"It's all right," I reassured her; "he's resting in the library, overcome by your insubordination. He's not used to it. He lunged at me with his stick because he detected me in a smile, but I dodged him."
I remember mother smiled faintly, and told me I ought not to dodge him. This conversation took place after an unusually violent outburst on Peter's part because he had lost his best gold collar stud, which he accused mother of having taken. And when she tremblingly said that she had never in her life worn anything around her neck but a lace tucker, which did not necessitate the wearing of a gold stud, he said lace tuckers were foolish fripperies, and that she ought to wear a linen collar the same as other sensible women. And when mother protested that her neck was not long enough, he replied snappily: "Then stretch it till it is. You are a woman without any resources."
I smile as I conjure up dear mother's expression of countenance when he said this. She usually, with unquestioning obedience to Biblical commands, turned her other cheek to him for a smite, but on this occasion she didn't do anything of the kind. She simply turned her back on him, drew herself up to her full height of five feet nothing, and pranced out of the room. I say pranced, because she did prance, just like a thoroughbred horse chafing at the bearing rein. Peter watched this prancing with unconcealed astonishment; in fact, he put up his monocle and stared at the closed door. Now if mother had only pranced a little oftener. Peter might have been a much better behaved person. But mother is not of the stuff of which people like Amelia and Napoleon are composed. She is not a ruler, and she is not a fighter. She cannot stand up for herself, and so Peter has taken advantage of her sitting position—which sounds as though I were referring to a hen, and not to mother at all.
I find on turning back the pages that I said mother was rarely disloyal to Peter, that she pronounced his selfishness and bad temper as "just tiresomeness." Still, the worm will turn sometimes, and on this occasion she did turn. To-morrow she will probably ignore him altogether—glad to get away from an unpleasant subject.
I am full of delightful anticipations of the peaceful time she and I will spend together under the apple tree. At first she will lean forward when I speak to her as though she had been deafened by a storm. To live with Peter is to live in a succession of storms, and when mother reaches the calmer spaces of the world she wears an almost dazed expression. I must speak very slowly and gently till she becomes accustomed to being in a quiet haven. We will chat in the mornings and doze in the warm afternoons and discuss Amelia in the evenings. I know I shall be unable to resist discussing Amelia with mother. She will be so interested in her not wearing cloth boots. She will be so surprised at my having given in. She gives in herself over every question in life, great or small. But she is quite surprised if other people do the same, especially her own daughter. She imagines I have inherited some of Peter's characteristics, which Heaven forbid. She thinks his bullying is strength of character. Ah, little mother, I am not strong, if you only knew it. I am as weak as water towards people I love. You, Dimbie and Nanty could do anything with me.
Amelia has been to tell me that we are out of Shinio, and shall she run to the village. She didn't call it Shinio, but Shiny. She has quite an extraordinary affection for the evil-smelling stuff, and is always "requiring" it.
"But you won't be cleaning anything this afternoon," I said. "You are dressed, and it must be nearly five o'clock."
"It's for the brasses to-morrow morning," she answered in a tired voice, as though she were weary of explaining things to me. "It's kitchen-day, and I do my steels and brasses before breakfast."
"Oh, of course," I murmured hastily while looking for my purse, which I can never find, and which she unearthed with lightning rapidity from under the tortoise.
I handed her sixpence, but she didn't go.