The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
Читать онлайн книгу.
and about some of the people they had both known years ago.
And then, at last, she took him to the gate. They looked at one another like two augurs, and he said under his breath, "Well, it's a pretty kettle of fish I've come home to, eh? I thought there was some sort of mystery. I'm very much obliged to you for having put me on the track to solve the riddle."
"Ah," she said, "but the riddle isn't solved yet, Mr. Baynton, is it?"
He answered, gravely for him, "No, those sorts of riddles are very hard to solve." He hesitated, then exclaimed in a meaning tone, "Still, they are solved sometimes, Mrs. Winslow."
It was late the same night, a warm, St. Martin's summer night, and Mrs. Tropenell, sitting alone after dinner, made an excuse of a telephone message to join her son and Gillie Baynton out of doors.
After Baynton's return from The Chase the two men had gone off for a long walk together over the downs, and they had come home so late that dinner had had to be put off for half an hour. Instead of joining her later, they had gone out again, but this time only into the garden.
Noiselessly she moved across the grass, and then, just as she was going to step under the still leaf-draped pergola, she heard her son's voice—a voice so charged with emotion and pain that, mastered by her anxiety, she stopped just behind one of the brick arches, and listened.
"You'll oblige me, Baynton, by keeping your sister's name out of this."
"Oh, very well! I thought you'd be glad to know what that woman said to me—I mean Mrs. Winslow."
"I'm not glad. I'm sorry. Mrs. Winslow is mistaken."
The short sentence came out with laboured breath as if with difficulty, and the one who overheard them, the anguished eavesdropper, felt her heart stirred with bitter impotence.
How Oliver cared—how much Oliver cared!
"Why are you so sure of that?" Again she heard Baynton's full, caressing voice. "Laura's a very reserved woman! I'd rather believe her best friend—apparently Katty is her best friend—about such a thing as this. You've admitted that you love her."
And as the other made no answer, Gillie went on, speaking in a very low voice, but with every word clearly audible from the place where Mrs. Tropenell stood listening: "Of course I won't mention Laura—as it upsets you so much! But after all, my hatred for Pavely and my love for my sister are the two strongest things in my life. Surely you know that well enough, Tropenell? I can't bar Laura out!"
And then came the answer, muttered between the speaker's teeth: "I understand that, Baynton."
"I'm sorry I repeated Mrs. Winslow's tale. But of course it did impress me—it did influence me. I'd like to believe it, Tropenell."
The secret listener was surprised at the feeling which Gillie's vibrant voice betrayed.
Oliver muttered something—was it, "I'd give my soul to know it true"?
Then, in a lighter tone, Gillie exclaimed, "As to that other matter, I'd rather keep you out of the business altogether if I could! But I can't—quite."
What was it that Oliver answered then? The two men were now walking slowly away towards the further end of the pergola. Mrs. Tropenell strained her ears to hear her son's answer:
"I don't want to keep out of it." Was that what he said, in a very low, tense voice?
Gilbert Baynton was speaking again: "It is my idea, my scheme, and I mean to carry it through! I shan't want much help—only quite a little help from you."
And then she heard her son's voice again, and he was speaking more naturally this time. "Of course we'll go shares, Gillie! What d'you take me for? Am I to have all the profit, and you all the risk?"
Mrs. Tropenell breathed more freely. They were off from Laura now, and on some business affair. She heard Gillie Baynton laugh aloud. "I'm quite looking forward to it—but it will be a longish job!"
Oliver answered, "I'm not looking forward to it. You feel quite sure about this thing, Baynton? There's time to draw back—now."
"Sure? Of course I'm sure!" There was triumph, a challenge to fate, in the other's tone. "I've always liked playing for high stakes—you know that, eh?"
"Ay, I know that——"
"And I've never looked back. I've never regretted anything I've done in my life——" there was a ring of boastful assurance in Gilbert Baynton's tone.
"I can't say that of myself—I wish I could."
"You? Why, you've a milk-white record, compared to mine!"
Mrs. Tropenell moved away swiftly over the grass, till she stood at the end of the dark, arched walk. Then, "Oliver!" she called out, "there's a message from Lord St. Amant. He wants to know if you can go over to the Abbey next week, from Saturday till Tuesday. He says there'll be some shooting. I told him you'd ring up before going to bed—I hope that was right."
"Yes, mother. Of course I'll ring up. I'll go in and do it now, if you like. Gillie and I have been having a long business talk."
And then she heard Gilbert Baynton: "I'll stay out here a bit longer, Mrs. Tropenell. I'm getting quite used to the cold and damp of the old country. I don't mind it as much as I did a week ago."
Mother and son walked across the lawn to the house.
When they were indoors, he broke silence first: "Gillie had a bad row with Pavely this afternoon. I don't think it's any use his staying on here. Pavely won't allow Laura to see him again at The Chase."
Mrs. Tropenell uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"Yes, it's unfortunate, I admit. And I don't think it was Gillie's fault! He's described the scene to me in great detail. He was quite willing to go as far as I think he could be expected to go in the way of apology and contrition. But Pavely simply didn't give him a chance. Pavely's a narrow-minded brute, mother."
"Is Gillie very upset? Is he much disappointed?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes, I think Gillie is upset—more upset than I should have expected him to be! He's disappointed, too, at not having seen little Alice. He's really fond of children, and, as he truly says, Alice is bound to be his heiress—unless of course he should marry, which is very unlikely."
Oliver was speaking in a preoccupied, absent voice, as if he was hardly thinking of what he was saying. "We're thinking, he and I, of going to the Continent next week. We've got business to do in Paris—rather important business, too. Of course I'll try and come back here before leaving for Mexico."
Mrs. Tropenell felt as if the walls of the room were falling about her. Oliver had always spoken of late as if he meant to stay on in England till after Christmas.
"How long d'you expect to be in France?"
"I can't tell yet, mother. I might be there a fortnight, or I might be there six weeks—it all depends on the business we're going to do. No dates are settled yet."
He waited a few moments, then said slowly, "I've been wondering whether you would mind going up with Laura to London for a few days? Somehow I think Pavely is more likely to let her go if you offer to go too."
There swept over her a feeling of recoil, but she let her son see nothing of that. "Very well," she said quietly. "I quite understand—I'll do my best. I agree that Laura ought to see her brother again. And what are you thinking of doing, my dear?"
"Oh, I thought of going up to town, too." He spoke with a detached air. "You and I could stay in that nice little hotel where we stayed years ago, mother. Of course I'm only thinking of a few days in town, before Gillie and I go off to Paris."
As they came through into the house, she was startled by the expression on her son's face. He looked as if he had had a shock; he was very pale, it was as if all the healthy colour had been drained out of his tan cheeks.
"Oliver?" she exclaimed.