The Imaginary Marriage Part 15

"What time will they be coming, Helen?" she asked, for she had made up her mind. She would think no more of this man, and remember no more of his speeches. She would wipe him out of her memory. Life for her would begin again here in Starden, and the past should hold nothing, nothing, nothing!

CHAPTER XVI

ELLICE

Buddesby, in the Parish of Little Langbourne, was a small place compared with Starden Hall. Buddesby claimed to be nothing more than a farmhouse of a rather exalted type. For generations the Everards had been gentlemen farmers, farming their own land and doing exceedingly badly by it.

Matthew, late owner of Buddesby, had taken up French gardening on a large scale, and had squandered a great part of his capital on gla.s.s cloches, fragments of which were likely to litter Buddesby for many a year to come.

John, his son, had turned his back on intensive culture and had gone back to the old family failing of hops. The Everard family had probably flung away more money on hops than any other family in Kent.

The Everards were not rich. The shabby, delightful old rooms, the tumble-down appearance of the ancient house, the lack of luxuries proved it, but they were exceedingly content.

Constance was a slim, pale, fair-haired girl with a singularly sweet expression and the temper, as her brother said often enough, of an angel. John Everard was big and broad, brown-haired, ruddy complexioned.

He regarded every goose as a swan, and had unlimited belief in his land, his sister, and the future. There was one other occupant of Buddesby, a slight slender, dark-haired girl, with a thin, olive face, a pair of blazing black eyes, and a vividly red-lipped mouth.

Eight years ago Matthew Everard had brought her home after a brief visit to London. He had handed her over to eighteen-year-old Constance.

"Look after the little one, Connie," he had said. "There's not a soul in the world who wants her, poor little la.s.s. Her father's been dead years; her mother died--last week." He paused. "I knew them both." That was all the information he had ever given, so Ellice Brand had come to Buddesby, one more mouth to feed, one more pair of feet to find shoes for.

She had many faults; she was pa.s.sionate and wilful, defiant and impatient of even Connie's gentle authority. But there was one who could quell her most violent outburst with a word--one who had but to look at her to bring her to her sane senses, one whom she would, dog-like, have followed to the end of the world, from whom she would have accepted blows and kicks and curses without a murmur, only that Johnny Everard was not in the habit of bestowing blows and curses on young ladies.

Constance was twenty-six, John, the master of Buddesby, was a year younger, and Ellice was eighteen, her slender body as yet childish and unformed, her gipsy-like face a little too thin. But there was beauty there, wonderful and startling beauty that would one day blossom forth.

It was in the bud as yet, but the bud was near to opening.

They were at breakfast in the comfortable, shabby old morning-room at Buddesby. It was eight o'clock, and John had been afield for a couple of hours and had come back with his appet.i.te sharp set.

They rose early at Buddesby. Constance had been at her housewifely duties since soon after six. Only Ellice had lain abed till the ringing of the breakfast-bell.

"A letter from Helen," Constance said.

"Helen? Oh, she's got to Starden then?" said John.

"And wants us to come over, dear."

"Of course! We'll go over next week some time. I'm busy now with--"

"It wouldn't be kind not to go at once."

"Who is Helen?" demanded Ellice. She looked fierce-eyed at Connie and then at John. "Who is she?" A tinge of colour came into her cheeks.

Connie saw it, and sighed a little. She knew this girl's secret, knew it only too well. Many an hour of anxiety and worry it had caused her.

"Helen is our aunt by marriage," she said.

"Oh!" Ellice said, "I thought--"

John laughed. He had a jolly laugh, a great hearty laugh that did one good to hear.

"What did you think she was, gipsy girl?" he asked, for "gipsy" was his pet name for the little dark beauty.

"Did you think she was some young and lovely damsel who was eager to meet me again?"

"I should hate her if she was!" the girl said, whereat John laughed again.

"Write to Helen, Con," he said as he rose from the table, "and say we'll come over to-morrow." He paused, frowning, at thought. "I'll manage it somehow. I'll drive you over in the trap. It would be useful to have a car; I don't know why I put off getting one."

Constance did, and she smiled. "Wait till next year, dear."

He nodded. "Yes, next year we'll get one. Meanwhile write to Helen, and tell her we'll be over to-morrow afternoon."

"And I?" Ellice asked.

John looked at her. "Why--no, child, you'll stop at home and look after the house, eh?" He nodded to them and went out.

"Is she there--alone?" Ellice asked.

"Who, dear?"

"This Helen, your aunt. Is it usual to call your aunt just plain Helen?"

"No, I suppose it isn't, and she is not there alone, as you ask. She is living with a girl who has just come into a great deal of money--Miss Joan Meredyth."

"What is she like?" the girl asked quickly.

Constance smiled.

"I don't know, dear. You see, I have never seen her."

"Then I hope," Ellice said between her clenched teeth, "I hope she is ugly, ugly as sin!"

"I think," said Constance gently, "that you are very silly and foolis.h.!.+"

Yet when the morrow came it was Ellice and not Constance who sat beside John in the trap, and was driven by him the six odd miles to Starden.

For Constance had one of "her headaches." It was no imaginary ailment, but a headache that prostrated her and filled her with pain, that made every sound an agony. She lay in her room, the blinds drawn, and all the household hushed.

"I'll write that we'll go to-morrow, dear," John said.

"No, go to-day. I should be glad, Johnny. Go to-day and take Ellice, I am so much better alone; and by the time you come home perhaps I shall have been able to sleep it off."

So Johnny Everard drove Ellice over to Starden that afternoon.

Helen Everard received them in the drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest. It was an interesting face, such a face as one does not ordinarily see.

"One day, if she lives, she will be a beautiful woman," Helen thought.