"When I was your age, Nessie, I could have eaten an ox when I came rushin' in from the fields for my dinner. I was a hardy chiel ay ready for what I could get. I could never get enough, though, No! No! Things were different for me than they are for you, Nessie! I didna have your chance. Tell me," he murmured confidentially, "how are things goin’ to-day?"
"Quite well," she replied automatically.
"You're still top of the class,' he insisted.
"Oh! Father," she expostulated, "I'm tired of explaining to you that we don't have that sort of thing now. I've told you half a dozen times in the last three months that it all goes by quarterly examinations." With a faint note of vanity in her voice she added, "Surely you understand that I’m past that stage now."
"Ay! ay!" he hastily replied. "I was forgettin' that a big girl and a fine scholar like you wouldna have to be fashed wi' such childish notions. True enough, it's examinations that you and me are concerned with." He paused, then in a sly tone remarked, "How long have we now till the big one?"
"About six months, I suppose," she answered half-heartedly, as she pallidly continued her meal.
"That's just fine," he retorted. "No' that long to wait and yet plenty of time for ye to prepare. Ye can't say ye havena had warnin' o't." He whispered almost inaudibly:
"Ay! I'll keep ye to it, lass you and me'll win the Latta between us."
At this point old Grandma Brodie, who had been sitting expectantly for a second course to follow and who, regardless of the conversation, had been itching, but afraid, to say, "Is there nothin' else comin'" or "Is this a' we're to get", at last abandoned hope; with a resigned but muffled sigh she scraped back her chair from the table, raised her stiff form, and dragged disconsolately from the kitchen. As she passed through the door she was unhappily aware that little comfort was in her, that in the sanctuary of her room two empty tins awaited her like rifled and unreplenished tabernacles mutely proclaiming the prolonged absence of her favourite Deesides and her beloved oddfellows.
Wrapped in the contemplation of his daughter, Brodie did not observe his mother's departure, but remarked in a tone that was almost coaxing:
"Have ye no news at all then, Nessie ? Surely some one said something to ye. Did nobody tell ye again that ye were a clever lass? I'll warrant that ye got extra good marks for your home work," It was as though he besought her to inform him of some commendation, some pleasing attribute bestowed upon the daughter of James Brodie; then, as she shook her head negatively, his eye darkened to a sudden thought and he burst out savagely, "They havena been talkin' about your father, have they, any o' these young whelps? I daresay they listen to what the backbitin' scum o' their elders might be say in 1 , but if they come over a thing to ye, just let me know. And dinna believe it. Keep your head up, high up. Remember who ye are that you're a Brodie and demand your due. Show them what that means. Ay and ye will show them, my girl, when ye snap awa' wi' the Latta from under their snivellin' nebs." He paused; then, with a twitching cheek, bit out at her, "Has that young brat o' Grierson's been makin' any of his sneakin' remarks to ye?"
She shrank back timidly from him, exclaiming, "No, no, Father! Nobody has said anything, Father. Everybody is as kind as can be. Mrs. Paxton gave me some chocolate when she met me going down the road."
"Oh! She did, did she?" He hesitated, digesting the information; apparently it disagreed with him, for he sneered: "Well, tell her to keep her braw presents the next time. Say we have all we want here. If ye're wantin' sweeties, like a big saftie, could ye not have asked me for them? Do ye not know that every scandalmonger in the town is just gaspin' for the chance to run us down? 'He canna afford to give his own daughter a bit sweetie next that's what we'll be hearin' to-morrow, and by the time it gets to the Cross they'll be makin' out that I'm starvin' ye." His annoyance was progressive and he worked himself up to a climax, crying: "Bah! Ye should have had more sense. They're all against us. That's the way o't now. But never mind! Let them fling all the mud they like. Let the hand of every man be turned against me I'll win through in spite o' them." As he concluded, he raised his eye wildly upwards when, suddenly, he observed Nancy had come into the room and was watching him from under her raised brows with a critical and faintly amused detachmcnt. At once his inflated bearing subsided and, as though caught in some unwarrantable act, he lowered his head while she spoke.
"What's all the noise about! I thought that somebody had taken a fit when I heard ye skirlin' like that," and as he did not reply she turned to Nessie.
"What was the haverin' about? I hope he wasna flightin' at you, henny?"
With Nancy's advent into the kitchen a vague discomfort had possessed Nessie and now the skin of her face and neck, which had at first paled, flushed vividly. She answered confusedly, in a low voice:
"Oh! No. It was nothing nothing like that."
"I'm glad to hear it," replied Nancy. "All that loud rantin' was enough to deafen a body. My ears are ringin' with it yet." She glanced around disapprovingly and was about to retire when Brodie spoke, looking sideways at Nessie, and with an effort making his voice unconcerned.
"If you've finished your dinner, Nessie, run out to the front and wait for me. I'll not be a minute before I'm ready to go down the road with you." Then, as his daughter arose, picked up her things from the sofa and went silently, uneasily, out of the room, he turned his still lowered head; looking upwards from under his brows, he regarded Nancy with a strong, absorbed intensity, and remarked:
"Sit down a minute, woman. I havena seen ye all the dinner hour. Ye're not to be angry at that tantrum. You should know my style by this time. I just forgot myself for a minute."
As she sat down carelessly in the chair Nessie had vacated, his look drew her in with a possessive gratification which told more clearly than his words how she had grown upon him. So long without a fresh and vital woman in his house, so painfully encumbered by the old and useless body of his wife, this firm, white, young creature had entered into his blood like an increasing fever, and, by satisfying his fierce and thwarted instincts, had made him almost her slave.
"Ye didna give us any pudding, Nancy," he continued, clumsily taking her hand in his huge grasp; "will ye not give a man something to make up for't just a kiss, now. That'll not hurt ye, woman, and it's sweeter to me than any dish ye could make."
"Tuts, Brodie! You're always on at the same thing," she answered, with a toss of her head. "Can ye not think o' something else for a change? Ye forget that you're a burly man and I'm but a wee bit lass that canna stand a deal of handlin'." Although the words were admonitory she threw an inflection of seductiveness into them which made him tighten his clasp on her fingers, saying:
"I'm sorry if I've been rough with ye, lass. I didna mean it. Come and sit closer by me. Come on now!"
"What!" she skirled. "In broad daylight! Ye maun be mad, Brodie, an’ after last night too, you great lump. Yell have me away to shadow No! No! Ye'll not wear me out like ye did the other."
She looked little like a shadow, with her plump cheeks and solid form that had filled out more maturely from her six months of easy, indolent existence, and, as she regarded him with a substantial appreciation of his dependence upon her, she became aware that he was already losing his hold upon her, that the strange strength which had drawn her was being sapped by drink and her embraces, that he had now insufficient money to gratify her fancies, that he looked old, morose and unsuited to her. She had almost an inward contempt for him as she resumed slowly, calculatingly, "I might gie ye a kiss, though. Just might, mind ye. If I did, what would ye give me for it?"
"Have I not given ye enough, woman?" he answered gloomily. "Ye're housed and fed like myself and I've sold many a thing out this house to meet your humour. Don't ask for the impossible, Nancy."