The Imaginary Marriage Part 52

CHAPTER XLV

THE GUIDING HAND

Tom Arundel opened his eyes to the sunshine. He had left behind him a world of darkness and of pain, a curiously jumbled unreal world, in which it seemed to him that he had played the part of a thing that was being dragged by unseen hands in a direction that he knew he must not go, a direction against which he fought with all his strength. And yet, in spite of all his efforts, he knew himself to be slipping, slowly but surely slipping.

Then out of the blackness and chaos grew something real and tangible, a pair of small white hands, and on the finger of one of these hands was a ring that he remembered well, for it was a ring that he himself had placed on that finger, and the hands were held out to him, and he clutched at them.

Yet still the fight was not over, still the unseen force dragged and tugged at him, yet he knew that he was winning, because of the little white hands that yet possessed such wonderful strength.

And now he lay, wide-eyed in the sunshine, and the blackness and chaos were gone, but he could still see the hands, for one of them was clasped in his own, and lifting his eyes he saw the face that he knew must be there--a pale face, thinner than when he had seen it last, a face that had lost some of its childish prettiness. Yet the eyes had lost nothing, but had gained much. There was tenderness and pity and joy too in them.

"Marjorie," he said, and the weakness of his own voice surprised him, and he lay wondering if it were he who had spoken. "Thank you," he said.

He was thanking her for the help those little hands had given him, yet she was not to know that. So for a long time he lay, his breath gentle and regular, the small hand clasped in his own. And now he was away in dreams, not the black and terrifying dreams of just now, but dreams of peace and of a happiness that might never be. And in those dreams she whom he loved bent over him and kissed him on the lips, and said something to him that set the thin blood leaping in his veins.

Tom Arundel opened his eyes again, and knew that it had been no dream.

Her lips were still on his; her face, rosy now, almost as of old, was touching his.

"Marjorie," he whispered, "you told me--"

"I told you what was not true, but I thought it was--oh, I believed it was, dear. I believed it was the truth--but I knew afterwards it was not."

"I--I got hurt, didn't I? I can't remember--I remember but dimly--a horse, Marjorie. You don't think--you don't think I did that on purpose after what you said?"

"No, no!" she said. "I know better. Perhaps I did think it, but oh, Tom, I was not worth it! I was not worth it!"

"You are worth all the world to me," he said, "all the world and more."

Lady Linden opened the door. She came in, treading softly; she came to the bedside and looked at him and then at the girl.

"You were talking. I heard your voice. Was he conscious?"

"Yes."

"Thank G.o.d!" Lady Linden looked at the girl severely. "I suppose you will be the next invalid--women of your type always overdo it. How many nights is it since you had your clothes off?"

"That does not matter now."

"By rights you should go to bed at once."

"Aunt, I shall not leave him."

Lady Linden sniffed. "Very well; I can do nothing with you."

"Defiant!" she thought to herself. "She is getting character, that girl, after all, and about time. Well, it doesn't matter, now that Tom will live."

Lady Linden went downstairs. "Obstinate and defiant, new role--very well, I am content. She is developing character, and that is a great thing."

He was going to live. It was more than hope now, it was certainty, after days, even weeks of anxiety, of watching and waiting; and this bright morning Lady Linden felt and looked ten years younger as she stepped out into the garden to bully her hirelings.

Jordan, her ladyship's coachman, was sunning himself at the stable door.

He took his pipe out hurriedly and hid it behind his back.

"Jordan," said Lady Linden, "you are an old man."

"Not so wonderful old, my lady."

"You have lived all your life with horses."

"With 'osses mainly, my lady."

"How long would it take you, Jordan, to learn to drive a motor car?"

"Me?" He gasped at her in sheer astonishment.

"Jordan, we are both old, but we must move with the times. Horses are dangerous brutes. I have taken a dislike to them. I shall never sit behind another unless it is in a hea.r.s.e--and then I shan't sit. Jordan, you shall learn to drive a car."

"Shall I?" thought Jordan as her ladyship turned away. "We'll see about that."

Again Tom opened his eyes, and he saw that face above him, and even as he looked the head was bent lower and lower till once again the red lips touched his own.

"Marjorie, is it only pity?" he whispered.

But she shook her head. "It is love, all my love--I know now. It is all ended. I know the truth. Oh, Tom, it--it was you all the time, and after all it was only you!"

CHAPTER XLVI

"--SHE HAS GIVEN!"

Never so slowly as to-day had John Everard driven the six and a half miles that divided Buddesby and Little Langbourne from Starden. Never had his frank and open and cheerful face been so clouded and overcast.

Many worries, many doubts and fears and uncertainties, were at work in John Everard's mind.

No doubts and uncertainties of anyone but of himself. It was himself--his own feelings, his own belief in himself, his own belief in his love that he was doubting. So he drove very slowly the six and a half miles to Starden, because he had many questions to ask of himself, questions to which answers did not come readily.

"Gipsy is right, she always is," he thought. "She is finer-minded, better, more generous than I am. Her mind could not harbour one doubt of anyone she loved, and I--" He frowned.

Helen Everard, from an upper window, saw his arrival, and watching him as he drove up the approach to the house, marked the frown on his brow, the lack of his usual cheerfulness.

"There is something wrong; there seems to be nothing, but something wrong all the time," she thought with a sigh.

"If, after all the trouble I have taken, my plans should come to nothing, I shall be bitterly disappointed. I blame Connie. Con's unworldliness is simply silly. Oh, these people!"

"It is a long time since I saw you, Johnny--four or five days, isn't it?" Joan said. She held out her hand to him, and he took it. He seemed to hesitate, and then drew a little closer and kissed her cheek.