JOAN HASTE, H. RIDER HAGGARD [free ereaders TXT] 📗

she was frightened, horribly frightened; for though the thing seemed impossible, it was borne in upon her mind that Samuel Rock's presentiment was true, and that an hour might come when, in some sense, she would lie in the mire before him and seek a refuge as his wife. She could not conceive any circumstances in which a thing so horrible might happen, for however sore her necessity, though she shrank from death, it seemed to her that it would be better to die rather than to suffer such a fate. Yet so deeply did this terror shake her, that she turned and looked upon the black waters of the mere, wondering if it would not be better to give it the lie once and for all. Then she thought of Henry, and her mood changed, for her mind and body were too healthy to allow her to submit herself indefinitely to such forebodings. Like many women, Joan was an opportunist, and lived very much in the day and for it. These things might be true, but at least they were not yet; if she was destined to be the wife of Samuel Rock in the future, she was her own mistress in the present, and the shadow of sorrow and bonds to come, so she argued, suggested the strongest possible reasons for rejoicing in the light and liberty of the fleeting hour. If she was doomed to an earthly hell, if her hands must be torn by thorns and her eyes grow blind with tears, at least she was minded to be able to remember that once she had walked in Paradise, gathering flowers there, and beholding her heart's desire.

Thus she reasoned in her folly, as she tramped homewards through the rain, heedless of the fact that no logic could be more fatal, and none more pleasing to that tempter who as of old lurks in paradises such as her fancy painted.

When she reached home Joan found her aunt awaiting her in the bar parlour.

"Who has been keeping you all this time in the wet, Joan?" she asked in a half expectant voice.

Joan lit a candle before she answered, for the place was gloomy.

"Do you wish to know?" she said: "then I will tell you. Your friend, Mr. Samuel Rock, whom you set after me."

"My friend? And what if he is my friend? I'd be glad if I had a few more such." By this time the light had burnt up, and Mrs. Gillingwater saw the condition of her niece's attire. "Good gracious! girl, what have you been doing?" she asked. "Ain't you ashamed to walk about half stripped like that?"

"People must do what they can't help, aunt. That's the work of the friend you are so proud of. I may as well tell you at once, for if I don't, he will. He came making love to me again, as he has before, and finished up by kissing me, the coward, and when I threw him off he tore my dress."

"And why couldn't you have let him kiss you quietly, you silly girl?" asked her aunt with indignation. "Now I dare say that you have offended him so that he won't come forward again, to say nothing of spoiling your new dress. It ain't a crime for a man to kiss the girl he wants to marry, is it?"

"Why? Because I would rather kiss a rat--that's all. I hate the very sight of him; and as for coming forward again, I only hope that he won't, for my sake and for his too."

Now Mrs. Gillingwater arose in her wrath; her coarse face became red and her voice grew shrill.

"You good-for-nothing baggage!" she said; "so that is your game, is it? To go turning up your nose and chucking your impudence in the face of a man like Mr. Rock, who is worth twenty of you, and does you honour by wishing to make a wife of you, you that haven't a decent name to your back, and he rich enough to marry a lady if he liked, or half a dozen of them for the matter of that. Well, I tell you that you shall have him, or I will know the reason why--ay, and so will others too."

"I can't be violent, like you, aunt," answered Joan, who began to feel as though this second scene would be too much for her; "it isn't in my nature, and I hate it. But whether I have a name or not--and it is no fault of mine if I have none, though folk don't seem inclined to let me forget it--I say that I will not marry Samuel Rock. I am a woman full grown and of age; and I know this, that there is no law in the land which can force me to take a husband whom I don't want. And so perhaps, as we have got to live together, you'll stop talking about him."

"Stop talking about him? Never for one hour, till I see you signing your name in the book with him, miss. And as for living together, it won't be long that we shall do that, unless you drop these tantrums and become sensible. Else you may just tramp it for your living, or go and slave as a housemaid if any one will take you, which I doubt they won't without a character, for nobody here will say a good word for you, you wilful, stuck-up thing, for all your fine looks that you are so proud of, and that'll be the ruin of you yet if you're not careful, as they were of your mother before you."

Joan sank into a chair and made no answer. The woman's violence beat her down and was hateful to her. Almost rather would she have faced Samuel Rock, for with him her sex gave her certain advantages.

"I know what you are after," went on Mrs. Gillingwater, with gathering vehemence. "Do you suppose that I have not seen through you all these weeks, though you are so cunning? You are making up to /him/, you are; not that I have a word to say against him, for he is a nice gentleman enough, only, like the rest of them, so soft that he'll let a pretty face fool him for all his seafaring in foreign parts. Well, look here, Joan: I'll speak to you plain and plump. We never were mother and daughter, so it is no use pretending what we don't feel, and I won't put up with that from you which I might perhaps from my own child, if I had one. You've given me lots of 'truck,' with your contrary ways, ever since you were a little one, and I'm not minded to stand much more of it, for the profit don't run to the worry. What I want you to understand is, that I am set on your pulling it off with Samuel Rock like a broody hen on a nest egg, and I mean to see that chick hatch out; never you mind for why--that's my affair. If you can't see your way to that, then off you go, and pretty sharp too. There, I have said my say, and you can think it over. Now you had best change your clothes and go and look after the Captain, for I have got business abroad to-night. If you don't mend your manners, it will be for the last time, I can tell you."

Joan rose and obeyed without a word.

Mrs. Gillingwater watched her pass, and fell into a reflective mood.

"She is a beauty and no mistake," she thought to herself; "I never saw such another in all my born days. Her mother was well enough, but she wasn't in it with Joan; and what's more, I like her pride. Why should she take that canting chap if she don't want to? I'm paid to back him, and a day's work for a day's wage, that's my motto. But I'd rather see her marry the Captain, and sit in the church a lady, with a fur round her neck and a carriage waiting outside, than snuffle in a chapel praising the Lord with a pack of oily-faced children. If she had the go of a heifer calf, she would marry him though; he is bound to be a baronet, and it would make a ladyship of her, which with a little teaching is just what she is fit to be; for if he ain't almost as sweet on her--and small wonder after all that nursing--as she is on him, I was born in the Flegg Hundred, that's all. But go is just what Joan ain't got, not when she can make anything for herself out of it anyway; she'd do what you like for love, but she wouldn't turn her finger round a teacup to crown herself a queen. Well, there is no helping them as won't help themselves, so I am all for Samuel Rock and a hundred pounds in my pocket, especially as I dare say that I can screw another hundred out of /him/ if I can square Joan, to say nothing of a trifle from the Captain over and above the board for holding my tongue. I suppose he will marry old Levinger's girl, the Captain will; a pale, puling-faced thing she is, and full of soft words as a boiled potato with flour, but she's got plenty of that as will make her look rosy to any landlord in these times. Still, hang me, if I was a man, if I wouldn't rather take Joan and those brown eyes of hers, and snap my fingers at the world, the flesh, and the devil."

Who or what Mrs. Gillingwater meant by "the world, the flesh, and the devil" is not quite evident, but certainly they symbolised persons or conveyed some image to her mind in this connection, for, suiting the action to the word, /she/ snapped /her/ fingers thrice at the empty air, and then sought her bonnet prior to some private expedition in pursuance of pleasure, or more probably of profit.

 

CHAPTER XIV(SOWING THE WIND)

 

Joan went to her room and took off her wet things, for she was soaked to the skin, clothing herself anew in her Sunday dress--a soft grey garment, with little frills about the neck and wrists. Then she brushed her waving brown hair, twisting it into a loose knot at the back of her head; and, though she did not think of it, no style could have been more becoming to her. Her toilet completed, a few minutes after her aunt left the house, she went to the parlour to get herself some tea, of which she drank two or three cups, for she felt unusually thirsty, but she could scarcely swallow a mouthful. The food seemed to choke her, and when she attempted to eat the effort brought on a feeling of dizziness and a tingling sensation in her limbs.

"I wonder what is the matter with me?" she said to herself. "I feel as though my veins were on fire. I suppose that these scenes have upset me; or perhaps that tea was too strong. Well, I must go and look after