"I wonder—" Laura grew a little pink—"I wonder," she said again, "if you know on what business Godfrey went up to town? Mr. Privet would rather like to know that."
And then Katty grew a little pink, too. She hesitated. "No, I don't know what business took him away. You forget that I myself have been away for quite a long time—I only came back on Thursday afternoon."
"Why, of course!" exclaimed Laura. "I forgot that. You've been away nearly 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 of all 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 together not far from the bow window of Katty's bedroom.
Suddenly Katty exclaimed, "Why, there's Oliver Tropenell! What an extraordinary 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 never anything to see in Laura's face.
"Hadn't I better call out to him? He's evidently on his way to The Chase. 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, stopped rather unwillingly. Then he looked up, and when he saw who it was that was standing by Mrs. Winslow, he turned in through the gate, and rang the 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 into the garden with Alice."
She bent over the broad, low bar of the window, and Oliver, gazing up at her, 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 be down soon."
Katty lingered a little, though she only had to put on her blouse, her skirt, and a sports coat. "I feel quite anxious about Godfrey," she said hesitatingly.
And Laura, in an absent voice, said, "Yes, so do I. But of course by this time he may be at the Bank. He's quite fond of that very early morning 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 Oliver Tropenell and the child were talking together.
Oliver turned round, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Winslow, he asked Laura an abrupt question. "Did Godfrey come back last evening after all?"
Katty looked at him inquisitively. Then he had been at The Chase yesterday?
Laura shook her head. "No, I sat up for him till midnight. I thought it almost certain that he'd taken the last train. But we've had no news of him at all. Perhaps he's at the Bank by now—I'll ring up as soon as I get 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 you have any special news? Of course I don't want you to let me know if Godfrey's safe at the Bank—I'm not so anxious as all that!" She laughed, her rather affected, little ringing laugh. "But if there's any other 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. "Why shouldn't you come up to lunch, Katty? I wish you would! And then I could tell you anything I've heard this morning."
"Thanks, I'd like to do that. I'll follow you in about an hour. I've things to do, and letters to write, now."
She saw the three off, and once more, as had so often been the case in the past, her heart was filled with envy—envy, and a certain excitement.
Oliver Tropenell's return home just now was a complication. She felt sure it would upset Godfrey, but she could not quite tell how much. She wondered if Gilbert Baynton had come back too. She rather hoped that he had.
She wrote her letters, and then, so timing her departure as to arrive exactly at one o'clock, for at The Chase luncheon was at one, she went off, meeting, as she expected to do, Oliver Tropenell on his way home to Freshley.
"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 detained in town."
"Still, it's odd he didn't write to Laura," said Katty meditatively. "As a rule he writes to Laura every day when he is in London."
She knew that was one of those half-truths which are more misleading than a lie. Godfrey was fond of sending home postcards containing directions as to this or that connected with the house or garden. But Katty saw the instinctive frown which came over Oliver Tropenell's face, and she felt pleased. She enjoyed giving this odd, sensitive, secretive man tiny pin-pricks. She had never really liked him, and now she positively disliked him. Why had he gone away just when things were looking promising? And, having gone away for so long, why had he now come 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. "And without seeing Laura again? I'm rather sorry for that!" And as Oliver made no answer, she went on a trifle maliciously: "I suppose you will be going 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 long as 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, and as was her way when she chose to do so, she made herself very pleasant to both the mother and child, and that though little Alice did not like her.
A little before four she asked Laura if she might telephone herself to the Bank, and Laura eagerly assented.
Explaining that she was really speaking for Mrs. Pavely, Katty had quite a long chat with Mr. Privet. She and the old head clerk had always been good friends, though they met seldom. He could remember her as a beautiful child, and then as the popular, because the always good humoured and pleasant-spoken, belle of Pewsbury.
"Yes, I feel very anxious indeed, Mrs. Winslow! I've been wondering whether it wouldn't be a good thing to communicate with the London police, if we don't have any news of Mr. Pavely to-morrow. Could you ascertain 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 London police should be communicated with—if we don't have news of Godfrey by to-morrow morning."
Laura looked up, startled. "Oh, Katty, don't you think that would make him 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 a little longer before saying anything to the police," she called out.
And thus it was through Laura, as Katty reminded herself in days to come, that two more precious days were lost.
Chapter XV