The Lee Shore Part 38

Peter sat on the low white wall to watch the moon rise. And for a moment the bitter smell of the soft dust on the road was in his nostrils, and he was taken back into a past bitterness, when the world had been dust to his feet, dust to his touch, dust in his throat, so that he had lain dust-buried, and choked for breath, and found none. This time a year ago he had lain so, and for many months after that. Those months had graved lines on his face--lines perhaps on his soul--that all the quiet, gay years could not smooth out. For the peace of the lee sh.o.r.e is not a thing easily won; to let go and drift before the storms wheresoever they drive needs a hard schooling; to lose comes first, and to laugh long after.

The dust Peter's feet had stirred settled down; and now, instead of its faint bitterness, the sweetness of the evening hills stole about.

And over the still sea the white moon rose, glorious, triumphant, and straight from her to Peter, cleaving the dark waters, her bright road ran.

Peter went down into the little, merry town.

He and Thomas slept at an inn that night. Livio joined them there next morning at breakfast. He said, "You were foolish to leave the hotel so soon. I got a good sum of money. There was an English family, that gave me a good reward. My music pleased them. The English are always generous and extravagant. Oh, Dio, I forgot; one of them sent you this note by me.

He explained nothing; he said, 'Is he that was with you your friend? Then give him this note.' Did he perhaps know you of old, or did he merely perceive that you were of his country? I know nothing. One does not read the letters entrusted to one for one's friends. Here it is."

He handed Peter a folded-up piece of notepaper. Opening it, Peter read, scrawled unsteadily in pencil, "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I shall be alone." E.P.U.

"He followed me to the garden door as I went away," continued Livio, "and gave it me secretly. I fancy he did not mean his companions to know. You will go?"

Peter smiled, and Livio looked momentarily embarra.s.sed.

"Oh, you know, it came open in my hand; and understanding the language so well, it leaped to my eyes. I knew you would not mind. You will go and see this milord? He _is_ a milord, for I heard the waiter address him."

"Yes," said Peter. "I will go and see him."

An hour later he was climbing the white road again in the morning suns.h.i.+ne.

Asking at the hotel for Lord Evelyn Urquhart, he was taken through the garden to a wistaria-hung summer-house. The porter indicated it to him and departed, and Peter, through the purple veils, saw Lord Evelyn reclining in a long cane chair, smoking the eternal cigarette and reading a French novel.

He looked up as Peter's shadow fell between him and the sun, and dropped the yellow book with a slight start. For a moment neither of them spoke; they looked at each other in silence, the pale, shabby, dusty youth with his vivid eyes; the frail, foppish, middle-aged, worn-out man, with his pale face twitching a little and his near-sighted eyes screwed up, as if he was startled, or dazzled, or trying hard to see something.

The next moment Lord Evelyn put out a slim, fine hand.

"How are you, Peter Margerison? Sit down and talk to me."

Peter sat down in the chair beside him.

Lord Evelyn said, "I'm quite alone this morning. Denis and Lucy have motored to Genoa. I join them there this afternoon.... You didn't know last night that I saw you."

"No," said Peter. "I believed that none of you had seen me. I didn't want you to; so I came away."

Lord Evelyn nodded. "Quite so; quite so. I understood that. And I didn't mention you to the others. Indeed, I didn't mean to take any notice of you at all; but at the end I changed my mind, and sent for you to come.

I believe I'm right in thinking that your wish is to keep out of the way of our family."

"Yes," said Peter.

"You're right. You've been very right indeed. There's nothing else you could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see what he knew, and saw.

Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance.

"Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past--eh, Peter Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for you. And I knew when she and you all but went off together. I asked Lucy; I can read the child's eyes better than books, you see. I read it, and I asked her, and she admitted it."

"It was you who stopped her," said Peter quietly.

Lord Evelyn tapped his fingers on his chair arm.

"I'm not a moralist; anything but a moralist, y'know. But as a man of the world, with some experience, I knew that couldn't be. So I told her the truth."

"The truth?" Peter wondered.

"Yes, boy, the truth. The only truth that mattered to Lucy. That you couldn't be happy that way. That you loved Denis too much to be happy that way. When I said it, she knew it. 'Deed, I believe she'd known it before, in her heart. So she wrote to you, and ended that foolish idea.

You know now that she was right, I think?"

"I knew it then. I was just going to telegraph to her not to come when I got her letter. No, I didn't know she was right; but I knew we couldn't do it. I didn't know it for myself, either; I had to be told. When I was told, I knew it."

"Ah." Lord Evelyn looked at the pale face, that had suddenly taken a look of age, as of one who looks back into a past bitterness.

"Ah." He looked in silence for a moment, then said, "You've been through a bad time, Peter."

Peter's face twitched suddenly, and he answered nothing.

"All those months," said Lord Evelyn, and his high, unsteady voice shook with a curious tremor, "all that summer, you were in h.e.l.l."

Peter gave no denial.

"I knew it," said Lord Evelyn. "And you never answered the letter I wrote you."

"No," said Peter slowly. "I answered no letters at all, I think. I don't remember exactly what I did, through that summer. I suppose I lived--because here I am. And I suppose I kept Thomas alive--because he's here too. But for the rest--I don't know. I hated everyone and everything. I believe Rodney used to come and see me sometimes; but I didn't care.... Oh, what's the good of talking about it? It's over now."

Lord Evelyn was shading his face with a shaking hand.

"Poor boy," he muttered to himself. "Poor boy. Poor boy."

Peter, recovering his normal self, said, "You've been awfully good to me, Lord Evelyn. I've behaved very badly to you, I believe. Thanks most awfully for everything. But don't pity me now, because I've all I want."

"Happy, are you?" Lord Evelyn looked up at him again, searchingly.

"Quite happy." Peter's smile was rea.s.suring.

"The dooce you are!" Lord Evelyn murmured. "Well, I believe you.... Look here, young Peter, I've a proposal to make. In the first place, is it over, that silly business of yours and Lucy's? Can you meet without upsetting each other?"

Peter considered for a moment.

"Yes; I think we can. I suppose I shall always care--I always have--but now that we've made up our minds that it won't do ... accepted it, you know.... Oh, yes, I think we could meet, as far as that goes."

Lord Evelyn nodded approval.

"Very good, very good. Now listen to me. You're on the roads, aren't you, without a penny, you and your boy?"

"Yes. I make a little as I go along, you know. One doesn't need much here. We're quite comfortable."

"Are you, indeed?... Well now, I see no reason why you shouldn't be more comfortable still. I want you to come and live with me."

Peter startled, looked up, and coloured. Then he smiled.