Was it possible that his departure brought a dreadful relief to the mother who had prayed day and night, for eight-and-twenty months, that her son might return to her?
She tried and tried, on her knees in her own room, to realize what her feelings would have been if Peter had been killed in South Africa. She tried to recall the first ecstasy of joy at his home-coming. She remembered, as she might have remembered a dream, the hours of agony she had passed, looking out over these very blue hills, and dumbly beseeching God to spare her boy—her only son—out of all the mothers' sons who were laying down their lives for England.
A terrible thought assailed her now and then, like an ugly spectre that would not be laid—that if Peter had died of his wound—if he had fallen as so many of his comrades had fallen, in the war—he would have been a hero for all time; a glorious memory, safely enshrined and enthroned above all these miserable petty doubts and disappointments. She cast the thought from her in horror and piteous grief, and reiterated always her passionate gratitude for his preservation. But, nevertheless, the living, breathing Peter was a daily and hourly disappointment to the mother who loved him. His ways were not her ways, nor his thoughts her thoughts; and often she felt that she could have found more to say to a complete stranger, and that a stranger would have understood her better.
The old ladies, returning from their drive, generally took a little turn upon the terrace. This constituted half their daily exercise, since their morning walk consisted of a stroll round the kitchen garden.
"It prevents cramp after sitting so long," one would say to the other.
"And it is only right to show the gardener that we take an interest," the other would reply.
The gardener translated the interest they took into a habit of fault-finding, which nearly drove him mad.
"It du spile the vine weather vor I," he would frequently grumble to his greatest crony, James Coachman, who, for his part, bitterly resented the abnormal length of the daily drives. "Zure as vate, when I zits down tu my tea, cumes a message from one are t'other on 'em, an' oop I goes. 'Yu bain't been lukin' round zo careful as 'ee shude; there be a bit o' magnolia as want nailding oop, my gude man.' 'Oh, be there, mum?' zays I. 'Yiss, there be; an' thart I'd carl yure attention tu it,' zess she, are zum zuch. 'Thanky, mum, I'm zure,' zezz I."
"I knows how her goes on," groaned James Coachman.
"Mother toime 'tis zummat else," said the aggrieved gardener. "'Thic 'ere geranum's broke, Willum; but ef yu tuke it vor cuttings, zo vast's iver yu cude, 'twon't take no yarm, Willum. Yu zee as how us du take a turble interest.' Ah! 'tis arl I can du tu putt oop wi' 'un; carling a man from's tea, tu tark zuch vamous vule's tark."