The Imaginary Marriage by Henry St. John Cooper

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"And yet do not ask me to explain?"

"Of course not!" He swung round and faced her for a moment. "Do you
think I would put that indignity on you, Joan?"

"You are very generous, Johnny--why?"

She waited, listening expectantly for his answer. It was some time in
coming.

"I am not generous. I simply know that for you to be other than
honourable and innocent, pure and good, would be an impossibility."

"Why do you know that?"

"Because I know you."

She smiled. The answer she had almost dreaded to hear had not come. Yet
it should have been so simple, so ample an answer to her question. Had
he said, "Because I love you," it would have been enough; but he had
said, "Because I know you"; and so she smiled.

"Johnny, I have something to say to you. Do you remember the day when
you asked me to be your wife? I was frank and open to you then, was I
not?"

"You always are."

"I told you that if you wished it I would agree, but that I did not love
you as a woman should love the man to whom she gives her life."

"I do not forget that."

"Perhaps in your heart you harboured a hope that one day the love that I
denied you then might come?"

"I think I did."

"You were giving so much and asking for so little in return. That was
not fair, and it would not be fair for me to allow you to harbour a hope
that can never come true."

He turned slowly and looked at her.

"A woman cannot love--twice," she said slowly.

Johnny Everard flushed, then paled.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it is true." She paused; the red dyed her cheeks. "What you
were told last night were lies--poor lies. You do not ask me to deny
them, dear, and so I won't. Yet, behind those lies, there was a little
truth. There is a man, and I cared for him--care for him now and always
shall care for him. He has been nothing to me, and never will be; but
because he lived, because he and I have met, the hope that you had in
your heart that day, can come to nothing. And now--now I have something
more to tell you. It is this. You, who can love so finely, must ask for
and have love in return. You think you love me, yet because I do not
respond you will tire in time of that love. You will realise how bad a
bargain you have made, and then you will regret it. Is there not
someone"--her voice had grown low and soft--"someone who can and does
give you all the love your heart craves for, someone who will be
grateful to you for your love, and who will repay a thousandfold? Would
not that be better than a long hopeless fight against lovelessness,
even--even if you loved her a little less than you believe you love--me?
Remember that it would rest with you and not with another, you who are
generous, who could not refuse to give when so much is given to you."
Joan's voice faltered for a moment. "It would be your own heart on which
you would have to make the call, Johnny, not on the heart of another.
You would have more command over your own heart than you ever could
over the heart of another."

"Joan, what do you mean? What does this mean?"

"I am trying so hard to be plain," she said almost pitifully.

"Who is this other you are talking about, this other--who loves me?"

She was silent.

"What do you know of her, Joan, this other?"

And still she was silent, for how could she betray Ellice's secret?

"Tell me," he said.

"Don't you know? Can't you guess?"

His face flushed. A week ago he might have answered, "I cannot guess!"
To-day he knew the answer, yet how did Joan know?

"I gave you my promise," she said, "and I will abide by that promise. It
is for you to decide, and no one else. My life, your own and--and the
life of another is in your hands--three futures, Johnny, decide--"

"You want to--to give me up?"

"Is that generous?"

"No, it isn't," he admitted. He took a turn up and down the room. "And
you say this other--this girl--cares for me?"

"I know she does?"

"Did she tell you?"

"Must I answer?"

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Joan repeated. "Yes, she did. She came to me, openly and
frankly, straightforward child that she is, and she said to me, 'Why are
you marrying him, not loving him? If you loved him, and he loved you, I
would not come to you; but you do not love him, and it is not fair. You
are taking all and giving nothing!' And, she was right!"

"And she--she--" he said in a low voice, "would give--"

"Has given."

A silence fell between them. Then he turned to her, and it seemed as if
the cloud had lifted from him. He held out his hands and smiled at her.

"I understand. You and she are right. A starved love could not live for
ever; it must die. Better it should be strangled almost at birth, Joan.
So--so this is good-bye?"

She shook her head. "Friends, always, Johnny," she said.

"Friends always, then."

She came close to him. She lifted her hand suddenly, and thrust back the
hair from his forehead, she looked him in the eyes and, smiling, kissed
him on the brow.

"Go and find your happiness--a far, far better than I could ever offer
you."

"And you?"

She shook her head, and her eyes, looking beyond him into the garden,
were dreamy and strangely soft.

"Tell me about that man, Johnny," she said. "Will you take me back to
Little Langbourne with you?"

"Why?"

"To see him."

"But he maligned, he lied--"

"He is hurt, and why should I hate him? You did not believe. Will you
take me back with you?"

"You know I will."

Helen, watching from the upper window, saw them drive away together,
never had they seemed better friends. The cloud had passed completely
away, and so too had all Helen's plans; yet she did not know it.

CHAPTER XLVII

"AS WE FORGIVE--"

Slotman opened dazed eyes and looked up into a face that might well have
been the face of an angel, so soft, so pitying, so tender was its
expression.

"Joan!" he whispered.

She nodded and smiled.

"But," he said--"but--" and hesitated. "Joan, I went to Buddesby to
see--"

"I know."

"And yet you come here?"

"Of course. Hush! you must not talk. You are going to get well and
strong again. The Matron says I am allowed to come sometimes and see
you, and sit beside you, but you must not talk yet. Later on we are
going to talk about the future."

He lay staring at her. He could not understand. How could such a mind as
his understand the workings of such a mind as hers? But she was here,
she knew and she forgave, and there was comfort in her presence.

God knew he had suffered. God knew it.

"When you are better, stronger, you and I are going to talk, not till
then; but I want to tell you this now. I want to help you, all the past
is past. I knew about that night, about your visit. It does not matter;
it is all gone by. It is only the future that matters, and in the future
you may find that I will give and help willingly what I would not have
given under compulsion. Now, hush for the Matron is coming." She smiled
down at him.

"I don't understand," Slotman said; "I'll try and understand." He
turned his face away, realising a sense of shame such as he had never
felt before.

He had been her enemy, and yet perhaps in his way, a bad and vile way,
selfish and dishonourable, he had loved her; but as she had said, all
that was of the past. Now she sat beside the man, broken in limb and in
fortune, a wreck of what he had been; and for him her only feeling was
of pity, and already in her mind she was forming plans for his future.
For she had said truly she could give of her own free will and in
charity and sympathy that which could never be forced from her.

Connie looked at her brother curiously.

* * * * *

"I saw you just now. You drove past the gate with Joan. You took her to
Langbourne, didn't you?"

"To the hospital. She went to see that fellow, Con."

"He told you something about Joan last night, Johnny?"

"He lied about the truest, purest woman who walks this earth."

"She is incapable of evil," Con said quietly.

"Utterly. Con, I have something to tell you."

She turned eagerly.

"It is ended," he said quietly--"our engagement. Joan and I ended it
to-day--not in anger, not in doubt, dear, but liking and admiring each
other I think more than ever before, and--and, Con--" He paused.

"Oh, I am glad, glad," she said, "glad! Have you told--her?"

He shook his head.

"Will you wait here, John? I will send her to you."

John Everard's face coloured. "I will wait here for her, for Gipsy," he
said. "Send her here to me, and I will tell her, Con."

And a few moments later she came. She stood here in the doorway looking
at him, just as she had looked at him from that same place that night,
that night when a light had dawned upon his darkness.

And now, because his eyes were widely opened at last, he could see the
tell-tale flush in her cheeks, the suspicious brightness in her eyes,
and it seemed to him that her love for him was as a magnet that drew his
heart towards her.

"Con has told you?"

She nodded silently.

Then suddenly he stretched out his arms to her, a moment more and she
was in them, her face against his breast.

CHAPTER XLVIII

HER PRIDE'S LAST FIGHT

"... I came to Starden because I believed you might need me. You
did, and the help that you wanted I gave gladly and willingly. Now
your enemy is removed; he can do you no more harm. You will hear,
or perhaps have heard why, and so I am no longer necessary to you,
Joan, and because I seem to be wanted in my own place I am going
back. Yet should you need me, you have but to call, and I will
come. You know that. You know that I who love you am ever at your
service. From now onward your own heart shall be your counsellor.
You will act as it dictates, if you are true to yourself. Yet,
perhaps in the future as in the past, your pride may prove the
stronger. It is for you and only you to decide. Good-bye,

"HUGH."

She had found this letter on her return from Little Langbourne. She had
gone hurrying, as a young girl in her eagerness might, down to Mrs.
Bonner's little cottage, to learn that she was too late. He had gone.

Mrs. Bonner, with almost tears in her eyes, told her.

"Yes, miss. He hev gone, and rare sorry I be, a better gentleman I never
had in these rooms."

Gone! With only this letter, no parting word, without seeking to see
her, to say good-bye. The chill of her cold pride fell on Joan. Send for
him! Never! never! He had gone when he might have stayed--when, had he
been here now, she would have told him that she was free.

Very slowly she walked back to the house, to meet Helen's questioning
eyes.

"I am glad, dear, that there seems to be a better understanding between
you and Johnny," Helen said.

"There is a perfect understanding between us. Johnny is not going to
marry me. He is choosing someone who will love him more and understand
him better than I could."

"Then--then, after all, it is over? You and he are to part?"

"Have parted--as lovers, but not as friends."

"And after all I have done," Helen said miserably.

Hugh had gone home. He had had a letter from Lady Linden telling about
the accident to Tom Arundel, about his serious illness, and Marjorie's
devoted nursing. And now he was shaping his course for Hurst Dormer. He
had debated in his mind whether he should wait and see her, and then had
decided against it.

"She knows that I love her, and she loves me. She is letting her pride
stand between us. Everard is too good and too fine a fellow to keep her
bound by a promise if he thought it would hurt her to keep it. Her
future and Everard's and mine must lay in her own hands." And so, doing
violence to his feelings and his desires, he had left Starden, and now
was back in Hurst Dormer, wandering about, looking at the progress the
workmen had made during his absence. He had come home, and though he
loved the place, its loneliness weighed heavily on him. The rooms seemed
empty. He wanted someone to talk things over with, to discuss this and
that. He was not built to be self-centred.

For two days and two nights he bore with Hurst Dormer and its shadows
and its solitude, and then he called out the car and motored over to
Cornbridge.

"Oh, it's you," said her ladyship. "I suppose you got my letter?"

"Yes; I had it sent on to me."

"It's a pity you don't stay at home now and again."

"Perhaps I shall in future."

She looked at him. He was unlike himself, careworn and weary, and a
little ill.

"Tom is mending rapidly, a wonderful constitution; but it was touch and
go. Marjorie was simply wonderful, I'll do her that credit. Between
ourselves, Hugh, I always regarded Marjorie as rather weak, namby-pamby,
early Victorian--you know what I mean; but she's a woman, and it has
touched her. She wouldn't leave him. Honestly, I believe she did more
for him than all the doctors."

"I am sure she did."

Marjorie was changed; her face was thinner, some of its colour gone. Yet
the little she had lost was more than atoned for in the much that she
had gained. She held his hand, she looked him frankly in the eyes.

"So it is all right, little girl, all right now?"

She nodded. "It is all right. I am happier than I deserve to be. Oh,
Hugh, I have been weak and foolish, wavering and uncertain. I can see it
all now, but now at last I know--I do know my own mind."

"And your own heart?"

"And my own heart."

She wondered as she looked at him if ever he could have guessed what had
been in her mind that day when she had gone to Hurst Dormer to see him.
How full of love for him her heart had been then! And then she
remembered what he had said, those four words that had ended her dream
for ever--"Better than my life." So he loved Joan, and now she knew that
she too loved with her whole heart.

Death had been very close, and perhaps it had been pity for that fine
young life that seemed to be so near its end that had awakened love.
Yet, whatever the cause, she knew now that her love for Tom had come to
stay.

"And Joan?" Marjorie asked.

"Joan?" he said. "Joan, she is in her own home."

"And her heart is still hard against you, Hugh?"

"Her pride is still between us, Marjorie," he said, and quickly turned
the conversation, and a few minutes later was up in the bedroom talking
cheerily enough to Tom.

"It's all right, Alston, everything is all right. Lady Linden wanted to
shoot the horse; but I wouldn't have it. I owe him too much--you
understand, Alston, don't you? Everything is all right between Marjorie
and me."

And then Hugh went back to Hurst Dormer--thank, Heaven there was some
happiness in this world! There was happiness at Cornbridge, and after
Cornbridge Hurst Dormer seemed darker and more solitary than ever.

It was while she had been talking to Hugh that Marjorie had made up her
mind.

"I am going to tell Joan the whole truth, the whole truth," she thought.
And Hugh was scarcely out of the house before Marjorie sat down to write
her letter to Joan.

"... I know that you have always blamed him for what was never
his fault. He did it because he is generous and unselfish. He
loved me in those days. I know that it could not have been the
great abiding love; it was only liking that turned to fondness.
Yet he wanted to marry me, Joan, and when he knew that there was
someone else, and that he stood in the way of our happiness, the
whole plan was arranged, and we had to find a name, you
understand. And he asked me to suggest one, and I thought of
yours, because it is the prettiest name I know; and he, Hugh,
never dreamed that it belonged to a living woman. And so it was
used, dear, and all this trouble and all this misunderstanding
came about. I always wanted to tell you the truth, but he wouldn't
let me, because he was afraid that if Aunt got to hear of it, she
might be angry and send Tom away. But now I know she would not,
and so I am telling you everything. The fault was mine. And yet,
you know, dear, I had no thought of angering or of offending you.
Write to me and tell me you forgive me. And oh, Joan, don't let
pride come between you and the man you love, for I think he is one
of the finest men I know, the best and straightest.

"MARJORIE."

Marjorie felt that she had lifted a weight from her mind when she put
this letter in the post.

Long, long ago Joan had acquitted Hugh of any intention to offend or
annoy her by the use of her name. Yet why had he never told her the
truth, told her that it had never been his doing at all? She read
Marjorie's letter, and then thrust it away from her. Why had he not
written this? Did he care less now than he had? Had she tired him out
with her coldness and her pride? Perhaps that was it.

Yesterday Ellice had come over on the old bicycle--Ellice with shining
eyes and pink cheeks, glowing with happiness and joy, and Ellice had
hugged her tightly, and tried to whisper thanks that would not come.

She was happy now. Marjorie was happy. Only she seemed to be cut off
from happiness. Why had he gone without a word, just those few written
lines? He had not cared so much, after all.

And so the days went by. Joan wrote a loving, sympathetic letter to
Marjorie. She quite understood, and she did not blame Hugh; she blamed
no one.

It was a long letter, dealing mainly with her life, with the village,
with the things she was doing and going to do. But of the
future--nothing; of the past, in so far as Hugh Alston was
concerned--nothing.

And when Marjorie read the letter she read of an unsatisfied, unhappy
spirit, of a girl whose whole heart yearned and longed for love, and
whose pride held her in check and condemned her to unhappiness.

Scarcely a day passed but Joan drove over to Little Langbourne. Philip
Slotman came to look for her, and counted it a long unhappy day if she
failed him; but it was not often.

She had discovered that he was well-nigh penniless, and that it would be
months before he would be fit to work again. And so she had quietly
supplied all his needs.

"When you are well and strong again, you shall go back. You shall have
the capital you want, and you will do well. I know that. I shall lend
you the money to start afresh, and you will pay me back when you can."

"Joan, I wonder if there are many women like you?"

"Many better than I," she said--"many happier."

At Buddesby she was welcomed by a radiant girl with happy eyes, a girl
who could not make enough of her, and there Joan saw a home life and
happiness she had never known--a happiness that set her hungry heart
yearning and longing with a longing that was intolerable and unbearable.

"Send for me, and I will come," he had written; and she had not sent.
She would not, pride forbade it, and yet--yet to be happy as Ellice was
happy, to feel his arms about her, to rest her head against his breast,
to know that during all the years to come he would be here by her side,
that loneliness would never touch her again.

"I won't!" she said. "I won't! If he needs me, it is he who must come to
me. I will not send for him."

It was her pride's last fight, a fine fight it made. For days she
struggled against the yearning of her heart, against the wealth of love,
pent-up and stored within; valiantly and bravely pride fought.

To-day she had been to the hospital. She had stopped, as she often did,
at Buddesby. There was talk of a marriage there. Many catalogues and
price-lists had come through the post, and Con and Ellice were busy with
them. For they were not very rich, and money must be made to go a long
way; and into their conclave they drew Joan, who for a time forgot
everything in this new interest.

They had all been very busy when the door had opened and Johnny Everard
had come in, and, looking up, Joan caught a look that passed between
Johnny and Ellice--just a look, yet it spoke volumes. It laid bare the
secret of both hearts.

Later, when she said good-bye, he walked to the gate where her car was
waiting. They had said but little, for Johnny seemed shy and
constrained in her presence.

"Joan, I have much to be very, very grateful to you for," he said, as he
held her hand. "You were right. Life without love would be impossible,
and you have made life very possible for me."

She was thinking of this during the lonely drive back to Starden; always
his words came back to her. Life without love would be impossible, and
then it was that the battle ended, that pride retired vanquished from
the field.

"I want you to come back to me because I am so lonely. Please come
back and forgive.

"JOAN."

The message that, in the end, she must write was written and sent.

And now that pride had broken down, was gone for ever, so far as this
man was concerned, it was a very loving anxious-eyed, trembling woman
who watched for the coming of the man that she loved and needed, the man
who meant all the happiness this world could give her.

* * * * *

She had called to him, and this must be his answer. No slow-going
trains, no tedious broken journeys, no wasted hours of delay--the
fastest car, driven at reckless speed, yet with all due care that none
should suffer because of his eagerness and his happiness.

It seemed to him such a very pitiful, humble little appeal, an appeal
that went straight to his heart--so short an appeal that he could
remember every word of it, and found himself repeating it as his car
swallowed the miles that lay between them.

He asked no questions of himself. She would not have sent for him had
she not been free to do so. He knew that.

And now the landscape was growing familiar, a little while, and they
were running through Starden village. Villagers who had come to know him
touched their hats. They passed Mrs. Bonner's little cottage, and now
through the gateway, the gates standing wide as in welcome and
expectation of his coming.

And she, watching for him, saw his coming, and her heart leaped with the
joy of it. Helen Everard saw, too, and guessed what it meant.

"Go into the morning-room, Joan. I will send him to you there."

And so it was in the morning-room he found her. Flushed and bright-eyed,
trembling with happiness and the joy of seeing him, gone for ever the
pride and the scorn, she was only a girl who loved him dearly, who
needed him much. She had fought the giant pride, and had beaten it for
ever for his sake, and now he was here smiling at her, his arms
stretched out to her.

"You wanted me at last, Joan," he said. "You called me, darling, and I
have come."

"I want you. I always want you. Never, never leave me again, Hugh--never
leave me again. I love you so, and need you so."

And then his arms were about her and hers about his neck, and she who
had been so cold, so proud, so scornful, was remembering Johnny
Everard's words, "Life without love would be impossible."

And now life was very, very possible to her.

THE END

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