Chapter 32

THE SPY

It seemed to Hugh Alston that he had not read the letter aright; it was so amazing, so disconcerting, that he felt bewildered. What on earth is wrong? he thought, then he took the letter to the better light at the window and read again.

“MY DEAR HUGH,

“I have been over to Hurst Dormer three times in the car, each time hoping and praying that I might find you; but you are never there now, so I am writing, Hugh, hoping that you will get my letter. I know I have no right to.” (This, Hugh noticed, had been carefully crossed out.) “I want to see you so much. I want to ask your advice and help. I don’t know what to do, and I am so unhappy, so wretched. Forgive me, dear, for troubling you, but if—if only I could see you I am sure you would help me, and tell me what it is right I should do. Ever and ever

“Your loving, “MARJORIE.”

“So unhappy, so wretched!” Hugh read, and it was this that had amazed him. Here was a girl engaged to be married to the man she loved, the man she had told him she could not live without, the man of her own choice, of her own heart—he himself smoothed the way for her, had taken away his own undesirable person, had stepped aside, leaving the field to his rival, and now ...

Hugh blinked at the letter. “What on earth should she be unhappy about? She has had a quarrel with Tom perhaps, and she wants me to go and talk to him like a Dutch Uncle. Poor little maid! I daresay it is all about twopence! But it seems very real and tragic to her.” Hugh sighed. He ought to stay here. This was his place, watching and keeping guard and ward for Joan, yet Marjorie wanted him.

“I’ll go. I can be there and back in a couple of days. I’ll go.”

He had just time to write and catch the early outward mail from Starden, to-day was Thursday.

“MY DEAR MARJORIE,

“I have had your letter, and it has worried me not a little. I can’t bear to think of you as unhappy, little girl. I shall come back to Hurst Dormer, and shall be there to-morrow, Friday, early in the afternoon. Send me a wire to say if you will come, or if you would rather that I came to Cornbridge.

“At any rate, be sure that if you are in any trouble or difficulty, or are worried and anxious, you have done just the right thing in appealing for help to

“Your old friend, “HUGH.”

He rang the bell for Mrs. Bonner.

“Mrs. Bonner, I find I am obliged to go away for a time.”

“You mean—”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. I mean that my absence will be temporary. I can’t say exactly how long I shall be away, but in the meantime I would like to keep my rooms here.”

Mrs. Bonner’s face cleared. “Oh yes,” she said, “ezackly, I see!”

“I shall run up to Town to-night, and I will write you or wire you when you may expect me back. It may be a week, it may be less; anyhow, I shall come back.”

“I am very glad to hear that, Mr. Alston,” said Mrs. Bonner heartily.

“I shan’t take many things with me, just enough for the night. I’ll go and pack my bag, and clear off to catch the six o’clock up train.”

Why not go down to Hurst Dormer to-night, and send off this letter to Marjorie from Town instead of posting it here? He could see to a few things in Hurst Dormer on the morrow, see Marjorie, arrange her little troubles and then be back here by Saturday; but as he was not sure of his movements he left it that he would wire Mrs. Bonner his probable time of returning.

“One thing, I’ll be able to have a good clear-up when he’s gone,” Mrs. Bonner thought. Forever her thoughts turned in the direction of soap and water. The temporary absence of anyone meant to Mrs. Bonner an opportunity for a good clean, and she had already started one that very evening when there came a tapping on her door.

“Now, whoever is that worriting this time of the night?” With sleeves rolled up over bare and plump arms she went to the door.

“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner. I ’eard about you losing your lodger.”

Mrs. Bonner stared into the darkness.

“Oh, it’s you!” Judging by the expression of her voice, the visitor was not a favoured one.

“Yes, it’s me!”

“Well, what do you want, Alice Betts?”

“Oh, nothing. I thought I’d just call in friendly-like.”

“Very good of you, only I’m busy cleaning up.”

“Men do make a mess, don’t they? Fancy ’is going off like that. I wonder if the letter had anything to do with it?”

“Letter?”

“Yes, the one Miss Joan give our Bob to bring ’im this afternoon.”

“Ha!” said Mrs. Bonner. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Nor should I. I wonder what he is to her, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. I ain’t bothered my head thinking. It ain’t none of my business, Alice Betts.”

Alice Betts giggled.

“Well, any’ow he’s gone,” she said, and Mrs. Bonner did not contradict her. “And gone sudden.”

“Very!”

“Depend on it, it was the letter done it. Well, I won’t be keeping you.”

“No, I ain’t got no time for talking,” said Mrs. Bonner, and closed the door. “A nosey Parker if ever there was one! Always shoving ’er saller face where she ain’t wanted. I can’t abide that gel!”

Miss Alice Betts hurried off to the Bettses’ cottage in Starden.

“I got a letter to write in a ’urry. Give me a paper and envelope,” she demanded.

“MISTER P. SLOTMAN, Dear sir,” Alice wrote. “This is to imform you, as agreed, that Mister Alston has gone. Miss Jone writ him a letter, what about cannot say, only as soon as he gets it, he packs up and leaves Starden. I have been to Mrs. Bonner’s to make sure and find it is correck, him having packed up and gone to London. So no more at present from yours truely, MISS ALICE BETTS.”

And this letter, addressed to Mr. P. Slotman at the new address with which he had furnished her, went out from Starden by the early morning mail.

After Mrs. Bonner’s comfortable but restricted cottage, it was good to be back in the spacious old rooms of Hurst Dormer. Hugh Alston was a home man. He had wired Mrs. Morrisey, and now he was back. To-night he slept once again in his own bed, the bed he had slept in since boyhood.

The following morning brought a telegram delivered by a shock-headed village urchin.

“I will be with you and so glad to see you on Saturday—MARJORIE.”

Saturday, and he had hurried so that he might see her to-day.

It was not till late Saturday afternoon that Marjorie came at last, and Hugh had been fuming up and down, looking for her since early morning. Yet if he felt any ill-temper at her delay it was gone at a sight of the little face, so white and woebegone, so frankly miserable and unhappy that his heart ached for the child.

“Oh, Hugh, it is so good to see you again.”

He kissed her. What else could he do? And then, holding her hand and drawing it through his arm, he led her into the house. He rang the bell for tea, for it was tea-time when she came.

“You are going to have a good tea first, then you are going to tell me all your troubles, and we are going to put them all straight and right. And then—then, Marjorie, you are going to smile as you used to.”

A faint smile came to her lips, her eyes were on his face. “Oh, Hugh, if—if you knew how—how good it is to see you again and hear you speak to me.”

He put his hand on her shoulders.

“It is always good to me to see you,” he said softly. “You’re one of the best things in my world, Marjorie, little maid.”

She bent her head, so that her soft cheek touched his hand, and what man could draw his hand away from that caress? Not Hugh Alston.

And now came Phipps with the tea, which he arranged on the small table and retired.

“It’s all right between them two,” he announced in the kitchen a little later. “She’ll be missus here after all, I’ll lay ten to one.”

“Law bless and save us!” said cook. “I thought it was off, and she was going to marry young Mr. Arundel.”

Ordinarily, Marjorie had the sensible appetite of a young country girl. To-day she ate nothing. She sipped her tea, and looked with great soulful, miserable eyes at Hugh.

“And now, little girl, come, tell me.”

“Oh, Hugh, not now. It is so difficult, almost impossible to tell you. I wrote that letter days and days before I posted it, and then I made up my mind all of a sudden to post it, and regretted it the moment after.”

“Why?”

She shook her head.

“There is something wrong between you and Tom? Tell me, girlie!”

She was silent for a moment. “There is—everything wrong between Tom and—and me. But it is my—my fault, not his. Oh, Hugh, it is all my fault!”

“How?”

“I—I don’t love him!” the girl gasped.

“Eh?” Hugh started. He sat back and stared at her. “Why—you—I—I thought—”

“So did I!” she cried, bursting into tears, “but I was wrong—wrong—all wrong. I didn’t understand!” Her breast was heaving, there were sobs in her throat, sobs she fought and struggled against.

The dawn of understanding came to him. He believed he saw. She had fancied herself in love with Tom, and now she knew she was not—how did she know? For the simple reason that she found she was in love with someone else. Now who on earth could it be? he wondered.

“Won’t you tell me all about it, dear?”

“I—I can’t. Don’t ask me—I ought not to have written, I ought not to have come. I wish—I wish I had not. It is my fault, not Tom’s; he is good and kind and—and patient with me, and I know I am unkind and cross to him, and I feel ashamed of myself!”

“Marjorie!”

“Yes, Hugh?” She looked up.

“Tell me the truth, dear,” he said gravely. “Do you realise that you are not in love with Tom because you know now that you are in love with someone else?”

She did not answer in words, nodding speechlessly.

“Is he a good man, dear?”

“The best in the world, Hugh,” she said softly—“the finest, the dearest, and best.”

“That’s bad!” Hugh thought. “But I might have guessed that she would say that, bless her little heart! Poor Tom!” He sighed. “So, after all, this beautiful muddle I have made of things goes for nothing! Do you care to tell me who he is, Marjorie?”

“Don’t ask me—don’t ask me! I can’t tell you! I wish I hadn’t come. I had no right to ask you to—to listen to me. I wish I hadn’t written now!”

He came across to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He bent and kissed the bright hair.

“Little girl, remember always that I am your old friend and your true friend, who would help you in every way at any time. I am not of much use, I am afraid; but such as I am, I am at your service, dear, always, always! Tell me, what can I do? How can I help you?”

“Nothing, nothing, you—you can’t help me, Hugh!”

“Can I see Tom?”

“No, oh no, you must not!”

“Can I see—the other? Marjorie, does he know? Has he spoken to you—not knowing perhaps of your engagement to Tom?”

She shook her head. “He—he doesn’t know anything!”

Silence fell on them.

“Don’t think about it any more, you can’t help me. Hugh, where have you been all this long time?”

“I have been in Kent, at Starden.”

“Is—is that where she—”

“Joan? Yes! she lives there. I have been there, believing I can help her, and I shall help her!”

“You—you love her so?”

“Better than my life,” he said quietly, and never dreamed how those four words entered like a keen-edged sword into the heart of the girl who heard them.

She rose almost immediately.

“I am a foolish, silly girl, and—and, Hugh, I want you to forget what I told you. I shall forget it. I shall go back to—to Tom, and I will try and be worthy of him, try and be good-tempered and—all he wants me to be. Good-bye, Hugh!”

It seemed to him that she had changed suddenly, changed under his very eyes; the tenderness and the tears seemed to have vanished. She spoke almost coldly, and with a dignity he had never seen in her before, and then she went with scarce a look at him, leaving him sorely puzzled.