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

anyway when she likes, and

sometimes I think that I am pretty green. By George! if I believed

that she always meant to keep up this game of snubs and sharp answers,

fond as I am of her, I think I would cut the show before it is too

late. There are a good many things that I don’t like about it; I

sometimes suspect that the whole set of them are pretty well broke,

and I don’t want to marry into a bankrupt family. Then that fellow

Henry is an infernal prig—not but what I would be careful to see

precious little of him. I wonder why Ellen is so anxious that he

should take up with the Levinger girl? From all I can find out the

father is a disreputable old customer, who made a low marriage, and

whom everybody declines to know. It is shady, deuced shady,” and,

filled with these gloomy musings, Edward made his way into the

dining-room to lunch.

 

Here Ellen, who in the interval had bethought herself that she was

showing a little too much of the iron hand, received him graciously

enough: indeed, she was so affectionate and pleasant in her manner,

that before the afternoon was over Edward’s doubts were dispelled, and

he forgot that he had that morning contemplated a step so serious as

the breaking off of his engagement.

 

However coarsely he might express himself, Ellen had wit enough to see

that Edward’s advice was of the soundest. Certainly it was desirable

that Joan Haste should be got rid of, but how was this to be brought

about? She could not tell her to go, nor could she desire Mrs.

Gillingwater to order her out of the house. Ellen pondered the

question deeply, and after sleeping a night over it she came to the

conclusion that she would take Mr. Levinger into her counsel. She knew

him to be a shrewd and resourceful man; she knew, moreover—for her

father had repeated the gist of the conversation between them—that he

was bent upon the marriage of Henry with his daughter; and lastly she

knew that he was the landlord of the Crown and Mitre, in which the

Gillingwaters lived. Surely, therefore, if any one could get rid of

Joan, Mr. Levinger would be able to do so.

 

As it chanced upon this particular morning, Ellen was to drive over in

the dogcart to lunch at Monk’s Lodge, calling at the Crown and Mitre

on her way through Bradmouth in order to hear the latest news of

Henry. This programme she carried out, only stopping long enough at

the inn, however, to run to her brother’s room for a minute while the

cart waited at the door. Here she discovered him propped up with

pillows, while by his side was seated Joan, engaged in reading to him,

and, worse still, in reading poetry. Now, for poetry in the abstract

Ellen did not greatly care, but she had heard the tale of Paolo and

Francesca, and knew well that when a young man and woman are found

reading verses together, it may be taken as a sign that they are very

much in sympathy.

 

“Good morning, Henry,” said Ellen. “Good gracious, my dear! what are

you doing?”

 

“Good morning, Ellen,” he answered. “I am enjoying myself listening to

Joan here, who is reading me some poetry, which she does very nicely

indeed.”

 

Ellen would not even turn her head to look at Joan, who had risen and

stood book in hand.

 

“I had no idea that you wasted your time upon such nonsense,

especially so early in the morning,” she said, glancing round, “when I

see that your room has not yet been dusted. But never mind about the

poetry. I only came in to ask how you were, and to say that I am going

to lunch with the Levingers. Have you any message for them?”

 

“Nothing particular,” he said precisely, and with a slight hardening

of the face, “except my best thanks to Miss Levinger for her note and

the fruit and flowers she has so kindly sent me.”

 

“Very well, then; I will go on, as I don’t want to keep the mare

standing. Good-bye, dear; I shall look in again in the afternoon.” And

she went without waiting for an answer.

 

“I wished to ask her how my father was,” said Henry, “but she never

gave me a chance. Well, now that the excitement is over, go on, Joan.”

 

“No, sir; if you will excuse me, I don’t think that I will read any

more poetry.”

 

“Why not? I am deeply interested. I think it must be nearly twenty

years since I have seen a line of ‘Lancelot and Elaine.’” And he

looked at her, waiting for an answer.

 

“Because,” blurted out Joan, blushing furiously, “because Miss Graves

doesn’t wish me to read poetry to you, and I dare say she is right,

and—it is not my place to do so. But all the same it is not true to

say that the room wasn’t dusted, for you know that you saw me dust it

yourself after aunt left.”

 

“My dear girl, don’t distress yourself,” Henry answered, with more

tenderness in his voice than perhaps he meant to betray. “I really am

not accustomed to be dictated to by my sister, or anybody else, as to

who should or should not read me poems. However, as you seem to be

upset, quite unnecessarily I assure you, let us give it up for this

morning and compromise on the Times.”

 

Meanwhile Ellen was pursuing her course along the beach road towards

Monk’s Lodge, where she arrived within half an hour.

 

Monk’s Lodge, a quaint red-brick house of the Tudor period, was

surrounded on three sides by plantations of Scotch firs. To the east,

however, stretching to the top of the sea cliff, was a strip of turf,

not more than a hundred yards wide, so that all the front windows of

the house commanded an uninterrupted view of the ocean. Behind the

building lay the gardens, which were old-fashioned and beautiful, and

sheltered by the encircling belts of firs; but in front were neither

trees nor flowers, for the fierce easterly gales, and the salt spray

which drifted thither in times of storm, would not allow of their

growth.

 

Descending from the dogcart, Ellen was shown through the house into

the garden, where she found Emma seated reading, or pretending to

read, under the shade of a cedar; for the day was hot and still.

 

“How good of you to come, Ellen!” she said, springing up—“and so

early too.”

 

“I can’t take credit for any particular virtue in that respect, my

dear,” Ellen answered, kissing her affectionately; “it is pleasant to

escape to this delightful place and be quiet for a few hours, and I

have been looking forward to it for a week. What between sickness and

other things, my life at home is one long worry just now.”

 

“It ought not to be, when you are engaged to be married,” said Emma

interrogatively.

 

“Even engagements have their drawbacks, as no doubt you will discover

one day,” she answered, with a little shrug of her shoulders. “Edward

is the best and dearest of men, but he can be a wee bit trying at

times: he is too affectionate and careful of me, if that is possible,

for you know I am an independent person and do not like to have some

one always running after me like a nurse with a child.”

 

“Perhaps he will give up that when you are married,” said Emma

doubtfully. Somehow she could not picture her handsome and formidable

friend—for at times the gentle Emma admitted to herself that she

was rather formidable—as the constant object and recipient of

petits soins and sweet murmured nothings.

 

“Possibly he will,” answered Ellen decisively. “By the way, I just

called in to see Henry, whom I found in a state of great delight with

the note and roses which you sent him. He asked me to give you his

kindest regards, and to say that he was much troubled by your thought

of him.”

 

“They were lilies, not roses,” answered Emma, looking down.

 

“I meant lilies—did I say roses?” said Ellen innocently. “And,

talking of lilies, you look a little pale, dear.”

 

“I am always pale, Ellen; and, like you, I have been a good deal

worried lately.”

 

“Worried! Who can worry you in this Garden of Eden?”

 

“Nobody. It is—my own thoughts. I dare say that even Eve felt worried

in her garden after she had eaten that apple, you know.”

 

Ellen shook her head. “I am not clever, like you,” she said, smiling,

“and I don’t understand parables. If you want my advice you must come

down to my level and speak plainly.”

 

Emma turned, and walked slowly from the shadow of the cedar tree into

the golden flood of sunlight. Very slowly she passed down the gravel

path, that was bordered by blooming roses, pausing now and again as

though to admire some particular flower.

 

“She looks more like a white butterfly than a woman, in that dress of

hers,” thought Ellen, who was watching her curiously; “and really it

would not seem wonderful if she floated away and vanished. It is hot

out there, and I think that I had better not follow her. She has

something to say, and will come back presently.”

 

She was right. After a somewhat prolonged halt at the end of the path,

Emma turned and walked, or rather flitted, straight back to the cedar

tree.

 

“I will speak plainly,” she said, “though I could not make up my mind

to do so at first. I am ashamed of myself, Ellen—so bitterly ashamed

that sometimes I feel as though I should like to run away and never be

seen again.”

 

“And why, my dear?” asked Ellen, lifting her eyes. “What dreadful

crime have you committed, that you should suffer such remorse?”

 

“No crime, but a folly, which they say is worse—an unpardonable

folly. You know what I mean—those words that I said when your brother

was supposed to be dying. You must have heard them.”

 

“Yes, I heard them; and now that he is not dying, they please me more

than any words that I ever listened to from your lips. It is my

dearest wish that things should come about between Henry and you as I

am sure that they will come about, now that I know your mind towards

him.”

 

“If they please you, the memory of them tortures me,” Emma answered,

passionately clenching her slim white hands. “Oh! how could I be so

shameless as to declare my—my love for a man who has never spoken a

single affectionate word to me, who probably looks on me with utter

indifference, or, for aught I know, with dislike! And the worst of it

is I cannot excuse myself: I cannot say that they were nonsense

uttered in a moment of fear and excitement, for it was the truth, the

dreadful truth, that broke from me, and which I had no power to

withhold. I do love him; I have loved him from the day when I first

saw him, nearly two years ago, as I shall always love him; and that is

why I am disgraced.”

 

“Really, Emma, I cannot see what there is shocking in a girl becoming

fond of a man. You are not the first person to whom such a thing has

happened.”

 

“No, there is nothing shocking in the love itself. So long as I kept

it secret it was good and holy, a light by which I could