Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/106

 His aunt was sittings with her eternal sewing, by the fire and she rose as he entered. She gave a little startled cry, like a twittering bird, as she saw that it was he and she came towards him with her hand out. He did not look at the bed at all, but bent his eyes gravely upon his aunt. “Please, aunt—you must leave us—I want to speak to my mother.”

"No—Peter—how could you? I daren't—I mustn't—your father—your mother is asleep,” and then, from behind them, there came a very soft voice—

“No—let us be alone—please, Jessie.”

Peter did not, even then, turn round to the bed, but fixed his eyes on his aunt.

“The doctor—” she gasped, and then, with frightened eyes, she picked up her sewing and crept out.

Then he turned round and faced the bed, and was suddenly smitten with great shyness at the sight of that white, tired face, and the black hair about the pillow.

“Well, mother,” he said, stupidly.

But she smiled back at him, and although her voice was very small and faint, she spoke cheerfully and as though this were an ordinary event.

“Well, you've come to see me at last, Peter,” she said.

“I mustn't stay long,” he answered, gruffly, as he moved awkwardly towards the bed.

“Bring your chair close up to the bed—so—like that. You have never come to sit in here before, Peter, do you know that?”

“Yes, mother.” He turned his eyes away and looked on to the floor.

“You have come in before because you have been told to. To-day you were not told—why did you come?”

“I don't know Father's in Truro.”

“Yes, I know.” He thought he caught, for an instant, a strange note in her voice, “but he will not be back yet.”

There was a pause—a vast golden cloud hung, like some mountain boulder beyond the window and some of its golden light seemed to steal over the white room.

“Is it bad for you talking to me?” at last he said, gruffly, “ought I to go away?”

Suddenly she clutched his strong brown hand with her thin