The Imaginary Marriage Part 20

"Yes, dear; well, if you think--" She hesitated.

"Oh, we can manage it somehow," he said hopefully.

Constance looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"It will be useful for you to run over to Starden to see Helen--won't it?"

"Yes, to see Helen. She's a good sort, one of the best, dear old Helen!

Isn't it ripping to have her near us again?"

"She could always have come to Buddesby if she had wanted to."

"Oh, there isn't much room there!"

"But always room enough for Helen, Johnny. You haven't told me what you think of Joan Meredyth."

She watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He stared straight ahead between the ears of the old horse.

"Joan Meredyth," he repeated, and she saw a deep flush come stealing under the tan of his cheeks. "Oh, she's handsome, Con. She almost took my breath away. I think she is the loveliest girl I ever saw."

"Yes, and do you--"

"And do I admire her? Yes, I do, but I could wish she was just a little less cold, a little less stately, Con."

"Perhaps it is shyness. Remember, we are strangers to her; she was not cold and stately to me, Johnny."

"Ah!" Johnny said, and went on staring straight ahead down the road.

"Did Helen say much to you, Con?"

"Oh, a good deal!"

"About"--Johnny hesitated--"her?"

"Yes, a little; she thinks a great deal of her. She says that at first Joan seemed to hold her at arm's length. Now they understand one another better, and she says Joan has the best heart in the world."

"Yet she seems cold to me," said Johnny with a sigh.

Still, in spite of Joan's coldness, he found his way over to Starden very often during the days that followed. He had picked up a small secondhand car, which he strenuously learned to drive, and thereafter the little car might have been seen plugging almost daily along the six odd miles of road that separated Buddesby from Starden.

And each time he got the car out a pair of black eyes watched him with smouldering anger and pa.s.sion and jealousy. A pair of small hands were clenched tightly, a girl's heart was aching and throbbing with love and hate and undisciplined pa.s.sions, as though it must break.

But he did not see, though Constance did, and she felt troubled and anxious. She had understood for long how it was with Ellice. She had seen the girl's eyes turned with dog-like devotion towards the man who was all unconscious of the pa.s.sion he had aroused. But she saw it all in her quiet way, and was anxious and worried, as a kindly, gentle, tender-hearted woman must be when she notices one of her own s.e.x give all the love of a pa.s.sionate heart to one who neither realises nor desires it.

So, day after day, Johnny drove over to Starden, and when he came Helen would smile quietly and take herself off about some household duty, leaving the young people together. And Joan would greet him with a smile from which all coldness now had gone, for she accepted him as a friend.

She saw his sterling worth, his honour and his honesty. He was like some great boy, so open and transparent was he. To her he had become "Johnny," to him she was "Joan."

To-day they were wandering up and down the garden paths, side by side.

The garden lay about them, glowing in the suns.h.i.+ne of the early afternoon. Beyond the high bank of hollyhocks and the further hedge of dark yew, clipped into fantastic form, one could catch a glimpse of the old house, with its steep sloping roof, its many gables, its whitened walls, lined and crossed by the old timbers. The hum of the bees was in the air, heavy with the fragrance of many flowers.

And Joan was thinking of a City office, of a man she hated and feared, a man with bold eyes and thick, sensual lips. And then her thoughts drifted away to another man, and she seemed to hear again the last word he had spoken to her--"Ungenerous." And suddenly she s.h.i.+vered a little in the warm sunlight.

"Joan, you are not cold. You can't be cold," Johnny said.

She laughed. "No, I was only thinking of the past. There is much in the past to make one s.h.i.+ver, I think, and oh, Johnny, I was thinking of you too!"

"Of me?"

She nodded. "Helen was telling me how keen and eager you were about your farm, how difficult it was to get you to leave it for an hour." She paused. "That--that was before you came here, the first time--and since then you have been here almost every day. Johnny, aren't you wasting your time?" She looked at him with sweet seriousness.

"I am wasting my time, Joan, when--when I am not with you!" he said, and his voice shook with sudden feeling, and into his face there came a wave of colour. "To be near you, to see you--" He paused.

Down the garden pathway came a trim maidservant, who could never guess how John Everard hated her for at least one moment of her life.

"A gentleman in the drawing-room, miss, to see you," the girl said.

"A gentleman to see me? Who?"

"He would not give a name, miss. He said you might not recognise it. He wishes to see you on business." Joan frowned. Who could it be? Yet it was someone waiting, someone here.

"I shall not be long," she said to Johnny, and perhaps was glad of the excuse to leave him.

"I will wait till you come back, Joan."

She smiled and nodded, and hastened to the house and the drawing-room, and, opening the door, went in to find herself face to face with Philip Slotman.

Philip Slotman, of all living people! She stared at him in amaze, almost doubting the evidence of her sight. What did he here? How dared he come here and thrust himself on her notice? How dared he send that lying message by the maid, that she might not recognise his name?

"You've got a nice place here, Joan," he said with easy familiarity.

"Things have looked up a bit for you, eh? I notice you haven't said you are glad to see me. Aren't you going to shake hands?"

"Explain," she said quietly, "what you mean by coming here."

If she had given way to senseless rage, and had demanded how he dared--and so forth, he would have smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt; but the cool deliberation of her, the quiet scorn in her eyes, the lack of pa.s.sion, made him nervous and a little uncomfortable.

"I came here to see you--what else, Joan?"

"Uninvited," she said. "You have taken a liberty--"

"Oh, you!" he shouted suddenly. "You're a fine one to ride the high horse with me! Who the d.i.c.kens are you to give yourself airs? You can stow that, do you hear?" His eyes flashed unpleasantly. "You can stow that kind of talk with me!"

"You came here believing, I suppose, that I was practically friendless.

You knew that I had no relatives, especially men relatives, so you thought you would come to continue your annoyance of me. Would you mind coming here?"

He went to the window wonderingly. The window commanded a wide view of the garden. Looking out into the garden he could see a man, a very tall and very broad young man, who stood with muscular arms folded across a great chest. The young man was leaning against an old rose-red brick wall, smoking a pipe and obviously waiting. The most noticeable thing about the young man was that he was exceptionally big and of powerful build and determined appearance. Another thing that Slotman noticed about him was that he was not Mr. Hugh Alston, whom he remembered perfectly.