Mrs. Tropenell stood by the window of the pretty, old-fashioned
sitting-room which she had now occupied for over a week, and which she
knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after she had became
Lady St. Amant.
She was already dressed for the drive home with Laura Pavely. It was
nearly twelve o'clock, and the car would be round in a few minutes. But
she was waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast Oliver had
said casually: "I'll come up to your room for a moment, mother--I mean
before you start for Freshley."
She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing in it had been altered
for something like fifty years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece
was a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, and on either
side of the fireplace were crayon drawings of St. Amant as a little boy,
and of his two sisters as little girls. Everything here epitomised the
placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman who had been Lord St.
Amant's mother.
But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room told also of the
strange transience of human life. With the exception of that early
Victorian crayon drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything
in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some human being long dead.
Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There was something almost
final about the feeling which possessed her. Up to last night she had
been anxious, restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether
she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant.
But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly owing to a very
trifling thing, a quick perception of how well St. Amant and Oliver got
on together--now. She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they
had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one subject to
another, with no intervals of silence. When, at last, Oliver had got up,
St. Amant also had risen, and put his arm with an affectionate gesture
round the younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange look, a
look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark face....
She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve--but the dread had left
her, and she made up her mind to tell him this morning--not to wait, as
she had half thought of doing, till he was at home again.
St. Amant and Oliver were going to shoot this afternoon over land
belonging to little Alice Pavely. Laura had let The Chase shooting to a
neighbour, and the neighbour, whose name was Buckhurst, had invited the
other two to join his shooting party to-day, and to-morrow also. Oliver
was coming home to Freshley in between....
The door opened. "Mother, may I come in?"
She turned quickly, all her heart, as always, welcoming him. With a
little, unacknowledged pang she told herself that Oliver was growing
older, that he was losing the look of buoyancy that he had kept so long.
But what a fine, strong, vigorous-looking man he looked!--as he stood
there, smiling rather gravely at her.
"Oliver?" she exclaimed, suddenly making up her mind to rush her
fence--it was a simile which still often occurred to her--"Oliver, my
dear, I want to tell you something. I have promised Lord St. Amant to
marry him."
He looked moved and surprised--perhaps more than she had expected him to
be. But his answer came instantly: "I am glad, mother. I'm very, very
glad! I want to tell you, I've meant to tell you for some time, that I
felt I've been very churlish in this matter of Lord St. Amant. He's
always been good to me! Very, very good. I owed him a great deal as a
boy. Lately, well, mother, you must have noticed it yourself, we've
become really friends."
He looked swiftly round the pretty room. Till this morning he had always
been here alone with Laura, having eyes only for her. He saw now what a
charming room it was--so warm, so cosy too, on this chilly, wintry
December day.
He exclaimed: "It will be good to think of you here--wherever I may
be----"
She felt a tremor go through her. Somehow she had thought that he meant
to settle down in England; he had never said anything about it, but she
had thought that that was his intention.
"Is Laura willing to spend a part of every year in Mexico, my dearest?"
He nodded, rather absently, as if the question hardly required an
answer.
She moved closer to him. "You are very happy, are you not, Oliver?" she
asked in a low voice, and looking up into his face.
And again he answered at once, almost as though he had seen the question
in her eyes before she uttered it: "Very, very happy, mother! I don't
suppose any man has ever been happier than I have been."
Again she put an intimate, probing question, wondering at her own
courage, her own temerity, in doing so. "Laura wholly satisfies you?"
she asked, allowing nothing of the doubt which was still in her heart to
creep into her voice.
"Wholly," he said, again in that strong, confident voice. "And,
mother--?" he waited a moment, and then, in a voice suddenly tense with
emotion, he muttered--"what she is to me, I, all unworthy though I be,
am to her. Do you know what--what response means to a man?"
"I think I do," she said in a low voice.
They remained silent. She felt as if she were, for the first time, fused
in intense spiritual communion with her son.
He broke the spell. "There's something I want you to know," he said. And
then he stopped short, and, looking away, exclaimed, "Laura shall tell
you!" The carriage gong echoed through the great house. He opened the
door, she passed through it, and so together they walked down to the
large, rather bare hall. There they waited a few moments in silence,
till there came the sound of light footsteps--Laura running downstairs,
a small fur cap on her beautiful head.
She hurried towards them, smiling, and Mrs. Tropenell turned away--a
twinge of jealous pain, of which she was ashamed, in her heart--and
stared into the big log fire.
She heard Oliver exclaim, in accents at once imploring and imperious:
"Laura? Come over here a moment."
At last she, the mother, turned slowly round, to see, through the
half-open door of Lord St. Amant's study, the two standing together,
locked in each other's arms, Laura looking up into Oliver's face with an
expression of rapt devotion, of entire absorption, in her blue,
heavy-lidded eyes. As their lips met, Mrs. Tropenell looked quickly
away. She asked herself if this exalted passion could last, and whether,
after all, Oliver were not happier now than he could ever hope to be
again?
Laura was very silent during the first half of their homeward drive, but
at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell by suddenly saying: "I want you to
know--I feel I must tell you--that Oliver and I were married, in London,
ten days ago. And I think--oh, Aunt Letty, I do think that he is
happy--at last!"
She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell felt extraordinarily
moved. This then was what Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like
had felt too--too shy to tell her.
"I am very grateful to you for what you have done," she exclaimed, and
held the younger woman's hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment.
That was all. But before they parted Laura gave his mother a message
from Oliver. It was quite an unimportant message, simply that on his way
home he meant to look in at The Chase.
"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little hesitatingly. And
Oliver's mother smiled.
"Of course not, my dear--I'm glad he should! Perhaps you'd like to come
back with him, and stay on for dinner?"
But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, vivid blushes, shook
her head. "I think I ought to stay at home the first evening," she said,
"and put Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I don't want
Alice ever to feel jealous."
But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor little Alice! It would
be strange indeed if the child did not feel a little jealous as time
went on--if, that is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost
mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing which had come into
her life.
* * * * *
It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Tropenell, after dealing
with the various matters which had accumulated during her week's
absence, had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. Lying
on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, thinking over all that had
happened, and all that was happening, to herself and to those she loved,
Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, in a long flash which
seemed to contain aeons of sensation, she went through an amazing and
terrifying experience!
On the dead stillness which reigned both within and without the house
there suddenly rang out a shot. At the same moment, if not indeed
before, her whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure a great
ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishing a base, secret, physical
terror of the unknown, was about to engage on a great adventure.
With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, with a gasp of
relief, that she had been dreaming, only dreaming--but her heart went on
beating for a long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and
exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through.
At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she went downstairs, and
had tea in the drawing-room.
It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would not come in till
just before it was time to dress for dinner.
The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got up, and moved
restlessly about the room. The curtains had been drawn and the fire made
up while she had been upstairs. She went across to one of the windows,
and, behind the closed curtains, opened it widely. And as she opened the
window, and stood by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the
sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used path which was
even a shorter cut to The Chase than was the beech-wood avenue.
Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura had thought he would?
She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the flagged path.
She could hear quick footsteps now--but they were not Oliver's
footsteps. It was probably a maid coming back from the village which lay
beyond The Chase. But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety
over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out.
Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant hoarse answer:
"It's Laura, Aunt Letty."
"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for Laura, without hat or
cloak, was now there, before her.
"Aunt Letty? I've brought bad news--there's been an accident."
"To Oliver?" But she knew, even as she asked the question, what the
answer would be.
"Yes--Oliver. They went on too long in the twilight--he stumbled, and
his gun went off. They're bringing him home--now."
Laura was staring before her, her eyes veiled, glassy, like those of a
blind woman.
"They wanted to bring him to The Chase. But there was a doctor there,
and he said nothing would be of any use. So I told them to bring him
home--to you."
Both women waited in the grateful darkness, dry-eyed and still.
At last Mrs. Tropenell said uncertainly: "Come indoors, Laura."
But Laura shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay out here, if you don't
mind, Aunt Letty."
Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, Mrs. Tropenell walked
forward and opened the door into the hall. There she took down a cloak,
and coming out again, she put it round Laura. And they stood there
waiting--till there broke on their ears the heavy tramp of men's feet
carrying a burden.