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

I have quite enough to do to manage

my own, I will give him my mind pretty straight. He’s a nasty customer

to tackle; but if he doesn’t know before he’s an hour older that there

are other people to be considered in the world besides himself, it

sha’n’t be my fault, that’s all.”

 

“I am sure it is very brave of you, dear,” said Ellen, with veiled

sarcasm. “But, if I may venture to advise, I would suggest what my

poor father used to call the suaviter in modo in preference to the

fortiter in re.”

 

“Oh, bother your Latin!” said Edward. “Please speak English.”

 

“I mean that were I you I should go fair and softly; for, as you

remarked just now in your own classic tongue, Henry is a ‘nasty

customer to tackle.’ Well, I happen to know that he is up and alone

just now, so you cannot have a better opportunity.” Then she rang the

bell, which was almost immediately answered by the butler, and added,

“Will you be so good, Thomson, as to show Mr. Milward to Sir Henry’s

room?”

 

Edward hesitated, for, like another hero, he felt his courage oozing

out of his finger-tips. Looking up, he saw Ellen watching him with a

little smile, and remembered that to draw back now would mean that for

many a long day to come he must be the target of the bitter arrows of

her irony. So he set his teeth and went as to a forlorn hope.

 

In another minute he was in the presence of the man whom he came to

annihilate. Henry was seated in a chair, against which his crutches

were resting, looking out of the window, with an open book upon his

knee, and it cannot be said that he appeared pleased on hearing the

name of his visitor. Indeed, he was about to tell Thomson that he was

engaged, when Edward blundered in behind him, leaving him no option

but to shake hands and ask his visitor to sit down. Then ensued this

conversation.

 

“How do you do, Graves? I have come to see you on business.”

 

“As well as I can expect, thank you.”

 

A pause.

 

“Beautiful weather, isn’t it?”

 

“It seems fine; but as you have been out, you will know more about it

than I do.”

 

Another pause.

 

“The pheasants ought to do well this year; they have had a wonderful

fine time for hatching.”

 

“Indeed. I think you said that you wished to speak to me about some

business.”

 

“You are not rearing any this season, are you?”

 

“No: I am sorry to say that I have other chicks to hatch at present.

But about the business?”

 

“All right, Graves; I am coming to that. The pheasants lead up to it.

Fortiter in modo, as Ellen says.”

 

“Does she? Well, it is not a bad motto for her, though it’s wrong.

Well, if we have done with the pheasants–-”

 

There was yet another pause, and then Edward said suddenly, and with

effort:

 

“You are not rearing any pheasants, Graves, because you can’t afford

to; in fact, I have just found out that you are bankrupt, and the

whole thing is a swindle, and that Ellen won’t have a farthing of her

eight thousand pounds. She has sent me up here to talk to you about

it.”

 

“Has she? That is fortiter in modo and no mistake. Well, talk on,

Mr. Milward. But, before you begin, let me remind you that I asked you

to stop and hear what passed after the reading of the will yesterday,

and you would not.”

 

“Oh, bother the will! It is a fraud, like everything else in this

place. I tell you, Graves–-”

 

“One moment. Pray lower your voice, keep your temper, and remember

that you are speaking to a gentleman.”

 

“Speaking to a gentleman? A nice sort of gentleman! You mean an

uncertified bankrupt, who won’t do the right thing by his family and

marry the girl who could set them on their legs again; a pious humbug

who preaches to everybody else, but isn’t above carrying on a low

intrigue with a barmaid, and then having the impudence to say that he

means to disgrace us by marrying her.”

 

“I have asked you to lower your voice, Mr. Milward.”

 

“Lower my voice? I think it is high time to raise it when I find

myself let in for an engagement with the sister of a man who does such

things. You needn’t look at me, Sir Henry Graves—Sir Henry indeed!

I repeat, ‘let in.’ However, you must mend your manners, or Ellen will

suffer for it, that is all; for I shall throw her over and wash my

hands of the whole show. The bankruptcy is bad enough, but I’m hanged

if I will stand the barmaid. Edward Milward of Upcott with a barmaid

for a sister-in-law! Not if he knows it.”

 

Then Henry answered, in a quiet and ominous voice:

 

“You have been so good, Mr. Milward, doubtless more in kindness than

in anger, as to point out to me with great directness the errors, or

assumed errors, of my ways. Allow me, before I say anything further,

to point out to you an error in yours, about which there is no

possibility of doubt. You say that you propose ‘to throw over’ my

sister, not on account of anything that she has done, but because of

acts which I am supposed to have done. In my judgment it will indeed

be fortunate for her should you take this course. But not the less do

I feel bound to tell you, that the man who behaves thus towards a

woman, having no cause of offence against her, is not what is usually

understood by the term gentleman. So much for my sister: now for

myself. It seems to me that there is only one answer possible to

conduct and language such as you have thought fit to make use of; and

were I well, much as I dislike violence, I should not hesitate to

apply it. I should, Mr. Milward, kick you out of this room and down

yonder stairs, and, should my strength not fail me, across that

garden. Being crippled at present, I am unable to advance this

argument. I must, therefore, do the best I can.” And, taking up the

crutch that stood by his chair, Henry hurled it straight at him. “Now

go!” he thundered; and Mr. Milward went.

 

“I hope that Ellen will feel pleased with the effect of her embassy,”

thought Henry; then suddenly he turned white, and, choking with wrath,

said aloud, “Great Heaven! to think that I should have come so low as

to be forced to suffer such insults from a cur like that! What will be

the end of it? One thing is clear: I can’t stand much more. I’m done

for in the Service; but I dare say that I could get a billet as mate

on a liner, or even a command of some vessel in the Canadian or

Australian waters where I am known. Unless there is a change soon,

that is what I’ll do, and take Joan with me. Nobody will sneer at her

there, anyway—at least, nobody who sees her.”

 

Meanwhile Ellen was standing in the hall making pretence to arrange

some flowers, but in reality waiting, not without a certain sense of

anxiety, to learn the result of the interview which she had been

instrumental in bringing about. She hoped that Henry would snub her

fiancé in payment of sundry remarks that Edward had made to her, and

which she had by no means forgotten, although she was not at present

in a position to resent them. She hoped also, with some lack of

perspicuity, that Henry would be impressed by Edward’s remonstrances,

and that, when he came to understand that her future was imperilled,

he would hasten to sacrifice his own. But here she made her great

mistake, not foreseeing that a man of Milward’s moral fibre could not

by any possibility neglect to push a fancied vantage home, any more

than he could refrain from being insolent and brutal towards one whom

he thought at his mercy; for, even in the upper walks of life,

individuals do exist who take pleasure in grinding the heads of the

fallen deeper into the mire.

 

Presently Ellen was alarmed to hear Henry’s words “Now go” echo

through the house, followed by the sound of a banging door. Next

instant Edward appeared upon the stairs, and the expression of his

features betrayed a wondrous mixture of astonishment, fear and

indignation.

 

“What have you been doing, Edward?” she said, as he approached. “You

do not mean to tell me that you have been brawling, and in this

house?”

 

“Brawling? Oh, yes, say that I have been brawling,” gasped Edward,

when at last he managed to speak. “That infernal brother of yours has

thrown a crutch at me; but by all means say that I have been

brawling.”

 

“Thrown a crutch? And what had you been doing to make him throw a

crutch?”

 

“Doing? Why, nothing, except tell him that he was a fraud and a

bankrupt. He took it all quite quietly till the end, then suddenly he

said that if he wasn’t a cripple he would kick me downstairs, and

threw a crutch at my head; and, by George! I believe from the look of

him that if he could he would have done it too!”

 

“It is very possible,” said Ellen, “if you were foolish enough to use

such language towards him. You have had an escape. Henry has a fearful

temper when roused.”

 

“Then why on earth didn’t you say so before you sent me up there? Do

you suppose that I enjoy being pelted with crutches by a mad sailor?

Possible! Yes, it seems that anything is possible in this house; but I

will tell you one thing that isn’t, and it is that I should stay here

any longer. I scratch, now, on the spot. Do you understand, Ellen? The

game is up, and you can marry whom you like.”

 

At this point Ellen touched him on the shoulder, and said, in a cold

voice:

 

“Perhaps you are not aware that there are at least two servants

listening to you? Will you be so kind as to follow me into the

drawing-room?”

 

Edward obeyed. When Ellen put on her coldest and most imperious manner

he always did obey, and it is probable that he will always continue to

do so. He was infuriated, and he was humbled, still he could not

resist that invitation into the drawing-room. It was a large

apartment, and by some oversight the shutters that were closed for the

funeral had never been reopened, therefore its aspect could not be

called cheerful, though there was sufficient light to see by.

 

“Now, Mr. Milward,” said Ellen, stationing herself in the centre of a

wide expanse of floor, for there were no little tables and knickknacks

at Rosham, “I will ask you to be so good as to repeat what you were

saying.”

 

Thus adjured, Edward looked around him, and his spirits sank. He could

be vociferous enough in the sunlit hall, but here in this darkened

chamber, that reminded him unpleasantly of corpses and funerals, with

Ellen, of whom he was secretly afraid, standing cool and collected

before him, a sudden humility fell upon him.

 

“Why do you call me Mr. Milward?” he asked: “it doesn’t sound right;

and as for what I was saying, I was saying that I could not stand this

sort