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

and that’s what I am doing on your

account, Joan. And now, if you want to get a note up to Rosham, I will

manage it for you. But perhaps you had better wait and go yourself.”

 

Joan listened to this long address in amazement mingled with scorn. It

would be hard to say which of its qualities disgusted her the

most—its coarseness, its cunning, or its avarice. Above all these,

however, it revolted her to learn that her aunt thought her capable of

conceiving and carrying out so disgraceful a plot. What must the

woman’s mind be like, that she could imagine such evil in others? And

what had she, Joan, ever done, that she should be so misunderstood?

 

“I don’t understand you, aunt; I don’t wish to marry Captain Graves,”

she said simply.

 

“Do you mean to tell me that you ain’t blind gone on him, and that’s

he’s not gone on you, Joan?”

 

“I said that I did not wish to marry him,” she answered, evading the

question. “To marry a girl like me would be the ruin of him.”

 

Mrs. Gillingwater stared at her niece as she lay on the bed before

her; then she burst into a loud laugh.

 

“Oho! you’re a simple one, you are,” she said, pointing her finger at

her. “You’re downright innocent, if ever a girl was, with your hands

folded and your hair hanging about your face, like a half-blown angel,

more fit for a marble monument than for this wicked world. You

couldn’t give anybody a kiss on the quiet, could you? Your lips would

blush themselves off first, wouldn’t they? And as for marrying him if

his ma didn’t like it, that you’d never, never do. I’ll tell you what

it is, Joan: I’m getting a better opinion of you every day; you ain’t

half the fool I thought you, after all. You remember what I said to

you about Samuel, and you think that I’ve got his money in my pocket

and other people’s too perhaps, and that I’m just setting a trap for

you and going to give you away. Well, as a matter of fact I wasn’t

this time, so you might just as well have been open with me. But there

you are, girl: go about your own business in your own fashion. I see

that you can be trusted to look after yourself, and I won’t spoil

sport. I’ve been blind and deaf and dumb before now—yes, blinder than

you think, perhaps, for all your psalm-singing air—and I can be

again. And now I’m off; only I tell you fair I won’t work for nothing,

so don’t you begin to whine about poor relations when once you’re

married, else I may find a way to make it hot for you yet, seeing that

there’s things you mightn’t like spoke of when you’re ‘my lady’ and

respectable.” And with this jocular threat on her lips Mrs.

Gillingwater vanished.

 

When her aunt had gone, Joan drew the sheet over her face as though

she sought to hide herself, and wept in the bitterness of her shame.

She was what she was; but did she deserve to be spoken to like this?

She would rather a hundred times have borne her aunt’s worst violence

than be made the object of her loathly compliments. How much did this

woman know? Surely everything, or she would not dare to address her as

she had done. She had no longer any respect for her, and that must be

the reason of her odious assumption that there was nothing to choose

between them, that they were equal in evil. She would not believe her

when she said that she had no wish to marry Henry—she thought that

the speech was dictated by a low cunning like her own. Well, perhaps

it was fortunate that she did not believe her; for, if she had, what

would have happened?

 

Very soon it became clear to Joan that on this point it would be best

not to undeceive her aunt, since to do so might provoke some terrible

catastrophe of which she could not foresee the consequences. After

further reflection, another thing became clear to her: that she must

vanish from Bradmouth. What was truth and what was falsehood in Mrs.

Gillingwater’s story, she could not say, but obviously it contained an

alloy of fact. There had been some quarrel between Henry and his dying

father, and in that quarrel her name had been mentioned. Strange as it

seemed, it might even be that he had declared an intention of marrying

her. Now that she thought of it, she remembered that he had spoken of

such a thing several times. The idea opened new possibilities to

her—possibilities of a happiness of which she had not dared to dream;

but, to her honour be it said, she never allowed them to take root in

her mind—no, not for a single hour. She knew well what such a

marriage would mean for Henry, and that was enough. She must

disappear; but whither? She had no means and no occupation. Where,

then, could she go?

 

For two or three days she stayed in her room, keeping her aunt as much

at a distance as possible, and pondering on these matters, but without

attaining to any feasible solution of them.

 

On the day of Sir Reginald’s funeral, which Mrs. Gillingwater

attended, and of which she gave a full account, she received Henry’s

message brought to her by the doctor, and returned a general answer to

it. Next morning her uncle Gillingwater, who chanced to be sober,

brought her word that Mr. Levinger had called, and asked that she

would favour him with a visit at Monk’s Lodge so soon as she was about

again. Joan wondered for what possible reason Mr. Levinger could wish

to see her, and her conscience answered that it had to do with Henry.

Well, if he was not her guardian, he took an undefined interest in

her, and it occurred to her that he might be able to help her to

escape from Bradmouth, so for this reason, if for no other, she

determined to comply with his wish.

 

Two days later, accordingly, Joan started for Monk’s Lodge, having

arranged with the local grocer to give her a lift to the house,

whither his van was bound to deliver some parcels; for, after being

laid up, she did not feel equal to walking both ways. About two

o’clock, arrayed in her best grey dress, she went to the grocer’s shop

and waited outside. Presently she heard a shrill voice calling to her

from the stable-yard, that joined the shop, and a red-haired boy poked

his head through the open door.

 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Joan Haste,” said the boy, who was none

other than Willie Hood; “but I’ve been cleaning up the old horse’s bit

in honour of having such a swell as you to drive. Stand clear now;

here we come.” And he led out the van, to which a broken-kneed animal

was harnessed, that evidently had seen better days.

 

“Why, you’re never going to drive me, Willie, are you?” asked Joan in

alarm, for she remembered the tale of that youth’s equestrian efforts.

 

“Yes, I am, though. Don’t you be skeered. I know what you’re thinking

of; but I’ve been grocer’s boy for a month now, and have learned all

about hosses and how to ride and drive them. Come, up you get, unless

you’d rather walk behind.”

 

Thus adjured, Joan did get up, and they started. Soon she perceived

that her fears as to Willie Hood’s powers of driving were not

ill-founded; but, fortunately, the animal that drew them was so

reduced in spirit that it did not greatly matter whether any one was

guiding him or no.

 

“Is he all right again?” said Willie presently, as, leaving the

village, they began to travel along the dusty road that lay like a

ribbon upon the green crest of the cliff.

 

“Do you mean Captain Graves?”

 

“Yes: who else? I saw him as they carried him into the Crown and Mitre

that night. My word! he did look bad, and his trouser was all bloody

too. I never seed any one so bloody before; though, now I come to

think of it, you were bloody also, just like people in a story-book.

That was a bad beginning for you both, they say.”

 

“He is better; but he is not all right,” answered Joan, with a sigh.

Why would every one talk to her about Henry? “Captain Graves is not

here now, you know.”

 

“No; he’s up at the Hall. And the old Squire is dead and buried. I

went to see his funeral, I did. It was a grand sight—such lots of

carriages, and such a beautiful polished coffin, with a brass cross

and a plate with red letters on it. I’d like to be buried like that

myself some day.”

 

Joan smiled, but made no answer; and there was silence for a little

time, while Willie thrashed the horse till his face was the colour of

his hair.

 

“I say, Joan,” he said, when at last that long-suffering animal broke

into a shuffling trot, which caused the dust to rise in clouds, “is it

true that you are going to marry him?”

 

“Marry Sir Henry Graves! Of course not. What put that idea into your

head, you silly boy?”

 

“I don’t know; it’s what folks say, that’s all. At least, they say

that if you don’t you ought to—though I don’t rightly understand what

they mean by that, unless it is that you are pretty enough to marry

anybody, which I can see for myself.”

 

Joan blushed crimson, and then turned pale as the dust.

 

“No need to pink up because I pay you a compliment, Joan,” said Willie

complacently.

 

“Folks say?” she gasped. “Who are the folks that say such things?”

 

“Everybody mostly—mother for one. But she says that you’re like to

find yourself left on the sand with the tide going out, like a dogfish

that’s been too greedy after sprats, for all that you think yourself

so clever, and are so stuck-up about your looks. But then mother never

did like a pretty girl, and I don’t pay no attention to her—not a

mite; and if I was you, Joan, I’d just marry him to spite them.”

 

“Look here, Willie,” answered Joan, who by now was almost beside

herself: “if you say another word about me and Sir Henry Graves, I’ll

get out and walk.”

 

“Well, I dare say the old horse would thank you if you did. But I

don’t see why you should take on so just because I’ve been answering

your questions. I expect it’s all true, and that you do want to marry

him, or else you’re left on the beach like the dogfish. But if you

are, it’s no reason why you should be cross with me.”

 

“I’m not cross, Willie, I am not indeed; but you don’t understand that

I can’t bear this kind of gossip.”

 

“Then you’d better get out of Bradmouth as fast as you can, Joan, for

you’ll have lots of it to bear there, I can tell you. Why, I’m

downright sick of it myself,” answered the merciless Willie. Then he

lapsed into a dignified silence, that for the rest of the journey was

only broken by his exhortations to the sweating horse, and the sound

of the whacks which he rained upon its back.

 

At length they reached Monk’s Lodge, and drove round to the

side-entrance, where Joan got down hurriedly and walked to the

servants’ door.