Then: "Oh, drat it, Piers!" he said testily. "Get away, do! And behave yourself for the future!"

Whereat Piers laughed, a short, unsteady laugh, and went back to his chair.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE DECISION

"The matter is settled," said the Reverend Stephen Lorimer, in the tones of icy decision with which his wife was but too tragically familiar. "I engaged Mrs. Denys to be a help to you, not exclusively to Jeanie. The child is quite well enough to return home, and I do not feel myself justified in incurring any further expense now that her health is quite sufficiently restored."

"But the children were all counting on going to Stanbury Cliffs for the Easter holidays," protested Mrs. Lorimer almost tearfully. "We cannot disappoint them, Stephen!" Mr. Lorimer's lips closed very firmly for a few seconds. Then, "The change home will be quite sufficient for them,"

he said. "I have given the matter my full consideration, my dear Adelaide, and no argument of yours will now move me. Mrs. Denys and Jeanie have been away for a month, and they must now return. It is your turn for a change, and as soon as Eastertide is over I intend to take you away with me for ten days or so and leave Mrs. Denys in charge of--the bear-garden, as I fear it but too truly resembles. You are quite unfit for the noise and racket of the holidays. And I myself have been feeling lately the need of a little--shall I call it recreation?" Mr. Lorimer smiled self-indulgently over the term. He liked to play with words. "I presume you have no vital objection to accompanying me?"

"Oh, of course not. I should like it above all things," Mrs. Lorimer hastened to a.s.sure him, "if it were not for Jeanie. I don't like the thought of bringing her home just when her visit is beginning to do her so much good."

"She cannot remain away for ever," said Mr. Lorimer. "Moreover, her delicacy must have been considerably exaggerated, or such a sudden improvement could scarcely have taken place. At all events, so it appears to me. She must therefore return home and spend the holidays in wholesome amus.e.m.e.nts with the other children; and when they are over, I really must turn my serious attention to her education which has been so sadly neglected since Christmas. Mrs. Denys is doubtless a very excellent woman in her way, but she is not, I fear, one to whom I could safely entrust the intellectual development of a child of Jeanie's age." He paused, looking up with complacent enquiry at his wife's troubled face. "And now what scruples are stirring in the mind of my spouse?" he asked, with playful affection.

Mrs. Lorimer did not smile in answer. Her worried little face only drew into more anxious lines. "Stephen," she said, "I do wish you would consult Dr. Tudor before you quite decide to have Jeanie home at present."

The Vicar's mouth turned down, and he looked for a moment so extremely unpleasant that Mrs. Lorimer quailed. Then, "My dear," he said deliberately, "when I decide upon a specific course of action, I carry it through invariably. If I were not convinced that what I am about to do were right, I should not do it. Pray let me hear no more upon the subject! And remember, Adelaide, it is my express command that you do not approach Dr. Tudor in this matter. He is a most interfering person, and would welcome any excuse to obtain a footing in this house again. But now that I have at length succeeded in shaking him off, I intend to keep him at a distance for the future. And he is not to be called in--understand this very clearly, if you please--except in a case of extreme urgency.

This is a distinct order, Adelaide, and I shall be severely displeased if you fail to observe it. And now," he resumed his lighter manner again as he rose from his chair, "I must hie me to the parish room where my good Miss Whalley is awaiting me."

He stretched forth a firm, kind hand and patted his wife's shoulder.

"We must see what we can do to bring a little colour into those pale cheeks," he said. "A fortnight in the Cornish Riviera perhaps. Or we might take a peep at Shakespeare's country. But we shall see, we shall see! I will write to Mrs. Denys and acquaint her with my decision this evening."

He was gone, leaving Mrs. Lorimer to pace up and down his study in futile distress of mind. Only that morning a letter from Avery had reached her, telling her of Jeanie's continued progress, and urging her to come and take her place for a little while. It was such a change as her tired soul craved, but she had not dared to tell her husband so. And now, it seemed, Jeanie's good time also was to be terminated.

There was no doubt about it. Rodding did not suit the child. She was never well at home. The Vicarage was shut in by trees, a damp, unhealthy place. And Dr. Tudor had told her in plain terms that Jeanie lacked the strength to make any headway there. She was like a wilting plant in that atmosphere. She could not thrive in it. Dry warmth was what she needed, and it had made all the difference to her. Avery's letter had been full of hope. She referred to Dr. Tudor's simile of the building of a sea-wall. "We are strengthening it every day," she wrote. "In a few more weeks it ought to be proof against any ordinary tide."

A few more weeks! Mrs. Lorimer wrung her hands. Stephen did not know, did not realize; and she was powerless to convince him. Avery would not convince him either. He tolerated only Avery because she was so useful.

She knew exactly the sort of letter he would write, desiring their return; and Avery, for all her quiet strength, would have to submit. Oh, it was cruel--cruel!

The tears were coursing down her cheeks when the door opened unexpectedly and Olive entered. She paused at sight of her mother, looking at her with just the Vicar's air of chill enquiry.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

Mrs. Lorimer turned hastily to the window and began to dry her eyes.

Olive went to a bookshelf and stood before it. After a moment she took out a book and deliberately turned we leaves. Her att.i.tude was plainly repressive.

Finally she returned the book to the shelf and turned. "Why are you crying, Mother?"

Mrs. Lorimer leaned her head against the window-frame with a heavy sigh.

"I am very miserable, Olive," she said, a catch in her voice.

"No one need be that," observed Olive. "Father says that misery is a sign of mental weakness."

Mrs. Lorimer was silent.

"Don't you think you had better leave off crying and find something to do?" suggested her daughter in her cool, young voice.

Still Mrs. Lorimer neither moved nor spoke.

Olive came a step nearer. There was obvious distaste on her face. "I wish you would try to be a little brighter--for Father's sake," she said. "I don't think you treat him very kindly."

It was evident that she spoke from a sense of duty. Mrs. Lorimer straightened herself with another weary sigh.

"Run along, my dear!" she said. "I am sure you are busy."

Olive turned, half-vexed and half-relieved, and walked to the door. Her mother watched her wistfully. It was in her mind to call her back, fold her in her arms, and appeal for sympathy. But the severity of the child's pose was too suggestive of the Vicar's unbending att.i.tude towards feminine weakness, and she restrained the impulse, knowing that she would appeal in vain. There was infinitely more comfort to be found in the society of Baby Phil, and, smiling wanly at the thought, she went up to the nursery in search of it.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE LAST DEBT

There was no combating the Vicar's decision. Avery realized that fact from the outset even before Mrs. Lorimer's agitated note upon the subject reached her. The fiat had gone forth, and submission was the only course.

Jeanie received the news without a murmur. "I don't mind really," she said. "It's very nice here, but then it's nice at home too when you are there. And then there is Piers too."

Yes, there was Piers,--another consideration that filled Avery with uneasiness. No word from Piers had reached her since that early morning on the sh.o.r.e, but his silence did not rea.s.sure her. She had half expected a boyish letter of apology, some friendly rea.s.surance, some word at least of his return to Rodding Abbey. But she had heard nothing. She did not so much as know if he had returned or not.

Neither had she heard from her friend Edmund Crowther. With a sense of keen disappointment she wrote to his home in the North to tell him of the change in her plans. She could not ask him to the Vicarage, and it seemed that she might not meet him after all.

She also sent a hurried note to Lennox Tudor, but they had only three days in which to terminate their visit, and she received no reply. Later, she heard that Tudor had been away for those days and did not open the note until the actual day of their return.

The other children were expected home from school during the week before Easter, and Mr. Lorimer desired that Avery should be at the Vicarage to prepare for them. So, early in the week, they returned.

It seemed that Spring had come at last. The hedges were all bursting into tenderest green, and all the world looked young.

"The primroses will be out in the Park woods," said Jeanie. "We will go and gather heaps and heaps."

"Are you allowed to go wherever you like there?" asked Avery, thinking of the game.

"Oh no," said Jeanie thoughtfully. "But we always do. Mr. Marshall chases us sometimes, but we always get away."

She smiled at the thought, and Avery frankly rejoiced to see her enthusiasm for the wicked game of trespa.s.sing in the Squire's preserves.

She did not know that the amus.e.m.e.nt had been strictly prohibited by the Vicar, and it did not occur to Jeanie to tell her. None of the children had ever paid any attention to the prohibition. There were some rules that no one could keep.

The return of the rest of the family kept the days that succeeded their return extremely lively. Jeanie was in higher spirits than Avery had ever seen her. She seemed more childish, more eager for fun, as though some of the zest of life had got into her veins at last. Her mother ascribed the change to Avery's influence, and was pathetic in her grat.i.tude, though Avery disclaimed all credit declaring that the sea-air had wrought the wonder.

When Lennox Tudor saw her, he looked at Avery with an odd smile behind his gla.s.ses. "You've built the wall," he said.