The Bars of Iron Part 19

Sir Beverley growled at him inarticulately and turned away.

A moment later he was beating a rousing tattoo on the bathroom-door.

"Piers! Let me in! Do you hear? Let me in!"

The vigorous splashing within came to a sudden stop. "That you, sir?"

called Piers.

"Of course it's me!" shouted back Sir Beverley, shaking the door with fierce impatience. "d.a.m.n it, let me in! I'll force the door if you don't."

"No, don't, sir; don't! I'm coming!"

There came the sound of a splashing leap, and bare feet raced across the bathroom floor. The door was wrenched from Sir Beverley's grasp, and flung open. Piers, quite naked, stood back and bowed him in with elaborate ceremony.

Sir Beverley entered and glared at him.

Piers shut the door and took a flying jump back into the bath. The room was dense with steam.

"You don't mind if I go on with my wash, do you?" he said. "I shall be late for dinner if I don't."

"What in thunder do you want to boil yourself like this for?" demanded Sir Beverley.

Piers, seated with his hands clasped round his knees, looked up with the smile of an infant. "It suits my const.i.tution, sir," he said. "I freeze myself in the morning and boil myself at night--always. By that means I am rendered impervious to all atmospheric changes of temperature."

"You're a fool, Piers," said Sir Beverley.

Piers laughed, a gay, indifferent laugh. "That all?" he said lightly.

"No, it isn't all." Sir Beverley's voice had a curious forced ring, almost as if he were stern in spite of himself. "I came to ask--and I mean to know--" He broke off. "What the devil have you done to your shoulders?"

Piers' hands unlocked as if at the touch of a spring. He slipped down backwards into the bath and lay with the water lapping round his black head. His eyes, black also, and very straight and resolute, looked up at Sir Beverley.

"Look here, sir; if there's anything you want to know I'll tell you after dinner. I thought--possibly--you'd come to shake hands, or I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to let you in. As it is,--"

"Confound you, Piers!" broke in Sir Beverley. "Don't preach to me! Sit up again! Do you hear? Sit up, and let me look at you!"

But Piers made no movement to comply. "No, sir; thanks all the same. I don't want to be looked at. Do you mind going now? I'm going to splash."

His tone was deliberately jaunty, but it held undoubted determination.

He kept his eyes unswervingly on his grandfather's face.

Sir Beverley stood his ground, however, his black brows fiercely drawn.

"Get up, Piers!" he ordered, his tone no longer bl.u.s.tering, but curtly peremptory. "Get up, do you hear?" he added with a gleam of humour. "You may as well give in at once, you young mule. You'll have to in the end."

"Shall I?" said Piers.

And then suddenly his own sense of humour was kindled again, and he uttered his boyish laugh.

"We won't quarrel about it, what?" he said, and stretched a wet hand upwards. "Let's consider the incident closed! There's nothing whatever to be fashed about."

Sir Beverley's thin lips twitched a little. He pulled at the hand, and slowly Piers yielded. The water dripped from his shoulders. They gleamed in the strong light like a piece of faultless statuary, G.o.dlike, superbly strong. But it was upon no splendour of form that Sir Beverley's attention was focussed.

He spoke after a moment, an odd note of contrition in his voice. "I didn't mean to mark you like that, boy. It was your own doing of course.

You shouldn't have interfered with me. Still--"

"Oh, rats!" said Piers, beginning to splash. "What's a whacking more or less when you're used to 'em?"

His dark eyes laughed their impudent dismissal to the old man. It was very evident that he desired to put an end to the matter, and after a moment Sir Beverley grunted and withdrew.

He had not asked what he wanted to know; somehow it had not been possible. He had desired to put his question in a whirl of righteous indignation, but in some fashion Piers had disarmed him and it had remained unuttered.

The very sight of the straight, young figure had quenched the fire of his wrath. Confound the boy! Did he think he could insult him as he had insulted him only that afternoon and then twist him round his little finger? He would have it out with him presently. He would have the truth and no compromise, if he had to wring it out of him. He would--Again the vision of those strong young shoulders, with red stripes crossing their gleaming white surface, rose before Sir Beverley. He swore a strangled oath. No, he hadn't meant to punish the boy to that extent, his infernal impudence notwithstanding. It wasn't the first time he had thrashed him, and, egad, it mightn't be the last. But he hadn't meant to administer quite such a punishment as that. It was decent of the young rascal not to sulk after it, though he wasn't altogether sure that he approved of the light fashion with which Piers had elected to treat the whole episode. It looked as if he had not wholly taken to heart the lesson Sir Beverley had intended to convey, and if that were the case--again Sir Beverley swore deep in his soul--he was fully equal to repeating it, ay, and again repeating it, until the youngster came to heel. He never had endured any nonsense from Piers, and, by Gad, he never would!

With these reflections he stumped downstairs, and seated himself on the black, oaken settle in the hall to await the boy's advent.

The fire blazed cheerily, flinging ruddy gleams upon the shining suits of armour, roaring up the chimney in a sheet of flame. Sir Beverley sat facing the stairs, the grim lines hardened to implacability about his mouth, his eyes fixed in a stare that had in it something brutal. He was seeing again that slim, straight figure of womanhood standing in his path, with arms outstretched, and white, determined face upraised, barring the way.

"Curse her!" he growled. "Curse 'em all!"

The vision grew before his gaze of hate; and now she was no longer standing between him and a mere, defenceless animal. But there, on his own stairs, erect and fearless, she withstood him, while behind her, descending with a laugh on his lips and worship in his eyes, came Piers.

The stone-grey eyes became suffused; for a few, whirling moments of bewilderment and fury, they saw all things red. Then, gradually, the mist cleared, and the old man dropped back in a lounging posture with an ugly sound in his throat that was like a snarl. Doubtless that was her game; doubtless--doubtless! He had always known that a day would come when something of the kind would happen. Piers was young, wealthy, handsome,--a catch for any woman; but--fiercely he swore it--he should fall a prey to no schemer. When he married--as marry eventually he must--he should make an alliance of which any man might be proud. The Evesham blood should mix with none but the highest. In Piers he would see the father's false step counteracted. He thanked Heaven that he had never been able to detect in the boy any trace of the piece of cheap prettiness that had given him birth. He might have been his own son, son of the woman who had been the rapture and the ruin of his life. There were times when Sir Beverley almost wished he had been, albeit in the bitterness of his soul he had never had any love for the child she had borne him.

He had never wanted to love Piers either, but somehow the matter had not rested with him. From the arms of Victor, Piers had always yearned to his grandfather, wailing l.u.s.tily till he found himself held to the hard old heart that had nought but harshness and intolerance for all the world beside. He had as it were taken that unwilling heart by storm, claiming it as his right before he was out of his cradle. And later the attachment between them had grown and thriven, for Piers had never relinquished the ground he had won in babyhood. By sheer arrogance of possession he had held his own till the impetuous ardour of his affection and the utter fearlessness on which it was founded had made of him the cherished idol of the heart which had tried to shut him out. Sir Beverley gloried in the boy though he still flattered himself that no one suspected the fact, and still believed that his rule was a rule of stern discipline under which Piers might chafe but against which he would never openly revolt.

He could not remember a single occasion upon which he had not been able to master Piers, possibly after a fierce struggle but always with absolute completeness in the end. And there was so much of sweetness in the youngster's nature that, unruly though he might be, he never nurtured a grievance. He would fight for his own way to the last of his strength, but when beaten he always yielded with a good grace. To his grandfather alone he could submit without any visible wound to his pride. Who could help glorying in a boy like that?

David the butler, a man of infinite respectability, came softly into the hall and approached his master.

"Are you ready for dinner, Sir Beverley?"

"No," snapped Sir Beverley. "Can't you see Master Piers isn't here?"

"Very good, sir," murmured David, and retired decorously, fading into the background without the faintest sound, while Caesar the Dalmatian who had entered with him lay sedately down in well-bred silence at Sir Beverley's feet.

There fell a pause, while Sir Beverley's eyes returned to the wide oak staircase, watching it ceaselessly, with vulture-like intentness. Then after the pa.s.sage of minutes, there came the sound of feet that literally scampered along the corridor above, and in a moment, with meteor-like suddenness, Piers flashed into view.

He seemed to descend the stairs without touching them, and was greeted at the foot by Caesar, who leapt to meet him with wide-mouthed delight.

"Hullo, you scamp, hullo!" laughed Piers, responding to the dog's caresses with a careless hand. "Out of the way with you! I'm late."

"As usual," observed Sir Beverley, leaning slowly forward, still with his eyes unblinkingly fixed upon his grandson's merry face. "Come here, boy!"

Piers came to him unabashed.

Sir Beverley got heavily to his feet and took him by the shoulder. "Who is that woman, Piers?" he said, regarding him piercingly.

Piers' forehead was instantly drawn by a quick frown. He stood pa.s.sive, but there was a suggestion of resistance about him notwithstanding.