Joan Haste - H. Rider Haggard (fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

CHAPTER IX

MUTUAL ADMIRATION

 

That Henry and Joan were left lying for so many hours among the graves

of Ramborough Abbey is not greatly to be wondered at, since, before he

had ridden half a mile, Master Willie Hood’s peculiar method of

horsemanship resulted in frightening the cob so much that, for the

first time in its peaceful career, it took the bit between its teeth

and bolted. For a mile or more it galloped on at right angles to the

path, while Willie clung to its mane, screaming “Wo!” at the top of

his voice, and the sea-birds’ eggs with which his pockets were filled,

now smashed into a filthy mass, trickled in yellow streams down the

steed’s panting sides.

 

At length the end came. Arriving at a fence, the cob stopped suddenly,

and Willie pitched over its head into a bramble bush. By the time that

he had extricated himself—unharmed, but very much frightened, and

bleeding from a dozen scratches—the horse was standing five hundred

yards away, snorting and staring round in an excited manner. Willie,

who was a determined youth, set to work to catch it.

 

Into the details of the pursuit we need not enter: suffice it to say

that the sun had set before he succeeded in his enterprise. Mount it

again he could not, for the saddle had twisted and one stirrup was

lost; nor would he have done so if he could. Therefore he determined

to walk into Bradmouth, whither, after many halts and adventures, he

arrived about ten o’clock, leading the unwilling animal by the reins.

 

Now Willie, although exceedingly weary, and somewhat shaken, was a boy

of his word; so, still leading the horse, he proceeded straight to the

residence of Dr. Childs, and rang the bell.

 

“I want the doctor, please, miss,” he said to the servant girl who

answered it.

 

“My gracious! you look as if you did,” remarked that young lady,

surveying his bleeding countenance.

 

“Tain’t for myself, Silly!” he replied. “You ask the doctor to step

out, for I don’t trust this here horse to you or anybody: he’s run

away once, and I don’t want no more of that there game.”

 

The girl complied, laughing; and presently Dr. Childs, a middle-aged

man with a quiet manner, appeared, and asked what was the matter.

 

“Please, sir, there’s a gentleman fallen off Ramborough Tower and

broken his leg; and Joan Haste she’s with him, and she’s all bloody

too—though I don’t know what she’s broken. I was to ask you to go and

fetch him with a shutter, and to take things along to tie him up

with.”

 

“When did he fall, and what is his name, my boy?” asked the doctor.

 

“I don’t know when he fell, sir; but I saw Joan Haste about six

o’clock time. Since then I’ve been getting here with this here horse;

and I wish that I’d stuck to my legs, for all the help he’s been to

me—the great idle brute! I’d rather wheel a barrow of bricks nor pull

him along behind me. Oh! the name? She said it was Captain Graves of

Rosham: that was what I was to tell her aunt.”

 

“Captain Graves of Rosham!” said Dr. Childs to himself. “Why, I heard

Mr. Levinger say that he was coming to stay with him to-day!”

 

Then he went into the house, and ten minutes later he was on his way

to Ramborough in a dogcart, followed by some men with a stretcher. On

reaching the ruined abbey, the doctor stood up and looked round; but,

although the moon was bright, he could see no one. He called aloud,

and presently heard a faint voice answering him. Leaving the cart in

charge of his groom, he followed the direction of the sound till he

came to the foot of the tower. Here, beneath the shadow of the spiked

tomb, clasping the senseless body of a man in her arms, he found a

woman—Joan Haste—whose white dress was smirched with blood, and who,

to all appearance, had but just awakened from a faint. Very

feebly—for she was quite exhausted—she explained what had happened;

and, without more words, the doctor set to work.

 

“It’s a baddish fracture,” he said presently. “Lucky that the poor

fellow is insensible.”

 

In a quarter of an hour he had done all that could be done there and

in that light, and by this time the men who were following with the

stretcher, were seen arriving in another cart. Very gently they lifted

Henry, who was still unconscious, on to the stretcher, and set out

upon the long trudge back to Bradmouth, Dr. Childs walking by their

side. Meanwhile Joan was placed in the dogcart and driven forward by

the coachman, to see that every possible preparation was made at the

Crown and Mitre, whither it was rapidly decided that the injured man

must be taken, for it was the only inn at Bradmouth, and the doctor

had no place for him in his own house.

 

At length they arrived, and Henry, who by now was recovering

consciousness, was carried into Joan’s room, an ancient oak-panelled

apartment on the ground floor. Once this room served as the

justice-chamber of the monks; for what was now the Crown and Mitre had

been their lock-up and place of assize, when, under royal charter,

they exercised legal rights over the inhabitants of Bradmouth. There

the doctor and his assistant, who had returned from visiting some case

in the country, began the work of setting Henry’s broken leg, aided by

Mrs. Gillingwater, Joan’s aunt, a hard-featured, stout and

capable-looking woman of middle age. At length the task was completed,

and Henry was sent to sleep under the influence of a powerful

narcotic.

 

“And now, sir,” said Mrs. Gillingwater, as Dr. Childs surveyed his

patient with a certain grave satisfaction, for he felt that he had

done well by a very difficult bit of surgery, “if you have a minute or

two to spare, I think that you might give Joan a look: she’s got a

nasty hole in her shoulder, and seems shaken and queer.”

 

Then she led the way across the passage to a little room that in the

monastic days had served as a cell, but now was dedicated to the use

of Mr. Gillingwater whenever his wife considered him too tipsy to be

allowed to share the marital chamber.

 

Here Joan was lying on a truckle bed, in a half-fainting condition,

while near her, waving a lighted candle to and fro over her prostrate

form, stood Mr. Gillingwater, a long, thin-faced man, with a weak

mouth, who evidently had taken advantage of the general confusion to

help himself to the gin bottle.

 

“Poor dear! poor dear! ain’t it sad to see her dead?” he said, in

maudlin tones, dropping the hot grease from the candle upon the face

of the defenceless Joan; “and she, what she looks, a real lady. Oh!

ain’t it sad to see her dead?” And he wept aloud.

 

“Get out, you drunken sot, will you!” exclaimed his wife, with savage

energy. “Do you want to set the place on fire?” And, snatching the

candle from Mr. Gillingwater’s hand, she pushed him through the open

door so vigorously that he fell in a heap in the passage. Then she

turned to Dr. Childs, and said, “I beg your pardon, sir; but there’s

only one way to deal with him when he’s on the drink.”

 

The doctor smiled, and began to examine Joan’s shoulder.

 

“It is nothing serious,” he said, when he had washed the wound,

“unless the rust from the spike should give some trouble in the

healing. Had it been lower down, it would have been another matter,

for the lung might have been pierced. As it is, with a little

antiseptic ointment and a sleeping draught, I think that your niece

will be in a fair way to recovery by to-morrow morning, if she has not

caught cold in that damp grass.”

 

“However did she come by this, sir?” asked Mrs. Gillingwater.

 

“I understand that Captain Graves climbed the tower to get some young

jackdaws. He fell, and she tried to catch him in her arms, but of

course was knocked backwards.”

 

“She always was a good plucked one, was Joan,” said Mrs. Gillingwater,

with a certain reluctant pride. “Well, if no harm comes of it, she has

brought us a bit of custom this time anyhow, and when we want it bad

enough. The Captain is likely to be laid up here some weeks, ain’t he,

sir?”

 

“For a good many weeks, I fear, Mrs. Gillingwater, even if things go

well with him.”

 

“Is he in any danger, then?”

 

“There is always some danger to a middle-aged man in such a case: it

is possible that he may lose his leg, and that is a serious matter.”

 

“Lord! and all to get her young jackdaws. You have something to

answer for, miss, you have,” soliloquised Mrs. Gillingwater aloud;

adding, by way of explanation, as they reached the passage, “She’s an

unlucky girl, Joan is, for all her good looks—always making trouble,

like her mother before her: I suppose it is in the blood.”

 

Leaving his assistant in charge, Dr. Childs returned home, for he had

another case to visit that night. Next morning he wrote two notes—one

to Sir Reginald Graves and one to Mr. Levinger, both of whom were

patients of his, acquainting them with what had occurred in language

as little alarming as possible. Having despatched these letters by

special messengers, he walked to the Crown and Mitre. As he had

anticipated, except for the pain of the wound in her shoulder, Joan

was almost herself again: she had not caught cold, the puncture looked

healthy, and already her vigorous young system was shaking off the

effects of her shock and distress of mind. Henry also seemed to be

progressing as favourably as could be expected; but it was deemed

advisable to keep him under the influence of opiates for the present.

 

“I suppose that we had better send for a trained nurse,” said the

doctor. “If I telegraph to London, we could have one down by the

evening.”

 

“If you do, sir, I am sure I don’t know where she’s to sleep,”

answered Mrs. Gillingwater; “there isn’t a hole or corner here unless

Joan turns out of the little back room, and then there is nowhere for

her to go. Can’t I manage for the present, sir, with Joan to help?

I’ve had a lot to do with sick folk of all sorts in my day, worse

luck, and some knack of dealing with them too, they tell me. Many and

many’s the eyes that I have shut for the last time. Then it isn’t as

though you was far off neither: you or Mr. Salter can always be in and

out if you are wanted.”

 

“Well,” said the doctor, after reflecting, “we will let the question

stand over for the present, and see how the case goes on.”

 

He knew Mrs. Gillingwater to be a capable and resourceful woman, and

one who did not easily tire, for he had had to do with her in numerous

maternity cases, where she acted the part of sage-femme with an

address that had won her a local reputation.

 

About twelve o’clock a message came to him to say that Lady Graves and

Mr. Levinger were at the inn, and would be glad to speak