The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ not very often, Gilbert Baynton made use of some little phrase showing that he lived on the other side of the Atlantic. He had changed somehow, Mrs. Tropenell could hardly have told you how, for he had always had a very assured manner. But now Gillie looked what he was—a very prosperous man of business, though scarcely an English man of business. The long sojourn in Mexico had not altered her Oliver at all—not, that is, as far as she could see, but it had altered Gillie Baynton surprisingly. It had roughened him, and increased his natural self-assurance.

      "Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with you to tea? Godfrey, too, if he seems in the humour for it," she said.

      And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. That would be very pleasant."

      He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and was gone.

      The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. And then Oliver, as if answering her thought, exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at The Chase till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from everything else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may see him again within a very short time from now."

      "But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked Mrs. Tropenell anxiously.

      "Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the cards there'll be a furious row. But that, after all, would clear the air. As Gillie said just now, Godfrey Pavely will have to put the past behind him. Perhaps, once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. There's a good deal to be said for a row sometimes, mother."

      "Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is."

      Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the boudoir," by the household of Lawford Chase. It was a beautiful and stately room, furnished some ninety years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs. Tropenell's grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants had not cared to use it, for it was away from the other living-rooms of the house, and so nothing in the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The Chase had been prepared for the occupation of the strangers who had lived there for fourteen years.

      The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. To-day she had had a fire lit, for it was beginning to be chilly. Alice had gone off into Pewsbury to spend the afternoon with two little friends, and now the mistress of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read a book; but soon she let the book rest open on her lap, and she stared mournfully, hopelessly, into the fire.

      Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. They had begun going ill about a month ago, just after that—that unfortunate outburst on Oliver's part. Yet she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he had had together, that they would slip back into their old, easy relationship! And for a while, perhaps for as long as a week, it had seemed as if they were going to do so.

      But then there had come a change. Godfrey had fallen into the way of coming home early. In old days, both before the coming to England of Oliver Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey had generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and then, as often as not, he had gone in and had a chat with Katty on his way home. Now he always came back before five, and after his return home he and Oliver would engage in interminable singles on the big tennis court which had been Godfrey Pavely's one contribution to the otherwise beautiful gardens of The Chase.

      Sometimes, and especially had this been true these last few days, Laura told herself that perhaps after all, the world, the cynical shrewd world of which she knew so little, was right, and that a close and confidential friendship between a man and a woman is an impossible ideal.

      To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, she felt miserably unhappy—too troubled and uneasy to occupy herself in any of her usual ways. More than had ever been the case before, life seemed to stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending monotony.

      Something else had come to pass during the last week, the week during which Oliver Tropenell had been away in London, which she scarcely liked to think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey had altered in his manner to her, he had become kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he had been for years. He hung about her, when he was at home, indoors and out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way he actually tried to make himself pleasant! He had even suggested that she should ask one or two people to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she much preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the shoulders he had given in. After all, he didn't really care for strangers more than she did.

      Several times during the last dreary week, he had astonished her by talking to her of Oliver in a rather fretful, complaining way, as if he thought it odd that the other man was staying on in England with his mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had said that he thought it strange that such a big business as he understood Oliver Tropenell to have built up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, "You forget that my brother is there." And to that he had made no reply.

      Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's lonely heart. Oliver had said nothing more concerning Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which had happened, up to, and including, the evening when she and Oliver had had that curious, intimate conversation when he had promised so solemnly to be her friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared with the drab reality of to-day.

      And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be coming in, and she would have to rouse herself to listen and to answer, while they had tea together in the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for the boudoir.

      Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside the door, the eager words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? You're sure? All right—I'll go straight in!" And before she could gather her mind together, the door opened, and her brother—the brother she had not seen for years, but of whom she had just been thinking—walked forward into the room, exclaiming heartily, resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here I am again!"

      She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering delight, threw herself into his arms, half laughing, half crying, "Oh, Gillie—Gillie—Gillie! How glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we were never going to meet again! Have you only just come? Has Oliver Tropenell seen you? Why didn't you wire?"

      Gillie was as touched and flattered as it was in him to be, for he remembered his sister as having been always quiet and restrained. And when they had parted, just before he had gone out to Mexico, she had seemed almost inanimate with—had it been vicarious?—shame and pain.

      "I thought I'd take you by surprise." He looked round him with a pleased, measuring look. "Nothing altered!" he exclaimed, "and you've got a fire? That's good! I feel it awfully cold here, I mean in England. They haven't started fires yet, over at Freshley."

      He repeated, "Nothing's altered—you least of all, Laura. Why, you don't look a day older!"

      She sighed. "I feel," she said, "a lifetime older."

      "I don't!" he cried briskly, "I feel younger. And Godfrey?" His voice altered, becoming just a little graver. "Time stood still with Godfrey too, eh?"

      "I don't think Godfrey's altered much——" She was hesitating. And then, very carefully, she added the words, "Godfrey's quite good to me, you know, Gillie."

      "Oh, well—of course he always liked you the best!" And then he laughed, but to them both his laughter sounded just a little hollow. "I gather that he and Tropenell don't quite hit it off?"

      She turned on him quickly, and he was puzzled at the look of extreme astonishment which came over her face. "What makes you think that?" she exclaimed. "They're the greatest friends! Godfrey likes Oliver Tropenell better than I thought he'd ever like anybody."

      And then, before Gillie СКАЧАТЬ