Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard (cat reading book .TXT) 📖

CHAPTER XXVII

LUCK AT LAST

 

On the morning after the posting of Mrs. Bird’s letter, Mrs.

Gillingwater was sitting at breakfast in the parlour of the Crown and

Mitre, in no happy frame of mind. Things had gone very ill with her

since Joan disappeared, some months previously. To begin with, the

ample allowance that Mr. Levinger had been in the habit of paying for

his ward’s support no longer found its way into her pocket, and the

sums received from that quarter were now inconsiderable, amounting

indeed to a remission of rent only. Then, try as she would, she could

not extract another farthing from Samuel Rock, who, in fact, had shown

the very nastiest temper when she ventured to ask him for a trifle,

having gone so far as to allege that she had been playing a double

game with him as to Joan, and was concealing from him the secret of

that young lady’s whereabouts.

 

“Look here, mum,” he had said in conclusion, “if you want money you

must give value, do you understand? At present you have had lots of

money out of me, but I have had precious little value out of you. On

the day that you tell me Joan’s true address, there will be

five-and-twenty sovereigns to go into your pocket. Look, I keep them

ready,”—and going to a drawer he unlocked it and showed her the gold,

at which Mrs. Gillingwater glared avariciously. “Yes, and on the day

that I marry her there’ll be fifty more to follow. Don’t you be afraid

but what I can afford it and will keep my word. But till I get that

address you sha’n’t have a sixpence—no, not if it was to save you

from the poorhouse.”

 

“I tell you, Mr. Rock, that I have no more notion where she has

flitted to than a babe unborn. If any one knows, it’s old Levinger or

Sir Henry.”

 

“And if they know, they keep their mouths shut,” said Samuel. “Well,

ma’am, you have got my answer, so now I will wish you good morning.

When you can let me have that address I shall be glad to see you, but

till then perhaps you’ll keep clear, as it don’t look well for a

married woman to be always hanging about my house.”

 

“Any one with a grain of sense in his head might be pretty certain

that she wasn’t hanging after an oily-tongued half-bred saint like

you,” retorted Mrs. Gillingwater furiously. “I don’t wonder that Joan

never could abide you, that I don’t, with your sneaking, shuffling

ways, and your eye cocked round the corner. She hates the sight of

you, and that’s why she’s run away. She hates you as much as she loves

Sir Henry, and small blame to her: ay, you may turn green with

jealousy if you like, but it’s true for all that. She’d rather run a

mile barefoot to kiss his little finger than she would be carried in a

coach-and-four to marry you. So there, you put that in your pipe and

smoke it, Mr. Rock!” And she retired, slamming the office and kitchen

doors behind her.

 

When her just wrath against Samuel had subsided, Mrs. Gillingwater

considered the position, and since she must get money by hook or by

crook, she determined to renew her attack upon Henry, this time by

letter. Accordingly she wrote a long and rambling epistle, wherein

among other things she accused him of the abduction of her niece,

mildly suggesting even that he had murdered her in order to hide his

misdeeds. The letter ended with a threat that she would publish his

true “karacter” from one end of the county to the other unless the sum

of ten pounds was immediately forthcoming. In a few days the answer

came; but on opening it Mrs. Gillingwater discovered, to her disgust

and dismay, that it was from a firm of lawyers, who informed her in

the most pointed language that if any further attempt was made to

blackmail their client she would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour

of the law.

 

All this was bad enough, yet it was but a beginning of troubles. Since

Joan’s departure Mr. Gillingwater had been drunk at least twice as

often as usual—as he declared in his sober moments, and with some

truth, in order to console himself for the loss of Joan, who was the

one human creature to whom he was attached. One of these drinking

bouts culminated in his making a furious attack, in the bar of the

Crown and Mitre, upon a customer who was also drunk. For this assault

he was fined at the petty sessions; and on the matter coming before

the bench on licensing day, his license to keep a public-house, that

already had been twice endorsed by the police, was taken away from

him—which meant, of course, that the Crown and Mitre was closed as a

place of refreshment for man and beast so long as the landlord, Mr.

Levinger, chose to allow him to occupy it.

 

No wonder, then, that on this morning of the receipt of Mrs. Bird’s

letter Mrs. Gillingwater was depressed in mind as she sat drinking her

tea and trying to master an invitation from no less a person than

“Victoria, by the grace of God, etc.,” to attend a county court and

show cause why she should not pay a certain sum of four pounds three

and ninepence halfpenny, with costs, for various necessaries of life

bought by and duly delivered to her, the said defendant.

 

Hearing a knock at the door, Mrs. Gillingwater threw down the summons

with an expression that was more forcible than polite—having

reference, indeed, to the temporal and spiritual welfare of her august

sovereign and of all those who administer justice under her. Then,

having looked carefully through the window to make sure that her

visitor was not another bailiff or policeman, she opened the door and

took her letter.

 

“I don’t know the writing,” she muttered, turning it round and round

suspiciously. “It may be another of those dratted summonses, or

something of that sort; I’ve half a mind to throw it into the fire and

swear that I never got it, only then that fool of a postman would give

me the lie, for I took it from him myself.”

 

In the end she opened the letter and spelt through its contents with

difficulty and ever growing astonishment.

 

“Well,” she said, as she put it down, “here’s some luck at last,

anyway. If that silly girl doesn’t go and die it will be hard if I

don’t turn an honest penny out of her, now that I know where she’s got

to. Samuel would pay up to learn, but it’s best to let him lie awhile,

for I can work more out of him when she gets well again—if she does.

I’m off up to the old man’s, for that’s the safest game: he’ll

scarcely bow me out with this in my hand; and if I don’t give him a

nip or two before I am done with him, the mean old scamp, then my

fingers grow on my feet, that’s all!” For be it known that on two

recent occasions when Mrs. Gillingwater called, Mr. Levinger had

declared himself not to be at home, and this when she could plainly

see him standing by the study window.

 

Reaching Monk’s Lodge in due course, Mrs. Gillingwater, who was not

afflicted with Joan’s humility, went to the front door and rang the

bell boldly. Its sound disturbed Mr. Levinger from his reading, and he

stepped to the window to perceive her standing on the doorstep, red

and hot from her walk, and looking, as he thought, unusually large,

coarse and violent.

 

“There is that dreadful woman again,” he said to himself. “I can’t

bear the sight of her. I wonder now if, had she lived, poor Mary would

have looked like her by this time. Perhaps,” and he sighed; then,

opening the door, told the servant to say that he was not at home.

 

She obeyed, and presently there arose sounds of altercation. “It ain’t

no use, you impudent barefaced thing, for you to stand there a-lying

your soul away, when I saw him with my own eyes,” shrilled the rough

voice of Mrs. Gillingwater.

 

“Not at home: them’s my orders,” answered the girl with warmth, as she

attempted to shut the door.

 

“No, you don’t, hussy!” retorted the visitor, thrusting her foot

between it and the jamb. “I’ve got some orders for you too. You go to

your master and tell him that I must see him, about Joan Haste, and if

he won’t let me