CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DESIRE OF DEATH—AND THE FEAR OF HIM.
Joan remained at Kent Street, and the weary days crept on. When the first excitement of her self-sacrifice had faded from her mind, she lapsed into a condition of melancholy that was pitiable to see. Every week brought her rambling and impassioned epistles from her husband, most of which she threw into the fire half-read. At length there came one that she perused eagerly enough, for it announced the approaching marriage of Sir Henry Graves and Miss Levinger tidings which were confirmed in a few brief words by a note from Mr. Levinger himself, enclosing her monthly allowance; for from Samuel as yet she would take nothing. Then in January another letter reached her, together with a copy of the local paper, describing the ceremony, the presents, the dress and appearance “of the lovely bride and the gallant bridegroom, Captain Sir Henry Graves, Bart., R.N.”
“At least I have not done all this for nothing,” said Joan, as she threw down the paper; and then for the rest of that day she lay upon her bed moaning with the pain of her bitter jealousy and immeasurable despair.
She felt now that, had she known what she must suffer, she would never have found the strength to act as she had done, and time upon time did she regret that she had allowed her impulses to carry her away. Rock had been careful to inform her of his interview with Henry, putting his own gloss upon what passed between them; and the knowledge that her lover must hate and despise her was the sharpest arrow of the many which were fixed in her poor heart. All the rest she could bear, but than this Death himself had been more kind. How pitiable was her state! —scorned by Henry, of whose child she must be the mother, but who was now the loving husband of another woman, and given over to a man she hated and who would shortly claim his bond. Alas! no regrets, however poignant, could serve to undo the past, any more than the fear of it could avert the future; for Mrs. Bird was right—as she had sown so she must reap.
One by one the weary days crept on till at length the long London winter gave way to spring, and the time of her trial drew near. In health she remained fairly well, since sorrow works slowly upon so vigorous a constitution; but the end of each week found her sadder and more broken in spirit than its beginning. She had no friends, and went out but little—indeed, her only relaxations were found in reading, with a vague idea of improving her mind, because Henry had once told her to do so, or conversing in the deaf-and-dumb language with Jim and Sally. Still her life was not an idle one, for as time went by the shadow of a great catastrophe fell upon the Kent Street household. Mrs. Bird’s eyesight began to fail her, and the hospital doctors whom she consulted, were of opinion that the weakness must increase.
“Oh! my dear,” she said to Joan, “what is to happen to us all if I go blind? I have a little money put away— about a hundred and fifty pounds, or two hundred in all, perhaps; but it will soon melt, and then I suppose that they will take us to the workhouse; and you know, my dear, they separate husband and wife in those places.” And, quite broken down by such a prospect, the poor little woman began to weep.
“At any rate there is no need for you to trouble yourself about it at present,” answered Joan gently, “since Sally helps, and I can do the fine work that you cannot manage.”
“It is very kind of you, Joan. Ah! little did I know, when I took you in out of the street that day, what a blessing you would prove to me, and how I should learn to love you. Also, it is wicked of me to repine, for God has always looked after us heretofore, and I do not believe that He Who feeds the ravens will suffer us to starve, or to be separated. So I will try to be brave and trust in Him.”
“Ah!” answered Joan, “I wish that I could have your faith; but I suppose it is only given to good people. Now, where is the work? Let me begin at once. No, don’t thank me any more; it will be a comfort; besides, I would stitch my fingers off for you.”
Thenceforth Mrs. Bird’s orders were fulfilled as regularly as ever they had been, and as Joan anticipated, the constant employment gave her some relief. But while she sat and sewed for hour after hour, a new desire entered into her mind that most terrible of all desires, the desire of Death! Of Death she became enamoured, and her daily prayer to Heaven was that she might die, she and her child together, since her imagination could picture no future in another world more dreadful than that which awaited her in this.
Only once during these months did she hear anything of Henry; and then it was through the columns of a penny paper, where, under the heading of “Society Jottings,” she read that “Sir Henry Graves, Bart., R.N., and his beautiful young bride were staying at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, where the gallant Captain was very popular and Lady Graves was much admired.” The paragraph added that they were going to travel in the Holy Land, and expected to return to their seat at Rosham towards the end of May.
It was shortly after she read this that Joan, who from constantly thinking about death, had convinced herself that she would die, went through the formality of making a will on a sixpenny form which she bought for that purpose.
To Sir Henry Graves she left the books that he had given her, and a long letter, which she was at much trouble to compose, and placed carefully in the same envelope with the will. All the rest of her property, of any sort whatsoever, whereof she might die possessed it amounted to about thirty pounds and some clothes she devised to Mrs. Bird for the use of her unborn child, should it live, and, failing that, to Mrs. Bird absolutely.
At last the inevitable hour of her trouble came upon her, and left her pale and weak, but holding a little daughter in her arms. From the first the child was sickly, for the long illness of the mother had affected its constitution; and within three weeks from the day of its birth it was laid to rest in a London cemetery, leaving Joan to drink the cup of a new and a deeper agony than any that it had been her lot to taste.
Yet, when her first days of grief and prostration had gone by, almost could she find it in her heart to rejoice that the child had been taken from her and placed beyond the possibilities of such a life as she had led; for, otherwise, how would things have gone with it when she, its mother, passed into the power of Samuel Rock? Surely he would have hated and maltreated it, and, if fate had left it without the protection of her love in the hands of such a guardian, its existence might have been made a misery. Still, after the death of that infant those about her never saw a smile upon Joan’s face, however closely they might watch for it. Perhaps she was more beautiful now than she had ever been, for the chestnut hair that clustered in short curls upon her shapely head, and her great sorrowful eyes shining in the pallor of her sweet face, refined and made strange her loveliness; moreover, if the grace of girlhood had left her, it was replaced by another and a truer dignity the dignity of a woman who has loved and suffered and lost.
One morning, it was on the ninth of June, Joan received a letter from her husband, who now wrote to her every two or three days. Before she opened it she knew well from past experience what would be the tenor of its contents: an appeal to her, more or less impassioned, to shorten the year of separation for which she had stipulated, and come to live with him as his wife. She was not mistaken, for the letter ended thus:
“Oh! Joan, have pity on me and come to me, for if you don’t I think that I shall go crazed. I have kept my promise to you faithful so far, so if you are made of flesh and blood, show mercy before you drive me to something desperate. It’s all over now; the child’s dead, you tell me, and the man’s married, so let’s turn a new leaf and begin afresh. After all, Joan, you are my wife before God and man, and it is to me that your duty lies, not to anybody else. Even if you haven’t any fondness for me, I ask you in the name of that duty to listen to me, and I tell you that if you don’t I believe that I shall go mad with the longing to see your face, and the sin of it will be upon you. I’ve done up the house comfortable for you, Joan; no money has been spared, and if you want anything more you shall have it. Then don’t go on hiding yourself away from me, but come and take the home that waits you.”
“I suppose he is right, and that it is my duty,” said Joan to herself with a sigh, as she laid down the letter. “Love and hope and happiness have gone from me, nothing is left except duty, so I had better hold fast to it. I will write and say that I will go soon within a few days; though what the Birds will do without me I do not know, unless he will let me give them some of my allowance.”
Having come to this determination, Joan wrote her letter and posted it, fearing lest, should she delay, her virtuous resolution might fail her. As she returned from the pillar box, a messenger, who was standing on the steps of No. 8, handed her a telegram addressed to herself. Wondering what it might be, she opened it, to read this message:—
“Come 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 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!”