The Bars of Iron, Ethel May Dell [my reading book .TXT] 📗

a lengthy silence Sir Beverley turned his stone-grey eyes upon his grandson and spoke.
"Well? What have you to say for yourself?"
Piers came out of a reverie and looked up with a faint rueful smile. "Nothing, sir," he said.
"Nothing? What do you mean by that?" Sir Beverley's voice was sharp. "You go away like a raving lunatic, and stay away all night, and then come back with nothing to say. What have you been up to? Tell me that!"
Piers leaned slowly forward, took up the poker and gently pushed it into the fire. "She won't have me," he said, with his eyes upon the leaping flames.
"What?" exclaimed Sir Beverley. "You've been after that hussy again?"
Piers' brows drew together in a thick, ominous line; but he merely nodded and said, "Yes."
"The devil you have!" ejaculated Sir Beverley. "And she refused you?"
"She did." Again very softly Piers poked at the blazing logs, his eyes fixed and intent. "It served me right--in a way," he said, speaking meditatively, almost as if to himself. "I was a hound--to ask her. But--somehow--I was driven. However," he drove the poker in a little further, "it's all the same now as she's refused me. That's why," he turned his eyes suddenly upon Sir Beverley, "there's nothing to be said."
There was no defiance in his look, but it held something of a baffling quality. It was almost as if in some fashion he were conscious of relief.
Sir Beverley stared at him, angry and incredulous. "Refused you! What the devil for? Wanted my consent, I suppose? Thought I held the purse-strings, eh?"
"Oh no," said Piers, again faintly smiling, "she didn't care a damn about that. She knows I am not dependent upon you. But--she has no use for me, that's all."
"No use for you!" Sir Beverley's voice rose. "What the--what the devil does she want then, I should like to know?"
"She doesn't want anyone," said Piers. "At least she thinks she doesn't. You see, she's been married before."
There was a species of irony in his voice that yet was without bitterness. He turned back to his aimless stirring of the fire, and there fell a silence between them.
But Sir Beverley's eyes were fixed upon his grandson's face in a close, unsparing scrutiny. "So you thought you might as well come back," he said at last.
"She made me," said Piers, without looking round.
"Made you!"
Again Piers nodded. "I was to tell you from her that she quite understands your attitude; but that you needn't be anxious, as she has no intention of marrying again."
"Confound her impudence!" ejaculated Sir Beverley.
"Oh no!" Piers' voice sounded too tired to be indignant. "I don't think you can accuse her of that. There has never been any flirtation between us. It wasn't her fault. I--made a fool of myself. It just happened in the ordinary course of things."
He ceased to speak, laid down the poker without sound, and sat with clasped hands, staring blindly before him.
Again there fell a silence. The clock in the corner ticked on with melancholy regularity, the logs hissed and spluttered viciously; but the two men sat in utter stillness, both bowed as if beneath a pressing burden.
One of them moved at last, stretched out a bony, trembling hand, laid it on the other's shoulder.
"Piers boy," Sir Beverley said, with slow articulation, "believe me, there's not a woman on this earth worth grizzling about. They're liars and impostors, every one."
Piers started a little, then with a very boyish movement, he laid his cheek against the old bent fingers. "My dear sir," he said, "but you're a woman-hater!"
"I know," said Sir Beverley, still in that heavy, fateful fashion. "And I have reason. I tell you, boy,--and I know,--you would be better off in your coffin than linked to a woman you seriously cared for. It's hell on earth--hell on earth!"
"Or paradise," muttered Piers.
"A fool's paradise, boy; a paradise that turns to dust and ashes." Sir Beverley's voice quivered suddenly. He withdrew his hand to fumble in an inner pocket. In a moment he stretched it forth again with a key lying on the palm.
"Take that!" he said. "Open that bureau thing behind you! Look in the left-hand drawer! There's something there for you to see."
Piers obeyed him. There was that in Sir Beverley's manner that silenced all questioning. He pulled out the drawer and looked in. It contained one thing only--a revolver.
Sir Beverley went on speaking, calmly, dispassionately, wholly impersonally. "It's loaded--has been loaded for fifty years. But I never used it. And that not because my own particular hell wasn't hot enough, but just because I wouldn't have it said that I'd ever loved any she-devil enough to let her be my ruin. There were times enough when I nearly did it. I've sat all night with the thing in my hand. But I hung on for that reason, till at last the fire burnt out, and I didn't care. Every woman is the same to me now. I know now--and you've got to know it too--that woman is only fit to be the servant, not the mistress, of man,--and a damn treacherous servant at that. She was made for man's use, and if he is fool enough to let her get the upper hand, then Heaven help him, for he certainly won't be in a position to help himself!"
He stopped abruptly, and in the silence Piers shut and relocked the drawer. He dropped the key into his own pocket, and came back to the fire.
Sir Beverley looked up at him with something of an effort. "Boy," he said, "you've got to marry some day, I know. You've got to have children. But--you're young, you know. There's plenty of time before you. You might wait a bit--just a bit--till I'm out of the way. I won't keep you long; and I won't beat you often either--if you'll condescend to stay with me."
He smiled with the words, his own grim ironical smile; but the pathos of it cut straight to Piers' heart. He went down on his knees beside the old man and thrust his arm about the shrunken shoulders.
"I'll never leave you again, sir," he vowed earnestly. "I've been a heartless brute, and I'm most infernally sorry. As to marrying, well--there's no more question of that for me. I couldn't marry Ina Rose. You understand that?"
"Never liked the chit," growled Sir Beverley. "Only thought she'd answer your purpose better than some. For you've got to get an heir, boy; remember that! You're the only Evesham left."
"Oh, damn!" said Piers very wearily. "What does it matter?"
Sir Beverley looked at him from under his thick brows piercingly but without condemnation. "It's up to you, Piers," he said.
"Is it?" said Piers, with a groan. "Well, let's leave it at that for the present! Sure you've forgiven me?"
Sir Beverley's grim face relaxed again. He put his arm round Piers and held him hard for a moment.
Then: "Oh, drat it, Piers!" he said testily. "Get away, do! And behave yourself for the future!"
Whereat Piers laughed, a short, unsteady laugh, and went back to his chair.


CHAPTER XXXII
THE DECISION

"The matter is settled," said the Reverend Stephen Lorimer, in the tones of icy decision with which his wife was but too tragically familiar. "I engaged Mrs. Denys to be a help to you, not exclusively to Jeanie. The child is quite well enough to return home, and I do not feel myself justified in incurring any further expense now that her health is quite sufficiently restored."
"But the children were all counting on going to Stanbury Cliffs for the Easter holidays," protested Mrs. Lorimer almost tearfully. "We cannot disappoint them, Stephen!" Mr. Lorimer's lips closed very firmly for a few seconds. Then, "The change home will be quite sufficient for them," he said. "I have given the matter my full consideration, my dear Adelaide, and no argument of yours will now move me. Mrs. Denys and Jeanie have been away for a month, and they must now return. It is your turn for a change, and as soon as Eastertide is over I intend to take you away with me for ten days or so and leave Mrs. Denys in charge of--the bear-garden, as I fear it but too truly resembles. You are quite unfit for the noise and racket of the holidays. And I myself have been feeling lately the need of a little--shall I call it recreation?" Mr. Lorimer smiled self-indulgently over the term. He liked to play with words. "I presume you have no vital objection to accompanying me?"
"Oh, of course not. I should like it above all things," Mrs. Lorimer hastened to assure him, "if it were not for Jeanie. I don't like the thought of bringing her home just when her visit is beginning to do her so much good."
"She cannot remain away for ever," said Mr. Lorimer. "Moreover, her delicacy must have been considerably exaggerated, or such a sudden improvement could scarcely have taken place. At all events, so it appears to me. She must therefore return home and spend the holidays in wholesome amusements with the other children; and when they are over, I really must turn my serious attention to her education which has been so sadly neglected since Christmas. Mrs. Denys is doubtless a very excellent woman in her way, but she is not, I fear, one to whom I could safely entrust the intellectual development of a child of Jeanie's age." He paused, looking up with complacent enquiry at his wife's troubled face. "And now what scruples are stirring in the mind of my spouse?" he asked, with playful affection.
Mrs. Lorimer did not smile in answer. Her worried little face only drew into more anxious lines. "Stephen," she said, "I do wish you would consult Dr. Tudor before you quite decide to have Jeanie home at present."
The Vicar's mouth turned down, and he looked for a moment so extremely unpleasant that Mrs. Lorimer quailed. Then, "My dear," he said deliberately, "when I decide upon a specific course of action, I carry it through invariably. If I were not convinced that what I am about to do were right, I should not do it. Pray let me hear no more upon the subject! And remember, Adelaide, it is my express command that you do not approach Dr. Tudor in this matter. He is a most interfering person, and would welcome any excuse to obtain a footing in this house again. But now that I have at length succeeded in shaking him off, I intend to keep him at a distance for the future. And he is not to be called in--understand this very clearly, if you please--except in a case of extreme urgency. This is a distinct order, Adelaide, and I shall be severely displeased if you fail to observe it. And now," he resumed his lighter manner again as he rose from his chair, "I must hie me to the parish room where my good Miss Whalley is awaiting me."
He stretched forth a firm, kind hand and patted his wife's shoulder.
"We must see what we can do to bring a little colour into those pale cheeks," he said. "A fortnight in the Cornish Riviera perhaps. Or we might take a peep at Shakespeare's country. But we shall see, we shall see! I will write to Mrs. Denys and acquaint her with my decision this evening."
He was gone, leaving Mrs. Lorimer to pace up and down his study in futile distress of mind. Only that morning a letter from Avery had reached her, telling her of Jeanie's continued progress, and urging her to come and take her place for a little while. It was such a change