Арчибальд Кронин: Hatter's Castle

"Are we not a bit early to-night, Mamma?" she asked idly as she presented herself before her mother for inspection.

Mrs. Brodie, busy with the last details of her adjustments, waved away the question.

"Have ye washed your hands?" she answered without looking at her. Then with a glance at the clock and without waiting for a reply, she commanded with an appropriate gesture, u Sit in!"

The four people in the room seated themselves at table, Grandma Brodie being, as usual, first. They sat waiting, while Mrs. Brodie's hand poised itself nervously upon the tea cosy; then into the silence of their expectation came the deep note of the grandfather's clock in the hall as it struck the half hour and at the same moment the front door clicked open and was firmly shut. A stick rattled into the stand; heavy footfalls measured themselves along the passage; the kitchen door opened and James Brodie came into the room. He strode to his waiting chair, sat down, stretched forward his hand to receive his own special large cup, brimming with hot tea, received from the oven a large plateful of ham and eggs, accepted the white bread especially cut and buttered for him, had hardly seated himself before he had begun to eat. This, then, was the reason of their punctual attendance, the explanation of their bated expectancy, for the ritual of immediate service for the master of the house, at meal times as in everything, was amongst the unwritten laws governing the conduct of this household.

Brodie ate hungrily and with obvious enjoyment. He was an enormous man, over six feet in height and with the shoulders and neck of a bull. His head was massive, his grey eyes small and deep set, his jaw hard and so resolutely muscular that as he chewed, large firm knobs rose up and subsided rhythmically under the smooth brown jowl. The face itself was broad and strong and would have been

noble but for the insufficient depth of the forehead and the narrow spacing of the eyes. A heavy brown moustache covered his upper lip, partly hiding the mouth; but beneath this glossy mask his lower lip protruded with a full and sullen arrogance.

His hands were huge, and upon the backs of these and also of the thick spatulate fingers dark hairs grew profusely. The knife and fork gripped in that stupendous grasp seemed, in comparison, foolishly toyish and inept.

Now that Brodie had commenced to eat it was permissible for the others to begin, although for them, of course, there was only a plain tea; and Grandma Brodie led the way by fastening avidly upon her soft toast. Sometimes, when her son was in a particularly amiable humour, he would boisterously help her to small titbits from his plate, but to-night she knew from his demeanour that this rare treat

would not come her way, and she resignedly abandoned herself to such limited savour as the food at her disposal provided. The others began to partake of the meal in their own fashion. Nessie ate the simple food heartily, Mary absent-mindedly, while Mrs. Brodie, who had privately consumed a small collation an hour before, trifled with the burnt bread upon her plate with the air of one who is too frail, too obsessed by the consideration of others, to eat.

An absolute silence maintained, broken only by the sucking sound which accompanied the application of the moustache cup to the paternal lips, the clanking of Grandma's antiquated dentures as she sought to extract the fullest enjoyment and nutriment from the meal, and an occasional sniff from Mamma's refractory nose. The members of this strange family tea party manifested neither surprise, amusement, embarrassment nor regret at the absence of conversation, but masticated, drank, swallowed without speech, whilst the minatory eye of Brodie dominated the board. When he chose to be silent then no word might be spoken, and to-night he was in a particularly sullen mood, lowering around the table and between mouthfuls casting a black glower upon his mother who, her eagerness rendering her unconscious of his displeasure, was sopping her crusts in her teacup.

At last he spoke, addressing her.

"Are ye a sow to eat like that, woman?"

Startled, she looked up, blinking at him. "Eh, wha', James? What for, what way?"

"What way a sow would eat, slushing and soaking its meat in the trough. Have ye not got the sense to know when you Ye eatin' like a greedy pig? Put your big feet in the trough as well, and then you'll be happy and comfortable. Go on! Get down to it and make a beast o' yersel'. Have ye no pride or decency left in the dried-up marrow of your bones?"

"I forgot. I clean forgot. I'll no' do it again. Ay, ay, I'll remember."

In her agitation she belched wind loudly.

"That's right," sneered Brodie. "Remember your pretty manners, you old faggot." His face darkened. "It's a fine thing that a man like me should have to put up with this in his own house." He thumped his chest with his huge fist, making it sound like a drum.

"Me," he shouted, "me!" Suddenly he stopped short, glared around from under his lowered bushy eyebrows and resumed his meal.

Although his words had been angry, nevertheless he had spoken, and by the code of unwritten laws the ban of silence was now lifted.

"Pass your father's cup, Nessie, and I'll give him some fresh tea. I think it's nearly out," inserted Mrs. Brodie propitiatingly.

"Very well, Mamma."

"Mary dear, sit up straight and don't worry your father. I'm sure he's had- a hard day."

"Yes, Mamma," said Mary, who was sitting up straight and worrying nobody.

"Pass the preserves to your father then."

The smoothing down of the ruffled lion had commenced, and was to be continued, for after waiting a minute Mamma began again on what was usually a safe lead.

"Well, Nessie dear, and how did you get on at the school to-day?"

Nessie started timidly. "Quite well, Mamma."

Brodie arrested the cup he was raising to his lips.

"Quite well? You're still top of the class, aren't ye?"

Nessie's eyes fell. "Not to-day, Father! only second!"

"What! You let somebody beat you! Who was it? Who went above ye?"

"John Grierson."

"Grierson! That sneakin' corn hawker's brat! That low-down bran masher! He'll crow about it for days. What in God's name came over you? Don't you realise what your education is going to mean to you?"

The small child burst into tears.

"She's been top for nearly six weeks, Father," put in Mary bravely, "and the others are a bit older than her."

Brodie withered her with a look.

"You hold your tongue and speak when you're spoken to," he thundered. "I'll have something to say to you presently; then you'll have plenty of chance to wag your long tongue, my bonnie woman."

"It's that French," sobbed Nessie. "I can't get those genders into my head. I'm all right with my sums and history and geography but I can't do that other. I feel as if 111 never get it right."

"Not get it right! I should think you will get it right you're going to be educated, my girl. Although you're young, they tell me you've got the brains my brains that have come down to you, for your mother's but a half-witted kind of creature at the best o' times - and I'll see that you use them. You'll do double home work to-night."

"Oh! yes, Father, anything you like," sighed Nessie, choking convulsively over a final sob.

"That's right." A transient unexpected gleam of feeling, which was partly affection, but to a far greater extent pride, lit up Brodie's harsh features like a sudden quiver of light upon a bleak rock.

"Well show Levenford what my clever lass can do. I'm looking ahead and I can see it. When we've made ye the head scholar of the Academy, then you'll see what your father means to do wi' you. But ye must stick in to your lessons, stick in hard." He raised his eyes from her to the distance, as though contemplating the future, and murmured, "We'll show them." Then he lowered his eyes, patted Nessie's bowed, straw-coloured head, and added, "You're my own lass, right enough! Ye'll be a credit to the name of Brodie."