Hatter's Castle

by Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин

  Immediately a babble of comment broke out.

  "Man, ye don't say so!"

  "The auld, weedowed mother will be unco' pleased about that.”

  "What a step up for the young fellow!"

  "He would jump at it like a cock at a groset."

  Then, as the first flush of excitement at the unexpected titbit of local gossip subsided, and the real realisation of its meaning to Brodie dawned upon them, a silence fell, and all eyes were turned upon him. He sat perfectly still, stunned at the news, every muscle in his huge body rigid, his jaw set, his teeth gripping the stem of his pipe with the increasing pressure of a slowly closing vice. So Perry was leaving him, Perry, upon whom of late he had come to depend utterly, realising at last that he had himself got out of the way of serving, that he was above it now and was unable to lower himself to such lackey's work had he even desired it. A sharp crack split the attentive silence, as, with the onset of a pang of sudden bitterness, his teeth compressed themselves with such a vicious, final force upon his pipe that the stem snapped through. As though in a trance, he looked at the riven pipe in his hand for a long second, then spat out the broken end coarsely upon the floor, looked again stupidly at the ruined meerschaum and muttered to himself, unconscious that they heard him;

  "I liked that pipe liked it weel. It was my favourite."

  Then he became aware of the ring of faces regarding him as though he sat in an arena for their contemplation, became aware that he must show them how he met the bitter shock of the blow, or better, show them that it held no bitterness for him. He stretched out towards his glass, raised it to his lips with a hand as steady as a rock, looked steadily back at Grierson, whose gaze immediately slipped off that unwavering stare. He would at that moment have given his right hand for the power to utter some cutting, withering retort which would shrivel the other by its very potency, but, despite a fury of endeavour, his brain was not sufficiently agile, his slow, ponderous wit refused to function, and all that he could do was to say, with an attempt at his habitual, sneering grimace:

  "It's of no concern, not the slightest! Not the slightest concern to me!"

  "I hope he'll not take any o' your trade with him," said Paxton solicitously.

  "Now I come to think on't, 'tis a downright dirty trick, Mr. Brodie," came in a toadying tone from one of the draughts players. "He ken's a' your customers."

  "Trust these Mungo bodies to move smartly. They're a deevelish clever lot, in my opeenion," said another voice.

  "Myself, I think it's raither a poor spirit," drawled Grierson considcringly. "Somehow it gives me the impression that he's just like a rat leavin' the sinkin' ship."

  There was a sudden hush whilst every one sat aghast at the audacity of his remark, the most direct affront that had ever been offered to Brodie in that clubroom. They expected him to arise and rend the puny form of Grierson, tear him apart by the sudden exertion of his brute strength, but instead he remained inert, unheeding, as if he had not heard or understood the other's remark. With his thoughts sunk in a gloomy abyss, he reflected that this was the most deadly blow he had suffered of any, although already they had smote him hip and thigh.

  They had lavished their abundant capital in the struggle against him. In a dozen ways had exercised their ingenious cunning, but now in taking Perry they had snapped his last mainstay. Appropriately, he recollected his assistant's strange suppressed manner that night, his half-intimidated, half-exultant look, as if he had been glad yet regretful, as if he had wished to speak and yet could not summon courage to do so. Strangely, he did not blame Perry, realising in justice

  that the other had merely accepted a better offer than he could have made; instead, any animosity that stirred within him turned against the Mungo Company itself. His feeling, however, was at this moment not truly one of hatred, but rather of curious compassion for himself, a sad consideration that he, so noble, so worthy, should suffer at such treacherous hands, should in consequence be compelled continually to assume this false front of indifference, when hitherto his careless arrogance had, unwittingly, protected him like armour. Then, amongst his meditations, he became again aware of the circle of watching eyes and the imperative need for speech, and hardly knowing what he said, yet whipping himself to anger, he began:

  "I've always fought fair! I've always fought wi' clean hands. I wouldna lower myself to the level o' bribery and corruption, and if they've bribed that pimply little snipe to leave me, then they're gey and welcome to him. It'll save me the bother o' sackin' him ay, they can keep him while they last. I don't give a tinker's curse about the whole affair."

  Reassured by his own speech, carried away by the expression of a sentiment he had not felt, his words grew louder, more confident, his glance more defiant and assured. "No! Not a tinker's damn do I give," he cried. "But I'll not have him back again. Oh, dear, no! Let him draw his bribes while he can and when he's able for when they're burst and a' to hell, and he comes whinin' back for his auld job, then I'll see him in hell as weel, before I lift a hand to help him. He's unco' quick to run away; I've no doubt he thinks his fortune's mac l e the poor fool but when he's back in the ditch I took him out o', he'll regret the day he ever left the house o' James Brodie."

  He was transfigured, exalted by his speech, now believing utterly in this declamation which contrasted so absolutely with his sombre, sensible perception of a moment before; and, his spirit asserting itself more powerfully in the very recognition of its power, he glared back at them with wide, excited pupils. He hugged within himself the reflection that he could still control, dominate, overawe them, and as at last an idea, delightful and appropriate, struck him, he drew himself up and cried:

  "No! It'll take more than that to upset James Brodie in spite o' what our wee friend in the corner has had the nerve to suggest. When ye hear me complainin', it'll be enough to get out your crape, and it'll be a lang, lang time before ye need mournin' on that account. It's a joke, though," his eye flickered round them with a rampant facetiousness "by gad! It's a joke that's worth a dram to us a'.

  “Gentlemen," he cried, in a lordly voice, "shall we adjourn so that you may join me in a glass?"

  They at once applauded him, delighted with his generous spirit, delighted at the thought of free refreshment, scenting ahead the chance of a carousal.

  "Good for you, Brodie!"

  "Scotland for ever! A man's a man for a' that."

  "I'm wi' ye, juist a wee deoch-an-dorris to keep out the cauld."

  "There's life in the auld horse yet!"

  The Provost himself slapped him on the back. "Man, Brodie! You're a caution. Ye've the pluck o' a lion, the strength o' a bull, ay, and the pride o' the deevil there's no bcatin' of ye. I believe ye wad dee before ye took a lickin'."

  At these words they stood up, concurring, and all but Grierson swarmed round him so that he stood amongst them, his fierce glance encompassing them, encouraging yet rebuking, sanctioning yet subduing, approving yet admonishing, like an emperor surrounded by his court. His blood, the blood that was noble like an emperor's, coursed more imperially in his veins than did the thin, serous fluid that was in theirs. In his heavy brain he felt he had achieved a great and noble action, that his gesture, in the teeth of disaster had been sublime.

  "Lay on, MacDuff," they cried, stirred by the unwonted laxity and magnanimity of his usually unapproachable nature, impatient to savour the rich, golden liquor he would provide for them. As he led them through the back door of the club into the outer air and they filed, eventually, into Phemie's wee back parlour, he felt the danger was over, that he was again the master of them.

  Soon the drinks were flowing as they toasted him jubilantly, in McDonald's finest Chieftain whisky, for his generosity, his discrimination, his strength. As he flung out a golden sovereign, birling it grandly on to the round, mahogany table, a faint glimmering of sense at the back of his mind whispered to him how little he could afford it now, but he thrust the thought back again, stamped it out fiercely w
ith a loud, "Here's to us wha's like us?"

  "It's a be-autiful dram, this," purred Grierson, smacking his lips appreciatively as he held his glass up to the light. "A beautiful dram, mild as mother's milk and smooth as weel smooth as the nap on one o' our friend's braw hats. The only pity is that it's so deshed more expensive than orner stuff." He tittered spitefully, knowingly, towards Brodie.

  "Drink it up then, man!" replied Brodie loudly. "Lap it up when ye get the chance. You're no' payin' for't. By God, if we were a' as mean as you, the world would stop goin' round."

  "That's one to put in your pipe, Grierson," laughed Paxton, hoarsely.

  "Speakin' o' stinginess did ye hear the latest one about our wee friend here?" cried the Provost, with a nod towards Grierson and a wink at Brodie.

  "No! What was it?" they chorused. "Tell us, Provost."

  "Weel," replied Gordon, with a knowing look, "it' short and sweet. The other day a wheen bairns were playin' about outside our friend's grain store, beside a big sack o' beans at the door, when up comes the son o' the house. "Get away, boys," young Grierson cries, "and don't touch these beans or my feyther'll find out. He's got every one o' them counted!"

  A roar of appreciation arose from the assembly, through which Grierson murmured easily, blinking through the smoke:

  "I'll no deny I ken how many beans make five, Provost, but it's a handy thing these days wi' so much hardship and poverty about."

  But Brodie, upon his throne, the already warmed pith of him flaming under the potent whisky, neither heard nor heeded the innuendo as, filled with a wild elation, the desire to act, to liberate his strength, to smash something, seized him and, raising his empty glass high above his head, he suddenly shouted, without point in the , conversation, "To hell with them! To hell with these measly Mungo swine!" and shattered the heavy tumbler violently against the wall.

  The others, now mellow for his mood, responded gleefully.

  "That's the spirit!"

  "Another round, gentlemen."

  "No heeltaps."

  "Gie us a song, Wullie."

  "Speech! Speech!" came their shouts.

  At this point a discreet knock upon the door, followed by the noiseless entry, felt-slippered yet formidable, of the landlady, interrupted the fluid current of their hilarity.

  "Ye're merry the night, Gentlemen," she said with a thin, tight-lipped smile which inferred that their gaiety was not entirely becoming to them or wholly pleasing to her. "I hope ye'll no' forget the good name o' the house." Much as she valued their connection she was too remote, too virtuous, altogether too much of an institution to be imposed upon by them. "I dinna like to hear the smash o' glass," she added acidly.

  "Tits, Phemie, woman, it'll be paid for," cried Brodie. She nodded slightly, as though to convey to him that she had already taken that for granted, but in a slightly mollified tone she remarked:

  "What's the occasion?"

  "Just a little celebration given by our esteemed member at the head o' the table," murmured Grierson. "I dinna ken what it's to celebrate, exactly, but ye micht ca' it a beanfeast without ony beans."

  "Never mind him, Phemie; send us in another hauf mutchkin," cried a voice.

  "Well ye have a wee hauf yersel', Phemie?" remarked the Provost, breezily.

  "Come awa' and sit on my knee, Phemie," cried one of the erstwhile draughts players now, alas, incapable of differentiating a crowned man from a peppermint oddfellow.

  "Send in the whisky, Phemie," demanded Brodie. "Ill make them a' behave themselves."

  She reproved them individually and collectively with her glance, raised a warning forefinger, and padded out as silently as she had come, murmuring as she went:

  "Dinna forget the name o' the house. I'll send ye in the speerits, but ye maun keep quiet; ye maun mind the good name o' the house."

  When she had gone the ball of their gaiety rolled of? again, quickly gathered speed, and bounded more exuberantly than before.

  "Never mind Phemie," cried a voice; "her bark is waur than her bite, but her face is waur than the two o' them thegither."

  "Ye wad think this public o' hers was a tabernacle o' righteousness," cried another, "she's that uncommon godly about it. She wad have ye drink like ye were in the kirk."

  "There's a braw, wee tittle in the front pews, onyway," replied the more bibulous draughts player. "They say Nancy, the barmaid, is as obleegin' as she's bonnie." He winked round the assembly knowingly.

  "Tits, man, tits!" cried the Provost reprovingly. "Don't 'file the nest that you're sittin' in."

  "That's the cuckoo ye wad be meanin'," replied the other agreeably; "but I'm no' that."

  "Would ye like me to give ye a verse o' Burns?" called out Paxton. "I'm just ripe to let ye have 'The Deil amang the Tailors.' "

  "Our chairman promised us a bit speech, did he not?" remarked Grierson insinuatingly.

  "Ay! Come awa' wi' that speech ye were goin' to give us," cried the Provost.

  "Speech!" they insisted again. "Speech from the chairman."

  Brodie's soaring pride, wafted higher by their tipsy cries, reached upward to a sublimated region where his limitations ceased, in the refined air of which his tongue seemed fluent, his incapacity for the articulate utterance of his inner thoughts forgotten.

  "Very well," he called out, "I'll give ye a speech." He rose, inflating his chest, widening his eyes at them, swinging slightly from side to side on the fulcrum of his feet, wondering, now that he had risen, what he should say.

  "Gentlemen," he began at length, slowly, but amidst ready applause, "ye all know who I am. I'm Brodie, James Brodie, and what that name means, maybe ye can guess." He paused, surveying each member of the group in turn. "Ay, I'm James Brodie, and in the Royal Borough of Levenford, and beyond it too, it is a name that is respected and esteemed. Show me the man that says a word against it and I'll show you what these two hands will do to him." He shot out his huge hands wildly and let them throttle the vacant air before him, missing in his emotion the general apathy, the gloating relish in Grierson's satirical eyes, and seeing only reverence. "If I but chose I could tell you something that would startle ye to the very core."

  Then, as his blurred glance swept around the table, he lowered his voice to a hoarse, confidential whisper, shook his head cunningly.

  "But no! I'm not goin' to do it! Guess if ye like, but I'm not goin' to tell ye now ye may never know. Never!" He shouted the word. "But h's there; and so long as I breathe breath into this body o' mine, I will uphold my name. I've had an unco trouble lately that would have bent a strong man and broken a weaker one, but what has it done to me? I'm still here, still the same James Brodie, but stronger, more determined than before. If your hand offend ye cut it off' says the Scriptures Fve had to cut my own flesh and blood; ay, but it was without flinchin' that I used the axe. I've had trouble within and trouble without, sneakin' rogues and thievin' swine at my very ain door, false friends and dirty enemies round about me, ay and sly, sleekit backbiters as weel." He looked grimly at Grierson. "But through it all and above it all, James Brodie will stand hard and fast like the Castle Rock; ay and wi' his head as high above the air," he shouted, thumping his chest with his big fist and concluding in a loud full voice, "1 tell ye I'll show ye all! Ill show every one o' ye."

  Then, having readied the climax of his feelings, for the spontaneous words had rushed from him unknowingly at the urge of his emotions, he sat down heavily, saying in a natural undertone, "And now we'll have another dram all round."

  The last part of his speech was appreciated, loudly cheered, applauded by a rattle of glasses upon the hard table, echoed by Grierson's suave drawl:

  "Good! I havena enjoyed a speech like that since Drucken Tarn harangued the Baillies through the windae o' the jail."

  They drank to him, to his oration, to his future; some one sang in a broken falsetto; Paxton protested, unheeded, that he too wanted to make a speech; the second draughts player attempted to tell a long, involved and unseemly sto
ry; there were several songs with shouted choruses. Then, abruptly, Brodie, who had, with altered mood, remained cold, impassive and disdainful amongst their mirth,

  jerked back his chair and got up to go. He knew the value of these sudden departures, felt the restrained dignity of his leaving the sodden dogs to sing and rant in the fashion that fitted them, whilst he departed at the moment when he could so retire with majesty and honour.

  "What's the matter, man? Ye're not awa' hame yet," cried the Provost. "It's not near struck the twaP yet!"

  "Bide a wee and well punish another haulf mutchkin atwccn us a'."

  "Is the wee wifie waitin' on ye, then?" whispered Grierson blandly.

  "I'm away," he cried roughly, buttoning up his jacket and stamping his feet, and, ignoring their profuse protests, he looked at them solemnly, saying:

  "Gentlemen! Good night."

  Their shouts followed him out of the room into the cool night wind and filled him with a thrilling elation which increased inversely as the sounds of their homage weakened; the cries were like hosannahs, diminishing, yet pursuing, on the cold, sweet air that rose like frosted incense from the rimed streets. It had been a night, he told himself, as he made his way homewards amongst the white- limned houses that stood like silent temples in a deserted city, and, as he swelled with self-esteem, he felt he had justified himself in his own and in their eyes. The whisky in him made his step elastic, springy and youthful; he wanted to walk over mountains in this crisping exaltation that sparked equally within him and in the delicious atmosphere around him; his body tingled and he thought in terms of wild, erotic, incoherent desires, peopling the dark rooms of

  every house he passed with concealed yet intimate activity, feeling, with a galling sense of injustice, that he must in future find some outlet for the surge of his suppressed and unattracted flesh. The short distance which he traversed to his home whetted his appetite for some fitting termination to the glorious evening and, almost in expectation, he let himself into his house and shot home the lock of the outer door with a flourish of the heavy key.