Chapter 31

“IF YOU NEED ME”

Naturally enough, Johnny Everard, seeing Ellice, would have stopped. He had his foot on the clutch and was feeling for the brake when Joan realised his intention.

“Please drive on! Please drive straight on!”

And Johnny, receiving his instructions, obeyed them without hesitation. Another moment, and Joan regretted. But it was too late, the car had gone on; the two figures, the man and the girl with the bicycle, were left behind. It was too late—and the girl felt almost shocked by what she had done.

But Joan’s temper was on edge, the day had lost any beauty that it might have held for her. She wanted to get back, she wanted to be alone, she wanted to decide, to think things out for herself.

Johnny looked at her. This was beyond his understanding. What had happened? Was it the man who had caused Joan to look so white and angry, or was it Ellice?

It could hardly be the man after all, for she had evidently not known him. She had not recognised him in any way.

Johnny was not good at guess-work. Here was something beyond him. If it were Ellice, then why should the sight of Ellice upset Joan? And why—it came to him suddenly—had Joan cut Ellice?

For in cutting the man Joan had also cut the girl, and had not thought, the girl meaning little or nothing to her.

“Johnny, I—I—don’t think me unkind—or ungracious—but—I would like to go back soon. I don’t mean—” She paused. “Let’s go back by way of Bennerden.”

It meant that she did not want to go back by the same road with the chance of seeing those two again.

Ellice’s cheeks were burning, and her eyes were bright with anger. Joan Meredyth had cut her, and it seemed to her that Johnny had aided and abetted.

Then she happened to glance at Hugh Alston, and intuition prompted her.

“I think you know her,” she said quickly.

“Yes, I—I know her.”

“And she was not pleased to see you?”

“Apparently not!” he laughed, but the laughter was shaky. “Here we are! We’ll soon get the bicycle fixed up.”

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 Snatcher?” 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 gratitude.

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 Snatcher?”

“Fine, missy!” he said. “Fine—fine!” His eyes glistened. “Snatcher’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 Snatcher went rolling over in the dust. I’ll watch out for that man, missy.”

“Tell me about Snatcher!”

“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 Snatcher; he hates my poor tyke. But he’s put Snatcher 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 Snatcher, 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 shilling, 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.

“But the fact remains,” said Hugh to himself, “there is no sense in deliberately riding for a fall. If I asked her to meet me, she would either refuse or ignore the request, so I shall not ask. Yet, all the same, she and I will meet sooner or later, and when we meet, it will be by accident, not by—” He paused. Outside the cycle-shop stood a small two-seater car that had a familiar look to Hugh. As he glanced at the car its owner came out of the shop with a can of petrol in his hand.

He saw Hugh, looked him in the eyes, and nodded in friendly fashion.

“A nice day!” he said.

“Very!”

“I have to thank you for helping my—” Johnny paused; he had almost said sister, but of course Ellice was not his sister—“my little friend yesterday, about the bike I mean.”

“That’s nothing! Excuse interference on my part, but if you pour that petrol into the radiator, you will probably develop trouble.”

Johnny Everard laughed. “I am new to it, and I am always doing odd things like that. Of course, that’s for water. Lawson over at Little Langbourne generally sees to things for me.”

Hugh nodded. He looked at the man standing but a few feet from him, the man who was to gain that which Hugh coveted and desired most in the world, looked at him and yet felt no dislike, no great enmity, no furious hate.

“It was very good of you to help the kiddie with her bike,” said Johnny, as he splashed the petrol into the tank. “If you find yourself at any time over at Little Langbourne, we’d be glad to see you. My name’s Everard, my place is Buddesby.”

“Thanks! It is very good of you, and I shan’t forget!” He nodded, smiled, and walked on, then glanced back. He could see Johnny fumbling with the car, and he smiled.

“That’s my hated rival, and he seems a decent sort of chap.”

An hour later he was back at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage.

“The post’s come in since you went, Mr. Alston,” said Mrs. Bonner, “and there’s a letter for you.”

It was a bulky envelope from Hurst Dormer. There was a note from Mrs. Morrisey, to say that everything was going as it should go, and she enclosed all the letters that had come by post.

And the first letter that Hugh opened was one on pink paper, delicately scented. How well he remembered that scent! How it brought back to him a certain pretty little face, and a pair of sweet blue eyes.

“Dear little maid,” he said. He read the letter, and stared at it in astonishment and dismay.