Only Harber, the woman who, after having been maid to Katty during her
troubled married life, had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and
general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. Pavely called at
Rosedean on his daily walk home from Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly
pressed the bell-knob before the front door opened. It was almost as if
Harber had been waiting for him in the hall.
As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious of feeling very glad
that he was going to see Katty. Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it
for four days, or five? It's true that for part of that time he himself
had been to London, and very busy, but even so the time had seemed long.
He told himself that he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even
felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the servant through
the hall.
And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard the front-door bell had
quietly begun making the tea--she always made tea herself, with the help
of a pretty spirit lamp--Katty also felt a queer little thrill, but for
a very different reason. Since they had last met she had come to a
certain resolution with regard to Godfrey Pavely, and though she did not
mean to say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still it
affected her, made her regard him with rather different eyes.
It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation always go
together. Katty Winslow was calculating, but she was not cold. For once
she had been quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to her
letter of thanks for Godfrey Pavely's wedding present. Godfrey had, in
very truth, been her first love, and she had suffered acutely in her
heart, as well as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, she felt
as if there were a strong, secret, passionate link between them, and
there was no day when she did not tell herself that she would have made
the banker a perfect, and yes--a very happy wife.
* * * * *
Godfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, eager look on his
face. He took his hostess's hand in his, and held it for perhaps a
thought longer than he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell's hand. But
the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, not thin and
firm, like that of Oliver's mother.
Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, pretty smile. "Sit
down," she said softly. "And before we begin talking, take a cup of tea.
You look very tired--and you're late, too, Godfrey. I was beginning to
think that you weren't coming at all!"
And then he said something which surprised her, but which somehow chimed
in quite surprisingly with what had been filling her busy, active brain
of late.
"Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," he spoke wearily,
complainingly. "I had to ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on
and on."
Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate friends of Katty Winslow,
and Jim Beath was a client of Godfrey Pavely.
"Oh, but that's very interesting!" she cried. "I've been wondering so
much how that affair is going on--I do so hope it will be all right!"
And then, as she saw a shocked look come over her visitor's narrow,
rather fleshy face, she said in a low voice, "You know how I feel about
the divorce laws, Godfrey. I can't help it. They're horribly
unfair--so--so ridiculous, in fact!"
As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her own point of view
far more than was her usual way when talking to her self-opinionated
friend: "Don't you realise how hard it is that two people utterly
unsuited to one another should have to go through that sort of horrid
farce just in order to get free?"
He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even now, Katty startled him
by the things she said. But how pretty she looked to-day, bending over
the tea-things! Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft coils, her
white, well-manicured hand busily engaged in pouring him out just the
cup of tea he liked, with the exact proportions of milk, cream, and
sugar that were right--and which Laura never remembered.
So it was mildly that he answered: "I don't think the Beaths ought to
want to get what you call 'free.' Divorce was not instituted to meet a
case like theirs--" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort he went
on: "Divorce was instituted to meet a case like yours, Katty."
Godfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of their divorce plot--for so
he called it to himself. There were other things he wanted to talk to
Katty about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of affair was a
nice subject of discussion between a man and a woman, however intimate.
In some ways Godfrey Pavely was very old-fashioned.
But she wouldn't let it alone. "Divorce _ought_ to meet a case like
theirs," she went on obstinately.
"My dear Katty! What would happen to the country if all the married
people who didn't get on with one another were to separate?"
And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary and
disagreeable suspicion darted into Godfrey Pavely's mind. Was it
possible, conceivable, that Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second
husband for herself? The thought shook him with anger and with
repugnance. He felt he must have that out--here and now.
"Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I know you've been seeing a
great deal of them this last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day."
She could read him like a book, and she remained silent long enough to
make him feel increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable.
But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, so she
answered deliberately: "No, Godfrey, I can't say that I do like Jim
Beath! I've tried to like him. But--well, I do thoroughly understand
Nita's feeling towards him. He's so sarcastic--so hard and
unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then added significantly: "Still, I
think he's behaving awfully well now. He'd have been quite willing to go
on--he told me that himself. But when he saw that Nita was _really_
unhappy, and that she was getting fond of another man, he made up his
mind that he would do all he could to make her free."
Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge of the pretty
tea-cloth, and Pavely wondered whether she was telling him the whole
truth. She was flushed, and she looked unwontedly moved.
"It's a very odd thing for a man to do," he said coldly. "I mean a man
being willing to give up his wife to another man."
"Why shouldn't he? When he doesn't love her, and when she positively
dislikes him! Nita never understood Jim Beath--she was always afraid of
him, and of his sharp, clever tongue. Of course it's sad about their
little boy. But they've made a very good arrangement--they're going to
share him. Jim will have the child half the year, and Nita the other
half, till he goes to school--when they will have him for alternate
holidays."
"You talk as if it was all settled!" Katty's visitor exclaimed crossly.
"If they say as much to other people as they seem to do to you, they
will never get their divorce--the King's Proctor is sure to intervene!"
Katty gave a quick, curious look at her visitor. Godfrey went too
far--sometimes.
The thought flashed through her mind that she was wasting her life, her
few remaining years of youth, on a man who would never be more to her
than he was now, unless--unless, that is, she could bring him to the
point of putting himself imaginatively, emotionally into Jim Beath's
shoes. _Then_ everything might be changed. But was there any hope of
such a thing coming to pass?
But all she said, in a constrained tone, was, "Of course I ought not to
have said anything of the matter to you at all. But I'm afraid, Godfrey,
that I often do tell you things I ought to keep to myself. You must try
and forget what I said."
He was surprised, bewildered, by the sudden steely coldness of her tone.
"Of course you can say anything you like to say to me. Why, Katty, I
tell you all my secrets!"
"Do you?" She glanced over at him rather sharply. "I don't think you
tell me _all_ your secrets, Godfrey."
He looked at her puzzled. "You _know_ that I do," he said in a low
voice. "Come, Katty, you're not being fair! It's because I have such a
high regard for you, that I feel sorry when you talk as you've been
talking just now--as if, after all, the marriage bond didn't matter."
But even as he said these words, Godfrey Pavely felt a wild impulse to
throw over the pretty little gimcrack tea-table, take Katty in his arms,
and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her! He came back, with an inward start, to
hear her exclaim,
"I don't consider the peculiar relations which exist between Nita and
Jim Beath a marriage at all! They have nothing in common the one with
the other. What interests him doesn't interest her----"
She waited a moment, saw that he was reddening uncomfortably, and then
hurried on, driven by some sudden instinct that she was at last playing
on the hidden chord she had so often longed to find and strike in
Godfrey Pavely's sore heart: "Nita can't bear Jim to touch her--she will
hardly shake hands with him! Do you call _that_ a marriage?"
As he remained silent, she suddenly said in a voice so low as to be
almost a whisper, "Forgive me, Godfrey. I--I ought not have said that to
you."
He answered loudly, discordantly, "I don't know what you mean, Katty!
Why shouldn't you say anything you like about these people? They are
nothing, and less than nothing to me, and I don't suppose they're very
much to you."
Even as he spoke he had got up out of the easy chair into which he had
sunk with such happy content a few minutes before. "I must be going
now," he said heavily, "Oliver Tropenell's coming in for a game of
tennis at six."
She made no effort to keep him, though she longed to say to him: "Oliver
Tropenell's been in your house, and in your garden, all afternoon. Both
he and Laura would be only too pleased if you stayed on here till
dinner-time."
But instead of saying that, she got up, and silently accompanied him to
the front door.
There poor Godfrey did linger regretfully. He felt like a child who has
been baulked of some promised treat--not by his own fault, but by the
fault of those about him. "Will you be in to-morrow?" he asked abruptly.
"I think I might come in a little earlier to-morrow, Katty."
"Yes, do come to-morrow! I seem to have a hundred things to say to you.
I'm sorry we wasted the little time we had to-day in talking over those
tiresome people and their matrimonial affairs."
There was also a look of regret in her face, and suddenly he told
himself that he might have been mistaken just now, and that she had
meant nothing--nothing in the least personal or--or probing, in what she
had said. "Look here!" he said awkwardly. "If there's anything you
really want to say--you said you had a hundred things to tell me--would
you like me to come back for a few minutes? There's no great hurry, you
know--I mean about Tropenell and his game."
She shook her head, and to his moved surprise, the tears came into her
pretty brown eyes. "No, not now. I'm tired, Godfrey. It's rather absurd,
but I haven't really got over my journey yet; I think I shall have to
take your advice, and stay at home rather more."
For a long moment they advanced towards one another as if something
outside themselves was drawing them together. Then Godfrey Pavely put
out his hand, and grasped hers firmly. It was almost as if he was
holding her back--at arm's length.
Katty laughed nervously. She shook her hand free of his, opened the door
wide, and exclaimed: "Well! Good-bye till to-morrow then. My love to
Laura."
He nodded, and was gone.
She shut the door behind him, and, turning, went slowly upstairs. She
felt tired, weak, upset--and, what she did not often feel, restless and
unhappy as well. It irritated her--nay, it did more than irritate, it
hurt her shrewdly--to think of those three people who were about to
spend a pleasant couple of hours together. She could so easily, so
safely, have made a fourth at their constant meetings.
If only Laura Pavely were a little less absorbed in herself, a little
more what ordinary people called good-natured! It would have been so
natural for Laura, when she knew that Oliver Tropenell was coming to
dinner, to send across to Rosedean, and ask her, Katty, to make a
fourth. It was not as if Laura was at all jealous. She was as little
jealous of Godfrey and of Katty--and at that thought Katty gave a queer,
bitter little laugh which startled her, for she had laughed aloud--as
was Godfrey of Laura and Oliver! With as little or as much reason? Katty
would have given a great deal to be able to answer her own question. She
thought she knew half the answer--but it was, alas! by far the less
important half.
She opened the door of her bedroom, went through into it, and without
troubling to take off her pretty blouse and freshly ironed linen skirt,
walked deliberately to her bed, lay down, and shut her eyes--not to
sleep but to think.
* * * * *
What had been forced upon Katty Winslow's notice during the last few
weeks had created a revolution in her mind and in her plans.
For a while, after her return from that dreary period of convalescence
in a seaside home, she, who was generally so positive, had doubted the
evidence of her own eyes and senses. But gradually that which she would
have deemed the last thing likely to happen had emerged, startlingly
clear. Oliver Tropenell, to use Katty's own expression, had fallen madly
in love with Laura Pavely. No woman could doubt that who saw them
together. When Katty had left Rosedean, there had been the beginnings
of--well, not exactly a flirtation, but a very pleasant friendship
between Tropenell and herself. Now he hardly seemed to know that she
existed.
But if it was only too plain to see how matters stood with Oliver, this
was far from being the case as regarded Laura. Katty owned herself quite
ignorant of Laura's real nature, and, as is so often the case with
those who know nothing, she was inclined to believe that there was
nothing to know.
Perhaps, after all, it was only because this man was the son of her
friend that Laura allowed him to be always with her. They were always
together--not always alone, for Oliver seemed to be at The Chase quite
as much when Godfrey was at home, as at other times. But with Katty, she
being the manner of woman she was, it was the other times which
impressed her imagination. In the six short weeks she, Katty, had been
away, Oliver Tropenell had evidently become a component part of Laura
Pavely's life.
She knew, vaguely, how the two spent their time, and the knowledge irked
her--the more that it suggested nothing of their real relations. Thus
gardening was one of Laura's favourite occupations and few pleasures;
and Oliver, who could never have gardened before--what gardening could
there be to do in Mexico?--now spent hours out of doors with Laura,
carrying out her behests, behaving just as an under-gardener would
behave, when working under his mistress's directions.
And Godfrey, instead of objecting to this extraordinary state of things,
seemed quite pleased. Oliver, so much was clear, had become Godfrey
Pavely's friend almost as much as he was Laura's.
As she lay there, straight out on her bed, Katty told herself with
terrible bitterness that it was indeed an amazing state of things to
which she had come back--one which altered her own life in a strange
degree. She had not realised, till these last few weeks, how much
Godfrey Pavely was to her, and how jealous she could become even of
such an affection as his cordial liking of Oliver Tropenell.
Yet when Godfrey was actually with her, she retained all her old
ascendency over him; in certain ways it had perhaps even increased. It
was as if his unsuspecting proximity to another man's strong, secret
passion warmed his sluggish, cautious nature.
But that curious fact had not made his friend Katty's part any the more
easy of late. Far from it! There was no pleasing Godfrey in these days.
He was hurt if she was cold; shocked, made uneasy in his conscience, if
she responded in ever so slight a way to the little excursions in
sentiment he sometimes half-ashamedly permitted himself.
Tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down her cheeks, as she
recalled what had happened a few moments ago in the hall. He had been
aching to take her in his arms and kiss her--kiss her as he had been
wont to do, in the old days, in the shabby little lodging where she
lived with her father. Poor little motherless girl, who had thought
herself so clever. At that time she had believed herself to be as good
as engaged to "young Mr. Pavely," as the Pewsbury folk called him. Even
now she could remember, as if it had happened yesterday, the bitter
humiliation, as well as the pain which had shaken her, when she had
learnt, casually, of his sudden disappearance from Pewsbury.
What hypocrites men were! The fact that often they were unconscious
hypocrites afforded Katty little consolation.
It was plain that Godfrey was quite unaware of Oliver's growing
absorption in Laura, but that surely was not to his credit. A man of
his age, and with his experience of life, ought to have known, ought to
have guessed, ought to have seen--by now! Instead, he remained absorbed
in himself, in the tiresome little business interests of his prosperous
life, in his new friendship for Oliver Tropenell, and--in that
ambiguous, tantalising friendship with herself.
Again she told herself that she was wasting what remained to her of
youth and of vitality over a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of things,
and painfully she determined that, if what she had gradually come to
plan since her return home did not come to pass, she would leave
Rosedean, and make another life for herself elsewhere.
* * * * *
The things Katty toiled and schemed for had a way of coming to pass. She
had planned her divorce long before it had actually taken place, at a
time indeed when it seemed impossible to believe that it ever could take
place. Bob Winslow had been adoringly, slavishly devoted to her for more
than two-thirds of their married life, and it had taken her trouble and
time to drive him into the courses it was necessary he should pursue to
procure her freedom.
She had no doubt--there could be no doubt--that were Godfrey free he
would turn to her instinctively at once. She was well aware of her power
over him, and till lately she had been virtuously proud of what she
imagined to be her loyalty to Laura. Also she had had no wish to make
her own position at Rosedean untenable.
Even as it was, Godfrey came far too often to see her. Had she lived
nearer to Pewsbury, even a mile nearer, his frequent calls on her would
have meant a flood of ill-natured gossip in the little town.
Yes, the situation, from Katty's point of view, was thoroughly
unsatisfactory, and, as far as she was concerned, it was time it was
ended or mended. And then, once more, for the hundredth time, her
restless, excited mind swung back to what was to her just now the real
mystery, the all-important problem--the relations between Oliver
Tropenell and Laura Pavely.
Of course it was possible--though Katty thought not likely--that
Tropenell was still unaware of his passion for Laura. Perhaps he still
disguised it under the name of "friendship." But even if that were so,
such a state of things could not endure for very long. Any day some
trifling happening might open his eyes, and, yes--why not?--Godfrey's.