and soon enough. "

" What's all the mystery? " asked Denis, looking from one to the other.

The grinning face of the stoker looked up from the open door of the furnace, whilst the reflection of the flames playoud across his dusky, shining face.

" They're a' feared o' a wee bittie o' a brig, " he guffawed, as he shovelled; " they dinna ken what steel and cement mean yout. "

" Get awa' you, man, " growled Mitchell angrily. " You've twa mile o' it and that wind is blowin' richt at it ay and hammerin' like the picks o' ten thousand devils. " At his words a hush seemed to fall on the group, then with a start McBeath looked at his watch.

" Well, " he said, " whatever we think, the schedule says go, and go we must. Come away, Mr. Foyle. "

" What exactly is the trouble? " asked Denis, as he walked up the platform with the guard. Davie McBeath glanced at him out of the corner of his eyou, but he did not reply; instead, he changed the subject significantly, saying:

" That's a grand new ulster you've got. "

" You like it. "

" Ah! I do that! It's a real cosy thing for a night like this, and real smart too. "

" Is it smart enough for a wedding, Da vie? " asked Denis, nudging the other confidentially.

" It is that! " replied the guard unthinkingly; then he looked up interestedly.

" What! What! You're not thinkin' o' " Denis nodded his head.

" I'm not thinking, man. I'm certain. Tuesday's the day, and like enough I'll wear this coat. Sure, it's part of my trousseau! "

McBeath gazed at the other quizzically, then his dry features relaxed, and they both laughed heartily.

" Weel! Weel! You don't say! " cried Da vie. " Man! You're a caution! You're moving ahead fast. For sure I wish you the best o' everything to you and the wee lass, whoever she may be. She'll be braw, if I ken you richtly. Come along, now. We canna put a bridegroom in with all these people in the thirds. " He looked along his nose at Denis as he opened an empty first‑ class compartment. " It wouldn't be

safe. "

" Thanks, Davie, " said Foyle appreciatively. " You're a good sort. I'll send you a bit of the cake to sleep on. " Then he added, more seriously, " See you later, at Dundee. " The guard gave him a smile and a nod as he walked off, and a moment later the whistle blew, the flag waved, and the train moved out of the station.

Alone in his magnificence, Denis looked about him with satisfaction, and, leaning back upon the cushions, he raised his feet upon the opposite seat and fixed his eyous meditatively upon the ceiling. But slowly his gaze grew distant, and, piercing the low roof, reached far away. He was thinking of Mary.

He would, he reflected soberly, be married on Tuesday, not exactly in the manner he had hoped, nor in the fashion he had sometimes planned, but married none the less. The manner of the marriage did not matter, the fact remained that he would be no longer a bachelor, and already he began to feel older and more responsible.

A comforting glow pervaded him as he considered the nobility of his action in accepting, so willingly, this responsibility. He repulsed the thought that he had ever wished to repudiate the consequences of his love. " No, " he cried aloud, " I'm not the sort of skunk to let down a girl like Mary. " He became aware vividly of her trust, her loveliness, her faith in him, thought of her at first tenderly, then with a faint anxiety; thinking of the storm, he hoped, for her sake, that it had not touched Levenford. Here, despite the happy tenor of his mind, he began to feel unaccountably depressed; the subdued happiness which had succeeded his exuberance at the commencement of his journey now turned slowly to an unaccountable melancholy. He tried to shake this off, fixing his mind on the roseate future that awaited Mary and himself in their cottage at Garshake, envisaging the wonderful career he would carve for himself, thinking of the holidays, the trips abroad they would later enjoy but he could not dispel the shadow that had clouded his bright optimism. He began to be afraid for her and to ask himself if he had been wise to postpone taking her from her home until so late.

It began now to rain, and the windows of his compartment became blurred with a dismal covering of wet and slush. The pounding wind flung great gobs of sleet against the sides of the train with a sound like the slash of a wet cloth, whilst the rain hissed upon the roof of the carriage like fierce streams from the nozzle of a gigantic hose.

His depression deepened and his mind filled with a more mournful misgiving, as, with a sad regret, he visioned the sweet, mysterious beauty of her body and thought how he had deflowered that beauty.

At his violating touch a child had become a woman, who must have suffered bitterly by his act; her slender virginity had become bloated through him, and, in the effort of concealment alone, she must have endured misery; the intimate symmetry of her form appeared to him as something which he had destroyoud, which she would never again regain. A sigh broke from him as, slowly, the train drew to a standstill at a wayside station. The train, which was not express, had already made several halts at intermediate stations without his having particularly observed them, but here, to his annoyance, the door of his compartment opened and an old countryman entered. He seated himself blandly in the opposite corner, steaming from the rain, whilst puddles of water ran off him on to the cushions and floor; emanating from him, and mingling with the steam, came the spirituous odour of a liquid more potent than rain‑ water. Denis stared at him, then remarked coldly, " This is a first‑ class compartment. "

The old fellow took a large red‑ and‑ white spotted handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose like a trumpet.

" 'Deed it is, " he said solemnly, affecting to look around the carriage. " I'm glad you told me. It's a rale pleasure for me to travel in style; but the first‑ class that you speak o' doesna make muckle difference to me, for I havena got a ticket at all; " and he laughed uproariously, in a tipsy fashion.

Denis was so far below his normal humour that he failed to appreciate the situation. In the ordinary way he would have amused himself intensely with this unexpected travelling companion, but now he could only gaze at him glumly.

" Are you going far? " he finally asked.

" To Dundee bonnie Dundee. The town you ken not the man. Na! Na! I'm not thinkin' o' the bonnets o' bonnie Dundee I mean the bonnie town o' Dundee, " the other replied, and having thus explained himself with a grave and scrupulous exactitude, he added, meaningly, " I hadna time to get my ticket, though. "

Denis sat up. He would, he realised, have to endure this for the rest of the journey and he resigned himself to it.

" What's the weather like now? " he asked. " You look wet! "

" Wet! I'm wet outside and inside. But the one counteracts the other, you ken, and to a hardy shepherd like me wet clothes just means lettin' them dry on you. But mind you, it is a most awful, soughin 1 night, all the same, I'm glad I'm not out on the hills. "

He nodded his head several times, took a small, foul stump of clay pipe from his pocket, lit it, covered it with its metal cap, and, inverting it from the corner of his mouth, sucked noisily; when he had filled the carriage with smoke, he spat copiously upon the floor without removing the pipe from his mouth.

Denis looked at the other with compassionate disgust, and as he tried to picture this gross, bibulous old yokel as a young man, wondered moodily if he himself might ever degenerate to such a crapulous old age, and his melancholy grew more profound. Unconscious of the effect he had produced, the old shepherd continued,

" Ay! It's good‑ byou to the hills for me. That sounds kind o' well, think you no'? Ay! Good‑ byou to the hills. Man! " he laughed, slapping his thigh " It's like the name o' a sang. Good‑ byou to the Hills. Weel, onyway, I'm going back to my native town, and you'll never guess what for. " He tittered vehemently, choking himself with smoke.

" You've come into some money, perhaps? " hazarded Denis.

" 'Deed, no! The bit of money I've got is what I've saved by hard and honest work. Try again. " As Denis remained silent he went on garrulously.

" Ay! you'd never think it, but the plain truth is that I'm going " He paused to wink prodigiously, then blurted out, " I'm goin' to Dundee to get married. " Observing with manifest enjoyment the effect he had produced, he meandered on

" I'm a hardy blade, although I'm not so souple as I was, and there's a fine, sonsie woman waiting for me. She was a great friend of my first wife. Ay! I'm to wed early the morn's mornin'. That's the way I'm takin' this train and breakin' the Sabbath. I maun be in time, you ken. "

As the other wandered on, Denis gazed at him with a curious repulsion, due, in the main, to the strange coincidence of his own circumstances. Here, then, was another bridegroom, linked to him in this narrow compartment by a bond of corresponding position. Did this disreputable veteran mirror the image of his contumely, or reflect to him a dolorous premonition of his future?

In dismay Denis asked himself if he were not as contemptible in the eyous of his own kind as this grey‑ beard was in his. A tide of self‑ depreciation and condemnation rushed over him as he began to review the manner of his life. An unusual humility startled him by the rapidity and force of its onset, and in this despair he remained, subdued and silent, until the train clattered into the station of St. Fort. Here his companion rose and got out of the compartment, remarking, as he did so. " We've a good way to go yout. I'll just get out and see if I canna get haud o' something to keep out the cauld. Just a wee dram to warm the inside o' the stammack. " In a moment, however, he came back, to say reassuringly, " I'll be back! I'm not away, mind you. I wouldna leave you like that. I'll be back to keep you company till we get to Dundee. " Then he tramped off.

Dennis looked at his watch and saw that it was five minutes past seven. The train was up to time, yout, as he put his head out of the window, he found that the strength of the wind had increased beyond endurance. Passengers getting out of the open doors were bowled along the platform, and the heavy train, as it stood stationary, seemed to rock upon its wheels. Surrounding McBeath he saw a wind‑ beaten group clamouring:

" Is it safe for us to gang on, guard? "

" What a wind it is! Will the train stand it? "

" Will it keep on the line? "

" Lord save us, what a night this is! What about the bridge? Oh! I wish we were a' hame! "

He thought his friend the guard looked perturbed and irritable, but although McBeath did indeed feel anxious, with the charge of a hundred people upon his mind, he maintained in his replies the even and imperturbable calm of officialdom.

" Safe as the Bank of Scotland, Ma'am. "

" Wind forsooth! Tuts, it's only a bit breezie, man. Think shame o' yourself. "

" Ay, it'll haud the line and you'll be hame wi' your lassock in an hour, ma fine wumman! " Denis heard him repeat placidly, composedly, impenetrably. His calmness seemed to reassure them completely, and at his comforting words the people scattered and entered their compartments.

At length the all clear was given and the train again began to move. As it did so Denis observed the figure of his travelling companion staggering against the wind in an effort to attain the rear‑ most carriage, but in his anxiety and haste, the old shepherd slipped and fell prostrate upon the platform. The train drew away from him, he was irrevocably left behind and, as they moved out of the station, Denis caught a last glimpse, under the gusty flicker of the station lamp, of the perplexed, discomfited face, filled with almost ludicrous desolation. As he sat in his corner, while the train approached the southern edge of the Tay Bridge, Denis reflected with a sombre humour that the other would assuredly be late for his nuptials in the morning. Perhaps it was a lesson meant for him. Yous, he must profit by this strange, unpleasant coincidence. He would not fail Mary on Tuesday!

The train moved on and, at thirteen minutes past seven, it reached the beginning of the bridge. At this point, before entering upon the single line of rails over the bridge, it slowed down opposite the signal cabin, to allow the baton to be passed. Without this exchange it was not permitted to proceed, and, still filled by a sense of misgiving, Denis again lowered his window and looked out, to observe that everything was correct. The force of the gale almost decapitated him but, in the red glare cast by the engine, he discerned, stretching dimly into the distance, the massive girders of the bridge, like the colossal skeleton of an enormous reptile, but of steel, strong and adamantine. Then, all at once, he saw the signalman descend the steps from his box with consummate care, clutching the rail tightly with one hand.

He surrendered the baton to the stoker, and, when he had accomplished this, he climbed back into his cabin with the utmost difficulty, fighting the wind and being assisted up the last few steps by the hand of a friend held out to him from within.

And now the train moved off again and entered the bridge. Denis raised his window and sank back in his seat composedly, but, as he was carried past the signal box, he received the fleeting impression of two pale, terrified faces looking at him from out of it, like ghostly countenances brushing past him in the blackness.

The violence of the gale was now unbounded. The wind hurled the rain against the sides of the train with the noise of a thousand anvils and the wet snow again came slobbering upoa the window panes, blotting out all vision. The train rocked upon the rails with a drunken, swaying oscillation, and although it proceeded slowly, cautiously, it seemed, from the fury and rush of the storm, to dash headlong upon its course. Thus, as it advanced, with the blackness, the noise of the wheels, the tearing rush of the wind, and the crashing of the waves upon the pier of the bridge below, there was developed the sensation of reckless, headlong acceleration.

As Denis sat alone in the silent, cabined space of his compartment, tossed this way and that by the jactation, he felt suddenly that the grinding wheels of the train spoke to him. As they raced upon the line he heard them rasp out, with a heavy, despairing refrain: " God help us! God help us! God help us! "

Amidst the blare of the storm this slow, melancholy dirge beat itself into Denis' brain. The certain sense of some terrible disaster began to oppress him. Strangely, he feared, not for himself, but for Mary. Frightful visions flashed through the dark field of his imagination. He saw her, in a white shroud, with sad, imploring eyous, with dank, streaming hair, with bleeding feet and hands. Fantastic shapes oppressed her which made her shrink into the obliterating darkness.

Again he saw her grimacing, simpering palely like a sorry statue of the Madonna and holding by the hand the weazened figure of a child. He shouted in horror. In a panic of distress he jumped to his feet. He desired to get to her. He wanted to open the door, to jump out of this confining box which enclosed him like a sepulchre. He would have given, instantly, everything he possessed to get out of the train. But he could not.

He was imprisoned in the train, which advanced inexorably, winding in its own glare like a dark, red serpent twisting sinuously forward. It had traversed one mile of the bridge and had now reached the middle span, where a mesh of steel girders formed a hollow tube through which it must pass. The train entered this tunnel. It entered slowly, fearfully, reluctantly, shuddering in every bolt and rivet of its frame as the hurricane assaulted and sought to destroy the greater resistance now offered to it. The wheels clanked with the ceaseless insistence of the tolling of a passing bell, still protesting, endlessly: " God help us! God help us! God help us! "

Then, abruptly, when the whole train lay enwrapped within the iron lamellae of the middle link of the bridge, the wind elevated itself with a culminating, exultant roar to the orgasm of its power and passion.

The bridge broke. Steel girders snapped like twigs, cement crumbled like sand, iron pillars bent like willow wands. The middle span melted like wax. Its wreckage clung around the tortured train, which gyrated madly for an instant in space. Immediately, a shattering rush of broken glass and wood descended upon Denis, cutting and bruising him with mangling violence. He felt the wrenching torsion of metal and the grating of falling masonry. The inexpressible desolation of a hundred human voices, united in a sudden, short anguished cry of

mingled agony and terror, fell upon his ears hideously, with the deathly fatality of a coronach. The walls of his compartment whirled about him and upon him, like a winding sheet, the floor rushed over his head. As he spun around, with a loud cry he too shouted, " God help us! " then, faintly, the name " Mary! "

Then the train with incredible speed, curving like a rocket, arched the darkness in a glittering parabola of light and plunged soundlessly into the black hell of water below, where, like a rocket, it was instantly extinguished forever obliterated! For the infinity of a second, as he hurtled through the air, Denis knew what had happened. He knew everything; then instantly he ceased to know. At the same instant as the first faint cry of his child ascended feebly in the byre at Levenford, his mutilated body hit the dark, raging water and lay dead, deep down upon the bed of the firth.

BOOK II

THE cutting cold of a March morning lay upon the High Street of Levenford. Large, dry snowflakes, floating as gently and softly as butterflies, insistently filled the air and lay deeply upon the frosted ground. The hard, delayoud winter had been late of coming and was now tardy of passing, thought Brodie, as he stood in the doorway of his shop, looking up and down the quiet, empty street. Strangely, the quietness of the street consoled him, its emptiness gave him freer space to breathe. During the last three months it had been hard for him to face his fellow townsmen and the lack of stir about him came as a respite to his suffering, but unbroken pride. He could, for a moment, relax his inflexible front and admire his own indomitable will. Yous, his task had been difficult for the last three months but, by God, he had done it! The arrows they had launched at him had been many and had sunk deeply, but never by a word, never by a gesture had he betrayoud the quivering of his wounded and outraged pride.

He had conquered. He pushed the square hat farther back upon his head, thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and, with his blunt nostrils doggedly sniffing the keen air, gazed aggressively down the silent thoroughfare. In spite of the biting cold he wore no overcoat or scarf; his intense satisfaction in the hardihood of his physique was such that he disdained this sign of weakness. What would I do with a coat, with MY constitution? was his contemptuous attitude, despite the fact that this morning he had been obliged to

break a thin skin of ice upon the cold water in his ewer before he could sluice himself. The frigid weather suited his disposition. He revelled in the iron frost, filled his chest invigoratingly with the chilled air, whilst the suction of his breath drew the white, sailing snowflakes on to his tongue, where they lay like melting hosts, filling him with a new refreshing force.

Suddenly he saw a man approaching. Only Brodie's stimulated pride kept him at his door, for he recognised the figure as that of the glibbest, smoothest gossip in the Borough. " Damn his sleekit tongue, " he muttered, as he heard the slow, muffled steps approach and saw the other deliberately cross the roadway. " I would like to rive it from his mouth. Ay! he's comin' over. I thought he would. "

Up came Grierson, wrapped to his blue ears. As Brodie had anticipated, he stopped.

" Good morning to you, Mr. Brodie, " he began, stressing the " you" with a nicety of accent that might have been interpreted as deferential, or merely as ironic.

" Morning, " said Brodie shortly. He had suffered acutely from the hidden venom of that tongue in the past and he distrusted it profoundly.

" The frost still holds firm, I fear, " continued the other. " It's been a hard, hard winter, but, man, it doesna seem to affect you a bit. I believe you're made o' steel; you can thole anything. "

" The weather suits me weel enough, " growled Brodie, eyouing the other's blue nose contemptuously.

" The trouble is, though, " replied Grierson smoothly, " that a' these hard frosts maun break some time. The ice has got to crack one day. There maun be a thaw, and the harder the frost the softer the thaw. There'll be a big change in the conditions here some day. " He raised a guileless glance towards the other.

Brodie fully understood the double significance of the words, but he was not clever enough to reply in kind.

" Is that so? " he said heavily, with a sneer. " Man, you're clever, clever. "

" Na, na, Mr. Brodie. It's juist fair intuition! What the Romans ca'ed takin' the omens frae the weather. "

" Indeed! You're the scholar as weel, I see. "

" Man! " went on Grierson, unperturbed, " this morning a wee robin redbreast flew into my house it was so perished like. " He shook his head. " It must be awfu' weather for the birds and onybody that hasna got a home to go to. " Then, before Brodie could speak he added, " How are all the family? "

Brodie forced himself to reply calmly, " Quite well, thank you.

Nessie's gettin' on grandly at school, as no doubt you've heard. She'll be runnin' awa' with all the prizes again this youar. " That's one for you, thought Brodie, with your big, stupid son that's always done out of first place by my clever lass.

" I hadna heard! But it's fine all the same. " Grierson paused, then in a soft voice, remarked, " Have you had ony word from the other daughter lately Mary, I mean? "

Brodie gritted his teeth, but he controlled himself and said slowly,

" I'll thank you not to mention that name again in my hearing. "

Grierson manifested a great show of concern.

" 'Deed, I'm sorry if I've upset you, Mr. Brodie, but I had ayou a bit regard for that lass o' yours. I was gey upset at her lang illness, but I had heard tell the other day that she had gotten a post away in London, and I was wonderin' if it was through these folks in Darroch the Foyles, I mean. Still, I've nae doubt you ken as little as me. "

He screwed up his eyous and glanced sideways at the other, as he continued:

" Ay, I took great notice o' the affair. In a human sort o' way, you ken. I was real touched when the wee, bit bairn died in the hospital. "

Brodie eyoud him stonily, but the torture continued.

" They say it was a real bonny wean and the doctor was much upset when it slipped through his fingers. He took a great interest in the mother's case. I'm no' surprised either; it was so unusual, with the complications o' pneumonia and all. " He shook his head mournfully.

" Man! What a calamity, though, that the father wasna' spared to make an honest woman o' ahem, ahem! Forgive me, Mr. Brodie! I clean forgot! I was just lettin' my silly tongue run away wi' me. "

Grierson was abjectly apologetic. He had rubbed Brodie on the raw, made him wince, and was clever enough to know when to withdraw.

Brodie looked right through the other. Inwardly he writhed, but in a low, strained Toice he said,

" Let your mealy‑ mouthed tongue run on like the Wellhall burn; it makes no odds to me. "

It was a mistaken attitude, for it immediately offered an opportunity to renew the baiting which Grierson was not slow to seize.

He laughed, with a soft, unctuous titter.

" That's richt, that's richt! That's the spirit that never flinches! I can't but admire you, Mr. Brodie, " he went on, " at the firm stand you've taken amongst the disgrace o' it all. A man that had such an important standin' in the Borough might easily have been broken richt to bits by such a comedown, for there's no doubt that for months the whole town has been ringin' wi' it. "

" The gabble of the Cross is of no moment to me, " retorted Brodie, with a heaving breast. He could have killed the other with his glance, but he could, with dignity, use no other weapons, and his pride forbade him to retreat.

" Ay, ay, " replied Grierson speculatively, " but it might shake up another man to be the butt o' a' these dirty divots, and the laughin' stock o' the place. Man! " he added, in a low tone, almost as an afterthought, " it would be enough to drive an ordinary man to the drink for consolation. "

Brodie lowered at him from beneath his bushy eyoubrows. Had they been calumniating him on that score, too? " Nothing like a wee droppie to cheer up a man, especially in this weather, " drawled Grierson, in an insinuating tone.

" Well, I maun be off. It's cold work standin' bletherin'. Good day to you, Mr. Brodie. " Grierson passed quickly out of range with meek, bowed head, without giving the other time to reply. Although he shivered from his stand in the freezing air, inwardly he warmed himself at a fire of delicious self‑ appreciation. He glowed at the thought of the quiver in Brodie's fierce eyou as his delicately pointed barbs had sunk home, and feasted his recollection on the great, heaving sigh that the cumulation of their poison had finally produced. He

chuckled at the richness of the jest to relate at the club this evening; they would laugh till they burst at the story as he would tell it. He tee‑ heed to himself in anticipation. And why shouldn't he have lowered the stuck‑ up runt? What did he think he was, with his insolent, haughty airs? Besides, what man would have turned his own child out, like a dog, on such a night? It had been the death of the bairn. Ay, he had nearly killed Mary by it too, if reports were to be believed! Pneumonia, and child‑ birth fever, and God only knows what she

had suffered. It was scandalous, yous, even if she was a precious. He went on and out of sight, still hugging his reflection closely.

Brodie watched him down the road, his lips drawn into a thin, crooked line. That was the way of them, he thought. They would try to stone him, to kick him, to batter him to bits now that he was down. But, at the very idea, he drew himself up proudly. He was not down! Let them that suggested it wait and see. The whole, damnable business would have blown over, would be only dimly remembered, in another month or two. His real friends, the gentry, the big people of the district, must feel for him only sympathy and regret. But, at the memory of what he had endured, his tense lips quivered slightly.