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

class="calibre1">“What do you mean, madam?” asked the registrar. “Pray explain

yourself.”

 

“I mean that he is deceiving this poor girl into a false marriage. His

name is Sir Henry Graves, Bart., and he has signed himself there

Samuel Rock.”

 

“The good lady is under a mistake,” explained Samuel, clasping his

hands and writhing uncomfortably: “my name is Rock, and I am a farmer,

not a baronet.”

 

“Well, I must say, sir,” answered the registrar, “that you look as

little like the one as the other. But this is a serious matter, so

perhaps your wife will clear it up. She ought to know who and what you

are, if anybody does.”

 

“He is Mr. Samuel Rock, of the Moor Farm, Bradmouth,” Joan answered,

in an impassive voice. “My friend here is mistaken. Sir Henry Graves

is quite a different person.”

 

Mrs. Bird heard, and sank into a chair speechless, nor did she utter

another syllable until she found herself at home again. Then the

business went on, and presently the necessary certificates, of which

Samuel was careful to obtain certified copies, were filled in and

signed, and the party left the office.

 

“There’s something odd about that affair,” said the registrar to his

assistant as he entered the amount of the fee received in a ledger,

“and I shouldn’t wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Rock make their

appearance in the Courts before they are much older. However, all the

papers are in order, so they can’t blame me. What a pretty woman she

is!—but she looked very sad and ill.”

 

In the waiting-room of the office Joan held out her hand to Samuel,

and said, “Good-bye.”

 

“Mayn’t I see you home?” he asked piteously.

 

She shook her head and answered, “On this day year, if I am alive, you

may see as much of me as you like, but till then we are strangers,”

and she moved towards the door.

 

He stretched out his arms as though to embrace her; but, followed by

the bewildered Mrs. Bird, she swept past him, and soon they were

driving back to Kent Street, leaving Samuel standing bare-headed upon

the pavement in the rain, and gazing after her.

 

In the passage of No. 8 Sally was waiting to present Joan with a

bouquet of white flowers, that she had found no opportunity to give

her as she went out. Joan took the flowers and, bending down, kissed

the dumb child; and that kiss was the only touch of nature in all the

nefarious and unnatural business of her marriage. Mrs. Bird followed

her upstairs, and so soon as the door was closed, said,—

 

“For pity’s sake, Joan, tell me what all this means. Am I mad, or are

you?”

 

“I am, Mrs. Bird,” she answered. “If you want to know, I have married

this man, who has been in love with me a long while, but whom I hate,

in order to prevent Sir Henry Graves from making me his wife.”

 

“But why, Joan? but why?” Mrs. Bird gasped.

 

“Because if I had married Sir Henry I should have ruined him, and also

because I promised Lady Graves that I would not do so. Had I once seen

him I should have broken my promise, so I have taken this means to put

myself out of temptation, having first told Mr. Rock the whole truth,

and bargained that I should not go to live with him for another year.”

 

“Oh! this is terrible, terrible!” said Mrs. Bird, wringing her hands;

“and what a reptile the man must be to marry you on such terms, and

knowing that you loathe the sight of him!”

 

“Do not abuse him, Mrs. Bird, for on the whole I think that he is as

much wronged as anybody; at least he is my husband, whom I have taken

with my eyes open, as he has taken me.”

 

“He may be your husband, but he is a liar for all that; for he told me

that he was Sir Henry Graves, and that is why I let him come up to see

you, although I thought, from the look of him, that he couldn’t be a

baronet. Well, Joan, you have done it now, and as you’ve sown so you

will have to reap. The wages of sin is death, that’s the truth of it.

You’ve gone wrong, and, like many another, you have got to suffer. I

don’t believe in your arguments that have made you marry this crawling

creature. They are a kind of lie, and, like all lies, they will bring

misery. You have a good heart, but you’ve never disciplined it, and a

heart without discipline is the most false of guides. It isn’t for me

to reproach you, Joan, who am, I dare say, ten times worse than you

are, but I can’t hold with your methods. However, you are married to

this man now, so if you’re wise you’ll try to make the best of him and

forget the other.”

 

“Yes,” she answered, “I shall if I am wise, or if I can find wisdom.”

 

Then Mrs. Bird began to cry and went away. When she had gone, Joan sat

down and wrote this letter to catch the post:—

 

“Dear Sir,

 

“I have received your kind letter, and write to tell you that it is

of no use your coming to London to see me to-morrow, as I was

married this afternoon to Mr. Samuel Rock; and so good-bye! With

all good wishes,

 

“Believe me, dear sir,

“Ever yours,

“Joan.”

 

Joan was married on a Thursday; and upon the following morning Henry,

who had slept but ill, rose early and went out before breakfast. As it

chanced, the weather was mild, and the Rosham fields and woods looked

soft and beautiful in the hazy November light. Henry walked to and fro

about them, stopping here to admire the view, and there to speak a few

kindly words to some labourer going to his daily toil, or to watch the

pheasants drawing back to covert after filling their crops upon the

stubble. Thus he lingered till long past the hour for breakfast, for

he was sad at heart and loath to quit the lands that, as he thought,

he would see no more, since he had determined not to revisit Rosham

when once he had made Joan his wife.

 

He felt that he was doing right in marrying her, but it was idle to

deny that she was costing him dear. For three centuries his

forefathers had owned these wide, familiar lands; there was no house

upon them that they had not built; with the exception of a few ancient

pollards there was scarcely a tree that they had not planted; and now

he must send them to the hammer because he had been unlucky enough to

fall in love with the wrong woman. Well, such was his fortune, and he

must make the best of it. Still he may be pardoned if it wrung his

heart to think that, in all human probability, he would never again

see those fields and friendly faces, and that in his person the race

of Graves were looking their last upon the soil that for hundreds of

years had fed them while alive and covered them when dead.

 

In a healthy man, however, even sentiment is not proof against hunger,

so it came about that at last Henry limped home to breakfast with a

heavy heart, and, having ordered the dog that trotted at his heels

back to its kennel, he entered the house by the side door and went to

the dining-room. On this plate were several letters. He opened the

first, which he noticed had an official frank in the left-hand corner.

It was from his friend the under-secretary, informing him that, as it

chanced, there was a billet open in Africa, and that he had obtained a

promise from a colleague, in whose hands lay the patronage of the

appointment, that if he proved suitable in some particulars, he,

Henry, should have the offer of it. The letter added that, although

the post was worth only six hundred a year, it was in a good climate,

and would certainly lead to better things; and that the writer would

be glad if he would come to town to see about the matter as soon as

might be convenient to him, since, when it became known that the place

was vacant, there were sure to be crowds of people after it who had

claims upon the Government.

 

“Here’s a bit of good news at last, anyway,” thought Henry, as he put

down the letter: “whatever happens to us, Joan and I won’t starve, and

I dare say that we can be jolly enough out there. By Jove! if it

wasn’t for my mother and the thought that some of my father’s debts

must remain unpaid, I should almost be happy,” and for a moment or two

he gave himself over to a reverie in which the thought of Joan and of

her tender love and beauty played the largest part (for he tried to

forget the jarring tone of that second letter)—Joan, whom, after so

long an absence, he should see again that day.

 

Then, remembering that the rest of his correspondence was unread, he

took up an envelope and opened it without looking at the address. In

five seconds it was on the floor beside him, and he was murmuring,

with pale lips, “‘Married this afternoon to Samuel Rock.’ Impossible!

it must be a hoax!” Stooping down, he found the letter and examined it

carefully. Either it was in Joan’s writing, or the forgery was

perfect. Then he thought of the former letter, of which the tenor had

disgusted him; and it occurred to him that it was an epistle which a

woman contemplating some such treachery might very well have written.

had he, then, been deceived all along in this girl’s character? It

would seem so. And yet—and yet! She had sworn that she loved him, and

that she hated the man Rock. What could have been her object in doing

this thing? Only one that he could see—money. Rock was a rich man,

and he—was a penniless baronet.

 

If this letter were genuine, it became clear that she thought him good

enough for a lover but not for a husband; that she had amused herself

with him, and now threw him over in favour of the solid advantage of a

prosperous marriage with a man in her own class of life. Well, he had

heard of women playing such tricks, and the hypothesis explained the

attitude which Joan had all along adopted upon the question of

becoming his wife. He remembered that from the first she disclaimed

any wish to marry him. Oh! if this were so, what a blind fool he had

been, and how unnecessarily had he tormented himself with doubts and

searchings for the true path of duty! But as yet he could not believe

that it was true. There must be some mistake. At least he would go to

London and ascertain the facts before he passed judgment on the faith

of such evidence. Why had he not gone before, in defiance of the

doctor and Mrs. Bird?

 

Half an hour later he was driving to the station. As he drew near to

Bradmouth he perceived a man walking along the road, in whom he

recognised Samuel Rock.

 

“There’s an end of that lie,” he thought to himself, with a sigh of

relief; “for if she married him yesterday afternoon he would be in

London with her, since he could scarcely have returned here to spend

his honeymoon.”

 

At any rate he would settle the question. Giving