THE STATE OF PETER
Meanwhile Peter was making discoveries about himself. He went back to
his flat on the evening of the day Jan and the children sailed. Swept
and garnished and exceedingly tidy, it appeared to have grown larger
during his absence and seemed rather empty. There was a sense of
unfilled spaces that caused him to feel lonely.
That very evening he decided he must get a friend to chum with him. The
bungalow was much too big for one person.
This had never struck him before.
In spite of their excessive neatness there remained traces of Jan and
the children in the rooms. The flowers on the dinner-table proclaimed
that they had been arranged by another hand than Lalkhan's. He was
certain of that without Lalkhan's assurance that the Miss-Sahib had done
them herself before she sailed that very morning.
When he went to his desk after dinner--never before or after did Peter
possess such an orderly bureau--he found a letter lying on the
blotting-pad, and on each side of the heavy brass inkstand were placed a
leaden member of a camel-corps and an India-rubber ball with a face
painted upon it, which, when squeezed, expressed every variety of
emotion. These, Lalkhan explained, were parting gifts from the young
sahib and little Fay respectively, and had been so arranged by them just
before they sailed.
The day before Jan had told the children that all this time they had
been living in Peter's house and that she was sure Mummy would want them
to be very grateful (she was careful to talk a great deal about Mummy to
the children lest they should forget her); that he had been very kind to
them all, and she asked if there was anything of their very own they
would like to leave for Peter as a remembrance.
Tony instantly fetched the camel-corps soldier that kept guard on a
chair by his cot every night; that Ayah had not been permitted to pack
because it must accompany him on the voyage. It was, Jan knew, his most
precious possession, and she assured him that Peter would be
particularly gratified by such a gift.
Not to be outdone by her brother, little Fay demanded her beloved ball,
which was already packed for the voyage in Jan's suit-case.
Peter sat at his desk staring at the absurd little toys with very kind
eyes. He understood. Then he opened Jan's letter and read it through
quite a number of times.
"Dear Mr. Ledgard," it ran.
"Whatever Mr. Kipling may say of the Celt, the lowland Scot finds it
very difficult to express strong feeling in words. If I had tried to
tell you, face to face, how sensible I am of your kindness and
consideration for us during the last sad weeks--I should have cried. You
would have been desperately uncomfortable and I--miserably ashamed of
myself. So I can only try to write something of my gratitude.
"We have been your guests so long and your hospitality has been so
untiring in circumstances sad and strange enough to try the patience of
the kindest host, that I simply cannot express my sense of obligation;
an obligation in no wise burdensome because you have always contrived to
make me feel that you took pleasure in doing all you have done.
"I wish there had been something belonging to my sister that I could
have begged you to accept as a remembrance of her; but everything she
had of the smallest value has disappeared--even her books. When I get
home I hope to give you one of my father's many portraits of her, but I
will not send it till I know whether you are coming home this summer.
Please remember, should you do so, as I sincerely hope you will, that
nowhere can there be a warmer welcome for you than at Wren's End. It
would be the greatest possible pleasure for the children and me to see
you there, and it is a good place to slack in and get strong. And there
I hope to challenge you to the round of golf we never managed during my
time in India.
"Please try to realise, dear Mr. Ledgard, that my sense of your kindness
is deep and abiding, and, believe me, yours, in most true gratitude,
"JANET ROSS."
For a long time Peter sat very still, staring at the cheerful,
highly-coloured face painted on Fay's ball. Cigarette after cigarette
did he smoke as he reviewed the experience of the last six weeks.
For the first time since he became a man he had been constantly in the
society of a woman younger than himself who appeared too busy and too
absorbed in other things to remember that she was a woman and he a man.
Peter was ordinarily susceptible, and he was rather a favourite with
women because of his good manners; and his real good-nature made him
ready to help either in any social project that happened to be towards
or in times of domestic stress. Yet never until lately had he seen so
much of any woman not frankly middle-aged without being conscious that
he _was_ a man and she a woman, and this added, at all events, a certain
piquancy to the situation.
Yet he had never felt this with Jan.
Quite a number of times in the course of his thirty years he had fallen
in love in an agreeably surface sort of way without ever being deeply
stirred. Love-making was the pleasantest game in the world, but he had
not yet felt the smallest desire to marry. He was a shrewd young man,
and knew that marriage, even in the twentieth century, at all events
starts with the idea of permanence; and, like many others who show no
inclination to judge the matrimonial complications of their
acquaintance, he would greatly have disliked any sort of scandal that
involved himself or his belongings.
He was quite as sensitive to criticism as other men in his service, and
he knew that he challenged it in lending his flat to Mrs. Tancred. But
here he felt that the necessities of the case far outweighed the
possibilities of misconception, and after Jan came he thought no more
about it.
Yet in a young man with his somewhat cynical knowledge of the world, it
was surprising that the thought of his name being coupled with Jan's
never crossed his mind. He forgot that none of his friends knew Jan at
all, but that almost every evening they did see her with him in the
car--sometimes, it is true, accompanied by the children, but quite as
often alone--and that during her visit his spare time was so much
occupied in looking after the Tancred household that his friends saw
comparatively little of him, and Peter was, as a rule, a very sociable
person.
Therefore it came upon him as a real shock when people began to ask him
point-blank whether he was engaged to Jan, and if so, what they were
going to do about Tancred's children. Rightly or wrongly, he discerned
in the question some veiled reflection upon Jan, some implied slur upon
her conduct. He was consequently very short and huffy with these
inquisitive ones, and when he was no longer present they would shake
their heads and declare that "poor old Peter had got it in the neck."
If so, poor old Peter was, as yet, quite unconscious of anything of the
kind.
Nevertheless he found himself constantly thinking about her. Everything,
even the familiar streets and roads, served to remind him of her, and
when he went to bed he nearly always dreamed about her. Absurd,
inconsequent, unsatisfactory dreams they were; for in them she was
always too busy to pay any attention to him at all; she was wholly
absorbed by what it is to be feared Peter sometimes called "those
confounded children." Though even in his dream world he was careful to
keep his opinion to himself.
Why on earth should he always dream of Jan during the first part of the
night?
Lalkhan could have thrown some light upon the subject. But naturally
Peter did not confide his obsession to Lalkhan.
Just before she left Jan asked Lalkhan where the sahib's linen was kept,
and on being shown the cupboard which contained the rather untidy little
piles of sheets, pillow-cases, and towels that formed Peter's modest
store of house linen, she rearranged it and brought sundry flat, square
muslin bags filled with dried lavender. Lace-edged bags with
lavender-coloured ribbon run through insertion and tied in bows at the
two corners. These bags she placed among the sheets, much to the wonder
of Lalkhan, who, however, decided that it was kindly meant and therefore
did not interfere.
The odour was not one that commended itself to him. It was far too faint
and elusive. He could understand a liking for attar of roses, of
jessamine, of musk, or of any of the strong scents beloved by the native
of India. Yet had she proposed to sprinkle the sheets with any of these
essences he would have felt obliged to interfere, as the sahib swore
violently and became exceedingly hot and angry did any member of his
household venture into his presence thus perfumed. Even as it was he
fully expected that his master would irritably demand the cause of the
infernal smell that pervaded his bed; so keen are the noses of the
sahibs. Whereupon Lalkhan, strong in rectitude, would relate exactly
what had happened, produce one of the Jan-incriminating muslin bags,
escape further censure, and doubtless be commanded to burn it and its
fellows in the kitchen stove. But nothing of the kind occurred, and, as
it is always easier to leave a thing where it has been placed than to
remove it, the lavender remained among the sheets in humble obscurity.
The old garden at Wren's End abounded in great lavender bushes, and
every year since it became her property Jan made lavender sachets which
she kept in every possible place. Her own clothes always held a faint
savour of lavender, and she had packed these bags as much as a matter of
course as she packed her stockings. It seemed a shame, though, to take
them home again when she could get plenty more next summer, so she left
them in the bungalow linen cupboard. They reproduced her atmosphere;
therefore did Peter dream of Jan.
A fortnight passed, and on their way to catch the homeward mail came
Thomas Crosbie and his wife from Dariawarpur to stay the night. Next
morning at breakfast Mrs. Crosbie, young, pretty and enthusiastic,
expatiated on the comfort of her room, finally exclaiming: "And how,
Mr. Ledgard, do you manage to have your sheets so deliciously scented
with lavender--d'you get it sent out from home every year?"
"Lavender?" Peter repeated. "I've got no lavender. My people never sent
me any, and I've certainly never come across any in India."
"But I'm convinced everything smelt of lavender. It made me think of
home so. If I hadn't been just going I'd have been too homesick for
words. I'm certain of it. Think! You must have got some from somewhere
and forgotten it."
Peter shook his head. "I've never noticed it myself--you really must be
mistaken. What would I be doing with lavender?"
"It was there all the same," Mrs. Crosbie continued. "I'm certain of it.
You must have got some from somewhere. Do find out--I'm sure I'm not
wrong. Ask your boy."
Peter said something to Lalkhan, who explained volubly. Tom Crosbie
grinned; he understood even fluent Hindustani. His wife did not. Peter
looked a little uncomfortable. Lalkhan salaamed and left the room.
"Well?" Mrs. Crosbie asked.
"It seems," Peter said slowly, "there _is_ something among the sheets.
I've sent Lalkhan to get it."
Lalkhan returned, bearing a salver, and laid on the salver was one of
Jan's lavender bags. He presented it solemnly to his master, who with
almost equal solemnity handed it to Mrs. Crosbie.
"There!" she said. "Of course I knew I couldn't be mistaken. Now where
did you get it?"
"It was, I suppose, put among the things when poor Mrs. Tancred had the
flat. I never noticed, of course--it's such an unobtrusive sort of
smell...."
"Hadn't she a sister?" Mrs. Crosbie asked, curiously, holding the little
sachet against her soft cheek and looking very hard at Peter.
"She had. It was she who took the children home, you know."
"Older or younger than Mrs. Tancred?"
"Older."
"How much older?"
"I really don't know," said the mendacious Peter.
"Was she awfully pretty, too?"
"Again, I really don't know. I never thought about her looks ... she had
grey hair...."
"Oh!" Mrs. Crosbie exclaimed--a deeply disappointed "Oh." "Probably much
older, then. That explains the lavender bags."
Silent Thomas Crosbie looked from his wife to Peter with considerable
amusement. He realised, if she didn't, that Peter was most successfully
putting her off the scent of more than lavender; but men are generally
loyal to each other in these matters, and he suddenly took his part in
the conversation and changed the subject.
Among Peter's orders to his butler that morning was one to the effect
that nothing the Miss-Sahib had arranged in the bungalow was to be
disturbed, and the lavender bag was returned to rejoin its fellows in
the cupboard.
It was four years since Peter had had any leave, and it appeared that
the lavender had the same effect upon him as upon Mrs. Crosbie. He felt
homesick--and applied for leave in May.