LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

it was for her sake that I asked you to be good to her son, to Gillie."

      "Laura's extraordinarily fond of Gillie——" There always came a curious change over Oliver Tropenell's voice when he uttered the name "Laura." It became as it were softer, infused with feeling—or so his mother thought.

      She waited a moment; then answered slowly, "Women generally are fond of their only brothers."

      "Oh, but it's more than that!"

      As she remained silent, he went on musingly: "And Gillie, in his queer way, is very fond of Laura—though I don't believe he writes to her once in three months!"

      "I suppose Gillie still hates Godfrey?" she said hesitatingly. "Godfrey behaved so—so—well, not so much badly perhaps, as meanly and even stupidly—about that unfortunate affair." It was almost as if Mrs. Tropenell were speaking to herself. Her son turned and looked at her squarely.

      "Yes! Gillie still hates Pavely. And yet, mother, since I came home this time I've wondered sometimes if Pavely was so very unreasonable about it after all. You see, Gillie must have been about the most troublesome and—well, the most dangerous brother-in-law an unlucky country banker could well have had!"

      "And but for you he'd be so still," she said quietly. "From something Godfrey said the other day I gather that he's really grateful to you, Oliver?"

      Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting people out of scrapes——" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his deep, even tones.

      "I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps he'd be kinder to poor Gillie now—" a curious smile played round her mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous mouth, but it was the least refined feature of her face.

      "No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, Pavely has used this portion of Laura's fortune in a way he had no business to do, knowing it was trust money."

      "And you——?"

      "Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern."

      "Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?"

       "Yes, it will. But I don't mind—it's quite a likely gamble. Have you ever heard of Greville Howard?"

      "You mean the great money-lender?"

      "He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be in a kind of secret partnership—queer isn't it? Pavely's a clever chap about money, but oh, mother! he's such an insufferable cad!"

      Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep over her. She had lately come to what she now realised was a quite wrong conclusion—she had believed, that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, had grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly grown fond of Oliver. But now, all at once, her son had opened a dark window into his soul—or was it into his heart? There was an under-current of hatred, as well as of the contempt to which she was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just spoken of his "friend"—of the man, at once fortunate and unfortunate, who was Laura Pavely's husband.

      She stood up, and put her hand through her son's arm. "It's getting very cold," she said, and shivered.

      He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you too long! I ought to have sent him away before—but he was such a long time getting it out—" under his breath he muttered "Damn him!"

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      MOTHER and son dined alone together, and then, rather early, Mrs. Tropenell went upstairs.

      For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat up in bed, reading. At last, however, she turned off the switch of her electric reading lamp, and, lying back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her eyes for a few moments. Then she opened them, widely, on to her moonlit room.

      Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window was still open to the night air and the star-powdered sky. On that side of Freshley Manor the wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, and beyond the meadows there rose steeply a high, flat-topped ridge.

      Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking up and down smoking. Now and again his mother saw the shadow-like figure move across the line of her vision.

      At one moment, last winter, she had feared that he would not be able to come back this year, as troubles had arisen among his cattle-men. But, as was Oliver's way, he had kept his promise. That he had been able to so do was in no small measure owing to his partner, Gilbert Baynton.

      Gilbert Baynton—Laura Pavely's brother? Of that ne'er-do-weel Oliver had made from a failure a success; from a waster—his brother-in-law, Godfrey Pavely, would have called him by a harsher name—an acute and a singularly successful man of business.

       Lying there, her brain working quickly in the darkness, Oliver's mother told herself that the Pavelys, both Godfrey and Laura, had indeed reason to be grateful, not only to Oliver, but to her, Oliver's mother! It was to please her, not them, that Oliver, long years ago, had accepted the dubious gift of Gilbert Baynton, and the small sum Gilbert's brother-in-law had reluctantly provided to rid himself of an intolerable incubus and a potential source of disgrace. Godfrey Pavely was certainly grateful, and never backward in expressing it. And Laura? Laura was one of your silent, inarticulate women, but without doubt Laura must be grateful too.

      At last Oliver left the ridge, and Mrs. Tropenell went on gazing at the vast expanse of luminous sky which merged into the uplands stretching away for miles beyond the boundaries of her garden.

      She lay, listening intently, and very soon she heard the cadence of his firm footfalls on the stone path below the window. Then came the quiet unlatching of the garden door. Now he was coming upstairs.

      Her whole heart leapt out to him—and perchance it was this strong shaft of wordless longing that caused Oliver Tropenell's feet to linger as he was going past his mother's door.

      Following a sudden impulse, she, who had trained herself to do so few things on impulse, called out, "Is that you, my darling?"

      The door opened. "Yes, mother. Here I am. May I come in?"

      He turned and shut out the bright electric light on the landing, and walked, a little slowly and uncertainly in the darkness, towards where he knew the bed to be. For a moment she wondered whether she should turn on the lamp which was at her elbow, then some sure, secret instinct made her refrain.

      She put out her hand, and pulled him down to her, and he, so chary of caress, put his left arm round her.

      "Mother?" he said softly. "This dear old room! It's years since I've been in this room—and yet from what I can see, it's exactly the same as it always was!"

      And, as if answering an unspoken question, she spoke in very low tones, "Hardly altered at all since the day you were born here, my dearest, on the happiest day of my life."

      His strong arm tightened about her a little, and, still looking straight before her, but leaning perhaps a little closer into the shelter of his arm, she said tremulously, inconsequently it might have seemed: "Oliver? Are you going to accept Lord St. Amant's invitation?"

      With a sharp shoot of hidden pain she felt his movement of recoil, but all he said was, very quietly, "I've not quite made up my mind, mother."

      "It would give me pleasure if you were to do so. He has been a very good and loyal friend to me for a long, long time, my dear."

      "I know that."

      She waited a moment, then forced herself to go on: "You were never quite fair to St. Amant, Oliver."

      "I—I feared him, mother."

Скачать книгу