Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 9

Exclusive for Steemit - serialisation of Cruel and Unusual – my second novel

added by edit cos I forgot - pictures from pixabay

Episodes:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

“Oh ma’am, it has been a terrible evening. I know that you told me that Jack was going to play make-believe this evening, but I could not control him. He became wild and even pretended to bite me. Well I hope it was pretend.”

“Mrs Flint, are you quite all right? Please do not distress yourself so. I am sure that we can put everything to rights.” Amelia patted Mrs Flint’s hand as she spoke; the poor woman’s complexion was almost grey.

As if on cue, a cacophony of bumps and howls emanated from above them and all three looked to the ceiling - above them was Jack’s room.

“Oh my goodness, there he goes again!” Mrs. Flint wailed.

David flew out of the room with Amelia as close behind as was possible. David had gained the top of the stairs long before she was half way however and could only listen to what was happening as she struggled with her long skirts.

“What on earth are you doing, my boy?” Amelia heard David roar.

There was a shocked silence for Jack had not expected his uncle David, but either poor Mrs. Flint again, or his mother.

“Oh! Uncle David. I was playing make-believe wolf.” Jack stammered.

“You were playing up poor Mrs. Flint is more like the truth of it. Look at the destruction here.”

Amelia panicked as Jack began squealing.

“Jack? David. What are you doing to him?”

As Amelia at last got to the room, she stood horror stricken as she saw the scene of destruction and her secret husband holding his son at arm’s length, seeming about to inflict wilful damage upon his person.

Luckily, Mrs. Flint had not attempted to come to see what more carnage Jack had wrought and was still downstairs, clutching her brandy glass in one hand and her handkerchief to her bosom in the other as the uproar mounted above her.

“Please David! Put him down. Let him alone, you are hurting him, he is crying!”

“No Amelia. He has gone too far. He has been raised in a house full of women, with only a slight and infrequent male influence to guide him.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“The fault is mine and I fully accept the responsibility for it, which is why he is going away to school.”

“Going away? No, I shall not allow it!”

“Your molly-codling is to blame as well as my absence Amelia, and now we must put that to rights.”

“You cannot make me go away! You are not my father!” Jack shouted in defiance. “My father will return some day and you shall pay for this! He shall make you regret this! Put me down!”

“Listen to me, my boy…” David said as calm as he could manage.

“No! I am not your boy. You are not even my uncle!”

Amelia and David exchanged shocked glances.

“You do not even have the same name as us! How can you be brother and sister with different names?”

Amelia approached her dangling son and released him from David’s grasp. Jack struggled but could not get free of his mother’s grip either.

“When I married, my name changed, Jack,” she tried to explain, but Jack was blinkered to any persuasion.

“Let me alone! I hate you! I hate you both!”

“Hate or not, Jack, you will clear this room and restore it to order or you shall have no supper. And after that, you will apologise to Mrs Flint - and I do not mean at your earliest convenience, I mean directly you have made this room a little boy’s bedroom once more instead of this pig sty.”

“I shan’t! I shall run away to find my papa and together we shall go to Africa to hunt lions… and wolves!” Jack’s little chin was thrust out in absolute insubordination; somehow he knew that the mention of hunting wolves would touch a nerve in his uncle David, and yet, he did not realise to what extent it would enrage him.

David leapt across the room, yanked the boy from his mother’s grasp and began to slap his behind. The boy’s squeals were renewed with vigour and as Amelia stepped forward to try to stop him, David shrugged her off.

She was caught off-balance and stumbled on some of the debris that littered the floor, namely the mattress and bedclothes. She sprawled on the floor on her back and Jack became hysterical. David became sorry at once and set him down once more and he ran to his mother. David went across to her too, but she glared at him, holding Jack tight as he sobbed in her arms.

“Go home, David.” Amelia whispered. “Just go home.”

That night, Jack slept in his mother’s bed. She stayed awake wondering what the morning would bring.

As Dawn broke, Amelia found that she had managed to get some sleep after all. She had been convinced that she would never be able to.

Jack was not at her side and so she got out of bed, pulled her robe over her nightgown and went down to the kitchen where she assumed Jack would be having breakfast and hopefully apologising to Mrs. Flint.

The kitchen was deserted and the fire had not yet been made. Puzzled, Amelia went back up the stairs to Jack’s bedroom. Perhaps he and Mrs. Flint would be friends again and restoring the room?

To her surprise, she found David there. He had cleared the bedding from the floor and put the bed to rights. The dressing table was moved back into its usual position from where Jack had managed to shove it and the drawers were replaced in their correct order.

The only thing out of place in the whole room was the large trunk which had always been stored in the built-in wardrobe at the far end of the room. It was now in the middle of the floor, the lid open.

“David? What on earth are you doing? I would have taken care of the mess before Florence arrived.”

He stood up and his expression frightened her. “There is no need now. I have done it,” his speech was clipped, almost curt. “Jack’s behaviour worried me greatly last night. I got carried away and I apologise for that. That is why I returned to clear the room. Unfortunately, Jack is now getting out of hand. You cannot control him. I have made arrangements.”

“What kind of arrangements? Where is Jack?”

“I sent Mrs. Flint away. She has been dismissed, but with a full year’s pay and she said that she would take the opportunity to go and visit her sister in Devon. Florence has had a similar message, but with three months’ pay, for she is young enough to gain other employment. I gave her a glowing reference. Jack is on his way to London. Fortunately, he is used to your maiden name and I have enrolled him in one of the better schools. From there, he will go to college and University to learn to be a doctor or surgeon or lawyer. When he is old enough, he will have the chance to choose for himself. Now, you have the choice, would you be Wolf or not Wolf?”

“What are you saying? What do you mean?”

“You know what I am saying to you, Amelia. Do you want to join me as a Wolf now - or never?”

“In that case, if they are the only choices I have, then my answer is never, David.”

“Very well, I shall say goodbye then Amelia.” David turned to go.

“But what of Jack, am I to never see him again?”

“Do you take me for a monster, Amelia? Of course you shall see him; on every holiday at the end of each term. But he will go back to his schooling. It is I that shall never see him again. I shall never see you again either, my love,” and his expression softened, if his voice did not.

“You are now the widow that you have been playing for these last eight years. The house is yours. You are free to re employ Florence, but as I told you, Mrs. Flint left. You shall need to find another cook.”

“You have killed Mrs. Flint, haven’t you?”

David did not answer his wife, but the wildness about him gave her the answer that he would not speak.

“And how shall I live?”

“Do not worry, sister dear. I shall of course, provide you with adequate funds annually. Your son shall never go without. Now, goodbye and do not try to find me.”

He turned and picked up the trunk filled with Jack’s clothes. “I have only one instruction, Amelia.” He paused to look at her.

“No word of my true nature shall ever escape your lips. This is not a request.”

Amelia took the full meaning of his words straight to her breaking heart.

She wanted to stop him from leaving, she had so many questions for him but it was past the time that she could ask him of his family or his heritage – it had gotten far too late, far too fast.

Amelia sold the house and bought one in London. This served more than one purpose. She was closer to Jack and he could return home on his holidays.

The new house was not associated with bad memories for either of them. And now, David did not know where she lived - not that he would have a great deal of difficulty finding her if he wished to, the reassurance was purely psychological, but reassurance for all that.