Joan Haste - H. Rider Haggard (fiction books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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but her illness, if things go well with her, is likely to be a
long one, and if they don’t, then there will be her funeral
expenses to meet, for I suppose that you would wish to have her
buried decent in a private grave. Joan told me that there is some
one who is a kind of guardian to her and supplies her with money,
so if you can do nothing yourself, perhaps you will send him this
letter, as I can’t write to him not knowing his address. Madam, I
do hope that even if you have quarrelled with Joan, or if she
hasn’t behaved right to you, that you will not desert her now in
her trouble, seeing that if you do and she dies, you may come to
be sorry for it in after years. Trusting to hear from you,
“Believe me, Madam,
“Obediently yours,
“Jane Bird, Dressmaker.
“P.S.—I enclose my card, and you will find my name in the London
Directory.”
When she had finished this letter, and addressed it thus,
“Mrs. Gillingwater,
“Bradmouth,
“Please deliver at once,”
Mrs. Bird posted it with her own hands in the pillar-box at the corner
of Kent Street.
Then she returned to the house and sat down to reflect as to whether
or not she should write another letter—namely, to the Mr. Henry
Graves of Rosham, who, according to Joan’s story, was the author of
her trouble, enclosing in it the epistle which the girl had composed
at the commencement of her delirium. Finally she decided not to do so
at present, out of no consideration for the feelings of this wicked
and perfidious man, but because she could not see that it would serve
any useful purpose. If Joan’s relations did not come forward, then it
would be time enough to appeal to him for the money to nurse or to
bury her. Or even if they did come forward, then she might still
appeal to him—that is, if Joan recovered—to save her from the
results of his evil doings and her folly by making her his wife. Until
these issues were decided one way or another, it seemed to Mrs. Bird,
who did not lack shrewdness and a certain knowledge of the world, that
it would be wisest to keep silent, more especially in view of the fact
that, as the doctor had pointed out, the whole tale might be the
imagining of a mind diseased.
And here it may be convenient to say that some weeks went by before it
was known for certain whether Joan would die or live. Once or twice
she was in considerable if not in imminent danger; moreover, after
periods of distinct improvement, she twice suffered from relapses. But
in the end her own splendid constitution and youth, aided by the care
and skill with which she was nursed, pulled her through triumphantly.
When her return to life and health was assured, Mrs. Bird again
considered the question of the advisability of communicating with
Henry in the interests of her patient.
LUCK AT LAST
On the morning after the posting of Mrs. Bird’s letter, Mrs.
Gillingwater was sitting at breakfast in the parlour of the Crown and
Mitre, in no happy frame of mind. Things had gone very ill with her
since Joan disappeared, some months previously. To begin with, the
ample allowance that Mr. Levinger had been in the habit of paying for
his ward’s support no longer found its way into her pocket, and the
sums received from that quarter were now inconsiderable, amounting
indeed to a remission of rent only. Then, try as she would, she could
not extract another farthing from Samuel Rock, who, in fact, had shown
the very nastiest temper when she ventured to ask him for a trifle,
having gone so far as to allege that she had been playing a double
game with him as to Joan, and was concealing from him the secret of
that young lady’s whereabouts.
“Look here, mum,” he had said in conclusion, “if you want money you
must give value, do you understand? At present you have had lots of
money out of me, but I have had precious little value out of you. On
the day that you tell me Joan’s true address, there will be
five-and-twenty sovereigns to go into your pocket. Look, I keep them
ready,”—and going to a drawer he unlocked it and showed her the gold,
at which Mrs. Gillingwater glared avariciously. “Yes, and on the day
that I marry her there’ll be fifty more to follow. Don’t you be afraid
but what I can afford it and will keep my word. But till I get that
address you sha’n’t have a sixpence—no, not if it was to save you
from the poorhouse.”
“I tell you, Mr. Rock, that I have no more notion where she has
flitted to than a babe unborn. If any one knows, it’s old Levinger or
Sir Henry.”
“And if they know, they keep their mouths shut,” said Samuel. “Well,
ma’am, you have got my answer, so now I will wish you good morning.
When you can let me have that address I shall be glad to see you, but
till then perhaps you’ll keep clear, as it don’t look well for a
married woman to be always hanging about my house.”
“Any one with a grain of sense in his head might be pretty certain
that she wasn’t hanging after an oily-tongued half-bred saint like
you,” retorted Mrs. Gillingwater furiously. “I don’t wonder that Joan
never could abide you, that I don’t, with your sneaking, shuffling
ways, and your eye cocked round the corner. She hates the sight of
you, and that’s why she’s run away. She hates you as much as she loves
Sir Henry, and small blame to her: ay, you may turn green with
jealousy if you like, but it’s true for all that. She’d rather run a
mile barefoot to kiss his little finger than she would be carried in a
coach-and-four to marry you. So there, you put that in your pipe and
smoke it, Mr. Rock!” And she retired, slamming the office and kitchen
doors behind her.
When her just wrath against Samuel had subsided, Mrs. Gillingwater
considered the position, and since she must get money by hook or by
crook, she determined to renew her attack upon Henry, this time by
letter. Accordingly she wrote a long and rambling epistle, wherein
among other things she accused him of the abduction of her niece,
mildly suggesting even that he had murdered her in order to hide his
misdeeds. The letter ended with a threat that she would publish his
true “karacter” from one end of the county to the other unless the sum
of ten pounds was immediately forthcoming. In a few days the answer
came; but on opening it Mrs. Gillingwater discovered, to her disgust
and dismay, that it was from a firm of lawyers, who informed her in
the most pointed language that if any further attempt was made to
blackmail their client she would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour
of the law.
All this was bad enough, yet it was but a beginning of troubles. Since
Joan’s departure Mr. Gillingwater had been drunk at least twice as
often as usual—as he declared in his sober moments, and with some
truth, in order to console himself for the loss of Joan, who was the
one human creature to whom he was attached. One of these drinking
bouts culminated in his making a furious attack, in the bar of the
Crown and Mitre, upon a customer who was also drunk. For this assault
he was fined at the petty sessions; and on the matter coming before
the bench on licensing day, his license to keep a public-house, that
already had been twice endorsed by the police, was taken away from
him—which meant, of course, that the Crown and Mitre was closed as a
place of refreshment for man and beast so long as the landlord, Mr.
Levinger, chose to allow him to occupy it.
No wonder, then, that on this morning of the receipt of Mrs. Bird’s
letter Mrs. Gillingwater was depressed in mind as she sat drinking her
tea and trying to master an invitation from no less a person than
“Victoria, by the grace of God, etc.,” to attend a county court and
show cause why she should not pay a certain sum of four pounds three
and ninepence halfpenny, with costs, for various necessaries of life
bought by and duly delivered to her, the said defendant.
Hearing a knock at the door, Mrs. Gillingwater threw down the summons
with an expression that was more forcible than polite—having
reference, indeed, to the temporal and spiritual welfare of her august
sovereign and of all those who administer justice under her. Then,
having looked carefully through the window to make sure that her
visitor was not another bailiff or policeman, she opened the door and
took her letter.
“I don’t know the writing,” she muttered, turning it round and round
suspiciously. “It may be another of those dratted summonses, or
something of that sort; I’ve half a mind to throw it into the fire and
swear that I never got it, only then that fool of a postman would give
me the lie, for I took it from him myself.”
In the end she opened the letter and spelt through its contents with
difficulty and ever growing astonishment.
“Well,” she said, as she put it down, “here’s some luck at last,
anyway. If that silly girl doesn’t go and die it will be hard if I
don’t turn an honest penny out of her, now that I know where she’s got
to. Samuel would pay up to learn, but it’s best to let him lie awhile,
for I can work more out of him when she gets well again—if she does.
I’m off up to the old man’s, for that’s the safest game: he’ll
scarcely bow me out with this in my hand; and if I don’t give him a
nip or two before I am done with him, the mean old scamp, then my
fingers grow on my feet, that’s all!” For be it known that on two
recent occasions when Mrs. Gillingwater called, Mr. Levinger had
declared himself not to be at home, and this when she could plainly
see him standing by the study window.
Reaching Monk’s Lodge in due course, Mrs. Gillingwater, who was not
afflicted with Joan’s humility, went to the front door and rang the
bell boldly. Its sound disturbed Mr. Levinger from his reading, and he
stepped to the window to perceive her standing on the doorstep, red
and hot from her walk, and looking, as he thought, unusually large,
coarse and violent.
“There is that dreadful woman again,” he said to himself. “I can’t
bear the sight of her. I wonder now if, had she lived, poor Mary would
have looked like her by this time. Perhaps,” and he sighed; then,
opening the door, told the servant to say that he was not at home.
She obeyed, and presently there arose sounds of altercation. “It ain’t
no use, you impudent barefaced thing, for you to stand there a-lying
your soul away, when I saw him with my own eyes,” shrilled the rough
voice of Mrs. Gillingwater.
“Not at home: them’s my orders,” answered the girl with warmth, as she
attempted to shut the door.
“No, you don’t, hussy!” retorted the visitor, thrusting her foot
between it and the jamb. “I’ve got some orders for you too. You go to
your master and tell him that I must see him, about Joan Haste, and if
he won’t let me
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