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

eyes there came a shadow that made them very human. "I went to hell," he said. "I waded up to the neck in mire. I gave myself up to it body and soul. I wallowed. And all the while it revolted me, though it was so sickeningly easy and attractive. I loathed myself, but I went on with it. It seemed anyhow one degree better than that awful homesickness. And then one day, right in the middle of it all, I had a sort of dream. Or perhaps it wasn't any more a dream than Jacob had in the desert. But I felt as if I'd been called, and I just had to get up and go. I expect most people know the sensation, for after all the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; but it made a bigger impression on me at the time than anything in my experience. So I went back into the wilderness and waited. Old chap, I didn't wait in vain."
He suddenly turned his head, and his eyes rested upon Piers with the serenity of a man at peace with his own soul. "That's about all my story," he said with simplicity. "I got the strength for the job, and so carried it through. When my uncle died, I was left in command, and I've stuck to it ever since. But I took a partner a few years back, and now I've handed over the whole thing to him and I'm going Home at last to my old mother."
"Going to settle in England?" asked Piers.
Crowther shook his head. "Not now, lad. I couldn't. There's too much to be done. No; I'm going to fulfil my old ambitions if I can. I'm going to get myself ordained. After that--"
He paused, for Piers had turned to stare at him in open amazement. "You!" he ejaculated.
Crowther's smile came over his face like a spreading light. "You don't think much of parsons, I gather, sonny," he said.
Piers broke into his sudden laugh. "Not as a tribe, I admit. I can't stand any man who makes an ass of himself, whatever his profession. But of course I don't mean to assert that all parsons answer to that description. I've met a few I liked."
Crowther's smile developed into a laugh. "Then you, won't deprive me of the pleasure of your friendship if I become one?"
"My dear chap," said Piers forcibly, "if you became the biggest blackguard in creation, you would remain my friend."
It was regally spoken, but the speaker was plainly so unconscious of arrogance that Crowther's hand came out to him and lay for a moment on his arm. "I gathered that, sonny," he said gently.
Piers' eyes flashed sympathy. "And what are you going to do then? You say you're not going to settle in England?"
"I am not," said Crowther, and again he was looking out ahead of him with eyes that spanned the far distance. "No; I'm going back again to the old haunts. There's a thundering lot to do there. It's more than a one-man job. But, please God, I'll do what I can. I know I can do a little. It's a hell of a place, sonny. You saw the outside edge of it yourself."
Piers nodded without speaking. It had been in a sense his baptism of fire.
"It's the new chums I want to get hold of," Crowther said. "They get drawn in so devilishly easily. They're like children, many of 'em, trying to walk on quicksands. They're bound to go in, bound to go under, and a big percentage never come up again. It's the children I want to help. I hate to think of fresh, clean lives being thrown on to the dust-heap. It's so futile,--such a crying waste."
"If anyone can do it, you can," said Piers.
"Ah! I wonder. It won't be easy, but I know their temptations so awfully well. I've seen scores go under, I've been under myself. And that makes a lot of difference."
"Life is infernally difficult for most of us," said Piers.
They rode in silence for awhile, and then he changed the subject.
It was not till they returned that Crowther announced his intention of leaving on the following day.
"I've no time for slacking," he said. "I didn't come Home to slack. And there's the mother waiting for me."
"Oh, man," Piers said suddenly, "how I wish I had a mother!"
And then half-ashamed, he turned and went in search of his grandfather.
Again that evening Crowther accepted Sir Beverley's invitation to dine at their table. The old man seemed to regard Piers' friend with a kind of suspicious interest. He asked few questions but he watched him narrowly.
"If you and the boy want to go to the Casino again, don't mind me!" he said, at the end of dinner.
"We don't, sir," said Piers promptly. "Can't we sit out on the terrace all together and smoke?"
"I don't go beyond the lounge," said Sir Beverley, with decision.
"All right, we'll sit in the lounge," said Piers.
His grandfather frowned at him. "Don't be a fool, Piers! Can't you see you're not wanted?" He thrust out an abrupt hand to Crowther. "Good-night to you! I shall probably retire before you come in."
"He is leaving first thing in the morning," said Piers.
Sir Beverley's frown was transferred to Crowther. He looked at him piercingly. "Leaving, are you? Going to England, eh? I suppose we shall meet again then?"
"I hope so," said Crowther.
Sir Beverley grunted. "Do you? Well, we shan't be moving yet. But--if you care to look us up at Rodding Abbey when we do get back--you can; eh, Piers?"
"I tell him, he must, sir," said Piers.
"You are very kind," said Crowther. "Good-bye sir! And thank you!"
He and Piers went out together, and walked to and fro in the garden above the sea. The orchestra played fitfully in the hotel behind them, and now and then there came the sounds of careless voices and wandering feet. They themselves talked but little. Piers was in a dreamy mood, and his companion was plainly deep in thought.
He spoke at length out of a long silence. "Did your grandfather say Rodding Abbey just now?"
"Yes," said Piers, waking up.
"It's near a place called Wardenhurst?" pursued Crowther.
"Yes," said Piers again. "Ever been there?"
"No," Crowther spoke slowly, as though considering his words. "Someone I know lives there, that's all."
"Someone you know?" Piers stood still. He looked at Crowther sharply through the dimness.
"I don't suppose you have ever met her, lad," said Crowther quietly. "From what I know of society in the old country you wouldn't move in the same circle. But as I have promised myself to visit her, it seems better to mention the fact."
"Why shouldn't you mention it? What is her name?" Piers spoke quickly, in the imperious fashion habitual to him when not quite at his ease.
Crowther hesitated. He seemed to be debating some point with himself.
At length, "Her name," he said slowly, "is Denys."
Piers made a sudden movement that passed unexplained. There fell a few moments of silence. Then, in a voice even more measured than Crowther's, he spoke.
"As it happens, I have met her. Tell me what you know about her,--if you don't mind."
Again Crowther hesitated.
"Go on," said Piers.
They were facing one another in the darkness. The end of Piers' cigar had ceased to glow. He did not seem to be breathing. But in the tense moments that followed his words there came to Crowther the hard, quick beating of his heart like the thud of a racing engine far away.
Instinctively he put out a hand. "Piers, old chap,--" he said.
"Go on!" Piers said again.
He gripped both hand and wrist with nervous fingers, holding them almost as though he would force from him the information he desired.
Crowther waited no longer, for he knew in that moment that he stood in the presence of a soul in torment. "You'll have to know it," he said, "though why these things happen, God alone knows. Sonny, she is the widow of the man whose death you caused."
The words were spoken, and after them came silence--such a silence as could be felt. Once the hands that gripped Crowther's seemed about to slacken, and then in a moment they tightened again as the hands of a drowning man clinging to a spar.
Crowther attempted nothing in the way of sympathy or consolation. He merely stood ready. But it was evident that he did not need to be told of the tragedy that had suddenly fallen upon Piers' life. His attitude said as much.
Very, very slowly at last, as if not wholly sure of his balance, Piers let him go. He took out his cigar with a mechanical movement and looked at it; then abruptly returned it to his lips and drew it fiercely back to life.
Then, through a cloud of smoke, he spoke. "Crowther, I made you a promise yesterday."
"You did," said Crowther gravely.
Piers threw him a quick look. "Oh, you needn't be afraid," he said. "I'm not going to cry off. It's not my way. But--I want you to make me a promise in return."
"What is it, sonny?" There was just a hint of anxiety in Crowther's tone.
Piers made a reckless, half-defiant movement of the head. "It is that you will never--whatever the circumstances--speak of this thing again to anyone--not even to me."
"You think it necessary to ask that of me?" said Crowther.
"No, I don't!" Impulsively Piers made answer. "I believe I'm a cur to ask it. But this thing has dogged me so persistently that I feel like an animal being run to earth. For my peace of mind, Crowther;--because I'm a coward if you like--give me your word on it!"
He laid a hand not wholly steady upon Crowther's shoulder, and impelled him forward. His voice was low and agitated.
"Forgive me, old chap!" he urged. "And understand, if you can. It's all you can do to help."
"My dear lad, of course I do!" Instant and reassuring came Crowther's reply. "If you want my promise, you have it. The business is yours, not mine. I shall never interfere."
"Thank you--thanks awfully!" Piers said.
He drew a great breath. His hand went through Crowther's arm.
"That gives me time to think," he said. "What an infernal tangle this beastly world is! I suppose you think there's a reason for everything?"
"You've heard of gold being tried in the fire," said Crowther.
Piers broke into his sudden laugh. "I'm not gold, my dear chap, but the tinniest dross that ever was made. Shall we go and have a drink, what? This sort of thing always makes me thirsty."
It was characteristically abrupt. It ended the matter in a trice. They went together to the hotel _buffet_, and there Piers quenched his thirst. It was while there that Crowther became aware that his mood had wholly changed. He laughed and joked with the bright-eyed French girl who waited upon them, and seemed loth to depart. Silently, but with a growing anxiety, Crowther watched him. There was certainly nothing forced about his gaiety. It was wildly, recklessly spontaneous; but there was about it a fevered quality that set Crowther almost instinctively on his guard. He did not know, and he had no means of gauging, exactly how deeply the iron had pierced. But that some sort of wound had been inflicted he could not doubt. It might be merely a superficial one, but he feared that it was something more than that. There was a queer, intangible species of mockery in Piers' attitude, as though he set the whole world at defiance.
And yet he did not look like a man who had been stunned