Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

Now it was her hand which was cognisant of the letter, her fingers sensitively perceiving the rich, heavy texture of the paper, her eyes observing the thin, copperplate inscription of her own name which ran accurately across the centre of its white surface. How long she regarded her name she did not know, but when she looked up Dan had gone, without her having thanked him or even spoken to him, and, as she glanced along the vacant roadway, she felt a vague regret at her lack of courtesy, considered that she must make amends to him in some fashion, perhaps apologise or give him some tobacco for his Christmas box. But first she must open this that he had given her.

She turned, closing the door behind her, and, realising that she need not return to that dismal parlour which she hated so much, traversed the hall without a sound and entered the empty kitchen. There she immediately rid her hand of the letter by placing it upon the table. Then she returned to the door by which she had just entered, satisfied herself that it was firmly shut, advanced to the scullery door, which she inspected in like fashion, and finally, as though at last convinced of her perfect seclusion, came back and seated herself at the table. Everything was as she desired it, everything had befallen as she had so cleverly foreseen, and now, alone, unobserved, concealed, with nothing more to do, nothing for which to wait, she was free to open the letter.

Her eye fell upon it again, not fixedly as when she had received it, but with a growing, flickering agitation. Her lips suddenly felt stiff, her mouth dried up and she shook violently from head to foot. She perceived not the long, white oblong of the letter but her own form, bent eternally over a book, at school, at home, in the examination hall of the University, and always overcast by the massive figure of her father, which lay above and upon her like a perpetual shadow. The letter seemed to mirror her own face which looked up, movingly, telling her that all she had worked for, all she had been constrained to work for, the whole object of her life, lay there upon the table, crystallised in a few written words upon one hidden sheet of paper.

Her name was upon the envelope and the same name must be upon that hidden sheet within, or else everything that she had done, her very life itself, would be futile. She knew that her name was inside, the single name that was always sent without mention of the failures, the name of the winner of the Latta, and yet she was afraid to view it.

That, clearly, was ridiculous! She need not be afraid of her name which, as her father rightly insisted, was a splendid name, a noble name, and one of which she might justly be proud. She was Nessie Brodie she was the winner of the Latta! It had all been arranged months beforehand, everything had been settled between her father and herself. My! But she was the clever, wee thing the smartest lass in Levenford the first girl to win the Bursary a credit to the name of Brodie! As in a dream, her hand stole towards the letter. How curious that her fingers should tremble in this strange fashion as, under her own eyes, they opened the stiff envelope. How thin her fingers were! She had not willed them to open the letter and yet they had done so; even now they held the inner sheet in -their faintly trembling clasp.

Well ! She must see her name the name of Nessie Brodie. That, surely, was no hardship to view for one moment her own name. That moment had come!

With a heart that beat suddenly with a frantic, unendurable agitation, she unfolded the sheet and looked at it.

The name which met her shrinking gaze was not hers, it was the name of Grierson. John Grierson had won the Latta!

For a second she regarded the paper without comprehension; then her eyes filled with a growing horror which widened her pupils until the words before her blurred together, then faded from her view. She sat motionless, rigid, scarcely breathing, the paper still within her grasp, and into her ears flowed a torrent of words uttered in her father's snarling voice. She was alone in the room, he at the office a mile away yet in her tortured imagination she heard him, saw him

vividly before her.

"Grierson's won it! You've let that upstart brat beat you. It wouldna have mattered so much if it had been anybody else but Grierson the son o' that measly swine. And after all I've talked about ye winnin' it. It's damnable! Damnable, I tell ye! You senseless idiot after the way I've slaved with ye, keepin' ye at it for all I was worth! God! I canna thole it. I'll wring that thin neck o' yours for ye."

She sank deeper into her chair, shrinking from his invisible presence, her eyes still horrified, but cowering too, as though he advanced upon her with his huge open hands. Still, she remained motionless; even her lips did not move, but she heard herself cry feebly:

"I did my best, Father. I could do no more. Don't touch me, Father."

"Your best," he hissed. "Your best wasna good enough to beat Grierson. You that swore ye had the Latta in your pocket! I've got to sit down under another insult because of ye. I'll pay ye. I told ye it would be the pity of ye if ye failed."

"No! No! Father," she whispered. "I didn't mean to fail. I'll not do it again I promise you! You know I've always been the top of the class. I've always been your own Nessie. You wouldna hurt a wee thing like me. Ill do better next time."

"There'll be no next time for you," he shouted at her. "I’ll… I'll throttle ye for what you've done to me."

As he rushed upon her, she saw that he was going to kill her and, while she shrieked, closing her eyes in a frantic, unbelievable terror, the encircling band that had bound her brain for the last weary months of her study snapped suddenly and gave to her a calm and perfect peace. The tightness around her head dissolved, she was unloosed from the bonds that had confined her, her fear vanished and she was free. She opened her eyes, saw that her father was no longer there, and smiled an easy, amused smile which played over her mobile features like ripples of light and passed insensibly into a high, snickering laugh. Though her laughter was not loud, it moved her like a paroxysm, making the tears roll down her cheeks and shaking her thin body with its utter abandon. She laughed for a long time, then, as suddenly as her mirth had begun it ceased, her tears dried instantly, and her face assumed a wise, crafty expression like a gigantic magnification of that slight artfulness which it had worn when she stood thinking in the parlour. Now, however, clearly guided by a force within her, she did not think; she was above the necessity for thought. Pressing her lips into a prim line, she laid the letter, which had all this time remained within her grasp, carefully upon the table like a precious thing, and rising from her chair, stood casting her gaze up and down, moving her head like a nodding doll. When the nodding ceased, a smile, transient this time, flickered across her face and whispering softly, encouragingly to herself, "What ye do. ye maun do well, Nessie, dear", she turned and went tiptoeing out of the room. She ascended the stairs with the same silent and extravagant caution, paused in a listening attitude upon the landing, then, reassured, went mincing into her room. There, without hesitation, she advanced to the basin and ewer, poured out some cold water and began carefully to wash her face and hands. When she had washed meticulously, she dried herself, shining her pale features to a high polish by her assiduous application of the towel; then, taking off her old, grey beige dress she took from her drawer the clean cashmere frock which was her best. This apparently did not now wholly please her, for she shook her head and murmured:

"That's not pretty enough for ye, Nessie dear. Not near pretty enough for ye now!" Still, she put it on with the same unhurried precision and her face lightened again as she lifted her hands to her hair. As she unplaited it and brushed it quickly with long, rapid strokes, she whispered from time to time softly, approvingly, "My bonnie hair! My bonnie, bonnie hair!" Satisfied at last with the fine, golden sheen which her brushing had produced, she stood before the mirror and regarded herself with a far-away, enigmatical smile; then, taking her only adornment, a small string of coral beads, once given her by Mamma to compensate for Matthew's forgetfulness, she made as though to place them around her neck, when suddenly she withdrew the hand that held them. "They're gey and sharp, these beads," she murmured and laid them back gently upon her table.