The Imaginary Marriage Part 4

"Annoyed me, insulted me ever since I came here," she said quietly. "And of course I shall not stay!"

"Insulted you! Is it an insult to ask you to be my wife?"

"It seems so to me," she said quietly. "If you had meant that--at first--it would have been different; now it is only an insult!"

Three days pa.s.sed, and there came answers. She had been right, Mrs.

Ransome was dead, and there was no one who could do anything for Miss Meredyth.

General Bartholomew was at Harrogate, and her letter had been sent on to him there, wrote a polite secretary. And then there came a letter that warmed the girl's heart and brought back all her belief and faith in human nature.

"MY DEAREST CHILD,

"Your letter came as a welcome surprise--to think that you are looking for employment! Well, we must see to this--I promise you, you will not have far to look. Come here to me at once, and be sure that everything will be put right and all misunderstandings wiped out. I am keeping your letter a secret from everyone, even from Marjorie, that your coming shall be the more unexpected, and the greater surprise and pleasure. But come without delay, and believe me to be,

"Your very affectionate friend, "HARRIET LINDEN."

"P.S.--I suggest that you wire me the day and the train, so that I can meet you. Don't lose any time, and be sure that all past unhappiness can be ended, and the future faced with the certainty of brighter and happier days."

Over this letter Joan Meredyth pondered a great deal. It was a warm-hearted and affectionate response to her somewhat stilted little appeal. Yet what did the old lady mean, to what did the veiled reference apply?

"So you mean going, then?" Slotman asked.

"I told you I would go, and I shall. I leave to-morrow."

"You'll be glad to come back," he said. He looked at her, and there was eagerness in his eyes. "Joan, don't be a fool, stay. I could give you a good time, and--"

But she had turned her back on him.

She had written to Lady Linden thanking her for her kindly letter.

"I shall come to you on Sat.u.r.day for the week-end, if I may. I find there is a train at a quarter-past three. I shall come by that to Cornbridge Station.

"Believe me, "Yours gratefully and affectionately, "JOAN MEREDYTH."

There was a subdued excitement about Lady Linden during the Thursday and the Friday, and an irritating air of secretiveness.

"Foolish, foolish young people! Both so good and so worthy in their way--the girl beautiful and clever, the man as fine and honest and upright a young fellow as ever trod this earth--donkeys! Perhaps they can't be driven--very often donkeys can't; but they can be led!"

To Hugh Alston, at Hurst Dormer, seven miles away, Lady Linden had written.

"MY DEAR HUGH,

"I want you to come here Sat.u.r.day; it is a matter of vital importance." (She had a habit of underlining her words to give them emphasis, and she underscored "vital" three times.) "I want you to time your arrival for half-past five, a nice time for tea.

Don't be earlier, and don't be later. And, above all, don't fail me, or I will never forgive you."

"I expect," Hugh thought, "that she is going to make a public announcement of the engagement between Marjorie and Tom Arundel."

It was precisely at half-past five that Hugh stepped out of his two-seater car and demanded admittance at the door of the Manor House.

"Oh, Mr. Alston," the footman said, "my lady is expecting you. She told me to show you straight into the drawing-room, and she and--" The man paused.

"Her ladys.h.i.+p will be with you in a few moments, sir."

"There is festival in the air here, Perkins, and mystery and secrecy too, eh?"

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," the man said. "This way, Mr. Alston."

And now in the drawing-room Hugh was cooling his heels.

Why this mystery? Where was Marjorie? Why didn't his aunt come?

Then someone came, the door opened. Into the room stepped a tall girl--a girl with the most beautiful face he thought he had ever seen in his life. She looked at him calmly and casually, and seemed to hesitate; and then behind her appeared Lady Linden, flushed, and evidently agitated.

"There," she said, "there, my dears--I have brought you together again, and now everything must be made quite all right! Joan, darling, here is your husband! Go to him, forgive him if there is aught to forgive. Ask forgiveness, child, in your turn, and then--then kiss and be friends, as husband and wife should be."

She beamed on them both, then swiftly retreated, and the door behind Joan Meredyth quickly closed.

CHAPTER IV

FACE TO FACE

It was, Hugh Alston decided, the most beautiful face he had ever seen in his life and the coldest, or so it seemed to him. She was looking at him with cool questioning in her grey eyes, her lips drawn to a hard line.

He saw her as she stood before him, and as he saw her now, so would he carry the memory of the picture she made in his mind for many a day to come--tall, perhaps a little taller than the average woman, tall by comparison with Marjorie Linden, brown of hair and grey of eye, with a disdainfully enquiring look about her.

He was not a man who usually noticed a woman's clothes, yet the picture impressed on his mind of this girl was a very complete one. She was wearing a dress that instinct told him was of some cheap material. She might have bought it ready-made, she might have made it herself, or some unskilled dressmaker might have turned it out cheaply. Poverty was the note it struck, her boots were small and neat, well-worn. Yes, poverty was the keynote to it all.

It was she, womanlike, who broke the silence.

"Well? I am waiting for some explanation of all the extraordinary things that have been said to me since I have been in this house. You, of course, heard what Lady Linden said as she left us?"

"I heard," he said. His cheeks turned red. Was ever a man in a worse position? The questioning grey eyes stared at him so coldly that he lost his head. He wanted to apologise, to explain, yet he knew that he could not explain. It was Marjorie who had brought him into this, but he must respect the girl's secret, on which so much depended for her.

"Please answer me," Joan Meredyth said. "You heard Lady Linden advise us, you and myself, to make up a quarrel that has never taken place; you heard her--" She paused, a great flush suddenly stole over her face, adding enormously to her attractiveness, but quickly as it came, it went.

What could he say? Vainly he racked his brains. He must say something, or the girl would believe him to be fool as well as knave. Ideas, excuses, lies entered his mind, he put them aside instantly, as being unworthy of him and of her, yet he must tell her--something.

"When--when I used your name, believe me, I had no idea that it was the property of a living woman--"

"When you used my name? I don't understand you!"

"I claimed that I was married to a Miss Joan Meredyth--"

"I still don't understand you. You say you claimed that you were married--are you married to anyone?"