Love and hatred Part 23

Even now, Lord St. Amant was a still vigorous and active-looking man. He was leaning over the back of a chair, looking eagerly into his old friend's face. Was it true, as some of the gossips said, that he had remained a widower for that same friend's sake?

Laura gazed at him with an almost hungry curiosity. She was absurdly surprised that he looked to-day exactly as he had always looked in her eyes--a pleasant, agreeable-mannered, amusing man of the world, not at all her notion of the one-time lover of many women.

Lord St. Amant's hair had now gone white, but, apart from that he looked just as he had been wont to look, when he came and went about Freshley Manor, when she, as a child, had stayed there with her mother. Some years later, she had become dimly aware--girls always know such things--that Mrs. Tropenell had had a fleeting notion of marrying her to Lord St. Amant. But Laura had also known that it was Mrs. Tropenell, not herself, who was the magnet which then drew him so often to Freshley Manor.

They had once, however, had an intimate talk together. It had been on one of the very rare occasions when Mrs. Tropenell was ill, confined to bed, upstairs, and she, Laura Baynton, had been left alone to entertain her Aunt Letty's old friend. And their talk--she remembered it now--had been all of Oliver: of Oliver and his mother.

Lord St. Amant had spoken with much heat of Oliver's having settled on the other side of the world, leaving Mrs. Tropenell lonely. Then he had smiled a curious little smile: "But that makes no difference. To a mother 'distance makes the heart grow fonder,' and also 'lends enchantment to the view.' An only son, Laura, is the most formidable of rivals."

The girl had been flattered, touched too, by the implied confidence.

She had yet another vivid memory of Lord St. Amant. He had sent her, immediately on hearing of her engagement to G.o.dfrey Pavely, a magnificent wedding present; also he had come, at some inconvenience, to her marriage.

G.o.dfrey had supposed the compliment due to regard for himself and for his father, but Laura, of course, had known better. Lord St. Amant had come to her marriage to please Mrs. Tropenell--because he regarded her, in a sense, as Mrs. Tropenell's adopted daughter.

Something of all this moved in quick procession through Laura Pavely's mind, as she stood in the doorway, looking more beautiful, more animated, more feminine, in spite of--or was it because of?--her riding dress, than Oliver Tropenell had ever seen her.

She moved forward into the room, and Lord St. Amant turned quickly round.

If Laura looked at Lord St. Amant with a new interest, a new curiosity in her beautiful eyes, he, on his side, now looked at Laura more attentively than he had done for a long time. He had been abroad for two months, and this was the first time he and Mrs. Tropenell had met since his return.

They had just had a long talk, and during that talk she had at last told him something which had amused, surprised, and yes, interested him very much; for Lord St. Amant, in the evening of his days, found himself more, not less, tolerant of, and interested in, human nature, and in human nature's curious kinks and byways, than at the time when he himself had provided his friends and contemporaries with food for gossip and scandal. But he had been very comforting in his comments on her story, and more than once he had made his old friend smile. Mrs.

Tropenell had felt very, very glad to see Lord St. Amant. It was natural that she should be glad to have once more within easy reach of her the one human being in the world to whom she could talk freely, and who took an unaffectedly close, deep interest in all her concerns.

Not till they were all sitting at luncheon, was Laura able, in a low tone, to inquire after her brother. Little Alice knew nothing of her uncle's visit to England. G.o.dfrey and Laura had tacitly agreed to keep the child in ignorance of it. But now Laura asked, with some eagerness, "And Gillie? What's happened to Gillie? Is he still abroad?"

Olive answered at once, "No, he's gone back to Mexico." And then, as he saw a look of blank disappointment shadow her face, he added, hastily, "He gave me a lot of messages for you--I was coming over this afternoon to deliver them. You know what Gillie's like--he never writes if he can help it!"

"Yes," she said, "I know that," and she sighed. "Did he go from a French port?" she asked.

Oliver hesitated. It was almost as if he had forgotten. But at last he answered, "Yes, he went from Havre. I saw him off."

And then something rather untoward happened. There came a violent ringing at the front door--a loud, imperious pulling at the big, old-fashioned iron bell-pull. To the surprise of his mother, Oliver flushed--a deep, unbecoming brick red. Starting up from table, he pushed his chair aside, and walked quickly to the door. It was almost as if he expected some one. "I'll see who it is!" he called out.

They heard him striding across the hall, and flinging open the front door....

Then he came back slowly, and Mrs. Tropenell saw that there was a look of immeasurable relief on his face. "It's a man who's brought a parcel from Pewsbury for one of the servants. He declared he couldn't make any one hear at the back, and so he came round to the front door--rather impudent of him, eh?" and he sat down again.

Coffee was served in the pleasant, low-ceilinged drawing-room, and then Oliver and Laura went out of doors, with Alice trotting by their side.

It was quite like old times. And the child voiced their unspoken feeling, when, slipping her hand into Oliver's, she exclaimed, "This is jolly! Just like what it used to be when you were here before!"

And he pressed the little hand which lay so confidingly in his. "Yes,"

he said, in a low voice, "the same--but nicer, don't you think so, Alice?"

And Alice answered with the downrightness of childhood, "I can't tell yet! I shall know that after you've been here a little while. We can't garden as much as we did then, for now the ground is too hard."

"But we can do other things," said Oliver, smiling down at her.

And Alice answered doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose we can."

They did not say very much. Oliver did not talk, as perhaps another man would have done, of his and Gillie's adventures in France and Italy. And after a comparatively short time Laura suggested that she and Alice had better now ride home.

"Will you come over to tea?" she asked.

And Oliver said yes, that he would.

"I daresay G.o.dfrey will be back by then. He often takes the early afternoon train down from London."

But to that he made no answer, and Laura, with a rather painful sensation, saw the light suddenly die out of his face.

He came round to the stable. "I'll walk a little way with you," he said.

But she exclaimed rather hurriedly, "No, don't do that, Oliver! Stay with your mother and Lord St. Amant."

And without any word of protest he obeyed her.

It is strange what a difference the return of a friend may make to life!

Laura Pavely felt another woman as she busied herself that afternoon, happily waiting for Oliver Tropenell. Honestly she hoped that G.o.dfrey would come back by the early afternoon train; he, too, would be glad to see Oliver.

But the time went by, and there came no message through from London ordering the car to be sent to the station, and Laura told herself that perhaps G.o.dfrey had gone straight to the Bank.

At last, a little after five, Oliver Tropenell came sauntering in, very much as he used to saunter in, during the long happy summer days when they had just become friends.

They had tea in Alice's day-nursery, and after tea, they all three played games till it was nearly seven. Then, reluctantly, Oliver got up, and said he must go home. And as he stood there, gazing down into her face, Laura was struck, as she had been that morning in the first moment of their meeting, by his look of fatigue and of strain. She, who was so little apt to notice such things, unless her little girl was in question, glanced up at him anxiously. "You don't look well," she said, with some concern. "You don't look as if you'd had a holiday, Oliver."

"I shall soon get all right," he muttered, "now that I'm here, with mother." And then, in a lower voice, he added the words, "and with you, Laura."

She answered, nervously determined to hark back to what had been their old, happy condition, "Alice and I have both missed you dreadfully--haven't we, my darling?"

And Alice said gaily, "Oh yes, indeed, we have, mother." Then the child turned, in her pretty, eager way to Oliver, "I hope you'll stay a long, long time at Freshley. If only it snows, father thinks it may soon, you and I can make a snow man!"

And Oliver, after a moment's pause, answered, "Yes, so we can, Alice.

I'm going to stay at home some time now, I hope."

And again, on hearing those words, Laura felt that new, unreasoning thrill of joy which she had felt when she had seen Oliver standing in the middle of his mother's stable-yard. Till that moment, and now again, just now, she had not known how much she had missed her friend.

At last, when it was really time for him to go, Laura and Alice both accompanied their guest to the hall. Then he turned abruptly to Laura: "How about to-morrow? May I come to-morrow morning?"

And over Laura there came just a little tremour of misgiving. Surely Oliver was going to be--reasonable?

"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "I shall be very glad to see you--though of course I'm rather busy in the morning. To-morrow Mademoiselle is not coming. Perhaps I'd better telephone early and tell you our plans for the day. G.o.dfrey will be so glad to see you, Oliver. He asked only the other day when Mrs. Tropenell expected you back."

But to that remark Oliver made no answer.