Peter's Mother Part 33

At the very bottom of Peter's heart lurked an inborn conviction that his father's son was a very much more important personage than any Hewel, or relative of Hewel, could possibly be.

"That was very kind of you and your guardian," said the old lady, suddenly becoming gracious. "Emily, I will leave you to talk to your _old friend_. I dare say I shall see him again at luncheon?"

"I cannot stay to luncheon. My mother is expecting me," said Peter.

He would not express any thanks. What business had the presuming old woman to invite him to luncheon? It was not her house, after all.

"Oh, your mother is expecting you," said Lady Tintern, whose slightly derisive manner of repeating Peter's words embarra.s.sed and annoyed the young gentleman exceedingly. "I am glad you are such a dutiful son, Sir Peter."

She gathered together her letters and her black draperies, and tottered off to the door, which Peter, who was sadly negligent of _les pet.i.ts soins_ forgot to open for her; nor did he observe the indignant look she favoured him with in consequence.

Sarah came into the drawing-room at last; fresh as the morning dew, in her summer muslin and fluttering, embroidered ribbons; with a bunch of forget-me-nots, blue as her eyes, nestling beneath her round, white chin. Her bright hair was curled round her pretty ears and about her fair throat, but Peter did not compare this _coiffure_ to a fas.h.i.+on plate, though, indeed, it exactly resembled one. Neither did he cast the severely critical glance upon Sarah's _toilette_ that he had bestowed upon the soft, grey gown, and the cl.u.s.ter of white moss-rosebuds which poor Lady Mary had ventured to wear that morning.

"How have you managed to offend Aunt Elizabeth, Peter?" cried Sarah, with her usual frankness. "She is in the worst of humours."

"Sarah!" said her mother, reprovingly.

"Well, but she _is_," said Sarah. "She called him a cub and a bear, and all sorts of things."

She looked at Peter and laughed, and he laughed back. The cloud of sullenness had lifted from his brow as she appeared.

Mrs. Hewel overwhelmed him with unnecessary apologies. She could not grasp the fact that her polite conversation was as dull and unmeaning to the young man as Sarah's indiscreet nothings were interesting and delightful.

"I'm sure I don't mind," said Peter; and his tone was quite alert and cheerful. "She told me the country kept her awake. If she doesn't like it, why does she come?"

"She has come to fetch me away," said Sarah. "And she came unexpectedly, because she wanted to see for herself whether mamma was really ill, or whether she was only shamming."

"Sarah!"

"And she has decided she is only shamming," said Sarah. "Unluckily, mamma happened to be down in the stables, doctoring Venus. You remember Venus, her pet spaniel?"

"Of course."

"Nothing else would have taken me off my sofa, where I ought to be lying at this moment, as you know very well, Sarah," cried Mrs. Hewel, showing an inclination to shed tears.

"To be sure you ought," said Sarah; "but what is the use of telling Aunt Elizabeth that, when she saw you with her own eyes racing up and down the stable-yard, with a piece of raw meat in your hand, and Venus galloping after you."

"The vet said that if she took no exercise she would die," said Mrs.

Hewel, tearfully, "and neither he nor Jones could get her to move. Not even Ash, though he has known her all her life. I know it was very bad for me; but what could I do?"

"I wish I had been there," said Sarah, giggling; "but, however, Aunt Elizabeth described it all to me so graphically this morning that it is almost as good as though I had been."

"She should not have come down like that, without giving us a notion,"

said Mrs. Hewel, resentfully.

"If she had only warned us, you could have been lying on a sofa, with the blinds down, and I could have been holding your hand and shaking a medicine-bottle," said Sarah. "That is how she expected to find us, she said, from your letters."

"I am sure I scarcely refer to my weak health in my letters," said Mrs. Hewel, plaintively, "and it is natural I should like my only daughter to be with me now and then. Aunt Elizabeth has never had a child herself, and cannot understand the feelings of a mother."

Sarah and Peter exchanged a fleeting glance. She shrugged her shoulders slightly, and Peter looked at his boots. They understood each other perfectly.

Freshly to the recollection of both rose the lamentations of a little red-haired girl, banished from the Eden of her beloved home, and condemned to a cheap German school. Mrs. Hewel, in her palmiest days, had never found it necessary to race up and down the stable-yard to amuse Sarah; and when her only daughter developed scarlatina, she had removed herself and her spaniels from home for months to escape infection.

"Here is papa," said Sarah, breaking the silence. "He was so vexed to be out when you arrived yesterday. He heard nothing of it till he came back."

Colonel Hewel walked in through the open window, with his dog at his heels. He was delighted to welcome his young neighbour home. A short, st.u.r.dy man, with red whiskers, plentiful stiff hair, and bright, dark blue eyes. From her father Sarah had inherited her colouring, her short nose, and her unfailing good spirits.

"I would have come over to welcome you," he said, shaking Peter's hand cordially, "only when I came home there was all the upset of Lady Tintern's arrival, and half a hundred things to be done to make her sufficiently comfortable. And then I would have come to fetch Sarah after dinner, only I couldn't be sure she mightn't have started; and if I'd gone down by the road, ten to one she'd have come up by the path through the woods. So I just sat down and smoked my pipe, and waited for her to come back. You'll stay to lunch, eh, Peter?"

"I must get back to my mother, sir," said Peter. His respect for Sarah's father, who had once commanded a cavalry regiment, had increased a thousand-fold since he last saw Colonel Hewel. "But won't you--I mean she'd be very glad--I wish you'd come over and dine to-night, all of you--as you could not come yesterday evening?"

Thus Peter delivered his first invitation, blus.h.i.+ng with eagerness.

"I'm afraid we couldn't leave Lady Tintern--or persuade her to come with us," said the colonel, shaking his head. Then he brightened up.

"But as soon as she and Sally have toddled back to town I see no reason why we shouldn't come, eh, Emily?" he said, turning to his wife.

Peter looked rather blank, and a laugh trembled on Sarah's pretty lips.

"You know I'm not strong enough to dine out, Tom," said his wife, peevishly. "I can't drive so far, and I'm terrified of the ferry at night, with those slippery banks."

"Well, well, there's plenty of time before us. Later on you may get better; and I don't suppose you'll be running away again in a hurry, eh, Peter?" said the colonel. "I'm told you made a capital speech yesterday about sticking to your home, and living on your land, as your father, poor fellow, did before you."

"I wish Sarah felt as you do, Peter," said Mrs. Hewel; "but, of course, she has grown too grand for us, who live contentedly in the country all the year round. Her home is nothing to her now, it seems; and the only thing she thinks of is rus.h.i.+ng back to London again as fast as she can."

Sarah, contrary to her wont, received this attack in silence; but she bestowed a fond squeeze on her father's arm, and cast an appealing glance at Peter, which caused the hero's heart to leap in his bosom.

"Of course I mean to live at Barracombe," said Peter, polis.h.i.+ng his eyegla.s.s with reckless energy. "But I said nothing to the people about living there all the year round. On the contrary, I think it more probable that I shall--run up to town myself, occasionally--just for the season."

CHAPTER XV

On a perfect summer afternoon in mid-July, Lady Mary sat in the terrace garden at Barracombe, before the open windows of the silent house, in the shade of the great ilex; sometimes glancing at the book she held, and sometimes watching the haymakers in the valley, whose voices and laughter reached her faintly across the distance.

Some boys were playing cricket in a field below. She noted idly that the sound of the ball on the bat travelled but slowly upward, and reached her after the striker had begun to run. The effect was curious, but it was not new to her, though she listened and counted with idle interest.

The old sisters had departed for their daily drive, which she daily declined to share, having no love for the high-road, and much for the peace which their absence brought her.

It was an afternoon which made mere existence a delight amid such surroundings.

Long shadows were falling across the bend of the river, below the wooded hill which faced the south-west; whilst the cob-built, whitewashed cottages, and the brown, square-towered church lay full in suns.h.i.+ne still. The red cattle stood knee-deep in the shallows, and an old boat was moored high and dry upon the sloping red banks.

The air was sweet with a thousand mingled scents of summer flowers: carnations, stocks, roses, and jasmine. The creamy cl.u.s.ters of Perpetual Felicity rioted over the corner turret of the terrace, where a crumbling stair led to the top of a small, half-ruined observatory, which tradition called the look-out tower.

Flights of steps led downwards from the garden, where the bedded-out plants blazed in all their glory of ordered colour, to the walks on the lower levels. Here were long herbaceous borders, backed by the mighty sloping walls of old red sandstone, which, like an ancient fortification, supported the terrace above.

The blue larkspur flourished beside scarlet gladioli, feather-headed spirea, and hardy fuchsia. There were no straight lines, nor any order of planting. The Madonna lilies stood in groups, lifting up on thin, ragged stems their pure and spotless cl.u.s.ters, and overpowering with their heavy scent the fainter fragrance of the mignonette. Tall, green hollyhocks towered higher yet, holding the secret of their loveliness, until these should wither; when they too would burst into blossom, and forestall the round-budded dahlia.