"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 G.o.dfrey, as G.o.dfrey 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 "d.a.m.n him!"
CHAPTER II
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, G.o.dfrey 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 G.o.dfrey 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. G.o.dfrey 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."
And then, as she uttered an inarticulate murmur of pain and of protest, he went on quickly, "The fear didn"t last very long--perhaps for two or three years. You see I was so horribly afraid that you were going to marry him." In the darkness he was saying something he had never meant, never thought to say.
And she answered, "It was a baseless fear."
"Was it? I wonder if it was! Oh, of course I know you are telling me the truth as you see it now--but, but surely, mother?"
"Surely no, Oliver. It is true that St. Amant wished, after his wife"s death, that I should marry him, but he soon saw that I did not wish it, that nothing was further from my wish--then."
"_Then?_" he cried. "What do you mean, mother? Lady St. Amant only died when I was fifteen!"
"I would like to tell you what I mean. And after I have told you, I wish never to speak of this subject to you again. But I owe it to myself as well as to you, to tell you the truth, Oliver. Where is your hand?" she said, "let me hold it while I tell you."
And then slowly and with difficulty she began speaking, with a hesitation, a choosing of her words, which were in sharp contrast to her usual swift decision.
"I want to begin by telling you," her voice was very low, "that according to his lights--the lights of a man of the world and of, well yes, of an English gentleman--St. Amant behaved very well as far as I was concerned. I want you to understand that, Oliver, to understand it thoroughly, because it"s the whole point of my story. If St. Amant had behaved less well, I should have nothing to tell--you."
She divined the quiver of half-shamed relief which went through her son.
It made what she wished to say at once easier and more difficult.
"As I think you know, I first met St. Amant when I was very young, in fact before I was "out," and he was the first really clever, really attractive, and, in a sense, really noted man I had ever met. And then"--she hesitated painfully.
"And then, mother?" Oliver"s voice was hard and matter-of-fact. He was not making it easy for her.