The Bars of Iron Part 48

He rose up from the black oak settle in the hall with a jerky movement of irritation, and tramped to the front-door.

It had been one of those strange soft days that sometimes come in the midst of bl.u.s.tering March storms, and though the sun had long gone down the warmth still lingered. It might have been an evening in May.

He opened the great door with an impatient hand. What on earth was the boy doing? Had he gone love-making to Wardenhurst? A grim smile touched the old man's grim lips as this thought occurred to him. That he was not wasting his time nearer home he was fairly convinced; for only that morning he had heard from Lennox Tudor that the mother's help at the Vicarage, over whom in the winter Piers had been inclined to make a fool of himself, had taken one of the children away for a change. It seemed more than probable by this time that Piers' wandering fancy had wholly ceased to stray in her direction, but the news of her absence had caused Sir Beverley undoubted satisfaction. He hoped his boy would not encounter that impertinent, scheming woman again until he was safely engaged to Ina Rose. That this engagement was imminent Sir Beverley was fully convinced.

His only wonder was that it had not taken place sooner. The two had been thrown together almost daily during the sojourn of Colonel Rose and his daughter at Mentone, and they had always seemed to enjoy each other's society. Of course Sir Beverley did not like the girl. He actively disliked the whole female species. But she belonged to the county, and she seemed moreover to be a normal healthy young woman who would be the mother of normal healthy children. And this was the sort of wife Piers wanted. For Piers--drat the boy!--was not normal. He inherited a good deal of his Italian grandmother's temperament as well as her beauty. And life was not likely to be a very easy matter for him in consequence.

But an ordinary young English wife of his own rank would be a step in the right direction. So reasoned Sir Beverley, who had taken that fatal step in the wrong one in his youth and had never recovered the ground thus lost.

Standing there at the open door, he dwelt upon his boy's future with a kind of grim pleasure that was not unmixed with heartache. He and his wife would have to go and live at the Dower House of course. No feminine truck at the Abbey for him! But the lad should continue to manage the estate with him. That would bring them in contact every day. He couldn't do without that much. The evenings would be lonely enough. He pictured the long silent dinners with a weary frown. How infernally lonely the Abbey could be!

The steady tick of the clock in the corner forced itself upon his notice.

He swore at it under his breath, and went out upon the steps.

At the same instant a view-halloo from the dark avenue greeted him, and in spite of himself his face softened.

"Hullo, you rascal!" he shouted back. "What the devil are you up to?"

Piers came running up, light-footed and alert. "I've been unlucky,"

he explained. "Had two punctures. I left the car at the garage and came on as quickly as I could. I say, I'm awfully sorry. I've been with d.i.c.k Guyes."

Sir Beverley growled inarticulately, and turned inwards. So he had not been to the Roses' after all!

"Get along with you!" he said. "And dress as fast as you can!"

And Piers bounded past him and went up the stairs in three great leaps.

He seemed to have grown younger during the few days that had elapsed since their return, more ardent, more keenly alive. The English spring seemed to exhilarate him; but for the first time Sir Beverley began to have his doubts as to the reason for his evident pleasure in returning.

What on earth had he been to see Guyes for? Guyes of all people--who was well-known as one of Miss Ina's most devoted adorers!

It was evident that the news he desired to hear would not be imparted to him that night, and Sir Beverley considered himself somewhat aggrieved in consequence. He was decidedly short with Piers when he reappeared--a fact which in no way disturbed his grandson's equanimity. He talked cheery commonplaces throughout dinner without effort, regardless of Sir Beverley's discouraging att.i.tude, and it was not till dessert was placed upon the table that he allowed his conversational energies to flag.

Then indeed, as David finally and ceremoniously withdrew, did he suddenly seem to awake to the fact that conversation was no longer a vital necessity, and forthwith dropped into an abrupt, uncompromising silence.

It lasted for a s.p.a.ce of minutes during which neither of them stirred or uttered a syllable, becoming at length ominous as the electric stillness before the storm.

They came through it characteristically, Sir Beverley staring fixedly before him under the frown that was seldom wholly absent from his face; Piers, steady-eyed and intent, keenly watching the futile agonies of a night-moth among the candles. There was about him a ma.s.sive, statuesque look in vivid contrast to the pulsing vitality of a few minutes before.

It was Sir Beverley who broke the silence at last with a species of inarticulate snarl peculiarly his own. Piers' dark eyes were instantly upon him, but he said nothing, merely waiting for the words to which this sound was the preface.

Sir Beverley's brow was thunderous. He looked back at Piers with a piercing grim regard.

"Well?" he said. "What fool idea have you got in your brain now? I suppose I've got to hear it sooner or later."

It was not a conciliatory speech, yet Piers received it with no visible resentment. "I don't know that I want to say anything very special," he said, after a moment's thought.

"Oh, don't you?" growled Sir Beverley. "Then what are you thinking about?

Tell me that!"

Piers leaned back in his chair. "I was thinking about d.i.c.k Guyes," he said. "He is dining at the Roses' to-night."

"Oh!" said Sir Beverley shortly.

A faint smile came at the corners of Piers' mouth. "He wants to propose to Ina for about the hundred and ninetieth time," he said, "but doesn't know if he can screw himself up to it. I told him not to be such a shy a.s.s. She is only waiting for him to speak."

"Eh?" said Sir Beverley.

A queer little dancing gleam leaped up in Piers' eyes--the gleam that had invariably heralded some piece of especial devilry in the days of his boyhood.

"I told him she was his for the asking, sir," he said coolly, "and promised not to flirt with her any more till they were safely married."

"d.a.m.n you!" exclaimed Sir Beverley violently and without warning.

He had a gla.s.s of wine in front of him, and with the words his fingers gripped the stem. In another second he would have hurled the liquid full in Piers' face; but Piers was too quick for him. Quick as lightning, his own hand shot out across the corner of the table and grasped the old man's wrist.

"No, sir! No!" he said sternly.

They glared into each other's eyes, and Sir Beverley uttered a furious oath; but after the first instinctive effort to free himself he did no more.

At the end of possibly thirty seconds Piers took his hand away. He pushed back his chair in the same movement and rose.

"Shall we talk in the library?" he said. "This room is hot."

Sir Beverley raised the wine-gla.s.s to his lips with a hand that shook, and drained it deliberately.

"Yes," he said then, "We will--talk in the library."

He got up with an agility that he seldom displayed, and turned to the door. As he went he glanced up suddenly at the softly mocking face on the wall, and a sharp spasm contracted his harsh features. But he scarcely paused. Without further words he left the room; and Piers followed, light of tread, behind him.

The study windows stood wide open to the night. Piers crossed the room and quietly closed them. Then, without haste and without hesitation, he came to the table and stopped before it.

"I never intended to marry Ina Rose," he said. "I was only amusing myself--and her."

"The devil you were!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Beverley.

Piers went on with the utmost steadiness. "We are not in the least suited to one another, and we have the sense to realize it. The next time Guyes asks her, I believe she will have him."

"Sense!" roared Sir Beverley. "Do you dare to talk to me of sense, you--you blind fool? Mighty lot of sense you can boast of! And what the devil does it matter whether you suit one another--as you call it--or not, so long as you keep the whip-hand? You'll tell me next that you're not--in love with her, I suppose?"

The bitterness of the last words seemed to shake him from head to foot.

He looked at Piers with the memory of a past torment in his eyes. And because of it Piers turned away his own.

"It's quite true, sir," he said, in a low voice. "I am not--in love with her. I never have been."

Sir Beverley's fist crashed down upon the table. "Love!" he thundered.

"Love! Do you want to make me sick? I tell you, sir, I would sooner see you in your coffin than married to a woman with whom you imagined yourself in love. Oh, I know what you have in your mind. I've known for a long time. You're caught in the toils of that stiff-necked, scheming Judy at the Vicarage, who--"

"Sir!" blazed forth Piers.

He leaned across the table with a face gone suddenly white, and struck his own fist upon the polished oak with a pa.s.sionate force that compelled attention.