The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ his sober self, were uttering the lie.

      "No," said Oliver quickly, "I don't suppose you have. But still, I can't help being rather sorry you kept it, and—and that you showed it to me. There's nothing to be done! I suppose it's the work of some clerk whom you've dismissed in the last few weeks?"

      "I've dismissed no one," said Pavely shortly. Somehow Tropenell was not taking this disagreeable business quite as he had meant him to take it.

      In a rather different voice Oliver went on: "Show me the letter again. I want to see if there's a date to it."

      "It arrived exactly three weeks ago to-day," said Pavely slowly, "and it was posted in Pewsbury."

      Light broke in on Tropenell. This, then, was why Godfrey had taken to coming home at such odd hours, and why he had telephoned several times from the Bank, sending messages to Laura, and, on at least one occasion, a message to Tropenell himself!

      He set his lips tightly together, and a flood of bitter wrath welled up from his heart.

      "Then in my place you would do nothing?" asked Godfrey uncertainly.

      More and more he was disappointed in the other's attitude. He had thought Oliver would suggest something which might be useful, or at any rate laugh the matter off.

      But Oliver only looked grim—grim and angry.

      "I don't see that you can do anything. It isn't the sort of thing about which you would care to go to the local police, and even if you knew who wrote that infamous scrawl I don't see how you could take action. We can't have Laura's name dragged into this kind of business."

      Then he asked in a lower voice, "Have you said anything to her?"

      The other shook his head. "I've no intention of saying anything to Laura. It would distress and disgust her very much."

      He was glad to see that Oliver, hearing these words, looked very much relieved.

      They walked on a few paces, and then Godfrey exclaimed, "There's one thing I do think, Oliver—and I hope you won't be angry with me for saying it! It must be admitted that you've been a great deal at The Chase alone with Laura, and also, unfortunately, that that sort of thing always does make talk in a country town."

      Tropenell turned on him sternly: "What sort of thing?" he asked. "I swear before God that there has never been anything in my attitude to Laura which should give the slightest rise to comment, or afford the basest scandalmonger excuse for a word."

      And he believed every word of what he said.

      "I know that—I know that, my dear fellow!" Godfrey put his hand out, and for a moment it lay heavily on his friend's shoulder.

      But quickly, silently, Tropenell shook himself free of the other's touch. "If you know that," he was breathing hard now, not trying to disguise his anger, "then why did you allude just now to the fact that I am a good deal in your house? Does that mean you wish that I should give up coming to The Chase?"

      "No, of course I don't mean that! You're the one real friend I've made—well, since I got to man's estate," said Pavely ruefully.

      Everything was going wrong. The conversation was taking a turn he had never thought of or conceived as possible. "What I mean is that Laura——"

      Tropenell stopped him with a passionate gesture: "Cannot we keep Laura's name out of our discussion?"

      Godfrey stared at him, genuinely astonished.

      "How can we keep Laura's name out of our discussion? The whole thing centres about Laura! This letter mentions Laura—ay, and I've had another letter, which I hadn't meant to show you, but which on second thoughts I should like you to see."

      He began fumbling in another pocket.

      "I don't want to see it!" cried Oliver. "I'd rather not see it!"

      "But I'd rather you saw it," said Godfrey obstinately.

      Tropenell read the second anonymous letter through, and then handed it back, without comment.

      Silently they both turned about, and walked quickly, in almost complete silence, back to Freshley. "We've come home to tea, after all, mother," said Oliver shortly, "we are neither of us in condition for a fifteen-mile walk."

      Neither man referred again to the matter which when they were together filled both their minds, and on the day of Laura's return to The Chase, Oliver Tropenell went up to town, without having seen her. Four days later his mother received a rather cryptic telegram: "Arriving to-night with a friend."

      A friend? Some sure, sombre instinct told Mrs. Tropenell that this would be Gillie Baynton.

      Chapter IX

       Table of Contents

      "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, СКАЧАТЬ