Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

"Don't make a midden of my bedroom! It's bad enough for me to put up with you without havin' your dirty clothes flung in my face!" She had, he considered bitterly, long since been repugnant to him; the very smell of her was obnoxious to him, and had he not been a decent man, he might well have looked elsewhere. What had he dreamed last night? He thrust out his lower lip longingly and stretched his legs powerfully as he played with the vision of his sleep, thinking of the tantalising young jade he had chased through the woods who, though he had run like a stag, had been saved by the fleetness of her foot. She had run, faster than a deer, her long hair flying behind her, and with not a stitch on her back to cumber her, but still, despite her speed, had turned to smile at him enticingly, provokingly. If he had only gotten a grip of her, he thought, allowing his erotic fancy to riot delightfully as he lay back, basking his ponderous body in the sun, his parted lips twitching with a half-lewd, half-sardonic amusement, he would have made her pipe to a different tune.

Suddenly he observed that it was quarter past eight and without warning, he jumped out of bed, put on his socks, trousers and slippers, and pulled off his long nightgown. His naked torso gleamed sleekly and the muscles of his shoulders and back undulated like pliant knotted ropes under the white skin which shone like smooth satin, except where the thick brown hair was felted on the chest,

dense and adherent as lichen upon a rock. For a moment he stood thus, placed before the small mirror above the washstand, admiring his clear eyes, his strong white teeth, and running his fingers with a bristling sound over the stubble on his heavy jaw. Then, still stripped to the waist, he turned, took up a mahogany box of razors wherein lay seven special hollow-ground, Sheffield blades with their ivory handles marked each with a day of the week, carefully picked out the one inlaid with the word Friday, tried the temper appreciatively against his thumb nail and began to strop it slowly upon the leather thong which hung near from its appointed hook. The strap was thick, and, as Matthew and Mary had testified in their younger days, of an enduring toughness, and as Brodic worked the razor slowly up and down upon its tan surface it set the true blade to an infinite keenness. When he had adjusted the edge to his satisfaction, he went to the door, picked up his hot shaving water which was there, steaming, to the minute, returned to the mirror, lathered his face copiously and began to shave with long, precise movements.

He shaved meticulously, leaving his chin and cheeks as smooth as silk, cautiously avoiding the glossy curl of his moustache and sweeping the razor against his tense skin with such firm, measured strokes that it filled the silence of the room with a regularly intermittent rhythm of crisp, rustling sound. Shaved, he cleaned the razor upon a slip of paper taken from a specially cut pile, which it was Nessie's duty to prepare and replenish, re-stropped it and replaced it in its case; then, decanting the large ewer into its basin, he washed ex-travagantly in cold water, splashing it upon his face and sluicing lavish handfuls about his chest, head, and arms. This prodigal use of cold water even on the iciest mornings of winter was his inflexible habit, maintaining, he claimed, his perfect health, and saving him from the catarrhal colds which so frequently affected his spouse. "I slunge myself in cold water," he would often boast, "as cold as I can get it. Ay! I wad break the ice to dook myself, and the more frozen it is the warmer it makes me after. It doesna make me chatter or snivel with a red nose, like some folks I could mention. No! No! It makes me glow. Give me plenty cold, cold water there's health in it;" and now, as he vigorously applied a coarse rough towel to his body, whilst he hissed between his teeth like an ostler, he felt a ruddy glow sweep through him and dispel in part the rankncss of his early mood.

He finished his dressing by assuming, with scrupulous care, a shirt of fine, expensive linen, starched Gladstone collar and bird's-eye cravat fixed with a gold horseshoe pin, embroidered grey waist-coat, and long coat of superfine broadcloth. Then he went downstairs.

Breakfast he invariably ate alone. Matthew left the house at six, Nessie at half-past eight, his mother was never up before ten o'clock, Mrs. Brodie and Mary took their morning meal privately and when they chose, in the dim regions where cooking was performed, and it fell therefore that Brodie sat down to his large bowl of porridge in solitary dignity. He enjoyed all his meals, but to breakfast in particular he brought, in the freshness of morning, a more lively appetite, and he now addressed himself eagerly to his porridge, and after, to

the two fresh eggs lightly boiled to the requisite second and shelled into a large cup, to the large soft rolls and thick fresh butter, and to his coffee, a beverage of which he was inordinately fond and one permitted to no one else in the household.

As Mary passed soundlessly in and out of the room during the meal to serve him, he noticed from beneath his lowered lids how pale she looked, but he made no remark, for it was his policy not to encourage his womenfolk to consider themselves ill; it gave him, nevertheless, an inward satisfaction as he attributed the subdued look and dark circles under her eyes to the shrewd attack he had launched on her on the previous night.

According to custom, when he had breakfasted, and that in silence, he left the house at nine-thirty precisely, and stood for a moment at his front gate, looking back appreciatively at his property. His proud glance swept the small domain, observing that not a weed sprouted in the gravelled yard, not a spot disgraced the paintwork, not a blemish marked the grim grey stone, and approving with intense complacency the work of his own creation. It was his! Five years ago he had bought the land and approaching Urie the builder, had spoken to him at length, drawn rough diagrams, and described fully the nature of the house he desired. Urie, a blunt man and a man of substance, had looked at him in astonishment, saying:

"Man alive! you're not a stone mason or you wouldna let your ideas run awa' wi' you like that. Your head must be in the clouds. Do ye realise what that sketch would look like in stone and mortar?"

"I'm going to live in it, Urie not you," Brodie had replied steadily.

"But there's so much unnecessary work on it. Just take the expense o' piercin' this wee piece o' parapet! What good is it?" and Urie flicked the pencilled outline before him.

"I'm payin' for it, Urie not you," again replied Brodie.

The builder had pushed his hat over his ears, scratched his head uncomprehendingly with his pencil, and expostulated: "You're not serious, Brodie! It would be all right if it were ten times as big, but you're only wantin' a six room and kitchen house. It's preposterous. You'll make yoursel' the laughin' stock o' the town."

"I'll attend to that," cried Brodie grimly. "God help the man that laughs at James Brodie to his face!"

"Come, come now, Brodie," the other had conciliated, "let me put you up a solid respectable bit villa, not this wee kind o' sham castle that you're haverin' about."

Brodie's eyes took on a strange expression, as though a dark fire flickered there, and he shouted out:

"Damn ye, Urie! Keep your tongue civil when ye speak to me. I want none o' your smug bandboxes. I want a house that befits me;" then in a flash he had recovered himself and in a normal, quiet tone added, "If you don't like it you needna touch it. I'm givin' ye the chance, but if ye don't wish to take it there are other builders in Levenford."

Urie stared at him and whistled.

"Sits the wind in that quarter. Well! Well! If you're set on it I'll get a plan and an estimate out for you. A wilful man maun have his way. But don't forget I warned ye. Don't come and ask me to take the house down again once it's up."