Chapter 36

“HE HAS COME BACK”

It was exactly a week since his departure that Hugh returned to Starden, and found Mrs. Bonner a little surprised, but by no means unready.

“You said as you’d send me a message, sir,” she said.

“I did, and I haven’t done it—I’ll take the consequences.” But there were no consequences to take. She prepared him an ample meal at the shortest notice, and was willing enough to stop and talk to him while he ate it.

“Anything new, anything fresh?”

“Nothing!”

“No strangers about Starden?”

“No!”

Had Slotman been? That was what Hugh wanted to know. Presently he asked the question direct.

“You don’t happen to have seen that man I described to you some time back, a stout man with a lean face, overdressed, thick red lips, small eyes?”

“Law bless us! yes. I see him two days ago, drove past he did in a car—a shabby-looking car it was, but he didn’t stop. He just stared at the cottage as he drove past, and I got an idea he smiled, only I ain’t sure. I am sure of one thing, however; he did stare terribul hard at this cottage!”

“You are sure it is the man?”

Mrs. Bonner described Mr. Slotman’s appearance vividly, and Mr. Slotman, had he been there, might not have been pleased to hear of the impression he had made on the good woman.

“A man,” she concluded, “as I wouldn’t trust, not a hinch!”

“It’s the man!” Hugh thought. “And he’s come back, as I thought he would. Funny he should look at the cottage! Good Lord! I wonder if he has spies about here?”

“Anyone else been? I suppose no one came here to ask about me, for instance, Mrs. Bonner?”

“No one, sir, not a soul, no—stay a moment. The day you left that there nosey Parker of a gel Alice Betts came. I couldn’t make out whatever she came for. Me, I don’t ’old with them Bettses, anyhow she came. It was her brother that brought you that letter from Miss Joan Meredyth the day you went, sir, and she said something about ’earing as I’d lost my lodger.”

“I see. And who is Alice Betts?”

“Her—she be a maid at Starden Hall.”

“I see,” Hugh repeated. “I see! Mrs. Bonner,” he said, “will you do something for me?”

“Anything, of course!”

“Will you take a letter for me to Miss Joan Meredyth?”

Would she not? Mrs. Bonner caught her breath. Then there was something between these two, even though Miss Joan Meredyth was engaged to marry Mr. John Everard of Buddesby!

“Mrs. Bonner,” said Hugh a few minutes later, “I am going to trust you absolutely. Miss Meredyth and I—are—old friends. It is urgent that I see her. I want you to take this letter to her; tell no one at the Hall that the letter is from me, tell no one that I am back. No one knows. I did not meet a soul on the road from the station, and I don’t want my presence here known. I am trusting you!”

“You can, sir!”

“I am sure of it. Take that note to Miss Meredyth, ask to see her personally. Don’t mention my name. Give her that letter, and if, when she has read it, she will come with you, bring her here, because I must see her, and to-night.”

It was Alice Betts who opened the door to Mrs. Bonner.

“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner!”

“I didn’t come ’ere to bandy no words with you,” said Mrs. Bonner. “I never held with you, Alice Betts,” she added severely.

“I don’t see what I’ve done!”

“No pre-aps you don’t. Anyhow, I’m here to see your mistress. You go and tell her I am here.”

“If I say I’ve brought a letter that gel will guess who it is from,” Mrs. Bonner thought, so, wisely, she held her peace.

A few minutes later Mrs. Bonner was shewn into the drawing-room. She dropped a curtsey.

“You want to see me?”

“Yes, miss, but first—excuse me, miss!”

Mrs. Bonner hurriedly opened the door.

“I thought so,” she said. “Didn’t you best be getting off to your work?”

Alice Betts went.

“A spy! If I might make so bold, miss, I’d get rid of her. Them Bettses never was no good, what with the drink and things. I got a letter for you, miss, only I didn’t want that gel to know it.”

“Joan, I am back again. No one knows that I am, here except Mrs. Bonner and now yourself. I have reasons for wishing my return to remain unknown. But I must see you. You will believe that I would not ask you to come to me here if there was not urgent need.”

There was urgent need, and she knew it, for had she not written that appeal to him barely twenty-four hours ago? There had been no delay this time in his coming.

“And he, Mr. Alston, is at your cottage?”

“Yes, miss, came back only about a hour ago, and he’s waiting there. He told me maybe you might come back with me, and he’s trusting me not to tell anyone he’s here, miss.”

“Yes, I understand. And, Mrs. Bonner, you think that girl is a spy?”

“I know it. Wasn’t she starting to listen at the keyhole and me hardly inside the room?”

Joan was silent for a moment. “Go back! Tell him—I shall come—presently. Tell him I am grateful to him for coming so quickly.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Mrs. Bonner was gone, and Joan sat there hesitating. A trembling fit of nervousness had come to her, a sense of fear, strangely mingled with joy.

“I must go, there is no one else, but—I do not wish to see him,” and yet she knew that she did. She wished to see him more than she wanted to see anything on earth. So presently when Helen, who retired early, had gone upstairs, Joan slipped a cloak over her shoulders and stole out of the house as surreptitiously as any maid stealing to a love tryst.

In Mrs. Bonner’s tiny sitting-room Hugh was pacing restlessly in the confined space, pausing now and again to listen.

She was coming—coming. Presently she would be here, presently he would see her, this girl of his dreams, standing before him with the lamplight on her sweet face.

But it was not to pour out the story of his love that he had sent for her to-night. He must remember that she came unattended, unprotected, relying on his chivalry. Hugh took a grip on himself, and now he heard the familiar creaking of the little gate, and in a moment was at the door. But the excitement, the enthusiasm of just now was passed.

He looked at her standing before him. Looking at her, he pictured her as he had seen her before, cold and haughty, her eyes hard and bright, her lips curved with scorn for him, and now—he saw her with a flush in her cheeks, and the brightness of her eyes was not cold, but soft and misty, and her red-lipped mouth trembled.

Once he had seen her as now, all sweetness and tenderness. And so in his dreams of her had he pictured her, and now he saw her so again, and knew that his love for her and need of her were greater even than he had believed.

“I sent for you, Hugh.” She hesitated, and again the colour deepened in her cheeks.

“You sent for me, dear?”

“Because I need you. I want your advice, perhaps your help. He—he came back again.”

“When?”

“Last Saturday.”

“And I left here Thursday,” he smiled. “Joan, you have a spy in your house who reports my movements and yours to Slotman. No sooner was I gone from here than he was advised, and so he came. Now do you understand why I am here. I knew that man would come. He needs money, there is the magnet of your gold. He will never leave you in peace while he thinks you alone and unprotected, but while I was here you were safe, for he is a very coward.”

“And that was why you came, knowing that he—”

She paused. “And I—I cut you in the street, Hugh.”

“And hurt yourself by doing it,” he said softly.

“Yes.” She bowed her head, and then suddenly she thrust the softness and the tenderness from her, for they must be dangerous things when she loved this man as she did, and was promised to another.

“I must not forget that—I am—” She paused.

“Promised to another man? But you will never carry out that promise, Joan—you cannot, my dear! You cannot, because you belong to me. But it was not of that that you came to speak. Only remember what I have said. It is true.”

“It cannot be true. I never break a promise! What am I to do? Tell me and advise me. You know—what he—he says—what he thinks or—or pretends to think.” Again the burning flush was in her cheeks.

“I know!”

“And even though it is all a vile and cruel lie, yet I could not bear—”

“You shall not suffer!”

“Don’t—don’t you understand that if people should think—think of such a thing and me—that they should speak of it and utter my name—Lies or truth, it would be almost the same; the shame of it would be horrible—horrible!” She was trembling.

“Tell me, have you seen this man?”

“Yes, last Saturday. He wrote ordering me to meet him. In every line of the letter I read threats. I—I had to go; it was money, of course, five thousand pounds.”

“And you didn’t promise?” His voice was harsh and sharp, and looking at him she saw a man changed, a man whose face was hard and stern, and whose mouth had grown bitter. And, knowing it was for her, she knew that she had never admired him before as she did now.

“I promised nothing. I am to meet him again to-morrow night and—and tell him what I have decided. It is not the money, but—but to pay would seem as if I—I were afraid. And oh, I have paid before!”

“I know! And to-morrow you will meet him?”

“I—but—”

“You will meet him, Joan, but I shall be there also. Tell me where!”

She described the place, and he remembered it and knew it well enough.

“I shall be there, remember that. Go without fear—answer as you decide, but remember you pay nothing—nothing. And then I,”—he paused, and smiled for the first time—“I will do the paying.”