Peter's Mother

by Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

Long shadows were falling across the bend of the river, below the wooded hill which faced the south-west; whilst the cob-built, whitewashed cottages, and the brown, square-towered church lay full in sunshine still. The red cattle stood knee-deep in the shallows, and an old boat was moored high and dry upon the sloping red banks.

The air was sweet with a thousand mingled scents of summer flowers: carnations, stocks, roses, and jasmine. The creamy clusters of Perpetual Felicity rioted over the corner turret of the terrace, where a crumbling stair led to the top of a small, half-ruined observatory, which tradition called the look-out tower.

Flights of steps led downwards from the garden, where the bedded-out plants blazed in all their glory of ordered colour, to the walks on the lower levels. Here were long herbaceous borders, backed by the mighty sloping walls of old red sandstone, which, like an ancient fortification, supported the terrace above.

The blue larkspur flourished beside scarlet gladioli, feather-headed spirea, and hardy fuchsia. There were no straight lines, nor any order of planting. The Madonna lilies stood in groups, lifting up on thin, ragged stems their pure and spotless clusters, and overpowering with their heavy scent the fainter fragrance of the mignonette. Tall, green hollyhocks towered higher yet, holding the secret of their loveliness, until these should wither; when they too would burst into blossom, and forestall the round-budded dahlia.

In the silence, many usually unheeded sounds made themselves very plainly heard.

The tapping of the great magnolia-leaves upon the windows of the south front; the rustling of the ilex; the ceaseless murmur of the river; the near twittering or distant song of innumerable birds; the steady hum of the saw-mill below; the call of the poultry-woman at the home-farm, and the shrieking response of a feathered horde flying and fighting for their food—sounds all so familiar as to pass unnoticed, save in the absence of companionship.

As Lady Mary mused alone, she could not but recall other summer afternoons, when she had not felt less lonely because her husband's voice might at any moment break the silence, and summon her to his side. Days when Peter had been absent at school, instead of, as now, at play; and when the old ladies had also been absent, taking their regular and daily drive in the big barouche.

Then she had prized and coveted the solitude of a summer afternoon on the lawn, and had stolen away to read and dream undisturbed in the shadow of the ilex.

It was now, when no vexatious restraint was exercised over her—when there was no one to reprove her for dreaming, or to criticize or forbid her chosen book—that solitude had become distasteful to her. She was restless and dissatisfied, and the misty sunlit landscape had lost its charm, and her book its power of enchaining her attention.

She had tasted the joy of real companionship; the charm of real sympathy; of the fearless exchange of ideas with one whose outlook upon life was as broad and charitable as Sir Timothy's had been narrow and prejudiced.