Joyce was sadly uncertain what to do or how to behave herself in her new
home. She took possession of the room which was given to her as a
sitting-room, with a confused sense that she was meant to remain there,
which was half a relief and half a trouble to her. To live there all
alone except when she was called to meals was dreadfully dreary,
although it felt almost a pleasure for the first moment to be alone. She
brought out her writing things, which were of a very humble description,
and better suited to the back window in the cottage than to the pretty
writing-table upon which she now arranged them,--a large old
blotting-book, distended with the many exercises and school-papers it
had been accustomed to hold, and a shabby rosewood desk, which she had
got several years ago as the prize of one of her examinations. How
shabby they looked, quite out of place, unfit to be brought into this
beautiful house! Joyce paused a moment to wonder whether she herself was
as much out of place in her brown frock, which, though it was made like
Greta’s, and so simple and quiet that it could not be vulgar, was yet a
dress very suitable for the schoolmistress. She brought down her few
books, some of which were prizes too, and still more deplorable in their
cheap gilding than the simply shabby ones. Nobody could say that the
bindings were not vulgar, although it was _Milton_, and _Wordsworth_,
and _Coleridge_, and the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ that were within.
She made a row of them in the pretty bookshelves, and they looked like
common people intruding into a fine house, as she herself was doing.
Common people! Milton and Wordsworth! That showed how little was told by
the outside; and Joyce was not without a proud consciousness swelling in
her breast that she, too, in her brown frock, and with her village
schoolmistress’s traditions, was not common or unworthy.
Her father had met her coming downstairs with her arms full of the
books, and had stopped to take them from her with a shocked look, and
insisted on carrying them down for her. ‘But why didn’t you ring for
somebody to do it, my dear?’ he said. ‘They are not heavy,’ said Joyce;
‘they are no trouble,--and I always do things for myself.’ ‘But you must
not here,’ Colonel Hayward said, putting them down on the table, and
pausing a moment to brush off with his handkerchief the little stains of
dust which they had left on his irreproachable coat. Joyce felt that
little movement with another keen sensation of inappropriateness. It was
not right, because she was unaccustomed to being served by others, that
Colonel Hayward, a distinguished soldier, should get specks of dust on
his coat. A hot blush enveloped her like a flame, while she stood
looking at him, not knowing whether to say anything, whether to try to
express the distress and bewilderment that filled her being, or if it
would be better to be silent and mutely avoid such an occurrence again.
He looked up at her when he had brushed away the last speck, and smiled.
‘Books will gather dust,’ he said. ‘Don’t look as if you were to blame,
my dear. But you must remember, Joyce, you are the young lady of the
house, and everything in it is at your command.’ He patted her shoulder,
with a very kind encouraging look, as he went away. It was a large
assurance to give, and probably Mrs. Hayward would not have said quite
so much; but it left Joyce in a state of indescribable emotion, her
heart deeply touched, but her mind distracted with the impossibilities
of her new position. How was she to know what to do? To avoid giving
trouble, to save herself, was not the rule she could abide by when it
ended in specking with dust the Colonel’s coat, and bringing him out of
his own occupations to help her. Joyce sat down when she had arranged
her books, and tried to thread her way through all this maze which
bewildered her. She had nothing to do, and she thought she was intended
to spend her life here, to sit alone and occupy herself. It was very
kindly meant, she was sure, so as to leave her at her ease; and she was
glad to have this refuge, not to be always in Mrs. Hayward’s way,
sitting stiffly in the drawing-room waiting to be spoken to. Oh yes; she
was glad to be here: yet she looked about the room with eyes a little
forlorn.
It was a nice little room, with a large window looking out upon the
flower-garden, and it was, so far as Joyce knew, very prettily
furnished, but without the luxuries and decorations of the other rooms.
There were no pictures, but a little standing frame or two on the
mantelpiece, no doubt intended for those endless photographs of friends
which she had seen in Greta’s room at Bellendean, always the first
things taken out of her boxes when her belongings were unpacked. But
Joyce had few friends. She had a little rude picture on glass, shut up
in a little case, of old Peter and Janet, the old woman in her big
bonnet and shawl, her husband, all one broad smile, looking over her
shoulder--very dear to Joyce, but not to be exposed on the mantelpiece
for Mrs. Hayward’s quick look of criticism. Joyce felt that Greta in a
moment would make that room her own. She would bring down her
photographs; she would throw down her work, which never was done, with
all the pretty silks about. She would spread out her paper and her pens,
and the letters she had received and those she had begun to write, upon
the table where Joyce’s big old blotting-book lay, and the rosewood
desk, closed and looking like an ugly oblong box as it was--long, bare,
and miserable; but none of all these things could Joyce do. She had no
work, and no photographs of her friends, and no letters, and nothing to
do--nothing to do! And was this how she was to spend her life?
She sat there until the bell rang for lunch, saying to herself that it
was far better than being in the drawing-room in Mrs. Hayward’s way; and
then she went timidly out into the hall, where her father was standing,
just come in from some supervision in the garden. ‘I have had a busy
morning,’ he said, beaming upon her, ‘and so I suppose have you, my
dear; but we’ll soon settle down. Mrs. Hayward----’ here he paused with
a little uneasiness, and after a moment resumed--‘your mother--has been
very busy too. There is always a great deal to do after one has been
away.’
‘Considering that I was only away four days,’ said Mrs. Hayward, coming
in from the other side, and leading the way to the dining-room. Joyce
could not help feeling stiff and awkward as she followed, and hastily
got into her seat before the butler could come behind and push forward
the chair. She was a little afraid of him hovering behind, and wondered
if he knew.
‘I hope you like your room,’ Mrs. Hayward said. ‘It is small, but I
think it is nice; and, Baker, remember to let down the sun-blinds before
the afternoon sun gets in. Miss Hayward will not like to find it all in
a blaze. That is the worst of a western aspect. Henry, some invitations
have come----’
‘Ah!’ said the Colonel, ‘we have more to consider now than we used to
have, Elizabeth. There is Joyce to be thought of----’
‘Oh,’ Joyce cried, growing very red, ‘I hope you will not think of me!’
‘For some things, of course, we must consider her, Henry,’ said Mrs.
Hayward, taking no notice of Joyce’s hurried exclamation. ‘There are
nothing but garden-parties all about, and she must go to some of them.
It will be the best way of making her known.’
‘You always think of the right thing, my dear,’ the Colonel said.
‘But when it is for dinner, Henry, until people know her, Joyce will not
mind, she will stay at home.’
‘I wish,’ said Joyce, with a horrified alarm--‘oh, I wish you would
never think of me! I would not like--I could not think, I--I would be
afraid to go to parties--I----’
‘My dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, ‘perhaps there may be--dressmakers to
think of--or something of that sort.’
‘I think you may trust me to look after that,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with a
glance at Baker, who was listening with benignant interest. Joyce had a
keen enough feminine sense to know that Baker was not to be taken into
the confidence of the family; and accordingly she made no further
interruption, but allowed the conversation to go on without attempting
to take any part in it. She heard them discuss names which were without
any meaning to her, and kept shyly, and, as she felt, stiffly still,
endeavouring with all her might to look as if she knew nothing at all
about it, as if it did not at all refer to her--which went sadly against
her with her step-mother, who was eagerly on the outlook for indications
of character, and to whom Joyce’s apparent indifference was an
offence--though she would probably have been equally offended had the
girl shown too much interest. When Baker left the room, Mrs. Hayward
turned to her again.
‘The Colonel was quite right,’ she said; ‘though I didn’t wish to
discuss it before the servants. You must want some dresses. You are very
nice as you are for indoors, but there is a great deal of dress now worn
at garden-parties. And what is called a simple toilet is just the most
troublesome of all. For it has to be so fresh and so perfect, not a
crumpled ribbon, not a fold out of order. You must go with me to choose
some patterns.’
Joyce coloured high again. She felt offended, proud--and yet knew she
had no right to be either. ‘If I may speak,’ she said, ‘I never thought
of parties. I would perhaps not know--how to behave. Oh, if you will be
so kind as never to mind me! I will stay at home.’
Colonel Hayward put out his hand with his tender smile, and patted hers
where it touched the table. ‘You will behave prettier--than any of
them,’ the old soldier said.
‘Oh, don’t put nonsense in the girl’s head, Henry!’ cried his wife with
impatience. ‘You may very likely be wanting a little, Joyce. You may
feel awkward: it would be quite natural. The only thing is, you must
begin some time--and the best way is to get your awkwardness over as
soon as possible. Afternoon parties are more informal than dances, and
so forth. They don’t demand so much, and you could pass in the crowd.’
Though Joyce had been frightened at the idea of parties, and though it
was her own suggestion that she would not know how to behave, she did
not like this. It sent the blood coursing through her veins. To pass in
a crowd--to be tolerated where much was not demanded! How different was
this from the old dreams in which Lady Joyce had been supreme! But these
were but dreams, and she was ashamed to have ever been so vain. She
stole away, while they stood in the hall discussing this question, with
a sense of humiliation unspeakable, and retreated so quickly that her
disappearance was not remarked, back to the west room once more. She
shut the door upon herself, and said half aloud in the silence and
solitude, how good a thing it was that they had given her this room of
her own in which she could take shelter, and be in nobody’s way: and
then for want of anything else to do, she fell suddenly, without
warning, into a long fit of crying, tears irrestrainable, silent,
overwhelming, that seemed as if they would carry her away.
Poor Joyce felt that her fate was harder than she could bear--to be
carried away from her homely state, in which she had been accustomed to
something of the ideal eminence of her dreams, into this, which was
supposed by everybody to be social elevation, and was humiliation,
downfall--a fall into depths which she had never realised, which had
never seemed possible for her. She cried like a child, feeling no power,
nor indeed any wish, to stop crying, in a hopeless self-abandonment.
Altogether, she was like a child, feeling herself lost, undervalued,
neglected, and as if all the rest of the world were happy and in their
natural places, while she was left here in a little room by herself all
alone. And to add to the humiliation, Baker came in, soft, stepping like
a large noiseless black cat, to put down the blinds, as his mistress had
told him, and found her in the midst of that speechless torrent of
weeping, unable to stop herself or to keep up appearances in any way.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Hayward,’ Baker said, in subdued apology,
shot with a glance of eager curiosity and inquisitiveness: for he wanted
very much to know something about this daughter who had appeared so
suddenly, and of whom no one had ever heard before. Joyce started up to
her feet, and hurrying to the bookcase, took out all the books again in
order to give herself a countenance. She turned her back upon him, but
he could see very well the quivering of her shoulders, which all her
pride and dismay at having betrayed herself could not stop.
This curious state of affairs continued for two or three days. Joyce
withdrew to her room when the meals were over, at which she was
nervously on the watch for anything that might be said concerning her
and her mode of existence. It was the third or fourth day before
anything was said. Then Mrs. Hayward stopped her as she was stealing
away, and laid a hand upon her shoulder. ‘Joyce, wait for a moment; let
me speak to you. I am not going to interfere with what you wish: but do
you really like best to spend all your time alone?’
‘I thought,’ said Joyce, with a choking voice, for her heart had
suddenly begun to thump so in her throat that she could scarcely
hear,-- ‘I thought--that I was to stay there: that perhaps you thought it
best.’
‘How could you think I was such a barbarous wretch! Joyce, if you mean
to make life a fight----’
The girl opened her eyes wide with wonder and dismay.
‘That is not what you meant to say, Elizabeth,’ said the Colonel, coming
up to them: his wife had thought he was out of the way, and made a
little gesture of impatience on seeing him.
‘Don’t interfere, for heaven’s sake, Henry! unless you will manage
affairs yourself, which would be much the best way. You make things much
more difficult for me, as perhaps you are aware, Joyce.’
‘No; I did not know. I thought when you said I should have a room--for
myself----’
‘That I meant you to live there like a prisoner in your father’s house?
Are you aware that you are in your father’s house?’
Joyce turned her eyes from one to the other with a mute appeal. Then she
said, ‘Yes,’ faintly, not with the vehemence of her former impulses. ‘If
_she_ had been patient and not run away,’ she added, with a little
solemnity, after a pause, ‘it would not have been so unhappy for us all.
I would at least have known--my father.’
‘You see that?’ cried Mrs. Hayward, though she did not understand why
these words were said. ‘Then you have some common-sense after all, and
surely you will get to understand.’
‘Why do you say that, Joyce--why do you say that?’ said the Colonel,
laying his hand upon her arm. He was growing very pale and anxious,
nervous and frightened, distinguished soldier as he was, by this sudden
outburst of hostilities. To see two armies engaged is one thing, but it
is quite another to see two women under your own roof----’ Joyce, you
must not say that,’ he repeated, leaning his hand, which she could feel
tremble, upon her arm; ‘you must listen to what Elizabeth--I mean, to
what your mother says.’
‘Don’t call me her mother, Henry. She doesn’t like it, and I am not sure
that I do either. But we might be friends for all that--so long as she
has sense---- Don’t you see, child, that we can’t live if you go on in
this way? It is getting on my nerves!’ cried Mrs. Hayward with
excitement, ‘and upon _his_ nerves, and affecting the whole house. Why
should you like to shut yourself up as if we were your enemies, and
upset everybody? I can’t settle to anything. I can’t sleep. I don’t know
what I am doing. And how you can like----’
‘But I do not like it,’ said Joyce. ‘I did not think I could bear it any
longer: everything is so strange to me. I used to think I would know by
instinct; but it appears I was very silly all the time--for I don’t
think I know how to behave.’
Joyce hated herself for feeling so near crying: why should a girl cry at
everything when she does not wish to cry at all? The same thought was
flying through Mrs. Hayward’s mind, who had actually dropped one hot and
heavy tear, which she hoped no one saw. She put up her hand hastily to
stop the Colonel, who was about to make one of those speeches which
would have given the finishing touch.
‘Then,’ she said, ‘run and get your work, if you have any work, or your
book, or whatever you are doing, and come to the drawing-room like a
Christian: for we should all go out of our senses altogether if we went
on much longer in this way.’
The Colonel patted his daughter’s arm and hastened to open the door for
her like an old courtier. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘turning round to his
wife, ‘that as soon as you spoke to her, Elizabeth, she would respond.
You are a little hasty, my dear, though never with me. I knew that as
soon as she saw what a heart you have----’
‘Oh, never mind my heart, Henry! Don’t talk to Joyce about my heart. I
think she has a little common-sense. And if that’s so, we shall get on.’
And then Joyce began to spend all her time in the drawing-room, sadly
ill at ease, not knowing what to do. She sat there sounding the depths
of her own ignorance, often for hours together, as much alone as when in
the west room, feeling herself to sit like a wooden figure in her chair,
conscious to her finger-tips of awkwardness, foolishness, vacancy, which
had never come into her life before. She had no needlework to give her a
pretence of occupation: and as for books, those that were about on the
tables were not intended to be read, except the novels from Mudie’s,
which had this disadvantage, that when they were readable at all, Joyce
got absorbed in them, and forgot herself, and would sometimes forget
Mrs. Hayward too. She had a feeling that she should be at Mrs. Hayward’s
disposal while they were together, so that this lapse occurring now and
then, filled her with compunction and shame. But when visitors came,
that was the worst of all.