JOYCE
JOYCE
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF ‘THE SECOND SON,’ ‘A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN,’
‘THE WIZARD’S SON,’ ‘EFFIE OGILVIE,’ ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1891
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition_ (_3 Vols. Crown 8vo_), 1888
_Second Edition_ (_1 Vol. Crown 8vo_), 1889
_Reprinted 1891_
CHAPTER I
It was a coming of age, and yet not a coming of age. The hero in honour
of whom all these festivities were, was a bearded man, who had been
absent in all sorts of dangerous places since the moment when he was
supposed formally to have ended the state of pupilage. That had been
later than common, since the will of his uncle, whom he had succeeded,
had stipulated that he was to come of age at twenty-five. He was nearer
thirty when he came home, bearded as has been said, bronzed, with
decorations upon his breast, and a character quite unlike that of the
young hero to whom such honours are usually paid. His position
altogether was a peculiar one. The estates of the family were not
entailed, and Mr. Bellendean of Bellendean, the uncle, had passed over
his own brother, who was still living, and left everything to his
nephew; so that Norman was in the peculiar position of being received by
his father and mother in a house which was not theirs but his, and of
standing in the place of the head of the family, while the natural head
of his own branch of the family was put aside. The character of the
people made this as little embarrassing as it was possible for such a
false position to be, but still it was not easy; and as the young man
was full of delicate feeling and susceptibility, notwithstanding an
acquaintance with the world unusual in his circumstances, he had looked
forward to it with some apprehension. Perhaps it would be wiser to say
that he thought he was acquainted with the world. He had been ‘knocking
about’ for the last ten years, seeing all the service that was to be
seen, and making acquaintance with various quarters of the globe. He
thought he knew men and life. In reality he knew a little of Scotland, a
great deal of India, and had a trifling acquaintance with some of the
colonies; but of London, Paris, all the capitals that count for
anything, and all the life that counts for anything, he was as ignorant
as a child.
This combination is one which was not at all unusual in Scotland a
generation since, and produced a kind of character full of attraction,
the most piquant mixture of experience and ignorance, of simplicity and
knowledge, that can be conceived. A man who had an eye as keen as
lightning for the wiles of an Eastern, were he prince or slave, but
could be taken in with the most delightful ease by the first cab-driver
in the streets; who could hold his own before a durbar of astute
oriental politicians, but was at the mercy of the first flower-girl who
offered him a rosebud for his buttonhole, or _gamin_ who held his horse.
He had the defects as well as the virtues common to a dominant race, and
probably was imperious and exacting in the sphere which he knew best;
but this tendency was completely neutralised by the confusion which
arose in his mind from the fact of finding himself suddenly among a
population entirely made up of this dominant race, to whom he could be
nothing but polite, whatever their condition might be. He was very
polite and friendly to the railway porters, to all the people he
encountered on the journey home, and reluctant to give trouble to the
pretty fair chambermaids at the hotels, or to pass, without inquiring
into their story, the women who begged or sold trifles on the streets.
‘A respectable-looking woman, and English by her accent,’ he would say.
‘We must stop and inquire into it. There must be a reason, you know.’
‘Oh yes; probably there’s a reason. Come along, or you’ll have all the
vagrants at your heels,’ his more experienced companion would reply.
They had thus a little difficulty in getting him safely through the
streets at his first arrival. Home was strange to him; it was a place
where all the men were honest and all the women true. He was ready to
believe everything that was said to him in the new England which somehow
was so unlike the old which he had seen only in passing so long ago.
The party he had brought with him consisted of two or three brother
officers, unnecessary to dwell upon here; an older friend, Colonel
Hayward, whom he had known very well and served under, and who had now
retired from the service, who joined young Bellendean in Edinburgh,
being already in the North; and a young man about town called Essex, who
had made a tour in India a year before, and was very willing to repay
the kindness shown him then by taking care of his military friend and
steering him through the dangers of London. Essex, who had a mild handle
to his name, and was Sir Harry, would have liked to prolong the period
of his tutorship, and lead his young soldier about into pleasures and
wonders unknown. But the claims of Bellendean and the great festivities
concerted there were supreme. It was thus a party of four or five young
men, chaperoned, if the word is applicable, by the _vieux moustache_,
the steady old soldier, as ready for a frolic as any of them, who was
yet, as he assured them, old enough to be their father, who arrived at
the Bellendean station, where flags were flying, and the militia band
blaring forth its welcome, and a body of mounted farmers waiting to
escort their landlord to his paternal halls. For Bellendean it was a
very fine reception indeed; and Norman himself, being of a simple mind,
was much impressed. If the others laughed a little, that was partly, no
doubt, because they were by no means the heroes of the day, and because,
in the eagerness about ‘the Ca’aptain,’ the desire to identify him, and
the disdainful indifference shown to everything that was not he, these
gentlemen were thrown into the background, where they grinned and looked
on. Colonel Hayward, however, was as much impressed and still more
delighted than Norman. He would have liked to shake hands with all the
tenantry as he did with Mr. Bellendean the father, and assure them all
that ‘there could not be a finer fellow;’ and when they raised a cheer
as the carriage drove off, joined in it lustily, with a sense of being
at once a spectator yet an actor in the scene which it was delightful to
see.
Bellendean was a handsome house, of no particular age or pretensions,
not very far from Edinburgh. That beautiful town was indeed visible from
various points in the park, which, on the other hand, commanded a view
of the Firth and the low hills of Fife, at the point where the great
estuary closes in, and with a peaceful little island in mid-stream, and
a ruin or two on the margin of the water, forms that tranquil basin, in
which, driven by storms of wind and storms of nations, the Athelings,
pious folk, the Confessor’s kindred--not strong enough by themselves to
hold head against fierce Normans and Saxons any more than against the
wild tides of the Northern Ocean--once found a refuge. The rich and
mellow landscape, brightened with vast rolling fields of corn and
ripening orchards, startled the visitors from India, whose ideas of
Scotland were all Highland; but increased their respect for their lucky
comrade, of whom they had been accustomed to think that his estate was
some little patrimony among the mountains, where there might indeed be
grouse and perhaps deer to make poverty sweet, but nothing more
profitable. The Lowland landscape lay under a flood of afternoon light.
The roads were populous with passengers,--there were groups of ladies
in front of the house, on the terrace to which the long windows opened:
a beautiful park and fine trees, and all the evidences of that large
life which a country potentate leads in what our fathers called his
‘seat.’ Everything was wealthy, almost splendid; Bellendean himself felt
a certain awe as he looked upon all this which was his own. He
remembered everything keenly, and yet it had not seemed to him so great,
so imposing in his recollection as it was in reality. He had remembered
his own favourite haunts, which were not the most important features in
the scene. He turned to his father with a curious shyness and
embarrassment. ‘I had forgotten what a fine place it was,’ he said; but
his eyes said something else, which natural reserve and the presence of
strangers kept from his lips. What his eyes said was--‘Pardon! that it
should not be yours but mine.’
‘It is a fine place,’ said Mr. Bellendean. ‘The places we have known
only in youth are apt to look diminished when we come back. I am glad it
has not that effect on you. All the same, my dear boy, I am glad it is
you and not I that have to live in it. Neither my wife nor I care much
for Bellendean.’
At this Norman grasped his father’s hand, and said, ‘You are very good,
sir,’ in a way which much perplexed the excellent Colonel, who did not
understand wherein the virtue lay, and who was further stricken dumb by
the next question. ‘In the confusion and excitement of seeing you again,
I believe I have not asked for Mrs. Bellendean?’
The reader is too experienced not to perceive that this question, which
bewildered Colonel Hayward, conveyed the not very extraordinary fact
that Norman had a step-mother, which was one of the chief reasons of his
long absence. Not that Mrs. Bellendean was a harsh or cruel step-mother,
or one of those spoilers of domestic peace who flourish in literature
under that title; but only that the young man remembered his mother, and
could ill bear to see another in her place. She stood on the steps of
the great door at this moment, awaiting the carriage--a woman not more
than forty, tall and fair, dressed a little more soberly than her age
required, but full of youth and animation in look and figure. A number
of ladies stood behind her, some of them ’as pretty creatures as ever I
saw,’ the Colonel said to himself--cousins of all degrees, old
playfellows, old friends. The _vieux moustache_ stood by while these
pleasant spectators surged about young Bellendean. He stood aside and
made his remarks. ‘I shouldn’t wonder now if he might marry any one of
them,’ he said to himself. ‘Lucky fellow. I shouldn’t wonder now if
they were all waiting till he throws the handkerchief. Talk about
sultans! all those pretty English--no, they are Scotch--girls: and he
could have any one of them!’ The Colonel sighed at the thought. He
belonged himself to an age in which statistics had no place, before it
was known that there was a million or so of superfluous women, and being
a chivalrous soul he did not like it. He was much pleased to discover
afterwards that several of the young ladies were married, and so out of
the competition. But it was a pretty sight.
After this the days were tolerably well filled. There was a dinner to
the neighbouring gentry, and a dinner to the tenantry. There was a ball.
There was a great supper in tents to the labourers and cottagers on the
estate; finally, there was a vast entertainment for the school children
in the united parishes of Bellendean and Prince’s Ferry. The Colonel
went through them all manfully. He carried out his original impulse,
shook hands with everybody, and said, ‘I assure you he’s a capital
fellow.’ ‘I had him under my command at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and I
know what’s in him.’ In this way Colonel Hayward was himself a great
success. The old county neighbours liked the assurance he gave them, and
the farmers delighted in it. And when it came to the turn of the masses,
and the old soldier went about among the tables at the labourers’ supper
repeating his formula, the enthusiasm was immense. ‘Eh, Cornel, but
that’s a real satisfaction,’ the old men said. ‘Sae lang as he’s done
his duty, what can mortal man do mair?’ His own assurances and
reassurances went to the good Colonel’s head. He felt like a trumpeter
whose note was the word of command to everybody, and marched about with
his head high. ‘I assure you he’s a capital fellow, a capital fell----’
He was in the very act of repeating them, when the words seemed to fail
him all at once. He stopped in the middle with his mouth open, and gazed
at some one who at that moment for the first time caught his eye.
Was it because her place did not seem to be there? A girl of twenty or
so--tall, slight, her figure like a lily-stalk slightly swaying forward,
her head raised, with a tremor of sympathy in every feature. Her face
was like a lily too, pale, with large eyes, either brown or blue, he
could not be sure which, and long eyelashes uplifted; and the most
sensitive mouth, which smiled yet quivered, and made as though repeating
the words, which the eyes seemed to divine before they were said. She
was seated at the end of a table with two old people, too old to be her
father and mother, looking as if she had strayed there by some strange
chance, as if she had nothing to do with the vulgar features of the
feast, like a young princess who had sat down among them to please them.
The words were stopped upon the Colonel’s lips. He broke down in the
middle, and stood staring at her, not knowing where he was. Good Lord!
that face: and sitting there among the common people, among the
labourers, the ploughmen! It did not seem to Colonel Hayward that
anybody about was surprised at his stare. They, too, turned round and
looked at her kindly, or--not kindly, as the case might be. But they
were not surprised. They understood his wonder. ‘Ay, sir, she’s a very
bonnie lass,’ said one old man. ‘A bonnie lass! a bonnie lass!’ the
Colonel repeated; but not with the tone in which he had spoken about the
capital fellow. It was as if some blow had been struck at him which took
away his utterance. He hurried up to Mrs. Bellendean, who stood at the
head of the tent looking on. ‘A young lady, my dear Colonel? there are
no young ladies there.’ ‘You must know her if I could but point her out
to you. She is like no one else about her. It is not curiosity. I have a
particular reason for asking.’ ‘Tell me what she was like,’ the gracious
lady said; but just then her husband came to consult her about
something, and the opportunity was lost.
Colonel Hayward retired from his trumpeting for that night. He let
Norman’s reputation take its chance. He was very silent all the rest of
the evening, not even repeating his question when he had an opportunity,
but sitting by himself and thinking it over. It was a remarkable face:
but no doubt the resemblance must be a chance resemblance. There are so
many faces in the world, and some of them here and there must resemble
each other. It must be something in his own mind, some recollection that
had come to him unawares, an association from the Scotch voices he heard
round him. That, when he came to think of it, must have been working in
his mind all day; indeed, ever since he came. And this was the issue.
Every mental process (people say) can be explained if you trace it out.
And this one was not so difficult after all, not difficult at all, when
you came to think of it, he said to himself, nodding his head; but all
the same, he could not help wishing that Elizabeth had been here. And
then he began to think again of that girl. She was not like a girl to be
found sitting with the ploughmen’s families. He seemed to see her before
him, especially when he shut his eyes and gave himself up to it, which
he did in a retired corner on the terrace after everybody had gone away.
Though it was late, there was still light in the skies, partly the
lingering northern daylight, partly the moon, and he shut his eyes
while he smoked his cigar and pondered. He could see her before him,
that girl, in a dark dress made (he thought--but then he did not know
much about it) like a lady’s--certainly with a face like a lady’s, or
how could she have resembled----? Of course, it was only association,
and the recollections that came back to him with those Lowland voices.
The Highland ones had never affected him in the same way. The fact was,
he said to himself, he was never half a man when Elizabeth was not with
him. She would have understood the sequence of ideas at once. She would
have found out in five minutes who the girl was and all about her, and
set him at rest. He was interrupted in those thoughts by the sudden
irruption of the band of young men with their cigars into the balmy
quiet of the night. It was warm, and they had found the smoking-room
hot. ‘And there is old Hayward gone to sleep in a corner,’ he heard one
of them say.
‘He must not sleep,’ said Mr. Bellendean; ‘wake him up, Norman. The air
here is too keen for that.’
‘I am no more asleep than any one of you young fellows,’ the Colonel
said, jumping up. ‘But as old Hayward has more sense than a set of boys,
he kept outside here in the cool while you were all heating yourselves
in the smoking-room. I don’t think they’ve got the best of it this time,
Mr. Bellendean, eh?’
‘They don’t half so often as they think,’ said the other old gentleman.
They were neither of them very old, but they drew together with a
natural sympathy amid that band of youth.
Next day was the concluding day of the Bellendean festivities, and it
was chiefly to be devoted to the children. In the afternoon the park was
turned into an immense playground. Every kind of game and entertainment
that could be thought of was provided. There was a conjurer, there was
Punch, there was a man with marionettes, and what the children liked
still better, there were games of all kinds, in which they could
themselves perform, which is always more agreeable than seeing other
people do so. And finally, there was tea--a wonderful tea, in which
mountains of cake and cookies innumerable disappeared like magic. The
ladies were all there, serving actively the flushed and happy crowds of
children, throwing themselves into it with much more sympathy than they
had shown with the substantial feasts of the previous days. The young
men were set free, they were not required to help in the entertainment
of the boys and girls; and except Norman, who had bravely determined to
do his duty to the end, the male portion of the company was represented
only by Mr. Bellendean and the Colonel, who looked on from the terrace,
and finally took a walk round the tent where the meal was going on, and
partook, as the newspapers say, of a cup of tea at a little separate
table in a corner, where Mrs. Bellendean was taking that refreshment. It
was when the Colonel (who liked his tea) was standing with a cup in his
hand, just outside the great tent, which was steaming with the
entertainment, that he suddenly stopped once more in the midst of a
little speech he was making about the pleasure of seeing children enjoy
themselves. He stopped with a little start, and then he set down his cup
and turned back to watch something. It was afternoon, but the sun was
still high in the skies, and even under the tent there was full
daylight, impaired by no shadows or uncertainty. The shade within gave a
suppressed and yellow glow to everything, something like the air of a
theatre: and in the midst there she stood once more, the girl of last
night! The Colonel gazed at her with an absorption, an abstraction,
which was extraordinary. He saw nothing but only her alone. She had been
seated by the old ploughman on the previous night as if she belonged to
him; but now she was moving about among the children as the young ladies
were doing, serving and encouraging: her dress was very simple, but so
was theirs, and there was not one of them more graceful, more at her
ease. Everybody knew her. She seemed to be referred to on all hands; by
the children, who came clinging about her--by the visitors, who seemed
to consult her upon everything. Who could she be? The clergyman’s
daughter perhaps; but then, how had she come to be seated last night
between the old couple, who were clearly labouring people, at the
cottagers’ supper? And how had she come by that face? Whoever she might
be, gentlewoman or rustic maiden, how had she come by that face? There
was the wonder.
The Colonel stood fascinated, immovable, at the tent-door, looking in,
seeing all the moving crowd of faces only as a background to this one,
which seemed, in his fancy, to reign over them all. Her face was not
still and attentive, as on the previous night, but full of animation and
life. He watched the children come round her as they finished their
meal, which was pretty to see; he watched the ladies coming and going,
always circling more or less about this one figure. He watched Norman
going up to her, holding out his hand, which she took, showing for the
first time a little rustic shyness, curtseying as if he had been a
prince. Then he saw a quite different sort of man from Norman, one of
the schoolmasters, go to her in his turn and say something in her ear,
with an evident claim upon her attention and a lingering touch on her
arm, which spoke much, which made the Colonel angry, as if the fellow
had presumed. But the girl evidently did not think he presumed. A smile
lighted up her face, which she turned to him looking up in his. Colonel
Hayward felt a movement of impatience take possession of him: and then a
still stronger feeling swept across his mind. As she turned her face
with that look of tender attention to the man who addressed her, she
turned it also to the spectator looking at her from the tent-door. The
line of the uplifted head, the soft chin, the white throat, the eyes
raised with their long eyelashes--‘Good God! who is she?’ he said aloud.
Mrs. Bellendean saw the absorbed expression in his face, and came and
stood beside him to see what he was looking at. Her own face relaxed
into smiles when she found out the object of his gaze. ‘Oh, I don’t
wonder now at your interest, Colonel. I am sure she has had no tea; she
would never think of looking after herself. Now, come, you shall see her
nearer; she is worth looking at: Joyce!’ she cried.
‘Joyce! Good God!’