Chapter Twelve.
Cheap apartments are not easily obtainable at watering places in the summer, that is apartments which combine cheapness with a certain amount of comfort. It was Jill who pointed out the likeliest locality to search in, and who finally discovered what they wanted after many fruitless enquiries. They did not suit St. John’s taste, however much they might his pocket. He would have pronounced them impossible at once had not Jill firmly maintained that they would do. She had had to study economy so much all her life that she was easily pleased, and really considered the rooms quite good enough for what they required.
“They are,” she observed cheerfully as soon as they were alone together, “clean and comfortable. To me, after my old attic, they are more—they are luxurious. And the air is perfectly delightful.”
St. John glanced round the tiny sitting-room with its cheap saddle-bag suite, and uncompromisingly hard sofa, and endeavoured to see things from her point of view, but with no very marked success. He was losing sight of the romance of poverty, in the realisation of its sordidness. He hated cheap lodgings and all their attendant discomforts, and his dissatisfaction was written plainly on his face.
“It might have been worse,” he answered disparagingly.
Jill bit her lip and turned to look out of the window. He followed her example, and his discontent increased.
“Not much of an outlook on somebody’s bean patch,” he grumbled. “Deuce of a nuisance we didn’t go nearer the sea.”
“Sea view apartments are beyond our figure,” she returned. “Besides you ought not to want any outlook, nor anything else except me.”
St. John’s ill-humour vanished, and he smiled as he put his arm round her shoulders and drew her nearer to his side.
“I don’t,” he asseverated.
“Then what are you grumbling at?”
“I wasn’t; I was only wishing that things were a little nicer for you.”
“That’s very kind of you, dear, but you might wait until I complain before you begin throwing a damper on things. I think that everything is lovely, only—who is to manage the landlady, Jack? I’m sure I daren’t; she looks as if she would stick on the extras. We must do our own marketing, and she won’t like that, I suppose.”
St. John looked uneasy.
“You always said,” he remarked in a reminiscent manner, “that you would never allow your husband to interfere in domestic concerns; it wasn’t a man’s work.”
“Well, you are a coward,” cried Jill; “big men generally are. And she’s only a little woman, not any bigger than I.”
“Little women are so vindictive,” he retorted. “I shouldn’t have minded how big she had been, but I did mind the way in which she looked us over and said, ‘You’ll have breakfast at eight-thirty, I suppose? I can let you have some butter that I’ve got in house.’ Eight-thirty is such a commonplace plebeian hour, and sums up one’s social status so exactly, and why couldn’t she say in ‘the’ house?”
“Oh! don’t be so ridiculous,” replied Jill, “she is a Devonshire woman, of course, which makes a difference. But I don’t want her butter; I’m sure it isn’t good and that’s why she is anxious to get rid of it.”
“Then why didn’t you tell her so instead of saying thank you?”
“I hadn’t the moral courage to,” Jill admitted frankly. “I don’t know why you didn’t help me out. If you were half a man you wouldn’t allow me to be worried on my honeymoon.”
“It’s my honeymoon too,” protested St. John. “I don’t see why I should be worried either. Jill, dear, run and put your hat on we can’t stay all the evening in this pokey room. Let’s go out catering for to-morrow and have a peep at the sea.”
So with a laugh Jill went to do his bidding and together they sallied forth like a pair of children, or two sea-side trippers who having come for a week’s holiday, intend making the most of their time. They turned their footsteps towards the sea, and sauntered along the steep winding path up the cliff for the sake of the view, and the breezes, and to catch sight of the little paddle steamers passing in the distance. They talked a great deal of nonsense, and St. John painted a golden future as background to the rosy present till Jill almost believed that the insignificant firm of Thompkins and Co. was the gilded gate to fortune, and Jack’s the lucky hand to hold the key. Markham’s name cropped up in the course of conversation. St. John introduced it, as he had the owner, unexpectedly, and apropos of nothing that had gone before.
“How did you like Markham?” he enquired. “Not a bad sort, is he?”
Jill looked dubious, and puckered her brows thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I am not sure whether if I knew him better I should like him a little, or dislike him a great deal. Why did you ask him to come and spoil our lunch?”
“I didn’t, I asked him to come and drink our health.”
“But why?” she protested. “We didn’t want any horrid third person. What would you have thought if I had asked a girl?”
“I should have thought it inconsiderate of you from a monetary point of view, otherwise a charming arrangement.”
“You are a brute,” cried Mrs St. John pettishly. “I’m not enjoying my honeymoon a bit.”
“People never do,” he rejoined; “It isn’t fashionable, besides its bad taste. I am afraid that I’m going to prove an exception to the rule though; for I don’t know when I have enjoyed anything so much as to-day. Beastly form on my part to admit it, I know. But to return to Markham, I asked him to join us for several reasons, not the least important being a natural desire to introduce my wife—”
“Yes, dear, I’ll excuse the preliminaries,” interposed Jill. “I want to know the real reason.”
“You aggravating monkey, I’ve a good mind not to satisfy you. And I daresay you will be aggrieved when you hear it because it concerns Evie.”
“Oh! Was he in love with her?”
St. John laughed at the disparaging tone and teasingly pinched her ear.
“Incredible as it may sound he was,” he replied. “I believe she refused him a little while ago but he has been out of England since then and I never heard the rights of the case. He’s an old college chum of mine, and an awfully good sort; I don’t know why Evie doesn’t have him.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” rejoined Jill sagely. “And so you thought you would let Mr Markham see that you were married and out of the runnings, you conceited old humbug; and that’s why he laughed so much, and was so very polite to me. He’ll send us a wedding present, Jack, I feel convinced of that.”
“You’ve always got your eye open for the main chance,” observed St. John, “and ought to make a good business woman. You’ll be pondering the intrinsic value of that present within half-an-hour. Personally, I shall be thoroughly satisfied if I hear that he wins Evie.”
Jill looked up at him swiftly, and slipped her hand into his with a smile.
“I don’t mind who wins Evie now,” she said, “but I was horribly anxious once. I don’t believe that I really felt quite safe until this little gold band was placed on my finger, and then I knew that not even Miss Bolton could take you away from me.”
“Possession is only nine-tenths of the law,” interposed St. John; but he squeezed the small hand lovingly, lying so confidingly in his, so that, feeling the pressure, and meeting his earnest gaze, Jill was too thoroughly happy even to retort.