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

not know where

to go. My name is Joan Haste.”

 

“Perhaps I can, and perhaps I can’t,” said Mrs. Bird. “It depends.

Yours is a very strange story, and I am not sure that I believe it. It

is not usual for beautiful young women like you to wander to London in

this kind of way—that is, if they are respectable. How am I to know

that you are respectable? That you look respectable does not prove you

to be so. Do your friends know that you have come here, or have you

perhaps run away from home?”

 

“I hope that I am respectable,” answered Joan meekly; “and some of my

friends know about my coming.”

 

“Then they should have made better arrangements for you. That house to

which you were going was not respectable; it is a mercy that it was

shut up.”

 

“Not respectable!” said Joan. “Surely Mr. Levinger could never have

been so wicked,” she added to herself.

 

“No: it used to be a while ago—then there were none but very decent

people there; but recently the woman, Mrs. Thomas, took to drink, and

that was why she was sold up.”

 

“Indeed,” said Joan; “I suppose that my friend did not know. I fancy

it is some years since he was acquainted with the house.”

 

“Your friend! What sort of friend?” said Mrs. Bird suspiciously.

 

“Well, he is a kind of guardian of mine.”

 

“Then he ought to have known better than to have sent you to a house

without making further inquiries. This world is a changeable place,

but nothing changes in it more quickly than lodging-houses, at any

rate in Kent Street.”

 

“So it seems,” answered Joan sadly; “but now, what am I to do?”

 

“I don’t know, Miss Haste—I think you said Haste was your name;

although,” she added nervously, sweeping off her lap some crumbs of

the bread and butter that she had been eating, “if I was quite sure

that you are respectable I might be able to make a suggestion.”

 

“What suggestion, Mrs. Bird?”

 

“Well, I have two rooms to let here. My last lodger, a most estimable

man, and a very clever one too—he was an accountant, my dear—died in

them a fortnight ago, and was carried out last Friday; but then, you

see, it is not everybody that would suit me as a tenant, and there are

many people whom I might not suit. There are three questions to be

considered; the question of character, the question of rent, and the

question of surroundings. Now, as to the question of character–-”

 

“I have a certificate,” broke in Joan mildly, as she produced a

document that she had procured from Mr. Biggen, the clergyman at

Bradmouth. Mrs. Bird put on a pair of spectacles and perused it

carefully.

 

“Satisfactory,” she said, “very satisfactory, presuming it to be

genuine; though, mind you, I have known even clergymen to be deceived.

Now, would you like to see my references?”

 

“No, thank you, not at all,” said Joan. “I am quite sure that you

are respectable.”

 

“How can you be sure of anything of the sort? Well, we will pass over

that and come to the rent. My notion of rent for the double furnished

room on the first floor, including breakfast, coals, and all extras,

is eight shillings and sixpence a week. The late accountant used to

pay ten-and-six, but for a woman I take off two shillings; not but

what I think, from the look of you, that you would eat more breakfast

than the late accountant did.”

 

“That seems very reasonable,” said Joan. “I should be very glad to pay

that.”

 

“Yes, my dear, you might be very glad to pay it, but you will excuse

me for saying that the desire does not prove the ability. How am I to

know that you would pay?”

 

“I have plenty of money,” answered Joan wearily; “I can give you a

month’s rent in advance, if you like.”

 

“Plenty of money!” said the little woman, holding up her hands in

amazement, “and that very striking appearance! And yet you wander

about the world in this fashion! Really, my dear, I do not know what

to make of you.”

 

“For the matter of that, Mrs. Bird, I do not quite know what to make

of myself. But shall we get on with the business?—because, you see,

if we do not come to an agreement, I must search elsewhere. What was

it you said about surroundings?”

 

“That reminds me,” answered Mrs. Bird; “before I go a step further I

must consult my two babies. Now, do you move your chair a little, and

sit so. Thank you, that will do.” And she trotted off through some

folding doors, one of which she left carefully ajar.

 

Joan could not in the least understand what this odd little person was

driving at, nor who her two babies might be, so she sat still and

waited. Presently, from the other side of the door, there came a sound

as though several people were clapping their hands and snapping their

fingers. A pause followed, and the door was pushed a little farther

open, apparently that those on the farther side might look into the

room where she was sitting. Then there was more clapping and snapping,

and presently Mrs. Bird re-entered with a smile upon her kind little

face.

 

“They like you, my dear,” she said, nodding her head—“both of them.

Indeed, Sal says that she would much prefer you as a lodger to the

late accountant.”

 

“They? Who?” asked Joan.

 

“Well, my dear, when I spoke of surroundings you may have guessed that

mine were peculiar; and so they are—very peculiar, though harmless.

The people in the next room are my husband and my daughter; he is

paralytic, and they are both of them deaf and dumb.”

 

“Oh, how sad!” said Joan.

 

“Yes, it is sad; but it might have been much sadder, for I assure you

they are not at all unhappy. Now, if I had not married Jim it would

have been otherwise, for then he must have gone to the workhouse, or

at the best into a home, and of course there would have been no Sal to

love us both. But come in, and you shall be introduced to them.” And

Mrs. Bird lit a candle and led the way into the small dark room.

 

Here Joan saw a curious sight. Seated in an armchair, his withered

legs supported on a footstool, was an enormous man of about forty,

with flaxen hair and beard, mild blue eyes, and a face like an

infant’s, that wore a perpetual smile. Sometimes the smile was more

and sometimes it was less, but it was always there. Standing by his

side was a sweet and delicate-faced little girl of about twelve; her

eyes also were blue and her hair flaxen, but her face was alight with

so much fire and intelligence that Joan found it hard to believe that

she could be deaf and dumb. Mrs. Bird pointed to her, and struck her

hands together this way and that so swiftly that Joan could scarcely

follow their movements, whereon the two of them nodded vigorously in

answer, and Sal, advancing, held out her hand in greeting. Joan shook

it, and was led by her to where Mr. Bird was sitting, with his arm

also outstretched.

 

“There, my dear—now you are introduced,” said Mrs. Bird. “This is my

family. I have supported them for many many years, thanks be to God;

and I hope that I have managed that, if I should die before them,

there will be no need for them to go to the workhouse; so you see I

have much to be grateful for. Though they are deaf and dumb, you must

not think them stupid, for they can do lots of things—read and write

and carve. Oh, we are a very happy family, I can assure you; though at

times I want somebody to talk to, and that is one of the reasons why I

like to have a lodger—not that the late accountant was much use in

that respect, for he was a very gloomy man, though right-thinking. And

now that you have seen the surroundings, do you think that you would

wish to stay here for a week on trial?”

 

“I should like nothing better,” answered Joan.

 

“Very well, then. Will you come upstairs and see your rooms and wash

your hands for supper? I will call the girl, Maria, to help you carry

up the box.”

 

Presently Maria arrived. She was a strong, awkward-looking damsel of

fifteen, “a workinghouse girl,” Mrs. Bird explained, but, like

everything else in that house, scrupulously clean in appearance. With

her assistance the box was dragged upon the narrow stairs, and Joan

found herself in the apartments of the late accountant. They were neat

little rooms, separated from each other by double doors, and furnished

with a horsehair sofa, a round deal table with a stained top, and some

old chairs with curly backs and rep-covered seats.

 

“They look a little untidy,” said Mrs. Bird, eyeing these chairs; “but

the fact is that the late accountant was a careless man, and often

upset his coffee over them. However, I will run you up some chintz

covers in no time, and for the sofa too if you like. And now do you

think that the rooms will do? You see here is a good cupboard and a

chest of drawers.”

 

“Very nicely, thank you,” answered Joan. “I never expected a

sitting-room all to myself.”

 

“I am glad that you are pleased. And now I will leave you. Supper

will be ready in half an hour—fried eggs and bacon and bread and

butter. But if you like anything else I dare say that I can get it for

you.”

 

Joan hastened to assure her that eggs and bacon were her favourite

food; and, having satisfied herself that there was water in the jug

and a clean towel, Mrs. Bird departed, leaving her to unpack. Half an

hour later Joan went down and partook of the eggs and bacon. It was an

odd meal, with a deaf-and-dumb child pouring out the tea, a

deaf-and-dumb giant smiling at her perpetually across the table, and

her little hostess attending to them all, and keeping up a double fire

of conversation, one with her lips for Joan’s benefit, and one with

her head and hands for that of her two “babies.”

 

After supper the things were cleared away; and having first inquired

whether Joan objected to the smell of smoke, Mrs. Bird filled a large

china pipe for her husband, and brought him some queer-shaped tools,

with which he began to carve the head of a walking-stick.

 

“I told you that he was very clever,” she said; “do you know, he

sometimes makes as much as four shillings a week. He gives me the

money, and thinks that I spend it, but I don’t; not a farthing. I put

it all into the Savings Bank for him and Sally. There is nearly forty

pounds there on that account alone. There, do you know what he is

saying?”

 

Joan shook her head.

 

“He says that he is going to carve a likeness of you. He thinks that

you have a beautiful head for a walking-stick. Oh! don’t be afraid; he

will do it capitally. Look, here is the late accountant. I keep it in

memory of him,” and Mrs. Bird produced a holly stick, on the knob of

which appeared a dismal, but most lifelike, countenance.

 

“He wasn’t very handsome,” said Joan.

 

“No, he wasn’t handsome—only right-thinking;