No one knew, because no one was told, of the many hours of grief which
little Mrs. Guthrie endured after she left Oxford. There were two
reasons for this grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time
had come for some other woman to take her place with her son. She
remained his mother, but she was no longer first. The other, that Peter
had not told her about Betty at once and had left it for her to find
out, as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always been in the
habit of telling her everything,--first at her knee, then as he stood on
a level with her, and finally when he looked down upon her from his
great height. Every one of his numerous letters written while he was so
far away from home contained the outpourings of his soul--his troubles,
difficulties, triumphs, wonderings and short incoherent cries for help.
As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him once when he marched into
the Old Inn at Woodstock with Betty to know that she had lost him. She
waited for him that afternoon to tell her,--but he never spoke. Even as
he put her into the train she hoped that he would remember, but he
didn't. That wasn't like her Peter, she told herself again and again.
What was she to think but that it only needed one short week and a very
pretty face to make him forget all the long years of her love and
tenderness. It was very, very hard.
It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, during which, with
her husband, Graham, Belle, and Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one
charming place to another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous
heights on garden-like valleys of English country, Peter's letters came
as regularly as usual. They were no shorter and no less intimate; and in
the first one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, he told
her his great news,--but he hadn't spoken of it--he hadn't come to her
at once, and she felt with a great shock of pain that she was deposed.
Also she was well aware of the fact that the same posts which brought
her letters brought letters to Betty--and she was jealous.
Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, little Mrs. Guthrie
nursed her sorrow and went out of her way to be very nice to Betty. Her
mother-instinct told her that she must win this girl; otherwise there
was a chance that she might in the future see very little of Peter. In
all this she had one small triumph, of which she made the most. Her
letters from Peter contained more news than those written to Betty, and
thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With an air of great
superiority, very natural under the circumstances, she told Betty and
the others the manner in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of the
dinner that was given to him by the American Club,--a great evening,
during which he was presented with a silver cigarette box covered with
signatures,--of the farewell luncheon with his professors and the
delightful things that they said to him there; of his strenuous doings
at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in which his boat was
beaten; of the wild night on the Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery
days spent in London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally his
preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, in Shropshire, the
famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's father.
Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran down to see,--not her,
but Betty, and went out with her with his face alight and then hurried
back to his engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved him so,
several hugs and a few incoherent words. It was the way of life, youth
to youth, but it was very hard.
On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the party crossed the
gangplank at Southampton to go aboard the _Olympic_, little Mrs. Guthrie
told herself that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form
elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said that he would be
there to say good-bye. She almost hoped that something might prevent him
from being in time, because she knew that he would not come solely to
hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, however, did
prevent him. He followed them almost instantly on board; and although he
never left her side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time.
A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the little woman's heart.
It was very hard. He was her boy--her son--her first-born and the apple
of her eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the rudest
awakenings that a mother can ever know. And presently when the cry, "All
ashore that's going ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms
about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I shall come home soon,"
she broke into such a fit of weeping and kissed him with a passion so
great that the boy was startled and a little frightened. There was no
time to think or ask questions. There was his father's hand to shake,
and Graham's, and Belle to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was
suddenly hugged before them all.
As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure and moved away
from the dock the little mother was unable to see the bare head of her
boy above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were blinded. "He
doesn't understand," she said to herself. "He doesn't understand."
Poor little mother! It was very hard.