There was no one who could detain her, for the agitated group in Mrs.
Bellendean’s room were too much taken by surprise, in this curious
development of affairs, to do anything but gaze astonished at Joyce’s
unlooked-for passion. She went out of the room and out of the house,
with old Janet, in her big shawl, following humbly, like a tall ship
carrying out a humble little lugger in her train. Joyce seemed to have
added to her stature in the intensity of her excitement. The nervous
swiftness with which she moved, the air of passion in all her sails, to
continue the metaphor, the unity of impassioned movement with which she
swept forth--not looking back nor suffering any distracting influence to
touch her--made the utmost impression upon the spectators who had been,
to their own thinking, themselves chief actors in the scene, until this
young creature’s surpassing emotion put them all into the position of
audience while she herself filled the stage. Joyce would not see her
father’s face, though it appealed to her with a keen touch of
unaccustomed feeling which was like a stab--nor would she suffer herself
to look at Mrs. Bellendean, whose faintest indication of a wish had
hitherto been almost law to the enthusiast. The girl was possessed by a
tempest of personal excitement which carried her far beyond all the
habitual restraints and inducements of her life. Nothing weighed with
her, nothing moved her, but that overwhelming tide which carried her
forth, wounded, humiliated, indignant, angry, she could not tell why, in
the desperation of this most bitter and entirely unreasonable
disappointment which swept her soul. To think that it had come, the
long-looked-for discovery--the revelation so often dreamt of--and that
it should be this! Only a visionary, entirely abandoned to the devices
of fancy by the bareness of all the facts that surrounded actual life in
her experience, could have entertained such a vague grandeur of
expectation, or could have fallen into such an abyss of disenchantment.
It thrilled through and through her, giving a pride and loftiness
indescribable to the carriage of her head, to the attitude of her
person, to the swift and nervous splendour of her movements. Joyce,
stung to the heart with her disappointment--with the _bourdonnement_ in
her ears and the jar in her nerves of a great downfall--was like a
creature inspired. She swept out of the house, and crossed the open
space of the drive, and disappeared in the shadows of the avenue,
without a word, with scarcely a breath--carried along by that wind of
passion, unconscious what she did.
Old Janet Matheson followed her child with feelings of almost equal
intensity, but of a contradictoriness and mingled character which defies
description. Her despair in the anticipation of losing Joyce was mingled
with elation in the thought that Joyce was proved a lady beyond all
possibility of doubt, fit to be received as an equal in the grand
society at the House--which, however, in no way modified her profound
and passionate sense of loss and anger against the fate which she
declared to herself bitterly she had always foreseen. That she should
not have felt a momentary joy in her child’s apparent rejection of the
new life opening before her was impossible; but that too was mingled
still more seriously by regret and alarm lest the girl should do
anything to forfeit these advantages, and also by the dictates of honest
judgment which showed her that resistance was impossible, and that it
was foolish, and Joyce’s revolt a mere blaze of temporary impulse which
could not, and must not, stand against the necessities of life. All
these mixed and contradictory sentiments were in Janet’s mind as she
hurried along, trying vainly to keep up with the swift, impassioned
figure in front of her; trying, too, to reason with the unreasonable,
and bring Joyce--strange travesty of all the usual circumstances of her
life--to bring Joyce, the quick-witted, the all-understanding, to see
what was right and wrong, what was practicable and impracticable. Her
efforts in this respect were confined at present to a breathless
interjection now and then-- ‘Oh, Joyce!’ ‘Oh, my dear!’ ‘Oh, my bonnie
woman!’ in various tones of remonstrance and deprecation. But Joyce’s
impulse of swift passion lasted long and carried her far, straight down
the long avenue, and out into the village road beyond; and her mind was
so preoccupied that she did not take into consideration the fatigue and
trouble of her companion, as, under any other circumstances, Joyce would
have been sure to do. It was only when the sight of the village houses,
and the contact once more with other human creatures, and the necessary
reticences of life suddenly checked Joyce in her career, that she
slackened her pace, and, turning round to keep her face from the keen
investigation of some neighbours grouped around a door, suddenly
perceived a little behind her the flushed cheeks and labouring breath of
Janet, who would not be separated from her side, and yet had found the
effort of keeping up with her so difficult. Joyce turned back to her
faithful old friend with a cry of self-reproach.
‘Oh, granny! and I’ve tired you struggling after me, and had not the
sense to mind.’
‘Oh ay, you have the sense to mind. You have sense for most things in
this world--- but no’ the day, Joyce, no’ the day; you havena shown your
sense the day.’
‘Granny,’ said Joyce, with trembling lips, ‘there has been nothing in my
life till now that you have not had all authority in: but you must say
nothing about this. I must be the judge in this. It is my business, and
only mine.’
‘There is nothing,’ said Janet, ‘that can be your business and no’ mine:
until the time comes when you yoursel’ are none of my business--when
you’re in your father’s hands.’
‘Oh no, no,’ said Joyce under her breath, clasping her hands,--‘oh no,
no, no!’
‘What are you murmurin’ and saying ower as if it was a charm? No, you
havena shown your sense. You think the like of that can be at your
pleesure to tak’ it or to leave it? Na, na, my bonnie woman. I’m the one
that will have the most to bear. Ye needna answer me, though I can see
the words in your mouth. I’m the one, whatever happens, that will have
the maist to put up with. But I say it’s no’ at your pleesure. What’s
richt is richt, and what’s nature is nature, whatever ye may say. I tell
ye, Joyce Matheson--but you’re no Joyce Matheson: eh! to think me, that
never used it, that I should gie ye that name noo! Ye’re Joyce Matheson
nae mair.
‘Granny, granny, don’t throw me off--don’t cast me away, for I’ve nobody
but you,’ cried Joyce, with a voice full of tears.
‘Me cast ye off! but it’s true ye’ve nae richt to the name, and Peter
and me, we’ve nae richt to you; and the moment’s come which I’ve aye
foreseen: oh, I have foreseen it! I never deceivit mysel’ like him, or
made up dreams and visions like you. And it’s no’ at your command to
tak’ it or to leave it--na, na. I’m no’ one that can deceive mysel’,’
said Janet, mournfully shaking her head, and in the depth of her trouble
finding a little sad satisfaction in her own clear-sightedness. ‘The
rest o’ ye may think that heaven and earth will yield to ye, and that
what ye want is the thing ye will get if ye stand to it; but no’
me--oh, no’ me! It’s little comfort to the flesh to see sae clear, but I
canna help it, for it’s my nature. Na, na. We canna just go back to what
we were before, as if nothing had happened. It’s no’ permitted. Ye may
do a heap o’ things in this world, but ye canna go back. Na, na.
Yesterday’s no dead, nor ye canna kill it, whatever ye may do. It’s mair
certain than the day or the morn, and it binds ye whether ye like it or
no,--oh, it binds ye, it binds ye! We canna go back.
These little sentences came from her at intervals with breaks and pauses
between, as they went along towards the cottage, sometimes interrupted
by an exclamation from Joyce, sometimes by the greeting of a neighbour,
sometimes by Janet’s own breathlessness as she laboured along in the
warm evening under the weight of her big shawl. Such monologues were not
unusual to her, and Joyce had accompanied them by a commentary of
half-regarded questions and exclamations, in all the mutual calm of
family understanding on many a previous occasion. The girl had not lent
a very steady ear to the grandmother’s wisdom, nor had the grandmother
paused to answer the girl’s questions or remonstrances. Half heard, half
noted, they had gone on serenely, the notes of age and experience
mingling with the dreams and impulses of youth. But that soft concert
and harmony in which the two voices had differed without any jar,
supplementing and completing each other, was not like this. The old
woman was flushed and tearful, and Joyce was pale, with excited eyes
that looked twice as large as usual, and a trembling in the lips which
were so apt to move with impatient intelligence, answering before the
question was made. It was apparent even to the neighbours that something
must have happened, and still more apparent to Peter, who stood at the
open door of the cottage looking out for them with a look which varied
from the broad smile of pleasure with which he had perceived their two
familiar figures approaching, to a troubled perception of something
amiss which he could not fathom. Peter’s mind was slow in operating; and
as all previous information had been kept from him, he was without any
clue to the origin of the trouble which he began to feel about him. To
return and find the cottage closed, and neither wife nor child waiting
for him, was in itself a prodigy; and though his astonishment had been
partly calmed by the explanation of the neighbours who gave him the key
of the door, and informed him that Joyce and her granny had been sent
for to ‘the Hoose,’ it was roused into a kind of dull anxiety by the
agitated air which he slowly recognised as he watched them approaching,
convinced, against his will, that something ailed them,--that some new
event had happened. Nevertheless, Peter, in the voiceless delicacy of
his peasant soul, assumed the smile, trembling on the edge of a laugh,
which was his usual aspect when addressing his womenfolk.
‘Weel,’ he said, ‘ye’re bonnie hoosekeepers for a man to come hame to,
wanting his tea! ‘Deed, I might just whistle for my tea, and the twa of
you stravaigin’ naebody kens where. Joyce, my bonny lass, ye should just
think shame of yoursel’, leading your auld granny into ill ways.’ He
ended with a long, low laugh, which was his expression of content and
emotion and pleasure, and which turned the reproach into the tenderest
family jest--and made way for them, but not till he had said out his
say. ‘Come awa,’ noo ye’re here; come awa’ ben, and mask the tea: for
I’m wanting something to sloken me,’ he said.
‘Oh, my poor man--oh, my poor auld man!’ said Janet. She had not ceased
to shake her head at intervals while he was speaking, and she uttered a
suppressed groan as she went into the cottage. So long as all was
uncertain, Janet had carefully kept every intimation of possible
calamity from Peter; but now that the truth must be known, she had a
kind of tragic pleasure in exciting his alarm.
‘What ails the woman?’ he said, ‘girnin’ and groanin’ as if we were a’
under sentence. What ails your granny, Joyce?’
‘And so we are,’ said Janet, ‘a’ under sentence, as ye say, and our days
numbered, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. But, eh, that’s no’
what we do--far, far from it. And when misfortin’ comes, that comes to
a’, it’s rare, rare that it doesn’t come unexpected. We’re eatin’ and
drinkin’ and makin’ merry--or else we’re fechtin’, beatin’ our
fellow-servants, and a’ in a word that the Lord delayeth his comin’. And
in a moment,’ said the old woman, with a sob, ‘our house is left unto us
desolate. That’s just the common way.’
‘What is she meaning with the house left desolate?’ said Peter, the
smile slowly disappearing from his face. ‘The woman’s daft! Joyce what
is she meanin’? I’m no’ very gleg at the uptake,--no’ like you, my
bonnie woman, that are just as keen as a needle. What’s she meanin’?
Janet, woman, as lang as the lassie is weel and spared----’
‘The lassie, says he--naething but the lassie. And have I no’ foreseen
it a’ the time? How often have I cried out to ye, Peter, to keep a loose
grip! oh, to haud a loose grip! But ye never would listen to me. And now
it’s just come to pass, and neither you nor me prepared.’
Peter’s face, gazing at her while she went on, was like a landscape in
the uncertain shining of a Scotch summer. It lightened all over with a
smile of good-humoured derision which brought out the shaggy eyebrows,
the grizzled whiskers, the cavernous hollows round the eyes, like the
inequalities of the mountainous land. And then the light fled
instantaneously, and a pale blank of shadow succeeded, leaving all that
surface grey, while finer lines of anxiety and chill alarm developed
about the large mouth and in the puckers of those many-folded eyelids,
like movements of the wind among the herbage and trees. He stood and
gazed at her with his eyes widely open, his lips apart. But Janet did
not meet that look. She went to the fire, which burned dully,
‘gathered,’ as she had left it in her careful way, to smoulder frugally
in her absence, and poked it with violence, with sharp thrusts of the
poker, standing with the back of her great shawl turned towards her
companions, and her big bonnet still on her head. There was nothing said
till with those sudden strokes and blows she had roused the dormant fire
to flame, when she put on the kettle, and swept the hearth with
vigorous, nervous movements, though always encumbered by the weight of
the shawl. Then Janet made a sudden turn upon herself, and setting open
the doors of the aumry, which made a sort of screen between her and the
others, proceeded to take off and fold away that shawl of state. ‘I’ll
maybe never put it on again,’ she said to herself, almost under her
breath, ‘for whatfor should I deck mysel’ and fash my heid about my
claes or what I put on? It was a’ to be respectable for her: wha’s
heeding when there’s nane but me?’
‘There’s something happened,’ said Peter, in his low tremulous bass,
like the rolling of distant thunder. ‘Am I the maister of this hoose,
and left to find oot by her parables and her metaphors, and no’ a word
of sense that a man can understand? What is’t, woman? Speak plain out,
or as sure’s death I’ll----’ He clenched his large fist with a sudden
silent rage, which could find no other expression than this seeming
threat--though Peter would have died sooner than touch with a finger to
harm her the old companion of his life.
‘Grandfather,’ said Joyce, ‘I will tell you what has happened. Granny
takes a thing into her head, and then you know, whatever we say, you or
me, she never heeds, but follows her own fancy.’ The girl spoke quickly,
her words hurrying, her breath panting,--then came to a sudden pause,
flushed crimson, her paleness changing to the red of passionate feeling,
and added, as slowly as she had been hurried before, ‘Somebody has been
here--that knows who my mother was: somebody that says--that says he is
my father. And she thinks I am to rise up and follow him,’ cried Joyce,
in another burst of sudden, swift, vehement words,--‘to rise up and
follow him, like the woman in the Old Testament, away from my home and
my own people, and all that I care for in the world! But I’ll not do
it--I’ll not do it. I’ll call no strange man my father. I’ll bide in my
own place where I’ve been all my days. What are their letters, and their
old stories, and their secrets that they’ve found out, and their
injuries that they’re sorry for--sorry for after costing a woman’s life!
What’s all that to me? I’ll bide in my own place with them that have
nourished me and cherished me, and made me happy all my days.’
‘Eh, lassie! eh, lassie!’ was all Peter could say. His large old limbs
had got a trembling in them. He sat down in the big wooden arm-chair
which stood against the wall, where it had been put away after dinner,
and from that unaccustomed place, as if he too had been put away out of
the common strain of life, gazed at the two alternately,--at his wife
still folding, folding that shawl that would not lie straight, and at
Joyce, in her flush of impassioned determination, standing up drawn to
her full height, her head thrown back, her slim young figure inspired by
the rush and torrent of emotion which she herself scarcely understood in
its vehemence and force. The little quiet, humble cottage was in a
moment filled as with rushing wings and flashing weapons, the dust and
jar of spiritual conflict: but not one of the three visible actors in
this little tragic drama had for the moment a word to say. When this
silence of fate was broken, it was by Janet, who had at last shut up her
shawl in the aumry, and, coming and going from the fire to the table,
filling the intense blank of that pause with a curious interlude of
hasty sound and movement, said at last, almost fiercely, ‘Come to your
tea. You’ll do little good standing glowering at ane anither. Sit down
and tak’ your tea.’