Peter's Mother Part 41

The white dew on the long gra.s.s, and the gossamer cobwebs spun in a single night from twig to twig of the rose-trees, glittered in the sunshine.

The autumn roses bloomed cheerfully in the long border, and the robins were singing loudly on the terrace above. The heavy heads of the dahlias drooped beneath their weight of moisture, in these last days of their existence, before the frost would bring them to a sudden end.

Capucines, in every shade of brown and crimson and gold, ran riot over the ground.

Peter drew a pipe from his pocket, put it in his mouth, took out his tobacco-pouch, and filled the pipe with his left hand.

John watched him with interest. "That was dexterously done."

"I'm getting pretty handy," said the hero, with satisfaction, striking a match; "but"--his face fell anew--"no more football; one feels that sort of thing just at the beginning of the season. No more games.

It wouldn't tell so much on a fellow like you, Cousin John, who's perfectly happy with a book, and who--"

"Who's too old for games," suggested John.

"Oh, there's always golf," said Peter.

"A refuge for the aged, eh?" said John, and his eyes twinkled. "But Miss Sarah says you bid fair to beat her at croquet."

"Oh, she was--just rotting," said Peter; and the tone touched John, though he detested slang. "And what's croquet, after all, to a fellow that's used to exercise? I suppose I shall be all right again hunting, when I've got my nerve back a bit. At present it's rotten. A fellow feels so beastly helpless and one-sided. However, that'll wear off, I expect."

"I hope so," said John.

They reached the end of the long walk, and stood for a moment beneath the eastern turret, watching the sparkles on the brown surface of the river below, and the white mist floating away down the valley.

"Talking of advice," said Peter, abruptly--"if I wanted _that_, I'd rather come to you than to old Crawley. After all, though you won't be my guardian much longer, you're still my mother's trustee."

"Yes," said John, smiling; "the law still ent.i.tles me to take an interest in--in your mother."

"Of course I shouldn't dream of mentioning her affairs, or mine either, for that matter, to any one else," said Peter.

He made an exception in his own mind, but decided that it was not necessary to explain this to John, for the moment.

"Thank you, Peter," said John.

"My mother--seems to me," said Peter, slowly, "to have changed very much since I went to South Africa. Have you noticed it?"

"I have," said John, dryly.

"I don't suppose," said Peter, quickening his steps, "that any one could realize exactly what I feel about it."

"I think--perhaps--I could," said John, without visible satire, "dimly and, no doubt, inadequately."

"The fact is," said Peter, and the warm colour rushed into his brown face, even to his thin temples, "I--I'm hoping to get married very soon; though nothing's exactly settled yet."

"A man in your position generally marries early," said John. "I think you're quite right."

"As my mother likes--the girl I want to marry," said Peter, "I hoped it would make everything straight. But she seems quite miserable at the thought of settling down quietly in the Dower House."

"Ah! in the Dower House," said John. "Then you will not be wanting her to live here with you, after all?"

"It's the same thing, though," said Peter, "as I've tried to explain to her. She'd be only a few yards off; and she could still be looking after the place and my interests, and all that, as she does now. And whenever I was down here, I should see her constantly; you know how devoted I am to my mother. Of course I can't deny I did lead her to hope I should be always with her. But a man can't help it if he happens to fall in love. Of course, if--if all happens as I hope, as I have reason to hope, I shall _have_ to be away from her a good deal.

But that's all in the course of nature as a fellow grows up. I sha'n't be any the less glad to see her when I _do_ come home. And yet here she is talking quite wildly of leaving Barracombe altogether, and going to London, and travelling all over the world, and doing all sorts of things she's never done in her life. It's not like my mother, and I can't bear to think of her like that. I tell you she's changed altogether," said Peter, and there were tears in his grey eyes.

John felt an odd sympathy for the boy; he recognized that though Peter's limitations were obvious, his anxiety was sincere.

Peter, too, had his ideals; if they were ideals conventional and out of date, that was hardly his fault. John figured to himself very distinctly that imaginary mother whom Peter held sacred; the mother who stayed always at home, and parted her hair plainly, and said many prayers, and did much needlework; but who, nevertheless, was not, and never could be, the real Lady Mary, whom Peter did not know. But it was a tender ideal in its way, though it belonged to that past into which so many tender and beautiful visions have faded.

The maiden of to-day still dreams of the knightly armour-clad heroes of the twelfth century; it is not her fault that she is presently glad to fall in love with a gentleman on the Stock Exchange, in a top hat and a frock coat.

"I have seen something of women of the world," said Peter, who had scarcely yet skimmed the bubbles from the surface of that society, whose depths he believed himself to have explored. "I suppose that is what my mother wants to turn into, when she talks of London and Paris.

_My mother_! who has lived in the country all her life."

"I suppose some women are worldly," said John, as gravely as possible, "and no doubt the shallow-hearted, the stupid, the selfish are to be found everywhere, and belonging to either s.e.x; but, nevertheless, solid virtue and true kindness are to be met with among the dames of Mayfair as among the matrons of the country-side. Their shibboleth is different, that's all. Perhaps--it is possible--that the speech of the town ladies is the more charitable, that they seek more persistently to do good to their fellow-creatures. I don't know. Comparisons are odious, but so," he added, with a slight laugh, "are general conclusions, founded on popular prejudice rather than individual experience--odious."

Here John perceived that his words of wisdom were conveying hardly any meaning to Peter, who was only waiting impatiently till he had come to an end of them; so he pursued this topic no further, and contented himself by inquiring:

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to explain to her," said Peter, eagerly, "how unsuitable it would be; and to advise her to settle down quietly at the Dower House, as I'm sure my father would have wished her to do. That's all."

"I see," said John, "you want me to put the case to her from your point of view."

"I wish you would," said Peter, earnestly; "every one says you're so eloquent. Surely you could talk her over?"

"I hope I am not eloquent in private life," said John, laughing. "But if you want to know how it appears to me--?"

Peter nodded gravely, pipe in mouth.

"Let us see. To start with," said John, thoughtfully, "you went off, a boy from Eton, to serve your country when you thought, and rightly, that your country had need of you. You distinguished yourself in South Africa--"

"Surely you needn't go into all that?" said Peter, staring.

"Excuse me," said John, smiling. "In putting your case, I can't bear to leave out vital details. Merely professional prejudice. Shortly, then, you fully sustained your share in a long and arduous campaign; you won your commission; you were wounded, decorated, and invalided home."

He stopped short in the brilliant sunshine which now flooded their path, and looked gravely at Peter.

"Some of us," said John, "have imagination enough to realize, even without the help of war-correspondents, the scenes of horror through which you, and scores of other boys, fresh from school, like you, had to live through. We can picture the long hours on the veldt--on the march--in captivity--in the hospitals--in the blockhouses--when soldiers have been sick at heart, wearied to death with physical suffering, and haunted by ghastly memories of dead comrades."

Peter hurriedly drew his left hand from the pocket where the beloved tobacco-pouch reposed, and pulled his brown felt hat down over his eyes, as though the October sunlight hurt them.

"I think at such times, Peter," said John, quietly continuing his walk by the boy's side, "that you must have longed now and then for your home; for this peaceful English country, your green English woods, and the silent hall where your mother waited for you, trembled for you, prayed for you. I think your heart must have ached then, as so many men's hearts have ached, to remember the times when you might have made her happy by a word, or a look, or a smile. And you didn't do it, Peter--_you didn't do it_."

Peter made a restless movement indicative of surprise and annoyance; but he was silent still, and John changed his tone, and spoke lightly and cheerfully.

"Well, then you came home; and your joy of life, of youth, of health all returned; and you looked forward, naturally, to taking your share of the pleasures open to other young men of your standing. But you never meant to forget your mother, as so many careless sons forget those who have watched and waited for them. Even though you fell in love, you still thought of her. When you were weary of travel, or pleasure connected with the outside world, you meant always to return to her. You liked to think she would still be waiting for you; faithfully, gratefully waiting, within the sacred precincts of your childhood's home. And now, when you remember her submission to your father's wishes in the past, and her single-hearted devotion to yourself, you are shocked and disappointed to find that she can wish to descend from her beautiful and guarded solitude here, and mix with her fellow-creatures in the work-a-day world. Why," said John, in a tone rather of dreaming and tenderness than of argument, "that would be to tear the jewel from its setting--the n.o.ble central figure from the calm landscape, lit by the evening sun."

There was a pause, during which Peter smoked energetically.

"Well," he said presently, "of course I can't follow all that highfalutin' style, you know--"