Chapter Eleven.
“And now, Mrs St. John, I think we’ll go and have lunch,” Jill’s new husband remarked as they stood together outside the Registrar’s office, the sun shining brightly on the two faces, his quietly amused, hers a little grave and wondering at the importance of the now irrevocable step which they had taken. At the sound of her new name Jill smiled. “It will be our wedding breakfast,” she said.
“So it will. We’ll have fizz and go a buster—a man doesn’t get married every day. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, Jill for thinking of it.”
Jill hadn’t slept either. In morbid retrospection, half sweet, half painful, she had spent the night in the empty studio—empty because St. John had had every stick of hers removed to her new home, even to the remains of the Clytie that he had broken, and which had been carefully preserved among Jill’s other treasures as too sacred to be thrown away. She looked up at him, the memory of all his thoughtfulness adding an increased tenderness to the loving smile that chased the momentary sadness from her face.
“You’re a goose, my big boy,” she said slipping her hand through his arm as she spoke with a very unwonted display of affection. “And how nice to feel that you are my boy—my very own. No one can part us now, Jack; not all the spiteful machinations of the tyrannical, disagreeable, up-to-date parent can come between you and me, dear, nor alter the fact that we are man and wife.”
“That’s true,” replied St. John with mock resignation. “There’s no getting out of it edgeways; for there is a helpless finality about matrimony that carries its own conviction. Jill, my dear, you look uncommonly nice in that gown.”
Jill laughed contentedly. He had told her that three times already but she had not the least objection to hearing him say it again. She patted the grey folds of her dress with her grey-gloved hand, and tried to get a glimpse of herself in the shop windows as they passed. It was a very simple costume, and a very serviceable one in light tweed. She had managed to dispose of some work lately and had felt justified in being a little extravagant; though the extravagance had not gone further than buying the necessary materials; her own busy fingers had fashioned the costume with the aid of experience and a paper pattern, and the result was highly satisfactory and very creditable from the top of the smart little toque to the soles of her neat new walking-shoes.
“Where shall we go?” enquired Jill serenely.
“To Frascatti’s,” he answered, and to Frascatti’s they went accordingly. St. John ordered a very recherché little lunch although he was fully aware that even in small matters it was necessary to practise the strictest economy, but, as he argued in answer to Jill’s expostulations, it was out of all reason to expect a man to be economical on his wedding day.
“I’m afraid it’s out of all reason to expect you to be economical at all, my dear saint,” remarked his wife sweetly, slowly withdrawing her gloves, and regarding her very new wedding ring with marked complacency. “I shall have to keep the purse, that’s evident, and dole you out an allowance.”
“It’ll put me in mind of my schoolboy days,” laughed St. John, “when I received sixpence a week, and very often had that confiscated in payment of fines.”
“I can quite imagine it,” retorted Jill with a grave little shake of the head. “It is strange considering what horrid little wretches boys generally are how really nice some of them grow up.”
St. John laughed again; the compliment was intended for him, and he appropriated it. He paused in the act of taking his soup to look across at his small wife. Never had he felt more supremely happy and contented than he did at that moment. He had a careless habit of living solely in the present, turning his back on the past, and deliberately refusing to look into the future—that future which with its work, its independence, and its possible poverty meant so much to them both, and would prove not only a test to the strength of his manhood but to the sincerity of their mutual love. To-day he was determined to put such thoughts on one side; it was his wedding morning and he meant to enjoy himself. He turned his attention from his wife’s face to the study of the wine card, and ran his eye quickly down the list. “Do you like your wine dry?” he asked.
“Um?” queried Jill.
“Do you like dry wines?”
“How funny!” she said. “I didn’t know there was such a thing. I don’t think I should; I’m so thirsty.”
St. John looked the tiniest shade put out, the waiter stared, and a good-looking man with a lightish moustache who happened to be passing their table at the moment glanced down at the small grey figure in careless amusement. Jill flushed, suddenly conscious of having said the wrong thing, and the man behind her, looking from her to her companion and recognising the latter, wondered what country cousin St. John had got hold of now.
“I don’t know much about it,” she admitted in a slightly vexed tone, “but I liked what we had here before.”
St. John gave his order; then he looked into the troubled grey eyes opposite and smiled reassuringly. As he did so he caught sight of the man near Jill’s chair; he was about to seat himself at the next table, but before he could do so St. John rose and intercepted him.
“Markham!” he exclaimed. “This is luck. I thought you were abroad.”
“Only returned last night,” the other answered shaking hands. “Glad to see you again, St. John. All well at home?”
“I don’t know,” St. John replied; “haven’t been there lately. Come over to our table, old boy; we wanted someone to drink our health.”
Markham elevated his eyebrows in a show of surprise. St. John had hold of him by the arm, and he allowed himself to be drawn forward until he stood facing the little girl in grey, not quite clear even then as to how matters stood.
“Jill,” exclaimed her husband, “allow me to introduce you to Mr Markham, a very old pal of mine.”
Jill held out her hand with a smile. She was a little disappointed that St. John had so readily ended their tête-à-tête luncheon, but she carefully refrained from letting him see it, and graciously seconded the invitation which the stranger appeared by no means reluctant to accept. He took the seat on her right hand and looked her over with a glance that was at once curious and puzzled. She was a lady that was evident, though different in most respects to those he was accustomed to meet; what he could not rightly fix was the relationship between her and St. John. When he left England he had understood that the latter was to marry his cousin—it had been for that reason that he had gone abroad—and yet a moment ago St. John had distinctly asked him to ‘drink our health.’ Whose health? And why?
“This is a very festive occasion you are participating in, Markham,” St. John observed gaily. “It is my wedding day. As the only guest present we look to you for a speech.”
Mr Markham stared incredulously first at St. John, and then at his wife. Suddenly he caught sight of Jill’s new ring—the plain gold circlet seemed to carry conviction with it. He bowed to Jill and impulsively held out his hand to St. John.
“My congratulations, old fellow,” he cried warmly, “my very sincere and hearty congratulations. By jove! I am surprised. But—”
He paused. He had been going to ask ‘what about Miss Bolton?’ but bethought him in time that it might not be a welcome topic to the bride.
“You don’t congratulate me” said Jill smiling, “and yet you might do that more readily because you know Jack and you don’t know me. I feel quite apprehensive; I’ve taken him for better and worse, you know.”
Mr Markham laughed.
“I think your having done so does infinite credit to your judgment, Mrs St. John,” he said. “I wish you both every happiness and success.”
“Thank you,” Jill answered: “I feel reassured and good wishes are always most acceptable.”
“To wish success in our case is very appropriate too,” struck in St. John. “I’m going to give you another surprise now, old fellow; I’ve set up in business on my own.”
“Eh?” enquired Mr Markham, putting down his wineglass and staring at his friend. St. John whipped a card out of his pocket and laid it on the table cloth.
“When you want your photograph taken,” he observed in some amusement, “go to that address, my boy, and you’ll get taken as you never were before. I’m the Co, and I go into harness a week from to-day.”
To say that Mr Markham was astonished would be to express his sensations very inadequately he was astounded—almost incredulous. He looked at St. John’s smiling face, and then at Jill’s grave, matter-of-fact one, and ejaculated “By George!” in a tone that made St. John laugh more than ever.
“It’s a fact,” observed the latter. “Put the card in your pocket and advertise the firm a bit at the club and elsewhere. Besides you’ll know my address then, though, of course, it is quite permissible for you to forget that if you want to.”
Mr Markham took up the card in silence, read it, placed it carefully in his pocket-book, and sitting back in his chair fell to laughing immoderately as though it were a huge joke. He had grasped the situation immediately when he had quite taken in the news. He had wondered that Jack and his wife should be having their wedding breakfast at Frascatti’s, and alone; but now he understood. He knew that St. John, Senior, was bent on marrying his son to Miss Bolton, and he also knew that St. John possessed no private means. He had evidently run contrary to the paternal wishes and this was the outcome. What a fool he was to be sure! To chuck up quarter of a million and pretty Evie Bolton for—
“You must really excuse me, Mrs St. John,” he exclaimed meeting Jill’s surprised, and slightly disapproving glance with easy frankness, “but it’s just immense to hear Jack talk about work; I don’t suppose he has done a hand’s turn in his life.”
Jill lifted her eyes to her husband’s with unconcealed pride in her look.
“It doesn’t follow that he won’t be able to do it,” she answered confidently. “You none of you seem to have understood him. He is full of pluck and perseverance, only he has always been discouraged.”
“We understood the old Jack well enough,” Markham responded. “But there comes a crisis in some men’s lives when their whole nature undergoes a complete change. It doesn’t always last; they often go back to the original state which means disappointment, and sometimes disillusionment too. I don’t mean that St. John is likely to go back, I was merely—”
“Preparing me,” suggested Jill.
“No; wandering off into personal experience—a mistake at any time, unpardonable under existing circumstances. I won’t forget to advertise the show, old man,” he continued turning to St. John, “and, if I may, will book to-day fortnight for a sitting. I rather enjoy having my portrait taken, and don’t mind promising to become a regular customer. I think I can bring some others as well.”
“Thanks awfully,” answered St. John. “It will be good for me if I can introduce some fresh customers. I have posted the old man a card. Wouldn’t it be a huge joke if I had the honour of photographing my own father?”
Jill made a little grimace, and then the three of them laughed uproariously till Markham, raising his glass on high, drank to the health and prosperity of bride and bridegroom, and confusion to their enemies.
“It is rather unfortunate having enemies at the outset of one’s married life, don’t you think?” observed Jill a little wistfully.
“Well, I don’t know; I always fancy an enemy or two enhance, by comparison, the value of one’s friends.”
“Yes, perhaps—if one has friends.”
“You cannot persuade me that you will not find plenty as you go through life,” Markham answered gallantly.
“They are a long time coming,” she rejoined with a smile, “but that is generally the case where money is scarce, isn’t it? And Jack and I are horribly poor. We are going to live over the shop, you know, in three rooms and a kitchen. We are lucky to get so many; old Thompkins—”
“My dear Jill,” interposed her husband, “you must really learn to speak more respectfully of the head of the firm.”
“Old Thompkins,” went on Jill imperturbably, “has only two. But then, of course, he’s a bachelor. I think I shall flirt with him! it might be a stroke of business, eh?”
Markham and St. John both laughed.
“You’re all right,” ejaculated the former. “You can safely leave yourself in your wife’s hands; it is not difficult to foresee that old Thompkins will be speedily bowled out.”
“He might be a misogynist,” suggested Jill.
“They are the easiest to get over because they imagine themselves invulnerable,” he replied. “I knew one once, but he married long ago. I forgot to ask him to explain the inconsistency, but it seems to have answered very well.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Jill gravely. Then catching his eye she smiled. “It would have been such a strong point against us if he had found it a mistake after all,” she explained.
He smiled too. There was something about St. John’s small wife that unconsciously attracted him; he could not help thinking what a capital friend she would make if a fellow were in trouble and in need of advice, though why he should arrive at such a conclusion he could not guess; so far they had exchanged nothing but very slight commonplaces.
“I feel I must contradict you there,” he said. “Had he found it a mistake it would most probably have been his fault; people with decided principles are generally difficult.”
“Don’t,” cried Jill, “you make me nervous. Jack may have decided principles for aught I know—he’s got a decided temper, and I’m horribly afraid Ilfracombe will make it worse.”
“So you propose spending the week at Ilfracombe?”
“Yes. I stayed there with my father once while he painted the Coast, so Jack is taking me there for auld lang syne.”
“It’s bracing,” struck in St. John, with a commendable determination to have nothing sad, not even reminiscences, on his wedding day. “Any place would do me, but the little woman really wants setting up.”
“You will be putting up at the ‘Ilfracombe,’ I suppose?” observed Mr Markham, conversationally.
“My dear fellow,” returned St. John, “you don’t seem to quite realise our position. We belong to the working-class, and will have to hunt out cheap rooms when we get there.”
“Ah! Well, diggings are more convenient in many ways, and more private, too.” And Mr Markham, raising his wineglass to his lips, drained it quickly, as though he were swallowing something beside Heidsieck, as no doubt he was.