Cranford
found him walking up and down, looking very highly displeased.
“‘Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly deserved
it.’
“I durst not ask any more questions. When I told my mother, she sat
down, quite faint, for a minute. I remember, a few days after, I saw
the poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf heap, to decay
and die there. There was no making of cowslip wine that year at the
rectory—nor, indeed, ever after.
“Presently my mother went to my father. I know I thought of Queen
Esther and King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and
delicate-looking, and my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus.
Some time after they came out together; and then my mother told me what
had happened, and that she was going up to Peter’s room at my father’s
desire—though she was not to tell Peter this—to talk the matter over
with him. But no Peter was there. We looked over the house; no Peter
was there! Even my father, who had not liked to join in the search at
first, helped us before long. The rectory was a very old house—steps up
into a room, steps down into a room, all through. At first, my mother
went calling low and soft, as if to reassure the poor boy, ‘Peter!
Peter, dear! it’s only me;’ but, by-and-by, as the servants came back
from the errands my father had sent them, in different directions, to
find where Peter was—as we found he was not in the garden, nor the
hayloft, nor anywhere about—my mother’s cry grew louder and wilder,
‘Peter! Peter, my darling! where are you?’ for then she felt and
understood that that long kiss meant some sad kind of ‘good-bye.’ The
afternoon went on—my mother never resting, but seeking again and again
in every possible place that had been looked into twenty times before,
nay, that she had looked into over and over again herself. My father sat
with his head in his hands, not speaking except when his messengers came
in, bringing no tidings; then he lifted up his face, so strong and sad,
and told them to go again in some new direction. My mother kept passing
from room to room, in and out of the house, moving noiselessly, but
never ceasing. Neither she nor my father durst leave the house, which
was the meeting-place for all the messengers. At last (and it was
nearly dark), my father rose up. He took hold of my mother’s arm as she
came with wild, sad pace through one door, and quickly towards another.
She started at the touch of his hand, for she had forgotten all in the
world but Peter.
“‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would happen.’ He looked
into her face for comfort—her poor face all wild and white; for neither
she nor my father had dared to acknowledge—much less act upon—the terror
that was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself.
My father saw no conscious look in his wife’s hot, dreary eyes, and he
missed the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him—strong
man as he was, and at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to
flow. But when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came over her countenance,
and she said, ‘Dearest John! don’t cry; come with me, and we’ll find
him,’ almost as cheerfully as if she knew where he was. And she took my
father’s great hand in her little soft one, and led him along, the tears
dropping as he walked on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to
room, through house and garden.
“Oh, how I wished for Deborah! I had no time for crying, for now all
seemed to depend on me. I wrote for Deborah to come home. I sent a
message privately to that same Mr Holbrook’s house—poor Mr Holbrook;—you
know who I mean. I don’t mean I sent a message to him, but I sent one
that I could trust to know if Peter was at his house. For at one time
Mr Holbrook was an occasional visitor at the rectory—you know he was
Miss Pole’s cousin—and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him
how to fish—he was very kind to everybody, and I thought Peter might
have gone off there. But Mr Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never
been seen. It was night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my
father and mother walked on and on; it was more than an hour since he
had joined her, and I don’t believe they had ever spoken all that time.
I was getting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was
preparing tea, for I wanted them to have something to eat and drink and
warm them, when old Clare asked to speak to me.
“‘I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty. Shall we drag the
ponds to-night, or wait for the morning?’
“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I
laughed out loud. The horror of that new thought—our bright, darling
Peter, cold, and stark, and dead! I remember the ring of my own laugh
now.
“The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again. She would
not have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my screams (my
horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear mother,
whose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon as a
child needed her care. She and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by the
looks of each that there had been no news of Peter—no awful, ghastly
news, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between
sleeping and waking.
“The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same
relief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that Peter might
even then be hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had caused
that never-ending walk of yesterday. Her soft eyes never were the same
again after that; they had always a restless, craving look, as if
seeking for what they could not find. Oh! it was an awful time; coming
down like a thunder-bolt on the still sunny day when the lilacs were all
in bloom.”
“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.
“He had made his way to Liverpool; and there was war then; and some of
the king’s ships lay off the mouth of the Mersey; and they were only too
glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot nine he was), come
to offer himself. The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my
mother. Stay! those letters will be somewhere here.”
We lighted the candle, and found the captain’s letter and Peter’s too.
And we also found a little simple begging letter from Mrs Jenkyns to
Peter, addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow whither she
fancied he might have gone. They had returned it unopened; and unopened
it had remained ever since, having been inadvertently put by among the
other letters of that time. This is it:—
“MY DEAREST PETER,—You did not think we should be so sorry as we
are, I know, or you would never have gone away. You are too good.
Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him. He
cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he
thought was right. Perhaps he has been too severe, and perhaps
I have not been kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my
dear only boy. Don looks so sorry you are gone. Come back, and
make us happy, who love you so much. I know you will come back.”
But Peter did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever
saw his mother’s face. The writer of the letter—the last—the only
person who had ever seen what was written in it, was dead long ago; and
I, a stranger, not born at the time when this occurrence took place, was
the one to open it.
The captain’s letter summoned the father and mother to Liverpool
instantly, if they wished to see their boy; and, by some of the wild
chances of life, the captain’s letter had been detained somewhere,
somehow.
Miss Matty went on, “And it was racetime, and all the post-horses at
Cranford were gone to the races; but my father and mother set off in our
own gig—and oh! my dear, they were too late—the ship was gone! And now
read Peter’s letter to my mother!”
It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his new profession, and a
sore sense of his disgrace in the eyes of the people at Cranford; but
ending with a passionate entreaty that she would come and see him before
he left the Mersey: “Mother; we may go into battle. I hope we shall,
and lick those French: but I must see you again before that time.”
“And she was too late,” said Miss Matty; “too late!”
We sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning of those sad, sad
words. At length I asked Miss Matty to tell me how her mother bore it.
“Oh!” she said, “she was patience itself. She had never been strong,
and this weakened her terribly. My father used to sit looking at her:
far more sad than she was. He seemed as if he could look at nothing
else when she was by; and he was so humble—so very gentle now. He
would, perhaps, speak in his old way—laying down the law, as it were—and
then, in a minute or two, he would come round and put his hand on our
shoulders, and ask us in a low voice, if he had said anything to hurt
us. I did not wonder at his speaking so to Deborah, for she was so
clever; but I could not bear to hear him talking so to me.
“But, you see, he saw what we did not—that it was killing my mother.
Yes! killing her (put out the candle, my dear; I can talk better in the
dark), for she was but a frail woman, and ill-fitted to stand the fright
and shock she had gone through; and she would smile at him and comfort
him, not in words, but in her looks and tones, which were always
cheerful when he was there. And she would speak of how she thought
Peter stood a good chance of being admiral very soon—he was so brave and
clever; and how she thought of seeing him in his navy uniform, and what
sort of hats admirals wore; and how much more fit he was to be a sailor
than a clergyman; and all in that way, just to make my father think she
was quite glad of what came of that unlucky morning’s work, and the
flogging which was always in his mind, as we all knew. But oh, my dear!
the bitter, bitter crying she had when she was alone; and at last, as
she grew weaker, she could not keep her tears in when Deborah or me was
by, and would give us message after message for Peter (his ship had gone
to the Mediterranean, or somewhere down there, and then he was ordered
off to India, and there was no overland route then); but she still said
that no one knew where their death lay in wait, and that we were not to
think hers was near. We did not think it, but we knew it, as we saw her
fading away.
“Well, my dear, it’s very foolish of me, I know, when in all likelihood
I am so near seeing her again.
“And only think, love! the very day after her death—for she did not live
quite a twelvemonth after Peter went away—the very day after—came a
parcel for her from India—from her poor boy. It was a large, soft,
white Indian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just
what my mother would have liked.
“We thought it might rouse my father, for he had sat with her hand in
his all night long; so Deborah took it in to him, and Peter’s letter to
her, and all. At first, he took no notice; and we tried to make a kind
of light careless talk about the shawl, opening it out and admiring it.
Then, suddenly, he got up, and spoke: ‘She shall be buried in it,’ he
said; ‘Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.’
“Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what could we do or say? One
gives people in grief their own way. He took it up and felt it: ‘It is
just such a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and her mother
did not give it her. I did not know of it till after, or she should
have had it—she should; but she shall have it now.’
“My mother looked so lovely in her death! She was always pretty, and
now she looked fair, and waxen, and young—younger than Deborah, as she