Арчибальд Кронин: Hatter's Castle

At the conclusion Matthew ran his fingers through his hair with a careless, yet romantic gesture.

"I am perhaps not in my best form to-night; I think I am a little 'triste, pensive, Mary, you know. Perhaps a little upset at the office to-day these confounded figures it disturbs an artistic temperament like mine. I'm not really understood down at the Yard." He sighed with a dreamy sadness befitting his unappreciated art, but soon looked up, anxious for encouragement, asking:

"But how did it really go? How did it seem?"

"Very like it," replied Mary reassuringly.

"Like what?" he demanded doubtfully.

"The Saucy Kate Galop, of course!"

"You little ninny," shouted Matthew. "It was 'Nelly Ely'." He was completely upset, looked at her crushingly, then jumped off the bed and put the mandolin away in a huff, remarking, as he bent down, "I believe you only said it to spite me," and asserting disdainfully as he got up, "You've no ear for music, anyway." He did not seem to hear her profuse apologies, but turning his back took a very stiff high collar and a bright blue spotted tie from the drawer, and still occupied by his pique, continued:

"Miss Moir has! She says I'm very musical, that I've got the best voice in the choir. She sings delightfully herself. I wish you were more worthy to be her sister-in-law."

She was quite upset at her clumsy tongue and well aware of her un worthiness, but she pleaded:

"Let me tie your necktie anyway, Matt."

He turned sulkily and condescendingly permitted Mary to knot the cravat, a task she always undertook for him, and which she now performed neatly and dexterously, so that presenting himself again before the mirror, he regarded the result with satisfaction.

"Brilliantine," he demanded next, forgiving her by his command. She handed him the bottle from which he sprinkled copious libations of mellifluous liquid upon his hair and with a concentrated mien he then combed his locks into a picturesque wave.

"My hair is very thick, Mary," he remarked, as he carefully worked the comb behind his ears. "I shall never go bald. That ass Couper said it was getting thin on the top the last time he cut it. The very idea! I'll stop going to him in future for his impertinence."

When he had achieved the requisite undulation amongst his curls, he extended his arms and allowed her to help him to assume his coat, then took a clean linen handkerchief, scented it freshly with Sweet Pea Perfume, draped it artistically from his pocket, and surveyed the finished result in the glass steadily.

"Smart cut,” he murmured, "neat waist. Miller does wonderfully for a local tailor, don't you think ?" he queried. "Of course I keep him up to it and he's got a figure to work on! Well, if Agnes is not pleased with me to-night, she ought to be." Then, as he moved away, he added inconsequently, "And don't forget, Mary, half-past ten to-night, or perhaps a little shade later."

"I'll be awake, Matt," she murmured reassuringly.

"Sure now?"

"Sure!"

This last remark exposed the heel of Achilles, for this admirable, elegant young man, smoker, mandoliiiist, lover, the future intrepid voyager to India had one amazing weakness he was afraid of the dark. He admitted Mary to his confidence and companionship incontestably for the reason that she would meet him by arrangement on these nights when he was late and escort him up the obscure and

gloomy stairs to his bedroom, without fail and with a loyalty which never betrayed him. She never considered the manner of her service to him, but accepted his patronizing favour gratefully, with humility, and now as he went out, leaving behind him a mingled perfume of cigars, brilliantine and sweet pea blossom and the memory of his bold and dashing presence, she followed his figure with fond and admiring eyes.

Presently, bereft of the tinsel of his personality, Mary's spirits drooped, and unoccupied, with time to think of herself, she became disturbed, restless, excited. Every one in the house was busy: Nessie frowning over her lessons, Mamma deeply engaged in her novel, Grandma sunk in the torpor of digestion. She wandered about the kitchen, thinking of her father's command, uneasy, agitated, until Mamma looked up in annoyance.

"What's wrong with you wanderin* about like a knotless thread! Take up your sewing, or if you've nothing to do, away to your bed and leave folks to read in peace!"

Should she go to bed? she considered perplexedly. No! It was too ridiculously early. She had been confined in the house all day and ought perhaps to get into the open for a little, where the freshness of air would restore her, ease her mind after the closeness of the warm day. Every one would think she had gone to her room; she would never be missed. Somehow, without being aware of her movements, she was in the hall, had put on her old coarse straw bonnet with the

weather-beaten little bunch of cherries and the faded pink ribbon, had slipped on her worn cashmere coat, quietly opened the front door and moved down the steps.

She was startled, almost, to find herself outside, but thought reassuringly that with such clothes it was impossible for her to go anywhere, and as she reflected that she had no really nice things to wear, she shook her head sadly so that the woebegone cherries, which had hung from her hat through two long seasons, rattled in faint protest and almost dropped to the ground. Now that she was in the open her mind moved more freely and she wondered what Denis was doing. Getting ready to go to the fair, of course. Why was every one else allowed to go and not she? It was unjust, for there was no harm in it. It was an institution recognised, and patronised tolerantly, by even the very best of the townspeople. She leant over the front gate, swinging to and fro gently, drinking in the cool beauty of the dusk, fascinated by the seductive evening, so full of dew-drenched

odours, so animate with the awakening life that had been still during the day. Swallows darted and circled around the three straight silver birches in the field opposite, whilst a little further oflf a yellow-hammer called to her, entreatingly, "Come out! Come out! Jingle, jingle, jingle the keys, jingle, jingle, jingle the keys!" It was a shame to be indoors on a night like this! She stepped into the roadway, telling herself that she would take a little walk, just to the end of the road before coming back for that game of draughts with Nessie. She sauntered on unobserved, noting unconsciously that in the whole extent of the quiet road no person was in sight. Denis was expecting her to-night at the fair. He had asked her to meet him, and she, like a mad woman, had promised to be there. The pity of it that she could not go! She was terrified of her father and he had absolutely forbidden it.

How quickly she reached the end of the road, and although she seemed to have been out only for a moment she knew that she had come far enough, that it was now time for her to go back; but as her will commanded her to turn, some stronger force forbade it, and she kept on, her heart thumping furiously, her steps quickening in pace with her heartbeats. Then, through the magic of the night, the sound of music met her ears, faint, enticing, compelling. She hastened her gait almost to a run, thought, "I must, oh! I must see him," and

rushed onwards. Trembling, she entered the fair ground.

II

LEVENFORD FAIR was an annual festival, the nucleus of which was the congregation of a number of travelling troupes and side shows, a small menagerie, which featured actually an elephant and a cage of two lions, an authentic shooting gallery where real bullets were used, and two fortune tellers with unimpeachable and freely displayed credentials, which, together with a variety of other minor attractions, assembled at an agreed date upon that piece of public land known