The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ were two distant cousins of Godfrey Pavely—men with whom he had quarrelled years ago—but in a real, intimate sense, the principal mourners were old Mr. Privet, Lord St. Amant, who, though he was so fond of travel, never neglected the duties entailed by his position in the county, and last but by no means least Mr. Oliver Tropenell, who, as every one present was well aware, had during the last few months become the one intimate friend of the dead man. Among the women there were several who knew that at this very moment Mrs. Pavely was being comforted by Mr. Oliver Tropenell's mother, a lady who stood high in public esteem, and with whom Mrs. Pavely as a girl, had spent much of her youth, and from whose house, picturesque Freshley Manor, she had been married to the man whom they were now engaged in burying.

      Another person present who aroused even more interest among the good folk of Pewsbury than either Lord St. Amant or Oliver Tropenell, was Mrs. Winslow.

      The older townspeople looked at Katty with a good deal of rather excited sympathy, for they remembered the gossip and talk there had been about pretty Katty Fenton and the dead man, and of how unkind old Mrs. Pavely, now dead many a year, had shown herself to the lovely, motherless girl.

      There were even some there who whispered that poor Godfrey Pavely had again become very fond of his first love—and that, too, when they were both old enough to know better! But these busybodies were not encouraged to say the little they knew. These are things—natural human failings—which should be forgotten at a man's funeral.

      Mrs. Winslow did not look unreasonably upset. There were no tears in her bright brown eyes, and her black frock, sable plumed hat, and beautiful black furs, intensified the brilliant pink and white of her complexion. Indeed, many of the people who gazed at Katty that day thought they had never seen her looking so attractive. The world belongs to the living—not to the dead, and poor Godfrey Pavely, with his big, prosperous one-man business, and his almost uncanny cleverness in the matter of making money, belonged henceforth very decidedly to the past. So it was that among the men and women who stared with eager curiosity and respectful interest at the group of mourners, several noticed that Mr. Oliver Tropenell seemed to pay special attention to Mrs. Winslow.

      Once he crossed over, and stood close to her for a minute or two by the still open grave, and his dark handsome face showed far more trace of emotion than did hers.

      After the funeral, Lord St. Amant dropped Mrs. Winslow at the gate of Rosedean, and, on parting with Katty, he patted her hand kindly, telling himself that she was certainly a very pretty woman. Lord St. Amant, like most connoisseurs in feminine beauty, preferred seeing a pretty woman in black.

      "You must try and forget poor Godfrey Pavely," he said feelingly.

      He was startled and moved by the intensity with which she answered him:—"I wish I could—but I can't. I feel all the time as if he was there, close to me, trying to tell me something! I believe that he was murdered, Lord St. Amant."

      "I'm sure you're mistaken. You must never think that!"

      "Ah, but I do think so. I'm certain of it!"

      Following the old custom, Godfrey Pavely's will was to be read after his burial, and Laura had written to Lord St. Amant asking him if he would be present.

      In the great dining-room of The Chase, a dining-room still lined with the portraits of Mrs. Tropenell's ancestors, were two tables, one large long table which was never used, and a round table in the bow-window. To-day it was about the big table that there were gathered the five men and the one woman who were to be present at the reading of the will. Laura was the one woman. The men were Godfrey Pavely's lawyer, the dead man's two cousins—who had perhaps a faint hope of legacies, a hope destined to be disappointed, Oliver Tropenell, present as Laura Pavely's trustee, and Lord St. Amant, who had been a trustee to her marriage settlement.

      Laura, in her deep black, looked wan, sad and tired, but perfectly calm. All the men there, with one exception, glanced towards her now and again with sympathy. The exception was Oliver Tropenell. He had shut her out, as far as was possible, from his mind, and he seemed hardly aware of her presence. He stared straight before him, a look of rather impatient endurance on his face—not at all, so argued Lord St. Amant to himself, the look of a man from whose path a hitherto impassable obstacle has just been removed.

      Though rather ashamed of letting his mind dwell on such thoughts at such a time, Lord St. Amant told himself that Mrs. Tropenell had doubtless been mistaken as to what she had confided to him on his return from abroad. Mothers are apt to be jealous where only sons are concerned, and Letty—his dear, ardent-natured friend Letty—had always been romantic.

      Lord St. Amant was confirmed in this view by the fact that that very morning Mrs. Tropenell had told him that Oliver was going back to Mexico almost at once. To her mind it confirmed what she believed to be true. But her old friend and some-time lover had smiled oddly. Lord St. Amant judged Oliver by himself—and he had always been a man of hot-foot decisions. It was inconceivable to him that any lover could act in so cold-blooded, careful a fashion as this. No, no—if Oliver cared for Laura as his mother believed he cared, he would not now go off to the other end of the world, simply to placate public opinion.

      To those who had known the man, Godfrey Pavely's will contained only one surprise, otherwise it ran on the most conventional lines. Practically the whole of his very considerable fortune was left, subject to Laura's life interest—an interest which lapsed on re-marriage—in trust for his only child.

      The surprise was the banker's substantial legacy to Mrs. Winslow. That lady was left Rosedean, the only condition attaching to the legacy being that, should she ever wish to sell the little property, the first offer must be made to Alice Pavely's trustees. Also, rather to the astonishment of some of those present, it was found that the will had only been made some two months ago, and the lawyer who read it out was aware that in some important particulars it had been modified and changed. In the will made by Godfrey Pavely immediately after his marriage he had left his wife sole legatee. After Alice was born the banker had naturally added a codicil, but he had still left Laura in a far greater position of responsibility in regard to the estate than in this, his final will.

      After the will had been read, Lord St. Amant spent a few moments alone with Laura. He felt he had a rather disagreeable task before him, and he did not like disagreeable tasks. Still he faced this one with characteristic courage.

      "I've been asked by Sir Angus Kinross to undertake a rather unpleasant duty, my dear Laura—that of persuading you to withdraw the reward you are offering for the discovery of Fernando Apra. He points out that if Apra's story is true, it might easily mean that you would simply be giving a present of a thousand pounds to the person who killed your husband."

      Laura heard him out without interruption. Then she shook her head. "I feel it is my duty to do it," she said in a low voice. "Katty, who was Godfrey's greatest friend, says he would have wished it—and I think she's right. It isn't going to be paid out of the estate, you know. I will pay it—if ever it is earned."

      She went on painfully. "I am very unhappy, Lord St. Amant. Godfrey and I were not suited to one another, but still I feel that I was often needlessly selfish and unkind."

      Lord St. Amant began to see why Oliver Tropenell was going back to Mexico so soon.

      Part Three

       Table of Contents

      Chapter XXI

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