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

though to cut off her retreat.

 

“Well, be quick then,” she answered, in a voice in which vexation and

fear struggled for the mastery.

 

Twice Samuel strove to speak, and twice words failed him, for his

agitation was very real. At last they came.

 

“I love you,” he said, in an intense whisper. “By the God above you,

and the dead beneath your feet, I love you, Joan, as you have never

been loved before and never will be loved again!”

 

She threw her head back and looked at him, frightened by his passion.

The realities of his declaration were worse than she had anticipated.

His thin face was fierce with emotion, his sensitive lips quivered,

and the long lithe fingers of his right hand played with his beard as

though he were plaiting it. Joan grew seriously alarmed: she had never

seen Samuel Rock look like this before.

 

“I am sorry,” she murmured.

 

“Don’t be sorry,” he broke in; “why should you be sorry? It is a great

thing to be loved as I love you, Joan, a thing that does not often

come in the way of a woman, as you will find out before you die. Look

here: do you suppose that I have not fought against this? Do you

suppose that I wanted to fall into the power of a girl without a

sixpence, without even an honest name? I tell you, Joan, I have fought

against it and I have prayed against it since you were a chit of

sixteen. Chance after chance have I let slip through my fingers for

your sake. There was Mrs. Morton yonder, a handsome body as a man need

wish for a wife, with six thousand pounds invested and house property

into the bargain, who as good as told me that she would marry me, and

I gave her the go-by for you. There was the minister’s widow, a lady

born, and a holy woman, who would have had me fast enough, and I gave

her the go-by for you. I love you, Joan—I tell you that I love you

more than land or goods, more than my own soul, more than anything

that is. I think of you all day, I dream of you all night. I love you,

and I want you, and if I don’t get you then I may as well die for all

the world is worth to me.” And he ceased, trembling with passion.

 

If Joan had been alarmed before, now she was terrified. The man’s

earnestness impressed her artistic sense—in a certain rude way there

was something fine about it—but it awoke no answer within her heart.

His passion repelled her; she had always disliked him, now she loathed

him. Swiftly she reviewed the position in her mind, searching a way of

escape. She knew well enough that he had not meant to affront her by

his references to her poverty and the stain upon her birth—that these

truths had broken from him together with that great truth which

animated his life; nevertheless, with a woman’s wit putting the rest

aside, it was on these unlucky sayings that she pounced in her

emergency.

 

“How, Mr. Rock,” she asked, rising and standing before him, “how can

you ask me to marry you, for I suppose that is what you mean, when you

throw my poverty—and the rest—in my teeth? I think, Mr. Rock, that

you would do well to go back to Mrs. Morton, or the minister’s widow

who was born a lady, and to leave me in peace.”

 

“Oh, don’t be angry with me,” he said, with something like a groan;

“you know that I did not mean to offend you. Why should I offend you

when I love you so, and want to win you? I wish that I had bitten out

my tongue before I said that, but it slipped in with the rest. Will

you have me, Joan? Look here: you are the first that ever I said a

sweet word to, and that ought to go some way with a woman; and I would

make you a good husband. There isn’t much that you shall want for if

you marry me, Joan. If any one had told me when I was a youngster that

I should live to go begging and craving after a woman in this fashion,

I’d have said he lied; but you have put me off, and pushed me aside,

and given me the slip, till at length you have worked me up to this,

and I can’t live without you—I can’t live without you, that’s the

truth.”

 

“But I am afraid you will have to, Mr. Rock,” said Joan more gently,

for the tears which trembled in Samuel’s light blue eyes touched her

somewhat; and after all, although he repelled her, it was flattering

that any man should value her so highly: “I do not love you.”

 

His chin dropped upon his breast dejectedly. Presently he looked up

and spoke again.

 

“I did not expect that you would,” he said: “it had been too much luck

for a miserable sinner. But be honest with me, Joan—if a woman

can—and tell me, do you love anybody else?”

 

“Not a soul,” she answered, opening her brown eyes wide. “Who is there

that I should love here?”

 

“Ah! that’s it,” he answered, with a sigh of relief: “there is nobody

good enough for you in these parts. You are a lady, however you were

born, and you want to mate with your own sort. It is no use denying

it: I have watched you, and I’ve seen how you look down upon us; and

all I’ve got to say is:—Be careful that it does not bring you into

trouble. Still, while you don’t love anybody else—and the man you do

love had better keep out of my way, curse him!—there is hope for me.

Look here, Joan: I don’t want to press you—take time to think it

over. I’m in no hurry. I could wait five years if I were sure of

getting you at last. I dare say I frightened you by my roughness: I

was a fool; I should have remembered that it is all new to you, though

it is old enough for me. Listen, Joan: tell me that I may wait awhile

and come again—though, whether you tell me or not, I shall wait and I

shall come, while there is breath in my body and I can find you out.”

 

“What’s the use?” said Joan. “I don’t love you, and love does not grow

with waiting; and if I do not love you, how can I marry you? We had

better make an end of the business once and for all. I am very sorry,

but it is not been my fault.”

 

“What’s the use? Why, all in the world! In time you will come to think

differently; in time you will learn that a Christian man’s honest love

and all that goes with it isn’t a thing to be chucked away like dirty

water; in time, perhaps, your aunt and uncle will teach you reason

about it, though you do despise me since you went away for your fine

schooling–-”

 

“Oh, don’t tell them!” broke in Joan imploringly.

 

“Why, I have told them. I spoke to your aunt this very day about it,

and she wished me God-speed with all her heart, and I am sure she will

be vexed enough when she hears the truth.”

 

As Joan heard these words her face betrayed the perturbation of her

mind. Her aunt’s fury when she understood that she, Joan, had rejected

Samuel Rock would indeed be hard to bear. Samuel, watching, read her

thoughts, and, growing cunning in his despair, was not slow to turn

them to his advantage.

 

“Listen, Joan,” he said: “say that you will take time to think it

over, and I will make matters easy for you with Mrs. Gillingwater. I

know how to manage her, and I promise that not a rough word shall be

said to you. Joan, Joan, it is not much to ask. Tell me that I may

come again for my answer in six months. That can’t hurt you, and it

will be hope to me.”

 

She hesitated. A warning sense told her that it would be better to

have done with this man at once; but then, if she obeyed it, the one

thing which she truly feared—her aunt’s fury—would fall upon her and

crush her. If she gave way, on the other hand, she knew well enough

that Samuel would shelter her from this storm for his own sake if not

for hers. What could it matter, she argued weakly, if she did postpone

her final decision for six months? Perhaps before that time she might

be able to escape from Bradmouth and Samuel Rock, and thus avoid the

necessity of giving any answer.

 

“If I do as you wish, will you promise not to trouble me, or interfere

with me, or to speak to me about this kind of thing in the meanwhile?”

she asked.

 

“Yes; I swear that I will not.”

 

“Very good: have your own way about it, Mr. Rock; but understand that

I do not mean to encourage you by this, and I don’t think it likely

that my answer six months hence will be any different from what it is

to-day.”

 

“I understand, Joan.”

 

“Very well, then: good-bye.” And she held out her hand.

 

He took it, and, overmastered by a sudden impulse, pressed it to his

lips and kissed it twice or thrice.

 

“Leave go,” she said, wrenching herself free. “Is that the way you

keep your promise?”

 

“I beg your pardon,” he answered humbly. “I could not help it—Heaven

knows that I could not help it. I will not break my word again.” And

he turned and left her, walking through the grass of the graves with a

slow and somewhat feline step.

 

At last he was gone, and Joan sat down once more, with a gasp of

relief. Her first feelings were those of exultation at being rid of

Mr. Rock; but they did not endure. Would he keep his promise, she

wondered, and hide from her aunt the fact that he had proposed and

been rejected? If he did not, one thing was clear to her—that she

would be forced to fly from Bradmouth, since by many a hint she knew

well that it was expected of her that she should marry Samuel Rock,

who was considered to have honoured her greatly by his attentions.

This, in view of their relative social positions in the small society

of Bradmouth, was not wonderful; but Joan’s pride revolted at the

thought.

 

“After all this,” she said aloud, “how is he so much higher than I am?

and why should my aunt always speak of him as though he were a king

and I a beggar girl? My blood is as good as his, and better,” and she

glanced at a row of ancient tombstones, whereof the tops were visible

above the herbage of rank grass, yellow crowsfoot, and sheep’s-parsley

still white with bloom, that marked the resting-places of the Lacons.

 

These Lacons had been yeoman farmers for many generations, until the

last of them, Joan’s grandfather, took to evil courses and dissipated

his ancestral patrimony, the greater part of which was now in the

possession of Samuel Rock.

 

Yes, that side of her pedigree was well enough, and were it not for

the mystery about her father she could have held her head up with the

best of them. Oh, it was a bitter thing that, through no fault of her

own, Samuel Rock should be able to reproach her with