The door of Mrs. Tropenell's long low drawing-room opened very quietly,
and Laura Pavely came through into the room.
She had left a brightly lighted hall for a room of which the only
present illumination radiated from a shaded reading lamp standing on a
little table behind which sat her hostess. Thus, for perhaps as long as
half a minute, Laura thought herself alone.
During that half minute Mrs. Tropenell, with eyes well accustomed to the
shaded light, gazed at her visitor with an eager, searching look, the
look of one who wishes to see more, and to see further, than she has
ever seen before.
But what she saw--all she saw--was the Laura she knew with a knowledge
that was at once so superficially close, and so little intimate. A woman
whose stillness of manner--a manner which at times made her appear
almost inanimate--covered, as Mrs. Tropenell had secret reason to know,
an extraordinary force of negative will power. It was a force which had
even pierced Godfrey Pavely's complacency, and shattered his firm belief
in all the rights that English law bestows on the man who has the good
or ill fortune to be a husband.
As Laura advanced into the room her hostess saw that her visitor's
beautifully shaped head, set proudly and freely on the slender
shoulders, was thrown back in a characteristic gesture of attention,
and, with a touch of reluctance, she admired afresh the masses of fair,
_cendre_ hair drawn back from the forehead in a way which to most women
would have been trying, yet which to this woman lent an air of
eighteenth-century charm and distinction.
There was no colour in Laura Pavely's face, but her eyes, heavy-lidded,
and fringed with eyelashes darker than her hair, were deeply blue.
To-night she was wearing a very simple evening dress, a white chiffon
tea-gown with a long black lace coat. The under dress was almost high to
the throat, but beneath the black lace the wearer's arms, soft, dimpled,
and rounded, were bare to the shoulder, and gleamed palely, revealingly.
Mrs. Tropenell wondered whether Laura knew that her arms were unusually
lovely; then, for she was a very honest woman, her conscience rebuked
her. Laura's faults with regard to men were faults of omission, not of
commission. Of course she was aware--she could not help being
aware--that she was a singularly attractive and distinguished-looking
creature. But she had always taken her own beauty, her own distinction,
just as she did the rare, distinctive features of her garden, and the
perhaps over-studied charm of her house--as something to be tended and
kept beautiful, but also to be guarded from alien indifferent eyes.
Perhaps because in these days every intelligent woman claims to be
picturesque and witty--beauty, sheer beauty, is somewhat under the
weather. Laura Pavely, to use the current jargon of her day, was not a
"success." She was thought to be affected, "deep," prudish, whereas she
was simply indifferent to the more commonplace human elements about her.
Her marriage had withdrawn her from the circle of the old friends and
neighbours among whom she had been brought up, in a measure because none
of them could "do," excepting in a very casual and cursory sense, with
Godfrey Pavely. The world of his youth, the little world in and about
the country town of Pewsbury, to which he had introduced her as a bride
with such exultant complacency, found her not only disagreeably
superior, but also dull. Besides, during the early days of her marriage
she had been too bewildered by the conditions of her new life, and of
her relationship with her husband, to trouble about making new friends,
or even new acquaintances.
And so it was that in any intimate sense Mrs. Tropenell was still
Laura's only close friend, but the younger woman was rather pathetically
aware of how little she really possessed of the older woman's heart, how
constantly she was compared, and ever to her detriment, to her dead
mother, even how unconscious a rival in the older woman's favour was
Laura's own child--merry, cheerful, loving little Alice.
* * * * *
"Aunt Letty? I didn't see you were there."
Laura Pavely had a delightful voice--low, clear, vibrating. It was a
voice which sometimes seemed to promise more depth of feeling than its
owner ever chose to betray.
As she stooped to kiss Mrs. Tropenell, Laura let herself slide down on
to the floor. She knelt there for a moment, and the light gleamed on her
fair hair and upturned face. "Alice sent you her love," she said
softly, "heaps of love. She's better to-night, though not quite well
yet!" And then, as there came a sound of quick footsteps across the
hall, she rose, and drew herself up to her full height, with the grace
of movement and the absence of flurry which were both so characteristic
of her.
Mrs. Tropenell looked up quickly. Had Laura flushed, as she sometimes
did flush, with a deep, unbecoming reddening of her pale face, when
moved or startled? No, she seemed, if anything, paler, more impassive
than usual, and Oliver's mother asked herself, yet again, what of late
she had so often asked herself--if Laura was capable of _any_ feeling,
_any_ passion, save a feeling of horror, a passion of repugnance, for
aught which seemed to smirch her own fastidious physical and spiritual
entity.
That she loved her child, the high-spirited, happy-natured little girl,
whose presence alone made life sweet and normal at Lawford Chase, Mrs.
Tropenell could not doubt--she had had proof of how deeply Laura loved
her child on the only occasion danger had come near to Alice--during a
bout of some childish ailment, when for a few hours the little creature
had been in danger of death. She, the older woman, had been frightened,
awed, by Laura's terrible, dry-eyed agony....
Oliver Tropenell opened the door, and as he walked across the room, his
mother's heart quivered with jealous pain, and even with a feeling of
secret, impotent anger, as she saw the eager, rapt look which lighted up
his dark face.
Laura held out her ringless right hand, but he only just touched it.
"I'm sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. "As a matter of fact I was reading
a letter just come, by the second post, from Gillie."
"I've written to Gillie to-day," Laura said quietly. It seemed such a
long, long time since yesterday morning. She felt as if the
extraordinary thing which had happened then had been blotted out.
"Have you sent your letter off?"
"No, not yet," she was surprised at the question.
And then there fell a curious silence on those three people, till at
last the door opened, and dinner was announced.
"Oliver! Take in Laura," said Mrs. Tropenell.
On the last occasion when the three had dined alone together there had
been a little smiling discussion as to the order in which they should go
into the dining-room. But that had been many weeks ago. They were not in
such a light mood to-night, and yet--and yet, why should they not be?
The hostess knew of no reason.
The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother asked herself, for
perhaps the thousandth time in the last three months, why she had
allowed this--this friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come
about? It would have been so easy to arrange that she and her son should
spend the summer abroad! When he had first come home there had been a
talk of their going away together to Italy, or to France--France, which
they had both loved when he was a clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a
strength of brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish boots.
But the harm, what harm there was--sometimes she hoped it was not so
very much harm after all--had been done quickly. By the end of that
first month at home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley.
In those early days--or was it that already he was being unconsciously
hypocritical as men are wont to be when in such case as that in which he
now found himself?--he had seemed to have formed an even closer
friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey Pavely's wife. They had
even made a joint business expedition to town together, Godfrey as
Oliver's guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which seem
equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. But Oliver had
at last thrown off, when alone with his mother, any pretence of liking,
far less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with the other man he
still kept up the sinister fiction. She knew that.
* * * * *
The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped dining-room, and the
mother and son talked, Laura saying very little, and never giving,
always accepting--in that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after all!
Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself to express an opinion,
that there was a good deal of thought and of intelligence in her small,
beautiful head.
Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, told herself that
in a primeval sense such a woman as Laura might well be the complement
of such a man as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, enough
to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human beings. And he had patience
too--patience which is but another name for that self-control in the
secret things of passion which often brings men's desires to fruition.
It was patience and self-control which had been so lacking in Godfrey
Pavely during those early days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil
her duty as a wife.
And yet again and again during that uncomfortable half-hour Mrs.
Tropenell caught herself wishing that Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting
on her right hand. Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself,
especially in that house, and when he felt secure of the discretion of
those about him, he would often tell much that he ought, in his
character of banker, to have left unsaid. He knew the private business
of every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took an easy,
unaffected interest in it all. It was only when he touched on wider
matters, especially on politics, that he grew unbearably tedious and
prosy. But then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened to
with pleasure on such subjects was her old friend, Lord St. Amant, who
always knew what he was talking about, and always salted what he knew
with happy flashes of wit and humour.
Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his
mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a
few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she
and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late
Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into
Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her son's eyes fixed on her
face.
There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he
bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away--to leave him,
alone, with Laura....
Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my
work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan't be
very long."
It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the door, and, as he held
it open, his mother turned her head away, lest he should see that tears
had come into her eyes--tears of pain, and yes, of fear.
How was all this to end?
After walking slowly forward into the square brightly lighted hall she
suddenly stayed her steps, and clasped her hands together.
A terrible temptation--terrible, almost unbelievable to such a woman as
was Letitia Tropenell--held her in its grip. She longed with a fearful,
gasping longing, to go back and listen at the door which had just closed
behind her.
So strong was this temptation that she actually visualised herself
walking across to a certain corner, turning down the electric light
switch, then, in the darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and
there gently, gently--pushing it open, say half an inch, in order to
hear what those two were now saying, the one to the other....
At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she again began walking
across the brightly lighted hall, and so, slowly, made her way up the
staircase which led to her bedroom.
* * * * *
What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she yielded to that ignoble
temptation, would not have told her anything of what she had so longed
to know.
After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver Tropenell walked back
to the place where he had stood a moment ago. But he did not come any
nearer than he had been before to his guest, and his manner remained
exactly what it had been when they had been three, instead of being, as
they were now, two, in that dimly lighted room.
Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden selves, were
profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell's absence made a great, if an
intangible, difference. It was the first time they had been alone that
day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that Oliver had not
walked over to The Chase, either in the morning or in the afternoon or,
as was almost always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime.
At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, he spoke, with a
certain hard directness in his voice.
"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells me that he can
easily be spared for a few weeks, and I've already telephoned a cable
telling him to start at once. I've said that if he thinks it advisable I
myself will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him."
"Oh, but I don't want you to do that!" Laura Pavely looked up at him
dismayed. "I thought you meant to stay in England right up to
Christmas?"
"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he won't think it
necessary for me to go back. But the important thing is Gillie's and
your holiday. Why shouldn't he take you and Alice to France or Italy for
a month?"
He saw her face, the face in which there had been a certain rigid,
suffering gravity, light up, soften, and then become overcast again.
Moving a little nearer to the low chair on which she was sitting--"Yes?"
he asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish to say, Laura?"
"Only that Godfrey would never let me go away with Gillie." She spoke in
a sad, low voice, but she felt far more at her ease than she had yet
felt this evening.
The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they had parted as enemies,
but now there was nothing to show that he remembered their interchange
of bitter, passionate words.
He answered quietly,
"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe that if it were put to
Godfrey in a reasonable way, he could not possibly object to your going
abroad with your brother. It's time they made up that foolish old
quarrel."
"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my little Alice!"
Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell was moved, almost
unbearably so, by the look which came over her face. Was it the mention
of her child, of her brother, or the thought of getting away from
Godfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, shadowed eyes?
He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured tones which made her
feel as if the scene of yesterday had been an evil dream. "I've even
thought of suggesting that Godfrey should come out with me to Mexico,
while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We could all be back
here by Christmas!"
She shook her head. "I'm afraid Godfrey would never go away except in
what he considers his regular holiday time."
"Not even if I made it worth his while?"
She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot colour flamed up in her
face. Her conscience, in some ways a very delicate and scrupulous
conscience, smote her.
Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come so to despise Godfrey?
But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is quickly, eagerly--more
like his pre-yesterday self, "No, I'm not joking! I think I can put
Godfrey in the way of doing some really good business out there. We've
spoken of it more than once--only yesterday afternoon we spoke of it."
"You 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.