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

Lady Graves murmured, “O! cruel, cruel!” As for the

dying man, his head sank back upon the pillow, and he lay there

bewildered. Presently he lifted it and spoke again.

 

“I do not think—my hearing—I must have misunderstood. Did you say

you could not promise, Henry? Why not? With everything at stake, and

my dying prayer—mine, your father’s. Oh! why not? Are you married,

then?”

 

The sweat broke from Henry’s brow and rolled down his face in large

drops, as he answered, always in the voice that sounded like a groan—

 

“I am not married, father; and, before God, sooner than be forced to

refuse you I would lie as you lie now. Have pity, I beseech you, on my

cruel strait, between my honour and the denial of your wish. I cannot

promise that I will marry Emma Levinger, because I am bound to another

woman by ties that may not be broken, and I cannot be so base as to

desert her.”

 

“Another woman? I am too late, then?” murmured his father more and

more feebly. “But stay: there is still hope. Who is she? At least you

will not refuse to tell me her name.”

 

“Her name is Joan Haste.”

 

“Joan Haste? What! the girl at the inn? The bastard! My son, my only

remaining son, denies his dying father, and brings his mother and his

name to disgrace and ruin, because he is bound in honour to a village

bastard!” he screamed. “Oh, my God! that I should have lived to hear

this! Oh, my God! my God!”

 

And suddenly the old man flung his arms wide and fell back. Lady

Graves and Ellen ran to him. Presently the former came away from the

bed.

 

“Your father is dead, Henry,” she said. “Perhaps, after what has

passed, you will feel that this is no fit place for you. I will ring

for some one to take you to your room.”

 

But the last bitterness of these words, so awful from a mother’s lips,

was spared to Henry, for he had swooned. As he sank into

unconsciousness a solemn voice seemed to speak within his tortured

brain, and it said, “Behold the firstfruits of iniquity.”

 

Henry did not attend his father’s funeral, for the good reason that he

was ill in bed. In the first place, though he made light of it at the

time, that slip of his on the stone steps had so severely affected his

broken limb as to necessitate his lying by for at least another month;

and in the second he had received a shock to his nerves, healthy as

they were, from which he could not hope to recover for many a month.

He was kept informed of all that went on by Thomson, the old butler,

for neither his mother nor Ellen came near him during those dark days.

He heard the footsteps of the carpenter who measured his father’s

body, he heard the coffin being brought upstairs; and the day

afterwards he heard the shuffling tramp of the tenants, who, according

to ancient custom, bore down the corpse of the dead owner of Rosham to

lie in state in the great hall. He heard the workmen nailing the

hatchment of the departed baronet beneath his window; and then at last

a day came when he heard a noise of the rolling wheels of carriages,

and the sound of a church bell tolling, as his father was laid to rest

among the bones of his ancestors.

 

So bitter was the resentment against him, that none had asked Henry to

look his last upon his father’s face. For a while he thought it better

that he should not do so, but on the second night after the death

nature grew too strong for him, and he determined to do that alone

which, under happier circumstances, it should have been his duty to do

with his widowed mother and his sister at his side. Painfully he

dragged himself from the bed, and, placing a candle and a box of

matches in the pocket of his dressing-gown, he limped upon his

crutches across the silent corridor and into the death-chamber, where

the atmosphere was so heavy with the scent of flowers that for a

moment it brought back his faintness. Recovering himself, he closed

the door and made shift to light his candle. Then by its solitary

light he approached the bed on which his father’s corpse was lying,

half hidden by wreaths and covered with a sheet. With a trembling hand

he drew down the wrapping and exposed the dead man’s face. It was calm

enough now: there was no trace there of the tormenting grief that had

been upon it in the moment of dissolution; it bore the seal of perfect

peace, and, notwithstanding the snowy hair, a more youthful aspect

than Henry could remember it to have worn, even in the days of his

childhood.

 

In sad and solemn silence Henry gazed upon the clay that had given him

life, and great bitterness and sorrow took hold of him. He covered his

eyes with his hand, and prayed that God might forgive him for the pain

which he had caused his father in his last hour, and that his father

might forgive him too in the land where all things are understood, for

there he would learn that he could not have spoken otherwise. Well, he

was reaping as he had sown, and there remained nothing to him except

to make amendment as best he could. Then with a great effort he

dragged himself up upon the bed, and kissed his father’s forehead.

 

Having replaced the sheet, he extinguished the candle and turned to

leave the room. As he opened the door he saw a figure draped in black,

who stood in the passage listening. It was his mother. She advanced

towards him with a cold, sad mien, and opened her lips as though to

speak. Then the light fell upon his face, and she saw that it was torn

by grief and stained with tears, and her look softened, for now she

understood something of what her son’s sufferings must be. Still she

did not speak, and in silence, except for the tapping of his crutches

on the polished floor, Henry passed her with bowed head, and reached

his room again.

 

In due course the family returned from the funeral, and, outwardly at

any rate, a break occurred in the conspiracy of silence and neglect of

which Henry was the object, for it was necessary that he should be

present at the reading of the will. This ceremony took place in the

bedroom of the new baronet, and gathered there were a representative

from the London firm of lawyers that had managed, or mismanaged, the

Graves’s affairs for several generations, the widow, Ellen, and Edward

Milward. Bowing gravely to Sir Henry, the lawyer broke the seals of

the document and began the farce—for a farce it was, seeing that the

will had been signed nearly five-and-twenty years before, when the

position of the family was very different. After reciting the

provisions of the entail—that, by the way, had long been cut—under

which his deceased brother Reginald should have entered into the

enjoyment of all the land and hereditaments and the real property

generally, with remainder to his children, or, in the event of his

death without issue, to Henry, the testator went on to deal with the

jointure of the widow, which was fixed at eight hundred a year in

addition to the income arising from her own fortune, that, alas! had

long since been lost or muddled away. Then it made provision for the

younger children—ten thousand to Henry and eight thousand to

Ellen—to be paid out of the personalty, or, should this prove

insufficient, to be raised by way of rentcharge on the estate, as

provided for under the marriage settlement of Sir Reginald and his

wife; and, after various legacies and directions as to the disposal of

heirlooms, ended by constituting Reginald, or, in the event of his

death without issue, Henry, residuary legatee.

 

When he had finished reading this lengthy document, which he well knew

not to be worth the paper on which it was written, the lawyer solemnly

exhibited the signatures of the testator and of the attesting

witnesses, and laid it down with a sigh. Three of the listeners were

aware that the will might as well have affected to dispose of the

crown of England as to devise to them these various moneys, lands and

chattels; but the fourth, Edward Milward, who had never been admitted

to full confidence as to the family position, was vastly pleased to

learn that his future wife inherited so considerable a sum, to say

nothing of her chance of succeeding to the entire estate should Henry

die without issue. That there had been embarrassments and mortgage

charges he knew, but these, he concluded, were provided for by life

insurances, and had rolled off the back of the property on the death

of the late owner. Indeed, he showed his pleasure so plainly in his

face that the lawyer, guessing he was labouring under some such

delusion, hesitated and looked at him pointedly before he proceeded to

make remarks upon the document. Ellen, always on the watch, took the

hint, and, laying her hand affectionately on Milward’s shoulder, said

in a low voice:

 

“Perhaps you will not mind leaving us for a few moments, Edward: I

fancy there are one or two matters that my mother would not like to be

discussed outside her own family at present.”

 

“Certainly,” answered Edward, who, having learned all he wished to

know, rejoiced at the chance of escape, seeing that funerals and

will-reading exercised a depressing effect upon his spirits.

 

Lady Graves was at the other end of the room and looking out of an

open window, so that she did not overhear these remarks. Henry,

however, did hear them, and spoke for the first time.

 

“I think that you had better stay, Milward,” he said: “there is

nothing to conceal,” and he smiled grimly at his own

double-entendre.

 

“No, thanks,” answered Edward airily: “I have heard all I want to

know, so I will go into the garden and smoke a cigarette.” And before

Henry could speak again he was gone.

 

“You are probably aware, Sir Henry,” began the lawyer, “that all the

main provisions of this document”—and he tapped the will with his

knuckle—“fall to the ground, for the reason that the capital sums

with which they dealt were exhausted some years since; though I am

bound to tell you that, in my opinion, the legality of the methods by

which some of those sums were brought into possession might even now

be contested.”

 

“Yes,” answered Henry, “and good money thrown after bad.”

 

“Of course,” went on the lawyer, “you succeed to the estates, which

have been little, if at all, diminished in acreage; but they are, I

believe, mortgaged to more than their present value in favour of a Mr.

Levinger, who holds the securities in trust for his daughter, and to

whom there is a large sum due by way of back interest.”

 

“Yes, I am aware of it.”

 

“Hem,” said the lawyer. “Then I am afraid that there is not much more

to say, is there? I trust that you may be able—to find means to

meet—these various liabilities, in which case we shall be most happy

to act for you in the matter. By the way, we still have a small sum in

our hands that was sent to us by our late esteemed client to pay a

debt of your late brother’s, which on enquiry was found not to be

owing. This we propose to remit to