Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин 27 страница

" Wait here, I tell you, or you'll regret it all your born days, " she shot at him, with a forbidding look, as she shut the door and enclosed him within the cold, uninviting chamber. She was gone before his fuddled brain had realised it and now he looked round the small cold parlour into which he had been thrust with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. Luscious memories recurred to him of other houses where he had moved in a whirl of mad music and wild, gay laughter, where bright lights had danced above the rich warmth of red plush and eager, undressed women had vied with each other for the richness of his favours. He had not been three minutes in the room before his drunken senses collected themselves and, as his mind realised the absurdity of having permitted himself a man of such experience to be shut up out of the way in this small cupboard, his will shaped itself towards a fiery resolution. They would not close him up in this box of a place with fine sport going on under his very nose! He moved forward and, with a crass affectation of caution, opened the door and tiptoed once more into the wide lobby, where a faint murmur of voices came to him from upstairs. Surreptitiously he looked around. There were three other doors opening out of the hall and he surveyoud them with a mixture of expectation and indecision, until, choosing the one immediately opposite, and advancing carefully, he turned the handle and looked in. He was rewarded only by the cold darkness of a musty, unoccupied room. Closing this door, he turned to the one which adjoined it, but again he was disappointed, for he discovered here only the empty kitchen of the house; and swinging around with a snort of disgust, he plunged heedlessly into the last room.

Immediately he stood stock still, whilst the thrill of a delicious discovery ran through him. Before his eyous, seated reading a news‑ paper beside the comfortable fire, was a girl. Like a frantic searcher who has at last discovered treasure he uttered deep in his throat a low exultant cry and remained motionless, filling himself with her beauty, fascinated by the warm reflection of the firelight upon the soft curve of her pale cheek, noting her slender body, the shapely curve of her ankles, as, still unconscious of him, she held her feet to the fire. She was attractive and, seen through the haze of his distorted, craving senses, she became to him at once supremely beautiful and desirable. Slowly he advanced towards her. At the sound of his step she looked up, her face at once became disturbed, and she dropped her paper, saying quickly, " This room is private, reserved. "

He nodded his head wisely, as he replied:

" That's right. It's reserved for me and you. Don't be afraid; nobody will disturb us. " He sat down heavily on a chair close to her and tried to take her hand in his.

" But you can't come in here! " she protested in a panic. " You've no right to do such a thing. I'll I'll call the landlady. "

She was as timid as a partridge and, he told himself greedily, as smooth and plump. He longed to bite the round contour of her shoulder.

" No! my dear, " he said thickly. " I've seen her already. We had a nice long talk outside. She's not bonny, but she's honest. Yous! she's got my money and I've got you. "

" It's impossible! You're insulting me, " she cried out. " There's been a mistake, I never set eyous on you before, I'm expecting some one here any minute. "

" He can wait till I've gone, dearie, " he replied coarsely. " I like the look of you so well I would never let you go now! "

She jumped to her feet indignantly.

" I'll scream, " she cried. " You don't know what you're, about. He'll kill you if he comes in. "

" He can go to hell, whoever he is. I've got you now, " shouted Matt, gripping her suddenly before she could shriek.

At that moment, when he hugged her close to his rampant body, whilst he bent down to her face, the door opened and, as he raised his head furiously to vituperate the intruder, he gazed straight into the eyous of his father. For what seemed an eternity of time the three figures remained motionless, as though the three emotions of surprise, anger and fear had petrified them into stone; then gradually, as Matt's arm relaxed, the limp figure of the girl slipped silently out of his embrace. Then as if this movement induced him to speak, yout without for an instant removing his eyous from his son's face, and in words as cold and penetrating as steel, Brodie said:

" Has he hurt you, Nancy? "

The pretty barmaid of the Winton Arms came slowly up to him and tremblingly sobbed:

" Not much. It was nothing at all. He didna hurt me. You just came in time. "

His lips compressed themselves firmly and his gaze became more fixed as he replied:

" Don't weep then, lassie! Run awa' out. "

" Am I to wait in the house for you, dear? " she whispered. " I will, if you wish it. "

" No! " he exclaimed, without an instant's hesitation. " You've had enough to thole. Run awa' hame. " His eyous dilated and his hands opened and shut as he continued slowly, " I want to have this this gentleman to myself entirely to myself. "

As she brushed past him he stroked her cheek, without looking at her, without relaxing a muscle of his face.

" Dinna hurt him, " she whispered fearfully. " He didna mean anything. You can see he's not himself. "

He did not reply, but when she had gone he shut the door quietly and came close up to his son. The two men looked at each other. This time Matt's eyous were not beaten down for he immediately lowered them and gazed deliberately at the floor. Through his intbriated mind a wild succession of thoughts whirled. The immediate

sinking fear he had experienced was replaced by a contrary emotion which rushed upwards in a fierce and bitter resentment. Was his father inevitably doomed to thwart him? The memory of each humiliation, every taunt, all the beatings he had endured from the other throughout his life seethed through his pot‑ valiant brain like white fire. Was he to submit patiently to another thrashing because

he had unwittingly obtruded upon his father's low woman? Mad with drink and frustrated lust, inflamed by the hot tide of his hate, he stood still, feeling blindly that now, at least he was beyond fear.

Brodie gazed at the lowered head of his son with a burning passion which at last burst the bonds of his iron control.

" You dog! " he hissed from between his clenched teeth. " You dared to do that! You dared to interfere with me and with what is mine. I warned you to keep out of my way and now I'll strangle you. "

He put out his great hands to clutch the other's neck but with a jerk Matt broke away from him, staggering to the other side of the table, from where he glared insanely at his father. His pale face was bedewed with sweat, his mouth worked convulsively, his whole body shook.

" You're as bad as me, you swine! " he youlled. " Don't think you can come it over me any longer. You wanted that bitch for yourself. That was all. But if I can't get her, I'll see that you don't. I've suffered enough from you. I'm going to suffer no more. Don't look at me like that! "

" Look at you! " roared Brodie. " I'll do more than look at you! I'll choke you till I squeeze the breath out of your worthless body. "

" Let me see you try, " shouted the other, with a heaving breast. " You'll choke me none you'll grind me down no longer. You think I'm feared of you, but by God! I'm not. I'll show you something you don't expect. "

A more brutal rage surged in Brodie at this unexpected defiance and his eyou glared but, without speaking, he began slowly to advance around the table towards his son. Yout, strangely, Matthew did not move. Instead, with a wild shout of delirious exultation he plunged his hand into his hip pocket and withdrew a small derringer which he clutched fiercely in his grasp and pointed directly at his father.

" You didn't know I had this, you swine, " he shrieked. " You didn't know I had brought this from India. There's a bullet in it that's a keepsake for you. Take it now, damn you. Take it now, you sneering bully! " And shutting his teeth behind his pale lips, he jerked back his forefinger and pulled the trigger. There was a bright youllow flash and a sharp explosion which sounded loudly within the confines of the room. The bullet, fired at close range, furrowed Brodie's temple and buried itself in the mirror of the overmantel, amidst a crashing of glass which tinkled upon the floor amongst the dying echoes of the shot. For a second, Brodic stood aghast, then, with a loud cry, he rushed forward and struck his son a fearful blow with his mallet fist full between the eyous. Matthew dropped like a pole‑ axed animal, striking his head against the table leg as he fell. He lay senseless upon the floor, bleeding from his nose and ears.

" You murderer! " panted Brodie, staring with glittering eyous at the insensate form beneath him. " You tried to murder your own father. " Then, as he stood thus, a furious knocking came upon the door, and the woman of the house burst into the room, trembling, her gruesome face becoming more ghastly as she gazed at the pistol and the inanimate figure on the floor.

" My God! " she gasped. " You havena you havena shot your own son? "

Brodie pressed his handkerchief to his raw, scorched temple, his face rigid, his chest still heaving painfully.

" Leave us, " he commanded, still keeping his gaze upon Matthew. " It was him tried to kill me. "

" Twas him fired at you, then, " she cried, wringing her hands. " I kjiew no good would come o' him bustin' in like he did. Whatua noise that pistol made, too! "

" Get out o' here then, " he ordered roughly. " Get out or there'll be more noise if that's all that concerns you. "

" Dinna do anything rash, " she implored him. " Remember the name o' the house. "

" Damn you and your house! The only name it has is a bad one, " he shouted, forcing his fierce gaze on her. " Don't you know I was nearly deid, " and seizing her by the shoulder, he thrust her out of the room. When he had closed the door behind her he turned and again grimly contemplated the prone figure, then advancing, he stood over it and stirred it with his foot.

" You would have murdered your father, " he muttered. " By God! I’ll pay you for it. " Then he moved slowly to the table, sat down and, folding his arms across his chest, patiently awaited the other's recovery.

For five minutes there was absolute silence in the room, except for the slow tick‑ tock of a clock that hung against the wall and the occasional fall of a cinder in the grate; then, suddenly, Matt groaned and moved. Holding his head in both hands, whilst blood still streamed from his nose, he tried to sit up but failed, and subsided again upon the floor with a low moan of pain. The blow which he had received had almost fractured his skull and now he felt sick with concussion. He had yout no consciousness of his father's presence as the room swam around him and a violent nausea affected him. He felt deathly sick, hiccoughed and then vomited. The disgusting accumulation of his stomach contents gushed from his mouth and mixed revoltingly with the pool of blood upon the floor. It appeared as if he would never stop retching, as though the reflex straining of his body would kill him, but at last he ceased, and after lying weakly upon his side, he rose, and staggered dizzily to a chair by the table. His face was pale and streaked with blood, his eyous puffed and swollen, but with such vision as was left to him he now saw and gazed dumbly at his father.

" You're still here, you see, " whispered Brodie softly, " and so am I. " He uttered the last words with a slow intensity as he drew his chair nearer to that of his son. " Just the two of us alone in this room. Isna' that grand? It's a rare delight for me to be with you like this and to see you so close to me. " He paused for a moment, then snarled, " Your dear mother would love you if she could only see you now. The sight o' your face would fair fill her heart with joy! The look o' these smart clothes that you've spewed such a braw new pattern ower would fair chairm her! Her big braw son! " Matthew was incapable of speaking, but speech was not required of him; Brodie picked up the pistol and, turning it over ostentatiously before his son's shrinking gaze, continued, in a more restrained and contemplative tone, " Man, when I see you there, I'm surprised that a thing like you had the courage to try to murder me. You're such a poor bit o' dirt. But although I'm not anxious to have a bullet in my brain it's a pity, in a way, that you didna succeed. You would have danced so brawly at the end of a halter, swingin' from side to side with the rope around your youllow neck. "

Matthew, now quite sober, turned a dead, piteous face towards his father, and, impelled by the instinct of flight, weakly tried to get up, in an endeavour to escape from the room.

" Stay where you are, you dog! " flared Brodie. " Do you think I'm done with you yout? You'll leave here at my pleasure and there's just the chance you might never leave at all. "

" I was out of my head, Father, " Matt whispered. " I didn't know what I was doin' I was drunk. "

" So you take a dram, do you? " sneered his father. " The very idea, now! That's another gentlemanly habit you brought back from abroad. No wonder you have such a bonny aim wi' a gun. "

" I didna mean to fire, " whispered the other. " I only bought the pistol for show. Oh! I'll never, never do it again. "

" Tuts, man! " jibed Brodie, " Dinna make such rash promises. You might want to murder somebody in real earnest to‑ morrow to blow their brains out so that they lay scattered on the floor. "

" Father, Father, let me go, " whined Matthew. " You can see fine I didn't mean it. "

" Come! Come! " jeered Brodie. " This'll never do. That's no' like the big man you are that's not like your mother's dashin' son. You must have spewed a' the courage out o' you by the look o' things. We maun gie you another drink to pull you together. " He seized the bell that lay on the table and rang it loudly. " Just consider, " he continued, with a dreadful laugh, " a dead man couldna have rung that bell. Na! I couldna have given you a dram if you had murdered me. "

" Don't say that word again, Father, " Matt sobbed. " It makes me feared. I tell you I didn't know what I was doing. "

Here the landlady of the house came in and, with tight lips, silently regarded them.

" We're still a' alive, you see, " Brodie sang out to her gaily, " in spite of all the pistols and gunpowder and keepsakes from India; and since we're alive, we're goin' to drink. Bring us a bottle o' whisky and two glasses. "

" I don't want to drink, " Matt quailed. " I'm too sick. " His head was splitting in agony and the very thought of liquor nauseated him.

" What? " drawled Brodie. " You don't say! And you the seasoned vessel that carries revolvers about wi' you. Man, you better tak' what's offered, for you'll need a good stiffener before I hand you over to the police! "

" The police! " gasped Matt in terror. " No! No! You wouldna do that, Father. " His fear was abject. He was now, through the blow, the reaction of his feelings and the close proximity of his father, reduced to the level of an invertebrate creature who would have willingly crawled at the other's feet if he could thereby have propitiated him.

Brodie eyoud his son repugnantly; he read his mind and saw the arrant cowardice staring from his bloodshot eyous. He was silent whilst the woman entered with the bottle and glasses, then, when she had withdrawn, he muttered slowly to himself:

" God help me! Whatna' thing is this to bear my name? " Then bitterly he took up the bottle and poured out two glasses of neat spirit.

" Here! " he shouted. " We'll drink to my big, braw son. The fine man from India! The lady's man! The man that tried to kill his father! " Fiercely he thrust the glass at his son. " Drink it, you dog, or I'll throw it in your teeth. " He drained his glass at a gulp, then fixed a minatory eyou upon the other whilst Matthew painfully forced himself to swallow his portion of the spirit.

" Now, " he sneered, " we'll make a fine comfortable night o' it, just you and me. Fill up your glass! Fill it up, I say! "

" Oh! Father, let me go home, " cried Matt the sight and taste of the whisky now loathsome to him " I want to go home. My head is bursting. "

" Dear! Dear! " replied Brodie, in a broad mimicry of his wife's voice. " Our Matt has a wee bit headache. That must have been where I struck you, son. That's terrible! What shall we do about it? " He affected to think deeply whilst he again emptied his glass.

" Man, I can't think of anything better than a leetle speerits. That's the remedy for an honest man like you some good honest whisky. "

He filled out another full glass of the raw liquor and bending forward, seized his son's jaw with vicelike fingers, prised open the weak mouth, then quickly tilted the contents of the glass down Matt's gullet; whilst Matthew gasped and choked he continued, with a frightful assumption of conviviality, " That's better! That's much better! And now tell me don't hesitate, mind you, but be quite frank about it tell me what you thought of Nancy. She's maybe no so weel born as your mother, you ken, but she doesna stink in her person. Na! she's a clean wee body in some respects. A man canna have it both ways, apparently. " Then dropping his assumed smoothness, he suddenly snarled, in a devilish voice, " Was she to your taste, I'm askin' you? "

" I don't know. I can't tell, " whined Matthew, realising that whatever answer he gave would be the wrong one.

Brodie nodded his big head reflectively.

" Man, that's true enough! I didn't give you enough time to sample her. What a pity I came in so soon. I might have given you another ten minutes thegither. " Deliberately he whipped his own imagination on the raw with a dark unconscious sadism, knowing only that the more he tortured himself the more torment he gave his son. The more he saw his son's painful thoughts revolt from the consideration of his recent excesses, the more thickly he thrust these repugnant

ideas upon him.

" Man, " he continued, " I couldna help but admire the bold, strong way you handled her, although she couldna have refused anything to a braw callant like you. You would have thocht you were fechtin' wi' a man the way you gripped her. "

Matthew could endure it no longer. He had reached the limit of his endurance and laying his head, which throbbed with the beat of a hundred hammers, upon the table, and bursting outright into weak, blubbering tears, he cried:

" Father, kill me if you like. I don't care. Kill me and be done with it but, for God's sake, let me be. "

Brodie looked at him with baffled, embittered fury; the hope he had entertained of taunting his son into another wild assault so that he might experience the delight of again battering him senseless to the floor died within him. He saw that the other was too weak, too broken, too pitifully distressed to be provoked into another outburst and a sudden, rankling resentment made him bend over and catch him a tremendous buffet on the head, with his open hand.

" Take that, then, you slabbering lump, " he shouted loudly; " you haven't even got the guts of a sheep. " All the refinement of his anger, the sneering, the sarcasm, the irony vanished, and instead his rage foamed over like a raging sea whilst his face grew black with rabid fury like the dark clouding of an angry sky. " You would lay your fingers on my woman! You would lift your hand against me! Against me! " he roared.

Matt raised his eyous weakly, imploringly. " Don't look at me, " bellowed Brodie, as though a sacrilege had been committed by the other. " You're not fit to lift your eyous above the level o' my boots. I canna look at you but what I want to spit on you. Take that, and that, and that. " With every word he cuffed the other's head like an empty cask, sending it banging against the table. " God! " he cried in disgust, " what are you? Your head sounds like an empty drum. Have you got to be drunk before you can stand up for yourself? Have you no sense of pride in the blood that's in you? Have you no pride to be heir to the name I gave you? " Then, in the height of his fury, he suddenly seized Matt by the arm and, lifting him like a huddled marionette, dragged him to his feet. " For what am I wasting my time on you here? We'll go home! " he cried. " I'll take you home. Now we must deliver you safely to your mother, out o' this wicked house. It's not the place at all for the son of such a godly woman. " He linked his arm through Matt's and propped the staggering, half‑ insensible figure against his own; then, flinging some money on the table, he rammed his hat on his head. " Can you sing? " he shouted, as he trailed Matt out into the drab, empty street. " We maun have a bit chorus on the way home. Just you and me to show folks what good friends we are. Sing, you dog! " he threatened, twisting the other's arms agonizingly. " Sing, or

I'll kill you! "

" What will what will I sing? " came the panting, tormented voice of his son.

" Sing anything. Sing a hymn. Ay! " He gloated over the idea; " that's verra appropriate. You've just missed murdering your faither you maun sing a hymn o' praise and thanksgiving. Give us the Old Hundred, my big, braw man. Begin! " he ordered.

" All people that on earth do dwell, " quavered Matt.

" Louder! Quicker! " shouted Brodie. " Give it pith! Put your heart into it. Pretend you're just out o' the prayour meetin'. " He marched the other off supporting him, dragging him, bolstering him up when he staggered on the uneven street, beating time to the tune and from time to time joining his voice in the refrain with a blasphemous satire.

Down the narrow Vennel they went towards their home, the words ringing sonorously through the stillness of the imprisoned air. Fainter grew their steps and more faintly came the sound until, finally, the last fading whisper was lost in the peaceful darkness of the night.

MRS BRODIE lay on the thin, straw mattress of her narrow bed, encompassed by the darkness of her room and the silence of the house.

Ncssie and Grandma were sleeping, but since Agnes had left her, she had remained strainingly awake for the sounds of Matt's return. Her mind, since the shock she had received earlier in the evening, was blank and dully incapable of thought, but, whilst she waited, she suffered physically. Her acute pain had returned to her! Restlessly she twisted from side to side, trying one position and then another in an effort to alleviate the boring volleys of pain which enfiladed the

entire length of her body. Her feet were cold and her hot hands moved constantly on the fretted surface of the patchwork quilt that covered the bed. Automatically, in the darkness, her fingers moved over each pattern as though she unconsciously retraced the labour of her needle. Dimly she longed for a hot bottle to draw the blood from her congested head into the icy numbness of her legs and feet, but she was too languid to stir and she feared, too, in a vague way, to move from the safe harbour of her room, dreading that some new misfortune might beset her, that she might perhaps encounter some fresh and terrifying experience on the stairs.

Slowly the seconds ticked into minutes, sluggishly the minutes dragged into hours and, through the peace of the night, she heard actually the faint distant note of the town clock as it struck twelve whispering notes. In effect, another day had begun when she must soon face again the melancholy round of the daylight hours and all that the new dawn would bring to her. But her introspection did not follow this course. As the significance of the hour broke upon her, she murmured only, " He's late; They're both awfu' late! " With the characteristic pessimism of a defeated spirit, she now sounded the abyss of melancholy possibility to its deepest extent, and wondered miserably if Matt had encountered his father in the town. Intangible contingencies following upon the chance of this meeting made her tremble, even as she lay passive upon the bed.

At length, when her anxiety had reached an intolerable pitch, she heard steps outside in the road. Desperately she wished to rush to the window to try to penetrate the gloom outside, but she could not make the effort and was compelled to lie still, waiting with anxious ears for the click of the front door latch. Soon, indeed, she heard this sound but with the opening of the door her perturbation increased, for, immediately, she distinguished the loud bawling voice of her husband, derisive, compelling, dominant, and in reply the cowed, submissive tones of her son. She heard the ponderous movement of a heavy body noisily ascending the stairs and the slurred footsteps of a lighter, less vital and more exhausted frame following behind. On the landing outside her room her husband said, in a loud, hectoring voice:

" Go to your kennel now, you dog! I'll be ready for you again in the morning. " There was no answer but the quick scuffle of feet and the loud bang of a door. Comparative quiet again descended upon the house, penetrated only by an occasional sound from Brodie's bedroom, the creaking of a board, the scrape of a chair, the clatter of his boots as he discarded them upon the floor, the creak of the springs as he flung his huge bulk upon the bed. With this final sound, unbroken silence again completely enveloped the house.

The helplessness of her position seemed to intensify her perception and give her intuition an added force. She realised that the possibility she had dreaded had actually taken place and, in addition, that some crushing misadventure had befallen her son. She had at once sensed this latter fact from the shambling irregularity of his step and the hopeless impotence of his voice, but now her imagination ran riot and she began to fill the torpid hush of the night with distressing sounds. She thought she heard some one weeping. Was it, she asked herself, a faint movement of air around the house or, in truth, the subdued sobbing of her son? If it were he, what rash act might not such misery induce? She pictured him, the errant but still beloved child, contemplating some desperate means of self‑ destruction. Immediately the sobbing turned to soft sad music which swelled with the funeral insistence of a dirge. She tried, with all her power, to compose herself to sleep but could not. In the suspended state of

her mind, swinging between reality and dreams, the lament broke over her like grey waves upon a forgotten shore, mingling with the lost, desolate cries of sea birds. She saw, amidst pouring rain and the raw, wet clods of fresh‑ turned clay, a rough, plank bier upon which lay a youllow coffin, saw this lowered, and the heavy clotted lumps of earth begin to fall upon it. With a low cry she twisted upon her back. Her half‑ conscious visions suddenly became dissipated by a fierce

onset of bodily suffering. The excruciating pang, that had stricken her occasionally before, now flung itself upon her with a fierce and prolonged activity. It was unbearable. Hitherto this particular spasm had been, though of deadly intensity, only of short duration, but now her agony was continual. It was, to her, worse by far than the pangs of childbirth, and it flashed upon her that she suffered so fearfully because she had betrayoud her daughter and allowed her to be cast headlong in her labour into the storm. She felt her enfeebled heart tremble with the stunning violence of the pain. " O God! " she whispered, " take it from me. I canna thole it longer. " Yout it did not leave her but increased in strength until it was impossible for her to endure it; wildly she struggled up, clutching her long nightgown about her. She swayoud as she walked, but her anguish forced her on; she tottered in her bare feet into her son's room and almost fell across his bed.

" Matt, " she panted, " my pain is on me. It willna leave me run run for the doctor. Run quick, son! "

He had been hardly asleep and now he sat up, startled to be confronted by this new, terrifying apparition; she frightened him horribly, for he could discern only a long white shape that lay supinely across his bed.