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

him, which

she did very courteously, and with more self-possession than might

have been expected of her. It struck Henry, as he stood by the window

and chatted to her on indifferent subjects in the pearly light of the

September evening, that he had never seen her look so charming.

Perhaps it was that her secret troubles had added dignity to her

delicate face and form, or that the dress she wore became her, or that

the old-fashioned surroundings of the place among which she had grown

up, and that doubtless had exercised their influence upon her

character, seemed to combine with and to set off her quaint and

somewhat formal grace of mien and movement. At least it seemed to him

that she was almost beautiful that night, not with the rich and human

loveliness of a woman like Joan, but in a certain spiritual fashion

which was peculiar to her.

 

Presently they went in to dinner. It was a pleasant meal enough, and

Henry enjoyed the change from the cold-looking Rosham dining-room,

with its pillars and its dingy old masters, even more than he had

hoped to do. Here there were no old masters and no marble, but walls

wainscoted with a dado of black oak, and hung with quaint Flemish

pictures painted on panels or on copper, such as are still to be

picked up by the discerning at sales in the Eastern counties. Here

also were no melancholy cedars shutting off the light, but open

windows wreathed about with ivy, through which floated the murmur of

the sea. The dinner was excellent, moreover, as was Mr. Levinger’s

champagne; and by the time that they reached the dessert Henry found

himself in a better mood than he had known for many a long week.

 

Abandoning his reserve, he fell into some harmless snare that was set

by his host, and began to speak of himself and his experiences—a

thing that he very rarely did. Though for the most part he was a

somewhat silent man, and at his best could not be called a brilliant

conversationalist, Henry could talk well when he chose, in a certain

plain and forcible manner that attracted by its complete absence of

exaggeration or of straining after effect. He told them tales of wars

in Ashantee and Egypt; he described to them a great hurricane off the

coast of Madagascar, when the captain and first lieutenant of the ship

in which he was serving were swept overboard by a single sea, leaving

him in command of her; and several other adventures, such as befall

Englishmen who for twenty years or more have served their country in

every quarter of the globe. By now the coffee and cigarettes had been

brought in; but Emma did not leave the room—indeed, it was not her

custom to do so, and the presence of a guest at Monk’s Lodge was so

rare an event that it never occurred to her to vary it. She sat, her

face hidden in the shadow, listening with wide-opened eyes to Henry’s

“moving accidents by flood and field”; and yet she grew sad as she

listened, feeling that his talk was inspired by a vain regret which

was almost pitiful. He was speaking as old men speak of their past, of

events that are gone by, of things in which they have no longer any

share.

 

Evidently Mr. Levinger felt this also, for he said, “It is

unfortunate, Graves, that prospects like yours should have been

snapped short. What do you mean to do with yourself now?”

 

“Yes,” answered Henry, “it is very unfortunate; but these things will

happen. As for the future it must look after itself. Ninety-nine naval

officers out of a hundred have no future. They live—or rather

starve—upon their half-pay in some remote village, and become

churchwardens—that is, if they do not quarrel with the parson.”

 

“I hope that you will do something more than this,” said Mr. Levinger.

“I look forward to seeing you member for our division if I live long

enough. You might do more good for the Navy in the house than ever you

could have done at sea.”

 

“That’s just what a man told me at the Admiralty, and I think I

answered him that I preferred a command at sea. Not but that I should

like the other thing very well, if it came in my way. However, as both

careers are as much beyond my reach as the moon, it is no use talking

of them, is it?”

 

“I don’t agree with you—I don’t agree at all. You will be a great

authority yet. And now let us go into the other room.”

 

So they went into the drawing-room, where Emma sang a little, sweetly

enough; and after she had bidden them good-night they adjourned to the

study to smoke and drink weak whiskies-and-sodas. Here Mr. Levinger

was the talker and Henry the listener, and it seemed to the latter

that he had rarely met a man with so much knowledge and power of

observation, or one who could bring these to bear in a more

interesting manner upon whatever subject he chanced to be discussing.

His intellect was keen, his knowledge of life and men large and

varied, and he seemed to know every book worth reading, and, what is

more, to remember its contents.

 

Thus Henry’s first evening at Monk’s Lodge passed very pleasantly, and

as his visit began so it went on and ended. In the daytime he would

take his gun, and accompanied by Mr. Levinger on a pony and by an old

man, half bailiff and half gamekeeper, would limp through the bracken

in search of partridges and rabbits, an occupation in which he took

great delight, although he was still too lame to follow it for long at

a time.

 

Failing the shooting, his host organised some expedition to visit a

distant church or earthwork, and accompanied by Emma they drove for

hours through the mellow September afternoon. Or sometimes they sat

upon the beach beneath the cliff, chatting idly on everything under

heaven; or, if it chanced to rain, they would take refuge in the study

and examine Mr. Levinger’s collection of coins, ancient weapons and

other antiquities.

 

Then at last arrived the dinner-hour, and another delightful evening

would be added to the number of those that had gone. Before he had

been in the house a week, Henry felt a different man; indeed, had any

one told him, when he came to Monk’s Lodge, that he was about to enjoy

himself so much, he would not have believed it. He could see also that

both Mr. Levinger and his daughter were glad that he should be there.

At first Emma was a little stiff in her manner towards him, but by

degrees this wore off, and he found himself day by day growing more

friendly with her.

 

The better they became acquainted, the greater grew their mutual

liking, and the more complete their understanding of each other. There

was now no question of love-making or even of flirtation between them;

their footing was one of friendship, and both of them were glad that

it should be so. Soon the sharpest sting of Emma’s shame passed away,

since she could not believe that the man who greeted her with such

open fellowship had learned the confession which broke from her on

that night of her despair, for if it were so, surely he would look

down upon her and show it in his manner. Taking this for granted, in

some dim and illogical fashion she was grateful to him for not having

heard; or if by any chance he had heard, as she was bound to admit was

possible, still more was she grateful in that he dissembled his

knowledge so completely as to enable her to salve her pride with the

thought that he was ignorant. Indeed, in this event, so deeply did she

feel upon the point, she was prepared in her own mind to forgive any

sins of omission or commission with which he stood charged, setting

against them the generosity of his conduct in this particular. Of the

future Emma did not think; she was content to live in the present, and

to feel that she had never been so happy before. Neither did she think

of the past, with its disquieting tales of Joan Haste, and its

horrible suggestions that Henry was bring driven into marriage with

herself for pecuniary reasons. If a day should ever come when he

proposed to her, then it would be time enough to take all these

matters into consideration, and to decide whether she should please

her pride and do violence to her heart, or sacrifice her pride and

satisfy her heart. There was no need to come to a decision now, for

she could see well that, whatever might be his thoughts with reference

to her, Henry had no immediate intention of asking her to be his wife.

 

Although of course he could not follow all the secret workings of

Emma’s mind, Henry grasped the outlines of the situation accurately

enough. He knew that this was a time of truce, and that by a tacit

agreement all burning questions were postponed to a more convenient

season. Mr. Levinger said no word to him of his daughter, of Joan

Haste, or even of the financial affairs connected with the Rosham

mortgages, for all these subjects were tabooed under the conditions of

their armistice. Tormented as he had been, and as he must shortly be

again, he also was deeply grateful for this indulgence, and more than

content to forget the past and let the future take care of itself. One

thing grew clear to him, however; indeed, before he left Monk’s Lodge

he admitted it to himself in so many words: it was, that had there

been no Joan Haste and no mortgages in the question, he would

certainly ask Emma Levinger to be his wife.

 

The more he saw of this lady, the more attached he grew to her. She

attracted him in a hundred ways—by her gentleness, her delicacy of

thought, her ever-present sympathy with distress and with all that was

good and noble, and by the quaintness and culture of her mind. For

these and many other reasons he could imagine no woman whom he should

prefer to marry were he fortunate enough to win her. But always when

he thought of it two spectres seemed to rise and stand before him—one

of Joan, passionate, lovely and loving, and the other shaped like a

roll of parchment and labelled “Mortgages, Sixty thousand pounds!”

 

At length the ten days of his stay came to an end, and upon a certain

morning the old Rosham coachman appeared at the door of Monk’s Lodge

to drive him home again.

 

“I don’t know how to thank you, Levinger,” he said, “for your kindness

and hospitality to me here. I have not had such a good time for many a

long day. It has been a rest to me, and I have come to the conclusion

that rest is the best thing in the whole world. Now I must go back to

face my anxieties.”

 

“Meaning the eleventh of October?” said Mr. Levinger.

 

“Yes, meaning the eleventh of October and other things. I am sure I do

not know what on earth I am to do about those farms. But I won’t begin

to bore you with business now. Good-bye, and again, many thanks.”

 

“Good-bye, Graves, and don’t fret. I dare say that something will turn

up. My experience is that something generally does turn up—that is to

say, when one is the right side of forty.”

 

“Oh, Sir Henry!” said Emma, appearing at the door of the drawing-room,

“will you take a note