The Imaginary Marriage | Page 7

the girl's heart and brought back all her belief and faith in human nature.
"MY DEAREST CHILD,
"Your letter came as a welcome surprise--to think that you are looking for employment! Well, we must see to this--I promise you, you will not have far to look. Come here to me at once, and be sure that everything will be put right and all misunderstandings wiped out. I am keeping your letter a secret from everyone, even from Marjorie, that your coming shall be the more unexpected, and the greater surprise and pleasure. But come without delay, and believe me to be,
"Your very affectionate friend, "HARRIET LINDEN."
"P.S.--I suggest that you wire me the day and the train, so that I can meet you. Don't lose any time, and be sure that all past unhappiness can be ended, and the future faced with the certainty of brighter and happier days."
Over this letter Joan Meredyth pondered a great deal. It was a warm-hearted and affectionate response to her somewhat stilted little appeal. Yet what did the old lady mean, to what did the veiled reference apply?
"So you mean going, then?" Slotman asked.
"I told you I would go, and I shall. I leave to-morrow."
"You'll be glad to come back," he said. He looked at her, and there was eagerness in his eyes. "Joan, don't be a fool, stay. I could give you a good time, and--"
But she had turned her back on him.
She had written to Lady Linden thanking her for her kindly letter.
"I shall come to you on Saturday for the week-end, if I may. I find there is a train at a quarter-past three. I shall come by that to Cornbridge Station.
"Believe me, "Yours gratefully and affectionately, "JOAN MEREDYTH."
There was a subdued excitement about Lady Linden during the Thursday and the Friday, and an irritating air of secretiveness.
"Foolish, foolish young people! Both so good and so worthy in their way--the girl beautiful and clever, the man as fine and honest and upright a young fellow as ever trod this earth--donkeys! Perhaps they can't be driven--very often donkeys can't; but they can be led!"
To Hugh Alston, at Hurst Dormer, seven miles away, Lady Linden had written.
"MY DEAR HUGH,
"I want you to come here Saturday; it is a matter of vital importance." (She had a habit of underlining her words to give them emphasis, and she underscored "vital" three times.) "I want you to time your arrival for half-past five, a nice time for tea. Don't be earlier, and don't be later. And, above all, don't fail me, or I will never forgive you."
"I expect," Hugh thought, "that she is going to make a public announcement of the engagement between Marjorie and Tom Arundel."
It was precisely at half-past five that Hugh stepped out of his two-seater car and demanded admittance at the door of the Manor House.
"Oh, Mr. Alston," the footman said, "my lady is expecting you. She told me to show you straight into the drawing-room, and she and--" The man paused.
"Her ladyship will be with you in a few moments, sir."
"There is festival in the air here, Perkins, and mystery and secrecy too, eh?"
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," the man said. "This way, Mr. Alston."
And now in the drawing-room Hugh was cooling his heels.
Why this mystery? Where was Marjorie? Why didn't his aunt come?
Then someone came, the door opened. Into the room stepped a tall girl--a girl with the most beautiful face he thought he had ever seen in his life. She looked at him calmly and casually, and seemed to hesitate; and then behind her appeared Lady Linden, flushed, and evidently agitated.
"There," she said, "there, my dears--I have brought you together again, and now everything must be made quite all right! Joan, darling, here is your husband! Go to him, forgive him if there is aught to forgive. Ask forgiveness, child, in your turn, and then--then kiss and be friends, as husband and wife should be."
She beamed on them both, then swiftly retreated, and the door behind Joan Meredyth quickly closed.
CHAPTER IV
FACE TO FACE
It was, Hugh Alston decided, the most beautiful face he had ever seen in his life and the coldest, or so it seemed to him. She was looking at him with cool questioning in her grey eyes, her lips drawn to a hard line.
He saw her as she stood before him, and as he saw her now, so would he carry the memory of the picture she made in his mind for many a day to come--tall, perhaps a little taller than the average woman, tall by comparison with Marjorie Linden, brown of hair and grey of eye, with a disdainfully enquiring look about her.
He was not a man who usually noticed a woman's clothes, yet the picture impressed on his mind of this girl was a very complete one.