And here it may be convenient to say that some weeks went by before it was known for certain whether Joan would die or live. Once or twice she was in considerable if not in imminent danger; moreover, after periods of distinct improvement, she twice suffered from relapses. But in the end her own splendid constitution and youth, aided by the care and skill with which she was nursed, pulled her through triumphantly. When her return to life and health was assured, Mrs. Bird again considered the question of the advisability of communicating with Henry in the interests of her patient.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LUCK AT LAST.
On the morning after the posting of Mrs. Bird’s letter, Mrs. Gillingwater was sitting at breakfast in the parlour of the Crown and Mitre, in no happy frame of mind. Things had gone very ill with her since Joan disappeared, some months previously. To begin with, the ample allowance that Mr. Levinger had been in the habit of paying for his ward’s support no longer found its way into her pocket, and the sums received from that quarter were now inconsiderable, amounting indeed to a remission of rent only. Then, try as she would, she could not extract another farthing from Samuel Rock, who, in fact, had shown the very nastiest temper when she ventured to ask him for a trifle, having gone so far as to allege that she had been playing a double game with him as to Joan, and was concealing from him the secret of that young lady’s whereabouts.
“Look here, mum,” he had said in conclusion, “if you want money you must give value, do you understand? At present you have had lots of money out of me, but I have had precious little value out of you. On the day that you tell me Joan’s true address there will be five-and-twenty sovereigns to go into your pocket. Look, I keep them ready,”—and going to a drawer he unlocked it and showed her the gold, at which Mrs. Gillingwater glared avariciously. “Yes, and on the day that I marry her there’ll be fifty more to follow. Don’t you be afraid but what I can afford it and will keep my word. But till I get that address you sha’n’t have a sixpence—no, not if it was to save you from the poorhouse.”
“I tell you, Mr. Rock, that I have no more notion where she has flitted to than a babe unborn. If any one knows, it’s old Levinger or Sir Henry.”
“And if they know, they keep their mouths shut,” said Samuel. “Well ma’am, you have got my answer, so now I will wish you good morning. When you can let me have that address I shall be glad to see you, but till then perhaps you’ll keep clear, as it don’t look well for a married woman to be always hanging about my house.”
“Any one with a grain of sense in his head might be pretty certain that she wasn’t hanging after an oily-tongued half-bred saint like you,” retorted Mrs. Gillingwater furiously. “I don’t wonder that Joan never could abide you, that I don’t, with your sneaking, snuffling ways, and your eye cocked round the corner. She hates the sight of you, and that’s why she’s run away. She hates you as much as she loves Sir Henry, and small blame to her: ay, you may turn green with jealousy if you like, but it’s true for all that. She’d rather run a mile barefoot to kiss his little finger than she would be carried in a coach-and-four to marry you. So there, you put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Rock!” And she retired, slamming the office and kitchen doors behind her.
When her just wrath against Samuel had subsided, Mrs. Gillingwater considered the position, and since she must get money by hook or by crook, she determined to renew her attack upon Henry, this time by letter. Accordingly she wrote a long and rambling epistle, wherein among other things she accused him of the abduction of her niece, mildly suggesting even that he had murdered her in order to hide his misdeeds. The letter ended with a threat that she would publish his true “karacter” from one end of the county to the other unless the sum of ten pounds was immediately forthcoming. In a few days the answer came; but on opening it Mrs. Gillingwater discovered, to her disgust and dismay, that it was from a firm of lawyers, who informed her in the most pointed language that if any further attempt was made to blackmail their client she would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
All this was bad enough, yet it was but a beginning of troubles. Since Joan’s departure Mr. Gillingwater had been drunk at least twice as often as usual—as he declared in his sober moments, and with some truth, in order to console himself for the loss of Joan, who was the one human creature to whom he was attached. One of these drinking bouts culminated in his making a furious attack, in the bar of the Crown and Mitre, upon a customer who was also drunk. For this assault he was fined at the petty sessions; and on the matter coming before the bench on licensing day, his license to keep a public-house, that already had been twice endorsed by the police, was taken away from him,—which meant, of course, that the Crown and Mitre was closed as a place of refreshment for man and beast for so long as the landlord, Mr. Levinger, chose to allow him to occupy it.
No wonder, then, that on this morning of the receipt of Mrs. Bird’s letter Mrs. Gillingwater was depressed in mind as she sat drinking her tea and trying to master an invitation from no less a person than “Victoria, by the grace of God, etc.,” to attend a county court and show cause why she should not pay a certain sum of four pounds three and nine-pence halfpenny, with costs, for various necessaries of life bought by and duly delivered to her, the said defendant.