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

down here at once. I am ill and must see you before it is too late. The carriage will meet the five o'clock train at Monk's Vale station. Wire reply.

"Levinger, "Monk's Lodge."

"I wonder what he can want to see me for," thought Joan; then, asking the boy to wait in the passage, she went in to consult Mrs. Bird.

"You had best go, my dear," she said; "I have always thought that there was some mystery about this Mr. Levinger, and now I expect that it is coming out. If you take a cab at once, you will just have time to catch the twelve o'clock train at Liverpool Street."

Joan nodded, and writing one word upon the prepaid answer--"Coming,"--gave it to the boy and ran upstairs to pack a few things in a bag. In ten minutes a hansom was at the door and she was ready to start. First she bade good-bye to the two invalids, who were much disturbed at this hurried departure; and then to Mrs. Bird, who followed her into the passage kissing her again and again.

"Do you know, Joan," she said, beginning to cry, "I feel as if you were going away for good and I should never see you any more."

"Nonsense, dear," she answered briefly, for a queer contraction in her throat made a lengthened speech impossible, "I hope to be back in a day or two if all is well."

"Yes, Joan--if all is well, and there's hope for everybody. Well, good-bye, and God bless you wherever you go--God bless you here and hereafter, for ever and ever!"

Then Joan drove away, and as she went it came into her mind that it would be best if she returned no more. She had promised to join her husband in a few days. Why should she not do so at once, and thus avoid the pain of a formal parting with the Birds, her true and indeed her only friends?

By half-past four that afternoon the train pulled up at Bradmouth, where she must change into the light railway with tramcar carriages that runs for fifteen or twenty miles along the coast, Monk's Vale being the second station from the junction.

The branch train did not start for ten minutes, and Joan employed the interval in walking up and down the platform, looking at the church tower, the roofs of the fishing village, the boats upon the beach, and the familiar view of land and sea. Everything seemed quite unchanged; she alone was changed, and felt as though a century of time had passed over her head since that morning when she ran away to London.

"Hullo, Joan Rock!" said a half-remembered voice at her elbow. "I'm in luck, it seems: I saw you off, and here I am to welcome you back. But you shouldn't have married him, Joan; you should have waited for me as I told you. I'm in business for myself now--four saddle donkeys and a goat chaise, and doing grand. I shall die a rich man, you bet."

Joan turned round to see a youth with impudent blue eyes and a hair of flaming red, in whom she recognised Willie Hood, much elongated, but otherwise the same.

"Oh! Willie, is that you?" she said, stretching out her hand, for she was pleased to see a friendly face; "how are you, and how do you know that I am married?"

"Know? Why, if you sent the crier round with a bell to call it, folks would hear, wouldn't they? And that's just about what Mr. Samuel Rock has done, talking of 'my wife, Joan Haste as was,' here, there, and everywhere; and telling how as you were stopping in foreign parts awhile for the benefit of your health--which seems a strange tale to me, and I know a thing or two, I do. Not that it has done you much good, anyway, to judge from the air of you, for you look like the ghost of what you used to be. I'll tell you what, Joan: for the sake of old times you shall have a ride every morning on my best donkey, all for love, if Sammy won't be jealous. That'll bring the colour back into your cheeks, you bet."

"How are my uncle and aunt?" asked Joan, hastening to change the conversation.

"How are they? Will you promise to bear up if I tell you? Well, then, Mrs. G. is lodging for three months at the public expense in Ipswich jail, which the beaks gave her for assault 'with intent to do grievous bodily harm'--them was the words, for I went to hear the case--'upon the person of her lawful husband, John Gillingwater'--and my! she did hammer him too--with a rolling pin! His face was like a squashed pumpkin, with no eyes left for a sinner to swear by. The guardians have taken pity on him too, and are nursing him well again, all for nothing, in the Union. I saw him hoeing taters there the other day, and he asked me if I couldn't smuggle him a bottle of gin--yes, and nearly cried when I told him that it wasn't to be done unless I had the cash in hand and a commission."

At this moment Willie's flow of information was interrupted by the guard, who told Joan that she must get into the train if she did not wish to be left.

"Ta-ta, Mrs. Rock," cried Willie after her: "see you again soon; and remember that the donkey is always ready. Now," he added to himself, "I wonder why the dickens she is going that way instead of home to her loving Sammy? He's a nasty mean beast, he is, and it's a rum go her having married him at all, but it ain't no affair of mine. All the same, I mean to let my dickies run down by the meres to-night, for I'm sure he can't grudge an armful of rough grass to an old friend of his wife's as has been the first to welcome her home. By the way, why ain't the holy Samuel here to welcome her home himself?" and Master Willie scratched his red head and departed speculating, with the full intention of pasturing his donkeys that night upon lands in the possession or hire of the said Samuel.

At Monk's Vale station Joan found a dog-cart waiting for her. When she had taken her seat she asked the groom if Mr. Levinger was ill. He replied that he didn't rightly know, but that his master had kept the house almost ever since Miss Emma--he meant Lady Graves--had married, and that last night, feeling queer, he had sent for a doctor.

Then Joan asked if Lady Graves was at Monk's Lodge, and was informed that she and her husband were not expected home at Rosham from abroad till this night or the next morning.

By this time they had reached the house, which was not more than half a mile distant from the station. The servant who opened the door took Joan to a bedroom and said that tea was waiting for her. When she was ready she went downstairs to the dining-room, where presently she received a message that Mr. Levinger would be glad to see her, and was shown to his room on the first floor. She found him seated in an armchair by a fire, although the weather was warm for June; and noticed at once that he was much changed since she had last seen him, his face being pale and thin and his form shrunken. His eyes, however, retained their brightness and intelligence, and his manner its vivacity. As she entered the room he attempted to rise to receive her, only to sink back into his chair with a groan, where for a while he remained speechless.

"It is very good of you to come to see me, Joan," he said presently. "Pray be seated."

"I am sorry to hear that you have not been well, sir," she answered.

"No, Joan, I have not; there never was a man further from health or much nearer to death than I am at this moment, and that is why I have sent for you, since what I have to say cannot be put off any longer. But you do not look very well yourself, Joan."

"I feel quite strong, thank you, sir. You know I had a bad illness, for you very kindly came to see me, and it has taken me a while to recover."

"I hear that you are married, Joan, although you are not living with your husband, Samuel Rock. It would, perhaps, have been well if you had consulted me before taking such a step, but you have a right to manage your own affairs. I trust that you are happy; though, if so, I do not understand why you keep away." And he looked at her anxiously.

"I am as happy as I ever shall be, sir, and I go to live with Mr. Rock to-morrow: till now I have been detained in town by business."

"You know that my daughter is married to Sir Henry Graves," he went on after a pause, again searching her face with his eyes. "They return home to-night or to-morrow; and not too soon if they wish to see me alive, though they know nothing of that, for I have told them little of my state of health."

"Yes, sir," she answered imperturbably, though her hands shook as she spoke. "But I suppose that you did not send for me to tell me that, sir."

"No, Joan, no. Is the door shut? I sent for you--O my God, that I should have to say it!--to throw myself upon your mercy, since I dare not die and face the Judgment-seat till I have told you all the truth. Listen to me"--and his voice fell to a piercing whisper--"Joan, /you are my daughter!/"

CHAPTER XXXVII(THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH)

 

"Your daughter!" she said, rising in her astonishment--"you must be mad! If I were your daughter, could you have lied to me as you did, and treated me as you have done?"

"I pray you to listen before you judge, and at present spare your reproaches, for believe me, Joan, I am not fit to bear them. Remember that I need have told you nothing of this; the secret might have been buried in my grave----"

"As it would have been, sir, had you not feared to die with such falsehood on your soul."

He made an imploring gesture with his hand, and she ceased.

"Joan," he went on, "I will tell you the whole truth. You are not only my child, you are also legitimate."

"And Miss Levinger--Lady Graves, I mean--is she legitimate too?"

"No, Joan."

She heard, and bit her lip till the blood ran, but even so she could not keep silence.

"Oh!" she cried, "I wonder if you will ever understand what you have done in hiding this from me. Do you know that you have ruined my life?"

"I pray that you may be mistaken, Joan. Heaven is my witness that I have tried to act for the best. Listen: many years ago, when I was still a youngish man, it was my fate to meet and to fall in love with your mother, Jane Lacon. Like you, she was beautiful, but unlike you she