At twenty minutes to twelve she had almost abandoned hope when, suddenly, she observed two strange gentlemen appear opposite the house. They arrived on foot and carried no bag, but were dressed exactly alike, in a manner which Mrs. Brodie felt might represent the peak of elegance, the most dashing summit of contemporary male fashion. Their Derby hats, that curled till brim met crown, were tilted rakishly above glossy side whiskers; their very short jackets were tight to the waist, with long rolling lapels, so that the chest of each had the appearance of swelling forward like that of a pouter pigeon, whilst the curve of the lower part of the back swept protrudingly, but equally enticingly, in an obverse direction; their check trousers, maintaining an agreeable looseness in the upper portions, clung more sympathetically to the figure as they descended, and terminated finally with the tightness of spats around small, inconspicuous, but none the less shining, shoes. Each wore a large, heavy watch chain high up across his spotted, fancy waistcoat whilst, even at such a distance as that from which she viewed them, she noted upon their fingers a coruscation of jewelled rings which sparkled and flashed with every fluent movement. No strangers of such composed address or brilliant plumage had, in the memory of Mrs. Brodie, ever flitted down upon the town of Levenford and, with a beating heart and a fascinated eye, she realised instinctively although her anticipation had visualised a patriarchal gentleman in an Inverness cloak with a bluff manner and a benevolent shaggy beard that these men of the world were the emissaries of McSevitch genuine Scotsman.
From the middle of the roadway they looked knowingly at the house, as though their eyes, having embraced and criticised every architectural feature of its outer aspect, bored like gimlets through the hard stone walls, examining the inadequacies of its inner structure and contemptuously discovering a host of deficiencies hitherto concealed even from its occupants.
At length, after a prolonged, impassive stare, one of the two turned his head slowly and, out o the corner of his mouth, said something to his companion, who on his part pushed his hat farther back upon his head, veiled his protuberant eyeballs and laughed with an experienced air.
Like a sudden, startled victim of diplopia, Mrs. Brodie now saw them advance simultaneously, proceed through the gateway abreast, saw them glance in unison at every stone on the courtyard, and, as they paused before the cannon in front of the porch, she shrank teck behind the concealment of her curtain.
"Bit o' junk that, but solid stuff brass by the look on it," she heard one say, as he fingered his large, pearly tie-pin. The other flicked the gun barrel with his finger nail, as though he wished to see if it might ring true, but immediately he withdrew the finger and thrust it hastily into his mouth, "Ow! It's bloody hard, anyway," floated in through the half-open window towards Mamma's astounded ears.
The bell rang. Mechanically she went to answer it and, as she threw open the door, she was confronted by two identically competent smiles which met and returned her shrinking gaze with a dazzling exhibition of gold and ivory.
"Mrs. Brodie?" said one, extinguishing his smile.
"You wrote?" said the other, doing likewise.
"Are you from Mr. McSevitch?" she stammered.
"Sons," said the first easily.
"Partners," said the second gracefully.
Overcome by the ease of their manners, but none the less shaken by a faint misgiving, she hesitatingly took them into the parlour. Immediately their sharp gaze, which had beeu glued upon her, became detached and darted around every object in the room in abstracted yet eager estimation, until finally, as the orbits of their inspection intersected, their glances met significantly and one addressed the other in a tongue unknown to Mrs. Brodie. The language was strange, but the tone familiar and, even as she winced at its disparaging note, her cheeks coloured with a faint indignation, as she thought that such words as these were, at least, not genuine Scottish. Then, alternately, they began to bombard her.
"You want forty pounds, lady ?"
"On the quiet without any one knowin' not evert the old man, lady."
"Been havin' a little flutter, perhaps?"
"What do you want it for, lady?"
Their well-informed glances devastated her as they moved their fingers, sparkling their rings affluently, demonstrating agreeably that they had the money, that she it was who desired it. She was at their mercy.
When they had drawn everything from her regarding the house, her husband, herself, and her family, they exchanged a nod and, as one man, arose. They toured the parlour, then tramped loudly and indifferently through the house, fingering, handling, stroking, twiddling and weighing everything in it, peering, poking and prying into every room with Mamma at their heels like a debased and submissive dog. When they had reviewed the most intimate details of the life of the household as manifested to them in the interior of cupboards, the inside of wardrobes, the contents of drawers, and made her blush painfully as, penetrating even to her bedroom, they regarded with a knowing air the space beneath her bed, they at last descended the stairs, looking everywhere but at her. She could see refusal in their faces.
"I'm afraid it's no good, lady. Your furniture's poor stuff, heavy, old-fashioned; won't sell!" said one at last, with an odious show of candour. "We might lend you two tens on it or say even twenty-four pounds. Yes, say twenty-five at the outside limit and on our own terms of interest," he continued, as he produced a quill tooth-pick from his waistcoat pocket and assisted his calculations by, its assiduous application. "What say?"
"Yes, lady," said the other; "times is bad these days and you're not what you might call a good loan. We're always polite to a lady funny the number of ladies we does business with but you haven't got the security."
"But my things are all good," quavered Mamma in a faint voice; "they've been handed down in the family."
"You couldn't give them away now, ma'am," the gentleman with the toothpick assured her, shaking his head sadly. "No, not even in a downright gift. We've reached the limit, the fair limit. How about that twenty-five pounds of good money?"
"I must have forty pounds," said Mamma weakly; "anything else is no good." She had set the fixed sum in her mind and nothing short of its complete achievement would satisfy her.
"You've nothing else to show, lady ?" said one insinuatingly. "Funny what you ladies will shake out when you're put to it. You've nothing up your sleeve for the last?"
"Only the kitchen," replied Mrs. Brodie humbly, as she threw open the door, loath to allow them to depart, desiring despairingly to entice them into the plain apartment for a last consideration of her appeal. They went in, following her reluctantly, disdainfully, but immediately their attention was riveted by a picture which hung conspicuously upon the wall, framed in a wood of mottled, light yellow walnut. It was an engraving entitled "The Harvesters", was marked
First Proof, and signed J. Bell.
"Is that yours, lady?" said one, after a significant pause.
"Yes," said Mrs. Brodie, "it's mine. It was my mother's before me. That small pencil sketch in the corner of the margin has been much admired."
They talked in low tones before the picture, peered at it through a glass, rubbed it, pawed it possessively.
"Would you like to sell this, lady ? Of course, it's nothing to make a noise on oh, dear, no! but we would offer you yes five pounds for it," said the second eventually, in an altered, ingratiating tone.
"I can sell nothing," whispered Mamma. "Mr. Brodie would notice it at once."
"Say ten pounds then, lady," exclaimed the first, with a great show of magnanimity.
"No! No!" returned Mamma, "But if it's worth something, will ye not lend me the rest of the money on it? If it's worth something to buy, it's surely worth something to lend on." She waited in a fever of anxiety, hanging upon the inflection of their voices, upon their quick, expressive gestures, upon the very lift of their eyebrows while they held colloquy together upon her picture. At last, after prolonged argument, they agreed.
"You win, then, lady," said one, "We'll lend you the forty pounds, but you'll have to give us your bond on the picture and the rest of the furniture as well."
"We're giving the money away, lady," said the other, "but we'll do it for your sake. We see you need the money bad; but you must understand that if you don't pay up, that picture and your furniture belongs to us."
She nodded dumbly, feverishly, filled with a choking, unendurable sense of a hard-fought victory. They went back into the parlour and sat down at the table, where she signed the endless papers that they produced for her, appending her signature where they indicated with a blind, reckless indifference. She understood that she would have to repay three pounds a month for two years, but she cared nothing for that and, as they counted out the money in crisp pound notes, she took it like a woman in a dream, and, like a sleepwalker, she showed them to the door. In spite of everything, she had got the money for Matt.
Early that afternoon she wired the money. In the overwrought state of her imagination she seemed to see the clean bank notes actually rushing through the blue to the salvation of her son and, when they had gone, for the first time in three days she breathed peacefully and a mantle of tranquillity descended upon her.
VI
ON the following morning Brodie sat at breakfast, cold, moody, detached, the two, sharp, vertical furrows lately become more intensely grooved marking the centre of his forehead between his sunk eyes like cicatriced wounds and giving to his gloomy visage a perpetual air of brooding perplexity. Caught in the unrelieved severity of the pale morning light, his unwary countenance, relieved
of observation, seemed to justify the idle remark uttered in the Paxton home that now he was beyond his depth, and from behind that low wall of his harassed forehead, the confusion of his mind seemed to obtrude itself so forcibly that even as he sat still and quiet at table, he appeared to flounder helplessly with all the impotent brute strength of a harpooned whale. His diminutive intellect, so disproportionate to his gigantic body, could not direct him towards safety and while he lashed out in the most mistaken directions in his efforts to avoid a final catastrophe, he still saw disaster steadily closing in upon him.
He, of course, knew nothing of the wire or of Mamma's action on the previous day. Mercifully, he was not aware of the unauthorised feet that had so boorishly tramped through his domain, yet his own worries and misfortunes were more than sufficient to render his temper like tinder, ready to ignite and flame furiously at the first spark of provocation. Now, having finished his porridge, he awaited
with ill-concealed impatience his special cup of coffee which Mrs. Brodie was pouring out for him at the scullery stove.
This morning cup of coffee was one of the minor tribulations of Mamma's harassed existence, for although she made tea admirably she rarely succeeded in making coffee to Brodie's exacting taste, which demanded that it must be freshly brewed, freshly poured, and steaming hot. This innocent beverage had become a convenient peg upon which to hand any matutinal grievance, and most mornings he complained bitterly about it, on any or every pretext. It was too sweet, not strong enough, had too many grounds in it; it burned his tongue or was full of the straggling skin of boiled milk. No matter how she made it the result was declared unsatisfactory. The very action of carrying his cup to the table became to her a penance as, knowing the tremor of her hand, he insisted further that the cup must be brimming full and not a single drop must be spilled upon the saucer. This last transgression was the most deadly that she could commit, and when it occurred he would wilfully allow the drop from the bottom of the cup to fall upon his coat, and would then roar:
"Ye careless besom, look what you've done! I can't keep a suit of clothes for your feckless, dirty ways."
Now, as she entered with the cup, he flung at her an irascible look for having kept him waiting exactly nine seconds, a look which developed into a sneering stare as, maintaining the brimming cup erect and the saucer inviolate by a tense effort of her slightly trembling hand, she walked slowly from the scullery door to the table. She had almost achieved her objective when suddenly, with a frantic cry, she dropped everything upon the floor and clutched her left side with both hands. Brodie gazed with stupefied rage at the broken crockery, the spilled coffee, and, last of all, at her distorted figure, writhing before him amongst the wreckage on the floor. He shouted. She did not hear his bellow, she was so pierced by the sudden spasm of pain which transfixed her side like a white-hot skewer from which burning ripples of agony emanated and thrilled through her flesh. For a moment she suffered intensely, then gradually, as though this awful cautery cooled, the waves of pain grew less and with a bloodless face she rose to her feet and stood before her husband, heedless at that instant of her enormity in upsetting his coffee. Relief at her emancipation from pain gave her tongue an unusual liberty.
"Oh! James," she gasped. "That was far the worst I've ever had. It nearly finished me. I really think I should see the doctor about it. I get the pain so much now and I sometimes feel a wee, hard lump in my side." Then she broke off, becoming aware suddenly of his high, affronted dignity.
"Is that a fact now?" he sneered. "We're goin' to run to the doctor for every touch o' the bellyache that grips us, we can so well afford it! And we can afford to scale the good drink on the floor and smash the china! Never mind the waste! Never mind my breakfast; just smash, smash a' the time." His voice rose with each word, then changed suddenly to a sneering tone. "Maybe ye would like a consultation of a' the doctors in the town? They might be able to find something
wrang wi' ye if they brought round a' their learned books and put their empty heads together about ye! Who was it ye would be speirin' to see now?"
"They say that Renwick is clever," she muttered unthinkingly.