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"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!" Never so slowly as to-day had John Everard driven the six and a half miles that divided Buddesby and Little Langbourne from Starden.
Then she mounted the bicycle, and rode like the wind to Buddesby. What she said to Mr. Ralph Vinston, the smart young veterinary surgeon, only she and Mr. Ralph Vinston knew. He had refused definitely and decidedly. "It'll be a blessing to the place if the beast dies," he said. "You'd better take his message to Taylor. The gun's the best remedy for Rundle's accursed dog, Miss Ellice."
And silence is worth a lot, my girl, when a woman's engaged to be married, and when there's things in her past she don't care about people knowing of. Yes, Miss Joan Meredyth, my lady clerk on three quid a week was one person, but Miss Meredyth of Starden Hall, engaged to be married to Mr. John Everard of Buddesby, is another, ain't she?" "Please say what you have to say," she said coldly.
He was a big, gipsy-looking fellow, who slouched with hunched shoulders and a yellow mongrel dog at his heels. "The gates of Buddesby they be, and " He paused; he stared hard into Slotman's face. "Oh!" he said slowly, "oh, so 'tis 'ee, be it? I been watching out for 'ee." "What what do you mean?" "I remember 'ee, I do. I remember your grinning face. I've carried it in my memory all right.
Passes here most days in his car, he does always running over from Buddesby, as is but natcheral." Starden Hall gates stood about a quarter of a mile out of Starden village, and midway between the village and the Hall gates was Mrs. Bonner's clean, typically Kentish little cottage. Artists were Mrs. Bonner's usual customers. The cottage was old, half-timbered and hipped-roofed.
I am sure you will come. You would not anger and pain an old friend by refusing. "I hear that the happy man is a sort of gentleman farmer who lives at Buddesby in Little Langbourne. If by any chance I should fail to see you at the place of meeting, I shall put up at Little Langbourne, and shall probably make the acquaintance of Mr. John Everard. "Believe me, "Your friend, "PHILIP SLOTMAN."
The church bells had ceased ringing, from the church itself came the pleasant sounds of voices. The village street lay white in the sunlight with the blue shadows of the houses, a world of peace and of beauty, of sweet scenes and of sweet sounds; and now he had left the village behind him. "Is this Buddesby, my man? Those gates, are they the gates of Buddesby?" "Aye, they be," said the man.
"John Everard is living at Buddesby with his sister Constance. They are two of the dearest people the children, you know, of Alfred's brother Matthew." "Yes yes, to be sure," said the old gentleman, who was not in the slightest degree interested. "And they will be nice for your Joan Meredyth to know," said Mrs. Everard. "That's it, that's it! 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!"
They were at breakfast in the comfortable, shabby old morning-room at Buddesby. It was eight o'clock, and John had been afield for a couple of hours and had come back with his appetite sharp set. They rose early at Buddesby. Constance had been at her housewifely duties since soon after six. Only Ellice had lain abed till the ringing of the breakfast-bell. "A letter from Helen," Constance said.
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