Chapter 20

“WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU”

A fortnight had passed since Johnny Everard’s first visit to Starden, and during that time he had been again and yet again. He had never taken Ellice with him since that first time.

Two days after the first visit he had driven Constance over, and Constance and Joan Meredyth had become instant friends.

“You’ll come again and often; it is lonely here,” Joan had said. “I mean, not lonely for me, that would be ungrateful to Helen, but I know she is very fond of you, and she will like you to come as often as possible, you and your brother.”

“Con,” Johnny said as he drove her home that evening, “don’t you think we might run to a little car, just a cheap two-seater? It would be so useful. Look, we could run over to Starden in less than half an hour. We can be there and back in an hour if we wanted to, and Helen would be so jolly glad, don’t you think?”

Constance smiled to herself.

“We haven’t much money now, Johnny,” she said. “Last year’s hops were—awful!”

“They are going to be ripping this year. I’ve got that blight down all right,” he said cheerily.

“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 passion and jealousy. A pair of small hands were clenched tightly, a girl’s heart was aching and throbbing with love and hate and undisciplined passions, 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 passion 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 sex give all the love of a passionate 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 sunshine 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 shivered 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 shiver, 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 amusement; but the cool deliberation of her, the quiet scorn in her eyes, the lack of passion, 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 dickens 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.

“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 passion 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 shine 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 passed 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, noble, 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.