“You tell me to take three months to consider, mother; but, looking at the matter from the family point of view, how am I to do this? It seems that we have scarcely a sixpence in the world, and a heavy accumulation of debt. Where is the money to come from to enable us to carry on for another three months?”
“Beyond the overdue interest there are not many floating liabilities, Henry, for I have always made it a practice to pay cash. Of course, when the farms come on hand at Michaelmas the case will be different, for then, unless they can be let in the meantime, a large sum of money must be found to pay the covenants and take them over, or they must go out of cultivation. Till then, however, you need have no anxiety, for, as it chances, at the moment I have ample funds at command.”
“Ample funds! Where do they come from?”
“Of all my fortune, Henry, there remained to me my jewels, the diamonds and sapphires that my grandmother left me, which she inherited from her grandmother. They should have gone to Ellen, but when our need was pressing, rather than trouble your poor father any more, I sold them secretly. They realized between two and three thousand pounds—about half their value, I believe—of which I have a clear two thousand left. Do not tell Ellen of this, I pray you, for she would be very angry, and I do not feel fit to bear any scenes at present. And now, my dear, it is luncheon time, so I think that I will leave you, hoping that you will consider the advice which I have ventured to give you.” And again she kissed him affectionately and left the room.
“Sold her jewels!” thought Henry, “the jewels that she valued above any possession in the world! My poor mother! And if I marry this girl, or do not marry the other, what will her end be? The workhouse, I suppose, unless Milward gives her a home out of charity, or I can earn sufficient to keep her, of which I see no prospect. Indeed, I begin to think that she is right, and that my first duty is owing to my family. And yet how can I abandon Joan? Or if I do, how can I marry Emma Levinger with this affair upon my hands, begun since I became acquainted with her? Oh! what an unhappy man am I! Well, there is one thing to be said,—my evil doing is being repaid to me full measure, pressed down and running over. It is not often that punishment follows so hard upon the heels of error.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONGRATULATIONS.
Joan was not really ill: she had contracted a chill, accompanied by a certain amount of fever, but this was all. Indeed, the fever had already taken her on the night of her love scene with Henry, and to its influence upon her nerves may be attributed a good deal of the conduct which to Lady Graves had seemed to give evidence of art and experienced design. Nothing further was said by her aunt as to her leaving the house, and things went on as usual till the morning when she woke up and learned that her lover had gone under such sad circumstances. It was a shock to her, but she grieved more for him than for herself. Indeed, she thought it best that he should be gone; it even seemed to her that she had anticipated it, that she had always known he must go and that she would see him no more. The curtain was down for ever; her short tragedy had culminated and was played out, so Joan believed, unaware that its most moving acts were yet to come. It was terrible, and henceforth her life must be a desolation; but it cannot be said that as yet her conscience caused her to grieve for what had been: sorrow and repentance were to overtake her when she learned all the trouble and ruin which her conduct had caused.
No, at present she was glad to have met him and to have loved him, winning some share of his love in return; and she thought then that she would rather go broken-hearted through the remainder of her days than sponge out those memories and be placid and prosperous without them. Whatever might be her natural longings, she had no intention of carrying the matter any further, least of all had she any intention of persuading or even of allowing Henry to marry her, for she had been quite earnest and truthful in her declarations to him upon this point. She did not even desire that his life should be burdened with her in any way, or that she should occupy his mind to the detriment of other persons and affairs; though of course she hoped that he would always think of her with affection, or perhaps with love, and she would have been no true woman had she not done so. Curiously enough, Joan seemed to expect that Henry would adopt the same passive attitude towards herself which she contemplated adopting towards him. She knew that men are for the most part desirous of burying their dead loves out of sight—sometimes, in their minds, marking the graves with a secret monument visible to themselves alone, be it a headstone with initials and a date, or only a withered wreath of flowers; but more often suffering the naked earth of oblivion to be trodden hard upon them, as though fearful lest their poor ghosts should rise again, and, taking flesh and form, come back to haunt a future in which they have no place.
She did not understand that Henry was not of this class, that in many respects his past life had been different to the lives of the majority of men, or that she was absolutely the first woman who had ever touched his heart. Therefore she came to the conclusion, sadly enough, and with an aching jealousy which she could not smother, but with resignation, that the next important piece of news she was likely to hear about her lover would be that of his engagement to Miss Levinger.
As it chanced, tidings of a totally different nature reached her on the following day, though whether they were true or false she could not tell. It was her aunt who brought them, when she came in with her supper, for Joan was still confined to her room.