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

from the ship in the gig which had been his especial

property need not be dwelt upon. They were bitter enough, and the

evident regret of his messmates at parting from him did not draw their

sting: indeed, it would not be too much to say that in this hour of

farewell Henry Graves went as near to tears as he had done since he

attained to manhood.

 

But he got through it somehow, and even laughed and waved his hat when

the crew of the Hawk—that was the name of the gunboat he had

commanded—cheered him as he left her deck for ever.

 

Eighteen days later he stood in the library of Rosham Hall. Although

the season was mid-May the weather held bitterly cold, and such green

as had appeared upon the trees did not suffice to persuade the

traveller that winter was done with. An indescribable air of gloom

hung about the great white house, which, shaped like an early

Victorian mausoleum, and treed up to the windows with funereal cedars,

was never a cheerful dwelling even in the height of summer. The shadow

of death lay upon the place and on the hearts of its inmates, and

struck a chill through Henry as he crossed the threshold. His father,

a tall and dignified old gentleman with snowy hair, met him in the

hall with a show of cordiality that soon flickered away.

 

“How are you, my dear boy?” he said. “I am very glad to see you home

and looking so well. It is most kind of you to have fallen in with our

wishes as to your leaving the Navy. I scarcely expected that you would

myself. Indeed, was I never more surprised than when I received your

letter saying that you had sent in your papers. It is a comfort to

have you back again, though I doubt whether you will be able to do any

good.”

 

“Then perhaps I might as well have stopped where I was, father,”

answered Henry.

 

“No, no, you did well to come. For many reasons which you will

understand soon you did well to come. You are looking for your mother

and Ellen. They have gone to the church with a wreath for your poor

brother’s grave. The train is generally late—you were not expected so

soon. That was a terrible blow to me, Henry: I am quite broken down,

and shall never get over it. Ah! here they are.”

 

As Sir Reginald spoke Lady Graves and her daughter entered the hall

and greeted Henry warmly enough. His mother was a person of about

sixty, still handsome in appearance, but like himself somewhat silent

and reserved in manner. Trouble had got hold of her, and she showed it

on her face. For the rest, she was an upright and a religious woman,

whose one passion in life, as distinguished from her predilections,

had been for her dead son Reginald. He was taken away, her spirit was

broken, and there remained to her nothing except an unvarying desire

to stave off the ruin that threatened her husband’s house and herself.

 

The daughter, Ellen, now a woman of twenty-five, was of a different

type. In appearance she was fair and well-developed, striking and

ladylike rather than good-looking; in manner she was quick and

vivacious, well-read, moreover, in a certain shallow fashion, and

capital company. Ellen was not a person of deep affections, though she

also had worshipped Reginald; but on the other hand she was swift to

see her own advantage and to shape the course of events toward that

end. At this moment her mind was set secretly upon making a rich

marriage with the only eligible bachelor in the neighbourhood, Milward

by name, a vain man of good extraction but of little strength of

character, and one whom she knew that she could rule.

 

It has been said that his welcome was warm enough to all outward

appearance, and yet it left a sense of disappointment in Henry’s mind.

Instinctively he felt, with the exception, perhaps, of his mother,

that they all hoped to use him—that he had been summoned because he

might be of service, not because the consolation of his presence was

desired in a great family misfortune; and once more he wished himself

back on the quarter-deck of the Hawk, dependent upon his own

exertions to make his way in the world.

 

After a somewhat depressing dinner in the great dining-room, of which

the cold stone columns and distempered walls, decorated with rather

dingy specimens of the old masters, did not tend to expansion of the

heart, a family council was held in the study. It lasted far into the

night, but its results may be summed up briefly. In good times the

Rosham Hall property was worth about a hundred thousand pounds; now,

in the depths of the terrible depression which is ruining rural

England, it was doubtful if it would find a purchaser at half that

amount, notwithstanding its capacities as a sporting estate. When Sir

Reginald Graves came into possession the place was burdened with a

mortgage of twenty-five thousand pounds, more or less. On the coming

of age of his elder son, Reginald, Henry’s brother, the entail had

been cut and further moneys raised upon resettlement, so that in the

upshot the incumbrances upon the property including overdue interests

which were added to the capital at different dates, stood at a total

of fifty-one thousand, or something more than the present selling

value of the estate.

 

Henry inquired where all the money had gone; and, after some beating

about the bush, he discovered that of late years, for the most part,

it had been absorbed by his dead brother’s racing debts. After this

revelation he held his tongue upon the matter.

 

In addition to these burdens there were unsatisfied claims against

Reginald’s estate amounting to over a thousand pounds; and, to top up

with, three of the principal tenants had given notice to leave at the

approaching Michaelmas, and no applicants for their farms were

forthcoming. Also the interest on the mortgages was over a year in

arrear.

 

When everything had been explained, Henry spoke with irritation: “The

long and the short of it is that we are bankrupt, and badly bankrupt.

Why on earth did you force me to leave the Navy? At any rate I could

have helped myself to some sort of a living there. Now I must starve

with the rest.”

 

Lady Graves sighed and wiped her eyes. The sigh was for their broken

fortunes, the tear for the son who had ruined them.

 

Sir Reginald, who was hardened to money troubles, did not seem to be

so deeply affected.

 

“Oh, it is not so bad as that, my boy,” he said, almost cheerfully.

“Your poor brother always managed to find a way out of these

difficulties when they cropped up, and I have no doubt that you will

be able to do the same. For me the matter no longer has much personal

interest, since my day is over; but you must do the best for yourself,

and for your mother and sister. And now I think that I will go to bed,

for business tires me at night.”

 

When his father and mother had gone Henry lit his pipe.

 

“Who holds these mortgages?” he asked of his sister Ellen, who sat

opposite to him, watching him curiously across the fire.

 

“Mr. Levinger,” she answered. “He and his daughter are coming here

to-morrow to stay till Monday.”

 

“What, my father’s mysterious friend, the good-looking man who used to

be agent for the property when I was a boy?”

 

“Yes, the man who was shooting here when you were on leave eighteen

months ago.”

 

“I remember: he had his daughter with him—a pale-faced, quiet girl.”

 

“Yes; but do not disparage his daughter, Henry.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because it is a mistake to find fault with one’s future wife. That

way salvation lies, my dear brother. She is an heiress, and more than

half in love with you, Henry. No, it is not a mistake—I know it for a

fact. Now, perhaps, you understand why it was necessary that you

should come home. Either you must follow the family tradition and

marry an heiress, Miss Levinger or some other, or this place will be

foreclosed on and we may all adjourn to the workhouse.”

 

“So that is why I was sent for,” said Henry, throwing down his pipe:

“to be sold to this lady? Well, Ellen, all I have to say is that it is

an infernal shame!”

 

And, turning, he went to bed without even bidding her good night.

 

His sister watched him go without irritation or surprise. Rising from

her chair, she stood by the fire warming her feet, and glancing from

time to time at the dim rows of family portraits that adorned the

library walls. There were many of them, dating back to the early part

of the seventeenth century or even before it; for the Graveses, or the

De Grêves as they used to be called, were an ancient race, and though

the house had been rebuilt within the last hundred and twenty years,

they had occupied this same spot of ground for many generations.

During all these years the family could not be said either to have

sunk or risen, although one of its members was made a baronet at the

beginning of the century in payment for political services. It had

produced no great men, and no villains; it had never been remarkable

for wealth or penury, or indeed for anything that distinguishes one

man, or a race of men, from its fellows.

 

It may be asked how it came about that these Graveses contrived to

survive the natural waste and dwindling of possessions that they never

did anything to augment. A glance at the family pedigree supplies an

answer. From generation to generation it had been held to be the duty

of the eldest son for the time being to marry an heiress; and this

rule was acted on with sufficient regularity to keep the fortunes of

the race at a dead level, notwithstanding the extravagances of

occasional spendthrifts and the claims of younger children.

 

“They all did so,” said Ellen to herself, as she looked upon the

portraits of her dead-and-gone forefathers by the light of the

flickering flame; “and why shouldn’t he? I am not sentimental, but I

believe that I’d marry a Russian Jew rather than see the old place go

to the dogs, and that sort of thing is worse for a woman than a man.

It will be difficult to manage, but he will marry her in the end, even

if he hates the very sight of her. A man has no right to let his

private inclinations weigh with him in such a matter, for he passes

but his family remains. Thank Heaven, Henry always had a strong sense

of duty, and when he comes to look at the position coolly he will see

it in a proper light; though what made that flaxen-haired little mummy

fall in love with him is a mystery to me, for he never spoke a word to

her. Blessings on her! It is the only piece of good luck that has come

to our family for a generation. And now I must go to bed—those old

pictures are beginning to stare at me.”