COMPLICATIONS
I
On the night of Norah’s arrival at the steading Alec Morrison slept
well, but wakened with the dawn and sat up betimes. He was very pleased
with himself and his position at the bank; things had gone well, his
father had doubled his allowance, and on the strength of that the young
man had become engaged.
He had broken with the little girl in Glasgow; for while admiring her
good looks he deplored her lack of intelligence. She spent a great deal
of her time in dressing herself, and Morrison knew that there would come
a day when dresses would not please, when a husband would require
something more worthy of respect, something more enduring than pretty
looks and gaudy garments. Besides this drawback there was another. The
girl, who took her good looks from her mother, long dead, had a
grasping, greedy father whom nobody could love or admire. Morrison had
met him twice and disliked him immensely. He was a dirty little man and
generally had three days’ growth of hair on his chin. When shaking hands
his thumb described a curious backward turn, forming into a loop like
one of those on the letter S. The daughter had the same peculiarity.
Before meeting the father this movement of the girl’s thumb amused
Morrison; afterwards it disgusted him. Finally he took his departure
and again got into tow with Ellen Keenans, the live woman with advanced
views ten years ahead of her age. Morrison fell in love easily,
indifferently almost. He was an attractive young man, well built and
muscular, who cultivated the art of dress with considerable care. All
good-looking women fascinated him, but none held him captive for very
long. He had become engaged to the girl with the advanced ideas and took
her to his people’s home. The old farmer liked her but did not
understand many of the things of which she spoke. That was not to be
wondered at, seeing that he was a plain, blunt man, although a gentleman
farmer, and the girl was ten years ahead of her time.
II
Alec Morrison, the sleep gone entirely from his eyes, his face a little
red after shaving, came downstairs to the breakfast-room. Ellen Keenans
was sitting on the sofa, a book in her hand.
“Up already, dear?” asked Morrison, and bent to kiss the girl. She laid
down the book which she had been reading and met the kiss with her lips.
“The country life is so quiet, so refreshing; one cannot have too much
of it,” she said, drumming idly with her fingers on the edge of the
sofa.
“What are you reading, dear?” the young man asked.
“Kautsky’s _Ethics of Materialist Conception of History_.”
“Rather a big thing to tackle before breakfast.”
She cast a look of reproof at the young man, lifted the book from the
table, then, as if something occurred to her, laid it down again.
“You haven’t read it, I bet,” she said; then before he could answer:
“You promised last night to let me see some queer people--”
“Wrecks of the social system.”
“--who live on this farm.”
“An old man and woman,” said Morrison. “A quaint pair they are, stunted
and seedy. They seem to have no souls, but I suppose deep down within
them there is some eternal goodness, some fundamental virtue.”
“Who are you quoting?” asked the girl, getting to her feet. “Where are
these two people?”
“In an outhouse near by,” he told her. “It’s terrible the abyss to which
some people sink,” he went on. “How many of these derelicts might be
saved if some restraining hand was reached out to help them, if some
charitable soul would take pity on them.”
“When did you begin to look upon charity as a means of remedying social
evils?” asked the girl almost fiercely. “Charity is a bribe paid to the
maltreated so that they may hold their tongues.”
Morrison, as was his custom when the girl spoke in that manner, became
silent.
“In here,” he said when they arrived at the dilapidated door of the
pig-sty.
“In there?” questioned the girl and looked at Morrison.
Morrison entered with rather an important air; he was showing a new
world to his fair companion. The girl hesitated for a moment on the
threshold, then followed the young man into the dark interior.
Donal and Jean were seated at the fire drinking tea from the same can.
On a small and dirty board which lay on the ground between them a chunk
of dry bread and a little lump of butter could be seen. The two
occupants of the sty took very little notice of the visitors; the man
said “Good-morning” gruffly, the woman looked critically at the girl’s
dress then went on with her meal.
“It must be cold here,” said the young girl, looking curiously round and
noticing a streak of grey daylight stealing through the roof.
“Jean, is it cold here?” asked the man by the fire, biting the end of
his crust.
“As cold as the grave,” answered the woman.
Ellen Keenans looked closely at the speaker. The broken nose, almost on
a level with her face, the pockmarked flesh of the cheeks and chin, the
red eyelids, the watery, expressionless eyes filled the young lady with
nauseous horror. In the renovated society of which Ellen Keenans dreamt,
this woman would be entirely out of place, just as much as her
sweetheart and herself with their well-made clothing, their soft leather
shoes and gold rings, were out of place here. And these two people, the
man who wolfed up his bread like a dog and the woman with the disfigured
face, might have something great and good in their natures. Alec had
given such sentiments voice often. How noble-minded he was, she thought.
The door of the building faced east. The early sun, rising over a bank
of grey clouds, suddenly beamed forth with splendid ray and lit up the
dark interior of the sty. This beautiful beam disclosed what the
darkness had hidden, the dirt and squalor of the place.
The floor, on which crawled numberless wood lice and beetles, was
indented with holes filled with filthy smelling water, and the blank
walls were literally covered with reddish cockroaches. The sunlight
beamed on a spider’s web hanging from the roof; the thin silky threads
were covered with dead insects. Rats had burrowed into the base of the
walls and the whole building was permeated with an overpowering and
unhealthy odour. Ellen Keenans glanced up at the joists where the
sun-rays struck them, then down the stretch of dark slimy wall, down,
down to the floor, and there, in bold relief against the darkness, she
saw in all its youthful beauty the face of a sleeping girl. Ellen turned
an enquiring glance to the woman by the fire; then to Morrison, whose
face wore a troubled expression.
“Who have you here, Donal?” asked the young man.
“A lass that we found greetin’ outside your door last night,” said the
man, this time not appealing to Jean for an answer. “Happen that ye know
her?”
The two by the fire looked at the young couple. The woman’s watery eyes
took on a new expression; they seemed suddenly to have become charged
with condemnation and contempt.
“Is she one of Jim Scanlon’s squad?” asked Morrison. Although putting
the question he had recognised Norah instantly, and now he wished to be
away. Donal and Jean looked suddenly terrible in his eyes; the pity he
felt for them a moment ago now gave place to a fear for himself. Odd
little waves of expression were passing over the woman’s face and in her
eyes he read a terrible accusation.
“It was all her fault, not mine,” he muttered under his breath. “That
night and the dog howling and the stars out above us.... But it was all
her own fault. Why did she keep following me about? She might have known
that I could never have.... We’ll go back to the house now,” he said
aloud to Ellen Keenans. “We’ve seen all that is to be seen.”
The girl glanced at him interrogatively, curious. “Who is she?” came the
question.
“Ye’ll soon know,” said the woman by the fire, rising and going to the
shake-down by the wall. “Wake up, lass!” she cried to the sleeper.
Norah rose in bed, her mind groping darkly with her surroundings. She
had been dreaming of home and wakened with a vivid remembrance of her
mother’s cabin still in her mind. The light of the sun shone full in her
face and she lifted her hand up to shield her eyes. Then in a flash it
was borne to her where she had spent the night. Several dark objects
stood between her and the door; these developed into a grouping of
persons, in the midst of which Alec Morrison stood out definitely.
Norah, fully dressed, just as she had gone to sleep, moved towards him.
“Alec Morrison, I’ve come back,” she said, paused and looked at the girl
beside him, then began to talk hurriedly. “I left the squad the day
before yesterday; I travelled all the dark night and lost me way, for me
mind would be busy with the thoughts that were coming to me.... Last
night I came to yer door.... Alec Morrison, why are ye so scared
lookin’? Sure ye’re not afraid of me!”
Morrison was in a very awkward fix, and this he confessed to himself. He
never intended to marry the girl and never for a moment thought that the
adventure of Christmas Eve would lead him into such a predicament. “And
you are as well rid of her,” some evil voice whispered in his ear. “Look
at her as she is now. Is she a suitable companion for you?” Morrison
gazed covertly at the girl. Her hair, which had not been combed for two
days, hung over her eyes and ears in tangled tufts; even the face, which
still retained all its splendid beauty, was blackened by the dust which
had fallen from the roof during the night.
“Are ye goin’ to do the right thing to the girl?” asked Donal. “It’s the
only way out of it if ye have the spirit of a man in ye.”
Morrison gazed blankly at the man, then at Norah. A fierce and almost
animal look came into her eyes as she faced him.
“I’ll do the right thing,” he said in a hoarse voice and turned and went
out of the building, Ellen Keenans following at his heels. Norah watched
them go, making no effort to detain them. When they went out she
tottered towards the wall, reaching upwards with her hands as if wanting
to touch resignation.
“It’s all over!” she exclaimed. “It’s him that has the black heart and
will be goin’ to do the right thing with little bits of money. The right
thing!” She leant against the cockroach-covered wall, her little voice
raised in loud protest against the monstrous futility of existence.
III
An hour later Morrison returned to the sty, carrying gold in his pocket
but feeling very awkward. He and Ellen had quarrelled. When they went
out into the open from the sty she turned on him fiercely.
“How many of these souls might be saved if some restraining hand was
reached out to help them!” she quoted sneeringly.
“But, Ellen, it was more the girl’s fault than mine. And when one is
young one may do many things that he’s sorry for afterwards. And I’ll do
the right thing for the girl.”
“The right thing?” queried Ellen Keenans, and a troubled expression
settled on her face. “But you cannot. It’s impossible. To two----”
“I’m wealthy now, you know. My allowance----”
“Oh, I see,” said the girl and, strangely enough, a suggestion of relief
blended with her voice.
“I suppose you’ll think me a prig, Ellen,” said the young man. “But it
wasn’t altogether my fault, neither was it the girl’s, I suppose. I
suppose it was fate.... The girl won’t be highly sensitive. I’ve seen
ones working here on the farm, young women, and they made a slip. But it
did not seem to affect them. And we all make mistakes, Ellen....”
His speech came to an end and he left her and went towards the house; an
hour later he re-entered the sty.
The woman with the pock-marked face looked at him angrily. Norah sat
beside her on the upturned box, one arm hanging loosely by her side, the
other resting on her knees, the hand pressed against her chin and a
tapering finger stretching along her cheek. The old woman had given
Norah a broken comb to dress her hair and now it hung to her waist in
long, wavy tresses. But in the middle of the work she had dropped the
comb and fallen into a deep reverie.
“I’ve come to see you,” Morrison began with an abruptness which showed
that he wanted to hurry over a distasteful job. He was going to make
atonement for his sin, and atonement represented a few pieces of gold, a
few months’ denial of the luxuries which this gold could procure. He
looked straight at Norah’s bowed head, taking no notice of the other
occupants of the hovel.
“I’ve come to see you,” he repeated, but the girl paid no heed to him.
He drew an envelope from his pocket, shook it so that the money within
made a loud rattle, and placed it on her lap. The girl roused herself
abruptly as if stung, lifted the envelope and looked at the man. Fearing
that she was going to fling the terrible packet in his face, he put up
his hand to shield himself. Norah smiled coldly and then handed him back
the packet, which he had not the courage to refuse nor the audacity to
return. The girl seemed to be performing some task that had no interest
for her, something out and beyond the scope of her life. For a moment
Morrison felt it in him to pity her, but deep down in his heart he
pitied himself more.
“I thought ... I would like.... You know that....” he stammered. “I’ll
go away just now,” he said in a low voice.
“You’d better,” said Donal, crouching by the fire like a cat ready to
spring.
Alec Morrison left the sty. At the hour of noon Norah bade good-bye to
Donal and Jean and set off for Glasgow, where she intended to call on
Sheila Carrol, the beansho.