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

CHAPTER XXIV

MESSRS. BLACK AND PARKER

 

Joan slept well that night, and woke to find the sunlight streaming in

at her window. Coming down to the sitting-room at a quarter past

seven, she saw that, early as it was, it had been swept and garnished

and the breakfast laid.

 

“Good morning, my dear!” said Mrs. Bird: “I am glad to see that you

are an early riser. I suppose it is a habit which you bring with you

from the country. It was not so with the late accountant, who would

never breakfast till nine if he could help it, and on Sundays not till

ten; but I think that an affection of the liver from which he suffered

made him sleepy. And now I am going to have prayers. Maria, come to

prayers.”

 

Maria shuffled in, obedient, and diving into the back room reappeared

wheeling her master before her, who, as he came, smiled sweetly and

waved his hand in greeting to Joan. Mrs. Bird handed two Bibles to her

husband and her daughter, pointing out the passage which was to be

read with her finger, then she gave them each a manual of prayer.

These preparations finished, she began to read the chapter of the

Bible aloud; and it was curious and touching to see the attention with

which her deaf-and-dumb audience followed the words they could not

hear, glancing from time to time at the motions of her lips to make

sure that they were keeping pace with her. When the reading was

finished, she shut the Bible and knelt down—an example that Mr. Bird

could not follow, for his limbs were paralysed. Sally, however, placed

herself near Joan, making it clear to her by signs that she was to

indicate by pointing each sentence as it passed her mother’s lips.

 

Prayers being over—and surely family worship was never carried on

under greater difficulties—breakfast followed, and then the business

of the day began. Mr. Bird carved while Mrs. Bird and her daughter

sewed at gowns that they were making. For a time Joan looked on

helplessly; then, wearying of idleness, asked if she could not do

something.

 

“Can you sew, my dear?” said Mrs. Bird.

 

“Pretty well,” she answered; “but not like you.”

 

“That is scarcely wonderful, considering that I have done nothing else

for more than twenty years; but here are some seams to be run up, if

you have nothing better to do.”

 

Joan took the seams and began to run them; indeed, she “ran” until her

back ached with stooping.

 

“You are getting tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Bird, “as I expected you

would, not being accustomed to the work,” and she peered at her kindly

through her spectacles. “Now you had better rest awhile and talk. What

part of England do you come from?”

 

“From the Eastern counties,” answered Joan.

 

“Dear me! that is strange—quite a coincidence, I declare. I come from

the East coast myself. I was born at Yarmouth, though it is many and

many a year since I have seen a herring boat. You see, my story is a

very simple one. I was an orphan girl, for my dear father was drowned

in an October gale when fishing at sea, and I came to London with a

family as nursemaid. They did not treat me kindly—even now I cannot

say that they did, although I wish to be charitable—for they

discharged me because I was not strong enough to do the work, and if I

had not been taken in out of pity by a widow woman, a dressmaker and

my predecessor in this very house, I do not know what would have

become of me. My husband was her only child, and it was part of my

duty, and indeed of my pleasure, to look after him in his affliction

so far as I was able. Then when his mother died I married him, for I

could not make up my mind to leave him alone, and this of course I

must have done unless I became his wife. So you see, my dear, I took

him on and the business with him, and we have been very happy ever

since—so happy that sometimes I wonder why God is so good to me, who

am full of faults. One sorrow we have had, it is true, though now even

that seems to have become a joy: it was after Sally was born. She was

a beautiful baby, and when for the first time I grew sure that she

would be deaf and dumb also, I cried till I thought my heart would

break, and wished that she might die. Now I see how wicked this was,

and every night I thank Heaven that I was not taken at my word, for

then my heart would have broken indeed.” And the dear little woman’s

eyes filled with tears as, putting her arm round the child’s waist,

she kissed her tenderly.

 

There was something so beautiful in the scene that Joan almost cried

in sympathy, and even Jim, who seemed to understand everything, for

one moment ceased to smile, and having wiped away a tear from his

round blue eye, stretched out his great arms and swept both the mother

and the daughter into a confused embrace.

 

“You say that you are full of faults,” said Joan, turning her head

until the three of them had recovered their composure, “but I think

you are an angel.”

 

“If to tend and care for those whom one loves is to be an angel, I

think that we shall most of us get to heaven,” she answered, shaking

her head; then added, “Oh! you wretched Jim, you have broken my

spectacles—the new ones.”

 

Jim, watching his wife’s lip and the damaged glasses, looked so

comically distressed that Joan burst out laughing, while Sally, seeing

what was the matter, ran to the back room to fetch another pair.

 

“And now, my dear,” Mrs. Bird said presently, “you say that you have

come to London to get work, though why you should want work if you

have plenty of money I do not quite understand. What kind of

employment do you wish to take? For my part I cannot think, for, to be

frank with you, my dear, you seem too much of a lady for most things.”

 

“I thought,” said Joan diffidently, “that I might perhaps get a

situation as one of those girls in shops whom they use to hang cloaks

on for the approval of customers. You see, I am—tall, and I am not

clever enough to teach, so I know nothing else for which I should be

fit.”

 

Mrs. Bird shook her head. “I dare say that you might come by such

employment, my dear, but I tell you at once that I do not approve of

it. I know something of the wickedness of London, and I think that

this sort of occupation puts too many temptations in the way of a

young lady like you, who are so beautiful, and do not seem to have any

home ties to keep your thoughts from them. We are most of us weak,

remember; and flattery, and promises, and grand presents, all of which

would be offered to you, are very nice things.”

 

“I am not afraid of such temptations, Mrs. Bird,” Joan answered, with

a sad confidence that at once attracted the quick little woman’s

attention.

 

“Now, when a person tells me that she is not afraid of a thing,” she

said, glancing at her, “I conclude that she is either totally without

experience and foolhardy, or that, having won the experience and

passed through the fire, she no longer fears a danger which she has

overcome, or–-” and she stopped.

 

This vein of speculative reflection did not seem to recommend itself

to Joan; at any rate she changed the subject.

 

“You have twice called me a lady, Mrs. Bird,” she said, “but I must

tell you that I am nothing of the sort. Who my father was I don’t even

know, though I believe him to have been a gentleman, and my mother was

the daughter of a yeoman farmer.”

 

“Married?” asked Mrs. Bird interrogatively.

 

Joan shook her head.

 

“Ah! I understand,” said Mrs. Bird.

 

“That is partly why I left home,” explained Joan.

 

“Meaning Bradmouth? Don’t look surprised, my dear. I saw the name on

the clergyman’s testimonial, and also on your box.”

 

“Yes, Bradmouth. I lived there with an aunt, and everybody looked down

upon me because of my position.”

 

“That was very wicked of them. But did they begin to look down upon

you all at once, or had you, perhaps, some other reason for coming

away? I suppose your aunt knew that you were coming?”

 

“No, she did not know. We do not get on together, and I thought it

best not to tell her. Also, she wanted me to marry somebody whom I

dislike.”

 

“Because there is somebody else whom you do like, I suppose, my dear.

Well, it is no affair of mine. But if you will not think me

impertinent, where then do you get your money from?”

 

“A gentleman–-”

 

“A gentleman!” exclaimed Mrs. Bird, dropping her work in horror.

 

“Oh! no, not that,” said Joan, blushing; “he is a kind of guardian, a

friend of my father’s, I believe. At any rate he has paid for me all

these years, and says that he will allow me five pounds a month;

though I would rather earn my own living if possible.”

 

“A friend of your father’s? What a strange story! I suppose that he

is not your father, my dear?”

 

“My father!” said Joan, opening her eyes wide in amazement—“Mr.

Levinger my father! Of course not. Why, if he were, would he have

treated me like a stranger all my life?”

 

“It is possible,” said Mrs. Bird drily; “I have