Mrs. Brodie considered her daughter critically. "Have you seen the light yet, Mary?" she asked slowly.
Mary knew instinctively what was coming, knew that she was to receive one of Mamma's recently instituted pious talks which had made her at first either tearful or rebellious, which had never at any time made her feel better spiritually, and which now merely fell senselessly upon her stoic ears. These elevating discourses had become intolerable during her incarceration and, together with every other form of high-minded exhortation, had been thrust upon her, heaped upon her head like reproaches, at all available opportunities. The
reason was not far to seek. At the conclusion of that awful session in the parlour Brodie had snarled at his wife, "She's your daughter! It's your job to get some sense of obedience into her. If you don't, by God! I'll take the strap across her back again and over yours too."
"Do you feel yourself firm on the rock yet, Mary?" continued Mamma earnestly.
"I don't know," replied Mary, in a stricken voice.
"I can see yoi haven't reached it yet," Mamma sighed gently. "What a comfort it would be to your father and me if we saw you more-abounding in faith, and goodness, and obedience to your parents." She took Mary's passive hand. "You know, my dear, life is short. Suppose we were called suddenly before the Throne in a state of unworthiness What then? Eternity is long. There is no chance to
repent then. Oh! I wish you would see the error of your ways. It makes it so hard for me, for your own mother that has done everything for you. It's hard that your father should blame me for that stiff, stubborn look that's still about ye just as if ye were frozen up. Why, I would do anything. I would even get the Rev. Mr. Scott himself to speak to you, some afternoon when your father wasna in! I read such a comforting book the other day of how a wayward woman
was made to see the light by one of God's own ministers." Mamma sighed mournfully, and after a long impressive pause, enquired:
"Tell me, Mary, what is in your heart now?"
"I wish, Mamma, you'd leave me a little," said Mary, in a low tone. "I don't feel well."
"Then you've no need of your mother, or the Almighty either," said Mamma with a sniff. Mary looked at her mother tragically. She realised to the full the other's feebleness, ineptitude and impotence. From the very beginning she had longed for a mother to whom she could unbosom her inmost soul, on whom she might have leaned clingingly, to whom she might have cried passionately, "Mother,
you are the refuge of my torn and afflicted heart! Comfort me and take my suffering from me! Wrap me in the mantle of your protection and shield me from the arrows of misfortune!"
But Mamma was, alas, not like that. Unstable as water, and as shallow, she reflected merely the omnipresent shadow of another stronger than herself. Upon her lay the heavy shade of a mountain whose ominous presence overcast her limpid nature with a perpetual and compelling gloom. The very tone of this godly conversation was merely the echo of Brodie's irresistible demand. How could she
speak of the fear of Eternity when her fear of Brodic dwarfed this into insignificance, into nothingness? For her there was only one rock, and that the adamantine hardness of her husband's furious will. Woe! Woe to her, if she did not cling submissively to that! She was, of course, a Christian woman, with all the respectable convictions which this implied. To attend church regularly on Sundays, even to frequent, when she could escape from her duties, an occasional fervent, week-night meeting, to condemn the use of the grosser words of the vocabulary such as "Hell" or "Damn", fully justified her claim to godliness; and when, for her relaxation, she read a work of fiction, she perused only such good books as afforded the virtuous and saintly heroine a charming and godly husband in the last chapter, and afforded herself a feeling of pure and elevated refinement. But she could no more have supported her daughter in this crisis of her life than she could have confronted Brodie in his wrath. All this Mary comprehended fully.
"Will you not tell me, Mary?" Mamma persisted. "I wish I knew what was goin' on inside that stubborn head of yours!" She was continually in fear that her daughter might be secretly contemplating some discreditable step which would again arouse Brodie's ungovernable fury. Often in her shuddering anticipation she felt, not only the lash of his tongue, but the actual chastisement with which he had threatened her.
"There's nothing to tell you, Mamma," replied Mary sadly. "Nothing to say to you."
She was aware that if she had attempted to unburden herself, her mother would have stopped her with one shrill, protesting cry and, with deaf ears, have fled from the room. "No! No! don't tell me! Not a word more. I won't hear it. It's not decent," Mary could almost hear her crying, as she ran. Bitterly she repeated:
"No! I've nothing at all to tell you!"
"But you must think of something. I know you're thinking, by the look of you," persisted Mrs. Brodie. Mary looked full at her mother.
"Sometimes I think I would be happy if I could get out of this house and never come back' she said bitterly. Mrs. Brodie held up her hands, aghast.
"Mary!" she cried. "What a thing to say! Ye should be thankful to have such a good home. It's a good thing your father doesna hear ye he would never forgive such black ingratitude!"
"How can you talk like that," cried Mary wildly. "You must feel as I do about it. This has never been a home to us. Can't you feel it crushing us? It's like part of father's terrible will. Remember I haven't been out of it for six weeks and I feel oh! I feel broken to pieces," she sobbed.
Mrs. Brodie eyed these tears gratefully, as a sign of submission.
"Don't cry, Mary," she admonished; "although ye should be sorry for talking such improper nonsense about the grand place you're privileged to live in. When your father built it 'twas the talk o' Levenford."
"Yes," sobbed Mary, "and so are we. Father makes that so, too. We don't seem like other people. We're not looked on like ordinary people."
"I should think not!" bridled Mrs. Brodie. "We're far and above them."
"Oh! Mother," cried Mary, "you would never understand what I mean. Father has frightened you into his own notions. He's driving us all into some disaster. He keeps us apart from people. We've got no friends. I never had a chance like anybody else; I've been so shut off from everything."
"And a good job too," interposed Mamma. "It's the way a decent girl should be brought up. You should have been shut off a bit more, by the way you've been goin' on."
Mary did not seem to hear her, but, gazing blindly in front of her, pursued that last thought to its bitter end. "I was shut up in a prison in darkness," she whispered; "and when I did escape I was dazzled and lost my way." An expression of utter hopelessness spread slowly over her face.
"Don't mumble like that," cried Mamma sharply. "If ye can't speak up honestly to your mother, don't speak at all. The idea! Ye should be thankful to have folks to take care of ye and keep ye in here out of harm."
"Harm! I haven't done much harm in the last few weeks," echoed Mary, in a flat voice.
"Mary! Mary!" cried Mamma reprovingly. "You should be showing a better spirit. Don't answer so sulkily. Be bright and active and show more respect and deference to your parents. To think of the low young men of the district running after you should bring the blush of shame to your face. You ought to be glad to stay in to escape from them and not be always hanging about looking so gloomy.
Why! When I think what you're being protected from " Mamma stopped for very modesty and shuddered virtuously as she pushed Spurgeon's sermons nearer Mary. Concluding on the highest and most elevated note, she arose and, as she retreated to the door, said significantly, "Have a look at that, my girl. It'll do ye more good than any light talk ye might hear outside." Then she went out, closing the door behind her with a soft restraint which harmonised with the
godly thoughts which filled her mind.
But Mary did not touch the book that had been so persistently thrust upon her; instead, she looked hopelessly out of the window. Heavy masses of cloud shut out the sky, turning the short October afternoon more quickly towards the night. A soft, insistent rain blurred the window panes; no wind stirred; her three silver birches, bereft of leaves, were silent in a misty, melancholy reverie. She had of late gazed at them so often that she knew them in every mood and thought of them as her own. She had seen them shed their leaves. Each leaf had come fluttering down sadly, slowly, like a lost hope, and with each fall Mary had cast away a fragment of her faith. They had been like symbols to her, these three trees, and so long as they had breathed through their living foliage, she had not despaired. But the last leaflet had gone and this evening, like her, they were denuded, enwrapped in cold mist, lost in profound despondency.
Her child was living in her womb. She had felt it throb with an ever-increasing surge of life; this throbbing, living child that no one knew of but Denis and herself. She was undiscovered. Concealment, which had at first so much worried her, had not been easy, but now it did not trouble her at all; for, at this moment, her mind was occupied by a deeper and more awful contemplation.
Yet, as she sat so passive by her window, she recollected how the first movement within her had caused her a pang, not of fear, but of sublime yearning. She had been transcended by a swift illumination which lit up the dark spaces of her mind, and a fierce desire for her child had seized her. This desire had, through many dark hours, sustained her fortitude, had filled her with a brave endurance of her present misery. She had felt that she now suffered for the child, that
the more she endured, the more she would be recompensed by its love.
But that seemed a long time ago, before hope had finally left her. She had then still believed in Denis.
Since that afternoon when she had gone to Darroch she had not seen him. Imprisoned in the house by the will of her father, she had lived through these six, unendurable weeks without a glimpse of Denis. Sometimes she had imagined she had seen his figure lurking outside the house; often, at night, she had felt that he was near; once she had wakened with a shriek to a faint tapping on her window; but now she realised that these had been merely illusions of her disordered fancy and she was finally convinced that he had deserted her.
He had abandoned her. She would never see him again.
She longed for night to come to bring sleep to her. In the beginning of her sorrow she had been unable to rest; then, strangely, she had slept profoundly, with a slumber often pervaded by exquisite dreams, dreams that were filled with an extraordinary felicity. Then she was always with Denis amongst enchanting surroundings, exploring with him a sunlit land of gay, old cities, and mingling with laughing people, living upon strange and exotic foods. These pleasant phantasies, by their happy augury for the future, had at one time cheered and comforted her; but that was past; she sought now no visions of unreality. The sleep which she desired was a dreamless one. She had resolved to kill herself. Vividly she remembered her words to him on Darroch Station, when she had, with an unconscious, dreadful foreboding, told what she would do if he deserted her. Her only refuge lay in death. Unknown to any one she had concealed in her room a packet of salts of lemon which she had removed from the high shelf above the washtubs in the scullery. To-night she would go to bed in the usual way and, in the morning, they would find her dead. The living child that had never breathed would be dead too, she realised, but that was the best thing that could happen. Then they would bury her with her unborn child in the wet earth and she would be finished and at peace. She got up and opened a drawer. Yes! It was there safely. With calm fingers she opened slightly one end of the white packet and gazed at
the harmless appearance of the contents within. Unconsciously, she reflected how strange it was that these inert, innocent crystals should be so full of deadly potentiality; yet she was aware that they held no menace for her, but only a benign succour. They would enable her with a single, quick motion to escape from the hopeless, cumulative bondage of her existence and, when she swallowed them, she would drain in one final, convulsive gulp the last bitter dregs of life itself. Tranquilly, she reflected that at bedtime she must bring up water in
a cup to dissolve the crystals.
She replaced the packet, closed the drawer, and, returning to the window, sat down and began again to knit. She would finish the sock to-night for her father. As she thought of him, she had no active emotion towards him everything within her was passive, as though her feelings had already died. He never spoke to her. His arm was healed. His life went on unchanged and, even after she was dead, would go on unchanged, with the same unfailing regularity, in the same proud indifference, smoothed by the same adulation and cringing subservience from Mamma.
She stopped knitting for a moment and glanced out of the window. Nessie was coming in from school. Compassion invaded her for her small, susceptible sister who had been at first infected with her misery. She would be sorry to leave Nessie. Poor Nessie! She would be all alone! Strangely, however, the diminutive figure did not enter the gate, but instead, stood in the gathering dusk, making a peculiar, determinate sign. It was not Nessie, but another small girl who,
posted indomitably in the rain, waved her arm upwards with a significant, yet hidden intention. Mary looked at her fixedly, but as she did so the movements ceased and the little puppet moved away. Two people then came into view and passed out of sight down the road, leaving it void and black as before. A sigh burst from Mary, expressive of the dispersion of a dim, unborn hope; she rubbed her eyes vaguely and covered them dumbly with her hands.
She removed her hands and immediately again viewed the child, waving more emphatically, more appealingly than before. She stared uncomprehendingly, then, feeling that she must be the victim of some strange hallucination of her disordered senses, expecting the phenomenon to vanish as instantaneously and magically as it had appeared, slowly, unbelievingly, she opened her window and looked out.
Immediately, out of the dim obscurity, a round object, thrown with unerring accuracy, struck her upon the shoulder and dropped with a soft thud at her feet, whilst at the same instant the street became vacant and empty. Mechanically Mary closed the window and sat down again. She would have dismissed the whole episode as a delusion of her tired brain but for the fact that upon the floor lay the missile which had impinged upon her out of the gathering darkness, like a small meteor falling from the invisible sky. She looked at the round object more closely. It was an apple.