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

with the bill inside." And uttering an exclamation he lifted the letter to throw it into the fireplace, when its enclosure slipped out of it.

Then Henry turned pale, for he knew the writing: it was Joan Haste's. In five more minutes he had read both the documents through, and was sitting on his bed staring vacantly before him like a man in a trance. He may have sat like this for ten minutes, then he rose, saying in a perfectly quiet voice, as though he were addressing the bodily presence of Mrs. Bird:--

"Of course, my dear madam, you are absolutely right; the only thing to do is to marry her at once, and I am infinitely obliged to you for bringing these facts to my notice; but I must say that if ever a man got into a worse or more unlucky scrape, I never heard of it." And he laughed.

Then he re-read Joan's wandering words very carefully, and while he did so his eyes filled with tears.

"My darling! What you must have suffered!" he said, pressing the letter against his heart. "I love you! I love you! I would never say it before, but I say it now once and for all, and I thank God that He has spared you and given me the right to marry you and the chance of making you happy. Well, the thing is settled now, and it only remains to carry it through. First of all my mother must be told, which will be a pleasant business--I am glad, by the way, that Ellen has gone before I got this, for I believe that I should have had words with her. To think of my looking at that cloak and never seeing the woman who wore it, although she saw me! I remember the incident perfectly well, and one would have imagined---- But so much for thought transference and the rest of it. Well, I suppose that I may as well go down to breakfast. It is a very strange world and a very sad one too."

Henry went down to breakfast accordingly, but he had little appetite for that meal, at which Lady Graves did not appear; then he adjourned to the study to smoke and reflect. It seemed to him that it would be well to settle this matter beyond the possibility of backsliding before he saw his mother. Ringing the bell, he gave an order that the boy should saddle the pony and ride into Bradmouth in time to catch the midday post; then he wrote thus to Mrs. Bird:--

"Dear Madam,--

"I have to thank you for your letter and its enclosure, and I hope that my conduct under the circumstances which you detail will not be such as to disappoint the hopes that you express therein. I shall be very much obliged if you will kindly keep me informed of Joan's progress. I purpose to come and see her within a week or so; and meanwhile, if you think it safe, I beg that you will give her the enclosed letter. Perhaps you will let me know when she is well enough to see me. You seem to have been a kind friend to Joan, for which I thank you heartily.

"Believe me to remain "Very faithfully yours, "Henry Graves."

To Joan he wrote also as follows:--

"Dearest Joan,--

"Some months since you left Bradmouth, and from that day to this I have heard nothing of you. This morning, however, I learned your address, and how terribly ill you have been. I have received also a letter, or rather a portion of a letter, that you wrote to me on the day when the fever took you; and I can only say that nothing I ever read has touched me so deeply. I do not propose to write to you at any length now, since I can tell you more in half an hour than I could put on paper in a week. But I want to beg you to dismiss all anxieties from your mind, and to rest quiet and get well as quickly as possible. Very shortly, indeed as soon as it is safe for me to do so without disturbing you, I hope to pay you a visit with the purpose of asking you if you will honour me by becoming my wife. I love you, dearest Joan--how much I never knew until I read your letter: perhaps you will understand all that I have neither the time nor the ability to say at this moment. I will add only that whatever troubles and difficulties may arise, I place my future in your hands with the utmost happiness and confidence, and grieve most bitterly to think that you should have been exposed to doubt and anxiety on my account. Had you been a little more open with me this would never have happened; and there, and there alone, I consider that you have been to blame. I shall expect to hear from Mrs. Bird, or perhaps from yourself, on what day I may hope to see you. Till then, dearest Joan,

"Believe me "Most affectionately yours, "Henry Graves."

By the time that he had finished and directed the letters, enclosing that to Joan in the envelope addressed to Mrs. Bird, which he sealed, Thomson announced that the boy was ready.

"Very well: give him this to post at Bradmouth, and tell him to be careful not to lose it, and not to be late."

The butler went, and presently Henry caught sight of his messenger cantering down the drive.

"There!" he thought, "that's done; and so am I in a sense. Now for my mother. I must have it out before my courage fails me."

Then he went into the drawing-room, where he found Lady Graves engaged in doing up little boxes of wedding cake to be sent to various friends and connections.

She greeted him with a pleasant smile, made some little remark about the room being cold, and throwing back the long crape strings of her widow's cap, lifted her face for Henry to kiss.

"Why, my dear boy, what's the matter with you?" she said, starting as he bent over her. "You look so disturbed."

"I am disturbed, mother," he answered, seating himself, "and so I fear you will be when you have heard what I have to tell you."

Lady Graves glanced at him in alarm; she was well trained in bad tidings, but use cannot accustom the blood horse to the whip or the heart to sorrow.

"Go on," she said.

"Mother," he began in a hoarse voice, "last night I told you that I intended to propose to Miss Levinger; now I have come to tell you that such a thing is absolutely impossible."

"Why, Henry?"

"Because I am going to marry another woman, mother."

"Going to marry another woman?" she repeated, bewildered. "Whom? Is it that girl?"

"Yes, mother, it is she--Joan Haste. You remember a conversation that we had shortly after my father's death?"

She bowed her head in assent.

"Then you pointed out to me what you considered to be my duty, and begged me to take time to think. I did so, and came to the conclusion that on the whole your view was the right one, as I told you last night. This morning, however, I have received two letters, the first news of Joan Haste that has reached me since she left Bradmouth, which oblige me to change my mind. Here they are: perhaps you will read them."

Lady Graves took the letters and perused them carefully, reading them twice from end to end. Then she handed them back to her son.

"Do you understand now, mother?" he asked.

"Perfectly, Henry."

"And do you still think that I am wrong in determining to marry Joan Haste--whom I love?"

"No, Henry: I think that you are right if the girl desires it--since," she added with a touch of bitterness, "it seems to be conceded by the world that the duty which a man owes to his parents and his family cannot be allowed to weigh against the duty which he owes to the partner of his sin. Oh! Henry, Henry, had you but kept your hands clean to this temptation as I know that you have done in others, these sorrows would not have fallen upon us. But it is useless to reproach you, and perhaps you are as much sinned against as sinning. At least you have sown the wind and you must reap the whirlwind, and whoever is to blame, it has come about that the fortunes of our house are fallen irretrievably, and that you must give your honour and your name into the keeping of a frail girl who has neither." And with a tragic gesture of despair Lady Graves rose and left the room.

"Whether or not virtue brings its own reward I cannot say," reflected Henry, looking after her, "but that vice does so is pretty clear. It seems to me that I am a singularly unfortunate man, and so, I suppose, I shall remain."

CHAPTER XXXI(THE GATE OF PARADISE)

 

For some days Lady Graves was completely prostrated by this new and terrible misfortune, which, following as it did hard upon the hope of happier things, seemed to her utterly overwhelming. She dared not even trust herself to see her son, but kept her room, sending a message to him to say that she was unwell and did not wish to be disturbed. For his part Henry avoided the house as much as possible. As it chanced, he had several invitations to shoot during this particular week, one of them coupled with an engagement to dine and sleep; and of all these he availed himself, though they brought him little enjoyment. On the third morning after he had posted his letter, there came a short answer from Mrs. Bird, stating that Joan would be well enough to see him on the following Thursday or Friday; but from Joan herself he received no reply. This note reached him on a Friday, just as he was starting to keep his aforesaid engagement to shoot and sleep. On Saturday he returned to Rosham to find that his mother had gone to town, leaving a note of explanation to be given to him. The note said:--

"Dear Henry,--

"I am going to London to stay for a few days with my old friend and your grandmother, Lady Norse. Circumstances that have recently arisen make it necessary that I should consult with the lawyers, to see if it is possible for me to recover any of the sums that from time to time have been expended upon this estate out of my private fortune. I am not avaricious, but if I can obtain some slight provision for my remaining years, of course I must do so; and I desire that my claim should be made out legally, so as to entitle me to rank as a creditor in the bankruptcy proceedings which are now, I suppose, inevitable.

"Your affectionate mother, "E. Graves."

Henry put the letter into his pocket with a sigh. Like everything else, it was sad and humiliating; but he was not sorry to find that his mother had gone, for he had no more wish to meet her just now than she had to meet him. Then he began to wonder