Henry St. John Cooper

“ Look here, I don’t know what Marjorie is going to grow like, but I know this—that she is the sweetest, most tender-hearted, dearest little soul, loyal and true and straight, and because you’ve won her love, my good lad, you ought to go down on your knees and thank Heaven for it. She’s worth ten, fifty, a hundred of you and of me. A good woman—and Marjorie is that—a good woman, I tell you, is better, infinitely better, than the finest man that walks; and you are not that, not by a long way, Tom Arundel. ”

“ There is nothing in me for such a girl as you to love.”
“There is much in you for any woman to love. There is honesty and truth and bravery, and a clean sweet mind. I know all that, I know that you are a good man, Johnny. I know that; but oh, I do not love you!”
“I know,” he said sadly. “I know that.” And his hand seemed to slip away from hers.
“And you would not—not take me—Johnny, without love?” she asked, and her voice trembled.
“Joan, I—I don’t understand. I am a foolish, dense fellow, dear, and I don’t understand!” ”

“ Joan Meredyth,” she paused a little, with a catch of the breath, “Joan Meredyth could not be other than honest and true and—and straight, Johnny. It would not be her nature to be anything else.”
“Why do you come here? Why do you come to tell me this, Gipsy?” He had risen, he stood looking at her—such a little thing, so graceful, so lovely with the colour in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, the light of her fine generosity. “Gipsy—” He became silent; looking at her, strange thoughts came—wild, impossible thoughts, thoughts that come when dreams end and one is face to face with reality. ”

“ He is a man who could not live without love. It is part of his life. He might think, might believe that he would be content to take you because you are lovely and—and good and clever, and all those things that I am not, even though you do not love him, but the time would come when his heart would ache for the love you withheld. Oh, Joan—Joan, forgive me—forgive me, but I must speak. I think you would if you were in my place!”
The cold bitterness was passing slowly from Joan’s face. There came a tinge of colour into her cheeks; her eyes that watched the girl grew softer and more tender. ”

“ Helen Everard was amazed. “My dear Connie, why talk such nonsense? This marriage between Joan and Johnny is the best, the very best possible thing in the world for him. Joan is—”
“I know all she is, Helen,” said Connie; “no one knows better than I do. I know she is lovely; she is good, she is rich, and she is cold—cold to Johnny. She doesn’t love him; and I love him, Helen, and I hate to think that Johnny should give his life to a woman who does not care for him!” ”

“ If it were not true what Lady Linden said, why did she say it? If it is true, then—then why—what is the cause of the quarrel between them? Will they make it up? He does not look like a man who could treat a woman badly. Oh dear!” Helen sighed, for she had her own plans. Like every good woman, she was a born matchmaker at heart. She had a deep and sincere affection for John Everard. She had decided long ago that she must find Johnny a good wife, and here had been the very thing, only there was this Mr. Hugh Alston. ”

“ The chill of her cold pride fell on Joan. Send for him! Never! never! He had gone when he might have stayed—when, had he been here now, she would have told him that she was free.
Very slowly she walked back to the house, to meet Helen’s questioning eyes.
“I am glad, dear, that there seems to be a better understanding between you and Johnny,” Helen said.
“There is a perfect understanding between us. Johnny is not going to marry me. He is choosing someone who will love him more and understand him better than I could.” ”

“ I came to you, thinking in my small soul that I was doing a fine thing, offering atonement—my—my very words, atonement—for the evil I had unwittingly done. And you refused to accept the prize!” He laughed bitterly. “You refused with scorn, just scorn, Joan. You made me realise that I had but added to my offence. I—I to offer you marriage, in my lordly way, when I should have sued on my knees to you for forgiveness, as I would sue now, humbly and contritely, offering love and love alone—love and worship and service to the end of my days, as please Heaven I shall sue, Joan.” ”

“ And there on that same seat sat a small, dark-eyed maiden, whose rusty bicycle reclined against the railings. She had been here yesterday for fifteen minutes or so. He and she had occupied the seat without the exchange of a word, according to English custom.
Hugh looked at her. Because he regarded one woman as the embodiment of all that was perfect and graceful and beautiful, it did not blind him to beauty in others. He saw in this girl what those blinder than he had not yet recognised—the dawning of a wonderful, a radiant and glowing beauty. ”

“ Yes, she was fond of Johnny, and she had grown very fond of late of this girl. She looked under the somewhat cold surface, and she recognised a warm, a tender and a loving nature, that had been suppressed for lack of something on which to lavish that wealth of tenderness that she held stored up in her heart.
Quite what part Hugh Alston had played in the life of Joan, Helen did not know. But she hoped for Johnny. She wanted to see these two come together. She was not above worldly considerations, for few good women are. ”

“ Would not that be better than a long hopeless fight against lovelessness, even—even if you loved her a little less than you believe you love—me? Remember that it would rest with you and not with another, you who are generous, who could not refuse to give when so much is given to you.” Joan’s voice faltered for a moment. “It would be your own heart on which you would have to make the call, Johnny, not on the heart of another. You would have more command over your own heart than you ever could over the heart of another.” ”

“ Take her about; let her see people, young people. Make her enjoy herself, and forget the past. I don’t know what the past held. Joan is not one to make confidants; but I fancy that her past, poor child, has held more suffering than she cares to talk about. So try and make her forget it. Get the Everards over from Buddesby, or take her there; let her see people. But you know, you know, my dear. You’re a capable woman!”
Yes, she was a capable woman, far more capable than even General Bartholomew realised. Clever and capable, kindly and generous of nature, and the girl interested her. ”

“ If it were possible for such a man as Mr. Philip Slotman to be shocked, then Slotman was deeply shocked at this moment. He had come to regard Joan as something infinitely superior to himself. Self-indulgent, a libertine, he had pursued her with his attentions, pestered her with his admiration and his offensive compliments. Then it had slowly dawned on the brain of Mr. Philip Slotman that this girl was something better, higher, purer than most women he had known. ”

“ She turned to the door.
“Joan, wait,” he pleaded—“wait! One last word! One day I shall hope to explain to you, then perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive. For the blunder that I made in Slotman’s office, for the further insult, if you look on it as such, I ask you to forgive me now. It was the act of a senseless fool, a mad fool, who had done wrong and tried to do right, and through his folly made matters worse. To-night perhaps I have sinned more than ever before in telling you that I love you. But if that is a sin and past all forgiveness, I glory in it. ”

“ Why should Joan have been at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage at such an hour? Why should she have been there talking to the very man whom she had a week ago cut dead in the village? Why, if she had anything to say to him, whoever he was, had she not sent for him rather than seek him at his lodgings?
Questions that puzzled and worried Johnny Everard sorely, questions that he could not answer. Jealousy, doubt, and all the kindred feelings came overwhelmingly. Honest as the day, he never doubted a soul’s honesty. If he found out that a man whom he had trusted was a thief, it shocked him ”

“ In his eyes she must be perfection; she must be flawless, even her faults he will not recognise as faults, but as perfections that are perhaps a little beyond his understanding—that’s all right. Now in the case of Joan, I see in her nothing to admire beyond the loveliness of her face, the grace of her, the sweet voice of her and—oh, her whole personality! But I know her to be mean-spirited and uncharitable, unforgiving, ungenerous. I know her to be all these, and yet—”
“Lady Linden, sir, and Miss Marjorie Linden!” ”

“ But she saw it all in her quiet way, and was anxious and worried, as a kindly, gentle, tender-hearted woman must be when she notices one of her own sex give all the love of a passionate heart to one who neither realises nor desires it.
So, day after day, Johnny drove over to Starden, and when he came Helen would smile quietly and take herself off about some household duty, leaving the young people together. And Joan would greet him with a smile from which all coldness now had gone, for she accepted him as a friend. She saw his sterling worth, his honour and his honesty. ”

“ The perfection of the beloved object always makes an honest man painfully conscious of his own inferiority and unworthiness. And so it was with Johnny Everard, this day beside the green pool. And the slim, cool hand was not withdrawn.
“Johnny, what are you asking me? Why have you come here to me? What do you want—of me?” she asked, yet did not look him in the face, but sat with eyes resting on the placid water.
“Just to tell you that—to tell you how I love you, Joan.”
Another man had told her that; the echo of his words came back to her from the past. ”

“ He took two long strides to her. “Joan, are you going to let your pride rear impassable walls between us for ever? Can’t you be fair, generous, natural, true to yourself? Can’t you see how great, how overwhelming my love for you is?”
“There is—is something more than pride between us, Hugh.”
“There is nothing—nothing that cannot be broken; that cannot be forced and broken down,” he said eagerly. “You are to marry a man you do not love. Why should you? Would it be fair to yourself? ”

“ He stared, open-eyed.
“How?”
“Your marriage!”
“With Joan. You mean that you are against her?”
“I am against any woman who would have you for a husband and give you none of her heart,” cried Connie.
“Why—why?” he stammered. “Con, you couldn’t expect that Joan would fall in love with a chap like me?”
“Then why is she going to marry you? Isn’t marriage a union of love and hearts? Oh, Johnny, I am anxious, very anxious. I hate it, this loveless marriage—”
“But I love her!” ”

“ It is only that I am a—a—little fool, an ungrateful, silly, little fool!”
And Hugh was frankly puzzled.
“You’re going to be as happy as the day is long, little girl,” he said. “Tom loves you, worships the ground you walk on; I think you’re going to be the happiest girl alive. Dry your tears, dear, and smile as you used to in the old days!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Connie looked out of the window. “Johnny, dear, if I am saying something that will hurt you, will you forgive me?—knowing that I love you so dearly, that all I want to see is your happiness, that I hate to see you imposed on, made a fool of, made a convenience of!”
“Connie, what do you mean?”
“I mean that I believe that Joan Meredyth will never love you, because all the heart she has to give has been given to someone else.”
“You have no right to say that. What do you know? What can you know?”
“I know nothing. I can only guess. I can only stumble and grope in the dark. Think! ”

“ And Joan was thinking of a City office, of a man she hated and feared, a man with bold eyes and thick, sensual lips. And then her thoughts drifted away to another man, and she seemed to hear again the last word he had spoken to her—“Ungenerous.” And suddenly she shivered a little in the warm sunlight.
“Joan, you are not cold. You can’t be cold,” Johnny said.
She laughed. “No, I was only thinking of the past. There is much in the past to make one shiver, I think, and oh, Johnny, I was thinking of you too!” ”

“ And Connie felt her own cheeks burning, and wondered why.
How strange! Lovers, and particularly accepted lovers, always kissed!
There was that about Johnny that for the first time in her life almost irritated Connie. She watched him, and saw that his eyes were following Joan with that look of strange, dog-like devotion that Connie remembered with a start she had herself surprised in Ellice’s eyes before now. ”