Peter's Mother Part 12

He came to her side, and took the little hand rea.s.suringly in his strong, warm clasp.

"Be brave, my dear," he said, with faltering voice, "and put aside, if you can, the thought of your bitter, terrible disappointment. Only _you_ can cheer, and inspire, and aid your husband to maintain the calmness of spirit which is of such vital importance to his chance of recovery. You can't leave him against his wish at such a moment; not if you are the--the angel I believe you to be," said John, with emotion.

There was a pause, and though he looked away from her, he knew that she was crying.

John released the little hand gently, and walked to the fireplace to give her time to recover herself. Perhaps his eye-gla.s.ses were dimmed; he polished them very carefully.

Lady Mary dashed away her tears, and spoke in a hard voice he scarcely recognized as hers.

"I might be all--you think me, John," she said, "if--"

"Ah! don't let there be an _if_," said John.

"But--"

"Or a _but_."

"It is that you don't understand the situation," she said; "you talk as though Sir Timothy and I were an ordinary husband and wife, entirely dependent on one another's love and sympathy. Don't you know _he_ stands alone--above all the human follies and weaknesses of a mere woman? Can't you guess," said Lady Mary, pa.s.sionately, "that it's my boy, my poor faulty, undutiful boy--oh, that I should call him so!--who needs me? that it's his voice that would be calling in my heart whilst I awaited Sir Timothy's pleasure to-morrow?"

"His _pleasure_?" said John, sternly.

"I am shocking you, and I didn't want to shock you," she cried, almost wildly. "But you don't suppose he needs _me_--me myself? He only wants to be sure I'm doing the right thing. He wants to give people no chance of saying that Lady Mary Crewys rushed off to see her spoilt boy whilst her husband hovered between life and death. A lay figure would do just as well; if it would only sit in an armchair and hold its handkerchief to its eyes; and if the neighbours, and his sisters, and the servants could be persuaded to think it was I."

"Hush, hush!" said John.

"Do let me speak out; pray let me speak out," she said, breathless and imploring, "and you can think what you like of me afterwards, when I am gone, if only you won't scold now. I am so sick of being scolded,"

said Lady Mary. "Am I to be a child for ever--I, that am so old, and have lost my boy?"

He thought there was something in her of the child that never grows up; the guilelessness, the charm, the ready tears and smiles, the quick changes of mood.

He rolled an elbow-chair forward, and put her into it tenderly.

"Say what you will," said John.

"This is comfortable," she said, leaning her head wearily on her hand; "to talk to a--a friend who understands, and who will not scold.

But you can't understand unless I tell you everything; and Timothy himself, after all, would be the first to explain to you that it isn't my tears nor my kisses, nor my consolation he wants. You didn't think so _really_, did you?"

John hesitated, remembering Sir Timothy's words, but she did not wait for an answer.

"Yes," she said calmly, "he wishes me to be in my proper place. It would be a scandal if I did such a remarkable thing as to leave home on any pretext at such a moment. Only by being extraordinarily respectable and dignified can we live down the memory of his father's unconventional behaviour. I must remember my position. I must smell my salts, and put my feet up on the sofa, and be moderately overcome during the crisis, and moderately thankful to the Almighty when it's over, so that every one may hear how admirably dear Lady Mary behaved.

And when I am reading the _Times_ to him during his convalescence,"

she cried, wringing her hands, "Peter--Peter will be thousands of miles away, marching over the veldt to his death."

"You make very sure of Peter's death," said John, quietly.

"Oh yes," said Lady Mary, listlessly. "He's an only son. It's always the only sons who die. I've remarked that."

"You make very sure of Sir Timothy's recovery."

"Oh yes," Lady Mary said again. "He's a very strong man."

Something ominous in John's face and voice attracted her attention.

"Why do you look like that?"

"Because," said John, slowly--"you understand I'm treating you as a woman of courage--Dr. Blundell told me just now that--the odds are against him."

She uttered a little cry.

The doctor's voice at the end of the hall made them both start.

"Lady Mary," he said, "you will forgive my interruption. Sir Timothy desired me to join you. He feared this double blow might prove too much for your strength."

"I am quite strong," said Lady Mary.

"He wished me to deliver a message," said the doctor.

"Yes."

"On reflection, Sir Timothy believes that he may be partly influenced by a selfish desire for the consolation of your presence in wishing you to remain with him to-morrow. He was struck, I believe, with something Mr. Crewys said--on this point."

"G.o.d bless you, John!" said Lady Mary.

"Hush!" said John, shaking his head.

Dr. Blundell's voice sounded, John thought, as though he were putting force upon himself to speak calmly and steadily. His eyes were bent on the floor, and he never once looked at Lady Mary.

"Sir Timothy desires, consequently," he said, "that you will consider yourself free to follow your own wishes in the matter; being guided, as far as possible, by the advice of Mr. Crewys. He is afraid of further agitation, and therefore asks you to convey to him, as quickly as possible, your final decision. As his physician, may I beg you not to keep him waiting?"

He left them, and returned to the study.

Though it was only a short silence that followed his departure, John had time to learn by heart the aspect of the half-lighted, shadowy hall.

There are some pauses which are ill.u.s.trated to the day of a man's death, by a vivid impression on his memory of the surroundings.

The heavy, painted beams crossing and re-crossing the lofty roof; the black staircase lighted with wax candles, that made a brilliancy which threw into deeper relief the darkness of every recess and corner; the full-length, Early Victorian portraits of men and women of his own race--inartistic daubs, that were yet horribly lifelike in the semi-illumination; the uncurtained mullioned windows,--all formed a background for the central figure in his thoughts; the slender womanly form in the armchair; the little brown head supported on the white hand; the delicate face, robbed of its youthful freshness, and yet so lovely still.

"John," said Lady Mary, in a voice from which all pa.s.sion and strength had died away, "tell me what I ought to do."

"Remain with your husband."

"And let my boy go?" said Lady Mary, weeping. "I had thought, when he was leaving me, perhaps for ever, that--that his heart would be touched--that I should get a glimpse once more of the Peter he used to be. Oh, can't you understand? He--he's a little--hard and cold to me sometimes--G.o.d forgive me for saying so!--but you--you've been a young man too."

"Yes," John said, rather sadly, "I've been young too."

"It's only his age, you know," she said. "He couldn't always be as gentle and loving as when he was a child. A young man would think that so babyish. He wants, as he says, to be independent, and not tied to a woman's ap.r.o.n-string. But in his heart of hearts he loves me best in the whole world, and he wouldn't have been ashamed to let me see it at such a moment. And I should have had a precious memory of him for ever. You shake your head. Don't you understand me? I thought you seemed to understand," she said wistfully.

"Peter is a boy," said John, "and life is just opening for him. It is a hard saying to _you_, but his thoughts are full of the world he is entering. There is no room in them just now for the home he is leaving. That is human nature. If he be sick or sorry later on--as I know your loving fancy pictures him--his heart would turn even then, not to the mother he saw waving and weeping on the quay, amid all the confusion of departure, but to the mother of his childhood, of his happy days of long ago. It may be "--John hesitated, and spoke very tenderly--"it may be that his heart will be all the softer then, because he was denied the parting interview he never sought. The young are strangely wayward and impatient. They regret what might have been.

They do not, like the old, dwell fondly upon what the G.o.ds actually granted them. It is _you_ who will suffer from this sacrifice, not Peter; that will be some consolation to you, I suppose, even if it be also a disappointment."