She screeched again madly. Mary was terrified; this outcry imprisoned her in a cell of iniquity; she heard in each scream the wide broadcast of her disgrace.
'Oh! Please, Mamma, don't call out like that,' implored Mary, her head hanging abjectly; 'only stop and I'll tell you everything.'
'No! No!' shrieked Mamma. 'I'll hear nothing! Ye’ll have to face your father. I'll be party to nothing. I'm not responsible. It's only yourself to blame.'
Mary's limbs trembled violently. 'Dear Mamma! Is there no excuse for me?' she whispered. 'I was so ignorant.'
'Your father will kill ye for this,' screamed Mrs. Brodie. 'It's your fault.'
'I implore you, Mamma,' pleaded Mary feverishly, 'not to tell father. Help me for two days more only two days' she cried desperately, trying to bury her head on her mother's breast 'dear, kind Mamma. Keep it between us till then. Only two days more! Please Oh! Please!'
But again her mother, terrified beyond reason, thrust her off and cried out wildly:
'You must tell him at once. I'm no' to blame. Oh! The wickedness of ye to get us into such trouble. Oh! The wickedness, the wickedness!'
Then, with a bitter finality, Mary realised that it was hopeless to entreat her mother further. A great fear descended on her and, with it, the rushing desire to escape. She felt that if she left her, Mamma might recover her control. She desired urgently to get out of the room, and pushing past her mother, she began hastily to descend the stairs. But when she was halfway down, suddenly she raised her head and saw at the foot of the staircase, standing in the hall, the heavy figure of her father.
Brodie had the custom, every Sunday afternoon after dinner, of resting. He went with the regularity of clockwork into the parlour, closed the door, drew the curtains, removed his frock coat and laid his ponderous bulk down upon the sofa, where he slept heavily for two or three hours. But to-day he had been disturbed by the storm, and he had slept only in snatches, which was worse than not sleeping at all. The loss of his sleep had aggravated him, rendering his temper
sour, and, in addition, he took it as a matter of great annoyance to his sense of order that his time-honoured ritual should have been deranged in such an outrageous fashion. The culmination of his vexation had been achieved when he had been aroused from a snatch of sleep by the fall of the flagstaff from his house. He was in a flaming rage and, as he stood in his shirt sleeves, looking at Mary, his upturned face reflected the bitter resentment of his mood.
'Have we not enough noise outside that you must start that infernal din upstairs?' he shouted. 'How can a man sleep with such a fiendish blattering in his ears? Who was making that noise? Was it you?' He glared at her.
Mamma had followed Mary and now stood swaying upon the top landing, rocking herself to and fro, with her arms clasped upon her breast. Brodie turned his inflamed eye upon her.
'This is a braw house for a man to rest in,' he flared. 'Do I not work hard enough for ye through the week ? What is this day made for, will ye tell me ? What's the use of all that godly snivellin' talk of yours if ye must go and ring our ears like this. Can I not lay down for a minute without this damned wind howlin', and you howlin' like a hyena too?'
Mrs. Brodie did not reply but still swayed hysterically at the top of the stairs.
'What are you going on about? Are you gone silly?' bawled Brodie. 'Has the thunder turned your reason to make ye stand like a drunken fishwife?'
Still she was silent, and it then dawned upon him, from her manner, that some disaster had occurred.
'What is it?' he shouted roughly, 'Is it Nessie? Has the lightning
hit her? Is she hurt?'
Mamma shook her whole body in a frantic negation the catas-
trophe was worse than that!
'No! No!' she gasped. 'It's her her!' She raised her hand accusingly against Mary. Not even the most shadowy instinct of protection was in her. Her terror of Brodie in this awful calamity was so unbounded that her only impulse was to disclaim all responsibility, all knowledge of the crime. She must at all costs defend herself from any charge of liability in the matter.
'For the last time,' raged Brodie, 'I ask ye what it is. Tell me, or by God I'll come up to ye both.'
'It wasn't my fault,' cringed Mrs. Brodie, still shielding herself from the undelivered charge, 'I've brought her up always like a Christian girl. It's her own natural badness.' Then, realising that she must tell or be beaten, she strained her body to the utmost, threw her head back and, as if each word cost her an unbearable effort of ejaculation, sobbed:
'If you must know. She's going she's going to have a child.'
Mary stiffened, whilst the blood drained from her face. Her mother, like Judas, had betrayed her. She was lost trapped her father below, her mother above.
Brodie's great frame seemed to shrink imperceptibly; his bellicose eyes became faintly bemused and, in a muddled fashion, he looked at Mary.
'What wha' ' he muttered. He raised his eyes uncomprehendingly to Mamma, saw her frantic plight, and again lowered his gaze upon Mary. He paused, whilst his mind grappled with the inconceivable, unfathomable news. Suddenly he shouted,
'Come here!'
Mary obeyed. Each step she took seemed to lower her into her own tomb. Brodie seized her roughly by the arm and looked her up and down. A sickening feeling went through him.
'My God!' he repeated to himself, in a low tone. 'My God! I believe it's true. Is it?' he cried thickly. Her tongue lay mutely in her mouth from shame. Still holding her arm, he shook her unmercifully, then, releasing her suddenly, allowed her to recoil heavily upon the floor.
'Are you with child ? Tell me quickly or I'll brain you,' he shouted.
As she told him, she thought he would surely kill her. He stood there looking at her as if she were a viper that had stung him. He raised his arm as if to strike her, to crush her skull with one blow of his hammer fist, to wipe out with one blow her obliquity and his dishonour. He wanted to strike her, to trample on her, grind her under the heels of his boots into a mangled, bloody pulp. A vast
brutal passion seethed in him. She had dragged his name into the mire. The name of Brodie! She had lowered his heritage into the slime of ill fame. The whole place would reek of it. He would see the smirks, the sneers, the significant nods as he strode down the High Street; at the Cross he would hear the stray word of mockery and the half -muffled laugh of derision. The niche he had cut and was still carving for himself would be shattered; the name, the reputation
he had made for himself would be ruined and he himself cast down-wards in contumely through this thing that lay weeping at his feet. But he did not strike her. The intensity of his feeling burned suddenly into a heat which turned his gross rage into a subtle and more dangerous channel. In a different manner he would show her! He saw sharply a means of vindicating his honour. Yes, by God! He would show them in the Borough how he dealt with this sort of thing. They would see the stand that he was taking. She was now no daughter of his. He would cast her from him as unclean.
Then, suddenly, a second, loathsome suspicion came into his mind, a suspicion which gathered in aversion, becoming more certain the longer he contemplated it. He touched Mary with his huge, heavy boot.
'Who was the man?' he hissed at her. 'Was it Foyle?' He saw from her look that he was right. For the second time that hateful young upstart had dealt him a crushing blow, this time more deadly than before. He would rather it had been any one, the basest and most beggarly scoundrel in the town, any one but Foyle! But it was he, the smooth-faced, blarneying, young corner boy who had possessed the body of Mary Brodie; and she, his child, had suffered him to do so. A lucid mental picture, revolting in its libidinous detail, rose up and tortured him. His face worked, the skin around his nostrils twitched, a thick, throbbing vessel corded itself upon his temple. His features, which had at first been suffused with a high angry flush, now became white and hard as chiselled granite. His jaw set ruthlessly like a trap, his narrow forehead lowered with an inhuman barbarity. A cold ferocity, more terrifying than the loud-mouthed abuse which he usually displayed, tempered his rage like an axe blade. He kicked Mary viciously. The hard sole of his boot sank into her soft side.
