Within her body the unformed child leapt and throbbed, as if in sympathy and gratitude for the reprieve which had been granted to it.
And Mary, feeling the weak impotence of that thankful impulse, was moved with a sudden pity. In the revulsion of her feeling she turned quickly, in a passion of self-reproach, to the drawer where she had concealed the salts of lemon, and lifting the packet in a frenzy of disgust, concealed it in her hand and hastened downstairs. As she hurried past the half -open door of the parlour, she saw old Grandma Brodie nodding drowsily, and she realised happily that Rose had not been observed, that for once the sentinel slept at her post. Quickly she went through the kitchen and entered the scullery where, with a feeling of aversion, she thrust the contents of the packet, not back upon its shelf, but into the sink, where a rapid stream from the tap washed it away from her for ever. Then, with a new freedom, she went to a cupboard, poured out a glass of milk and cut herself a thick wedge of cold steamed pudding left over from dinner. The pudding was luscious and full of soft, sweet currants; her teeth bit into it with relish.
The milk tasted like a draught of some rich nectar, cool as the froth from melting snowflakes. She was prolonging her meal as long as possible, by sipping slowly and nibbling the last crust of pudding, when her mother entered the scullery. Mamma looked at Mary curiously.
"You're hungry?" she remarked. "I wish I could eat like that. The sermons have improved your appetite."
"Let me cut you a piece of this, Mamma."
"No! We're to have it heated up to-morrow. It doesn't matter about me."
By her attitude Mrs. Brodie conveyed that Mary was selfish to consume the pudding, that she herself would have desired it, but that she was deliberately sacrificing her personal gratification in the interests of the common good. Mary looked apologetic. With the first mouthful she had enjoyed for weeks she had been made to feel greedy.
"I'm glad to see you in a better frame of mind, anyway," said Mamma, noting the look. "Keep it up for your father to-night. I want him to see I've been speaking to you."
Here a light step sounded in the hall. This time it was, in reality, Nessie, who came in gaily, glistening like a young seal from the rain.
"It's awfully wet now," she cried; "and I want a piece and jelly." Her mother looked at her fondly.
"Ye've a braw colour on your cheeks, dear. That's the way I like my bairns to look; not white and miserable." This was a veiled hint to Mary, and as a further reproof to her elder daughter, Mamma gave Nessie, as a treat, not bread and jelly, but white bread with butter and carraway seeds spread upon it.
"Carvie! Lovely!" cried Nessie; "and I deserve it. Oh! Mary, you do look better to-night yourself. I'm glad! You'll soon be bonny like me," she added with a giggle, inconsequently twirling about.
"Why do you deserve it, pettie?" queried Mamma.
"Well!" replied Nessie importantly, "we had the school inspector this afternoon, and the whole junior school had what he called a memory test, and who do you think was first?"
"Who?" demanded Mamma, with bated breath.
"Me!" shrieked Nessie, waving her bread and carvie.
"My word!" said Mamma. "Your father will be pleased." She looked at Mary, as if to say, "That's the kind of daughter I prefer." Actually she was not in the least exultant at the scholastic success. What delighted her was that she had, in this achievement, a tangible asset to put the lord and master of the house in a complacent frame of mind.
Mary looked at Nessie tenderly, feeling how near she had been to leaving her for ever.
"That was just splendid!" she said, and placed her cheek lovingly against her sister's cold, wet face.
A STILLNESS lay over Levenford. Sunday afternoon was always quiet; the morning bells had then rung themselves out; the bustle of the shops and the noise of shipyards were hushed; no step echoed in the empty street; the people, sunk in the lethargy produced by a heavy dinner following a long sermon, sat indoors, stiffly trying to read, or slept uncomfortably in their chairs.
But this afternoon was unusually still. A dull, yellow sky pressed down upon the town and imprisoned it in a vault of heavy silence. Within this vault the stagnant air was difficult to breathe and filled the lungs with a sense of vitiation. The streets seemed narrowed, the houses nearer to each other, and the Winton and Doran Hills, usually so majestic and remote, were low and close at hand as if, cowering from the encroaching sky, they crept in upon the town for protection.
The trees stood petrified in the sultry air, their stripped branches drooping like stalactites in a cave. No birds were to be seen. Desolate and depopulated, the landscape lay in such an oppressive silence as might precede a battle, and the deserted town, empty ot nte and movement, stood like a beleaguered city fearfully awaiting the onset of an attack.
Mary sat upstairs at her bedroom window. Now, at every opportunity, she stole away to her room, finding in that retreat alone a sanctuary in which she obtained solitude and refuge. She felt ill. In church that morning an intolerable sickness had seized her and during dinner she had been compelled to remain quiescent and uncomplaining while her head and body ached incessantly. Now, as she sat with her chin cupped in both hands, looking out upon the strange immobility of the land, she wondered if it lay within her power to last out the next two days.
With a faint shudder, she reviewed in her mind her struggles of the past eight weeks. In his first note Denis had asked her to wait only until the middle of December, but it was now the twenty-eighth day of that month and she had still to endure the torture of her life at home for another two days. It was, she realised, not his fault. He had been obliged to extend the scope of his business activities in the North and was now acting for hia firm in Edinburgh and Dundee. They were pleased with his work; the delay was in actuality advantageous; but at present she found it hard to bear.
Only two more days! Then with Denis beside her in their snug and strong cottage by the Garshake shore a fastness to enclose them both she could face anything. She had visioned their cottage continuously that it stood always firm, white and steadfast in her mind, like a beacon, a shining emblem of protection, drawing her towards its safety. But she was losing faith in her ability to continue the struggle against the growing lassitude of her body and the ever- present dread of discovery.
She was, in effect, seven and a half months pregnant, but her fine, firm body had, until lately, retained its shape adequately. She had grown more mature and paler in her face, but no noticeable distortion in her form had taken place, and any alteration in her appearance had been attributed to the effects of the more rigid discipline to which she had been subjected. But recently, she had been obliged to lace herself more tightly, and to strain to hold her back and shoulders erect in order to maintain, in the face of greater difficulty and with
unceasing effort, the semblance of her natural figure. The cramping grip of her corset almost stifled her, but she was now compelled to suffer this continually, to sit passively under the cold eye of Brodie whilst she felt her child turn protestingly under the unnatural restraint, and to preserve in the face of everything an aspect of unconcern and tranquillity.
She imagined, too, that of late, in spite of her every precaution, Mamma had entertained a vague uneasiness regarding her. Frequently she had looked up to intercept a doubting, questioning glance levelled acidly at her. Faint unformed suspicions, she realised, moved like latent shadows in her mother's mind, and only the preposterous nature of their purport had hitherto prevented them from assuming more definite shape.
The last three months had dragged past more slowly and more fearfully than all the years of her life which had preceded them, and now, with the climax imminent and relief at hand, her strength seemed to be leaving her. To-day, a numb pain in her back added to her distress, and at intervals small, sweeping waves of suffering traversed her. As the memory of all that she had endured rose poig-
nantly before her, a tear splashed down her check.
This quiet movement, the
coursing of a teardrop down her face, which disturbed her sad, statuesque passivity, had its counterpart in nature. Whilst she gazed, the front gate, which had all day hung half-open upon its listless hinges, was impelled into sluggish motion and swung slowly shut with a loud clang, as though an invisible hand had negligently pushed it. A moment later, a heap of dead leaves which lay in the far corner of the courtyard stirred, and a handful eddied, raised themselves spirally upwards on the air with a sighing susurrus, then subsided and were still.
Mary viewed both of these movements with a sensation of disturbance; perhaps her state induced such disquiet, for they had been in themselves insignificant, but the contrast of the sudden, unwarranted movements against the close, imperturbable quiet of the day was starkly arresting. The hush outside deepened, whilst the brassy sky grew more sombre and crept lower to the earth. As she sat, quiescent, awaiting another surge of pain, the front gate again swung gently open, hesitated, and recoiled with a more resounding concussion than before; the long- drawn-out, noisy creak of the opening gate came to her like an interrogation and the quick-following clang like an abrupt and decisive reply. A faint ripple undulated across the field which lay opposite and the long grasses ruffled like smoke; under her staring eyes, a wisp of straw lying in the roadway was suddenly whisked high into the air and flung far out of sight by an unseen and inexplicable force. Then the silent air was filled with a soft, quick pattering, and a mongrel dog came racing down the street, its sides panting, its ears laid back flat, its eyes cowering. With a startled curiosity Mary marked its stricken aspect and asked herself the reason of its haste and terror.
The answer to her unspoken question came like a sigh from a long way off, a low-pitched hum which swept in from beyond the Winton Hills and echoed around the house. It encircled the grey walls, twisted sinuously through the embrasures of the parapet, whirled amongst the chimneys, spun around the solemn, granite balls, dwelt an instant at Mary's window, then receded in a gradual diminuendo, like the roar of a defeated wave upon a shingle shore. A long silence ensued, then the sound returned, swelling in from the distant hills more loudly, remaining longer than before, and retreating more slowly to a vantage point less remote.
At the end of this last, shivering drone the door of the bedroom opened and Nessie came precipitately in.
"Mary, I'm frightened," she cried. "What's that noise? It's like a great, big, humming-top."
"It's nothing but the wind."
"But there's no wind at all. Everything's as. quiet as the grave and what a colour the sky is! Oh! I'm feared of it, Mary."
"There's going to be a storm, I think, but don't worry; you'll be all right, Nessie."
"Oh! Dearie me," cried Nessie, with a shiver, "I hope there'll be no lightning. I'm that scared of it. If it hits you they say it burns you up, and if you sit near steel that attracts it more than anything."
"There's not a steel thing in the room," Mary reassured her.
Nessie came closer.
"Let me stay with you a little," she entreated; "you seem to have been far away from me lately. If ye let me bide with you that sound will not seem so fearsome." She sat down and placed her thin arm around her sister; but instinctively Mary drew away.
"There you are again! You won't even let me touch you. You don't love me like you used to," Nessie grieved, and, for a moment, it looked as though she would rise and go out in childish pique. Mary sat silent; she could not justify her action, but she took Nessie's hand and pressed it gently. Partly reassured by this gesture, Nessie's hurt expression faded and she pressed Mary's hand in return. Thus, hand in hand, the two sisters looked out silently upon the panting
earth.
The atmosphere had now become dry and rare and infused with an acrid, saline character which irritated the nostrils like brine. The dun sky had darkened to a blackish purple, meeting the near horizon like smoke, blotting out distant objects and throwing into strange relief those that were near. The sense of increasing isolation from the outer world thus produced was terrifying to Nessie. She gripped Mary's hand more tightly as she cried, "These clouds are coming on top of us. It's like a big black wall. Oh! I'm feared of it. Will it fall on us?"
"No, dear," whispered Mary, "it can't hurt us." But the dark, enclosing barrier still advanced, and upon its summit streaks of lighter saffron lay, like spume upon the crest of a breaking comber. Against this background the three birch trees had lost their soft, silvery mobility; stiff and livid, they gripped the soil mure tenaciously with their sinewy roots, their stems standing straight, with closely furled branches, like masts awaiting oppressively the batter of a hurricane.
From amongst the now hidden hills came a secret mutter like the tattoo of muffled drums. It seemed as if it rolled along the crests of the hilltops, bouading down the ravines, across the streams and up the gulleys, the close-following notes chasing each other with a frantic revelry.
"That's thunder," shivered Nessie. "It's like guns firing."
"It's a long way off," Mary comforted her. "It may pass over us without breaking here."
" I feel it's going to be a terrible storm. Will we both go to Mamma, Mary?"
"You go if you like," replied Mary, "but you're just as safe here, dear."
The thunder drew nearer. It ceased to rattle continuously and instead pealed brokenly; but now each peal was loud as an explosion and each succeeding explosion more violent than the one before. This ominous quality of approach conveyed to Nessie the impression that she was the focus of some blind, celestial fury, which was surely converging upon her and would ultimately destroy her.
"I'm sure it'll get us," she gasped. "Oh! there's the lightning."
An ear-splitting crash accompanied the first flash of lightning, a thin, blue streak which darted raggedly across the dead sky, as if the detonation of the thunder had suddenly cracked the bowl of the firmament, allowing, for one quivering instant, a dazzling and unearthly light to penetrate.
"It's forked!" cried Nessie. "That's more dangerous than sheet. Come away from the window!" She tugged at Mary's arm.
"You're as safe here as anywhere," Mary repeated.
"Oh! It's no good saying that. This room of yours gets the worst of it! I'm going away to Mamma. I'll put my head below the blankets in her room till that awful lightning stops. Come away or you'll be struck;" and she rushed out of the room in a panic.
Mary did not follow her but continued to watch the growing storm alone. She felt like a lonely watcher in a tower, obsessed by pain and danger, for whose diversion a gigantic tourney was waged by nature's forces. The discord which raged outside was a drastic anodyne, which served to distract her from her increasing pain, the pangs of which seemed to her to be slowly intensifying. She was glad to be alone once more, glad that Nessie had left her. It was easier for her to suffer in solitude. The thunder fulminated wildly, and the lightning cas-
caded like fluid across the sky with a blinding intensity. Often, the onset of her pain would synchronise with a flash, and then she felt that she, a speck within the universe, was linked by the chain of light to this titanic upheaval of the heavens.
As the distracting influence of the storm upon her failed, the disturbance ceased to be palliative; she began, involuntarily, to interpret it in terms of her bodily suffering and became herself involved in the tumult around her. The rolling waves of thunder lifted her in their upward sweep and carried her off upon their undulating echoes, until, suddenly, a violet lightning flash would stab her with pain and cast her down again upon the ground. When the thunder failed, the wind, which had been rapidly increasing in volume, swept her back again into the midst of the chaos. This wind especially frightened Mary, began, indeed, to terrify her. The first soughing onset and retreat which had whirled the leaves and then left them motionless, had been but the prelude to a series of deeper and more powerful attacks. Now there was no retreat and with crushing vigour the full force of the blast struck the land. Mary felt the strong, stout house tremble to its foundation
s, as though an infinity of tearing fingers were rending each stone from its bed of mortar. She saw her own trees whipped downwards, like drawn bows bent double under some prodigious strain; with each gust they bent; then, liberated, again sprang upwards with a twanging sound. The arrows they released were invisible, but they penetrated Mary's room as shafts of pain. The long grasses in the field were no longer gently ruffled, but were flattened as though a gigantic scythe had decimated them. Each fierce blast of the gale battered at the windows, rattling them in their frames, then rushed howling around the house, with all the uncouth demons of sound loosed and rampant upon its wings.
Then the rain began. It fell at first in heavy, solitary gouts which stained the wind-swept pavements with spots each as large as a crown piece. Faster and faster came the drops, until a solid sheet of water deluged the earth. Water splashed upon the open roadways, hissed and dripped from the roofs and gutters of houses, spattered against trees, flattened shrubs and bushes by its very density and weight. Water flooded everything. The gutters were at once filled to overflowing and ran like torrents; the streets became watercourses, and running
streams, filled with floating debris, sluiced along the main thorough- fares.
With the commencement of the rain the lightning gradually ceased, the thunder passed over, and the air chilled perceptibly; but the storm, instead of abating, grew more violent with every moment. The wind gained velocity. Mary heard it drive the rain in waves, like sea surf, upon the roof of the house! then she faintly heard a snap and saw the flagstaff, riven from the turret, fall clattering to the ground.
At this she got up and began to pace up and down the room, hardly able to endure the racking ache which now seemed continually an element of her being. She had felt nothing of the kind before, nothing to equal this in all her life. She wondered, uncertainly, if she should ask her mother for some remedy, thinking that a hot application might perhaps do good, but, reluctantly, she abandoned the idea as dangerous. She did not know that such an antidote would have been ineffectual, for, although she had no apprehension of her condition, she was already advanced in the throes of a premature labour. Like the untimely darkness of the premature night which now began to fall upon the outraged earth, this precipitate travail had already, and too soon, begun to lay its mantle of suffering upon her. The mental hardships she had undergone were demanding an un-
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