The Bars of Iron Part 55

Again, though slowly, Sir Beverley rallied, recovered his faculties, came back to full understanding. "Had anything to eat?" he rapped out so suddenly that Piers, kneeling beside him, jumped with astonishment.

"I, sir? No, I'm not hungry," he said. "You're feeling better, what? Can I get you something?"

"Oh, don't be a d.a.m.n' fool!" said Sir Beverley. "Tell 'em to fetch some lunch!"

It was the turning-point. From that moment he began to recover in a fas.h.i.+on that amazed Piers, cast aside blankets and pillows, sternly forbade Piers to summon the doctor, and sat up before the fire with a grim refusal to be coddled any longer.

They lunched together in the warmth of the blazing logs, and Sir Beverley became so normal in his att.i.tude that Piers began at last to feel rea.s.sured.

He did not broach the matter that lay between them, knowing well that his grandfather's temperament was not such as to leave it long in abeyance; and they smoked together in peace after the meal as though the strife of the previous evening had never been.

But the memory of it overhung them both, and finally at the end of a lengthy silence Sir Beverley turned his stone-grey eyes upon his grandson and spoke.

"Well? What have you to say for yourself?"

Piers came out of a reverie and looked up with a faint rueful smile.

"Nothing, sir," he said.

"Nothing? What do you mean by that?" Sir Beverley's voice was sharp. "You go away like a raving lunatic, and stay away all night, and then come back with nothing to say. What have you been up to? Tell me that!"

Piers leaned slowly forward, took up the poker and gently pushed it into the fire. "She won't have me," he said, with his eyes upon the leaping flames.

"What?" exclaimed Sir Beverley. "You've been after that hussy again?"

Piers' brows drew together in a thick, ominous line; but he merely nodded and said, "Yes."

"The devil you have!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Beverley. "And she refused you?"

"She did." Again very softly Piers poked at the blazing logs, his eyes fixed and intent. "It served me right--in a way," he said, speaking meditatively, almost as if to himself. "I was a hound--to ask her.

But--somehow--I was driven. However," he drove the poker in a little further, "it's all the same now as she's refused me. That's why," he turned his eyes suddenly upon Sir Beverley, "there's nothing to be said."

There was no defiance in his look, but it held something of a baffling quality. It was almost as if in some fas.h.i.+on he were conscious of relief.

Sir Beverley stared at him, angry and incredulous. "Refused you! What the devil for? Wanted my consent, I suppose? Thought I held the purse-strings, eh?"

"Oh no," said Piers, again faintly smiling, "she didn't care a d.a.m.n about that. She knows I am not dependent upon you. But--she has no use for me, that's all."

"No use for you!" Sir Beverley's voice rose. "What the--what the devil does she want then, I should like to know?"

"She doesn't want anyone," said Piers. "At least she thinks she doesn't.

You see, she's been married before."

There was a species of irony in his voice that yet was without bitterness. He turned back to his aimless stirring of the fire, and there fell a silence between them.

But Sir Beverley's eyes were fixed upon his grandson's face in a close, unsparing scrutiny. "So you thought you might as well come back," he said at last.

"She made me," said Piers, without looking round.

"Made you!"

Again Piers nodded. "I was to tell you from her that she quite understands your att.i.tude; but that you needn't be anxious, as she has no intention of marrying again."

"Confound her impudence!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Beverley.

"Oh no!" Piers' voice sounded too tired to be indignant. "I don't think you can accuse her of that. There has never been any flirtation between us. It wasn't her fault. I--made a fool of myself. It just happened in the ordinary course of things."

He ceased to speak, laid down the poker without sound, and sat with clasped hands, staring blindly before him.

Again there fell a silence. The clock in the corner ticked on with melancholy regularity, the logs hissed and spluttered viciously; but the two men sat in utter stillness, both bowed as if beneath a pressing burden.

One of them moved at last, stretched out a bony, trembling hand, laid it on the other's shoulder.

"Piers boy," Sir Beverley said, with slow articulation, "believe me, there's not a woman on this earth worth grizzling about. They're liars and impostors, every one."

Piers started a little, then with a very boyish movement, he laid his cheek against the old bent fingers. "My dear sir," he said, "but you're a woman-hater!"

"I know," said Sir Beverley, still in that heavy, fateful fas.h.i.+on. "And I have reason. I tell you, boy,--and I know,--you would be better off in your coffin than linked to a woman you seriously cared for. It's h.e.l.l on earth--h.e.l.l on earth!"

"Or paradise," muttered Piers.

"A fool's paradise, boy; a paradise that turns to dust and ashes." Sir Beverley's voice quivered suddenly. He withdrew his hand to fumble in an inner pocket. In a moment he stretched it forth again with a key lying on the palm.

"Take that!" he said. "Open that bureau thing behind you! Look in the left-hand drawer! There's something there for you to see."

Piers obeyed him. There was that in Sir Beverley's manner that silenced all questioning. He pulled out the drawer and looked in. It contained one thing only--a revolver.

Sir Beverley went on speaking, calmly, dispa.s.sionately, wholly impersonally. "It's loaded--has been loaded for fifty years. But I never used it. And that not because my own particular h.e.l.l wasn't hot enough, but just because I wouldn't have it said that I'd ever loved any she-devil enough to let her be my ruin. There were times enough when I nearly did it. I've sat all night with the thing in my hand. But I hung on for that reason, till at last the fire burnt out, and I didn't care.

Every woman is the same to me now. I know now--and you've got to know it too--that woman is only fit to be the servant, not the mistress, of man,--and a d.a.m.n treacherous servant at that. She was made for man's use, and if he is fool enough to let her get the upper hand, then Heaven help him, for he certainly won't be in a position to help himself!"

He stopped abruptly, and in the silence Piers shut and relocked the drawer. He dropped the key into his own pocket, and came back to the fire.

Sir Beverley looked up at him with something of an effort. "Boy," he said, "you've got to marry some day, I know. You've got to have children. But--you're young, you know. There's plenty of time before you. You might wait a bit--just a bit--till I'm out of the way. I won't keep you long; and I won't beat you often either--if you'll condescend to stay with me."

He smiled with the words, his own grim ironical smile; but the pathos of it cut straight to Piers' heart. He went down on his knees beside the old man and thrust his arm about the shrunken shoulders.

"I'll never leave you again, sir," he vowed earnestly. "I've been a heartless brute, and I'm most infernally sorry. As to marrying, well--there's no more question of that for me. I couldn't marry Ina Rose.

You understand that?"

"Never liked the chit," growled Sir Beverley. "Only thought she'd answer your purpose better than some. For you've got to get an heir, boy; remember that! You're the only Evesham left."

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" said Piers very wearily. "What does it matter?"

Sir Beverley looked at him from under his thick brows piercingly but without condemnation. "It's up to you, Piers," he said.

"Is it?" said Piers, with a groan. "Well, let's leave it at that for the present! Sure you've forgiven me?"

Sir Beverley's grim face relaxed again. He put his arm round Piers and held him hard for a moment.