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

doctor said that she might read anything; surely,

therefore, it would be safe for her to peruse this particular sheet of

paper. Accordingly, when the nurse came down to say that her patient

was awake after her morning sleep, and that if Mrs. Bird would sit

with her, she proposed to take a walk in the Park till dinner-time,

the little woman hurried upstairs with the precious document in her

pocket. Joan, who was sitting on the sofa, received her with a smile,

and held up her face to be kissed.

 

“How are you this morning, my dear?” she asked, putting her head on

one side and surveying her critically.

 

“I feel stronger than I have for weeks,” answered Joan; “indeed, I

believe that I am quite well again now, thanks to you and all your

kindness.”

 

“Do you think that you are strong enough to read a letter,

dear?—because I have one for you.”

 

“A letter?” said Joan anxiously: “who has taken the trouble to write

to me? Mr. Levinger?”

 

Mrs. Bird shook her head and looked mysterious.

 

“Oh! don’t torment me,” cried Joan; “give it me—give it me at once.”

 

Then Mrs. Bird put her hand into her pocket and produced Henry’s

enclosure.

 

Joan saw the writing, and her poor white hands trembled so that she

could not unfasten the envelope. “Open it for me,” she whispered. “Oh!

I cannot see: read it to me. Quick, quick!”

 

“Don’t be in a hurry, my dear; it won’t fly away,” said Mrs. Bird as

she took the letter. Then she put on her spectacles, cleared her

throat, and began.

 

“‘Dearest Joan–-‘ Really, my love, do you not think that you had

better read this for yourself? It seems so—very—confidential.”

 

“Oh! I can’t; I must hear it at once. Go on, pray.”

 

Thus encouraged, Mrs. Bird went on, nothing loath, till she reached

the last word of the letter.

 

“Well,” she said, laying it upon her knees, “now, that is what I call

behaving like a gentleman. At any rate, my dear, you have been lucky

in falling into the hands of such a man, for some would not have

treated you so well—having begun wicked they would have gone on

wickeder. Why, good gracious! what’s the matter with the girl? She’s

fainted, I do believe.” And she ran to get water, reproaching herself

the while for her folly in letting Joan have the letter while she was

still so weak. By the time that she returned with the water, the

necessity for it had gone by. Joan had recovered, and was seated

staring into vacancy, with a rapt smile upon her face that, so thought

Mrs. Bird, made her look like an angel.

 

“You silly girl!” she said: “you gave me quite a turn.”

 

“Give me that letter,” answered Joan.

 

Mrs. Bird picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and handed

it to her. Joan took it and pressed it to her breast as though it were

a thing alive—much, indeed, as a mother may be seen to press her

new-born infant when the fear and agony are done with and love and joy

remain. For a while she sat thus in silence, holding the letter to her

heart, then she spoke:—

 

“I do not suppose that I shall ever marry him, but I don’t care now:

whatever comes I have had my hour, and after this and the rest I can

never quite lose him—no, not through all eternity.”

 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Joan,” said Mrs. Bird, who did not understand

what she meant. “Not marry him, indeed!—why shouldn’t you?”

 

“Because something is sure to prevent it. Besides, it would be wrong

of me to do so. Letting other things alone, he must marry a rich

woman, not a penniless girl like me.”

 

“Oh! stuff and nonsense with your ‘rich woman’: the man who’ll go for

money when he can get love isn’t worth a row of pins, say I; and this

one isn’t of that sort, or he would never have written such a letter.”

 

“He can get both love and money,” answered Joan; “and it isn’t for

himself that he wants the money—it is to save his family. He had an

elder brother who brought them to ruin, and now he’s got to set them

up again by taking the girl who holds the mortgages, and who is in

love with him, as his wife—at least, I believe that’s the story,

though he never told it me himself.”

 

“A pretty kettle of fish, I am sure. Now look here, Joan, don’t you

talk silly, but listen to me, who am older than you are and have seen

more. It isn’t for me to blame you, but, whatever was the truth of it,

you’ve done what isn’t right, and you know it. Well, it has pleased

God to be kind to you and to show you a way out of a mess that most

girls never get clear of. Yes, you can become an honest woman again,

and have the man you love as a husband, which is more than you deserve

perhaps. What I have to say is this: don’t you be a fool and cut your

own throat. These money matters are all very well, but you have got

nothing to do with them. You get married, Joan, and leave the rest to

luck; it will come right in the end. If there’s one thing that’s more

of a vanity than any other in this wide world, it is scheming and

plotting about fortunes and estates and suchlike, and in nine cases

out of ten, the woman who goes sacrificing herself to put cash into

her lover’s pocket—or her own either for that matter—does him no

good in the long run, but just breaks her heart for nothing, and his

too very likely. There, that’s my advice to you, Joan; and I tell you

that if I thought that you would go on as you have begun and make this

man a bad wife, I shouldn’t be the one to give it. But I don’t think

that, dear. No; I believe that you would be as good as gold to him,

and that he’d never regret marrying you, even though he is a baronet

and you are—what you are.”

 

“Oh! indeed I would,” said Joan.

 

“Don’t say ‘indeed I would,’ dear; say ‘indeed I shall,’ and mind you

stick to it. And now I hear the nurse coming back, and it is time for

me to go and see about your dinner. Don’t you fuss and make yourself

ill again, or she won’t be able to go away to-morrow, you know. I

shall just write to this gentleman and say that he can come and see

you about next Friday; so mind, you’ve got to be well by then.

Good-bye.”

 

Weak as she was still from illness, when her first wild joy had passed

a great bewilderment took possession of Joan.

 

As her body had been brought back to the fulness of life from the very

pit of death, so the magic of Henry’s letter changed the blackness of

her despair to a dawn of hope, by contrast so bright that it dazzled

her mind. She had no recollection of writing the letter to which Henry

alluded; indeed, had she been herself she would never have written it,

and even now she did not know what she had told him or what she had

left untold. What she was pleased to consider his goodness and

generosity in offering to make her his wife touched her most deeply,

and she blessed him for them, but neither the secret pleading of her

love nor Mrs. Bird’s arguments convinced her that it would be right to

take advantage of them. The gate of what seemed to be an earthly

paradise was of a sudden thrown open to her feet: behind her lay

solitude, sorrow, sin and agonising shame, before her were peace,

comfort, security, and that good report which every civilised woman

must desire; but ought she to enter by that gate? A warning instinct

answered “No,” and yet she had not strength to shut it. Why should

she, indeed? If she might judge the future from the past, Fate would

do her that disservice; such happiness could not be for one so wicked.

Yet—till the blow fell—she might please her fancy by standing upon

the threshold of her heaven, and peopling the beyond with unreal

glories which her imagination furnished without stay or stint. She was

still too weak to struggle against the glamour of these visions, for

that they could become realities Joan did not believe—rather did she

submit herself to them, and satisfy her soul with a false but

penetrating delight, such as men grasp in dreams. Of only one thing

was she sure—that Henry loved her—and in that knowledge, so deep was

her folly, she found reward for all she had undergone, or that could

by any possibility be left for her to undergo; for had he not loved

her, as she believed, he would never have offered to marry her. He

loved her, and she would see him; and then things must take their

chance, meanwhile she would rest and be content.