The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ cut in: "You'll let me know, Laura, won't you, if you have any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know if Godfrey's safe at the Bank—I'm not so anxious as all that!" She laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's any other news—especially if he's had an accident of any sort—well, I should like to know."

      "Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura roused herself. "Why shouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I could tell you anything I've heard this morning."

      "Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I've things to do, and letters to write, now."

      She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case in the past, her heart was filled with envy—envy, and a certain excitement.

      Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She felt sure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. She wondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that he had.

      She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arrive exactly at one o'clock, for at The Chase luncheon was at one, she went off, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home to Freshley.

      "Any news?" she called out. And he shook his head. "No—no news at all." Then he added slowly: "But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm. Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying he was being detained in town."

      "Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "As a rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London."

      She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleading than a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containing directions as to this or that connected with the house or garden. But Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face, and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive man tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now she positively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things were looking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he now come back?

      "How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling.

      "He's gone back to Mexico."

      And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he indeed?" she exclaimed. "And without seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry for that!" And as Oliver made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will be going off soon, too?"

      He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, before he answered, "Yes, I suppose I shall. But things go on all right over there as long as one of us is there."

      Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her.

      Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday afternoon with Laura, and as was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant to both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not like her.

      A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself to the Bank, and Laura eagerly assented.

      Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quite a long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always been good friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as a beautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always good humoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury.

      "Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wondering whether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the London police, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could you ascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. Pavely?"

      "I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidents do happen! Hold the line a moment. I'll go and inquire."

      She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet suggests that the London police should be communicated with—if we don't have news of Godfrey by to-morrow morning."

      Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you think that would make him very angry—if he's all right, I mean?"

      "Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably.

      She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely thinks we'd better wait a little longer before saying anything to the police," she called out.

      And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days to come, that two more precious days were lost.

      Chapter XV

       Table of Contents

      "Well, my dear—any more news?" But even as Mrs. Tropenell, looking up from her breakfast-table, asked the question, she knew what the answer would be.

      It was the following Monday morning. The post had just come in, and at once, knowing that the postman called first at The Chase, Oliver had hurried off to the telephone. He had been there a long time—perhaps as long as ten minutes—and when he came back into the dining-room his mother was struck afresh by the look of almost intolerable strain and anxiety in his face and eyes.

      They had spent a great part of Sunday with Laura, and during that long, trying day Mrs. Tropenell had felt very much more concerned about her son than she did about Godfrey Pavely.

      Godfrey, so she told herself, with a touch of unreason not usual with her, would almost certainly turn up all right—even if, as she was inclined to believe possible, he had met with some kind of accident. But Oliver, her beloved, the only human being in the world that really mattered to her—what was wrong with him? Long after she had gone to bed each evening she had heard him, during the last three nights, wandering restlessly about the house.

      After the first almost painful rush of joy which had come over her when he had suddenly walked into her presence last Thursday night, she had regretted, with unceasing bitter regret, his return home. It was so horribly apparent to her, his mother, that Laura, belle dame sans merci, held him in thrall.

      "If you don't mind, mother, I think I shall go up to town to-day and see the Scotland Yard people. I think—don't you?—it would-be a comfort to Laura." There was a harassed, questioning note in his voice which surprised Mrs. Tropenell. As a rule Oliver always knew exactly what he meant to do.

      She answered slowly, reluctantly (she hated so much his being mixed up in this odd, mysterious matter of Godfrey's temporary disappearance!): "Perhaps it would be. Still, I think Laura ought to communicate with Godfrey's cousins. Of course I know he didn't care for them. Still, after all, those people are his only near relations."

      "That old Mr. Privet, Pavely's confidential clerk, is going up to town to-day," observed Oliver inconsequently. "I thought he and I might travel together, and that while he goes to the hotel, I can go to Scotland Yard."

      And then Mrs. Tropenell roused herself to try and give what help she could.

      "Lord St. Amant knows the new Commissioner of Police very well," she said. "They met in India. Ask him to give you a note of introduction, Oliver. He's in town just now, you would certainly find him, either at his rooms or at his club."

      There came a faint flush over her face. By her plate there lay Lord St. Amant's daily letter. On Mondays London letters always arrived by the second post, but yesterday her old friend had had a late-fee stamp put on his letter, СКАЧАТЬ