Peter's Mother

by Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

CHAPTER XVII

There was a tap at the door of Lady Mary's bedroom, and Peter's voice sounded without.

"Mother, could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Come in," said Lady Mary's soft voice; and Peter entered and closed the door, and crossed to the oriel window, where she was sitting at her writing-table, before a pile of notes and account books.

Long ago, in Peter's childhood, she had learned to make this bedroom her refuge, where she could read or write or dream, in silence; away from the two old ladies, who seemed to pervade all the living-rooms at Barracombe. Peter had been accustomed all his life to seek his mother here.

She had chosen the room at her marriage, and had had an old-fashioned paper of bunched rosebuds put up there. It was very long and low, and looked eastward into the fountain garden, and over the tree-tops far away to the open country.

The sisters had thought one of the handsome modern rooms of the south front would be more suitable for the bride, but Lady Mary had her way. She preferred the older part of the house, and liked the steps down into her room, the uneven floor, the low ceiling, the quaint window-seats, and the powdering closet where she hung her dresses.

The great oriel window formed almost a sitting-room apart. Here was her writing-table, whereon stood now a green jar of scented arums and trailing white fuchsias.

A bunch of sweet peas in a corner of the window-seat perfumed the whole room, already fragrant with potpourri and lavender.

A low bookcase was filled with her favourite volumes; one shelf with the story-books of her childhood, from which she had long ago read aloud to Peter, on rainy days when he had exhausted all other kinds of amusement; for he had never touched a book if he could help it, therein resembling his father.

In the corner next the window stood the cot where Peter had slept often as a little boy, and which had been playfully designated the hospital, because his mother had always carried him thither when he was ill. Then she had taken him jealously from the care of his attendant, and had nursed and guarded him herself day and night, until even convalescence was a thing of the past. She had never suffered that little cot to be moved; the white coverlet had been made and embroidered by her own hands. A gaudy oleograph of a soldier on horseback—which little Peter had been fond of, and which had been hung up to amuse him during one of those childish illnesses—remained in its place. How often had she looked at it through her tears when Peter was far away! Beside the cot stood a table with a shabby book of devotions, marked by a ribbon from which the colour had long since faded. The book had belonged to Lady Mary's father, young Robbie Setoun, who had become Lord Ferries but one short month before he met with a soldier's death. His daughter said her prayers at this little table, and had carried thither her agony and petitions for her boy in his peril, during the many, many months of the South African War.

The morning was brilliant and sunny, and the upper casements stood open, to let in the fresh autumn air, and the song of the robin balancing on a swaying twig of the ivy climbing the old walls. White clouds were blowing brightly across a clear, blue sky.

Lady Mary stretched out her hand and pulled a cord, which drew a rosy curtain half across the window, and shaded the corner where she was sitting. She looked anxiously and tenderly into Peter's face; her quick instinct gathered that something had shaken him from his ordinary mood of criticism or indifference.

"Are you come to have a little talk with me, my darling?" she said.

She was afraid to offer the caress she longed to bestow. She moved from her stiff elbow-chair to the soft cushions in her favourite corner of the window-seat, and held out a timid hand. Peter clasped it in his own, threw himself on a stool at her feet, and rested his forehead against her knee.

"I have something to tell you, mother, and I am afraid that, when I have told you, you will be disappointed in me; that you will think me inconsistent."

Her heart beat faster. "Which of us is consistent in this world, my darling? We all change with circumstances. We are often obliged to change, even against our wills. Tell me, Peter; I shall understand."

"There's not really anything to tell," said Peter, nervously contradicting himself, "because nothing is exactly settled yet. But I think something might be—before very long, if you would help me to smooth away some of the principal difficulties."

"Yes, yes," said Lady Mary, venturing to stroke the closely cropped black head resting against her lap.

"You know—Sarah—has been teaching me the new kind of croquet, at Hewelscourt, since we came back from Scotland?" he said. "I don't get on so badly, considering."

"My poor boy!"

"Oh, I was always rather inclined to be left-handed; it comes in usefully now," said Peter, who generally hurried over any reference to his misfortune. "Well, this morning, whilst we were playing, I asked Sarah, for the third time, to—to marry me. The third's the lucky time, isn't it?" he said, with a tremulous laugh, "and—and—"

"She said yes!" cried Lady Mary, clasping her hands.

"She didn't go so far as that," said Peter, rather reproachfully. His voice shook slightly. "But she didn't say no. It's the first time she hasn't said no."

"What did she say?" said Lady Mary.

She tried to keep her feelings of indignation and offence against Sarah out of her voice. After all, who was Sarah that she should presume to refuse Peter? Or for the matter of that, to accept him? Either course seems equally unpardonable at times to motherly jealousy, and Lady Mary was half vexed and half amused to find herself not exempt from this weakness.

"Impudent little red-headed thing!" she said to herself, though she loved Sarah dearly, and admired her red hair with all her heart.

"She told me a few of the reasons why she—she didn't want to marry me," said Peter.

Lady Mary's dismay was rather too apparent. "Surely that doesn't sound very hopeful."

Peter moved impatiently. "Oh, mother, it is always so difficult to make you understand."

"Is it, indeed?" she said, with a faint, pained smile. "I do my best, my darling."

"Never mind; I suppose women are always rather slow of comprehension," said the young lord of creation—"that is, except Sarah. She always understands. God bless her!"

"God bless her, indeed!" said Lady Mary, gently, and the tears started to her blue eyes, "if she is going to marry my boy."

Peter repented his crossness. "Forgive me, mother. I know you mean to be kind," he said. "You will help me, won't you?"

"With all my heart," she said, anxiously; "only tell me how."

"You see, I can't help feeling," said Peter, bashfully, "that she wouldn't have told me why she couldn't marry me, if she hadn't thought she might bring herself to do it in the end, if I got over the difficulties she mentioned. I've been—hopeful, ever since she refused that ass of an Avonwick, in spite of Lady Tintern. It wants some courage to defy Lady Tintern, I can tell you, though she's such a little object to look at. By George! I'd almost rather walk up to a loaded gun than face that woman's tongue. Of course, even if my share of the difficulties were removed, there'd still be Lady Tintern against us. But if Sarah can defy Lady Tintern in one thing, she might in another. She's afraid of nobody."

"Sarah certainly does not lack courage," said Lady Mary, smiling.

"I never saw anybody like her," said Peter, whose love possessed him, mind, body, and soul. "Why, I've heard her keep a whole roomful of people laughing, and every one of them as dull as ditch-water till she came in. And to see her hold her own against men at games—she's more strength in one of her pretty, white wrists," said Peter, looking with an air of disparagement at his mother's slender, delicate hand, "than you have in your whole body, I do believe."

"She is splendidly strong," said Lady Mary; "the very personification of youth and health." She sighed softly.

"And beauty," said Peter, excitedly. "Don't leave that out. And a good sort, through and through, as even you must allow, mother."

He spoke as though he suspected her of begrudging his praise of Sarah, and she made haste to reply:

"Indeed, she is a good sort, dear little Sarah."

"She is very fond of you," Peter said, in a choking voice. It seemed to him, in his infatuation, so touching that Sarah should be fond of any one. "She was dreadfully afraid of hurting your feelings; but yet, as she said, she was bound to be frank with me."

"Oh, Peter, do tell me what you mean. You are keeping me on thorns," said Lady Mary.

She grew red and white by turns. Was John's happiness in sight already, as well as Peter's?

"It's—it's most awfully hard to tell you," said Peter.

He rose, and leant his elbow against the stone mullion nearest her, looking down anxiously upon her as he spoke.

"After all I said to you when we first came home, it's awfully hard.
But if you would only understand, you could make it all easy enough."

"I will—I do understand."

But Peter could not make up his mind even now to be explicit.

"You see," he said, "Sarah is—not like other girls."

"Of course not," said his mother.

She controlled her impatience, reminding herself that Peter was very young, and that he had never been in love before.

"She's a kind of—of queen," said Peter, dreamily. "I only wish you could have seen what it was in London."

"I can imagine it," said Lady Mary.

"No, you couldn't. I hadn't an idea what she would be there, until I went to London and saw for myself," said Peter, who measured everybody's imagination by his own.

"You see," he explained "my position here, which seems so important to you and the other people round here, and used to seem so important to me—is—just nothing at all compared to what has been cast at her feet, as it were, over and over again, for her to pick up if she chose. And this house," said Peter, glancing round and shaking his head—"this house, which seems so beautiful to you now it's all done up, if you'd only seen the houses she's accustomed to staying at. Tintern Castle, for instance—"

"I was born in a greater house than Tintern Castle, Peter," said Lady
Mary, gently.

"Oh, of course. I'm saying nothing against Ferries," said Peter, impatiently. "But you only lived there as a child. A child doesn't notice."

"Some children don't," said Lady Mary, with that faint, wondering smile which hid her pain from Peter, and would have revealed it so clearly to John.

"It isn't that Sarah minds this old house," said Peter; "she was saying what a pretty room she could make of the drawing-room only the other day."

Lady Mary felt an odd pang at her heart. She thought of the trouble John had taken to choose the best of the water-colours for the rose-tinted room—the room he had declared so bright and so charming—of the pretty curtains and chintzes; and the valuable old china she had collected from every part of the house for the cabinets.

"You see, she's got that sort of thing at her fingers' ends, Lady Tintern being such a connoisseur," said the unconscious Peter. "But she's so afraid of hurting your feelings—"

"Why should she be?" said Lady Mary, coldly, in spite of herself. "If she does not like the drawing-room, she can easily alter it."

"That's what I say," said Peter, with a touch of his father's pomposity. "Surely a bride has a right to look forward to arranging her home as she chooses. And Sarah is mad about old French furniture—Louis Seize, I think it is—but I know nothing about such things. I think a man should leave the choice of furniture, and all that, to his wife—especially when her taste happens to be as good as Sarah's."

"I—I think so too, Peter," said Lady Mary.

Her thoughts wandered momentarily into the past; but his eager tones recalled her attention.

"Then you won't mind, so far?" said Peter, anxiously.

"I—why should I mind?" said Lady Mary, starting. "I believe—I have read—that old French furniture is all the rage now." Then she bethought herself, and uttered a faint laugh. "But I'm afraid your aunts might make it a little uncomfortable for her, if she—tried to alter anything. I—go my own way now, and don't mind—but a young bride—does not always like to be found fault with. She might find that relations-in-law are sometimes—a little trying." Lady Mary felt, as she spoke these words, that she was somehow opening a way for herself as well as for Peter. She wondered, with a beating heart, whether the moment had come in which she ought to tell him—

"That's just it," said Peter's voice, breaking in on her thoughts. "That's just what Sarah means, and what I was trying to lead up to; only I'm no diplomatist. But that's one of the greatest objections she has to marrying me, quite apart from disappointing her aunt. I can't blame Lady Tintern," said Peter, with a new and strange humility, "for not thinking me good enough for Sarah; and that's not a difficulty I can ever hope to remove. Sarah is the one to decide that point. But about relations-in-law—it's what I've been trying to tell you all this time." He cleared his throat, which had grown dry and husky. "She says that when she marries she—she intends to have her house to herself."

There was a pause.

"I see," said Lady Mary.

She was silent; not, as Peter thought, with mortification; but because she could not make up her mind what words to choose, in which to tell him that it was freedom and happiness he was thus offering her with both hands; and not, as he thought, loneliness and disappointment.

Twice she essayed to speak, and failed through sheer embarrassment. The second time Peter lifted her hand to his lips. She felt through all her consciousness the shy remorse which prompted that rare caress.

"The—the Dower House," faltered Peter, "is only a few yards away."

A sudden desire to laugh aloud seized Lady Mary. His former words returned upon her memory.

"It's—it's rather damp, isn't it?" she said, in a shaking voice.

He looked into her face, and did not understand the brightness of the smile that was shining through her tears.

"But it's very picturesque," said Peter, "and—and roomy. You and my aunts would be quite snug there; and it could be very prettily decorated, Sarah says."

"Perhaps Sarah would advise us on the subject?" said Lady Mary, unable to resist this thrust.

"I'm sure she'd be delighted," said Peter, simply.

Lady Mary fell back on her cushions and laughed helplessly, almost hysterically.

"I don't see why you should laugh," said Peter, in a rather sore tone.
"I don't know how it is, but I never can understand you, mother."

"I see you can't. Never mind, Peter," said Lady Mary. She sat up, and lifted her pretty hands to smooth the soft waves of her brown hair. "So I'm to settle down happily in my Dower House, and take your aunts to live with me?"

"Why, you see," said Peter, "we couldn't very well let the poor old things wander away alone into the world, could we?"

"I think," said Lady Mary, slowly, "that they can take care of themselves. And it is just possible that they may have foreseen—your change of intentions."

"Women can never take care of themselves," said Peter. "And how can they have foreseen? I had no idea myself of this happening. But they would be perfectly happy in the Dower House; it is close by, and I could see them very often. It wouldn't be like leaving Barracombe."

"Yes, I think they could be happy there," said Lady Mary. She felt that the moment had come at last. Her heart beat thickly, and her colour came and went. "But if they were happily settled at the Dower House," she said slowly, for her agitation was making her breathless, and she did not want Peter to notice it,"—I would willingly give it up to them altogether. It could not matter whether I were there or not. Though they are old, they are perfectly able to look after themselves—and other people; and if they were not, they would not like me to take care of them. They have their own servants and Mrs. Ash. And they have never liked me, Peter, though we have lived together so many years."

"That is nonsense," said Peter, very calmly; "and if they don't want you there, mother, I do. Of course you must live at the Dower House; my father left it to you. And I shall want you more than ever now."

"I don't see how," said Lady Mary.

"Why, we—Sarah and I," said Peter, lingering fondly over the words which linked that beloved name with his own, "if we ever—if it ever came off—we shall naturally be away from home a good deal. I couldn't ask Sarah to tie herself down to this dull old place, could I?"

"I suppose not," said Lady Mary.

"She's accustomed to going about the world a good deal," said Peter.

"No doubt."

"Even I," said Peter, turning a flushed face towards his mother—"I am too young, as Sarah says—and I feel it myself since I have seen something of the life she lives—to become a complete fixture, like my father was. It's—it's, as Sarah says—it's narrowing. I can see the effects of it upon you all," said Peter, calmly, "when I come back here."

He could not fathom the wistfulness which clouded the blue eyes she lifted to his face.

"It is very narrowing," she said humbly.

"One may devote one's self to one's duties as a landed proprietor," said Peter, with another recurrence of pomposity, "and yet see something of one's fellow-men."

He replaced the eyeglass, and walked up and down the room for a few moments, as though he were pacing a quarter-deck. He looked very tall, and very, very slight and thin; older than his years, tanned and dried by the African sun, which had enhanced his natural darkness. Though he spoke as a boy, he looked like a man. His mother's heart yearned over him.

Peter had taken his lack of perception with him into the heart of South Africa, and brought it back intact. Because his body had travelled many hundreds of miles over land and sea, he believed that his mind had opened in proportion to the distance covered. He knew that men and women of action pick up knowledge of the world without pausing on their busy way; but he did not know that it is to the silent, the sorrowful, and the solitary—to those who have time to listen—that God reveals the secrets of life.

She said to herself that everything about him was dear to her; his grey eyes, that never saw below the surface of things; his thin, brown face; his youthful affectation; the strange, new growth which shaded his long upper lip, and softened the plainness of the Crewys physiognomy, which Peter would not have bartered for the handsomest set of Greek features ever imagined by a sculptor. Even for his faults Lady Mary had a tender toleration; for Peter would not have been Peter without them.

"It would not be fair on Sarah, knowing all London—worth knowing—as she does," said Peter with pardonable exaggeration, "to rob her of the season altogether. We shall go up regularly, every year, if—if she marries me. Of that I am determined, and so"—incidentally—"is she."

"Nothing could be nicer," said Lady Mary, heartily enough to satisfy even Peter.

He spoke with more warmth and naturalness. "She likes to go abroad, mother, too, now and then," he said.

"That would be delightful," said Lady Mary, eagerly. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her interest and enthusiasm were easily roused, after all; and surely these new ideas would make it much easier to tell Peter. "Oh, Peter!" she said, clasping her hands, "Paris—Rome—Switzerland!"

"Wherever Sarah fancies," said Peter, magnanimously. "I can't say I care much. All I am thinking of is—being with her. It doesn't matter where, so long as she is pleased. What does anything matter," he said, and his dark face softened as she had never seen it soften yet, "so long as one is with the companion one loves best in the world?"

"It would be—Paradise," said Lady Mary, in a low voice; and she thought to herself resolutely, "I will tell him now."

Peter ceased his walk, and came close to her and took her hand. The emotion had not altogether died out of his voice and face.

"But you are not to think, mother, that I shall ever again be the selfish boy I used to be—the boy who didn't value your love and devotion."

"No, dear, no," she answered, with wet eyes; "I will never think so. We can love each other just the same, perhaps even batter, even though—Oh, Peter—"

But Peter was in no mind to brook interruption. He was burning to pour out his plans for her future, and his own.

"Wherever we may go, and whatever we may be doing," he said emotionally, "it will be a joy and a comfort to me to know that my dear old mother is always here. Taking care of the place and looking after the people, and waiting always to welcome me, with her old sweet smile on her dear old face."

Peter was not often moved to such enthusiasm, and he was almost overcome by his own eloquence in describing this beautiful picture.

Lady Mary was likewise overcome. She sank back once more in her cushioned corner, looking at him with a blank dismay that could not escape even his dull observation. How impossible it was to tell Peter, after all! How impossible he always made it!

"I know you must feel it just at first," he said anxiously; "but you—you can't expect to keep me all to yourself for ever."

She shook her head, and tried to smile.

He grew a little impatient. "After all," he said, "you must be reasonable, mother. Every one has to live his own life."

Then Lady Mary found words. A sudden rush of indignation—the pent-up feelings of years—brought the scarlet blood to her cheeks and the fire to her gentle, blue eyes.

"Every one—but me" she said, trembling violently.

"You!" said Peter, astonished.

She clasped her hands against her bosom to still the panting and throbbing that, it seemed to her, must be evident outwardly, so strong was the emotion that shook her fragile form.

"Every one—but me," she said. "Does it never—strike you—Peter—that I, too, would like to live before I die? Whilst you are living your own life, why shouldn't I be living mine? Why shouldn't I go to London, and to Paris, and to Rome, and to Switzerland, or wherever I choose, now that you—you—have set me free?"

"Mother," said Peter, aghast, "are you gone mad?"

"Perhaps I am a little mad," said poor Lady Mary. "People go mad sometimes, who have been too long—in prison—they say." Then she saw his real alarm, and laughed till she cried. "I am not really mad," she said. "Do not be frightened, Peter. I—I was only joking."

"It is enough to frighten anybody when you go on like that," said Peter, relieved, but angry. "Talking of prison, and rushing about all over the world—I see no joke in that."

"Why should I be the only one who must not rush all over the world?" said Lady Mary.

"You must know perfectly well it would be preposterous," said Peter, sullenly, "to break up all your habits, and leave Barracombe and—and all of us—and start a fresh life—at your age. And if this is how you mock at me and all my plans, I'm sorry I ever took you into my confidence at all. I might have known I should repent it," he said; and a sob of angry resentment broke his voice.

"Indeed, I am not mocking at you, Peter," she said, sorely repentant and ashamed of her outburst. "Forgive me, darling! I see it was—not the moment. You do not understand. You are thinking only of Sarah, as is natural just now. It was not the moment for me to be talking of myself."

"You never used to be selfish," said Peter, thawing somewhat, as she threw her arms about him, and rested her head against his shoulder.

She laughed rather sadly. "But perhaps I am growing selfish—in my old age," said Peter's mother.

Later, Lady Mary sought John Crewys in the smoking-room. He sprang up, smiled at her, and held out his hand.

"So Peter has been confiding his schemes to you?"

"How did you know?"

"I only guessed. When a man seeks a tête-à-tête so earnestly, it is generally to talk about himself. Did the schemes include—Sarah?"

"They include Sarah—marriage—travelling—London—change of every kind."

"Already!" cried John, "Bravo, Peter! and hurray for one-and-twenty!
And you are free?"

"Oh, no; I am not to be free."

"What! Do his schemes include you?"

"Not altogether."

"That is surely illogical, if yours are to include him?"

She smiled faintly. "I am to be always here, to look after the place when he and Sarah are travelling or in London. I am to live with his aunts. He wants to be able to think of me as always waiting here to welcome him home, as—as I have been all his life. Not actually in this house, because—Sarah—my little Sarah—wouldn't like that, it seems; but in the Dower House, close by."

"I see," said John. "How delightfully ingenuous, and how pleasingly unselfish a very young man can sometimes be!"

"Ah! don't laugh at me, John," she said tremulously. "Indeed, just now, I cannot bear it."

"Laugh at you, my queen—my saint! How little you know me!" said John, tenderly. "It was at Peter that I was presuming to smile."

"Is it a laughing matter?" she said wistfully.

"I think it will be, Mary."

"I tried so hard to tell him," said Lady Mary, "but I couldn't.
Somehow he made it impossible. He looks upon me as quite, quite old."

John laughed outright. A laugh that rang true even to Lady Mary's sensitive perceptions.

"But didn't you look upon everybody over thirty as, quite old when you were one-and-twenty? I'm sure I did."

"Perhaps. But yet—I don't know. I am his mother. It is natural he should feel so. He made me realize how preposterous it was for me, the mother of a grown-up son, to be thinking selfishly of my own happiness, as though I were a young, fresh girl just starting life."

"I had hoped," said John, quietly, "that you might be thinking a little of my happiness too."

"Oh, John! But your happiness and mine seemed all the same thing," she said ingenuously. "Yet he thinks of my life as finished; and I was thinking of it as though it were beginning all over again. He made me feel so ashamed, so conscience-stricken." She hid her face in her hands. "How could I tell him?"

"I think," said John, "that the time has come when he must be told. I meant to put it off until he attained his majority; but since he has broached the subject of your leaving this house himself, he has given us the best opportunity possible. And I also think—that the telling had better be left to me."