"Another time, Nessie," she cried. "Don't bother me! I'll get you them another time." She entered the scullery and plunged her hand into the box where old copies of newspapers and periodicals, brought home by Brodie, were kept for household purposes, chiefly the kindling of fires. Removing a pile of these, she spread them out upon the stone floor and flung herself before them on her knees, as though she grovelled before some false god. She hurriedly ran her eye over several of these sheets until, with an inarticulate cry of relief, she found what she sought. What had that wretched Jew said ? "Try a bigger firm," he had told her, in his indecently garbled English, and, accordingly, she chose the largest advertisement in the column, which informed her with many glowing embellishments that Adam McSevitch a genuine Scotsman lent 5 to 500, without security, on note of hand alone; that country clients would be attended promptly at their own homes, and, memorable feature, that the strictest and most inviolable secrecy would be preserved nay, insisted upon between the principal and his client.
Mrs. Brodie breathed more calmly as, without removing her hat or coat, she rose to her feet, hurried to the kitchen and sat down and composed a short, but carefully worded letter, asking Adam McSevitch to attend her at her home on Monday forenoon at eleven o'clock. She sealed the letter with the utmost precaution, then dragged her tired limbs out of the house and into the town once more. In her haste the constant pain in her side throbbed more intensely, but she did not allow it to interfere with her progress and by half-past three she succeeded in reaching the general post office, where she bought a stamp and carefully posted her letter. She then composed and dispatched a wire to "Brodie: Poste Restante: Marseilles", saying,
"Money arrives Monday sure. Love. Mamma." The cost of the message left her stricken, but though she might have reduced the cost by omitting the last two words, she could not force herself to do so. Matt must be made to understand, above everything, that it was she who, with her own hands, had sent the wire, and that she, his mother, loved him.
A sense of comfort assuaged her on her way home; the feeling that she had accomplished something and that on Monday she would assuredly obtain the money, reassured her, yet nevertheless, as the day dragged slowly to its end, she began to grow restless and impatient. The consolation obtained from her definite action gradually wore of! and left her sad, inert and helpless, obsessed by distressing doubts. She fluctuated between extremes of indecision and terror; felt that she would not obtain the money, then that she would be surely discovered; questioned her ability to carry through the undertaking; fled in her mind from the fact, as from an unreal and horrid nightmare, that she of all people should be attempting to deal with money-lenders.
Sunday dragged past her in an endless succession of interminable minutes, during the passage of which she glanced at the clock a hundred times, as if she might thus hasten the laboured transit of time and so terminate her own anxiety and the painful expectancy of her son. During the slow hours of the tardily passing day, she formed and reformed the simple plan she had made, trembled to think how
she would address Mr. McSevitch, was convinced that he would treat her as a lady, then felt certain that he would not, reread his advertisement secretly, was cheered by his comforting offer to lend ^500, then shocked by the amazing effrontery of it. When she retired eventually to rest, her head whirled with confusion, and she dreamed she was overwhelmed by an avalanche of golden pieces.
On Monday morning she could hardly maintain her normal demeanour, she shook so palpably with apprehension, but mercifully her anxiety was not detected and she sighed with relief when first Nessie, and then Brodie, disappeared through the front door. She now had only Grandma Brodie to dispose of, for from the moment she had written her letter she had fully appreciated the obvious danger of having the inquisitive, garrulous and hostile old woman about the house at the time fixed for the interview. The danger that she might stumble upon the entire situation was too great to be risked, and Mamma, with unthought-of cunning, prepared to attack her upon her weakest point. At half-past nine therefore, when she took up to the old woman her usual breakfast of porridge and milk, she did not, as was her custom, immediately leave the room, but instead sat down upon the bed and regarded its aged occupant with an assumed and exaggerated expression of concern.
"Grandma," she began, "you never seem to get out the house these days at all. You look real peaky to me the now. Why don't you take a bit stroll this morning?" The old dame poised the porridge spoon in her yellow claw and cast a suspicious eye upon Mamma from under her white, frilled nightcap.
"And where would I stroll to on a winter's day?" she asked distrustfully. "Do ye want me to get inflammation of the lungs so as you can get rid o' me?"
Mamma forced a bright laugh, an exhibition of gaiety which it tortured her heart to perform.
"It's a lovely day!" she cried. "And do ye know what I'm goin' to do with ye? I'm just going to give you a florin, to go and get yourself some Deesides and some oddfellows."
Grandma looked at the other with a dubious misgiving, sensing immediately a hidden motive but tempted by the extreme richness of the enticement. In her senile greediness she loved particularly the crisp biscuits known as "Deeside"; she doted upon those large, flat, round sweets so inappropriately named oddfellows; in her own room she endeavoured, always, to maintain a stock of each of these delicacies in two separate tins inside her top drawer; but now, as Mamma was well aware, her supplies were exhausted. It was a tempting offer!
"Where's the money?" she demanded craftily. Without speaking, Mamma revealed the shining florin in the middle of her palm.
The crone blinked her bleared eyes at it, thinking with rapid, calculating glances that there would be enough for the Deesides, the oddfellows, and maybe a wee dram over and above.
"I micht as weel take a dauner, then," she muttered slowly, with the semblance of a yawn to indicate indifference.
"That's right, Grandma I'll help ye," encouraged Mamma as, trembling with an exultation she feared to display, realising that so far victory was hers, she assisted the other out of bed. Before the old woman could have time to change her mind, she wrapped her in her voluminous clothing, tied a multitude of tapes, drew on the elastic-sided boots, brought her the jet-spangled bonnet, held out and enveloped her in the black, beaded cape. Then she presented her with her false teeth upon the charger of a cracked saucer, handed her the two-shilling piece and, having thus finally supplied her with the weapons and the sinews of the war about to be waged on the Deesides, she led the old woman down the stairs and saw her go tottering out along the road, before the clock showed half -past ten. Exercising the utmost dispatch, she now made all the beds, washed the dishes, tidied the house, made herself, in her own phrase, decent, and sat down
breathlessly at the parlour window to await her visitor.
As the hands of the marble timepiece on the parlour mantelpiece drew near to eleven, Mamma shook with trepidation, as though she expected a cab to dash up to the house and the front bell to ring, simultaneously with the first stroke of the hour. As the clock eventually struck eleven strokes and was silent, she wondered if Mr, McSevitch would bring the money in golden sovereigns in a bag, or present it to her in immaculate notes; then, as the hands indicated five minutes, ten minutes, then fifteen minutes past the appointed time and still no one came, she grew restless. If her visitor did not come at the hour she had specially indicated, all her carefully thought-out arrangements would go for nothing and she shuddered to think what would happen if he arrived during the dinner hour, when her husband would be in the house.