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

Upon his arrival in town, Mr. Levinger drove to a private hotel in Jermyn Street, where he was in the habit of staying on the rare occasions when he visited London. He dressed and dined; then, having posted a letter to Emma stating that he would call for her and Miss Graves on the following morning in time to catch the eleven o'clock train, and escort them home, he ordered a hansom and told the cabman to take him to 8, Kent Street.

"It's many a year since I have been in this place," he thought to himself with a sigh, as the cab turned out of the Edgware Road, "and it doesn't seem much changed. I wonder how she came to go to another house. Well, I shall know the worst, or the best of it, presently." And again he sighed as the horse stopped with a jerk in front of No. 8.

Telling the man to wait, he rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs. Bird herself, who, seeing an elderly gentleman in a fur coat, dropped a polite curtsey.

"Is this Mrs. Bird's house, pray?" he asked in his gentle voice.

"Yes, sir; I am Mrs. Bird."

"Indeed: then perhaps you received a telegram from me this morning--Mr. Levinger?"

"Yes, sir, it came safely, and I ordered some things on the strength of it. Will you be so good as to step in, sir? I have heard poor Joan speak of you, though I never could make out what you were to her from her father down."

"In a certain sense, madam, I am her guardian. Will you allow me to help you with that door? And now, how is she?"

"About as bad as she can be, sir; and if you are her guardian, I only wish that you had looked after her a little before, for I think that being so lonesome has preyed upon her mind, poor dear. And now perhaps you'll step upstairs into her sitting-room, making as little noise as possible. The doctor and the nurse are with her, and you may wish to see them; it's not a catching fever, so you can come up safely."

He bowed, and followed Mrs. Bird to the little room, where she offered him a chair. Through the thin double doors that separated them from the bedchamber he could hear the sound of whispering, and now and again of a voice, still strong and full, that spoke at random. "Don't cut my hair," said the voice: "why do you cut my hair? He used to praise it; he'd never know me without my hair."

"That's her raving, poor love. She'll go on in this kind of way for hours."

Mr. Levinger turned a shade paler. He was a sensitive man, and these voices of the sick room pained him; moreover, he may have found a meaning in them.

"Perhaps you will give me a few details, Mrs. Bird," he said, drawing his chair close to the window. "You might tell me first how Joan Haste came to be your lodger."

So Mrs. Bird began, and told him all the story, from the day when she had seen Joan sitting upon her box on the opposite doorstep till the present hour--that is, she told it to him with certain omissions. Mr. Levinger listened attentively.

"I was very wrong," he said, when she had finished, "to allow her to come to London in this fashion. I reproach myself much about it, but the girl was headstrong and--there were reasons. It is most fortunate that she should have found so kind a friend as you seem to have been to her."

"Yes, sir," answered Mrs. Bird severely, "I must say that I think you /were/ wrong. London is not a place to throw a young woman like Joan into to sink or to swim, even though she may have given you some trouble; and if anything happens to her I think that you will always have it on your conscience." And she put her head on one side and looked at him through her spectacles.

Mr. Levinger winced visibly, and did not seem to know what to answer. At that moment the doctor came out of the sick room, leaving the door open; and, looking through it, Mr. Levinger saw a picture that he could never forget. Joan was lying upon an iron bedstead, and on a chair beside it, shimmering in the light, lay the tumbled masses of her shorn hair. Her face was flushed, and her large eyes shone with an unnatural brightness. One hand hung downwards almost to the floor, and with the other she felt feebly at her head, saying in a piteous voice, "Where is my hair? What have you done with my hair? He will never know me like this, or if he does he will think me ugly. Oh! please give me back my hair." Then the nurse closed the door, and Mr. Levinger was glad of it.

"This is the gentleman, Doctor," said Mrs. Bird, "who is interested in----"

The doctor bowed stiffly; then, seeing what manner of man Mr. Levinger was, relaxed, and said, "I beg your pardon. I suppose that your interest in my patient is of a parental character?"

"Not exactly, sir, but I consider myself /in loco parentis/. Can you give me any information, or perhaps I should say--any hope?"

"Hope? Oh yes--lots of it," answered the doctor, who was an able middle-aged man of the brusque and kindly order, one who understood his business, but took pleasure in disparaging both himself and it. "I always hope until I see a patient in his coffin. Not that things are as bad as that in this case. I trust that she will pull through--I fancy that she /will/ pull through; but all the same, as I understand that expense is no longer an object, I am going to get in a second opinion to-morrow. You see I am barely forty myself, and my experience is consequently limited," and he smiled satirically. "I have my views, but I dare say that they stand in need of correction; at any rate, without further advice I don't mean to take the responsibility of the rather heroic treatment which I propose to adopt. The case is a somewhat peculiar one. I can't understand why the girl should be in this way at all, except on the hypothesis that she is suffering from some severe mental shock; and I purpose, therefore, to try and doctor her mind as well as her body. But it is useless to bore laymen with these matters. I can only say, sir, that I am deeply interested in the case, and will do my utmost to pull her through. I would rather that she had been at the hospital; but, on the whole, she is not badly off here, especially as I have succeeded in getting the best nurse for her that I know anywhere. Good night."

"Good night, Doctor, and whatever the issue, pray accept my thanks in advance, and remember that you need not spare money."

"Don't be afraid, sir--I sha'n't. I'll spend a thousand pounds over her, if necessary; and save your thanks at present--three weeks hence it may be another matter, or there may be only the bill to pay. Well, I must be off. Good night. Perhaps, Mrs. Bird, you will send out for the things the nurse wants," and he went.

"That seems a capable man," said Mr. Levinger; "I like the look of him. And now, madam, you will need some cash in hand. I have brought twenty pounds with me, which I suppose will be enough to go on with, without touching Joan's money," and he placed that sum upon the table.

"By the way, Mrs. Bird," he added, "perhaps you will be good enough to send me a note or a telegram every day informing me of your patient's progress--here is my address--also to keep an account of all sums expended, in which you can include an extra allowance of a pound a week to yourself, to compensate you for the trouble and anxiety to which this illness must put you."

"Thank you, sir," she answered, curtseying--"I call that very liberal; though, to tell you the truth, I am so fond of Joan that I would not take a farthing if I could afford it. But, what between two deaf-and-dumb people to look after and her on my mind, it is no use pretending that I can get through as much dressmaking work as I ought; and so, as you seem well able to pay, I will put my pride in my pocket, and the money along with it. Also I will keep you informed daily, as you ask."

"Two deaf-and-dumb people?"

"Yes, sir,"--and she told him about her husband and Sally.

"Really," he said, when she had finished, surveying the frail little woman with admiration, "you seem to have more than your share of this world's burden, and I respect you, madam, for the way in which you bear it."

"Not a bit, sir," she answered cheerily; "while it pleases God to give me my health, I wouldn't change places with the Queen of England and all her glory."

"I admire you still more, Mrs. Bird," he answered, as he bowed himself out politely; "I wish that everybody could face their trials so cheerfully." But within himself he said, "Poor Joan! no wonder she was wretched, shut up in this dreadful little house with deaf-and-dumb folk for companions. Well, I have done all I can for her now, but I wish that I had begun earlier. Oh! if I could have the last twenty-five years over again, things would be very different to-day."

Mrs. Bird was delighted with Mr. Levinger. Never before, as she explained presently with much gesticulation to Jim, had she met so charming, so handsome, so thoughtful, and so liberal an elderly gentleman.

"But," gesticulated Jim back, "if he is all this, why didn't he look after Joan better before?"--a question that his wife felt herself unable to answer, beyond saying that Joan and all connected with her were "most mysterious, my dear, and quite beyond me."

Indeed, now that she came to think of it, she saw that whereas she had given Mr. Levinger every information in her power, he had imported none to her. To this moment she did not know what was the exact relationship in which he stood towards Joan. Though there were many dissimilarities between them, it had struck her, observing him, that his eyes and voice were not unlike Joan's. Could he be her father? And, if so, how did it come about that he had allowed her to wander to London and to live there unprotected? Like the rest, it was a mystery, and one that after much cogitation Mrs. Bird was forced to give up as insoluble, though on the whole she came to the conclusion that her visitor was not a blood relation of Joan.

Mr. Levinger duly carried out his programme, and on the morrow escorted his daughter and Ellen back to Bradmouth. He did not, however, think fit to tell them the true cause of his visit to London, which he accounted for by saying that he had come up to bargain with a dealer in curiosities about some ancient British ornaments that were on the market. Nor, oddly enough, did Ellen chance to mention that she had seen Joan selling mantles at Messrs. Black and Parker's; the fact being that, as regards this young woman, there reigned a conspiracy of silence. Neither at Rosham nor at Monk's