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

as her tired soul craved, but she had not dared to tell her husband so. And now, it seemed, Jeanie's good time also was to be terminated.
There was no doubt about it. Rodding did not suit the child. She was never well at home. The Vicarage was shut in by trees, a damp, unhealthy place. And Dr. Tudor had told her in plain terms that Jeanie lacked the strength to make any headway there. She was like a wilting plant in that atmosphere. She could not thrive in it. Dry warmth was what she needed, and it had made all the difference to her. Avery's letter had been full of hope. She referred to Dr. Tudor's simile of the building of a sea-wall. "We are strengthening it every day," she wrote. "In a few more weeks it ought to be proof against any ordinary tide."
A few more weeks! Mrs. Lorimer wrung her hands. Stephen did not know, did not realize; and she was powerless to convince him. Avery would not convince him either. He tolerated only Avery because she was so useful.
She knew exactly the sort of letter he would write, desiring their return; and Avery, for all her quiet strength, would have to submit. Oh, it was cruel--cruel!
The tears were coursing down her cheeks when the door opened unexpectedly and Olive entered. She paused at sight of her mother, looking at her with just the Vicar's air of chill enquiry.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
Mrs. Lorimer turned hastily to the window and began to dry her eyes.
Olive went to a bookshelf and stood before it. After a moment she took out a book and deliberately turned we leaves. Her attitude was plainly repressive.
Finally she returned the book to the shelf and turned. "Why are you crying, Mother?"
Mrs. Lorimer leaned her head against the window-frame with a heavy sigh. "I am very miserable, Olive," she said, a catch in her voice.
"No one need be that," observed Olive. "Father says that misery is a sign of mental weakness."
Mrs. Lorimer was silent.
"Don't you think you had better leave off crying and find something to do?" suggested her daughter in her cool, young voice.
Still Mrs. Lorimer neither moved nor spoke.
Olive came a step nearer. There was obvious distaste on her face. "I wish you would try to be a little brighter--for Father's sake," she said. "I don't think you treat him very kindly."
It was evident that she spoke from a sense of duty. Mrs. Lorimer straightened herself with another weary sigh.
"Run along, my dear!" she said. "I am sure you are busy."
Olive turned, half-vexed and half-relieved, and walked to the door. Her mother watched her wistfully. It was in her mind to call her back, fold her in her arms, and appeal for sympathy. But the severity of the child's pose was too suggestive of the Vicar's unbending attitude towards feminine weakness, and she restrained the impulse, knowing that she would appeal in vain. There was infinitely more comfort to be found in the society of Baby Phil, and, smiling wanly at the thought, she went up to the nursery in search of it.


CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LAST DEBT

There was no combating the Vicar's decision. Avery realized that fact from the outset even before Mrs. Lorimer's agitated note upon the subject reached her. The fiat had gone forth, and submission was the only course.
Jeanie received the news without a murmur. "I don't mind really," she said. "It's very nice here, but then it's nice at home too when you are there. And then there is Piers too."
Yes, there was Piers,--another consideration that filled Avery with uneasiness. No word from Piers had reached her since that early morning on the shore, but his silence did not reassure her. She had half expected a boyish letter of apology, some friendly reassurance, some word at least of his return to Rodding Abbey. But she had heard nothing. She did not so much as know if he had returned or not.
Neither had she heard from her friend Edmund Crowther. With a sense of keen disappointment she wrote to his home in the North to tell him of the change in her plans. She could not ask him to the Vicarage, and it seemed that she might not meet him after all.
She also sent a hurried note to Lennox Tudor, but they had only three days in which to terminate their visit, and she received no reply. Later, she heard that Tudor had been away for those days and did not open the note until the actual day of their return.
The other children were expected home from school during the week before Easter, and Mr. Lorimer desired that Avery should be at the Vicarage to prepare for them. So, early in the week, they returned.
It seemed that Spring had come at last. The hedges were all bursting into tenderest green, and all the world looked young.
"The primroses will be out in the Park woods," said Jeanie. "We will go and gather heaps and heaps."
"Are you allowed to go wherever you like there?" asked Avery, thinking of the game.
"Oh no," said Jeanie thoughtfully. "But we always do. Mr. Marshall chases us sometimes, but we always get away."
She smiled at the thought, and Avery frankly rejoiced to see her enthusiasm for the wicked game of trespassing in the Squire's preserves. She did not know that the amusement had been strictly prohibited by the Vicar, and it did not occur to Jeanie to tell her. None of the children had ever paid any attention to the prohibition. There were some rules that no one could keep.
The return of the rest of the family kept the days that succeeded their return extremely lively. Jeanie was in higher spirits than Avery had ever seen her. She seemed more childish, more eager for fun, as though some of the zest of life had got into her veins at last. Her mother ascribed the change to Avery's influence, and was pathetic in her gratitude, though Avery disclaimed all credit declaring that the sea-air had wrought the wonder.
When Lennox Tudor saw her, he looked at Avery with an odd smile behind his glasses. "You've built the wall," he said.
They had met by the churchyard gate, and Jeanie and Pat were having a hopping race down the hill. Avery looked after them with a touch of wistfulness. "But I wish she could have been away longer."
Tudor frowned. "Yes. Why on earth not? The Reverend Stephen again, I suppose. I wish I had had your letter sooner, though as a matter of fact I'm not in favour just now, and my interference would probably weigh in the wrong balance. Keep the child out as much as possible! It's the only way. She has made good progress. There is no reason at present why she should go back again."
No, there was no reason; yet Avery's heart misgave her. She wished she might have had longer for the building of that wall. Good Friday was more or less a day of penance in the Vicar's family. It began with lengthy prayers in the dining-room, so lengthy that Avery feared that Mrs. Lorimer would faint ere they came to an end. Then after a rigorously silent breakfast the children were assembled in the study to be questioned upon the Church Catechism--a species of discipline peculiarly abhorrent to them all by reason of the Vicar's sarcastic comments upon their ignorance.
At the end of this dreary exercise they were dismissed to prepare for church where there followed a service which Avery regarded as downright revolting. It consisted mainly of prayers--as many prayers as the Vicar could get in, rendered in an emotionless monotone with small regard for sense and none whatever for feeling. The whole thing was drab and unattractive to the utmost limit, and Avery rose at length from her knees with a feeling of having been deliberately cheated of a thing she valued. She left the church in an unwonted spirit of exasperation, which lasted throughout the midday meal, which was as oppressively silent as breakfast had been.
The open relief with which the children trooped away to the schoolroom found a warm echo in her heart. She even almost smiled in sympathy when Julian breathed a deep thanksgiving that that show was over for one more year.
Neither Piers nor his grandfather had been in the church, and their absence did not surprise her. She did not feel that she herself could ever face such a service again. The memory of Piers at the organ came to her as she dressed to accompany the children upon their primrosing expedition, and a sudden passionate longing followed it to hear that music again. She was feeling starved in her soul that day.
But when they reached the green solitudes of the park woodlands the bitterness began to pass away. It was all so beautiful; the mossy riding up which they turned was so springy underfoot, and the singing of a thousand birds made endless music whichever way they wandered.
"It's better than church, isn't it?" said Jeanie softly, pressing close to her. And Avery smiled in answer. It was balm to the spirit.
The Squire's preserves were enclosed in wire netting, and over this they climbed into their primrose paradise. Several partridges rose from the children's feet, and whirred noisily away, to the huge delight of the boys but to Avery's considerable dismay. However, Marshall was evidently not within earshot, and they settled down to the serious business of filling their baskets for the church decorations without interference.
The primroses grew thickly in a wonderful carpet that spread in all directions, sloping down to a glade where gurgled a brown stream. Down this glade Avery directed her party, keeping a somewhat anxious eye upon Gracie and the three boys who were in the wildest spirits after the severe strain of the morning. She and Jeanie picked rapidly and methodically. Olive had decided not to accompany the expedition. She did not care for primrosing, she told Avery, and her father had promised to read the Testament in Greek with her later in the afternoon, an intellectual exercise which she plainly regarded as extremely meritorious.
Her absence troubled no one; in fact Julian, having over-heard her excuse, remarked rudely that if she was going to put on side, they were better off without her; and Avery secretly agreed with him.
So in cheery accord they went their careless way through the preserves, scaring the birds and filling their baskets with great industry. They had reached the end of the glade and were contemplating fording the brook when like a bolt from the blue discovery came upon them. A sound, like the blare of an angry bull, assailed them--a furious inarticulate sound that speedily resolved into words.
"What the devil are you mischievous brats doing there?"
The whole party jumped violently at the suddenness of the attack. Avery's heart gave a most unpleasant jerk. She knew that voice.
Swiftly she turned in the direction whence it came, and saw again the huge white horse of the trampling hoofs that had once before been urged against her.
He was stamping and fretting on the other side of the stream, the banks of which were so steep as almost to form a chasm, and from his back the terrible old Squire hurled the vials of his wrath.
Ronald drew near to Avery, while Jeanie slipped a nervous hand into hers. Julian, however, turned a defiant face. "It's all right. He can't get at us," he said audibly.
At which remark Gracie laughed a little hysterically, and Pat made a grimace.
Perhaps it was this last that chiefly infuriated the Squire, for he literally bellowed with rage, snatched his animal back