The Imaginary Marriage Part 21

"Well?"

"That gentleman is a friend of mine, related to the lady who lives with me. If I call on him and ask him to persuade you to go and not return, he will do so."

"Oh, he will, and what then?"

"I don't understand you--what then? Why did you come here uninvited? Why did you send an untruthful message by my servant--that I would not recognise your name?"

"Trying to bluff me, aren't you?" Slotman said. He looked her in the eyes. "But it won't come off, Joan; no, my dear, I've been too busy of late to be taken in by your airs and defiance!" He laughed. "I've been making quite a round, here, there, and everywhere, and all because of you, Joan--all because of you! Among other places I've been to," he went on, seeing that she stood silent and unmoved, "is Marlbury You remember it, eh? A nice little town, quiet though. I had a long talk with Miss Skinner--remember her, don't you, Joany?"

Her eyes glittered. "Mr. Slotman, I am trying to understand what this means. Is it that you are mad or intoxicated? Why do you come here to me with all these statements? Why do you come here at all?"

"Marlbury," he continued unmoved, "a nice, quiet little place. I spent some time in the church there, and at the Council offices, looking for something, for something I didn't find, Joany--and didn't expect to find either, come to that, ha, ha!" He laughed. "No, never expected to find, but, to make dead sure, I went to Morchester, and hunted there, Joany, and still I didn't find what I was looking for and knew I shouldn't find!"

"Mr. Slotman!"

"You aren't curious, are you? You won't ask what I was looking for, perhaps you can guess!" He took a step nearer to her. "You can guess, can't you, Joany?" he said.

"I am not attempting to guess. I can only imagine that you are not in your sane senses. You will now go, and if you return--"

"Wait a moment. What I was looking for at Marlbury and Morchester and did not find--was evidence of a marriage having taken place in June, nineteen eighteen, between Hugh Alston and Joan Meredyth. But there's no such evidence, none! Ah, that touches you a bit, don't it? Now you begin to understand why I ain't taken in by your fine dignity!"

"You--you have been looking for--for evidence of a marriage--my marriage with--what do you mean?"

Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant with anger.

"I mean that I am not a fool, though I was for a time. You took me in--I am not blaming you"--he paused--"not blaming you. You were only a girl, straight out of school. You didn't understand things, and the man--"

"What--do--you--mean?" she whispered.

"You left Miss Skinner's, said you were going to Australia, didn't you?

But you didn't go. Oh no, you didn't go! You know best where you went, but there's no proof of any marriage at Marlbury or Morchester. Now--now do you begin to understand?"

She did understand, a sense of horror came to her, horror and shame that this man should dare--dare to think evil of her! She felt that she wanted to strike him. She saw him as through a mist--his hateful face, the face she wanted to strike with all her might, and yet she was conscious of an even greater anger, a very pa.s.sion of hate and resentment against another man than this, against the man who had subjected her to these insults, this infamy. She gripped her hands hard.

"You--you will leave this house. If you ever dare to return I will have you flung out--you hear me? Go, and if you ever dare--"

"No, no you don't!" he said. "Wait a moment. You can't take me in now!"

He laughed in her face. "If I go I'll go all right, but you'll never hear the end of it. You're someone down here, aren't you? I have heard about you. You're a Meredyth, and the Meredyths used to hold their heads pretty high about here. But if you aren't careful I'll get talking, and if I talk I'll make this place too hot to hold you. You know what I mean. I hate threatening you, Joan, only you force me to do it." His voice altered. "I hate threatening, and you know why. It is because I love you, and I am willing to marry you--in spite of everything, you understand? In spite of everything!"

Joan threw out her hand and grasped at the edge of the table.

"My friend out there--am I to call for him? Are you driving me to do that? Shall I call him now?"

"If you like," Slotman said. "If you do, I'll have something to tell him of a marriage that never took place in June, nineteen eighteen, and of a man who came to my office to see you, and offered to marry you--as atonement. Oh yes, I heard--trust me! I don't let interviews take place in my offices that I don't know anything about!"

He was silent suddenly. There was that in her face that worried him, frightened him in spite of himself--a wild, staring look in her eyes; the whiteness of her cheeks, the whiteness even of her lips. There was a tragic look about her. He had seen something like it on the stage at some time. He realised that he might be goading her too far.

"I'll go now," he said. "I'll go and leave you to think it all out. You can rely on me not to say anything. I shan't humble you, or talk about you--not me! A man don't run down the girl he means to make his wife, and that's what I mean--Joan! In spite of everything, you understand, my girl?" He paused. "In spite of everything, Joan, I'll still marry you!

But I'll come back. Oh, I'll come back, I--" He paused. He suddenly remembered the denuded state of his finances, yet it did not seem an auspicious moment just now to ask her for financial help.

"I'll write," he thought. He looked at her.

"Good-bye, Joan. I'll come back; you'll hear from me soon. Meanwhile, remember--not a word, not a word to a living soul. You're all right, trust me!"

Meanwhile Johnny Everard wandered about the sweet, old-world garden, and did not appreciate its beauties in the least. He was waiting, and there is nothing so dreary as waiting for one one longs to see and who comes not.

But presently there came a maid, that same maid who had earned Johnny's temporary hatred.

"Miss Meredyth wished me to say, sir, that she would be very glad if you would excuse her. She's been taken with a bad headache, and has had to go to her own room to lie down."

"Oh!" said Johnny. The sun seemed to s.h.i.+ne less brightly for him for a few moments. "I'm sorry. All right, tell her I am very sorry, and--and shall hope to see her soon!"

Ten minutes later Johnny Everard was driving back along the hot high-road, utterly unconscious that the car was running very badly and misfiring consistently.

In her own room Joan sat, her elbows on the dressing-table, her eyes staring unseeingly out into a garden, all glowing with flowers and sunlight.

She was not thinking of Johnny Everard; his very existence had for the time being pa.s.sed from her memory. She was thinking of that man, and of what he had said, the horror and the shame of it. And that other man--Hugh Alston--had brought this upon her--with his insulting lie, his insolent, lying statement, he had brought it on her! Because of him she was to be subjected to the shame and humiliation of such an attack as Slotman had made on her just now.

"Oh, what--what can I do?" she whispered. "And he--he dared to call me--me ungenerous! Ungenerous for resenting, for hating him for the position he has put me into. Why did he do it? Why, why, why?" she asked of herself frantically, and receiving no answer, rose and for a time paced the room, then came back to the table and sat down once again.

Slotman had said he would return, that she would hear. She could imagine how that the man, believing her good name in his power, and at his mercy, would not cease to torment and persecute her.

What could she do? To whom could she turn? She thought of Johnny Everard for a fleeting moment. There was something so big and strong and honest about him that he reminded her of some great, n.o.ble, clean dog, yet she could not appeal to him. Had he been her brother--that would have been different--but how explain to him? No, she could not. Yet she must have protection from this man, this Slotman. Lady Linden, General Bartholomew, Helen Everard, name after name came into her mind, and she dismissed each as it came. To whom could she turn? And then came the idea on which she acted at once. Of course it must be he!

She rose and sought for pen and paper, and commenced a letter that was difficult to write. She crushed several sheets of paper and flung them aside, but the letter was written at last.

"Because you have placed me in an intolerable position, and have subjected me to insult and annoyance past all bearing, I ask you to meet me in London at the earliest opportunity. I feel that I have a right to appeal to you for some protection against the insults to which your conduct has exposed me. I write in the hope that you may possibly possess some of the generosity which you have several times denied that I can lay claim to. I will keep whatever appointment you may make at any time and any place,

"JOAN MEREDYTH."

And this letter she addressed to Hugh Alston at Hurst Dormer, and presently went out, bareheaded, into the roadway, and with her own hands dropped it into the post-box.

CHAPTER XXI

"I SHALL FORGET HER"

Restless and unhappy, Hugh Alston had returned to Hurst Dormer, to find there that everything was flat, stale, and unprofitable. He had an intense love for the home of his birth and his boyhood, but just now it seemed to mean less to him than it ever had before. He watched moodily the workmen at their work on those alterations and restorations that he had been planning with interested enthusiasm for many months past. Now he did not seem to care whether they were done or no.

"Why," he demanded of the vision of her that came to him of nights, "why the d.i.c.kens don't you leave me alone? I don't want you. I don't want to remember you. I am content to forget that I ever saw you, and I wish to Heaven you would leave me alone!"

But she was always there.

He tried to reason with himself; he attempted to a.n.a.lyse Love.

"One cannot love a thing," he told himself, "unless one has every reason to believe that it is perfection. A man, when he is deeply in love with a woman, must regard her as his ideal of womanhood. In his eyes she must be perfection; she must be flawless, even her faults he will not recognise as faults, but as perfections that are perhaps a little beyond his understanding--that's all right. Now in the case of Joan, I see in her nothing to admire beyond the loveliness of her face, the grace of her, the sweet voice of her and--oh, her whole personality! But I know her to be mean-spirited and uncharitable, unforgiving, ungenerous. I know her to be all these, and yet--"