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

the reins to the

coachman, he jumped down from the cart, and, bidding him drive on a

few yards, waited by the roadside. Presently Samuel caught sight of

him, and stopped as though he meant to turn back. If so, he changed

his mind almost instantly and walked forward at a quick pace.

 

“Good day, Mr. Rock,” said Henry: “I wish to have a word with you. I

have heard some strange news this morning, which you may be able to

explain.”

 

“What news?” asked Samuel, looking at him insolently.

 

“That you were married to Joan Haste yesterday.”

 

“Well, what about that, Sir Henry Graves?”

 

“Nothing in particular, Mr. Rock, except that I do not believe it.”

 

“Don’t you?” answered Samuel with a sneer. “Then perhaps you will

throw your eye over this.” And he produced from his pocket a copy of

the marriage certificate.

 

Henry read it, and turned very white; then he handed it back without a

word.

 

“It is all in order, I think?” said Samuel, still sneering.

 

“Apparently,” Henry answered. “May I ask if—Mrs. Rock—is with you?”

 

“No she isn’t. Do you think that I am fool enough to bring her here at

present, for you to be sneaking about after her? I know what your game

was, ‘cause she told me all about it. You were going up to town to-day

to get hold of her, weren’t you. Well, you’re an hour behind the fair

this time. Joan may have been a bit flighty, but she’s a sensible

woman at bottom, and she knew better than to trust herself to a scamp

without a sixpence, like you, when she might have an honest man and a

good home. I told you I meant to marry her, and you see I have kept my

word. And now look you here, Sir Henry Graves: just you keep clear of

her in future, for if I catch you so much as speaking to her, it will

be the worse both for yourself and Joan—not that she cares a rotten

herring about you, although she did fool you so prettily.”

 

“You need not fear that I shall attempt to disturb your domestic

happiness, Mr. Rock. And now for Heaven’s sake get out of my way

before I forget myself.”

 

Samuel obeyed, still grinning and sneering with hate and jealousy; and

Henry walked on to where the dogcart was waiting for him. Taking the

reins, he turned the horse’s head and drove back to Rosham.

 

“Thomson,” he said to the butler, who came to open the door, “I have

changed my mind about going to town to-day; you can unpack my things.

Stop a minute, though: I remember I am due at Monk’s Lodge, so you

needn’t meddle with the big portmanteau. When does my mother come

back?”

 

“To-morrow, her ladyship wrote me this morning, Sir Henry.”

 

“Oh! very well. Then I sha’n’t see her till Tuesday; but it doesn’t

matter. Send down to the keeper and tell him that I want to speak to

him, will you? I think that I will change my clothes and shoot some

rabbits after lunch. Stop, order the dogcart to be ready to drive me

to Monk’s Lodge in time to dress for dinner.”

 

To analyse Henry’s feelings during the remainder of that day would be

difficult, if not impossible; but those of shame and bitter anger were

uppermost in his mind—shame that he had laid himself open to such

words as Rock used to him, and anger that his vanity and blind faith

in a woman’s soft speeches and feigned love should have led him into

so ignominious a position. Mingled with these emotions were his

natural pangs of jealousy and disappointed affection, though pride

would not suffer him to give way to them. Again and again he reviewed

every detail of the strange, and to his sense, appalling story; and at

times, overpowering as was the evidence, his mind refused to accept

its obvious moral—namely, that he had been tricked and made a tool

of—yes, used as a foil to bring this man to the point of marriage.

How was it possible to reconcile Joan’s conduct in the past and that

wild letter of hers with her subsequent letters and action? Thus only:

that as regards the first she had been playing on his feelings and

inexperience of the arts of women; and that, as in sleep men who are

no poets can sometimes compose verse which is full of beauty, so in

her delirium Joan had been able to set on paper words and thoughts

that were foreign to her nature and above its level. Or perhaps that

letter was a forgery written by Mrs. Bird, who was “so romantic.” The

circumstances under which it reached him were peculiar, and Joan

herself expressly repudiated all knowledge of it. Notwithstanding his

doubts, perplexities and suffering, as might have been expected, the

matter in the end resolved itself into two very simple issues: first,

that, whatever may have been her exact reasons, Joan Haste had broken

with him once and for all by marrying another man; and second, that,

as a corollary to her act, many dangers and difficulties which had

beset him had disappeared, and he was free, if he wished it, to marry

another woman.

 

Henry was no fool, and when the first bitterness was past, and he

could consider the matter, if not without passion as yet, at least

more calmly, he saw, the girl being what she had proved herself to be,

that all things were working together for his good and the advantage

of his family. Supposing, for instance, that he had found her out

after marriage instead of before it, and supposing that the story

which she told him in her first letter had been true, instead of what

it clearly was—a lie? Surely in these and in many other ways his

escape had been what an impartial person might call fortunate. At the

least, of her own act she had put an end to an imbroglio that had many

painful aspects, and there remained no stain upon his honour, for

which he was most truly thankful.

 

And now, having learnt his lesson in the hard school of experience, he

would write to his friend the under-secretary, saying he could not be

in town till Wednesday. Meanwhile he would pay his visit to Monk’s

Lodge.