The Bars of Iron - Ethel May Dell (top novels .txt) 📗

old Pompey! A shame to keep you standing! All that brute's fault." He swung himself into the saddle. "By Jove, though, she's got some pluck!" he said. "I like a woman with pluck!"
He touched his animal with the spur, and in a moment they were speeding through the gathering dark at a brisk canter. Pompey was as anxious to get home as was his master, and he needed no second urging. He scarcely waited to get within the gates of the Park before he gathered himself together and went like the wind. His rider lay forward in the saddle and yelled encouragement like a wild Indian. Caesar raced behind them like a hare.
The mad trio went like a flash past old Marshall the head-keeper who stood gun on shoulder at the gate of his lodge and looked after them with stern disapproval.
"Drat the boy! What's he want to ride hell-for-leather like that for?" he grumbled. "He'll go and kill himself one of these days as his father did before him."
It was just twenty-five years since Piers' father had been carried dead into Marshall's cottage, and Marshall had stumped up the long avenue to bear the news to Sir Beverley. Piers was about the same age now as that other Piers had been, and Marshall had no mind to take part in a similar tragedy. It had been a bitter task, that of telling Sir Beverley that his only son was dead; but to have borne him ill tidings of his grandson would have been infinitely harder. For Sir Beverley had never loved his son through the whole of his brief, tempestuous life; but his grandson was the very core of his existence, as everyone knew, despite his strenuous efforts to disguise the fact.
No, emphatically Marshall had not the faintest desire to have to inform the old man that harm had befallen Master Piers, and his frown deepened as he trudged up his little garden and heard the yelling voice and galloping hoofs grow faint in the distance.
"The boy is madder even than his father was," he muttered darkly. "Bad stock! Bad stock!"
He shook his head over the words, and went within. He was the only man left on the estate who could remember the beautiful young Italian bride whom Sir Beverley had once upon a time brought to reign there. It had been a short, short reign, and no one spoke of it now,--least of all the old, bent man who ruled like a feudal lord at Rodding Abbey, and of whom even the redoubtable Marshall himself stood in awe.
But Marshall remembered her well, and it was upon that dazzling memory that his thoughts dwelt when he gave utterance to his mysterious verdict. For was not Master Piers the living image of her? Had he not the same imperial bearing and regal turn of the head? Did not the Evesham blood run the hotter in his veins for that passionate Southern strain that mingled with it?
Marshall sometimes wondered how Sir Beverley with his harsh intolerance brooked the living likeness of the boy to the woman in whose bitter memory he hated all women. It was scarcely possible that he blinded himself to it. It was too vividly apparent for that. "A perpetual eyesore," Marshall termed it in private. But then there was no accounting for the ways of folk in high places. Marshall did not pretend to understand them. He was, in his own grumpy fashion, sincerely attached to his master, and he never presumed to criticize his doings. He only wondered at them.
As for Master Piers, he had been an unmitigated nuisance to him personally ever since he had learned to walk alone. Marshall had always disapproved of him, and he hated Victor, the French valet, who had brought him up from his cradle. Yet deep in his surly old heart there lurked a certain grudging affection for him notwithstanding. The boy had a winning way with him, and but for his hatred of Victor, who was soft and womanish, but extremely tenacious, Marshall would have liked to have had a hand in his upbringing. As it was, he could only look on from afar and condemn the vagaries of "that dratted boy," prophesying disaster whenever he saw him and hoping that Sir Beverley might not live to see it. Certainly it seemed as if Piers bore a charmed life, for, like his father before him, he risked it practically every day. With sublime self-confidence, he laughed at caution, ever choosing the shortest cut, whatever it might entail; and it was remarkably seldom that he came to grief.
As he clattered into the stable-yard on that dark November evening, his face was sparkling with excitement as though he had drunk strong wine. The animal he rode was covered with foam, and danced a springy war-dance on the stones. Caesar trotted in behind them with tail erect and a large smile of satisfaction on his spotty face despite the gory streak upon his neck.
"Confound it! I'm late!" said Piers, throwing his leg over his horse's neck. "It's all that brute's fault. Look at him grinning! Better wash him one of you! He can't come in in that state." He slipped to the ground and stamped his sodden feet. "I'm not much better off myself. What a beastly night, to be sure!"
"Yes, you're wet, sir!" remarked the groom at Pompey's head. "Had a tumble, sir?"
"No. Had a jug of water thrown over me," laughed Piers. "Caesar will tell you all about it. He's been sniggering all the way home." He snapped his fingers in the dog's complacent face. "By Jove!" he said to him, "I couldn't grin like that if I'd had the thrashing you've had. And I couldn't kiss the hand that did it either. You're a gentleman, Caesar, and I humbly apologize. Look after him, Phipps! He's been a bit mauled. Good-night! Good-night, Pompey lad! You've carried me well." He patted the horse's foam-flecked neck, and turned away.
As he left the stable-yard, he was whistling light-heartedly, and Phipps glanced at a colleague with a slight flicker of one eyelid.
"Wonder who chucked that jug of water!" he said.


CHAPTER II
CONCERNING FOOLS

In the huge, oak-panelled hall of the Abbey, Sir Beverley Evesham sat alone.
A splendid fire of logs blazed before him on the open hearth, and the light from a great chandelier beat mercilessly down upon him. His hair was thick still and silvery white. He had the shoulders of a strong man, albeit they were slightly bowed. His face, clean-shaven, aristocratic, was the colour of old ivory. The thin lips were quite bloodless. They had a downward, bitter curve, as though they often sneered at life. The eyes were keen as a bird's, stone-grey under overhanging black brows.
He held a newspaper in one bony hand, but he was not apparently reading, for his eyes were fixed. The shining suits of armour standing like sentinels on each side of the fireplace were not more rigid than he.
There came a slight sound from the other end of the hall, and instantly and very sharply Sir Beverley turned his head.
"Piers!"
Cheerily Piers' voice made answer. He shut the door behind him and came forward as he spoke. "Here I am, sir! I'm sorry I'm late. You shouldn't have waited. You never ought to wait. I'm never in at the right time."
"Confound you, why aren't you then?" burst forth Sir Beverley. "It's easy to say you're sorry, isn't it?"
"Not always," said Piers.
He came to the old man, bent down over him, slid a boyish arm around the bent shoulders. "Don't be waxy!" he coaxed. "I couldn't help it this time."
"Get away, do!" said Sir Beverley, jerking himself irritably from him. "I detest being pawed about, as you very well know. In Heaven's name, have your tea, if you want it! I shan't touch any. It's past my time."
"Oh, rot!" said Piers. "If you don't, I shan't."
"Yes, you will." Sir Beverley pointed an imperious hand towards a table on the other side of the fire. "Go and get it and don't be a fool!"
"I'm not a fool," said Piers.
"Yes, you are--a damn fool!" Sir Beverley returned to his newspaper with the words. "And you'll never be anything else!" he growled into the silence that succeeded them.
Piers clattered the tea-things and said nothing. There was no resentment visible upon his sensitive, olive face, however. He looked perfectly contented. He turned round after a few seconds with a cup of steaming tea in his hand. He crossed the hearth and set it on the table at Sir Beverley's elbow.
"That's just as you like it, sir," he urged. "Have it--just to please me!"
"Take it away!" said Sir Beverley, without raising his eyes.
"It's only ten minutes late after all," said Piers, with all meekness. "I wish you hadn't waited, though it was jolly decent of you. You weren't anxious of course? You know I always turn up some time."
"Anxious!" echoed Sir Beverley. "About a cub like you! You flatter yourself, my good Piers."
Piers laughed a little and stooped over the blaze. Sir Beverley read on for a few moments, then very suddenly and not without violence crumpled his paper and flung it on the ground.
"Of all the infernal, ridiculous twaddle!" he exclaimed. "Now what the devil have you done to yourself? Been taking a water-jump?"
Piers turned round. "No, sir. It's nothing. I shouldn't have come in in this state, only it was late, and I thought I'd better report myself."
"Nothing!" repeated Sir Beverley. "Why, you're drenched to the skin! Go and change! Go and change! Don't stop to argue! Do you hear me, sir? Go and change!"
He shouted the last words, and Piers flung round on his heel with a hint of impatience.
"And behave yourself!" Sir Beverley threw after him. "If you think I'll stand any impertinence from you, you were never more mistaken in your life. Be off with you, you cheeky young hound! Don't let me see you again till you're fit to be seen!"
Piers departed without a backward look. His lips were slightly compressed as he went up the stairs, but before he reached his own room they were softly whistling.
Victor, the valet, who was busily employed in laying out his evening clothes, received him with hands upraised in horror.
_"Ah, mais, Monsieur Pierre_, how you are wet!"
"Yes, I want a bath," said Piers. "Get it quick! I must be down again in ten minutes. So scurry, Victor, my lad!"
Victor was a cheery little rotundity of five-and-fifty. He had had the care of Piers ever since the first fortnight of that young man's existence, and he worshipped him with a whole-hearted devotion that was in its way sublime. In his eyes Piers could do no wrong. He was in fact dearer to him than his own flesh and blood.
He prepared the bath with deft celerity, and hastened back to assist in removing his young master's boots. He exclaimed dramatically upon their soaked condition, but Piers was in too great a hurry to give any details regarding the cause of his plight. He whirled into the bathroom at express speed, and was out again almost before Victor had had time to collect his drenched garments.
Ten minutes after his departure he returned to the hall, the gay whistle still on his lips, and trod a careless measure to its tune as he advanced.
Sir Beverley got up stiffly from his knees on the hearth-rug and turned a scowling face. "Well, are you decent now?"
"Quite," said Piers. He smiled as he said it, a boyish disarming smile. "Have you had your tea, sir? Oh, I say what a brick you are! I didn't expect that."
His eyes, travelling downwards,