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

"Thank you, thank you--for everything," he answered hastily, and they started.

The drive was long and the road rough, having been much washed by recent rains; but after a fashion Henry enjoyed it, so far as his pressing troubles of mind would allow him to enjoy anything, for it was a lovely morning, and the breath of the open air, the first that he had tasted for many weeks, was like wine to him. On the way he learned from his companion all that there was to be told about his father. It appeared, as Henry had heard already, that he had been unwell for the last two months--not in a way to give alarm, though sufficiently to prevent him from leaving the house except on the finest days, or at times his room. On the previous day, however, he seemed much better, and dined downstairs. About ten o'clock he went to bed, and slept soundly till a little past midnight, when the household was aroused by the violent ringing of Lady Graves's bell, and they rushed upstairs to find that Sir Reginald had been seized with a fit. Dr. Childs was sent for at once, and gave an opinion that death might occur at any moment. His treatment restored the patient's consciousness; and Sir Reginald's first words expressed the belief that he was dying, and an earnest wish to see his son, whereupon Edward, who chanced to be spending the night at Rosham, was despatched with the brake to Bradmouth.

At length they reached the Hall, and Henry was helped from the vehicle; but in ascending the stone steps, which he insisted upon doing by himself, one of his crutches slipped, causing the foot of his injured limb to come down with some force upon the edge of the step. The accident gave him considerable pain, but he saved himself from falling, and thought little more of it at the time.

In the dining-room he found Ellen, who looked pale, and seemed relieved to see him.

"How is my father?" he asked.

"Insensible again, just now. But I am so glad that you have come, Henry, for he has been asking for you continually. All this business about the property seems to weigh more upon his mind now than it has done for years, and he wants to speak to you on the subject."

Then his mother came down, and her eyes were red with weeping.

"You have returned to a sad home, Henry," she said kissing him. "We are an unlucky family: death and misfortune are always at our doors. You look very white, my dear boy, and no wonder. You had better try to eat something, since it useless for you to attempt to see your poor father at present."

So Henry ate, or made a pretence of doing so, and afterwards was helped upstairs to a room opposite to that in which his father lay dying, where he settled himself in an invalid chair which Sir Reginald had used on the few occasions when he had been outside the house during the past weeks, and waited. All that day and all the next night he waited, and still his father did not recover consciousness--indeed, Dr. Childs now appeared to be of opinion that he would pass from coma to death. Much as he wished to bid a last farewell to his father, Henry could not repress a certain sense of relief when he heard that this was likely to be the case, for an instinct, coupled with some words which Ellen had let fall, warned him that Sir Reginald wished to speak to him upon the subject of Miss Levinger.

But the doctor was mistaken; for about six o'clock in the morning, nearly twenty-four hours after he had reached the house, Henry was awakened by Ellen, who came to tell him that their father was fully conscious and wished to see him at once. Seating himself in the invalid chair, he was wheeled across the passage to the red bedroom, in which he had himself been born. The top halves of some of the window-shutters were partly open, and by the light that streamed though them into the dim death-chamber, he saw his father's gaunt but still stately form propped up with pillows in the great four-post bed, of which the red curtains had been drawn back to admit the air.

"Here comes Henry," whispered Lady Graves.

The old man turned his head, and shaking back his snowy hair, he peered round the room.

"Is that you, my son?" he said in a low voice, stretching out a trembling hand, which Henry took and kissed. "You find me in a bad way: on the verge of death, where you have so lately been."

"Yes, it is I, father."

"God bless you, my boy! and God be thanked that you have been able to come to listen to my last words and that I have recovered my senses so that I can speak to you! Do not go away, my dear, or you, Ellen, for I want you all to hear what I have to say. You know, Henry, the state of the property. Mismanagement and bad times have ruined it. I have been to blame, and your dear brother, whom I hope soon to see, was to blame also. It has come to this, that I am leaving you beggars, and worse than beggars, since for the first time in the history of our family we cannot pay our debts."

Here he stopped and groaned, and Lady Graves whispered to him to rest awhile.

"No, no," he answered. "Give me some brandy; I will go on; it does not matter if I use myself up, and my brain may fail me at any moment. Henry, I am dying here, on this spot of earth where so many of our forefathers have lived and died before me; and more than the thought of leaving you all, more than the memory of my sins, or than the fear of the judgment of the Almighty, Whose mercy is my refuge, the thought crushes me that I have failed in my trust, that my children must be beggared, my name dishonoured, and my home--yes, and my very grave--sold to strangers. Henry, I have but one hope now, and it is in you. I think that I have sometimes been unjust to you in the past; but I know you for an upright and self-denying man, who, unlike some of us, has always set his duty before his pleasure. It is to you, then, that I appeal with my last breath, feeling sure that it will not be in vain, since, even should you have other wishes, you will sacrifice them to my prayer, to your mother's welfare, and to the honour of our name. You know that there is only one way of escape from all our liabilities--for I believe you have been spoken to on the subject; indeed, I myself alluded to it--by a marriage between yourself and Emma Levinger, who holds the mortgages on this property, and has other means. Her father desires this, and I have been told that the girl herself, who is a good and a sweet woman, has declared her affection for you; therefore it all rests with you. Do you understand me?"

"Say yes, and that you will marry her on the first opportunity," whispered Ellen into Henry's ear. "He will kill himself with talking so much." Then she saw her brother's face, and drew back her head in horror. Heavens! could it be that he was going to refuse?

"I will try to make myself plain," went on Sir Reginald after a pause, and swallowing another sip of brandy. "I want you to promise, Henry, before us all, that nothing, except the death of one of you, shall prevent you from marrying Emma Levinger so soon as may be possible after my funeral. When I have heard you say that, I shall be able to die in peace. Promise, then, my son, quickly; for I wish to turn my mind to other matters."

Now all eyes were bent upon Henry's face, and it was rigid and ashen. Twice he tried to speak and failed; the third time the words came, and they sounded like a groan.

"Father, I /cannot/."

Ellen gasped, and Lady Graves murmured, "O! cruel, cruel!" As for the dying man, his head sank back upon the pillow, and he lay there bewildered. Presently he lifted it and spoke again.

"I do not think--my hearing--I must have misunderstood. Did you say you could not promise, Henry? Why not? With everything at stake, and my dying prayer--mine, your father's. Oh! why not? Are you married, then?"

The sweat broke from Henry's brow and rolled down his face in large drops, as he answered, always in the voice that sounded like a groan--

"I am not married, father; and, before God, sooner than be forced to refuse you I would lie as you lie now. Have pity, I beseech you, on my cruel strait, between my honour and the denial of your wish. I cannot promise that I will marry Emma Levinger, because I am bound to another woman by ties that may not be broken, and I cannot be so base as to desert her."

"Another woman? I am too late, then?" murmured his father more and more feebly. "But stay: there is still hope. Who is she? At least you will not refuse to tell me her name."

"Her name is Joan Haste."

"Joan Haste? What! the girl at the inn? The bastard! My son, my only remaining son, denies his dying father, and brings his mother and his name to disgrace and ruin, because he is bound in honour to a village bastard!" he screamed. "Oh, my God! that I should have lived to hear this! Oh, my God! my God!"

And suddenly the old man flung his arms wide and fell back. Lady Graves and Ellen ran to him. Presently the former came away from the bed.

"Your father is dead, Henry," she said. "Perhaps, after what has passed, you will feel that this is no fit place for you. I will ring for some one to take you to your room."

But the last bitterness of these words, so awful from a mother's lips, was spared to Henry, for he had swooned. As he sank into unconsciousness a solemn voice seemed to speak within his tortured brain, and it said, "Behold the firstfruits of iniquity."

Henry did not attend his father's funeral, for the good reason that he was ill in bed. In the first place, though he made light of it at the time, that slip of his on the stone steps had so severely affected his broken limb as to necessitate his lying by for at least another month; and in the second he had received a shock to his nerves, healthy as they were, from which he could not hope to recover for many a month. He was kept informed of all that went on by Thomson, the old butler, for neither his mother nor Ellen came near him during those dark days. He heard the footsteps of the carpenter who measured his father's body, he heard the coffin being brought upstairs; and the day afterwards he heard the shuffling tramp of the tenants, who, according to ancient custom, bore down the corpse of the dead owner of Rosham to lie in state in the great hall. He heard the workmen nailing the hatchment of the departed baronet beneath his window; and then at last a day came when he heard a noise of the rolling wheels of carriages, and the sound of a church bell tolling, as his father was laid to rest among the bones of his ancestors.

So bitter was the resentment against him, that none had asked Henry to look his last upon his father's face. For a while he thought it better that he should not do so, but on the second night after the death nature grew too strong for