WHEN Godfrey Pavely arrived at the Bank next morning it seemed to him that days, instead of hours, had gone by, since that hateful and degrading scene had taken place between himself and his wife\'s brother.
Laura had not spoken to him again, except to utter the few sentences which were necessary to keep up the pretence that they two were on their usual terms, before the servants, and, what had been more difficult, before their little daughter.
After Alice had gone to bed, they had eaten their dinner in silence, and, in silence also, they had spent the evening reading up to eleven o\'clock. At last Godfrey, getting up, had said in a nervous, conciliatory tone, "Well, good-night, Laura." But she had not answered him, for by that time the servants were gone to bed, and there was no longer any reason for hypocrisy.
Laura had always been an exceptionally silent woman, but this was the first time, in the long armed neutrality of their married life, that she had actually refused to answer when he spoke to her. Feeling acutely uncomfortable, because curiously helpless, Godfrey Pavely now wondered how long this state of things was to endure.
He asked himself whether he had said anything yesterday which could really justify Laura in this extraordinary attitude. Now and again there seemed [Pg 145] to sound in his ears the voice in which she had uttered the last words which she had spoken to him of her own free will. "Don\'t speak to me," she had exclaimed passionately. "I shall never, never forgive you for this!"
Women were so unreasonable—ridiculously, absurdly unreasonable. Laura knew exactly what Gillie was like, for he, Godfrey, had gone to special pains to make Laura fully understand the mean, despicable and dangerous way in which her brother had behaved over the forged cheque—for forgery it was, though it had been difficult to persuade Laura of the fact. He remembered now, how, at last, after he had forced his wife to understand, she had abased herself, imploring him to save her brother from the consequences of his wicked action.
Godfrey also remembered sorely how grateful Laura had seemed to be after everything had been arranged, and Gillie had finally gone off to Mexico, a ruined and discredited man. He felt a glow of virtuous satisfaction when he recalled how she had thanked him—her kind, generous husband—for what he had done! True, the loan then advanced had been paid back, and Gillie—to use the stupid expression which seems to be creeping into the British language—had "made good." But that was no reason why he should come back and thrust himself into his, Godfrey\'s, home, and make friends with Godfrey\'s only child—after he had actually given an undertaking, in his own, melodramatic words, "never to darken Godfrey\'s door again."
Yet in his innermost heart Godfrey Pavely was sorry now that he had behaved as he had done yesterday. [Pg 146] He had allowed his temper to get the better of him, always a silly thing for a sensible man to do. By behaving as he had done he had put a weapon into Laura\'s hands....
At one moment he considered the advisability of going into Freshley Manor on his way home to-day, to consult Mrs. Tropenell. And then he had suddenly remembered that his brother-in-law was actually her guest! That fact alone made a most disagreeable complication.
As he looked over his letters, and dictated some of the answers to them, he tried without success to put the matter out of his mind. It had taken there the place occupied by the unpleasantness connected with those absurd anonymous letters. For the first time, this morning he forgot them.
There came a knock at the door. "A letter, sir, has just been brought by Mrs. Tropenell\'s man. He said there was an answer, so he\'s waiting."
With quickened pulse, Godfrey Pavely opened the letter. He had long been familiar with Mrs. Tropenell\'s clear, flowing handwriting, and he wondered what she could have to say to him which she preferred to write, rather than telephone.
The banker was attached to Mrs. Tropenell. Always she had acted towards him in a high-minded, straightforward way, and on two occasions he had had reason to be specially grateful to her, for on each of these occasions she had intervened, successfully, between Laura and himself, and made Laura see reason. But she never alluded to the past, even in the remotest way, and he had come of late years to think [Pg 147] and hope she had forgotten those now distant, painful, active misunderstandings.
If Mrs. Tropenell was now pleading with him for a reconciliation with Gilbert Baynton, then he knew that it would be very difficult for him to say "no" to a woman to whom he owed so much. It would also be a graceful way of getting out of the difficulty in which he had involved himself....
But the contents of the letter disagreeably surprised him, for they were quite other than what he had expected them to be—
"Dear Godfrey:—Oliver and Gilbert Baynton have to go to the Continent on business. I think they will be away for some time, and Gilbert speaks of going straight back to Mexico from France.
"I write to know if you will allow Laura to come up to town with me for a few days? It would enable her to see something of her brother, before a separation which may last, as did their past separation, for years.
"I hope, dear Godfrey, you will see your way to granting this request of mine. It is in very truth my request—not Laura\'s.
"Your affectionate old friend,
"Lettice Tropenell."
The unfortunate man—for he was in the full meaning of the words an unfortunate man—stared down at the letter.
He felt moved and perplexed by the way it was worded. "Your affectionate old friend"—what a strange way to sign herself! Mrs. Tropenell had [Pg 148] never signed herself so before. And what exactly did she mean by saying that it was her request, not Laura\'s? In spite of those words, he felt convinced that Laura, too proud to ask this favour of him after the shameful way she had behaved yesterday, had persuaded Mrs. Tropenell to ask it for her.
He sat down and drew a piece of notepaper towards him. He was glad of the opportunity of showing them all how magnanimous he was—how much of a man. Laura should go to London with his full permission. Of course he knew quite well, at the back of his mind, that if he refused it she would probably go just the same. But in all the circumstances it would be just as well to heap coals of fire on her head. She should go—but not taking their child with her. His little Alice must not be contaminated.
When his daughter was old enough, he, Godfrey, would tell her the truth about her mother\'s brother. He did not hold with concealing this sort of thing from young people. In his family, thank God, there had never been anything to hide. All had always been honest and above-board. Besides, if anything happened to him, Alice would be a very wealthy woman, and Gillie would almost certainly try and get hold of her and of her money. He, Godfrey, knew that well enough.
"My dear Mrs. Tropenell:—Certainly it shall be as you ask——" He could not help adding, "though Laura knows that in doing this she is disregarding my formal wishes. Still, I admit that, Gillie being her brother, it is, I suppose, natural that [Pg 149] she should wish to see him again before he leaves England."
Then he hesitated—indeed, he kept the messenger for whom he had already rung waiting for quite a long time. But at last he signed himself: "Your affectionate, and always grateful, Godfrey Pavely."
When the banker reached home rather early that afternoon—for he felt too much upset to go in and spend his usual pleasant hour with Katty at Rosedean—little Alice met him with the news that "Mummy" had gone to London, and that she, Alice, was going to be allowed to sit up to dinner to bear him company.
It was characteristic of the man that, if relieved, he was also sharply annoyed. He had hoped to extract from his wife some word of reluctant thanks for his magnanimity. But no, she had not even left a note telling him what day she would return!
Things had not fallen out at The Chase that morning as Godfrey Pavely had supposed. After breakfast Laura, still in a kind of stupor of pain and indignation, had gone into the garden. She had not been there a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Tropenell, who so seldom came to The Chase, had suddenly appeared, walking with stately, leisurely steps over the grass, to tell her of Oliver\'s and Gillie\'s coming departure for the Continent.
It was Mrs. Tropenell who had proposed sending that note to Godfrey, but Godfrey, who so little understood his wife, either for good or evil, was right in his belief that she would not have allowed her plans to be affected by his answer. At once Laura had determined to go to London, whether Godfrey gave his [Pg 150] consent or no. Yet she was relieved when there came to her from Freshley the news that her husband\'s answer to Mrs. Tropenell\'s request was in the affirmative.
The message was given to her over the telephone by Oliver Tropenell, and in giving it he used the allusive form of words which come naturally when a man knows that what he says may be overheard: "Mother has just had a note saying that it is quite all right. So we propose to call for you in time to get the five minutes to one from Langford Junction. Does that give you enough time?" And she had exclaimed, "Oh, yes, yes! I\'m quite ready now."
To that he had made no answer, and she had felt a little chill at the heart. Oliver\'s voice had sounded curiously cold—but then the telephone does sometimes alter voices strangely.
Those eight days in London! Laura was often to live through each of those long days during the dull weeks which followed her return home. Yet, when she did look back on that time, she had to admit that she had not been really happy, though the first hours had been filled with a sort of excited triumph and sense of victory. It was such a relief, too, to be away from Godfrey, and spared, even if only for a few days, the constant, painful irritation of his presence.
But her brother, for whose sake, after all, she was in London, jarred on her perpetually. For one thing, Gillie was in extravagant, almost unnaturally high spirits, set on what he called "having a good time," and his idea of a good time was, as Oliver once grimly remarked, slightly monotonous.
Gillie\'s good time consisted in an eager round of [Pg 151] business interviews, culminating each evening in a rich dinner at one of the smart grill-rooms which were then the fashion, followed by three hours of a musical comedy, and finally supper at some restaurant, the more expensive the better.
To his sister, each evening so spent seemed a dreary waste of precious time. For in the daytime the two ladies, who had taken rooms in an old-fashioned hotel in a small street off Piccadilly, saw very little of Gillie and Oliver. Gillie had insisted that Oliver and he should go and stay at what he considered the smartest and most modern hotel in London, and though the strangely assorted quartette always lunched together, the two partners had a good deal to do each morning and most afternoons.
To Mrs. Tropenell\'s surprise Oliver apparently had no wish to be with Laura alone. Was it because he was afraid of giving himself away to his coarse-minded, jovial partner? Oliver looked stern, abstracted, and, when at the play, bored.
She admitted another possible reason for his almost scrupulous avoidance of Laura. With regard to the bitter feud between the brothers-in-law, Oliver had spoken to his mother with curious apathy. Perhaps he was honestly desirous of not taking sides. But on the whole Mrs. Tropenell swung more often to her first theory, and this view was curiously confirmed on the one Sunday spent by them in town.
Gillie, grumbling, a good deal at the dulness of the English Sunday, had motored off early to the country to spend the day with some people whom he had known in Mexico. And late that morning Oliver suddenly suggested that Laura and he should go out for a turn [Pg 152] in the Green Park—only a stone\'s-throw from the rooms the two ladies were sharing.
And that hour, which was perhaps fraught with bigger circumstanc............