Adventures of a Black Bag by A. J. Cronin

Author:A. J. Cronin [Cronin, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

8. Miracle By Lestrange

The coming to Levenford of Lestrange, charlatan and quack healer, worked a strange miracle. But the miracle arose in a queer and devious way; took place in a woman’s heart; and was far from the result Lestrange had intended.

Jessie Grant was a widow who kept the small tobacconist’s shop at the corner of Wallace Street and Scroggie’s Loan. She wasn’t a tall body – rather to the contrary, in fact. Her hair was dark and clenched back tightly from her brow, and she dressed always plain as plain in a black serge gown. But she had a look on her pale, narrow face that struck and daunted you – a kind of tight-lipped, bitter look it was, and it burned out of her dark-browed eyes like fire.

Stubborn and hard was Jessie, known throughout Levenford as a dour and difficult woman who neither asked nor yielded favours.

The shop wasn’t much – a dim, old-fashioned place, like an old apothecary’s shop, with its counter and small brass scales, its rows of yellow canisters, and a stiff, weather-blistered door that went “ping” when you opened it.

Ben from the shop was the kitchen of Jessie’s house, with its big dresser, a wag-at-the-wa’ clock, two texts, a table scrubbed to a driven whiteness, some straight chairs, and a long, low horse chair sofa – that made up the tale of the furnishings. And out of the room rose a flight of narrow steps to the two bedrooms above.

Jessie’s husband, who in his life had been a graceless, idle ne’er-do-well, was dead and buried these twelve years. She had been left with one bairn, a boy called Duncan.

Soured and disillusioned, her subsequent struggle to secure a livelihood for herself and her son had been severe, and, although successful, had served further to embitter her.

As they say in Levenford, “ the wind aye blows ill wi’ Jessie Grant.”

Strict wasn’t the name for the way she brought up Duncan. Never a glint of human affection kindled her blank eye. To those that dared tax her on the matter she had the answer pat, and would throw Ecclesiastes xii., 8, right into their teeth.

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