“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.”