JOAN HASTE by H. RIDER HAGGARD (e reader comics TXT) 📕

She returned with the lamp, and assisted in loosening the collar of Emma's dress and in sprinkling her white face with water. Nobody took any notice of her. Why should they, who were overcome by the first joy of hope renewed, and moved with pity at the sight of the fainting girl? They even spoke openly before her, ignoring her presence.

"Do not be afraid," said Dr. Childs: "I have never known happiness to kill people. But she must have suffered a great deal from suspense."

"I did not know that it had gone so far with her," said her father in a low voice to Lady Graves. "I believe that if the verdict had been the other way it would have killed her also."

"She must be very fond of him," answered Lady Graves; "and I am thankful for it, for now I have seen how sweet she is. Well, if it pleases God that Henry should recover, I hope that it will all come right in the end. Indeed, he will be a strange man if it does not."

Just then Ellen, who was watching and listening, seemed to become aware of Joan's presence.

"Thank you," she said to her; "you can go now."

So Joan went, humbly enough, suffering a sharper misery than she had dreamed that her heart could hold, and yet vaguely happy through her wretchedness. "At least," she thought to herself, with a flash of defiant feeling, "I am his nurse, and they can't send me away from him yet, because he won't let them. It made him worse when they tried before. When he is well again Miss Levinger will take him, but till then he is mine--mine. Oh! I wish I had known that she was engaged to him from the beginning: no, it would have made no difference. It may be wicked, but I should have loved him anyhow. It is my doom that I should love him, and I would rather love him and be wretched, than not love him and be happy. I suppose that it began when I first saw him, though I did not understand it then--I only wondered why he seemed so different to any other man that I had seen. Well, it is done now, and there is no use crying over it, so I may as well laugh, if one can laugh with a heart like a lump of ice."

Once out of danger, Henry's progress towards recovery was sure, if slow. Three weeks passed before he learned how near he had been to death. It was Joan who told him, for as yet he had been allowed only the briefest of interviews with his mother and Ellen, and on these occasions, by the doctor's orders, their past anxieties were not even alluded to. Now, however, all danger was done with, and that afternoon Joan had been informed by Dr. Childs that she might read to her patient if he wished it, or talk to him upon any subject in which he seemed to take interest.

It was a lovely July day, and Joan was seated sewing in Henry's, or rather in her own room, by the open window, through which floated the scent of flowers and a murmuring sound of the sea. Henry had been dozing, and she laid her work upon her knee and watched him while he slept. Presently she saw that his eyes were open and that he was looking at her.

"Do you want anything, sir?" she said, hastily resuming her sewing. "Are you comfortable?"

"Quite, thank you; and I want nothing except to go on looking at you. You make a very pretty picture in that old window place, I assure you."

She coloured faintly and did not answer. Presently he spoke again.

"Joan," he said--he always called her Joan now--"was I very bad at any time?"

"Yes, sir; they almost gave you up three weeks ago--indeed, they said the chances were ten to one against your living."

"It is strange: I remember nothing about it. Do you know, it gives me rather a turn. I have been too busy a man and too occupied with life to think much of death, and I don't quite like the sensation of having been so near to it; though perhaps it is not as bad as one thinks, and Heaven knows it would have saved me plenty of worry here below," and Henry sighed.

"I am very grateful to you all," he went on after a moment's pause, "for taking so much trouble about me--especially to you, Joan, for somehow or other I realised your presence even when I was off my head. I don't know how you occupy yourself generally, but I am sure you are fond of fresh air. It is uncommonly good of you to mew yourself up here just to look after me."

"Don't talk like that, sir. It is my business."

"Your business! Why is it your business? You are not a professional nurse, are you?"

"No, sir, though they offered to pay me to-day," and she flushed with indignation as she said it.

"Well, don't be angry if they did. Why shouldn't you have a week's wage for a week's work? I suppose you like to earn something, like the rest of us."

"Because I don't choose to," answered Joan, tapping the floor with her foot: "I'd rather starve. It is my fault that you got into this trouble, and it is an insult to offer me money because I am helping to nurse you out of it."

"Well, there is no need to excite yourself about it. I have no doubt they thought that you would take a different view, and really I cannot see why you should not. Tell me what happened on the night that they gave me up: it interests me."

Then in a few graphic words Joan sketched the scene so vividly, that Henry seemed to see himself lying unconscious on the bed, and sinking fast into death while the doctors watched and whispered round him.

"Were you there all the time?" he asked curiously.

"Most of it, till I was of no further use and could bear no more."

"What did you do then?"

"I went to my room."

"And what did you do there? Go to sleep?"

"Go to sleep! I--I--cried my heart out. I mean--that I said my prayers."

"It is very kind of you to take so much interest in me," he answered, in a half bantering voice; then, seeming to understand that she was very much in earnest, he changed the subject, asking, "And what did the others do?"

"They were all in the bar-parlour; they waited there till it grew dark, and then they waited on in the dark, for they thought that presently they would be called in to see you die. At last the change came, and Dr. Childs left you to tell them when he was sure. I heard his step, and followed him. I had no business to do it, but I could not help myself. He went into the room and stood still, trying to make out who was in it, and you might have heard a pin drop. Then he spoke to your mother, and said that through the mercy of Heaven he believed that you would live."

"Yes," said Henry; "and what did they say then?"

"Nobody said anything, so far as I could hear; only Miss Levinger screamed and dropped on the floor in a faint."

"Why did she do that?" asked Henry. "I suppose that they had been keeping her there without any dinner, and her nerves were upset."

"Perhaps they were, sir," said Joan sarcastically: "most women's nerves would be upset when they learned that the man they were engaged to was coming back to them from the door of the dead."

"Possibly; but I don't exactly see how the case applies."

Joan rose slowly, and the work upon which she had been employed fell from her hand to the floor.

"I do not quite understand you, sir," she said. "Do you mean to say that you are not engaged to Miss Levinger?"

"Engaged to Miss Levinger! Certainly not. Whatever may happen to me if I get out of this, at the present moment I am under no obligations of that sort to any human creature."

"Then I am sorry that I said so much," answered Joan. "Please forget my silly talk: I have made a mistake. I--think that I hear my aunt coming, and--if you will excuse me, I will go out and get a little air."

"All this is Greek to me," thought Henry, looking after her. "Surely Ellen cannot have been right! Oh, it is stuff and nonsense, and I will think no more about it."

On the morrow Henry had his first long interview with his mother and Ellen, who again detailed to him those particulars of his illness of which he had no memory, speaking more especially of the events of the afternoon and evening when he was supposed to be dying. To these Ellen added her version of the incident of Emma's fainting fit, which, although it was more ample, did not differ materially from that given him by Joan.

"I have heard about this," said Henry, when she paused; "and I am sorry that my illness should have pained Miss Levinger so much."

"You have heard about it? Who told you--Dr. Childs?"

"No; Joan Haste, who is nursing me."

"Then I can only say that she had no business to do so. It is bad enough that this young woman, to whom we certainly owe no gratitude, should have thrust herself upon us at such a terrible moment; but it is worse that, after acting the spy on poor Emma's grief, she should have the hardihood to come and tell you that she had done so, and to describe what passed."

"You must really excuse me, Ellen," her brother answered; "but I for one owe a great deal of gratitude to Joan Haste--indeed, had it not been for her care, I doubt if I should be here to be grateful to-day. Also it does not seem to have struck you that probably she took some interest in my case, and that her motive was not to spy upon you, but to hear what the doctor had to say."

"A great deal of interest--too much, indeed, I think," said Ellen drily; and then checked herself, for, with a warning glance at her daughter, Lady Graves suddenly changed the conversation.

A few minutes later his mother went out of the room to speak to Mrs. Gillingwater, leaving Ellen and Henry alone.

"I am sorry, dear, if I spoke sharply just now," said Ellen presently. "I am afraid that I am an argumentative creature, and it is not good for you to argue at present. But, to tell the truth, I was a little put out because you took the story of dear Emma's distress so coolly, and also because I had wished to be the first to tell it to you."

"I did not mean to take it coolly, Ellen, and I can only repeat that I am sorry. I think it a pity that a girl of Miss Levinger's emotional temperament, who probably has had no previous experience of illness threatening the life of a friend, should have been exposed to such a strain upon