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

there for him? If once those bars were down--and she could break them with a touch--she would be saved indeed, but Henry must be lost. She was acquainted with the position of his affairs, and aware that the question was not one of a /mésalliance/ only. If he married her, he would be ruined socially and financially in such a fashion that he could never lift up his head again. Of course even in present circumstances it was not necessary that he should marry her, especially as she would never ask it of him; but if once they met, if once they corresponded even, as she knew well, the whole trouble would begin afresh, and at least there would be an end of his prospects with Miss Levinger. No, no; whatever happened, however great her sufferings, her first duty was silence.

Another week went by, leaving her resolution unchanged; but now her health began to fail beneath the constant strain of her anxieties, and a physical languor that rendered her unfit for long hours of work in a heated shop. Now she lacked the energy to tramp about in the Park before her early breakfast; indeed, the advance of autumn, with its rain and fogs, made such exercise impossible. Her first despair, the despair that suggested suicide, had gone by, but then so had the half-defiant mood which followed it. Whatever may have been her faults, Joan was a decent-minded woman, and one who felt her position bitterly. Never for one moment of the day or night could she be free from remorse and care, and the weight of apprehension that seemed to crush all courage out of her. Even if from time to time she could succeed in putting aside her mental troubles, their place was taken by anxieties for the future. Soon she must leave the home that sheltered her, and then where was she to go?

 

One afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Joan was standing in the mantle department of Messrs. Black and Parker's establishment awaiting customers. The morning had been a heavy one, for town was filling rapidly, and she felt very tired. There was, it is true, no fixed rule to prevent Messrs. Black and Parker's employés from from seating themselves when not actually at work; but since a pique had begun between herself and Mr. Waters, in practice Joan found few opportunities of so doing. On two occasions when she ventured to rest thus for a minute, the manager had rated her harshly for indolence, and she did not care to expose herself to another such experience. Now she was standing, the very picture of weariness and melancholy, leaning upon a chair, when of a sudden she looked up and saw before her--Ellen Graves and Emma Levinger. They were speaking.

"Very well, dear," said Ellen, "you go and buy the gloves while I try on the mantles. I will meet you presently in the doorway."

"Yes," said Emma, and went.

Joan's first impulse was to fly; but flight was impossible, for with Ellen, rubbing his white hands and bowing at intervals, was Mr. Waters.

"I think you asked for velvet mantles, madam, did you not? Now, miss, the velvet mantles--quick, please--those new shapes from Paris."

Almost automatically, Joan obeyed, reaching down cloak after cloak to be submitted to Miss Graves's critical examination. Three or four of them she put by as unsuitable, but at last one was produced that seemed to take her fancy.

"I should like the young person to try on this one, please," she said.

"Certainly, madam. Now, miss: no, not that, the other. Where are your wits this afternoon?"

Joan put on the garment in silence, turning herself round to display its perfections, with the vain hope that Ellen's preoccupation and the gathering gloom in the shop would prevent her from being recognised.

"It's very dark here," Ellen said presently.

"Yes, madam; but I have ordered them to turn on the electric light. Will you be seated for a moment, madam?"

Ellen took a chair, and began chatting with the manager about the advantages of the employment of electricity in preference to gas in shops, while Joan, with the cloak still on her shoulders, stood before them in the shadow.

Just then she heard a footstep, the footstep of a lame man who was advancing towards them from the stairs, and the sound set her wondering if Henry had recovered from his lameness. Next moment she was clinging to the back of a chair to save herself from falling headlong to the floor, for the man was speaking.

"Are you here, Ellen?" he said: "it is so infernally dark in this place. Oh! there you are. I met Miss Levinger below, and she told me that I should find you upstairs trying on bodices or something."

"One does not generally try on bodices in public, Henry. What is the matter?"

"Nothing more than usual, only I have made up my mind to go back to Rosham by the five o'clock train, and thought that I would come to see whether you had any message for my mother."

"Oh! I understood that you were not going till Wednesday, when you could have escorted us home. No, I have no particular message, beyond my love. You may tell her that I am getting on very well with my trousseau, and that Edward has given me the loveliest bangle."

"I have to go," answered Henry: "those confounded farms, as usual," and he sighed.

"Oh! farms," said Ellen--"I am sick of farms. I wish that the art of agriculture had never been invented. Thank goodness"--as the electric light sprang out with a sudden glare--"we can see at last. If you have a minute, stop and give me your opinion of this cloak. Taste is one of your redeeming virtues, you know."

"Well, it is about all the time I have," he said, glancing at his watch. "Where's the article?"

"There, before you, on that young woman."

"Oh!" said Henry, "I see. Charming, I think; but a little long, isn't it? Now I'm off."

At this moment for the first time Ellen saw Joan's face. She recognised her instantly--there was no possibility of mistake in that brilliant and merciless light. And what a despairing face it was! so much so, indeed, that it touched even Ellen's imagination and moved her to pity. The great brown eyes were opened wide, the lips were set apart and pale, the head was bent forward, and from beneath the rich folds of the velvet cloak the hands were a little lifted, as though in entreaty.

In an instant Ellen grasped the facts: Joan Haste had seen Henry, and was about to speak to him. Trying as was the situation, Ellen proved herself its mistress, as she had need to do, for an instinct warned her that if once these two recognised each other incalculable trouble must result. With a sudden movement she threw herself between them.

"Very well, dear," she said: "good-bye. You had better be going, or you will miss the train."

"All right," answered Henry, "there is no such desperate hurry; let me have another look at the cloak."

"You will have plenty of opportunities of doing that," Ellen said carelessly; "I have settled to buy it. Why, here comes Emma; I suppose that she is tired of waiting."

Henry turned and began to walk down the stairs. Joan saw that he was going, and made an involuntary movement as though to follow him, but Ellen was too quick for her. Stepping swiftly to one side, she spoke, or rather whispered into her ear:

"Go back: I forbid you!"

Joan stopped bewildered, and in another moment Henry had spoken some civil words to Emma and was gone.

"Will you be so good as to send the cloak with the other things?" said Ellen to Mr. Waters. "Come, Emma, we must be going, or we shall be late for the 'at home,'" and, followed by the bowing manager, she left.

"Oh, my God!" murmured Joan, putting her hands to her face--"oh, my God! my God!"

CHAPTER XXVI(A LOVE LETTER)

 

Joan never knew how she got through the rest of that afternoon. She did not faint, but she was so utterly overcome and bewildered that she could do nothing right. Three times Mr. Waters spoke to her, with ever-increasing harshness, and on the third occasion she answered him saying--

"I am very sorry, but it is not my fault. I feel ill: let me go home."

"Yes, you'd better go, miss," he said, "and so far as I am concerned you can stop there. I shall report your conduct to the proprietors, so you need not trouble to return unless you hear from me again."

Joan went without a word; and so ended her life as a show-woman, for never again did she set eyes upon the establishment of Messrs. Black and Parker, or upon their estimable manager, Mr. Waters.

The raw damp of the October evening revived her somewhat, but before she reached Kent Street she knew that she had not exaggerated when she said that she was ill--very ill, in body as well as in mind. The long anxiety and mental torture, culminating in the scene of that afternoon, together with confinement in the close atmosphere of the shop and other exciting causes, had broken down her health at last. Sharp pains shot through her head and limbs; she felt fever burning in her blood, and at times she trembled so violently that she could scarcely keep her feet. Sally opened the door to her with an affectionate smile, for the dumb girl had learned to worship her; but Joan went straight to her room without noticing her, and threw herself upon the bed. Presently Mrs. Bird, learning from the girl that something was wrong, came upstairs bringing a cup of tea.

"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she asked.

"I don't know," answered Joan; "I feel very bad in my head and all over me."

"Influenza, I expect," said Mrs. Bird; "there is so much of it about now. Let me help you off with your cloak and things, then drink this tea and try to go to sleep. If you are not better to-morrow morning, we shall have to send for the doctor."

Joan obeyed listlessly, swallowing the tea with an effort.

"Are you sure that you have nothing on your mind, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bird. "I have been watching you for a long while, and I find a great change in you. You never did seem happy from the hour that you came here, but of late you have been downright miserable."

Joan laughed: the sound of that laugh gave Mrs. Bird "the creeps," as she afterwards expressed it.

"Anything on my mind? Yes, I have everything on my mind, enough to drive me mad twice over. You've been very kind to me, Mrs. Bird, and I shall never forget your goodness; but I am going to leave you to-morrow--they have dismissed me from the shop already--so before I go I may as well tell you what I am. To begin with, I am a liar; and I'm more than that, I am---- Listen!" and she bent her head forward and whispered into the little woman's ear. "Now," she added, "I don't know if you will let me stop the night in the house after that. If not, say so, and I'll