The Bars of Iron Part 94

The nurse was middle-aged and kindly, and both she and Jeanie liked her from the outset. She took the night duty, and the day was Avery's, a division that pleased them all.

Mr. Lorimer had demurred about having a nurse at all, but Avery had swept the objection aside. Jeanie was in her care, and she would provide all she needed. Mr. Lorimer had conceded the point as gracefully as possible, for it seemed that for once his will could not be regarded as paramount. Of course, as he openly reflected, Lady Evesham was very much in their debt, and it was but natural that she should welcome this opportunity to repay somewhat of their past kindness to her.

So, for the first time in her life, little Jeanie was surrounded with all that she could desire; and very slowly, like a broken flower coaxed back to life, she revived again.

It could scarcely be regarded in the light of an improvement. It was just a fluctuation that deceived neither Avery nor the nurse; but to the former those days were infinitely precious. She clung to them hour by hour, refusing to look ahead to the desolation that was surely coming, cherishing her darling with a pa.s.sion of devotion that excluded all other griefs.

The long summer days slipped away. June pa.s.sed like a dream. Jeanie lay in the tiny garden with her face to the sea, gazing forth with eyes that were often heavy and wistful but always ready to smile upon Avery. The holiday-task was put away, not because Mr. Lorimer had remitted it, but because Avery--with rare despotism--had insisted upon removing it from her patient's reach.

"Not till you are better, darling," she said. "That is your biggest duty now, just to get back all the strength you can."

And Jeanie had smiled her wistful, dreamy smile, and submitted.

Avery sometimes wondered if she knew of the great Change that was drawing so rapidly near. If so, it had no terrors for her; and she thanked G.o.d that the Vicar was not at hand to terrify the child. The journey from Rodding to Stanbury Cliffs was not an easy one by rail, and parish matters were fortunately claiming his attention very fully just then. As he himself had remarked more than once, he was not the man to permit mere personal matters to interfere with Duty, and many a weak soul depended upon his ministrations.

So Jeanie was left entirely to Avery's motherly care while the golden days slipped by.

With July came heat, intense, oppressive, airless; and Jeanie flagged again. A copper-coloured mist rose every morning over the sea, blotting out the sky-line, veiling the pa.s.sing ships. Strange voices called through the fog, sirens hooted to one another persistently.

"They are like people who have lost each other," Jeanie said once, and the simile haunted Avery's imagination.

And then one sunny day a pleasure-steamer pa.s.sed quite near the sh.o.r.e with a band on board. They were playing _The Little Grey Home in the West_, and very oddly Jeanie's eyes filled with sudden tears.

Avery did not take any notice for a few moments, but as the strains died-away over the gla.s.sy water, she leaned towards the child.

"My darling, what is it?" she whispered tenderly.

Jeanie's hand found its way into hers. "Oh, don't you ever want Piers?"

she murmured wistfully. "I do!"

It was the first time she had spoken his name to Avery since they had left him alone nearly a year before, and almost as soon as she had uttered it she made swift apology.

"Please forgive me, dear Avery! It just slipped out."

"My dear!" Avery said, and kissed her.

There fell a long silence between them. Avery's eyes were on the thick heat-haze that obscured the sky-line. In her brain there sounded again those words that Maxwell Wyndham had spoken so short a time before. "Give her everything she wants! It's all you can do for her now."

But behind those words was something that shrank and quivered like a frightened child. Could she give her this one thing? Could she?

Could she?

It would mean the tearing open of a wound that was scarcely closed. It would mean a calling to life of a bitterness that was hardly past. It would mean--it would mean--

"Avery darling!" Softly Jeanie's voice broke through her agitated thoughts.

Avery turned and looked at her,--the frail, sweet face with its shining eyes of love.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," whispered Jeanie. "Don't think any more about it!"

"Do you want him so dreadfully?" Avery said.

Jeanie's eyes were full of tears again. She tried to answer, but her lips quivered. She turned her face aside, and was silent.

The day waxed hotter, became almost insupportable. In the afternoon Jeanie was attacked by breathlessness and coughing, both painful to witness. She could find no rest or comfort, and Avery was in momentary dread of a return of the hemorrhage.

It did not return, but when evening came at length and with it the blessed coolness of approaching night, Jeanie was so exhausted as to be unable to speak above a whisper. She lay white and still, scarcely conscious, only her difficult breathing testifying to the fluttering life that had ebbed so low.

The nurse's face was very grave as she came on duty, but after an interval of steady watching, during which the wind blew in with rising freshness from the sea, she turned to Avery, saying, "I think she will revive."

Avery nodded and slipped away.

There was not much time left. She ran all the way to the post-office and scribbled a message there with trembling fingers.

"Jeanie wants you. Will you come? Avery."

She sent the message to Rodding Abbey. She knew they would forward it from there.

Pa.s.sing out again into the road, a sudden sense of sickness swept over her. What had she done? What uncontrolled force would that telegram unfetter? Would he come to her like a whirlwind and sweep her back into his own tempestuous life? Would he break her will once more to his? Would he drag her once more through the h.e.l.l of his pa.s.sion, kindle afresh for her the flame that had consumed her happiness?

She dared not face the possibility. She felt as if an iron hand had closed upon her, drawing her surely, irresistibly, back towards those gates of bra.s.s through which she had escaped into the desert. That fiery torture would be infinitely harder to bear now, and she knew that the fieriest point of it all would be the desperate, aching longing to know again the love that had shone and burnt itself out in the blast-furnace of his sin. He had loved her once; she was sure he had loved her. But that love had died with his boyhood, and it could never rise again. He had trodden it underfoot and her own throbbing heart with it. He had destroyed that which she had always believed to be indestructible.

She never wanted to see him again. She would have given all she had to have avoided the meeting. Her whole being recoiled from the thought of it. And yet--and yet--she saw again the black head laid against her knee, and heard the low, half-rueful words: "Oh, my dear, there is no other woman but you in all the world!"

The vision went with her all through the night. She could not escape it.

In the morning she rose with a sense of being haunted, and a terrible weariness that hung upon her like a chain.

The day was cooler. Jeanie was better. She had had a nice sleep, the nurse said. But there could be no question of allowing her to leave her bed that day.

"You are looking so tired," the nurse said, in her kind way to Avery. "I am not wanting to go off duty till this afternoon. So won't you go and sit down somewhere on the rocks? Please do!"

She was so anxious to gain her point that Avery yielded. She felt too feverishly restless to be a suitable companion for Jeanie just then. She went down to her favourite corner to watch the tide come in. But she could not be still. She paced the sh.o.r.e like a caged creature seeking a way of escape, dreading each turn lest it should bring her face to face with the man she had summoned.

The tide came in and drove her up the beach. She went back not unwillingly, for the suspense had become insupportable.

Had he come? But surely not! She was convinced he would have followed her to the sh.o.r.e if he had.

She entered the tiny hall. It was square, and served them as a sitting-room. Coming in from the glare without, she was momentarily dazzled. And then all suddenly her eyes lighted upon an unaccustomed object, and her heart ceased to beat. A man's tweed cap lay carelessly tossed upon the back of a chair!

She stood quite still, feeling her senses reel, knowing herself to be on the verge of fainting, and clinging with all her strength to her tottering self-control.

Gradually she recovered, felt her heart begin to beat again and the deadly faintness pa.s.s. There was a telegram on the table. She took it up, found it addressed to herself, opened it with fumbling fingers.

"Tell Jeanie I am coming to-day. Piers."

It had arrived an hour before, and she was conscious of a vague sense of thankfulness that she had been spared that hour of awful certainty.

A door opened at the top of the stairs. A voice spoke. "I'll come back, my queen. But I've got to pay my respects, you know, to the mistress of the establishment, or she'll be cross. Do you remember the Avery symphony? We'll have it presently."