Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into Mrs. Tropenell"s mind she looked up and saw her son"s eyes fixed on her face.
There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away--to leave him, alone, with Laura....
Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan"t be very long."
It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the door, and, as he held it open, his mother turned her head away, lest he should see that tears had come into her eyes--tears of pain, and yes, of fear.
How was all this to end?
After walking slowly forward into the square brightly lighted hall she suddenly stayed her steps, and clasped her hands together.
A terrible temptation--terrible, almost unbelievable to such a woman as was Let.i.tia Tropenell--held her in its grip. She longed with a fearful, gasping longing, to go back and listen at the door which had just closed behind her.
So strong was this temptation that she actually visualised herself walking across to a certain corner, turning down the electric light switch, then, in the darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and there gently, gently--pushing it open, say half an inch, in order to hear what those two were now saying, the one to the other....
At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she again began walking across the brightly lighted hall, and so, slowly, made her way up the staircase which led to her bedroom.
What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she yielded to that ign.o.ble temptation, would not have told her anything of what she had so longed to know.
After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver Tropenell walked back to the place where he had stood a moment ago. But he did not come any nearer than he had been before to his guest, and his manner remained exactly what it had been when they had been three, instead of being, as they were now, two, in that dimly lighted room.
Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden selves, were profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell"s absence made a great, if an intangible, difference. It was the first time they had been alone that day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that Oliver had not walked over to The Chase, either in the morning or in the afternoon or, as was almost always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime.
At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, he spoke, with a certain hard directness in his voice.
"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells me that he can easily be spared for a few weeks, and I"ve already telephoned a cable telling him to start at once. I"ve said that if he thinks it advisable I myself will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him."
"Oh, but I don"t want you to do that!" Laura Pavely looked up at him dismayed. "I thought you meant to stay in England right up to Christmas?"
"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he won"t think it necessary for me to go back. But the important thing is Gillie"s and your holiday. Why shouldn"t he take you and Alice to France or Italy for a month?"
He saw her face, the face in which there had been a certain rigid, suffering gravity, light up, soften, and then become overcast again.
Moving a little nearer to the low chair on which she was sitting--"Yes?"
he asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish to say, Laura?"
"Only that G.o.dfrey would never let me go away with Gillie." She spoke in a sad, low voice, but she felt far more at her ease than she had yet felt this evening.
The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they had parted as enemies, but now there was nothing to show that he remembered their interchange of bitter, pa.s.sionate words.
He answered quietly,
"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe that if it were put to G.o.dfrey in a reasonable way, he could not possibly object to your going abroad with your brother. It"s time they made up that foolish old quarrel."
"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my little Alice!"
Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell was moved, almost unbearably so, by the look which came over her face. Was it the mention of her child, of her brother, or the thought of getting away from G.o.dfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, shadowed eyes?
He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured tones which made her feel as if the scene of yesterday had been an evil dream. "I"ve even thought of suggesting that G.o.dfrey should come out with me to Mexico, while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We could all be back here by Christmas!"
She shook her head. "I"m afraid G.o.dfrey would never go away except in what he considers his regular holiday time."
"Not even if I made it worth his while?"
She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot colour flamed up in her face. Her conscience, in some ways a very delicate and scrupulous conscience, smote her.
Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come so to despise G.o.dfrey?
But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is quickly, eagerly--more like his pre-yesterday self, "No, I"m not joking! I think I can put G.o.dfrey in the way of doing some really good business out there. We"ve spoken of it more than once--only yesterday afternoon we spoke of it."
"You don"t mean with Gillie there?" There was a note of incredulity in Laura"s voice.
"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not exactly with Gillie there--though it seems to me, Laura, that G.o.dfrey ought to make it up with Gillie."
Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, "If G.o.dfrey ever goes to Mexico I think he would want me to come too--he always does."
And this was true, for G.o.dfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura"s husband never allowed her to go away by herself, or even with her child, for more than a very few days.
"You come too--to Mexico?" There was surprise, doubt, in Oliver Tropenell"s voice, and suddenly Laura did a strange thing, imprudent, uncalled-for in the circ.u.mstances in which she found herself with this man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily called coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather plaintively, "Surely you wouldn"t mind my coming too, Oliver?"
"Does that mean that you"ve forgiven me?" he asked.
She got up from the low chair where she had been sitting, and, facing him, exclaimed impulsively, "I want us both to forget what happened yesterday! I was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about G.o.dfrey,"
her voice faltered, and slowly she added, "But with you, who seemed to somehow understand everything without being told, I felt, I felt----"
He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught the sound of light footfalls in the hall. "Mother"s coming back," he said abruptly. "Don"t say anything to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without any change in his voice, he went on: "There"s a great deal that would interest you, quite as much as G.o.dfrey, out there----"
The door opened, and he turned round quickly. "I"m trying to persuade Laura to come out to Mexico," he exclaimed. "G.o.dfrey has practically promised to pay me a visit, and I don"t see why she shouldn"t come too!"
Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and she believed that both the people standing there knew as well as she did, that such an expedition could never take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver"s partner.
Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. There had never been even the semblance of a reconciliation between them.
But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding an answer, she forced herself to say lightly: "I expect they both will, some day, and while they are away I can have my dear little Alice!"
When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied Laura out into the hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see so little of you now."
"I will--I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, Laura murmured, "You"re so good to me, Aunty Letty--you"ve always been so very, very good to me!"
Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. He was now obviously impatient to get Laura once more alone to himself....
After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell walked straight across to a window, and there, holding back the heavy curtain, she watched the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across the lawn, towards the beech avenue which would presently engulf them.
What were their real relations the one to the other? Was Laura as blind to the truth as she seemed to be, or was she shamming--as women, G.o.d or the devil helping them--so often sham?
Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become very, very old, Mrs.
Tropenell dropped the curtain, and walking back to her usual place, her usual chair, took up her knitting.