by A. J. Cronin
From time to time I threw him inquiring side glances, conscious that he moved with a singular rigidity: the strange mobile immobility of those porters who carry a high tower of innumerable baskets upon their heads. Then, as by an act of levitation, I saw his hat lift, revolve, and settle back calmly upon his brow. Still, I did not guess. It was only when a thin tail curled from beneath the brim, and mingled with Grandpa’s locks in the manner of a queue, that I realized he had Nicolo inside his hat.
I was too surprised to speak: but Grandpa sensed that I had spotted the monkey. He squinted at me carefully. “He aye liked my hat. No trouble in the world to get him into it.”
It was almost dark when, shortly before eight, we reached Lomond View. Then, I realized the full finesse of Grandpa’s timing: on Thursday nights at half past seven o’clock it was Papa’s custom to attend a meeting of the Building Society. We reached Grandpa’s room unseen.
Nicolo was in rude health. He knew us perfectly—a fortunate circumstance, since strange faces always disturbed him. At the same time, the novelty of his new surroundings appeared not displeasing to him. He moved about the room, inspecting things with an air of agreeable surprise. I think he had just been fed, which accounted perhaps for his good humour. He refused the oddfellow which Grandpa offered him.
Grandpa contemplated the monkey dispassionately. He was reserved, rather on his dignity with animals; he never descended to intimacies; indeed, while he professed great affection for the Mikado in Mrs. Bosomley’s presence, I had seen him take a distasteful kick at the cat when we met it, in the dark, alone.
Nine o’clock … A sound upon the landing indicated the passage of Grandma to the bathroom. Grandpa, waiting, darkly upon the alert, acted at once. With an agility remarkable in a man of his years he took up Nicolo and vanished through the doorway. A few seconds; then he was back—without the monkey.
I turned white. I saw at last the full import of his bawr. Yet, even as I trembled, I was conscious of an awful feeling of expectancy. I sat with Grandpa, who was biting his nails, listening tensely while Grandma heavily recrossed the landing. We heard her re-enter her room, the measured sounds of her disrobing, the groan of her bed as it received her. Silence, terrible silence. Then the air is rent: a scream … another … and another.
At this point Grandma herself must relate what happened, and in her own broad Scots—which hitherto, in the interests of lucidity, I have translated—for without this idiom, the recitation loses half its savour. Grandma told this story repeatedly in after years, mostly to her friend Miss Tibbie Minns, and always with a dreadful seriousness. No wonder I have always thought of it as “Grandma’s Encounter with the Devil.”
This is how it goes:
Weel, Tibbie, on the awfu’ nicht when the Thing cam’ till me I was in waur nor ordinar’ health and speerits. I had ta’en off my cla’es, foldit them decent-like on the rocker and put on my mutch and gownie. I had read my chapter like a Christian, ta’en oot my teeth and lichtit my dip—ye ken I aye keep a wee bit can’le by my in the nicht. Then as I put my heid down on the pillay and composed mysel’ tae rest, as I aye do, in the airms o’ my Saviour, I felt the Thing loup on till my cheist. I opened my e’en. And there, as I hope to be judged, gazing at me by the flickerin’ dip, was the Fiend hissel’.
Na, na, it was nae dream, Tibbie, far from it. I wasna sleepin’. And forbye I’m no’ a fanciful wumman. There he was, Satan, tail an’ a’, grinnin’ and yammerin’ and gnashin’ his tusks at me like he wad gie a’ he had tae drag me to the Pit. I’m not easy daunted, Tibbie, ye’ll maybe agree, but for aince my banes turned tae watter, as weel they micht. I hadna the breath tae scream, let alane murmur the Lord’s Prayer. I just lay like a corp, starin’ at the Brute, while he stared back at me.
A’ at yince, he ga’ed a kind o’ skirl and began to jounce up and down on my cheist like I was a pouny. I tell ye, Tibbie, if I hadna breath before I had less then. He grippit my lugs in his twa paws and began to joggle my heid like it was a milk kirn. He jounced and waggled and waggled and jounced till I hadna breath in me. And a’ the time the sparks was fleein’ frae his e’en like cinders. I was feared, Tibbie wumman, my skin was in a grue. And weel the Brute kenned it for he banged and yammered and scarted his will at me till he had a’ my hair doun and, though it’s no’ decent to sae, the gownie haulf off my back.
Oh, if I had juist had the presence o’ mind to gi’e him the Name, but my puir wits were fair scattered. A’ I could do was to whisper, in a voice ye couldna hear below a meal barrel: “Go, Satan, go!”
Feeble though it was, I think maybe it held the Brute. At ony rate he stoppit his pummelin’ and wi’ a kind o’ girn, he took a haud o’ my teeth, at the heid o’ the bed, where I aye keep them, beside me. Then, as I hope to meet my Maker, he stood up on the bed and began makin’ passes wi’ the teeth, mopin’ and mowin’ at me, like he was puttin’ them in and oot his mouth.
I tell ye Tibbie, it was maybe that whit saved me. When I saw the Thing abusin’ my guid double set my bluid rose up in me at sic a desecration, I stirred from my dwam, sat up and shook my fist at him. “Ye Brute, ye Brute,” I shouted. “God send ye back below.”
Nae sooner did the name o’ the Almighty strike him, for it couldna’ ha’ been my mere human fist what hindered him, than he gien a shriek that wad have turned ye tae stane. He louped frae the bed, still skirlin’ and screechin’. As luck wad have it I had left my door on the keek, for the nicht was warm and I wanted a breath o’ air. Oot the room he went, like a streak o’ infernal licht while I lay shakin’ in a’ my limbs, thankin’ Providence for my merciful release. I couldna stir for mony a meenute. But when I did and lichtit the gas and was praisin’ Heaven that I had suffered nae ill, I saw, the Lord save and defend me, I saw, God help me tae endure it, I saw, I tell ye, what the Brute had done.
He hadna stole my dentures, na, na, nor smashed them neithers. But oot o’ black burning malice and revenge, he had droppit them ablow the bed intil my nicht utensil.
Chapter Seventeen
On the following Tuesday, the summer recess ended: Kate resumed her teaching at the “ Elementary” and I went back to the Academy. I remember the day vividly—it marked the climax of that mood of profound dejection which enveloped Grandpa like a cloud, one of those moods which I inherited from him and which afflicted me when I grew older, a mood when life seemed dark and worthless.
The weather continued enervating; Grandma remained closeted in her room; Murdoch kept out of the way—he had begun, secretly, to work for Mr. Dalrymple at the Nursery.
Grandpa evinced no desire for his friends; there was no copying to be done; nothing but to endure the heat and Papa’s resentment. The old man was being nagged and persecuted. Only a small mind could have devised the expedient of stopping his tobacco. It was this, I think, which prompted Grandpa’s final remark, as he fingered, mournfully, an empty pipe. “What’s the use of it all, boy … what’s the use?”
The next morning, as I dressed behind my curtain, Papa was still grumbling at breakfast, railing against the old man, when Mama came down, and in a voice which was both astonished and distraught, exclaimed: “Grandpa is not upstairs. Where can he have gone?”
A pause while Papa’s surprise turned to indignation.
“This is the last straw. Have him here at the dinner hour or I’ll know the reason why!”
Disturbed, but not yet alarmed, I walked with Gavin to the Academy, where we found that we were not only in the same class, but sitting next to each other. This, and the issue of new books which I brought back carefully for Mama to cover, proved a distraction during the day. But as we all sat down to the high tea that evening, I saw from Mama’s red eyes and Papa’s repressed manner that something was seriously amiss.
“No sign of him yet?”
Mama, shook her head dolefully.
Papa began to drum his fingers on the tablecloth, crunching his toast, as though biting Grandpa’s head off.
Silence. Then Mu
rdoch, who had just come in, suggested in a subdued manner: “Maybe something has happened to him.”
Papa glared at the unfortunate youth. “Shut up, you dolt. You’ve had your chance to be clever.”
Murdoch collapsed and a more painful silence followed until irritation drove Papa to speak again.
“I must say it’s hard enough, in the ordinary way, to support such an encumbrance. But when he takes to staying out, like as not going on the soak …”
Mama interrupted, aroused at last, a spot of indignation on her cheek. “ How do you know he’s doing any such thing?”
Papa gazed at her, taken aback.
“The poor old man hasn’t a farthing in the world,” Mama went on. “ Downtrodden and miscalled by everybody. Soak, indeed. The way he’s been treated lately it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he had been driven to something desperate …” She began to cry.
Murdoch looked justified, in a subdued way, and Kate went over to comfort Mama. “ Really, Papa,” she said, with a note of warning, “you ought to take some steps; with no money he can’t have gone far.”
Papa’s expression was unhappy. “And set all the neighbours talking … Isn’t it bad enough already?” He got up from the table. “I’ve told my staff to keep their eyes open in the town. That’s the most I can do.”
Papa’s staff consisted of a lanky assistant named Archibald Jupp, who always wore an air of passionate willingness because he hoped to succeed Papa, and a stout boy, who moved so slowly that he was known amongst the Boilermakers and other derisive young men as “ The Fast Message.” Though I was proved to be wrong, I had not much hope of this co-operation. Remembering the desolation of Grandpa’s recent mood I began to feel dreadfully worried.
Next morning: no Grandpa, not a sign of him. A definite air of strain, of suspense, pervaded the household. At noon, when there was still no news, Papa struck the table, but not hard, with the flat of his hand: he said, in the tone of a man making a decisive announcement:
“Telegraph for Adam!”
Yes, yes; send for Adam; that was the good, the logical procedure. But a telegram—Ah, this deadly missive, almost unheard-of in the household, seemed a foreboding, almost a harbinger of doom. Refusing Murdoch’s aid, Mama put on her hat and went, herself, with her head on one side, to the Drumbuck sub-office, to send the telegram. In an hour there was a telegram back: WITH YOU TO-MORROW THURSDAY 3 P.M. ADAM.
Insensibly our spirits rose at the promise implied in such promptitude, such businesslike decision. Mama remarked, as she put the telegram away in the private drawer where she kept all Adam’s things—his letters, school reports, old pay envelopes, even a beribboned lock of his hair: “Adam’s the one.”
But the following day, before Adam arrived, there was a terrible development. Papa came back from the office in the middle of the forenoon, while I hung miserably about the house. He was accompanied by Archie Jupp, who stood in the lobby while Papa advanced towards Mama and, after some hesitation, with a grave, even a tender, expression, said:
“Mama! Prepare yourself. Grandpa’s hat has been found … floating on the Common pond.”
Before our startled eyes, Jupp, who had discovered it, produced the old man’s hat, pitifully battered and sodden.
“It was floating at the deep end, Mrs. Leckie. Opposite the boat-house.” He spoke with ingratiating condolence. “ I had an awful feeling it might be there.”
I gazed with shocked anguish at the dripping relic and, as its full significance struck Mama, tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
“Come now, Mrs. Leckie,” Archie Jupp said soothingly. “It may be nothing … nothing at all.”
Papa had actually gone into the scullery to make a cup of tea for Mama. He pressed it upon her affectionately, and waited, consolingly, until she had swallowed it, before departing with Archie Jupp.
That afternoon, Adam, wearing striped trousers and a dark jacket with a pearl pin in his grey tie, took command of the situation immediately he arrived. Seated at the table, effective and calm, he heard all the evidence, even my broken tale of Grandpa’s brooding melancholy and his last fateful remark. He said: “We must inform the police.”
A hush fell upon us at that sinister word.
“But, Adam …” Papa protested. “My position …”
“My dear father,” Adam replied coolly, “if an old man takes it into his head to drown himself you can’t exactly cover that up. Mind you, I don’t commit myself. But they’ll certainly want to drag the pond.”
Mama was trembling all over. “Adam! You don’t mean, you don’t think …?”
Adam shrugged his shoulders. “ I don’t think he floated his hat on the pond for fun.”
“Oh, Adam.”
“I’m sorry I spoke so bluntly, Mama. I know how you must feel. But after all what had he to live for? I’ll go down and see Chief Constable Muir. It’s lucky he’s a friend of mine.”
He had taken to smoking Burma cheroots and now he selected one from his crocodile leather case. I gazed at him in acute distress as he pulled out the yellow straw which traversed its length and accurately lit it. With a glance which included also Papa, he turned impressively to Mama: “A good thing, Mama, a very good thing, I induced you to extend the policy. Let’s see … an endowment with profits.” With his left hand he brought out his silver pencil and began to figure on the tablecloth. “ Five years at three … add twenty-five … why it makes a clear difference of one hundred and sixteen pounds.”
“I don’t want the money,” Mama wept.
“It’ll come in very handy,” Papa said in a husky voice.
My grief, my growing sense of loss, was choking me as Adam put away his pencil and stood up.
“I’ll look in on McKellar, too, at the Building Society Offices. He could smooth out any little difficulties in the way of immediate payment. In fact, I think I’ll bring him back with me. You might whip up a really nice meat tea for us, Mama … something substantial like poached eggs and mince. McKellar would like that. Don’t lay it in the parlour … not yet.” He went out.
Obediently, Mama began to carry out Adam’s instructions, scurrying between the kitchen and the scullery as though trying by the intensity of her activity to keep her mind off the worst. She baked several batches of scones. Papa, who could not bear the slightest extravagance, actually encouraged her to make pancakes as well, at the sacrifice of a half-dozen eggs. The unprecedented smell of rich cooking filled the air. The table was set with the best tablecloth and the parlour china.
At five o’clock Adam returned, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. .
“They’ll start dragging first thing, Monday. Unless he rises over the week end. And the cost will come out of the Humane Society Fund. Muir says that Common pond is getting to be an awful spot. Three drownings and a bad ice accident in the last ten years. McKellar can’t come till after seven. He’s a dry stick. Let’s have our tea, Mama.”
We sat down to the best meal I had ever eaten in Lomond View: meat, eggs, scones, pancakes, hot strong tea.
“At a time like this,” Papa said, looking generously round the table, “I don’t grudge a thing.”
“Do you think he will rise, Adam?” Murdoch asked in a voice of morbid fascination.
“Well, now, that’s a question,” Adam answered with knowledgeable interest. “According to Muir they sometimes come up of their own volition within forty-eight hours. Fill up with gas.” Mama shuddered and shut her eyes. “Just float up gently, and always face down—that’s the curious thing. Sometimes they’re stubborn though and stay down. Or they might be embedded in sand or weeds—there’s a lot of weed in the pond—and can’t move even though the gas is trying to rise them. In that case I’m told if you float loaves, with quicksilver in them, over the pond you often get a dip at the exact spot.”
I could not bear it, this awful vision of my poor grandpa, entangled with green weed, sodden from long immersion. But suddenly, a ring at the front bell. Everyone sat up as K
ate went to the door and showed in Archie Jupp.
“Sorry to disturb you—” Archie halted, discreetly, at the sight of the family meal. “ But I thought you ought to know … there’s another piece of evidence.”
Archie had been hurrying, he wiped his brow; he was excited yet expressing a sense of grave commiseration.
“Mr. Parkin, who keeps the boats on the pond, remembered he heard a distinct splash late Wednesday night, opposite his boathouse, and this afternoon he went out with the boathook. He struck some clothing, a man’s jacket. He took it to the police office. I’ve just seen it. It’s Mr. Gow’s.”
Tears burst anew from my smarting eyes; of course Mama was crying again, gently and silently.
Papa made a noble gesture of invitation. “Sit in and take a bite with us, Archie.”
Deferentially, Archie pulled up a chair. While accepting his cup from Mama he murmured, in a low voice, to Papa: “He did it once too often, Mr. Leckie.”
To my surprise Papa frowned. “No, I can’t allow you to say that, Jupp. It’s untimely. We all have our faults. He wasn’t a bad old soul. He had a certain dignity, too, when you come to think of it. That way he had of walking down the street, swinging his stick.” He leaned forward and patted my shoulder, not rebuking me for my snivelling, but rather approving it as he murmured gently: “Poor boy … you were fond of him, too.”
Another peal of the front bell—startling us, yet in a sense expected, confirming all our fears. A terrible silence; a silence of certainty as Kate rose and again went to the door. When she returned she was whiter than I had ever seen her.
“Oh, Papa,” she whispered, “ someone from the police station. He wants to see you.”
Through the half-open doorway, I perceived in the lobby behind her the terrifying form of a policeman, red-faced and solemn, turning his helmet in his hands.