The Imaginary Marriage Part 10

Hudson went out. He was gone ten minutes, while the General dozed in a chair. He was thinking of the past, of those good old days when he and Tom Meredyth, the girl's father, and George Alston, the lad's father, were all young fellows together. Ah, good old days, fine old days! When the young blood coursed strong and hot in the veins, when there was no need of Harrogate waters, when the limbs were supple and strong, and the eyes bright and clear. "And they are gone," the old man muttered--"both of them, and a lot of other good fellows besides; and I am an old, old man, begad, an old fellow sitting here waiting for my call to come and--" He paused, and looked up.

"Well, Hudson?"

"I have been speaking to Mr. Rankin, sir. He wished me to tell you--"

Hudson paused; his face was a little flushed, as with some inward excitement.

"Go on!"

"Before his death, which occurred six months ago, Mr. Robert Meredyth, who had made a great deal of money in Australia, re-purchased the old Meredyth family estate at Starden in Kent, Starden Hall, meaning to return to England, and take up his residence there. Unfortunately, he died on board s.h.i.+p. His wife was dead, his only son was killed in the war, and he had left the whole of his fortune, about three hundred thousand pounds, and the Starden Hall Estate, to his niece, Miss Joan Meredyth."

"By George! so the girl's an heiress!"

"And a very considerable one!"

"We won't say a word about it--not a word, Hudson. We'll get the girl here, and patch up this quarrel between her and her young husband. When that's done we'll spring the news on 'em, eh?"

"I think it would be a good idea, General," Hudson said.

CHAPTER X

"IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING"

Slotman leaned across his table. His eyes were glaring his face was flushed a dusky red.

Against the wall, her face white as death, but her eyes unafraid, the girl stood staring at him, in silent amazement.

"And you--you've given yourself airs, set yourself up to be all that you are not! You've held me at arm's length, and all the time--all the time you're nothing--nothing!" the man shouted. "I know all about you! I know that a man offered you marriage to atone for the past--to atone--you hear me? I tell you I know about you, and yet you dare--dare to give yourself airs--dare to pretend to be a monument of innocence--you!"

"You are mad!" the girl said quietly.

"Yes, that's it--mad--mad for you! Mad with love for you!" Slotman laughed sharply. "I'm a fool--a blind, mad fool; but you've got me as no other woman ever did. I tell you I know about you and the past, but it shall make no difference. I repeat my offer now--I'll marry you, in spite of everything!"

It seemed to Joan that a kind of madness came to her, born of her fear and her horror of this man.

She forced her way past him, and gained the door, how she scarcely remembered. She could only recall a great and burning sense of rage and shame. She remembered seeing, as in some distant vision, a man with scared eyes and sagging jaw--a man who, an utter coward by nature, had given way at her approach, whose pa.s.sion had melted into fear--fear followed later by senseless rage against himself and against her.

So she had made her retreat from the office of Mr. Philip Slotman, and had shaken the dust of the place off her feet.

It was all very well to bear up and show a brave and determined face to the enemy, to give no sign of weakness when the danger threatened. But now, alone in her own room in the lodging-house, she broke down, as any sensitive, highly strung woman might.

Joan looked at her face in the gla.s.s. She looked at it critically. Was it the face, she asked herself, of a girl who invited insult? For insult on insult had been heaped on her. She had been made the b.u.t.t of one man's senseless joke or lie, whatever it might be; the b.u.t.t of another man's infamous pa.s.sion.

"Oh!" she said, "Oh!" She clasped her cheeks between her hands, and stared at her reflection with wide grey eyes. "I hate myself! I hate this face of mine that invites such--such--" She shuddered, and moaned softly to herself.

Beauty, why should women want it, unless they are rich and well placed, carefully protected? Beauty to a poor girl is added danger. She would be a thousand, a million times better and happier without it.

She grew calmer presently. She must think. To-morrow the money for her board here would be due, and she had not enough to pay. She would not ask Slotman for the wages for this week, never would she ask anything of that man, never see him again.

Then what lay before her? She sat down and put her elbows on the dressing table with its dingy cheap lace cover, and in doing so her eyes fell on a letter, a letter that had been placed here for her.

It was from General Bartholomew, an answer to the appeal she had written him at the same time that she had written to Lady Linden. It came now, kindly, friendly and even affectionate, at the very eleventh hour.

"I was away, my dear child, when your letter came. It was forwarded to Harrogate to me. Now I am back in London again. Your father was my very dear friend; his daughter has a strong claim on me, so pack your things, my dear, and come to me at once. I am an old fellow, old enough to have been your father's father, and the little note that I enclose must be accepted, as it is offered, in the same spirit of affection. It will perhaps settle your immediate necessities. To-morrow morning I shall send for you, so have all your things ready, and believe me.

"Yours affectionately, "GEORGE BARTHOLOMEW."

She cried over the letter, the proud head drooped over it; bright tears streamed from the grey eyes.

Could Hugh Alston have seen her now, her face softened by the gladness and the grat.i.tude that had come to her, he would have seen in her the woman of his dreams.

The banknote would clear everything. She did not scruple to accept it in the spirit of affection in which it was offered. It would have been churlish and false pride to refuse.

He had said that he would send for her when the morning came; he had taken it for granted that she would go, and there was no need to answer the letter. And when the morning came she was ready and waiting, her things packed, her last bill to Mrs. Wenham paid.

The maid came tapping on the door.

"Someone waiting for you, miss, in the drawing-room."

Joan went down. It would be the old fellow, the warm-hearted old man himself come to fetch her! She entered the big ugly room, with its dingy wall-paper and threadbare carpet, its oleographs in tarnished frames, its ancient centre ottoman, its elderly piano and unsafe, uncertain chairs. How she hated this room, where of evenings the 'paying guests'

distorted themselves.

But she came into it now eagerly, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, and hand held out, only to draw back with sudden chill.

It was Mr. Philip Slotman who rose from the ottoman.

"Joan, I've come to tell you I am sorry, sorry and ashamed," he said. "I was mad. I want you to forgive me."

"There need be no talk of forgiveness," she said. "You are the type of man one can perhaps forget--never forgive!"

He winced a little, and his face changed to a dusky red.

"I said more than I meant to say. But what I said, after all, was right enough. I know more about you than I think you guess. I know about that fellow, that--what's his name?--Alston--who came. I know why he came."

"You are a friend of his, perhaps? I am not surprised."

"I never saw him before in my life, but I know all about him--and you--all the same. He was willing to act fairly to you after all, and--"

"What is this to do with you?" she asked.

"A lot!" he said thickly. "A lot! Look here!" He took another step towards her. "Last night I behaved like a mad fool. I--I said more than I meant to say. I--I saw you, and I thought of that fellow--and--and you, and it drove me mad!"

"Why?" She was looking at him with calm eyes of contempt, the same look that she had given to Hugh Alston at their last meeting.

"Why--why?" he said. "Why?" He clenched his hands. "You know why, you know I love you! I want you! I'll marry you! I'll dig a hole and bury the past in it--curse the past! I'll say nothing more, Joan. I swear before Heaven I'll never try and dig up the past again. I forgive everything!"