Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction
It was easy to keep him good; Grace had only to threaten that he should
not see her. See her! He lived for that. Early in the morning he was at
the bedroom door, waiting for the nurse to look out and beckon. As he
followed her in on tiptoe, his golden little motherkins would turn on
her pillow, holding out her hand. She was prettier than ever now. If
Peter had known the word, he would have said she looked _sacred_: that
was what he felt. And she seemed to have grown younger. She appeared
immature as a girl, so slim and pale, stretched out in the broad white
bed. Her hair lay in shining pools between the counterpane mountains.
“Pepperminta, you're no older than Peter,” he had heard his father tell
her; “you're a kiddy playing with dollies--not a mother. It's absurd.”
He knew from watching his father that, if they had loved her before,
they must love her ten thousand times better now. When he went for his
walks with Grace, he spent his pennies to bring her home flowers.
Everything in that room had been brightened to welcome the little
sister. It had a sense of whiteness and a soft, sweet fragrance. They
had to make the little sister feel that they were glad she had come and
wanted her to stay. So a fire was kept burning in the grate. They spoke
in whispers and walked on their toes, the way one does in church.
Climbing on a chair, he would seat himself at the foot of the bed while
his mother's eyes laughed at him from the pillow, “We've managed it this
time, little Peter.”
Presently the nurse would turn back the sheet and show him the stranger,
cuddled in his mother's breast; he would see a shining head, like fine
gold scattered on white satin.
“The same as yours, mummy.”
“And the same as yours, darling.”
When anyone found him in any way like her, Peter was glad.--If he waited
patiently, the blue eyes would open and stare straight past him, seeing
visions of another world.
“She sees something, mummy.”
“God, perhaps.”
Peter thought he knew better, for he heard quite near, yet so softly
that it might have been far away, the violinlike whisper of one who
whistled beneath her breath.
“Dearest, was Peter like that?”
“Peter and everybody.”
There were times when he was allowed to slip his finger between those of
the tiny fisted hand. When he felt their pressure, they seemed to say,
“I'm yours, Peter-kins. Take care of me, won't you?”
He was sure she knew that he had seen God make her.
He did not want to speak; he was perfectly content to sit in the
sheltered quiet, watching. He would listen outside the door for hours on
the chance of being admitted. If Grace missed him, she always knew where
he might be found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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