THE RECKONING
The whole house was in silence as noiselessly she stole down the stairs.
It was close upon midnight, and she did not meet or hear anyone. The
place might have been empty, so still was it.
The long, long roar of the sea came to her as she groped her way down
the winding, dark passage that led to the room from which Bunny had been
so rudely ejected a few hours before. There was no light here, but she
knew her way perfectly, and, finding the door, softly opened it and
turned on the electric light.
The room was just as she had left it, the sofa drawn up by the burnt-out
fire. She had collected all Bunny's things earlier in the evening, but,
since the rug had been forgotten, she thought it advisable to take the
opportunity of ascertaining if anything else had been left behind. She
found the rug, pushed the sofa back against the wall, and began a quiet
search of all the drawers and other receptacles the room contained.
She had almost finished her task, and was just closing the writing-table
drawer when a sudden sound made her start. A creaking footstep came
from the passage beyond the open door. She turned swiftly with a
jerking heart to see her step-father, bloated and malignant, standing on
the threshold.
For a single instant he stood there looking at her, and a great throb of
misgiving went through her at the savage triumph in his eyes. He had
been drinking, drinking heavily she was sure; but he did not seem to be
intoxicated, only horribly sure of himself, brutally free from any
trammels of civilization. He closed the door with decision, and moved
forward.
In the same moment she moved also towards the sofa over which she had
thrown the rug she had come to fetch. Her heart was beating hard and
fast, but she would not address a single word to him, would not so much
as seem to see him. Supremely disdainful, she prepared to gather up her
property and go.
But as she turned to the door she found him barring the way. He spoke,
thickly yet not indistinctly.
"Not so fast, my fine madam! I've got to have a reckoning with you."
She drew herself up to the utmost of her slim height, and gave him a
single brief glance of disgust. "Be good enough to let me pass!" she
said, in tones of clear command.
But Sheppard did not move. He had been fortifying himself against any
sudden strain such as this all day long.
"Not so fast!" he said again, with a gleam of teeth under his dark
moustache. "You made a mistake this morning, young woman; a very big
mistake. Don't make another to-night!"
Maud froze to an icier contempt. The steady courage of her must have
shamed any man in his sober senses.
"Stand aside instantly," she said, "or I shall ring the bell and rouse
the house!"
He laughed at that, a cruel, vindictive laugh. "Oh, you don't come over
me that way! You mean to have your lesson, I see, and p'raps it's as
well. It's been postponed too long already. There's a deal too much
spirit about you, and too much lip too. You think I'll put up with
anything, don't you? Think yourself much too high and mighty to
associate with the likes of me? Think you can call me any darn' names
you please, and I'll bear 'em like a lamb?"
His voice rose. Obviously his temper was already beyond control. He
was in fact lashing it on to fury. Maud knew the process well.
It was enough for her, and she waited for no more. She stepped quietly
to the bell.
She was nearer to it than he, and she did not for a moment imagine that
he would dare to molest her. But she had not realized the maddened
condition to which he had wrought himself; and even when he suddenly and
violently strode forward she did not draw back or dream that he would
touch her.
Only as his hand caught her outstretched arm did the knowledge that he
was as utterly beyond control as a wild beast burst upon her. She
uttered a desperate cry, and began a sharp, instinctive struggle to
escape.
It was a very brief struggle, so taken by surprise and utterly
unprepared was she. One moment she was fighting wildly for freedom; the
next he had her at his mercy.
"Oh, you may scream!" he gibed. "No one will hear you! Now--do you
know what I am going to do to you?"
"Let me go!" she panted, crimson and breathless.
He locked her two wrists together in one iron hand. His strength was
utterly irresistible. She was as a pigmy in the grip of a giant.
"I'll let you go when I've done with you," he said, gloating openly over
her quivering helplessness. "But first you will have your lesson. I'm
going to give you the trouncing of your life!"
With the words he suddenly wrenched her round and forced her, almost
flung her, face downwards over the sofa-head.
"You've been spoiling for this for a long time," he said, "and--being
your step-father--I'll see that you get it. Never had a good spanking
before in all your life, I daresay? Well, well see how you like this
one!"
And therewith he pulled off one of his down-at-heel carpet slippers and
proceeded to flog her with it, as if she had been a boy.
What she went through during that awful chastisement Maud never forgot.
She fought at first like a mad creature till she was suddenly aware of
the light wrap she wore ripping in all directions, and from that moment
she resisted no more, standing passive in an agony of apprehension while
he wreaked upon her all the pent malice of the past few weeks.
It was a brutal punishment, administered with the savage intention of
breaking down the stark silence with which she sought to meet it. And
even when he succeeded at last, even when the girl's strength went from
her and she collapsed as he held her with a wild burst of hysterical
crying and broken, unnerved entreaties, he did not stay his hand. Now
was his grand opportunity for vengeance, and he might never get another.
He did not spare her until he had inflicted the utmost of which he was
capable.
Then at last roughly he set her free. "That's right! Blub away!" he
jeered. "I've taken all the stiffening out of you at last, and a damn'
good job too. P'raps you'll keep a civil tongue in your head for the
future, and give me no more of your dratted impudence. There's nothing
like a sound drubbing to bring a woman to her senses. But I don't
advise you to qualify for another."
He put on his slipper, breathing somewhat heavily after his exertions,
then stood up and wiped his forehead. His fury had exhausted itself.
His mood had become one of semi-malicious elation.
He looked at the girl still crouched over the sofa-head, sobbing and
convulsed, utterly broken, utterly conquered.
"Come!" he said. "Don't let us have any more nonsense! You won't give
me any more of your airs after this, and we shall be all the better
friends for it. Stand up and say you're sorry!"
She gasped and gasped again, but no words could she utter. The hateful
callousness of the man could not so much as rouse her scorn. Her pride
was in the dust.
He took her by the arm and pulled her roughly up, making her stand
before him though she was scarcely capable of standing.
"Come!" he began again, and broke off with a brutal laugh, staring at
her.
A flame of fierce humiliation went through her, burning her from head to
foot as she realized that her night-dress had been rent open across her
bosom. She caught it together in her trembling fingers, shrinking in an
anguish of shame from the new devil that had begun to gibe at her out of
his bloodshot eyes.
He laughed again. "Well, my fine madam, we seem to have pitched the
proprieties overboard quite completely this time. All your own fault,
you know. Serves you jolly well right. You aren't going to say you're
sorry, eh? Well, well, I'd give you another spanking if I felt equal to
it, but I don't. So I'll have the kiss of peace instead."
He caught her to him with the words, gripped her tightly round the body,
tilted her head back; and for one unspeakable moment the heavy moustache
was crushed suffocatingly upon her panting lips.
In that moment the strength of madness entered into Maud, such strength
as was later wholly beyond her own comprehension. With frenzied force
she resisted him, fighting as if for her very life, and so suddenly, so
unexpectedly, that in sheer astonishment his grip relaxed.
It was her one chance of escape, and she seized it. With a single
furious wrench she tore herself from him, not caring how she did it,
found herself free, and fled, fled like a mad thing, panting,
dishevelled, frantic, from the room.
His laugh of half-tipsy derision followed her, and all the devils of
hatred, malice, and bitter cauterizing shame went with her as she fled.