Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

It was late in the afternoon of the same day. From where she was sitting, under a great cedar tree, Mrs. Tropenell at last saw her son Oliver and Godfrey Pavely come out of Freshley Manor.

Though the glory and warmth of the summer were now over, Mrs. Tropenell still spent many hours of each day in her garden. She had always been an out-of-door woman from the days when she was an eager, impetuous, high-spirited girl, till now, when youth had gone, though something of the eager impetuosity of youth remained with her concealed from strangers by a manner marked by a strong sense of personal dignity.

The two men began walking, slowly, down the grass path leading to the beech avenue which was the glory of Freshley Manor, as well as a short cut to Lawford Chase, Godfrey Pavely's larger property.

It was more than an hour since a servant had come out to say that Mr. Pavely was waiting to see Mr. Tropenell in the library. The man had added that Mr. Pavely had had tea before leaving the Bank, and only wanted to see Mr. Tropenell for a few minutes on his way home. And Oliver, with "I don't think he'll keep me long, mother; I suppose you'll still be here when I come back?" had stridden off with a certain reluctance towards the house.

It had always been his mother's joy, but now for many years past her infrequent joy, to fall in with even the least reasonable of her son's wishes, and so she had gone on sitting out there, waiting for him to come back, long after the tea-things had been taken away. There was a book on the low garden table by her side—such a book as she loved, telling of great adventure by one of the adventurers—but she left it where it was.

Mrs. Tropenell felt a vague, exasperating sense of restlessness and unease. At the back of her heart—that heart which, if no longer that of a young woman, could still thrill with many varied emotions and a very passion of maternal love—was the dull ache of a secret, unacknowledged sense of fear and pain.

She had every reason to be happy to-day—not only happy in her son's company, but in the coming back, after a long absence on the Continent, of her old friend, Lord St. Amant. To him she could, perhaps, bring herself to say something of what was touching her so deeply, and he, she knew, would reassure her and make light of her fears. St. Amant was what is called in ordinary parlance a man of the world—the last man, that is, to be horrified, still less frightened, by a tale of illicit love, especially when, as the mother honestly believed, it was a love likely to remain unrequited.

Yes, she would tell her one trusted friend of these besetting fears, of her more than suspicion that her son Oliver was deep in love with Laura Pavely, and St. Amant would laugh at her, persuade her maybe to laugh with him.

And yet? Yet, even so, she asked herself again and again during that long time of waiting, what these two men who, if of life-long acquaintanceship and now at any rate nominally intimate friends, were so unlike the one to the other, could have to talk about, indoors, for over an hour? Godfrey Pavely and Oliver Tropenell met very often—too often to her thinking—so why should Godfrey have pursued Oliver home to-day, just when Oliver had had an hour to spare for his mother?

It was now Thursday, and her son had already dined with the Pavelys twice this week. To-morrow night Godfrey Pavely was to be in London, and it had been arranged that his wife, Laura, should spend the evening here. But that, or so Mrs. Tropenell had quickly reminded herself, had been Laura's usual custom, long before Oliver had come home from Mexico for the holiday which had now already lasted nearly four months. In her long life Mrs. Tropenell had only had one beloved woman friend, and that friend, that more than sister, had been Laura's mother.