Joscelyn lifted his hand, and clenched his fist as if he would have given her a blow.
“You’re all a set of —— ——s!” he cried, launching furiously forth into the kind of eloquence which was habitual to him; but furious as he was, and brutal, there was a keen arrow of pain in his heart too; he was angry with himself. He could have beaten himself with that big fist. What a fool he had been to expose himself, to put it in the power of any lad to expose him! There was nothing he could not have done to himself in the rage of self-reproach and shame which had come upon him. It was a little for Harry—he was not unnatural, and he had a feeling for his offspring—but it was much more that he had laid himself open to the remarks of the county, and every friend and every enemy who might like to gossip about him and say the worst that there was to say.
Perhaps there was a little satisfaction in Joan’s bosom at the sight of the disturbance in her father’s. He deserved to be disturbed. She was glad that he should suffer, that he should get in some degree the recompense of his ill-doings. But this was only a transitory diversion to the painful strain of her thoughts. The waiting was hard to bear. How their hearts beat when they saw the postman approaching along the dusty road, and there was a terrible moment of doubt as to whether or not he would turn up the path to the White House! And when he came there was a still hotter excitement as Joan, with fingers which never had trembled before, turned over the letters. She could not trust herself to speak, but only shook her head, looking at her mother at the window. How many days? It seemed to have been going on for years, not days, this intolerable suspense, which, though it was unbearable, had to be borne. Only about a fortnight had elapsed, however, when there came a packet with the Liverpool postmark. It was a large one, and seemed to contain so much that for the first moment Joan scarcely noticed that the address was not written in her brother’s hand. She took it into the parlour, her heart beating loudly, and broke open the envelope, while her mother, trembling, hurried to her side full of eager joy. There tumbled out upon the table, however, four or five closed letters, all addressed to Harry—and nothing more. Then it was that Joan turned the envelope and looked at what was written upon it: and only then discovered that the packet was addressed to Harry, and bore the stamp of his office. Mrs. Joscelyn’s letter was among the other contents. Harry had never received it. The two looked at each other blankly, turning over the letters which had fallen on the table with trembling hands. It was like touching something dead.
“What does it mean? Oh Joan, what is the meaning of it?” Mrs. Joscelyn said.
Joan turned them all over again, aghast, almost stupid in her dismay. “It means he has never got your letter, mother; then how could he answer it, poor lad?” she said, with a keen impulse of angry despair.
This seemed reasonable enough in the first stupefaction; but afterwards the mother gave a lamentable cry. “Why did he not get it?—why did he not get my letter, Joan?”
“He has not been there, mother.” Joan spoke in a low tone of terror, as if she were afraid to trust the air with that too evident conclusion—for where, if he were not there, could Harry be? Then she examined the outside envelope over again with anxious futility, as if that could give her any information. Written inside the flap was the request, “Please acknowledge receipt.” The envelope bore the office stamp. All was done in the most business-like way. She had seen Harry’s letters come to him in exactly the same envelope when he was at home for one of his holidays. The inference that he was still at home, that all was peaceful and well, and his letters forwarded to him in the usual course, overpowered Joan, calm as she was. A few great tears, looking like large raindrops as they pelted down upon the letters, fell from her eyes in spite of herself. “There never was such a fool as I am,” she cried with a hysterical laugh, “I’m worse than mother or anybody. What’s so wonderful about it? He’s gone to London or somewhere, having still his time to himself—why should he have gone back to the office and spoiled his holiday. That would just have been—preposterous.” This big word gave her a certain relief. It seemed to take some of the weight off her heart as she brought it out. “Preposterous,” she repeated, looking almost angrily at her mother. “You might see that, without asking me.”
Mrs. Joscelyn gazed at her, half carried away by this outburst of what looked like argument; but then she sank into a chair and wrung her hands, and began to weep. “Oh Joan, where is he, where is he, if he is not there? What has happened to my boy?”
That was a terrible day to everybody concerned. Joscelyn himself came in under pretence of wanting something, and seeing the letters lying on the table stooped to look at them with a face which grew very dark in spite of himself. He looked at the women, one seated crying in her chair, the other standing stupefied, staring about her, not knowing what she did.
“Has he come back?” he said, the words escaping him in spite of himself.