wondered fearfully what had drawn him from out his perpetual, grim taciturnity to this roaring, devilish humour. He hacked off a lump of the fat beef and thrust it upon his plate; he then loaded it with potatoes and cabbage, and began to eat; with his mouth full, he regarded her derisively.
'My, but you are the fine figure of a woman, my dear,' he sneered, between champing mouthf uls. 'You're about as straight as that lovely nose o* yours. No, don't run away.' He raised his knife, with a broad, minatory gesture, to arrest her movement, whilst he finished masticating a chunk of beef. Then he went on, with a fine show of concern, 'I must admit ye ha vena got bonnier lately; all this worry has raddled ye; in fact, you're more like an old cab horse than ever now. I see you are still wearin' that dish clout of a wrapper.' He picked his teeth reflectively with a prong of his fork. 'It suits you right well.'
Mamma stood there like a wilted reed, unable to sustain his derisive stare, keeping her eyes directed out of the window, as though this abstracted gaze enabled her better to endure his taunts. Her face was grey with an ill, vitreous translucency, her eyelids retracted with a dull, fixed despondency; her thin, work-ugly hands played nervously with a loose tape at her waist.
Suddenly a thought struck Brodie. He looked at the clock. 'Where's Nessie?' he shouted.
'I gave her some lunch to school, to save her coming back in the snow.'
He grunted. 'And my Mother,' he demanded.
'She wouldna get up to-day for fear of the cold,' she whispered. A guffaw shook him. 'That's the spirit you should have had, you fushionless creature. If ye'd had that kind o' gumption ye would have stood up better, and no' run down so quick.' Then, after a pause, he continued, 'So it's just you and me together. That's very touchin', is't not? Well! I've grand news for ye! A rich surprise!'
Immediately her look left the window; she gazed at him with a numb expectation.
'Don't excite yourself, though,' he scoffed, 'it's not about your fine, bawdy daughter. You'll never know where she is! It's business this time. You're always such a help and encouragement to a man that I must tell ye this.' He paused importantly. 'The Mungo Clothing Company have taken the shop next door to your husband ay next door to Brodie the Hatter.' He laughed uproariously. 'So maybe ye'll find yourself in the poorhouse soon!' He howled at his own humour.
Mrs. Brodie restored her gaze into space. She suddenly felt weak and sat down; but as she did so his mocking eye darkened, his face, already flushed with hot food, flamed sullenly.
'Did I tell ye to sit down, ye limmer! Stand up till I've done with ye.'
Like an obedient child, she rose.
'Maybe the fact that these blasted swine are goin' to have the audacity to settle on my doorstep doesna mean much to you. You get your meat and drink too easy perhaps, while I've got to work for it. Does your weak mind not see it's going to be a fight to a finish to their finish?' He banged his fist on the table. His ranting gaiety was wearing off and giving place, instead, to a morose reactionary temper. 'If ye canna think ye can serve. Go and get my pudding.'
She brought him some steamed apple dumpling and he began to attack it wolfishly, whilst she stood like some bedraggled flunkey at the other end of the table. The news he had given her caused her little concern. In the shadow of Brodie's dominant personality she did not fear pecuniary disaster; although he kept her household allowance parsimoniously tight, she understood, always, that money was free with him, and often she had seen him draw out from his pocket a shining handful of golden sovereigns. Her dejected spirit was grappling with another care. She had not received a lettr from Matthew for six weeks, and, before that, his communications to her had been growing steadily briefer, and so irregular as to cause her the deepest vexation and misgiving. Mary she had now abandoned as
irrevocably lost to her; she did not even know her whereabouts, except that it had been rumoured that the Foyles had found her a situation of some sort in London, but of what nature she did not know; now it was Matthew upon whom she built her entire hopes and affection. Nessie was so absolutely Brodie's exclusive favourite that only Matt was now left to Mamma. But, apart from this, she had, indeed, always loved him best and, now that he was neglecting to write to her, she imagined that ill health or misfortune had surely befallen him. Suddenly she started.
'Give me some sugar. What are you moping and moonin' about?' Brodie was shouting at her. 'This dumplin' tastes like sorrel. You've got as much hand for a dumplin' as my foot.' The more the effect of the liquor left him the more surly he became. He snatched the sugar basin from her, sweetened the pudding to his liking, then consumed it with every indication of dissatisfaction.
Finally he rose, shaking himself in an effort to dispel the heavy lethargy which was beginning to affect him. Going to the door he turned to his wife and said cuttingly, 'Ye'll get sitting down now! I've no doubt the moment my back's turned you'll be crouching at the fire wi' your trashy books, while I'm away working for you. Don't tell me you're not lazy; don't tell me you're not a slut. If I say so, then ye are and that's the end o't. I know ye for what you are you lazy besom.' In his own increasing ill-temper he sought sullenly for some new means of wounding her and, as an idea of a parting shot of extreme subtlety struck him, his eyes gleamed maliciously, with the humour of using Dron's news of this morning, speciously, as a pretext for her discomfiture.
'Now that we've got opposition in the business,' he continued slowly, pausing at the door, 'we must economise. There'll have to be less wastin' and throwin' out in this house, and for a start I've made up my mind to cut down your allowance for the house. Yell get ten shillings a week less from now on and don't forget I want no savin' on my food. Ye maun just cut out what ye waste and give me the same as usual. Do ye hear me. Ten shillings a week less for ye! Think over that when ye're at your novelettes.' Then he turned and left the room.
II
WHEN her husband had gone Mrs. Brodie did, indeed, sit down, feeling that if, by his departure, she had not been permitted to rest her tired body, she would have fallen at his feet upon the floor from sheer weariness and from a gnawing pain within her side. This pain was peculiar, like a slow, harassing stitch which, though she was so inured to it as almost to ignore it, continually dragged upon her strength and rendered her, when she remained standing for any length of time, unduly and incomprehensibly fatigued. But, as she sat there, it was apparent from her features, which had aged considerably in the last three months and which now bore the look of remote concentration, that she was not occupied by the consideration of her own physical disabilities, but was influenced by a deeper and more moving cause for sorrow.
Brodie's last threat had not yet greatly affected her; she was, at the moment, too crushed to realise its portent and, although she vaguely understood that his conduct had been unusual and his manner exceptional, she had no suspicion of the cause. Nor was she greatly perturbed at his abuse. On this especial side of her nature she was so calloused to the lash of his tongue that she now hardly noticed a variation in the mode of her chastisement, and against any of his sneering charges it never occurred to her to attempt to defend herself; she could not have uttered the mildest or most logical assertion in her favour contrary to his will. Long ago she had realised, with a crushing finality, that she was chained to a man of domineering injustice, that her sole defence would be to develop a supine indifference to every irrational imputation with which he vilified her. She had not entirely succeeded and he had broken her, but she had at least evolved the faculty of inhibiting him from her meditation in his absence from the home. Therefore, the moment he went out, she directed her thoughts away from him and automatically they returned to the object of her recent solicitude her son.
At first, Matt's letters had reached her with a satisfying and affectionate regularity, and with these initial letters he had every month sent her the sum of five pounds to invest for him in the Levenford Building Society. She had loved the tone of these early letters; they had been to her so engrossingly interesting, of such an elevated sentiment, and so filled with strongly expressed moral rectitude. Then, gradually, a slow transition had occurred, and his letters, though still appearing regularly with each mail, had dwindled in volume and altered in principle, so that, though she had devoured the few husks of scanty and frequently disturbing news within them, her maternal craving had not been satisfied; nor had the half-hearted, stereotyped expression of regard, with which they had iavariably concluded, stifled her vague misgivings. When he had thus cut down his epistles to the shortest and most meagre limits, she had begun to write to him reprovingly, but alas, ineffectually, and his acknowledgment of her first letter in this spirit had been to ignore it completely and to miss the mail for the first time since he had left her.
