Joan Haste by H. Rider Haggard - HTML preview

CHAPTER XL.
 FULL MEASURE, PRESSED DOWN AND RUNNING OVER.

Joan staggered back from the window, gasping in her terror. Her husband was mad with jealousy and hate and every other passion. She could see now that he had always been more or less mad, and that his frantic love for herself was but a form of insanity, which during the long months of their separation had deepened and widened until it obtained a complete mastery over his mind. Then by an evil fortune he had witnessed the piteous and passionate scene between Henry and herself, or some part of it, and at the sight the last barriers of his reason broke down, and he became nothing but an evil beast filled with the lust of revenge and secret murder. Now he had gone to shoot down his rival in cold blood; and this was the end of her scheming and self-sacrifice that she had given herself to a lunatic and her lover to a bloody death!

So awful was the thought that for a while Joan felt as though her own brain must yield beneath it. Then of a sudden the desperate nature of the emergency came home to her, and her mind cleared. Henry was still unharmed, and perhaps he might be saved. Oh! if only she could escape from this prison, surely it would be possible for her to save him, in this way or in that. But how? If she could find any one about she might send to warn him and to obtain help; but this she knew was not likely, for nobody lived at Moor Farm except its master, and by now the labourers would have gone to their homes in the valley, a mile away. Well, once out of the house she might run to meet him herself? No, for then possibly she would be too late. Besides, there were at least three ways by which Henry could walk from Bradmouth by the cliff road, by the fen path, or straight across the heath; and all these separate routes converged at a spot beneath the wall of the old Abbey known as the Cross-Roads. That was why Samuel had chosen this place for his deed of blood: as he had told her, he knew that if he came at all his victim must pass within a few paces of a certain portion of the ruined churchyard fence.

What, then, could be done? Joan flung herself upon the bed and thought for a while, and as she lay thus a dreadful inspiration came into her mind.

If she could get free it would be easy for her to personate Henry. There upon the pegs hung a man’s coat and a hat, not unlike those which he was wearing that day. They were much of a height, her hair was short, and she could copy the limp in his gait. Who then would know them apart, in the uncertain glimmer of the night? Surely not the maddened creature crouching behind some bush that he might satisfy his hate in blood. But so, if things went well, and if she did not chance to meet Henry in time to save him, as she hoped to do, she herself must die within an hour, or at the best run the risk of death! What of it? At least he would escape, for, whether or not her husband discovered his error, after all was over, she was sure that one murder would satiate his vengeance. Also would it not be better to die than to live the life that lay before her? Would it not even be sweet to die, if thereby she could preserve the man she loved more than herself a thousand times? She had made many a sacrifice for him; and this, the last, would be the lightest of them, for then he would learn how true she was to him, and always think of her with tenderness, and long to greet her beyond the nothingness of death. Besides, it might not come to this. Providence might interpose to rescue her and him. She might see him in time coming by the cliff road, or she might find her husband and turn him from his purpose.

Oh! her mind was mazed with terror for Henry, and torn by perplexities as to how she best might save his life. Well, there was no more leisure to search out a better plan; if she would act, it must be at once. Springing from the bed, she ran to the window, and throwing it wide, screamed for help. Her cries echoed through the silent air, but the only answer to them was the baying of the dog. There were matches on the mantelpiece, she had seen them; and, groping in the dark, she found the box and lit the candles. Then she tried the door; it was locked on the outside, and she could not stir it. Next she examined the window place, against which the ladder that Rock had set there was still standing. It was secured by three iron bars let into the brickwork at the top and screwed to the oaken sill at the bottom.

Scrutinising these bars closely, she saw that, although her husband had not been able to wrench them away, he had loosened the centre one, for in the course of many years the rust of the iron mixing with the tannin in the oak had widened the screw holes, so that the water, settling in them, had rotted that portion of the sill. Could she but force out this bar she would be able to squeeze her body through the gap and to set her feet upon the ladder.

There was a fireplace in the room, and, resting on the dogs in front of it, lay a heavy old-fashioned poker. Seizing it, she ran to the window and struck the bottom of the centre bar again and again with all her strength. The screws began to give. Now they were half-way out of the decaying woodwork, but she could force them no farther with blows. For a moment Joan seemed to be baffled, then she took refuge in a new expedient. Thrusting the poker outside of the bar to the right, and the end of it inside that which she was seeking to dislodge, she obtained a powerful leverage and pulled in jerks. At the third jerk her hand came suddenly in contact with the sharp angle of the brickwork, that rasped the skin from the back of it; the screws gave way, and the bar, slipping from the hole in which its top end was set, fell clattering down the ladder.

Now the road was open, and it remained only for her to dress herself to the part. Half crying with the pain of her hurt and bleeding hand, quickly Joan put on the hat and overcoat, remembering even then that they were the same which Rock had worn when he came to see her in London, and, going to the window, she struggled through the two remaining bars on to the ladder. Reaching the ground, she ran through the garden to the heathland, for she feared lest the surviving dog should espy and attack her. But no dog appeared: perhaps the corpse of its brother that still lay by the gate kept it away.

Now she was upon the heathland and heading straight for the ruins of Ramborough, which lay at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile from the house. The night was fine and the air soft, but floating clouds now and again obscured the face of the half-moon, that lay low in the sky, causing great shadows to strike suddenly across the moor. Her way ran past the meres, where the wind whispered drearily amongst the growing reeds and the nesting wild-fowl called to each other across the water. There was a great loneliness about the place; no living creature was to be seen; and, at the moment, this feeling of solitude weighed more heavily upon her numbed heart than the sense of the death that she was courting. The world was still with her, and its moods and accidents affected her as they had always done; but the possibilities of that other unrisen world upon whose brink she stood, and the fear of it, moved her but little, and she scarcely thought of what or where she might or might not be within an hour. Those terrors were to come.

She was past the meres, and standing on a ridge of ground that lies between them and the cliff. Before her, when the moon shone out, she could see the glimmer of the ocean, the white ribbon of the road, and the ruins of Ramborough showing distinctly against the delicate beauty of the twilight summer sky. On she went, scanning the heath and the cliff with eager eyes, in the hope that she might discover the man she sought. It was in vain; the place was empty and desolate, a home of solitude.

At length she stood upon the border of the cliff road, and the Abbey was in a line with her some two hundred yards to the right. Here she paused awhile, staring into the shadows and listening earnestly. But there was nothing to be seen except the varying outlines of the clouds, and nothing to be heard save the murmur of the sea, the stirring of the wind among the grasses, and now and again the cry of some gull seeking its food by night.

Now it was, as she stood thus, that a great fear of death took her, and it seemed as though all her past life went before her eyes in pictures, full, every one of them, of exact and bewildering detail. For the most part these pictures were not pleasant, yet it chilled her to remember that the series might so soon be ended. At the least they were human and comprehensible, whereas what lay beyond might be inhuman and above her understanding. Also it came home to her that she was not fit to die: until her child was taken from her, she had never turned much to religion, and of late she had thought more of her own cruel misfortunes and of her lost lover than of her spiritual responsibilities, or the future welfare of her soul.

She was minded to fly; she had escaped from her prison, and no law could force her to live with a madman. Why should she not go back to Monk’s Lodge, or to London, to seek a new existence for herself, leaving these troubles behind her? After all, she was young and beautiful, and it was sweet to live; and now that she was near to it the death which once she had so passionately desired seemed a grim, unfriendly thing.

But then there was Henry. He was lost to her, indeed, and the husband of another woman; yet, if she deserted him now, what would become of him? His career was before him a long and happy career and it was pitiable to think that within some few minutes he might be lying in the grass murdered for her sake by a wretched lunatic. And yet, if she offered herself up for him, what must be the end of it? It would be that after a period of shock and disturbance his life would fall back into its natural courses, and, surrounded by the love of wife and children, he would forget her, or, at the best, remember her at times with a vague, affectionate regret. No man could spend his days in mourning continually over a passionate and inconvenient woman, who had brought him much sorrow and anxiety, even though in the end she chanced to have given him the best proof possible of her affection, by laying down her life for his.

Well, so let it be. Afraid or not afraid, she would offer what she had, and the gift must be valued according to its worth in the eyes of him to whom it was given. Existence was a tangle which she had been quite unable to loose, and now, although her dread was deep, she was willing that Death should cut its knot; for here she had no hope, and, unless it pleased fate that it should be otherwise, to Death she would consign herself.

All these thoughts, and many others, passed through her mind in that brief minute, while, tossed between love and terror, Joan stood to search the landscape and recover her breath. Then, with one last glance over the moorland, she stepped on to the road and began to walk slowly towards the Abbey. Fifty yards away the three paths met, but the ground lay so that to reach the Cross-Roads, their junction, and to see even a little distance along the other two of them, she must pass the corner of the broken churchyard wall. Dared she do it, knowing that perchance there her death awaited her? Coward that she was, while she lingered Henry might be murdered! Even now, perhaps this very instant, he was passing to his doom by one of the routes which she could not see.

She paused a moment, looking up the main road in the hope that she might catch sight of Henry advancing down it. But she could perceive no one; an utter loneliness brooded on the place. Moreover, the moon at this moment was obscured by a passing cloud. For aught she knew, the deed was already done only then she would have heard the shot or perhaps Henry had driven to Rosham, or had gone by the beach, or the fit of homicidal mania had passed from her husband’s mind. Should she go on, or wait there, or run away? No, she must reach the Cross-Roads: she would not run; she would play the hand out.

Of a sudden a strange excitement or exaltation of mind took possession of her; her nerves tingled, and the blood drummed in her ears. She felt like some desperate gambler staking his wealth and reputation on a throw, and tasted of the gambler’s joy. For a moment, under the influence of this new mood, the uncertainty of her fate became delightful to her, and she smiled to think that few have played such a game as this, of which the issues were the salvation of her lover and the hazard of her mortal breath.

Now she began to act her part, walking forward with a limp like Henry’s, till she was opposite to and some five yards away from the angle of the churchyard wall. Here a swift change came over her; the false excitement passed away, and again she grew mortally afraid. She could not do it! The Cross-Roads were now not twenty paces from her, and once there she might see him and save him. But never could she walk past that wall, knowing that behind it a murderer might be lurking, that every stone and bush and tuft of grass might hide him who would send her to a violent and cruel death. It was very well to make these heroic resolutions at a distance, but when the spot and moment of their execution were at hand ah! then the thing was different! She prayed God that Henry had escaped, or might escape, but she could not take this way to preserve him. Her mind was willing, but the poor flesh recoiled from it. She would call aloud to her husband, and reveal herself to him if he were there. No, for then he would guess her mission, render her helpless in this way or that what chance had she against a madman? and afterwards do the deed. So it came to this: she must go back and wait, upon the chance of meeting Henry on the cliff road, for forward she dared not go.

Already she had turned to fly, when her ear caught a sound in the intense silence such a sound as might have been made by some beast of prey dragging itself stealthily towards its victim. Instantly Joan became paralysed; the extremity of terror deprived her of all use of her limbs or voice, and so she stood with her back towards the wall. Now there was a new sound, as of something rising quickly through deep grass or brushwood, and then she heard the dull noise of the hammer of a gun falling upon an uncapped nipple. In a flash she interpreted its meaning: her husband had forgotten to reload that barrel with which he shot the dog! There was still a chance of life for her, and in this hope Joan’s vital powers returned. Uttering a great cry, she swung round upon her heel so swiftly that the hat fell from her head, and the moonlight passing from the curtain of a cloud, shone upon her ashy face. As she turned, her eyes fell upon another face, the face of a devil of Samuel Rock. He was standing behind the wall, that reached to his breast, and the gun in his hand was levelled at her. A tongue of flame shot out, and, in the glare of it, it seemed to her that his countenance of hellish hate had changed its aspect to one of agony. Then Joan became aware of a dull shock at her breast, and down she sank senseless on the roadway.

Joan was right. Perceiving her from the Cross-Roads knoll, his place of outlook, whence, although himself invisible, he commanded a view of the three paths, Rock, deceived by her disguise and assumed lameness, into the belief that his wife was Henry advancing by the cliff road, had crept towards her under shelter of the wall to kill her as she stood. But in that last moment he learned his error too late! Yes, before the deed was done he tasted the agony of knowing that he was wreaking murder upon the woman he desired, and not upon the man she loved. Too late! Already his finger had contracted on the trigger, and the swift springs were at their work. He tried to throw up the gun, but as the muzzle stirred, the charge left it to bury itself in the bosom of his wife.

Casting down the gun, he sprang over the wall and ran to her. She was lying on her back, dead as he thought, with opened eyes and arms thrown wide. Once he looked, then with yells of horror the madman bounded from her side and rushed away, he knew not whither.

When Henry parted with Joan in the Monk’s Lodge summer-house that morning, anger and bitter resentment were uppermost in his mind, directed first against his father-in-law, and next against his family, more particularly his mother. He had been trapped and deluded, and now, alas! it was too late to right the wrong. Indeed, so far as his wife was concerned, he could not even speak of it. Joan spoke truly when she said that Emma must never hear of these iniquities, or learn that both the name she had borne and the husband whom she loved had been filched from another woman. Poor girl! at least she was innocent; it must be his duty to protect her from the consequences of the guilt of others, and even from a knowledge of it.

But Levinger, her father, was not innocent, and towards him he was under no such obligation. Therefore, sick or well, he would pour out his wrath upon him, and to his face would call him the knave and liar that he was.

But it was not fated that in this world Mr. Levinger should ever listen to the reproaches of his son-in-law. When Henry reached the house he was informed that the sick man had fallen into a restless sleep, from which he must not be disturbed. Till nine o’clock that sleep endured, while Henry waited with such patience as he could command; then suddenly there was a cry and a stir, and the news was brought to him that, without the slightest warning or premonition of immediate danger, Mr. Levinger had passed from sleep into death.

Sobered and calmed by the shock of such tidings, Henry gave those orders which were necessary, and then started for home, where he must break the fact of her father’s death to Emma. He had arranged to return to Bradmouth by the last train; but it was already gone, so he drove thither in the dog-cart that went to advise Dr. Childs and others of what had happened, and thence set out to walk to Rosham half an hour or so later than he had intended. He might have hired a cart and driven, but being the bearer of this heavy news, naturally enough he had no wish to hurry; moreover he was glad of the space of quiet that a lonely walk by night afforded him, for he had much to think of and to grieve over. It was, he felt, a good thing that the old man should have died before he spoke with him; for though certainly he would have done it, there was little use in reproaching him with falsehoods and treachery the results of which could not now be remedied.

Poor Joan! Hers was indeed a hard lot harder even than his own! It was a year this day, he remembered, since first he had met her yonder by the ruins of Ramborough Abbey. Who could know all that she had suffered during this eventful year, or measure what was left for her to suffer in the time to come? Alas! he could see no escape for her; she had entered on an unnatural marriage, but still it was a marriage, and she must abide by her bargain, from which nothing could free her except the death of her husband or of herself. And this she had done for his sake, to safeguard him: ah! there was the bitterest part of it.

While Henry walked on, chewing the cud of these unhappy reflections, suddenly from the direction of Ramborough Abbey, that was a quarter of a mile or more away, there floated to his ear the sound of a single cry far off, indeed, but strangely piercing, followed almost instantly by the report of a gun loaded with black powder. He halted and listened, trying to persuade himself that the cry was that of some curlew which a poacher had shot out of season; only to abandon the theory so soon as he conceived it, for something in his heart told him that this scream was uttered by mortal lips by the lips of a woman in despair or agony. A few seconds passed, and he heard other sounds, those of short, sharp yells uttered in quick succession, but of so inhuman a note that he was unable to decide if they proceeded from a man or from some wounded animal.

He started forward at a run to solve the mystery, and as he went the yells grew louder and came nearer. Presently he halted, for there, from over the crest of a little rise in the road, and not fifteen paces away, appeared the figure of a man running with extraordinary swiftness. His hat had fallen from him, his long hair seemed to stand up upon his head, his eyes stared wide in terror and were ablaze with the fire of madness, his face was contorted and ashy white, and from his open mouth issued hideous and unearthly sounds. So shocking was his aspect in the moonlight that Henry sprang to one side and bethought him of the tale of the Ramborough goblin. Now the man was level with him, and as he went by he turned his head to look at him, and Henry knew the face for that of Samuel Rock.

“Dead!” shrieked the madman, wringing his hands— “dead, dead!” and he was gone.

Henry gasped, for his heart grew cold with fear. Joan had left him to join her husband; and now, what had happened? That cry, the gunshot, and the sight that he had seen, all seemed to tell of suicide or murder. No, no, he would not believe it! On he went again, till presently he saw a lad running towards him who called to him to stop.

“Who are you?” he gasped, “and what is the matter here?”

“I’m Willie Hood, and that’s just what I should like to know, Sir Henry,” was the answer, “more especial as not five minutes since I thought that I saw you walking up to the Abbey yonder.”

“You saw me walking there! Rubbish! I have just come from Bradmouth. Did you see that man, Rock, run by?”

“Yes, I see’d him fast enough. I should say by the looks of him that he has been doing murder and gone mad. Half an hour ago, before you came along, or begging your pardon, some one as limped like you, he had a gun in his hand, but that’s gone now.”

“Look here, young man,” said Henry, as they went forward, “what are you doing here, that you come to see all these things?”

“Well, sir, to tell the truth, I was driving my donkeys to feed on Rock’s land, and when I saw him coming along with a gun I hid in the bracken; for we had words about my taking his feed this very morning, and he swore then that if he caught me at it again he’d shoot me and the dickies too; so I lay pretty close till I saw the other man go by and heard the shriek and the shot.”

 
‘It is Joan Haste.’

“Come along, for Heaven’s sake!” said Henry: “that devil must have killed some one.”

Now they were near to the Abbey wall, and Willie, catching his companion by the arm, pointed to a dark shape which lay in the white dust of the roadway, and in a terrified whisper said, “Look there! what’s that?”

Henry dashed forward and knelt down beside the shape, peering at its face. Then of a sudden he groaned aloud and said, “It is Joan Haste, and he has shot her!”

“Look at her breast!” whispered Willie, peeping over his shoulder. “I told her how it would be. It was I who found you both a year ago just here and looking like that, and now you see we have all come together again. I told her it was a bad beginning, and would come to a bad end.”

“Be silent, and help me to lift her,” said Henry in a hollow voice; “perhaps she still lives.”

Then together they raised her, and at that moment Joan opened her eyes.

“Listen, you!” Henry said: “she is alive. Now run as you never ran before, to Dr. Childs at Bradmouth, to the police, and anybody else you can think of. Tell them what has happened, and bid them come here as fast as horses can bring them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then go.”

Willie sprang forward like an arrow, and presently the sound of his footsteps beating on the road grew faint and faded away.

“Oh! Joan, Joan, my darling,” Henry whispered as he leant over her, pressing her cold hands. “Cannot you speak to me, Joan?”

At the sound of his voice the great empty eyes began to grow intelligent, and the pale lips to move, faintly at first, then more strongly.

“Is that you, Henry?” she said in a whisper: “I cannot see.”

“Yes. How did you come thus?”

“He was going to murder you. I—I passed myself off for you—at least, I tried to—but grew afraid, and was running away when he—shot me.”

“Oh! my God! my God!” groaned Henry: “to think that such a thing should have been allowed to be!”

“It is best,” she answered, with a faint smile; “and I do not suffer—much.”

Then he knelt down beside her and held her in his arms, as once on a bygone day she had held him. The thought seemed to strike her, for she said:—

“A year ago to-night; do you remember? Oh! Henry, if I have sinned, it has been paid back to me to the uttermost. Surely there can be nothing more to suffer. And I am happy because—I think that you will love me better dead than ever you did alive. ‘The way of transgressors —the way of——’”and she ceased, exhausted.

“I shall love you now, and then, and always—that I swear before God,” he answered. “Forgive me, Joan, that I should ever have doubted you even for a moment. I was deceived, and did not understand you.”

Again she smiled, and said, “Then I have done well to die, for in death I find my victories—the only ones. But you must love the child also—our child—Henry, since we shall wait for you together in the place—of peace.”

A while went by, and she spoke again, but not of herself or him:—

“I have left Mrs. Bird in London—some money. When Mr. Levinger is dead—there will be a good deal; see that—she gets it, for they were kind to me. And, Henry, try to shield my husband—for I have sinned against him—in hating him so much. Also tell your wife nothing—or you will make her wretched—as I have been.”

“Yes,” he answered, “and your father is dead; he died some hours ago.”

After this Joan closed her eyes, and, bleeding inwardly from her pierced lungs, grew so cold and pulseless that Henry thought she must be gone. But it was not so, for when half an hour or more had passed she spoke, with a great effort, and in so low a whisper that he could scarcely hear her words, though his ear was at her mouth.

“Pray God to show me mercy, Henry—pray now and always. Oh, one hour of love—and life and soul to pay!” she gasped, word by word. Then the change came upon her face, and she added in a stronger voice, “Kiss me: I am dying!”

So he pressed his lips on hers; and presently, in the midst of the great silence, Joan Haste’s last sobbing breath beat upon them in a sigh, and the agony was over.

Two hours later Henry arrived at Rosham, to find his mother and Mr. and Mrs. Milward waiting to receive him.

“My dear Henry, where have you been?” said Lady Graves. “It is twelve o’clock, and we were beginning to fear that something had gone wrong at Monk’s Lodge.”

“Or that you had met with another accident, dear,” put in Ellen. “But I haven’t given you a kiss yet, to welcome you home. Why, how pale you look! and what is the matter with your coat?”

“Where is Emma?” he asked, waving her back.

“She was so dreadfully tired, dear,” said Lady Graves, “that I insisted upon her going to bed. But has anything happened, Henry?”

“Yes, a great deal. Mr. Levinger is dead: he died in his sleep this evening.”

Lady Graves sank back shocked; and Ellen exclaimed, “How dreadfully sad! However, his health was very bad, poor man, so it is something of a release. Also, though you won’t care to think of such things now, there will be advantages for Emma——”

“Be silent, Ellen. I have something more to tell you. Joan Haste, or rather Joan Rock, is dead also.”

“Dead!” they both exclaimed.

“Yes, dead, or, to be more accurate, murdered.”

“Who murdered her?” asked Milward.

“Her husband. I was walking back from Bradmouth, and found her dying in the road. But there is no need to tell you the story now—you will hear plenty of it; and I have something else to say. Do you mind leaving the room for a moment, Mr. Milward? I wish to speak to my mother and my sister.”

“Edward is my husband, Henry, and a member of the family.”

“No doubt, Ellen, but I do not desire that he should hear what I have to say. If you feel strongly about the matter I will go into the library with my mother.”

“Oh! pray don’t trouble about me,” answered Edward; “I am accustomed to this sort of thing here, and I shall only be too glad to smoke a cigar in the hall, if Sir Henry does not object”; and he left the room, an example which Ellen did not follow.

“Now that we are quite alone, Henry, perhaps you will condescend to unbosom yourself,” she said.

“Certainly, Ellen. I have told you that this unhappy woman has been murdered. She died in my arms”—and he glanced at his coat—“now I will tell you why and how. She was shot down by her husband, who mistook her for me, ‘whom he meant to murder. She discovered his plan and personated me, dying in my stead. I do not wish to reproach either of you; the thing is too fearful for reproaches, and that account you can settle with your own consciences, as I must settle mine. But you worked so, both of you, that, loving me as she did, and feeling that she would have no strength to put me away otherwise, she gave herself in marriage to a man she hated, to the madman who to-night has slaughtered her in his blind jealousy, meaning to slaughter me. Do you know who this woman was, mother? She was Mr. Levinger’s legitimate daughter: it is Emma who is illegitimate; but she died begging me to keep the secret from my wife, and if you are wise you will respect her wish, as I shall. I have nothing more to say. Things have gone amiss between us, whoever is to blame; and now her life is lost, and mine is ruined.”

“Oh! this is terrible, terrible!” said Lady Graves. “God knows that, whatever I have done, I acted for what I believed to be the best.”

“Yes, mother,” said Ellen boldly, “and not only for what you believed to be the best, but for what is the best. This unfortunate girl is dead, it seems, not through any deed of ours, but by the decrees of Providence. Henry says that his life is ruined; but do not grieve, mother,—he is not himself, and he will think very differently in six months’ time. Also he is responsible for this tragedy and no one else, since it springs from his own sin. ‘Les désirs accomplis,’—you know the saying. Well, he has accomplished his desire; he sowed the seed, and he must reap the fruit and harvest it as best he may.

“And now, w