Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  The forenoon had advanced well upon its course when a precise step sounded in the corridor outside, and the door of the room opened to admit the correct figure of Mr Blair. With a sheaf of papers in his hand he stood for a moment, adjusting his gold-rimmed pince-nez upon his elevated nose, and scrutinising at some length the three clerks now working under his severe eye. His gaze eventually settled upon the sprawling form of Brodie from whose damp clothing the steam now rose in a warm, vaporous mist, and as he looked his glance became more disapproving; he cleared his throat warningly and strode forward, fluttering the papers in his grasp like feathers of his ruffled plumage. ‘Brodie,’ he began sharply, ‘a moment of your attention, please!’

  Without changing his posture Brodie lifted his head from the desk and regarded the other mordantly:

  ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘what is it this time?’

  ‘You might get up when you address me,’ expostulated Blair. ‘Every other clerk does so but you. It’s most irregular and unusual.’

  ‘I’m a kind o’ unusual man, ye see; that’s maybe the reason o’ it,’ retorted Brodie slowly. ‘I’m just as well where I am! What is’t you’re wantin’?’

  ‘These accounts,’ shot out the other angrily. ‘Do you recognise them? If you don’t I may inform you that they represent your work – or so-called work! Every one of them is in error. Your figures are wrong the whole way through and your total is outrageously incorrect I’m sick of your blundering incompetence, Brodie! Unless you can explain this I shall have to report the whole matter to my superior.’

  Brodie glowered from the papers to the other’s starched and offended face, and, filled by a sense of the insupportable indignity of his position he replied sullenly, in a low voice:

  ‘I did the best I could. I can do no more.’

  ‘Your best is not good enough, then,’ retorted Blair in a high, almost a shrill tone. ‘Lately your work has become atrociously bad and your behaviour is, if anything, worse. Your very appearance is lowering to the dignity of this office. I’m sure if Sir John knew he would never permit it. Why,’ he stuttered, choked by indignation, ‘already your breath is reeking with the smell of drink. It’s abominable!’

  Brodie sat quite still, his eyes lowered, his mind blurred, wondering if it were he, James Brodie, who remained passive under the insults of this primly insignificant creature. He saw himself leap up, seize the other by the throat, shake him within an inch of his life then hurl him, as he had hurled a man twice his size, ignominiously out of the door. But no, he was still sitting motionless upon his stool, muttering in a dull voice:

  ‘My time is my own outside this place. I can use it how I like.’

  ‘You must come to this office in a fit condition to work,’ insisted Blair coldly. ‘You’re a bad example to these young men here – the look of you is a slur on the whole place!’

  ‘Leave my appearance alone, damn you,’ ground out Brodie with a sudden fierceness. ‘ I’d rather be as I am than have your smug face on me.’

  ‘None of your impertinence, please,’ cried Blair, a flush rising to his pale countenance. ‘I’ll report you for insolence.’

  ‘Well, leave me alone,’ cried Brodie, looking up from his crouched position on the desk like a wild animal, broken by captivity, but still ferocious. ‘Don’t push me too far or it’ll be the worse for ye.’

  A sense of the latent danger to himself in the other’s wild eye restrained Blair from further disparaging comment but, thrusting the file of papers disdainfully upon Brodie’s desk, he remarked icily:

  ‘Let me have these corrected at once – faultless if you please – or I’ll know the reason of it!’ then, turning, he stepped formally out of the office.

  With the closing of the door no outburst occurred, but the stillness of the room became more oppressive than any storm. Brodie sat like an effigy in stone turning over within his mind the insults he had just endured, feeling in his humiliation, that the combined glances of the other two were fixed upon him derisively. Out of the corner of his eye he observed a hand appear over the edge of his desk and silently remove the offending accounts and, although he knew that he was again being aided through the good-nature of his colleagues, the hard-hewn moroseness of his features did not relax. He sat thus for an interminable time without lifting his pen, observed, without speaking, the corrected documents slide back again in front of him, maintained his attitude of rigid indifference until the dinner-whistle blew at one o’clock; then he rose immediately from his stool, seized his hat, and walked quickly from the room. Some insults might be washed out in blood, but he now sought urgently, in a different manner, to eradicate the memory of his indignity.

  When he returned, punctual to the hour, at two o’clock he was altered, as though some mysterious, benign influence had been at work upon him, potently dispersing his melancholy, smoothing the harsh outlines of his face, injecting into his veins a fluid gaiety which now coursed through him joyously, and emanated radiantly from his being.

  ‘I’m here first, lads, ye see,’ he cried with a heavy facetiousness, as the two other clerks appeared together shortly after he had arrived, ‘and on the stroke of the clock too! But what do you mean by comin’ in late. It’s abominable. If you don’t improve your blunderin’ irregularity I’ll report you to your superior – that pasty pie-face that was in here this mornin’.’ He laughed boisterously and continued: ‘Can you not take your example from me that’s held up to you as such a paragon o’ virtue?’

  ‘You’re in fettle now, Mr Brodie,’ doubtfully replied one of the youngsters.

  ‘And what for no’,’ he exclaimed. ‘ I wouldna let a thing like what happened this forenoon put me down. Not on your life, my mannie. It was just the thought of other considerations that forbade me to wring the puir creature’s stiff neck for him. You know,’ he continued confidentially, ‘he’s aye been jealous o’ the way I got into this office under his very nose, but I had the influence and he couldna prevent it.’ He drew his pipe from his pocket, rapped it noisily against the desk, and began to fill it.

  ‘You’re not goin’ to smoke, Mr Brodie,’ cried the first clerk, looking up from his ledger in some concern. ‘You know it’s strictly forbidden.’

  Brodie glowered at him, swinging a little on his stool, as he answered:

  ‘And who would stop me? I’ll do as I like in here. A man like me shouldna have to beg and pray for permission to light his pipe.’ He effected this action now, defiantly, sucking noisily and flinging the spent match disdainfully upon the floor. Then, with a profound movement of his head, between puffs he resumed: ‘ No! and I’m not agoin’ to do it. Gad! if I had my rights I wouldna be sittin’ in this rotten office. I’m far above this kind o’ work, far above any kind o’ work. That’s true as death, but it just canna be proved, and I’ve got to thole things as best I can. But it doesna alter me. No! by God. No! There’s many a man in this Borough would be glad to have the blood that runs in my veins.’ He looked round for approval, but observing that his listeners, tired of the stale-recitation of his pretensions, had bowed their heads in a feigned indifference, he was displeased; none the less he turned their defection to account by producing a small, flat bottle from his hip, quickly applying it to his lips, and stealthily returning it to his pocket. Thus refreshed he continued, as though unconscious of their lack of attention: ‘Blood will tell! There’s nothing truer than that. I’ll come up again. It’s nothing but a lot of rotten jealousy that’s put me here; but it’ll not be for long. Ye can’t keep a good man down. I’ll soon be back again where folks’ll recognise me again for what I am, back at the Cattle Show rubbin’ shoulders with the Lord Lieutenant o’ the County and on the best o’ terms – equal terms mind ye’ – he emphasised this to the air by a jerk of his pipe – ‘ay, on equal terms with the finest blood in the county, and with my name standin’ out brawly in the paper amongst them all.’ As he viewed the future by regarding the glory of the past his eye moistened, his lower lip drooped childish
ly, his breast heaved, and he muttered: ‘God! that’s a grand thing to happen to a man.’

  ‘Come on now, Mr Brodie,’ entreated the other clerk, breaking in upon his meditation, ‘ put away your pipe now you’ve had a smoke. I don’t want to see you getting into trouble.’

  Brodie glowered at him for an instant then suddenly guffawed:

  ‘Man, you’re awfu’ feared. True enough, it’s as you say. I’ve had a smoke, but I’m goin’ to have another – and more than that – I’m goin’ to have a dram as well!’ He slyly produced the bottle again and, whilst they watched him with startled eyes, partook of a long pull. Instead of returning the flask to his pocket he stood it before him on top of his desk, remarking: ‘Ye’ll be handier for me there, hinny, and I can look at ye as well, and watch ye goin’ down inch by inch.’ Then, flattered to find himself the focus of their anxious stares, he continued: ‘ Speakin’ of trouble – there’s one thing that little runt said to me this mornin’ that was so ridiculous it’s stuck in my head.’ He frowned prodigiously at the very memory. ‘ I think I mind of him sayin’ “the look o’ ye is a slur on the whole place” – ay, that was it – these were his very words. Now tell me, lads – what the devil was he talkin’ about? Is there anything wrong with my appearance?’ He glared at them with a bellicose mien whilst they shook their heads from side to side, doubtfully. ‘ I’m a fine-lookin’ man, am I not!’ he shot at them, watching their silent assent with a large and exaggerated approval. ‘I knew it,’ he cried. ‘ It was just his measly spite. Ay! I was always a grand upstandin’ figure of a man, well set up, with a skin on me as clear as a bairn’s. Besides,’ he continued, looking at them sideways, craftily, as he stroked the coarse stubble on his sallow chin with a rustling sound, ‘there’s another reason why I know he’s wrong. Ye’re maybe ower young to hear but it’s no harm to tell ye that a certain lass – ay, the bonniest in Levenford, puts me first abune everybody else. Odd, I maun have a drink at the very thought of her.’ He drank a toast with decorous solemnity in honour of the loveliest lady in Levenford, and was for some time silent whilst he considered her happily. He wanted to talk about her, to boast proudly of her attractions, but a shadow of restraint held him back and, searching with contracted brows amongst the recesses of his mind for the reason of his reserve, a sudden illumination shone upon him. He became aware that he could not speak more freely about her because she was not his wife. At this startling realisation of his mused brain he silently reviled himself for his negligence. ‘Losh,’ he muttered to himself, ‘ye havena acted fair, man. Ye should have thought on this before.’ He shook his head deprecatingly, took another swig of spirits to assist his meditations, and a profound pathos for the plight of Nancy seized him as he whispered in a maudlin tone: ‘I believe I’ll do it. By God! I will do it for her.’ He almost shook hands with himself at the nobility of the sudden resolution he had formed to make an honest woman of her. True, she was not of much consequence in the social scale, but what of it, his name would cover her, cover them both, and if he married her he would, in one magnificent gesture, keep her more securely in the house, put himself right in the eyes of the town, and still for ever these sad, questioning glances which he had observed from time to time on Nessie’s face. He banged his fist on the desk, crying out: ‘I’ll do it! I’ll mention it this very night,’ then, grinning at the strained faces before him he remarked, with an assumption of lofty rectitude: ‘ Don’t be alarmed, lads. I’ve just been planning out things and I’ve just decided to do something for my wee Nancy. She’s well worth it.’ Then, lowering his elevated tone, he leered at them cunningly and added: ‘A little matter of domestic policy that you’re sure to hear of sooner or later.’ He was about to enlighten them more lucidly when one of the clerks, perceiving perhaps in advance the drift of the revelations that might follow, hurriedly sought to deflect his attention by exclaiming:

  ‘And how is Nessie getting on, Mr Brodie?’

  He blinked for a moment at the questioner before replying:

  ‘Fine! Ye know she’s gettin’ on fine. Dinna ask stupid questions, man. She’s got the Latta in her pocket, already.’ Then, launching out on this fresh subject that now presented itself to his muddled mind he continued: ‘She’s a great comfort to me is that lass. To see her puttin’ a spoke in that young Grierson’s wheel time after time is a rich treat to me. She always beats him ye know, and every time she does it, it must be gall and wormwood to that smooth sneakin’ father o’ his. Ay! Gall and wormwood it must be!’ He sniggered at the very reflection of it and, with a more acute tilt of the bottle to his mouth, was emptying it completely of its contents when, failing in the attempt to laugh and drink simultaneously, he choked and burst into a prolonged fit of hoarse coughing. ‘Pat my back, damn ye,’ he gasped with congested face and running eyes as he bent forward, heaving like a sick and emaciated elephant ‘Harder! Harder!’ he cried as one of the others, leaping from his stool, began to thump his bowed back.

  ‘That’s a nasty cough,’ said the young fellow when the paroxysm had finally abated. ‘That’s what comes of sitting in damp clothes.’

  ‘Bah! it wasna a hoast at all – that,’ replied Brodie, wiping his face with his sleeve. ‘I’ve never wore a coat yet and I never will. I’ve lost my umbrella somewhere, but it doesna’ matter, the rain aye seems to do me good. I’m strong as a Clydesdale stallion,’ and he extended his gaunt structure to show them the manner of man he was.

  ‘Nessie doesn’t take after you, Mr Brodie,’ remarked the first speaker. ‘She doesna look too strong!’

  Brodie glowered at him, exclaiming angrily:

  ‘She’s as sound as a bell. Are you another o’ these safties that are aye trying to make out folks to be ill. She’s as right as the mail I tell you. She had a wee bit turn last month, but it was nothing. I had her at Lawrie and he said she had a heid on her in a thousand – ay, in a million, I would say!’ He glanced round triumphantly, looked to the bottle to express his elation, but, observing that it was empty, seized it and with a fortunate aim hurled it into the waste-paper basket in the corner – whence it was later retrieved and cast into the Leven through the charity of one of his long-suffering colleagues. ‘That’s an aim for ye,’ he cried gaily. ‘ I’ve got an eye in my head! I could bring down a running rabbit at fifty paces without a blink. A rabbit! Damnation! If I was where I should be I would be at the butts bringing down the grouse and the pheasants like droppin’ hailstones.’ He was about to embark once more on the nobility of his estate when suddenly his eyes fell upon the clock. ‘Gad! would ye believe it It’s nearly five o’clock. I’m the man to pass the hours away.’ He cocked his eye facetiously, snickered, and resumed: ‘Time passes quick when you’re workin’ hard, as that stickit whelp Blair would say. But I’m afraid I must leave ye, lads. Ye’re fine fellows and I’m gey an’ fond o’ ye, but I’ve something more important to attend to now.’ He rubbed his hands together in a delightful anticipation and added, with a leer: ‘If the fancy man comes in before five just tell him his accounts are in order and say I’ve gone to buy him a rattle.’ He got off his stool ponderously, slowly assumed his hat, adjusting it twice before the tilt of its dusty brim pleased him, picked up his heavy stick and stood with a gravity now definitely drunken, framing the doorway with his swaying bulk. ‘ Lads!’ he cried, apostrophising them with his stick, ‘if ye knew where I was goin’ now, the eyes would drop out your heads for pure jealousy. You couldna come, though. No! No! There’s only one man in this Borough could gang this bonnie bonnie gait.’ Surveying them impressively he added, with great dramatic gusto: ‘And that’s me!’ – swept their forbearing but disconcerted faces with a final glare and swung slowly out of the room.

  His star was in the ascendant, for as he strode noisily along the passages, bumping from side to side in his erratic career, he met no one and, at five minutes to five, shot through the main swing doors into the open and set his course for home.

  The rain had now ceased and the air came fresh
and cool in the darkness through which the newly lighted lamps, shimmered upon the wet streets, like an endless succession of topaz moons upon the surface of black, still water. The regular repetition of these reflections, each one of which seemed to float insidiously towards him as he walked, amused Brodie monstrously, and he grinned as he told himself he would assuredly inform Nancy of his experience with this strangely inverted celestial phenomenon. Nancy! He chuckled aloud at the consideration of all they had to talk of to-night, from the composition of a real stinger of a letter for that one in London to the delicious proposition which he had determined to put before her. She would of course be perturbed to see him return with perhaps – and he admitted this magnanimously to the darkness – a heavier dram in him than usual, but the sudden delight at his offer of matrimony would dispel all her annoyance. He knew she had always wanted an established position, the randy, such as a fine man like him could give her, and now he heard her overwhelmed voice exclaiming: ‘Do ye mean it, Brodie! Losh! man, ye’ve fair sweepit me away. Marry ye? Ye know I would jump at the chance like a cock at a groset. Come till I give ye a grand, big hug.’ Yes! she would be kinder to him than ever after this sublime concession on his part, and his eyes flickered at the thought of the especial manifestations of her favour which this should elicit from her to-night. As he advanced, warmly conscious that each staggering step took him nearer to her, he could find no comparison strong enough to adequately describe her charm, her possessing hold upon him. ‘She’s – she’s bonnie!’ he muttered inarticulately; ‘the flesh o’ her is as white and firm as the breast of a fine chicken. I could almost make a meal o’ her.’ His thoughts grew more compelling, served to intensify his longing, to add to his excitement, and with a final rapid struggle he launched himself up the steps of his house, fumbled impatiently at the lock with his key, opened the door, and burst into the obscurity of the hall. ‘Nancy,’ he cried loudly, ‘Nancy! Here I am back for ye!’ He stood for a moment in the darkness awaiting her answering cry, but, as she did not reply, he smiled fatuously to think that she should be hiding, waiting for him to go to her, and taking a box of matches from his pocket, he lit the lobby gas, planted his stick firmly in the stand, hung up his hat and went eagerly into the kitchen. This, too, was in darkness.