QUARRELS IN THE RAIN
In Brook Street the rain fell. It fell straight and disconsolate,
unutterably wet, splashing drearily on the paved street between the rows
of wet houses. It fell all day, from the dim dawn, through the murky
noon, to the dark evening, desolately weeping over a tired city.
Inside number fifty-one, Peggy mended clothes and sang a little song,
with Thomas in her lap, and Peter, sitting in the window-seat, knitted
Thomas a sweater of Cambridge blue. Peter was getting rather good at
knitting. Hilary was there too, but not mending, or knitting, or singing;
he was coughing, and complaining of the climate.
"I fancy it is going to be influenza," he observed at intervals,
shivering. "I feel extraordinarily weak, and ache all up my back. I fancy
I have a high temperature, only Peter has broken the thermometer. You
were a hundred and four, I think, Peter, the day you went to bed. I
rather expect I am a hundred and five. But I suppose I shall never know,
as it is impossible to afford another thermometer. I feel certain it is
influenza; and in that case I must give up all hope of getting that job
from Pickering, as I cannot possibly go and see him to-morrow. Not but
that it would be a detestable job, anyhow; but anything to keep our heads
above water.... My headache is now like a hot metal band all round my
head, Peggy."
"Poor old boy," said Peggy. "Take some more phenacetine. And do go to
bed, Hilary. If you _have_ got flu, you'll only make yourself as bad as
Peter did by staying up too long. You've neither of you any more sense
than Tommy here, nor so much, by a long way, have they, little man? No,
Kitty, let him be; you'd only drop him on the floor if I let you, and
then he'd break, you know."
Silvio was kneeling up on the window-seat by Peter's side, taking an
interest in the doings of the street.
Peggy said, "Well, Larry, what's the news of the great world?"
"It's raining," said Silvio, who had something of the mournful timbre of
Hilary's voice in his.
Peggy said, "Oh, darling, be more interesting! I'm horribly afraid you're
going to grow up obvious, Larry, and that will never do. What else is it
doing?"
"There's a cat in the rain," said Silvio, flattening his nose against the
blurred glass, and manifestly inclined to select the sadder aspects of
the world's news for retail. That tendency too, perhaps, he inherited
from Hilary.
Presently he added, "There's a taxi coming up the street," and Peggy
placed Thomas on Peter's knees and came to the window to look. When she
had looked she said to Peter, "It must be nearly six o'clock" (the clock
gained seventeen minutes a day, so that the time was always a matter for
nicer calculation than Peggy could usually afford to give it); "and if
Hilary's got flu, I should think Tommy'd be best out of the room.... I
haven't easily the time to put him to bed this evening, really."
Peter accepted the suggestion and conveyed his son from the room. As he
did so, someone knocked at the front door, and Peggy ran downstairs to
open it.
She let in the unhappy noise of the rain and a tall, slim person in a fur
coat.
Peggy was surprised, and (most rarely) a little embarrassed. It wasn't
the person she had looked for. She even, in her unwonted confusion, let
the visitor speak first.
He said, "Is Mr. Peter Margerison in?" frostily, giving her no sign of
recognition.
"He is not, Lord Evelyn," said Peggy, hastily. "That is, he is busy with
the baby upstairs. Will I take him a message?"
"I shall be glad if you will tell him I have called to see him."
"I will, Lord Evelyn. Will you come up to the drawing-room while I get
him?"
Peggy led the way, drawing meanwhile on the resources of a picturesque
imagination.
"He may be a little while before he can leave the baby, Lord Evelyn. Poor
mite, it's starved with hunger, the way it cries and cries and won't
leave off, and Peter has to cheer it."
Lord Evelyn grunted. The steep stairs made him a little short of breath,
and not sympathetic.
"And even," went on Peggy, stopping outside the drawing-room door,
"even when it does get a feed of milk, it's to-day from one kind of cow,
to-morrow from another. Why, you'd think all the cows in England, turn
and turn about, supplied that poor child with milk; and you know they get
pains from changing. It's not right, poor baby; but what can we and his
father do? The same with his scraps of clothes--this weather he'd a right
to be having new warm ones--but there he lies crying for the cold in his
little thin out-grown things; it brings the tears to one's eyes to see
him. And he's not the only one, either. His father's just out of an
illness, and keeps a cough on the chest because he can't afford a warm
waistcoat or the only cough-mixture that cures him.... But Peter
wouldn't like me to be telling you all this. Will you go in there,
Lord Evelyn, and wait?"
She paused another moment, her hand on the handle.
"You'll not tell Peter I told you anything. He'd not be pleased. He'll
not breathe a word to you of it himself--indeed, he'll probably say it's
not so."
Lord Evelyn made no comment; he merely tapped his cane on the floor; he
seemed impatient to have the door opened.
"And," added Peggy, "if ever you chanced to be offering him anything--I
mean, you might be for giving him a birthday present, or a Xmas present
or something sometime--you'd do best to put it as a gift to the baby, or
he'll never take it."
Having concluded her diplomacy, she opened the door and ushered him into
the room, where Hilary sat with his headache and the children played
noisily at horses.
"Lord Evelyn Urquhart come to see Peter," called Peggy into the room.
"Come along out of that, children, and keep yourselves quiet somewhere."
She bundled them out and shut the door on Lord Evelyn and Hilary.
Hilary rose dizzily to his feet and bowed. Lord Evelyn returned the
courtesy distantly, and stood by the door, as far as possible from his
host.
"This is good of you," said Hilary, "to come and see us in our fallen
estate. Do sit down."
Lord Evelyn, putting his glass into his eye and turning it upon Hilary as
if in astonishment at his impertinence in addressing him, said curtly, "I
came to see your half-brother. I had not the least intention, nor the
least desire, to see anyone else whatever; nor have I now."
"Quite so," said Hilary, his teeth chattering with fever. (His
temperature, though he would never know, as Peter had broken the
thermometer, must be anyhow a hundred and three, he was sure.) "Quite
so. But that doesn't affect my gratitude to you. Peter's friends are
mine. I must thank you for remembering Peter."
Lord Evelyn, presumably not seeing the necessity, was silent.
"We have not met," Hilary went on, passing his hot hand over his fevered
brow, where the headache ran all round like a hot metal band, "for a very
long time, Lord Evelyn; if we put aside that momentary encounter at
Astleys last year." Hilary did put that aside, rather hastily, and went
on, "Apart from that, we have not met since we were both in Venice,
nearly two years ago. Lord Evelyn, I have often wished to tell you
how very deeply I have regretted certain events that came between us
there. I think there is a great deal that I might explain to you...."
Lord Evelyn, with averted face, said, "Be good enough to be silent, sir.
I have no desire to hear any of your remarks. I have come merely to see
your half-brother."
"Of course," said Hilary, who was sensitive, "if you take that line,
there is nothing to be said between you and me."
Lord Evelyn acknowledged this admission with a slight inclination of the
head.
"Nothing whatever, sir."
So there was silence, till Peter came in, pale and sickly and
influenzaish, but with a smile for Lord Evelyn. It was extraordinarily
nice of Lord Evelyn, he thought, to have come all the way to Brook Street
in the rain to see him.
Lord Evelyn looked at him queerly, intently, out of his short-sighted
eyes as they shook hands.
"I wish to talk to you," he remarked, with meaning.
Hilary took the hint, looked proud, said, "I see that my room is
preferred to my company," and went away.
When he had gone, Peter said, "Do sit down," but Lord Evelyn took no
notice of that. He had come to see Peter in his need, but he had not
forgiven him, and he would remain standing in his house. Peter had once
hurt him so badly that the mere sight of him quickened his breath and
flushed his cheek. He tapped his cane impatiently against his grey spats.
"You're ill," he said, accusingly.
"Oh, I've only had flu," said Peter; "I'm all right now."
"You're ill," Lord Evelyn repeated. "Don't contradict me, sir. You're
ill; you're in want; and you're bringing up a baby on insufficient diet.
What?"
"Not a bit," said Peter. "I am not in want, nor is Thomas. Thomas' diet
is so sufficient that I'm often afraid he'll burst with it."
Lord Evelyn said, "You're probably lying. But if you're not, why d'ye
countenance your sister-in-law's begging letters? You're a hypocrite,
sir. But that's nothing I didn't know before, you may say. Well, you're
right there."
Lord Evelyn's anger was working up. He hadn't known it would be so
difficult to talk to Peter and remain calm.
"You want to make a fool of me again," he broke out, "so you join in a
lying letter and bring me here on false pretences. At least, I suppose it
was really Lucy you thought to bring. You play on Lucy's soft heart,
knowing you can squeeze money out of her--and so you can afford to say
you've no use for mine. Is that it?"
Peter said, dully looking at his anger as at an ancient play re-staged,
"I don't know what you're talking about. I know nothing of any letter.
And you don't suppose I should take your money, or Lucy's either. Why
should I? I don't want money."
Lord Evelyn was pacing petulantly up and down the shabby carpet, waving
his cane as he walked.
"Oh, you know nothing of any letter, don't you. Well, ask your
sister-in-law, then; ask that precious brother of yours. Haven't you
always chosen to hang on to them and join in their dirty tricks? And
now you turn round and say you know nothing of their doings; a pretty
story.... Now look here, Mr. Peter Margerison, you've asked for money
and you shall take it, d'ye see?"
Peter flung at him, in a queer and quite new hot bitterness and anger (it
was perhaps the result of influenza, which has strange after effects).
"You've no right to come here and say these things to me. I didn't want
you to come; I never asked you to; and now I never want to see you again.
Please go, Lord Evelyn."
Lord Evelyn paused in his walk, and stood looking at him for a moment,
his lips parted to speak, his hands clasped behind him over the gold head
of his cane.
Then, into the ensuing silence, came Lucy, small and pale and wet in her
grey furs, and stood like a startled kitten, her wide eyes turning from
one angry face to the other.
Peter said to her, in a voice she had never heard from him before, "So
you've come too."
Lord Evelyn tittered disagreeably. "Didn't expect her, of course, did
you. So unlikely she'd come, after getting a letter like that.... I
suppose you're wondering, Lucy, what I'm doing _dans cette galère_."
"No," said Lucy, "I wasn't. I know. You've come to see Peter, like me."
He laughed again. "Yes, that's it. Like you. And now he pretends he won't
take the money he asked for, Lucy. Won't be beholden to me at any price.
Perhaps he was waiting for you."
Lucy was looking at Peter, who looked so ill and so strange and new.
Never before had he looked at her like that, with hard eyes. Peter was
angry; the skies had fallen.
She said, and put out her hands to him, "What's the matter, Peter?
Don't ... don't look like that.... Oh, you're ill; do sit down; it's
so stupid to stand about."
Peter said, his own hands hanging at his sides, "Do you mind going away,
both of you. I don't think I want to talk to either of you to-day.... I
suppose you've brought money to give me too, Lucy, have you?"
Lucy coloured faintly over her small pale face.
"I won't give you anything you don't like, Peter. But I may give a
present to Thomas, mayn't I?"
"No," said Peter, without interest or emotion.
So they stood in silence for a moment, facing each other, Lucy
full-handed and impotent before Peter whose empty hands hung closed and
unreceiving; Lucy and Peter, who had once been used to go shares and to
give and take like two children, and who could give and take no more; and
in the silence something oddly vibrated, so that Lord Evelyn, the
onlooker, abruptly moved and spoke.
"Come home, Lucy. He's told us he'll have none of us."
Lucy still stood pleading, like a child; then, at Lord Evelyn's touch
on her arm, she suddenly began to cry, again like a child, helpless and
conquered.
At her tears Peter turned away sharply, and walked to the window.
"Please go," he said. "Please go."
They went, Lucy quietly crying, and Lord Evelyn, suddenly become oddly
gentle, comforting her.
At the door he paused for a moment, looked round at Peter, hesitated,
took a step back towards him, began to say something.
"Peter...."
Then Peggy came in, followed by Hilary. Lord Evelyn shut his lips
lightly, bowed, and followed Lucy downstairs. Peggy went after them
to let them out.
Hilary flung himself into a chair.
"Well, Peter? Well?"
Peter turned round from the window, and Hilary started at his face.
"My dear boy, what on earth is the matter?"
Then Peggy came in, her eyes full of dismayed vexation, but laughter
twitching at her lips.
"Oh, my dears! What a mood they're in! Lord Evelyn looked at me to
destroy me--and Lucy crying as if she'd never stop; I tried to make her
take some sal volatile, but he wouldn't let her, but wisked her into her
carriage and shut the door in my face. Mercy, what temper!"
The last words may not have had exclusive reference to Lord Evelyn, as
Peggy was now looking at Peter in some astonishment and alarm. When
Peter looked angry, everyone was so surprised that they wanted to take
his temperature and send him to bed. Peggy would have liked to do that
now, but really didn't dare.
What had come to the child, she wondered?
"What did they talk about, Peter? A funny thing their coming within half
an hour of each other like that, wasn't it. And I never thought to see
Lord Evelyn here, I must say. Now I wonder why was Lucy crying and he so
cross?"
Peter left her to wonder that, and said merely, "Once for all, I won't
have it. You shall _not_ beg for money and bring my name into it.
It's--it's horrid."
With a weak, childish word his anger seemed to explode and die away.
After all, no anger of Peter's could last long. And somehow, illogically,
his anger here was more with the Urquharts than with the Margerisons
and most with Lucy. One is, of course, most angry, with those who have
most power to hurt.
Suddenly feeling rather ill, Peter collapsed into a chair.
Peggy, coming and kneeling by him, half comforting, half reproaching,
said, "Oh, Peter darling, you haven't been refusing money, when you know
you and Tommy and all of us need it so much?"
Hilary said, "Peter has no regard whatever for what we all need. He
simply doesn't care. I suppose now we shall never be able to afford even
a new thermometer to replace the one Peter broke. Again, why should
it matter to Peter? He took his own temperature all through his illness,
and I suppose that is all he cares about. I wonder how much fever I have
at this moment. Is my pulse very wild, Peggy?"
"It is not," said Peggy, soothingly, without feeling it. "And I daresay
Peter's temperature is as high as yours now, if we knew; he looks like
it. Well, Peter, it was stupid of you, my dear, wasn't it, to say no to
a present and hurt their feelings that way when they'd been so good as
to come in the rain and all. If they offer it again--"
Peter said, "They won't. They won't come here again, ever. They've done
with us, I'm glad to say, and we with them. So you needn't write to them
again; it will be no use."
Peter was certainly cross, Peggy and Hilary looked at him in surprised
disapproval. How silly. Where was the use of having friends if one
treated them in this unkind, proud way?
"Peter," said Hilary, "has obviously decided that we are not fit to have
anything to do with his grand friends. No doubt he is well-advised--" he
looked bitterly round the unkempt room--"and we will certainly take the
hint."
Then Peter recovered himself and said, "Oh don't be an ass, Hilary," and
laughed dejectedly, and went up to finish putting Thomas to bed.
In the carriage that rolled through the rain from Brook Street to Park
Lane, Lord Evelyn Urquhart was saying, "This is the last time; the very
last time. Never again do I try to help any Margerison. First I had to
listen for full five minutes to the lies of that woman; then to the
insufferable remarks of that cad, that swindler, Hilary Margerison, who
I firmly believe had an infectious disease which I have no doubt caught,"
(he was right; he had caught it). "Then in comes Peter and insults me to
my face and tells me to clear out of the house. By all means; I have done
so, and it will be for good. What, Lucy? There, don't cry, child; they
an't worth a tear between the lot of 'em."
But Lucy cried. She, like Peter, was oddly not herself to-day, and cried
and cried.