Chapter 9 — The Trail of the Serpent
Katey watched by her husband for a long time till at last she cried herself to sleep. Her sleep was troubled by horrid dreams of care and sorrow, and nameless and formless horrors. She did not wake however. When we dream thus of awful things, and do not wake, the effect is much more wearing on the nervous system than if we did; and so in the morning when Katey woke she felt chilled and miserable. She started up, and in the half-light of the early morning found that she was alone. Jerry had waked early, and had hurriedly got up, struck with remorse when he remembered the previous evening, and not daring to meet the face of his wife. Katey was at once in deadly fear, for her woman’s weakness prompted thoughts of terrible possibilities. She got up quickly and went down into the street.
She looked right and left for any sign of him, and after wavering between them finally with an instinct, pitiful since it had such a genesis, took her way towards Grinnell’s, feeling that she would find her husband there.
Her instinct was not deceived. When she peeped in through the door of the public-house she saw Jerry standing by the bar with a glass in his hand, which Grinnell was filling. A man does not hold his glass in such a way unless it is being refilled, and this poor Katey knew by instinct. She shuddered as she looked — for she saw that Jerry was drinking to get drunk quickly.
Indeed it was a sorry and a pitiful picture — one which man or woman with a human heart in their bosom would shudder to see. In the grey light of the wintry morning the working man with clothing tossed, and hair unkempt — with feverous look and bloodshot eyes, drinking his rum at a draught, and taking it from the hand of one who, with soiled finery and unwashed face, might have stood for the picture of “Debauch.”
Grinnell’s sharp eyes saw Katey as she peeped, but he did not seem to notice. Presently he spoke loudly, so loudly that Katey could hear.
“Now, O’ Sullivan, that will freshen you, I hope, and make you think clearly, but I won’t give you any more, so don’t ask me.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jerry, in amazement, for up to that moment Grinnell had been pressing him to drink.
“Never mind what I mean; only I won’t give you any more.”
“Are you jokin’?”
“I am not.”
Jerry looked at him angrily a moment, and then flattening his hat down on his head, said:
“Oh, very well — oh, very well. Then I’ll go somewhere else.”
Katey was afraid he would see her, so left the doorway and hurried down the street.
Jerry came home about breakfast-time in a frightfully bad humour. He had had just enough of liquor to make him wish for more, and having tried to get credit several places and been refused, felt a savage disappointment. The sight of Katey’s disfigured face in no wise tended to mollify him, and he spoke to her with a harshness that was almost savage:
“Why don’t you put somethin’ on your face?”
Katey did not know what to say, so remained silent.
“Put somethin’ on it, I tell you. Am I to be always made wretched by you?”
Katey could only murmur:
“Always, Jerry? Always?” and began to cry.
“Stop your cryin’, I tell you. Here — I’ll not stay here any longer. No wonder I have to keep away when I find nothin’ here but tears.”
“Jerry, dear, I won’t cry,” said Katey, in affright, lest he should go out. “I won’t cry, dear, and I’ll cover up my face — only don’t go out yet. Look, I am not cryin’ now. See, I’m laughin’.”
“Stop your laughin’, I say. There isn’t much to laugh at here.”
This was too much for Katey, and again she broke down. Jerry got up to go out; she went to the door, and standing before it, said:
“For God’s sake, Jerry, don’t go out yet.”
“Let me go, I say. Will you dare to stop me.”
“Oh, Jerry, for the sake of the children, don’t go out. For the sake of the love you used to have” —
“Out of the way, I say.”
“Oh, Jerry.”
“Let me go, I tell you. You won’t. Then take that,” and again he struck her. She cowered away with a low wail. As he left the room, Jerry said, with an effort at self-justification:
“I see the way to manage you, now. Take care that you don’t rouse the devil in me.”
Katey was sobbing still when Grinnell came to ask “how Jerry was this morning.” She felt glad to see him on account of his refusing to give Jerry drink, and shook him warmly by the hand.
Grinnell looked at her without speaking, but manifestly taking notice of her bruised face; then he turned away and seemed as if drying an unostentatious tear. Katey felt drawn towards him by the manifestation of sympathy; and so it was with an open heart that she commenced to thank him for his promise to assist in reclaiming Jerry.
“Don’t distress yourself,” he said after some talk, “you see the influence I have over him, not only personally, but from my position, is ever great. He owes me money” — Katey winced, he noticed it, and kept harping on that string — “he owes me, I may say, a good deal of money, not that I want him to pay me yet, or that I ever mean to press him for it, but owing me a good deal of money, you know, I can put the screw on him any time I like. For instance, if he did anything to offend me, or if anyone belonging to him got in my way, and I wished it, I could put my thumb on him and crush him like a fly.”
Katey laid her hand on his arm and asked him pleadingly —
“Oh, don’t talk like that, it seems so dreadful to me that it frightens me.”
“There, there, my dear,” he answered, patting her shoulder, “don’t fret, I do not mean to crush him like a fly. I only mention it to show you what I could do if I had occasion to. You see when a man is down the hill the best thing for him is to have some determined friend who can crack the whip over his head.”
Katey began to get frightened, she did not know why. She was without knowing from what cause getting a repulsion and fear for the man before her. It might be, she thought, when she asked herself the question, from his hideous aspect, which was enough to alarm anyone. The thought of Jerry being in the power of anyone was a bitter one to her, but that of Jerry being in the power of this man was too dreadful to be realised.
Grinnell, who was watching her closely, saw that some idea of the kind was in her mind, and tried with all his might to banish it. He made kind promises, he offered to do generous acts, he spoke kindly and tenderly to Katey, using every means to rule her reason. But still that instinct which is above all reason spoke in her, and whispered her even not to trust to him. Grinnell saw that he was not making way in her good graces, and took his leave shortly, showing by his manner that he was hurt, though not offended.
Katey was so glad to get rid of him that she was not as kind in her manner as usual. When the door closed behind him she sank with a sigh of relief on one of the two chairs which still remained to them. The children, who had hidden in affright behind the bed as Grinnell had entered, scared by his frightful face, now came forward and hid their little heads in her lap, and began to cuddle her in their pretty way.
After Grinnell had departed, Katey began to take herself to task for not feeling more kindly towards him. The natural justice of her disposition told her that so far as she knew he had acted kindly, and intended to act more kindly still. But then in her heart arose the counterpleading — “so far as she knew” — and she still continued