by A. J. Cronin
Leaving Robert on the bridge, Daniel went down to the galley, which consisted of little more than an iron stove, some plates and cutlery. Saucepans and an enormous frying-pan hung from nails driven into a beam. But long practice had taught Daniel to cope with worse situations than this. The pan was soon sizzling on the stove. Two eggs, skilfully cracked on the edge of the pan, were cooking in the golden fat from fried ham. In no time at all, it seemed, the tea was ready, the ham and eggs, the bread, butter and jam laid out. Daniel and Robert sat down at a table such as the boy had never before seen in his life. In his eyes surprise struggled with uncertainty. His most fixed ideas, his suspicions of Daniel and his motives, his fear of a trick, in short, his whole philosophy, learned in the hard school of his childhood, trembled on its foundations. He did not understand at all. Helped by his hunger he made a truce with himself and attacked the plentiful and savoury fare. Surely his companion could be trusted and the food would not be poisoned.
In the end he ate very little. Nothing would have pleased Daniel more than to see him devour an enormous meal. But the boy, although enticed by the quality of the food, could not manage the quantity. Halfway through his second slice of bread he put a pointed elbow on the table and gazed at Daniel.
“Can I put the rest in my pocket for tomorrow?”
“No, we will put it in the larder. It will keep better there and you can get it whenever you like.”
A new look of astonishment in the serious eyes. A half slice of bread to be kept untouched, for its owner! That passed everything.
“Am I going to live here?”
“Yes. Now you are tired and must go to bed.”
“To bed,” repeated Robert. “I never went to bed until Auntie Lang got back from the pub at closing time. But it doesn’t matter, I will go to bed if you like. But not until we have washed up.”
“Don’t bother about that.” Daniel, trying to seem jocular, could only manage an embarrassed laugh. “ I will put a big kettle of water on the stove so that you can wash.”
“Wash? Me? Why? I don’t need one.”
“To please me.”
A silence, the boy was too tired to argue. Getting up, he started to take off his rags. When Daniel brought the big bowl of steaming water he had a towel over his arm and a cake of soap in his hand. Robert started to wash. The job was not very well done. Daniel watched him while clearing the table. When the child had finished drying himself his body had the faint bluish colour of a chicken freshly plucked and trussed for market.
There were two bunks in the cabin, an upper and a lower, and Robert, given his choice, elected to be high.
“Lie down, now, there’s a good boy,” said Daniel.
Robert got down upon one elbow, when a final thought disturbed him. Gazing at Daniel with a strange expression he remarked: “You won’t go away.”
He subsided upon the bunk at last, his face turned sideways, his hair softened by its recent washing and shot with fair lights lying like flax upon the pillow. The moment he was down he was asleep.
Daniel stood motionless, looking at the sleeping child, whose regular breathing had the effect of reassuring him, of counteracting the frightful emaciation of that gaunt little face.
In repose that face lost its gutter sharpness, its worry and its watchfulness, and became completely childish and inexpressibly sad; in particular the eye shadows had a tender quality and the mouth a pitiful droop which raised in Daniel a passion of commiseration.
A great lump rose in his throat. He bit his lip hard, his head cocked sideways, his hand nervously caressing his beard. Then he turned silently and began to pick up the bits and pieces of the boy’s discarded clothing.
Carefully, so as to make no sound, he wrapped them up in brown paper which had recently enclosed Robert’s new suit. A round stone taken from the ballast above the bilge boards supplied the necessary weight. Carrying the package in his hand, Daniel went on deck and cast it from him into the loch. It struck the still water with barely a sound and sank immediately. Something symbolic in the action struck at Daniel and made it a fitting climax to the day. A casting away of all the child’s old life: already an assumption of the new.
The dawn broke warm and fine, with a faint haze drifting over the calm surface of the loch.
Though Daniel rose early, Robert was on deck before him, fully dressed in his new clothes, and playing with an old box camera which Daniel had left on a previous visit to the boat.
Since the morning was so fine they breakfasted on deck. Halfway through a slight spasm of appreciation twisted Robert’s lips—his nearest approach to a smile.
“All the same, I’m glad Annie Lang’s not here.”
“Why?” Daniel asked.
“Oh, you surely know. I like my clothes and she’d pawn them. I got boots once from the Welfare Society, but she got hold of them and put them up the spout. Mind you, Annie’s not a bad sort. She just had to pawn my boots.”
Daniel was silent for a moment, then, seizing the opportunity, with attempted casualness he declared:
“You’ll find a difference with your own mother.”
Robert stopped eating. The yellow bone spoon with which he had been chasing fragments of boiled egg around the shell remained suspended, motionless, in mid-air. That spoon’s immobility was more poignantly expressive than any words of the blow delivered upon his sensibilities by Daniel’s remark. There had been the sunny morning, the old box camera, the adventure of breakfast upon the boat, all making him forget the ominous event hanging, hanging above his head—the advent of his mother.
He was, and had long been, minutely aware of his own circumstances, since mysteries do not survive the intimacies of Clyde Place. Before Daniel’s arrival he had known that his father was dead, his mother “away”, and that he himself was an illegitimate child.
It made Robert go hot and cold all over to think of this woman who laid claim to him. He would have died sooner than utter the word “mother”.
“Her!” he exclaimed, and his brows drew down. “ Why does she need to come? I like it here the way we are.”
Daniel sighed. “I’ve taken a heap of trouble, boy, to bring the two of you together.”
“I’m not wanting her.”
“You mustn’t talk that way.”
Another silence.
“When is she coming?”
“This afternoon.”
But at five o’clock Daniel began to manifest symptoms of restlessness. He wanted Gracie to come. He longed to unite Robert to his mother. Moreover, beyond the approaching sunset lay the harsh morning of reality. He had himself to think of and his own position, his need to be back in Levenford that night.
A physical tremor passed over him at the thought of Kate. His eyes searched the shore, his watch came out a dozen times in half as many minutes, indeed, he fidgeted nervously with the old timepiece as though it were, in part, responsible for the delay.
At last, however, he gave a sudden exclamation. “There!” he cried, pointing to the beach. “There she is at last.”
The start which Robert gave belied his studied composure. He jumped nearly from his skin, and his face, coloured slightly by the day’s sunshine, went pale as putty as he followed Daniel’s finger towards the dark figure seen indistinctly in the distance moving through the trees.
“Into the skiff, boy,” cried Daniel. “ We’ll get to the beach before her.”
He tumbled into the dinghy, placing Robert in the bows behind him. A moment’s excited sculling brought them to the verge of Cantie Bay. And then, as they turned, Daniel stiffened in his seat. The oars dropped from his hands, a cry of blank disappointment from his lips.
“It’s not her,” he faltered. “ It’s not her, after all.”
Robert suddenly sat up straight, his cheeks flooding with a violent colour.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Daniel muttered to himself. “Whatever can have become of her?”
The figure striding towards them across the beach and darkening
the horizon with its solemn prescience was the figure of Apothecary Hay.
Chapter Seven
Earlier that same day, in her room at College Row, Gracie was moving about in her dressing-gown, listlessly engaged in packing. Her trunk lay open on the floor, which was strewn with tissue paper, shoes, and a cardboard hatbox.
On the bed a dress stretched itself forlornly, while the drawer of the yellow chest, pulled out and empty, had a queer pathetic look, like the gaping mouth of a toothless old woman. The whole aspect of the room was indicative of change, and Gracie herself wore a depressed and fugitive air, yet her visitor, just shown up by Mrs Glen, seemed both static and unshakeable.
Stretched in the wicker chair, his hat across his eyes, surveying Gracie’s movements with that heavy imperturbability which usually masked his thoughts, was Frank Harmon.
“So you’re actually going?” he remarked, without moving from his chair.
She inclined her head, not looking at him, her brows maintaining their frown of troubled concentration.
“I wish you hadn’t come up, Frank,” she said a moment later, having folded the dress and placed it in the trunk.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“We said good-bye last night.”
“Is a woman’s good-bye always final?”
“It’s idiotic of me, Frank, but it hurts me that you won’t take me seriously. What I’m going to do isn’t easy. It means a struggle for me … a hard struggle. But I’m going to do it.”
His expression remained politely incredulous, yet he veiled his eyes to conceal the dark annoyance which rankled within him. He was, in truth, furious that Gracie should want to quit Levenford for no reason that he could understand, save that she had fallen into disrepute in the town: more furious still that, despite his best efforts and all his attentions through these past weeks, he had not; beyond a few brief, unsatisfying kisses, materially gained her favour.
He had succeeded with so many women that this unexpected failure inflamed him the more, increasing his determination to prevent her leaving him.
“Well,” he said at length, “ you may be right to clear out. After all, they have used you abominably here. And, actually, you’re not well, Gracie. If you don’t look out you’ll have a breakdown. I’m worried about you.”
His altered manner, kind, persuasive, eminently reasonable, brought tears to her eyes. She was, and had been since the scene last night at the Ladywell Tavern, in a highly nervous state.
“But you ought to have a real holiday,” he went on, “not a makeshift affair so near this wretched town. That’s why I spoke to you about Spain. It’s lovely down in Malaga. Think of it. Rest, quiet, blue skies, and Mediterranean sunshine.…” He gazed at her intently. “I’d be good to you.”
Immediately her dark pupils drew away.
“No, Frank … not that.”
He watched her covertly, holding back his anger with an effort, considering how he might best break down her resistance.
He really wanted her, more, perhaps, than he had wanted any woman, and he was prepared to use any stratagem, to go to any lengths, to have her. With a shrug of his shoulders, as though accepting her decision, sadly, yet with a good grace, he exclaimed:
“You are a wilful creature, my dear, I see you mean to have your way. Well, at least allow me to be of service to you. Let me take you and your baggage to Markinch in my car.”
She gazed at him doubtfully. She was dreading the cab journey to the station under the eyes of the town, the wait at the station, the difficulty with her luggage.
“It’s too much trouble for you, Frank.”
“None at all. As a matter of fact I’d planned to take the day off to run down to Ardfillan—the regatta is on there this week.” He stopped suddenly and his face broke into a frank smile. “ Say, there’s an idea. We’ll both go to the regatta and I‘ll drive you across the hill to Markinch in the evening.”
She drew herself back slightly, feeling his influence, distrusting the persuasive force of his personality. As on that previous occasion in his office, her instinct rose up suddenly, warning her against him.
“No, we couldn’t do that.”
“Why on earth not!” His smile widened, displaying his fine strong teeth. “ It’s only ten o’clock. You’re so cast down, it’s the very thing to cheer you up. You’ve always loved sailing. And a day in the open air will do you no end of good.”
She had all at once a longing to be taken out of herself, to be lifted up a little before the long and arduous struggle which confronted her. Frank, yes, Frank was just the one to do it.
Then, while she still hesitated, she recollected a circumstance which might enable her to send a message to Daniel, telling him she was delayed, that she would join him later in the evening.
At that her last reluctance fell away from her.
“I’ll go then, Frank.” She put her hand upon his sleeve. “But be sure you get me to Markinch on time.”
While Daniel rowed Hay took the tiller, sitting silent and impenetrable in the stern, an angular, black figure in a hard square hat, holding the rudder cords as though they were the strings of destiny.
Apparently he took no notice of Robert whatsoever. And certainly he took none of Daniel. His gaze was bent, with unblinking, saturnine intensity, upon a distant point of the compass. His lips, turned down, wore a slight smile of contempt. He had the air, oblivious and stoic, of an early martyr being ferried across the Styx.
Daniel, on the other hand, was in a piteous state of flutter. He dared not ask a single question, knowing his friend’s irreverent tongue, for fear of startling the boy. But what he read in Hay’s face did little to reassure him. Nor, when they reached the houseboat, had he the opportunity to inquire the facts, for the druggist, in a loud voice, immediately demanded tea.
He ate heartily, working his way through all that Daniel placed before him, with a thorough, metallic champing of his artificial teeth. But at last he was finished. He put down his empty cup, wiped his long dun-coloured moustache with unhurried strokes, and lay back on his seat.
“Well,” he declared, as though becoming aware of Daniel for the first time, “you’re not such a bad cook after all.”
There was an inflection in the remark so dry, so withering, that Robert at least seemed to find it funny. He laughed, no mere spasm of tight-drawn little face, but a shrill twitter of amusement.
Hay turned slowly, recognising the boy at last. Actually no introduction would have been happier—nothing gratified the chemist more, there was no surer road to his favour, than the spontaneous appreciation of his sardonic jokes.
“So this is him,” he said to Daniel after a lengthy period of inspection.
“Yes, this is Robert,” Daniel answered.
“I’ll say this much for him,” Hay delivered the judgement with due approval, “ he’s not much to look at. But he seems to have a head on him.”
This pronouncement, so unexpected and so flattering, had the effect of making Daniel quiver with pride. For a moment he forgot his burning anxiety to have news of Gracie.
“There isn’t a lot of him … yet.”
“Stand up, boy,” said the druggist, “ and let’s have a peek at you. Mmh! Ay, ay! Just as I thought! He’s got the rickets.”
“But something can be done about it?” Daniel said hastily. “I’ve been thinking it over and I fancied maybe that a leg-iron—”
“Leg-iron! Fiddle-de-dee,” the druggist interrupted.
“You think they’ll be able to put him right?” Daniel inquired anxiously.
“They!” said the druggist with an ironic laugh. “I know nothing about your ‘theys’. All I know is that I could put him right in 12 months if I had the handling of him.” He gazed hard at Robert. “Do you believe me, boy?”
“Yes,” Robert muttered. “Only I’m fine the way I am.”
Hay nodded his head several times with a significant air approving the sturdy independence behind the remark. Almost gleefu
lly, he declared:
“We would get to know each other brawly if we had the chance, you and me. Away to bed now, that’s a good boy. I’ve something to say to your friend Nimmo that’ll not bear keeping.”
When Robert had gone to bed, Hay turned to Daniel with a sarcastic smile.
“I like that boy. Did you notice how he hung on my words?”
“Yes, yes,” said Daniel, beside himself with worry. “ But tell me about Gracie. What has happened?”
“She promises she will come later, but I don’t know when.”
“Why, why did she not come now?”
Hay gave a little mocking smile. “Listen to me, my friend, if you are so anxious to know. At noon today, just as I was shutting the shop for lunch, your dear Gracie came running up in a great hurry to ask if I would be paying my usual visit to the boat. I told her I intended to spend an hour or two on the water. ‘ In that case,’ she said, ‘ will you tell Daniel Nimmo that after going to Ardfillan I will be at the boat at seven without fail?’ She thanked me and ran off before I could say a word.”
Daniel relaxed.
“Seven o’clock? That will delay me, but I can still manage.”
Hay looked at his friend anxiously. “You know, no doubt, that she has gone off with Frank Harmon?”
“But.…”
“And Harmon,” Hay continued relentlessly, “ has just cleared his desk for a six-week trip to Spain. He sails on the Andalusia from Ardfillan Pier, tonight.”
Daniel swallowed dryly.
“How can you know all this?”
“I know most things that are happening in Levenford,” Hay answered with a certain smugness. “Harmon’s clerk was in my shop last Monday. And he told me something more.”
“What?” Daniel whispered, wrung to the heart.
“When Harmon booked his passage through the agency, he took not one ticket, but two.”
There was a long, frozen silence. The druggist, gazing over the top of Daniel’s head, brought a sliver of liquorice from his pocket and began to chew. From time to time he smacked his lips together.
When the druggist had gone, after six o’clock, to catch the fast train from Markinch, Daniel took a seat in the stern of the boat, and in the last low gleam of colour from the western sky searched the hazy beach with straining, anxious eyes. It had turned cold, the breeze was rising, and a shiver went through him. But it could not extinguish the faith that persisted in his breast nor the hope that still flickered in his heart.