Five quiet weeks slipped by--weeks full of outward, as well as of
inward, happiness at The Chase and at Freshley.
Katty Winslow had come back to Rosedean, and then, without even seeing
Laura, had gone away again almost at once. She was still away when there
took place early in December the gathering together, for the first time
for many years, of a big shooting party at Knowlton Abbey.
Just before joining that pleasant party, Mrs. Pavely spent a week in
London, and certain Pewsbury gossips, of whose very existence she was
unaware, opined that she had gone up to town to buy clothes! In a little
over a month, Godfrey Pavely would have been dead a year, and some of
these same gossips thought it rather strange that Mrs. Pavely should be
going to stay at the Abbey before her first year of widowhood was over.
But the kinder of the busybodies reminded one another that Lord St.
Amant had known the mistress of The Chase from childhood, and being, as
he was, a very good-natured man, no doubt he had thought it would cheer
up the poor lady to have a little change.
Yes, Laura, to Mrs. Tropenell's surprise, had gone up alone to London,
and Oliver, after two days, followed her. But he had not waited to
escort her back, as his mother expected him to do. He returned the day
before Laura--in fact she was away a week, he only four days.
The gossips of Pewsbury had been right. Laura had gone up to town to get
a few new clothes, but she was still wearing unrelieved black, if not
exactly conventional widow's mourning, when she arrived at Knowlton
Abbey.
Lord St. Amant's shooting party was a great success--a success from the
point of view of the guests, and from that of the host. For the first
time for many years, in fact for the first time since the death of Lady
St. Amant, the house was quite full, for in addition to the neighbours
whom the host specially wished to honour, there had come down certain
more sophisticated folk from London. Among others asked had been Sir
Angus Kinross; but Sir Angus, to his own and Lord St. Amant's regret,
had had to decline. The two men had become intimate since last
winter--each had a real respect, a cordial liking, for the other.
The housekeeper at the Abbey had been surprised to note his lordship's
interest in every detail. He had himself seen, and at considerable
length, the _chef_ who had come down from London for the week; he had
even glanced over the bedroom list, making certain suggestions as to
where his various guests should sleep. Thus it was by his desire that
Mrs. Tropenell had been given the largest bed-chamber in the house, one
which had never been, in the present housekeeper's reign, occupied by a
visitor. It had been, in the long, long ago, the room of his mother, the
room in fact where his lordship himself had been born some seventy odd
years ago. By his wish, also, there had been arranged for Mrs.
Tropenell's occupation the old-fashioned sitting-room into which the
bedroom opened.
Mr. Oliver Tropenell had been put nearly opposite Lord St. Amant's own
sleeping apartment, in that portion of the house which was known as "his
lordship's wing." And Mrs. Pavely had been given, in the same part of
the house, but at the further end of the corridor, the room which had
been always occupied, during her infrequent sojourns at the Abbey, by
the late Lady St. Amant.
* * * * *
And now the long, though also the all too short, week-end, which had
lasted from Thursday to Tuesday, was over, and all the guests had
departed, with the exception of Lord St. Amant's three intimate
friends--Mrs. Tropenell, that lady's son, and Mrs. Pavely. This smaller
party was staying on for two more days, and then it would break up--Mrs.
Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely returning in the morning to Freshley Manor and
The Chase, while Mr. Tropenell stayed on to accompany his host to
another big shoot in the neighbourhood.
Though all three had professed sincere regret at the departure of their
fellow guests, each of them felt a certain sense of relief, and yes, of
more than relief, of considerable satisfaction, when they found
themselves alone together.
There is always plenty to talk about after the breakup of a country
house party, and when at last the four of them found themselves together
at dinner, they all did talk--even Laura, who was generally so silent,
talked and laughed, and exchanged quick, rather shy jests with Oliver.
Laura and Oliver? Lord St. Amant had of course very soon discovered
their innocent secret. He had taxed Mrs. Tropenell with the truth, and
she had admitted it, while explaining that they desired their
engagement, for obvious reasons, to remain secret for a while.
During these last few days their host had admired, with a touch of
whimsical surprise, Laura's dignity, and Oliver's self-restraint. Of
course they had managed to be a good deal together, aided by Lord St.
Amant's unobtrusive efforts, and owing to the fact that Mrs. Tropenell's
charming sitting-room upstairs was always at their disposal.
But no one in the cheerful, light-hearted company had come within miles
of guessing the truth; and Oliver Tropenell had done his full share in
helping Lord St. Amant in the entertainment of his guests. He had also
made himself duly agreeable to the ladies--indeed, Oliver, in a sense,
had been the success of the party, partly because the way of his life in
Mexico enabled him to bring a larger, freer air into the discussions
which had taken place after dinner and in the smoking-room, and also
because of his vitality--a vitality which just now burned with a
brighter glow....
Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the dining-table a very few
minutes after Mrs. Tropenell and Laura had gone off into the
drawing-room.
Though now on very cordial terms, the two men never had very much to say
to one another. Yet Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being
the manner of man he was, he could not but feel attached to Letty
Tropenell's child. Still, there had been a time, now many long years
ago, just after the death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous
of Oliver--jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption, love, and
pride, in her son. She had made it so very clear that she desired no
closer tie to her old friend--and this had shrewdly hurt his
self-esteem. But he had been too much of a philosopher to bear
_rancune_, and such a friendship as theirs soon became had, after all,
its compensations.
When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed by for a renewal of
the old relations, and for a while the tie which had lasted for so long,
and survived so many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen....
But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. Amant had given up his
wanderings on the Continent, and he had come once more very near to Mrs.
Tropenell, during this last year. He and Oliver were also better friends
than they had ever been; this state of things dated from last winter,
for, oddly enough, what had brought them in sympathy had been the death
of Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together during the days
which had followed the banker's mysterious disappearance, and they had
worked in close union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having
a dual authority from her to do what seemed best.
Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which each man felt with
the other, neither had anything to say that could not be said better in
the company of the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which now
looked so large and empty with only two, where last night there had been
twelve, women gathered together about the fireplace, the four talked on,
pleasantly, cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner.
After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into the smaller
drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant and Mrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that
the other two had left them, went on gossiping--harking back, as they
now so often did, to the old stories, the old human tragedies and
comedies, of the neighbourhood.
Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking side by side, and
Oliver's mother looked up with a proud, fond glance.
They were a striking, well-matched couple--Laura looking more beautiful
than ever to-night, perhaps because she seemed a thought more animated
than usual.
"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I feel so sleepy! Oliver
and I had such a glorious walk this afternoon."
She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And then, unexpectedly, she
turned to Lord St. Amant, and put up her face as if she expected him
also to kiss her.
Amused and touched, he bent and brushed his old lips against her soft
cheek: "My dear," he exclaimed, "this is very kind of you!"
And then Oliver stepped forward into the circle of light thrown by the
big wood fire.
He said a little huskily, "My turn next, Laura----" And to the infinite
surprise of his mother and of his host, Laura, with an impulsive, tender
gesture, reached up towards him, and he, too, brushed her soft face with
his lips.
Then he took her hand, and led her to the door. And Lord St. Amant,
quoting Champmele, turned to his old love: "'Ah! Madame--quelle jolie
chose qu'un baiser!'" he murmured, and ere the door had quite closed
behind Oliver he, too, had put his arm with a caressing gesture round
her shoulder, and drawn her to him, with the whispered words,
"Letty--don't think me an old fool!" And then, "Oh, Letty! Do you
remember the first time----" And though she made no answer, he knew she
did remember, like himself only too well, the wild, winter afternoon,
nearer forty than thirty years ago, when they two had been caught alone,
far from home, in a great storm--the wild weather responding to their
wild mood. They had taken shelter in a deserted, half-ruined barn, a
survival of the days when England had still great granaries. And there,
throwing everything aside--the insistent promptings of honour, and the
less insistent promptings of prudence--St. Amant had kissed Letty....
He remembered, even now, the thrill of mingled rapture, shame,
gratitude, triumph, and stinging self-rebuke, which had accompanied that
first long clinging kiss.
The next day he had left the Abbey for the Continent, and when, at last,
he had come back, he had himself again well in hand....
Only yesterday the shooters had gone by that old seventeenth-century
barn, of which nothing now remained but thick low walls, and as he had
tramped by the spot, so alone with his memories, if outwardly so
companioned, there had swept over his heart, that heart which was still
susceptible to every keen emotion, a feeling of agonised regret for what
had--and what had not been.
"Ah, Letty," he said huskily, "you've been the best friend man ever had!
Don't you think the time has come for two such old friends as you and I
have been never to part? It isn't as if I had a great deal of time
left."
* * * * *
An hour later Lord St. Amant was sitting up in bed, reading the fourth
volume of a certain delightful edition of the Memoirs of the Duc de
Saint Simon. He was feeling happier than he had felt for a very long
time--stirred and touched too, as he had not thought to be again.
Complacently he reminded himself of the successful, the brilliantly
successful, elderly marriages he had known in his time. 'Twas odd when
one came to think of it, but he couldn't remember one such which had
turned out a failure!
Dear Letty--who had known how to pass imperceptibly from youth to age
with such a fine, measured dignity, while retaining so much which had
made her as a girl and as an older woman the most delightful and
stimulating of companions. What an agreeable difference her presence
would make to his existence as he went slowly down into the shadows! He
shuddered a little--the thought of old age, of real old age, becoming
suddenly, vividly repugnant.
Thank God, Letty was very much younger than himself. When he was eighty
she would be sixty-three. He tried to put away that thought, the thought
that some day he would be infirm, as well as old.
He looked up from his book.
How odd to think that Letty had never been in this room, where he had
spent so much of his life from boyhood onwards! He longed to show her
some of the things he had here--family miniatures, old political
caricatures, some of his favourite books--they would all interest her.
He was glad he had arranged that she should have, on this visit, his
dear mother's room. When he had married--close on fifty years ago--his
parents had been alive, and later his wife, as the new Lady St. Amant,
had not cared to take over her predecessor's apartments. She had been
very little here, for soon, poor woman, she had become an invalid--a
most disagreeable, selfish invalid. He told himself that after all he
had had a certain amount of excuse for--well, for the sort of existence
he had led so long. If poor Adelaide had only died twenty years earlier,
and he had married Letty--ah, _then_, he would indeed have become an
exemplary character! Yet he had been faithful to Letty--in his
fashion....
No other woman had even approached near the sanctuary where the woman of
whom now, to-night, he was able to think as his future wife, had at once
become so securely enthroned. It had first been a delicious, if a
dangerous, relationship, and, later, a most agreeable friendship. During
the last few months she had become rather to his surprise very necessary
to him, and these last few days he had felt how pleasant it would be to
have Letty always here, at the Abbey, either in his company, or resting,
reading, or writing in the room where everything still spoke to him of
the long-dead mother who had been so dear to him.
Of course they would wait till Oliver and Laura were married--say, till
some time in February or March: and then, when those two rather tiresome
younger people were disposed of, they, he and Letty, would slip up
quietly to London, and, in the presence of perhaps two or three old
friends, they would be made man and wife.
He reflected complacently that nothing in his life would be changed,
save that Letty would be there, at the Abbey, as she had been the last
few days, always ready to hear with eager interest anything he had to
say, always with her point of view sufficiently unlike his own to give
flavour, even sometimes a touch of the unexpected, to their
conversation.
* * * * *
A knock at the door, and his valet came in, and walked close up to the
bed.
"It's a telephone message, my lord. From Sir Angus Kinross--private to
your lordship."
"Yes. What is the message?"
Lord St. Amant felt a slight tremor of discomfort sweep over him. What
an odd time to send a trunk-call through--at close on midnight.
"Sir Angus has been trying to get on for some time, my lord; there was a
fault on the line. Sir Angus would be much obliged if you would meet him
at your lordship's rooms at one o'clock to-morrow. He says he's sorry to
trouble your lordship to come up to London, but it's very important. He
came himself to the telephone, my lord. He asked who I was. I did offer
to fetch your lordship, but he said there was no occasion for that--if I
would deliver the message myself."
"All right, Barrett."
"Sir Angus begs your lordship not to tell any one that your business
to-morrow is with him."
"I quite understand that."