Mrs. Hayward decided that she would walk home.
For what reason?--for no reason at all, so far as she was aware; only,
apparently without knowing it, to help out the decisions of fate. There
was a stream of other people going home, some of them walking too, as it
was so lovely an evening. The air was the softest balm of summer, cool,
the sun going down, soft shadows stealing over the sky, the river still
lit with magical reflections--those reflections which are nothing, such
stuff as dreams are made of, and yet more beautiful than anything in
earth or heaven. The rose tints were in the atmosphere as well as the
sky. When you turned a corner, the resistance of the soft air meeting
you was as a caress--like the kiss with which one loving creature meets
another as they pass upon their happy way. It was no longer spring
indeed, but matured and full-blown summer, ready any morning, by a touch
of north wind or early frost, to become autumn in a moment, but making
the very best of her last radiant evening. The well-dressed crowd
streamed out of the gates of Sir Samuel’s great house on the hill, and
then separated, flowing in little rills of white and bright dresses, of
pleasant voices and talk, upon their several ways. Till then, of course,
they had all kept together. Afterwards the little accidents, the natural
effect of unequal steps and different pace, so arranged it that the
older pair dragged behind, having still some good-byes to make, and that
the other two, who had fallen together without any intention, went on
before.
Joyce was always shy, but she had never been embarrassed by the presence
of Norman Bellendean. She had been able even to laugh with him when the
gloom of her arrival in this new sphere, and of her severance from the
old, was heaviest upon her. She had the reassuring consciousness that he
knew all about her, and could not be in any way deceived. No need of
fictions to account for her, nor apologies for her ignorance, were
necessary with him. And she gave him from the first that most
flattering proof of preference by being at her ease with him, when she
was so with no one else. But there was something in the air to-night
which suggested embarrassment--something too familiar, over-sweet. Mrs.
Hayward and the Colonel did not feel this. They said to each other that
it was a lovely evening, and then they talked of their own concerns.
Joyce was not like them--the rose-tinted vapours on the sky had got into
her very soul.
‘Was there ever such a sunset?’ said Norman Bellendean. ‘And yet, Miss
Joyce, you and I remember something better still,--the long, long
lingering of the warm days----’
‘In summer,’ she said, with a little catching of her breath, ‘when you
never could tell whether there was any night at all.’
‘And when the night was better than the day, if better could be, and
morning and evening ran into each other.’
‘And it was all like paradise,’ said Joyce, chiming in. Their voices
were full of emotion, though they were speaking only of such unexciting
things as the atmosphere and the twilight--two safe subjects surely, if
any subjects could be safe.
‘It is not like that,’ Joyce added, with a little reluctance; ‘but still
the river when the last flash of the sun is upon it, and all the clouds
hanging like roses upon the sky, and the water glimmering like a glass,
and making everything double like the swan----’
Norman was one of the unread. He did not know what swan it was that
floated ‘double, swan and shadow,’ for ever and ever, since that day the
poet saw it: but he understood the scene and the little failure of
breath in the enthusiasm of her description with which Joyce spoke.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was like that the other night--but there was a charm
wanting.’
‘Oh,’ Joyce said, still breathless; and she added, with an impulse that
was involuntary, beyond her power of control, not what she meant or
wished to say-- ‘When you were up the river--the other night--passing----’
Did she mean it as a reproach? He looked at her quickly. ‘Yes,’ he said,
‘it is true I passed--the very lawn, the enchanted place--and looked and
looked, but did not see you.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but I saw you, Captain Bellendean. I saw you go below
the bridge steering. It was strange, among all the strange folk, and the
boats coming and going, suddenly to see--a kent face.’
She laughed, in a curious embarrassed way, as if laughing at herself,
yet with a rising colour, and eyes that did not turn to him, rather
avoided him. Norman had a sudden gleam of perception, and understood
more or less the little fanciful shock which Joyce had received to see
him pass.
‘You could not think it more strange than I did,’ he said, in an
unconscious tone of self-defence, ‘nor half so disagreeable. To pass
with people I cared nothing for, the same way that has become associated
to me with--with---- And to look perhaps as if it were just the same
whether it was they or--others.’
He began with self-defence, but ended with an inflection of half
complaint and subdued indignation in his tone.
‘Indeed,’ said Joyce, startled, ‘I did not think----’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you did not think about me at all, and I am a fool
for supposing you did; but if you thought for a moment that it was any
pleasure to me to be there, apart from all that had made it
delightful----’
‘Oh,’ cried Joyce, in an anxious effort not to understand this inference
which flooded all her veins with a sudden rush of indescribable
celestial delight, ‘but the river was as bright as ever I saw it, and
the sky like heaven; and why should you not be happy--with your
friends?’
He had given her a sensation more exquisite than any she had ever known
in all her life; and on her side she was giving him pain, and knew it,
and was not ill-pleased to have it so. Such, as the old moralists would
say, are the strange contradictions of human feeling! He turned upon her
an aggrieved expostulating glance.
‘You think it was the same, whoever my companions might be? You don’t
understand what it was to me to be bound to the oar like the galley
slaves, to listen to all their inane nonsense and their jokes, when my
heart was in--oh, a very different place.’
‘You have been all over the world, Captain Bellendean, you must remember
so many other places--more beautiful than this.’
‘Do you think that is what I mean?’ he said quickly, in a tone almost of
irritation. Joyce knew very well it was not what he meant. But she had
to defend herself with the first weapons that came in her way.
‘Don’t you know,’ he said, after a pause, ‘that this has been such a
summer as I never had before? I have been a great deal about the world,
as you say. I have had many experiences: but never yet have I felt as I
have felt this year. I never was romantic, nor had I much poetry in me.
But I begin to think the poets are the fellows, after all, who
understand best.’
‘That is true, I am sure,’ said Joyce in a subdued voice. She was
thankful to find something that she could say. She walked along
mechanically by the Captain’s side, feeling as if she were floating in
some vague enchantment, not able to pause or realise anything, not able
to escape, carried along by the delicious soft air which was breathing
within her being as well as without, a rapture that could not be
explained.
‘I believe it is true--but I never thought so before. And the cause is
that I never knew--you before,’ the Captain said.
Did the people know who were passing? could they see in the faces of
those two walking--nay, floating by, surrounded by a golden mist--what
was being said between them? A vague wonder stole into Joyce’s mind as
she perceived dimly through that mist the face of a wayfarer going by.
She herself but vaguely realised the meaning of the words. She
understood their sentiment well enough,--felt it in that silent ecstasy
that swept her along, but had no power to think or exercise her own
faculties at all, only to let herself be carried on, and away.
‘You have been the enchantment to me,’ he said hurriedly; ‘and now it is
almost over, and I shall have to go away. The charm will be gone from
everything. I don’t know how I am to reconcile myself to the dull world
and the long days--unless----’
‘Captain Bellendean----’ Joyce said faintly, hearing her own voice, as
if it came from a long distance, feeling a vague necessity for a pause.
‘Unless I may--come back,’ he said. ‘I must go home and put things in
order--but it need not be for very long--if I may come back?’
There was something vaguely defective in these words, she could not tell
what. For that very reason they relieved her, because they were not what
they might have been. She came to herself as if she had touched the
earth after that vague swaying, floating, in realms above the earth, in
the soft delicious air.
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘you will come back. There is no reason for not
coming back.’
He, it seemed, had not felt that touch of reality which had brought
Joyce out of her rapture. He was confused and floating still. ‘I mean,’
he said, ‘not to return merely to town or--but to come back to this
moment, to those days. I have never known anything like them. They have
opened a new world to me: Joyce----’
‘Captain Bellendean!’
‘I mean no familiarity--no want of respect; could you think so? The
name came out without intention--only because I say it over, and
over---- Joyce--I may come back?’
Surely the passers-by must see! He had turned and was looking at her
with pleading eyes; while she, with the red of the western sky in her
face, with the mist in her eyes, did not look at him, or make him any
reply.
‘I don’t ask you to say more. This is not the place. I don’t want to
disturb your mind,--only say I may come, and that you will not send me
away?’
Her heart had sprung up and was beating loud. A terror of what the
people on the road would think took possession of her. ‘No, it is not
the place,’ she murmured, scarcely knowing what she said.
‘What could I do? there was no other: say I may----’
‘Bellendean!’ cried Colonel Hayward’s cheerful voice from behind; ‘are
you coming in to have some dinner? You had better. Why, you are taking
the way to the river, Joyce and you.’
‘I beg your pardon!’ cried Captain Bellendean, with a startled air. ‘I
beg your pardon! I did not observe----’
‘Joyce should have observed,’ said Mrs. Hayward quietly. ‘It is nearly
half-past seven. You cannot do less than stay to dinner--especially as I
hear you are going away.’
‘I will, with many thanks,’ said Norman. He looked like a man waked out
of a dream; and Mrs. Hayward hastened on, not without a sense of
Christian charity, to let them have it out, as she said to herself. But
they were now both awakened. The charm was broken, and the golden air
dispersed. They walked on behind the elder pair to the door, and went in
very gravely both of them, without another word said.
A more extraordinary evening never was. Joyce had known many agitated
and unhappy ones within the last six months, but none like this, during
which she saw everything through a haze of excitement, with something
weighing on her eyelids--something murmuring in her ears--something
which made it impossible for her to meet the light or clearly realise
what was going on. There seemed a sort of dumb expectation in the air
besides that curious sense of something arrested and untold that was in
her own mind. Her step-mother looked at her with a question in her eyes,
and even touched her with a half-caress as she went upstairs to prepare
for dinner. Joyce did not know why, and yet had a sort of far-off
perception of some meaning and kindness in it, which notwithstanding was
half an offence. And when she came downstairs the haze had filled the
dining-room, so that she could not see clearly the face on the other
side of the table--the face which did not look at her any more than she
looked at him, and yet was keenly aware of every movement on her part,
as she was of his. She herself scarcely spoke a word during the whole
meal, and he not much,--not more than was necessary. The others went on
with their ordinary conversation, which seemed to drift about upon the
haze; names--the names with which Joyce’s mind had been busy a little
while before--floating about, falling now and then like stones, catching
her vague attention. Sir Sam, the Canon, the Sitwells--who were they,
all these people? It seemed so strange that any one could concern
themselves with their vague affairs.
The dinner was very long, and yet flew like a dream; and then came the
twilight drawing-room, the dimness outside, the evening chilled out of
that heavenly warmth and calm. Joyce did not go out to-night as was her
wont, though she could not tell why. She kept by Mrs. Hayward, sedately
seated near a table, upon which there was work, as if that were her
object. Captain Bellendean stood near her when the gentlemen came from
the dining-room. There was not much light, and he stood up like a tall
pillar, slightly inclining over her, a sort of Pisan tower, leaning, yet
firm. If he had anything more to say to her, it was clear _that_ was not
the place, any more than the road with the Colonel and his wife behind.
But he lingered there still, saying little, until Colonel Hayward had to
say, ‘I don’t want to hurry you, Bellendean. You’re always welcome, and
my wife would give you a bed with pleasure; but if you _are_ going by
that train----’ Then Captain Bellendean roused himself like a man
startled out of a dream, and shook hands with them all. He said
Good-bye, not Good-night; and when Joyce had seated herself again, all
trembling after that pressure of her hand, which almost hurt her, he
suddenly came back, and looked in at the door. Mrs. Hayward’s back was
turned: she had indeed gone out to the verandah to look at the moon, as
she said afterwards. He looked in, then made one step to where Joyce was
sitting, and took her hand and kissed it. ‘Remember I am to come back!’
he said, and then was gone.
‘What did Bellendean forget? his gloves, or a book, or what was it?’ the
Colonel said, with some curiosity, when the door was closed and the
visitor departed.
‘I don’t know,--I was in the verandah,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘What did he
forget, Joyce?’
Joyce looked at them with a startled, guilty countenance, knowing what
they had said, yet not knowing, and made no reply. She dared not move,
nor speak, lest she should betray--what? There was nothing to betray,
except that he was coming back, and that was no information--for of
course he was coming back. She was very glad to escape to her room when
the lawful time came for that, and Mrs. Hayward gave the signal, but had
not the strength or courage even to rise from her seat till that signal
was given, not knowing whether she would be able to walk straight, or to
preserve her ordinary appearance if she relinquished, with both those
eyes upon her, the support of her chair. She was vaguely sensible of
Mrs. Hayward’s inquiring looks, which were half indignant, half angry,
as well. When they said good-night, her step-mother took her hand with a
quick monitory touch. ‘Have you anything to tell me, or would you like
to speak to your father?’ she said. Joyce gave her a wondering look, and
said ‘No.’ ‘I am not thrusting myself into your confidence: but tell
your father,’ Mrs. Hayward said again imperatively, with a gleam of
excitement in her blue eyes. Then as Joyce made no response, her
step-mother flung past her, flushed and indignant. ‘I might have known
better than to make any such appeal,’ she cried angrily, and shut her
door with a clang that rang through the silent house.
Joyce stole away very silently into her room, disturbed and full of
trouble. What could she tell? there was nothing to tell. She felt guilty
without having any reason for it, and very sorry to offend without
knowing how to help it. Tell her father!--but when she had nothing to
tell him! There was a grieved look on his countenance, too, when he said
good-night. It was all a confusion, and wrong somehow; but what could
she do? Disturbed by this, there was a moment of troubled uncertainty in
Joyce’s mind a longing to be pardoned, to say that she was sorry, that
she was concealing nothing, which was, however, contradicted by the
desire she had to be alone, and the shrinking even from a look which
might penetrate her seclusion, and read the secret of her heart before
she had spelled it out to herself. Softly, apologetically, with a sense
of asking pardon, she closed her door and then sat down and came face to
face with herself.
It was a very strange agitated meeting, as with some one she was
unwilling to see and still more unwilling to question--some one who had
a story to tell which would crush all the beginnings of peace and all
the gleams of happiness that had been in Joyce’s life. She thought in
the confusion of her mind of De Musset’s spectre, whom he had seen
sitting by him in all the conjunctions of his life--the being, _qui me
ressemblait comme un frère_; but Joyce’s meeting with herself was more
important than anything recorded by the poet. All trembling with the
sensations she had gone through, her nerves vibrating with the strain,
her energies all melted in the exquisite sense of happiness which had
floated her away, and in the chill check of the real which had brought
her to earth again, she had questions to revolve and discoveries to make
such as she knew now she had avoided and turned away from. She was
afraid to look into those eyes which were her own, and find out the
secret there. She sat down, putting her candle on the table, without
lighting any other, conscious that she preferred the darkness, and not
even to see, if she could help it, what she must see,--what could not be
hidden any more. What had she done? She had meant no harm, thought of
nothing that was wrong, nor of injuring any one, nor of failing in her
faith. If Joyce had been made to disclose her opinion of herself, she
would have described herself as true and faithful--faithful above all
things. She would not have claimed excellence, though she might think
perhaps that there was that in her which was above the multitude; but
she would have claimed to be faithful and constant, not variable in her
affections, true to the last, whatever temptation might come upon her.
Oh, strange delusion! oh, failure beyond example! when all the time she
had failed, failed without knowing it, without meaning it, helplessly,
like a fool and a traitor! It all came upon her in a sudden scathing
flash of consciousness, which seemed to scorch her drooping face. She,
in whom Joyce had always felt such confidence, herself--she, betrothed
and bound and beyond all possibilities of other sentiment--almost as
much as a wife already in solemn promise and engagement--she! heaven
help her! what had she done? Her veins all swelled to bursting with the
rush of her guilty blood. Horror and darkness enveloped her all around;
she hid her face in her hands, and her lips gave forth a low quivering
cry. She--loved another man. It was all the worse for her that she had
felt herself superior to all vagaries of passion, thought herself above
them, and believed that her own half-shrinking acceptance of love was
all that was consistent with a woman’s dignity. She had thought this,
and she thought it still--yet discovered that she had departed from it,
thrown all those restraints to the winds, and loved--loved--Norman
Bellendean! The discovery horrified, humiliated, crushed her to the
ground, and yet sprang with an impulse of warmer life than she had ever
known before through all the throbbing of her veins.