CHAPTER V
LIFE ON A CHAIN
"Oh, I say, are you going out?" said Piers. "I was just coming tocall on you."
"On me?" Avery looked at him with brows raised in surprisedinterrogation.
He made her a graceful bow, nearly sweeping the path outside the Vicaragegate with his cap. "Even so, madam! On you! But as I perceive you are notat home to callers, may I be permitted to turn and walk beside you?"
As he suited the action to the words, it seemed superfluous to grant thepermission, and Avery did not do so.
"I am only going to run quickly down to the post," she said, with aglance at some letters she carried.
He might have offered to post them for her, but such a course did notapparently occur to him. Instead he said: "I'll race you if you like."
Avery refrained from smiling, conscious of a gay glance flung in herdirection.
"I see you prefer to walk circumspectly," said Piers. "Well, I can dothat too. How is Mike? Why isn't he with you?"
"Mike is quite well, thank you," said Avery. "And he is kept chained up."
"What an infernal shame!" burst from Piers. "I'd sooner shoot a dog thankeep him on a chain."
"So would I!" said Avery impulsively.
The words were out before she could check them. It was a subject uponwhich she found it impossible to maintain her reticence.
Piers grinned triumphantly and thrust out a boyish hand. "Shake!" hesaid. "We are in sympathy!"
But Avery only shook her head at him, refusing to be drawn."People--plenty of nice people--have no idea of the utter cruelty of it,"she said. "They think that if a dog has never known liberty, he isincapable of desiring it. They don't know, they don't realize, thebitterness of life on a chain."
"Don't know and don't care!" declared Piers. "They deserve to be chainedup themselves. One day on a chain would teach your nice people quite alot. But no one cultivates feeling in this valley of dry bones. It isn'tthe thing nowadays. Let a dog whine his heart out on a chain! Who cares?There's no room for sentimental scruples of that sort. Can't you see theReverend Stephen smile at the bare idea of extending a little of hisprecious Christian pity to a dog?" He broke off with a laugh that rangdefiantly. "Now it's your turn!" he said.
"My turn?" Avery glanced at his dark, handsome face with a touch ofcuriosity.
He met her eyes with his own as if he would beat them back. "Aren't yougenerous enough to remind me that but for your timely interference Ishould have beaten my own dog to death only yesterday? You were almostready to flog me for it at the time."
"Oh, that!" Avery said, looking away again. "Yes, of course I mightremind you of that if I wanted to be personal; but, you see,--I don't."
"Why not!" said Piers stubbornly. "You were personal enough yesterday."
The dimple, for which Avery was certainly not responsible, appearedsuddenly near her mouth. "I am afraid I lost my temper yesterday," shesaid.
"How wrong of you!" said Piers. "I hope you confessed to theReverend Stephen."
She glanced at him again and became grave. "No, I didn't confess toanyone. But I think it's a pity ever to lose one's temper. It involves awaste of power."
"Does it?" said Piers.
"Yes." She nodded with conviction. "We need all the strength we canmuster for other things. How is your dog to-day?"
Piers ignored the question. "What other things?" he demanded.
She hesitated.
"Go on!" said Piers imperiously.
Avery complied half-reluctantly. "I meant--mainly--the burdens of life.We can't afford to weaken ourselves by any loss of self-control. The manwho keeps his temper is immeasurably stronger than the man who loses it."
Piers was frowning; his dark eyes looked almost black. Suddenly he turnedupon her. "Mrs. Denys, I have a strong suspicion that your temper is asweet one. If so, you're no judge of these things. Why didn't you leatherme with my own whip yesterday? You had me at your mercy."
Avery smiled. Plainly he was set upon a personal encounter, and she couldnot avoid it. "Well, frankly, Mr. Evesham," she said, "I was never nearerto striking anyone in my life."
"Then why did you forbear? You weren't afraid to souse me withcold water."
"Oh no," she said. "I wasn't afraid."
"I believe you were," maintained Piers. "You're afraid to speak your mindto me now anyway."
She laughed a little. "No, I'm not. I really can't explain myself to you.I think you forget that we are practically strangers."
"You talk as if I had been guilty of familiarity," said Piers.
"No, no! I didn't mean that," Avery coloured suddenly, and the soft glowmade her wonderfully fair to see. "You know quite well I didn't meanit," she said.
"It's good of you to say so," said Piers. "But I really didn't know. Ithought you had decided that I was a suitable subject for snubbing. I'mnot a bit. I'm so accustomed to it that I don't care a--" he paused witha glance of quizzical daring, and, as she managed to look severe, amendedthe sentence--"that I am practically indifferent to it. Mrs. Denys, Iwish you had struck me yesterday."
"Really?" said Avery.
"Yes, really. I should then have had the pleasure of forgiving you.It's a pleasure I don't often get. You see, I'm usually the one that'sin the wrong."
She looked at him then with quick interest; she could not help it. Butthe dark eyes triumphed over her so shamelessly that she veiled it onthe instant.
Piers laughed. "Mrs. Denys, may I ask a directly personal question?"
"I don't know why you should," said Avery.
They were nearing the pillar-box at the end of the Vicarage lane, and shewas firmly determined that at that box their ways should separate.
"I know you think I'm bold and bad," said Piers. "Some kind friend hasprobably told you so. But I'm not. I've been brought up badly, that'sall. I think you might bear with me. I'm quite willing to be bullied."There was actual pathos in the declaration.
Again the fleeting dimple hovered near Avery's mouth. "Please don't takemy opinion for granted in that way!" she said. "I have hardly had time toform one yet."
"Then I may ask my question?" said Piers.
She turned steady grey eyes upon him. "Yes; you may."
Piers' face was perfectly serious. "Are you really married?" he asked.
The level brows went up a little. "I have been a widow for six years,"said Avery very quietly.
He stared at her in surprise unfeigned. "Six years!"
She replied in the same quiet voice. "I lost my husband when I wastwenty-two."
"Great Heavens above!" ejaculated Piers. "But you're not--not--I say,forgive me, I must say it--you can't be as old as that!"
"I am twenty-nine," said Avery faintly smiling.
They had reached the letter-box. She dropped in her letters one by one.Piers stood confounded, looking on.
Suddenly he spoke. "And you've been doing this mothers'-helping businessfor six years?"
"Oh no!" she said.
She turned round from the box and faced him. The red winter sunset glowedsoftly upon her. Her grey eyes looked straight into it.
"No!" she said again. "I had my little girl to take care of for the firstsix months. You see, she was born blind, soon after her father's death,and she needed all the care I could give her."
Piers made a sharp movement--a gesture that was almost passionate; but hesaid nothing.
Avery withdrew her eyes from the sunset, and looked at him. "She died,"she said, "and that left me with nothing to do. I have no nearrelations. So I just had to set to work to find something to occupy me.I went into a children's hospital for training, and spent some yearsthere. Then when that came to an end, I took a holiday; but I found Iwanted children. So I cast about me, and finally answered Mr. Lorimer'sadvertisement and came here." She began to smile. "At least I haveplenty of children now."
"Oh, I say!" broke in Piers. "What a perfectly horrible life you've had!You don't mean to say you're happy, what?"
Avery la
ughed. "I'm much too busy to think about it. And now I reallymust run back. I've promised to take charge of the babies this afternoon.Good-bye!" She held out her hand to him with frank friendliness, as ifshe divined the sympathy he did not utter.
He gripped it hard for a moment. "Thanks awfully for being so decent asto tell me!" he said, looking back at her with eyes as frank as her own."I'm going on down to the home farm. Good-bye!"
He raised his cap, and abruptly strode away. And in the moment of hisgoing Avery found she liked him better than she had liked himthroughout the interview, for she knew quite well that he went only indeference to her wish.
She turned to retrace her steps, feeling puzzled. There was somethingcuriously attractive about the young man's personality, something thatappealed to her, yet that she felt disposed to resist. That air of theancient Roman was wonderfully compelling, too compelling for her taste,but then his boyishness counteracted it to a very great degree. There wasa hint of sweetness running through his arrogance against which she wasnot proof. Audacious he might be, but it was a winning species ofaudacity that probably no woman could condemn. She thought to herself asshe returned to her charges that she had never seen a face so faultlesslypatrician and yet so vividly alive. And following that thought cameanother that dwelt longer in her mind. Deprived of its animation, itwould not have been a happy face.
Avery wondered why.