THE DECLARATION OF WAR
For three weeks after that Sunday visit to Jake's home, life went on as
usual, and a certain measure of tranquillity returned to Maud.
She found herself able to meet the man without any show of
embarrassment, and, finding him absolutely normal in his behaviour
towards her, she began to feel a greater confidence in his presence. He
had promised that he would not force himself upon her, and it was
evident that he had every intention of keeping his word. That he might
by imperceptible degrees draw nearer to her, become more intimate, was a
possibility that for a time troubled her; but he was so absolutely
considerate in all his dealings with her that this fear of hers at
length died away. If he were playing a waiting game he did it with a
patience so consummate that his tactics were wholly hidden from her. He
had to all appearances accepted her decision as final, and put the
notion away as impracticable.
Christmas was drawing near, and several visitors had already arrived.
There was generally a short season at Christmas, during which the Anchor
Hotel had its regular patrons. Its landlord was in an extremely
variable state of mind, sometimes aggressive, sometimes jovial,
frequently not wholly sober. Maud avoided all contact with him with
rigorous persistence, her mother's protests notwithstanding.
"He can't be civil to me," she said, "and he shall not have the
opportunity of being anything else."
And no persuasion could move her from this attitude. Mrs. Sheppard was
obliged reluctantly to abandon the attempt. She herself was seldom out
of favour with her husband, whatever his condition, and that after all
was what mattered most.
But the state of affairs was such as was almost bound to lead to a
climax sooner or later. Giles Sheppard's hectoring mood was not of the
sort to be satisfied for long with passive avoidance. Every glimpse he
had of the girl, who ate his bread but disdained to do so in his company
or the company of his friends, inflamed him the more hotly against her.
It needed but a pretext to set his wrath ablaze, and a pretext was not
far to seek.
One day about a week before Christmas he unexpectedly presented himself
at the door of Bunny's room.
The weather was damp and raw, and a cheerful fire burned there. Bunny
was lying among pillows on the sofa. He had had a bad night, and his
face, as he turned it to the intruder, was white and drawn.
"What on earth--" he began querulously.
Sheppard entered with arrogance, leaving the door wide open behind him.
"Look here!" he said harshly. "You've got to turn out of this. The room
is wanted."
Maud, who was dusting the room as was her daily custom, turned swiftly
round with something of the movement of a tigress. Her face was pale
also. She had slept even less than Bunny the previous night. Her blue
eyes shone like two flames under her knitted brows.
"What do you mean?" she said.
He looked at her with insult in his eyes. "I mean just that, my fine
madam," he said. "This room is wanted. The boy will have to go with the
rest of the lumber--at the top of the house."
It was brutally spoken, but the brutality was aimed at her, not Bunny.
Maud realized that fact, and curbed her resentment. She could
endure--or so she fancied--his personal hostility with fortitude. But
his announcement was sufficiently disquieting in itself.
"I understood that we were not to be disturbed at any time," she said,
meeting his look with that icy pride of hers that was the only weapon at
her command. "Surely some other arrangement can be made?"
Sheppard growled out a strangled oath; she always made him feel at a
disadvantage, this slip of a girl whom he could have picked up with one
hand had he chosen.
"I tell you, this room is wanted," he reiterated stormily. "You'd better
clear out at once."
"Bunny can't possibly be moved to-day," Maud said quickly and decidedly.
"He is in pain. Can't you see for yourself how impossible it is? I am
quite sure no visitor who knew the facts of the case would wish to turn
him out."
Sheppard stamped a furious foot. He was getting up his fury; and
suddenly she saw that he had been drinking. The knowledge came upon her
in a flash of understanding, and with it a disgust so complete that it
overwhelmed every other consideration.
She pointed to the door. "Go!" she said, in tense, frozen accents. "Go
at once! How dare you come in here in this state?"
Before her withering disdain he drew back, as it were involuntarily. He
even half turned to obey. Then, suddenly some devil prompted him, and
he swung back again. With one gigantic stride he reached the sofa; and
before either brother or sister knew what he intended to do he had
roughly seized upon the boy's slight body and lifted it in his great
arms.
Bunny's agonized outcry at the action mingled with his sister's, but it
ceased almost immediately. He collapsed in the giant grip like an empty
sack, and Sheppard, now wrought to a blind fury that had no thought for
consequences, carried him from the room and along the passage to the
stairs, utterly unheeding the fact that he had fainted.
Maud, nearly beside herself, went with him, striving to support the limp
body where long experience had taught her support was needed. They went
up the stairs so, flight after flight, Sheppard savage and stubborn, the
girl in a dumb agony of anxiety, seeking only to relieve the dreadful
strain that had bereft Bunny of his senses.
They reached at length a room at the top of the house, a bare garret of
a place with sloping ceiling and uncarpeted floor. There was a bed
under the skylight, and on this the man deposited his burden.
Then he turned and looked at Maud with eyes of cruel malevolence. "This
is good enough for you and yours," he said.
Over Bunny's body she flung her fruitless defiance. "You drunken brute!"
she said. "You loathsome coward! You hateful, tipsy bully!"
The words pierced him like the stabs of a dagger too swift to evade. He
was sober enough to be cowed.
From the door he looked back at her, where she stood at the bedside,
upright, quivering, a dart-like creature full of menace despite her
delicacy of form and fibre. Again he knew himself to be at a
disadvantage. He had not drunk enough to be intrepid. Swearing and
malignant, he withdrew like a savage beast. But as he went, the madness
of hatred rose in a swirl to his brain. She had defied him, had she?
Her bitter words rang again and again in his ears. She had proclaimed
him a drunkard, a coward, a bully! And she thought he would put up with
it. Did she? Did she? Thought she could insult him with impunity in
his own house! Thought he would tamely endure her impertinences for all
time! He ground his teeth as he went down to the bar. He would have a
reckoning with her presently. Yes, there should be a reckoning. He had
borne with her too long--too long! Now matters had come to a head. She
would either have to humble herself or go.
He had tried to be patient. He had hoped that Jake Bolton would soon
relieve him of the unwelcome burden he had taken upon himself. Jake
could tame her; he was quite sure of that. But Jake seemed to be making
no headway. He had even begun to wonder lately if Jake meant business
after all.
In any case he was at the end of his patience; and when his wife came to
him with tears to remonstrate on behalf of poor little Bunny he hardened
himself against her and refused to discuss the subject.
As for Maud, she spent the rest of the day in trying to make Bunny's new
quarters habitable. She hoped with all her heart that Jake would come
in the evening so that they could move him into the room she occupied, a
floor lower, which had at least a fireplace. But for once Jake
disappointed her, and so the whole day passed in severe pain for Bunny
and vexation of spirit for her.
Towards evening to her relief he began to doze. She watched beside him
anxiously. He had been very plucky, displaying an odd protective
attitude towards herself that had gone to her heart; but she knew that
at times he had suffered intensely and the fact had been almost more
than she could bear. She knew that it would be days before he would
shake off the effects of the rough handling he had received, and she
dreaded the future with a foreboding that made her feel physically sick.
Now that Sheppard's animosity had developed into active hostility, she
knew that the situation could not last much longer, but how to escape it
remained a problem unsolved. Her uncle had made no reply to her letter.
She could not write to him again. And there was no one else to whom she
could appeal. Alone, she could have faced the world and somehow made a
way for herself; but with Bunny-- She clenched her hands in impotent
anguish. There was only one person in the world willing to lift the
burden from her, only one person besides herself who really cared for
Bunny. She suddenly began to tremble. That sense of approaching doom
was upon her again. The current had caught her surely, surely, and was
whirling her away.
Bunny stirred--as though somehow caught in the net of her
emotions--stirred and came out of uneasy slumber.
"I say, Maud!"
"What is it, darling? Are you uncomfortable?" There was a wealth of
mother-love in her low voice as she bent above him.
Bunny put out a cold, moist hand. "I say, Maud," he said again, "Jake's
a good sort. You like Jake, don't you?"
"Yes, darling," she answered soothingly.
He turned his head on the pillow; she could feel his fingers opening and
closing in the restless way he had. "I like him too," he said. "I like
him awfully. He's--the real thing. I wish----"
"What, Bunny?" There was constraint in her voice, and she knew it, but
it was a subject upon which she could not bring herself to speak freely.
She dreaded his answer more than she could have said.
Possibly he divined the fact, for he heaved a sharp sigh and said,
"Nothing," in a tone that told her that he was very far from satisfied.
But she could not pursue the matter. Thankfully she let it drop.
The evening wore away. There was only one candle in the room. By it
she and Bunny ate the supper which Maud herself had fetched from the
kitchen. No one had time to wait upon them. The boy was still trying
to make the best of things, and she marvelled at his courage.
When the meal was over he looked at her with a faint smile under his
drawn brows. "Look here, Maud! There's that bed in the corner. Can't
you make it comfortable and get a good night for once?"
She looked at him in surprise. It was very unusual for Bunny to give a
thought to her comfort.
"Yes, I want you to," he said. "Go and undress, and then bring your
blankets up here! You can't sit up all night in a straight-backed
chair, so you may as well be comfortable. Don't stare! Go and do it!"
The bed in the corner was a thing of broken springs and crippled
frame-work, but it had a mattress of straw albeit bedclothes were
lacking. Bunny's suggestion seemed feasible, and since it was plain
that he would not be content unless she followed it she yielded without
demur. Her own room was only a flight of stairs away, and she had
already fetched several things from it for his comfort. She hoped to
get him down to it on the following day, if only Jake would come. It
was neither warm nor spacious, but it was preferable to this fireless
attic.
She brought the blankets, and arranged the bed. "I don't think I'll
undress, Bunny," she said.
"You are to," said Bunny. "Jake says no one can possibly rest properly
without."
She was inclined to resent this assertion of Jake's teaching, but again
she yielded. Bunny was in a mood to work himself into a fever if his
behests were not obeyed.
She went down and undressed therefore, and presently slipped up to him
again, hoping to find him asleep. But he was wide-eyed and restless.
"It's so beastly cold," he said. "I can't sleep. My feet are like
stones. Where's the fur rug?"
She looked round for it. "Oh, Bunny, I'm so sorry. I must have left it
in your room downstairs. Never mind! Here's a blanket instead!"
She was already pulling it off her bed when Bunny asserted himself once
more.
"Maud, I won't have it! I will not have it! Do you hear? Put it back
again! Why can't you go and fetch the fur rug?"
"My dear, I can't go down like this," she objected.
"Rot!" said Bunny. "Everyone's gone to bed by now. If you don't get it,
they'll be turning the room out in the morning, and it'll get lost.
Besides, you look all right."
She was wearing no more than a light wrap over her night-dress; but, as
Bunny said, it was probable that everyone had retired, for the hour was
late. Only a few dim lights were left burning in the passages. There
would be no one about, and it would not take two minutes to slip down
and get the rug. She dropped the blanket he had refused, and went
softly out.