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

From every

side they poured in upon her to overwhelm her, and beneath the black

sky above howled a dreary wind, which was full of voices crying to

each other of her sins and sorrows across the abysm of space. Wave

after wave that sea rolled on, and its waters were thick with human

faces, or rather with one face twisted and distorted into many shapes,

as though reflected from a thousand faulty mirrors—now long, now

broad, and now short; now so immense that it filled the ocean and

overflowed the edge of the horizon, and now tiny as a pin’s point, yet

visible and dreadful. Gibbering, laughing, groaning, and shouting

aloud, still the face was one face—that of Samuel Rock, her husband.

Nearer it surged and nearer, till at length it flowed across her feet,

halving itself against them; then the one half shouted with laughter

and the other screamed in agony, and joining themselves together, they

rose on the waters of that sea, which of a sudden had grown red, and,

smiting her upon the breast, drove her down and down and down into the

depths of an infinite peace, whence the voice of a child was calling

her.

 

Then she awoke, and rejoiced to see the light of day streaming into

the room; for she was frightened at her nightmare, though the sense of

peace with which it closed left her strangely comforted. Death must be

like that, she thought.

 

At breakfast Joan inquired of the servant how Mr. Levinger was; and,

being of a communicative disposition, the girl told her that he had

gone to bed late last night, after sitting up to burn and arrange

papers, and said that he should stop there until the doctor had been.

She added that a letter had arrived from Sir Henry announcing his

intention of coming to see her master after lunch. Joan informed the

woman that she should wait at Monk’s Lodge to hear Dr. Childs’s

report, but that Mr. Levinger need not be troubled about her, since,

having only a handbag with her, she could find her own way back to

Bradmouth, either on foot or by train. Then she went to her room and

sat down to think.

 

Henry was coming here, and she was glad of it; for, dreadful as such

an interview would be, already she had made up her mind that she must

see him alone and for the last time. Everything else she could bear,

but she could no longer bear that he should think her vile and

faithless. To-day she must go to her husband, but first Henry should

learn why she went. He was safely married now, and no harm could come

of it, she argued. Also, if she did not take this opportunity, how

could she know when she might find another? An instinct warned her

that her career in Bradmouth as the wife of Mr. Rock would be a short

one; and at least she was sure that, when once she was in his power,

he would be careful that she should have no chance of speaking with

the man whom he knew to have been her lover. Yes, it might be unheroic

and inconsistent, but she could keep silence no longer; see him she

must and would, were it only to tell him that his child had lived, and

was dead.

 

Moreover, there was another matter. She must warn him to guard against

the secret which she had learned on the previous night being brought

directly or indirectly to the knowledge of his wife. Towards Emma her

feelings, if they could be defined at all, were kindly; and Joan

guessed that, should Henry’s wife discover how she had been palmed off

upon an unsuspecting husband, it would shatter her happiness. For her

own part, Joan had quickly made up her mind to let all this sad

history of falsehood and dishonour sink back into the darkness of the

past. It mattered to her little now whether she was legitimate or not,

and it was useless to attempt to clear the reputation of a forgotten

woman, who had been dead for twenty years, at the expense of blasting

that of her own father. Also, she knew that if Samuel got hold of this

story, he would never rest from his endeavours to wring from its

rightful owner the fortune that might pass to herself by a quibble of

the law. No, she had the proofs of her identity; she would destroy

them, and if any others were to be found among her father’s papers

after his death Henry must do likewise.

 

When Dr. Childs had gone, about one o’clock, Joan saw the servant, who

told her the doctor said that Mr. Levinger remained in much the same

condition, and that he yet might live for another month or two. On the

other hand, he might die at any moment, and, although he did not

anticipate such immediate danger, he had ordered him to stay in bed,

and had advised him to send for a clergyman if he wished to see one;

also to write to his daughter, Lady Graves, asking her to come on the

morrow and to stay with him for the present. Joan thanked the maid,

and leaving a message for Mr. Levinger to the effect that she would

come to see him again if he wished it, she started on her way,

carrying her bag in her hand.

 

There were only two roads by which Henry could approach Monk’s Lodge:

the cliff road; and that which ran, through woodlands for the most

part, to the Vale station, half a mile away. Joan knew that about

three hundred yards from the Lodge at the end of the shrubberies,

there was a summer-house commanding a view of the cliff and sea, and

standing within twenty paces of the station road. Here she placed

herself, so as to be able to intercept Henry by whichever route he

should come; for she wished their meeting to be secret, and, for

obvious reasons, she did not dare to await him in the immediate

neighbourhood of the house.

 

She came to the summer-house, a rustic building surrounded at a little

distance by trees, and much overgrown with masses of ivy and other

creeping plants. Here Joan sat herself down, and picking up a

mouldering novel left there long ago by Emma, she held it in her hand

as though she were reading, while over the top of it she watched the

two roads anxiously.

 

Nearly an hour passed, and as yet no one had gone by whom even at that

distance she could possibly mistake for Henry; when suddenly her heart

bounded within her, for a hundred yards or more away, and just at the

turn of the station road, a view of which she commanded through a gap

in the trees, she caught sight of the figure of a man who walked with

a limp. Hastening from the summer-house, she pushed her way through

the undergrowth and the hedge beyond, taking her stand at a bend in

the path. Here she waited, listening to the sound of approaching

footsteps and of a man’s voice, Henry’s voice, humming a tune that at

the time was popular in the streets of London. A few seconds passed,

which to her seemed like an age, and he was round the corner advancing

towards her, swinging his stick as he came. So intent was he upon his

thoughts, or on the tune that he was humming, that he never saw her

until they were face to face. Then, catching sight of a lady in a grey

dress, he stepped to one side, lifting his hand to his hat—looked up

at her, and stopped dead.

 

“Henry,” she said in a low voice.

 

“What! are you here, Joan,” he asked, “and in that dress? For a moment

you frightened me like a ghost—a ghost of the past.”

 

“I am a ghost of the past,” she answered. “Yes, that is all I am—a

ghost. Come in here, Henry; I wish to speak to you.”

 

He followed her without a word, and presently they were standing

together in the summer-house.

 

Henry opened his lips as though to speak; but apparently thought

better of it, for he said nothing, and it was Joan who broke that

painful silence.

 

“I have waited for you here,” she began confusedly, “because I have

things that I must tell you in private.”

 

“Yes, Mrs. Rock,” he answered; “but do you not think, under all the

circumstances, that it would be better if you told them to me in

public? You know this kind of meeting might be misunderstood.”

 

“Do not speak to me like that, I beg,” she said, clasping her hands

and looking at him imploringly; then added, “and do not call me by

that name: I cannot bear it from you, at any rate as yet.”

 

“I understand that it is your name, and I have no title to use any

other.”

 

“Yes, it is my name,” she answered passionately; “but do you know

why?”

 

“I know nothing except what your letters and your husband have told

me, and really I do not think that I have any right to inquire

further.”

 

“No, but I have a right to tell you. You think that I threw you over,

do you not, and married Mr. Rock for my own reasons?”

 

“I must confess that I do; you would scarcely have married him for

anybody else’s reasons.”

 

“So you believe. Now listen to me: I married Samuel Rock in order that

you might marry Emma Levinger. I meant to marry you, Henry, but your

mother came to me and implored me not to do so, so I took this means

of putting myself out of the reach of temptation.”

 

“My mother came to you, and you did that! Why, you must be mad!”

 

“Perhaps; but so it is, and the plot has answered very well,

especially as our child is dead.”

 

“Our child!” he said, turning deathly pale: “was there any child?”

 

“Yes, Henry; and she was very like you. Her name was Joan. I thought

that you would wish her to be called Joan. I buried her about a month

ago.”

 

For a moment he hid his face in his hands, then said, “Perhaps, Joan,

you will explain, for I am bewildered.”

 

So she told him all.

 

“Fate and our own folly have dealt very hardly with us, Joan,” he said

in a quiet voice when she had finished; “and now I do not see what

there is to be done. We are both of us married, and there is nothing

between us except our past and our dead child. By Heaven! you are a

noble woman, but also you are a foolish one. Why could you not consult

me instead of listening to my mother, or to any one else who chose to

plead with you in my interests—and their own?”

 

“If I had consulted you, Henry, by now I should have been your wife.”

 

“Well, and was that so terrible a prospect to you? As you know, I

asked nothing better; and it chanced that I was able to obtain a

promise of employment abroad which would have supported both of us in

comfort. Or—answer me truly, Joan—did you, on the whole, as he told

me, think that you would do better to marry Mr. Rock?”

 

“If Mr. Rock said that,” she answered, looking at him steadily, “he

said what he knew to be false, since before I married him I told him

all the facts and bargained that I should live apart from him for a

while. Oh! Henry, how can you doubt me? I tell