Katty spoke in a cold, hard voice--all her small affectations had fallen away from her.
"I suppose," he said, "that Laura knew very little of your friendship with poor G.o.dfrey Pavely?"
And she answered, again in that hard, cold voice, "Yes, Laura did know, I think, almost everything there was to know. She didn"t care--she didn"t mind. Laura has no feeling."
As he made no reply to that, she went on, rather breathlessly, and with sudden pa.s.sion, "You think that I"m unfair--you think that Laura really cares because she looked so shocked and miserable this morning? But that"s just what she was--_shocked_, nothing else. What is a piece of terrible, _terrible_ bad luck for me, is good--very good luck for Laura!"
There was such concentrated bitterness in her tone that Lord St. Amant felt repelled--repelled as well as sorry.
But all he said was: "Would you like to go back to my rooms for an hour or two? They"re quite near here."
"No, I"d rather face Laura now, at once. After all, I shall have to see her some time. I"m bound to be her nearest neighbour for a while, at any rate."
Late that same night the awful news was broken to Mrs. Tropenell by her son. He had sent a message saying he would be down by the last train, and she had sat up for him, knowing nothing, yet aware that something had happened that morning which had sent Laura and Katty hurrying up to town.
Perhaps because the news he told was so unexpected, so strange, and to them both of such vital moment, the few minutes which followed Oliver"s return remained stamped, as if branded with white hot iron, on the tablets of Mrs. Tropenell"s memory.
When she heard his firm, hurried footsteps outside, she ran to let him in, and at once, as he came into the house, he said in a harsh, cold voice: "G.o.dfrey Pavely is dead, mother. A foreigner with whom he had entered into business relations shot him by accident. The man wrote to Laura a confession of what he had done. She got the letter this morning, took it up to London to the police--the best thing she could do--and Pavely"s body was found at the place indicated, a business office."
As Oliver spoke, in quick, jerky sentences, he was taking off his greatcoat, and hanging up his hat.
She waited till he had done, and then only said: "I"ve got a little supper ready for you, darling. I sent the servants off to bed, so I"m alone downstairs."
Oliver sighed, a long, tired sigh of relief--relief that his mother had asked no tiresome, supplementary questions. And she saw the look of strain, and of desperate fatigue, smooth itself away, as he followed her into their peaceful dining-room.
She sat with him, and so far commanded her nerves as to remain silent while he ate with a kind of hungry eagerness which astonished her.
He turned to her at last, and for the first time smiled a rather wry smile. "I was very hungry! This is my first meal to-day, and I seem to have lived in the train. I was up at York--we thought there was a clue there. I think I told you that over the telephone? Then I came back."
She broke in gently, "To be met with this awful news, Oliver?"
He looked at her rather strangely, and nodded.
"Have you seen Laura?" she ventured.
"Yes, just for a moment. But, mother? She"s horribly unhappy. I--I expected her to be glad."
"Oliver!"
There was a tone of horror, more, of reprobation, in Mrs. Tropenell"s low voice.
Oliver Tropenell was staring straight before him. "Surely one would have expected her to be glad that the suspense was over? And now I ask myself----" and indeed he looked as if he was speaking to himself and not to her--"if it would have been better for Laura if that--that fellow had been left to rot there till he had been discovered, two months, three months, perchance four months hence."
"My dear," she said painfully, "what do you mean exactly? I don"t understand."
"Pavely"s body was found in an empty office, and if the man who shot him hadn"t written to Laura--well, of course the body would have remained there till it had occurred to some one to force open the door of the room, and that might not have happened for months."
"I"m very glad that Laura was told now," said Mrs. Tropenell firmly.
"The suspense was telling on her far more than I should have expected it to do. Katty, too, became a very difficult element in the situation. I don"t think there"s much doubt that poor Katty was very fond of G.o.dfrey."
He muttered: "Mean little loves, mean little lives, mean little souls--they were well matched!"
Then he got up.
"Well, mother, I must be off to bed now, as I have to get up early and go into Pewsbury. Laura, who"s staying on in town, asked me to come down and tell those whom it concerned, the truth. She wants you to tell Alice. I said I thought you"d have the child here for a while."
"Certainly I will. She"s been here all to-day, poor little girl."
"Do you really think she"s to be pitied, mother?"
She hesitated, but his stern face compelled an answer.
"I don"t think that G.o.dfrey would have got on with Alice later on--when she grew to woman"s estate. But now, yes, I do think the child"s to be deeply pitied. It will be a painful, a terrible memory--that her father died like that."
"I can"t see it! A quiet, merciful death, mother--one that many a man might envy." He waited a few moments, then went on: "Of course there will be an inquest, and I fear Laura will almost certainly have to give evidence, in order to prove the receipt of that--that peculiar letter."
"Have you got a copy of the letter?" asked Mrs. Tropenell rather eagerly.
Her son shook his head. "No, the police took possession of it. But I"ve seen it of course."
They were both standing up now. He went to the door, and held it open for her. And then, with his eyes bent on her face, he asked her a question which perhaps was not as strange as it sounded, between those two who were so much to one another, and who thought they understood each other so well.
"Mother," he said slowly, "I want to ask you a question.... How long in England does an unloving widow mourn?"
"A decent woman, under normal conditions, mourns at least a year," she answered, and a little colour came into her face. Then, out of her great love for him, she forced herself to add, "But that does not bar out a measure of friendship, Oliver. Give Laura time to become accustomed to the new conditions of her life."
"How long, mother?"
"Give her till next Christmas, my dear."
"I will."
He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, "I love you the better for my loving Laura. Do you realise that?"
"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver."
He strode off, hastened up the staircase without looking round again, and she, waiting below, covered her face with her hands. A terrible sense of loneliness swept over and engulfed her; for the first time there was added a pang of regret that she had not joined her life to that of the affectionate hedonist who had been her true, devoted friend for so long.
CHAPTER XIX
And so, in this at once amazing and simple way was solved the mystery of G.o.dfrey Pavely"s disappearance.