Читать книгу The Hundredth Chance - Dell Ethel May - Страница 15

A way of escape! A way of escape! How often during the hours of that endless day were those words in Maud's mind. They pursued her, they mocked her, whichever way she turned.

To Jake she merely very briefly imparted the news of her uncle's expected advent, and he received it without comment.

Bunny was much more speculative. He had been somewhat carried out of himself by the trend of events. It was Jake who whispered to him the amazing information of his sudden conquest, together with a very strenuous injunction not to talk to Maud about it unless she started the subject. And Maud, for some reason, could not start it. She went through all the necessary arrangements for their removal as one in a dream, scarcely speaking at all, responding very occasionally to Bunny's eager surmises respecting the unknown great-uncle who had never before taken the faintest interest in them, or shown himself so much as aware of their existence. His coming did not seem to matter to her. If indeed he were about to offer her a way of escape, it could not matter to her now. The door that led thither had closed, closed in the night, because her mother had been too tired to seek her out and tell her. The irony of it! The bitter cruel irony! She dared not pause to think.

Jake spent a great part of the day with them, working with a will to get them comfortably settled in their new quarters before the fall of the early dusk. After that, he remained to tea; but he devoted almost the whole of his attention to Bunny, who had in fact come to regard it as his right.

He left soon after, refusing to remain for the game of chess for which the lad earnestly pleaded.

"Not to-night, my son! Your brain has got to settle down. It's a deal too lively at present."

He bent over Bunny at parting, and whispered a few words that were inaudible to Maud. Then he turned to go.

She followed him to the outer door. The evening air smote chill and salt upon her, and she shivered involuntarily. Jake stopped to light a cigarette.

"I shan't be coming round to-morrow," he remarked then. "I shall be too busy. But I'll look in on Saturday, and tell you what I've fixed up. Will Sunday morning do all right if I can fix it?"

She shivered again. "Yes," she said.

"Say, you're cold," said Jake gently. "I mustn't keep you standing here. But you really meant that Yes?"

He looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were kindly. She held out her hand with a desperate little smile.

"Yes, I meant it."

His hand closed strongly, sustainingly, upon hers. "Guess there's nothing to be scared of," he said. "I'll take care of you, sure."

She felt a sudden lump rise in her throat, and found she could not speak.

"You're tired," said Jake softly. "Go and get a good night! It's what you're wanting."

"Yes, I am tired," she managed to say.

He still held her hand, looking at her with those strange, glittering eyes of his that seemed to pierce straight through all reserve and enter even the hidden inner sanctuary of her soul.

"What's this relative of yours like now?" he asked unexpectedly.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I've never seen him."

"Think he's coming along to offer you a home?" asked Jake.

Her face burned suddenly and hotly. For some reason she resented the question. "I don't know. How can I possibly know?"

"All right," said Jake imperturbably. "But in case he does, I'd like you to know that you are at liberty to do as you please in the matter. He'll tell you, maybe, that I'm not the man for you. That, I gather, is your mother's attitude. I sensed it from the beginning. If he does, and if you feel inclined to agree with him, you're free to do so, – free as air. But at the same time, I'd like you to remember that if you should accept anything from him and then not find it to your liking, you can still come along to me and follow out the original programme. I'm only wanting to make you comfortable."

He stopped; and in the pause that followed, Maud's other hand came out to him, shyly yet impulsively. "You are-such a good fellow!" she said with a catch in her voice.

"Oh, bunkum!" said Jake, in a tone of almost indignant remonstrance.

He held her two hands, and turning, spat forth his cigarette into the night; an action of primitive simplicity that filled Maud with a grotesque kind of horrified mirth, mirth so intense that she had a sudden, hysterical desire to laugh. She restrained herself with a desperate effort.

"Good night!" she said, with something of urgency in her voice. "It isn't bunkum at all. It's the truth. You-I think you are the best friend I ever had. But-but-"

"But-" said Jake.

She freed her hands with a little gasp. "Nothing," she said. "Good night!"

It was a final dismissal, and as such he accepted it. She heard the steady fall of his feet as he went away, and with his going she managed to recover her composure.

There was an undeniable greatness about him that seemed to dwarf all criticism. She realized that to measure him by ordinary standards was out of the question, and as she reviewed all that he had done for her that day a gradual warmth began to glow in her. There was no other friend in all her world who would have extended to her so firm or so comforting a support in her hour of adversity. And if her face burned at the memory of her own utter collapse in his presence, she could but recall with gratitude and with confidence the steadfast kindness with which he had upheld her. She had gone to him in anguished despair, and he had offered her the utmost that he had to offer. As to his motives for so doing, she had a feeling that he had deliberately refrained from expressing them. He wanted her and he wanted Bunny. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps years of wandering had created in him a longing for home and domestic comfort.

But she did not speculate very deeply upon that subject. She felt that she could not. There was something in the man's nature, something colossal of which she was but dimly aware, and which she had no means of gauging, that checked her almost at the outset. She found herself standing before a closed door, a door which she had neither the audacity nor the desire to attempt to open. She was even a little fearful lest one day that door should open to her of its own accord and she should be constrained to enter whether she would or not.

But on the whole that talk with Jake had calmed her. The man was so temperate, so completely master of himself, and withal so staunch in the friendship he had established with her, that she could not but feel reassured. There was a delicacy in his consideration for her that warmed her heart. She knew by every instinct of her being that he would take care of her as he had promised. And she wanted someone to take care of her so badly, so badly.

She was so deadly tired of fending for herself.

She found Bunny in a mood of remarkable docility, and she managed to get him to bed without much trouble. He also was worn out after two nights of restlessness, and he fell asleep earlier than usual.

She herself sat for awhile in the little sitting-room with a book, but she found she could not read. She was too tired to fix her attention, and the thought of Jake kept intruding itself whenever she attempted to do so. It was wonderful how she had come to rely upon him, knowing so little of him. He had always been far more to Bunny than to her.

She was drifting into a kind of semi-doze, still with the memory of him passing and repassing through her brain, when there came the sound of a bell in the house, and almost immediately after, the opening of the sitting-room door.

She started up in surprise to see her landlady usher in a little, spare grey-whiskered man who walked with a strut and cleared his throat as he came with a noise like the growling of a dog. He made her think irresistibly of a Scotch terrier bristling for a fight.

He halted in the middle of the room, and banged with his umbrella on the floor, as one demanding a hearing.

"Hullo!" he said. "My name's Warren. You, I take it, are Maud Brian. If so, I'm your Uncle Edward."

Maud came forward, still feeling a little dazed. Since Jake's departure she had almost forgotten the approaching advent of this relative of hers.

"How do you do?" she said. "Yes, I am Maud Brian. Come and sit down!"

He took her hand, looking at her with small grey eyes that were keenly critical.

"How old are you?" he demanded.

"I am twenty-five," said Maud, faintly smiling.

He uttered a grunting growl and sat down with a jerk. "I've come straight from your mother to talk to you. She's a fool, always was. I hope you're not another."

"Thank you," said Maud sedately.

He brought his shaggy grey brows together. "I've come the length of England to see you, but I haven't any time to waste. I'm going back to-morrow. That letter of yours-I meant to answer it, but business pressed, and it had to stand over. Then I decided to come and see what sort of young woman you were before I did anything further. I couldn't stand a replica of your mother in my house. But-thank goodness-you're not much like her. She tells me you're thinking of making a marriage of convenience to get away from your step-father. Now, that's a very serious step for a young woman to contemplate. It seems to me I've turned up in the nick of time."

Maud, sitting facing him with her hands folded in her lap, still faintly smiled. The bluntness with which he tackled the situation appealed more to her sense of humour than to any other emotion. She realized that he was actually about to offer her a way of escape, but, curiously, she no longer felt any desire to avail herself of it. By his generous assurance that she was at liberty to do as she would, Jake had somehow managed to range her on his side. She did not want to escape any more. Moreover, there was Bunny to be thought of. She knew well in what direction his desires-and his welfare also-lay.

"It was very kind of you to come," she said. "But, as regards my marriage, my mind is quite made up. He-the man I am going to marry-understands everything. I have been quite open with him. He has been most kind, most generous. I could not think of drawing back now."

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Warren. He sat forward in his chair, his hands gripping the knob of his umbrella and surveyed her with growing disapproval. "You're prepared to sell yourself to a man you don't love in return for a home, hey?" he asked.

She winced sharply, and in a moment her tired young face was flooded with colour. "Certainly not!" she said, her voice very low. "Most certainly not!"

"Looks uncommonly like it," he maintained.

"It is not so!" she said, with low-toned vehemence. "I have told you-he-understands."

"And is prepared to give all and receive nothing for his pains?" pursued the old man relentlessly. "If so, he's a very remarkable young man; and let me tell you for your comfort, it's an attitude he won't keep up for long, not-that is-unless he's a blithering idiot? Is he an idiot?"

Maud almost laughed. "No, that he is not! But really-really-you are wasting your time. If you had come this time yesterday, I would have listened to you. To-night it is impossible."

"Why impossible?"

"Because I have promised."

"Tut! tut! He must release you."

"He would release me," Maud said slowly. "That is just it."

"Just what? Talk sense if you can!" It was evident that patience was not Uncle Edward's strong point. He fidgeted his umbrella testily.

She looked at him with her clear, straight eyes. "That is just why I will not ask for my release. In fact, I-don't want it."

"Don't want it! Then, young woman, you're in love with him. I've come on a fool's errand, and I'll wish you good night."

He was on his feet with the words. Maud rose too. She laid a hand of half-timid restraint upon his arm.

"I am not-in love with him, Uncle Edward," she said, her voice not wholly steady. "Such a thing would be impossible. But at the same time-though I can't give him everything-he shall not repent his bargain. We are going to be-friends."

"Pshaw!" said Uncle Edward again. He gripped her hand unexpectedly, staring up at her with his keen eyes. "Do you know how old I am?" he said.

She shook her head.

"I'm eighty," he said. "I've seen a little of men in my time, and I've been a man myself. So let me tell you this! There's not a man on this earth who could be satisfied for long with that kind of farce. You've got him on the leash now. He's tame and good. But there's a ravening wolf inside us all, my dear, when we're thwarted, and the longer we're thwarted the more savage we get. You can't bring up a wolf-not the tamest wolf in the world-on bread and butter. Sooner or later he'll begin to feel a bit empty, and whine for the real thing. And if you still go on starving the brute till he's famished, he'll either break away and go elsewhere for food, or else he'll round on you one day and tear you in pieces. You'll be the sufferer either way. It's nature I tell you, it's nature. You'll have to give all or drive him away at the outset. There can't be half-measures with a man who is a man. If you offer them you must expect trouble. And remember, it's always the woman who pays in the end, – always the woman who pays."

He repeated the words with the impressiveness of a judge pronouncing sentence.

Maud was trembling, though she tried to conceal the fact. "And then there is Bunny to be thought of," she said.

"Bunny? Who is Bunny? Oh, your brother, is it? And he's a hopeless cripple, I understand? Is it for his sake that you've hatched this mad scheme?"

"In a great measure. You see, he and-and Jake Bolton are very fond of one another."

"Pshaw!" the old man exclaimed. "So this Jake Bolton is to have the boy, with you thrown in as a makeweight; is that it? And you think you're all going to be happy together, do you? Never heard such a tomfool scheme in my life. Where does this Jake Bolton hang out? I'll go and have a talk to him."

"Oh, please don't!" Maud begged. "He'll think I sent you. And really-really there is nothing to discuss."

"We'll see about that," he rejoined grimly. "Seems to me it's high time somebody came along and interfered. Now, look here, what's your name? – Maud! I'm going to get you out of this mess. You shan't marry a man you don't love just because there was no other way out. There is another way out, and you're to take it. You're to come and live with me, do you hear? You and your precious Bunny too! And when I die, I'll leave you both provided for. See? Come, I can't say fairer than that."

He was still gripping her hand, and looking at her with shrewd eyes under their beetling brows as though prepared to beat down all opposition. There was a look of Bunny about those eyes, Bunny in a difficult mood. She recognized it with a sigh. It seemed her fate to be continually doing battle with someone, and she felt wholly unfitted for it. All she asked of life was peace and quietness.

"My home is a dingy one," said her uncle, "but you may be able to make it more cheerful. I shan't interfere with either of you. Come, now, you're going to be a sensible girl, hey? I'm sorry I didn't turn up before. But the knot isn't tied, so I'm not too late. We must explain the situation to the young man. Unless he's an absolute bounder, he'll be amenable to reason."

But Maud shook her head. "I can't do it, Uncle Edward. I know you mean to be kind. I am very grateful. But-I can't."

He rasped his throat aggressively. "That's nonsense," he said with decision. "Plainly the man is beneath you. You say you don't love him, and never could."

"I am not-altogether-sure that he is beneath me," she said rather wistfully.

"But you don't love him?" her uncle insisted, scanning her piercingly.

She bent her head with an instinctive desire to avoid his eyes. "No."

"Or anyone else?" he pursued.

She made a small movement of protest.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, in the tone of one who has discovered something. "Your mother hinted as much. And you think you're going to make things better for yourself by marriage with a rank outsider. Is that it? Is that it? Then take my word for it, you're going to make the biggest mistake of your life. And if you persist in it, I've done with you. At least, no, I haven't done; for I'm going straight to that young man of yours to tell him the sort of bargain he's going to make."

He paused, for suddenly Maud had drawn herself up very straight and proud. "If you wish to do so, you must," she said, and her pale face was very regal and composed. "But it will not make the smallest difference to either of us. Jake has my promise. I have his."

It was at this point that the door opened again to admit the landlady with a note on a salver.

"Mr. Bolton's compliments," she said, "and will you be good enough to send back an answer?"