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

had caught sight of a cup pushed close to the blaze, and a plate of crumpets beside it.
"Or deserve it," said Sir Beverley grimly.
Piers turned impulsively and took him by the shoulders. "You're a dear old chap!" he said. "Thanks awfully!"
Against its will the hard old mouth relaxed. "There, boy, there! What an infant you are! Sit down and have it for goodness' sake! It'll be dinner-time before you've done."
"You've had yours?" said Piers.
"Oh, yes--yes!" Irritation made itself heard again in Sir Beverley's voice; he freed himself from his grandson's hold, though not urgently. "I'm not so keen on your precious tea," he said, seating himself again. "It's only young milksops like you that have made it fashionable. When I was young--"
"Hullo!" broke in Piers. He had picked up the cup of tea and was sniffing it suspiciously. "You've been doctoring this!" he said.
"You drink it!" ordered Sir Beverley peremptorily. "I'm not going to have you laid up with rheumatic fever if I know it. Drink it, Piers! Do you hear?"
Piers looked for a moment as if he were on the verge of rebellion, then abruptly he raised the cup to his lips and drained it. He set it down with a shudder of distaste.
"You might have let me have it separately," he remarked. "Tea and brandy don't blend well. I shall sleep like a hog after this. Besides, I shouldn't have had rheumatic fever. It's not my way. Anything in the paper to-night?"
"Yes," said Sir Beverley disgustedly. "There's that prize-fight business."
"What's that?" Piers looked up with quick interest.
"Surely you saw it!" returned Sir Beverley. "That fellow Adderley--killed his man in a wrestling-match. A good many people said it was done by a foul."
"Adderley!" repeated Piers. "I know him. He gave me some quite useful tips once. What happened? It's the first I've heard of it."
"Well, he's a murderer," said Sir Beverley. "And he deserves to be hanged. He killed his man,--whether by a foul or not I can't say; but anyway he meant to kill him. It's obvious on the face of it. But they chose to bring it in manslaughter, and he's only got five years; while some brainless fool must needs write an article a column and a half long to protest against the disgraceful practice of permitting wrestling or boxing matches, which are a survival of the Dark Ages and a perpetual menace to our civilization! A survival of your grandmother! A nice set of nincompoops the race will develop into if such fools as that get their way! We're soft enough as it is, Heaven knows. Why couldn't they hang the scoundrel as he deserved? That's the surest way of putting an end to savagery. But to stop the sport altogether! It would be tomfoolery!"
Piers picked up the paper from the floor and smoothed it out. He proceeded to study it with drawn brows, and Sir Beverley sat and watched him with that in his stone-grey eyes which no one was ever allowed to see.
"Eat your crumpets, boy!" he said at last.
"What?" Piers glanced up momentarily. "Oh, all right, sir, in a minute. This is rather an interesting case, what? You see, Adderley was a friend of mine."
"When did you meet him?" demanded Sir Beverley.
"I knew him in my school-days. He spent a whole term in the neighbourhood. It was just before I left for my year of travel. I got to know him rather well. He gave me several hints on wrestling."
"Did he teach you how to break your opponent's neck?" asked Sir Beverley drily.
Piers made a slight, scarcely perceptible movement of one hand. It clenched upon the paper he held. "They were--worth knowing," he said, with his eyes upon the sheet. "But I should have thought he was too old a hand himself to get into trouble."
Sir Beverley grunted. Piers read on. At the end of a lengthy pause he laid the paper aside. "I'm beastly rude," he remarked. "Have a crumpet!"
"Eat 'em yourself!" said Sir Beverley. "I hate 'em!"
Piers picked up the plate and began to eat. He stared at the blaze as he did so, obviously lost in thought.
"Don't dream!" said Sir Beverley sharply.
He turned his eyes upon his grandfather's face--those soft Italian eyes of his so suggestive of hidden fire. "I wasn't--dreaming," he said slowly. "I wonder why you think Adderley ought to be hanged."
"Because he's a murderer," snapped Sir Beverley.
"Yes; but--" said Piers, and became silent as though he were following out some train of thought.
"Go on, boy! Finish!" commanded Sir Beverley. "I detest a sentence left in the middle."
"I was only thinking," said Piers deliberately, "that hanging in my opinion is much the easier sentence of the two. I should ask to be hanged if I were Adderley."
"Would you indeed?" Sir Beverley sounded supremely contemptuous.
But Piers did not seem to notice. "Besides, there are so many murderers in the world," he said, "though it's only the few who get punished. I'm sorry for the few myself. Its damned bad luck, human nature being what it is."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Sir Beverley.
"All right; let's talk about something else," said Piers. "Caesar had a glorious mill with that Irish terrier brute at the Vicarage this afternoon. I couldn't separate 'em, so I just joined in. We'd have been at it now if we had been left to our own devices." He broke into his sudden boyish laugh. "But a kind lady came out of the Vicarage garden and flung the contents of a bedroom jug over the three of us. Rather plucky of her, what? I'm afraid I wasn't over-complimentary at the moment, but I've had time since to appreciate her tact and presence of mind. I'm going over to thank her to-morrow."
"Who was it?" growled Sir Beverley suspiciously. "Not that little white owl, Mrs. Lorimer?"
"Mrs. Lorimer! Great Scott, no! She'd have squealed and run to the Reverend Stephen for protection. No, this was a woman, not an owl. Her name is Denys--Mrs. Denys she was careful to inform me. They've started a mother's help at the Vicarage. None too soon I should say. Who wouldn't be a mother's help in that establishment?"
Sir Beverley uttered a dry laugh. "Daresay she knows how to feather her own nest. Most of 'em do."
"She knows how to keep her head in an emergency, anyhow," remarked Piers.
"Feline instinct," jeered Sir Beverley.
Piers looked across with a laugh in his dark eyes. "And feline pluck, sir," he maintained.
Sir Beverley scowled at him. He could never brook an argument. "Oh, get away, Piers!" he said. "You talk like a fool."
Piers turned his whole attention to devouring crumpets, and there fell a lengthy silence. He rose finally to set down his empty plate and help himself to some more tea.
"That stuff is poisonous by now," said Sir Beverley.
"It won't poison me," said Piers.
He drank it, and returned to the hearth-rug. "I suppose I may smoke?" he said, with a touch of restraint.
Sir Beverley was lying back in his chair, gazing straight up at him. Suddenly he reached out a trembling hand.
"You're a good boy, Piers," he said. "You may do any damn thing you like."
Piers' eyes kindled in swift response. He gripped the extended hand. "You're a brick, sir!" he said. "Look here! Come along to the billiard-room and have a hundred up! It'll give you an appetite for dinner."
He hoisted the old man out of his chair before he could begin to protest. They stood together before the great fire, and Sir Beverley straightened his stiff limbs. He was half a head taller than his grandson.
"What a fellow it is!" he said half laughing. "Why can't you sit still and be quiet? Don't you want to read the paper? I've done with it."
"So have I," said Piers. He swept it up with one hand as he spoke and tossed it recklessly on to the blaze. "Come along, sir! We haven't much time."
"Now what did you do that for?" demanded Sir Beverley, pausing. "Do you want to set the house on fire? What did you do it for, Piers?"
"Because I was a fool," said Piers with sudden, curious vehemence. "A damn fool sir, if you want to know. But it's done now. Let it burn!"
The paper flared fiercely and crumbled to ashes. Sir Beverley suffered himself to be drawn away.
"You're a queer fellow, Piers," he said. "But, taking 'em altogether, I should say there are a good many bigger fools in the world than you."
"Thank you, sir," said Piers.


CHAPTER III
DISCIPLINE

"Mrs. Denys, may I come in?" Jeanie Lorimer's small, delicate face peeped round the door. "I've brought my French exercise to do," she said half-apologetically. "I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind."
"Of course come in, dear child! I like to have you." The mother's help paused in her rapid stitching to look up with a smile at the pretty, brown-haired child. "Come close to the light!" she said. "I hope it isn't a very long one; is it?"
"It is--rather," Jeanie sighed a sharp, involuntary sigh. "I ought to have done it sooner, but I was busy with the little ones. Is that Gracie's frock you're mending? What an awful tear!" She came and stood by Mrs. Denys's side, speaking in a low, rather monotonous voice. A heavy strand of her hair fell over the work as she bent to look; she tossed it back with another sigh. "Gracie is such a tomboy," she said. "It's a pity, isn't it?"
"My dear, you're tired," said Mrs. Denys gently. She put a motherly arm about the slim body that leaned against her, looking up into the pale young face with eyes of kindly criticism.
"A little tired," said Jeanie.
"I shouldn't do that exercise to-night if I were you," said Mrs. Denys. "You will find it easier in the morning. Lie down on the sofa here and have a little rest till supper time!"
"Oh no, I mustn't," said Jeanie. "Father will never let any of us go to bed till the day's work is done."
"But surely, when you're really tired--" began Mrs. Denys.
But Jeanie shook her head. "No; thank you very much, I must do it. Olive did hers long ago."
"Where is Olive?" asked Mrs. Denys.
"She's reading a story-book downstairs. We may always read when we've finished our lessons." Again came that short, unconscious sigh. Jeanie went to the table and sat down. "Mother is rather upset to-night," she said, as she turned the leaves of her book. "Ronald and Julian have been smoking, and she is so afraid that Father will find out. I hope he won't--for her sake. But if they don't eat any supper, he is sure to notice. He flogged Julian two nights running the last time because he told a lie about it."
A quick remark rose to her listener's lips, but it was suppressed unuttered. Mrs. Denys began to stitch very rapidly with her face bent over her work. It was a very charming face, with level grey eyes, wide apart, and a mouth of great sweetness. There was a fugitive dimple on one side of it that gave her a girlish appearance when she smiled. But she was not a girl. There was about her an air of quiet confidence as of one who knew something of the world and its ways. She was young still, and it was yet in her to be ardent; but she had none of the giddy restlessness of youth. Avery Denys was a woman who had left her girlhood wholly behind her. Her enthusiasms and her impulses were kindled at a steadier flame than the flickering