Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин 29 страница

" Well! Since you are so blunt, I will be equally so. I came last night at the urgent request of your son, and rather against my inclination, to see your wife, and despite your pretence of ignorance I am convinced that you know I was here. " He paused and negligently flicked his sleeve with his glove before continuing. " This morning I had proposed to pay a final visit" he emphasised deeply the word final " in order to confirm, by a further examination, the melancholy diagnosis which I made last night. "

Brodie glowered at him. Renwick's aloof imperturbability infuriated him infinitely more than any display of furious rage would have done. That he could meet with equal violence. But his clumsy wit was as useless against this quick coolness of mind as a bludgeon against a flashing rapier; he was pricked in a dozen places before he could swing the heavy weapon of his reply.

The other had, indeed, almost disarmed him by the assertion that he proposed to make no further calls, and he had aroused Brodie's attention by the veiled implication of his reference to Mamma's condition.

" What are you makin' out to be wrong wi' her, then? " he sneered, unconsciously changing his attitude. " She's a graund subject for the bed. "

Renwick raised his eyoubrows delicately, without speaking, a slight gesture which had, nevertheless, the immediate effect of making the other feel the exceeding bad taste of his remark. Raging at this unspoken contempt, Brodie rushed on to his inevitable resort when all else failed him the descent to personalities.

" Don't mock at me like that with your creashy smirk, " he cried, " it doesna improve the look of your ugly face, anyway. "

Renwick continued to look at him dispassionately. Most men, from their physical stature, were compelled to look upwards to James Brodie and Brodie revelled in this fact; it gave him a sense of superiority and power to stand over a man. Renwick, however, was fully as tall as he, and from the slight eminence of the outer porch, he reversed the usual order of things, and he, instead, looked down

upon Brodie.

" I shall not waste my time here further, " he said at last coldly. " If you are not a busy man, I am. In your state of mind you are not amenable to reason. You have a delusion of grandeur which makes you wish every one to be in awe of you. The unfortunate members of your family are, no doubt, afraid of you but I, happily, am not! Understand that clearly if you can. And now, good morning to you! " He turned on his heel and was about to descend the steps when the other caught hold of his arm.

" Wait! Wait! " shouted Brodie. The interview was not proceeding as he had anticipated, for he had visioned himself grudgingly permitting Renwick to have access to the house after he had been scraped and bowed to, after his offended dignity had been suitably appeased. In his heart he felt he must know what the doctor thought of his wife, and though he had desired, first of all, to make Renwick feel like a paid servant who could be discharged contemptuously with his fee, he did not wish to be left completely ignorant of Mamma's condition.

" Don't go like that, " he cried. " You havena told me what's wrong wi' my wife. What are you paid for if you can't tell me what you came here for last night? You'll have to justify yourself in some way. "

The other showed him a coldly contemptuous profile,

" The question of fee has not arisen, so far as I am aware. As to the other matter, I have already informed you that I shall give you my definite diagnosis only after a further and internal examination; " and he shook off Brodie's detaining hand and made to resume his exit.

" Damn it all, then, " cried Brodie suddenly. " Come in and do what you want. Since you are here, we may as well make use of you, " Renwick came back slowly, and with a maddening suavity he said:

" Since you beg of me to come back I shall do so, but understand this, it is only for your wife's sake; " then he pushed past the bulky form before him and quickly mounted the stairs.

Brodie, fuming and nonplussed, was left standing in the hall.

He bent his brows angrily, rubbed his chin indecisively, stretched out his hand to shut the front door, then refrained from shutting it, as the thought crossed his insulted mind that it would amount almost to subservience for him to close the door for Renwick.

" Let him shut the door for himself, " he muttered. " Anyway, he'll not be long. He'll soon be out again and then it'll be for good. "

He gazed moodily out of the open door at the doctor's spanking turnout at his gate, his dark envious eyou noting the fine legs of the cob, its muscled shoulders, its supple arched neck. He estimated clearly the money which lay in the splendid animal, in the sound coach‑ built gig, in the man's smart livery, even in the cockaded hat which sat jauntily upon his head, and this tangible vision of the other's prosperity was like gall to him. With a jerk he withdrew his gaze, began to pace up and down the hall. " Will he never come down? " he asked himself. " What does he think he's doin' up there a' this time? "

He reflected impatiently on what must be taking place upstairs, writhed at the thought of what the nature of the examination might be. Although he had finished with his wife in every aspect of his sexual life and had indeed cast her from him in contumely, the thought of another man interfering, as he mentally worded it, with her made him furious. Although his wife was old, jaded and worn out, yout she was still his property, his chattel, his possession. He would never need the possession nor use the chattel, yout she must remain wholly and subserviently his. That was his mentality and, had he lived in another age, he would surely have destroyoud each mistress when he had tired of her in the perverted fear that she would fall into another's hands. Ridiculous and abominable thoughts now began to torment him.

" By God! " he cried out. " If he doesna come down I'll go up myself. "

But he did not go up! Something in Renwick's cold disdain had chilled his animal mind and although, of course, he feared no one, yout the temper of the other's spirit so far surpassed his that it surmounted and even subdued him. Always a superior, fearless mind aroused in him a faint, lowering distrust, the prelude to hatred, to an unbridled antipathy that weakened, to his undoing, such reason as usually controlled his motives. And so he chafed and stamped about in the hall until, when he had been made to wait a full half‑ hour, he did at last hc. ir Ren wick come down. Watching the doctor descend the stairs slowly, he felt, uncontrollably, that he must voice his severe displeasure.

" Did you say you were busy? " he girned. " What a time you were! "

" Not too long surely, for a last visit, " said Rcnwick impassively.

" What's wrong with her then? ” shot out Brodie. 'I’ve no doubt you've been puttin' some grand, fancy ideas in her head all this time. "

" Which reminds me, " continued the doctor tranquilly, ignoring the interjection, " that you must arrange for your own medical man to be called in without fail to‑ morrow. If you wish, I will communicate with him. Your wife must have constant and unremitting attention. "

Brodie stared at him incredulously, then laughed sneeringly.

" Does she need a nurse next? " he exclaimed.

" Your good wife most assuredly does. That is, " Renwick added quietly, " if you can afford it. "

Brodie drew from the other's words a humiliating imputation.

" Be careful, " he breathed. " I asked you what was wrong with her. "

" Advanced, incurable cancer of the womb, " said Renwick slowly.

Brodie's jaw dropped at the dreadful word.

" Cancer, " he echoed. " Cancer! " Despite his iron control, his cheek blanched slightly; but he fought to recover himself.

" It's a lie! " he exclaimed loudly. " You're trying to get even with me. You're tryin' to frichten me with a demned lie, "

" I wish it were a lie, but I have satisfied myself, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that my diagnosis is correct, " said Renwick sadly. " There is nothing to be done for the poor soul but to alleviate her pain and she will never leave the bed she now lies on. "

" I don't believe you, " snarled Brodie. " I don't give that for your opinion. " He snapped his fingers in the other's face like the crack of a whip, caring, not so much for the dreadful affliction which might lie upon his wife, as for the humiliating position into which he imagined the doctor was trying to force him. " Ill have better advice than yours, " he cried. " I'll have my own physician. He's head and shoulders above you in skill. If she's ill, he'll cure her! "

Renwick inclined his head.

" I hope sincerely that he does, and I must tell you, " he added severely, " that in medicine the basis of any treatment is rest and freedom from anxiety. "

" Thank you for nothing, " cried Brodie roughly. " Here! What is your fee for a' this tarradiddle? What do we pay you for tellin' her to lie in bed? " and he plunged his hand into his trousers pocket.

The doctor, on his way to the door, turned and said, with a penetrating look which revealed the fullness of his knowledge of Brodie's unhappy, financial position:

" Really, no! Not from you, in your present circumstances. I couldn't think of it. " He paused and added, " Remember, I shall not call again unless I'm sent for" then he was gone.

Brodie, his fists clenched, stared impotently at the retreating figure. Only when the gig was out of sight did a suitable retort occur to him.

" Send for him again, " he cried. " He'll never come into this house again! The infernal snipe! I don't believe a word of his damned lies. A pack of lies, " he repeated, as if to convince himself.

As he stood in the lobby he did not know what to do, but through his indecision, despite his assumed contempt of Renwick's opinion, the word cancer kept beating into his brain with a dire significance Cancer of the womb! It seemed to him the most horrid manifestation of the dread disease. Although he had violently professed unbelief, now a seeping tide of conviction swept over him; bit by bit he began to piece evidence together which was in itself conclusive. Her ailing look had not, then, been assumed these secretive ways not an indecency, a reproach to him, but only a piteous necessity.

Suddenly a devastating thought struck him! Had the scourge been passed to him? Knowing nothing of the laws of contagion or infection, still he wondered if he himself might be contaminated, and immediately the recollection of her previous nearness to him, of past contacts, rushed over him, making him feel unclean. Involuntarily he glanced over his muscular body as if it might reveal already some sinister index of the malady. His glance reassured him, but following the thought came, inevitably, a small wave of resentment against his wife. " Could she no’ have watched herself better? " he muttered, as if she were in measure responsible for her own calamity.

He shook himself and braced out his barrel chest to rid himself of all the oppressive, conflicting ideas within him. Without realising it, he wandered into the cold, unused parlour and sat down in the inhospitable room where he again set himself to decide what he must do. Although he must, of course, justify his threat to Renwick and call in Doctor Lawrie, already he knew it to be useless. This had been merely the spiteful taunt of his inferior mind and, in his inmost heart, he knew Lawrie's skill to be far below the other's. He realised, too, that he must go up to his wife, but he had no heart for his duty, for under the stigma of this awful distemper she had become to him even more unwelcome and repugnant than before. He shrank equally from her and from his onerous duty to visit her. Shifting his mind quickly from her, he began to consider the domestic

situation. What a mess, he thought; and not unlike the state of his business! A look that was almost piteous in its perplexity slowly invaded the hard, massive face, softening its harshness, driving out the bitterness, lifting the frown from the brow. But that compassionate expression was for himself! He was thinking, not of his wife but of himself, sympathising with himself, pitying James Brodie for the troubles that beset him.

" Ay, " he muttered gently, " it's a good job you're a man amongst a' this injustice. You have a wee thing or two to thole. " With these words he rose and ascended the stairs as slowly and heavily as if clambering up a ladder; outside Mamma's room he paused, drew himself up, and went in. She had heard him coming up and already was turned to greet him with a pleading, ingratiating smile.

" I'm sorry, father, " she immediately murmured. " I tried hard to get up but it was just beyond me. I'm real sorry you've been so upset. Did you get a decent breakfast? "

He seemed to be seeing her with new eyous, observing now that her face looked ghastly, with hollowed temples and jaws, that her form appeared to have become suddenly wasted. He did not know what to say. It was so long since he had addressed a kind word to her that his tongue refused to utter one, and in his hesitation he felt uncomfortable, incongruous, absurd. His motive in life was to drive, to demand, to chastise, to flagellate; he could not sympathise. He stared

at her desperately.

" You're not angry, I hope, Father, " she said timidly, misconstruing his look. " I'll be up in a day or two. He says a bit rest is what I need. I'll see that you're not put about more than need be. "

" I'm not angry, woman, " he said hoarsely. Then after a pause, with an effort, he added, " You maun lie still till we see what Doctor Lawrie can do for you. "

Immediately she flinched.

" Oh! No! No! Father, " she cried, " It's not him I want. I like Doctor Renwick so much I feel he'll make me well. He's so kind and so clever. His medicine made me feel better at once. "

He gritted his teeth impotently as her protests rang on endlessly. Previously he would have rammed his intention in her teeth and left her to swallow it as best she liked, but now, in the novelty of her condition, and indeed, of his, he knew not what to say. He resolved that she would have Lawrie, that he would send him in, but modifying his retort with an effort, he exclaimed:

" Well see then! Well see how you get on. "

Mrs. Brodie gazed at him doubtfully, feeling that if he took Renwick from her she would surely die. She had loved this doctor's serene assurance, had expanded under his unusual gentleness. Unconsciously she was drawn to him as the one who had attended her daughter, and he had already spoken to her of Mary in terms that paid tribute to the patience and fortitude of her child under the trials of an almost mortal illness. Now she sensed at once that her husband was antagonistic to her desire, but she knew better than to argue; hastily she sought to propitiate him.

" What are we goin' to do about you, James? " she ventured. " You must be looked after properly. You must have your comforts. "

" Ill be all right, " he managed to say. " The old lady will do her best. "

" No! No! " she urged. " IVe been thinkin' out plans all morning. I must get up as soon as I'm able, but in the meantime, could we not get a girl in, some one who would get your meals as you like them. I could tell her tell her just what to do how to make the broth as you like it, and how to season your porridge, and the airin' o' your flannels and "

He interrupted her by a definite, intolerant shake of his head. Could she not realise that it cost money to keep a servant? Did she think he was rolling in wealth? He wanted to say something crushing that would shut off her silly twaddle. " Does she think I'm a helpless wean, the way she's going on? " he asked himself. " Does she think the house couldna go on without her? " Yout he knew that if he opened his mouth to speak he would blunder into some blunt rejoinder the niceties of expression were beyond him so he closed his lips and maintained a chafing silence.

She looked at him closely, encouraged by his silence, wondering fearfully if she dared to venture the subject nearest her heart. His unaccustomed placidity made her brave and, with a sudden gasp, she exclaimed:

" James! To mind the house now could we not could we not have Mary back? "

He recoiled from her. His assumed serenity was not proof against this, and losing control of himself, he shouted:

" No! We will not. I warned you not even to lift her name. She'll not come back here till she crawls on her bended knees. Me as’ her to come back! Never! Not even if you lay on your deathbed. "

The last word rang through the room like a trumpet call and slowly a frightened look came into Mamma's eyous.

" As you say, James, " she trembled. " But please dinna mention that awfu' word. I'm not wantin' to die yout. I'm goin' to get better, you ken. I'll be up soon. "

Her optimism exasperated him. He did not realise that the habits of half a lifetime had ingrained in her the feeling that she must always exhibit in his presence this spurious cheerfulness, nor did he understand that the desire to get up arose from an ever pricking urge to fulfill the innumerable demands that harassed her.

" The doctor didna say much, " she continued propitiatingly, " beyond that it was a kind of inflammation. When that goes down, I'm sure I'll get my strength up in no time. I cianna bear this lyin' in bed. I've got so many things to think of. " She was worrying about the payment of her debt. " Just wee bits o' things that nobody would bother about but me, " she added hastily, as if she feared he might read her mind.

He looked at her gloomily. The more she glossed over her illness the more he became convinced that she would not survive it; the more she spoke of the future the more futile she became in his eyous. Would she be as inept when confronted by death as she had been in the face of life? He tried desperately to find something to say; what could he say to this doomed but unconscious woman?

And now his manner began to puzzle her. At first she had assumed gratefully that his quiet had betokened a forbearance in the face of her sickness, a modification of the same feeling which made her move throughout the house on tiptoes when she had nursed him, on such rare occasions as he had been ill. But a curious quality in his regard now perturbed her, and suddenly she queried:

" The doctor didna say anything about me to you, did he? He didna tell you something that he keepit from me? He seemed a long time downstairs before I heard him drive away. "

He looked at her stupidly. His mind seemed, from a long distance off, to consider her question slowly, detachedly, without succeeding in arriving at an appropriate answer.

" Tell me if he did, James, " she cried apprehensively. " I would far rather know. Tell me. " The whole of her appearance had altered, her demeanour, from being calm and sanguine, had become agitated, disturbed.

He had come into the room with no fixed motive as to how he should deal with her. He had no sympathy, no tact, and now no ingenuity to lie to her. He felt confused, trapped, like a blundering animal before the frail, raddled creature on the bed. His temper flared suddenly.

" What do I care what he thinks! " he found himself saying harshly. " A man like him would say you were dyin' if you had a toothache. He knows nothing less than nothing. Haven't I told you I'm goin' to get Lawrie to you! " His angry, ill‑ chosen words struck her like a thunderbolt. Instantly she knew, knew with a fearful conviction, that her illness was mortal. She shivered, and a film of fear clouded her eyous like a faint, shadowy harbinger of the last, opaque pellicle of dissolution.

" Did he say I was dying then? " she quavered.

He glared at her, furious at the position into which he had been forced. Angry words now poured from his mouth.

" Can you not shut up about that runt? " he cried. " You wad think he was the Almighty to hear you. He doesna ken everything. If he canna cure you, there's other doctors in Levenford! What's the use o' makin' such a fuss about it a'? "

" I see. I see now, " she whispered. " I'll no' make any more fuss about it now. " Quiescent upon the bed she gazed at him and behind him; her gaze seemed to transcend the limits of the narrow room and focus itself fearfully upon a remoteness beyond. After a long pause she said, as though to herself, " I'll not be muckle loss to you, James! I'm gey and worn out for you, " Then she whispered faintly, " But, oh! Matt, my own son, how am I to leave you? "

Silently she turned to the wall and to the mystery of her thoughts, leaving him standing with a sullen, glouting brow, behind her. For a moment he looked lumpishly at her flaccid figure, then, without a word, he went heavily out of the room.

XII

A SUDDEN burst of vivid August sunshine, penetrating the diaphanous veil hung by the last drops of a passing shower, sprayoud the High Street with a misty radiance, whilst the brisk breeze which had thrown the fleecy, wool‑ pack clouds from off the pathway of the sun, now moved the rain slowly onwards in a glow of golden haze.

" Sunny‑ shower! Sunny‑ shower! " chanted a group of boys, as they raced along the drying street on their way to bathe in the Leven.

" Look, " cried one of them importantly, " a rainbow! " And he pointed upwards to a perfect arc which, like the thin beribboned handle of a lady's basket, spanned glitteringly the entire length of the street. Every one paused to look at the rainbow. They lifted their eyous above the drab level of the earth and gazed upwards towards the sky, nodded their heads, smiled cheerfully, exclaimed with delight, shouted to each other across the street.

" It's a braw sight! "

" Look at the bonnie colours! "

" It puts auld Couper's pole in the shade, richt enough. "

The sudden, unexpected delight of the phenomenon cheered them, elevating their minds unconsciously to a plane that lay above the plodding commonplace of their existence, and, when they looked downwards again, the vision of that splendid, sparkling arch remained, inspiring them for the day before them.

Out of the Winton Arms into this bright sunshine came James Brodie. He saw no rainbow, but walked dourly, with his hat pulled forward, his head down, his hands deeply in his outside pockets, seeing nothing, and, though a dozen glances followed his progress, saluting no one. As he plodded massively, like a stallion, over, the crest of the street, he felt that " they" the peering inquisitive swine were looking at him with prying eyous; knew, though he ignored it, that he was the focus of their atention. For weeks past it had appeared to him that he and the moribund shop that he tenanted had been the nidus of a strange and unnatural attention in the Borough, that townspeople, some that he knew and some whom he had never seen before, strolled deliberately outside his business to stare openly, curiously, purposely, into the depths within. From the inner obscurity he imagined that these empty, prying glance mocked him; he had cried out to himself, " Let them look then, the glaikit swine! Let them gape at me for all they're worth. I'll give them something to glower about. " Did they guess, he now asked himself bitterly, as he strode along, that he had been celebrating celebrating the last day in his business? Did they know that, with a

ferocious humour, he had just now swallowed a liberal toast to the wreck of his affairs? He smiled grimly to think that to‑ day he ceased to be a hatter, that shortly he would walk out of his office for the last time and bang the door behind him finally and irrevocably. Paxton, from across the road, whispered to his neighbour:

" Look, man, quick, there's Brodie. " And together they stared at the strong figure on the opposite pavement. " Man! I'm sorry for him somehow, " continued Paxton; " his comedown doesna fit him weel. "

" Na! " agreed the other, " He's the wrang man to be ruined. "

" For a' his strength and power, " resumed Paxton, " there's something blunderin' and helpless about him. It's been a fearfu' blow to him. Do you mark how his shoulders have bowed, as if he had a load on his back. "

His neighbour shook his head.

" I canna see it like that! He's been workin 1 for this for a lang, kag time. What I canna stand about the man is his black, veecious pride that grows in spite o' a' things. It's like a disease that gets waur and waur, and the source o't is so downright senseless. If he could but see himself now, as others see him, it micht humble him a wee. "

Paxton looked at the other peculiarly.

" I wouldna talk like that about him, " he said slowly; " it's a chancy thing even to whisper like that about James Brodie, and at this time more than ordinar'. If he heard you he would turn on you and rend you. "

" He's not listenin' to us, " replied the other, a trifle uncomfortably; then he added, " He has drink in him again, by the look o' him. Adversity micht bring some men to their senses but it's drivin' him the other way round. "

They both turned again and glanced at the slowly retreating figure. After a pause Paxton said:

" Have you heard, lately, how his wife goes on? "

" Not a word! From what I can make out not a body sees her. Some leddies from the kirk took up a wheen jellies and the like for her, but Brodie met them at the gate and sent them a' richt‑ about turn. Ay, and waur nor that, he clashed the guid stuff they had brought about their ears. "

" Do you say so! Nobody maun tamper wi' him or his, " exclaimed Paxton; then he paused and queried, " Tis cancer, is't not, John? "

" Ay! So they say! "

" What a waesome affliction! "

" Man! " replied the other, as he moved away, " it is bad, but to my mind 'tis no waur than for that puir woman to be bound body and soul to a man like James Brodie. "

By this time Brodie had entered his shop, his footsteps echoing loudly through the almost denuded premises where only a tithe of his stock remained, the rest having been disposed of through the interest and consideration of Soper. The evanescent boy had finally vanished and he was alone in the barren, unhappy, defeated place, where the faint gossamer of a spider's web, spun across the remaining boxes on the shelves, mutely indicated the ebb to which his business

had failed ‑ Now, as he stood in the midst of this dereliction, unconsciously he peopled it with the figures of the past, the past of those lordly days when he had walked with a flourish about the place, disdaining the humbler of his clients but meeting equally and agreeably all persons of importance or consequence. It seemed incomprehensible to him that they should now be merely shadows, entering only in his imagination; that he would no longer laugh and jest and talk with them in these precincts which had enclosed his daily life for twenty youars. It was the same shop, he was the same man, yout slowly, mysteriously, these living beings had withdrawn from him, leaving only unhappy, unsubstantial memories. The few old customers, chiefly the county gentlepeople, who had still clung to him, had seemed only to prolong the misery of his failure, and now that it was finished a vast surge of anger and sorrow invaded him. With his low forehead contracted he tried abortively to realise how it had been accomplished, to analyse how all this strange, unthinkable change had come about.

Somehow he had permitted it! A convulsive, involuntary sigh shook his thick chest, then, as if in rage and disgust at such a weakness, he bared his lips over his pale gums, ground his teeth and went slowly into his office. No letters, no daily paper now cumbered his desk, awaiting his disdainful attention; dust alone lay there, lay thickly upon everything. Yout, as he stood within the neglected office, like the leader of a hopeless cause when he has finally abandoned it, a faint measure of sad relief tinctured his regret, and he became aware that he now faced the worst, that the suspense of this unfair fight