"Had your journey to London," he asked slowly,"anything to do with my affairs? I thought so once—at dinner. Did Sir Angus Kinross send for you?"
Lord St. Amant could not, did not, speak. But at last he bent his head.
Then Oliver asked another question, quickly, in a matter-of-fact tone: "How many hours have I left?"
"Till to-morrow, I mean till Friday, morning," the other answered in a stifled voice.
He longed to go on, to tell the man standing by his side what Sir Angus had said as to his having "a sporting chance." But there was something in the expression of the rigid, mask-like face which forbade his saying that.
And then Oliver Tropenell turned round and grasped his host's hand.
"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I used not to be grateful, but I am grateful,now. We'll get Laura and mother off—and then you'll tell me what I have to know."
MRS. TROPENELL stood by the window of the pretty, old-fashioned sitting-room which she had now occupied for over a week, and which she knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after she had became Lady St. Amant.
She was already dressed for the drive home with Laura Pavely. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and the car would be round in a few minutes. But she was waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast Oliver had said casually: "I'll come up to your room for a moment, mother—I mean before you start for Freshley."
She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing in it had been altered for something like fifty years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece was a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, and on either side of the fireplace were crayon drawings of St. Amant as a little boy, and of his two sisters as little girls. Everything here epitomised the placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman who had been Lord St. Amant's mother.
But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room told also of the strange transience of human life. With the exception of that early Victorian crayon drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some human being long dead.
Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There wassomething almost final about the feeling which possessed her. Up to last night she had been anxious, restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant.
But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly owing to a very trifling thing, a quick perception of how well St. Amant and Oliver got on together—now. She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one subject to another, with no intervals of silence. When, at last, Oliver had got up, St. Amant also had risen, and put his arm with an affectionate gesture round the younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange look, a look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark face....
She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve—but the dread had left her, and she made up her mind to tell him this morning—not to wait, as she had half thought of doing, till he was at home again.
St. Amant and Oliver were going to shoot this afternoon over land belonging to little Alice Pavely. Laura had let The Chase shooting to a neighbour, and the neighbour, whose name was Buckhurst, had invited the other two to join his shooting party to-day, and to-morrow also. Oliver was coming home to Freshley in between....
The door opened. "Mother, may I come in?"
She turned quickly, all her heart, as always, welcoming him. With a little, unacknowledged pang she told herself that Oliver was growing older, that he was losing the look of buoyancy that he had kept so long. But what a fine, strong, vigorous-lookingman he looked!—as he stood there, smiling rather gravely at her.
"Oliver?" she exclaimed, suddenly making up her mind to rush her fence—it was a simile which still often occurred to her—"Oliver, my dear, I want to tell you something. I have promised Lord St. Amant to marry him."
He looked moved and surprised—perhaps more than she had expected him to be. But his answer came instantly: "I am glad, mother. I'm very, very glad! I want to tell you, I've meant to tell you for some time, that I felt I've been very churlish in this matter of Lord St. Amant. He's always been good to me! Very, very good. I owed him a great deal as a boy. Lately, well, mother, you must have noticed it yourself, we've become really friends."
He looked swiftly round the pretty room. Till this morning he had always been here alone with Laura, having eyes only for her. He saw now what a charming room it was—so warm, so cosy too, on this chilly, wintry December day.
He exclaimed: "It will be good to think of you here—wherever I may be——"
She felt a tremor go through her. Somehow she had thought that he meant to settle down in England; he had never said anything about it, but she had thought that that was his intention.
"Is Laura willing to spend a part of every year in Mexico, my dearest?"
He nodded, rather absently, as if the question hardly required an answer.
She moved closer to him. "You are very happy,are you not, Oliver?" she asked in a low voice, and looking up into his face.
And again he answered at once, almost as though he had seen the question in her eyes before she uttered it: "Very, very happy, mother! I don't suppose any man has ever been happier than I have been."
Again she put an intimate, probing question, wondering at her own courage, her own temerity, in doing so. "Laura wholly satisfies you?" she asked, allowing nothing of the doubt which was still in her heart to creep into her voice.
"Wholly," he said, again in that strong, confident voice. "And, mother—?" he waited a moment, and then, in a voice suddenly tense with emotion, he muttered—"what she is to me, I, all unworthy though I be, am to her. Do you know what—what response means to a man?"
"I think I do," she said in a low voice.
They remained silent. She felt as if she were, for the first time, fused in intense spiritual communion with her son.
He broke the spell. "There's something I want you to know," he said. And then he stopped short, and, looking away, exclaimed, "Laura shall tell you!" The carriage gong echoed through the great house. He opened the door, she passed through it, and so together they walked down to the large, rather bare hall. There they waited a few moments in silence, till there came the sound of light footsteps—Laura running downstairs, a small fur cap on her beautiful head.
She hurried towards them, smiling, and Mrs. Tropenell turned away—a twinge of jealous pain, of whichshe was ashamed, in her heart—and stared into the big log fire.
She heard Oliver exclaim, in accents at once imploring and imperious: "Laura? Come over here a moment."
At last she, the mother, turned slowly round, to see, through the half-open door of Lord St. Amant's study, the two standing together, locked in each other's arms, Laura looking up into Oliver's face with an expression of rapt devotion, of entire absorption, in her blue, heavy-lidded eyes. As their lips met, Mrs. Tropenell looked quickly away. She asked herself if this exalted passion could last, and whether, after all, Oliver were not happier now than he could ever hope to be again?
Laura was very silent during the first half of their homeward drive, but at last she amazed Mrs. Tropenell by suddenly saying: "I want you to know—I feel I must tell you—that Oliver and I were married, in London, ten days ago. And I think—oh, Aunt Letty, I do think that he is happy—at last!"
She said the words very simply, and Mrs. Tropenell felt extraordinarily moved. This then was what Oliver had wanted her to know, and man-like had felt too—too shy to tell her.
"I am very grateful to you for what you have done," she exclaimed, and held the younger woman's hand tightly clasped in hers for a moment.
That was all. But before they parted Laura gave his mother a message from Oliver. It was quite an unimportant message, simply that on his way home he meant to look in at The Chase.
"You don't mind, do you?" Laura asked, a little hesitatingly. And Oliver's mother smiled.
"Of course not, my dear—I'm glad he should! Perhaps you'd like to come back with him, and stay on for dinner?"
But Laura, reddening with one of her rather rare, vivid blushes, shook her head. "I think I ought to stay at home the first evening," she said, "and put Alice to bed. She loves my putting her to bed. I don't want Alice ever to feel jealous."
But this time Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. Poor little Alice! It would be strange indeed if the child did not feel a little jealous as time went on—if, that is, Laura went on being, as she seemed to be, almost mystically absorbed in this wonderful, glowing thing which had come into her life.
It was the afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Tropenell, after dealing with the various matters which had accumulated during her week's absence, had gone up to her room to rest before Oliver's return. Lying on her bed, in the fast-gathering twilight, thinking over all that had happened, and all that was happening, to herself and to those she loved, Mrs. Tropenell dozed off for a few moments. Then, in a long flash which seemed to contain æons of sensation, she went through an amazing and terrifying experience!
On the dead stillness which reigned both within and without the house there suddenly rang out a shot. At the same moment, if not indeed before, her whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure a great ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishinga base, secret, physical terror of the unknown, was about to engage on a great adventure.
With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, with a gasp of relief, that she had been dreaming, only dreaming—but her heart went on beating for a long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through.
At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she went downstairs, and had tea in the drawing-room.
It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would not come in till just before it was time to dress for dinner.
The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got up, and moved restlessly about the room. The curtains had been drawn and the fire made up while she had been upstairs. She went across to one of the windows, and, behind the closed curtains, opened it widely. And as she opened the window, and stood by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used path which was even a shorter cut to The Chase than was the beech-wood avenue.
Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura had thought he would?
She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the flagged path.
She could hear quick footsteps now—but they were not Oliver's footsteps. It was probably a maid coming back from the village which lay beyond The Chase. But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out.
Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant hoarse answer: "It's Laura, Aunt Letty."
"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for Laura, without hat or cloak, was now there, before her.
"Aunt Letty? I've brought bad news—there's been an accident."
"To Oliver?" But she knew, even as she asked the question, what the answer would be.
"Yes—Oliver. They went on too long in the twilight—he stumbled, and his gun went off. They're bringing him home—now."
Laura was staring before her, her eyes veiled, glassy, like those of a blind woman.
"They wanted to bring him to The Chase. But there was a doctor there, and he said nothing would be of any use. So I told them to bring him home—to you."
Both women waited in the grateful darkness, dry-eyed and still.
At last Mrs. Tropenell said uncertainly: "Come indoors, Laura."
But Laura shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay out here, if you don't mind, Aunt Letty."
Not quite knowing what she was doing or why, Mrs. Tropenell walked forward and opened the door into the hall. There she took down a cloak, and coming out again, she put it round Laura. And they stood there waiting—till there broke on their ears the heavy tramp of men's feet carrying a burden.
IT was arranged between Lord St. Amant and the coroner—who was his lordship's own medical attendant (when he required a medical attendant, which was seldom)—that the inquest should be held at Freshley Manor.
The body had been placed in Mrs. Tropenell's own room, that is, in the very room, as the cook, who had been in the house close on thirty-five years, explained to some of the members of the jury, where poor Mr. Oliver had been born.
So it was there, in that peaceful, old-fashioned, lady's bedchamber, that the twelve good men and true of Pewsbury had to view the body. It was remembered afterwards that the expression on the dead man's face showed how completely he had been taken by surprise: it bore an expression of absolute serenity—almost as if he had died in his sleep.
Rather to the disapproval of some of the Pewsbury people, but with the sympathetic understanding of others, Mrs. Tropenell, by her own desire, was present at the inquest; and, supporting her on the painful occasion, was her nearest neighbour and almost daughter, Mrs. Pavely.
The chief witness was Mr. Robert Buckhurst, the gentleman who had been host to the ill-fated shooting party.
His evidence was quite simple and straightforward—indeed, there was nothing at all strange or mysterious about the sad affair.
"Lord St. Amant shot a bird," he said, "and we hunted for it for some time. We were engaged in beating up the next field, when some one said, 'Where is Tropenell?' Just at that moment I heard a shot." He waited a moment, and then went on: "It sounded as if it were fifty yards away."
Again the witness paused, and then he continued gravely: "I said in jest, 'I hope he has not shot himself!' And Lord St. Amant said, 'Hold my gun, Buckhurst, and I'll walk along behind the hedge, and see if I can find him.' He got through a gap, and he could only have gone a very few yards before we heard him call out. 'Come at once! He's shot!' With this we got through a gap, and ten paces on we saw Mr. Oliver Tropenell lying on his back, parallel with the hedge. The gun was lying across his body, the muzzle towards the hedge. At first we could not find the wound, but soon we discovered that he had been shot through the heart."
In reply to various questions, the witness explained how he raised Mr. Oliver Tropenell's left hand, fancying he could detect a slight flutter of the pulse. He called out for Dr. Turner, who happened to be a member of the party. That gentleman came up, and after a brief examination, said that Mr. Tropenell was certainly dead. The charge had gone through the heart, and death must have been practically instantaneous. Some one, probably the keeper, opened the breech of Mr. Tropenell's gun, and found that the cartridge in the right-hand chamber had been exploded.
At this point, in answer to a word from a juryman, Mr. Buckhurst said very decidedly that there could be no doubt at all that the shot had been fired by Mr.Tropenell's own gun. If he might venture to give an informal opinion, it was perfectly plain what had happened. The ground was rough just there, and twilight was falling. Without doubt Mr. Tropenell, on getting through the hedge, had stumbled heavily, the gun had fallen forward, and then had occurred one of those accidents which occasionally do happen out shooting, and which no amount of care or experience can prevent.
There was some little doubt as to what had been the exact position of the body, and while this was being discussed every one felt particularly sorry for the dead man's mother.
Following Mr. Buckhurst, Lord St. Amant went into the witness-box, and then some inquisitive juryman asked his lordship a question as to the mental condition of the deceased. In answer to that question, Lord St. Amant explained, with a good deal of emotion, that just before he and Mr. Tropenell had started out on their fatal expedition they had had a pleasant little talk together, during which Mr. Tropenell had seemed particularly well and cheerful. Further, the witness threw in, as an after-thought, the statement that the deceased gentleman had expressed considerable gratification at the fact that his mother, Mrs. Tropenell, and he, Lord St. Amant, had just entered together into an engagement of marriage.
This announcement of a forthcoming alliance which so closely touched the whole neighbourhood naturally overshadowed the rest of the purely formal medical evidence at the inquest. Very soon there remained nothing for the jury to do but to return a verdict of"death by misadventure," and to express the deepest sympathy with Mr. Tropenell's mother.
A great deal of deep, unaffected sympathy, more sincere in this case perhaps than a great deal of the sympathy which is lavished on the bereaved in this world, was felt for Mrs. Tropenell.
Her son had not only been the most devoted and excellent of sons, but he had been such a success, such a man to be proud of! It was also remembered that he had done many a kindly turn to the good folk of Pewsbury in the last eighteen months or so, since he had come home to make the first long stay he had made in their neighbourhood for over ten years. His manner, if reserved, was always kindly and pleasant, without any touch of that patronage which is sometimes irritating in gentlemen of his sort. The townspeople recalled, too, the dead man's intimacy with the late Mr. Godfrey Pavely, and the more sober among them did not fail to remind one another how curious it was that in under a year those two men, still both young as youth is counted nowadays, had been gathered to their fathers.
And then, before Pewsbury had had time to recover from the excitement of poor Oliver Tropenell's tragic end, and from the announcement, given under such painful and dramatic circumstances, of his mother's forthcoming marriage to Lord St. Amant, yet another thrilling sensation was provided for the inhabitants of the little town. This was the surprising news that Mrs. Winslow had married again!
The fortunate man was, it seemed, a certain Mr. Greville Howard, one of the largest subscribers tothe Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund, a gentleman, therefore, of evident social standing and wealth.
The ceremony had taken place at St. James's, Piccadilly, in the presence of a few friends of the bridegroom, and the happy pair had gone straight off to Mr. Howard's villa in the South of France. There Harber, Mrs. Winslow's faithful factotum, was to join her mistress as soon as she had made the necessary arrangements for the disposal, by auction, of the furniture at Rosedean. Of that furniture two objects were at the last moment withdrawn from the sale—one was a china cabinet, and the other a rather curious-looking old chandelier, both associated, so it was understood, with the new Mrs. Greville Howard's youth.
The auctioneer regretted these omissions from the catalogue, for by bad luck they were the only objects in the house which a big London dealer had come specially down to see, and for which he had intimated that he was prepared to give a very good price.
Transcriber's Notes:Obsolete spellings and alternate spellings of words (e.g., dulness) have been retained.On page 137, "Bayton" was replaced with "Baynton".On page 148, a period was added after "drew a piece of notepaper towards him".On page 159, "kindess" was replaced with "kindness".On page 160, "contributary" was replaced with "contributory".On page 239, "wainting" was replaced with "waiting".On page 279, "lov" was replaced with "love".On page 300, "affectionte" was replaced with "affectionate".On page 329, "whispred" was replaced with "whispered".On page 352, "Olive" was replaced with "Oliver".On page 355, "a great deal as as" was replaced with "a great deal as".On page 361, "expresson" was replaced with "expression".
Transcriber's Notes:
Obsolete spellings and alternate spellings of words (e.g., dulness) have been retained.
On page 137, "Bayton" was replaced with "Baynton".
On page 148, a period was added after "drew a piece of notepaper towards him".
On page 159, "kindess" was replaced with "kindness".
On page 160, "contributary" was replaced with "contributory".
On page 239, "wainting" was replaced with "waiting".
On page 279, "lov" was replaced with "love".
On page 300, "affectionte" was replaced with "affectionate".
On page 329, "whispred" was replaced with "whispered".
On page 352, "Olive" was replaced with "Oliver".
On page 355, "a great deal as as" was replaced with "a great deal as".
On page 361, "expresson" was replaced with "expression".