The new moon brightened above the rim of the opposite hill, and
touched the river below with silver reflections. On the grass banks
sloping away beneath the terrace gardens, sheets of bluebells shone
almost whitely on the grass. The silent house rose against the
dark woods, whitened also here and there by the blossom of wild
cherry-trees.
Lady Mary stepped from the open French windows of the drawing-room
into the still, scented air of the April night. She stood leaning
against the stone balcony, and gazing at the wonderful panorama of
the valley and overlapping hills; where the little river threaded its
untroubled course between daisied meadows and old orchards and red
crumbling banks.
A broad-shouldered figure appeared in the window, and a man's step
crunched the gravel of the path which Lady Mary had crossed.
"For once I have escaped, you see," she said, without turning round.
"They will not venture into the night air. Sometimes I think they will
drive me mad--Isabella and Georgina."
"Mary!" cried a shrill voice from the drawing-room, "how can you be so
imprudent! John, how can you allow her!"
John stepped back to the window. "It is very mild," he said. "Lady
Mary likes the air."
There was a note of authority in his tone which somehow impressed Lady
Belstone, who withdrew, muttering to herself, into the warm lamplight
of the drawing-room.
Perhaps the two old ladies were to be pitied, too, as they sat
together, but forlorn, sincerely shocked and uneasy at their
sister-in-law's behaviour.
"Dear Timothy not dead three months, and she sitting out there in the
night air, as he would never have permitted, talking and laughing;
yes, I actually hear her laughing--with John."
"There is no telling what she may do _now_," said Miss Crewys,
gloomily.
"I declare it is a judgment, Georgina. Why did Timothy choose to trust
a perfect stranger--even though John is a cousin--with the care of his
wife and son, and his estate, rather than his own sisters?"
"It was a gentleman's work," said Miss Crewys.
"Gentleman's fiddlesticks! Couldn't old Crawley have done it? I
should hope he is as good a lawyer as young John any day," said Lady
Belstone, tossing her head. "But I have often noticed that people will
trust any chance stranger with the property they leave behind, rather
than those they know best."
"Isabella," said Miss Crewys, "blame not the dead, and especially on a
moonlight night. It makes my blood run cold."
"I am blaming nobody, Georgina; but I will say that if poor Timothy
thought proper to leave everything else in the hands of young John, he
might have considered that you and I had a better right to the Dower
House than poor dear Mary, who, of course, must live with her son."
"I am far from wishing or intending to leave my home here, Isabella,"
said Miss Crewys. "It is very different in your case. You forfeited
the position of daughter of the house when you married. But I have
always occupied my old place, and my old room."
This was a sore subject. On Lady Belstone's return as a widow, to the
home of her fathers, she had been torn with anxiety and indecision
regarding her choice of a sleeping apartment. Sentiment dictated her
return to her former bedroom; but she was convinced that the married
state required a domicile on the first floor. Etiquette prevailed,
and she descended; but the eighty-year-old legs of Miss Crewys still
climbed the nursery staircase, and she revenged herself for her
inferior status by insisting, in defiance of old associations, that
her maid should occupy the room next to her own, which her sister had
abandoned.
"For my part, I can sleep in one room as well as another, provided it
be comfortable and _appropriate_," said Lady Belstone, with dignity.
"There are very pleasant rooms in the Dower House, and our great-aunts
managed to live there in comfort, and yet keep an eye on their nephew
here, as I have always been told. I don't know why we should object to
doing the same. You have never tried being mistress of your own house,
Georgina, but I can assure you it has its advantages; and I found them
out as a married woman."
"A married woman has her husband to look after her," said Miss Crewys.
"It is very different for a widow."
"You are for ever throwing my widowhood in my teeth, Georgina," said
Lady Belstone, plaintively. "It is not my fault that I am a widow. I
did not murder the admiral."
"I don't say you did, Isabella," said Georgina, grimly; "but he only
survived his marriage six months."
"It is nice to be silent sometimes," said Lady Mary.
"Does that mean that I am to go away?" said John, "or merely that I am
not to speak to you?"
She laughed a little. "Neither. It means that I am tired of being
scolded."
"I have wondered now and then," said John, deliberately, "why you put
up with it?"
"I suppose--because I can't help it," she said, startled.
"You are a free agent."
"You mean that I could go away?" she said, in a low voice. "But there
is only one place I should care to go to now."
"To South Africa?"
"You always understand," she said gratefully.
"Supposing this--this ghastly war should not be over as soon as we all
hope," he said, rather huskily, "I could escort you myself, in a few
weeks' time, to the Cape. Or--or arrange for your going earlier if
you desired, and if I could not get away. Probably you would get
no further than Cape Town; but it might be easier for you waiting
there--than here."
"I shall thank you, and bless you always, for thinking of it," she
interrupted, softly; "but there is something--that I never told
anybody."
He waited.
"After Peter had the news of his father's death," said Lady Mary, with
a sob in her throat, "you did not know that he--he telegraphed to me,
from Madeira. He foresaw immediately, I suppose, whither my foolish
impulses would lead me; and he asked me--I should rather say he
ordered me--under no circumstances whatever to follow him out to South
Africa."
John remembered the doctor's warning, and said nothing.
"So, you see--I can't go," said Lady Mary.
There was a pause.
"I am bound to say," said John, presently, "that, in Peter's place, I
should not have liked my mother, or any woman I loved, to come out to
the seat of war. He showed only a proper care for you in forbidding
it. Perhaps I am less courageous than he, in thinking more of the
present benefit you would derive from the voyage and the change of
scene, than of the perils and discomforts which might await you, for
aught we can foretell now, at the end of it. Peter certainly showed
judgment in telegraphing to you."
"Do you really think so? That it was care for me that made him do it?"
she asked. A distant doubtful joy sounded in her voice. "Somehow I
never thought of that. I remembered his old dislike of being followed
about, or taken care of, or--or spied upon, as he used to call it."
"Boys just turning into men are often sensitive on those points," said
John, heedful always of the doctor's warning.
"It is odd I did not see the telegram in that light," said poor Lady
Mary. "I must read it again."
She spoke as hopefully as though she had not read it already a hundred
times over, trying to read loving meanings, that were not there,
between the curt and peremptory lines.
"It is not odd," thought John to himself; "it is because you knew him
too well;" and he wondered whether his explanation of Peter's action
were charitable, or merely unscrupulous.
But Lady Mary was not really deceived; only very grateful to the man
who was so tender of heart, so tactful of speech, as to make it seem
even faintly possible that she had misjudged her boy.
She said to herself that parents were often unreasonable, expecting
impossibilities, in their wild desire for perfection in their
offspring. An outsider, being unprejudiced by anxiety, could judge
more fairly. John found that the telegram, which had almost broken her
heart, was reasonable and justified; nay, even that it displayed a
dutiful regard for her safety and comfort, of which no one but a
stranger could possibly have suspected Peter. She was grateful to
John. It was a relief and joy to feel that it was she who was to
blame, and not Peter, whose heart was in the right place, after all.
And yet, though John was so clever and had such an experience of human
nature, it was the doctor who had put the key into his hands, which
presently unlocked Lady Mary's confidence.
"You mustn't think, John, that I don't understand what it will be like
later, when Peter comes of age. Of course this house will be his,
and he is not the kind of young man to be tied to his mother's
apron-string. He always wanted to be independent."
"It is human nature," said John.
"I am not blind to his faults," said Lady Mary, humbly, "though they
all think so. It is of little use to try and hide them from you, who
will see them for yourself directly my darling comes back. I pray God
it may be soon. Of course he is spoilt; but I am to blame, because I
made him my idol."
"An only son is always more or less spoilt," said John. He remembered
his own boyhood, and smiled sardonically in the darkness. "He will
grow out of it. He will come back a man after this experience."
"Yes, yes, and he will want to live his life, and I--I shall have to
learn to do without him, I know," she said. "I must learn while he is
away to--to depend on myself. It is not likely that--that a woman
of my age should have much in common with a manly boy like Peter.
Sometimes I wonder whether I really understand my boy at all."
"It is my belief," said John, "that no generation is in perfect touch
with another. Each stands on a different rung of the ladder of Time.
You may stoop to lend a helping hand to the younger, or reach upwards
to take a farewell of the older. But there must be a looking down or
a looking up. No face-to-face talk is possible except upon the same
level. No real and true comradeship. The very word implies a marching
together, under the same circumstances, to a common goal; and how can
we, who have to be the commanding officers of the young, be their true
companions?" he said, lightly and cheerfully.
"I dare say I have expected impossibilities," said Lady Mary, as
though reproaching herself. "It comforts me to think so. But I have
had time to reflect on many things since--February." She paused. "I
don't deny I have tried to make plans for the future. But there are
these days to be lived through first--until he comes home."
"I was going to propose," said John, "that, if agreeable to you, I
should spend my summer and autumn holiday here, instead of going, as
usual, to Switzerland."
"I should be only too glad," she said, in tones of awakened interest.
"But surely--it would be very dull for you?"
"Not at all. There is a great deal to be done, and in accordance with
my trust I am bound to set about it," said John. "I propose to spend
the next few days in examining the reports of the surveys that have
already been made, and in judging of their accuracy for myself. When I
return here later, I could have the work begun, and then for some time
I could superintend matters personally, which is always a good thing."
"Do you mean--the woods?" she asked. "I know they have been neglected.
Sir Timothy would never have a tree cut down; but they are so wild and
beautiful."
"There are hundreds of pounds' worth of timber perishing for want of
attention. I am responsible for it all until Peter comes of age," said
John, "as I am for the rest of his inheritance. It is part of my trust
to hand over to him his house and property in the best order I can,
according to my own judgment. I know something of forestry," he added,
simply; "you know I was not bred a Cockney. I was to have been
a Hertfordshire squire, on a small scale, had not circumstances
necessitated the letting of my father's house when he died."
"But it will be yours again some day?"
"No," said John, quietly; "it had to be sold--afterwards."
He gave no further explanation, but Lady Mary recollected instantly
the abuse that had been showered on his mother, by her sisters-in-law,
when John was reported to have sacrificed his patrimony to pay her
debts.
"I rather agree with you about the woods," she said. "It vexes me
always to see a beautiful young tree, that should be straight and
strong, turned into a twisted dwarf, in the shade of the overgrowth
and the overcrowding. The woodman will be delighted; he is always
grumbling."
"It is not only the woods. There is the house."
"I suppose it wants repairing?" said Lady Mary. "Hadn't that better be
put off till Peter comes home?"
"I cannot neglect my trust," said John, gravely; "besides," he added,
"the state of the roof is simply appalling. Many of the beams are
actually rotten. Then there are the drains; they are on a system that
should not be tolerated in these days. Nothing has been done for over
sixty years, and I can hardly say how long before."
"Won't it all cost a great deal of money?" said Lady Mary.
"A good deal; but there is a very large sum of money lying idle,
which, as the will directs, may be applied to the general improvement
of the house and estate during Peter's minority; but over which he is
to have no control, should it remain unspent, until he comes of age.
That is to say, it will then--or what is left of it--be invested with
the rest of his capital, which is all strictly tied up. So, as old
Crawley says, it will relieve Peter's income in the future, if we
spend what is necessary now, according to our powers, in putting his
house and estate in order. It would have to be done sooner or later,
most assuredly. Sir Timothy, as you must know," said John, gently,
"did not spend above a third of his actual income; and, so far as Mr.
Crawley knows, spent nothing at all on repairs, beyond jobs to the
village carpenter and mason."
"I did not know," said Lady Mary. "He always told me we were very
badly off--for our position. I know nothing of business. I did not
attend much to Mr. Crawley's explanations at the time."
"You were unable to attend to him then," said John; "but now, I think,
you should understand the exact position of affairs. Surely my cousins
must have talked it over?"
"Isabella and Georgina never talk business before me. You forget I am
still a child in their eyes," she said, smiling. "I gathered that they
were disappointed poor Timothy had left them nothing, and that they
thought I had too much; that is all."
"Their way of looking at it is scarcely in accordance with justice,"
said John, shrugging his shoulders. "They each have ten thousand
pounds left to them by their father in settlement. This was to return
to the estate if they died unmarried or childless. You have two
thousand a year and the Dower House for your life; but you forfeit
both if you re-marry."
"Of course," said Lady Mary, indifferently. "I suppose that is the
usual thing?"
"Not quite, especially when your personal property is so small."
"I didn't know I had any personal property."
"About five hundred pounds a year; perhaps a little more."
"From the Setouns!" she cried.
"From your father. Surely you must have known?"
Lady Mary was silent a moment. "No; I didn't know," she said
presently. "It doesn't matter now, but Timothy never told me. I
thought I hadn't a farthing in the world. He never mentioned money
matters to me at all." Then she laughed faintly. "I could have lived
all by myself in a cottage in Scotland, without being beholden to
anybody--on five hundred pounds a year, couldn't I?"
"There is no reason you should not have a cottage in Scotland now, if
you fancy one," said John, cheerfully.
"The only memories I have in the world, outside my life in this place,
are of my childhood at home," she said.
John suddenly realized how very, very limited her experiences had
been, and wondered less at the almost childish simplicity which
characterized her, and which in no way marred her natural graciousness
and dignity. Lady Mary did not observe his silence, because her own
thoughts were busy with a scene which memory had painted for her, and
far away from the moonlit valley of the Youle. She saw a tall, narrow,
turreted building against a ruddy sunset sky; a bare ridge of hills
crowned sparsely with ragged Scotch firs; a sea of heather which had
seemed boundless to a childish imagination.
"I could not go back to Scotland now," she said, with that little
wistful-sounding, patient sob which moved John to such pity that he
could scarce contain himself; "but some day, when I am free--when
nobody wants me."
"London is the only place worth living in just now, whilst we are in
such terrible anxiety," he said boldly. "At least there are the papers
and telegrams all day long, and none of this dreary, long waiting
between the posts; and there are other things--to distract one's
attention, and keep up one's courage."
"I do not know what Isabella and Georgina would say," said Lady Mary.
"But you--would you not care to come?"
"Oh!" she said, half sobbing, "it is because I am afraid of caring too
much. Life seems to call so loudly to me now and then; as though I
were tired of sitting alone, and looking up the valley and down the
valley. I know it all by heart. It would be fresh life; the stir, the
movement; other people, fresh ideas, beautiful new things to see. But,
indeed, you must not tempt me." There was an accent of yearning in her
tone, a hint of eager anticipation, as of a good time coming; a dream
postponed, which she would nevertheless be willing one day to enjoy.
"I mustn't go anywhere; I couldn't--until my boy comes home, if he
ever comes home," she added, under her breath.
"But when he comes home safe and sound, as please God he may," said
John, cheerfully, "why, then you have a great deal of lost time to
make up."
"Ah, yes!" said Lady Mary, and again that wistful note of longing
sounded. "I have thought sometimes I would not like to die before I
have seen my birthplace once more. And there is--_Italy_," she said,
as though the one word conveyed every vision of earthly beauty which
mortal could desire to behold--as, indeed, it does. And again she
added, "But I don't know what my sisters-in-law would say. It would be
against all the traditions."
"Surely Lady Belstone, at least, must be less absurdly narrow-minded,"
said John, almost impatiently.
"Shall I tell you the history of her marriage?" said Lady Mary.
Her pretty laugh rang out softly in the darkness, and thrilled
John's heart, and shocked yet further the old ladies who sat within,
straining their ears for the sound of returning footsteps.
"It took place about forty years ago or less. A cousin of her
mother's, Sir William Belstone, came to spend a few days here. I
believe the poor man invited himself, because he happened to be
staying in the neighbourhood. He was a gallant old sailor, and very
polite to both his cousins; and one day Isabella interpreted his
compliments into a proposal of marriage. Georgina has given me to
understand that no one was ever more astounded and terrified than the
admiral when he found himself engaged to Isabella. But apparently he
was a chivalrous old gentleman, and would not disappoint her. It is
really rather a sad little story, because he died of heart disease
very soon after the marriage. Old Mrs. Ash, the housekeeper, always
declares her mistress came home even more old-maidish in her ways than
she went away, and that she quarrelled with the poor admiral from
morning till night. Perhaps that is why she has never lightened her
garb of woe. And she makes my life a burden to me because I won't wear
a cap. Ah! how heartless it all sounds, and yet how ridiculous! Dear
Cousin John, haven't I bored you? Let us go in."
With characteristic energy John Crewys set in hand the repairs which
he had declared to be so necessary.
The late squire had apparently been as well aware of the neglected
state of his ancestral halls as of his tangled and overgrown woods;
but he had also, it seemed, been unable to make up his mind to take
any steps towards amending the condition of either--or to part with
his ever-increasing balance at his bankers'.
Sir Timothy had carried both his obstinacy and his dullness into his
business affairs.
The family solicitor, Mr. Crawley, backed up the new administrator
with all his might.
"Over sixty thousand pounds uninvested, and lying idle at the bank,"
he said, lifting his hands and eyes, "and one long, miserable
grumbling over the expense of keeping up Barracombe. One good tenant
after another lost because the landlord would keep nothing in repair;
gardener after gardener leaving for want of a shilling increase in
weekly wages. In case Sir Peter should turn out to resemble his
father, we had best not let the grass grow under our feet, Mr.
Crewys," said the shrewd gentleman, chuckling, "but take full
advantage of the powers entrusted to you for the next two years and
a quarter. Sir Peter, luckily, does not come of age until October,
1902."
"That is just what I intend to do," said John.
"Odd, isn't it," said the lawyer, confidentially, "how often a man
will put unlimited power into the hands of a comparative stranger, and
leave his own son tied hand and foot? Not a penny of all this capital
will Sir Peter ever have the handling of. Perhaps a good job too.
Oh, dear! when I look at the state of his affairs in general, I feel
positively guilty, and ashamed to have had even the nominal management
of them. But what could a man do under the circumstances? He paid for
my advice, and then acted directly contrary to it, and thought he had
done a clever thing, and outwitted his own lawyer. But now we shall
get things a bit straight, I hope. What about buying Speccot Farm, Mr.
Crewys? It's been our Naboth's vineyard for many a day; but we haggled
over the price, and couldn't make up our minds to give what the farmer
wants. He'll have to sell in the end, you know; but I suppose he could
hold out a few years longer if we don't give way."
"He's been to me already," said John. "The price he asked is no doubt
a bit above its proper value; but it's accommodation land, and it
would be disappointing if it slipped through our fingers. I propose to
offer him pretty nearly what he asks."
"He'll take it," said Mr. Crawley, with satisfaction. "I could never
make Sir Timothy see that it wouldn't pay the fellow to turn out
unless he got something over and above the value of his mortgages."
"The next thing I want you to arrange is the purchase of those
twenty acres of rough pasture and gorse, right in the centre of the
property," said John, "rented by the man who lives outside Youlestone,
at what they call Pott's farm, for his wretched, half-starved beasts
to graze upon. He's saved us the trouble of exterminating the rabbits
there, I notice."
"He's an inveterate poacher. A good thing to give him no further
excuse to hang about the place. What do you propose to do?"
"Compensate him, burn the gorse, cut the bracken, and plant larch.
There are enough picturesque commons on the top of the hill, where the
soil is poor, and land is cheap. We don't want them in the valley.
Now I propose to give our minds to the restoration of the house, the
drains, the stables, and the home farm. Here are my estimates."
Though Mr. Crawley was so loyal a supporter of the regent of
Barracombe, yet John's projected improvements were far too
thorough-going to gain the approval of the pottering old retainers of
the Crewys family, though they were unable to question his knowledge
or his judgment.
"I telled 'im tu du things by the littles," said the woodman, who was
kept at work marking trees and saplings as he had never worked before;
though John was generous of help, and liberal of pay. "But lard, he
bain't one tu covet nobody's gude advice. I was vair terrified tu zee
arl he knowed about the drees. The squoire 'ee wur like a babe unbarn
beside 'un. He lukes me straight in the eyes, and 'Luke,' sezzee, 'us
'a' got tu git the place in vamous arder vur young Zur Peter,' sezzee,
'An' I be responsible, and danged but what 'a'll du't,' 'ee zays. An'
I touched my yead, zo, and I zays, 'Very gude, zur,' 'a zays. 'An' zo
'twill be, yu may depend on't.'"
Perhaps the unwonted stir and bustle, the coming and going of John
Crewys, the confusion of workmen, the novel interest of renovating and
restoring the old house, helped to brace and fortify Lady Mary during
the months which followed; months, nevertheless, of suspense and
anxiety, which reduced her almost to a shadow of her former self.
For Peter's career in South Africa proved an adventurous one.
He had the good luck to distinguish himself in a skirmish almost
immediately after his arrival, and to win not only the approval of his
noble relative and commander, but his commission. His next exploit,
however, ended rather disastrously, and Peter found himself a prisoner
in the now historic bird-cage at Pretoria, where he spent a dreary,
restless, and perhaps not wholly unprofitable time, in the society of
men greatly his superior in soldierly and other qualities.
John feared that his mother's resolution not to follow her boy must
inevitably be broken when the news of his capture reached Barracombe;
but perhaps Peter's letters had repeated the peremptory injunctions
of his telegram, for she never proposed to take the journey to South
Africa.
The wave of relief and thankfulness that swept over the country, when
the release of the imprisoned officers became known, restored not a
little of Lady Mary's natural courage and spirits. She became more
hopeful about her son, and more interested daily in the beautifying
and restoration of his house.
She said little in her letters to Peter of the work at Barracombe, for
John advised her that the boy would probably hardly understand the
necessity for it, and she herself was doubtful of Peter's approval
even if he had understood. She had too much intelligence to be
doubtful of John's wisdom, or of Mr. Crawley's zeal for his interest.
The letters she received were few and scanty, for Peter was but a poor
correspondent, and he made little comment on the explanatory letter
regarding his father's will which John and Mr. Crawley thought proper
to send him. The solicitor was justly indignant at Sir Peter's neglect
to reply to this carefully thought-out and faultlessly indited
epistle.
"He is just a chip of the old block," said Mr. Crawley.
But his mother divined that Peter was partly offended at his own
utter exclusion from any share of responsibility, and partly too much
occupied to give much attention to any matter outside his soldiering.
She said to herself that he was really too young to be troubled
with business; and she began to believe, as the work at Barracombe
advanced, that the results of so much planning and forethought must
please him, after all. The consolation of working in his interests was
delightful to her. Her days were filling almost miraculously, as it
seemed to her, with new occupations, fresh hopes, and happier ideas,
than the idle dreaming which was all that had hitherto been permitted
to her. John desired her help, or her suggestions, at every turn, and
constantly consulted her taste. Her artistic instinct for decoration
was hardly less strong than his own, though infinitely less
cultivated. He sent her the most engrossing and delightful books to
repair the omission, and he brought her plans and drawings, which he
begged her to copy for him. The days which had hung so heavily on her
hands were scarcely long enough.
The careful restoration of the banqueting-hall necessitated new
curtains and chair-covers. Lady Mary looked doubtfully at John when
this matter had been decided, and then at the upholstery of the
drawing-rooms facing the south terrace.
The faded magenta silk, tarnished gilded mirrors, and gold-starred
wall-paper which decorated these apartments had offended her eye for
years. John laughed at her hesitation, and advised her to consult her
sisters-in-law on the subject; and this settled the question.
"They would choose bottle-green" she said, in horror; and she salved
her conscience by paying for the redecoration of the drawing-rooms out
of her own pocket.
John discovered that Lady Mary had never drawn a cheque in her life,
and that Mr. Crawley's lessons in the management of her own affairs
filled her with as much awe as amusement.
* * * * *
So the old order changed and gave place to the new at Barracombe; and
the summer grew to winter, and winter to summer again; and Peter did
not return, as he might, with the corps in which he had the honour to
serve.
Want of energy was not one of his defects; he was a strong, hardy
young man, a fine horseman and a good shot, and eager to gain
distinction for himself. He passed into a fresh corps of newly raised
Yeomanry, and went through the Winter Campaign of 1901, from April to
September, without a scratch. His mother implored him to come home;
but Peter's letters were contemptuous of danger. If he were to be
shot, plenty of better fellows than he had been done for, he wrote;
and coming home to go to Oxford, or whatever his guardian might be
pleased to order him to do, was not at all in his line, when he was
really wanted elsewhere.
To do him justice, he had no idea how boastfully his letters read; he
had not the art of expressing himself on paper, and he was always in
a hurry. The moments when he was moved by a vague affection for his
home, or his mother, were seldom the actual moments which he devoted
to correspondence; and the passing ideas of the moment were all Peter
knew how to convey.
Lady Mary could not but be aware of her son's complete independence of
her, but the realization of it no longer filled her with such dismay
as formerly. Her outlook upon life was widening insensibly. The young
soldier's luck deserted him at last. Barely six weeks before the
declaration of peace, Peter was wounded at Rooiwal. The War Office,
and the account of the action in the newspapers, reported his injuries
as severe; but a telegram from Peter himself brought relief, and even
rejoicing, to Barracombe--
"_Shot in the arm. Doing splendidly. Invalided home. Sailing as soon
as doctor allows_."