Nell seized the puppy and poked him into the bottom shelf of the
cupboard. Sheila Pat dropped Jim's cage behind the sofa, picked Jim up,
poked him into it, tried to fasten the door, and Miss Kezia entered the
room. There was a dead silence while she gazed about and took in every
detail of disorder down to a dropped match.
"Ow--yow--yow--_yo--o--ow_!"
A long and distressful wail arose from the cupboard.
Now it happened that Kate Kearney had so far foregone her dignity as to
approach the cupboard to dab at it with a triumphant and insulting paw.
"There it is again!" Miss Kezia was wrathful, but there was also an
anxious glint in her eye. "What is the matter with the dog? Is it
ill?"
Nell, fascinatedly watching the putting forth of a stealthy brown arm
from beneath the sofa, in the direction of Sheila Pat's shoe buttons,
responded with an irrepressible little laugh.
"I don't see anything to laugh at, Eileen! I am afraid you are very
foolish and frivolous for your age."
"Ow--yow--yow--yo--o--o--oo--_ow_!"
The final "ow" was a veritable triumph of hideous nerve shattering.
Miss Kezia's voice rose angrily: "I believe it is going mad! Or has
distemper! I was foolish ever to allow it in my house! I hate dogs!
It will have to be sent away if it's ill!"
The brown paw had reached and seized a shoe button. Sheila Pat was
kicking frantically. The paw darted back.
"Oh, no--he--she isn't ill, Aunt Kezia--she's quite well--she's been
mad--I mean, had distemper, already--oh, I--I think I'm rather m-muddley
this morning--"
"I hope you're not hysterical, Eileen! You are really astonishingly
foolish! As for the dog--"
K.K. had turned; her head was now facing Miss Kezia. Nell recognised the
fact that the next howl could not, even by Miss Kezia, be put down to
her. For a moment she thought of hustling her aunt from the room; but
the detection of the puppy merely meant anger, punishment, a letter to
Australia. They could face that, and Jim's arm had disappeared. They
could not put up with his banishment.
There was a sudden and portentous silence in the cupboard.
Miss Kezia had a few more remarks to make. She made them. Once she
deviated from the main theme of noise and general untidiness, lured by a
rustle in the cupboard, on to mice. She declared that the kitchen was
overrun by mice, and all because they had wantonly bought and let loose
three in her house. She was going to buy new traps, as something had
evidently gone wrong with the springs of hers. Twice she had found the
cheese gone and the mouse, too!
Sheila Pat sat and gazed down thoughtfully at the forefinger of her
right hand; a small smile flickered at the corners of her lips. The
finger was rough and red. She wondered would it be possible to grease
the lock of the kitchen door. It was not the pain she minded so much as
the risk attached to the noise the slow turning of a stiff key makes at
four or five o'clock in the morning. At the moment of her musing a
determined little hand seized again on her shoe; fingers picked at a
button. Sheila Pat kicked. Now, as a rule, Jim O'Driscoll was easily
cowed--easily induced to retire. A frowning shake of the head had
hitherto been sufficient to keep him still, in an attitude of petrified
thought, for several minutes at a time. Apparently a backward kick,
gentle because Sheila Pat could not, even for his own welfare bring
herself to make it otherwise, had lost its power of petrification;
anyhow Jim refused to abandon his tenacious hold upon her shoe button.
Sheila Pat wriggled her foot out of the shoe; it disappeared
immediately. Meanwhile Miss Kezia talked. She had never considered
herself, or been considered by others, a talkative woman. When she left
the Stronghold, there were worried lines about her face; she moved her
lips in an irritated manner. It was irksome to her to be obliged to
talk so much; it outraged Nature, and added to the irritation consequent
on the O'Briens' misdemeanours. But she considered it her duty to talk,
so she did it. And no one was grateful.
Sheila Pat rescued her button from Jim's cheek, and Nell opened the
cupboard. The puppy certainly looked very charming. He lay in a nest
of oats, biscuits, ink, and torn paper; a long paint-brush stuck
rakishly out of the corner of his mouth. It was perhaps his expression
that was so particularly charming. He had feasted on biscuits; he had
tasted the flavours of oats, ink, and paper. He had had a meal to his
taste, and now he was sleepy. He looked up at Nell a little
mischievously and palpably with a supreme content with life. He was
sleepy, and willing to be petted. That he was adorned still with patches
of paint to which he had added smears of ink in no way detracted from
his adorableness.