It was now early, very early in the morning after the return of Lord St.
Amant to the Abbey. Dead dark, and dead quiet too, in the great sleeping
house. Not dead cold, however, in his lordship's comfortable bedroom,
for he had built up the fire, as he sat on and on, still fully dressed,
reading, or trying to read--his bed exactly in the same state as when he
had gone upstairs from the drawing-room about eleven.
It was years and years since Lord St. Amant had last stayed up all
night, but though he had made a great effort to forget himself in those
ever fresh, even if familiar, memoirs of Saint Simon, he had found it
impossible to banish from his mind--even for a few moments--the awful
thing which he knew would, in a sense, never leave his mind again.
For the tenth time he put his book down, marking the page with a tiny
strip of green watered ribbon, on a low table by his side, and then,
staring into the fire, his memory lingered--not over his talk with Sir
Angus Kinross, he was sick of thinking _that_ over--but over the
incidents which had marked the evening before.
He had returned from London only just in time to dress for dinner, and
so he had not seen his guests till just before a quarter-past eight.
Then had followed an hour passed, outwardly at least, peacefully and
pleasantly.
But while he had been eating mechanically the food put before him, in
very truth not knowing what it was, terrible thoughts had gone through
his mind in a terrible sequence.
Once or twice he had caught, or thought he had caught, Oliver
Tropenell's penetrating eyes fixed searchingly on his face, but he, the
host, had avoided looking at his guest. Somehow he could neither look at
Oliver, nor even think of Oliver--with Oliver and Laura there, the one
sitting opposite to him, the other next him.
Laura? Laura, on Lord St. Amant's left, had looked lovely last night.
She was wearing a white dress, almost bridal in its dead whiteness--a
rather singular fact considering that she had till to-day worn
unrelieved black. Looking back, her host could not get her out of his
mind. To think that she, proud, reserved, Laura Pavely was to be the
heroine of a frightful tragedy which would bring not only shame and
disgrace on herself and on the man whom Lord St. Amant had every reason
to suppose she now loved, but--what was of so very much more concern to
him--on that man's mother.
Looking at Laura, seeing that strange, haunting Mona Lisa smile on her
lovely face, it had seemed incredible that she should be the central
figure of such a story. But how could she escape being the central
figure, the heroine of the story, at any rate in the imagination of all
those, one might almost count them by millions, rather than thousands,
who in a few days or a few weeks would be as familiar with the name
"Mrs. Pavely" as they once had been with the names of--of Mrs. Bravo and
Mrs. Maybrick?
Yes, Lord St. Amant, staring into the fire, told himself, that that
three-quarters of an hour spent in his own dining-room had been the most
painful time he had ever lived through in his long life. He felt as if
every moment of it was indelibly stamped on his brain. And yet he had
completely forgotten what the talk had been about! He supposed they had
talked. Silence would have seemed so strange, so unnatural. Yet he could
not remember a single thing which had been said.
But his vision of the three who had sat at table with him remained
horribly clear.
Now he was haunted specially by Oliver. And then, after a while, Oliver
left him, and he was haunted by his poor friend, soon to be his poor
wife.
Mrs. Tropenell had been more silent than usual--so much he did remember.
And he wondered uneasily if he had given her any cause for thinking,
from his appearance or his manner, that there was anything wrong?
The thought of what was going to happen to Mrs. Tropenell on the day
which was now to-morrow, became suddenly so intolerable to Lord St.
Amant that he got up from his chair, and walked twice round the large,
shadowed bedroom.
Then he sat down again, and groaned aloud.
It was as though a bridge had been thrown over the chasm of nearly forty
years. His withered heart became vivified. Something of the passion
which he had left for the high-spirited and innocent, yet
ardent-natured, girl whom he had loved, and whom he had saved from
herself, stirred within him. Secretly, voicelessly, he had always been
very proud of what he had, done--and left undone. It was the one good,
nay, the one selfless, action of his long, agreeable, selfish life.
But he could not save her now! Some little shelter and protection he
would be able to afford her, but what would it avail against the
frightful cloud of shame and anguish which was about to envelop her?
He told himself suddenly what he had already told himself when with Sir
Angus--namely, that he and Letty must be married at once. She would
certainly acquiesce in any course which would benefit Oliver. Yes, Letty
would think of nothing but her son, and, the world being what it is,
Oliver would of course benefit by the fact that Lord St. Amant was his
stepfather. It would add yet another touch of the unusual and the
romantic to the story....
Once more his mind swung back to last evening. He and Oliver had stayed
alone together some ten minutes after the ladies had gone into the
drawing-room, and there had come over Lord St. Amant a wild, unreasoning
impulse to unburden his heart. But of course he had checked, battened
down resolutely, that foolish almost crazy impulse. As soon as Letty and
Laura were safely gone tomorrow morning he must, of course, tackle the
terrible task. And then he tried, as he had tried so often during the
last twelve hours, to put himself in Oliver Tropenell's place.
He recalled the younger man's easy, assured manner, and what a real
help, nay, more than help, he had been when the house was full of
guests. More than one of their neighbours there had spoken warmly, with
evident admiration, of Tropenell. "How well he's turned out! He was
thought to be such a queer chap as a boy."
A queer chap? Oliver was certainly _that_.
Lord St. Amant forced himself to consider the man whom his intellect, if
not his heart, was compelled to recognise as a cold-blooded murderer.
What had been his and Laura's real attitude to one another during
Godfrey Pavely's lifetime? Was Laura absolutely innocent? Or, had she
played with Tropenell as women sometimes do play with men--as a certain
kind of beautiful, graceful, dignified cat sometimes plays with a mouse?
He was still inclined to think _not_,--before yesterday he would
certainly have said not. But one never can tell--with a woman....
And what was going to happen now? Oliver had always been a fighter--no
doubt Oliver would be prepared to take the "sporting chance."
When he and his guest had gone into the drawing-room last evening, Laura
and Oliver had almost at once passed through into the smaller
drawing-room. They had moved away unconcernedly, as if it was quite
natural that they should desire to be by themselves, rather than in the
company of Oliver's mother and Laura's host; and Lord St. Amant, looking
furtively at Mrs. Tropenell, had felt a sudden painful constriction of
the heart as he had noted the wistful glance she had cast on the two
younger people. It had been such a touching look--the look of the mother
who gives up her beloved to the woman who has become his beloved.
At ten o'clock tea had been brought in--an old-fashioned habit which
was, perhaps, the only survival of the late Lady St. Amant's reign at
the Abbey, and, to the surprise of Mrs. Tropenell, her companion had
poured himself out a cup and had drunk it off absently.
She had smiled, exclaiming, "You shouldn't have done that! You know you
never can take tea and coffee so near together!" And he had said, "Can't
I? No, of course I can't. How stupid of me!"
And Laura, hearing the opening and the shutting of doors, had come back,
and said that she felt sleepy. They had had another glorious walk, she
and Oliver....
Yes, that had been how the evening had worn itself out, so quiet and
pleasant, so peaceful--outwardly. It was, indeed, outwardly just the
kind of evening which Lord St. Amant had promised himself only yesterday
should be repeated many times, after his marriage to his old friend. But
now he knew that that had been the last apparently pleasant, peaceful
evening that was ever likely to fall to his share in this life. Even if
Oliver Tropenell, aided by his great wealth and shrewd intellect,
escaped the legal consequences of his wicked deed, his mother would ever
be haunted by the past--if indeed the fiery ordeal did not actually kill
her.
The old man, sitting by the fire, began to feel very, very tired--tired,
yet excited, and not in the least sleepy. He turned and looked over at
his bed, and then he shook his head. Yet he would have to get into that
bed and pretend that he had slept in it, before his valet came into the
room at half-past seven.
It was years, years, _years_ since he had last tried to make an
unslept-in bed look as if it had been slept in.
He told himself fretfully that it was odd how unwilling he felt to go
over in his own mind the amazing story told him by Sir Angus Kinross. He
had thought of nothing else on his long journey from London, but since
he had arrived at the Abbey, since he had seen Oliver, he could not bear
to think over the details of the sinister story. He forced himself to
glance at them, as it were obliquely, for a moment. Yes, he could quite
see what Sir Angus meant! Oliver certainly had a sporting chance, backed
with the power of commanding the best legal advice and the highest
talent at the Bar, coupled with the kind of sympathy which is aroused,
even in phlegmatic England, by what the French call a _crime passionel_.
* * * * *
Once more Lord St. Amant took up the little faded red leather-bound
volume, but he had hardly pushed aside the green ribbon which marked his
place in it, when there struck on his ears the metallic sound of an
alarum clock--one which he judged to have been carefully muffled and
deadened, yet which must be quite sufficiently audible to fulfil its
purpose of awakening any sleeper in the room where it happened to be.
Now, on hearing that sound, Lord St. Amant was exceedingly surprised,
for, as far as he knew, only one other room was occupied on this side of
the corridor. That room was that which his late wife had chosen in
preference to the one which had been his mother's, and by an odd whim he
had assigned it to Laura Pavely.
He turned slightly round in his chair, and glanced at the travelling
clock which was on his dressing-table.
It was half-past five.
Why should Laura, or any one else in that great house for the matter of
that, wish to be awakened on a winter's morning at such an hour?
While he was thinking this over, he heard the sound of a key turning
quietly in a lock, and then there came that of the slow opening of a
door on to the corridor.
He stood up, uncertain what to do, and feeling his nerves taut.
Though he was now an old man, his limbs had not lost all their
suppleness, and after a moment of hesitation he sprang to his door and
opened it.
Yes! He could hear the firm tread of footsteps coming down the corridor
towards him, to his left.
He flung his door wide open, and into the stream of light thrown by his
powerful reading lamp into the corridor, there suddenly appeared Oliver
Tropenell----
For a flashing moment the tall figure loomed out of the darkness, and
then was engulfed again....
Lord St. Amant shut the door and hurried back to the fireplace. He
cursed the impulse, bred half of genuine alarm, half of eager curiosity,
which had made him the unwilling sharer in another man's--and
woman's--secret.
Laura? Laura?--_Laura?_ He was so taken aback, so surprised, so utterly
astounded, and yes, so shocked, that for a moment he forgot the terrible
thing which had now filled his mind without ceasing for so many hours.
Then it came back, a thousand-fold more vivid and accusing.
Laura? Good God, how mistaken he had been in her! Manlike, he told
himself, most unfairly, that somehow what he had now learnt made
everything--anything possible.
But before he had time to sit down, the door opened again, and Oliver
Tropenell walked into the room.
"I wish you to know," he began, without any preamble, "that Laura and I
were married a week ago in London. She wished to wait--in fact it had
been arranged that we should wait--till February or March. But to please
me--only to please me, St. Amant--she put her own wishes, her own
scruples aside. If there is any blame--the blame is entirely, _entirely_
mine." He waited a moment, and then went on rapidly:
"As far as the rest of the world--the indifferent world--is concerned,
it will believe that Laura and I were married when of course we should
have been, after Godfrey Pavely had been dead a year. But Laura would
like my mother to know. In fact she intends, I believe, to tell my
mother to-morrow."
Lord St. Amant found himself debating, with a kind of terrible
self-questioning, whether now was the moment to speak to Oliver.
"Of course I understand," he said shakily. "And I think Laura did quite
right. But even so I suggest that nothing is said to your mother--yet. I
have a very serious reason for asking you to beg Laura to keep your
marriage absolutely secret."
He was looking earnestly, painfully into the face of the younger man.
Oliver Tropenell's countenance suddenly stiffened. It assumed a
terrible, mask-like expression.
"Had your journey to London," he asked slowly, "anything to do with my
affairs? I thought so once--at dinner. Did Sir Angus Kinross send for
you?"
Lord St. Amant could not, did not, speak. But at last he bent his head.
Then Oliver asked another question, quickly, in a matter-of-fact tone:
"How many hours have I left?"
"Till to-morrow, I mean till Friday, morning," the other answered in a
stifled voice.
He longed to go on, to tell the man standing by his side what Sir Angus
had said as to his having "a sporting chance." But there was something
in the expression of the rigid, mask-like face which forbade his saying
that.
And then Oliver Tropenell turned round and grasped his host's hand.
"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I used not to be grateful,
but I am grateful, _now_. We'll get Laura and mother off--and then
you'll tell me what I have to know."