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The Imaginary Marriage by Henry St. John Cooper

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And yet she had come--that is the way of women. And because she had
come, she would still ask his help, and not ask it of that other. For
surely he who had brought all this trouble on to her should be the one
to clear her path?

The waiter brought the tea, and Hugh leaned back and watched her as she
poured it out. And, watching her, there came to him a vision of the
bright morning room at Hurst Dormer, a vision of all the old familiar
things he had known since boyhood: and in that vision, that day-dream,
he saw her sitting where his mother once had sat, and she was pouring
out tea, even as now.

A clearer, stronger vision this than any he had had in the old days of
Marjorie. He smiled at the thought of those dreams, so utterly broken
and dead and wafted away into the nothingness of which they had been
built.

"You sent for me to help you?"

"Yes!" A tinge of colour rose in her cheeks and waxed till her cheeks
and even her throat were flooded with a brilliant, glorious flush, and
then, suddenly as it had come, it died away again, leaving her whiter
than before.

"I wanted your help. I felt that I had a right to ask it, seeing that
you--you--"

"Have caused you trouble and annoyance? You wrote that," he said.

She bowed her head.

"What you did, has brought more trouble, more shame, more annoyance to
me than I can ever explain. I do not ask you to tell me why you did
it--it was cruel and mean, unmanly; but you did it. And it can never be
undone, so I ask for no reasons, no explanations. They--they do not
interest me now. You have brought me trouble and--even danger--and so I
turned to you, to ask your help. I have the right, have I not the
right--to demand it?"

"The greatest right on earth," he said. "Joan, how can I help you?"

But she did not answer immediately, for the answer would be difficult.

"When you played with a woman's name," she said, "you played with the
most fragile, the most delicate and easily breakable thing there is. Do
you realise that? A woman's fair name is her most sacred possession, and
yet you played with mine, used it for your own purpose, and so have
brought me to shame and misery."

"Joan," he leaned towards her, "how--how--tell me how?"

"Three days ago," she said quietly, "I submitted and paid three thousand
pounds blackmail, rather than that your name and mine, linked together,
should be dragged in the mire!"

It was almost as though those white hands of hers had struck him a heavy
blow between the eyes. Hugh sat and stared at her in amaze.

Her words seemed obscure, scarcely possible to understand, yet he had
gathered in the sense of them.

"Three days ago I submitted and paid three thousand pounds blackmail
rather than your name and mine, linked together, should be dragged in
the mire."

A girl might well shrink to tell a man what she must tell him, to go
into explanations that were an offence to the purity of her mind. Yet,
listening to her, looking at her, at the pale, proud young face, white
as marble, Hugh Alston knew that he had never admired and reverenced her
as he did now.

"The story that you told of our marriage, that lie that I can never
understand, passed from lip to lip. Many have heard it; it has caused
many to wonder. I do not ask why you uttered it. It does not matter now,
nothing matters, save that you did utter it, and it has gone abroad.
Then one day you came to the office where I was employed, and the man
who employed me put his private room at your disposal, knowing that by
means of some spyhole he had contrived he could hear all that passed
between us. And then you offered me marriage--by way of atonement. Do
you remember? You offered to--to atone by marrying me."

"In my mad, presumptuous folly, Joan!"

"And it was overheard; the man heard all. He did not understand--how
should he? His vile mind grasped at other meanings. He went down to
Marlbury and to Morchester to make enquiries, to look for an entry in a
register that was never made. He went to General Bartholomew and then
Cornbridge, where he saw Lady Linden, and heard from her all that she
had to tell, and then--then he came to me. He told me that he knew the
truth, and that if I would marry him he would forgive--forgive
everything!"

Hugh Alston said nothing. He sat with his big hands gripped hard, and
thinking of Philip Slotman a red fury passed like a mist before his
eyes.

"I told him to go, and then came a letter from him, a friendly letter,
a letter that could not cause him any trouble. He assured me of his
friendship and of his--silence, you understand, his silence--and asked
me as a friend to lend him three thousand pounds. It was blackmail--oh,
I knew that. I hesitated, and did not know what to do. There was none to
whom I could turn--no one. I had no friend. Helen Everard is only a
friend of a few short weeks. I felt that I could not go to her, I felt
somehow that she would never understand. And then--then at last,
because, I suppose, I am a woman and therefore a coward, and because I
was so alone--so helpless--I sent the money."

"Oh, that I--"

"Remember," she said, "remember I had written to you, asking your help.
I had waited days, and no answer had come. I had no right to believe
that I could ask your help."

"Joan, Joan, didn't you know that you could? Have you forgotten what I
told you once--that stands true to-day as then, will stand true to the
last hour of my life. I have brought shame and misery on you, God
forgive me--yet unintentionally, Joan." He leaned forward, and grasped
at her hand and held it, though she would have drawn it free of him. "I
told you that I loved you that night. I love you now--my love for you
gives me the right to protect you!"

"You have no rights, no rights," she said, and drew her hand away.

"Because you will not give me those rights. I asked you to marry me
once. I came to you, thinking in my small soul that I was doing a fine
thing, offering atonement--my--my very words, atonement--for the evil I
had unwittingly done. And you refused to accept the prize!" He laughed
bitterly. "You refused with scorn, just scorn, Joan. You made me realise
that I had but added to my offence. I--I to offer you marriage, in my
lordly way, when I should have sued on my knees to you for forgiveness,
as I would sue now, humbly and contritely, offering love and love
alone--love and worship and service to the end of my days, as please
Heaven I shall sue, Joan."

"You cannot!" she said quietly. "You cannot, and if you should, the
answer will be the same, as then!"

"Because you can never forgive?"

"Because I have no power to give what you would ask for!"

"Your love?"

She did not answer. She turned her face away, for she knew she could not
in truth say "No" to that, for the knowledge that she had been trying to
stifle was with her now, the knowledge that meant that she could not
love the man whose wife she had promised to be.

"My--my hand--" she said.

And he, not understanding for the moment, looked at her, and then
suddenly understanding came to him.

"You--you mean?"

"You--you did not answer my letter, and I--I waited," she said, and her
voice was low and muffled. There was no pride in her face now; all its
hardness, all its bitterness and scorn were gone.

"I waited and waited--and thought--hoped," she said, "and nothing came.
And yesterday a man--a man I like and admire, a fine man, a good man,
honest and noble, a man who--who loves me better than I deserve, came to
me--and--and so to-day it is too late! Though," she cried, with a touch
of scorn for herself, "it would have made no difference--nothing would
have made any difference. You--you understand that I scarcely know what
I am saying!"

"You have given your promise to another man?" he asked quietly.

"Yes!"

"And you do not love him?"

"He's a man," she cried, "a man who would not make a jest of a woman's
name."

"And even so, you do not love him, because that would not be possible."

"You have no right to say that," and she wrenched her hand free.

"I have the right, the right you gave me."

"I--I gave you no right."

"You have. You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart.
You do not love that man, because you love me!"

Back into the white face came all the hardness and coldness that he so
well knew. She rose; she looked down on him.

"It is--untrue. I do not. I have but one feeling for you
always--always--the same, the one feeling. I despise you. How could I
love a thing that I despise?"

And, knowing that it was a lie, she dared not meet the scrutiny of his
eyes, and turned quickly away.

"Joan!" he said. He would have followed her, but then came the waiter
with his bill, and he was forced to stay, and when he reached the street
she was gone.

"I quite thought that they were going to make it up, and then it seemed
that they quarrelled again," one of the ladies at the other table said.

The other nodded. "I think that they do not know their own minds, young
people seldom do. I wish I had bought three yards more of that cerise
ninon. It would have made up so well for Violet, don't you think?"




CHAPTER XXVI

MR. ALSTON CALLS


Mr. Philip Slotman sat in his office; he was slowly deciphering a
letter, ill-written and badly spelled.

"DEAR SIR,

"According to promise I am writing to you hopeing it finds you as
it leaves me at present. Dear sir, having some news I am writing
to tell you saime. Yesterday Mr. John Everard of Buddesby was here
and him and Miss Jone was in the garden for a long time. I seen
them from my window, but could not get near enuff to hear. Anyhow
I see him kissing her hand. Laiter, after he had gone, I seen Miss
Jone and Mrs. Everard together, and listened as best I could. From
what I heard I imadgined that Miss Jone and Mr. John Everard is
now engaged to be married, which Mrs. Everard seems very pleased
to hear.

"This morning Miss Jone gets a letter and the postmark is Hurst
Dormer, like you told me to look out for. She is now gone to
London. Please send money in accordance with promise and I will
write and tell you all the news as soon as there is any more.

"Youres truley,
"MISS ALICE BETTS."

The door opened, a boy clerk came in. Slotman thrust the letter he had
been reading into an open drawer.

"What is it? What do you want?"

"A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr. Alston from--"

"I can't see him!" Slotman said quickly. "Tell him I am out, and
that--"

"I am already here, and you are going to see me." Hugh Alston came in.
"You can go!" to the boy, who hesitated. "You hear me, you can go!"

Hugh closed the door after the lad.

"You're not going to be too busy to see me this morning, Slotman, for I
have interesting things to discuss with you."

"I am a busy man," Slotman began nervously.

"Very!" said Hugh--"very, so I hear."

He stepped into the room, and faced Slotman across the paper-littered
table.

"I have been hearing about some of your enterprises," he said, and there
was that in his face that caused Mr. Slotman a feeling of insecurity and
uneasiness. "One of them is blackmail!"

"How dare--" Slotman began, with an attempt at bluster.

"That's what I am here for; to dare. You have been blackmailing a young
lady whose name we need not mention. You have obtained the sum of three
thousand pounds from her, by means of threats. I want that money--and
more; I want a declaration from you that you will never molest her
again; for if you do--if you do--"

Hugh's face was not good to see, and Mr. Slotman quivered uneasily in
his chair.

"The--the money was lent to me. Miss Meredyth worked for me, and--and I
went to her, explaining that my business was in a precarious condition,
and she very kindly lent me the money. And I haven't got it, Mr. Alston.
I'll swear I haven't a penny of it left. I could not repay it if I
wanted to; it--it was a friendly loan."

Slotman leaned back in his chair; he looked at Hugh.

"You have done me a cruel wrong, Mr. Alston," he said, in the tone of a
deeply injured man. "Miss Meredyth worked for me, and while she was here
I respected her, even more." He paused. "At any rate I respected her.
She attracted me, and, I will confess it, I fell in love with her. She
was poor; she had nothing then to tempt a fortune hunter, and thank
Heaven I can say I was never that. I asked her to be my wife, no man
could do more, no man could act more honourably. You'll admit that, eh?
You must admit that?"

"And she refused you?"

"Not--not definitely. It was too good an offer for a girl in her
position to refuse without consideration."

"You lie!"

Slotman shifted uneasily. "I cannot force your belief."

"You're right, you can't. Well, go on--what more?"

"She came into this money; my proposal no longer tempted her. She then
refused me, even though I told her that the past--her past--would be
forgotten, that I would never refer to it."

"What past?" Hugh shouted.

"Hers and yours," Slotman said boldly. "A supposed marriage that never
took place, her sudden disappearance from her school in June, nineteen
hundred and eighteen, when that marriage was supposed to have been
celebrated--but never was. Her story of leaving England for
Australia--an obvious lie, Mr. Alston. All those things I knew. All
those things I can prove--against her--and against you--and--and--"
Slotman's voice quivered. He leaped to his feet and uttered a shout for
help.

The blood-red mist was before Hugh's eyes, and out of that mist appeared
a vision of a face, an unpleasant face, with starting eyes and gaping
mouth.

This he saw, and then his vision cleared, and with a shudder he released
his hold on the man's throat, and Philip Slotman subsided limply into
his chair.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE WATCHER


Helen Everard's pleasant face was beaming. Her smile expressed complete
contentment and satisfaction, for everything was going as everything
should go. Johnny was an accepted lover, Joan's future would be
protected; she herself would be left free to make her long journey to
the dear ones at the other side of the world. All was well!

Joan had been to London yesterday, had rushed off with scarcely a word,
and had returned at night, tired and seemingly dispirited.

Joan, quiet and calm, smiled at Helen and kissed her good morning, but
spoke hardly at all.

"You had a tiring day in Town yesterday, dear?"

"Very!"

"Shopping?"

"No!"

Helen asked no more questions. She thought of Hugh Alston. Could it be
anything to do with him? She could never quite understand the position
of Hugh Alston. Of course the talk about a marriage having taken place
years ago between Hugh Alston and Joan was absurd, was ridiculous. Joan
was proving the absurdity of it even now by accepting Johnny.

"Connie is coming over this afternoon to see you, Joan," she said. "She
sent me a note over yesterday by a boy. Johnny has told her of course,
and Connie is delighted beyond words. She sends you her dear love."

"Thank you!" Joan said calmly.

"Of course," Helen hesitated, "the marriage need not be long delayed.
You see--" She paused, and then went into explanations about Jessie and
the children out in Australia, and her own promise to go to them.

"So this afternoon I want you and Connie to have a long, long talk,"
Helen said. "There will be so much for you to discuss. Connie is the
business man, you know. Poor Johnny is hopeless when it comes to
discussing things and--and arrangements. Of course, dear, you quite
understand that Johnny is not well off."

"I know, but that does not matter."

"I know, but even though Johnny is one of the finest and straightest men
living, it will be better if in some way your own money is so tied up
that it belongs to you and to you only. Johnny himself would wish it. He
doesn't want to touch one penny of your money!"

"I am sure of that." Joan rose. She went out into the garden. She wanted
to get away from Helen's well-meant, friendly, affectionate chatter
about the future, and about money and marriage. She went to the bench
beside the pool and sat there, staring at the green water.

"It was true," she whispered to herself, "all true, what I said. I--I do
despise him. How could I love a thing that I despised; and I do despise
him!"

It was not of Johnny Everard she was thinking.

"He said--he said that he had a right, that my love for him gave him the
right! How dared he?" A deep flush stole into her cheeks, and then died
out.

She rose suddenly with a gesture of impatience.

"It is a lie! It is wrong, and it is nonsense. I am engaged to marry
Johnny Everard, and there is no finer, better man living! I shall never
see that other man again. Yesterday he and I parted for good and for
always, and I am glad--glad!" And she knew even while she uttered the
words that she was very miserable.

Connie Everard drove the pony-trap over to Starden. She brought with her
a boy who would drive it back again. Later in the afternoon Johnny would
drive the car over for her and take her back.

Connie, having attended carefully to her toilet, descended to the
waiting pony-trap, and found, to her surprise and a little to her
annoyance, that Ellice was already seated in the little vehicle.

"Ellice, dear, I am sorry, but--"

"You don't want to take me, Connie; but, all the same, I am going. I
want to see--her!"

"Why?"

"I want to see her," the girl said. A dusky glow of sudden passion came
into her face. "I want to see her. There is no harm, is there?" She
laughed shrilly. "I shan't hurt her by looking at her. I want to see her
again, the woman that he loves." There was a shake in her voice, a
suggestion of passionate tears, but the child held herself in check.

"Ellice, darling, it will be better if you--"

"If I don't go. I know, but I am going. You--you can't turn me out,
Connie. I am too strong; I shall cling to the sides of the cart."

There was a look, half of laughter, half of defiance, in the girl's
eyes.

"Connie, I am going, and nothing shall prevent me!"

Connie sighed, and stepped into the cart and took up the reins. "Very
well, dear!" she said resignedly.

"You are angry with me, Connie?"

"Why should you want to go to Starden?"

"I want to see her again. I want to--to understand, to--to know things."

"What do you mean, to understand, to know things?"

"I want to watch her!"

"Ellice, you will make me angry presently. Ellice," Connie added
suddenly, "I suppose you don't intend to make a scene, and make yourself
foolish and--and cheap?"

"I shall say nothing. I only want to watch and to try and understand."

"I think you are acting foolishly and wrongly, Ellice. I think you are a
very foolish child!"

"I wish," Ellice said, and said it without passion, but with a deep
certainty in her voice, "I wish that I were dead, Connie."

"You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself," said Connie, who could
think of nothing better to say.

She made one more attempt when Starden was reached.

"Ellice, child, why not go back with Hobbins?"

"I am coming with you," Ellice said.

"You--you will not--I mean you will--not be silly or rude to--"

Ellice drew herself up with a childish dignity. "I shall not forget that
I am a lady, Connie," she said, and said it with such stateliness and
such dignity that Connie felt no inclination to laugh.

Helen frowned. She was annoyed at the sight of Ellice, frankly she did
not like the girl. Helen was a good, honest woman who liked everything
that was good and honest. Ellice Brand might be good and honest, but
there was something about the girl that was beyond Helen's ken. She was
so elfin, so gipsy-like, so different from most girls Helen knew, and
had known.

During the long afternoon, when they sat for a time in the garden, or in
the shady drawing-room, Joan was aware of the fixed and intent gaze of a
pair of dark eyes. Strangely and wonderfully dark were those eyes, and
they seemed to possess some magnetic power, a power of making themselves
felt. More than once in the middle of saying something to Helen or to
Connie, Joan found herself at a loss for words, and impelled by some
unknown force to turn her head and look straight into those eyes that
blazed in the little white face.

Why did the girl stare at her so? Why, Joan wondered? A strange,
elfin-like child, a bud on the point of bursting into a wondrous beauty,
Joan realised, and realised too that there was enmity in the dark eyes
that stared at her so mercilessly.

"Ellice, child, go out into the garden," Helen said presently. "Come
with me, we will leave Connie and Joan to have a little talk. Come,
there are lots of things to see. This is a wonderful garden, you
know--far, far better than Buddesby."

"It isn't," Ellice said quietly. "There's no garden in the world like
Buddesby garden, and no place in the world like Buddesby, but I will
come with you if you want me to."

"A strange girl!" Joan said.

"A very dear, good, lovable, but passionate child," Connie said. "Now
let us talk of you and Johnny, Joan, of the future. Helen has told you
that--that she--"

"She wishes to leave us soon? Yes."

"And so," Connie slipped her hand into Joan's, "the marriage need not be
long delayed."

"Whenever--he wishes it," Joan said, and for her life she could not put
any warmth into her voice, and Connie, who noticed most things, noticed
the chill coldness of it.

"And yet she must love Johnny, or she would not marry him," Connie
thought.

"I leave everything to you, and to Helen and to him."

It seemed almost as if Joan had a strange disinclination to utter
Johnny's name. Johnny sounded so babyish, so childlike, so affectionate,
yet she felt that she could not speak of him as "John." It would sound
hard and crude in the ears of those who loved him, and called him by the
more tender name.

It was another shock to Connie later when Johnny came. She watched for
the greeting between these two, and felt shocked and startled when
Johnny took Joan's hand and held it for a moment, then lifted it to his
lips. No other kiss passed between them.

And Connie felt her own cheeks burning, and wondered why.

How strange! Lovers, and particularly accepted lovers, always kissed!

There was that about Johnny that for the first time in her life almost
irritated Connie. She watched him, and saw that his eyes were following
Joan with that look of strange, dog-like devotion that Connie remembered
with a start she had herself surprised in Ellice's eyes before now.

And as she watched, so watched another, herself almost forgotten as she
sat in a corner of the room. The big black eyes were on these two,
drifting from the face of one to the face of the other, taking no heed,
and no count of anything else but of these two affianced lovers.

Very clearly and almost coldly Joan had expressed her own wishes.

"If you wish the marriage to take place soon, I am content. I would like
it to--to be--not very soon--not just yet," she added, and seemed to be
speaking against her own will, and as though in opposition to her own
thoughts. "Still, whatever you arrange, I will willingly agree to. I
prefer to leave it all to you, Helen, and you, Connie, and--and you,
Johnny. But it might take place just before Helen goes away. That would
be time enough, would it not?"

"It was the very thing I was going to suggest," Helen said. "In three
months' time then, Joan."

Joan bowed her head. "In three months' time then," she said.

They were all three very silent as Johnny drove the little car back to
Buddesby that evening. The sun was down, but the twilight lingered.
Ellice sat crushed in between Johnny's big bulk and Connie, and she
would not have changed places with the queen on her throne.

"There's Rundle with that horrible lurcher dog of his," said Johnny,
and spoke more to make conversation than anything else.

They could see the man, the village poacher, slouching along under a
hedge with the ever-faithful dog close at heel.

"A horrible, fierce-looking beast," said Connie. "It fights with every
dog in the place, and--"

"But it loves him; it loves its master," Ellice said passionately. "It
would die for its master, wouldn't it?"

"Why, I daresay it would, Gipsy," Johnny said. "But why so excited about
it, little girl?"

"If you--if you," Ellice said, "had the offer of two dogs, the one
splendid, a thoroughbred deerhound, graceful, beautiful, fine to look
at, but cold and with no love to give its master, and the other--a
hideous beast like Rundle's lurcher--but a beast who could love and die
for its master, and dying lick the hand of the master it loved, glad and
grateful to--to die for him--which would you have, which would you have,
Johnny?"

Johnny was hardly listening. He was looking down the dusky road and
seeing in imagination a face, the most beautiful, wonderful face that
his world had ever held.

"I don't know, Gipsy girl," he said. "I don't know!"

"No!" Ellice said; and her voice shook and quavered in an unnatural
laugh. "You don't know, Johnny; you don't know!"

And Connie, who heard and understood, shivered a little at the sound of
the girl's laughter.

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