The Imaginary Marriage Part 3

"It's a pity you didn't think of that three years ago!"

"And Tom Arundel is a fine fellow; no one can say one word against him!"

"I don't wish to discuss them! If Marjorie is obsessed with this folly about young Arundel, it will be her misfortune. If she wants to marry him she will probably regret it. I intended her to marry you; but since it can't be, I don't feel any particular interest in the matter of Marjorie's marriage at the moment! Now tell me about Joan at once!"

"Believe me, I--I much prefer not to: it is a sore subject, a matter I never speak about!"

"Oh, go away then--and leave me to myself. Let me think it all out!"

He went gladly enough; he made his way back to the lily-pond.

"Marjorie," he said tragically, "what have you done?"

"Oh, Hugh!" She was trembling at once.

"No, no, dear, don't worry; it is nothing. She believes every word, and I feel sure it will be all right for you and Tom, but, oh Marjorie--that name, I thought you had invented it!"

Marjorie flushed. "It was the name of a girl at Miss Skinner's: she was a great, great friend of mine. She was two years older than I, and just as sweet and beautiful as her name, and when you were casting about for one I--I just thought of it, Hugh. It hasn't done any harm, has it?"

"I hope not, only, don't you see, you've made me claim an existing young lady as my wife, and if she turned up some time or other--"

"But she won't! When she left school she went out to Australia to join her uncle there, and she will in all probability never come back to England."

Hugh drew a sigh of relief. "That's all right then! It's all right, little girl; it is all right. I believe things are going to be brighter for you now."

"Thanks to you, Hugh!"

"You know there is nothing in this world--" He looked down at the lovely face, alive with grat.i.tude and happiness. His dreams were ended, the "might-have-been" would never be, but he knew that there was peace in that little breast at last.

CHAPTER III

JOAN MEREDYTH, TYPIST

Mr. Philip Slotman touched the electric buzzer on his desk and then watched the door. He was an unpleasant--looking man, strangely corpulent as to body, considering his face was cast in lean and narrow mould, the nose large, prominent and hooked, the lips full, fleshy, and of cherry--like redness, the eyes small, mean, close together and deep set.

The over--corpulent body was attired lavishly. It was dressed in a fancy waistcoat, a morning coat, elegantly striped trousers of lavender hue and small pointed--toed, patent--leather boots, with bright tan uppers.

The rich aroma of an expensive cigar hung about the atmosphere of Mr.

Slotman's office. This and his clothes, and the large diamond ring that twinkled on his finger, proclaimed him a person of opulence.

The door opened and a girl came in; she carried a notebook and her head very high. She trod like a young queen, and in spite of the poor black serge dress she wore, there was much of regal dignity about her. Dark brown hair that waved back from a broad and low forehead, a pair of l.u.s.trous eyes filled now with contempt and aversion, eyes shielded by lashes that, when she slept, lay like a silken fringe upon her cheeks.

Her nose was redeemed from the purely cla.s.sical by the merest suggestion of tip-tiltedness, that gave humour, expression and tenderness to the whole face--tenderness and sweetness that with strength was further betrayed by the finely cut, red-lipped mouth and the strong little chin, carried so proudly on the white column of her neck.

Her figure was that of a young G.o.ddess, and a G.o.ddess she looked as she swept disdainfully into Mr. Philip Slotman's office, shorthand notebook in her hand.

"I want you to take a letter to Jarvis and Purcell, Miss Meredyth," he said. "Please sit down. Er--hum--'Dear Sirs, With regard to your last communication received on the fourteenth instant, I beg--'"

Mr. Slotman moved, apparently negligently, from his leather-covered armchair. He rose, he sauntered around the desk, then suddenly he flung off all pretence at lethargy, and with a quick step put himself between the girl and the door.

"Now, my dear," he said, "you've got to listen to me!"

"I am listening to you." She turned contemptuous grey eyes on him.

"Hang the letter! I don't mean that. You've got to listen about other things!"

He stretched out his hand to touch her, and she drew back. She rose, and her eyes flashed.

"If you touch me, Mr. Slotman, I shall--" She paused; she looked about her; she picked up a heavy ebony ruler from his desk. "I shall defend myself!"

"Don't be a fool," he said, yet took a step backwards, for there was danger in her eyes.

"Look here, you won't get another job in a hurry, and you know it.

Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning out thousands of 'em, all more or less bad; but I--I ain't talking about that, dear--" He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing her knuckles shine whitely as she gripped the ruler. "Come, be sensible!"

"Are you going to persist in this annoyance of me?" she demanded. "Can't I make you understand that I am here to do my work and for no other purpose?"

"Supposing," he said, "supposing--I--I asked you to marry me?"

He had never meant to say this, yet he had said it, for the fascination of her was on him.

"Supposing you did? Do you think I would consent to marry such a man as you?" She held her head very proudly.

"Do you mean that you would refuse?"

"Of course!"

He seemed staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept this back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in his hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved to be no trump.

"I would neither marry you nor go out with you, nor do I wish to have anything to say to you, except so far as business is concerned. As that seems impossible, it will be better for me to give you a week's notice, Mr. Slotman."

"You'll be sorry for it," he said--"infernally sorry for it. It ain't pleasant to starve, my girl!"

"I had to do it, I had to, or I could not have respected myself any longer," the girl thought, as she made her way home that evening to the boarding-house, where for two pounds a week she was fed and lodged. But to be workless! It had been the nightmare of her dreams, the haunting fear of her waking hours.

In her room at the back of the house, to which the jingle of the boarding-house piano could yet penetrate, she sat for a time in deep thought. The past had held a few friends, folk who had been kind to her.

Pride had held her back; she had never asked help of any of them. She thought of the Australian uncle who had invited her to come out to him when she should leave school, and then had for some reason changed his mind and sent her a banknote for a hundred pounds instead. She had felt glad and relieved at the time, but now she regretted his decision. Yet there had been a few friends; she wrote down the names as they occurred to her.

There was old General Bartholomew, who had known her father. There was Mrs. Ransome. No, she believed now that she had heard that Mrs. Ransome was dead; perhaps the General too, yet she would risk it. There was Lady Linden, Marjorie Linden's aunt. She knew but little of her, but remembered her as at heart a kindly, though an autocratic dame. She remembered, too, that one of Lady Linden's hobbies had been to establish Working Guilds and Rural Industries, Village Crafts, and suchlike in her village. In connection with some of these there might be work for her.

She wrote to all that she could think of, a letter of which she made six facsimile copies. It was not a begging appeal, but a dignified little reminder of her existence.

"If you could a.s.sist me to obtain any work by which I might live, you would be putting me under a deep debt of grat.i.tude," she wrote.

Before she slept that night all six letters were in the post. She wished them good luck one by one as she dropped them into the letter-box, the six sprats that had been flung into the sea of fortune. Would one of them catch for her a mackerel? She wondered.

"You'd best take back that notice," Slotman said to her the next morning. "You won't find it so precious easy to find a job, my girl; and, after all, what have I done?"