Joan Haste, H. Rider Haggard [e book reader free .TXT] 📗
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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Gillingwater took in her beauty. In these circumstances Joan had often
wondered why she was not dismissed to seek her fortune. More than
once, when after some quarrel she sought leave to go, she found that
there was no surer path to reconciliation than to proffer this
request; and speeches of apology, which, as she knew well, were not
due to any softening of Mrs. Gillingwater’s temper, or regret for
hasty misbehaviour, were at once showered upon her.
To what, then, were they due? The question was one that Joan took some
years to answer satisfactorily. Clearly not to love, and almost as
clearly to no desire to retain her services, since, beyond attending
to her own room, she did but little work in the way of ministering to
the wants and comforts of the few customers of the Crown and Mitre,
nor was she ever asked to interest herself in such duties.
Gradually a solution to the riddle forced itself onto Joan’s
intelligence—namely, that in some mysterious way her aunt and uncle
lived on her, not she on them. If this were not so, it certainly
became difficult to understand how they did live, in view of the fact
that Mr. Gillingwater steadily consumed the profits of the tap-room,
if any, and that they had no other visible means of subsistence. Yet
money never seemed to be wanting; and did Joan need a new dress, or
any other luxury, it was given to her without demur. More, when some
years since she had expressed a sudden and spontaneous desire for
education; after a few days’ interval, which, it seemed to her, might
well have been employed in reference to superior powers in the
background, she was informed that arrangements had been made for her
to be sent to a boarding school in the capital of the county. She
went, to find that her fellow-pupils were for the most part the
daughters of shopkeepers and large farmers, and that in consequence
the establishment was looked down upon by the students of similar, but
higher-class institutions in the same town, and by all who belonged to
them. Joan being sensitive and ambitious, resented this state of
affairs, though she had small enough right to do so, and on her return
home informed her aunt that she wished to be taken away from that
school and sent to another of a better sort. The request was received
without surprise, and again there was a pause as though to allow of
reference to others. Then she was told that if she did not like her
school she could leave it, but that she was not to be educated above
her station in life.
So Joan returned to the middle-class establishment, where she remained
till she was over nineteen years of age. On the whole she was very
happy there, for she felt that she was acquiring useful knowledge
which she could not have obtained at home. Moreover, among her
schoolfellows were certain girls, the daughters of poor clergymen and
widows, ladies by birth, with whom she consorted instinctively, and
who did not repel her advances.
At the age of nineteen she was informed suddenly that she must leave
her school, though no hint of this determination had been previously
conveyed to her. Indeed, but a day or two before her aunt had spoken
of her return thither as if it were a settled thing. Pondering over
this decision in much grief, Joan wondered why it had been arrived at,
and more especially whether the visit that morning of her uncle’s
landlord, Mr. Levinger, who came, she understood, to see about some
repairs to the house, had anything to do with it. To Mr. Levinger
himself she had scarcely spoken half a dozen times in her life, and
yet it seemed to her that whenever they met he regarded her with the
keenest interest. Also on this particular occasion Joan chanced to
pass the bar-parlour where Mr. Levinger was closeted with her aunt,
and to overhear his parting words, or rather the tag of them—which
was “too much of a lady,” a remark that she could not help thinking
had to do with herself. Seeing her go by, he stopped her, keeping her
in conversation for some minutes, then abruptly turned upon his heel
and left the house with the air of a man who is determined not to say
too much.
Then it was that Joan’s life became insupportable to her. Accustomed
as she had become to more refined associations, from which henceforth
she was cut off, the Crown and Mitre, and most of those connected with
it, grew hateful in her sight. In her disgust she racked her brain to
find some means of escape, and could think of none other than the
time-honoured expedient of “going as a governess.” This she asked
leave to do, and the permission was accorded after the usual pause;
but here again she was destined to meet with disappointment. Her
surroundings and her attainments were too humble to admit of her
finding a footing in that overcrowded profession. Moreover, as one
lady whom she saw told her frankly, she was far too pretty for this
walk of life. At length she did obtain a situation, however, a modest
one enough, that of nursery governess to the children of the rector of
Bradmouth, Mr. Biggen. This post she held for nine months, till Mr.
Biggen, a kind-hearted and scholarly man, noting her beauty and
intelligence, began to take more interest in her than pleased his
wife—a state of affairs that resulted in Joan’s abrupt dismissal on
the day previous to the beginning of this history.
To come to the last and greatest of her troubles: it will be obvious
that such a woman would not lack for admirers. Joan had several, all
of whom she disliked; but chiefly did she detest the most ardent and
persistent of them, the favoured of her aunt, Mr. Samuel Rock. Samuel
Rock was a Dissenter, and the best-to-do agriculturalist in the
neighbourhood, farming some five hundred acres, most of them rich
marsh-lands, of which three hundred or more were his own property
inherited and acquired. Clearly, therefore, he was an excellent match
for a girl in the position of Joan Haste, and when it is added that he
had conceived a sincere admiration for her, and that to make her his
wife was the principal desire of his life, it becomes evident that in
the nature of things the sole object of hers ought to have been to
meet his advances half-way. Unfortunately this was not the case. For
reasons which to herself were good and valid, however insufficient
they may have appeared to others, Joan would have nothing to do with
Samuel Rock. It was to escape from him that she had fled this day to
Ramborough Abbey, whither she fondly hoped he would not follow her. It
was the thought of him that made life seem so hateful to her even in
the golden afternoon; it was terror of him that caused her to search
out every possible avenue of retreat from the neighbourhood of
Bradmouth.
She might have spared herself the trouble, for even as she sighed and
sought, a shadow fell upon her, and looking up she saw Samuel Rock
standing before her, hat in hand and smiling his most obsequious
smile.
SAMUEL ROCK DECLARES HIMSELF
Mr. Samuel Rock was young-looking rather than young in years, of which
he might have seen some thirty-five, and, on the whole, not uncomely
in appearance. His build was slender for his height, his eyes were
blue and somewhat shifty, his features sharp and regular except the
chin, which was prominent, massive, and developed almost to deformity.
Perhaps it was to hide this blemish that he wore a brown beard, very
long, but thin and straggling. His greatest peculiarity, however, was
his hands, which were shaped like those of a woman, were long, white
notwithstanding their exposure to the weather, and adorned with
almond-shaped nails that any lady might have envied. These hands were
never still; moreover, there was something furtive and unpleasant
about them, capable as they were of the strangest contortions. Mr.
Rock’s garments suggested a compromise between the dress affected by
Dissenters who are pillars of their local chapel and anxious to
proclaim the fact, and those worn by the ordinary farmer, consisting
as they did of a long-tailed black coat rather the worse for wear, a
black felt wide-awake, and a pair of cord breeches and stout riding
boots.
“How do you do, Miss Haste?” said Samuel Rock, in his soft, melodious
voice, but not offering to shake hands, perhaps because his fingers
were engaged in nervously crushing the crown of his hat.
“How do you do?” answered Joan, starting violently. “How did you–-”
(“find me here,” she was about to add; then, remembering that such a
remark would show a guilty knowledge of being sought after,
substituted) “get here?”
“I—I walked, Miss Haste,” he replied, looking at his legs and
blushing, as though there were something improper about the fact; then
added, “You are quite close to my house, Moor Farm, you know, and I
was told that—I thought that I should find you here.”
“I suppose you mean that you asked my aunt, and she sent you after
me?” said Joan bluntly.
Samuel smiled evasively, but made no other reply to this remark.
Then came a pause, while, with a growing irritation, Joan watched the
long white fingers squeezing at the black wide-awake.
“You had better put your hat on, or you will catch cold,” she
suggested, presently.
“Thank you, Miss Haste, it is not what I am liable to—not but what I
take it kindly that you should think of my health;” and he carefully
replaced the hat upon his head in such a fashion that the long brown
hair showed beneath it in a ragged fringe.
“Oh, please don’t thank me,” said Joan rudely, dreading lest her
remark should be taken as a sign of encouragement.
Then came another pause, while Samuel searched the heavens with his
wandering blue eyes, as though to find inspiration there.
“You are very fond of graves, Miss Haste,” he said at length.
“Yes, Mr. Rock; they are comfortable to sit on—and I don’t doubt very
good beds to sleep in,” she added, with a touch of grim humour.
Samuel gave a slight but perceptible shiver. He was a highly strung
man, and, his piety notwithstanding, he did not appreciate the
allusion. When you wish to make love to a young woman, to say the
least of it, it is disagreeable if she begins to talk of that place
whither no earthly love can follow.
“You shouldn’t think of such things at your age—you should not
indeed, Miss Haste,” he replied; “there are many things you have got
to think of before you think of them.”
“What things?” asked Joan rashly.
Again Samuel blushed.
“Well—husbands, and—cradles and suchlike,” he answered vaguely.
“Thank you, I prefer graves,” Joan replied with tartness.
By this time it had dawned upon Samuel that he was “getting no
forwarder.” For a moment he thought of retreat; then the native
determination that underlay his soft voice and timid manner came to
his aid.
“Miss Haste—Joan,” he said huskily, “I want to speak to you.”
Joan felt that the hour of trial had come, but still sought a feeble
refuge in flippancy.
“You have been doing that for the last five minutes, Mr. Rock,” she
said; “and I should like to go home.”
“No, no, not yet—not till you have heard what I have to say.” And he
made a quick movement as
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