CHAPTER XIV
There are certain winter days when bed and bath seem to be the only twotolerable places in the world.
Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, that is, on Saturday, theseventh of January, knew at once, though she was snuggled down deep inher warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had been the eveningbefore. She shivered a little, telling herself that perhaps she was notin as good condition as usual, for she had only just come back fromspending Christmas and the New Year away.
The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting in gleams of redwinter sun. And then she brought her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, anda pretty, wadded, pale-blue bed wrap.
Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she said. "I'll ring when Iwant breakfast." And after having taken her tea she lay down again, andbegan to think.
Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts turned to GodfreyPavely. She wondered vaguely where he was, and if he would be hometo-day.
There had been a kind of half arrangement between them that they wouldtravel down from London together on the Thursday afternoon. That wouldhave meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor--a pleasant as wellas an economical plan--and its owner's company as far as Rosedean.
But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the London station, though shehad lingered about up to the very last moment before taking,regretfully, a third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had alsowaited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey might have dashed upjust as the train was leaving--not that he was apt to dash at any time,for he was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard for hispersonal dignity. But there was no sign of the familiar figure, and soKatty had had to take a fly--a slow, smelly, expensive fly--out toRosedean.
Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull day, spent inhearing from Harber all the disagreeable things which had happened whileshe had been away--how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had gone andbroken a rather nice piece of china in the drawing-room, and also how ithad come to pass that there were two slates off the roof.
Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come in, if only to apologisefor having failed her during the journey. But the afternoon had goneslowly by, and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he had notyet come home. Something must have delayed him--something, perhaps,connected with that pleasant Portuguese gambling concession which was tobring them both such a lot of money. But if that were so, she wouldalmost certainly receive from him this morning one of his rather long,explanatory letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of writingto Katty almost every day when they were apart.
Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the fact strictly to herself--for itwas one that might have somewhat surprised even the unsuspiciousLaura--she and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together duringtheir dual absence from home.
It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes do fall out, verynaturally and innocently, just a week ago to-day.
Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her friends, the Haworths,had run up against Godfrey Pavely at King's Cross. That had been areally extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would have beenfoolish not to take advantage. For it turned out that he also was goingto Yorkshire, and on the business in which they were both interested, tospend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville Howard. That gentleman,it seemed, was making certain difficulties about the matter--he wantedto stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who were concernedwith the affair. As he spent each spring in the south of France, thatwould not be such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, andthe other had felt he had better go and see him.
After a pleasant journey together, as they were steaming into Yorkstation Godfrey suddenly asked: "Must you go on to your friends at once?Couldn't you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? I'm in nohurry." And, smilingly, she had consented.
Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her old friend. For onething he was being so good to her in the matter of money. That twohundred pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been followed bytwo fifty-pound notes. And yet, though she knew poor Godfrey was quiteunaware of it, her original purpose--the purpose which had so distressedhim, and which, as she well knew, had induced in him such extraordinaryand unusual generosity--had not faltered at all. Katty still meant tocut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere.
Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship with Godfrey Pavely wasall very well; though of late she had been disagreeably aware thatGodfrey was ashamed--ashamed of giving her that money, ashamed of hisincreasing fondness for her, ashamed also of--well, of other littlethings which sometimes happened, things which Katty thought quiteunimportant, which she regarded as part of the payment due from her toGodfrey. But she realised more rather than less, as time went on, thatif she wanted to make anything of her life there must come a change. Shewould wait a while, wait perhaps till next autumn--so she had told thosekind friends of hers, the Haworths.
Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry she was that things hadnot fallen out otherwise. But she had always tried, in all the greatthings of life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only once hadshe been caught doing anything else--and that, as we know, had beenyears and years ago. She was not likely to make that sort of mistakenow. She had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that Godfreyand Laura, however ill they got on together, were not the sort of peopleto lend themselves to any kind of juggling with the law to obtain theirliberty.
But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. She had felt in himaccumulated forces of that explosive energy which leads to determinedaction--also she had thought that Gillie would do something.
But the two had disappeared together almost immediately after her talkwith Laura's brother. That was over ten weeks ago now, and neither hadgiven any sign of life since.
But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For one thing she was keenlyinterested in that business in which they were, in a sense, bothengaged. Also one never can tell what life--and death--may not bringforth. Whatever happened, the link between herself and Godfrey was toostrong ever to be broken. Even if she married again, which she supposedshe would do some time or other, there seemed no reason, to her, at anyrate, why she should not keep up with Godfrey. He was her trustee now,as well as her oldest friend.
So it was that she had very willingly assented to do him the triflingfavour of spending some further hours in his company.
As they wandered about the old city, and lingered awhile in the greatMinster, neither of them said a word that the whole world might not haveoverheard. They visited some of the curiosity shops for which York isfamed, and Katty's companion, with that new generosity which sat on himso strangely, bought a beautiful, and very costly, old cut-glass pendantfor Rosedean.
They did not meet a soul that either of them knew, excepting, yes,stop----After they had said goodbye (Godfrey, with a rather shockedlook on his face, for Katty, imprudent, foolish Katty, had woman-likeseemed to expect that he would kiss her in a corner of an emptywaiting-room where at any moment they might have been surprised by someacquaintance of one or the other of them!)--after, as arranged, they hadsaid good-bye, and Katty was engaged in taking her ticket for the branchline station for which she was bound, a curious thing happened.
She suddenly heard a voice, a man's voice, which sounded pleasantlyfamiliar.
Who could it be? The association evoked was wholly agreeable, but Kattycould not place, in the chambers of her memory, the owner of the ratherpeculiar accents which were engaged in asking when the next train backto London would start.
She had turned round quickly, only to see a small queue of people behindher, among them surely the owner of that peculiar voice. But no, she didnot know any one there--though among them a man attracted her attention,for the simple reason that he was staring at her very hard. He wasobviously a foreigner, for his skin was olive-tinted, and he had asmall, black, pointed beard. He stared at Kat
ty with an air of ratherinsolent admiration. And then he broke away from the queue, and walkedquickly off, out of the booking-office.
Katty always enjoyed admiration, whatever its source, and yet a queerkind of shiver had gone through her when this impertinent stranger'sglance rested full on her face. She had had the odious sensation thatthe man saw something to be jeered at, as well as admired, in her neatand attractive self.
* * * * *
At last, reluctantly, Katty got up and went into her well-warmedcomfortable bathroom. It was nice to be home again, at no one's ordersbut her own. After she had dressed, she rang, and very soon came herbreakfast, daintily served by the devoted Harber, also the one dailypaper she felt she could afford to take.
Katty was one of the many women to whom the daily picture-paper supplieda long-felt, if unconscious, want. It gave her just the amount of news,and the kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other things,could assimilate comfortably. She was no reader, though sometimes shewould manage to gallop through some book that all the world was talkingabout. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, she had become veryfond of the paper she now held in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny aday, and Katty liked small, sensible economies.
That liking of hers was one of the links which bound her to GodfreyPavely, but unlike Godfrey, Katty did not care for money for money'ssake. She only liked money for what money could buy. And sometimes, whenshe was in a cheerful, mischievous mood, she would tell herself, with asmile, that if ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been built ona solid foundation--if ever, that is, she became Godfrey Pavely's wife,she would know how to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. Shefelt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should such an unlikely thingcome to pass, she would know how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, ifsurprised, he would not really mind what she did. She always got goodvalue out of everything she acquired, and that would remain true if,instead of spending pence, she was ever able to spend pounds.
A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning to think it was timefor her to finish dressing, she heard the gate of her domain open, andthe voice of little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air,mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura.
It was an odd thing, considering that the two women were at any rate intheory intimate friends, that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean.In fact Katty could not remember a single time when Laura had come inthe morning, an uninvited, unexpected guest. So suddenly poor Katty felta little chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, andwaited....
The front door was opened at once. Then came Harber's hurrying footfallson the staircase--and, simultaneously, the garden door at the back ofthe house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little girl out ofdoors, into the garden. What could she be coming to say?
Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there was nothing that Lauracould possibly have found out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey inYork, Laura was surely the last woman to mind--and if she did mind, shewas quite the last woman to say anything about it!
There came a knock at the door: then Harber's voice, "Mrs. Pavely wantsto know, ma'am, if she can come up and speak to you, just for a minute."
"Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, pleasantly.
A minute later, Laura walked forward into the room. It was the firsttime she had been in Katty's bedroom since Rosedean had been firstfurnished.
She looked round her with a smile. "Why, Katty," she exclaimed, "howcharming and pretty you've made it all! You've added quite a number ofthings since I was here last."
"Only the curtains," said Katty quickly (oh, how relieved she felt!),"only the curtains, and perhaps that arm-chair, Laura."
"Yes, I suppose that _is_ all, but somehow it looks more."
Laura looked exactly as she always looked, rather paler perhaps thanusual, but then Laura was pale. She had that peculiar clear, warmwhiteness of skin that is compared by its admirers to a camellia; thismorning, her lovely, deep blue eyes looked tired, as if she had beensleeping badly.
"I've really come to ask if you know where Godfrey is? We expected himhome on Thursday. Then he sent a telephone message saying that hecouldn't be back till yesterday. No time was mentioned, but as he had alot of appointments at the Bank we of course thought he would be backearly. I myself sat up for him last night till after the last train, butnow, this morning, I've heard nothing from him--and Mr. Privet has heardnothing."
"What an odd thing!" exclaimed Katty. She really did think it very odd,for Godfrey was the most precise of men.
She waited a moment, then said truthfully, "No, I haven't the slightestidea where he is. He wrote me a line late last week about a littleinvestment of mine. I've got the letter somewhere."
Katty was trying to make up her mind as to whether she should sayanything concerning that joint journey to York. At last she decided notto do so. It had nothing to do with Godfrey's absence now.
"Doesn't Mr. Privet know where he is?" she asked. "That really _is_ veryodd, Laura."
"Of course Mr. Privet knows where Godfrey was up to Thursday morning. Hestayed where he always does stay when in London, at the HungerfordHotel, in Trafalgar Square. He's always stayed there--they know him, andmake him very comfortable. But Mr. Privet telephoned through thereyesterday--as a matter of fact I've only just heard this--and they toldhim that Godfrey had left the hotel on Thursday morning. But theextraordinary thing is," and now Laura really did look somewhattroubled--"that they were expecting him back there to pack, to leave forhere--at least so the manager understood him to say. He went out in themorning, and then he didn't come back, as they thought he would do, toluncheon. All his things are still at the Hungerford Hotel."
Katty began to feel a little uneasy. "Perhaps he's had an accident," shesaid. "After all, accidents _do_ happen. Have you done anything, Laura?"
Laura shook her head. "What seems to make the theory of an accidentunlikely is that telephone message. You see, he telephoned quite late onThursday saying that he would stay in town over the night. But he didn'tsend a similar message to the Bank, as any one knowing Godfrey wouldcertainly have expected him to do, and he didn't let them know at theHungerford Hotel that he would be away for the night. It's all rathermysterious."
"Yes, it is," said Katty.
"I wonder--" Laura grew a little pink--"I wonder," she said again, "ifyou know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet wouldrather like to know that."
And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't knowwhat business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away forquite a long time--I only came back on Thursday afternoon."
"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been awaynearly a fortnight, haven't you?"
"Yes. First I went right down to the south, and then up to Yorkshire."
Somehow she felt impelled to say this.
But Katty's visits were of no interest to Laura at any time, least ofall just now. "Well, I thought I'd come and just ask you on the chance,"she said.
She got up, and for a moment or two the two young women stood togethernot far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom.
Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What anextraordinary thing! I thought he was abroad."
"He came back yesterday morning," said Laura quietly.
Katty gave her visitor a quick, searching look. But there was neveranything to see in Laura's face.
"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to TheChase. Hadn't I better say you're here?"
And, as Laura seemed to hesitate, she threw open the window. "Mr.Tropenell?" she called out, in her clear, ringing voice.
The man who was striding past Rosedean, walking very quickly, stoppedrather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was thatwas standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rangthe door-bell.
"Will you go down to him, Laura? I can't come as I am
."
"I'll wait while you put on your dress. We can tell him to go out intothe garden with Alice."
She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up ather, thought of Rossetti's lines: Heaven to him was where Laura was.
"Will you go through the house into the garden? Alice is there. We'll bedown soon."
Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, herskirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she saidhesitatingly.
And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course bythis time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very earlymorning train. He often took it last summer."
"Yes, but now he would have had to get up in the dark to take it."
"I don't think Godfrey would mind that."
At last the two went downstairs, and out into the garden where OliverTropenell and the child were talking together.
Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Winslow, he askedLaura an abrupt question. "Did Godfrey come back last evening afterall?"
Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had been at The Chaseyesterday?
Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till midnight. I thought italmost certain that he'd taken the last train. But we've had no news ofhim at all. Perhaps he's at the Bank by now--I'll ring up as soon as Iget home. Come, Alice, my dear."
Katty heard Oliver Tropenell say in a low voice: "May I walk with you?"
And then Katty cut in: "You'll let me know, Laura, won't you, if youhave any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know ifGodfrey's safe at the Bank--I'm not so anxious as all that!" Shelaughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's anyother news--especially if he's had an accident of any sort--well, I_should_ like to know."
"Of course I'll send you word." And then Laura roused herself. "Whyshouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then Icould tell you anything I've heard this morning."
"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I'vethings to do, and letters to write, now."
She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case inthe past, her heart was filled with envy--envy, and a certainexcitement.
Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She feltsure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. Shewondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that hehad.
She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arriveexactly at one o'clock, for at The Chase luncheon was at one, she wentoff, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home toFreshley.
"Any news?" she called out. And he shook his head. "No--no news at all."Then he added slowly: "But I don't see that there's any cause for alarm.Pavely telephoned the day before yesterday saying he was being detainedin town."
"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "Asa rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London."
She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleadingthan a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containingdirections as to this or that connected with the house or garden. ButKatty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face,and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretiveman tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now shepositively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things werelooking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he nowcome back?
"How is Mr. Baynton?" she asked, smiling.
"He's gone back to Mexico."
And now Katty was really surprised. "Has he indeed?" she exclaimed. "Andwithout seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry for _that_!" And as Olivermade no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will begoing off soon, too?"
He hesitated, a very long time it seemed to her, before he answered,"Yes, I suppose I shall. But things go on all right over there as longas one of us is there."
Then, with a not over civil abruptness, he left her.
Katty stayed most of that cold wintry Saturday afternoon with Laura, andas was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasantto both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not likeher.
A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself tothe Bank, and Laura eagerly assented.
Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quitea long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always beengood friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as abeautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always goodhumoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury.
"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wonderingwhether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the Londonpolice, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could youascertain for me the exact feelings of Mrs. Pavely?"
"I agree with you, Mr. Privet, for after all, accidents _do_ happen!Hold the line a moment. I'll go and inquire."
She hurried off to Laura's boudoir. "Mr. Privet suggests that the Londonpolice should be communicated with--if we don't have news of Godfrey byto-morrow morning."
Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you think that would makehim very angry--if he's all right, I mean?"
"Perhaps it would," Katty agreed uncomfortably.
She went back to the telephone. "Mrs. Pavely thinks we'd better wait alittle longer before saying anything to the police," she called out.
And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days tocome, that two more precious days were lost.