A Song of Sixpence

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘Don’t fail to give my regards to your Dutch friend,’ she said, almost with benevolence. ‘And this once ye may keep the fish:’

  Father walked all the way down the avenue in total silence. I dared not look at him. How frightful must be his humiliation—the crushed abasement of a man whom I had hitherto believed capable of anything, of coming out top in the most embarrassing and alarming situations. Suddenly I gave a start Father was laughing, yes, he had begun to laugh. I thought he would never stop. Turning to me with a look of complicity he clapped me companionably on the back.

  ‘The old girl got the better of us, boy. And I’m hanged if I don’t like her for it.’

  With these few words he reinstated himself. My faith in him was restored. That was always Father’s way—he had the knack of snatching victory from defeat. But just before we reached home he put a finger to his lips and lowered his left eyelid.

  ‘All the same, we’ll not say anything to your mother.’

  Chapter Five

  I had made my peace with Maggie, an act of amendment for which, afterwards, I had cause to bless my mother.

  Consulting with her on the most appropriate means of atonement she suggested that I should spend my Saturday penny on whatever my betrayed friend liked best. I accordingly purchased, at Luckie Grant’s, a ha’penny worth of black-striped balls and the same amount of coloured transfers and carried these gifts to Maggie’s home on the far side of the railway line.

  She was seated by a dull fire in the dark little stone-floored kitchen that smelled of soapsuds. She had a sore throat and wore a woollen stocking fastened round her neck with a safety-pin. Perhaps because of this, she received me gently, so gently that I gave way to remorseful tears. For this weakness Maggie reproved me mildly in words I have never forgotten and which were so painfully true I must record them in Maggie’s own native idiom.

  ‘Och, Laurie, laddie, ye’re a fearfu’ greeter. Yer tear-bag is awfu’ near yer e’en.’

  Maggie’s mother was out, to my great relief, for I could not bear her, not alone because she nagged Maggie, but because, calling me ‘love’, and other endearments which I knew to be false, she sought to pump me about my home with insidious questions such as did my mother get on with father, what had she paid for her new hat, and why did we eat fish on Friday?

  All that afternoon Maggie and I sat together at the wooden table and stuck the coloured transfers on our hands and arms while sucking the black-striped balls. Cementing our restored amity I gave her a lucky medal which I said would cure her throat. Actually this was a little silver St Christopher medal of the size and shape of a sixpence, but as I dared not invoke the religious element, I made it out to be a charm. Maggie, who liked charms, was delighted and when we parted repeatedly assured me that we were friends again.

  In spite of our mutual pledge I did not see much of Maggie that winter. My poor friend was never free. Nevertheless, as I sat at my homework I was pleasantly aware, listening with one ear to my parents’ conversation, that good things were being prepared for Maggie and for her betterment.

  As our circumstances improved, Father had been urging Mother to seek some help in the work of the house. He had never liked to see her scrubbing or sweeping although I must confess that he rarely offered his assistance in such undertakings. Mother, I truly believe, in spite of the apparent absurdity of the statement, enjoyed housework, and the deep satisfaction of creating a spotless, shining, well-ordered home. She was what the Scots term ‘house proud’ and I well remember how, on those days when she had washed the kitchen and scullery floors, I was made to take my shoes off and tread in my stockings on the spread newspapers. Hitherto she had demurred at Father’s suggestions, but now twin circumstances induced a change of mind: the new piano demanded better care of her hands, and Maggie, now fourteen, was leaving school at the end of the month.

  Mother had a tender heart. She was sorry for Maggie and had grown fond of her. She now made a suggestion to Father which he instantly approved and of which I became the instrument when Mother instructed me:

  ‘Laurie dear, when you see Maggie tell her I’d like to speak to her mother.’

  Next day when Maggie stopped at our house during the lunch hour to say that her mother would ‘come round’ on Saturday evening, Mother took the opportunity of sounding her out. Naturally, I was not present at the interview, but Maggie’s expression, as she departed, was proud and happy. When I saw her at school that afternoon she had a new air, an important and entirely superior personality as, pausing only to beam a smile towards me, she confided to the other girls in her class that, freed of the tyranny of these everlasting milk cans, she was to be our maid, to have the small attic bedroom, a new dress and a good wage.

  Next day was Saturday. In the afternoon, following her weekly custom, Mother put on her best dove-grey costume and, taking me by the hand, proceeded to the village in the open and friendly manner she invariably adopted on such occasions and which was of course completely the reverse of the attitude affected by her husband. Father’s public attitude was really inexcusable. I believe he had been badly hurt in some way, unknown to me, during those early difficult days at Rosebank and he was not one who readily forgave an insult. Mother was different, amiably disposed towards all the world, willing to overlook a slight, eager to make friends, and she sought always to modify father’s ‘ touchiness’, to disarm prejudice and soften hostility. These Saturday excursions, although ostensibly for the practical purposes of shopping, envisaged other objectives and during our promenade, while holding herself in readiness to accept and return the few acknowledgements made to her, Mother, moving in a glowing ambience of good feeling, would maintain a lively conversation with me on all sorts of subjects, thus conveying to the village an impression of our strong social instincts.

  On this particular afternoon she spent a very agreeable half-hour at Miss Todd’s, the milliner’s, choosing a dark dress and also a new pair of stockings and house shoes for Maggie. Thereafter she had a good gossipy talk with Polly Grant, who now never failed to ask after my cousin Terence, then emerging from the grocery, she actually, received a bow from Mrs Duthie elderly wife of the village doctor. Things were looking up for Mother. And this was not all. As we turned to go home, we encountered Pin Rankin, who pegged hard across the road to intercept us.

  ‘Have you a moment, Mrs Carroll?’

  Naturally Mother had as many moments as were desired. Pin, a bachelor, was always shy with women. He took a quick breath, which I knew to be the prelude to a longish speech delivered with the same involvement that, no doubt, had marred his sermons.

  ‘You have a bright boy, m’am. Some of his compositions are outstanding. I read them to the class. But it’s not that I wish to speak to you about. The fact is, Lady Meikle is organizing a charity concert for the Children’s Home to be held in the village hall on the fifth of next month, and I wondered, we wondered if you would consent to perform a piano solo. I, we would be so pleased and grateful if you would favour us.’

  I looked sharply at Mother. She had blushed deeply. She did not answer for a moment.

  ‘Oh, do, Mother,’ I cried. ‘You know how beautifully you play.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I will play.’

  On the way home Mother, ordinarily so discursive, remained completely silent. Yet from that silence I knew how deeply this recognition, so long delayed, had gratified her.

  In the kitchen Father was brewing some herbal tea at the stove. His cold was apparently not quite gone and he had taken to dosing himself with a concoction of his own. Now, he looked seedy and in a mood that was far from propitious. When Mother disclosed her great news he stared at her. I could see that he was going to throw this precious invitation back in the teeth of the village.

  ‘Naturally you told them to go to the devil.’

  ‘No, Conor.’ Mother shook her head firmly. ‘It’s a good thing. It means that they’re taking to us at last.’

  ‘They’ve
only come to you because they need you.’

  But Mother had known he would be difficult. She was determined to have her way. Countering all his arguments, she talked Father over. In the end, he became reconciled, in fact quite puffed up with the idea. Realizing that Lady Meikle was ‘behind it’ he was inclined, with the vanity of a reformed lady-killer, to attribute the invitation to his influence upon her, the result of that memorable meeting.

  ‘You see, boy,’ he gave me a conspirator’s nod, ‘she hasn’t forgotten us.’

  That jocular glance of Father’s seemed to set a seal upon the new pattern of our life. We were getting on in the world. Father was prospering, Mother was to play at the concert, I had been praised by Pin for the little essays he set for the weekend homework and, to crown all, in the village people were actually beginning to like us. What a lucky boy I was, and how shining a future stretched before me.

  That evening, as we were seated by the fire, variously engaged, the front door bell pealed. An unusual sound. Looking up from the pursuit of knowledge in Pears’ Cyclopaedia, I wondered, in mild alarm, who had come to breach our little castle. But Mother, knitting placidly, merely said:

  ‘That’ll be Maggie’s mother. Run, Laurie, and ask her to come in.’

  I went to the door, and presently returned.

  ‘She says she’d rather not come in.’

  Mother looked surprised but, rolling up her knitting and spiking it with her needles, she immediately got up. I followed her halfway to the door. Already I surmised that something was wrong but nothing had prepared me for the violence or the virulence of the attack.

  ‘You’re not to have my Maggie.’

  Mother seemed dumbfounded.

  ‘If it’s a question of a little more money … I’m quite willing …’

  ‘Not all the money in the world will buy my Maggie.’

  Was she drunk? No, peering into the darkness, I saw a face possessed, distorted by rage and spite. I shall not attempt to recreate the stupid and malicious abuse she launched at Mother. When I first contemplated this story of my childhood I pledged myself to record no ill of anyone. But Maggie’s mother was that unfortunate creature, a woman so envenomed by misfortune she sustained herself on hatred. Maggie had always been her drudge, the outlet for her rankling grudges, the living, ragged evidence of her own ill usage. She could hot bear to think of her escaping to a happier and more comfortable life. Mother was trembling now under a fresh tirade in the midst of which, after the words ‘you and your papist medals’, I saw something thrown, a small silver disc, that hit the floor and rolled on its edge to my feet. The lucky charm I had given Maggie. As I picked it up I saw that Father had come silently forward, still holding the Herald which somehow increased his air of studied calm.

  ‘My good woman.’ He spoke moderately, without rancour, yet in a voice of ice. ‘You have said enough. We are all fond of your daughter here. Anything we have done or proposed to do has been with the best intentions. But as you so obviously dislike and distrust us, we can only yield to your wishes. And now will you please withdraw.’

  She was silenced. She had expected invective and was prepared for it, not for this dignified restraint. Before she could collect herself, Father quietly closed the door.

  How I admired Father at that moment. Knowing him to be capable of the most inflammatory tempers, of truly majestic displays of contemptuous satire, he might well have reduced the incident to a vulgar brawl. But we ourselves were unduly silent for the rest of that evening. On Mother’s account Father was obviously put out, the measure of which was that he lit a cigarette. He did not smoke—he hadn’t the inclination, or perhaps he was vain of his beautiful teeth and did not want to discolour them—but in rare moments of stress he would resort to a Mitchell’s Special No. 1. And now, puffing inexpertly, with one eye half closed against the smoke and the other directed at intervals reassuringly towards Mother, he sought to compose himself and her. Next day at school news of Maggie’s predicament had reached the playground and obliquely, from the corner of my eye, I could not fail to note the ring of her tormentors. But Maggie, though downcast, was tough and could give back as good as she received. After class she waited and, taking my hand, walked down the road with me.

  ‘Anyway, we’re still friends, Laurie. And one of these days I will come and work for your mother.’

  But Mother was still upset. She had not the heart to practise for the concert. However, on the evening of the last day of the month, after she had prepared supper, she went to the piano while waiting for Father’s return. I was in my place at the window, yet so absent in my thoughts that the whistle of Father’s train reached me from another world. Yet vaguely I had begun to be aware that he was a long time in coming from the station when I heard the familiar nightly click of the front door. Mother immediately broke off and went to meet him. As I turned away it was almost dusk outside. Suddenly, through the side window, I saw two men moving slowly up the road. Pressing close to the glass and rubbing away the mist of my breath I made out Jim, the station porter, and the signalman who worked the level-crossing gates. They were passing now very slowly, in single file, with bent heads, carrying something between them. Was it a long plank, covered with a blanket? At first I did not take it in, yet I received so sinister an impression from that sagging elongated thing and from the slow pace of the men who bore it that suddenly I was terribly afraid. I ran to tell Father. He was standing in the lobby with Mother. He had not taken off his hat or coat. His face was white with shock. In a voice I did not recognize he was saying to Mother:

  ‘Her foot must have caught in the points, the train comes in so slow. But, Grace,’ his voice broke, ‘ if you’d seen the poor thing we lifted up.’

  Mother, with a terrible cry, covered her face with her hands.

  Dumb with horror, I knew no immediate pain, only that Maggie had done with the milk cans for good.

  Chapter Six

  How sad and confused, above all how unforeseen, was the period that followed. Even now, disentangling it from memory, I still cannot view it without pain. Surely no one could have blamed Mother for Maggie’s death. On that same night Father had gone back to the level crossing with a lantern from the signal box and found, wedged in the switch ‘points’ of the rails, the torn-off heel of Maggie’s boot. My poor friend, trapped in this vice, had clearly made a frantic effort to free herself. At the inquiry the procurator fiscal had made it clear that if Maggie had wished to destroy herself she would not first have carefully inserted her foot in the switch then tried to tear it loose. And I knew too from Maggie’s last hopeful remark to me that no such intention had ever entered her mind. And yet, despite the evidence, the certainty of accident was rejected by the village in favour of the more awful alternative and Maggie, exalted by tragedy, became a martyr to our interference.

  The theme was played with variations. Father, bitterly reporting the latest gossip as we sat at dinner, did not spare us. If we had not come between a devoted mother and her only child, dangling false promises, arousing illusory hopes, if only we had ‘let the poor girl be’ she would still be alive and happy. And, of all people, what need had we of a servant!

  Mother, who had not stirred from the house for days, and who now at our evening meal was barely touching her food, pressed her hands together.

  ‘We’ll have to leave, Conor.’

  ‘Leave?’ Father stopped eating.

  ‘Yes. Get away from this wretched Ardencaple. You’ve always wanted to.’

  ‘What!’ Both Father’s eyebrows shot up dangerously. ‘Run away! Bolt like a rabbit! What do you think I am? There’s nothing wrong with Ardencaple itself. I like the place and country here. Now especially, nothing would make me leave. Besides …’ He spoke slowly, with special meaning. ‘Don’t forget you have an engagement at the concert.’

  ‘That!’ Mother cried, all the softness in her nature shrinking from the mere idea. ‘I’m going to no concert, never, never.’

  ‘But you are
, Grace.’

  ‘No, no. I can’t face it.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘I’m mot capable of it. I’d break down.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘But, Conor … to be up there, before them all, alone.’

  ‘You won’t be alone. I’ll be with you. And so will Laurence. Don’t you see, lass,’ he was looking at her grimly, ‘if you don’t go it’ll be a clear admission of guilt. We are utterly blameless for poor Maggie’s accident. So we must go, all of us, stand up for ourselves, and show, that we don’t give a tinker’s curse for what they say.’

  Already I was shaking at a prospect that had suddenly reached out chilly arms towards me. Yet while, like Mother, I sat dismayed, Father faced us with a calm, remote determination.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said, as though talking to himself. ‘ Yes, you … will … see.’

  On the afternoon of the concert Father came home by an earlier train. Under his arm he carried a long stiff cardboard box, the contents of which were revealed to me when, at half past six, Mother came slowly, almost unwillingly, downstairs looking lovely, but oh, so fearfully pale, and wearing a new blue silk dress, cut low in the neck and with a long pleated skirt.

  ‘Yes,’ Father said in a hard voice, after studying her critically. ‘Exactly the colour of your eyes.’

  ‘It’s beautiful, Con,’ Mother said faintly, ‘and must have cost a ransom. But oh, I feel so nervous.’

  ‘You won’t, lass,’ Father said, in that same gritty tone. Then, to my amazement—for I had never seen such a thing in the house before and knew my father to be of a most temperate habit that rarely took him beyond a glass of beer with his customers—he produced a flat bottle distinctly labelled: Martell’s Three Star Brandy. Carefully, as though measuring out a medicine, he poured a substantial draught into a glass, added a sudden generous splash, then held it out to Mother.

  ‘No, Con, no.’