Peter's Mother Part 17

"I suppose--because I can't help it," she said, startled.

"You are a free agent."

"You mean that I could go away?" she said, in a low voice. "But there is only one place I should care to go to now."

"To South Africa?"

"You always understand," she said gratefully.

"Supposing this--this ghastly war should not be over as soon as we all hope," he said, rather huskily, "I could escort you myself, in a few weeks' time, to the Cape. Or--or arrange for your going earlier if you desired, and if I could not get away. Probably you would get no further than Cape Town; but it might be easier for you waiting there--than here."

"I shall thank you, and bless you always, for thinking of it," she interrupted, softly; "but there is something--that I never told anybody."

He waited.

"After Peter had the news of his father's death," said Lady Mary, with a sob in her throat, "you did not know that he--he telegraphed to me, from Madeira. He foresaw immediately, I suppose, whither my foolish impulses would lead me; and he asked me--I should rather say he ordered me--under no circ.u.mstances whatever to follow him out to South Africa."

John remembered the doctor's warning, and said nothing.

"So, you see--I can't go," said Lady Mary.

There was a pause.

"I am bound to say," said John, presently, "that, in Peter's place, I should not have liked my mother, or any woman I loved, to come out to the seat of war. He showed only a proper care for you in forbidding it. Perhaps I am less courageous than he, in thinking more of the present benefit you would derive from the voyage and the change of scene, than of the perils and discomforts which might await you, for aught we can foretell now, at the end of it. Peter certainly showed judgment in telegraphing to you."

"Do you really think so? That it was care for me that made him do it?"

she asked. A distant doubtful joy sounded in her voice. "Somehow I never thought of that. I remembered his old dislike of being followed about, or taken care of, or--or spied upon, as he used to call it."

"Boys just turning into men are often sensitive on those points," said John, heedful always of the doctor's warning.

"It is odd I did not see the telegram in that light," said poor Lady Mary. "I must read it again."

She spoke as hopefully as though she had not read it already a hundred times over, trying to read loving meanings, that were not there, between the curt and peremptory lines.

"It is not odd," thought John to himself; "it is because you knew him too well;" and he wondered whether his explanation of Peter's action were charitable, or merely unscrupulous.

But Lady Mary was not really deceived; only very grateful to the man who was so tender of heart, so tactful of speech, as to make it seem even faintly possible that she had misjudged her boy.

She said to herself that parents were often unreasonable, expecting impossibilities, in their wild desire for perfection in their offspring. An outsider, being unprejudiced by anxiety, could judge more fairly. John found that the telegram, which had almost broken her heart, was reasonable and justified; nay, even that it displayed a dutiful regard for her safety and comfort, of which no one but a stranger could possibly have suspected Peter. She was grateful to John. It was a relief and joy to feel that it was she who was to blame, and not Peter, whose heart was in the right place, after all.

And yet, though John was so clever and had such an experience of human nature, it was the doctor who had put the key into his hands, which presently unlocked Lady Mary's confidence.

"You mustn't think, John, that I don't understand what it will be like later, when Peter comes of age. Of course this house will be his, and he is not the kind of young man to be tied to his mother's ap.r.o.n-string. He always wanted to be independent."

"It is human nature," said John.

"I am not blind to his faults," said Lady Mary, humbly, "though they all think so. It is of little use to try and hide them from you, who will see them for yourself directly my darling comes back. I pray G.o.d it may be soon. Of course he is spoilt; but I am to blame, because I made him my idol."

"An only son is always more or less spoilt," said John. He remembered his own boyhood, and smiled sardonically in the darkness. "He will grow out of it. He will come back a man after this experience."

"Yes, yes, and he will want to live his life, and I--I shall have to learn to do without him, I know," she said. "I must learn while he is away to--to depend on myself. It is not likely that--that a woman of my age should have much in common with a manly boy like Peter.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really understand my boy at all."

"It is my belief," said John, "that no generation is in perfect touch with another. Each stands on a different rung of the ladder of Time.

You may stoop to lend a helping hand to the younger, or reach upwards to take a farewell of the older. But there must be a looking down or a looking up. No face-to-face talk is possible except upon the same level. No real and true comradeship. The very word implies a marching together, under the same circ.u.mstances, to a common goal; and how can we, who have to be the commanding officers of the young, be their true companions?" he said, lightly and cheerfully.

"I dare say I have expected impossibilities," said Lady Mary, as though reproaching herself. "It comforts me to think so. But I have had time to reflect on many things since--February." She paused. "I don't deny I have tried to make plans for the future. But there are these days to be lived through first--until he comes home."

"I was going to propose," said John, "that, if agreeable to you, I should spend my summer and autumn holiday here, instead of going, as usual, to Switzerland."

"I should be only too glad," she said, in tones of awakened interest.

"But surely--it would be very dull for you?"

"Not at all. There is a great deal to be done, and in accordance with my trust I am bound to set about it," said John. "I propose to spend the next few days in examining the reports of the surveys that have already been made, and in judging of their accuracy for myself. When I return here later, I could have the work begun, and then for some time I could superintend matters personally, which is always a good thing."

"Do you mean--the woods?" she asked. "I know they have been neglected.

Sir Timothy would never have a tree cut down; but they are so wild and beautiful."

"There are hundreds of pounds' worth of timber perishing for want of attention. I am responsible for it all until Peter comes of age," said John, "as I am for the rest of his inheritance. It is part of my trust to hand over to him his house and property in the best order I can, according to my own judgment. I know something of forestry," he added, simply; "you know I was not bred a c.o.c.kney. I was to have been a Hertfordshire squire, on a small scale, had not circ.u.mstances necessitated the letting of my father's house when he died."

"But it will be yours again some day?"

"No," said John, quietly; "it had to be sold--afterwards."

He gave no further explanation, but Lady Mary recollected instantly the abuse that had been showered on his mother, by her sisters-in-law, when John was reported to have sacrificed his patrimony to pay her debts.

"I rather agree with you about the woods," she said. "It vexes me always to see a beautiful young tree, that should be straight and strong, turned into a twisted dwarf, in the shade of the overgrowth and the overcrowding. The woodman will be delighted; he is always grumbling."

"It is not only the woods. There is the house."

"I suppose it wants repairing?" said Lady Mary. "Hadn't that better be put off till Peter comes home?"

"I cannot neglect my trust," said John, gravely; "besides," he added, "the state of the roof is simply appalling. Many of the beams are actually rotten. Then there are the drains; they are on a system that should not be tolerated in these days. Nothing has been done for over sixty years, and I can hardly say how long before."

"Won't it all cost a great deal of money?" said Lady Mary.

"A good deal; but there is a very large sum of money lying idle, which, as the will directs, may be applied to the general improvement of the house and estate during Peter's minority; but over which he is to have no control, should it remain unspent, until he comes of age.

That is to say, it will then--or what is left of it--be invested with the rest of his capital, which is all strictly tied up. So, as old Crawley says, it will relieve Peter's income in the future, if we spend what is necessary now, according to our powers, in putting his house and estate in order. It would have to be done sooner or later, most a.s.suredly. Sir Timothy, as you must know," said John, gently, "did not spend above a third of his actual income; and, so far as Mr.

Crawley knows, spent nothing at all on repairs, beyond jobs to the village carpenter and mason."

"I did not know," said Lady Mary. "He always told me we were very badly off--for our position. I know nothing of business. I did not attend much to Mr. Crawley's explanations at the time."

"You were unable to attend to him then," said John; "but now, I think, you should understand the exact position of affairs. Surely my cousins must have talked it over?"

"Isabella and Georgina never talk business before me. You forget I am still a child in their eyes," she said, smiling. "I gathered that they were disappointed poor Timothy had left them nothing, and that they thought I had too much; that is all."

"Their way of looking at it is scarcely in accordance with justice,"

said John, shrugging his shoulders. "They each have ten thousand pounds left to them by their father in settlement. This was to return to the estate if they died unmarried or childless. You have two thousand a year and the Dower House for your life; but you forfeit both if you re-marry."

"Of course," said Lady Mary, indifferently. "I suppose that is the usual thing?"