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

that they will settle it to their mutual

satisfaction, dear; and, to look at the matter from another point of

view, it certainly is a relief to me to know that your sister is

removed out of reach of our troubles here.” And she sighed. “It has

been a great struggle, Henry, to keep up appearances so far, and I was

in constant fear lest something awful should happen before the

marriage. One way and another, difficulties have been staved off;

indeed, the fact that Ellen was going to become the wife of such a

rich man—for he is very rich—has helped us a great deal. But now the

money is done; I doubt if there is a hundred pounds to go on with, and

what is to happen I am sure I do not know.”

 

Henry puffed at his pipe, staring into the fire, and made no answer.

 

“I scarcely like to ask you, dear,” Lady Graves went on presently,

“but—have you in any way considered the matter of which we spoke

together after your father’s funeral?”

 

“Yes, mother, I have considered—I have considered it a great deal.”

 

“And what conclusion have you come to, Henry?” she asked, making

pretence to arrange her dress in order to conceal the anxiety with

which she awaited his answer.

 

He rose, and, although it was only half smoked, knocked out the

contents of his pipe upon the fire-guard. Then he turned round and

spoke suddenly, almost fiercely indeed.

 

“The conclusion which I have come to, mother, is that, taking

everything into consideration, I ought to try my luck yonder. I don’t

know that she will have me, indeed I think that she will be foolish if

she does, but I’ll ask her. The other has vanished Heaven knows where;

I can’t find her, and perhaps it is best that I shouldn’t, for if I

did my resolutions might melt. And now, if you don’t mind, let us talk

of something else. I will let you know the end of the adventure in due

course.”

 

“One question, Henry. Are you going to Monk’s Lodge again?”

 

“Yes, on Friday week. I have accepted an invitation to stay there from

Friday till Tuesday, or perhaps longer.”

 

Lady Graves uttered a sigh of the most intense and heartfelt relief.

Then she rose, and coming to where her son was sitting, she kissed him

upon the forehead, murmuring, “God bless you, my dear boy!—you have

made me a happier woman than I have been for many a long day. Good

night.”

 

He returned his mother’s embrace, lit a bedroom candle for her, and

watched her pass from the room and across the hall. As she went he

noticed that her very gait seemed different, so great was the effect

of his words upon her. Of late it had been uncertain, almost timid;

but now she was walking as she used to walk in middle life, with grace

and dignity, holding her head high.

 

“Poor mother!” he thought to himself as he resumed his seat, “she has

had much to bear, and it is a comfort to be able to please her for

once. Heaven knows that had I alone been concerned I would have done

it long ago for her sake. Oh, Joan, Joan! I wonder where you are, and

why your eyes haunt me so continually. Well, wherever you may be, it

is all over between us now, Joan.” And he put his hands before his

face and groaned aloud.

 

On the following morning, while Henry was dressing, the butler brought

him up his letters, in accordance with the custom of the house. One by

one, as the exigencies of his toilet gave him opportunity, he opened

them and glanced through their contents. Some were circulars, some

were on business connected with the estate, two were invitations to

shoot, and one was a bill for saddlery supplied to his brother three

years before.

 

“That’s the lot, I think,” he said, and was crushing up the circulars

preparatory to throwing them into the fireplace, when another rather

bulky letter, in a common thin envelope and addressed in an unformed

handwriting, fell from among them. He picked it up and examined it, a

certain distrust of this innocent-looking epistle creeping into his

mind. “I wonder what it is?” he thought to himself: “another of

Reginald’s bills, or a fresh application for money from one of his

intimate friends? Any way I don’t know the writing and I have half a

mind to tear it up unread. Letters that look like that always contain

something disagreeable.”

 

He threw it down on the dressing-table while he arranged his necktie,

and hunted for a stud which had rolled under a chest of drawers.

Indeed, the excitement of this wild pursuit put the letter out of his

mind till he went to brush his hair, when the inaccurate

superscription of “Sir H. Grave” immediately caught his eye, and he

opened it at once. The first words that he saw were “see fit to act

like an honest man.”

 

“As I thought,” he said aloud, “here’s another of Reginald’s legacies

with the bill inside.” And uttering an exclamation he lifted the

letter to throw it into the fireplace, when its enclosure slipped out

of it.

 

Then Henry turned pale, for he knew the writing: it was Joan Haste’s.

In five more minutes he had read both the documents through, and was

sitting on his bed staring vacantly before him like a man in a trance.

He may have sat like this for ten minutes, then he rose, saying in a

perfectly quiet voice, as though he were addressing the bodily

presence of Mrs. Bird:—

 

“Of course, my dear madam, you are absolutely right; the only thing to

do is to marry her at once, and I am infinitely obliged to you for

bringing these facts to my notice; but I must say that if ever a man

got into a worse or more unlucky scrape, I never heard of it.” And he

laughed.

 

Then he re-read Joan’s wandering words very carefully, and while he

did so his eyes filled with tears.

 

“My darling! What you must have suffered!” he said, pressing the

letter against his heart. “I love you! I love you! I would never say

it before, but I say it now once and for all, and I thank God that He

has spared you and given me the right to marry you and the chance of

making you happy. Well, the thing is settled now, and it only remains

to carry it through. First of all my mother must be told, which will

be a pleasant business—I am glad, by the way, that Ellen has gone

before I got this, for I believe that I should have had words with

her. To think of my looking at that cloak and never seeing the woman

who wore it, although she saw me! I remember the incident perfectly

well, and one would have imagined–- But so much for thought

transference and the rest of it. Well, I suppose that I may as well go

down to breakfast. It is a very strange world and a very sad one too.”

 

Henry went down to breakfast accordingly, but he had little appetite

for that meal, at which Lady Graves did not appear; then he adjourned

to the study to smoke and reflect. It seemed to him that it would be

well to settle this matter beyond the possibility of backsliding

before he saw his mother. Ringing the bell, he gave an order that the

boy should saddle the pony and ride into Bradmouth in time to catch

the midday post; then he wrote thus to Mrs. Bird:—

 

“Dear Madam,—

 

“I have to thank you for your letter and its enclosure, and I hope

that my conduct under the circumstances which you detail will not

be such as to disappoint the hopes that you express therein. I

shall be very much obliged if you will kindly keep me informed of

Joan’s progress. I purpose to come and see her within a week or

so; and meanwhile, if you think it safe, I beg that you will give

her the enclosed letter. Perhaps you will let me know when she is

well enough to see me. You seem to have been a kind friend to

Joan, for which I thank you heartily.

 

“Believe me to remain

“Very faithfully yours,

“Henry Graves.”

 

To Joan he wrote also as follows:—

 

“Dearest Joan,—

 

“Some months since you left Bradmouth, and from that day to this I

have heard nothing of you. This morning, however, I learned your

address, and how terribly ill you have been. I have received also

a letter, or rather a portion of a letter, that you wrote to me on

the day when the fever took you; and I can only say that nothing I

ever read has touched me so deeply. I do not propose to write to

you at any length now, since I can tell you more in half an hour

than I could put on paper in a week. But I want to beg you to

dismiss all anxieties from your mind, and to rest quiet and get

well as quickly as possible. Very shortly, indeed as soon as it is

safe for me to do so without disturbing you, I hope to pay you a

visit with the purpose of asking you if you will honour me by

becoming my wife. I love you, dearest Joan—how much I never knew

until I read your letter: perhaps you will understand all that I

have neither the time nor the ability to say at this moment. I

will add only that whatever troubles and difficulties may arise, I

place my future in your hands with the utmost happiness and

confidence, and grieve most bitterly to think that you should have

been exposed to doubt and anxiety on my account. Had you been a

little more open with me this would never have happened; and

there, and there alone, I consider that you have been to blame. I

shall expect to hear from Mrs. Bird, or perhaps from yourself, on

what day I may hope to see you. Till then, dearest Joan,

 

“Believe me

“Most affectionately yours,

“Henry Graves.”

 

By the time that he had finished and directed the letters, enclosing

that to Joan in the envelope addressed to Mrs. Bird, which he sealed,

Thomson announced that the boy was ready.

 

“Very well: give him this to post at Bradmouth, and tell him to be

careful not to lose it, and not to be late.”

 

The butler went, and presently Henry caught sight of his messenger

cantering down the drive.

 

“There!” he thought, “that’s done; and so am I in a sense. Now for my

mother. I must have it out before my courage fails me.”

 

Then he went into the drawing-room, where he found Lady Graves engaged

in doing up little boxes of wedding cake to be sent to various friends

and connections.

 

She greeted him with a pleasant smile, made some little remark about

the room being cold, and throwing back the long crape strings of her

widow’s cap, lifted her face for Henry to kiss.

 

“Why, my dear boy, what’s the matter with you?” she said, starting as

he bent over her. “You look so disturbed.”

 

“I am disturbed, mother,” he answered, seating himself, “and so I fear

you will be when you have heard what I have to tell you.”

 

Lady Graves glanced at him in alarm; she was well trained in bad

tidings, but use cannot accustom the blood horse to the whip or the

heart to sorrow.

 

“Go on,” she said.