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

torch of youth. There was no romance left in her life, but yet was she without bitterness. She had known suffering and faced it unblanching. The only mark it had left upon her was that air of womanly knowledge that clothed her like a garment even in her lightest moods. Of a quick understanding and yet quicker sympathy, she had learned to hold her emotions in check, and the natural gaiety of her hid much that was too sacred to be carelessly displayed. She had a ready sense of humour that had buoyed her up through many a storm, and the brave heart behind it never flinched from disaster. As her father had said of her in the long-ago days of happiness and prosperity, she took her hedges straight.
For several minutes after Jeanie's weary little confidence, she worked in silence; then suddenly, with needle poised, she looked across at the child.
Jeanie's head was bent over her exercise-book. Her hair lay in a heavy mass all about her shoulders. There was a worried frown between her brows. Slowly her hand travelled across the page, paused, wrote a word or two, paused again.
Suddenly from the room above them there came the shrill shriek of a violin. It wailed itself into silence, and then broke forth again in a series of long drawn-out whines. Jeanie sighed.
Avery laid down her work with quiet decision, and went to her side. "What is worrying you, dear?" she asked gently. "I'm not a great French scholar, but I think I may be able to help."
"Thank you," said Jeanie, in her voice of tired courtesy. "You mustn't help me. No one must."
"I can find the words you don't know in the dictionary," said Avery.
"No, thank you," said Jeanie. "Father doesn't like us to have help of any kind."
There were deep shadows about the eyes she raised to Avery's face, but they smiled quite bravely, with all unconscious wistfulness.
Avery laid a tender hand upon the brown head and drew it to rest against her. "Poor little thing!" she said compassionately.
"But I'm not little really, you know," said Jeanie, closing her eyes for a few stolen moments. "I'm thirteen in March. And they're all younger than me except Ronnie and Julian."
Avery bent with a swift, maternal movement and kissed the blue-veined forehead. Jeanie opened her eyes in slight surprise. Quite plainly she was not accustomed to sudden caresses.
"I'm glad we've got you, Mrs. Denys," she said, with her quiet air of childish dignity. "You are a great help to us."
She turned back to her French exercise with the words, and Avery, after a moment's thought, turned to the door. She heard again the child's sigh of weariness as she closed it behind her.
The wails of the violin were very audible in the passage outside. She shivered at the atrocious sounds. From a further distance there came the screams of an indignant baby and the strident shouts of two small boys who were racing to and fro in an uncarpeted room at the top of the house. But after that one shiver Avery Denys had no further attention to bestow upon any of these things. She went with her quick, light tread down to the square hall which gave a suggestion of comfort to the Vicarage which not one of its rooms endorsed.
Without an instant's hesitation she knocked upon the first door she came to. A voice within gave her permission to enter, and she did so.
The Reverend Stephen Lorimer turned from his writing-table with a face of dignified severity to receive her, but at sight of her his expression changed somewhat.
"Ah, Mrs. Denys! You, is it? Pray come in!" he said urbanely. "Is there any way in which I can be of service to you?"
His eyes were dark and very small, so small that they nearly disappeared when he smiled. But for this slight defect, Mr. Lorimer would have been a handsome man. He rose as Avery approached and placed a chair for her with elaborate courtesy.
"Thank you," she said. "I only ran in for a moment--just to tell you that little Jeanie is so tired to-night. She has had no time for her lessons all the afternoon because she has been helping with the little ones in the nursery. She insists upon doing her French exercise, but I am sure you would not wish her to do it if you knew how worn out the child is. May I tell her to leave it for to-night?"
She spoke quickly and very earnestly, with clear eyes raised to Mr. Lorimer's face. She watched his smile fade and his eyes reappear as she made her appeal.
He did not reply to it for some seconds, and a sharp doubt went through her. She raised her brows in mute interrogation.
"Yes, my dear Mrs. Denys," he said, in response to her unspoken query, "I see that you appreciate the fact that there are at least two points of view to every proposition. You tell me that Jeanie was occupied in the nursery during that period of the day which should legitimately have been set aside for the assimilation of learning. I presume her presence there was voluntary?"
"Oh, quite." There was a hint of sharpness in Avery's rejoinder. "She went out of the goodness of her heart because Nurse had been up practically all night with Baby and needed a rest and I was obliged to go into Wardenhurst for Mrs. Lorimer. So Jeanie took charge of Bertie and David, and Gracie and Pat went with me."
Mr. Lorimer waved a protesting hand. "Pray spare yourself and me all these details, Mrs. Denys! I am glad to know that Jeanne has been useful to you, but at the same time she has no right to offer duty upon the altar of kindness. You will acknowledge that to obey is better than sacrifice. As a matter of principle, I fear I cannot remit any of her task, and I trust that on the next occasion she will remember to set duty first."
A hot flush had risen in Avery's face and her eyes sparkled, but she restrained herself. There was no indignation in her voice as she said: "Mr. Lorimer, believe me, that child will never shirk her duty. She is far too conscientious. It is really for the sake of her health that I came to beg you to let her off that French exercise. I am sure she is not strong. Perhaps I did wrong to let her be in the nursery this afternoon, though I scarcely know how else we could have managed. But that is my fault, not hers. I take full responsibility for that."
Mr. Lorimer began to smile again. "That is very generous of you," he said. "But, as a matter of justice, I doubt if the whole burden of it should fall to your share. You presumably were unaware that Jeanne's afternoon should have been devoted to her studies. She cannot plead a like ignorance. Therefore, while dismissing the petition, I hold you absolved from any blame in the matter. Pray do not distress yourself any further!"
"I certainly thought it was a half-holiday," Avery admitted. "But I am distressed--very greatly distressed--on the child's account. She is not fit for work to-night."
Mr. Lorimer made an airy gesture expressive of semi-humorous regret. "Discipline, my dear Mrs. Denys, must be maintained at all costs--even among the members of your charming sex. As a matter of fact, I am waiting to administer punishment to one of my sons at the present moment for an act of disobedience."
He glanced towards the writing-table on which lay a cane, and again the quick blood mounted in Avery's face.
"Oh, don't you think you are a little hard on your children?" she said; and then impulsively, "No; forgive me! I ought not to put it like that. But do you find it answers to be so strict? Does it make them any more obedient?"
He raised his shoulders slightly; his eyes gleamed momentarily ere they vanished into his smile. He shook his head at her with tolerant irony. "I fear your heart runs away with you, Mrs. Denys, and I must not suffer myself to listen to you. I have my duty--my very distinct duty--to perform, and I must not shirk it. As to the results, they are in other Hands than mine."
There came a low knock at the door as he finished speaking, and he turned at once to answer it.
"Come in!"
The door opened, and a very small, very nervous boy crept round it. A quick exclamation rose to Avery's lips before she could suppress it. Mr. Lorimer looked at her interrogatively.
"I was only surprised to see Pat," she explained. "He has been with me all the afternoon. I hardly thought he could have had time to get into trouble."
"Come here, Patrick!" said Mr. Lorimer.
Patrick advanced. He looked neither at Avery nor his father, but kept his eyes rigidly downcast. His freckled face had a half-frightened, half-sullen expression. He halted before Mr. Lorimer who took him by the shoulder, and turned him round towards Avery.
"Tell Mrs. Denys what you did!" he said.
Pat shot a single glance upwards, and made laconic reply. "I undid Mike."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Avery in great distress. "I'm afraid that was my fault."
"Yours, Mrs. Denys?" Mr. Lorimer's eyes became visible as two brilliant pin-points turned searchingly upon her face.
"Yes, mine!" she reiterated. "Mike was whining on his chain, and I said I thought it was cruel to keep a dog tied up. I suppose I ought to have kept my thoughts to myself," she said with a pathetic little smile. "Do please forgive us both this time!"
Mr. Lorimer ignored the appeal. "And do you know what happened in consequence of his being liberated?" he asked.
"Yes, I do." Ruefully she made answer. "He fought Mr. Evesham's dog and I helped to pull him off."
"You, Mrs. Denys!"
"Yes, I." She nodded. "There wasn't much damage done, anyhow to Mike. I am very, very sorry, Mr. Lorimer. But really Pat is not to blame for this. Won't you--please--"
She stopped, for very decidedly Mr. Lorimer interrupted her. "I am afraid I cannot agree with you, Mrs. Denys. You may have spoken unadvisedly, but Patrick was aware that in releasing the dog he was acting in direct opposition to my orders. Therefore he must bear his own punishment. I must beg that for the future you will endeavour to be a little more discreet in your observations. Patrick, open the door for Mrs. Denys!"
It was a definite dismissal--perhaps the most definite that Avery had ever had in her life. A fury of resentment possessed her, but feeling her self-control to be tottering, she dared not give it vent. She turned in quivering silence and departed.
As she went out of the room, she perceived that Pat had begun to cry.


CHAPTER IV
THE MOTHER'S HELP

"It's always the same," moaned Mrs. Lorimer. "My poor children! They're never out of trouble." Avery stood still. She had fled to the drawing-room to recover herself, only to find the lady of the house lying in tears upon the sofa there. Mrs. Lorimer was very small and pathetic. She had lost all her health long before in the bearing and nurturing of her children. Once upon a time she must have possessed the delicate prettiness that characterized her eldest daughter Jeanie, but it had faded long since. She was worn out now, a tired, drab little woman, with no strength left to stand against adversity. The only consolation in her life was her love for her husband. Him she worshipped, not wholly blindly, but with a devotion that never faltered. A kind word from him was capable of