The Imaginary Marriage by Henry St. John Cooper

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THE IMAGINARY MARRIAGE

by Henry St. John Cooper

CHAPTER I

A MASTERFUL WOMAN

"Don't talk to me, miss," said her ladyship. "I don't want to hear any
nonsense from you!"

The pretty, frightened girl who shared the drawing-room at this moment
with Lady Linden of Cornbridge Manor House had not dared to open her
lips. But that was her ladyship's way, and "Don't talk to me!" was a
stock expression of hers. Few people were permitted to talk in her
ladyship's presence. In Cornbridge they spoke of her with bated breath
as a "rare masterful woman," and they had good cause.

Masterful and domineering was Lady Linden of Cornbridge, yet she was
kind-hearted, though she tried to disguise the fact.

In Cornbridge she reigned supreme, men and women trembled at her
approach. She penetrated the homes of the cottagers, she tasted of their
foods, she rated them on uncleanliness, drunkenness, and thriftlessness;
she lectured them on cooking.

On many a Saturday night she raided, single-handed, the Plough Inn and
drove forth the sheepish revellers, personally conducting them to their
homes and wives.

They respected her in Cornbridge as the reigning sovereign of her small
estate, and none did she rule more autocratically and completely than
her little nineteen-year-old niece Marjorie.

A pretty, timid, little maid was Marjorie, with soft yellow hair, a
sweet oval face, with large pathetic blue eyes and a timid, uncertain
little rosebud of a mouth.

"A rare sweet maid her be," they said of her in the village, "but
terribul tim'rous, and I lay her ladyship du give she a rare time of
it...." Which was true.

"Don't talk to me, miss!" her ladyship said to the silent girl. "I know
what is best for you; and I know, too, what you don't think I know--ha,
ha!" Her ladyship laughed terribly. "I know that you have been meeting
that worthless young scamp, Tom Arundel!"

"Oh, aunt, he is not worthless--"

"Financially he isn't worth a sou--and that's what I mean, and don't
interrupt. I am your guardian, you are entirely in my charge, and until
you arrive at the age of twenty-five I can withhold your fortune from
you if you marry in opposition to me and my wishes. But you won't--you
won't do anything of the kind. You will marry the man I select for you,
the man I have already selected--what did you say, miss?

"And now, not another word. Hugh Alston is the man I have selected for
you. He is in love with you, there isn't a finer lad living. He has
eight thousand a year, and Hurst Dormer is one of the best old
properties in Sussex. So that's quite enough, and I don't want to hear
any more nonsense about Tom Arundel. I say nothing against him
personally. Colonel Arundel is a gentleman, of course, otherwise I would
not permit you to know his son; but the Arundels haven't a pennypiece to
fly with and--and now--Now I see Hugh coming up the drive. Leave me. I
want to talk to him. Go into the garden, and wait by the lily-pond. In
all probability Hugh will have something to say to you before long."

"Oh, aunt, I--"

"Shut up!" said her ladyship briefly.

Marjorie went out, with hanging head and bursting heart. She believed
herself the most unhappy girl in England. She loved; who could help
loving happy-go-lucky, handsome Tom Arundel, who well-nigh worshipped
the ground her little feet trod upon? It was the first love and the only
love of her life, and of nights she lay awake picturing his bright,
young boyish face, hearing again all the things he had said to her till
her heart was well-nigh bursting with love and longing for him.

But she did not hate Hugh. Who could hate Hugh Alston, with his cheery
smile, his ringing voice, his big generous heart, and his fine
manliness? Not she! But from the depths of her heart she wished Hugh
Alston a great distance away from Cornbridge.

"Hello, Hugh!" said her ladyship. He had come in, a man of
two-and-thirty, big and broad, with suntanned face and eyes as blue as
the tear-dimmed eyes of the girl who had gone miserably down to the
lily-pond.

Fair haired was Hugh, ruddy of cheek, with no particular beauty to boast
of, save the wholesomeness and cleanliness of his young manhood. He
seemed to bring into the room a scent of the open country, of the good
brown earth and of the clean wind of heaven.

"Hello, Hugh!" said Lady Linden.

"Hello, my lady," said he, and kissed her. It had been his habit from
boyhood, also it had been his lifelong habit to love and respect the old
dame, and to feel not the slightest fear of her. In this he was
singular, and because he was the one person who did not fear her she
preferred him to anyone else.

"Hugh," she said--she went straight to the point, she always did; as a
hunter goes at a hedge, so her ladyship without prevarication went at
the matter she had in hand--"I have been talking to Marjorie about Tom
Arundel--"

His cheery face grew a little grave.

"Yes?"

"Well, it is absurd--you realise that?"

"I suppose so, but--" He paused.

"It is childish folly!"

"Do you think so? Do you think that she--" Again he paused, with a
nervousness and diffidence usually foreign to him.

"She's only a gel," said her ladyship. Her ladyship was Sussex born,
and talked Sussex when she became excited. "She's only a gel, and gels
have their fancies. I had my own--but bless you, they don't last. She
don't know her own mind."

"He's a good fellow," said Hugh generously.

"A nice lad, but he won't suit me for Marjorie's husband. Hugh, the
gel's in the garden, she is sitting by the lily-pond and believes her
heart is broken, but it isn't! Go and prove it isn't; go now!"

He met her eyes and flushed red. "I'll go and have a talk to Marjorie,"
he said. "You haven't been--too rough with her, have you?"

"Rough! I know how to deal with gels. I told her that I had the command
of her money, her four hundred a year till she was twenty-five, and not
a bob of it should she touch if she married against my wish. Now go and
talk to her--and talk sense--" She paused. "You know what I
mean--sense!"

A very pretty picture, the slender white-clad, drooping figure with its
crown of golden hair made, sitting on the bench beside the lily-pond.
Her hands were clasped, her eyes fixed on the stagnant green water over
which the dragon-flies skimmed.

Coming across the soundless turf, he stood for a moment to look at her.

Hurst Dormer was a fine old place, yet of late to him it had grown
singularly dull and cheerless. He had loved it all his life, but
latterly he had realised that there was something missing, something
without which the old house could not be home to him, and in his dreams
waking and sleeping he had seen this same little white-clad figure
seated at the foot of the great table in the dining-hall.

He had seen her in his mind's eye doing those little housewifely duties
that the mistresses of Hurst Dormer had always loved to do, her slender
fingers busy with the rare and delicate old china, or the
lavender-scented linen, or else in the wonderful old garden, the
gracious little mistress of all and of his heart.

And now she sat drooping like a wilted lily beside the green pond,
because of her love for another man, and his honest heart ached that it
should be so.

"Marjorie!" he said.

She lifted a tear-stained face and held out her hand' to him silently.

He patted her hand gently, as one pats the hand of a child. "Is--is it
so bad, little girl? Do you care for him so much?"

"Better than my life!" she said. "Oh, if you knew!"

"I see," he said quietly. He sat staring at the green waters, stirred
now and again by the fin of a lazy carp. He realised that there would be
no sweet girlish, golden-haired little mistress for Hurst Dormer, and
the realisation hurt him badly.

The girl seemed to have crept a little closer to him, as for comfort and
protection.

"She has made up her mind, and nothing will change it. She wants you
to--to marry me. She's told me so a hundred times. She won't listen to
anything else; she says you--you care for me, Hugh."

"Supposing I care so much, little girl, that I want your happiness above
everything in this world. Supposing--I clear out?" he said--"clear right
away, go to Africa, or somewhere or other?"

"She would make me wait till you came back, and you'd have to come back,
Hugh, because there is always Hurst Dormer. There's no way out for me,
none. If only--only you were married; that is the only thing that would
have saved me!"

"But I'm not!"

She sighed. "If only you were, if only you could say to her, 'I can't
ask Marjorie to marry me, because I am already married!' It sounds
rubbish, doesn't it, Hugh; but if it were only true!"

"Supposing--I did say it?"

"Oh, Hugh, but--" She looked up at him quickly. "But it would be a
lie!"

"I know, but lies aren't always the awful things they are supposed to
be--if one told a lie to help a friend, for instance, such a lie might
be forgiven, eh?"

"But--" She was trembling; she looked eagerly into his eyes, into her
cheeks had come a flush, into her eyes the brightness of a new, though
as yet vague, hope. "It--it sounds so impossible!"

"Nothing is actually impossible. Listen, little maid. She sent me here
to you to talk sense, as she put it. That meant she sent me here to ask
you to marry me, and I meant to do it. I think perhaps you know why"--he
lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it--"but I shan't now, I never
shall. Little girl, we're going to be what we've always been, the best
and truest of friends, and I've got to find a way to help you and Tom--"

"Hugh, if you told her that you were married, and not free, she wouldn't
give another thought to opposing Tom and me--it is only because she
wants me to marry you that she opposes Tom! Oh, Hugh, if--if--if you
could, if it were possible!" She was trembling with excitement, and the
sweet colour was coming and going in her cheeks.

"Supposing I did it?" he said, and spoke his thoughts aloud. "Of course
it would be a shock to her, perhaps she wouldn't believe!"

"She would believe anything you said..."

"It is rather a rotten thing to do," he thought, "yet...." He looked at
the bright, eager face, it would make her happy; he knew that what she
said was true--Lady Linden would not oppose Tom Arundel if marriage
between Marjorie and himself was out of the question. It would be making
the way clear for her: it would be giving her happiness, doing her the
greatest service that he could. Of his own sacrifice, his own
disappointment he thought not now; realisation of that would come later.

At first it seemed to him a mad, a nonsensical scheme, yet it was one
that might so easily be carried out. If one doubt was left as to
whether he would do it, it was gone the next moment.

"Hugh, would you do--would you do this for me?"

"There is very little that I wouldn't do for you, little maid," he said,
"and if I can help you to your happiness I am going to do it."

She crept closer to him; she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and
held his hand in hers.

"Tell me just what you will say."

"I haven't thought that out yet."

"But you must."

"I know. You see, if I say I am married, naturally she will ask me a few
questions."

"When she gets--gets her breath!" Marjorie said with a laugh; it was the
first time she had laughed, and he liked to hear it.

"The first will probably be, How long have I been married?"

"Do you remember you used to come to Marlbury to see me when I was at
school at Miss Skinner's?"

"Rather!"

"That was three years ago. Supposing you married about then?"

"Fine," Hugh said. "I married three years ago. What month?"

"June," she said; "it's a lovely month!"

"I was married in June, nineteen hundred and eighteen, my lady," said
Hugh. "Where at, though?"

"Why, Marlbury, of course!"

"Of course! Splendid place to get married in, delightful romantic old
town!"

"It is a hateful place, but that doesn't matter," said Marjorie. She
seemed to snuggle up a little closer to him, her lips were rippling with
smiles, her bright eyes saw freedom and love, her heart was very warm
with gratitude to this man who was helping her. But she could not guess,
how could she, how in spite of the laughter on his lips there was a
great ache and a feeling of emptiness at his heart.

"So now we have it all complete," he said. "I was married in June,
nineteen eighteen at Marlbury; my wife and I did not get on, we parted.
She had a temper, so had I, a most unhappy affair, and there you are!"
He laughed.

"All save one thing," Marjorie said.

"Goodness, what have I forgotten?"

"Only the lady's name."

"You are right. She must have a name of course, something nice and
romantic--Gladys something, eh?"

Marjorie shook her head.

"Clementine," suggested Hugh. "No, won't do, eh? Now you put your
thinking cap on and invent a name, something romantic and pretty. Let's
hear from you, Marjorie."

"Do you like--Joan Meredyth?" she said.

"Splendid! What a clever little brain!" He shut his eyes. "I married
Miss Joan Meredyth on the first of June, or was it the second, in the
year nineteen hundred and eighteen? We lived a cat-and-dog existence,
and parted with mutual recriminations, since when I have not seen her!
Marjorie, do you think she will swallow it?"

"If you tell her; but, Hugh, will you--will you?"

"Little girl, is it going to help you?"

"You know it is!" she whispered.

"Then I shall tell her!"

Marjorie lifted a pair of soft arms and put them about his neck.

"Hugh!" she said, "Hugh, if--if I had never known Tom, I--"

"I know," he said. "I know. God bless you." He stooped and kissed her on
the cheek, and rose.

It was a mad thing this that he was to do, yet he never considered its
madness, its folly. It would help her, and Hurst Dormer would never know
its golden-haired mistress, after all.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH HUGH BREAKS THE NEWS

Lady Linden had just come in from one of her usual and numerous
inspections, during which she had found it necessary to reprove one of
the under-gardeners. She had described him to himself, his character,
his appearance and his methods from her own point of view, and had left
the man stupefied and amazed at the extent of her vocabulary and her
facility of expression. He was still scratching his head, dazedly, when
she came into the drawing-room.

"Hugh, you here? Where is Marjorie?"

"Down by the pond, I think," he said, with an attempt at airiness.

"In a moment you will make me angry. You know what I wish to know. Did
you propose to Marjorie, Hugh?"

"Did I--" He seemed astonished. "Did I what?"

"Propose to Marjorie! Good heavens, man, isn't that why I sent you
there?"

"I certainly did not propose to her. How on earth could I?"

"There is no reason on earth why you should not have proposed to her
that I can see."

"But there is one that I can see." He paused. "A man can't invite a
young woman to marry him--when he is already married!"

It was out! He scarcely dared to look at her. Lady Linden said nothing;
she sat down.

"Hugh!" She had found breath and words at last. "Hugh Alston! Did I hear
you aright?"

"I believe you did!"

"You mean to tell me that you--you are a married man?"

He nodded. He realised that he was not a good liar.

"I would like some particulars," she said coldly. "Hugh Alston, I should
be very interested to know where she is!"

"I don't know!"

"You are mad. When were you married?"

"June nineteen eighteen," he said glibly.

"Where?"

"At Marlbury!"

"Good gracious! That is where Marjorie used to go to school!"

"Yes, it was when I went down to see her there, and--"

"You met this woman you married? And her name?"

"Joan," he said--"Joan Meredyth!"

"Joan--Meredyth!" said Lady Linden. She closed her eyes; she leaned back
in her chair. "That girl!"

A chill feeling of alarm swept over him. She spoke, her ladyship spoke,
as though such a girl existed, as though she knew her personally. And
the name was a pure invention! Marjorie had invented it--at least, he
believed so.

"You--you don't know her?"

"Know her--of course I know her. Didn't Marjorie bring her here from
Miss Skinner's two holidays running? A very beautiful and brilliant
girl, the loveliest girl I think I ever saw! Really, Hugh Alston, though
I am surprised and pained at your silence and duplicity, I must absolve
you. I always regarded you as more or less a fool, but Joan Meredyth is
a girl any man might fall in love with!"

Hugh sat gripping the arms of his chair. What had he done, or rather
what had Marjorie done? What desperate muddle had that little maid led
him into? He had counted on the name being a pure invention, and now--

"Where is she?" demanded Lady Linden.

"I don't know--we--we parted!"

"Why?"

"We didn't get on, you see. She'd got a temper, and so--"

"Of course she had a temper. She is a spirited gel, full of life and
fire and intelligence. I wouldn't give twopence for a woman without a
temper--certainly she had a temper! Bah, don't talk to me, sir--you sit
there and tell me you were content to let her go, let a beautiful
creature like that go merely because she had a temper?"

"She--she went. I didn't let her go; she just went!"

"Yes," Lady Linden said thoughtfully, "I suppose she did. It is just
what Joan would do! She saw that she was not appreciated; you wrangled,
or some folly, and she simply went. She would--so would I have gone! And
now, where is she?"

"I tell you I don't know!"

"You've never sought her?"

"Never! I--I--now look here," he went on, "don't take it to heart too
much. She is quite all right--that is, I expect--"

"You expect!" she said witheringly. "Here you sit; you have a beautiful
young wife, the most brilliant girl I ever met, and--and you let her go!
Don't talk to me!"

"No, I won't; let's drop it! We will discuss it some other time--it is a
matter I prefer not to talk about! Naturally it is rather--painful to
me!"

"So I should think!"

"Yes, I much prefer not to talk about it. Let's discuss Marjorie!"

"Confound Marjorie!"

"Marjorie is the sweetest little soul in the world, and--"

"It's a pity you didn't think of that three years ago!"

"And Tom Arundel is a fine fellow; no one can say one word against him!"

"I don't wish to discuss them! If Marjorie is obsessed with this folly
about young Arundel, it will be her misfortune. If she wants to marry
him she will probably regret it. I intended her to marry you; but since
it can't be, I don't feel any particular interest in the matter of
Marjorie's marriage at the moment! Now tell me about Joan at once!"

"Believe me, I--I much prefer not to: it is a sore subject, a matter I
never speak about!"

"Oh, go away then--and leave me to myself. Let me think it all out!"

He went gladly enough; he made his way back to the lily-pond.

"Marjorie," he said tragically, "what have you done?"

"Oh, Hugh!" She was trembling at once.

"No, no, dear, don't worry; it is nothing. She believes every word, and
I feel sure it will be all right for you and Tom, but, oh Marjorie--that
name, I thought you had invented it!"

Marjorie flushed. "It was the name of a girl at Miss Skinner's: she was
a great, great friend of mine. She was two years older than I, and just
as sweet and beautiful as her name, and when you were casting about for
one I--I just thought of it, Hugh. It hasn't done any harm, has it?"

"I hope not, only, don't you see, you've made me claim an existing young
lady as my wife, and if she turned up some time or other--"

"But she won't! When she left school she went out to Australia to join
her uncle there, and she will in all probability never come back to
England."

Hugh drew a sigh of relief. "That's all right then! It's all right,
little girl; it is all right. I believe things are going to be brighter
for you now."

"Thanks to you, Hugh!"

"You know there is nothing in this world--" He looked down at the lovely
face, alive with gratitude and happiness. His dreams were ended, the
"might-have-been" would never be, but he knew that there was peace in
that little breast at last.

CHAPTER III

JOAN MEREDYTH, TYPIST

Mr. Philip Slotman touched the electric buzzer on his desk and then
watched the door. He was an unpleasant--looking man, strangely corpulent
as to body, considering his face was cast in lean and narrow mould, the
nose large, prominent and hooked, the lips full, fleshy, and of
cherry--like redness, the eyes small, mean, close together and deep set.
The over--corpulent body was attired lavishly. It was dressed in a fancy
waistcoat, a morning coat, elegantly striped trousers of lavender hue
and small pointed--toed, patent--leather boots, with bright tan uppers.
The rich aroma of an expensive cigar hung about the atmosphere of Mr.
Slotman's office. This and his clothes, and the large diamond ring that
twinkled on his finger, proclaimed him a person of opulence.

The door opened and a girl came in; she carried a notebook and her head
very high. She trod like a young queen, and in spite of the poor black
serge dress she wore, there was much of regal dignity about her. Dark
brown hair that waved back from a broad and low forehead, a pair of
lustrous eyes filled now with contempt and aversion, eyes shielded by
lashes that, when she slept, lay like a silken fringe upon her cheeks.
Her nose was redeemed from the purely classical by the merest suggestion
of tip-tiltedness, that gave humour, expression and tenderness to the
whole face--tenderness and sweetness that with strength was further
betrayed by the finely cut, red-lipped mouth and the strong little chin,
carried so proudly on the white column of her neck.

Her figure was that of a young goddess, and a goddess she looked as she
swept disdainfully into Mr. Philip Slotman's office, shorthand notebook
in her hand.

"I want you to take a letter to Jarvis and Purcell, Miss Meredyth," he
said. "Please sit down. Er--hum--'Dear Sirs, With regard to your last
communication received on the fourteenth instant, I beg--'"

Mr. Slotman moved, apparently negligently, from his leather-covered
armchair. He rose, he sauntered around the desk, then suddenly he flung
off all pretence at lethargy, and with a quick step put himself between
the girl and the door.

"Now, my dear," he said, "you've got to listen to me!"

"I am listening to you." She turned contemptuous grey eyes on him.

"Hang the letter! I don't mean that. You've got to listen about other
things!"

He stretched out his hand to touch her, and she drew back. She rose, and
her eyes flashed.

"If you touch me, Mr. Slotman, I shall--" She paused; she looked about
her; she picked up a heavy ebony ruler from his desk. "I shall defend
myself!"

"Don't be a fool," he said, yet took a step backwards, for there was
danger in her eyes.

"Look here, you won't get another job in a hurry, and you know it.
Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning out
thousands of 'em, all more or less bad; but I--I ain't talking about
that, dear--" He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing
her knuckles shine whitely as she gripped the ruler. "Come, be
sensible!"

"Are you going to persist in this annoyance of me?" she demanded. "Can't
I make you understand that I am here to do my work and for no other
purpose?"

"Supposing," he said, "supposing--I--I asked you to marry me?"

He had never meant to say this, yet he had said it, for the fascination
of her was on him.

"Supposing you did? Do you think I would consent to marry such a man as
you?" She held her head very proudly.

"Do you mean that you would refuse?"

"Of course!"

He seemed staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept this
back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in his
hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved to be no trump.

"I would neither marry you nor go out with you, nor do I wish to have
anything to say to you, except so far as business is concerned. As that
seems impossible, it will be better for me to give you a week's notice,
Mr. Slotman."

"You'll be sorry for it," he said--"infernally sorry for it. It ain't
pleasant to starve, my girl!"

"I had to do it, I had to, or I could not have respected myself any
longer," the girl thought, as she made her way home that evening to the
boarding-house, where for two pounds a week she was fed and lodged. But
to be workless! It had been the nightmare of her dreams, the haunting
fear of her waking hours.

In her room at the back of the house, to which the jingle of the
boarding-house piano could yet penetrate, she sat for a time in deep
thought. The past had held a few friends, folk who had been kind to her.
Pride had held her back; she had never asked help of any of them. She
thought of the Australian uncle who had invited her to come out to him
when she should leave school, and then had for some reason changed his
mind and sent her a banknote for a hundred pounds instead. She had felt
glad and relieved at the time, but now she regretted his decision. Yet
there had been a few friends; she wrote down the names as they occurred
to her.

There was old General Bartholomew, who had known her father. There was
Mrs. Ransome. No, she believed now that she had heard that Mrs. Ransome
was dead; perhaps the General too, yet she would risk it. There was
Lady Linden, Marjorie Linden's aunt. She knew but little of her, but
remembered her as at heart a kindly, though an autocratic dame. She
remembered, too, that one of Lady Linden's hobbies had been to establish
Working Guilds and Rural Industries, Village Crafts, and suchlike in her
village. In connection with some of these there might be work for her.

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