Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
LOVE AND HATRED
By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
Author of
"Lilla," "Good Old Anna," "The Chink in the Armour,"
"The End of Her Honeymoon," etc.
"_Alas! The love of Woman! It is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing._"--BYRON.
[Decoration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LOVE AND HATRED
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
"Oh, but this is terrible----"
Laura Pavely did not raise her voice, but there was trembling pain, as
well as an almost incredulous surprise, in the way she uttered the five
words which may mean so much--or so little.
The man whose sudden, bare avowal of love had drawn from her that low,
protesting cry, was standing just within the door of the little
summer-house, and he was looking away from her, straight over the
beautiful autumnal view of wood and water spread out before him.
He was telling himself that five minutes ago--nay, was it as long as
five minutes?--they had been so happy! And yet, stop--_he_ had not been
happy. Even so he cursed himself for having shattered the fragile, to
him the already long perished, fabric, of what she no doubt called their
"friendship."
It was she--it always is the woman--who, quite unwittingly, had provoked
the words which now could never be unsaid. She had not been thinking at
all of him when she did so--she had spoken out of her heart, the heart
which some secret, sure instinct bade him believe capable of depths of
feeling, which he hoped, with a fierce hope, no man had yet plumbed....
What had provoked his avowal had been the most innocent, in a sense the
most beautiful, feeling of which a woman is capable--love for her child.
"The doctor says Alice ought to have a change, that she ought to go to
the sea, for a little while. I asked Godfrey if I might take her, but he
said he didn't think it necessary." She had added musingly, "It's odd,
for he really is devoted to the child."
They had been walking slowly, sauntering side by side, very close to one
another, for the path was only a narrow track among the trees, towards
the summerhouse where they were now--she sitting and he standing.
He had answered in what, if she had been less absorbed in herself and
her own concerns, she might have realised was a dangerously still voice:
"I think I can persuade Godfrey to let her go. Apart from the child
altogether, you ought to have a change." And then--then she had said,
rather listlessly, not at all bitterly, "Oh, it doesn't matter about
me!"
Such a simple phrase, embodying an obvious truth, yet they had forced
from him the words: "I think it does matter about you, Laura. At least I
know it matters a good deal to me, for, as of course you know by now, I
love you."
And if his voice had remained quite low and steady, she had seen the
blazing, supplicating eyes....
But he had looked away, at once, when he had uttered those irrevocable
words; and after a few moments, which had seemed to him an eternity, had
come that low, heart-felt cry, "Oh, but this is terrible----"
* * * * *
"Terrible? Why, Laura?" He crossed his arms, and turning, gazed straight
down at her bowed figure.
Again there came a long, unnatural pause.
And then she lifted up her face, and under the shadow cast by her
wide-brimmed garden hat he saw that even her forehead was flushed. There
was an anguished look in the large, deeply blue eyes, which were to him
the most exquisite and revealing feature of her delicately drawn face.
"Perhaps I ought not to have said 'terrible,'" she said at last in a low
voice, "but--but degrading, ignoble, _hateful_, Oliver." She added, her
false calm giving way, "And to me such a bitter, bitter disappointment!"
"Why?" he asked harshly. "Why a disappointment, Laura? Most women, nay,
all wise human beings, value love--any kind of love offered by even the
most unworthy--as the most precious thing in the world!"
His face had become expressionless, and the measured, carefully chosen
words made her feel suddenly ashamed, but with a shame merged in an
eager hope that she had cruelly misunderstood her--friend.
She stood up and took a step towards him. "Oliver," she said
diffidently; "forgive me! I was stupid not to understand. Of course we
love one another," she was on firm ground now. "All friends love one
another, and you've been such a good friend to me, and more, far more,
than a good friend to my poor brother--to Gillie."
He withdrew his gaze from her beseeching eyes, and looked away once
more. Now was his chance to play the hypocrite, to eat the words which
had given her so much offence....
Hardly knowing that he spoke aloud, he muttered hoarsely, "I can't!" And
then he turned to her: "Listen, Laura. I owe you the truth. I have loved
you, yes, and in the sense you think so ignoble and so degrading, almost
from the first day we met. As time went on, I thought it impossible that
you did not know that."
"I did not know it! I trusted you absolutely! I thought that we were all
three, friends,--you and I and Godfrey! It was the very first time that
Godfrey and I had ever had a friend in common, and it made me so happy."
"Did it indeed?" His words cut like a whip.
"But it's true that you are Godfrey's friend?" she spoke a little
wildly. "I've never known him as fond of any man as he is now of you,
Oliver."
"His fondness is not returned."
"Then it ought to be!" she cried. "For you've made him like you,
Oliver."
She hardly knew what she was saying, distressed, humiliated, wounded as
she was in her pride and sense of personal dignity. But what was he
saying--this challenging, wrathful stranger who, but a few moments ago,
had been her dear, dear friend?
"I would rather, Laura, that you did not bring your husband into this
matter."
"But I must bring him in!" She became suddenly aware that here ready to
her hand was a weapon with which she could hurt and punish this man who
was looking at her with so inscrutable a look--was it a look of love or
of hatred?
"I'm sorry now," she went on rapidly, "bitterly, bitterly sorry and
ashamed that I ever said a word to you of Godfrey and his--his rather
tiresome ways. I ought not to have done it. It was disloyal. I've never
spoken of Godfrey to any other man--but somehow I thought _you_ were
different from other men."
"Different?" he interjected. "How so, Laura? What right had you to think
me different from other men?"
"Because I trusted you," she said inconsequently. "Because somehow you
seemed really to care for me--" her voice broke, but she forced herself
to go on: "You're not the first man, Oliver, who's made love to me since
I married--" she covered her face with her hands.
It seemed to her that some other woman was being driven to make these
intimate confidences--not the fastidious, refined, reserved Laura
Pavely, who had an almost morbid dislike of the betrayal of any violent
or unseemly emotion. But this other woman, who spoke through her lips,
had been, was being, wantonly insulted....
Hanging her head as a child might have done, she said defiantly: "I
suppose you're surprised?"
"No, I'm not surprised. Why should I be? Go on--" He clenched his hands
together. What was it she was going to tell him?
Speaking in short, broken sentences, she obeyed him:
"It was when we used to go about much more than we do now--in the first
two or three years after our marriage. I suppose that every woman--who
isn't quite happy with her husband--is exposed to that kind of thing. I
used to loathe it when I saw it coming. I used to try and fend it off.
Sometimes I succeeded--more often I failed. But I never, never expected
anything of the sort to happen with you, Oliver. We were such
friends--such good, happy friends--you and I and my little Alice," and
then she burst into a passion of weeping.
And at that what self-control Oliver Tropenell had retained departed. A
flood of burning, passionate words burst from his lips--of endearment,
of self-abasement, and promises which he intended, come what might,
should be kept.
And she listened shrinkingly, with averted face, absorbed in her own
bewildered pain and disappointment.
"I must go back to the house," she said at last. "The doctor will be
here in half an hour." And she forced herself to add: "Perhaps you'll be
coming over this afternoon?" (How often she had said these words in the
last three months--but in how different a tone!).
"I think not. My mother said something about wishing me to stay in
to-day--Lord St. Amant may be coming over." As she made no comment, he
concluded quietly, "Well, I suppose I had better be going now. Good-bye,
Laura."
"Good-bye," she said. And without taking her hand he left her.
She watched his tall figure making its way quickly down through the
rough ground to the wood where, ultimately, he would find a path which
would lead him to his mother's house.
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon of the same day. From where she was
sitting, under a great cedar tree, Mrs. Tropenell at last saw her son
Oliver and Godfrey Pavely come out of Freshley Manor.
Though the glory and warmth of the summer were now over, Mrs. Tropenell
still spent many hours of each day in her garden. She had always been an
out-of-door woman from the days when she was an eager, impetuous,
high-spirited girl, till now, when youth had gone, though something of
the eager impetuosity of youth remained with her concealed from
strangers by a manner marked by a strong sense of personal dignity.
The two men began walking, slowly, down the grass path leading to the
beech avenue which was the glory of Freshley Manor, as well as a short
cut to Lawford Chase, Godfrey Pavely's larger property.
It was more than an hour since a servant had come out to say that Mr.
Pavely was waiting to see Mr. Tropenell in the library. The man had
added that Mr. Pavely had had tea before leaving the Bank, and only
wanted to see Mr. Tropenell for a few minutes on his way home. And
Oliver, with "I don't think he'll keep me long, mother; I suppose you'll
still be here when I come back?" had stridden off with a certain
reluctance towards the house.
It had always been his mother's joy, but now for many years past her
infrequent joy, to fall in with even the least reasonable of her son's
wishes, and so she had gone on sitting out there, waiting for him to
come back, long after the tea-things had been taken away. There was a
book on the low garden table by her side--such a book as she loved,
telling of great adventure by one of the adventurers--but she left it
where it was.
Mrs. Tropenell felt a vague, exasperating sense of restlessness and
unease. At the back of her heart--that heart which, if no longer that of
a young woman, could still thrill with many varied emotions and a very
passion of maternal love--was the dull ache of a secret, unacknowledged
sense of fear and pain.
She had every reason to be happy to-day--not only happy in her son's
company, but in the coming back, after a long absence on the Continent,
of her old friend, Lord St. Amant. To him she could, perhaps, bring
herself to say something of what was touching her so deeply, and he, she
knew, would reassure her and make light of her fears. St. Amant was what
is called in ordinary parlance a man of the world--the last man, that
is, to be horrified, still less frightened, by a tale of illicit love,
especially when, as the mother honestly believed, it was a love likely
to remain unrequited.
Yes, she would tell her one trusted friend of these besetting fears, of
her more than suspicion that her son Oliver was deep in love with Laura
Pavely, and St. Amant would laugh at her, persuade her maybe to laugh
with him.
And yet? Yet, even so, she asked herself again and again during that
long time of waiting, what these two men who, if of life-long
acquaintanceship and now at any rate nominally intimate friends, were so
unlike the one to the other, could have to talk about, indoors, for
over an hour? Godfrey Pavely and Oliver Tropenell met very often--too
often to her thinking--so why should Godfrey have pursued Oliver home
to-day, just when Oliver had had an hour to spare for his mother?
It was now Thursday, and her son had already dined with the Pavelys
twice this week. To-morrow night Godfrey Pavely was to be in London, and
it had been arranged that his wife, Laura, should spend the evening
here. But that, or so Mrs. Tropenell had quickly reminded herself, had
been Laura's usual custom, long before Oliver had come home from Mexico
for the holiday which had now already lasted nearly four months. In her
long life Mrs. Tropenell had only had one beloved woman friend, and that
friend, that more than sister, had been Laura's mother.
Even now Godfrey Pavely did not seem eager to go home. The two men were
close to the furthest edge of the wide lawn, but they were still talking
earnestly.
Mrs. Tropenell gazed across, with a painful scrutiny, at her son's
visitor.
Godfrey Pavely was a neatly made, neatly dressed, neatly mannered
man--in a way not ill-looking. His reddish-brown hair toned in oddly
with his light, ginger-coloured eyes. He had become rather particular
about his health of late, and went to some trouble to keep himself fit,
and in good condition. Yet he looked more like a townsman than like the
countryman he certainly was. For if the fortunate inheritor of a
successful county banking business, which so far he had managed with
such skill as to save it from any thought of amalgamation, he was also
the owner of a fine old property.
Lawford Chase had belonged to Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors for
centuries--for almost as many centuries as the years in which he,
Godfrey, had owned it. But her father had been careless and extravagant
during his long, happy life, so the owner of Pavely's Bank had bought up
the mortgages on Lawford Chase, and finally foreclosed.
All this was ancient history now, and Mrs. Tropenell felt no bitterness
on that account. Indeed, she had rejoiced, with a sense of real joy,
when her friend's daughter had become mistress of her own old home.
The two men whom she was watching went on talking for what seemed to the
onlooker a very long time; but, at last, Godfrey Pavely, turning on his
heel, walked on, to be at once engulfed by the dark green arch formed by
the high beech trees. Then Mrs. Tropenell saw her son, all her heart
welcoming him, come striding towards her across the long stretch of
short, green turf.
Once more she asked herself what possible link there could be between
men so utterly unlike. Her Oliver--more hers now, she felt, than ever
before, and that though for the first time he was making her secretly,
miserably jealous--was a creature of light and air, of open spaces, if
need be of great waters. He was built, like herself, on a big and
powerful plan; and yet so tall, so spare, so sinewy, that though he was
broad he looked slim, and though four-and-thirty years of age he might
have been taken, even at this small distance from where she sat, for a
long-limbed youth. His life for the last twelve years had been one that
often ages a man--but it had not aged him. His vigour was unbroken, his
vitality--the vitality which had made him so successful, and which
attracted men and women of such very different types--unimpaired.
Mrs. Tropenell had been touched, perhaps in her secret heart little
surprised, at the pleasure--one might almost have said the
enthusiasm--with which her neighbours for miles round had welcomed
Oliver home again, after what had been so long an absence from England.
The fact that he had come back a very wealthy man, and that during those
years of eclipse he had managed to do some of them good turns, of course
counted in his popularity, and she was too open-eyed a woman not to be
well aware of that.
The mother knew that her son was not the downright, rather transparent,
good-natured fellow that he was now taken to be. No man she had ever
known--and she had ever been one of those women of whom men make a
confidant--could keep his own or another's secrets more closely than
could Oliver. He had once written to her the words: "You are the only
human being, mother, to whom I ever tell anything," and she had
instinctively known this to be true.
Yet their relationship was more like that of two friends than of mother
and son. She knew all there was to know of his thoughts, and of his
doubts, concerning many of the great things which trouble and disturb
most thinking modern men. Of the outward life he led in the Mexican
stretch of country of which he had become the administrator and
practical ruler, she also knew a great deal, indeed surprisingly much,
for he wrote by each mail long, full letters; and the romance of his
great business had become an ever continuous source of interest, of
amusement, and of pride to the mother who now only lived for him.
But of those secret things which had moved his heart, warred with his
passions, perchance seared his conscience, he had never told her
anything. Only once had the impenetrable mist of reserve been lightened,
as it were pierced for a moment--and that was now a long time ago, on
his second visit home five years before. He had then come to England
meaning to stay a month. But at the end of ten days he had received a
telegram--what he called, in the American fashion, a cable--and within
an hour he had gone, saying as he kissed his mother good-bye, "A friend
of mine--a woman who has been ill a long time--is now dying. I must go,
even if I'm not in time to see her alive."
In the letters which had followed his return to Mexico, there had been
no word more--nothing even implying sorrow, or a sense of loss--only a
graver note, of which the mother might have remained unaware but for
that clue he had left to sink deep in her mother-heart.
* * * * *
He was now close to her, looking down out of his dark, compelling
eyes--eyes which were so like her own, save that now hers shone with a
softer light.
"Pavely stayed a long time," he said abruptly. "Are you tired? D'you
want to go in yet, mother?"
She shook her head. "I'd rather stay out here till it's time to dress."
As she spoke she lifted her face to his, and he told himself what a
beautiful, and noble face it was, though each delicate, aquiline feature
had thickened, and the broad low forehead was now partially concealed
by thick bands of whitening hair. It was a lined, even a ravaged
face--the face of a woman who had lived, had loved, had suffered. But of
that Oliver was only dimly conscious, for his mother's nature if
impetuous and passionate was almost as reserved and secretive as was his
own.
It may be doubted, even, if Oliver Tropenell knew how much his mother
loved him, for it may be doubted if any son ever knows how much his
mother--even if she appear placid or careless--loves him. One thing
Oliver did know, or confidently believed he knew, and that was that his
mother loved him more than she had ever loved anything in the world.
There he was quite content to leave it.
"Pavely wants me to become trustee to Laura's marriage settlement, in
succession to old Mr. Blackmore."
When with Godfrey Pavely, Oliver Tropenell always called the other man
by his Christian name, but behind his back he always spoke of him as
"Pavely."
As his mother remained silent, he went on, a little hurriedly: "The
powers vested in the trustee are very wide, and it seems that money
which was later added to the trust--a matter of seventeen thousand
pounds or so--is invested in some queer form of security."
They both smiled--he a little drily, she with a kind of good-humoured
contempt.
"He's cautious and successful--in spite of that odd, gambling
propensity," she spoke a little defensively. Then, "I suppose you've
consented to act?"
She waited anxiously for his answer; and at last it came, uttered in a
tone of elaborate unconcern: "I said I'd think it over. But I think
I'll take it on, mother. Pavely made rather a personal favour of
it--after all, there's some kind of relationship."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tropenell, "yes, there is certainly a connection,
hardly a relationship, between ourselves and Laura."
Her son sat down. He began poking about an invisible stone, lying in
among the grass, with his stick.
"You cared for Laura's mother as if she had been your sister--didn't
you, mother? And yet I can't imagine you with a great woman friend, I
mean, of course, a friend of your own age."
She turned and looked at him. "Ah, my dear,--those are the friends that
count!" and she nearly added, "Don't _you_ find it so?" But, instead,
she went on quickly, "Yes, I loved Laura's mother dearly, dearly--and it
was for her sake that I asked you to be good to her son, to Gillie."
"Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie----" There always came a curious
change over Oliver Tropenell's voice when he uttered the name "Laura."
It became as it were softer, infused with feeling--or so his mother
thought.
She waited a moment; then answered slowly, "Women generally are fond of
their only brothers."
"Oh, but it's more than that!"
As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And Gillie, in his queer
way, is very fond of Laura--though I don't believe he writes to her once
in three months!"
"I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey
behaved so--so--well, not so much badly perhaps, as meanly and even
stupidly--about that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if Mrs.
Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son turned and looked at her
squarely.
"Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, since I came home this
time I've wondered sometimes if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it
after all. You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome
and--well, the most dangerous brother-in-law an unlucky country banker
could well have had!"
"And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. "From something
Godfrey said the other day I gather that he's really grateful to you,
Oliver?"
Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly
grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting
people out of scrapes----" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his
deep, even tones.
"I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a
stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of
interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps he'd
be kinder to poor Gillie _now_--" a curious smile played round her
mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous mouth, but it was the least
refined feature of her face.
"No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, Pavely _has_ used this
portion of Laura's fortune in a way he had no business to do, knowing it
was trust money."
"And you----?"
"Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern."
"Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?"
"Yes, it will. But I don't mind--it's quite a likely gamble. Have you
ever heard of Greville Howard?"
"You mean the great money-lender?"
"He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be in a kind of secret
partnership--queer isn't it? Pavely's a clever chap about money, but oh,
mother! he's such an insufferable cad!"
Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep over her. She had
lately come to what she now realised was a quite wrong conclusion--she
had believed, that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, had
grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly grown fond of Oliver.
But now, all at once, her son had opened a dark window into his soul--or
was it into his heart? There was an under-current of hatred, as well as
of the contempt to which she was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just
spoken of his "friend"--of the man, at once fortunate and unfortunate,
who was Laura Pavely's husband.
She stood up, and put her hand through her son's arm. "It's getting very
cold," she said, and shivered.
He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you too long! I ought to
have sent him away before--but he was such a long time getting it out--"
under his breath he muttered "Damn him!"