"Indeed it is, the darling," put in Peggy.
"One can't deny that disasters have come upon us extraordinarily fast since he came to live with us in Venice two years ago. First he discovered things that annoyed him in my private affairs, which was extremely disagreeable for all of us, and really he was rather unnecessarily officious about that; in fact, I consider that it was owing largely to the line he took that things reached their final very trying dénouement. Since then disaster upon disaster has come upon us; Peter's unfortunate marriage, and consequent serious expenses, including the child now left upon his hands (really, you know, that was an exceedingly stupid step that Peter took; I tried to dissuade him at the time, but of course it was no use). And he is so very frequently ill; so am I, you will say"—(Peggy didn't, because Hilary wasn't, as a matter of fact, ill quite so often as he believed)—"but two crocks in a household are twice as inconvenient as one. And now there has been this unpleasant jar with the Urquharts. Peter, by his rudeness to them, has finally severed the connection, and we can hope for nothing from that quarter in future. And I am not sure that I choose to have living with me a much younger brother who has influential friends of his own in whom he insists that we shall have neither part nor lot. I strongly object to the way Peter spoke to us on that occasion; it was extremely offensive."
"Oh, don't be such a goose, Hilary. The boy only lost his temper for a moment, and I'm sure that happens seldom enough. And as to the rest of it, I don't like the way you speak of him, as if he was the cause of our mischances, and as if his being so mischancey himself wasn't a reason why we should all stick together, and him with that scrap of a child, too; though I will say Peter's a handier creature with a child than anyone would think. I suppose it's the practice he's had handling other costly things that break easy.... Well, have it your own way, Hilary. Only mind, if Peter wants to come with us, he surely shall. I'm not going to leave him behind like a left kitten. And I'd love to have him, for he makes sunshine in the house when things are blackest."
"Lately Peter has appeared to me to be rather depressed," said Hilary, and Peggy too had perceived that this was so. It was something so new in Peter that it called for notice.
There was needed no further dispute between Peggy and Hilary, for Peter said that he and Thomas preferred to stay in London.
"I can probably find a job of some sort to keep us. I might with luck get a place as shop-walker. That always looks a glorious life. You merely walk about and say, 'Yes, madam? This way for hose, madam.' Something to live on and nothing to do, as the poet says. But I expect they are difficult places to get, without previous experience. Short of that, I could be one of the men round stations that open people's cab doors and take the luggage out; or even a bus-conductor, who knows? Oh, there are lots of openings. But in Dublin I feel my talents might be lost.... Thomas and I will move into more modest apartments, and go in for plain living and high thinking."
"You poor little dears," said Peggy, and kissed both of them. "Well, it'll be plain living for the lot of us, that's obvious, and lucky too to get that.... I'd love to have you two children with us, but ..."
But Peter, to whom other people's minds were as books that who runs may read, had no intention of coming with them. That faculty of intuition of Peter's had drawbacks as well as advantages. He knew, as well as if Hilary had said so, that Hilary considered their life together a disastrous series of mishaps, largely owing to Peter, and that he did not desire to continue it. He knew precisely what was Denis Urquhart's point of view and state of feelings towards himself and his family, and how unbridgeable that gulf was. He knew why Lucy was stopping away, and would stop away (for if other people's thoughts were to him as pebbles in running water, hers were pebbles seen white and lucid in a still, clear pool). And he knew very well that he relieved Peggy's kind heart when he said he and Thomas would stop in London; for to Peggy anything was better than to worry her poor old Hilary more than need be.
So, before March was out, about St. Cuthbert's day, in fact, Hilary Margerison and his family left England for a more distressful country, to seek their fortunes fresh, and Peter and his family sought modest apartments in a little street behind St. Austin's Church, where the apartments are very modest indeed.
"Are they too modest for you, Thomas?" Peter asked dubiously. "And do you too much hate the Girl?"