It was some days before the new difficulties which possessed all Mrs.
Hayward’s thoughts were fully revealed to Joyce. These early days were
long, being full of so many confusing circumstances and new problems to
be encountered, solved, or left aside for further trouble in their turn;
and what she had heard her stepmother say about her bringing up had
passed over Joyce’s mind with little effect. She had enough to do in
other ways: to find out a mode of living which would be practicable, to
subdue her own spirit, to reconcile herself with so many new necessities
all rushing upon her at once. How to apportion her time was in itself a
difficulty almost beyond her untried powers: to be long enough, yet not
too long, with Mrs. Hayward--to find something to do during these hours
which she had to pass in that drawing-room which was so pretty and
comfortable, but so little homelike to the stranger. Joyce had abundant
resources in herself. She was fully instructed in all kinds of work--a
mistress of fine-sewing and mending, able to clothe her household with
needlework, like the woman in the Proverbs; but there was no need for
these qualifications here. And she had gone through all the studies
which were open to her in design, besides having found out somehow, amid
those gifts of nature which to all her early friends had seemed so
lavish, a faculty for drawing, which had been of endless pleasure to
her, and pride to her belongings in the old time. Music, indeed, was
left out, except in so far as it belonged to her profession. She had
learned the Hullah system, or something like it, and could read easily
all the simple songs which were taught to the children; but a piano had
never been within her reach, nor had she heard anything that a musician
would think worth hearing. At home in Bellendean the old people thought
that nobody could sing the ‘Flowers of the Forest’, or the ‘Banks of
Doon,’ or the old Psalm tunes, which were still dearer, like, their
Joyce. But these were not the sort of performances with which to please
Mrs. Hayward.
Thus, though she was full of accomplishments in her way, none of Joyce’s
acquirements stood her in much stead in her new circumstances. She had
to contrive something for herself to do, which was far from being easy.
She had to think of what she could talk about, to take her fit part in
the household intercourse--not to sit like an uninterested spectator
between these two strange people, who were her nearest relations. And
this was almost the hardest of all; for Colonel Hayward and his wife
were like so many people of their class--they had read little, they were
puzzled by references to books, and did not understand that keen sense
of association and fellowship with her favourite writers and their
productions which made Joyce an inhabitant of a second world, to her
consciousness almost more real than the external sphere. The Colonel
said ‘Eh?’ as if he had become a little deaf, with a kind but bewildered
smile, when she adduced the example--to Joyce more natural than the most
familiar examples of every day--of somebody in Scott, or, as she loved
to say, Sir Walter, to illustrate a position; while Mrs. Hayward was
more apt to frown and to say impatiently that she thought it very wrong
for young people to read so many novels. They did not even know what she
meant by Sir Walter!--her father, with his puzzled look, suggesting,
‘Sir Walter--Gilbert, did you mean, my dear? Now, where can you have met
Gilbert, Joyce? and what could he know about the oyster-dredging in the
North?’ Thus it was against her that she knew more than they did, as
well as that she knew less: in either case, she was left out of their
circle, out of their world,--her very wealth futile, and more useless
than had she been without endowment at all.
But in the preoccupation of so many matters, important beyond measure to
her new existence, and much pondering of the way to make that existence
possible, which seemed to her sometimes a problem almost beyond her
powers of solving, Joyce was not at all quick to catch up the allusions
of her stepmother, or to perceive what it was that filled Mrs. Hayward’s
mind with new alarms. The possibility of there being something to be
ashamed of in respect to herself--something to conceal or gloss over, in
case it might revolt the visitors, of whom Joyce, hitherto measuring
them by the standard of Bellendean, had not formed a very high idea--had
never entered her mind; and she was startled beyond measure when Mrs.
Hayward opened the subject directly in a moment of impatience, and
notwithstanding her own excellent resolutions against doing so. Joyce
had been betrayed into some reference to her old work, which she had
instinctively felt to be distasteful and seldom alluded to, but which
would crop up now and then. It was Mr. Sitwell, the clergyman, and his
school feast, which was the original subject of the talk.
‘I think they are playing at school work,’ Joyce said. ‘I would like to
see the mistress, and hear what she says.’
‘I beg you will do nothing of the kind,’ cried Mrs. Hayward. ‘I did not
at all like your enthusiasm about the schools when the Sitwells were
here. I think you said you were more interested in them than in anything
else in the world. I am never fond of extravagance.’
‘But it was true,’ said Joyce, with a deprecating smile. ‘When you have
been interested about one thing all your life, and always thinking which
is the best way, what can you do but feel it the most important?’
‘It is time,’ said Mrs. Hayward, ‘that you should find another channel
for your thoughts. I didn’t mean to say anything to vex you, Joyce. But
you must know that your father’s daughter should have been brought up in
a very different way; and, to tell the truth, I would much rather our
friends here knew as little as possible--about your antecedents.’
Joyce looked up astonished, with a quick cry, ‘Antecedents!’ which was a
word that seemed to imply something bad, like the reports in the
newspapers. She was, to be sure, too well instructed to think that
implication necessary; but there are prejudices of which even the
best-informed persons cannot shake themselves free.
‘You know what I mean!--the teaching, and all that. That you should be
fond of the schools, and interested in them, is all very well; but that
you were a----’
A flush of deep colour had rushed over Joyce’s uplifted face.
‘A--schoolmistress,’ she said, with the quiver of a piteous little
smile.
‘I can’t bear to hear you say it--your father’s daughter!--and of course
it is impossible to enter into particulars, and explain everything to
everybody. I think it better, far better, to draw a veil. You were
brought up by relations in Scotland--that is what I mean to say.’
‘Relations!’ repeated Joyce softly; ‘thank you for saying that. Oh, and
so they were!--the kindest relations that ever a poor little girl had.’
‘I am glad I have pleased you, so far as that goes,’ said Mrs. Hayward,
in a tone of relief. ‘Well, then, I hope you will back me up, and show
yourself grateful to your old friends. There are various other things I
may mention as we are on this subject. For instance, when you were
talking to Alice St. Clair you said _Miss_ Greta. Now that young lady,
if you were to renew your acquaintance with her, would certainly not
allow you to call her Miss _now_.’
Joyce opened her eager lips to reply, but, struck by a sudden sense of
the uselessness of any explanation, closed them again--a movement not
unnoticed by her companion.
‘I notice also,’ said Mrs. Hayward, ‘that you have a way of calling Mrs.
Bellendean the Lady. That’s all very well if it’s one of the fantastic
names that girls are so fond of nowadays--I mean, if other young people
use it as well as you; but if it’s one of your terms of respect----
Remember, Joyce, that to go on speaking in that way is a--is a kind of
insult to your father and to your own family, which is quite as good as
Mrs. Bellendean’s.’
As good as Mrs. Bellendean’s!--her heart revolted against this claim.
The old homage which she had given with youthful enthusiasm was not to
Mrs. Bellendean’s position or her family. But how was Joyce to explain
this to her judge, who did not look upon her or her romances with a
favourable eye? And yet she could not but say a word in self-defence.
‘It was for kindness,’ she said,--‘for,’ hesitating with her Scotch
shyness, ‘for love!’
‘For love!’ Mrs. Hayward echoed the word with a tone of opposition, and
almost offence. ‘She is one of the women who seem to have the gift of
attracting girls. I don’t know how they do it, for girls have always
seemed to me the most uncertain, unappreciative----’ She sighed
impatiently, then added in a softened tone, ‘If it’s only a sort of pet
name, that’s different. But you must see that it is your duty to avoid
everything that could seem to--to discredit your father. And we can’t
explain the circumstances to everybody, and prove that it was not his
fault. For my part,’ she cried, with a flash of quick feeling in her
clear eyes, ‘I’d say anything or do anything rather than let it be
supposed for a moment that the Colonel--had anything to be ashamed of in
the whole course of his existence. He has not, and never had, whatever
you may think. That’s what I call love,’ she cried, vehemently, with a
sudden tear or two taking her by surprise.
Joyce turned towards her step-mother with a quick responsive look; but
Mrs. Hayward was ashamed of her own emotion, and had turned away to
conceal it, thus missing the eager overture of sympathy. She went on in
another moment with a little laugh: ‘It shows we never should be sure of
anything. If there was one thing more unlikely than another, I should
have said it was the gossip of a Scotch village getting abroad here. I
should have thought that nobody here had ever heard the name of
Bellendean--when lo! it turns out that we are in a perfect wasp’s nest
of relations and connections. Your Miss Greta, as you call her, a
cousin, and the St. Clairs themselves visitors of the Bellendeans. I
suppose before another week is over all Richmond will know the story. It
is very vexatious, when I had planned to take you about everywhere, and
do all sorts of things!’
She was called out of the room at this moment by some domestic
requirement, and did not hear Joyce’s troubled murmur. ‘Was there
anything, then, to think shame of?’ Joyce had said, her voice trembling,
with the Scotch idiom which Mrs. Hayward disliked. She added to herself,
‘in me,’ with a wondering pang. Perhaps the girl had too high a
conception of herself, which it was well to bring down; but such an
operation is always a painful one. Though she had been brought up in a
ploughman’s cottage, and occupied the humblest position, yet nothing had
ever happened in her life to humiliate Joyce. She had been admired and
praised, and placed upon a little pedestal from her earliest
consciousness: and that any one should be ashamed of her struck her as
something so incredible and extraordinary, that it took away her
breath,--‘anything to think shame of--in me.’ She had no defence against
such a sudden dart: it went through and through her, cutting to her
heart. She rose up quickly, with a sensation intolerable--a quick and
passionate impulse. To do what? She could not tell. To have the wings of
a dove and fly away--but where? She stopped herself, clasping her hands
together, holding herself fast that she might not be so unreasonable as
to do it. The mother had done it, and what had come of it? To herself
madness and death, and to her poor child this,--that the people to whom
she belonged were ashamed of her--ashamed of Joyce! It seemed a thing
impossible, not to be realised. She said it over to herself
incredulously, making an effort to smile. Ashamed!--but no, no! Whatever
there was to bear, it must be borne, even though those wings for which
so many have sighed should be given to her: she must not fly, she must
stay.
But Joyce had in this particular still something more hard to bear. A
few days after the visit of the captain, Mrs. Bellendean came to
Richmond, bringing with her Greta. The two ladies came with a purpose.
They had been warned by Captain Bellendean that there were difficulties
in the Colonel’s household, and that Joyce’s position was not of the
happiest. How he had divined that much it would be difficult to say, for
divination was not Norman’s _forte_. But for once his sympathy or
interest had given insight to his eyes.
‘You should go and let them see that the poor girl has friends,’ he
said.
‘I shall go,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, who was very sure that she must know
better than Norman, ‘and make myself very agreeable to the step-mother.
She is not a bad sort of woman. She will be pleased if we go and call at
once, and I confess I shall do everything I know to make her like me and
trust me: that will be the best way of serving Joyce.’ With this intent
the ladies arrived and played their part very prettily. They were
delighted with the house, the drawing-room, the lovely things, Indian
and otherwise, admiring them with a comprehension and knowledge which
Joyce had not possessed, and making Mrs. Hayward glow with gratification
and modest pride. Joyce followed her beloved lady with her looks,--her
usual and faithful admiration of everything Mrs. Bellendean said and did
very slightly modified by surprise at this new aspect of her. They had
not failed in any mark of affection to herself--nay, had startled her by
the warmth of their greetings. Mrs. Bellendean had met her with
outstretched arms and a kiss which confused Joyce with pleasure, and
afterwards with--something else, which was not so agreeable. Joyce,
indeed, was the one silent in the midst of the effusive cordiality and
pleasantness of this meeting. She did not know how to respond or what to
say. It was the first time she had met her friends under this new
aspect. The night she had spent at Bellendean before leaving had been
different. She was then in all the excitement of the great revolution in
her life, and nothing seemed too extraordinary for that crisis; but
Joyce had calmed down, she had returned to life’s ordinary, though with
so amazing a difference--and her lady’s kiss and Greta’s eager
outstretched arms overwhelmed her with doubts and questions which half
blotted out the pleasure.
Finally, they strayed out upon the lawn, and down the shaded walk
towards the river, as all visitors did. Joyce had made that little
pilgrimage only in company with Captain Bellendean as yet; and there did
not fail to pass through her mind a comparison which affected her in a
way she did not understand. She knew him so much less than Greta, cared
for him much less--and yet---- Joyce fled from the faint rising of an
uncomprehended thought with a thrill of strange alarm, and turned to
her friend, who was so sweet, the admired of all her youthful thoughts,
her little paragon of prettiness and sweetness. Greta had twined her arm
within her companion’s, and was looking tenderly into her face.
‘And are you happy?’ Greta said. ‘Oh, Joyce! I remember how you used to
fancy all manner of things. You would not have been surprised if you had
turned out to be a princess--like Queen Mary’s daughter, who was
“unknown to history."’
‘If there ever was such a person,’ said schoolmistress Joyce. ‘Yes, I
think I was quite prepared to be a princess.’
‘It would have been much more troublesome than this, and not half so
nice, I think. To have had that horrible Bothwell for a father, or some
one else as dreadful, instead of delightful Colonel Hayward.’
‘My father,’ said Joyce, with a little flush and stir of feeling which
was always called forth by his name, ‘is better--than anything I ever
could have dreamed.’
‘Then why are you not happy?’ cried Greta, going direct to the heart of
the matter, as children do.
‘But perhaps I am happy,’ said Joyce, with a little sigh, followed by a
smile. ‘To be happy is a strange thing: it is not at your own will, nor
because you are well off, and have everything you can want. It is just
for nothing, and comes when it pleases. And life is very confusing.
There are so many things to think of that I never thought of before. How
to please them--and I always used to please, just because it was me. And
sometimes I think they are ashamed.’
‘Ashamed, Joyce!’
‘No,’ she said, ‘not of me, as me: but because of what I was. You used
all to say pretty things to me, Miss Greta, about the fine work I was
doing,--about the use I was to the children--even to the country,’ Joyce
added, with a light in her eyes.
‘Miss Greta, Joyce! is that like the friends we are? I shall call you
Miss Hayward if you say that again.’
Joyce turned upon her with a sudden flash, raising her head with an
involuntary movement that looked like disdain. ‘See now,’ she said, ‘you
yourself! You never said _that_ when I was Joyce Matheson, the
schoolmistress at Bellendean. And yet you all praised me, and said I was
doing a good work. I am doing no work nor anything here. I am just a
cumberer of the ground. They don’t know what to do with me, though they
want to be very kind. And I don’t know what to do with myself. But you
never said _that_ to me in the old time.’
‘Oh, Joyce!’ cried Greta, with conviction and shame. She added, holding
her companion’s arm close, ‘Not that I didn’t want to say it--many and
many a time! You were always much better, much higher than I.’
Joyce put her hand upon her friend’s, but shook her head, her cheeks
flushed with a transient glow of feeling, her eyes troubled and
unconvinced. ‘We’ll say nothing about that. It was all as it ought to
be, and natural: anything else would have been out of place both for you
and me. But you did not then; and now you would have me in a moment
change, and say Miss Greta no more, because I am no longer the
schoolmistress, but Colonel Hayward’s daughter. But how can I do that?
that would mean a change in me. And there is no change in me.’
Greta did not understand what was in her friend’s face. Joyce no longer
looked at her, but away into the blue distance over the river among the
tufts and clusters of the soft English trees--looking but seeing not;
perceiving only the mists and confusion of a change with which her own
will and thoughts had nothing to do, against which she could not help
rebelling, though she was compelled to acknowledge that it was all
natural, inevitable, not to be resisted. It wounded her native sense of
dignity to be thus elevated, to have a position given to her, even in
the hearts of her friends, which had not been hers before. Mrs.
Bellendean’s kiss, and Greta’s eager affection, what were they to the
real Joyce, to whom both had been so kind, so friendly, even tender, but
never with this demonstration of equality? If Joyce had been embittered,
she would have considered them insults to her old and true self; but she
was not bitter. She was only humiliated, strangely wounded, and astray,
seeing the necessity of it, and the hardness of it, and only feeling in
her heart the absence of any place for her, herself, the true Joyce, who
had never changed amid all these strange alterations. She put her hand
upon that which was trembling yet clinging fast to her arm, and softly
patted it, with something of the feeling of the elder to the younger,
the superior to the inferior--which was a change too, though Joyce was
scarcely cognisant of it; for in her unawakened days she had looked up
with genuine faith to Miss Greta, making a little ideal of her. Now,
though Joyce did not know it, that balance had turned too, and she was
keenly perceiving, pardoning, excusing that in which her ideal had
failed. ‘I could have wished,’ she said, ‘_you_ had not done it. I could
have wished that we should bide--as we always were--just you, and me.’
‘Oh, Joyce!’ faltered Greta, clinging more and more. ‘I have been so
glad that you and I could be like sisters--as I have always felt.’
‘You and--Colonel’s Hayward’s daughter, Miss Greta,’ she said.
By this time the two elder ladies had followed to the water’s edge, and
stood looking up the Thames at the sweeping willows, and the spot, which
none of them cared the least about, where the poet’s villa had been
planted. Mrs. Bellendean, who was very quick in observation, saw that
Greta was disturbed, and came up, laying her hand on Joyce’s shoulder.
‘Let me have her a little now,’ she said. ‘Norman told us about your
river-side, Joyce, and how you had showed him everything. He could talk
of nothing else when he came back.’
‘It was a beautiful day--which was all that is wanted; for you see
yourself there is not much to show.’
‘And you,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, ‘who were the first thing to be taken
into consideration, perhaps. Joyce, I want to speak to you, my dear.
Your--yes, I know, she is not your mother; but she wants to be as kind
as you will let her. She is troubled about all this story being known.’
‘All what story?’ said Joyce, with a catching of her breath.
‘Oh, my dear, you know. And I don’t wonder at it. You were a miracle in
your own--I mean in that position. But now it is very natural your
parents should wish--no more to be said about it than is necessary. Mrs.
Hayward says very truly that it is better a girl shouldn’t be talked
about, even when it is all to her credit. She wanted to warn _me_,’ Mrs.
Bellendean said, with a smile at the ignorance thus manifested. She had
put her arm into that of Joyce, and led her along the velvet turf, as
far as the lawn extended, leaving Greta with Mrs. Hayward. ‘As if I were
likely to betray you! But I want you to promise, Joyce, that you
won’t--betray yourself, which is far more likely.’
‘Betray!’ cried Joyce. She had been humiliated by Greta; she was
indignant now. ‘What have I to betray?’ she cried; ‘that I am a waif,
and a foundling, and an abandoned creature that belongs to nobody? or
that I am a trouble and a charge to everybody that has to do with me,
breaking my poor Granny’s heart because she wants me, and a shame to the
others that don’t want me? Myself! what is it to betray myself? Oh, you
are kind; you are very kind. You were my dear lady that I honoured above
everything. But you kiss me to-day because I’m--not Joyce, but Colonel
Hayward’s daughter; and you bid me not to betray myself. To betray that
I am myself--is that what you mean?’
‘Joyce! Joyce!’ cried Mrs. Bellendean.
Joyce paused for a moment to dry the sudden tears which had betrayed
her, coming with a rush to her eyes--girls being such poor creatures,
that cannot do anything or feel anything without crying! She had drawn
her arm out of her friend’s arm, and her eyes were shining, and a swift
nervous movement, scarcely restrainable, thrilling through her. That
impulse, as of a hunted deer, to give one momentary glance round, and
then turn and fly--the impulse of her mother, which was in all Joyce’s
veins, though nothing had occurred till now to bring it out,--took hold
upon her, and shook her like a sudden wind. She knew what it was, though
no one else had any warning of it; and it frightened her to the depths
of her soul.