There had been great exultation in St. Augustine’s over the
demonstration. At the lively supper-party which was held in the little
house which the Sitwells occupied, _en attendant_ the parsonage which
had been promised them (it was one of their chief grievances that no
steps had been as yet taken towards carrying out this promise), on the
evening after the school-feast, the parson’s wife had been more
animated, more witty even, than usual. She had made quite a little drama
of the possible scene going on in the rectory, where the Canon and his
wife were supposed to be discussing the matter. She walked about the
room to represent Mrs. Jenkinson panting with rage, demanding, ‘Canon,
what were you doing that you let it be? Why didn’t you stop it? Why
didn’t you interfere? I’d rather have written to the bishop, and had
them turned off on the spot--that man: and that woman! The woman is far
the worst, in my opinion. I am very surprised that you didn’t
interfere!’ Then Mrs. Sitwell puffed herself out so that you would
actually have believed her to be Canon Jenkinson, and made her small
voice into something as like his softly rolling bass as was possible to
so different an organ. ‘If you will consider, my dear, there was nothing
to go to the bishop with. The most contemptible of creatures, even a
curate, is committing no crime when he gets up a school-feast; and he
may even be so abandoned as to give a garden-party, and still his bishop
would not interfere. Bishops have too little power--their hands are
dreadfully tied. If ever I take a bishopric, I hope they’ll be good for
something more----’ ‘I should hope so, indeed!’ cried the imaginary
Canon’s wife in asthmatic pants. ‘The Thompsons too--poor Sir Sam, who
is too good-natured for anything. You will see that odious little woman
will turn him round her finger. He’ll build their parsonage--he’ll back
them up in everything. He’ll get them a grant for their schools, Canon;
and it will be your fault if you let him slip through your fingers.
Austin, dear!’ cried little Mrs. Sitwell, suddenly becoming herself,
with her little ingratiating look, and her voice a little thin,
high-pitched, and shrill-- ‘Austin, dear! will you turn upon me if I let
him slip out of mine?’
Austin dear had laughed until he had cried over these sketches of his
ecclesiastical superiors, and so had the Rev. Mr. Bright, and even good
Miss Marsham--for they were well done; and the cleverness with which
this small person made herself into the semblance of two large people
was wonderful. But afterwards Mr. Sitwell shook his head a little. ‘I
hope he will do what you, or rather Mrs. Jenkinson, thinks,’ he said. ‘I
sha’n’t mind how much you turn him round your little finger: but these
fat men are not so easily influenced as you would suppose,’ he added,
with a sigh.
‘And, my dear,’ said Miss Marsham, nervously pulling out the little bit
of yellow lace round her wrist, and keeping her eyes upon it, ‘though
you make me laugh--I can’t help it, it is so funny to hear you do
them--yet, you know, if they feel it as much as that, I am sorry. I want
you to get your parsonage, and I want St. Augustine’s to get on. I am
sure if I had money enough I should like, above all things, to give it
you for all your schemes; but I don’t want _them_ to suffer--I don’t,
indeed,’ she said, making a little hole in her lace, and then trying
with nervous efforts to draw it together. Miss Marsham was of opinion,
ever after, that this hole in her old Mechlin was in some way
judicial,--a judgment upon her for having participated, however
unwillingly, in the ridicule of her old friends.
‘As for Sir Sam, if he resists Mrs. Sitwell, he will be the first who
has done it,’ said Mr. Bright admiringly. He was not aware that she
called him ‘Angels ever Bright and Fair’ when he was not present, and
sang that sacred ditty with all his little airs and graces, so that the
circle permitted to see the performance nearly died with laughter--or so
at least they said.
But the demonstration was over, and nothing more happened. The sudden
stop which comes to all excitement when it has been stirred up to a
boiling pitch, and afterwards has just to subside again and nothing
happens--is painful. The Sitwells went on from day to day expecting a
letter from Sir Sam, in which he should propose to build the parsonage
(he could so easily!--it would not have cost him a truffle from his
dinner, of which the doctor said he ate far too much), or to start the
subscription for it with a good round sum, so as to induce others to
follow--or, at the very least, enclosing a cheque for the schools. But
nothing came, not even an invitation to dinner, which would have
afforded an occasion to the parson’s wife to turn the fat gentleman
round her finger, as she had almost engaged to do. Nothing came except,
in a fortnight’s time, an invitation to--a garden-party! Mrs. Sitwell
cried with anger and disappointment when this arrived. She took it in to
her husband in his study, after she had calmed down a little. ‘Look what
I have got!’ she said; ‘an invitation to Alkaleigh--to a
garden-party--next month. What shall I say?’
‘A garden-party! is that all it has come to?’ cried the parson; and then
he added, angrily, ‘Say we’ve no time for such nonsense--say we never go
to garden-parties--say we’re engaged.’
‘I don’t think we should do that. I was very angry too, for the first
moment; but when I came to think of it, I felt sure it was _her_ doing.
Women never want their husbands to give away their money. And at a
garden-party, you know, Austin, there are such opportunities--when you
have your wits about you, and can make use of them.’
‘It doesn’t seem as if we did much when we had him in Wombwell’s
field--at your command,’ the parson said.
This change of pronouns was very significant, and the sharp little
clergywoman perceived it instantly. Austin did not like the idea of
wheedling a soap-boiler--especially when it was entirely unsuccessful.
He did not want it to be supposed, even by himself, that he ever
countenanced such unworthy ways. A man cannot (notwithstanding all
Biblical and other warrants for it) control his wife, or get her to
refrain from using her own methods; and so long as it is clearly
understood that he is not responsible for them---- Adam did not object
to the apple,--rather liked it, so far as we have any information; but
he wished it to be known that it was his wife’s doing, not any
suggestion of his. Unfortunately, however, he could not slide out of the
responsibility, as Mr. Sitwell, among a community always disposed to
think it was _her_ doing, was not unhopeful of being able to do.
‘I gave in to you about making a demonstration,’ he said. ‘It cost a
good deal of money, Dora, and I can’t say I ever heartily approved of
it; but I gave in, thinking you knew more of society than I did, and
that you might be right. And it was a great success, you all said. No; I
don’t say anything against that. I daresay it was a success; but what
has come of it? Nothing at all--except twenty pounds for the schools,
counting that ten of Cissy Marsham’s, which we should have had anyhow.’
‘Twenty pounds is always something, Austin,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, ignoring
the drawback. ‘And it is a great deal to have made it so fully known.
Sow your bread, don’t you know, by all waters, and it will return to us
after many days.’
‘That’s all very well, my dear,’ said the parson, a little subdued--for
how is a man of his cloth to answer when you stop his mouth with a text?
He added, however, somewhat dolefully, ‘And not a move about the
parsonage; and if we are to stay here another winter, when not a single
door or window fits, and the rain is always coming in through the
roof----’
‘We must stay here another winter, and there is an end of it!’ cried his
wife.’ If the subscriptions were full and money to spare, they couldn’t
build the parsonage in four months. You must see the landlord, Austin,
and get him to do something. And we must think of something else to get
up the money; we haven’t tried half the things we might. Why, if the
worst comes to the worst we can have a bazaar. There’s always money to
be made in that way: and private theatricals, and a concert--and----’
‘Dora, you know I hate bazaars.’
‘Everybody says so,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘But everybody goes, and
everybody buys, no matter what rubbish it is. People that won’t give a
shilling will spend twenty in materials for making up some trumpery or
other, and twenty more in buying other trumpery that other people have
made. Bazaars must respond to some need of human nature, Austin, which
it has been left to this generation to find out.’
‘It looks like it,’ says the parson. ‘But don’t talk to me about it,
Dora. If it has to be, I suppose I shall find philosophy enough to
tolerate it when the time comes.’
‘Oh, tolerate it! You will be out and in ten times a day, making pretty
speeches to all the ladies,’ cried little Mrs. Sitwell, with a laugh.
‘Depend upon it, you will find a bazaar responds to some need of your
nature too.’ She said this, though he did not find it out, so exactly in
her husband’s own tone, and with his manner, that she had to laugh
herself at the double joke of her own fun and his unconsciousness. ‘And
“Angels ever Bright and Fair” will enjoy it above all things. He will
wonder how we never thought of a thing so delightfully calculated to
bring people together before.’
This time it was the parson who laughed, recognising the voice of Mr.
Bright and all his ways, and even his appearance evolved as if by
witchcraft.
‘You are really incorrigible, Dora,’ he said, turning back to his
sermon with a mind amused. But he did not know altogether how
incorrigible she was, and that he himself, all innocent and
unsuspecting, had been a victim too.
‘And I’ll go and see whether I can’t get Joyce to make her father do
something,’ cried the parson’s wife.
Joyce had been plunged in spite of herself into this new and strange
current of life. The Miss St. Clairs, notwithstanding the momentary
intimacy of the boating party, made few advances towards friendship; but
Mrs. Sitwell was very eager to secure her society, and also her help in
the many activities which absorbed the clergywoman’s busy life. And
there could be no doubt that it was very convenient to Mrs. Hayward that
her step-daughter should have a friend who would relieve herself from
the duty of tolerating Joyce’s constant companionship, and providing for
her entertainment. Joyce, with a singular impartiality and fairness of
mind, herself perceived the advantages of this, and what it must be to
her father’s wife to be now and then free of her presence, and able to
act as if no grown-up daughter, no unexpected much-claiming personage
had ever been in existence. She had a certain sympathy even with Mrs.
Hayward--and she allowed herself to be drawn into the other current,
with wistful yet genuine understanding of its expediency. Indeed, Joyce
went on day by day making discoveries, learning fully only now when she
seemed to have settled into her place in her father’s house, all the
difficulties, the almost impossibilities of it. She felt her disjunction
from her past growing day by day, and that was perhaps the worst of all.
The very climax of disquietude and distress came upon her suddenly one
day when she was sitting in her room writing her usual letter to Janet,
the long journal-letter which had been her safety-valve in her early
troubles. In the midst of her writing, while she was giving that minute
account of herself and of all her actions, which was everything to her
old grandmother, Joyce suddenly awoke as from a dream, with a burning
blush, and threw away her pen out of her hand, as if it had been _that_
that was in the wrong. That little implement, which, one way or other,
does so much for us, betraying us, expounding us even to ourselves,
seemed to her for the moment like a tricksy demon drawing out of her
things which it was against her honour to say. She got up suddenly,
pushing away the table and the letter--things that were in the
conspiracy! and with a great deal of agitation walked about the room to
subdue the beating in her heart. How was it she had never felt, never
recognised till now, the difference? Not Janet’s child, free to secure
in everything the sympathy of those old people who belonged to her, but
Joyce Hayward, her father’s daughter, bound by a hundred ties, bound
above all to betray his household to no one, not to those who were
dearest to her. Joyce was very miserable for a time over this discovery.
It stopped not only her letter but the whole course of her thoughts.
When she resumed her writing, it was with a poignant sense of unreality,
a feeling that her letter was fictitious, written not to reveal but to
conceal, which took all the comfort and pleasure out of it. She felt
that Janet would read between the lines that it was no longer her Joyce
that was writing, but Colonel Hayward’s daughter. Their relationship
seemed to change in a moment, to become a thing unreal, no longer full
of solace and confidence, but fictitious, strained, and untrue.
For a time she no longer cared to write at all, making excuses, finding
that she had not time--that to put off till to-morrow was a relief. The
change made her heart sick. She felt as if she had been over again cut
adrift from what she loved best. And yet it had to be. Hers was not the
hand to lift any veil from the doorways of her father’s house, or hand
over its household manners to remark, or take refuge from it in another.
She wrote a longer letter than usual to Janet after that abrupt
awakening, and kissed and cried over it when she sent it away,
redoubling the tender words in which she was usually shy of indulging,
and writing protestations of affection which had been unnecessary, and
which she felt to ring untrue. But how could she better it? It was her
first false letter, yet so loyal--the first little rift within the lute,
and the music was mute already. She accompanied it with many an anxious,
wondering thought, but never knew what Janet thought of it, if Janet had
perceived. If Janet did perceive, she never let her nursling suspect it.
And not a word was said between them; but it is scarcely to be believed
that the acute and keen intellect of the old woman, and her tremulous
sympathy with every movement in the mind of her child, could pass over
that change which to Joyce’s consciousness was so complete.
To say that the letters to Andrew Halliday grew few and rare would be to
say little. Joyce began to feel the writing of them as the greatest
burden of her life. She did not know what to say to him--how to address
him. His very name made her tremble. Her heart, which had never beaten
two beats quicker for his presence, sank now into depths unknown at the
thought of him. What if he were to come to claim her! That he would do
so one day, Joyce felt a terrifying, awful conviction. And would she be
bound to arise and go with him--to leave everything that she was
beginning to love? Joyce knew nothing else that could be done. She had
pledged him her word. To withdraw from it because--because, as she had
said, she was Colonel Hayward’s daughter--how should she do that? He was
the inevitable, standing at the end of all things--a sort of visible
fate.
Joyce shuddered and turned away from this thought. To escape from it, to
hide her face and not see that image in her pathway, became more and
more a necessity as the days went on. And this was another reason for
finding refuge in the society which was close to her, though it was so
perplexing and unfamiliar. Anyhow, it was more comprehensible than
garden-parties and lawn-tennis, which, to the spirit of the Scotch
peasant which was in her, were inscrutable pleasures regarded with awe.
Joyce did not understand these rites. She understood Mrs. Sitwell’s
schemes a little better, though still with wonderment and many failures
in comprehension. And it took her a long time to find out that the
parson’s wife intended to employ her for the furtherance of her own
purposes, and that it was the novelty of her and her unlikeness to other
people which made her attractive to her new friend. Mrs. Sitwell wooed
Joyce with flattering pertinacity. She showered invitations upon her.
She took the girl into her confidence, telling her how much she wanted,
how little she had, and unbosoming herself about her pecuniary concerns
in a way which horrified her listener. For Joyce had the strong Scotch
prejudice against any confession of poverty or appeal for help. She had
been trained in the stern doctrine that to starve or die was possible,
but not to beg or expose your sorrows to the vulgar eye. When the
parson’s wife told of her poverty, which she was quite willing to do, to
the first comer, Joyce listened with a painful blush, with a sense of
shame. She was very sorry--but horrified to see behind the scenes, to be
admitted thus, as she felt, to the sanctuary which ought to be kept
sacred. But for the woman who had bestowed upon her this painful
confidence, Joyce felt that she must be ready to do everything. It could
not be for nothing that such a confidence was bestowed.
Mrs. Sitwell, for her part, did not care at all for what poor Joyce
considered this exposure of her circumstances. She told her tale with a
light heart. She was not ashamed of being poor. ‘It’s very nice of you
to be so sorry,’ she said. ‘And, my dear, if you would just say a word
to the Colonel, and get him to set things agoing. He could do it quite,
_quite_ easily. If you were to take an opportunity when you are walking
with him, or when you have him alone. But I don’t doubt you would have
done that, you kind thing, without being asked----’
‘Oh no,’ said Joyce; ‘I would not have betrayed your confidence, nor
said a word----’
‘Oh, my confidence! It is only rich people that can hope to keep their
affairs to themselves. I didn’t want you to make any secret of it. Just
say to your father, who is so kind--whatever you please, my dear. I can
trust you. Say, “Dear daddy, those Sitwells are so poor! don’t you think
you could do something for them?” or any other thing that will please
him and make him think well of us.’
‘Oh,’ said Joyce, with a low exclamation of fright and horror. The
suggestion that she should say ‘dear daddy’ put a final crown upon the
extraordinary mission confided to her. But Mrs. Sitwell thought it the
most natural thing in the world.
‘Don’t do it when Mrs. Hayward is by, that’s all. Oh, she’s an excellent
woman, I know; but it’s always the women, you know, that hold back. But
for the women, we should have had the parsonage long ago; they won’t let
people be liberal. I often say, if there were no ladies in the
parish--oh, what a difference! I shouldn’t be a bit afraid even of the
Great Gun himself.’
‘You seem to think that it is women who do everything--especially
everything that is bad,’ said Joyce, with a gleam of amusement.
‘And so it is,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, with a sigh. ‘If one could only get
hold of the gentlemen by themselves. I should like to be the one woman
to make them do all I wanted,’ she continued, with a laugh. She was the
product of a very advanced civilisation, much beyond anything which her
untrained companion knew.