The Bars of Iron Part 89

CHAPTER XIII

THE HAND OF THE SCULPTOR

During the week that followed, no second summons came to Piers from his wife's room. He hung about the house, aimless, sick at heart, with hope sinking ever lower within him like a fire dying for lack of replenishment.

He could neither sleep nor eat, and Victor watched him with piteous though unspoken solicitude. Victor knew the wild, undisciplined temperament of the boy he had cherished from his cradle, and he lived in hourly dread of some sudden pa.s.sionate outburst of rebellion, some desperate act that should lead to irremediable disaster. He had not forgotten that locked drawer in the old master's bureau or the quick release it contained, and he never left Piers long alone in its vicinity.

But he need not have been afraid. Piers' thoughts never strayed in that direction. If his six months in Crowther's society had brought him no other comfort, they had at least infused in him a saner outlook and steadier balance. Very little had ever pa.s.sed between them on the subject of the tragedy that had thrown them together. After the first bitter outpouring of his soul, Piers had withdrawn himself with so obvious a desire for privacy that Crowther had never attempted to cross the boundary thus clearly defined. But his influence had made itself felt notwithstanding. It would have been impossible to have lived with the man for so long without imbibing some of that essential greatness of soul that was his main characteristic, and Piers was ever swift to feel the effect of atmosphere. He had come to look upon Crowther with a reverence that in a fashion affected his daily life. That which Crowther regarded as unworthy, he tossed aside himself without consideration. Crowther had not despised him at his worst, and he was determined that he would show himself to be not despicable. He was moreover under a solemn promise to return to Crowther when he found himself at liberty, and in very grat.i.tude to the man he meant to keep that promise.

But, albeit he was braced for endurance, the long hours of waiting were very hard to bear. His sole comfort lay in the fact that Avery was making gradual progress in the right direction. It was a slow and difficult recovery, as Maxwell Wyndham had foretold, but it was continuous. Tudor a.s.sured him of this every day with a curt kindliness that had grown on him of late. It was his own fashion of showing a wholly involuntary sympathy of which he was secretly half-ashamed, and which he well knew Piers would have brooked in no other form. It established an odd sort of truce between them of which each was aware the while he sternly ignored it. They could never be friends. It was fundamentally impossible, but at least they had, if only temporarily, ceased to be enemies.

Little Mrs. Lorimer's sympathy was also of a half-ashamed type. She did not want to be sorry for Piers, but she could not wholly restrain her pity. The look in his eyes haunted her. Curiously it made her think of some splendid animal created for liberty, and fretting its heart out in utter, hopeless misery on a chain.

She longed with all her motherly heart to comfort him, and by the irony of circ.u.mstance it fell to her to deal the final blow to what was left of his hope. She wondered afterwards how she ever brought herself to the task, but it was in reality so forced upon her that she could not evade it. Avery, lying awake during the first hours of a still night, heard her husband's feet pacing up and down the terrace, and the mischief was done.

She was thrown into painful agitation and wholly lost her sleep in consequence. When Mrs. Lorimer arrived about noon on the following day, she found her alarmingly weak, and the nurse in evident perplexity.

"I am sure there is something worrying her," the latter said to Mrs.

Lorimer. "I can't think what it is."

But directly Mrs. Lorimer was alone with Avery, the trouble came out. For she reached out fevered hands to her, saying, "Why, oh, why did you persuade me to come back here? I knew he would come if I did!"

Again the emergency impelled Mrs. Lorimer to a display of common-sense with which few would have credited her.

"Oh, do you mean Piers, dear?" she said. "But surely you are not afraid of him! He has been here all the time--ever since you were so ill."

"And I begged you not to send!" groaned Avery.

"My dear," said Mrs. Lorimer very gently, "it was his right to be here."

"Then that night--that night--" gasped Avery, "he really did come to me--that night after the baby was born."

"My darling, you begged for him so piteously," said Mrs. Lorimer apologetically.

Avery's lip quivered. "That was just what I feared--what I wanted to make impossible," she said. "When one is suffering, one forgets so."

"But surely it was the cry of your heart, darling," urged Mrs. Lorimer tremulously. "And do you know--poor lad--he looks so ill, so miserable."

But Avery's face was turned away. "I can't help it," she said. "I can't--possibly--see him again. I feel as if--as if there were a curse upon us both, and that is why the baby died. Oh yes, morbid, I know; perhaps wrong. But--I have been steeped in sin. I must be free for a time. I can't face him yet. I haven't the strength."

"Dearest, he will never force himself upon you," said Mrs. Lorimer.

Avery's eyes went instinctively to the door that led into the room that Piers had occupied after his marriage. The broken bolt had been removed, but not replaced. A great shudder went through her. She covered her face with her hands.

"Oh, beg him--beg him to go away," she sobbed, "till I am strong enough to go myself!"

Argument was useless. Mrs. Lorimer abandoned it with the wisdom born of close friendship. Instead, she clasped Avery tenderly to her and gave herself to the task of calming her distress.

And when that was somewhat accomplished, she left her to go sadly in search of Piers.

She found him sitting on the terrace with the morning-paper beside him and Caesar pressed close to his legs, his great mottled head resting on his master's knee.

He was not reading. So much Mrs. Lorimer perceived before with a sharp turn of the head he discovered her. He was on his feet in a moment, and she saw his boyish smile for an instant, only for an instant, as he came to meet her. She noted with a pang how gaunt he looked and how deep were the shadows about his eyes. Then he had reached her, and was holding both her hands almost before she realized it.

"I say, you're awfully good to come up every day like this," he said. "I can't think how you make the time. Splendid sun to-day, what? It's like a day in summer, if you can get out of the wind. Come and bask with me!"

He drew her along the terrace to his sheltered corner, and made her sit down, spreading his newspaper on the stone seat for her accommodation.

Her heart went out to him as he performed that small chivalrous act. She could not help it. And suddenly the task before her seemed so monstrous that she felt she could not fulfil it. The tears rushed to her eyes.

"What's the matter?" said Piers gently. He sat down beside her, and slipped an encouraging hand through her arm. "Was it something you came out to say? Don't mind me! You don't, do you?"

His voice was softly persuasive. He leaned towards her, his dark eyes searching her face. Mrs. Lorimer felt as if she were about to hurt a child.

She blew her nose, dried her eyes, and took the brown hand very tightly between her own. "My dear, I'm so sorry for you--so sorry for you both!" she said.

A curious little glint came and went in the eyes that watched her. Piers'

fingers closed slowly upon hers.

"I've got to clear out, what?" he said.

She nodded mutely; she could not say it.

He was silent awhile; then: "All right," he said. "I'll go this afternoon."

His voice was dead level, wholly emotionless, but for a few seconds his grip taxed her endurance to the utmost. Then, abruptly, it relaxed.

He bent his black head and kissed the nervous little hands that were clasped upon his own.

"Don't you fret now!" he said, with an odd kindness that was to her more pathetic than any appeal for sympathy. "You've got enough burdens of your own to bear without shouldering ours. How is Jeanie?"

Mrs. Lorimer choked down a sob. "She isn't a bit well. She has a cold and such a racking cough. I'm keeping her in bed."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Piers steadily. "Give her my love! And look here, when Avery is well enough, let them go away together, will you? It will do them both good."

"It's dear of you to think of it," said Mrs. Lorimer wistfully. "Yes, it did do Jeanie good in the autumn. But Avery--"

"It will do Avery good too," he said. "She can take that cottage at Stanbury Cliffs for the whole summer if she likes. Tell her to! And look here! Will you take her a message from me?"

"A written message?" asked Mrs. Lorimer.

He pulled out a pocket-book. "Six words," he said. He scrawled them, tore out the leaf and gave it to her, holding it up before her eyes that she might read it.

"Good-bye till you send for me. Piers."

"That's all," he said. "Thanks awfully. She'll understand that. And now--I say, you're not going to cry any more, are you?" He shook his head at her with a laugh in his eyes. "You really mustn't. You're much too tender-hearted. I say, it was a pity about the baby, what? I thought the baby might have made a difference. But it'll be all the same presently.

She's wanting me really. I've known that ever since that night--you know--ever since I held her in my arms."