The Imaginary Marriage Part 9

He sighed sentimentally, and took out Marjorie's little pink note from his pocket-book. He noticed for the first time that it was somewhat over-scented. He realised that he did not like the smell of scent, especially on notepaper, and pink was not his favourite colour. In fact, he disliked pink. Marjorie was happy, Lady Linden was beaming on Tom Arundel, the cloud had lifted from Marjorie's life. Hugh tore up the pink, smelly little missive, and dropped the fragments into the grate of the hotel bedroom.

"That's that!" he said. "And it's ended and done with!"

He was amazed to find himself not broken-hearted and utterly cast down.

He lighted his pipe and puffed hard, to destroy the lingering smell of the pink notepaper. Then he laughed gently.

"By every right I should now be on my way to the bar to drown dull care in drink. She's a dear little soul, the sweetest and dearest and best in the world. I hope Tom Arundel will appreciate her and make the little thing happy. I would have done my best, but somehow I feel that Tom is the better man, so far as Marjorie is concerned."

Grey eyes, not disdainful and cold and scornful, but soft, and filled with kindliness and gentleness, banished all memory of Marjorie's pretty pathetic blue eyes. Why, Hugh thought, had that girl looked at him like that for just one moment? Why had she appeared for that instant so different? It was as if a cold and bitter mask had fallen from her face, and he had had a peep at the true--the real woman, the woman all love and tenderness and gentleness, behind it.

"Anyhow, it doesn't matter," said Hugh. "I've done what I believed to be the right thing. She turned me down; the affair is now closed, and we'll think of something else."

But it was not easy. At his dinner, which he took in solitary state, he had a companion, a girl with grey eyes and flushed cheeks who sat opposite to him at the table. She said nothing, but she looked at him, and the beauty of her intoxicated him, and the smile of her found an answer on his own lips. She ate nothing, nor did the waiter see her; so far as the waiter was concerned, there was an empty chair, but Hugh Alston saw her.

"Why," he asked, "why can you look like that, and yet be so different?

That look in your eyes makes you the most beautiful and wonderful thing in this world, and yet..."

He laughed softly to himself. He was uttering his thoughts aloud, and the unromantic waiter stared at him.

"Beg your pardon, sir?" he asked.

"That's all right!" Hugh said. "What won the three-thirty?"

"I don't think there was any racing to-day, sir," the man said.

He went away, not completely satisfied as to this visitor's sanity, and Hugh drifted back into dreams and memories.

"You are very wonderful," he said to himself, "yet you made me very angry; you hurt me and made me furious. I called you ungenerous, and I meant it, and so you were. Yet when you look at me with your eyes like that and the colour in your cheeks, I can't find one word to say against you."

He went to the theatre that night. It was a successful play. All London was talking of it, but Hugh Alston never remembered what it was about.

He was thinking of a girl with cold disdainful looks that changed suddenly to softness and tenderness. She sat beside him as she had sat opposite to him at dinner. On the stage the actors talked meaningless stuff; nothing was real, save this girl beside him.

"What's the matter with you, my good fellow, is," Hugh said to himself, as he walked back to the hotel that night, "you're a fickle man; you don't know your own mind. A week ago you were dreaming of Marjorie; you considered blue eyes the most beautiful thing in the world. You would not have listened to the claims of eyes of any other colour, and now--Bless her dear little heart, she'll be happy as the day is long with Tom Arundel, with his nice fair hair parted down the middle, and her pretty scented notepaper. Of course she'll be happy. She would have been miserable at Hurst Dormer, and so should I have been; seeing her miserable, I should have been miserable myself. But I shall go back to Hurst Dormer to-morrow and start on that renovation work. It will give me something to occupy my time and attention."

That night, much to his surprise, Hugh found he could not sleep.

"It's the strange bed," he said. "It's the noise of the London streets."

Sleeplessness had never troubled him before, but to-night he rolled and tossed from side to side, and then at last he sat bolt upright in the bed.

"Good Lord!" he said. "Good Lord, it can't be!" He stared into the thick darkness and saw an oval face, crowned by waving brown hair, that glinted gold in the highlights. He saw a sweet, womanly, tender, smiling mouth and a pair of grey eyes that seemed to burn into his own.

"It can't be!" he said again. And yet it was!

CHAPTER IX

THE PEACEMAKER

"Bless my soul!" said General Bartholomew. He had turned to the last page and looked at the signature. "Alicia Linden! I haven't heard a word of her for five and twenty years. A confoundedly handsome girl she was too. Hudson, where's my gla.s.ses?"

"Here, General," said the young secretary.

The General put them on.

"My dear George," he read.

It was a long letter, four pages closely written in Lady Linden's strong, almost masculine hand.

"...I remember that when she visited me years ago, she told that me you were an old friend of her father's. This being so, I think you should combine with me in trying to bring these two wrong-headed young people together. I have quarrelled with Hugh Alston, so I can do nothing at the moment; but you, being on the spot so to speak, in London, and Hugh I understand also being in London..."

"What the d.i.c.kens is the woman drivelling about?" the General demanded.

"Hudson!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Read this letter carefully, digest it, and then briefly explain to me what the d.i.c.kens it is all about."

The secretary took the letter and read it carefully.

"This letter is from Lady Linden, of Cornbridge Manor House, Cornbridge.

She is deeply interested in a young lady, Miss Joan Meredyth. At least--" Hudson paused.

"Joan, pretty little Joan Meredyth--old Tom Meredyth's girl. Yes, go on!"

"Three years ago," Hudson went on, "Miss Meredyth was married in secret to a Mr. Hugh Alston--"

"Hugh Alston, of course--bless me, I know of Hugh Alston! Isn't he the son of old George Alston, of Hurst Dormer?"

"Yes, that would be the man, sir. Her ladys.h.i.+p speaks of Mr. Alston's house, Hurst Dormer."

"That's the man then, that's the man!" said the General, delighted by his own shrewdness. "So little Joan married him. Well, what about it?"

"They parted, sir, almost at once, having quarrelled bitterly. Lady Linden does not say what about, and they have never been together since.

A little while ago she received a letter from Miss Meredyth, as she still continues to call herself, asking her a.s.sistance in finding work for her to do. And that reminds me, General, that a similar letter was addressed to you by Miss Meredyth, which I sent on to you at Harrogate."

"Must have got there after I left. I never had it--go on!"

"Lady Linden urges you to do something for the young lady, and do all in your power to bring her and Mr. Alston together. She says if you could effect a surprise meeting between them, good may come of it. She is under the impression that they will not meet intentionally. Miss Meredyth's address is, 7 Bemrose Square, and Mr. Alston is staying at The Northborough Hotel, St. James. Of course, there is a good deal besides in the letter, General--"

"Of course!" the General said. "There always is. Well, Hudson, we must do something. I knew the girl's father, and the boy's too. Tom Meredyth was a fine fellow, reckless and a spendthrift, by George! but as straight a man and as true a gentleman as ever walked. And old George Alston was one of my best friends, Hudson. We must do something for these two young idiots."

"Very good, sir!" said Hudson. "How shall we proceed?"

The General did not answer; he sat deep in thought.

"Hudson, I am getting to be a forgetful old fool," he said. "I'm getting old, that's what it is. Before I went to Harrogate I was with Rankin, my solicitor. He was talking to me about the Meredyths. I forget exactly what it was, but there's some money coming to the girl from Bob Meredyth, who went out to Australia. No, I forget, but some money I know, and now the girl apparently wants it, if she is asking for influence to get work. Go and ring Rankin up on the telephone. Don't tell him we know where Joan Meredyth is, but give him my compliments, and ask him to repeat what he told me the other day."