CHAPTER XVII

There was a tap at the door of Lady Mary’s bedroom, and Peter’s voice sounded without.

“Mother, could I speak to you for a moment?”

“Come in,” said Lady Mary’s soft voice; and Peter entered and closed the door, and crossed to the oriel window, where she was sitting at her writing-table, before a pile of notes and account books.

Long ago, in Peter’s childhood, she had learned to make this bedroom her refuge, where she could read or write or dream, in silence; away from the two old ladies, who seemed to pervade all the living-rooms at Barracombe.  Peter had been accustomed all his life to seek his mother here.

She had chosen the room at her marriage, and had had an old-fashioned paper of bunched rosebuds put up there.  It was very long and low, and looked eastward into the fountain garden, and over the tree-tops far away to the open country.

The sisters had thought one of the handsome modern rooms of the south front would be more suitable for the bride, but Lady Mary had her way.  She preferred the older part of the house, and liked the steps down into her room, the uneven floor, the low ceiling, the quaint window-seats, and the powdering closet where she hung her dresses.

The great oriel window formed almost a sitting-room apart.  Here was her writing-table, whereon stood now a green jar of scented arums and trailing white fuchsias.

A bunch of sweet peas in a corner of the window-seat perfumed the whole room, already fragrant with potpourri and lavender.

A low bookcase was filled with her favourite volumes; one shelf with the story-books of her childhood, from which she had long ago read aloud to Peter, on rainy days when he had exhausted all other kinds of amusement; for he had never touched a book if he could help it, therein resembling his father.

In the corner next the window stood the cot where Peter had slept often as a little boy, and which had been playfully designated the hospital, because his mother had always carried him thither when he was ill.  Then she had taken him jealously from the care of his attendant, and had nursed and guarded him herself day and night, until even convalescence was a thing of the past.  She had never suffered that little cot to be moved; the white coverlet had been made and embroidered by her own hands.  A gaudy oleograph of a soldier on horseback—­which little Peter had been fond of, and which had been hung up to amuse him during one of those childish illnesses—­remained in its place.  How often had she looked at it through her tears when Peter was far away!  Beside the cot stood a table with a shabby book of devotions, marked by a ribbon from which the colour had long since faded.  The book had belonged to Lady Mary’s father, young Robbie Setoun, who had become Lord Ferries but one short month before he met with a soldier’s death.  His daughter said her prayers at this little table, and had carried thither her agony and petitions for her boy in his peril, during the many, many months of the South African War.