Hatter's Castle

by Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин

  "We'll not need so much butter either, Mamma! He was fond of that too," suggested Mary, with her pencil reflectively tapping her white front teeth.

  "We don't need that anyway this morning," retorted Mamma, a trifle coldly, "but I want you to get this week's Good Thoughts when you're out. It's the very thing for Matt, and I'm going to send it to him every week. It'll cheer him up to get it regularly and do his mind a world o' good."

  When they had examined and weighed up all the requirements of the household and carefully estimated the total cost, Mary took the money counted out from her mother's thin purse, slipped on her bonnet, picked up her fine net reticule, and set out upon her errands.

  She was happy to be in the open, feeling, when she was out of doors, freer in her body and in her mind, less confined, less circumscribed by the rooted conformity of her environment. Additionally, each visit to the town now held for her a high and pulsating adventure and at every turn and corner she drew a deep, expectant breath, could scarcely raise her eyes for the hope and fear that she might see Denis. Although she had not had another letter, mercifully, perhaps, for she would then surely have been detected, an inward impression told her that he was now home from his business circuit; if he in reality loved her, he must surely come to Levenford to seek her.

  An instinctive longing quickened her steps and made her heart quicken in sympathy. She passed the Common with a sense of embarrassment, observing, with one quick, diffident glance, that nothing remained of the merry-making of last week but the beaten track of the passage of many feet, blanched squares and circles where the booths and tents had stood, and heaps of debris and smoking ashes upon the worn, burned-out grass; but the littered desolation of the scene gave her no pang, the departure of its flashing cohorts no regret, for in her heart a memory remained which was not blanched, or trampled, or burned out, but which flamed each day more brightly than before.

  Her desire to see Denis intensified, filled her slender figure with a rare aether, setting a mist upon her eyes and a freshness upon her cheeks like the new bloom upon a wild rose; her aspiration rose into her throat and stifled her with a feeling like bitter grief.

  Once in the town, she lingered over her shopping, delaying a little by the windows, hopeful that a light touch upon her arm might suddenly arouse her, taking the longest possible routes and traversing as many streets as she dared, in the hope of encountering Denis. But still she did not see him, and now, instead of veiling her glance, she began to gaze anxiously about her, as though she entreated him to come to her to end the unhappiness of her suspense. Slowly the list of her commissions dwindled and, by the time she had made her last purchase, a small furrow of anxiety perplexed her smooth brow, while her mouth drooped plaintively at its corners as her latent longing now took possession of her. Denis did not love her and for that reason he would not come to her! She had been mad to consider that he could continue to care for her, a creature so little fitted to his charm and graceful beauty; and, with the bitter certainty of despair, she became aware that he would never see her again, that she would be left like a wounded bird, fluttering feebly and alone.

  Now it was impossible to delay her return, for, with a sudden pathetic dignity, she felt she could not be seen loitering about the streets, as though she lowered herself commonly to look for a man who had disdained her; and she turned quickly, with the reticule of parcels dragging upon her arm like a heavy weight as she moved off towards home. She now chose the quiet streets, to hide herself as much as possible, feeling miserably that if Denis did not wish her, she would not thrust herself upon him; and in a paroxysm of sad renunciation, she kept her head lowered and occupied the most inconsiderable space possible upon the pavement which she traversed.

  She had so utterly resigned herself to not seeing Denis that when he suddenly appeared before her from the passage leading out of the new station, it was as if a phantom had issued from the unsubstantial air. She raised her downcast eyes as though, startled and unbelieving, they refused to allow the sudden transport of the vision to pass into her being, to flood it with a joy which might be unreal, merely the delusive mirage of her hopes. But no phantom could hurry forward so eagerly, or smile so captivatingly, or take her hand so warmly, so closely, that she felt the pulse of the hot blood in the ardent, animate hand. It was Denis. Yet he had no right to be so gay and elated, so care-free and dashing, his rapture untouched by any memory of their separation. Did he not understand that she had been forced to wait through weary days of melancholy, had only a moment ago been plunged in sad despondency, even to the consideration

  of her abandonment?

  "Mary, it's like heaven to see you again, and you've the look of one of the angels up above! I only got back home late last night and I came the first moment I could get away. How lucky to catch you like this!" he exclaimed, fervently fixing his eye upon hers.

  Immediately she forgave him. Her despondency melted under the warmth of his flow of high spirits; her sadness perished in the gay infection of his smile; instead, a sudden, disturbing realisation of the sweetly intimate circumstances of their last meeting seized her and a mood of profound shyness overtook her.

  She blushed to see in the open day this young gallant who, cloaked by the benign darkness, had pressed her so closely in his arms, who had been the first to kiss her, to touch caressingly her virgin body.

  Did he know all that she had thought of him since then? All the throbbing recollections of the past and the mad, dancing visions of the future that had obsessed her? She dared not look at him.

  "I'm so delighted to see you again, Mary, I could jump for joy! Are you glad to see me again?" he continued.

  "Yes," she said, in a low, embarrassed voice.

  “I’ve so much to tell you that I couldn't put into my letter. I didn't want to say too much for fear it would be intercepted. Did you get it?"

  "I got it safely, but you mustn't write again," she whispered. "I would be afraid for you to do that."

  What he had said was so indiscreet that the thought of what he had left unsaid made a still higher colour mantle in her cheeks.

  “I won't need to write again for a long time," he laughed meaningly. "Sure, I'll be seeing you ever so often now. I'll be at the office for a month or two until my autumn trip; and speaking of business, Mary dear, you've brought me the luck of a charm I've twice as many orders this time. If ye keep inspirin' me like that, you'll make a fortune for me in no time. Bedad! You'll have to meet me if only to share the profits!"

  Mary looked around uneasily, feeling already in the quiet street a horde of betraying eyes upon her, sensing in his impetuosity how little he understood her position.

  "Denis, I'm afraid I can't wait any longer. We might be seen here."

  "Is it a crime to talk to a young man, then in the morning, anyway," he replied softly, meaningly. "Sure, there's no disgrace in that. And if ye'd rather walk I could tramp to John o' Groats with you! Let me carry your parcels for a bit of the way, Ma'am."

  Mary shook her head. "People would notice us more than ever," she replied timidly, already conscious of the eyes of the town upon her, during that reckless promenade.

  He looked at her tenderly, protectingly, then allowed his resourceful glance to travel up and down the street with what to her devoted eyes, seemed like the intrepid gaze of an adventurer in a hostile land.

  "Mary, my dear," he said presently, in a jocular tone, "you don't know the man you're with yet. Toyle never knows defeat;' that's my motto. Come along in here!" He took her arm firmly and led her a few doors down the street; then, before she realised it and could think even to resist, he had drawn her inside the cream-coloured doors of Bertorelli's cafe. She paled with apprehension, feeling that she had finally passed the limits of respectability, that the depth of her dissipation had now been reached, and looking reproachfully into Denis' smiling face, in a shocked tone she gasped:

  "Oh, Denis, how could you!"

  Yet, as she looked around the clean, empty shop,
with its rows of marble-topped tables, its small scintillating mirrors, and brightly papered walls, while she allowed herself to be guided to one of the plush stalls that appeared exactly like her pew in church, she felt curiously surprised, as if she had expected to find a sordid den suited appropriately to the debauched revels that must, if tradition were to be believed, inevitably be connected with a place like this.

  Her bewilderment was increased by the appearance of a fat, fatherly man with a succession of chins, each more amiable than the preceding honest one, who came up to them, smilingly, bowed with a quick bend of the region which had once been his waist, and said:

  "Good-day, Meester Foyle. Glad to see you back."

  "Morning, Louis!"

  This, then, was the monster himself.

  "Had a nice treep, Meester Foyle? Plenty business, I hope."

  "Plenty! You old lump of blubber! Don't you know by this time I can sell anything? I could sell a ton of macaroni in the streets of Aberdeen."

  Bertorelli laughed and extended his hands expressively, while his chuckle wreathed more chins around his full, beaming face.

  "That woulda be easy, Meester Foyle. Macaroni is good, just the same as porreedge; makes a man beeg like me."

  "That's right, Louis! You're a living example against the use of macaroni. Never mind your figure, though. How's all the family?"

  "Oh! Just asplendeed! The bambino weel soon be as beeg as me Already he has two chins."

  As he rolled with laughter, Mary again gazed aghast at the tragic spectacle of a villain who concealed his rascality under the guise of a fictitious mirth and a false assumption of humanity. But her conflicting thoughts were interrupted by Denis, as he tactfully enquired:

  "What would you like, Mary a macallum?"

  She had sufficient hardihood to nod her head; for although she would not have known a macallum from a macaroon, to have confessed her ignorance before this archangel of iniquity was beyond her.

  "Very good, very nice," agreed Bertorelli, as he ambled away.

  "Nice chap, that," said Denis, "straight as a die; and as kind as you make them!"

  "But," quavered Mary, "they say such things about him."

  "Bah! He eats babies, I suppose! Pure, unlovely bigotry, Mary dear. We'll have to progress beyond that some day, if we're not to stick in the Dark Ages. Although he's Italian he's a human being. Comes from a place near Pisa, where the famous tower is, the one that leans but never falls. We'll go and see it some day we'll do Paris and Rome too," he added casually.

  Mary looked reverently at this young man who called foreigners by their Christian names and who toyed with the capitals of Europe, not boastingly like poor Matt, but with a cool, calm confidence, and she reflected how pulsating life might be with a man like this, so loving and yet so strong, so gentle and yet so undaunted. She felt she was on the way to worshipping him.

  Now she was eating her macallum, a delicious concoction of ice cream and raspberry juice, which, cunningly blending the subtly acid essence of the fruit with the cold mellow sweetness of the ice cream, melted upon her tongue in an exquisite and unexpected delight. Under the table Denis pressed her foot gently with his, whilst his eyes followed her naive enjoyment with a lively satisfaction.

  Why, she asked herself, did she enjoy herself always so exquisitely with him ? Why did he seem, in his kindness, generosity, and tolerance, so different from any one she had known? Why should the upward curl of his mouth and the lights in his hair, the poise of his head, make her heart turn with happiness in her breast?

  "Are you enjoying this?" he asked.

  "It really is nice here," she conceded, with a submissive murmur.

  "It's all right," he agreed. "I wouldn't have taken you, otherwise. But anywhere is nice so long as we are together. That's the secret, Mary!"

  Her eyes sparkled back at him, her being absorbed the courageous vitality which he radiated, and, for the first time since their meeting, she laughed spontaneously, happily, outright.

  "That's better," encouraged Denis. "I was beginning to worry about you." He leant impulsively across the table and took her thin, small fingers in his.

  "You know, Mary dear, I want you so much to be happy. When I first saw you I loved you for your loveliness but it was a sad loveliness. You looked to me as if you were afraid to smile, as if some one had crushed all the laughter out of you. Ever since our wonderful time together, dear, I've been thinking of you. I love you and I hope that you love me, for I feel we are just made for each other. I couldn't live without you now and I want to be with you, to watch you unfold out of your sadness and see you laugh at any silly stupid joke I make to you. Let me pay my court to you openly."

  She was silent, moved immeasurably by his words, then at last she spoke:

  "How I wish we could be together," she said sadly. "I I've missed you so much, Denis. But you don't know my father. He is terrible. There is something about him you don't understand. I'm afraid of him, and he he has forbidden me to speak to you."

  Denis' eyes narrowed.

  "Am I not good enough for him?"

  Mary gripped his fingers tightly, involuntarily, as though he had wounded her.

  "Oh! Don't say that, dear Denis. You're wonderful and I love you, I'd die for you; but my father is the most domineering man you could ever imagine; oh! and the proudest man too."

  "Why is he like that? He has nothing against me? I've nothing to be ashamed of, Mary. Why do you say he is proud?"

  Mary did not reply for a moment. Then she said slowly, "I don't know! When I was little I never thought about it; my father was like a god to me, so big, so strong; every word that he uttered was like a command. As I grew older, I seemed to feel there was some mystery, something which makes him different from ordinary people, which makes him try to mould us into his own fashion, and now I almost fear that he thinks " She paused and looked up at Denis nervously/

  "What?" he urged.

  "I'm not sure, oh! I can hardly say it." She blushed uncomfortably as she haltingly continued, "He seems to think we are related in some way to the Winton family."

  "To the Wintons," he exclaimed incredulously. "To the Earl himself! How on earth does he make that out?"

  She shook her head sadly, miserably. "I don't know. He never lets himself speak of it, but I know it's in the back of his mind all the time. The Winton family name is Brodie, you see Oh! but it's all so ridiculous."

  "Ridiculous!" he echoed. "It does seem ridiculous! What does he expect to get out of it?"

  "Nothing," she exclaimed bitterly. "Only the satisfaction to his pride. He makes life miserable for us at times. He compels us, makes us live differently from other people. We're apart in that house of ours that he built himself, and like him it oppresses us all." Carried away by the expression of her fears, she cried out finally, "Oh ! Denis, I know it's not right for me to talk like this about my own father, but I'm afraid of him. He would never never allow our engagement."

  Denis set his teeth. "I'll go and see him myself. I'll convince him in spite of himself and I'll make him let me see you. I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of any man living."

  She jumped up in a panic. "No! No, Denis! Don't do that. He would punish us both dreadfully." The vision of her father, with his fearful, brute strength, mauling the beauty of this young gladiator, terrified her. "Promise me you won't," she cried.

  "But we must see each other, Mary. I can't give you up."

  "We could meet sometimes," said Mary.

  "That leads nowhere, dear; we must have some definite understanding. You know I want to marry you." He looked at her closely; he knew her ignorance to be such that he was afraid to say any more. Instead, he took up her hand, kissed the palm softly, and laid his cheek against it.

  "Will you meet me soon?" he asked inconsequently. "I would like to be in the moonlight with you again to see it shining in your eyes, to see the moonbeams dancing in your hair." He lifted his head and looked lovingly at her hand, which he still held in his.
"Your hands are like snowdrops, Mary, so soft and white and drooping. They are cool like snow itself against my hot face. I love them, and I love you."

  A passionate longing seized him to have her always with him. If necessary he would fight; he would be stronger than the circumstances that separated them, stronger than fate itself; in a different voice he said firmly:

  "Surely you will marry me, even if we've got to wait, won't you, Mary?"

  While he sat silent against the garish background of the empty shop, his hand lightly touching hers, awaiting her answer, she saw in his eyes the leaping of his kindred soul towards her, in his question only the request that she be happy with him always, and, forgetting instantly the difficulty, danger and total impossibility of the achievement, knowing nothing of marriage but only loving him, losing her fear in his strength and sinking herself utterly in him, her eyes looked deeply into his, as she answered:

  "Yes."

  He did not move, did not cast himself upon his knee in a passion of protesting gratitude, but in his stillness a current of unutterable love and fervour flowed from his body into hers through the medium of their touching hands and into his eyes there welled up such a look of tenderness and devotion that, meeting hers, it fused about them like an aura of radiance.

  "You'll not regret it, dear," he whispered, as he leaned across the table and softly kissed her lips. "I'll do my utmost to make you happy, Mary! I've been selfish, but now you will always come first. I'll work hard for you. I'm making my way fast and I'm going to make it faster. I've got something in the bank now and in a short time, if you? I’ll wait, Mary, we'll just walk off and get married."

  The dazzling simplicity of the solution blinded her, as, thinking how easy it would be fpr them to run away suddenly, secretly, without her father knowing, to loose themselves utterly from him, she dasped her hands together and whispered:

  "Oh! Denis, could we? I never thought of that!"

  "We can and we will, dear Mary. Ill work hard so that we can manage soon. Remember my motto! We'll make that our family crest Never mind the Wintons! Now, not another word or another worry for that little head of yours. Leave everything to me and remember only that I'm thinking of you and striving for you all the time. We may have to be careful how we meet, but surely I can see you occasionally even if it's only to admire the elegant little figure of you from a distance."