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Read books online » Fiction » Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard (cat reading book .TXT) 📖

Book online «Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard (cat reading book .TXT) 📖». Author H. Rider Haggard



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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.

CHAPTER XXXV

DISENCHANTMENT

 

It was Sunday evening at Monk’s Lodge, and Henry and Mr. Levinger were

sitting over their wine after dinner. For a while they talked upon

indifferent subjects, and more particularly about the shooting on the

previous day and the arrangements for the morrow’s sport. Then there

was a silence, which Mr. Levinger broke.

 

“I have heard a curious bit of news,” he said, “about Joan Haste. It

seems that she is married.”

 

Henry drank half a glass of port wine, and answered, “Yes, I know. She

has married your tenant Samuel Rock, the dissenter, a very strange

person. I cannot understand it.”

 

“Can’t you? I think I can. It is a good match for her, though I don’t

altogether approve of it, and know nothing of the details. However, I

wasn’t consulted, and there it is. I hope that they may be happy.”

 

“So do I,” said Henry grimly. “And now, Mr. Levinger, I want to have a

word with you about the estate affairs. What is to be done? It is time

that you took some steps to protect yourself.”

 

“It seems to me, Graves,” he answered deliberately, “that my course of

action must very much depend upon your own. You know what I mean.”

 

“Yes, Mr. Levinger; but are you still anxious that I should propose to

your daughter? Forgive me if I speak plainly.”

 

“That has always been my wish, and I see no particular reason to

change it.”

 

“But do you think that it is her wish, Mr. Levinger? I fancy that her

manner has been a little cold to me of late, perhaps with justice;

and,” he added, rather nervously, “naturally I do not wish to lay

myself open to a rebuff. I find that I am very ignorant of the ways of

women, as of various other things.”

 

“Many of us have made that discovery, Graves; and of course it is

impossible for me to guarantee your success, though I think that you

will be successful.”

 

“There is another matter, Mr. Levinger: Emma has considerable

possessions; am I then justified, in my impoverished condition, in

asking her to take me? Would it not be thought, would she not think,

that I did so from obvious motives?”

 

“On that point you may make your mind quite easy, Graves; for I, who

am the girl’s father, tell you that I consider you will be giving her

quite as much as she gives you. I have never hidden from you that I am

in a sense a man under a cloud. My follies came to an end many years

ago, it is true, and I have never fallen into the clutches of the law,

still they were bad enough to force me to change my name and to begin

life afresh. Should you marry my daughter, and should you wish it, you

will of course have the right to learn my true name, though on that

point I shall make an appeal to your generosity and ask you not to

press your right. I have done with the past, of which even the thought

is hateful to me, and I do not wish to reopen old sores; so perhaps

you may be content with the assurance that I am of a good and ancient

family, and that before I got into trouble I served in the army with

some distinction: for instance, I received the wound that crippled me

at the battle of the Alma.”

 

“I shall never press you to tell that which you desire to keep to

yourself, Mr. Levinger.”

 

“It is like you to say so, Graves,” he answered, with evident relief;

“but the mere fact that I make such a request will show you what I

mean when I say that Emma has as much or more to gain from this

marriage than you have, since it is clear that some rumours of her

father’s disgrace must follow her through life; moreover she is humbly

born upon her mother’s side. I do trust and pray, my dear fellow, that

it will come off. Alas! I am not long for this world, my heart is

troubling me more and more, and the doctors have warned me that I may

die at any moment; therefore it is my most earnest desire to see the

daughter whom I love better than anything on earth, happily settled

before I go.”

 

“Well, Mr. Levinger,” Henry answered, “I will ask her to-morrow if I

find an opportunity, but the issue does not rest with me. I only wish

that I were more worthy of her.”

 

“I am glad to hear it. God bless you, and God speed you, my dear

Graves! I hope when I am gone that, whatever you may learn about my

unfortunate past, you will still try to think kindly of me, and to

remember that I was a man, cursed by nature with passions of unusual

strength, which neither my education nor the circumstances of my early

life helped me to control.”

 

“It is not for me to judge you or any other man; I leave that to those

who are without sin,” said Henry, and the conversation came to an end.

 

That night Henry was awakened by hearing people moving backwards and

forwards in the passages. For a moment he thought of

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