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

stood beside him. The blow had fallen, but she had scarcely begun to feel its effects. There was so much to be thought of first.
"Please be quite open with me!" she said. "Tell me how long you think she will live!"
He turned slightly and looked at her. "I can tell you what I think, Lady Evesham," he said. "But, remember, that does not bring the end any nearer."
"I know," she said.
She looked straight back at him with eyes unflinching, and after a moment's thought he spoke.
"I think that--given every care--she may live through the summer, but I do not consider it likely."
Avery's face was very pale, but still she did not flinch. "Will she suffer?" she asked.
He raised his brows at the question. "My dear lady, she has suffered already far more than you have any idea of. One lung is practically gone, wholly useless. The other is rapidly going the same way. She has probably suffered for a year or more, first lassitude, then shortness of breath, and pretty often actual pain. Hasn't she complained of these things?"
"She is a child who never complains," Avery said. "But both her mother and I thought she was wasting."
"She is mere skin and bone," he said. "Now--about her people, Lady Evesham; who is going to tell them? You or I?"
She hesitated. "But I could hardly ask you to do that," she said.
"You may command me in any way," he answered. "If I may presume to advise, I should say that the best course would be for me to go to Rodding, see the doctor there, and get him to take me to the Vicarage."
"Oh, but they mustn't take her from me!" Avery said. "Let her mother come here! She can't--she mustn't--go back home!"
"Exactly what I was going to say," he returned, in his quiet practical fashion. "To take her back there would be madness. But look here, Lady Evesham, you must have a nurse."
"Oh, not yet!" said Avery. "I am quite strong now. I am used to nursing. I have--no other call upon me. Let me do this!"
"None?" he said.
His tone re-called her. She coloured burningly. "My husband--would understand," she said, with difficulty.
He passed the matter by. "Will you promise to send me a message if you find night-nursing a necessity?"
She hesitated.
He frowned. "Lady Evesham, you must promise me this in fairness to the child as well as to yourself. Also, you will give me your word that you will never under any circumstances sleep with her."
She saw that he would have his way, and she yielded both points rather than fight a battle which instinct warned her she could not win.
"Then I will be going," he said.
He turned back into the room, and again she was aware of his green eyes surveying her closely, critically. But he made no reference whatever to her health, and inwardly she blessed him for his forbearance.
She did not know that as he rode away, he grimly remarked to himself: "The best tonics generally taste the bitterest, and she'll drink this one to the dregs, poor girl! But it'll help her in the end."


CHAPTER II
THE TIDE COMES BACK

"Give her everything she wants!" How often in the days that followed were those words in Avery's mind! She strove to fulfil them to the uttermost, but Jeanie seemed to want so little. The only trouble in her existence just then was her holiday-task, and that she steadily refused to relinquish unless her father gave her leave.
A few days after Maxwell Wyndham's departure there came an agonized letter from Mrs. Lorimer. Olive had just developed scarlet fever, and as they could not afford a nurse she was nursing her herself. She entreated Avery to send her daily news of Jeanie and to telegraph at once should she become worse. She added in a pathetic postscript that her husband found it difficult to believe that Jeanie could be as ill as the great doctor had represented, and she feared he was a little vexed that Maxwell Wyndham's opinion had been obtained.
It was exactly what Avery had expected of him. She wrote a soothing letter to Mrs. Lorimer, promising to keep her informed of Jeanie's condition, promising to lavish every care upon the child, and begging her to persuade Mr. Lorimer to remit the task which had become so heavy a burden.
The reply to this did not come at once, and Avery had repeated the request twice very urgently and was contemplating addressing a protest to the Reverend Stephen in person when another agitated epistle arrived from Mrs. Lorimer. Her husband had decided to run down to them for a night and judge of Jeanie's state for himself.
Avery received the news with dismay which, however, she was careful to conceal. Jeanie heard of the impending visit with as much perturbation as her tranquil nature would allow, and during the day that intervened before his arrival gave herself more sedulously than ever to her task. She had an unhappy premonition that he would desire to examine her upon what she had read, and she was guiltily aware that her memory had not retained very much of it.
So for the whole of one day she strove to study, till she was so completely tired out that Avery actually took the book from her at last and declared that she should not worry herself any more about it. Jeanie yielded submissively, but a wakeful night followed, and in the morning she looked so wan that Avery wanted to keep her in bed.
On this point, however, Jeanie was less docile than usual. "He will think I am shamming," she protested. "He never likes us to lie in bed unless we are really ill."
So, since she was evidently anxious to get up, Avery permitted it, though she marked her obvious languor with a sinking heart.
The Vicar arrived at about noon, and Avery saw at a glance that he was in no kindly mood.
"Dear me, what is all this fuss?" he said to Jeanie. "You look to me considerably rosier than I have seen you for a long time."
Jeanie was indeed flushed with nervous excitement, and Avery thought she had never seen her eyes so unnaturally bright. She endured her father's hand under her chin with evident discomfort, and the Vicar's face was somewhat severe when he finally released her.
"I am afraid you are getting a little fanciful, my child," he said gravely. "I know that our kind friend, Lady Evesham--" his eyes twinkled ironically and seemed to slip inwards--"has always been inclined to indulge your whims. Now how do you occupy your time?"
"I read," faltered Jeanie.
"And sew, I presume," said the Vicar, who prided himself upon bringing up his daughter to be useful.
"A little," said Jeanie.
He opened his eyes upon her again with that suggestion of severity in his regard which Jeanie so plainly dreaded. "But you have done none since you have been here? Jeanie, my child, I detect in you the seeds of idleness. If your time were more fully occupied, you would find your general health would considerably improve. Now, do you rise early and go for a bathe before breakfast?"
"No," said Jeanie, with a little shiver.
He shook his head at her. "Then let us institute the habit at once! I cannot have you becoming slack just because you are away from home. If this indolence continue, I shall be compelled to have you back under my own eye. I clearly see that the self-indulgent life you lead here is having disastrous results. You will bathe with me to-morrow at seven-thirty, after which we will have half an hour of physical exercise. Then after a wholesome breakfast you will feel renewed and ready for the day's work."
Avery, when this programme was laid before her, looked at him in incredulous amazement.
"But surely Dr. Wyndham explained to you the serious condition she is in!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Lorimer smiled his own superior smile. "He explained his point of view most thoroughly, my dear Lady Evesham." He always pronounced her name and title with satirical emphasis. "But that--very curious as it may appear to you--does not prevent my holding a very strong opinion of my own. And it chances to be in direct opposition to that expressed by Dr. Maxwell Wyndham. I know my own child,--her faults and her tendencies. She has been allowed to become extremely lax with regard to her daily duties, and this laxness is in my opinion the root of the evil. I shall therefore take my own measures to correct it, and if they are in any way resisted or neglected I shall at once remove the child from your care. I trust I have made myself quite explicit."
He had. But Avery's indignation could not be contained.
"You will kill her if you persist!" she said. "Even as it is--even as it is--her days are numbered."
"The days of all of us are numbered," said the Reverend Stephen. "And it behoves us to make the very utmost of each one of them. I cannot allow my child's character to be ruined on account of a physical weakness which a little judicious discipline will speedily overcome. The spirit must triumph over the flesh, Lady Evesham. A hard rule for worldlings, I grant you, but one which must be observed by all who would enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Argument was futile. Avery realized it at the outset. He would have his way, whatever the cost, and no warning or entreaty would move him. For the rest of that day she had to stand by in impotent anguish, and watch Jeanie's martyrdom. During the afternoon he sat alone with her, conducting the intellectual examination which Jeanie had so dreaded, reprimanding, criticizing, scoffing at her ignorance. In the evening he took her for what he called a stroll upon which Avery was not allowed to accompany them. Mr. Lorimer playfully remarking that he wished to give his young daughter the benefit of his individual attention during the period of his brief sojourn with them.
They returned from their expedition at eight. Avery was walking to and fro by the gate in a ferment of anxiety. They came by the cliff-road, and she went eagerly to meet them.
Jeanie was hanging on her father's arm with a face of deathly whiteness, and looked on the verge of collapse.
The Reverend Stephen was serenely satisfied with himself, laughed gently at his child's dragging progress, and assured Avery that a little wholesome fatigue was a good thing at the end of the day.
Jeanie said nothing. She seemed to be speechless with exhaustion, almost incapable of standing alone.
Mr. Lorimer recommended a cold bath, a brisk rub-down, and supper.
"After which," he said impressively, "I shall hope to conduct a few prayers before we retire to rest."
"That will be impossible, I am afraid," Avery rejoined. "Jeanie is overtired and must go at once to bed."
She spoke with quiet decision, but inwardly she was quivering with fierce anger. She longed passionately to have the child to herself, to comfort and care for her and ease away the troubles of the day.
But Mr. Lorimer at once asserted his authority. "Jeanie will certainly join us at supper," he said. "Run along, my child, and prepare for the meal at once!"
Jeanie went up the stairs like an old woman, stumbling at every step.
Avery followed her, chafing but impotent.
At the top of the stairs Jeanie began to cough. She turned into her own room with blind, staggering movements and sank down beside the bed.
The coughing was spasmodic and convulsive. It shook her whole frame. In the end there came a dreadful tearing sound, and she caught