what he wanted. I don't care whether I'm wicked or not. I would! I would!' she shrieked. Her sobs strangled her. 'I love him, but he doesn't love me. He called me an ugly bitch. He tried to take to take advantage of me. Oh! Mamma, it's killing me. I wanted him to do it, if only he had loved me. I wanted it!' she repeated in a high hysteria. 'I had to tell ye. I'm worse than Mary was. I wish I was dead and finished.'
She flung back her head and gazed wildly at Mrs. Brodie. The eyes of the two women met and fused in a dull horror of despair, then Mamma's lips twisted grotesquely, her mouth drew to one side, she made as though to speak but could not, and with an incoherent cry she fell back helplessly in her chair. As Agnes gazed at the limp figure, her eyes slowly grew startled, her thoughts withdrew gradually from her own sorrow.
'Are ye ill?' she gasped. 'Oh! I didn't think it would take you like that. I'm so upset myself I never thought it might make you feel as bad as that. Can I not get you anything?'
Mamma's eyes sought the other's face, but still she did not speak.
'What can I do for you?' cried Agnes again. 'You look so bad I'm frightened. Will I get you some water will I get the doctor? Speak to me.'
At last Mamma spoke.
'I thought my boy was going out with ye to worship the Lord,' she whispered in a strange voice. 'I prayed that it should be so.'
'Oh! Don't talk like that,' exclaimed Agnes. 'You'll need to corns and lie down a wee. Come and lie down till you're better!'
'My side hurts me,' said Mamma dully. 'It must be that my heart is broken. Let me go to my bed. I want to be quiet and by my lone in the darkness.'
'Let me help you, then,' cried Agnes, and taking the other's passive arm she drew her to her feet, supported her, and led her unresistingly up the stairs to her bedroom. There she undressed her and assisted her to bed. 'What else can I do for you?' she said, finally. 'Would you like the hot bottle?'
'Just leave me,' replied Mamma, lying on her back and looking directly upwards. 'Ye've been kind to help me, but I want to be by myself now.'
'Let me sit with you for a bit! I don't like to go away yet awhile.'
'No! Agnes. I want ye to go!' said Mrs. Brodie, in a dull flat voice. 'I want to shut myself in the darkness. Turn out the gas and leave me. Just leave me be.'
'Will I not leave the gas in a peep?' persisted Agnes. 'No matter what's happened I can't think to go away like this.'
'I wish the darkness,' commanded Mrs. Brodie, 'and I wish to be alone,'
Agnes made as though to speak but, feeling the futility of further protest, she took a last look at the inert figure upon the bed, then, as she had been bidden, turned out the gas. Leaving the room in blackness she passed silently from the house.
IX
As Matthew shut the front door upon Mamma and ran lightly down the steps, he was filled with a lively humour and as he smiled knowingly, the sham meekness fell from his face like a mask. 'That's the way to work the old woman. Smart! Done like an artist too,' he chuckled to himself, 'and not bad for a first touch.' He was proud of his achievement and felt in agreeable anticipation that he would do even better next time, that Mamma must have a tidy sum tucked away in a safe place. It would be his for the asking! The few shillings which he had received by pawning her watch had disgusted him, for he had expected it to be worth considerably more, but now that he had a few pounds in his pocket, his prestige and cheerfulness were restored. Just let him have the cash, he told himself gleefully, and he was all right. He knew how to disport himself with it!
The lights of the town twinkled invitingly. After Calcutta, Paris, London, he would find Levenford contemptibly small, yet this very disdain filled him with a delightful self-esteem. He, the man of the world, would show them a few things in the town to-night. Yes, by gad! he would paint it a bright, vermilion red! At his thoughts, a throaty laugh broke from him exultantly and he looked about him eagerly. As he swung along he saw dimly on the other side of the street the moving figure of a woman and, looking after the indistinct figure, he leered to himself, 'That one's not much good to a man, she's in too much of a hurry. What does she want to run like that for?' He did not know that it was Agnes Moir on her way to see his mother.
He quickened his steps through the darkness that wrapped him like a cloak, revelling in this obscurity which made him feel more dashing, alive than the broad light of day. What manner of youth had he once been, to be afraid of this stimulating opacity? It was the time when a man woke up, when he could have some fun! Memories of lotus-eating nights he had spent in India recurred to him and, as they rose before him, whetting his anticipation, he muttered, 'These were the nights. These were the splurges. I'll go back, all right. Trust me!' Gaily he plunged into the first public house in the street.
'Gin and angostura,' he cried in an experienced tone, banging a pound note down on the bar. When the drink came he drained it in a gulp and nodded his head affirmatively, sophisticatedly. With the second glass in his hand he gathered up his change, slipped it into his pocket, tilted his hat to a rakish angle and looked round the saloon.
It was a poor sort of place, he noted indifferently, with drab red walls, poor lights, dirty spittoons and sawdust on the floor. Heavens! Sawdust on the floor, after the rich, thick-piled carpet into which his feet had sunk so seductively in that little place in Paris. Despite his demand, there had been no bitters in his gin. Still, he did not care: this was only the opener! His first and invariable proceeding on these jovial excursions was to get a few drinks into himself quickly. 'When I've got a bead in me,' he would say, 'I'm as right as the mail. Man! I'm a spunky devil then.' Until he felt the airy spinning of wheels within his brain he lacked drive, daring and nerve; for, despite his bluster, he was at heart the same soft, irresolute weakling as before and he required this blurring of his impressionable senses before he could enjoy himself in perfect self-confidence. His susceptible nature reacted quickly to the suggestive urge of alcohol and his bold dreams and pretentious longings were solidified thereby into actualities, so that he assumed with every glass a more superior aspect, a more mettled air of defiance.
'Anything happening in this hole to-night?' he enquired largely of the barman it was the class of tavern which, of necessity, had a large, powerful male behind the bar. The barman shook his close-cropped bullet head, looking curiously at the other, wondering who the young swell might be.
'No!' he replied cautiously, 'I don't think so. There was a mechanics' concert in the Borough Hall on Thursday!'
'Gad!' replied Matthew, with a guffaw. 'You don't call that sort of thing amusement. You're not civilised here. Don't you know anything about a neat little place to dance in, with a smart wench or two about. Something in the high-stepping line.'
'You'll no' get that here,' replied the tapman shortly, wiping the bar dry with a cloth, and adding sourly, 'This is a decent town you're in.'
'Don't I know it,' cried Matt expansively, embracing with his glance the only other occupant of the room a labouring man who sat on a settle against the wall, watching him with a fascinated eye from behind a pint pot of beer. 'Don't I know it. It's the deadest, most sanctimonious blot on the map of Europe. Aha! But you should see what I've seen. I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end. But what's the odds. You don't know the difference here between a bottle of Pommeroy and a pair of French corsets.'
He laughed loudly at his own humour, viewing their incredulous faces with an increasing merriment, then suddenly, although gratified at the impression he had created, he perceived that no further amusement, no further adventure was to be had there, and, moving to the door with a nod of his head and a tilt of his hat, he lounged out through the swing doors into the night.
He sauntered slowly along Church Street. That delicious woolly numbness was already beginning to creep around the back of his ears and infiltrate his brain. An easy sensation of well-being affected him; he wanted lights, company, music. Disgustedly he looked at the blank, shuttered shop windows and the few quickly moving pedestrians, and parodying contemptuously the last remark of the barman, he muttered to himself, 'This is a decent graveyard you're in.' He was seized by a vast and contemptuous loathing for Levenford. What good was a town of this kind to a seasoned man like him whose worldly knowledge stretched from the flash houses in Barrackpore to the Odeon bar in Paris?
