The Lee Shore Part 39

"It's most frightfully good of you...."

"Rubbish, rubbish." Lord Evelyn testily waved his words aside. "'Tisn't for your sake. It's for mine. I want your company.... My good boy, haven't you ever guessed, all these years, that I rather like your company? That was why I was so angry when you and your precious brother made a fool of me long ago. It hurt, because I liked you, Peter Margerison. That was why I couldn't forgive you. Demme! I don't think I've forgiven you yet, nor ever shall. That is why I came and insulted you so badly one day as you remember. That's why I've such a soft place for Lucy, who's got your laugh and your voice and your tricks of talk, and looks at me with your white face. That's why I wasn't going to let her and you make young fools of yourselves together. That, I suppose, is why I know all the time what you're feeling; why I knew you were in h.e.l.l all last summer; why I saw you, though I'm such a blinde bat now, last night, when neither Denis nor Lucy did. And that's why I want you and your boy to come and keep me company now, till the end."

Peter put out his hand and took Lord Evelyn's.

"I don't know what I can say to thank you. I do appreciate it, you know, more than anything that's ever happened to me before. I can't think how you can be so awfully nice to me...."

"Enough, enough," said Lord Evelyn. "Will you or won't you? Yes or no?"

Peter at that gave his answer quickly.

"No. I can't, you know."

Lord Evelyn turned on him sharply.

"You _won't_? The devil take it!"

"It's like this," said Peter, disturbed and apologetic, "we don't want to lead what's called respectable lives, Thomas and I. We don't want to be well-off--to live with well-off people. We--we can't, d'you see. It's not the way we're made. We don't belong. We're meant just to drift about the bottom, like this, and pick up a living anyhow."

"The boy's a fool," remarked Lord Evelyn, throwing back his head and staring at the roof.

Peter, who hated to wound, went on, "If we could share the life of any rich person, it would be you."

"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!"

"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what _we_ mean by rich.... And it's not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you know--friends, and suns.h.i.+ne, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on with, and sheltered places on the sh.o.r.e to boil one's kettle in. I'm happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and wanting things again?"

Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension struggling with impatience.

"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty little towns you like so much?"

"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at present with what he's got."

"And is it your purpose, then, to spend all your life--anyhow, many years--in these parts, selling needlework?"

"I've no purpose," said Peter. "I must see what turns up. No, I daresay I shall try England again some time. But, wherever I am, I think I know now what is the happy way to live, for people like me. We're no use, you see, people like me; we make a poor job at the game, and we keep failing and coming bad croppers and getting hurt and in general making a mess of things. But at least we can be happy. We can't make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time--oh, I don't think I want to, in the least--but we can make a fairly good time for ourselves and a few other people out of the things we have. That's what we're doing, Thomas and I. And it's good enough."

Lord Evelyn looked at him long in silence, with his narrowed, searching eyes, that seemed always to be looking for something in his face and finding it there.

Then he sighed a little, and Peter, struck through by remorse, saw how old he looked in that moment.

"How it takes one back--takes one back," muttered Lord Evelyn.

Then he turned abruptly on Peter.

"Lest you get conceited, young Peter, with me begging for your company and being kindly refused, I'll tell you something. I loved your mother; my brother's wife. Did you ever guess that?--guess why I liked you a good deal?"

"Yes," said Peter, and Lord Evelyn started.

"You did? Demme! that's her again. She always guessed everything, and so did you. She guessed I cared.... You're her own child--only she was lovely, you know, and you're not, don't think it.... Well, she had her follies, like you--a romantic child, she always was.... You must go your own way, young Peter. I'll not hinder or help you till you want me.... And now I'm tired; I've talked too much. I'm not going to ask you to lunch with me, for I don't want you. Leave me now."

Peter paused for a moment still. He wanted to ask questions, and could not.

"Well, what now? Oh, I see; you want the latest news of your Denis and Lucy. Well, they're doing as well as can be expected. Denis--I need hardly say, need I?--flourishes like the green bay tree in all his works.

He's happy, like you. No, not like you a bit; he's got things to be happy about; his happiness isn't a reasonless lunacy; it's got a sound bottom to it. The boy is a fine boy, probably going to be nearly as beautiful as Denis, but with Lucy's eyes. And Lucy's happy enough, I hope. Knows Denis inside and out, you know, and has accepted him, for better or worse. I don't believe she's pining for you, if that's what you want to know. You may be somewhere deep down at the bottom of her always--shouldn't wonder if you are--but she gives the top of her to Denis all right--and more than that to the boy--and all of her to life and living, as she always did and always must. You two children seem to be tied to life with stronger ropes than most people, an't you. Sylvia was, before you. Not to any one thing in life, or to many things, but just to life itself. So go and live it in your own way, and don't bother me any more. You've tired me out."

Peter said good-bye, and went. He loved Lord Evelyn, and his eyes were sad because he had thrown back his offer on his hands. He didn't think Lord Evelyn had many more years before him, though he was only fifty-five; and for a moment he wondered whether he couldn't, after all, accept that offer till the end came. He even, at the garden wall, hung for a moment in doubt, with the echo of that high, wistful voice in his ears.

But before him the white road ran down from the olive-grey hills to the little gay town by the blue sea's edge, and the sweetness of the scented hills in the May suns.h.i.+ne caught him by the throat, and, questioning no more, he took the road.

He loved Lord Evelyn; but the life he offered was not for Peter, not for Thomas as yet; though Thomas, in the years to come, should choose his own path. At present there was for both of them the merry, s.h.i.+fting life of the roads, the pa.s.sing friends.h.i.+ps, lightly made, lightly loosed, the olive hills, silver like ghostly armies in the pale moonlight, the sweetness of the starry flowers at their twisted stems, the sudden blue bays that laughed below bends of the road, the cities, like many-coloured nosegays on a pale chain, the intimate sweetness of lemon gardens by day and night, the happy morning on the hills and sea.

For these--Peter a.n.a.lysed the distinction--are, or may be, for all alike. There is no grabbing here; a man may share the overflowing sun not with one but with all. The down-at-heels, limping, broken, army of the Have-Nots are not denied such beauty and such peace as this, if they will but take it and be glad. The l.u.s.t to possess here finds no fulfilment; having nothing, yet possessing all things, the empty-handed legion laughs along its way. The last, the gayest, the most hilarious laughter begins when, dest.i.tute utterly, the wrecked pick up coloured sh.e.l.ls upon the lee sh.o.r.e. For there are sh.e.l.ls enough and to spare for all; there is no grasping here.

Peter, with a mind at ease and Francesco grinning at his heels, sauntered down the warm, dusty road to find Thomas and have lunch.