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

of thing any more, and I think that we had better shut up the

shop.”

 

“If you mean by ‘shutting up the shop’ that our engagement is at an

end, Mr. Milward, so be it. But unfortunately, as you must understand,

questions will be asked, and I shall be glad to know what explanation

you propose to furnish.”

 

“Oh! you can settle that.”

 

“Very well; I presume you admit that I am not to blame, therefore we

must fall back upon the cause which you have given: that you insulted

my brother, who—notwithstanding his crippled condition—inflicted a

physical punishment upon you. Indeed, unless I can succeed in stopping

it, thanks to your own indiscretion, the story will be all over the

place before to-morrow, and I must leave you to judge what will be

thought of it in the county, or let us say at the militia mess, which

I believe you join next Wednesday.”

 

Edward heard and quailed. He was excessively sensitive to public

opinion, and more especially to the chaff of his brother officers in

the militia, among whom he was something of a butt. If it became known

there that Sir Henry Graves, a man with a broken leg, had driven him

out of the room by throwing crutches at his head, he felt that his

life would speedily become a burden to him.

 

“You wouldn’t be so mean as that, Ellen,” he said.

 

“So mean as what? To some people it might seem that the meanness is on

the other side. There are difficulties here, and you have quarrelled

with my brother; therefore, as I understand, you wish to desert me

after being publicly engaged to me for some months, and to leave me in

an utterly false position. Do so if you will, but you must not be

surprised if you find your conduct called by strong names. For my part

I am indifferent, but for your own sake I think that you would do well

to pause. Do not suppose that I shall sit still under such an affront.

You know that I can be a good friend; you have yet to learn that I can

be a good enemy. Possibly, though I do not like to think it of you,

you believe that we are ruined and of no account. You will find your

mistake. There are troubles here, but they can be overcome, and very

soon you will live to regret that you dared to put such a deadly

affront upon me and my family. You foolish man!” she went on, with

gathering vehemence, “have you not yet realized the difference between

us? Have you not learned that with all your wealth you are nobody and

I am somebody—that though I can stand without you, without me you

will fall? Now I am tired of talking: choose, Edward Milward, choose

whether you will jilt me and incur an enmity that shall follow you to

your death, or whether you will bide by me and be placed where of late

it has been the object of my life to set you.”

 

If Edward had quailed before, now he positively trembled, for he knew

that Ellen spoke truth. Hers was the master mind, and to a great

extent he had become dependent on her. Moreover he had ambitions, for

the most part of a social and personal nature—which included,

however, his entry into Parliament, where he hoped that his power of

the purse would ultimately earn him some sort of title—and these

ambitions he felt sure would never be gratified without the help of

Ellen. Lastly, he was in his own way sincerely attached to her, and

quite appreciated the force of her threats to make of him an object of

ridicule among his neighbours and brother-officers. Smarting though he

was under a sense of moral and physical injury, the sum of these

considerations turned the balance in favour of the continuance of his

engagement. Perhaps Ellen was right, and her family would ride out

this trouble; but whether they did so or not, he was convinced that

without Ellen he should sink below his present level, and what was

more, that she would help him on his downward career. So Edward gave

in; indeed, it would not be too much to say that he collapsed.

 

“You shouldn’t speak so harshly, dear,” he said, “for you know that I

did not really mean what I told you about breaking off our engagement.

The fact is that, what between one thing and another, I scarcely knew

what I was saying.”

 

“Indeed!” answered Ellen. “Well, I hope that you know what you are

saying now. If our engagement is to be continued, there must be no

further talk of breaking it off on the next occasion that you happen

to have a quarrel with my brother, or to be angry about the mortgages

on this property.”

 

“The only thing that I bargain about your brother is, that I shall not

be asked to see him, or have anything to do with him. He can go to the

deuce in his own way so far as I am concerned, and we can cut him when

we are married—that is, if he becomes bankrupt and the rest of it. I

am sorry if I have behaved badly, Ellen; but really and truly I do

mean what I say about our engagement, and I tell you what, I will go

home and put it on paper if you like, and bring you the letter this

afternoon.”

 

“That is as you like, Edward,” she answered, with a perceptible

softening of her manner. “But after what has happened, you may think

yourself fortunate that I ever consent to see you again.”

 

Edward attempted no reply, at least in words, for he was crushed; but,

bending down, he imprinted a chaste salute upon Ellen’s smooth

forehead, which she acknowledged by touching him frostily on the cheek

with her lips.

 

This, then, is the history of the great quarrel between these lovers,

and of their reconciliation.

 

“Upon my word,” said Ellen to herself, as she watched him depart, “I

am by no means certain that Henry’s obstinacy and violence have not

done be a good turn for once. They have brought things to a crisis,

there has been a struggle, and I have won the day. Whatever happens, I

do not think it likely that Edward will try to match himself against

me again, and I am quite certain that he will never talk any more of

breaking off our engagement.”