Peter's Mother Part 14

She wore a blue cotton frock, and a brown mushroom hat, with a wreath of wild roses which had somewhat too obviously been sewn on in a hurry and crookedly; and she looked far more like a village schoolgirl than a young lady who was shortly to make her _debut_ in London society.

But he was struck with the extraordinary brilliancy of her complexion, transparent and pure as it was, in the searching sunlight.

"If she were not so round-shouldered--if the features were better--her expression softer," said John to himself--"if divine colouring were all--she would be beautiful."

But her wide, smiling mouth, short-tipped nose, and cleft chin, conveyed rather the impression of childish audacity than of feminine charm. The glance of those bright, inquisitive eyes was like a wild robin's, half innocent, half bold. Though her round throat were white as milk, and though no careless exposure to sun and wind had yet succeeded in dimming the exquisite fairness of her skin, yet the defects and omissions incidental to extreme youth, country breeding, and lack of discipline, rendered Miss Sarah not wholly pleasing in John's fastidious eyes. Her carriage was slovenly, her ungloved hands were red, her hair touzled, and her deep-toned voice over-loud and confident. Yet her frankness and her trustfulness could not fail to evoke sympathy.

"It is--Lady Mary that I am fond of," said the girl, with a yet more vivid blush.

He was touched. "She will miss you, I am sure, when you go to town,"

he said kindly.

"If I thought so really, I wouldn't go," said Sarah, vehemently. She winked a tear from her long eyelashes. "But I know it's only your good nature. She thinks of nothing and n.o.body but Peter. And--and, after all, when I get better manners, and all that, I shall be more of a companion to her. I'm very glad to go, if it wasn't for leaving _her_.

I like Aunt Elizabeth, whereas mamma and I never _did_ get on. She cares most for the boys, which is very natural, no doubt, as I was only an afterthought, and n.o.body wanted me. And Aunt Elizabeth has always liked me. She says I amuse her with my sharp tongue."

"But you will have to be a little careful of the sharp tongue when you get to London," said John, smiling. He was struck by the half-sly, half-acquiescent look that Sarah stole at him from beneath those long eyelashes. Perhaps her outspokenness was not so involuntary as he had imagined.

"If I had known you were coming to-day, I would have gone up to say good-bye to Lady Mary last night," said Sarah, mournfully. "She won't want me now you are here."

"I have a thousand and one things to look after. I sha'n't be in your way," said John, good-naturedly, "if she is not busy otherwise."

"Busy!" echoed Sarah. "She sits _so_, with her hands in her lap, looking over the valley. And she has grown, oh, so much thinner and sadder-looking. I thought you would never come."

"I have my own work," said John, hurriedly, "and I thought, besides, she would rather be alone these first few weeks."

Sarah looked up with a flash in her blue eyes, which were so dark, and large-pupilled, and heavily lashed, that they looked almost black. She ground her strong white teeth together.

"If I were Lady Mary," she said, "I would have slammed the old front door behind me the very day after Sir Timothy was buried--and gone away; I would. There she is, like a prisoner, with the old ladies counting every tear she sheds, and adding them up to see if it is enough; and measuring every inch of c.r.a.pe on her gowns; and finding fault with all she does, just as they used when Sir Timothy was alive to back them up. And she is afraid to do anything he didn't like; and she never listens to the doctor, the only person in the world who's ever had the courage to fight her battles."

"The doctor," said John, sharply. "Has she been ill?"

"No, no."

"What has _he_ to do with Lady Mary?" said John.

His displeasure was so great that the colour rose in his clean-shaven face, and did not escape little Sarah's observation, for all her downcast lashes.

"Somebody must go and see her," said Sarah; "and you were away. And the canon is just n.o.body, always bothering her for subscriptions; though he is very fond of her, like everybody else," she added, with compunction. "Dear me, Mr. Crewys, how fast you are walking!"

John had unconsciously quickened his pace so much that she had some ado to keep up with him without actually running.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"It is so hot, and the hill is steep, and I am rather fat. I dare say I shall fine down as I get older," said Sarah, apologetically. "It would be dreadful if I grew up like mamma. But I am more like my father, thank goodness, and _he_ is simply a ma.s.s of hard muscle. I dare say even I could beat you on the flat. But not up this drive.

Doesn't it look pretty in the spring?"

"It was very different when I left Barracombe," said John.

He looked round with all a Londoner's appreciation.

In the sunny corner next the ivy-clad lodge an early rhododendron had burst into scarlet bloom. The steep drive was warmly walled and sheltered on the side next the hill by horse-chestnuts, witch-elms, tall, flowering shrubs and evergreens, and a variety of tree-azaleas and rhododendrons which promised a blaze of beauty later in the season.

But the other side of the drive lay in full view of the open landscape; rolling gra.s.s slopes stretching down to the orchards and the valley. Violets, white and blue, scented the air, and the primroses cl.u.s.tered at the roots of the forest trees.

The gnarled and twisted stems of giant creepers testified to the age of Barracombe House. Before the entrance was a level s.p.a.ce, which made a little spring garden, more formal and less varied in its arrangement than the terrace gardens on the south front; but no less gay and bright, with beds of hyacinths, red and white and purple, and daffodils springing amidst their bodyguards of pale, pointed spears.

A wild cherry-tree at the corner of the house had showered snowy petals before the latticed window of the study; the window whence Sir Timothy had taken his last look at the western sky, and from which his watchful gaze had once commanded the approach to his house, and observed almost every human being who ventured up the drive.

On the ridge of the hill above, and in clumps upon the fertile slopes of the side of the little valley, the young larches rose, newly clothed in that light and brilliant foliage which darkens almost before spring gives place to summer.

They found Lady Mary in the drawing-room; the sunshine streamed towards her through the golden rain of a _planta-genista_, which stood on a table in the western corner of the bow window. She was looking out over the south terrace, and the valley and the river, just as Sarah had said.

He was shocked at her pallor, which was accentuated by her black dress; her sapphire blue eyes looked unnaturally large and clear; the little white hands clasped in her lap were too slender; a few silver threads glistened in the soft, brown hair. Above all, the hopeless expression of the sad and gentle face went to John's heart.

_Was_ the doctor the only man in the world who had the courage to fight her battles for this fading, grieving woman who had been the lovely Mary Setoun; whom John remembered so careless, so laughing, so innocently gay?

He was relieved that she could smile as he approached to greet her.

"I did not guess you would come by the early train," she said, in glad tones. "But, oh--you must have walked all the way from Brawnton! What will James Coachman say?"

"I wanted a walk," said John, "and I knew you would send to meet me if I let you know. My luggage is at the station. James Coachman, as you call him, can fetch that whenever he will."

"And I have come to say good-bye," said Sarah, forlornly.

She watched with jealous eyes their greeting, and Lady Mary's obvious pleasure in John's arrival, and half-oblivion of her own familiar little presence.

When Peter had first gone to school, his mother in her loneliness had almost made a _confidante_ of little Sarah, the odd, intelligent child who followed her about so faithfully, and listened so eagerly to those dreamy, half-uttered confidences. She knew that Lady Mary wept because her boy had left her; but she understood also that when Peter came home for the holidays he brought little joy to his mother. A self-possessed stripling now walked about the old house, and laid down the law to his mamma--instead of that chubby creature in petticoats who had once been Peter.

Lady Mary had dwelt on the far-off days of Peter's babyhood very tenderly when she was alone with little Sarah, who sat and nursed her doll, and liked very much to listen; she often felt awed, as though some one had died; but she did not connect the story much with the Peter of every day, who went fishing and said girls were rather a nuisance.

Sarah, too, had had her troubles. She was periodically banished to distant schools by a mother who disliked romping and hoydenish little girls, as much as she doted on fat and wheezing lap-dogs. But as her father, on the other hand, resented her banishment from home almost as sincerely as Sarah herself, she was also periodically sent for to take up her residence once more beneath the parental roof. Thus her life was full of change and uncertainty; but, through it all, her devotion to Lady Mary never wavered.

She looked at her now with a melancholy air which sat oddly upon her bright, comical face, and which was intended to draw attention to the pathetic fact of her own impending departure.

"I only came to say good-bye," said Sarah, in slightly injured tones.

"Ah! by-the-by, and I have promised not to intrude on the parting,"

said John, with twinkling eyes.

"It is not an eternal farewell," said Lady Mary, drawing Sarah kindly towards her.

"It may be for _years_," said Sarah, rather offended. "My aunt Elizabeth is as good as adopting me. Mamma said I was very lucky, and I believe she is glad to be rid of me. But papa says he shall come and see me in London. Aunt Elizabeth is going to take me to Paris and to Scotland, and abroad every winter."

"Oh, Sarah, how you will be changed when you come back!" said Lady Mary; and she laughed a little, with a hand on Sarah's shoulder; but Sarah knew that Lady Mary was not thinking very much about her, all the same.

"There is no fresh news, John?" she asked.

"Nothing since my last telegram," he answered. "But I have arranged with the Exchange Telegraph Company to wire me anything of importance during my stay here."