Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘But I thought ye didna want to hear,’ he teased her. She pouted her richly red lips at him.

  ‘Ye know fine what I mean, Matt. I love hearin’ about a’ these strange things out there. Never mind the ladies. If I had been out there I wouldna have let ye even have a glink at them. Tell me about the flowers, and the braw coloured birds and beasts, the parrots, the leopards, the tigers. I want to know about the bazaars, the temples, the gold and ivory images – I just can’t get enough about them.’

  ‘You’re the lass to egg me on to it,’ he replied. ‘ There’s no satisfyin’ you. What was I speakin’ about before ye asked me about the – about what I’m no allowed to mention?’ He grinned. ‘Oh! I remember now, ’twas about the sacred cows. Ay! Ye mightn’t believe it, Nancy, but the cow is a sacred animal to millions of folks out in India. They’ll have images of the animal stuck up in all places and in the streets of the native quarters you’ll see great big cows slushing about, with flowers on their horns and garlands of marigolds round their necks, poking their noses everywhere like they owned the place, into the houses and into the stalls – that’s like the shops you know – and not a body says “no” to them. I once saw one of the beasts stop at a stall of fruit and vegetables and before you could say “knife” it had cleared the place from end to end, and the man that owned the shop was obliged to sit helpless and watch it eat up all his stuff, and when it had finished he could do nowt but put up a bit prayer to it or string the remains of his flowers around its big neck.’

  ‘Ye don’t say, Matt,’ she gasped, her eyes wide with interest; ‘that’s a strange thing you’re tellin’ me to think they would worship the likes of a cow!’

  ‘There’s all kinds of cows though, Nancy,’ replied Matt with a wink; but immediately he resumed, more seriously: ‘Yes! but what I’m telling you is nothing. I couldn’t describe all that I’ve seen to you, ye’ve got to travel to appreciate such marvellous sights that you would otherwise never dream of. And there’s other places finer than India, mind you, where the climate’s better, with less mosquitoes and just as much freedom.’

  She considered him deliberately as, carried away by his own enthusiasm, he talked; and, viewing the slender figure in the natty brown suit, the engaging neatness of his appearance, the inherent yet not unpleasing weakness of his pale face, she was amazed that she could ever have fled from him as she had done at their first encounter. During the six weeks that had elapsed since Mrs Brodie’s funeral – when she had been formally installed as housekeeper to the Brodie menage – she had gradually come to regard Matthew with favour, to protect him against his father, to look forward to his lighter conversation after the heavy taciturnity and laboured monosyllables of the elder man.

  ‘You’re not listening to me, you little randy,’ he exclaimed, suddenly. ‘ What’s the good of a man using his breath and all his best adjectives if the bonnie lassie pays no heed to him? – and you that asked for it and all.’

  ‘Do you think I’m bonnie, then, Matt,’ she replied, continuing to regard him in a dreamy manner, yet making her eyes more seductive, her whole saucy pose more provocative.

  ‘I do that, Nancy,’ he cried eagerly, his glance lighting. ‘ You’re as bonnie as a picture. It’s a treat to have you about the house. I’ve always thought that since ever I saw you.’

  ‘Ay,’ she continued musingly, ‘ye were a richt bad boy the first time ye met me, but your manners have improved extraordinar’ since then. In fact, when I came here I began to think, ye were something feared to talk to me, but I see that’s all gone now, and indeed I’m not sorry, though I wonder what your father would say to the change if he but knew.’

  He had raised himself slightly as though about to move towards her, but, at her last words the kindling gleam in his eye was suddenly quenched, and relaxing his body again upon the dresser, he replied, moodily:

  ‘I don’t know what a young thing like you can see in an old man like him, with his sour, crabbed ways. He doesn’t seem to fit you like a younger man would.’

  ‘There’s strength in him though, Matt,’ she replied reflectively, but still drawing him with her eyes, ‘and it pleases me to see that strength break down before me. The way things have turned out now I could have him like water in my hands. But don’t forget,’ she added, with a change of manner and a sudden toss of her head, ‘I’m only the housekeeper here.’

  ‘Yes,’ he exclaimed bitterly, ‘you’ve got a grand post! You’ve settled down pretty well here, Nancy.’

  ‘And what about you?’ she retorted pertly. ‘ You’ve settled down no’ so badly yoursel’, for all your fine talk of finding these grand positions abroad.’

  He laughed at her admiringly.

  ‘Woman! I can’t but admire that gleg tongue o’ yours. You could strip a man with it if ye chose.’

  ‘I could do all that,’ she answered meaningly; ‘quick enough.’

  How she seemed to fire his blood, this coquettish baggage who belonged entirely to his father, who was so absolutely forbidden to him by the taboo of his father’s possessions.

  ‘Ye know as well as I do, Nancy, that it’s only a matter of time until I fix it up,’ he replied earnestly. ‘I’ve got my name down with half a dozen firms. The first vacancy is mine. I couldn’t stay in this rotten hole of a town for the rest of my life. There’s nothing to keep me here now since – since my mother died. But I’m telling you to your face it’ll be hard to leave you.’

  ‘I’ll believe ye better when you’ve gotten the job, Matt,’ she remarked tartly. ‘But ye shouldna let the old fellow down ye so much. Stick up for yourself. Have more faith in your own powers. What I think ye need is a woman, with a good level head on her, that would stiffen ye up and give ye a notion of how to face things out.’

  ‘I’ll get even with him all right,’ he asserted sulkily. ‘My chance will come. I’ll make him pay for all that he’s done to me—’ he paused, and added virtuously, ‘ay and for all that he made my poor mother suffer. He’s drinking himself to death anyway.’

  She did not reply, but throwing back her head, gazed upwards meditatively at the ceiling, exposing the fine, white arch of her throat and drawing her skirt almost to her knees by the graceful backward inclination of her body.

  ‘You’re wastin’ yourself on him, I’m tellin’ you,’ he continued eagerly. ‘He’s nothing but a great, surly, big bully. Look what he’s doing to Nessie – driving her on at these lessons. Look what he did to Mamma! He’s not worth it. Do you not see that yourself?’

  A secret merriment shook her as she replied:

  ‘I’m not feared, Matt. I can take care of myself. I’m only thinkin’ one or two things all to my wee self. Just a secret between Nancy and me,’ she whispered captivatingly.

  ‘What is it?’ he cried ardently, aroused by her manner.

  ‘I’ll tell ye some day, if you’re good.’

  ‘Tell me now,’ he urged. But she refused to enlighten him and, with a flirt of her head, looked at the clock, then replied: ‘Tuts! I was just thinkin’ it was time to throw a bit dinner on the stove. I maun remember my official responsibilities and not forget what I’m here for or I’ll be gettin’ the sack. You’ll be out for lunch as usual, I suppose.’

  He, too, regarded the clock to estimate his margin of safety before he must clear out of the house to avert an encounter with his father, the policy he followed since Mamma’s death was to avoid his father as much as possible.

  ‘Ay, I’ll be out! You know it chokes me to eat at the same table as him – not that I’m feared of him, for he’s so changed he hasn’t got a word in him – but the more we keep out of each other’s way the better for everybody concerned. It’s just a matter of good sense on my part.’

  As he moved his position with a great show of indifference and independence, she raised her hands behind her head as though to support its backward tilt and continued to smile at him faintly, enigmatically.

  ‘Come here a minute, Matt,’ she murmured, at
length.

  He looked at her doubtingly as he came towards the table on which she sat, advancing so slowly that she urged:

  ‘Closer, man, closer. I’ll not bite ye.’

  He would, he thought, have willingly submitted to such desirable punishment as he caught the glint of her white, even teeth shining under the red, smiling lips, lips that grew more vivid against the pallor of her skin the nearer he approached to her.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ she said at length; ‘ that shows more spunk. Ye know, Matt, you father’s an awfu’ stupid, senseless man to leave two young folks like us hangin about this dreich house with time so heavy on our hands. If he had but a grain o’ sense to sit down and reflect over the matter he would never have allowed it. I haven a been out of the house for days now, except for messages, and he would never think of takin’a lassie out for a bit entertainment. Now listen to me. There’s a concert on in the Borough Hall to-morrow, Matt,’ she whispered, lifting her dark lashes enticingly, ‘what do you say if you and me take a turn down there? He’ll never know a thing about it, and forbye, I’ll get the money for our seats out of him somehow.’

  He gazed at her with a fascinated stare, thinking not of her words, which he hardly heard, but noting how from her posture her firm breasts protruded eloquently towards him, and – as not only he had seen – how the faint, golden freckles dusted her small, straight nose and finally touched the softly rounded curve of her short upper lip. He knew now that he wanted her, although he was afraid to take her, and as he gazed deeply into her dark eyes some half-hidden flicker incited him to a rash, tempestuous action, made him blurt out unconsciously:

  ‘Nancy! Nancy! you’re a devil to draw a man!’

  For a second her expression lost its enticing look and changed to one of pleased complacency.

  ‘I’m beginning to see that now,’ she murmured, ‘and the next man that gets me is not goin’ to get me cheap.’ Then, immediately, her voice altered, and she resumed wheedlingly: ‘But – what about the concert, Matt – it’s the McKelvie family – they’re grand. I’m just dyin’ for a little amusement. You and I could hit it off fine at a concert like that. We’ve always had such good fun together and this’ll brighten us both up. Come on, Matt, will you take me to it?’

  He felt her breath fan his cheek with a warm intimacy as he blurted out awkwardly, oddly:

  ‘All right, Nancy! I’ll take ye! Anything you like – you’ve just to say the word.’

  Her smile rewarded him; she leapt lightly from the table and touched his cheek airily with her finger tips.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ she cried, gaily. ‘ We’ll have a rare time and no mistake. You leave it all to me, tickets and everything. We can arrange to meet at the Hall, but you maun come back that long dark road wi’ me,’ she added slyly. ‘I would be feared to come home myself. I might need your protection.’ Then, with a sudden upward glance, she cried: ‘Sakes alive, will ye look at that clock! I’ve hardly time to fry up the sausages. Away out with ye, Matt, unless ye want to run slap into that big father o’ yours. Away the now, but come back when the coast’s clear and we’ll have a tasty bite together – just you and me.’

  She warmed him with a last glance and without a word he went out of the room, the inward struggle of his emotions binding his tongue, making his passage clumsy and his step ungainly.

  When he had gone, she commenced her belated preparations for the midday meal, not with any degree of urgency but with an undisturbed and almost deliberate carelessness, flinging a pound of sausages into the frying-pan and leaving them to cook themselves upon the stove whilst she spread a soiled cover upon the table, rattled some plates into their appointed places, and flanked each carelessly by a knife and fork.

  The slovenly nature of her housewifery was markedly in contrast to her own trig, fastidious person but was further strongly evidenced by the general appearance of the kitchen. The dust which lay thickly upon the mantelpiece and shelves, the spotted, rusty grate, the unswept floor and hearth, the lax indefinite air of untidiness and neglect that hung upon the room, all became explained in the light of her present, actions. The aspect of the interior had changed sadly since the days when Mamma had been unjustly maligned for her sluttishness, when her unappreciated efforts had at least maintained a spotless cleanliness inside the house; now, as the protesting sausages spluttered their grease over the adjacent walls, they seemed to smirch the room with a melancholy degradation.

  Suddenly, above the crackle of this cooking, into the fat-drenched vapour that filled the scullery, came the sound of the front door opening and shutting, followed by a heavy but sluggish tread along the hall. This, however, although she recognised it as Brodie’s step, did not in the least perturb the unprepared Nancy who still maintained her unconcerned and wary survey of the frying-pan. For her no frantic running with savoury broths, brimming coffee cups, or Britannia metal teapots! As she heard him come ponderously into the kitchen and silently sit down at the table she waited a moment, then called out brightly:

  ‘You’re too early the day, Brodie. I’m not nearly ready for ye,’ then, as he did not reply, she continued to shout out, addressing him – who had never deviated a second from his routine – ‘You’re that uncertain these days I never know when to expect your or else the clocks in this house o’ yours are all wrong. Anyway, hold on and I’ll be in the now.’

  He ‘held on,’ waiting without a word. In the short space of time which had elapsed since his entry into the offices of Latta & Co. a change, more striking and profound than that of the room in which he sat, but shaped in a similar direction, had affected him. Now, as he sat, his eyes fixed downwards upon the plate before him, he seemed to have shrunken slightly so that his clothes appeared not to fit him, but to have been made for some larger frame than his, while his upright, firm-chested, and always belligerent bearing had been replaced by a faint yet clearly perceptible stoop. His features, from being rugged, had become morose, his eye, no longer piercing, was fixed, brooding, and shot with faint threads of blood, while his cheeks, too, were veined by a fine, reticulated network of reddish vessels. His lips were dry, compressed; his temples, and indeed his cheeks, gaunt, slightly hollowed, and upon his brow the furrow of his frown had seared itself like a deep-grooved stigma. It was as though the firm outlines of the man had become blurred, his craggy features corroded, the whole solidity of his being eaten and undermined by some strange, dissolving acid in his blood.

  When Nancy entered, bearing the platter of sausages, he glanced up quickly, drawn by the magnet of her eyes, but as she placed the plate before him he looked at it and said, in a harsh voice that came like the note of a faintly warped instrument:

  ‘Have ye no soup to-day for me, Nancy?’

  ‘No,’ she replied shortly, ‘I have not.’

  ‘I would have liked a drop broth to-day,’ he replied with a shadow of displeasure. ‘There’s a nip in the air already; still, if ye haven’t got any that’s all about it. Where’s the potatoes, then?’

  ‘I hadna time to make any potatoes for ye to-day. I’ve been fair rushed off my feet. Ye canna expect me to do everything for ye a’ days, and dippin’ my hands in cold dirty water to peel potatoes is what I’ve never been used to. Ye were glad enough to get a simpler dinner than that when ye used to come in to see me at the Winton Arms, and things are no better off with ye now. Eatirup and be content, man!’

  The pupils of his eyes dilated as he looked at her, his lips shaped themselves to an angry reply, but with an effort he restrained himself, helped himself from the plate before him, and, taking a slice of bread, began his meal. She stood beside him for a moment, her hands upon her hips, flaunting her figure near to him, filled by the conscious sense of her power over him until, as Grandma Brodie entered the room, she flounced back into the scullery.

  The old woman came forward to the table with a half-bemused expression upon her sallow, wrinkled visage and as she sat down murmured to herself: ‘Tch! these things again’; bu
t at her scarcely perceptible words Brodie turned and, showing his teeth at her in his old manner, snarled:

  ‘What harm have the sausages done? If ye don’t like plain, honest meat ye can go to the poorhouse, and if ye do like it then shut your auld girnin’ mouth!’

  At his words, and more especially at the accompanying glance, she at once subsided into herself, and with her tremulous hands began, but without much eagerness, to assist herself to the food she had so indiscreetly condemned. Her ageing, muddled brain, incapable of fully comprehending the significance of the changes around her, accepted only the fact that she was now uncomfortable, presented with scanty, unpalatable meals, and as her weak jaws champed with a dry disrelish she vented her displeasure in quick, darting glances towards the hidden presence in the scullery.

  After a few moments during which the two ate in silence, Brodie paused suddenly in his indifferent mastication, raised his head slightly at the light sound of someone entering the house and, fixing his eyes upon the door leading to the hall, waited expectantly for the entry of Nessie. She came in immediately and, although Brodie resumed his eating mechanically, he followed her everywhere about the room with his eyes. She slipped the thin elastic from under her chin and released her plain straw hat, threw this upon the sofa, discarded her blue serge jacket and laid it beside the hat, fluffed out her light flaxen hair and finally subsided in her chair beside him. She sat back in her chair, languidly, surveying the table with a faint childish air of petulance, saying nothing, but feeling in her own mind that the sight of the solidifying grease before her had removed what little appetitie she had possessed, that though she might have eaten, and enjoyed, perhaps a little stewed mince or even a small lamb chop, now she turned from the very thought of food. At her present age of fifteen years she had reached that period of her life when her budding and developing body required an additional attention, a more selective dietary, and though she realised nothing of this she felt instinctively, with her slightly throbbing head and the onset of her significant though unmentionable malaise, that it was an injustice to present her with the food she now surveyed. As she rested thus, her father, who had observed her continuously since her entry, spoke; with an unchanged face but in a voice which he tried to render light, persuasive, he said: