The Bars of Iron

by Ethel M. Dell

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE VISION

  It was growing very dark in the little church, almost too dark to see thecarving of the choir-stalls, and Avery gave a short sigh of weariness.

  She had so nearly finished her task that she had sent the children in toprepare for tea, declaring that she would follow them in five minutes,and then just at the last a whole mass of ivy and holly, upon which theboys had been at work, had slipped and strewn the chancel-floor. She wasthe only one left in the church, and it behooved her to remove thelitter. It had been a hard day, and she was frankly tired of the verysight and smell of the evergreens.

  There was no help for it, however. The chancel must be made tidy beforeshe could go, and she went to the cupboard under the belfry for thedustpan and brush which the sexton's wife kept there. She found a candlealso, and thus armed she returned to the scene of her labours at theother end of the dim little church. She tried to put her customary energyinto the task, but it would not rise to the occasion, and after a fewstrenuous seconds she paused to rest.

  It was very still and peaceful, and she was glad of the solitude. All daylong she had felt the need of it; and all day long it had been deniedher. She had been decorating under Miss Whalley's superintendence, andthe task had been no light one. Save for the fact that she had gone inMrs. Lorimer's stead, she had scarcely undertaken it. For Miss Whalleywas as exacting as though the church were her own private property. Shedeferred to the Vicar alone, and he was more than willing to leave thematter in her hands. "My capable assistant" was his pet name for thisformidable member of his flock, and very conscientiously did Miss Whalleymaintain her calling. She would have preferred to direct Mrs. Lorimerrather than the mother's help, but since the latter had firmly determinedto take the former's place, she had accepted her with condescension andallotted to her all the hardest work.

  Avery had laboured uncomplainingly in her quiet, methodical fashion, butnow that the stress was over and Miss Whalley safely installed in theVicarage drawing-room for tea, she found it impossible not to relaxsomewhat, and to make the most of those few exquisite moments ofsanctuary.

  She was very far from expecting any invasion of her solitude, and whenafter a moment or two she went on with her sweeping she had no suspicionof another presence in the dark building. She had set herself resolutelyto finish her task, and so energetic was she that she heard no sound offeet along the aisle behind her.

  Some unaccountable impulse induced her to pause at length and stillkneeling, brush in hand, to throw a backward glance along the nave. Thenit was that she saw a man's figure standing on the chancel-steps, and sounexpected was the apparition that her weary nerves leapt with violenceout of all proportion to the event, and she sprang to her feet with astartled cry that echoed weirdly through the empty place. Then with arush of self-ridicule she recognized Piers Evesham. "Oh, it is you!" shesaid. "How stupid of me!"

  He came straight to her with an air of determination that would brook noopposition and took the brush out of her hand. "That's not your job," hesaid. "You go and sit down!"

  She stared at him in silence, trying to still the wild agitation that hisunlooked-for coming had raised in her. He was wearing a heavy motor-coat,but he divested himself of this, and without further parley bent himselfto the task of which he had deprived her.

  Avery sat down somewhat limply on the pulpit-stairs and watched him. Hewas very thorough and far brisker than she could have been. In a very fewminutes the litter was all collected, and Piers turned round and lookedback at her across the dim chancel.

  "Feeling better?" he said.

  She did not answer him. "What made you come in like that?" she asked.

  He replied to the question with absolute simplicity. "I've just broughtGracie home again. She asked me to tea in the schoolroom, but you weren'tthere, and they said I should find you here, so I came to fetch you."

  He moved slowly across and stood before her, looking down into her tiredeyes with an odd species of relentlessness in his own.

  "It's an infernal shame that you should work so hard!" he said, withsudden resentment. "You're looking fagged to death."

  Avery smiled a little. "I like hard work," she said.

  "Not such as this!" said Piers. "It isn't fit for you. Why can't the lazyhound do it himself?"

  Her smile passed. "Hush, Piers!" she said. "Not here!"

  He glanced towards the altar, and she thought a shade of reverence cameinto his face for a moment. But he turned to her again immediately withhis flashing, boyish smile.

  "Well, it isn't good for you to overwork, you know, Avery. I hate tothink of it. And you have no one to take care of you and see you don't."

  Avery got up slowly. Her own face was severe in the candlelight, butbefore she could speak he went lightly on.

  "Would you like me to play you something before we go? Or are you tootired to blow? It's rather a shame to suggest it. But it's such a grandopportunity."

  Avery turned at once to the organ with a feeling of relief. As usual shefound it very hard to rebuke him as he deserved.

  "Yes, I will blow for you," she said. "But it must be something short,for we ought to be going."

  She sat down and began to blow.

  Piers took his place at once at the organ. It was characteristic of himthat he never paused for inspiration. His fingers moved over the keys asit were by instinct, and in a few moments Avery forgot that she was tiredand dispirited with the bearing of many burdens, forgot all the problemsand difficulties of life, forgot even her charges at the Vicarage and thewaiting schoolroom tea, and sat wrapt as it were in a golden mist ofdelight, watching the slow spreading of a dawn such as she had never seeneven in her dreams. What he played she knew not, and yet the music wasnot wholly unfamiliar to her. It waked within her soul harmonies thatvibrated in throbbing response. He spoke to her in a language that sheknew. And as the magic moments passed, the wonderful dawn so grew anddeepened that it seemed to her that all pain, all sorrow, had fallenutterly away, and she stood on the threshold of a new world.

  Wider and wider spread the glory. There came to her an overwhelming senseof greatness about to be revealed. She became strung to a pitch ofexpectancy that was almost anguish, while the music swelled and swelledlike the distant coming of a vast procession as yet unseen. She stood asit were on a mountain-top before the closed gates of heaven, waiting forthe moment of revelation.

  It came. Just when she felt that she could bear no more, just when thewild beating of her heart seemed as if it would choke her, the musicchanged, became suddenly all-conquering, a paean of triumph, and thegates swung back before her eager eyes.

  In spirit she entered the Holy Place, and the same hand that had admittedher lifted for her the last great Veil. For one moment of unutterablerapture such as no poor palpitating mortal body could endure for long,the vision was her own. She saw Heaven opened....

  And then the Veil descended, and the Gates closed. She came down from themountain-top, leaving the golden dawn very far behind her. She opened hereyes in darkness and silence.

  Someone was bending over her. She felt warm hands about her own. Sheheard a voice, sudden and imploring, close to her.

  "Avery! Avery darling! For God's sake, dear, speak to me! What is it?Are you ill?"

  "Ill!" she said, bewildered.

  His hands gripped hers impetuously. "You gave me such a fright," he said."I thought you'd fainted. Did you faint?"

  "Of course not!" she said slowly. "I never faint. Why did you stopplaying?"

  "I didn't," said Piers. "At least, you stopped first."

  "Oh, did I forget to blow?" she said. "I'm sorry."

  She knew that she ought not to suffer that close clasp of his, butsomehow for the moment she was powerless to resist it. She sat quitestill, gazing out before her with a curious sense of powerlessness.

  "You're tired out," said Piers softly. "It was a shame to keep you here.I'm awfully sorry, dear."

  She stirred at that, beginning to seek for
freedom. "Don't, Piers!" shesaid. "It--it isn't right of you. It isn't fair."

  He knelt swiftly down before her. His voice came quick and passionate inanswer. "It can't be wrong to love you," he said. "And you will never beany the worse for my love. Let me love you, Avery! Let me love you!"

  The words rushed out tempestuously. His forehead was bowed upon herhands. He became silent, and through the silence she heard his breathing,hard and difficult,--the breathing of a man who faces stupendous odds.

  With an effort she summoned her strength. Yet she could not speak harshlyto him, for her heart went out in pity. "No, you mustn't, Piers," shesaid. "You mustn't indeed. I am years older than you are, and it isutterly unsuitable. You must forget it. You must indeed. There! Let us befriends! I like you well enough for that."

  He uttered a laugh that sounded as though it covered a groan. "Yes,you're awfully good to me," he said. "But you're not--in onesense--anything approaching my age, and pray Heaven you never will be!"

  He raised his head and looked at her. "And you're not angry with me?" hesaid, half wistfully.

  No, she was not angry. She could not even pretend to be. "But please besensible!" she begged. "I know it was partly my fault. If I hadn't beenso tired, it wouldn't have happened."

  He got to his feet, still holding her hands. "No; you're not to blameyourself," he said. "What has happened was bound to happen, right fromthe very beginning. But I'm sorry if it has upset you. There is no reasonwhy it should that I can see. You are better now?"

  He helped her gently to rise. They stood face to face in the dimcandlelight, and his eyes looked into hers with such friendly concernthat again she had it not in her heart to be other than kind.

  "I am quite well," she assured him. "Please forget my foolishness! Tellme what it was you played just now!"

  "That last thing?" he said. "Surely you know that! It was Handel's_Largo_."

  She started. "Of course! I remember now! But--I've never heard it playedlike that before."

  A very strange smile crossed his face. "No one but you would haveunderstood," he said. "I wanted you to hear it--like that."

  She withdrew her hands from his. Something in his words sent a curiousfeeling that was almost dread through her heart.

  "I don't--quite--know what you mean," she said.

  "Don't you?" said Piers, and in his voice there rang a note ofrecklessness. "It's a difficult thing to put into words, isn't it? I justwanted you to see the Open Heaven as I have seen it--and as I shall neversee it again."

  "Piers!" she said.

  He answered her almost fiercely. "No, you won't understand. Of course youcan't understand. You will never stand hammering at the bars, breakingyour heart in the dark. Wasn't that the sort of picture our kindly parsondrew for us on Sunday? It's a pretty theme--the tortures of the damned!"

  "My dear Piers!" Avery spoke quickly and vehemently. "Surely you have toomuch sense to take such a discourse as that seriously! I longed to tellthe children not to listen. It is wicked--wicked--to try to spreadspiritual terror in people's hearts, and to call it the teaching ofreligion. It is no more like religion than a penny-terrible is like life.It is a cruel and fantastic distortion of the truth."

  She paused. Piers was listening to her with that odd hunger in his eyesthat had looked out of them the night before.

  "You don't believe in hell then?" he said quietly, after a moment.

  "As a place of future torment--no!" she said. "The only real hell is hereon earth--here in our hearts when we fall away from God. Hell is thestate of sin and all that goes with it--the fiery hell of the spirit. Itis here and now. How could it be otherwise? Can you imagine a God of Lovedevising hideous tortures hereafter, for the punishment of the pigmieswho had offended Him? Tortures that were never to do them any good, butjust to keep them in misery for ever and ever? It is unthinkable--it'salmost ludicrous. What is the good of suffering except to purify? That wecan understand and thank God for. But the other--oh, the other is sheerimagery, more mythical than Jonah and the whale. It just doesn't go."Again she paused, then very frankly held out her hand to him. "But I likeyour picture of the Open Heaven, Piers," she said. "Show it me again someday--when I'm not as tired and stupid as I am to-day."

  He bent over her hand with a gesture that betrayed the foreign blood inhim, and his lips, hot and passionate, pressed her cold fingers. He didnot utter a word. Only when he stood up again he looked at her with eyesthat burned with the deep fires of manhood, and suddenly all-unbiddenthe woman's heart in her quivered in response. She bent her head andturned away.