Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

"It's not you that is to blame, Mary! You did everything for her."

"Why did she do it?" she sobbed. "1 loved her so much. I wanted to protect her."

"I know that well! She must have lost her reason, poor child," he replied sadly. "Poor, frightened child."

"I would have done anything in life for her," she whispered. "I would have died for her."

He looked at her, her pale face ravaged by her grief, thinking of her past, her present sadness, of the grey uncertainty of her future, Kid as he gazed into her swimming eyes, an overwhelming emotion possessed him also. Like a spring which had lain deeply buried for long years and now welled suddenly to light, his feelings gushed over him in a rushing flow. His heart swelled at her grief and, swept by the certain knowledge that he could never leave her, he advanced to her, saying in a low voice:

"Mary! Don't cry, dear. I love you."

She looked at him blindly through her tears as he drew near to her and in an instant she was in his arms.

"You'll not stay here, dear," he whispered. "You'll come with me now. I want you to be my wife." He comforted her as she lay sobbing in his arms, telling her how he must have loved her from that moment when first he saw her, yet never known it till now.

While they remained thus, suddenly a loud voice addressed them, breaking upon them with an incredulous yet ferocious intensity.

"Damnation! what is the meaning of this in my house?" It was Brodie. Framed in the doorway, his view of the sofa blocked by the open door, he stood still, glaring at them, his eyes starting from his head in rage and wonder. "So this is your fancy man," he cried savagely, advancing into the room. "This is who these bonnie black grapes came from. I wondered who it might he, but, by God! I didna

think it was this this fine gentleman."

At these words, Mary winced and would have withdrawn from Renwick but he restrained her and, keeping his arm around her, he gazed fixedly at Brodie.

"Don't come that high and mighty look over me," sneered Brodie, with a short, hateful laugh. "You can't pull the wool over my eyes. It's me that's got the whip hand o' you this time. You're a bonnie pillar of the town right enough, to come to a man's house and make a brothel o't."

In answer Renwick drew himself up more rigidly, slowly raised his arm and pointed to the sofa.

"You are in the presence of death," he said.

Despite himself, Brodie's eyes fell under the coldness of the other's gaze.

"Are ye mad? You're all mad here," he muttered. But he turned to follow the direction of the other's finger and as he saw the body of Nessie he started, stumbled forward. "What what's this?" he cried dazedly. "Nessie! Nessie!"

Renwick led Mary to the door and, as she clung to him, he paused and cried sternly:

"Nessie hanged herself in this kitchen because she lost the Latta and, in the sight of God, you are responsible for her death." Then, taking Mary with him, he drew her out of the room and they passed together out of the house.

Brodie did not hear them go, but, stunned by Renwick's last words and by the strange stillness of the figure before him, he muttered:

"They're try in' to frighten me! Wake up, Nessie! It's your father that's speakin' to ye. Come on, pettie, wake up!" Putting forward his hand haltingly to shake her, he perceived the paper on her breast and, seizing it, he plucked it from her dress and raised it tremulously to his eyes.

"Grierson!" he whispered, in a stricken voice. "Grierson's got it. She did lose it then!"

The paper dropped from his hand and involuntarily his glance fell upon her neck, marked by a livid red weal. Even as he saw it, he touched again her inert, flaccid form and his face grew livid like the weal upon her white skin.

"God!" he muttered. "She has she has hanged herself." He covered his eyes as though unable to bear the sight longer. "My God," he mumbled again, "she has she has " And then, as though he panted for breath, "I was fond of my Nessie." A heavy groan burst from his breast. Staggering like a drunken man, he backed blindly from the body and sank unconsciously into his chair. A rush of dry sobs racked him, rending his breast in anguish. With his head sunk into his hands he remained thus, his tortured mind filled by one obsessing thought, yet traversed by other fleeting thoughts, by an endless stream of images which slipped past the central figure of his dead daughter like a procession of shadows floating round a recumbent body on a catafalque.

He saw his son and Nancy, together in the sunshine, saw the drooping form and pathetically inclined head of his wife, the sneering face of Grierson mocking at his distress, Renwick holding Mary in his arms, the bold figure of young Foyle bearding him in his office; he saw the obsequious Perry, Blair, Paxton, Gordon, even Dron they all marched silently before his shuttered eyes, all with heads averted from him, all condemning him, their eyes turned sadly to the body of his Nessie as she reposed upon the bier.

As though unable to bear longer the torment of these inward visions, he raised his head from his hands, uncovered his eyes, and looked furtively towards the sofa. At once his eyes fell upon the thin arm of the dead child as it hung over the edge of the couch limp, pendant, immobile, the pale waxen fingers of the hand drooping from the small palm. With a shudder he raised his eyes and looked

blindly out of the window. As he sat thus, the door opened slowly and his mother came into the room. Her recent terror had faded from her senile mind the whole sad event lost in the maunderings of her doting brain and now, tottering to her chair, she seated herself opposite her son. Her eyes sought him as she sounded his mood with her dim gaze, then, sensing his silence to be propitious, she muttered:

"'I think I'll make myself a bit soft toast." At this she rose oblivious to all but her own needs hobbled to the scullery and, returning again, sat down and began to toast the slice of bread she had obtained. "I can soak it in my broth," she muttered to herself, sucking in her cheeks. "It suits my stomach brawly that way." Then, as she again looked at her son across the fireplace, she noticed at lasv the strangeness of his eyes, her head shook agitatedly, and she exclaimed:

"You're not angry wi' me, are ye, James? I'm just makin’ my sell some nice, soft toast. I was aye fond o't, ye ken. I'll make you a bit yourself, gin ye want it," and she tittered uneasily, propitiatingly, across at him with a senile, senseless, sound that broke the heavy silence of the room. But he did not reply and still gazed stonily out of the window, where the warm summer wind moved gently amongst the thin leaves of the straggling bushes that fringed his garden. The breeze freshened, disporting itself amongst the shoots of the currant bushes then, circling, it touched the leaves of the three, tall, serene, silver trees, flickering them dark and light with a soft caress, then suddenly, striking the house, it chilled, and passed quickly onwards io the beauty of the Winton Hills beyond.

THE END