The Bars of Iron

by Ethel M. Dell

  CHAPTER XXIX

  A WATCH IN THE NIGHT

  He came at last out of what had almost been a stupor of inertia, satslowly up, turned his brooding eyes upon the door through which Piers hadpassed. A tremor of anger crossed his face, and was gone. A grim smiletook its place. He still panted spasmodically; but he found his voice.

  "Egad!" he said. "The fellow's as strong as a young bear. He'shugged--all the wind--out of my vitals."

  He struggled to his feet, straightening his knees with difficulty, onehand pressed hard to his labouring heart.

  "Egad!" he gasped again. "He's getting out of hand--the cub! But he'llcome to heel,--he'll come to heel! I know the rascal!"

  He stumbled to the bell and rang it.

  David appeared with a promptitude that seemed to indicate a certainuneasiness.

  "Coffee!" growled his master. "And liqueur!"

  David departed at as high a rate of speed as decorum would permit.

  During his absence Sir Beverley set himself rigidly to recover his normaldemeanour. The encounter had shaken him, shaken him badly; but he was notthe man to yield to physical weakness. He fought it with angrydetermination.

  Before David's reappearance he had succeeded in controlling his gaspingbreath, though the hand with which he helped himself shook veryperceptibly.

  There were two cups on the tray. David lingered.

  "You can go," said Sir Beverley.

  David cocked one eyebrow in deferential enquiry. "Master Piers in thegarden, sir?" he ventured. "Shall I find him?"

  "No!" snapped Sir Beverley.

  "Very good, sir." David turned regretfully to the door. "Shall I keep thecoffee hot, Sir Beverley?" he asked, as he reached it, with what wasalmost a pleading note in his voice.

  Sir Beverley's frown became as menacing as a thunder-cloud. "No!"he shouted.

  David nodded in melancholy submission and withdrew.

  Sir Beverley sat down heavily in his chair and slowly drank his coffee.Finally he put aside the empty cup and sat staring at the closed door,his brows drawn heavily together.

  How had the young beggar dared to defy him so? He must have been gettingout of hand for some time by imperceptible degrees. He had always vowedto himself that he would not spoil the boy. Had that resolution of hisbecome gradually relaxed? His frown grew heavier. He had never beforecontemplated the possibility that Piers might some day become anindividual force utterly beyond his control.

  His eye fell upon a fragment of the broken ruler lying under the tableand again grimly he smiled.

  "Confound the scamp! He's got some muscle," he murmured.

  Again his look went to the door. Why didn't the young fool come back andapologize? How much longer did he mean to keep him waiting?

  The minutes dragged away, and the silence of emptiness gathered andbrooded in the great room and about the master of the house who satwithin it, with bent head, waiting.

  It was close upon ten o'clock when at length he rose and irritablyrang the bell.

  "See if you can find Master Piers!" he said to David. "He can't be faraway. Look in the drawing-room! Look in the garden! Tell him I want him!"

  David withdrew upon the errand, and again the oppressive silence drewclose. For a long interval Sir Beverley sat quite motionless, stillstaring at the door as though he expected Piers to enter at any moment.But when at length it opened, it was only to admit David once more.

  "I'm sorry to say I can't find Master Piers anywhere in the house orgarden, Sir Beverley," he said, looking straight before him and blinkingvacantly at the lamp. "I'm inclined to believe, sir, that he must havegone into the park."

  Sir Beverley snarled inarticulately and dismissed him.

  During the hour that followed, he did not move from his chair, andscarcely changed his position. But at last, as the stable-clock wastolling eleven, he rose stiffly and walked to the window. It wasfastened; he dragged at the catch with impatient fingers.

  His face was haggard and grey as he finally thrust up the sash, andleaned out with his hands on the sill.

  The night was very still all about him. It might have been a night inJune. Only very far away a faint breeze was stirring, whisperingfurtively in the bare boughs of the elm trees that bordered the park.Overhead the stars shone dimly behind a floating veil of mist, andfrom the garden sleeping at his feet there arose a faint, fugitivescent of violets.

  The old man's face contracted as at some sudden sense of pain as thatscent reached his nostrils. His mouth twitched with a curious tremor,and he covered it with his hand as though he feared some silentwatcher in that sleeping world might see and mock his weakness. Thatviolet-bed beneath the window had been planted fifty years before atthe whim of a woman.

  "We must have a great many violets," she had said. "They are sweeter thanall the roses in the world. Next year I must have handfuls and handfulsof sweetness."

  And the next year the violets had bloomed in the chosen corner, but herhands had not gathered them. And they had offered their magic ever since,year after year--even as they offered it tonight--to a heart that was tooold and too broken to care.

  Fifty years before, Sir Beverley had stood at that same window waitingand listening in the spring twilight for the beloved footfall of thewoman who was never again to enter his house. They had had adisagreement, he had spoken harshly, he had been foolishly, absurdlyjealous; for her wonderful beauty, her quick, foreign charm drew all theworld. But, returning from a long ride that had lasted all day, he hadentered with the desire to make amends, to win her sweet and graciousforgiveness. She had forgiven him before. She had laughed with a sweet,elusive mockery and passed the matter by as of no importance. It hadseemed a foregone conclusion that she would forgive him again, wouldreassure him, and set his mind at rest. But he had come back to an emptyhouse--every door gaping wide and the beloved presence gone.

  So he had waited for her, expecting her every moment, refusing to believethe truth that nevertheless had forced itself upon him at the last. Sonow he waited for her grandson--the boy with her beauty, her quick andgenerous charm, her passionate, emotional nature--to come back to him.And yet again he waited in vain.

  Piers had gone forth in fierce anger, driven by that devil that haddescended to him through generations of stiff-necked ancestors; and forthe first time in all his hot young life he had not returned repentant.

  "I treated him like a dog, egad," murmured Sir Beverley into theshielding hand. "But he'll come back. He always comes back, the scamp."

  But the minutes crawled by, the night-wind rustled and passed; and stillPiers did not come.

  It was hard on midnight when Sir Beverley suddenly raised both hands tohis mouth and sent a shrill, peculiar whistle through them across thequiet garden. It had been his special call for Piers in his childhood.Even as he sent it out into the darkness, he seemed to see the sturdy,eager little figure that had never failed to answer that summons withdelight racing headlong towards him over the dim, dewy lawn.

  But to-night it brought no answer though he repeated it again and yetagain; and as twelve o'clock struck heavily upon the stillness he turnedfrom the window and groaned aloud. The boy had gone, gone for good, as hemight have known he would go. He had driven him forth with blows andbitter words, and it was out of his power to bring him back again.

  Slowly he crossed the room and rang the bell. He was very cold, and heshivered as he moved.

  It was Victor who answered the summons, Victor with round, vindictiveeyes that openly accused him for a moment, and then softened inexplicablyand looked elsewhere.

  "You ask me for _Monsieur Pierre_?" he said, spreading out his hands,"_Mais--_"

  "I didn't ask for anything," growled Sir Beverley. "I rang the bell totell you and all the other fools to lock up and go to bed."

  "But--me!" ejaculated Victor, rolling his eyes upwards in astonishment.

  "Yes, you! Where's the sense of your sitting up? Master Piers knows howto undress himself by this time, I suppose?"

&
nbsp; Sir Beverley scowled at him aggressively, but Victor did not even see thescowl. Like a hen with one chick, and that gone astray, he could think ofnaught beside.

  "_Mais Monsieur Pierre_ is not here! Where then is _Monsieur Pierre?_" hequestioned in distress.

  "How the devil should I know?" snarled Sir Beverley. "Stop your chatterand be off with you! Shut the window first, and then go and tell David tolock up! I shan't want anything more to-night."

  Victor shrugged his shoulders in mute protest, and went to the window.Here he paused, looking forth with eyes of eager searching till recalledto his duty by a growl of impatience from his master. Then with acelerity remarkable in one of his years and rotundity, he quickly poppedin his head and closed the window.

  "Leave the blind!" ordered Sir Beverley. "And the catch too! There! Nowgo! _Allez-vous-en!_? Don't let me see you again to-night!"

  Victor threw a single shrewd glance at the drawn face, and trotted with awoman's nimbleness to the door. Here he paused, executed a stiff bow;then wheeled and departed. The door closed noiselessly behind him, andagain Sir Beverley was left alone.

  He dragged a chair to the window, and sat down to watch.

  Doubtless the boy would return when he had walked off his indignation. Hewould be sure to see the light in the study, and he would come to him foradmittance. He himself would receive him with a gruff word or two ofadmonition and the whole affair should be dismissed. Grimly he picturedthe scene to himself as, ignoring the anxiety that was growing withinhim, he settled himself to his lonely vigil.

  Slowly the night dragged on. A couple of owls were hooting to one anotheracross the garden, and far away a dog barked at intervals. Old SirBeverley never stirred in his chair. His limbs were rigid, his eyes fixedand watchful. But his face was grey--grey and stricken and incrediblyold. He had the look of a man who carried a burden too heavy to be borne.

  One after another he heard the hours strike, but his position neveraltered, his eyes never varied, his face remained as though carved ingranite--a graven image of despair. Unspeakable weariness was in hispose, and yet he did not relax or yield a hair's breadth to the body'simportunity. He suffered too bitterly in the spirit that night to beaware of physical necessity.

  Slowly the long hours passed. The night began to wane. A faint greyglimmer, scarcely perceptible, came down from a mist-veiled sky. The windthat had sunk to stillness came softly back and wandered to and fro asthough to rouse the sleeping world. Behind the mist the stars went out,and from the rookery in the park a hoarse voice suddenly proclaimed thecoming day.

  The grey light grew. In the garden ghostly shapes arose, phantoms of thedawn that gradually resolved into familiar forms of tree and shrub. Fromthe rookery there swelled a din of many raucous voices. The dog in thedistance began to bark again with feverish zest, and from the stablescame Caesar's cheery answering yell.

  The mist drifted away from the face of the sky. A brightness was growingthere. Stiffly, painfully, Sir Beverley struggled up from his chair,stood steadying himself--a figure tragic and forlorn--with his handsagainst the wood of the window-frame, then with a groaning effort thrustup the sash.

  Violets! Violets! The haunting scent of them rose to greet him. The airwas full of their magic fragrance. For a second he was aware of it; healmost winced. And then in a moment he had forgotten. He stood theremotionless--a desolate old man, bowed and shrunken and grey--staringblindly out before him, unconscious of all things save the despair thathad settled in his heart.

  The night had passed and his boy had not returned.