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

of dogs are tied up, for I expect he’s out,”

Mrs. Gillingwater said to herself; “he’s fond of sneaking about alone

in weather like this.”

 

As the thought passed through her mind, she chanced to glance to her

left, where some twenty paces from her, and beyond the intercepting

bulk of the building, a red sunbeam pierced the shadows like a sword.

There in the centre of this sunbeam stood Samuel Rock himself. He was

wrapped in his long dark cloak that fell to the knees, but his hat lay

on the ground beside him, and his upturned face was set towards the

dying sun in such a fashion that the vivid light struck full upon it,

showing every line of his clear-cut features, every hair of the long

beard that hung from the square protruding chin, and even the motion

of his thin lips, and of the white hands that he moved ceaselessly, as

though he were washing them in the blood-red light.

 

There was something so curious about his aspect that Mrs. Gillingwater

started.

 

“Now what’s he a-doing there?” she wondered: “bless me if I know,

unless he’s saying prayers to his master the devil. I never did see a

man go on like that before, drunk or sober;—he gives me the creeps,

the beast. Look, there he goes sneaking along the wall of the house,

for all the world like a great black snake wriggling to its hole.

Well, he’s in now, so here’s after him, for his money is as good as

anybody else’s, and I must have it.”

 

In another half-minute she was knocking at the door, which was opened

by Samuel.

 

“Who’s that?” he said. “I don’t want no visitors at this time of day.”

 

“It’s me, Mr. Rock—Mrs. Gillingwater.”

 

“Then I want you least of all, you foul-mouthed, lying woman. Get you

gone, or I’ll loose the dogs on you.”

 

“You’d better not,” she answered, “for I’ve something to tell you that

you’d like to hear.”

 

“Something that I’d like to hear,” he answered, hesitating: “is it

about her?”

 

“Yes, it’s about her—all about her.”

 

“Come in,” he said.

 

She entered, and he shut and locked the door behind her.

 

“What are you a-doing that for?” asked Mrs. Gillingwater suspiciously.

 

“Nothing,” he answered, “but doors are best locked. You can’t tell who

will come through them, nor when, if they’re left open.”

 

“That’s just another of his nasty ways,” muttered Mrs. Gillingwater,

as she followed him down the passage into the sitting-room, which was

quite dark except for some embers of a wood fire that glowed upon the

hearth.

 

“Stop a minute, and I will light the lamp,” said her host.

 

Soon it burnt brightly, and while Samuel was making up the fire Mrs.

Gillingwater had leisure to observe the room, in which as it chanced

she had never been before, at any rate since she was a child. On the

occasions of their previous interviews Samuel had always received her

in the office or the kitchen.

 

It was long and low, running the depth of the house, so that the

windows faced east and west. The fireplace was wide, and over it hung

a double-barrelled muzzle-loading gun, which Mrs. Gillingwater noticed

was charged, for the light shone upon the copper caps. There were two

doors—one near the fireplace, leading to the offices and kitchen, and

one by which she had entered. The floor was of oak, half covered with

strips of matting, and the ceiling also was upheld by great beams of

oak, that, like most of the materials in this house, had been bought

or stolen from the Abbey at the time when it was finally deserted, a

hundred and fifty years before. This was put beyond a doubt, indeed,

by the curious way in which it had been the fancy of the builder to

support these huge beams—namely, by means of gargoyles that once had

carried off the water from the roofs of the Abbey. It would be

difficult to imagine anything more grotesque, or indeed uncanny, than

the effect of these weather-worn and grinning heads of beasts and

demons glaring down upon the occupants of the chamber open-mouthed, as

though they were about to spring upon and to devour them. Indeed,

according to a tale in Bradmouth, a child of ten, finding herself left

alone with them for the first time, was so terrified by their grizzly

appearance that she fell into a fit. For the rest, the walls of the

room were hung with a dingy paper, and adorned with engravings of a

Scriptural character, diversified by prints taken from Fox’s “Book of

Martyrs.” The furniture was good, solid and made of oak, like

everything else in the place, with the sole exception of an easy

chair, in which it was Samuel’s custom to smoke at night.

 

“I suppose now, Mr. Rock,” said Mrs. Gillingwater, pointing to the

grinning gargoyles, “that you don’t find it lonesome up here at

nights, with those stone parties for company.”

 

“Not a bit of it, Mrs. Gillingwater; why, I’ve known them all ever

since I was a child, as doubtless others have before me, and they are

downright good friends to me, they are. I have names for every one of

them, and talk to them sometimes too—now this and now that, as the

fancy takes me.”

 

“Just what I should have expected of you, Mr. Rock,” answered Mrs.

Gillingwater significantly; “not but what I dare say it is good

training.”

 

“Meaning?” said Samuel.

 

“Meaning, Mr. Rock, that as it is getting late, and it’s a long and

windy walk home, we’d better stop talking of stone figures and come to

business—that is, if you have a mind for it.”

 

“By all means, Mrs. Gillingwater. But what is the business?”

 

“Well, it’s this: last time we met, when we parted in anger, though

through no fault of mine, you said that you wanted Joan’s address: and

now I’ve got it.”

 

“You’ve got it? Then tell it me. Come, be quick!” and he leaned

towards her across the polished oak table.

 

“No, no, Mr. Rock: do you think that I am as green as an alder shoot,

that you should ask such a thing of me? I must have the money before

you get the address. Do you understand?”

 

“I understand, Mrs. Gillingwater; but be reasonable. How can you

expect me to pay you five-and-twenty pounds for what may be gammon

after all?”

 

“Five-and-twenty pounds, Mr. Rock! No such thing, indeed: it is fifty

pounds I want, every farthing of it, or you get nothing out of me.”

 

“Fifty pounds!” answered Samuel; “then I don’t think that we need talk

no longer, Mrs. Gillingwater, seeing that I ain’t going to give you

fifty pounds, no, not for the address of all the angels in heaven.”

 

“I dare say not, Mr. Rock: they’d be precious little use to you when

you’d got them, either now or at any future time, to judge from what I

know of you”—and she glanced significantly at the sculptured demons

beneath the ceiling—“but you see Joan’s whereabouts is another

matter, more especially since she isn’t an angel yet, though she’s

been nigh enough to it, poor dear.”

 

“What do you mean by that, ma’am? Is she ill, then?”

 

“When I’ve got the fifty pounds in my pocket, Mr. Rock, I’ll be glad

enough to tell you all about it, but till then my mouth is sealed.

Indeed, it’s a great risk that I run letting you know at all, for if

the old man yonder finds it out, I think that he’ll be the ruin of me.

And now, will you pay, or won’t you?”

 

“I won’t give you the fifty pounds,” he answered, setting his teeth;

“I’ll give you thirty, and that’s the last farthing which you’ll screw

out of me—and a lot of money too, seeing that there’s no reason why I

should pay you anything at all.”

 

“That’s just where you’re wrong, Mr. Rock,” she answered: “not that

I’m denying that thirty pounds is a lot of money; but then, you see,

I’ve got that to sell that you want to buy, and badly. Also, as I told

you, I take risks in selling it.”

 

“What risks?”

 

“The risks of being turned out of house and home, and being sold up,

that’s all. Old Levinger don’t want no one to know Joan’s address; I

can’t tell you why, but he don’t, and if he finds out that I have let

on, it will be a bad business for me. Now look here: I fancy that

there is another person as wouldn’t mind giving a trifle for this

address, and if you’re so mean that you won’t cash up, I shall take a

walk out yonder to-morrow morning,” and she nodded in the direction of

Rosham.

 

Samuel groaned, for he knew that she was alluding to his rival. “I

doubt that he knows it already, curse him,” he said, striking his hand

upon the table. “Thirty-five—there, that’s the last.”

 

“You’re getting along, Mr. Rock, but it won’t do yet,” sneered Mrs.

Gillingwater. “See here now, I’ve got something in my hand that I’ll

show you just for friendship’s sake,” and producing Mrs. Bird’s

letter, she read portions of it aloud, pausing from time to time to

watch the effect upon her hearer. It was curious, for as he listened

his face reflected the extremes of love, hope, terror and despair.

 

“O God!” he said, wringing his hands, “to think that she may be dead

and gone from me for ever!”

 

“If she were dead, Mr. Rock, it wouldn’t be much use my giving you her

address, would it? since, however fond you may be of her, I reckon

that you would scarcely care to follow her there. No, I’ll tell you

this much, she is living and getting well again, and I fancy that

you’re after a live woman, not a dead one. This was written a month

ago and more.”

 

“Thank heaven!” he muttered. “I couldn’t have borne to lose her like

that; I think it would have driven me mad. While she’s alive there’s

hope, but what hope is there in the grave?” Samuel spoke thus somewhat

absently, after the fashion of a man who communes with himself, but

all the while Mrs. Gillingwater felt that he was searching her with

his eyes. Then of a sudden he leant forward, and swiftly as a striking

snake he shot out his long arm across the table, and snatched the

letter from her grasp.

 

“You think yourself mighty clever, Mr. Rock,” she said, with a harsh

laugh; “but you won’t get the address for nothing in that way. If you

take the trouble to look you’ll see that I’ve tore it off. Ah! you’ve

met your match for once; it is likely that I was going to trust what’s

worth fifty pounds in reach of your fingers, isn’t it?”

 

He looked at the letter and saw that she spoke truth.

 

“I didn’t take it for that,” he said, gnawing his hand with shame and

vexation; “I took it to see if there was a letter at all, or if you

were making up lies.” And he threw it back to her.

 

“No doubt you did, Mr. Rock,” she answered, jeering at him. “Well, and

now you’re satisfied, I hope; so how about them fifty sovereigns?”

 

“Forty,” he said.

 

“Fifty. Never a one less.”

 

Samuel sprang up from his seat, and, coming round the table, stood

over her.

 

“Look here,” he said in a savage whisper, “you’re pushing this game

too far: if you’re