Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard (cat reading book .TXT) 📖
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
- Performer: -
Book online «Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard (cat reading book .TXT) 📖». Author H. Rider Haggard
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll twist what I want to know out of that black heart of yours,
and not a farthing shall you get for it. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that
the door is locked and we are alone in the house. Yes, you might
scream till you brought the roof down, but nobody would hear you; and
scream you shall if I take hold of you.”
Mrs. Gillingwater glanced at his face, and read something so evil in
it, and in the lurid eyes, that she grew frightened.
“Very well,” she said, as unconcernedly as possible, “I won’t stand
out for a tenner between friends: down with the cash, and you shall
have it.”
“Ah! ma’am, you’re afraid of me now—I can feel it—and I’ve half a
mind to beat you down; but I won’t, I’ll stand by my word. Now you
write that address upon this piece of paper and I’ll get the coin.”
And rising he left the room by the door near the fireplace, which he
took the precaution of locking behind him.
“The murdering viper!” reflected Mrs. Gillingwater; “I pinched his
tail a little too much that time, and I sha’n’t be sorry to find
myself outside again, though there’s precious little chance of that
until he chooses, as he’s locked me in. Well, I must brazen it out
now.” And somewhere from the regions of her ample bosom she produced
the fragment that she had torn off Mrs. Bird’s letter, on which was
written the address and a date.
Presently Samuel returned holding a small bag of money in his hand,
from which he counted out forty sovereigns.
“There’s the cash, ma’am,” he said; “but before you touch it be so
good as to hand me that bit of writing: no, you needn’t be afraid,
I’ll give you the money as I take the paper.”
“I’m not afraid, Mr. Rock; when once I’ve struck a bargain I stick to
it like an honest woman, and so, I know, will you. Never you doubt
that the address is the right one; you can see that it is torn off the
letter I read to you. Joan is there, and through the worst of her
illness, so the party she’s lodging with wrote to me; and if you see
her I hope you’ll give her my love.” As she spoke she pushed the scrap
of paper to him with her left hand, while with her right she drew the
shining heap of gold towards herself.
“Honest!” he said: “I may be honest in my way, Mrs. Gillingwater; but
you are about as honest as other traitors who sell innocent blood for
pieces of money.”
“What do you mean by that, Mr. Rock?” she replied, looking up from her
task of securing the forty sovereigns in her pocket-handkerchief.
“I’ve sold no innocent blood; I’d scorn to do such a thing! You don’t
mean to do any harm to Joan, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I mean her no harm, unless it’s a harm to want to make her
my wife; but it would have been all one to you if I meant to murder
her and you knew it, so your sin is just as great, and verily the
betrayers of innocent blood shall have their reward,” and he pointed
at her with his long fingers. “I’ve got what I want,” he went on,
“though I’ve had to pay a lot of money for it; but I tell you that it
won’t do you any good; you might as well throw it into the mere and
yourself after it, as expect to get any profit out of that forty
pounds, the price of innocent blood—the price of innocent blood.”
Then once more Samuel pointed at her and grinned maliciously, till to
her fancy his face looked like that of the stone demon above him.
By now Mrs. Gillingwater was so frightened that for a moment or two
she hesitated as to whether it would not be wiser to return the money
and free herself from the burden of a dreadful thought. In the end her
avarice prevailed, as might have been expected, and without another
word she rose and walked towards the front door, which Samuel unlocked
and opened for her.
“Good-bye,” he said, as she went down the passage. “You’ve done me a
good turn, ma’am, and now I’m sure that I’ll marry Joan; but for all
that a day shall come when you will wish that your hand had been cut
off before you touched those forty sovereigns: you remember my words
when you lie a-dying, Mrs. Gillingwater, with all your deeds behind
you and all the doom before.”
Then the woman fled through the storm and the night, more terrified
than ever she had been in her life’s day, nor did the gold that she
clasped to her heart avail to comfort her. For Rock had spoken truth;
it was the price of innocent blood, and she knew it.
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
Upon his arrival in town, Mr. Levinger drove to a private hotel in
Jermyn Street, where he was in the habit of staying on the rare
occasions when he visited London. He dressed and dined; then, having
posted a letter to Emma stating that he would call for her and Miss
Graves on the following morning in time to catch the eleven o’clock
train, and escort them home, he ordered a hansom and told the cabman
to take him to 8, Kent Street.
“It’s many a year since I have been in this place,” he thought to
himself with a sigh, as the cab turned out of the Edgware Road, “and
it doesn’t seem much changed. I wonder how she came to go to another
house. Well, I shall know the worst, or the best of it, presently.”
And again he sighed as the horse stopped with a jerk in front of No.
8.
Telling the man to wait, he rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs.
Bird herself, who, seeing an elderly gentleman in a fur coat, dropped
a polite curtsey.
“Is this Mrs. Bird’s house, pray?” he asked in his gentle voice.
“Yes, sir; I am Mrs. Bird.”
“Indeed: then perhaps you received a telegram from me this
morning—Mr. Levinger?”
“Yes, sir, it came safely, and I ordered some things on the strength
of it. Will you be so good as to step in, sir? I have heard poor Joan
speak of you, though I never could make out what you were to her from
her father down.”
“In a certain sense, madam, I am her guardian. Will you allow me to
help you with that door? And now, how is she?”
“About as bad as she can be, sir; and if you are her guardian, I only
wish that you had looked after her a little before, for I think that
being so lonesome has preyed upon her mind, poor dear. And now perhaps
you’ll step upstairs into her sitting-room, making as little noise as
possible. The doctor and the nurse are with her, and you may wish to
see them; it’s not a catching fever, so you can come up safely.”
He bowed, and followed Mrs. Bird to the little room, where she offered
him a chair. Through the thin double doors that separated them from
the bedchamber he could hear the sound of whispering, and now and
again of a voice, still strong and full, that spoke at random. “Don’t
cut my hair,” said the voice: “why do you cut my hair? He used to
praise it; he’d never know me without my hair.”
“That’s her raving, poor love. She’ll go on in this kind of way for
hours.”
Mr. Levinger turned a shade paler. He was a sensitive man, and these
voices of the sick room pained him; moreover, he may have found a
meaning in them.
“Perhaps you will give me a few details, Mrs. Bird,” he said, drawing
his chair close to the window. “You might tell me first how Joan Haste
came to be your lodger.”
So Mrs. Bird began, and told him all the story, from the day when she
had seen Joan sitting upon her box on the opposite doorstep till the
present hour—that is, she told it to him with certain omissions. Mr.
Levinger listened attentively.
“I was very wrong,” he said, when she had finished, “to allow her to
come to London in this fashion. I reproach myself much about it, but
the girl was headstrong and—there were reasons. It is most fortunate
that she should have found so kind a friend as you seem to have been
to her.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Bird severely, “I must say that I think you
were wrong. London is not a place to throw a young woman like Joan
into to sink or to swim, even though she may have given you some
trouble; and if anything happens to her I think that you will always
have it on your conscience.” And she put her head on one side and
looked at him through her spectacles.
Mr. Levinger winced visibly, and did not seem to know what to answer.
At that moment the doctor came out of the sick room, leaving the door
open; and, looking through it, Mr. Levinger saw a picture that he
could never forget. Joan was lying upon an iron bedstead, and on a
chair beside it, shimmering in the light, lay the tumbled masses of
her shorn hair. Her face was flushed, and her large eyes shone with an
unnatural brightness. One hand hung downwards almost to the floor, and
with the other she felt feebly at her head, saying in a piteous voice,
“Where is my hair? What have you done with my hair? He will never know
me like this, or if he does he will think me ugly. Oh! please give me
back my hair.” Then the nurse closed the door, and Mr. Levinger was
glad of it.
“This is the gentleman, Doctor,” said Mrs. Bird, “who is interested
in–-”
The doctor bowed stiffly; then, seeing what manner of man Mr. Levinger
was, relaxed, and said, “I beg your pardon. I suppose that your
interest in my patient is of a parental character?”
“Not exactly, sir, but I consider myself in loco parentis. Can you
give me any information, or perhaps I should say—any hope?”
“Hope? Oh yes—lots of it,” answered the doctor, who was an able
middle-aged man of the brusque and kindly order, one who understood
his business, but took pleasure in disparaging both himself and it. “I
always hope until I see a patient in his coffin. Not that things are
as bad as that in this case. I trust that she will pull through—I
fancy that she will pull through; but all the same, as I understand
that expense is no longer an object, I am going to get in a second
opinion to-morrow. You see I am barely forty myself, and my experience
is consequently limited,” and he smiled satirically. “I have my views,
but I dare say that they stand in need of correction; at any rate,
without further advice I don’t mean to take the responsibility of the
rather heroic treatment which I propose to adopt. The case is a
somewhat peculiar one. I can’t understand why the girl should be in
this way at all, except on the hypothesis that she is suffering from
some severe mental shock; and I purpose, therefore, to try and doctor
her mind as well as her body. But it is useless to
Comments (0)