Peter's Mother

by Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

CHAPTER XVIII

John Crewys stood on the walk below the terrace, with Peter by his side, enjoying an after-breakfast smoke, and watching a party of sportsmen climbing up the bracken-clothed slopes of the opposite hillside. A dozen beaters were toiling after the guns, among whom the short and sturdy figure of Colonel Hewel was very plainly to be distinguished. A boy was leading a pony-cart for the game.

Sarah had accepted an invitation to dine and spend the evening with her beloved Lady Mary at Barracombe; but Peter had another appointment with her besides, of which Lady Mary knew nothing. He was to meet her at the ferry, and picnic on the moor at the top of the hill, on his side of the river. But through all the secret joy and triumph that possessed him at the remembrance of this rendezvous, he could not but sigh as he watched the little procession of sportsmen opposite, and almost involuntarily his regret escaped him in the half-muttered words—

"I shall never shoot again."

"There are things even better worth doing in life," said John, sympathetically.

"Colonel Hewel wouldn't give in to that," said Peter.

"He's rather a one-idea'd man," John agreed. "But if you asked him whether he'd sacrifice all the sport he's ever likely to enjoy, for one chance to distinguish himself in action—why, you're a soldier, and you know best what he'd say."

Peter's brow cleared. "You've got a knack," he said, almost graciously, "of putting a fellow in a good humour with himself, Cousin John."

"I generally find it easier to be in a good humour with myself than with other people," said John, whimsically. "One expects so little from one's self, that one is scarcely ever disappointed; and so much from other people, that nothing they can do comes up to one's expectations."

"I don't know about that," said Peter, bluntly. "Old Crawley says you take it out of yourself like anything. Since I came back this time, he's been holding forth to me about all you've done for me and the estate, and all that. I didn't know my father had left things in such a mess. And that was a smart thing you did about buying in the farm, and settling the dispute with the Crown, which my father used to be so worried over. I see I've got a good bit to thank you for, Cousin John. I—I'm no end grateful, and all that."

"All right," said John. "Don't bother to make speeches, old boy."

"I must say one thing, though," said Peter, awkwardly. "I was against all the changes, and thought they might have been left till I came home; but I didn't realize it was to be now or never, as old Crawley puts it, and that I'm not to have the right to touch my capital when I come of age."

"The whole arrangement was rather an unusual one; but everything's worked out all right, and, as far as the estate goes, you'll find it in pretty fair order to start upon, and values increased," said John, quietly. "But Crawley has the whole thing at his fingers' ends, and the interest of the place thoroughly at heart. You couldn't have a better adviser."

"He's well enough," said Peter, somewhat ungraciously.

"Shall we take a turn up and down?" said John. He lighted a fresh cigarette. "There is a chill feeling in the air, though it is such a lovely morning."

"It will be warmer when the sun has conquered the mist," said Peter, with a slight shiver.

The white dew on the long grass, and the gossamer cobwebs spun in a single night from twig to twig of the rose-trees, glittered in the sunshine.

The autumn roses bloomed cheerfully in the long border, and the robins were singing loudly on the terrace above. The heavy heads of the dahlias drooped beneath their weight of moisture, in these last days of their existence, before the frost would bring them to a sudden end. Capucines, in every shade of brown and crimson and gold, ran riot over the ground.

Peter drew a pipe from his pocket, put it in his mouth, took out his tobacco-pouch, and filled the pipe with his left hand.

John watched him with interest. "That was dexterously done."

"I'm getting pretty handy," said the hero, with satisfaction, striking a match; "but"—his face fell anew—"no more football; one feels that sort of thing just at the beginning of the season. No more games. It wouldn't tell so much on a fellow like you, Cousin John, who's perfectly happy with a book, and who—"

"Who's too old for games," suggested John.

"Oh, there's always golf," said Peter.

"A refuge for the aged, eh?" said John, and his eyes twinkled. "But
Miss Sarah says you bid fair to beat her at croquet."

"Oh, she was—just rotting," said Peter; and the tone touched John, though he detested slang. "And what's croquet, after all, to a fellow that's used to exercise? I suppose I shall be all right again hunting, when I've got my nerve back a bit. At present it's rotten. A fellow feels so beastly helpless and one-sided. However, that'll wear off, I expect."

"I hope so," said John.

They reached the end of the long walk, and stood for a moment beneath the eastern turret, watching the sparkles on the brown surface of the river below, and the white mist floating away down the valley.

"Talking of advice," said Peter, abruptly—"if I wanted that, I'd rather come to you than to old Crawley. After all, though you won't be my guardian much longer, you're still my mother's trustee."

"Yes," said John, smiling; "the law still entitles me to take an interest in—in your mother."

"Of course I shouldn't dream of mentioning her affairs, or mine either, for that matter, to any one else," said Peter.

He made an exception in his own mind, but decided that it was not necessary to explain this to John, for the moment.

"Thank you, Peter," said John.

"My mother—seems to me," said Peter, slowly, "to have changed very much since I went to South Africa. Have you noticed it?"

"I have," said John, dryly.

"I don't suppose," said Peter, quickening his steps, "that any one could realize exactly what I feel about it."

"I think—perhaps—I could," said John, without visible satire, "dimly and, no doubt, inadequately."

"The fact is," said Peter, and the warm colour rushed into his brown face, even to his thin temples, "I—I'm hoping to get married very soon; though nothing's exactly settled yet."

"A man in your position generally marries early," said John. "I think you're quite right."

"As my mother likes—the girl I want to marry," said Peter, "I hoped it would make everything straight. But she seems quite miserable at the thought of settling down quietly in the Dower House."

"Ah! in the Dower House," said John. "Then you will not be wanting her to live here with you, after all?"

"It's the same thing, though," said Peter, "as I've tried to explain to her. She'd be only a few yards off; and she could still be looking after the place and my interests, and all that, as she does now. And whenever I was down here, I should see her constantly; you know how devoted I am to my mother. Of course I can't deny I did lead her to hope I should be always with her. But a man can't help it if he happens to fall in love. Of course, if—if all happens as I hope, as I have reason to hope, I shall have to be away from her a good deal. But that's all in the course of nature as a fellow grows up. I sha'n't be any the less glad to see her when I do come home. And yet here she is talking quite wildly of leaving Barracombe altogether, and going to London, and travelling all over the world, and doing all sorts of things she's never done in her life. It's not like my mother, and I can't bear to think of her like that. I tell you she's changed altogether," said Peter, and there were tears in his grey eyes.

John felt an odd sympathy for the boy; he recognized that though
Peter's limitations were obvious, his anxiety was sincere.

Peter, too, had his ideals; if they were ideals conventional and out of date, that was hardly his fault. John figured to himself very distinctly that imaginary mother whom Peter held sacred; the mother who stayed always at home, and parted her hair plainly, and said many prayers, and did much needlework; but who, nevertheless, was not, and never could be, the real Lady Mary, whom Peter did not know. But it was a tender ideal in its way, though it belonged to that past into which so many tender and beautiful visions have faded.

The maiden of to-day still dreams of the knightly armour-clad heroes of the twelfth century; it is not her fault that she is presently glad to fall in love with a gentleman on the Stock Exchange, in a top hat and a frock coat.

"I have seen something of women of the world," said Peter, who had scarcely yet skimmed the bubbles from the surface of that society, whose depths he believed himself to have explored. "I suppose that is what my mother wants to turn into, when she talks of London and Paris. My mother! who has lived in the country all her life."

"I suppose some women are worldly," said John, as gravely as possible, "and no doubt the shallow-hearted, the stupid, the selfish are to be found everywhere, and belonging to either sex; but, nevertheless, solid virtue and true kindness are to be met with among the dames of Mayfair as among the matrons of the country-side. Their shibboleth is different, that's all. Perhaps—it is possible—that the speech of the town ladies is the more charitable, that they seek more persistently to do good to their fellow-creatures. I don't know. Comparisons are odious, but so," he added, with a slight laugh, "are general conclusions, founded on popular prejudice rather than individual experience—odious."

Here John perceived that his words of wisdom were conveying hardly any meaning to Peter, who was only waiting impatiently till he had come to an end of them; so he pursued this topic no further, and contented himself by inquiring:

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to explain to her," said Peter, eagerly, "how unsuitable it would be; and to advise her to settle down quietly at the Dower House, as I'm sure my father would have wished her to do. That's all."

"I see," said John, "you want me to put the case to her from your point of view."

"I wish you would," said Peter, earnestly; "every one says you're so eloquent. Surely you could talk her over?"

"I hope I am not eloquent in private life," said John, laughing. "But if you want to know how it appears to me—?"

Peter nodded gravely, pipe in mouth.

"Let us see. To start with," said John, thoughtfully, "you went off, a boy from Eton, to serve your country when you thought, and rightly, that your country had need of you. You distinguished yourself in South Africa—"

"Surely you needn't go into all that?" said Peter, staring.

"Excuse me," said John, smiling. "In putting your case, I can't bear to leave out vital details. Merely professional prejudice. Shortly, then, you fully sustained your share in a long and arduous campaign; you won your commission; you were wounded, decorated, and invalided home."

He stopped short in the brilliant sunshine which now flooded their path, and looked gravely at Peter.

"Some of us," said John, "have imagination enough to realize, even without the help of war-correspondents, the scenes of horror through which you, and scores of other boys, fresh from school, like you, had to live through. We can picture the long hours on the veldt—on the march—in captivity—in the hospitals—in the blockhouses—when soldiers have been sick at heart, wearied to death with physical suffering, and haunted by ghastly memories of dead comrades."

Peter hurriedly drew his left hand from the pocket where the beloved tobacco-pouch reposed, and pulled his brown felt hat down over his eyes, as though the October sunlight hurt them.

"I think at such times, Peter," said John, quietly continuing his walk by the boy's side, "that you must have longed now and then for your home; for this peaceful English country, your green English woods, and the silent hall where your mother waited for you, trembled for you, prayed for you. I think your heart must have ached then, as so many men's hearts have ached, to remember the times when you might have made her happy by a word, or a look, or a smile. And you didn't do it, Peter—you didn't do it."

Peter made a restless movement indicative of surprise and annoyance; but he was silent still, and John changed his tone, and spoke lightly and cheerfully.

"Well, then you came home; and your joy of life, of youth, of health all returned; and you looked forward, naturally, to taking your share of the pleasures open to other young men of your standing. But you never meant to forget your mother, as so many careless sons forget those who have watched and waited for them. Even though you fell in love, you still thought of her. When you were weary of travel, or pleasure connected with the outside world, you meant always to return to her. You liked to think she would still be waiting for you; faithfully, gratefully waiting, within the sacred precincts of your childhood's home. And now, when you remember her submission to your father's wishes in the past, and her single-hearted devotion to yourself, you are shocked and disappointed to find that she can wish to descend from her beautiful and guarded solitude here, and mix with her fellow-creatures in the work-a-day world. Why," said John, in a tone rather of dreaming and tenderness than of argument, "that would be to tear the jewel from its setting—the noble central figure from the calm landscape, lit by the evening sun."

There was a pause, during which Peter smoked energetically.

"Well," he said presently, "of course I can't follow all that highfalutin' style, you know—"

"Of course not," said John, "I understand. You're a plain Englishman."

"Exactly," said Peter, relieved; "I am. But one thing I will say—you've got the idea."

"Thank you," said John.

"If you can put it like that to my mother," said Peter, still busy with his pipe, but speaking very emphatically, "why, all I can say is, that I believe it's the way to get round her. I've often noticed how useless it seems to talk common-sense to her. But a word of sentiment—and there you are. Strange to say, she likes nothing better than—er—poetry. I hope you don't mind my calling you rather poetical," said Peter, in a tone of sincere apology. "I wish, John, you'd go straight to my mother, and put the whole case before her, just like that."

"The whole case!" said John. "But, my dear fellow, that's only half the case."

"What do you mean?"

"The other half," said John, "is the case from her point of view."

"I don't see," said Peter, "how her point of view can be different from mine."

John's thoughts flew back to a February evening, more than two years earlier. It seemed to him that Sir Timothy stood before him, surprised, pompous, argumentative. But he saw only Peter, looking at him with his father's grey eyes set in a boy's thin face.

"My experience as a barrister," he said, with a curious sense of repeating himself, "has taught me that it is possible for two persons to take diametrically opposite views of the same question."

"And what happens then?" said Peter, stupidly.

"Our bread and butter."

"But why should my mother leave the place she's lived in for years and years, and go gadding about all over the world—at her time of life? I don't see what can be said for the wisdom of that?"

"Nothing from your point of view, I dare say," said John. "Much from hers. If you are willing to listen, and if," he added smiling, as an afterthought, "you will promise not to interrupt?"

"Well," said Peter, rather doubtfully, "all right, I promise. You won't be long, I suppose?"

He glanced stealthily down towards the ferry, though he knew that Sarah would not be there for a couple of hours at least, and that he could reach it in less than ten minutes. But half the pleasure of meeting Sarah consisted in waiting for her at the trysting-place.

John observed the glance, and smiled imperceptibly. He took out his watch.

"I shall speak," he said, carefully examining it, "for four minutes."

"Let's sit," said Peter. "It's warm enough now, in all conscience."

They sat upon an old stone bench below the turret. Peter leant back with his black head resting against the wall, his felt hat tipped over his eyes and his pipe in his mouth. He looked comfortable, even good-humoured.

"Go ahead," he murmured.

"To understand the case from your mother's point of view, I am afraid it is necessary," said John, "to take a rapid glance at the circumstances of her life which have—which have made her what she is. She came here, as a child, didn't she, when her father died; and though he had just succeeded to the earldom, he died a very poor man? Your father, as her guardian, spared no pains, nor expense for that matter, in educating and maintaining her. When she was barely seventeen years old, he married her."

There was a slight dryness in John's voice as he made the statement, which accounted for the gruffness of Peter's acquiescence.

"Of course—she was quite willing," said John, understanding the offence implied by Peter's growl. "But as we are looking at things exclusively from her point of view just now, we must not forget that she had seen nothing of the world, nothing of other men. She had also"—he caught his breath—"a bright, gay, pleasure-loving disposition; but she moulded herself to seriousness to please her husband, to whom she owed everything. When other girls of her age were playing at love—thinking of dances, and games and outings—she was absorbed in motherhood and household cares. A perfect wife, a perfect mother, as poor human nature counts perfection."

Lady Mary would have cried out in vehement contradiction and self-reproach, had she heard these words; but Peter again growled reluctant acquiescence, when John paused.

"In one day," said John, slowly, "she was robbed of husband and child.
Her husband by death; her boy, her only son, by his own will. He
deserted her without even bidding, or intending to bid her, farewell.
Hush—remember, this is from her point of view."

Peter had started to his feet with an angry exclamation; but he sat down again, and bent his sullen gaze on the garden path as John continued. His brown face was flushed; but John's low, deep tones, now tender, now scornful, presently enchained and even fascinated his attention. He listened intently, though angrily.

"Her grief was passionate, but—her life was not over," said John. "She, who had been guided from childhood by the wishes of others, now found that, without neglecting any duty, she could consult her own inclinations, indulge her own tastes, choose her own friends, enjoy with all the fervour of an unspoilt nature the world which opened freshly before her: a world of art, of music, of literature, of a thousand interests which mean so much to some of us, so little to others. To her returns this formerly undutiful son, and finds—a passionately devoted mother, indeed, but also a woman in the full pride of her beauty and maturity. And this boy would condemn her—the most delightful, the most attractive, the most unselfish companion ever desired by a man—to sit in the chimney-corner like an old crone with a distaff, throughout all the years that fate may yet hold in store for her—with no greater interest in life than to watch the fading of her own sweet face in the glass, and to await the intervals during which he would be graciously pleased to afford her the consolation of his presence."

"Have you done?" said Peter, furiously.

"I could say a good deal more," said John, growing suddenly cool.
"But"—he showed his watch—"my time is up."

"What—what do you mean by all this?" said the boy, stammering with passion. "What is my mother to you?"

The time had come.

John's bright hazel eyes had grown stern; his middle-aged face, flushed with the emotion his own words had aroused, yet controlled and calm in every line of handsome feature and steady brow, confronted Peter's angry, bewildered gaze.

"She is the woman I love," said John. "The woman I mean to make my wife."

He remained seated, silently waiting for Peter to imbibe and assimilate his words.

After a quick gasp of incredulous indignation, Peter, too, sat silent at his side.

John gave him time to recover before he spoke again.

"I hope," he said, very gently, "that when you have thought it over, you won't mind it so much. As it's going to be—it would be pleasanter if you and I could be friends. I think, later on, you may even perceive advantages in the arrangement—under the circumstances; when you have recovered from your natural regret in realizing that she must leave Barracombe—"

"It isn't that," said Peter, hoarsely. He felt he must speak; and he also desired, it must be confessed, to speak offensively, and relieve himself somewhat of the accumulated rage and resentment that was burning in his breast. "It's—it's simply"—he said, flushing darkly, and turning his face away from John's calm and friendly gaze—"that to me—to me, the idea is—ridiculous."

"Ah!" said John. He rose from the stone bench. A spark of anger came to him, too, as he looked at Peter, but he controlled his voice and his temper. "The time will come," he said, "when your imagination will be able to grasp the possibility of love between a man in the forties and a woman in the thirties. At least, for your sake, I hope it will."

"Why for my sake?" said Peter.

"Because I should be sorry," said John, "if you died young."