Love and hatred Part 20

form itself on her quivering lips.

"Do you really mean that, Laura? Answer me truly."

And then suddenly there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary sensation. It was as if this man, whose burning eyes were fixed on her face, were willing her to say aloud something which, however true, were better left unsaid. "There will never come any change," she answered, feeling as if the words were being forced out of her, "till, as the Marriage Service says, 'death us do part.'"

"Do you ever think of that possibility?"

He put the probing question in a singularly detached, almost a light, tone of inquiry.

But she answered very solemnly, again as if impelled to tell him the truth--a truth she had never thought to tell to any human being:

"There was a time before Alice was born when I was so unhappy, largely, as I can see now, through my own fault, when I felt I could not bear it any longer, and----" Her voice dropped, and he bent down so that he might catch the almost whispered words, "I was strongly tempted to--to kill myself," she said. "I used to go and walk up and down that little path across the head of the lake, and plan out how I would do it. Even now I do not think that any one, except perhaps your mother, would ever have suspected. It would have been so easy to make it appear an absolute accident."

He remained silent, and she went on, more composedly:

"I had got into a selfish, morbid state, Oliver, and yet the temptation was not wholly selfish, for I knew that G.o.dfrey was miserable too, and my sense told me that if anything happened to me he would very soon marry again--some woman who would appreciate his good qualities, who would be happy with him, who would not be, as I knew I was, a bitter disappointment."

Once more her voice had become nearly inaudible, and once more Oliver bent his dark, convulsed face down to hear what she said.

Tears were rolling down Laura's face. But suddenly she made an immense effort over herself, and went on, calmly:

"It was your mother who helped me over that bad, foolish time. I don't know what I should have done but for Aunt Letty. I think she's the only person in the world to whom G.o.dfrey ever listens--who can ever make any impression on him. It's strange in a way, for I know she doesn't really like either of us."

As he uttered a violent expression of dissent, she went on: "It's quite true, Oliver, and what is more, of the two she likes G.o.dfrey the best.

Why shouldn't she? She thinks I've behaved very unkindly to G.o.dfrey. The only excuse she can make for me--she told me so once, long ago--is that I'm inhuman. I suppose in a way I _am_ inhuman?" She looked at him plaintively, a strange, piteous expression in her beautiful, shadowed eyes.

And Oliver Tropenell caught his breath. G.o.d--how he loved her! Her inhumanity--to use that cruelly misleading term which she had just used herself--only made his pa.s.sion burn with a purer, whiter flame. The one thing in the world that mattered to him now was this woman's deliverance from the awful death-in-life to which her sensitive conscience, and her moving love for her child, alone condemned her. Yes, Laura's deliverance was the only thing worth compa.s.sing--and that even if the deliverer were wrecked, soul as well as body, body as well as soul, in the process.

They began walking again, slowly, slowly, once more enwrapped in a silence which said so much more than words could have said, even to Laura's still numb, unawakened heart.

It was she who at last broke the kind of spell which lay on them both.

They had come almost to the end of the broad path. Opposite to where they were standing, on the other side of the road, was a huge white and green building, handsome and showy, looking strangely un-English and out of place in the famous old London way.

"They pulled down such a wonderful, delightful house just there," she said regretfully. "I was once taken to it by my father, when I was quite a little girl. It was like going right back a hundred years--not only to another London, but to another England. It's a shame that any one should have been allowed to pull down such a bit of old London as that."

And Oliver agreed, absently.

So, talking of indifferent things, they walked back to the hotel where Mrs. Tropenell was awaiting them, and the three afterwards spent the rest of the day peacefully together. But the next day there began again for them all the same dreary round--that odd, artificial life of "having a good time," as Gillie jovially put it.

Somehow Laura did not mind it so much now as she had done before. Her talk with Oliver had shifted her burden a little, and made her feel as if he and she had gone back to their old, happy, simple friendship. It had also deadened her feeling of acute, unreasoning anger with G.o.dfrey.

At last came the morning when Oliver and Gillie were to go to Paris.

And at the last moment, standing on the platform at Charing Cross, there took place a rather pathetic, ridiculous little scene.

Gillie had bought for his sister a beautiful old jewel, and he thrust it--with a merry little word as to this being the first really nice present he had ever given her--into her hand. When she opened the case and saw the emerald and pearl heart, her eyes brimmed over with tears.

Even Gillie was moved. "There, there!" he exclaimed. "Nothing to cry about--'Nuff said,' Laura. Perhaps we'll meet again sooner than you think, my friends the Americans say."

And she tried to smile.

Then Gillie turned to Mrs. Tropenell, speaking with much greater sincerity of feeling than he was wont to do. "I'll never forget your kindness--in the past and in the present--to my sister and to me, Mrs.

Tropenell. I'm not such a careless brute as I seem to be--I never forget a kindness--or an injury. Now then, Oliver!"

Laura felt her hand seized, closed on in a vice-like pressure which hurt, then dropped. "Good-bye, Laura," said Oliver in an almost inaudible tone. "Good-bye, till we meet again."

CHAPTER XII

As so often happens after hours or days of crises, and even of quarrel, things went better for a while after Laura's return to The Chase.

True, life was now, even more than before, dull, sad, and difficult. She missed Oliver Tropenell's constant companionship and stimulating talk, more than she was willing to acknowledge even to her innermost self. And yet, when G.o.dfrey spoke of the other man's absence from Freshley with regret, his words jarred on her, and made her feel vaguely ashamed. Yet surely, surely she had nothing to reproach herself with in the matter of Oliver Tropenell? She would so gladly have kept him as G.o.dfrey's friend as well as her own.

They had made it up, those two ill-matched people--made it up, that is, after a fashion. They were now much where they had been six months ago, just before Oliver Tropenell with his strong, masterful personality had come into their joint lives.

And G.o.dfrey? G.o.dfrey Pavely was happier, more complacent than usual, during those late autumn days. He also was ashamed--though not unreasonably so--of the absurd importance he had attached to those two vulgar anonymous letters! He was sorry now that he had spoken of the matter to Oliver Tropenell, for that odd, rather awkward talk of theirs on the matter had been perhaps a contributory cause of the other man's sudden departure. If Oliver came home for Christmas, he, G.o.dfrey, would "make it all right."

The banker had yet another reason for feeling life pleasanter than usual just now. He was engaged in a rather big bit of financial business of a kind his soul loved, for it was secret, immediately profitable, and with a gambling risk attached to it. The only person to whom he had said a word concerning the affair was Katty Winslow, and even to her, for he was a very prudent man, he had been quite vague.

With Katty he was becoming daily more intimate. Laura's cold aloofness made him seek, instinctively, a kinder, warmer, and yes, occasionally, a tenderer feminine presence. For the first time, lately, G.o.dfrey had begun to tell himself that Katty would have made an almost perfect wife.... And Katty could have told you almost the exact moment when that thought had first flashed upon G.o.dfrey Pavely's brain. But she also knew that so far he was content, most irritatingly content, with the _status quo_. Not so she----And one evening Katty tried an experiment which was on the whole remarkably successful, though its effects were strangely different from what she had expected.

While dining alone with G.o.dfrey and Laura at The Chase, she startled her host and hostess by throwing out a careless word as to the possibility of her leaving Rosedean--of letting the house furnished, for a year....

Laura was astonished to see how much this casual remark of Katty's upset G.o.dfrey. He uttered an exclamation of deep surprise and annoyance, and his wife told herself bitterly how strange it was that G.o.dfrey, feeling so strongly about Katty, should not understand how she, Laura, felt about Gillie. After all, Gillie was her own brother, and Katty was not G.o.dfrey's sister--only an old playmate and friend!

G.o.dfrey was, in very truth, much more than upset at those few careless words of his old friend--playmate, in the sense that Laura meant, she had never been. So disturbed and taken aback indeed that he lay awake much of that night.

The next morning he broke his walk into Pewsbury by going into Rosedean, this being the very first time he had ever done such a thing.

He was kept waiting a few moments--as a matter of fact only a very few moments--in the familiar little drawing-room, before Katty, wearing a charming, pale blue dressing-gown, edged with swansdown, joined him.

As was her way, she began speaking at once. "Why, what's the matter?"

she exclaimed. "Has anything gone wrong, G.o.dfrey?"

He answered irritably, "No, not that I know of. But I've something to say to you." He pulled out his big, old-fashioned gold repeater. "It's twenty to ten--I thought I'd find you down!"

"I always breakfast upstairs in my own room. But I didn't keep you waiting long----"

She was still a little breathless, for she had come down very quickly.

And then he began, with no preamble: "I want to know if you really meant what you said last night about letting this house furnished for a year?

I'm by no means sure if the terms of your lease allow for your doing that; I shall have to look into it after I get to the Bank. Still, I thought I'd better come and see you first."

Katty grew very pink. "Oh, G.o.dfrey!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn't be so unkind----?"

There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked--how fresh and dainty--like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, but that only made her look younger, and more natural.