Suddenly, above the crackle of this cooking, into the fat-drenched vapour that filled the scullery, came the sound of the front door opening and shutting, followed by a heavy but sluggish tread along the hall. This, however, although she recognised it as Brodie's step, did not in the least perturb the unprepared Nancy, who still maintained her unconcerned and wary survey of the frying pan. For her no frantic running with savoury broths, brimming coffee cups or Britannia metal teapots! As she heard him come ponderously into the kitchen and silently sit down at the table she waited a moment, then called out brightly:
"You're too early the day, Brodie. I'm not nearly ready for ye;" then, as he did not reply, she continued to shout out, addressing him who had never deviated a second from his routine "You're that uncertain these days I never know when to expect you, or else the clocks in this house o' yours are all wrong. Anyway, hold on and I'll be in the now."
He "held on", waiting without a word. In the short space of time which had elapsed since his entry into the offices of Latta and Company a change, more striking and profound than that of the room in which he sat, but shaped in a similar direction, had affected him. Now, as he sat, his eyes fixed downwards upon the plate before him, he seemed to have shrunken slightly so that his clothes appeared not to fit him but to have been made for some larger frame than his, while his upright, firm-chested and always belligerent bearing had been replaced by a faint yet clearly perceptible stoop. His features, from being rugged, had become morose; his eye, no longer piercing, was fixed, brooding, and shot with faint threads of blood, while his cheeks too were veined by a fine, reticulated network of reddish vessels. His lips were dry, compressed; his temples, and indeed his cheeks, gaunt, slightly hollowed, and upon his brow the
furrow of his frown had seared itself like a deep-grooved stigma.
It was as though the firm outlines of the man had become blurred, his craggy features corroded, the whole solidity of his being eaten and undermined by some strange, dissolving acid in his blood.
When Nancy entered, bearing the platter of sausages, he glanced up quickly, drawn by the magnet of her eyes, but as she placed the plate before him he looked at it and said, in a harsh voice that came like the note of a faintly warped instrument:
"Have ye no soup to-day for me, Nancy?"
"No," she replied shortly, "I have not."
"I would have liked a drop broth to-day," he replied with a shadow of displeasure. "There's a nip in the air already; still, if ye haven't got any, that's all about it. Where's the potatoes, then?"
"I hadna time to make any potatoes for ye to-day. I've been fair rushed off my feet. Ye canna expect me to do everything for ye a' days, and dippin' my hands in cold dirty water to peel potatoes is what I've never been used to. Ye were glad enough to get a simpler dinner than that when ye used to come in to see me at the Winton Arms, and things are no better off with ye now. Eat it up and be content, man!"
The pupils of his eyes dilated as he looked at her, his lips shaped themselves to an angry reply, but with an effort he restrained himself, helped himself from the plate before him, and, taking a slice of bread, began his meal. She stood beside him for a moment, her hands upon her hips, flaunting her figure near to him, filled by the conscious sense of her power over him until, as Grandma Brodie entered the room, she flounced back into the scullery.
The old woman came forward to the table with a half -bemused expression upon her sallow, wrinkled visage and as she sat down, murmured to herself, "Teh! these things again"; but at her scarcely perceptible words Brodie turned and, showing his teeth at her in his old manner, snarled:
"What harm have the sausages done ? If ye don't like plain, honest meat ye can go to the poorhouse, and if ye do like it then shut your auld girnin' mouth!"
At his words, and more especially at the accompanying glance, she at once subsided into herself, and with her tremulous hands began, but without much eagerness, to assist herself to the food she had so indiscreetly condemned. Her ageing, muddled brain, incapable of fully comprehending the significance of the changes around her, accepted only the fact that she was now uncomfortable, presented with scanty, unpalatable meals, and as her weak jaws champed with a dry disrelish she vented her displeasure in quick, darting glances towards the hidden presence in the scullery.
After a few moments during which the two ate in silence, Brodie paused suddenly in his indifferent mastication, raised his head slightly at the light sound of some one entering the house and, fixing his eyes upon the door leading to the hall, waited expectantly for the entry of Nessie. She came in immediately and, although Brodie resumed his eating mechanically, he followed her everywhere about the room with his eyes. She slipped the thin elastic from under her chin and released her plain straw hat, threw this upon the sofa, discarded her blue serge jacket and laid it beside the hat, fluffed out her light flaxen hair and finally subsided in her chair beside him. She sat back in her chair languidly, surveying the table with a faint childish air of petulance, saying nothing, but feeling in her own mind that the sight of the solidifying grease before her had removed what little appetite she had possessed, that though she might have eaten, and enjoyed perhaps, a little stewed mince or even a small lamb chop, now she turned from the very thought of food. At her present age of fifteen years she had reached that period of her life when her budding and developing body required an additional attention, a more selective dietary, and though she realised nothing of this she felt instinctively, with her slightly throbbing head and the onset of her significant though unmentionable malaise, that it was an injustice to present her with the food she now surveyed. As she rested thus, her father, who had observed her continuously since her entry, spoke; with an unchanged face but in a voice which he tried to render light, persuasive, he said:
"Come on now, Nessie dear, and get your dinner begun. Don't sit and let it get cold. A big lassie like you should be hungry as a hunter and dashin' in for her meals as though she could eat the house up!"
At his words she came out of her meditation and at once began to obey, murmuring in explanation, almost apologetically:
"I've got a headache, Father, just right on the front of my brow, like a strap goin' round it," and she pointed listlessly to her forehead.
"Come, come now, Nessie," he replied in a low tone which could not carry to the scullery, "you're aye talkin' about that headache. If you're always crying 'wolf, wolf well not be believing you when it does come to the bit. So long as ye don't have the strap on the palm o' your hand ye shouldna mind it on the front o' your head."
"But it ties my brow so tight sometimes," she murmured mildly; "like a tight band."
"Tut! tut! It's the brain behind that matters, no' the brow, my girl. Ye should be thankful that ye're so well equipped in that respect." Then, as she began negligently to eat, he continued with extravagant approval, "That's better. Ye canna work without food. Take your fill o' whatever is goin'. Hard work should give a young lass like you an appetite, and hunger's guid kitchen." He suddenly shot a rancorous glance at his mother as he added harshly, "I'm pleased ye're not so particular and fasteedious as some folks."
Nessie, gratified that she was pleasing him and unfolding to some extent at his praise, redoubled her flagging efforts to eat but regarded him from time to time with a strained look in her eye as he continued reminiscently: