Арчибальд Кронин - Hatter's Castle

bustle and confusion prevailed. Sailors leaped about the deck performing miracles with ropes; officers in gold braid shouted importantly and blew whistles loudly: stewards pursued passengers and passengers ran after stewards; Anglo-Indians % returning to the country of their selection glared passionately at all who got in their way; relatives on the verge of bereavement stubbed their toes over iron stanchions and piles of luggage.

In the face of this hustling activity Mrs. Brodie's spirit quailed. The superior look of the purser as he directed them below intimidated her and though she had intended at least to approach the captain of the vessel and turn over Matthew, in the appropriate manner, to his especial care, now she wilted; as she sat in the stuffy confines of the den which was to serve Matt as cabin for the next eight weeks and felt the gentle lift and fall of the boat against the fenders of the quay, she realised that the sooner she went ashore the better.

Now that the actual farewell was at hand, the spurious exaltation - derived from her romantic imagination collapsed, as her husband had sardonically foreseen, like a pricked bladder. She was herself again, the weak woman who had given birth to this child, suckled him at her breast, seen him grow to manhood, and now was about to see him leave her. A tear crept slowly down her cheek.

"Oh Matt," she cried, "I've tried to bear up well for ye, son for your own dear sake, but I'm sorry to lose you. I doubt if you're the man for these foreign parts. I would rather you stayed at home."

"I don't want to go either, Mamma," he implored eagerly, as though at the last moment she might stretch out her hand and pluck him from his awful predicament.

"You'll need to go now, my son. It's gane too far to be altered now," she replied sadly, shaking her head. "Your father has wished it all along. And what he says must be done. There's just no other way about it. But you'll do your best to be a good boy, won't you, Matt?"

"Yes, Mamma."

"You'll send home something of your pay for me to put in the Building Society for you?"

"Yes, Mamma."

"You'll read a chapter of your Bible every day?"

"Yes, I will, Mamma."

"And don't forget me, Matt."

Matthew burst into broken, uncouth sobs.

"I don't want to go," he blubbered, catching at her dress. "You’re all sending me away and I'll never come back. It's my death I'm goin' out to. Don't let me go, Mamma."

"Ye maun go, Matt," she whispered. "He would kill us if we came back thegither."

"I'll be sick on the boat," he whined. "I feel it comin' on already. I'll get the fever out there. You know I'm not strong. I tell ye, Mamma, it’ll finish me."

"Wheesht, son!" she murmured. "Ye maun calm yoursel'. I'll pray to the Lord to protect ye."

"Oh, well, Mamma, if I'm to go, leave me now," he wailed. "I can't stand any more. Don't sit there and mock me. Leave me and be finished with it!" His mother stood up and drew him into her arms; at last she was a woman.

"Good-bye, son, and God bless you," she said quietly. As she left the cabin with streaming eyes and shaking head, he flung himself impotently upon his bunk.

Mrs. Brodie stepped off the gangway and set out for Queen Street station. As she retraced her steps through the docks her feet dragged along the very pavements over which she had advanced so airily, gradually her body drooped forward, her dress trailed behind heedlessly; her head inclined itself pathetically; a mantle of resignation descended upon her; she had emerged completely from her dreams and was again the hapless and handless wife of James Brodie.

In the train homewards she felt tired, exhausted by the rapid flight of emotions that had traversed her being. A drowsiness crept over her and she slept. In the shadows of her sleeping brain spectres sprang from their lurking places and tormented her. Some one was thrusting her downwards, crushing her with stones; square grey stones were all around, compressing her. Upon the earth beside her lay her children, their cadaverous limbs relaxed in the inanition of extreme debility, and, as the walls slowly drew in nearer upon them, she awoke with a loud shriek, which mingled with the blast ot the engine's whistle. The train was entering the outskirts of Levenford. She was home.

ON the following morning about ten o'clock, Mrs. Brodie and Mary were together in the kitchen, according to their custom of consulting together to discuss the household plans for the day when the master of the house had departed after breakfast. This morning, however, they sat without reviewing the possibilities of their cleaning or mending, without debating whether it should be stew or mince for the day's dinner, or considering whether father's grey suit required

pressing, and instead remained silent, somewhat subdued, with Mrs. Brodie mournfully sipping a cup of strong tea and Mary gazing quietly out of the window.

"I feel good for nothing, to-day," said Mamma at length.

"No wonder, Mamma, after yesterday," Mary sighed. "I wonder how he's getting on? Not homesick already, I hope."

Mrs. Brodie shook her head. "The seasickness will be the worst, I'm gey afeared, for Matt was never a sailor, poor boy! I remember only too well when he was just twelve, on the steamer to Port Doran, he was very ill and it wasna that rough either. He would eat green-gages after his dinner, and I didna like to stop him and spoil the day's pleasure for the wee man, but he brought them up and the good dinner too, that had cost his father a salt half crown. Oh! But your father was angry with him, and with me too, as if it was my fault that the boat turned the boy's stomach."

She paused rcminiscently, and added, "I'm glad I never gave Matt a hard word, anyway, now that he's away far, far. No! I never gave him a word in anger, let alone lifted my hand to him in punishment."

"You always liked Matt best," Mary agreed mildly. "I'm afraid you'll miss him sorely, Mamma!"

"Miss him?" Mrs. Brodie replied. "I should just think I would. I feel as weak as if as if something inside of me had gane away on that boat and would never come back. But he'll miss me too, I hope." Her eye glistened, as she continued, "Ay, grown man though he is, he broke down in his cabin like a bairn when he had to say good-bye to his mother. It's a comfort to me, that, Mary, and will be, until I get the consolation of his own dear letters. My! But I'm lookin' forward to those. The only letter he's ever written me was when he was nine years old and was away for a holiday at Cousin Jim's farm, after he had been poorly with his chest. It was that interestin' too all about the horse he had sat on and the wee trout he had caught in the river. I've got it in my drawer to this very day. I maun redd it out for mysel'. Ay!" she concluded, with a melancholy pleasure, "I'll go through all my drawers and sort out a' the things of Matt's that I've got. It'll be a wee crumb o' comfort till I hear from him."

"Will we do out his room to-day, then, Mamma?" asked Mary.

"No, Mary that's not to be touched. It's Matt's room, and we'll keep it as it is until he wants it again if ever he does." She drank a mouthful of tea appreciatively. "It was good of you to make me this, Mary; it's drawing me together. He ought to get good tea in India, anyway; that's the place for tea and spices. Cold tea should be refreshin' to him in the heat," she added. Then, after a pause, "Why didn't you take a cup yourself?"

"I feel upset a bit myself this morning, Mamma."

"You've been looking real poorly these last few days. You're as pale as paper too."

Mary was the least beloved by Mrs. Brodie of all her children, but in the deprivation of the favourite, Matthew, she drew closer to her.

"We'll not do a bit of cleaning in the house to-day, either of us; we both deserve a rest after all the rush we've had lately," she continued. "I might try and ease my mind in a book for a wee, and you'll go out this morning for your messages to get a breath of air. It'll do ye good to get a walk while it's dry and sunny. What do we need now?"