"Godfrey can't eat me! Besides, he'll have to see me some time. Not that
I want to see anything of the fellow--I always hated him! Still, as
things are, it's far better I should take him by surprise, in Laura's
house, than go cap in hand, and ask his leave to see my sister."
It was Gilbert Baynton who was speaking, standing with his legs a little
apart, his fair head thrown back, his hands in his pockets, early in the
afternoon of the day he and Oliver had arrived from London.
Mother and son were both in the room, but it was really with Mrs.
Tropenell that Baynton was having this rather unpleasant argument. He
and Tropenell had had this all out before. Oliver had wanted Gillie to
write to his sister, but he was set on taking her by surprise, and on
stealing a march on Godfrey Pavely.
Mrs. Tropenell looked up at the man standing before her. Gillie was two
years older than her Oliver, and she had been the first woman who had
ever seen him, for it was to her that his mother's doctor had handed the
lusty, already screaming baby. His mother had passionately loved
him--loved him and spoilt him, and so had his rather lackadaisical
father. Physically he was a queer mixture of the two. Gillie Baynton had
his father's fair hair, grace of limb and movement, and plainness of
feature, coupled with his mother's abounding vitality, and her charm of
manner--that charm, that coming-on-ness, which his beautiful sister,
born so many years later, had always lacked.
Gillie had early begun to get into various ugly scrapes, but as a youth
he had always somehow managed to shuffle out of them, for he was
popular, and "had a way with him," as country people say. Also he had
never been lacking in courage of a sort, and courage carries even a
rascal a long way.
Still, Gillie Baynton had been pretty well done for, as far as his own
country was concerned, when he had been sent out, as a kind of forlorn
hope, to Mexico and Oliver Tropenell....
Gillie began speaking again: "I think I know my worthy brother-in-law
quite as well as you do, Mrs. Tropenell. It's much better to take a man
like that by surprise, and not to give him time to think! After all,
he's _got_ to let bygones be bygones."
And now Oliver interposed, for the first time. "Yes, mother, as things
are, I think Gillie had perhaps better try and see Laura now, at once,
before Godfrey Pavely knows he's in England."
"I'll go there right now."
Occasionally, not very often, Gilbert Baynton made use of some little
phrase showing that he lived on the other side of the Atlantic. He had
changed somehow, Mrs. Tropenell could hardly have told you how, for he
had always had a very assured manner. But now Gillie looked what he
was--a very prosperous man of business, though scarcely an English man
of business. The long sojourn in Mexico had not altered her Oliver at
all--not, that is, as far as she could see, but it had altered Gillie
Baynton surprisingly. It had roughened him, and increased his natural
self-assurance.
"Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with you to tea? Godfrey,
too, if he seems in the humour for it," she said.
And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. That would be very pleasant."
He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and was gone.
The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. And then Oliver,
as if answering her thought, exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at
The Chase till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from everything
else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may see him again within a very
short time from now."
"But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked Mrs. Tropenell anxiously.
"Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the cards there'll be a
furious row. But that, after all, would clear the air. As Gillie said
just now, Godfrey Pavely will _have_ to put the past behind him.
Perhaps, once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. There's a
good deal to be said for a row sometimes, mother."
"Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is."
* * * * *
Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the boudoir," by the
household of Lawford Chase. It was a beautiful and stately room,
furnished some ninety years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs.
Tropenell's grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants had not cared to
use it, for it was away from the other living-rooms of the house, and so
nothing in the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The Chase had
been prepared for the occupation of the strangers who had lived there
for fourteen years.
The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. To-day she had had a
fire lit, for it was beginning to be chilly. Alice had gone off into
Pewsbury to spend the afternoon with two little friends, and now the
mistress of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read a book; but
soon she let the book rest open on her lap, and she stared mournfully,
hopelessly, into the fire.
Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. They had begun going ill
about a month ago, just after that--that unfortunate outburst on
Oliver's part. Yet she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he
had had together, that they would slip back into their old, easy
relationship! And for a while, perhaps for as long as a week, it had
seemed as if they were going to do so.
But then there had come a change. Godfrey had fallen into the way of
coming home early. In old days, both before the coming to England of
Oliver Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey had
generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and then, as often as not, he
had gone in and had a chat with Katty on his way home. Now he always
came back before five, and after his return home he and Oliver would
engage in interminable singles on the big tennis court which had been
Godfrey Pavely's one contribution to the otherwise beautiful gardens of
The Chase.
Sometimes, and especially had this been true these last few days, Laura
told herself that perhaps after all, the world, the cynical shrewd
world of which she knew so little, was right, and that a close and
confidential friendship between a man and a woman is an impossible
ideal.
To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, she felt
miserably unhappy--too troubled and uneasy to occupy herself in any of
her usual ways. More than had ever been the case before, life seemed to
stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending monotony.
Something else had come to pass during the last week, the week during
which Oliver Tropenell had been away in London, which she scarcely liked
to think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey had altered in
his manner to her, he had become kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he
had been for years. He hung about her, when he was at home, indoors and
out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way he actually tried to make
himself pleasant! He had even suggested that she should ask one or two
people to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she much
preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the shoulders he had given
in. After all, he didn't really care for strangers more than she did.
Several times during the last dreary week, he had astonished her by
talking to her of Oliver in a rather fretful, complaining way, as if he
thought it odd that the other man was staying on in England with his
mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had said that he thought it
strange that such a big business as he understood Oliver Tropenell to
have built up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, "You
forget that my brother is there." And to that he had made no reply.
Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's lonely heart. Oliver had
said nothing more concerning Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which
had happened, up to, and including, the evening when she and Oliver had
had that curious, intimate conversation when he had promised so solemnly
to be her friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared with
the drab reality of to-day.
And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be coming in, and she would
have to rouse herself to listen and to answer, while they had tea
together in the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for the
boudoir.
Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside the door, the eager
words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? You're sure? All right--I'll go straight
in!" And before she could gather her mind together, the door opened, and
her brother--the brother she had not seen for years, but of whom she had
just been thinking--walked forward into the room, exclaiming heartily,
resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here I am again!"
She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering delight, threw
herself into his arms, half laughing, half crying, "Oh,
Gillie--Gillie--Gillie! How glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we
were never going to meet again! Have you only just come? Has Oliver
Tropenell seen you? Why didn't you wire?"
Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him to be, for he
remembered his sister as having been always quiet and restrained. And
when they had parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she had
seemed almost inanimate with--had it been vicarious?--shame and pain.
"I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked round him with a
pleased, measuring look. "Nothing altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've
got a fire? That's good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England.
They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley."
He repeated, "Nothing's altered--you least of all, Laura. Why, you don't
look a day older!"
She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older."
"I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And Godfrey?" His voice
altered, becoming just a little graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey
too, eh?"
"I don't think Godfrey's altered much----" She was hesitating. And then,
very carefully, she added the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you
know, Gillie."
"Oh, well--of course he always liked you the best!" And then he laughed,
but to them both his laughter sounded just a little hollow. "I gather
that he and Tropenell don't quite hit it off?"
She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at the look of extreme
astonishment which came over her face. "What makes you think that?" she
exclaimed. "They're the greatest friends! Godfrey likes Oliver Tropenell
better than I thought he'd ever like anybody."
And then, before Gillie Baynton could answer this, to him, surprising
statement, the door opened, and the man of whom they were speaking stood
gazing into the room as if he could not believe in the reality of the
sight before him.
The brother and sister moved apart, and Gilbert Baynton held out his
hand.
"Well, Godfrey," he exclaimed, "here I am again! I expect Tropenell told
you that I was thinking of coming to Europe? But I can't be more than a
month in the old country--if as long--unless Tropenell goes back leaving
me behind for a bit. He did make some such suggestion, but I think we're
more likely to go back together."
As he spoke on, he let his hand slowly drop to his side, for the man he
was addressing had made no answering movement of welcome, or even of
greeting.
Such a flood of wrath had mounted up into Godfrey Pavely's brain when he
saw Gilbert Baynton standing there, with his arm round Laura's shoulder,
that he was fearful the words he meant to utter would never get
themselves said. He had never felt so angry before, and the sensation
had a curious physical effect on him. He felt, as country folk so
vividly put it, "all of a tremble."
A curious, ominous, sinister silence fell on the room. Laura,
unconsciously, drew a little nearer to her brother; and Godfrey, who was
staring straight at her, saw the movement, and it intensified the
passion of anger which was working in his brain as wine does in the
body.
"I must ask you to leave my house at once," he said in a low voice. "I
have had no reason to change my mind as to what I said when you were
last in this house, Gilbert Baynton."
_"Godfrey!"_ There was a passionate protest and revolt in the way Laura
uttered her husband's name.
But her brother put up his hand. "Hush, Laura," he said. "It's much
better I should tackle this business alone. In fact, if you don't mind,
you'd better leave the room."
She shook her head. "No, I mean to stay."
He shrugged his shoulders, and looked straight at Godfrey Pavely. "Look
here!" he exclaimed, "isn't all this rather--well, highfaluting rot?
It's quite true that when I left here I didn't mean ever to darken your
doors again. But everything's altered now! I've paid you back every cent
of that money--it wasn't even your money, it was my own sister's money.
She didn't mind my having it--I heard her tell you so myself."
"You forged my signature to obtain it," said Godfrey. He spoke in a very
low voice, almost in a whisper. He was the sort of man who always
suspects servants of listening at the door.
"Yes, I own I was a damned fool to do that--though as a matter of fact
you goaded me to it! However, it's a long time ago, and I suggest that
we'd better let bygones be bygones. If I don't marry, and I'm not a
marrying man, your child will be my heiress. Laura's my only sister, the
only thing in the world I really care for----"
Laura put her hand through his arm when she heard him say that.
And then Godfrey spoke again, his voice a little raised: "That makes no
difference," he said--"I mean your having paid the money back makes no
difference. I won't have you in my house, and if Laura considers my
wishes she won't see you again while you're in England."
Laura said at once: "I shall not consider your wishes, Godfrey. Of
course I shall see my brother as often as I can."
But Godfrey went on, still directly addressing Gilbert Baynton, "I can't
prevent Laura seeing you, if she insists upon it. She's a grown-up
woman, and I can't turn the key on her. But she shan't see you in _my_
house. And, as far as I'm concerned, this is the last time I'll ever set
eyes on your face."
"Don't you be so sure of that!" Gillie muttered the words between his
teeth. His fair face had turned a deep red-brick colour, his blue eyes
were blazing.
Again there fell on the three of them that strange, ominous, sinister
silence.
Then Gilbert Baynton turned to his sister. He actually laughed out loud.
But even Pavely noticed, with bitter satisfaction, that the laughter
sounded very forced.
"Ha! ha! ha! Godfrey's not a bit changed. He's just the same old
narrow-minded, sanctimonious prig he always was!"
He took Laura in his arms, and kissed her two or three times very
warmly. "Never mind, little girl," he said. "I shan't make trouble
between you and Godfrey for long! I shan't be in England for more than a
few days. I'm off to Paris next week."
He disengaged himself gently from Laura's clinging arms, went to the
door, opened it, then shut it very quietly behind him.
Laura turned away, and stared into the fire.
Godfrey began, awkwardly, conciliatingly, "Now, my dear Laura----"
She put up her hand. "Don't speak to me," she said, in what he felt to
be a dreadful voice of aversion and of pain. "I shall never, never
forgive you for this!"
He shrugged his shoulders, and went out of the room, into the long
corridor. And then he walked quickly through it and so to the hall of
the fine old house, of which, try as he might, he never felt himself, in
any intimate sense, the master.
The hall was empty. Quietly he opened the front door. Yes, Gillie had
kept his word this time! He really had gone. Pavely could see the alert,
still young-looking figure of the man whom in his mind he always called
"that scoundrel" hurrying down the carriage road which led to the great
gates of The Chase.