Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

“ She thought of the trouble John had taken to choose the best of the water-colours for the rose-tinted room—the room he had declared so bright and so charming—of the pretty curtains and chintzes; and the valuable old china she had collected from every part of the house for the cabinets.
"You see, she's got that sort of thing at her fingers' ends, Lady Tintern being such a connoisseur," said the unconscious Peter. "But she's so afraid of hurting your feelings—"
"Why should she be?" said Lady Mary, coldly, in spite of herself. "If she does not like the drawing-room, she can easily alter it." ”

“ He's been hiding in London, poor Peter; getting his outfit by stealth, ashamed, whilst other boys are being fêted and praised by their people, proud of earning so early their right to be considered men. And—and he's only a boy. And he said himself, all's fair in love and war. Indeed, Timothy, it is an exceptional case."
"Mary, your weakness is painful, and your idolatry of Peter will bring its own punishment. The part of his deception that should pain you most is the want of heart he has displayed," said Sir Timothy, bitterly. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Why did Timothy choose to trust a perfect stranger—even though John is a cousin—with the care of his wife and son, and his estate, rather than his own sisters?"
"It was a gentleman's work," said Miss Crewys.
"Gentleman's fiddlesticks! Couldn't old Crawley have done it? I should hope he is as good a lawyer as young John any day," said Lady Belstone, tossing her head. "But I have often noticed that people will trust any chance stranger with the property they leave behind, rather than those they know best."
"Isabella," said Miss Crewys, "blame not the dead, and especially on a moonlight night. ”

“ You whom I love best in the world, and always have," she said defiantly, "or that I would ever alter a single corner of this dear old house, which used to be so hideous, and which you have made so beautiful?"
"Sarah! My—my darling!" said Lady Mary, in frightened, trembling tones.
"You needn't blame Peter for saying any of it," said Sarah, "for it was I who put the words into his mouth. It made him miserable to say them; but he could not help himself. He wasn't really quite responsible for his actions. He isn't now. When people are—are in love, I've often noticed they're not responsible." ”

“ I thought you seemed to understand," she said wistfully.
"Peter is a boy," said John, "and life is just opening for him. It is a hard saying to you, but his thoughts are full of the world he is entering. There is no room in them just now for the home he is leaving. That is human nature. If he be sick or sorry later on—as I know your loving fancy pictures him—his heart would turn even then, not to the mother he saw waving and weeping on the quay, amid all the confusion of departure, but to the mother of his childhood, of his happy days of long ago. ”

“ The lad has forgiven me; he is a man, you see, with all his faults. But Lady Mary, though she has all the virtues of a woman, is also a mother. A woman often forgives; a mother, never. Don't forget."
"I will not," said John.
"And you'll do it—"
"Use the unlimited authority that has been placed in my hands, by improving this tumble-down, overgrown place?" said John, slowly. "Let in light, air, and sunshine to Barracombe, and do my best to brighten Lady Mary's life, without reference to any one's prejudices, past or present?"
"You've got the idea," said the doctor, joyfully. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It's your happiness and not hers you think of still, though you've all your life before you, and she has only half hers. But no one has ever thought of her—except me, and one other."
"John Crewys?" said Peter, angrily.
"Not John Crewys at all," snapped Sarah. "He is just thinking of his own happiness like you are. All men are alike, except the one I'm thinking of. But though I make no doubt that John Crewys is just as selfish as you are, which is saying a good deal, yet, as it happens, John Crewys is the only man who could make her happy."
"What man are you thinking of?" said Peter. ”

“ 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 apron-string. He always wanted to be independent."
"It is human nature," said John. ”

“ Standing now in the bright sunshine of the present, she forgave the sisters with all her heart, and thought compassionately of their great age, their increasing infirmities, their feeble hold on life.
Not to them did she owe real sorrow, after all; for nothing that does not touch the heart can reach the fountain of grief.
Peter's hand—the hand she loved best in the world—had set the waters of sorrow flowing not once, but many times; but she had become aware lately of a stronger power than Peter's guarding the spring. ”

“ Lady Mary was resting in her armchair, her delicate face still flushed with emotion. A transparent purple shade beneath the blue eyes betrayed that she had been weeping; but she was calmed by John's strong and tranquil presence. The shady room was cool and fragrant with the scent of heliotrope and mignonette.
The band had reached a level plateau below the terrace garden, and was playing martial airs to encourage stragglers in the procession, and to give the principal inhabitants of Youlestone time to arrive, and to regain their wind after the steep ascent. ”

“ A widow's rights should be respected; but I thought our names would be mentioned," said Lady Belstone, dejectedly.
"Of course he knew," said Lady Mary, in a low voice, "that Peter's house would be always open to us all, as my boy said himself."
"Dear boy! he has said it to us too," said the sisters, in a breath.
"I don't say that, in my opinion," said Lady Mary, "it would not be wiser to leave a young married couple to themselves; I have always thought so. But Peter would not hear of your turning out of your old home; you know that very well." ”

“ On the grass banks sloping away beneath the terrace gardens, sheets of bluebells shone almost whitely on the grass. The silent house rose against the dark woods, whitened also here and there by the blossom of wild cherry-trees.
Lady Mary stepped from the open French windows of the drawing-room into the still, scented air of the April night. She stood leaning against the stone balcony, and gazing at the wonderful panorama of the valley and overlapping hills; where the little river threaded its untroubled course between daisied meadows and old orchards and red crumbling banks. ”

“ Time seems to leave something better than colouring to a few Heaven-blessed women, who manage to escape wrinkles, and hardening, and crossness. I am often cross, and so are younger folk than I; and your boy Peter—though how he comes to be your boy I don't know—is very often cross too."
"You have been very kind to Peter," said Lady Mary, laughing. "I am sorry you found him cross."
"No; I was not kind to him. I am not particularly fond of cross people," said the old lady. "It is Sarah who has been kind," and she looked sharply again at Lady Mary. ”

“ On the lower side of the drive, the rolling grass slopes were thriftily left for hay; a flowering mass of daisies, and buttercups, and red clover, and blue speedwell.
A long way off, but still clearly visible in the valley below, glistened the stone-tiled roof of the old square-towered church, guarded by its sentinel yews.
A great horse-chestnut stood like a giant bouquet of waxen bloom beside a granite monument which threw a long shadow over the green turf mounds towards the west, and marked the grave of Sir Timothy Crewys. ”

“ Hewel.
Lady Mary started and smiled. "Me? Yes, Sarah; I was married at seventeen."
"Mamma says nobody can be married properly—before they're one and twenty. I knew it was rot," said Sarah, triumphantly.
"Miss Sarah retains the outspokenness of her recently discarded childhood, I perceive," said Sir Timothy, stiffly.
"Sarah!" said her mother, indignantly, "I said not unless they had their parents' consent. I was not thinking of Lady Mary, as you know very well."
"Your people didn't say you were too young to marry at seventeen, did they?" said Sarah, caressing Lady Mary's hand. ”

“ Clean shaven, as a great lawyer ought to be, with a firm and rather satirical mouth, a broad brow, and bright hazel eyes set well apart and twinkling with humour. No doubt John's appearance had been a factor in his successful career.
The sisters, themselves well advanced in the seventies, spoke of him and thought of him as a young man; a boy who had succeeded in life in spite of small means, and an extravagant mother, to whom he had been obliged to sacrifice his patrimony. But though he carried his forty-five years lightly, John Crewys had left his boyhood very far behind him. ”

“ She looked at him with a faint, pathetic smile.
"I shall take care of you, and look after you, just as my father used to do," said Peter. "Now you rest quietly here"—and he gently laid her down among the cushions on the sofa—"whilst I take a look round the old place."
"Let me come with you, darling."
"Good heavens, no! I should tire you to death. My father never liked you to go climbing about."
"I am much more active than I used to be," said Lady Mary.
"No, no; you must lie down, you look quite pale." Peter's voice took an authoritative note, which came very naturally to him. ”

“ He was to meet her at the ferry, and picnic on the moor at the top of the hill, on his side of the river. But through all the secret joy and triumph that possessed him at the remembrance of this rendezvous, he could not but sigh as he watched the little procession of sportsmen opposite, and almost involuntarily his regret escaped him in the half-muttered words—
"I shall never shoot again."
"There are things even better worth doing in life," said John, sympathetically.
"Colonel Hewel wouldn't give in to that," said Peter.
"He's rather a one-idea'd man," John agreed. ”

“ Lady Mary's dismay was rather too apparent. "Surely that doesn't sound very hopeful."
Peter moved impatiently. "Oh, mother, it is always so difficult to make you understand."
"Is it, indeed?" she said, with a faint, pained smile. "I do my best, my darling."
"Never mind; I suppose women are always rather slow of comprehension," said the young lord of creation—"that is, except Sarah. She always understands. God bless her!"
"God bless her, indeed!" said Lady Mary, gently, and the tears started to her blue eyes, "if she is going to marry my boy." ”

“ He forgot his mother instantly, as he had forgotten her on the day of his return, when Sarah had walked on to the terrace—and into his heart.
"I name no names," said Sarah, "but I hope I know a hero when I see him; and that man is a hero, though he is—nothing much to look at."
It amused her to observe the varying expressions on her lover's face, which her artless words called forth, one after another.
"If you are really not going to eat any luncheon, Peter," she said, "I must trouble you to help me to wash up and pack the basket. The fire is out and the water is cold, but it can't be helped. ”

“ In judging those younger than ourselves," said the canon, gallantly coupling himself with his auditors,' though acutely conscious that he was some twenty years the junior of both, "we must not forget that they recover their spirits, by a merciful dispensation of Providence, more quickly than we should ourselves in the like circumstances," said the canon, who was as light-hearted a cleric as any in England.
"They do, indeed," said Lady Belstone, emphatically; "when they can sing and play all the day and half the night, like our dear Mary and young John." ”

“ A deeply resented innovation was the appearance of the tea-table on the lawn before the windows, in the shade of the ilex-grove, which sheltered the western end of the terrace from the low rays of the sun.
During the previous summer, on their return from a drive, they had found their cousin John in his white flannels, and Lady Mary in her black gown, serenely enjoying this refreshment out-of-doors; and the poor old ladies had hardly known how to express their surprise and annoyance. ”

“ Sarah Hewel's adoration for Lady Mary dated from the days when she had been ferried over the Youle with her nurse, to play with Peter, in his chubby childhood. Peter had often been cross and always tyrannical, but it was so wonderful to find a playmate who was naughtier than herself, that Sarah had secretly admired Peter. She was the black sheep of her own family, and in continual disgrace for lesser crimes than he daily committed with impunity. But her admiration of Peter was tame and pale beside her admiration of Lady Mary. ”