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

of his conduct,

that it is somewhat paralysing to a modest man unexpectedly to find

himself confronted by the young woman whom his family desire him to

marry.

 

“How do you do?” he ejaculated at last: “I think that we have met

before.” And he held out his hand.

 

“Yes, we have met before,” she answered shyly and in a low voice,

touching his sun-browned palm with her delicate fingers, “when you

were at home last Christmas year.”

 

“It seems much longer ago than that,” said Henry—“so long that I

wonder you remember me.”

 

“I do not see so many people that I am likely to forget one of them,”

she answered, with a curious little smile. “I dare say that the time

seemed long to you, abroad in new countries; but to me, who have not

stirred from Monk’s Lodge, it is like yesterday.”

 

“Well, of course that does make a difference;” then, hastening to

change the subject, he added, “I am afraid I was very rude; I thought

that you were my sister. I can’t imagine how you can read in this

light, and it always vexes me to see people trying their eyes. If you

had ever kept a night watch at sea you would understand why.”

 

“I am accustomed to reading in all sorts of lights,” Emma answered.

 

“Do you read much, then?”

 

“I have nothing else to do. You see I have no brothers or sisters, no

one at all except my father, who keeps very much to himself; and we

have few neighbours round Monk’s Lodge—at least, few that I care to

be with,” she added, blushing again.

 

Henry remembered hearing that the Levingers were considered to be

outside the pale of what is called society, and did not pursue this

branch of the subject.

 

“What do you read?” he asked.

 

“Oh, anything and everything. We have a good library, and sometimes I

take up one class of reading, sometimes another; though perhaps I get

through more history than anything else, especially in the winter,

when it is too wretched to go out much. You see,” she added in

explanation, “I like to know about human nature and other things, and

books teach me in a second-hand kind of way,” and she stopped

suddenly, for just then Ellen entered the room, looking very handsome

in a low-cut black dress that showed off the whiteness of her neck and

arms.

 

“What, are you down already, Miss Levinger!” she said, “and with all

your things to unpack too. You do dress quickly,”—and she looked

critically at her visitor’s costume. “Let me see: do you and Henry

know each other, or must I introduce you?”

 

“No, we have met before,” said Emma.

 

“Oh yes! I remember now. Surely you were here when my brother was on

leave last time.” At this point Henry smiled grimly and turned away to

hide his face. “There’s not going to be any dinner-party, you know. Of

course we couldn’t have one even if we wished at present, and there is

no one to ask if we could. Everybody is in London at this time of the

year. Mr. Milward is positively the only creature left in these parts,

and I believe mother has asked him. Ah! here he is.”

 

As she spoke the butler opened the door and announced—“Mr. Milward.”

 

Mr. Milward was a tall and good-looking young man, with bold prominent

eyes and a receding forehead, as elaborately dressed as the plain

evening attire of Englishmen will allow. His manner was confident, his

self-appreciation great, and his tone towards those whom he considered

his inferiors in rank or fortune patronising to the verge of

insolence. In short, he was a coarse-fibred person, puffed up with the

pride of his possessions, and by the flattery of women who desired to

secure him in marriage, either themselves or for some friend or

relation.

 

“What an insufferable man!” was Henry’s inward comment, as his eyes

fell upon him entering the room; nor did he change his opinion on

further acquaintance.

 

“How do you do, Mr. Milward?” said Ellen, infusing the slightest

possible inflection of warmth into her commonplace words of greeting.

“I am so glad that you were able to come.”

 

“How do you do, Miss Graves? I had to telegraph to Lady Fisher, with

whom I was going to dine to-night in Grosvenor Square, to say that I

was ill and could not travel to town. I only hope she won’t find me

out, that is all.”

 

“Indeed!” answered Ellen, with a touch of irony: “Lady Fisher’s loss

is our gain, though I think that you would have found Grosvenor Square

more amusing than Rosham. Let me introduce you to my brother, Captain

Graves, and to Miss Levinger.”

 

Mr. Milward favoured Henry with a nod, and turning to Emma said, “Oh!

how do you do, Miss Levinger? So we meet at last. I was dreadfully

disappointed to miss you when I was staying at Cringleton Park in

December. How is your mother, Lady Levinger? Has she got rid of her

neuralgia?”

 

“I think there has been some mistake,” said Emma, visibly shrinking

before this bold, assertive man: “I have never been at Cringleton Park

in my life, and my mother, Mrs. Levinger, has been dead many years.”

 

“Oh, indeed: I apologise. I thought you were Miss Levinger of

Cringleton, the great heiress who was away in Italy when I stayed

there. You see, I remember hearing Lady Levinger say that there were

no other Levingers.”

 

“I am afraid that I am a living contradiction to Lady Levinger’s

assertion,” answered Emma, flushing and turning aside.

 

Ellen, who had been biting her lip with vexation, was about to

intervene, fearing lest Mr. Milward should make further inquiries,

when the door opened and Mr. Levinger entered, followed by her father

and mother. Henry took the opportunity of shaking hands with Mr.

Levinger to study his appearance somewhat closely—an attention that

he noticed was reciprocated.

 

Mr. Levinger was now a man of about sixty, but he looked much older.

Either because of an accident, or through a rheumatic affection, he

was so lame upon his right leg that it was necessary for him to use a

stick even in walking from one room to another; and, although his hair

was scarcely more than streaked with white, frailty of health had

withered him and bowed his frame. Looking at him, Henry could well

believe what he had heard—that five-and-twenty years ago he was one

of the handsomest men in the county. To this hour the dark and sullen

brown eyes were full of fire and eloquence—a slumbering fire that

seemed to wax and wane within them; the brow was ample, and the

outline of the features flawless. He seemed a man upon whom age had

settled suddenly and prematurely—a man who had burnt himself out in

his youth, and was now but an ash of his former self, though an ash

with fire in the heart of it.

 

Mr. Levinger greeted him in a few courteous, well-chosen words, that

offered a striking contrast to the social dialect of Mr. Milward—the

contrast between the old style and the new—then, with a bow, he

passed on to offer his arm to Lady Graves, for at that moment dinner

was announced. As Henry followed him with Miss Levinger, he found

himself wondering, with a curiosity that was unusual to him, who and

what this man had been in his youth, before he drifted a waif to

Bradmouth, there to repair his broken fortunes by a mésalliance with

the smack owner’s daughter.

 

“Was your father ever in the Army?” he asked of Emma, as they filed

slowly down the long corridor. “Forgive my impertinence, but he looks

like a military man.”

 

He felt her start at his question.

 

“I don’t know: I think so,” she answered, “because I have heard him

speak of the Crimea as though he had been present at the battles; but

he never talks of his young days.”

 

Then they entered the dining-room, and in the confusion of taking

their seats the conversation dropped.