The Hundredth Chance Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  THE IDOL

  "I say, Maud, what a dratted long time you've been! What on earth haveyou and the mother been doing?" Young Bernard Brian turned his headtowards his sister with the chafing, impatient movement of one bitterlyat variance with life. "You swore you wouldn't be long," he said.

  "I know. I'm sorry." Maud came to his side and stooped over him. "Icouldn't help it, Bunny," she said. "I haven't been enjoying myself."

  He looked up at her suspiciously. "Oh, it's never your fault," he said,with dreary sarcasm.

  Maud said nothing. She only laid a smoothing hand on his crumpled brow,and after a moment bent and kissed it.

  He jerked his head away from her caress, opening and shutting his handsin a nervous way he had acquired in babyhood. "I've had a perfectlysickening time," he said. "There's a brute with a gramophone upstairsbeen driving me nearly crazy. For goodness' sake, see if you can put astop to it before to-night comes! I shall go clean off my head if youdon't!"

  "I'll do my best, dear," Maud promised.

  "I wish to goodness we could get away from this place," the boy saidrestlessly. "Even the old 'Anchovy' was preferable. I loathe thishole."

  "Oh, so do I!" said Maud, with sudden vehemence. And then she checkedherself quickly as if half-ashamed. "Of course it might be worse, youknow, Bunny," she said.

  Bunny curled a derisive lip, and looked out of the window.

  "Did you really like 'The Anchor' better?" Maud asked, after a moment.

  He drew his brows together--beautiful brows like her own, betraying asensitive, not too well-balanced temperament. "It was better," he said.

  Maud sat down beside his sofa with a slight gesture of weariness. "Youwould like to go back there?" she asked.

  He looked at her sharply. "We are going?"

  She met his look with steady eyes. "Mr. Sheppard has offered to take usin," she said.

  The boy frowned still more. "What! For nothing?" he said.

  "No; not for nothing." The girl was frowning too--the frown of oneconfronted with a difficult task. "Nobody ever does anything fornothing," she said.

  "Well? What is it?" Bunny's eyes suddenly narrowed and became shrewd."He doesn't want you to marry him, I suppose?"

  "Good gracious, Bunny!" Maud gasped the words in sheer horror. "Whatever made you think of that?"

  Bunny laughed--a cracked, difficult laugh. "Because he's bounder enoughfor anything; and you're so beastly fond of him, aren't you?"

  "Oh, don't!" Maud said. "Really don't, Bunny! It's too horrible tojoke about. No, it isn't me he wants to marry. It's--it's----"

  "The mother?" queried Bunny, without perturbation. "Oh, he's quitewelcome to her. It's a pity he's been such a plaguey time making up hismind. He might have known she'd jump at him."

  "But, Bunny--" Maud was gazing at him in utter amazement. There weretimes when the working of her young brother's brain was wholly beyondher comprehension. "You can't be--pleased!" she said.

  "I'm never pleased," said Bunny sweepingly. "I hate everything andeverybody--except you, and you don't count. The man's a brute ofcourse; but if the mother has a mind to marry him, why on earthshouldn't she? Especially if it's going to make us more comfortable!"

  "Comfortable on his money!" There was scorn unutterable in Maud'svoice. Her eyes were tragically proud.

  "But, why not?" said Bunny, with cynical composure. "We shall never becomfortable on our own, that's certain. If the man is fool enough towant to lay out his money in that way, why, let him!"

  "Live on his--charity!" said Maud very bitterly.

  The boy's mouth twisted. "We've got to live on someone's," he said."There's nothing new in that. I think you're rather an ass, Maud. It'sno good being proud when you can't afford it. We can't earn a livingfor ourselves, so someone must do it for us, that's all."

  "Bunny!" There was passionate protest in the exclamation; but he passedit by.

  "What's the good of arguing?" he said irritably. "We can't helpourselves. If the mother would rather marry that bawling beast Sheppardthan starve on a doorstep with us, who's to blame her? I suppose we'reincluded in the bargain for good, are we?"

  Maud nodded mutely, her fingers locked and straining against each other.

  Bunny screwed his face up for a moment. Then: "There's that filthygramophone again!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Go and stop it, I say! Ican't bear the noise! I won't bear it! It's--it's--it's infernal!That's what it is!" He flung his arms up frenziedly above his head, andthen suddenly uttered an anguished cry of pain.

  Maud was on her feet on the instant. She caught the arms, drew themfirmly down again. "Oh, don't, dear, don't!" she said. "You know youcan't!"

  The boy's face was convulsed. "I didn't know! I can sometimes! Oh,Maud, I hate life! I hate it! I hate it!"

  His voice choked, became a gasping moan, ceased altogether.

  Maud stooped over him. His eyes were shut, his face white as death."Bunny, Bunny darling!" she whispered passionately. "I would give--allthe world--to make it better for you!"

  There fell a silence, while gradually the awful paroxysm began to pass.

  Then very abruptly Bunny opened his eyes. "No, you wouldn't!" he saidunexpectedly.

  "Indeed I would!" she said very earnestly.

  "You wouldn't!" he reiterated, with the paralysing conviction thatrefuses to hear any reasoning. "If you would, you'd have married LordSaltash years ago, and been rich enough to pay one of the big men to putme right."

  She winced sharply. "Bunny! You're not to talk to me of Lord Saltash.It isn't kind. He is the one man in the world I--couldn't marry."

  "Rot!" said Bunny. "You know you're in love with him."

  "I know I couldn't marry him," she said, a piteous quiver in her voice."It is cruel to--to--" She broke off.

  "All right," said Bunny waiving the point. "Find some other rich manthen! I don't care who it is. You'll have to pretty soon. We shallneither of us stand this Sheppard person for long."

  "If I could only--somehow--make a living for the two of us!" the girlsaid.

  "You can't!" Again deadly conviction swept aside argument. "You're notclever enough, and you haven't time--unless you propose to leave me tothe tender mercies of the Sheppard. It would be a quick way out of thedifficulty so far as I am concerned anyway."

  "Of course I could never leave you!" Maud said quickly.

  "All right then. Marry--and be quick about it!" said Bunny.

  He turned his drawn, white face to the window--a face of unconsciouspathos that often stirred his sister to the depths. Youth--and thegladness of youth--had never existed for Bunny Brian. Life for so longas he could remember had always been a long, dreary round of pain anddisappointment, of restless nights and dragging, futile days. Only Maud,who shared them all, knew to the uttermost the woeful bitterness of thelad's existence. It hurt her cruelly, that bitterness, moving her to aperpetual self-sacrifice, of the extent of which even Bunny had smallconception.

  She identified herself completely with him, and had so done since thetenth year of her life when he had come--a puny, wailing baby--into theworld to fill the void of her childish heart. She had, as it were,grown up in his service, worn and sallow and thin, with the sharp edgesof nerves that were always strung up to too high a pitch--the nerves ofone who scarcely ever knew a whole night of undisturbed rest. They hadtold upon her, those years of anxiety and service; they had shorn awayher youth also. Only once--and that for how short a time!--had lifeever seemed desirable in her eyes. A brief and splendid dream had beenhers, spreading like a golden sunrise over her whole horizon. But thedream had faded, the sunrise had been extinguished in heavy clouds thathad never again parted. She knew life now for a grey, grey drearinesson which no light could ever shine again. She was tired--tired to thesoul of her; and she was only twenty-five.

  "Maud!" Bunny's voice half-irrit
able, half-eager, broke in upon her."See that fellow down there trying to make his nag go into the sea?It's going to be a big job. Let's go down and see it done!"

  Bunny's long chair was in a corner of the room. It was no light task toget it in and out of the house; but Maud was used to the management ofit. The weight of it went in with the other burdens of life. She wasused also to lifting Bunny's poor little wasted body, and no wish of histhat she could gratify was ever left neglected. Moreover, the offensiveclamour of the gramophone overhead added to her alacrity to obey hisbehests. And the day was bright and warm, with a south wind blowingover a sparkling sea.

  It would do Bunny good to go out, especially if he desired to go. Itwas not always that he would consent to do so after a sleepless night.But there was an extraordinary vitality in the meagre frame, a fevered,driving force that never seemed to be wholly exhausted. There weretimes when inaction was absolute torture to him, and Maud was ready togo until she dropped if only she could in some measure alleviate thatchafing restlessness. She counted it luck indeed if these moods of fretand turmoil raged during the day. She was better able to cope with themthen, and it gave the night a better chance. Poor lad! He could fighthis own way through the days, but the long-drawn-out misery of nights ofincessant pain broke him down--how completely only Maud ever knew.

  So, gladly she wheeled him forth on that afternoon of late October, downthe hill to the sun-bathed shore.

  That hill taxed her physical powers to the uttermost. Secretly shedreaded the ascent, but not for worlds would she have had Bunny knowit--Bunny who depended solely upon her for the very few pleasures thatever came his way. To the last ounce of her strength she was dedicatedto the service of her idol.