Читать книгу Bram Stoker: The Complete Novels - A to Z Classics - Страница 13

Katey waited in, in the morning, at the time at which Grinnell had been in the habit of calling for the last few days; her object was to avoid him, and she feared meeting him if she should go out. Later on, however, when she had to go to her work, she met him outside the door of the house, where he had evidently been waiting for some time. She pretended not to see him, and walked quickly down the street. He walked alongside of her in silence for a while before he spoke.

“What’s the meaning of all this?”

Katey hurried still faster, dragging her poor shawl closer as she went.

After another pause, Grinnell said again:

“You seem to have changed?”

“I have.” She turned, as she spoke, and looked him full in the face.

Something told him that her mind was made up, and that she knew or suspected his villainy; and there was passion in his voice now.

“It was mighty quick.”

“It was.”

After a pause he said, so slowly and impressively, and with such hidden purpose, that she grew cold as she listened:

“People are often too quick; it would sometimes be better for them — and those belonging to them — if they were a little slower.”

Seeing that she did not answer he changed his tone.

“A man can put his thumb on a fly — I wonder have flies wives — or children?” He said the last words with a tone of deadly malice.

Katey winced, but said nothing. Grinnell saw that he was foiled, and all the hate of his nature spoke.

He came closer to Katey and hissed at her:

“Take care! I am not to be got rid of so easily as you think. I will be revenged on you for your scorn, bitterly revenged; and even when I see you crawling in the dust at my feet, I shall spurn you. Wait till you see your husband a hopeless drunkard, and your children in the workhouse burial-cart, and then perhaps you will be sorry that you despised me.”

Still seeing no signs of any answer, he added:

“Very well. It’s war — is it then? Good-bye to you,” and, so saying, he turned on his heel and left her.

Katey worked all that day as if in a dream, and when her work was over, shut herself up again with her children. The next day was the same. She did not see Grinnell, but somehow she mistrusted his silence even more than she feared his malice.

When the time came for Jerry’s liberation, Katey was in waiting outside the prison door. Katey had made herself look as smart as possible, and the bruises on her face were nearly well. When Jerry caught sight of her, he started as if with a glad surprise, but the instant after, as if from remembrance, a dark frown gathered on his face, and he walked past her without seeming to notice her present. Katey was cut to the heart, but, nevertheless, she did not let her pain appear on her face. She came and touched him on the shoulder and said:

“Jerry, dear, here I am.”

“I see you” — this in a harsh, cold voice.

“Are you coming home, dear.”

“Ay, a nice home.”

“Come home, Jerry.”

“I will not. I must get something to make my hair grow,” and without another word he strode away from her side. She went home and wept bitterly.

Jerry came home drunk late that night, and neither then nor the next morning would speak kindly to his wife. In the afternoon he went to the theatre, but found that his place had been given away.

He could get no work that suited him, and after a few days’ seeking, gave it up as a hopeless task, and took to drinking all day long in Grinnell’s, where he was allowed credit.

As he earned no money, the entire support of the family once more devolved on Katey, and once again the brave little woman tried to meet the storm. Morning, noon, and night she worked, when work could be got; but the long suffering and anxiety had told on her strength, and, in addition, there had lately come a new trial. Mrs. O’Sullivan had got a stroke of paralysis, and her failing business had entirely deserted her. She now required help, and as Jerry could give none, had been removed to the workhouse.

Day after day things got worse and worse. The room, up to the present occupied, had to be given up as Katey could not pay for it, and the change was to a squalid garret, bare, and bleak, and cold. One by one the last necessary articles of furniture vanished, till nothing was left but an old table and chair, and some wretched bed gear, which had not been worth pawning, and which now covered two wretched beds, knocked up by Jerry with old boards. Jerry, too, had gone down and down. He was not the scoff of his comrades, for he was too quarrelsome, but he was their unconscious tool, and occupied a position somewhat akin to that of a vicious bulldog ready to be set at any comer. Grinnell gave him as much drink as he required, and in every way tried to get him into his power.

Jerry often struck his wife now, and it was not due to his efforts that he did not do it oftener. When he was drunk she always kept as much as possible out of the way, often waiting outside the door till he had fallen asleep, well knowing that if he met her she would suffer violence. More than once he was arrested either for drunkenness or assault, or both, and so often that his hair never had time to grow to a decent length.

After this life had gone on for some time, and Katey was showing signs of failing health, Grinnell tried to renew his acquaintance. Katey told him plainly that she would have nothing to do with him in any way, not even so far as speaking to him was concerned. He answered with such a cruel threat that Katey fainted. This was in the street, and whilst she was still senseless a policeman appeared, sent by Grinnell, who had told him that there was a drunken woman lying on the pathway.

The man, with the instinct of his profession, which sees a crime in every doubtful case, procured assistance, and brought her to the station-house, which was close at hand. There she was restored with a little care, but the charge of drunkenness had been preferred against her, and she would not be allowed to go home. The sergeant in charge said that he would allow her to go home if she got bail. She did not know where to turn to; she could only sit down in the cell and cry. Presently Grinnell, who knew what would happen, arrived, and having ascertained the state of the case went through the formality of going bail, and Katey was released. Grinnell was waiting outside, and walked up the street with her. Katey walked so fast that he had trouble to keep up with her.

“I think you might speak to me after I have kept you out of jail?” Katey did not answer. He waited, and then said, “Very well, go your own road. If anything happens to you just think of me.” Then he walked away.

Katey did not sleep that night. She knew that on the morrow she would have to stand in the dock charged with an offence whose very name she hated; and she did not know where in the wide world to look for help in case a fine should be imposed. She could not look into the possibility of her being sent to prison. It was too terrible both for herself and her children.

Early in the morning she rose. Jerry had not been home all night, and so she had been unable to tell him of the charge.

There was still one article in the room on which money could be raised. This was Jerry’s tool-basket, which, with something of traditional reverence and something of hope, he had still spared. He could not bear to pledge the tools he had worked with, and both he and Katey felt that whilst these tools remained to his hand there was a prospect that things would mend. Katey now regarded the tool-basket with longing eyes. She felt that should she be sent to prison there was hunger and suffering and, perhaps, ruin for her children, and a shame that would make Jerry worse. She thought of pledging it, but the thought arose to restrain her — “It would take away Jerry’s last hope — pull down the prop of his better life, and his wife’s should not be the hand to do this at any cost.” And so she spared the basket.

She had to wait a long time in the court, and when she was put in the dock felt faintish. However, she nerved herself, and answered all the questions put to her. The magistrate was a kind and just one, and recognised truth in her story, and ordered her to be discharged. She left the court crying, after calling down a thousand blessings on his head.

When she came home she found the basket gone. Jerry had taken it that very morning and pledged it to get money for dissipation. This was a great blow to Katey, for she felt that despair was gathering when Jerry had made up his mind to part with his tools. Nevertheless, she felt in her heart a gleam of comfort in the thought that she had acted rightly, and that the prop had not been shorn away by her hand.

Jerry drank frightfully that day, and came home early in the evening in a state of semi-madness. He rushed into the room and caught Katey by the shoulder so roughly that she screamed out. He said hoarsely —

“Is this true what I heard about you?”

“What, Jerry? Oh, let go of me, you are hurting me.”

“What? I suppose you don’t know. Well, I’ll tell you — that you were run in for bein’ drunk?”

“Let me explain, Jerry dear.”

“Let me explain, Jerry dear. Explain away, but you won’t explain that out of my head. So this is my model wife that abuses me for gettin’ drunk. This is the woman that thinks it wrong and a sin. I know you now.”

Katey spoke in desperation —

“Jerry, listen to me. I was not drunk. I fainted in the street, and they brought me to the station, but indeed, indeed I was not drunk. I haven’t tasted even a drop of liquor for years — sure don’t you believe me, Jerry. I was discharged this morning. The magistrate said there was no case against me.”

“Ay, fine talk that. But I’ve heard about it already. Grinnell told me all about it.”

“Grinnell told you! Oh, Jerry, take care what that man tells you of me.”

“What do you mean?”

The question was asked in a tone of bitter suspicion.

“I mean that that wicked, wicked man hates me, and would do me harm if he could.”

“What do you mean I say? Why does he hate you? Why should he hate you?”

Jerry was now so violent that Katey was afraid to tell him lest he should do something desperate. Jerry grew more and more violent, and finally struck her severely in the bosom with his clenched fist, and ran out swearing horribly.

When he came home that night Katey searched in his pocket and found the pawn ticket for his tools. The sum was only for a few shillings, and she resolved that if she possibly could she would redeem them, and then go herself and look for some work for him.

Accordingly, next day she went out and pledged the only thing left to her worth pledging — her wedding ring. It cost her many an effort, and many a bitter tear, but for too long bitterness had been her fortune to be deterred from action by it now. She got back the tool basket, and left it on the table where Jerry would see it when he returned.

So she waited and waited all though the long day.

Jerry was drinking at Grinnell’s, and was in such a state of despondency that his liquor seemed to have hardly any effect on him. Grinnell supplied him freely, for he had a design of vengeance against Katey on hands, and desired to work Jerry, whom he had fixed on as his tool, to the required pitch. Mons was present, too, and Sebright, and Popham, and Dirty Dick, who had been primed up to do Grinnell’s bidding.

By and by Jerry began to be excited, and grew quarrelsome. Dirty Dick, at a sign from Grinnell, put himself in his way, and an altercation arose. Jerry had a spite against the latter as being the means of his being put in gaol for the first time, and commenced hostilities at once.

“Get out, you dog. You want to fight, I suppose. Best mind out or I’ll give you what I gave you before.”

“You had better. Who laughed at the wrong side of his mouth after that? Who got his hair cut — eh? Look, boys, it hasn’t grown since.”

Jerry began to get savage.

“Here, get out, I’ve murder in me.”

Grinnell, as he heard the latter remark, smiled softly to himself — a smile that boded no good to poor Katey. Dirty Dick ran behind Popham and peered over his shoulder in mock fear.

“Don’t stir, man, don’t you see I’m goin’ to be murdered by the long-haired man?”

Jerry was getting furious, but they still continued to irritate him. Dirty Dick said again —

“How is your wife, Irishman? Have you been beating her lately, or has she been run in for being drunk?”

This was too much for Jerry. By a sudden rush he caught the man by the throat, and before he could be torn away from him had inflicted some desperate blows, one of which laid his cheek open.

Then Dick lost his temper in turn and spoke out again, this time without heeding what he said, for he merely meant to wound.

“Better go home and look after your wife.”

“What does he mean?” asked Jerry.

“I mean what I mean. Ask Grinnell?”

The individual named seemed to grow paler. He saw that his tool was reckless and feared for himself — both personally from Jerry’s violence, should he find out his treachery, and in his character if such things should be known by the frequenters of his house. He came from behind the bar and laid his hand on Dick’s shoulder.

Dirty Dick shook him off. “Let me alone,” he said.

Grinnell whispered to him —

“Hush, man, do you know what you are saying? Best keep your temper or I’ll put my thumb on you.”

“Damn your thumb. Don’t threaten me. I’m reckless now.”

Grinnell saw that another row was the only way to check his tongue, and struck him. The two men were at once seized and held, and then Dick gave his tongue full play. He spoke of Katey so foully that the men cried shame on him. He told Jerry how all the neighbours were talking of her and Grinnell. How Grinnell had paid him to get up a fight, so that he might be put in gaol and leave the field clear. He spoke with such an air of truth, and all he said being true, except his foul speeches about Katey, fitted so well into Jerry’s knowledge of things, that he took it all as true. There is no lie so damaging as that which is partly true. The shock of hearing all these things and believing them sobered Jerry, and he grew calm. Seeing him so the men let him go, and having done so did not attempt to lay hands on him, for there was a look in his face so deadly, that they were afraid. He said no word; he looked at no one but Grinnell, and at him only one glance, which said, “Wait” so plainly, that Grinnell shuddered. Then he walked out of the room, and there was silence.

Jerry walked home on set purpose, and entered the garret where Katey, wearied out of her long waiting, lay asleep in bed. The first things he saw was the tool basket on the table, beside a bottle and glass. He pulled off his coat and flung it on the table, and hurled the basket on to the floor. Katey woke with the noise, and the children woke also, and sat up with their little eyes fixed with terror. Jerry went to the bedside and caught Katey’s hand. “Get up,” he said. Katey was rising, when he pulled her impatiently out on the floor, bringing down the bed also.

Katey rose and stood before him. She saw that something dreadful was the matter, and thought that he had got into more fresh trouble. She said to him lovingly, “Oh, Jerry, if there is trouble, sure I am here to share it with you. Jerry — we will begin fresh to-morrow. Look, dear, I have got back your tools.”

“How did you get them? Where did the money come from?”

“Don’t ask me, Jerry.”

“Where did the money come from — answer me at once, or” — He spoke so savagely that she grew cold.

“Jerry, I sold my wedding ring.”

Jerry laughed — the hard, cold laugh of a demon. “Time for you to sell it.”

She saw that there was some hidden meaning in his words, and asked him what he meant. “I mean that when you have a husband in every man, you need no ring.”

“For shame, Jerry, for shame. What have I done to deserve all this?”

Jerry grew furious. The big veins stood out on his forehead and his eyes rolled.

“Done!” he said. “Done! What about Grinnell?”

Then without another word, or if the very idea was too much for him, he stooped and picked up a hammer which had rolled out of the tool-basket.

Katey saw the act and screamed, for she read murder in his eyes. He clutched her by the arm and raised the hammer; she struggled wildly, but he shook her off, and then, with a glare like that of a wild beast, struck her on the temple.

She fell as if struck by lightning.

When he saw her lying on the floor, with the blood streaming round her and forming a pool, the hammer dropped from his hand, and he stood as one struck blind.

So he stood a moment, then knelt beside her and tried to coax her back to life.

“Katey, Katey, what have I done? Oh, God, what have I done? I have murdered her. Oh? the drink! the drink! Why didn’t I stay at home and this wouldn’t have happened?”

He stopped suddenly, and, rushing over to the tool-basket, took up a chisel, and with one fierce motion drew it across his throat, and fell down beside the body of his wife.