Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

"Who was that at the door?" Then at her silence he demanded, "Come along! What are ye standing so glaikit for? Who was it?"

"It was only a message boy, Father," she replied quietly, essaying to render her voice composed.

"A message boy!" he repeated incredulously. "Coming to the front door of the house! Gad! What have we got to put up with next."

Then, his anger rising at a sudden thought, he exclaimed, "I'm not going to sit down under that sort of insult. Who sent him ? Tell me and I'll go in about it myself. Who was he from?"

"I don't know!" she faltered.

"Ye don't know!"

"No!" she answered and, still using every effort to conciliate him, hastily added, "Never mind, Father it'll not occur again. Don't upset yourself."

He looked at her for a moment with a lowering eye, noting her suppressed air of embarrassment, faint, yet clearly to be perceived against the pervading candour of her expression.

"Show me the messages he brought," he ground out at her at length. "I didna see you bring them in!"

"They're in the parlour," she replied in a low tone, making as though to move into the scullery. "It's only a parcel nothing you would want to see."

"Get me what he brought," he insisted. "Look sharp about it too. I’ve a notion to look at this strange, disappearing parcel."

"Oh! Father!" she cried. "Can you not believe me?"

"Get it!" he roared. "Or I'll know that you're a liar as well as the other thing."

She saw that she must obey and, with a halting step, went out of the room and returned with the package in her hands.

He glared at it, surprised to find that there had, indeed, been a parcel but more astonished now at its unwonted appearance.

"Pink ribbon," he muttered. "Gad, that's rich!" Then changing his voice abruptly, he sneered, "Would ye have me believe they send out our oatmeal with these falderals on it? Open that box at once. I'll see with my own eyes what's inside."

She knew that it was useless to protest further, and, with the fatal calmness of inevitable discovery, she took a knife from the table, cut the string and, after a few seconds, drew from their enwrapping packing of wool a large and luscious bunch of black grapes. He stared at them incredulously as they hung suspended from her hand before his startled eyes. It was an exquisite cluster, hanging in the dull room like an exotic blossom, each fruit large, firm and perfect, and powdered with a bluish bloom as delicate and seductive as the haze upon a distant landfall. They dangled temptingly upon their thick, smooth stalk, fragrant with a rich, sundrenched odour, filled to bursting with their soft, juicy flesh, ready to melt upon the tongue in a subtle mingling of sweet, succulent flavours. Black grapes at this time! An unheard-of, expensive, out-of-season luxury!

"Where did these come from?" he cried in a loud, hectoring voice. "Who sent these?"

"I don't know, Father," she answered truthfully, for indeed no note had ever accompanied these mysterious delicacies and she had only guessed vaguely, yet happily, that the sender had been Renwick.

"You do know, you slut," he roared at her; "or why should you hide them?" As he looked at her in an angry, baffled fashion, the memory rose before him of the deputation of godly, self-righteous women from the church who had called upon his wife during her illness to leave her fruit and jellies, and he cried,

"Is it some o' these blasted, snivelling women from the kirk that have sent them? Are we getting charity from the town? Is that what we're come to? I suppose they're sorry for you with such a poor mouth as you're aye puttin' on. Good God! They'll be sending us tracts and soup next." He seized the bunch of grapes roughly from her hand, contemplating them contemtuously, but, as he did so, he realised something of the cost of the exquisite fruit before him, knew suddenly that no collection of church workers, however godly, could have sent them. A slow sneer spread over his face as he exclaimed,

"No! I think I see what's at the back o' it. We don't know who sent them. It's what they call an anonymous donor. God Almighty! Are ye come back to that again, you trollop back to your presents from your fancy men! Faugh! You sicken me."

He looked at her with a snarl on his face, but she returned his gaze with a calm and steady eye, and it was poor Nessie, fortunately unobserved, who manifested some signs of confusion and distress.

"You're not going to eat them though," he cried roughly. "No! Not a single one. Ye may look at them as greedily as ye like, but you'll not lip them. This is what's going to happen." And, as he uttered the words, he dashed the grapes upon the floor with a pulping sound and in a fury stamped his heavy boots upon them, squelching the rich juice in all directions, crushing them into a dark mass that stained the grey linoleum like blood.

"There!" he shouted, "That's the bitter winepress that I'm treading. This is my bitter path but tread it I will. I only wish the swine that sent them was underneath my feet. I would serve him in like fashion, whoever he may be. There that'll be something for ye to clean up something to keep your mind off the men you jade. A bit of scrubbin' will take the itch out of ye," and as he spoke he scattered the residue upon the floor with short kicks into every corner of the room. Seizing her by the shoulders, he shoved his face into hers and sneered coarsely,

"I understand what you're up to, my bonnie tottie, but don't go too far ye know what happened to ye the last time." As he concluded he flung her from him, sending her reeling against the wall, from where, with a blush of humiliation upon her face, she still looked at him in silence. After a moment he turned to Nessie and, in a completely opposite voice, soft, fond, wheedling, rendered deliberately contrasting to his tone to Mary in order to wound her the more, remarked:

"Come on, hinny pay no attention to what you've seen or to her either. Ye don't even need to speak to her in future if you don't want to. This sort of thing does not concern you, and besides, it's time you and me had our dauner down the road together we'll have you late for the school if we don't hurry up, and that would never do." He took Nessie's hand and with a great demonstration of affection, led her timid form from the room, but not before she had flashed one frightened, guilty glance at Mary as she turned to go out into the hall.

When the front door closed behind them Mary sighed. She pulled herself up from where Brodie had thrown her against the wall, and although she gazed sorrowfully at the dirty, scattered remnants of the fruit which Nessie would now never eat, she felt with some relief, despite her own humiliation, that her sister had not been prejudiced by the recent unfortunate incident. The words which her father had hurled at her shamed her almost beyond endurance, whilst the injustice of his attitude made her bury her teeth into her lip to keep back the hot rush of indignant tears. Although she had no evidence but that of her own intuition, she knew that Doctor Renwick in his kindness had sent her these grapes and indeed the other gifts, and now all the fine feelings of gratitude that she had entertained towards him, all her sacrifice for Nessie's sake, had been degraded,

thrust down into the mud by her father's gross interpretation of them. She had been made to feel again her position in the eyes of the world, reminded miserably of the smirch that lay upon her name, which would cling to her in this town as long as her life endured.

With a faint shiver she bestirred herself and began to clear the table of its dishes and, when she had caried them into the scullery, she set herself slowly to wash and dry them. As she worked she directed her mind deliberately from her own position, considering with some return of comfort that Nessie seemed to be improving slightly in health, that although her long and forced periods of study continued, she was eating better, that her thin cheeks showed some signs of filling out. Nothing was too much for her to endure if she could protect her sister make her well and strong. It was a supreme satisfaction to have been able to procure some better clothing for Nessie from her savings the small stock of money that she had brought home to Levenford and she cheered herself with the