The Imaginary Marriage Part 35

Ellice stood watching him while with a borrowed spanner he adjusted the handle-bars.

What did this man know of Joan, and why had Joan cut him dead? Perhaps they were old lovers, perhaps a thousand things? Ellice shrugged her shoulders. It was nothing to her. If she must fight this woman, this rich, beautiful woman for her love's sake, she would not fight with underhand weapons. There would be no digging in pasts, for Ellice.

"Thank you," she said. "You have been very kind!" Again she held out her hand to him, and gave him a frank and friendly smile. "I hope that we shall meet again."

"I think," he said, "that we shall often meet again."

He stood and watched the graceful little figure of her as she sped swiftly down the road, then turned and walked slowly back towards Mrs.

Bonner's cottage.

So Joan had seen him, and had cut him dead.

"If I was not so dead sure, so dead certain sure that Slotman will turn up eventually, I would clear out," Hugh thought to himself. "I'd go back to Hurst Dormer and stick there, whether I wanted to or not."

Ellice, pedalling homeward, went more slowly now she was clear of the village. She wanted to think it all over in her mind, and arrived at conclusions. At first she had thought that Joan Meredyth and Johnny too had deliberately cut her dead. But that was folly; they had cut her, but then in this matter she had not counted. She was gifted with plenty of common-sense. Connie's teaching and precept had not gone for nothing with the girl.

"Joan Meredyth knows that man, and he knows her."

Half a mile out of Little Langbourne, Ellice put on the brake and alighted.

"How is s.n.a.t.c.her?" she asked.

Rundle touched his hat. A big and fearsome-looking man was Rundle.

Village mothers frightened small children into good behaviour by threatening them that Rundle would come and take them away--a name to conjure with. Little Langbourne only knew peace and felt secure when Rundle was undergoing one of his temporary retirements from activity, when, as a guest of the State, he cursed his luck and the gamekeepers who had been one too many for him.

But there was nothing fearsome about the Rundle who faced little Ellice Brand. There was a smile on the man's lips, in his eyes a look of intense grat.i.tude.

Ragged and disreputable person that he was, he would have lain down and allowed this little lady to wipe her feet on him, did she wish it.

"How is s.n.a.t.c.her?"

"Fine, missy!" he said. "Fine--fine!" His eyes glistened. "s.n.a.t.c.her's going to pull through, missy. 'Twas a car did hit he," he added, "and I saw the chap who was in it. I saw him, and I saw him laugh when s.n.a.t.c.her went rolling over in the dust. I'll watch out for that man, missy."

"Tell me about s.n.a.t.c.her!"

"Leg broke, and a terrible cut from a great flint; but he'll pull through--thanks to you!"

"To Mr. Vinston, you mean!"

Rundle shook his head. "To you. He wouldn't 'a come for me, nor s.n.a.t.c.her; he hates my poor tyke. But he's put s.n.a.t.c.her right for all that, and because you made him do it, and I don't wonder!" Rundle looked at her. "I don't wonder," he added. "There's be few men who wouldn't do what you'd tell 'em to."

"Now," said Ellice, "you are talking absurdly. Of course I just shamed Mr. Vinston into doing it. I'd like to come and see s.n.a.t.c.her, Rundle."

"The queen wouldn't be as welcome," he said simply.

Helen expressed no surprise at the unseasonable return of Joan and Johnny from their trip. There was no accounting for Joan's moods; the main and the great thing was, it was due to no quarrel between them.

Johnny stayed to lunch. After it, Joan left him with Helen and went to her own room. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to think things out, to decide how to act, if she were to act at all.

"He called me ungenerous--three times," she said, "ungenerous and--and now I know that I am, I deserve it." She felt as a child feels when it has done wrong and longs to beg for forgiveness. In spite of her pride, her coldness and her haughtiness, there was much of the child still in Joan Meredyth's composition--of the child's honesty and the child's frankness and innocence and desire to avoid hurting others.

"It was cruel--it was cowardly. But why is he here? What right has he to come here when I--I told him--when he knows--that I, that Johnny and I--"

And now, with her mind wavering this way and that way, anxious to excuse herself and blame him one moment, condemning herself the next, Joan took pen and paper and wrote hurriedly.

"I am sorry for what I did. It was inexcusable, and it was ungenerous. I ask you to forgive me, it was so unexpected. Perhaps I have hurt myself by doing it more than I hurt you. If I did hurt you, I ask your forgiveness, and I ask you also, most earnestly, to go, to leave Starden."

She would have written more, much more, words were tumbling over in her brain. She had so much more to say to him, and yet she said nothing. She signed her name and addressed the letter to Hugh Alston at Mrs. Bonner's cottage. She took it out and gave it to a gardener's boy.

"Take that letter and give it the gentleman it is addressed to, if he is there. If he is not there, bring it back to me."

"Yes, miss." The boy pocketed the letter and a s.h.i.+lling, and went whistling down the road.

So she had written, she had confessed her fault and asked for forgiveness--that was like Joan. One moment the haughty cold, proud woman, the next the child, admitting her faults and asking for pardon.

The letter had been duly delivered at Mrs. Bonner's cottage, and, coming in later, Hugh found it.

"Bettses' Bob brought it," said Mrs. Bonner. "From Miss Meredyth at the Hall," she added, and looked curiously at Hugh.

"That's all right, thanks!"

Mrs. Bonner quivered with curiosity. Who was this lodger of hers who received letters from Miss Meredyth, when he had not even admitted that he knew her?

"Very funny!" thought Mrs. Bonner.

Hugh read the letter. "I am sorry--for what I did.... I ask you to forgive me.... Perhaps I have hurt myself more than I have hurt you ..."

"Any answer to go back to the Hall?"

"None!"

"Ah!" Mrs. Bonner hesitated. "I didn't know you knew Miss Meredyth."

"I am going out," said Hugh. Avoid Mrs. Bonner while she was in this curious mood, he knew he must.

"If there's one thing I can't abide, it is secretiveness," said Mrs.

Bonner, as she watched him up the road towards the village.

Should he answer the letter? Hugh wondered. Or should he just accept it in silence, as an apology for an act of rudeness? He hated that idea.

She might think that he did not forgive, that he bore malice and ill-will.

"No, I must answer it," he decided, "but what shall I say?" He knew what he wanted to say, he knew that he wanted to ask her to meet him, and he knew only too well that she would refuse.

"There is no sense," said Hugh deliberately, "no sense whatever in riding for a certain fall." He was staring at a small flaxen-haired, dirty-faced boy as he spoke. The boy grinned at him.

"You have a sense of humour," said Hugh, "and, no doubt, a sweet tooth."

He felt in his pocket for the coin that the Starden children had grown to expect from him. The boy took it, yelled and whooped, and sped down the street to the sweetstuff shop.