Peter's Mother Part 37

"It may be a plat.i.tude, but I am beginning to discover that what are called plat.i.tudes by the young are biting truths to the old," said Lady Mary. "I've felt it a thousand times. Words come so easily to my lips when I'm speaking to you, I am so certain you will understand and respond. But with Peter, I sometimes feel as though I were dumb or stupid. Perhaps you've been too--too kind; you've understood too quickly. I've been too ready to believe that you've found me--"

"Everything I wanted to find you," interrupted John, tenderly; "and that was something quite out of the common."

She smiled and shook her head. "I am ready to believe all the nice things you can say, as fast as you can say them, when I am with _you_"

she said, with a raillery rather mournful than gay. "But when I am with Peter, I seem to realize dreadfully that I'm only a middle-aged woman of average capacity, and with very little knowledge of the world. He does his best to teach me. That's funny, isn't it?"

"It's very like--a very young man," said John, gently.

"You mustn't think I'm mocking at my boy--like Sarah," she said vehemently. "Perhaps I am wrong to tell you. Perhaps only a mother would really understand. But it makes me a little sad and bewildered.

My boy--my little baby, who lay in my arms and learnt everything from me. And now he looks down and lectures me from such an immense height of superiority, never dreaming that I'm laughing in my heart, because it's only little Peter, after all."

"And he doesn't lecture Sarah?"

"Oh no; he doesn't lecture Sarah. She is too young to be lectured with impunity, and too wise. Besides, I think since he went away, and saw Sarah flattered and spoilt, and queening it among the great people who didn't know him even by sight, that he has realized that their relative positions have changed a good deal. You see, little Sarah Hewel, as she used to be, would have been making quite a great match in marrying Peter. But Lady Tintern's adopted daughter and heiress--old Tintern left an immense fortune to his wife, didn't he?--is another matter altogether. And how could she settle down to this humdrum life after all the excitement and gaiety she's been accustomed to?"

"Women do such things every day. Besides--"

"Yes?"

"Is Peter still so much enamoured of a humdrum life?" said John, dryly.

"I have had no opportunity of finding out; but I am sure he will want to settle down quietly when all this is over--"

"You mean when he's no longer in love with Sarah?"

"He's barely one-and-twenty; it can't last," said Lady Mary.

"I don't know. If she's so much cleverer than he, I'm inclined to think it may," said John.

"Oh, of course, if he married her--it would last," said Lady Mary.

"And then?" said John, smiling.

"Perhaps _then_," said Lady Mary; and she laid her hand softly in the strong hand outstretched to receive it.

CHAPTER XVII

There was a tap at the door of Lady Mary's bedroom, and Peter's voice sounded without.

"Mother, could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Come in," said Lady Mary's soft voice; and Peter entered and closed the door, and crossed to the oriel window, where she was sitting at her writing-table, before a pile of notes and account books.

Long ago, in Peter's childhood, she had learned to make this bedroom her refuge, where she could read or write or dream, in silence; away from the two old ladies, who seemed to pervade all the living-rooms at Barracombe. Peter had been accustomed all his life to seek his mother here.

She had chosen the room at her marriage, and had had an old-fashioned paper of bunched rosebuds put up there. It was very long and low, and looked eastward into the fountain garden, and over the tree-tops far away to the open country.

The sisters had thought one of the handsome modern rooms of the south front would be more suitable for the bride, but Lady Mary had her way.

She preferred the older part of the house, and liked the steps down into her room, the uneven floor, the low ceiling, the quaint window-seats, and the powdering closet where she hung her dresses.

The great oriel window formed almost a sitting-room apart. Here was her writing-table, whereon stood now a green jar of scented arums and trailing white fuchsias.

A bunch of sweet peas in a corner of the window-seat perfumed the whole room, already fragrant with potpourri and lavender.

A low bookcase was filled with her favourite volumes; one shelf with the story-books of her childhood, from which she had long ago read aloud to Peter, on rainy days when he had exhausted all other kinds of amus.e.m.e.nt; for he had never touched a book if he could help it, therein resembling his father.

In the corner next the window stood the cot where Peter had slept often as a little boy, and which had been playfully designated the hospital, because his mother had always carried him thither when he was ill. Then she had taken him jealously from the care of his attendant, and had nursed and guarded him herself day and night, until even convalescence was a thing of the past. She had never suffered that little cot to be moved; the white coverlet had been made and embroidered by her own hands. A gaudy oleograph of a soldier on horseback--which little Peter had been fond of, and which had been hung up to amuse him during one of those childish illnesses--remained in its place. How often had she looked at it through her tears when Peter was far away! Beside the cot stood a table with a shabby book of devotions, marked by a ribbon from which the colour had long since faded. The book had belonged to Lady Mary's father, young Robbie Setoun, who had become Lord Ferries but one short month before he met with a soldier's death. His daughter said her prayers at this little table, and had carried thither her agony and pet.i.tions for her boy in his peril, during the many, many months of the South African War.

The morning was brilliant and sunny, and the upper cas.e.m.e.nts stood open, to let in the fresh autumn air, and the song of the robin balancing on a swaying twig of the ivy climbing the old walls. White clouds were blowing brightly across a clear, blue sky.

Lady Mary stretched out her hand and pulled a cord, which drew a rosy curtain half across the window, and shaded the corner where she was sitting. She looked anxiously and tenderly into Peter's face; her quick instinct gathered that something had shaken him from his ordinary mood of criticism or indifference.

"Are you come to have a little talk with me, my darling?" she said.

She was afraid to offer the caress she longed to bestow. She moved from her stiff elbow-chair to the soft cushions in her favourite corner of the window-seat, and held out a timid hand. Peter clasped it in his own, threw himself on a stool at her feet, and rested his forehead against her knee.

"I have something to tell you, mother, and I am afraid that, when I have told you, you will be disappointed in me; that you will think me inconsistent."

Her heart beat faster. "Which of us is consistent in this world, my darling? We all change with circ.u.mstances. We are often obliged to change, even against our wills. Tell me, Peter; I shall understand."

"There's not really anything to tell," said Peter, nervously contradicting himself, "because nothing is exactly settled yet. But I think something might be--before very long, if you would help me to smooth away some of the princ.i.p.al difficulties."

"Yes, yes," said Lady Mary, venturing to stroke the closely cropped black head resting against her lap.

"You know--Sarah--has been teaching me the new kind of croquet, at Hewelscourt, since we came back from Scotland?" he said. "I don't get on so badly, considering."

"My poor boy!"

"Oh, I was always rather inclined to be left-handed; it comes in usefully now," said Peter, who generally hurried over any reference to his misfortune. "Well, this morning, whilst we were playing, I asked Sarah, for the third time, to--to marry me. The third's the lucky time, isn't it?" he said, with a tremulous laugh, "and--and--"

"She said yes!" cried Lady Mary, clasping her hands.

"She didn't go so far as that," said Peter, rather reproachfully. His voice shook slightly. "But she didn't say no. It's the first time she hasn't said no."

"What did she say?" said Lady Mary.

She tried to keep her feelings of indignation and offence against Sarah out of her voice. After all, who was Sarah that she should presume to refuse Peter? Or for the matter of that, to accept him?

Either course seems equally unpardonable at times to motherly jealousy, and Lady Mary was half vexed and half amused to find herself not exempt from this weakness.

"Impudent little red-headed thing!" she said to herself, though she loved Sarah dearly, and admired her red hair with all her heart.

"She told me a few of the reasons why she--she didn't want to marry me," said Peter.

Lady Mary's dismay was rather too apparent. "Surely that doesn't sound very hopeful."