The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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don't mean with Gillie there?" There was a note of incredulity in Laura's voice.
"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not exactly with Gillie there—though it seems to me, Laura, that Godfrey ought to make it up with Gillie."
Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, "If Godfrey ever goes to Mexico I think he would want me to come too—he always does." And this was true, for Godfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura's husband never allowed her to go away by herself, or even with her child, for more than a very few days.
"You come too—to Mexico?" There was surprise, doubt, in Oliver Tropenell's voice, and suddenly Laura did a strange thing, imprudent, uncalled-for in the circumstances in which she found herself with this man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily called coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather plaintively, "Surely you wouldn't mind my coming too, Oliver?"
"Does that mean that you've forgiven me?" he asked.
She got up from the low chair where she had been sitting, and, facing him, exclaimed impulsively, "I want us both to forget what happened yesterday! I was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about Godfrey," her voice faltered, and slowly she added, "But with you, who seemed to somehow understand everything without being told, I felt, I felt——"
He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught the sound of light footfalls in the hall. "Mother's coming back," he said abruptly. "Don't say anything to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without any change in his voice, he went on: "There's a great deal that would interest you, quite as much as Godfrey, out there——"
The door opened, and he turned round quickly. "I'm trying to persuade Laura to come out to Mexico," he exclaimed. "Godfrey has practically promised to pay me a visit, and I don't see why she shouldn't come too!"
Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and she believed that both the people standing there knew as well as she did, that such an expedition could never take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver's partner. Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. There had never been even the semblance of a reconciliation between them.
But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding an answer, she forced herself to say lightly: "I expect they both will, some day, and while they are away I can have my dear little Alice!"
When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied Laura out into the hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see so little of you now."
"I will—I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, Laura murmured, "You're so good to me, Aunty Letty—you've always been so very, very good to me!"
Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. He was now obviously impatient to get Laura once more alone to himself....
After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell walked straight across to a window, and there, holding back the heavy curtain, she watched the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across the lawn, towards the beech avenue which would presently engulf them.
What were their real relations the one to the other? Was Laura as blind to the truth as she seemed to be, or was she shamming—as women, God or the devil helping them—so often sham?
Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become very, very old, Mrs. Tropenell dropped the curtain, and walking back to her usual place, her usual chair, took up her knitting.
Chapter IV
Laura and Oliver Tropenell walked across the grass in silence, and still in silence they passed through under the great dark arch formed by the beech trees.
Laura was extraordinarily moved and excited. Her brother, her dear, dear Gillie, coming home? She had taken the surprising news very quietly, but it had stirred her to the depths of her nature. Without even telling her of what he was going to do, the man now walking by her side had brought about the thing that for years she had longed should come to pass.
In her husband Laura had become accustomed to a man who was cautious and deliberate to a fault, and who, as so often happens, carried this peculiarity even more into the affairs of his daily life than into his business. Often weeks would go by before Godfrey would make up his mind to carry out some small, necessary improvement connected with the estate.
Yet here was Oliver, who, without saying a word to her about it, had decided that Gillie should come to England just to see the sister he had not seen for seven years! Laura began to think it possible that after all Godfrey would make it up with her brother. Oliver Tropenell had an extraordinary influence over Godfrey Pavely; again and again, as regarded small matters, he had, as it were, made Godfrey's mind up for him.
A feeling of deep gratitude welled up in her heart for the silent man by her side. She longed for him to speak now, as he had spoken to her, kindly, conciliatingly, but a few minutes ago, in the drawing-room.
But Oliver stalked along dumbly in the intense darkness.
And then suddenly she remembered, with a miserable feeling of discomfort, and yes, of shame, that she could hardly expect him to be as usual. And so it was she who, making a great effort, at last broke the unnatural silence.
"I've never thanked you for your letter," she said nervously. "But I'm very much obliged to you, Oliver, for consenting to be my trustee. And I know that Godfrey will be! I hope it won't give you much trouble—the trusteeship, I mean. I know that Mr. Blackmore, for years past, left it all to Godfrey."
He answered slowly, meditatively, and to her intense relief, quite in his old way. "Yes, I think Godfrey will be pleased. To tell you the truth, Laura, I thought I would take advantage of his pleasure to suggest that plan about Gillie—I mean that you and Gillie and Alice should all go abroad together."
"If only you can persuade Godfrey to let me have Gillie here for a while, I shall be more than content!" She spoke with a rather piteous eagerness.
They were walking very, very slowly. Oliver had now turned on his electric torch, and it threw a bright patch of light on the path immediately before them, making all the darkness about them the blacker and the more intense.
In a hard voice he exclaimed: "Of course Gillie must come here, and stay here! His being anywhere else would be preposterous——" And then, once more, he fell into that strange, disconcerting silence.
The last time they two had walked down under the beeches at night had been some three weeks ago. Laura and Godfrey had dined with the Tropenells, and then Godfrey had said that he had to go home and do some work, leaving her to stay on, for nearly an hour, with the mother and son.
Oliver's torch had gone out that evening, and he had suggested, a little diffidently, that Laura should take his arm; smiling, she had laid the tips of her fingers lightly on his sleeve. She had felt so happy then, so happy, and absolutely at her ease, with her companion....
Tears welled up in her eyes. She was grateful for the darkness, but her trembling voice betrayed her as she exclaimed, "Oliver? I do again ask you to forget what happened yesterday, and to forgive me for the things I said. I'm very sorry that I spoke as I did."
He stopped walking, and put out his torch. "Don't be sorry," he said, in a low, constrained voice. "It's far better that I should know exactly how you feel. Of course I was surprised, for I'd always had a notion that women regarded love from a more ideal standpoint than men seem able to do. But I see now that I was mistaken." Some of the bitterness with which his heart was still full and overflowing crept into his measured voice. "I think you will believe me when I say that I did not mean to insult you——"
He was going on, but she interrupted him.
"—I'm sorry—sorry and ashamed too, Oliver, of what I said. Please—please forget what happened——"
He turned on her amid