Hatter's Castle

by Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин

  Agnes Moir had suffered in the same respect and- his later letters to her had been indifferent in sentiment to the point of actual coldness, filled with veiled, then direct allusions, to the unsuitability of the Indian climate for a wife, and interpolated by intimations as to his unworthiness or unwillingness to accept her chastely proffered matrimonial relationship. Miss Moir's soft, amorous nature had received a rude and painful check by these chilling and infrequent effusions. Now, as she thought of Agnes, Mamma, with the irrational

  yet inherent notion of seeking consolation in a despondency equal to her own, decided, despite her own lassitude and the inclemency of the weather, to visit her future daughter-in-law. A glance at the clock told her that she had two free hours which she could utilise for this purpose without being missed by any of the household an important point as, since Mary's banishment, Brodie expected her to account to him for her every absence from the house.

  Accordingly, she got up and, ascending to her room, discarded her wrapper by allowing it to slide from her to the floor; without once regarding herself in the glass she made her toilet by giving her face a quick wipe with the wetted end of a towel. She next withdrew from the wardrobe what revealed itself to be, after removing several pinned, protecting sheets of paper, an old sealskin jacket. The jacket, a relic of the days before her marriage, was now worn, frayed, shiny, and in places of a drab, brownish tinge. It had been kept and worn intermittently for a period of over twenty years, and this decayed and dilapidated coat, which had once enclosed her young, virgin figure, held as much tragedy as Margaret Brodie herself. She did not, however, view it in this sombre light, regarding it as sealskin, real sealskin, no longer perhaps elegant in cut, but still genuine sealskin, and treasuring it accordingly as the most splendid garment she possessed. For a moment she forgot her sorrow as, holding up the jacket, denuded of its wrappings, to the satisfaction of her appraising eyes, she shook it gently, touched the faded fur with caressing fingers; then, with a sigh, as though she had shaken out from its musty texture faded recollections of her forgotten youth, slowly she assumed it, when at least it had the merit of covering her rusty gown and sheathing warmly her decrepit figure. Her next action was to cram upon her untidy hair, and to stab carelessly into position, a black hat plumed with a withered pinion which trailed, with a frightful travesty of coquetry, behind her left ear; having thus accomplished completely her attire for the outer air, she hastened downstairs and left the house with a mien which was almost stealthy.

  In the street, unlike her husband, she did not swagger her way down the middle of the road, but instead crept along the inner side of the pavement with short, shuffling steps, her head inclined, her face blue with cold, her figure shirking observation, her entire aspect a graphic exposition of resigned martyrdom. The snow turned her dull sealskin to glittering ermine, blew into her eyes and mouth and made her cough, penetrated her thin, inadequate boots and soaked her feet so profusely that, long before she reached the Moir's shop, they squelched at every step.

  Despite the unexpectedness of this visitation, Agnes was delighted to see her and welcomed her warmly, whilst a quick look passed between the two women, each searching the other's eyes for some recorded sign of better tidings. Immediately they knew their eager hope to be unfulfilled, deferred, and their eyes fell dejectedly; but still they voiced the question which each had, silently, already answered.

  "Have you had anything this week, Aggie?"

  "Not yet, Mamma." She fondly addressed Mrs. Brodie by that term in the sanguine anticipation of her future relationship. "Have you?"

  "No, dear, not yet, but maybe the mail is delayed by the bad weather," said Mrs. Brodie, in a despondent tone.

  "I shouldn't be surprised," replied Agnes forlornly.

  Actually each attempted to delude the other, for they knew by heart the arrival of the posts from India, and the mystery of the passage of mail ships was now to them an open book; but to-day, under the intolerable burden of their growing uncertainty, this feeble effort of deception was useless and they now gazed at each other blankly, for a moment, as if they had already exhausted their entire range of conversation. Agnes, by virtue of her position- as hostess, recovered first, and collecting her forces said, considerately:

  "You'll have a cup of tea with me, Mamma. You're all wet and cold from the snow."

  Mrs. Brodie assented dumbly and followed her into the little back shop where, amidst a profusion of empty biscuit tins, sweet bottles, and wooden chocolate boxes, a small iron stove threw out a meagre heat.

  "Sit down there, Mamma," continued Agnes, opening the metal window of the stove and placing a chair before this small glowing mouth. "The weather's keeping us as quiet as can be, so I'll have time for a crack with you."

  By mutual consent an armistice was tacitly proclaimed for the cessation of their unhappy exchanges, and, whilst Agnes boiled the kettle, Mamma steamed her damp boots at the fire and agreed meditatively:

  "Ay! 'Twas snowin' heavy again as I came along. It's good to see a blink of heat on a day like this."

  At these words Agnes threw a small shovelful of coke on to the red embers and enquired:

  "Will you have tea or cocoa, Mamma? I've got some fresh Epps' in this week."

  "I think I would prefer the cocoa. It's more sustaining, and nourishing like, than tea, on a cold day. That's one thing about you, Agnes, you always offer a body something tasty."

  "I can surely do that for you, Mamma," replied Miss Moir, pursing her lips significantly. "It would be a pity if I couldn't put myself about a bit for you. Will ye not take your coat off?" and she made an advance to assist in the removal of the sealskin.

  "No! No! Thanks," cried Mamma hastily, with a drearful consciousness of her deficiencies underneath. "I'll not be biding that long." But her eyes watered gratefully as she took the cup of hot cocoa and sipped it appreciatively; she even accepted and nibbled a sweet biscuit; then, as comfort stole through her, she sighed:

  "It's been a hard winter for me. I don't know how I've come through it."

  "I well know that, Mamma! You have suffered."

  "Ay, I've suffered! I never thought I could have endured such disgrace, Agnes. I didn't merit it. And I think her father blames me for not having watched Mary better." She could hardly bring herself to articulate her daughter's name, it had been so firmly proscribed from her lips.

  "Nobody could be blamed for her fall but herself, Mamma. Your influence could only have been for good wickedness is in the person that sins. You'll just need to let me take her place."

  "That's good o' yc, Agnes, but there's times at night I can't get her out of my head. I never thought I should miss her so much she was always that quiet and douce about the house and I don't even know where she is."

  "You must forget her now," insisted Agnes gently.

  "Her father wouldna let me speir a word about her. Not even when she was near dyin' in the hospital. Not even when the puir bairn died."

  Agnes drew her mouth together.

  "I'm not sure if I should tell you, Mamma' she began slowly, "and it's not a pleasant subject for me it's not the thing for a nice girl to be connected with, even indirectly but I heard the other day that she was in London." She gave to the name of the city an accent of imputation and opprobrium which seemed to summarise her opinion of its manifold potentialities for wickedness.

  "Do ye know what she's doing?" cried Mamma.

  Agnes veiled her eyes and shook her head.

  "I can't be sure," she replied, lowering her voice, "but I've been told only been told, mind you that it's service."

  "A servant!" gasped Mamma. "Oh, dearie me! what a thing to come to! It's terrible! What would her father say if he knew! A Brodie a servant!"

  "What else is she fitted for?" replied Agnes, with a faint toss of her head. "We should be thankful it's an honest occupation, if indeed it is so."

  Despite the bond between Mrs. Brodie and herself it gave her a pleasurable sense of moral and social superiori
ty to impart this news, which she had avidly sought amongst the tittle-tattle of the town.

  "A servant in London!" repeated Mamma faintly. "It's awfu'. Could these folks in Darroch no' have done something for her?"

  "Indeed, that's the very point," cried Agnes. "These Foyles wanted the child for the sake of the son's memory, so as to take it back to Ireland with them they've gone back there, ye know. Ye can't believe all ye hear; of course, there's all sorts of stories about, but I believe the truth is that, when it died, they took a spite at her and got rid of her the quickest they could!"

  Mrs. Brodie shook her head negatively.

  "That wouldna be difficult," she retorted. "Mary was always an independent girl; she would take charity from nobody no, she would work for her living first."

  "Well, anyway, Mamma, I didn't like telling you, but I thought it best you should know. Anyway, your responsibility for her is ended. Mind you, although she has lowered the name of my intended, I bear no grudge against her. I hope she may in time repent; but you have got others to think of."

  "Ay, that's true, Agnes! I maun swallow the bitter pill; but I will say this I never thought much of Mary, never valued her until I lost her. Still I maun forget, if I can, and think of them that's left to us." She sighed heavily. "What's come over our poor Matt at all, at all? It fair breaks my heart not to have news o' him. Can he be ill, think ye?" They were now embarked upon the consideration of the subject vital to them both and, after a moment's thought, Miss Moir shook her head dubiously.

  "He's said nothing about his health," she replied. "He's been off his work once or twice, I know, but I don't think it was from sickness."

  "Maybe he wouldn't like to frighten us," said Mrs. Brodie diffidently, "There's agues and fevers and jaundice and all kinds of awfu' troubles out in these foreign parts. He might even have got sunstroke, although it's strange to think of such a thing with all this snow about us here. Matt was never a strong boy." Then she added inconsequently. "He aye had a weak chest in the winter, and bronchitis, that needed thick garments."

  "But, Mamma," cried Agnes impatiently, "he would never get bronchitis in a hot country. They would never get snow like this in Calcutta."

  "I ken that, Agnes," replied Mrs. Brodie firmly, "but a weakness like that might work inwardly in a hot country, and forebye if he opened his pores he might sit doun and get a chill, as easy as look at ye."

  Agnes did not seem to take kindly to this train of thought and she arrested it by a pause, after which she said slowly:

  "I've been wondering, Mamma, if some of these black persons have not been exerting an evil influence over Matt. There's people called Rajahs rich heathen princes that I've read awful things about, and Matt might be led away. He might be easily led," she added solemnly recollecting, perhaps, her own enticement of the receptive youth.

  Mrs. Brodie instantly had visions of all the potentates of India luring her son from grace with jewels, but indignantly she repudiated the sudden, baleful thought.

  "How can ye say that, Agnes?" she cried. "He kept the best of company in Levenford. You should know that! He was never the one for bad companions or low company."

  But Agnes who, for a Christian woman, had an intensive knowledge of her subject, which must necessarily have come to her through the marvellous intuition of love, continued relentlessly:

  "Then, Mamma, I hardly like to let the words cross my lips, but they have wicked, wicked attractions out there like dancing girls that that charm snakes and dance without " Miss Moir, with downcast eyes, broke off significantly and blushed, whilst the down on her upper lip quivered modestly.

  Mrs. Brodie gazed at her with eyes as horrified as if they beheld a nest of those snakes which Agnes so glibly described; demoralised by the appalling suddenness of a suggestion which had never before entered her mind, she wildly visualised one of these shameless houris abandoning the charming of reptiles to charm away the virtue of her son.

  "Matt's no' a boy like that!" she gasped.

  Miss Moir compressed her lips delicately and bridled, then raised her heavy eyebrows with an air of one who could have revealed to Mrs. Brodie secrets regarding the profundities of Matthew's passionate nature which had hitherto been undreamed of. As she sipped her cocoa her attitude seemed to say, "You ought to know by now the propensities of your children. Only my inviolate and virtuous maidenhood has kept your son pure."

  "Ye've no proof, have ye, Agnes?" wailed Mrs. Brodie, her apprehension strengthened by the other's strange air.

  "I have no definite proof, of course, but I can put two and two together," replied Miss Moir coldly. "If you can read between the lines of these last letters of his, he's always at that club of his, and playing billiard matches, and out at night with other men, and smoking like a furnace." Then, after a moment's silence, she added petulantly:

  "He should never have been allowed to smoke. It was a step in the wrong direction. I never liked the idea of these cigars; it was downright fast!"

  Mrs. Brodie wilted visibly at the obvious insinuation that she had countenanced her son's first step on the road to ruin.

  "But, Aggie," she blurted out, "you let him smoke an' all, for I mind well he persuaded me by saying ye thought it manly."

  "You're his mother. I only said it to please the boy. You know I would do anything for him," retorted Agnes, with a sniff which verged almost into a sob.

  "And I would do everything for him too," replied Mrs. Brodie hopelessly; "but I don't know what's going to come of it all."

  "I've been seriously wondering," pursued Agnes, "if you ought not to get Mr. Brodie to write a strong letter to Matt, sort of, well, reminding him of his duties and obligations to those at home. I think it's high time something was done about it."

  "Oh! That wouldna do at all," cried Mamma hastily. "It would never do. I could never approach him. It's not in me, and besides it's not the kind of thing his father would do." She trembled at an idea so antagonistic to her invariable line of conduct towards Brodie, so contrary to her usual concealment of everything that might provoke that imperial wrath, and she shook her head sadly, as she added, "We maun do what we can ourselves, for his father wouldna stir his finger

  to help him. It may be unnatural, but it's his style. He thinks he's done a' he should do."

  Agnes looked grieved. "I know Matt was always afraid always respected his father's word," she said, "and I'm sure you don't want any more discredit on the family."

  "No, Agnes, I don't like to contradict you to your face, but I'm certain you're not on the right track. I would never believe wrong of my boy. You're anxious, like me, and it's put you on the wrong idea. Wait a bit and you'll have a grand, big budget of good news next week."

  "It can't come quick enough for me," replied Miss Moir, in a frigid tone which coldly indicated her grievance against Mrs. Brodie in particular, and her growing resentment, fed by the recollection of Mary's recent disgrace, against the name of Brodie in general. Her breast heaved and she was about to utter a bitter, contumacious reproach when suddenly the shop door bell went "ping", and she was obliged, with heightening colour, to rise servilely to answer the call and to serve a small boy with an inconsiderable quantity of confectionery. This supremely undignified interruption did nothing towards restoring her equanimity but, instead, activated her to a lively irritation and, as the penetrating voice of her client demanding a halfpennyworth of black-striped balls clearly penetrated the air, the obstinate perversity of her temper deepened.

  Unconscious of the working of this angry ferment in Miss Moir's exuberant bosom, Mrs. Brodie, in her absence, sat huddled in her chair before the stove, her thin chin sunk in the scraggy wetness of the sealskin coat. Surrounded externally by struggling currents of steamy vapour, there struggled also, within her mind, a dreadful uncertainty as to whether she might not be responsible for some vague and undetermined weakness in Matt, through a fault in his upbringing. A frequent expression of Brodie's a decade ago flashed into her mind, and she now saw vividly
, in her anguish, her husband's contemptuous face as, discovering her in some fresh indulgence towards Matthew, he snapped at her, "You're spoiling that namby- pamby brat of yours. You'll make a braw man o' him!" She had, indeed always attempted to shield Matt from his father, to protect him from the harshness of life, to give him extra luxuries and privileges not accorded to her other children. He had never had the courage to play truant from the Academy, but when he had desired, as he frequently did, a day off or had been for some reason afraid to attend school, it was to her that he had come, limping and whining,

  "Mamma, I'm sick. I've got a pain in ma belly." Whenever he had feigned illness, of whatever kind, he had affected always that limping, hobbling, lame-dog gait, as though the agony arising in any organ of his body flew immediately to one leg, paralysing it and rendering him incapable of locomotion. She had seen through him, of course, but though undeceived by his pretences, a wave of her foolish maternal love would rush over her and she would compliantly answer, "Away up to your room then, son, and I’ll fetch ye up something nice. Ye've got a friend in yer mother, anyway, Matt." Her stultified affections were obliged to find an outlet and she had lavished them upon her son, feeling the imperative need, in that harsh household, of binding him to her by bonds of love. Had she spoiled his manhood by her indulgence? Softened her son into a weakling by lax, tolerant fondness? Immediately her mind formulated the idea, her heart indignantly repudiated it, telling her that she had shown him nothing but kindness, gentleness and lenience, had wished for him nothing but what was good; she had slaved for him too, washed, darned, knitted for him, brushed his boots, made his bed, cooked the most appetising meals for him.