Joan Haste

JOAN HASTE

«I’d rather drown than touch anything that belongs to you», she replied, for her hatred of the man mastered her courtesy and reason. «Say what you’ve got to say and let me go on».

The remark was an unfortunate one, for it awoke in Samuel’s breast the fury that accompanied and underlay his passion, that fury which had astonished Mr. Levinger.

«Would you, now!» he broke out, his lips turning white with rage. «Well, if half I hear is true, there’s others whose things you don’t mind touching».

«What do you mean, Mr. Rock?»

«I mean that Captain whom you’re not ashamed to be hanging after all day long. Oh, I know about you. I heard how you were found holding him in your arms, the first day that you met him by the tower yonder, after you’d been flirting with him like any street girl, till you brought him to break his leg. Yes, holding him in those arms of yours – nothing less».

«Oh! how dare you! How dare you!» she murmured, for no other words would come to her.

«Dare? I dare anything. You’ve worked me up to that, my beauty. Now I dare ask you when you’ll let me make an honest woman of you, if it isn’t too late».

By this time Joan was positively speechless, so great were the rage and loathing with which this man and his words filled her.

«Oh! Joan», he went on, with a sudden change of tone, «do you forgive me if I have said sharp things, for it’s you that drives me to them with your cruelty; and I’m ready to forgive you all yours – ay! I’d bear to hear them again, for you look so beautiful when you are like that».

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«Forgive you!» gasped Joan.

But he did not seem to hear. «Let’s have done with this cat-and-dog quarrelling», he went on; «let’s make it up and get married, the sooner the better – to-morrow if you like. You will never regret it; you’ll be happier then than with that Captain who loves Miss Levinger, not you; and I, I shall be happy too – happy, happy!» And he flung his arms wide, in a kind of ecstasy.

Of all this speech only one sentence seemed to reach Joan’s understanding at any rate at the time: «who loves Miss Levinger, not you». Oh! was it true? Did Captain Graves really love Miss Levinger as she knew that Emma loved him? The man spoke certainly, as though he had knowledge. Even in the midst of her unspeakable anger, the thought pierced her like a spear and caused her face to soften and her eyes to grow troubled.

Samuel saw these signs, and misinterpreted them, thinking that her resentment was yielding beneath his entreaties. For a moment he stood searching his mind for more words, but unable to find them; then suddenly he sought to clinch the matter in another fashion, for, following the promptings of an instinct that was natural enough under the circumstances, however ill-advised it might be, suddenly he caught Joan in his long arms, and drawing her to him, kissed her twice passionately upon the face. At first Joan scarcely seemed to understand what had happened – indeed, it was not until Samuel, encouraged by his success, was about to renew his embraces that she awoke to the situation. Then her action was prompt enough. She was a strong woman, and the emergency doubled her strength. With a quick twisting

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movement of her form and a push of her hands, she shook off Samuel so effectively, that in staggering back his foot slipped in the greasy soil and he fell upon his side, clutching in his hand a broad fragment from the bosom of Joan’s dress, at which he had caught to save himself.

«Now», she said, as Samuel rose slowly from the mire, «listen to me. You have had your say, and I will have mine. First understand this: if ever you try to kiss me again it will be the worse for you; for your own sake I advise you not, for I think that I should kill you if I could. I hate you, Samuel Rock, for you have lied to me, and you have insulted me in a way that no woman can forgive. I will never marry you – I had rather beg my bread; so if you are wise, you will forget all about me, or at the least keep out of my way».

Samuel faced the beautiful woman, who, notwithstanding her torn and draggled dress, looked royal in her scorn and anger. He was very white, but his passion seemed to have left him, and he spoke in a quiet voice.

«Don’t be afraid», he said; «I’m not going to try and kiss you again. I have kissed you twice; that is enough for me at present. And what’s more, though you may rub your face, you can’t rub it out of your mind. But you are wrong when you say that you won’t marry me, because you will. I know it. And the first time I kiss you after we are married, I will remind you of this, Joan Haste. I am not going to ask you to have me again. I shall wait till you ask me to take you, and then I shall be revenged upon you. That day will come, the day of your shame and need, the day of my reward, when, as I have lain in the dirt before you, you will lie in the dirt before me. That is

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all I have to say. Good-bye». And he walked past her, vanishing behind the reeds.

Now it was for the first time that Joan felt afraid. The insult and danger had gone by, yet she was frightened, horribly frightened; for though the thing seemed impossible, it was borne in upon her mind that Samuel Rock’s presentiment was true, and that an hour might come when, in some sense, she would lie in the mire before him and seek a refuge as his wife. She could not conceive any circumstances in which a thing so horrible might happen, for however sore her necessity, though she shrank from death, it seemed to her that it would be better to die rather than to suffer such a fate. Yet so deeply did this terror shake her, that she turned and looked upon the black waters of the mere, wondering if it would not be better to give it the lie once and for all. Then she thought of Henry, and her mood changed, for her mind and body were too healthy to allow her to submit herself indefinitely to such forebodings. Like many women, Joan was an opportunist, and lived very much in the day and for it. These things might be true, but at least they were not yet; if she was destined to be the wife of Samuel Rock in the future, she was her own mistress in the present, and the shadow of sorrow and bonds to come, so she argued, suggested the strongest possible reasons for rejoicing in the light and liberty of the fleeting hour. If she was doomed to an earthly hell, if her hands must be torn by thorns and her eyes grow blind with tears, at least she was minded to be able to remember that once she had walked in Paradise, gathering flowers there, and beholding her heart’s desire.

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Thus she reasoned in her folly, as she tramped homewards through the rain, heedless of the fact that no logic could be more fatal, and none more pleasing to that tempter who as of old lurks in paradises such as her fancy painted.

When she reached home Joan found her aunt awaiting her in the bar parlour.

«Who has been keeping you all this time in the wet, Joan?» she asked in a half expectant voice.

Joan lit a candle before she answered, for the place was gloomy.

«Do you wish to know?» she said: «then I will tell you. Your friend, Mr. Samuel Rock, whom you set after me».

«My friend? And what if he is my friend? I’d be glad if I had a few more such». By this time the light had burnt up, and Mrs. Gillingwater saw the condition of her niece’s attire. «Good gracious! girl, what have you been doing?» she asked. «Ain’t you ashamed to walk about half stripped like that?»

«People must do what they can’t help, aunt. That’s the work of the friend you are so proud of. I may as well tell you at once, for if I don’t, he will. He came making love to me again, as he has before, and finished up by kissing me, the coward, and when I threw him off he tore my dress».

«And why couldn’t you have let him kiss you quietly, you silly girl?» asked her aunt with indignation. «Now I dare say that you have offended him so that he won’t come forward again, to say nothing of spoiling your new dress. It ain’t a crime for a man to kiss the girl he wants to marry, is it?»

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«Why? Because I would rather kiss a rat – that’s all. I hate the very sight of him; and as for coming forward again, I only hope that he won’t, for my sake and for his too».

Now Mrs. Gillingwater arose in her wrath; her coarse face became red and her voice grew shrill.

«You good-for-nothing baggage!» she said; «so that is your game, is it? To go turning up your nose and chucking your impudence in the face of a man like Mr. Rock, who is worth twenty of you, and does you honour by wishing to make a wife of you, you that haven’t a decent name to your back, and he rich enough to marry a lady if he liked, or half a dozen of them for the matter of that. Well, I tell you that you shall have him, or I will know the reason why – ay, and so will others too».

«I can’t be violent, like you, aunt», answered Joan, who began to feel as though this second scene would be too much for her; «it isn’t in my nature, and I hate it. But whether I have a name or not – and it is no fault of mine if I have none, though folk don’t seem inclined to let me forget it – I say that I will not marry Samuel Rock. I am a woman full grown and of age; and I know this, that there is no law in the land which can force me to take a husband whom I don’t want. And so perhaps, as we have got to live together, you’ll stop talking about him».

«Stop talking about him? Never for one hour, till I see you signing your name in the book with him, miss. And as for living together, it won’t be long that we shall do that, unless you drop these tantrums and become sensible. Else you may just tramp it for your living, or go and slave as a housemaid if any one will take you, which I doubt they won’t without a charac-

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ter, for nobody here will say a good word for you, you wilful, stuck-up thing, for all your fine looks that you are so proud of, and that’ll be the ruin of you yet if you’re not careful, as they were of your mother before you».

Joan sank into a chair and made no answer. The woman’s violence beat her down and was hateful to her. Almost rather would she have faced Samuel Rock, for with him her sex gave her certain advantages.

«I know what you are after», went on Mrs. Gillingwater, with gathering vehemence. «Do you suppose that I have not seen through you all these weeks, though you are so cunning? You are making up to him, you are; not that I have a word to say against him, for he is a nice gentleman enough, only, like the rest of them, so soft that he’ll let a pretty face fool him for all his seafaring in foreign parts. Well, look here, Joan: I’ll speak to you plain and plump. We never were mother and daughter, so it is no use pretending what we don’t feel, and I won’t put up with that from you which I might perhaps from my own child, if I had one. You’ve given me lots of ‘truck,’ with your contrary ways, ever since you were a little one, and I’m not minded to stand much more of it, for the profit don’t run to the worry. What I want you to understand is, that I am set on your pulling it off with Samuel Rock like a broody hen on a nest egg, and I mean to see that chick hatch out; never you mind for why – that’s my affair. If you can’t see your way to that, then off you go, and pretty sharp too. There, I have said my say, and you can think it over. Now you had best change your clothes and go and look after the Captain, for I have got

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business abroad to-night. If you don’t mend your manners, it will be for the last time, I can tell you».

Joan rose and obeyed without a word.

Mrs. Gillingwater watched her pass, and fell into a reflective mood.

«She is a beauty and no mistake», she thought to herself; «I never saw such another in all my born days. Her mother was well enough, but she wasn’t in it with Joan; and what’s more, I like her pride. Why should she take that canting chap if she don’t want to? I’m paid to back him, and a day’s work for a day’s wage, that’s my motto. But I’d rather see her marry the Captain, and sit in the church a lady, with a fur round her neck and a carriage waiting outside, than snuffle in a chapel praising the Lord with a pack of oily-faced children. If she had the go of a heifer calf, she would marry him though; he is bound to be a baronet, and it would make a ladyship of her, which with a little teaching is just what she is fit to be; for if he ain’t almost as sweet on her – and small wonder after all that nursing – as she is on him, I was born in the Flegg Hundred, that’s all. But go is just what Joan ain’t got, not when she can make anything for herself out of it anyway; she’d do what you like for love, but she wouldn’t turn her finger round a teacup to crown herself a queen. Well, there is no helping them as won’t help themselves, so I am all for Samuel Rock and a hundred pounds in my pocket, especially as I dare say that I can screw another hundred out of him if I can square Joan, to say nothing of a trifle from the Captain over and above the board for holding my tongue. I suppose he will marry old Levinger’s girl, the Captain will; a pale, puling-faced thing she

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CHAPTER XIV

SOWING THE WIND

Joan went to her room and took off her wet things, for she was soaked to the skin, clothing herself anew in her Sunday dress – a soft grey garment, with little frills about the neck and wrists. Then she brushed her waving brown hair, twisting it into a loose knot at the back of her head; and, though she did not think of it, no style could have been more becoming to her. Her toilet completed, a few minutes after her aunt left the house, she went to the parlour to get herself some tea, of which she drank two or three cups, for she felt unusually thirsty, but she could scarcely swallow a mouthful. The food seemed to choke her, and when she attempted to eat the effort brought on a feeling of dizziness and a tingling sensation in her limbs.

«I wonder what is the matter with me?» she said to herself. «I feel as though my veins were on fire. I suppose that these scenes have upset me; or perhaps that tea was too strong. Well, I must go and look after Captain Graves. Aunt won’t be back till twelve o’clock or so, and it’s my last night, so I had better make the most of it. I dare say that they will turn me

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