by A. J. Cronin
‘Just been having a peep at the good wife, Mr Brodie,’ said the doctor, with an affectation of heartiness. He was a pompous, portly man with blown-out cheeks, a small, red mouth, and an insufficient chin inadequately strengthened by a grey, imperial beard. ‘Trying to keep her spirits up, you know; we must do all we can.’
Brodie looked at the other silently, his saturnine eyes saying, more cuttingly than words: ‘And much good ye have done her, ye empty wind bag.’
‘Not much change for the better, I’m afraid,’ continued Lawrie hurriedly, becoming a trifle more florid under Brodie’s rude stare. ‘Not much improvement. We’re nearing the end of the chapter, I fear.’ This was his usual stereotyped banality to indicate the nearness of death, and now he shook his head profoundly, sighed, and smoothed the small tuft on his chin with an air of melancholy resignation.
Brodie gazed with aversion at the finicking gestures of this pompous wiseacre, and though he did not regret having brought him into his house to spite Renwick, he was not deceived by his bluff manner, or by his great display of sympathy.
‘Ye’ve been tellin’ me that for a long time,’ he growled. ‘You and your chapters! I believe ye know less than onybody what’s goin’ to happen. I’m gettin’ tired of it.’
‘I know! I know! Mr Brodie,’ said Lawrie, making little soothing gestures with his hands, ‘your distress is very natural— very natural! We cannot say definitely when the unhappy event will occur. It depends so much on the reaction of the blood that is the crux of the question – the reaction of the blood with regard to the behaviour of the corpuscles! The corpuscles are sometimes stronger than we expect. Yes! the? corpuscles are sometimes marvellous in their activities,’ and, satisfied with his show of erudition he again stroked his moustache and looked learnedly at Brodie.
‘You can take your corpuscles to hell,’ replied Brodie contemptuously. ‘You’ve done her as much good as my foot.’
‘Come now, Mr Brodie,’ said Lawrie in a half-expostulating, half-placating tone, ‘don’t be unreasonable. I’m here every day. I’m doing my best’
‘Do better then! Finish her and be done wi’t,’ retorted Brodie bitterly, and turning abruptly, he walked away and entered the house, leaving the other standing aghast, his eyes wide, his small mouth pursed into an indignant orb.
Inside his home, a further wave of disgust swept over Brodie as, making no allowance for the fact that he was earlier than usual, he observed that his dinner was not ready, and he cursed the bent figure of his mother amongst the disarray of dishes, dirty water, pots, and potato peelings in the scullery.
‘I’m gettin’ ower auld for this game, James,’ she quavered in reply. ‘I’m not as nimble as I used to be – and forbye the doctor keepit me back.’
‘Move your old bones then,’ he snarled. ‘ I’m hungry.’ He could not sit down amongst such chaos, and, with a sudden tum of his black mood, he decided that he would fill in the time before his meal by visiting his wife – the good wife, as Lawrie had called her – and give her the grand news of the business.
‘She maun hear some time,’ he muttered, ‘and the sooner the better. It’s news that’ll not stand the keepin’.’ He had lately fallen into the habit of avoiding her room, and as he had not seen her during the last two days, she would no doubt find the unexpectedness of his visit the more delightful.
‘Well!’ he remarked softly, as he went into the bedroom, ‘you’re still here I see. I met the doctor on my way in and he was gi’en us a great account o’ your corpuscles o’ the blood – they’re uncommon strong by his report.’
She did not move at his entry, but lay passive, only the flicker of her eyes showing that she lived. In the six months that had elapsed since she had been forced to take to her bed she had altered terrifyingly, and one who had not marked the imperceptible, day by day decline, the gradual shrinking of her flesh, would not have found her unrecognisable even as the ailing woman she had then appeared. Her form, beneath the light covering of the sheet, was that of a skeleton with hip bones which stuck out in a high, ridiculous protuberance; only a flaccid envelope of sagging skin covered the thin, long bones of her legs and arms, while over the framework of her face a tight, dry parchment was drawn, with cavities for eyes, nose and mouth. Her lips were pale, dry, cracked, with little brown desiccated flakes clinging to them like scales, and above the sunken features her bony forehead seemed to bulge into unnatural, disproportioned relief. A few strands of grey hair, withered, lifeless as the face itself, straggled over the pillow to frame this ghastly visage. Her weakness was so apparent that it seemed an impossible effort for her to breathe, and from this very weakness she made no reply to his remark, but looked at him with an expression he could not read. It seemed to her that there was nothing more for him to say to wound her.
‘Have ye everything ye want?’ he continued, in a low tone of assumed solicitude. ‘Everything that might be necessary for these corpuscles o’ yours? Ye’ve plenty of medicine anyway – plenty of choice, I see. One, two, three, four,’ he counted, ‘four different bottles o’ pheesic. There’s merit in variety apparently. But woman, if ye go on drinkin’ it at this rate, we’ll have to raise another loan frae your braw friends in Glasgow to pay for it a’.’
Deep in her living eyes, which alone of her wasted features indicated her emotions, a faint wound reopened, and they filled with a look of dull pleading. Five months ago she had, in desperation, been forced to confess to him her obligation to the money-lenders and though he had paid the money in full, since then he had not for a moment let her forget the wretched matter, and in a hundred different ways, on the most absurd pretexts, he would introduce it into the conversation. Not even her present look moved him, for he was now entirely without sympathy for her, feeling that she would linger on for ever, a useless encumbrance to him.
‘Ay,’ he continued pleasantly, ‘ye’ve proved yoursel’ a great hand at drinkin’ the medicine. You’re as gleg at that as ye are at spendin’ other folks’ money.’ Then abruptly he changed the subject, and queried gravely: ‘ Have ye seen your big, braw son the day? Oh! ye have, indeed,’ he continued, after reading her unspoken reply. ‘I’m real glad to hear it. I thocht he michtna have been up yet, but I see I’m wrong. He’s not downstairs though. I never seem to be fortunate enough to see him these days.’
At his words she spoke at last, moulding her stark lips to utter, in a weak whisper:
‘Matt’s been a good son to me lately.’
‘Well, that’s only a fair return,’ he exclaimed judiciously. ‘You’ve been a graund mother to him. The result o’ your upbringing o’ him is a positive credit to you both.’ He paused, recognising her weakness, hardly knowing why he spoke to her thus, yet, unable to discard the habit of years, impelled somehow by his own bitterness, by his own misfortunes, he continued in a low voice: ‘Ye’ve brocht up a’ your children bonnie, bonnie. There’s Mary now – what more could ye wish for than the way she’s turned out? I don’t know where she is exactly, but I’m sure she’ll be doin’ ye credit nobly.’ Then, observing that his wife was attempting to speak, he waited on her words.
‘I know where she is,’ she whispered slowly.
He gazed at her.
‘Ay!’ he answered, ‘ye know she’s in London, and that’s as much as we a’ ken – as much as ye’ll ever know.’
Almost incredibly she moved her withered hand, that looked incapable of movement, and lifting it from the counterpane stopped him with a gesture; then, as her shrunken arm again collapsed, she said weakly, and with many tremors:
‘Ye mustna be angry with me, ye mustna be angry with her. I’ve had a letter from Mary. She’s a good girl – she still is. I see more clearly, now, than ever I did that ’twas I that didna do right by her. She wants to see me now, James, and I – I must see her quickly before I die.’ As she uttered the last words she tried to smile to him pleadingly, placatingly, but her features remained stiff and frigid, only her lips parted slightly in a cracked, pi
tiful grimace.
The colour mounted slowly to his forehead.
‘She dared to write to you,’ he muttered, ‘and you dared to read it.’
‘’Twas Dr Renwick, when you stoppit him comin’, that wrote to London and told her I was not not likely to last long. He’s aye had a great interest in Mary. He said to me that morning that Mary – my daughter Mary – was brave, ay, and innocent as well.’
‘He was a brave man himself to raise that name in my house,’ returned Brodie in a low, concentrated tone. He could not shout and rave at her in her present state, prevented only by some shred of compunction from turning violently upon her, but he added, bitterly: ‘If I had known he was interferin’ like that I would have brained him before he went out the door.’
‘Don’t say that, James,’ she murmured. ‘It’s beyond me to bear bitterness now. I’ve had a gey and useless life I think. There’s many a thing left undone that should have been done, but I must – oh! I must see Mary, to put things right between her and me.’
He gritted his teeth till the muscles of his stubbled jowl stuck out in herd, knotted lumps.
‘Ye must see her, must ye,’ he replied – ‘ that’s verra, verra touchin’. We should a’ fall down and greet at the thought o’ this wonderful reconciliation.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Na! Na! my woman, ye’ll not see her this side o’ the grave, and I have strong misgivings if ye’ll see her on the other. You’re never to see her. Never!’
She did not answer, but withdrawing into herself, became more impassive, more aloof from him. For a long time her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. There was silence in the room but for the drowsy drone of an insect as it circled around the few sprays of sweet-scented honeysuckle that had been gathered by Nessie and placed by her in a vase that stood beside the bed. At length a faint tremor ran through Mamma’s wasted body.
‘Weel, James,’ she sighed, ‘if you say it, then it maun he so – that’s always been the way, but I wanted, oh! I did want to see her again. There’s times though,’ she went on, slowly, and with great difficulty, ‘when the pain o’ this trouble has been to me like the carryin’ of a child – so heavy and draggin’ like – and it’s turned my mind to that bairn o’ hers that never lived for her to see it. If it had been spared I would have liket to have held Mary’s bairn in these arms’ – she looked downwards, hopelessly, at the withered arms that could scarcely raise a cup to her lips – ‘but it was the will of God that such things couldna be, and that’s all there is about it’
‘Woman, you’re not squeamish to take such a notion into your head at this time o’ day,’ scowled Brodie. ‘Have ye not had enough to do with your own children without draggin’ out the memory of – of that.’
‘It was just a fancy,’ she whispered, ‘and I’ve had many o’ them since I lay here these six, long months – so long they’ve been like weary years.’ She closed her eyes in a tired fashion, forgetting him as the visions that she spoke of rushed over her again. The sweet perfume of the honeysuckle flowers beside her wafted her thoughts backwards, and she was out of the close, sickly room, home again on her father’s farm. She saw the stout, whitewashed buildings, the homestead, the dairy, and the long, clean byre forming the three snug sides of the clean yard, saw her father come in from the shooting with a hare and a brace of pheasants in his hand. The smooth, coloured plumage delighted her as she stroked the plump breasts.
‘They’re as fat as you are,’ her father cried, with his broad, warm smile, ‘but not near as bonnie.’
She had not been a slut then, nor had her form been the object of derision!
Now she was helping her mother with the churning, watching the rich yellow of the butter as it clotted in the white milk like a clump of early primroses springing from a bank of snow:
‘Not so hard, Margaret, my dear,’ her mother had chided her, for the quickness of herturning. ‘You’ll turn the arm off yourself.’
She had not been lazy then, nor had they called her handless!
Her thoughts played happily about the farm and in her imagination? she rolled amidst the sweet mown hay, heard the creator the horses moving in their stalls, laid her cheek against the sleek side of her favourite calf. She even remembered its name – ‘Rosabelle,’ she had christened it. ‘Whatna name for a cow!’ Bella, the dairymaid, had teased her. ‘What way not call it after me and be done wi’ it?’ An overpowering wave of nostalgia came over her as she remembered long, hot afternoons when she had lain with her head against the bole of the bent apple tree, watching the swallows flirt like winged, blue shadows around the eaves of the white, sundrenched steadings. When an apple dropped beside her she picked it up and bit deeply into it; even now, she felt the sweetly acid tang refreshing upon her tongue, cooling its parched fever. Then she saw herself in a sprigged muslin frock, beside the mountain ash that grew above the Pownie Burne and, approaching her, a youth to whose dark, dour strength her gentleness drew near. She opened her eyes slowly.
‘James,’ she whispered as her eyes sought his with faint, wistful eagerness, ‘do ye mind that day by the Pownie Burne when ye braided the bonnie, red rowan berries through my hair? Do ye mind what ye said then?’
He stared at her, startled at the transition of her speech, wondering if she raved; here was he on the brink of ruin, and she drivelled about a wheen rowans thirty years ago. His lips twitched as he replied, slowly:
‘No! I dinna mind what I said, but tell me, tell me what I said.’
She closed her eyes as though to shut out everything but the distant past, then she murmured, slowly:
‘Ye only said that the rowan berries were not so braw as my bonnie curly hair.’
As, unconsciously, he looked at the scanty, brittle strands of hair that lay about her face, a sudden, fearful rush of emotion swept over him. He did remember that day. He recollected the quiet of the little glen, the ripple of the stream, the sunshine that lay about them, the upward switch of the bough after he had plucked the bunch of berries from it; now he saw the lustre of her curls against the vivid scarlet of the rowans. Dumbly, he tried to reject the idea that this – this wasted creature that lay upon the bed had on that day rested in his arms and answered his words of love with her soft, fresh lips. It could not be – yet it must be so! His face worked strangely, his mouth twisted as he battled with, the surging feeling that drove against the barrier of his resistance like a torrent of water battering against the granite wall of a dam. Some vast, compelling impulse drove at him with an urge which made him want to say blindly, irrationally, in a fashion he had not used for twenty years:
‘I do mind that day, Margaret, and ye were bonnie – bonnie and sweet to me as a flower.’ But he could not say it! Such words as these could never pass his lips. Had he come to this room to whine some stupid phrases of endearment? No, he had come to tell her of their ruin, and tell her he would, despitre this unnatural weakness thathad come upon hiin.
‘Auld wife,’ he muttered with drawn lips, ‘ye’ll be the death o’ me if ye talk like that. When ye’re on the parish ye maun give me a crack like this to cheer me up.’
At once her eyes opened enquiringly, anxious, with a look which again stabbed him; but he forced himself to continue, nodded at her with a false assumption of his old, fleering jocosity.
‘Ay!’ he cried, ‘that’s what it amounts to now. I’ll have no more fifty pounds to fling away on ye. I’ve shut my door of the business for the last time. We’ll all be in the poorhouse soon.’ As he uttered the last words he saw her face change, but some devilish impulse, aroused by his own present weakness, and moving him more fiercely because he knew that in his heart he did not wish to speak like this, made him thrust his head close to her, goaded him to continue: ‘Do ye hear! The business is gone. I warned ye a year ago— don’t you remember that wi’ your demned rowan berry rot? I tell ye we’re ruined! You that’s been such a help to me, that’s what ye’ve brought me to. We’re finished, finished, finished!’
&nb
sp; The effect of his words upon her was immediate, and terrible. When his meaning burst in upon her a frightful twitching affected the yellow, weazened skin of her features as though a sudden, intense grief attempted painfully to animate the moribund tissues, as though tears essayed with futile efforts to well out from the dried-up springs of her body. Her eyes became suddenly full, intense, and glowing and, with a tremendous, shivering effort, she raised herself up in the bed. A stream of words trembled upon her tongue but she could not utter them, and as a dew of perspiration broke upon her brow in cold, pricking droplets she stammered incoherently, stretched her hand dumbly before her. Then, as her face grew grey with endeavour, suddenly she spoke:
‘Matt,’ she cried in a full, high tone. ‘Matt! come to me!’ She now stretched out both her quivering arms as though sight failed her, calling out in a weaker, faded tone: ‘Nessie! Mary! Where are ye?’
He wished to go to her, to start forward instantly, but he remained rooted to the floor, yet from his lips broke involuntarily these words, strangeas a spray of blossomsupona barrentree:
‘Margaret, woman – Margaret – dinna mind what I said. I didna mean the hauf o’t!’
But she did not hear him, and with a last, faint breath she whispered slowly: