The Keys of the Kingdom by A. J. Cronin Page B

out charring, squatting by a spark of fire in the single ‘back to back’apartment, glumly working a wool-rug shuttle by the light of a tallow dip. As he recognized his visitor there was no mistaking the pleasure in the exile’s bleary eye, a gleam that heightened when Francis uncovered the gill bottle of spirits he had privily removed from the bar. Quickly Scanty produced a chipped delft cup, solemnly toasted his benefactor.
    ‘Ah, that’s the stuff!’ he muttered, across the back of his ragged sleeve. ‘Devil the sup have I had since that skinflint Gilfoyle took over the bar.’
    Francis drew up the backless wooden chair. He spoke with dark intensity, the shadows heavy beneath his eyes.
    ‘Scanty! What’s happened at the Union – to Nora, Polly, Ned? I’ve been back three days and I’m still no wiser. You’ve got to tell me!’
    A look of alarm invaded Scanty’s expression. He glanced from Francis to the bottle – from the bottle to Francis.
    ‘Ah! How would I know?’
    ‘You do know! I can see it in your face.’
    ‘Didn’t Ned say nothing?’
    ‘Ned! He’s like a deaf-mute these days!’
    ‘Poor ould Ned.’ Scanty groaned, blessed himself, and poured out more whisky. ‘ God save us! Who would ever have dreamed it. Sure there’s bad in the best of us.’ With a sudden hoarse emphasis: ‘I couldn’t tell ye, Francis, it’s a shame to remember, it don’t do no good.’
    ‘It will do good, Scanty,’ Francis urged. ‘If I know, I can do something.’
    ‘Ye mean, Gilfoyle …’ With head cocked, Scanty considered, then he nodded slowly. He took another tot to stiffen himself, his battered face oddly sober, his tone subdued. ‘ I’ll tell you then, Francis, if you swear to keep it dark. The truth of it is … God pity us … that Nora’s had a baby.’
    Silence: long enough for Scanty to take another drink. Francis said: ‘When?’
    ‘Six weeks ago. She went down to Whitley Bay. The woman there has the child … a daughter … Nora can’t bear the sight of it.’
    Cold, rigid, Francis struggled with the tumult in his breast. He made himself ask: ‘Then Gilfoyle is the father?’
    ‘That gutless fish!’ Hatred overcame Scanty’s caution. ‘No, no, he’s the one that came forward, as he’s pleased to call it, to give the little one a name, and get his foot in the Union to the bargain, the bla’g’ard! Father Fitzgerald’s behind him, Francis. It’s all settin’ pretty as a pictur’, the way they’ve pulled it. Marriage lines in the drawer, not a soul the wiser, and the daughter brought here later on, as it were, at the end of a long vaycation. God strike me down dead, if it don’t turn the stomach of a pig!’
    A band, an insupportable constriction, girded Francis’ heart. He fought to keep his voice from breaking.
    ‘I never knew Nora was in love with anyone? Scanty … Do you know who it was … I mean … the father of her child?’
    ‘Before God I don’t!’ The blood rushed to Scanty’s forehead as he thumped the floor boards in vociferous denial. ‘ I don’t know nothing about that at all. How should a poor creature like me! And Ned don’t either, that’s gospel truth! Ned always treated me right, a fine generous upstanding man, except for occasions, like when Polly was away, and the drink took hold of him. No, no, Francis, take it from me, there’s not a hope of findin’ the man!’
    Again a silence, frozen, prolonged. A film clouded Francis’ eyes. He felt deathly sick. At last, with a great effort he got up.
    ‘Thank you, Scanty, for telling me.’
    He quitted the room, went giddily down the bare flights of tenement stairs. His brow, the palms of his hands, were bedewed with icy sweat. A vision haunted, tormented him: the trim neatness of Nora’s bedroom, white and undisturbed. He had no hatred, only a searing pity, a dreadful convulsion of his soul. Outside in the squalid courtyard he leaned, suddenly overcome, against the single lamp-post and retched