The Bars of Iron Part 32

It was final, and Avery knew it. Mrs. Lorimer knew it also, and burst into hysterical crying.

Avery turned swiftly. "Go upstairs, dear!" she said to Gracie, and Gracie went like an arrow.

Mrs. Lorimer started to her feet. "Stephen! Stephen!" she cried imploringly.

But her husband turned a deaf ear. With a contemptuous gesture he tossed Avery's letters upon the table and stalked from the room.

Mrs. Lorimer uttered a wild cry of despair, and fell back fainting in her chair.

For the next quarter of an hour Avery was fully occupied in restoring her, again a.s.sisted by Ronald. When she came to herself, it was only to shed anguished tears on Avery's shoulder and repeat over and over again that she could not bear it, she could not bear it.

Avery was of the same opinion, but she did not say so. She strove instead with the utmost tenderness to persuade her to drink some tea.

But even when she had succeeded in this, Mrs. Lorimer continued to be so exhausted and upset that at last, growing uneasy, Avery despatched Ronald for the doctor.

She sent Olive for the children's nurse and took counsel with her as to getting her mistress back to bed. But Nurse instantly discouraged this suggestion.

"For the Lord's sake, ma'am, don't take her upstairs!" she said. "The master's up there with Miss Gracie, and he's whipping the poor lamb something cruel. He made me undress her first."

"Oh, I cannot have that!" exclaimed Avery. "Stay here a minute, Nurse, while I go up!"

She rushed upstairs in furious anger to the room in which the three little girls slept. The door was locked, but the sounds within were unmistakable. Gracie was plainly receiving severe punishment from her irate parent. Her agonized crying tore Avery's heart.

She threw herself at the door and battered at it with her fists. "Mr.

Lorimer!" she called. "Mr. Lorimer, let me in!"

There was no response. Possibly she was not even heard, for the dreadful crying continued and, mingled with it, the swish of the slender little riding-switch which in the earlier, less hara.s.sed days of his married life the Reverend Stephen had kept for the horse he rode, and which now he kept for his children.

They were terrible moments for Avery that she spent outside that locked door, listening impotently to a child's piteous cries for mercy from one who knew it not. But they came to an end at last. Gracie's distress sank into anguished sobs, and Avery knew that the punishment was over. Mr.

Lorimer had satisfied both his sense of duty and his malice.

She heard him speak in cold, cutting tones. "I have punished you more severely than I had ever expected to find necessary, and I hope that the lesson will be sufficient. But I warn you, Grace, most solemnly that I shall watch your behaviour very closely for the future, and if I detect in you the smallest indication of the insolence and defiance for which I have inflicted this punishment upon you to-day I shall repeat the punishment fourfold. No! Not another word!" as Gracie made some inarticulate utterance. "Or you will compel me to repeat it to-night!"

And with that, he walked quietly to the door and unlocked it.

Avery had ceased to beat upon it; she met him white and stiff in the doorway.

"I have just sent for the doctor," she said. "Mrs. Lorimer has been taken ill."

She pa.s.sed him at once with the words, not looking at him, for she could not trust herself. Straight to Gracie, huddled on the floor in her night-dress, she went, and lifted the child bodily to her bed.

Gracie clung to her, sobbing pa.s.sionately. Mr. Lorimer lingered in the doorway.

"Will you go, please?" said Avery, tight-lipped and rigid, the child clasped to her throbbing heart.

It was a definite command, spoken in a tone that almost compelled compliance, and Mr. Lorimer lingered no more.

Then for one long minute Avery sat and rocked the poor little tortured body in her arms.

At length, through Gracie's sobs, she spoke. "Gracie darling, I'm going to ask you to do something big for me."

"Yes?" sobbed Gracie, clinging tightly round her neck.

"Leave off crying!" Avery said. "Please leave off crying, darling, and be your own brave self!"

"I can't," cried Gracie.

"But do try, darling!" Avery urged her softly. "Because, you see, I can't leave you like this, and your poor little mother wants me so badly. She is ill, Gracie, and I ought to go to her, but I can't while you are crying so."

Thus adjured, Gracie made gallant efforts to check herself. But her spirit was temporarily quite broken. She stood pa.s.sively with the tears running down her face while Avery hastily dressed her again and set her rumpled hair to rights. Then again for a few seconds they held each other very tightly.

"Bless you, my own brave darling!" Avery whispered.

To which Gracie made tearful reply: "Whatever should we do without you, dear--dear Avery?"

"And you won't cry any more?" pleaded Avery, who was nearer to tears herself than she dared have owned.

"No," said Gracie valiantly.

She began to dry her eyes with vigour--a hopeful sign; and after pressing upon Avery another damp kiss was even able to muster a smile.

"Now you can do something to help me," said Avery. "Give yourself five minutes--here's my watch to go by!" She slipped it off her own wrist and on to Gracie's. "Then run up to the nursery and see after the children while Nurse is downstairs! And drink a cup of milk, dearie! Mind you do, for you've had nothing yet."

"I shall love to wear your watch," murmured Gracie, beginning to be comforted.

"I know you'll take care of it," Avery said, with a loving hand on the child's hair. "Now you'll be all right, will you? I can leave you without worrying?"

Grade gave her face a final polish, and nodded. Spent and sore though she was, her spirit was beginning to revive. "Is Mother really ill?" she asked, as Avery turned to go.

"I don't know, dear. I'm rather anxious about her," said Avery.

"It's all Father's fault," said Gracie.

Avery was silent. She could not contradict the statement.

As she reached the door, Gracie spoke again, but more to herself than to Avery. "I hope--when he dies--he'll go to h.e.l.l and stay there for ever and ever and ever!"

"Oh, Gracie!" Avery stopped, genuinely shocked. "How wrong!" she said.

Gracie nodded several times. "Yes, I know it's wrong, but I don't care.

And I hope he'll die to-morrow."

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+" Avery said.

Whereat Gracie broke into a propitiatory smile. "The things I wish for never happen," she said.

And Avery departed, wondering if this statement deserved to be treated in the light of an amendment.