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

her. "Wasn't it beautiful?" said Jeanie. "He said he would make me see the Kingdom of Heaven. You saw it too, dear Avery, didn't you?"
Yes, Avery had seen it too. She still felt as if the earth were very far below them both.
Jeanie's voice had grown husky, but she still spoke in a tremulous whisper. "Did you see the Open Gates, dear Avery? He says they are never shut. And anyone who can reach them will be let in,--it doesn't matter who. Do you know, I think Piers is different from what he used to be? I think he is learning to love God."
Absolutely simple words! Why did they send such a rush of feeling--tumultuous, indescribable feeling--through Avery? Was this the explanation? Was this how it came to pass that he treated her with that aloof reverence day by day? Was he indeed learning the supreme lesson to worship God with love?
She sat for a while longer with Jeanie, till, finding her drowsy, she slipped downstairs.
Piers was sitting in the hall, deep in a newspaper. He rose at her coming with an abruptness suggestive of surprise, and stood waiting for her to speak.
But curiously the only words that she could utter were of a trivial nature. She had come to him indeed, drawn by a power irresistible, but the moment she found herself actually in his presence she felt tongue-tied, helpless.
"Don't you want a light?" she said nervously. "I am sure you can't see to read."
He stood silent for a moment, and the old tormenting doubt began to rise within her. Would he think she desired to make an overture? Would he take for granted that because his magnetism had drawn her he could do with her as he would?
And then very quietly he spoke, and she experienced an odd revulsion of feeling that was almost disappointment.
"Have you been reading the papers lately?"
She had not. Jeanie occupied all her waking thoughts.
He glanced down at the sheet he held. "There is going to be a bust-up on the Continent," he said, and there was that in his tone--a grim elation--which puzzled her at the moment. "The mightiest bust-up the world has ever known. We're in for it, Avery; in for the very deuce of a row." His voice vibrated suddenly. He stopped as though to check some headlong force that threatened to carry him away.
Avery stood still, feeling a sick horror of impending disaster at her heart. "What can you mean?" she said.
He leaned his hands upon the table facing her, and she saw in his eyes the primitive, savage joy of battle. "I mean war," he said. "Oh, it's horrible; yes, of course it's horrible. But it'll bring us to our senses. It'll make men of us yet."
She shrank from his look. "Piers! Not--not a European war!"
He straightened himself slowly. "Yes," he said. "It will be that. But there's nothing to be scared about. It'll be the salvation of the Empire."
"Piers!" she gasped again through white lips. "But modern warfare! Modern weapons! It's Germany of course?"
"Yes, Germany." He stretched up his arms with a wide gesture and let them fall. "Germany who is going to cut out all the rot of party politics and bind us together as one man! Germany who is going to avert civil war and teach us to love our neighbours! Nothing short of this would have saved us. We've been a mere horde of chattering monkeys lately. Now--all thanks to Germany!--we're going to be men!"
"Or murderers!" said Avery.
The word broke from her involuntarily, she scarcely knew that she had uttered it until she saw his face. Then in a flash she saw what she had done, for he had the sudden tragic look of a man who has received his death-wound.
He made her a curious stiff bow as if he bent himself with difficulty. His face at that moment was whiter than hers, but his eyes glowed red with a deep anger.
"I shall remember that," he said, "when I go to fight for my country."
With the words he turned to the door. But she cried after him, dismayed, incoherent.
"Oh Piers, you know--you know--I didn't mean that!"
He did not pause or look back. "Nevertheless you said it," he rejoined in a tone that made her feel as if he had flung an icy shower of water in her face; and the next moment she heard his quick tread on the garden path and realized that he was gone.
It was useless to attempt to follow him. Her knees were trembling under her. Moreover, she knew that she must return to Jeanie. White-lipped, quivering, she moved to the stairs.
He had utterly misunderstood her; she had but voiced the horrified thought that must have risen in the minds of thousands when first brought face to face with that world-wide tragedy. But he had read a personal meaning into her words. He had deemed her deliberately cruel, ungenerous, bitter. That he could thus misunderstand her set her heart bleeding afresh. Oh, they were better apart! How was it possible that there could ever be any confidence, any intimacy, between them again?
Tears, scalding, blinding tears ran suddenly down her face. She bowed her head in her hands, leaning upon the banisters....
A voice called to her from above, and she started. What was she doing, weeping here in selfish misery, when Jeanie--Swiftly she commanded herself and mounted the stairs. The nurse met her at the top.
"The little one isn't so well," she said. "I thought she was asleep, but I am afraid she is unconscious."
"Oh, nurse, and I left her!"
There was a sound of such heart-break in Avery's voice that the nurse's grave face softened in sympathy.
"My dear, you couldn't have done anything," she said. "It is just the weakness before the end, and we can do nothing to avert it. What about her mother? Can she come?"
Avery shook her head in despair. "Not for a week."
"Ah!" the nurse said; and that was all. But Avery knew in that moment that only a few hours more remained ere little Jeanie Lorimer passed through the Open Gates.
She would not go to bed that night though the child lay wholly unconscious of her. She knew that she could not sleep.
She did not see Piers again till late. The nurse slipped down to tell him of Jeanie's condition, and he came up, white and sternly composed, and stood for many minutes watching the slender, quick-breathing figure that lay propped among pillows, close to the open window.
Avery could not look at his face during those minutes; she dared not. But when he turned away at length he bent and spoke to her.
"Are you going to stay here?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He made no attempt to dissuade her. All he said was, "May I wait in your room? I shall be within call there."
"Of course," she answered.
"And you will call me if there is any change?"
"Of course," she said again.
He nodded briefly and left her.
Then began the long, long night-watch. It was raining, and the night was very dark. The slow, deep roar of the sea rose solemnly and filled the quiet room. The tide was coming in. They could hear the water shoaling along the beach.
How often Avery had listened to it and loved the sound! To-night it filled her soul with awe, as the Voice of Many Waters.
Slowly the night wore on, and ever that sound increased in volume, swelling, intensifying, like the coming of a mighty host as yet far off. The rain pattered awhile and ceased. The sea-breeze blew in, salt and pure. It stirred the brown tendrils of hair on Jeanie's forehead, and eddied softly through the room.
The nurse sat working beside a hooded lamp that threw her grave, strong face into high relief, but only accentuated the shadows in the rest of the room. Avery sat close to the bed, not praying, scarcely thinking, waiting only for the opening of the Gates. And in that hour she longed,--oh, how passionately!--that when they opened she also might be permitted to pass through.
It was in the darkest hour of the night that the tide began to turn. She looked almost instinctively for a change but none came. Jeanie stirred not, save when the nurse stooped over her to give her nourishment, and each time she took less and less.
The tide receded. The night began to pass. There came a faint greyness before the window. The breeze freshened.
And very suddenly the breathing to which Avery had listened all the night paused, ceased for a second or two, then broke into the sharp sigh of one awaking from sleep.
She rose quickly, and the nurse looked up. Jeanie's eyes dark, unearthly, unafraid, were opened wide.
She gazed at Avery for a moment as if slightly puzzled. Then, in a faint whisper: "Has Piers said good-night?" she asked.
"No, darling. But he is waiting to. I will call him," Avery said.
"Quickly!" whispered the nurse, as she passed her.
Swiftly, noiselessly, Avery went to her own room. But some premonition of her coming must have reached him; for he met her on the threshold.
His eyes questioned hers for a moment, and then together they turned back to Jeanie's room. No words passed between them. None were needed.
Jeanie's face was turned towards the door. Her eyes looked beyond Avery and smiled a welcome to Piers. He came to her, knelt beside her.
"Dear Sir Galahad!" she said.
He shook his head. "No, Jeanie, no!"
She was panting. He slipped his arm under the pillow to support her. She turned her face to his.
"Oh, Piers," she breathed, "I do--so--want you--to be happy."
"I am happy, sweetheart," he said.
But Jeanie's vision was stronger in that moment than it had ever been before, and she was not deceived. "You are not happy, dear Piers," she said. "Avery is not happy either."
Piers turned slightly. "Come here, Avery!" he said.
The old imperious note was in his voice, yet with a difference. He stretched his free hand up to her, drawing her down to his side, and as she knelt also he passed his arm about her, pressing her to him.
Jeanie's eyes were upon them both, dying eyes that shone with a mystic glory. They saw the steadfast resolution in Piers' face as he held his wife against his heart. They saw the quivering hesitation with which she yielded.
"You're not happy--yet," she whispered. "But you will be happy."
Thereafter she seemed to slip away from them for a space, losing touch as it were, yet still not beyond their reach. Once or twice she seemed to be trying to pray, but they could not catch her words.
The dawn-light grew stronger before the window. The sound of the waves had sunk to a low murmuring. From where she knelt Avery could see the far, dim line of sea. Piers' arm was still about her. She felt as though they two were kneeling apart before an Altar invisible, waiting to receive a blessing.
Jeanie's breathing was growing less hurried. She seemed already beyond all earthly suffering. Yet her eyes also watched that far dim sky-line as though they waited for a sign.
Slowly the light deepened, the shadows began to lift. Piers' eyes were fixed unswervingly upon the child's quiet face. The light of the coming Dawn was reflected there. The great Change was very near at hand.
Far away to the left there grew and spread a wondrous brightness. The sky seemed to recede, turned from grey to misty blue. A veil of cloud that had hidden the stars all through the night dissolved softly into shreds of gold, and across the sea with a