The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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tell you the truth. I've just been ordered out of her house by my brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely. I suppose you know that he and I had a row years ago?" He was looking at her rather hard as he spoke, and she nodded her head.
"Yes," she said frankly, "I do know that, though I don't know what it was about."
He breathed a little more freely. "It was about money," he said bitterly. "Just what one would expect it to be with a man like Godfrey. He was furious because I got Laura to lend me some money. It was to pay a debt of honour, for I was a gambler in those days. But I'm a good boy now!"
"Yes," she said, and smiled. "I know you are! You're Oliver Tropenell's partner, aren't you, Mr. Baynton? He talks awfully nicely of you."
Gillie—his face was fair, his skin very clear, almost like a girl's—looked pleased. "Good old Tropenell!" he exclaimed. "Yes, he and I are tremendous pals. He's been the best friend to me man ever had."
"I am so sorry for Laura," said Katty gently.
She was playing with the edge of a piece of Italian embroidery which covered a small table close to her elbow, and she was thinking—hard.
At that moment the drawing-room door opened, and the tea appeared. While the table was being drawn up in front of her, the tray placed on to it, and a taper put to the spirit lamp, Katty's mind went on working busily. And by the time the maid was leaving the room, she had come to a decision. Even to her it was a momentous decision—how momentous to others she was destined never to know.
Again she said slowly, impressively, "Yes, Mr. Baynton, I am sorry indeed for poor Laura."
"I'm sorry too. Not that it much matters! I didn't want to stay at The Chase. I always thought it a gloomy place in the old days, when I was a child—I mean when it still belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's people. Of course I shall see Laura again—Godfrey can't prevent that! In fact he admitted that he couldn't."
There was a little pause. And then Katty, her eyes bent downwards, said, "I didn't quite mean that, Mr. Baynton. Of course I'm very sorry about your new row with Mr. Pavely, for it must be so hateful to Laura to feel she can't have her own brother in her own house. But—well——" She threw her head back, and gazed straight across at him. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked.
"Yes, of course I can!" He looked at her amused.
"I want you to keep what I'm going to say absolutely to yourself. I don't want you ever to hint a word of it to Laura—still less to Oliver Tropenell."
"Of course I won't!" He looked at her with growing curiosity. What was it she was going to tell him?
"I wonder if I ought to tell you," she murmured.
He laughed outright. "Well, I can't make you tell me!"
She felt piqued at his indifference. "Yes, I will tell you, though it isn't my secret!" she exclaimed. "But I feel that you ought to know it—being Laura's brother. Laura," her voice dropped, she spoke in a very low voice, "Laura is in love with Oliver Tropenell, Mr. Baynton. And Oliver is in love with Laura—a thousand times more in love with her than she is in love with him!"
She gave him a swift glance across the tea-table. Yes! Her shot had told indeed. He looked extraordinarily moved and excited. So excited that he got up from his chair.
"Good God!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Laura?" And then, "Tropenell? Are you sure of this, Mrs. Winslow?"
"Yes," she answered in a quiet, composed voice that carried conviction. "I am quite sure. They are both very, very unhappy, for they are good, high-minded people. They wouldn't do anything wrong for the world."
As he looked at her a little oddly, and with a queer little smile all over his face, she exclaimed, "I know Laura wouldn't." And he nodded, a little ashamed of that queer little smile.
Gilbert Baynton's face stiffened into deep gravity. His eyes were shining, and he was staring down at the little table, his half-finished cup of tea forgotten.
He sat down again. "Has Laura told you this?" he asked abruptly. "Are you her confidante?"
Katty hesitated. "No," she said at last. "I don't suppose Laura has spoken of the matter to any living soul. But if you promise absolutely not to give me away—I can tell you how you can assure yourself of the truth. Ask Mrs. Tropenell. She knows. I won't say any more."
"And Pavely?" he asked. "What part does my fine brother-in-law play? Does proper Godfrey know? Is priggish Godfrey jealous?"
She answered slowly: "I think that Mr. Pavely suspects. He and Oliver Tropenell were great friends till quite lately. But there's a coldness now. I don't know what happened. But something happened."
"I see now why Tropenell has stayed here so long. I thought it must be a woman! I thought some prudish, dull, English girl had got hold of him——" He waited a moment.
"Well, I'm eternally grateful to you, Mrs. Winslow, for giving me this hint! You see, I'm very fond of Tropenell. It's a peculiar kind of feeling—there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. Good God! I only wish that he and Laura——"
He was going to say "would have the pluck to bolt together!" but Katty supplied a very different ending to his sentence.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "I only wish that Laura and Oliver could marry. They're made for one another. You can't see them together without seeing that!" She went on feelingly, "Laura was dreadfully unhappy with Godfrey Pavely even before Oliver Tropenell came into her life. She and Mr. Pavely are quite unsuited to one another."
There was a queer bitterness in her voice.
And then Gillie Baynton suddenly remembered—remembered the flood of gossip there had been at one time concerning those two—pretty Katty Fenton, as she had been then, and Godfrey Pavely, the man who later became his own brother-in-law.
He gave her a queer, shrewd glance, and Mrs. Winslow went on, rather quickly and breathlessly,
"You mustn't think that I dislike Godfrey Pavely! He's been very good to me—as good as Laura. I'm what they call an innocent divorcée, Mr. Baynton, and they both helped me through the trouble. It was pretty bad at the time, I can tell you. But of course I can't help seeing—no one could help seeing—that Godfrey and Laura aren't suited to one another, and that they would each be much, much happier apart."
At the back of her clever, astute mind was the knowledge that it was quite on the cards that Oliver, or Oliver's mother, would say something to Gilbert Baynton concerning herself and her intimacy with Godfrey Pavely. She must guard against that, and guard against it now.
So she went on, pensively, "I don't know, to tell you the truth, for which of them I'm the more sorry—Laura, Godfrey, or Oliver! They're all three awfully to be pitied. Of course, if they lived in America it would be quite simple; Laura and Godfrey would be divorced by mutual consent, and then Laura would be able to be happy with Mr. Tropenell."
"And is nothing of that sort possible here?" asked Gillie Baynton curiously. "This old England has stood still!"
Katty shook her head regretfully. "No, there's nothing of the sort possible here. Of course there are ways and means——"
The other fixed his eyes on her. "Yes?" he said interrogatively.
"I fear that they are not ways and means that Godfrey or Laura would ever lend themselves to."
"Then there's no cutting the Gordian knot?"
But that wasn't quite what Katty meant to imply. "I don't know," she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey would do almost anything to avoid any kind of scandal. But then you see one comes up against Laura——"
He nodded quickly. "Yes, I quite understand that Laura would never do anything she thought wrong—queer, isn't it?"
Gilbert Baynton stayed on at Rosedean for quite another half-hour, but nothing more was said on the subject which was filling his mind and that of his hostess. They walked about the pretty, miniature garden,