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

CHAPTER XX

“LET IT REMAIN OPEN”

 

Outside the door of Monk’s Lodge, Joan met Emma returning from a walk.

As usual she was dressed in white, and, to Joan’s fancy, looked pure

as a wild anemone in the April sun, and almost as frail. She would

have passed her with a little salutation that was half bow, half

curtsey, but Emma held out her hand.

 

“How do you do, Miss Haste?” she said, with a slight nervous tremor in

her voice. “I did not know that you were up here,” and she stopped;

but her look seemed to add, “And I wonder why you have come.”

 

“I am going to leave Bradmouth, and I came to say good-bye to Mr.

Levinger, who has always been very kind to me,” Joan replied, with

characteristic openness, answering the look and not the words. She

felt that, in the circumstances, it was best that she should be open

with Miss Levinger.

 

Emma looked surprised. “I was not aware that you were going,” she

said; but again Joan felt that what astonished her was not the news of

her approaching departure, but the discovery that she was on intimate

terms with her father. She was right. Emma remembered that he had

spoken disparagingly of this girl, and as though he knew nothing about

her. It seemed curious, then, that he should have been “very kind” to

her, and that she should come to bid him good-bye. Here was another of

those mysteries with which her father’s life seemed to be surrounded,

and which so frequently made her feel uncomfortable and afraid of she

knew not what. “Won’t you come in and have some tea?” Emma asked

kindly.

 

“No, thank you, miss; I have to walk home, and I must not stay any

longer.”

 

“It is a long way, and you look tired. Let me order the dogcart for

you.”

 

“Indeed no, thank you. I haven’t been very well—that is why I am

paler than usual. But I am quite strong again now,” and Joan made a

movement as though to start on her walk.

 

“If you will allow me, I will come a little way with you,” said Emma

timidly.

 

“I shall be very pleased, miss.”

 

The two girls turned, and, for a while, walked side by side in

silence, each of them wondering about the other and the man who was

dear to both.

 

“Are you going to be a nurse?” asked Emma at length.

 

“Oh no! What made you think that?”

 

“Because you nursed Captain—I mean Sir Henry—Graves so wonderfully,”

Emma answered, colouring. “Dr. Childs told me he believed that you

saved his life.”

 

“Then I have done something in the world,” said Joan, with a little

laugh; “but it is the first that I have heard of it.”

 

“Really! Haven’t they thanked you?”

 

“Somebody offered to pay me, if you mean that, miss.”

 

“No, no; I didn’t mean it. I meant that we are all grateful to you, so

very grateful—at least, his family are. Then what do you intend to do

when you go away?” she asked, changing the subject suddenly.

 

“I don’t know, miss. Earn my living as best I can—as a shop girl,

probably.”

 

“It seems rather terrible starting by oneself out into the unknown,

like this. Does it not frighten you?”

 

“Perhaps it does,” answered Joan; “but beggars cannot be choosers. I

can’t stop here, where I have nothing to do; and, you see, I am alone

in the world.”

 

Emma understood the allusion, and said hastily:

 

“I am very sorry for you—I am indeed, if you won’t be angry with me

for saying so. It is cruel that you should have to suffer like this

for no fault of your own. It would kill me if I found myself in the

same position—yes, I am sure that it would.”

 

“Luckily, or unluckily, it doesn’t kill me, miss, though sometimes it

is hard enough to bear. You see that the burden is laid upon the

broadest back, and I can carry what would crush you. Still, I thank

you for your sympathy and the kind thought which made you speak it. I

have very few memories of that sort, and I shall never forget this

one.”

 

For another five minutes or so they went on without speaking, since

their fount of conversation seemed to have dried up. At length,

beginning to feel the silence irksome, Emma stopped and held out her

hand, saying that she would now return.

 

“Would you listen to a word or two from me before you go, miss? And

would you promise not to repeat it—no, not to Mr. Levinger even?”

said Joan suddenly.

 

“Certainly, if you wish it. What is it about?”

 

“About you and myself and another person. Miss Levinger, I am going

away from here—I believe for good—and I think it likely that we

shall not meet again. When I am gone you will hear all sorts of tales

about me and Sir Henry.”

 

“Really—really!” said Emma, in some distress.

 

“Listen to me, miss: there is nothing very dreadful, and I speak for

your own good. While all this sickness was on I learned something—I

learned that you are fond of Sir Henry, never mind how–-”

 

“I know how,” murmured Emma. “Oh! did you tell him?”

 

“I told him nothing; indeed, I had nothing to tell. I saw you faint,

and guessed the rest. What I want to ask you is this: that you will

believe no stories which may be told against Sir Henry, for he is

quite blameless. Now I have only one thing more to say, and it is,

that I have watched him and known him well; and, if you do not cling

to him through good and through evil, you will be foolish indeed, for

there is no better man, and you will never find such another for a

husband. I wish that it may all come about, and that you may be happy

with him through a long life, Miss Levinger.”

 

Emma heard, and, though vaguely as yet, understood all the nobility

and self-sacrifice of her rival. She also loved this man, and she

renounced him for the sake of his own welfare. Otherwise she would

never have spoken thus.

 

“I do not know what to answer you,” she said. “I do not deny it is

true that I am attached to Sir Henry, though I have no right to be.

What am I to answer you?”

 

“Nothing, except this: that under any circumstances you will not

believe a word against him.”

 

“I can promise that, if it pleases you.”

 

“It does please me; for, wherever I am, I should like to think of you

and him as married and happy, for I know that he will make you a good

husband, as you will make him a good wife. And now again, good-bye.”

 

Emma looked at Joan and tried to speak, but could find no words; then

suddenly she put out her arms and attempted to kiss her.

 

“No,” said Joan, holding her back; “do not kiss me, but remember what

I have said, and think kindly of me if you can.”

 

Then she walked away swiftly, without looking back, leaving Emma

standing bewildered upon the road.

 

“I have done it now,” thought Joan to herself—“for good or evil I

have done it, though I don’t quite know what made me speak like that.

She will understand now: some women might not take it well, but I

think that she will, because she wants to. Oh! if I had known all that

was at stake, I’d have acted very differently. I thought that I could

only harm myself, but it seems I may ruin him, and that I’ll never do;

I’d rather make away with myself. I suppose that we cannot sin against

ourselves alone; the innocent must suffer with the guilty, that’s the

truth of it, as I suffer to-day because my father and mother were

guilty more than twenty years ago. Still, it is hard—very hard—to

have to go away and give him up to her; to have to humble myself

before her, and to tell lies to her father, when I know that if it

wasn’t for my being nobody’s child, and not fit to marry an honest

man, and for this wretched money, I could be the best wife to him that

ever he could have. Yes, and make him love me too, though I am almost

sure that he does not really love me now. Well, she has the name and

the fortune, and will do as well, I dare say; and some must dig

thistles while others pluck flowers. Still, it is cruel hard, and,

though I am afraid to die, I wish that I were dead, I do—I do!”

 

Then the poor girl began to sob as she walked, and, thus sobbing and

furtively wiping away the tears that would run from her eyes, she

crept back to the inn in the twilight, thoroughly weary and broken in

spirit.

 

When Emma reached Monk’s Lodge she found her father leaning over the

front gate, as though he were waiting for her.

 

“Where have you been, love?” he said, in that tone of tenderness which

he always adopted when speaking to his daughter. “I thought that I saw

you on the road with somebody, and began to wonder why you were so

late.”

 

“I have been walking with Joan Haste,” she answered absently.

 

“Why have you been walking with her?” he asked, in a quick and

suspicious