“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.”