The Canon had brought Joyce home. He had tucked her hand under his arm,
and led her through the dark as carefully as her father would have done,
talking much, but getting very little response. He looked like a
mountain moving along in the gloom, or like a big ship with a slim
little yacht in tow; and other wayfarers could hear his voice coming out
in the mist, with sometimes a faint note of reply. The Canon was not
talking to her of moral difficulties or cases of conscience, but of a
party which was to take place at the rectory, and at which he wished her
to look her best. ‘If you will do me a favour,’ he said, ‘you will put
those questions all away, and put on the pretty looks with which you
captivated me, Joyce. Eh? don’t you remember? it’s not so long ago; how
you went and put yourself on the other side, and waved your flag in my
face, you little---- But it was all in vain, my dear, for we fell in
love with each other just the same.’
A smile came upon her face as she looked up at him through the fog and
the faint lamplight that streamed in distinct rays across that solid
atmosphere. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You can’t deny it,’ said the Canon; ‘for my part, it was at first
sight. Well, Joyce, to please me, and your father--though I don’t know
that he has the same right--you will go back to that moment, and look
your best. I want you to look very nice indeed--so does my wife. We
mustn’t give the adversary occasion to blaspheme.’
‘But I have no adversary,’ said Joyce, ‘unless it were----’
‘Eh? I don’t doubt you have somewhere, as all of us have, somebody
you’ve been too good to. And keep away from that little parson woman,
Joyce. I’m a parson myself, you will say; but there are parsons and
parsons. Is that some one leaving your house? and there is your father
standing out in the night air without a hat; the most foolish thing he
could do. You catch cold without any warning, and then there’s no
getting rid of it. Hey, Hayward! don’t shut the door upon us, please;
I’ve brought you home your little girl.’
The Colonel shouted, ‘Why, Jenkinson, is it you?’--as we have seen--and
stood in the doorway to greet his visitor. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘come in
out of the fog. If you had been coming in the opposite direction you’d
have run into Bellendean. He has not been five minutes gone.’
‘I only wish we had run into him,’ said the Canon in his rolling bass;
‘it might have cleared up some things.’
‘What do you mean, Canon? He’s a nice fellow, but not particularly
clever. Come in, and don’t stand out in the fog.’
‘Go in yourself, and don’t catch cold. I’ve done my duty now; I’ve
brought you home, Joyce. Take care of her, Hayward,’ said the Canon, as
he strode away, marching like a regiment, with his long coat swinging,
and the black silk waistcoat charging the heavy air. Colonel Hayward
withdrew within the shelter of the door, putting up his hand to his
head, which was his vulnerable point.
‘Take care of her!’ he said; ‘my own girl! I should think I would take
care of her. These parsons take a great deal upon them. They think they
always know better than other people though they have neither chick nor
child.’ The Colonel repeated these words to himself with a little
chuckle, as he went back to his library to finish something he had been
reading in the paper before dinner. The Canon looked very big and
imposing, and took a great deal of authority upon himself, but he was
wholly without experience in the point upon which he presumed to lecture
his old friend. Take care of her--his own little girl! a pretty thing
for a man to say who had never succeeded in securing anything of the
kind for himself.
Joyce went into the drawing-room with her heart beating, sick and faint.
She seemed to feel in the air that he had been there. There was
something of him still about the room--the mark of his elbow on a
cushion, the sensation of his breath. He had come after all. She wanted
to stand where he had stood, to breathe the same air, and then--and
then--to fly where she could never see him--where it should be
impossible to be tempted to his destruction. No, no; and to break
Greta’s heart. Her own throbbed quick but low. There had been a
momentary spring, but only for a moment. No, no, not for his harm, and
the breaking of Greta’s heart. His coming seemed to have precipitated
and brought near what was so far off a little while ago. She was on the
edge of the precipice now--and there was something in the sense of the
giddy vacancy before her that seemed to sweep and suck her towards the
edge. She went in--and found Mrs. Hayward standing waiting for her in
the middle of the room.
‘Where have you been, Joyce? where have you been?--to-day of all days!
Captain Bellendean has been here----’
She said, ‘Yes, I heard,’ almost under her breath.
‘And why were you not here to meet him? I don’t suppose it was your
fault. It could not be your fault. But why, why were you not here? It is
like a bad fate.’
‘It would be rather a providence,’ said Joyce, in her subdued
voice--‘for it’s better; oh, it’s better not. I am--glad--I wasn’t
here.’
Mrs. Hayward grasped her hand with an impatient exasperation. ‘Glad--you
weren’t here--glad to have driven him almost frantic--and me too!’
Joyce looked at her step-mother, wondering. She was so forlorn that any
sympathetic tone, even though it was angry, caught her ear. And she felt
the circumstances to be so desperate that she was no longer afraid.
‘You?--are you caring--anyway?’
‘Am I caring! You mean, do I care? Yes, I care. Joyce!’ cried Mrs.
Hayward, gripping her hands tightly, then losing them with a little
impatient gesture, as if she had flung them away, ‘you are a strange
girl--you have never tried to make me love you. And I don’t know that I
do. It was a great change to me, that had been everything to my husband,
to have you a stranger brought in: and you never tried to make me
care----’
‘I was bewildered,’ the girl said. ‘I was--like a creature astray----’
‘Very likely. I am not asking the cause; I am only telling you. But now
there’s something got up that we must stand against. They’ve got to know
about that man--and that you were only--a poor girl before. They are
making a stand against you.’
Joyce stood up against the glow of the fire listening, yet only half
roused. She was taller than Mrs. Hayward, and the energetic, almost
impassioned little woman looked up at her pale face, and thought it like
a face in a dream. It was abstracted, the eyes veiled, as if they were
looking inward. And neither to have thus lost her lover’s visit, nor to
be threatened with a conspiracy against her, awakened her out of the
mist of her own thoughts. Mrs. Hayward put her hand on Joyce’s arm with
the quick impatience of her nature-- ‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘I don’t know
what you have in your mind: but give your attention to what I am
saying. Wake up! it is of the greatest importance, if not to yourself,
to your father and to me----’
‘Yes,’ said Joyce, with a little start; ‘I am hearing every word you
say, and minding. Oh, don’t think I’ve a cold heart. I am only just all
astray--since ever I came. I was a stranger, as you say. And I might
learn better--if there was time.’
‘There is plenty of time,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with a little moisture in
her eyes. ‘Men never see it--but it was a great trial for you and me.
Yes, yes, for both of us. I always saw that. But we must make a stand
now, and do it together. They say you’re not your father’s daughter, but
a foundling--and they say you’ve got a man coming after you that made a
disturbance--a low man. Don’t contradict me or put my temper up! He was
not a low man, but quite respectable, I know that--but all the same a
man to be put a stop to. Joyce! don’t you understand what a vexation it
is that you were not here! He came with his heart in his mouth to lay
everything at your feet. And the triumph it would have been for us all
to have faced them, with you engaged to Norman Bellendean!’
A colour like the flash of a light passed over Joyce’s face. Her eyes
filled suddenly with large hot tears. She shook her head, with a
trembling going over her like the sudden shiver of ague. ‘No,’ she said,
‘no--never that; oh, never that!’
‘Why never that? Don’t be a fool, Joyce, don’t be a fool. Though he’s an
excellent match, there’s nobody near, nobody anywhere that would suit
you so well. You understand each other. For goodness’ sake,’ cried Mrs.
Hayward, exasperated and anxious, ‘don’t spoil your life with any
romantic nonsense! Why, even his people like you and seek you. Mrs.
Bellendean----’
‘I must tell you the truth,’ said Joyce, ‘for oh, I am in a great
strait, and I know not what to do. Mrs. Bellendean would rather I were
dead than that. There is one he should marry that would break her
heart--and there is one I should marry: _that_ I will not do; but I will
marry nobody nor think of anything that could hurt her--or him. No, not
for all the world.’
Mrs. Hayward clapped her hands together in the wild impatience and rage
which could not find utterance in mere words. ‘Oh, that was it!’ she
cried. ‘I thought there was something treacherous in it. I thought she
did not come for nothing, that woman! I never liked her, for all her
show of kindness. I never put any faith in her. And she came to take
advantage of your simplicity, you poor thing--you poor innocent thing!’
Elizabeth’s temper was warm, but her heart no less. She caught Joyce
suddenly in her arms, and gave her a quick kiss, which was like a soft
little blow--and the girl felt that the cheek which touched hers was
wet. But it was only a momentary touch, and Mrs. Hayward was half
ashamed of her emotion. She gave an imperative grasp to Joyce’s arms as
she let her go, and added with a little laugh, ‘But let us stand
together, Joyce--you and me! and we’ll be too many for them. I don’t
mind how strong they are--we’ll be too many for them yet--you and me!’
Colonel Hayward coming in at this moment, with his newspaper in his hand
to read something aloud to his wife (who had seen it before breakfast),
found them standing very close together, and heard the sound of his
wife’s laugh, which sounded to him more like crying than laughing. And
he knew that the sound meant a good deal of commotion in Elizabeth’s
mind. He did not know what might have been going on; and while he was
eager to interfere, his better angel kept him back by means of that
prejudice against prying, which is a happy part of English training.
Accordingly he did not come near, but pretended it was necessary to hold
up his paper to the lamp. ‘My dear, I just wished to read you this
little bit,’ he said, turning his shoulder to the pair. Mrs. Hayward
could scarcely restrain the exclamation of impatience on her lips; but
perhaps it was well that so exciting an interview should thus be brought
to a simple and unconcerted end.
After this there followed two uneventful days--uneventful to the rest of
the world; not quite so to Mrs. Hayward, who was employed in searching
out all the ramifications of the social conspiracy against her husband
and Joyce, with a warmth of defensive feeling and determination to
support and vindicate what was her own side and her own belongings,
which roused every amiable sentiment--and there were many--in her heart.
She was kept in a subdued fever of expectation at the same time, looking
almost every hour for the arrival of Norman Bellendean, who would not,
she believed, keep to the invitation given him for Thursday, but might
at any moment burst in upon them and set everything right. She did not
believe that he would have the coolness to wait till that appointed
time, and her devices for retaining Joyce within reach were manifold and
sometimes very amusing, had there been any one with a mind free to
observe the situation. Colonel Hayward, without having any reason given,
was charged to be punctual in bringing her back from the morning walk at
a certain hour--and Elizabeth herself took the direction of affairs in
the afternoon, taking Joyce with her when she herself went out, and
regulating a succession of returns which made it impossible that any
visitor could have very long to wait. It must be allowed that this
extreme care was harassing to Joyce, unaccustomed to so numerous a round
of little engagements, and who hitherto had been free to follow her own
devices and think her own thoughts. These thoughts, it was true, could
be carried on anywhere, and were as possible in the drawing-room under
her step-mother’s eyes as when alone; but they were confused and
weakened by the sense of some one near--by the interruption of questions
which she had to answer, and remarks to which she was supposed to pay
attention.
The gathering web of purpose and meaning was thus confused into a sort
of cobweb maze, like the threads of a spider twisted with everything
they encountered; and Joyce felt herself thus held in suspense, still
with that sweep and suction in the air which betrayed the precipice
close by--but rather with the sensation of one who lay upon the edge
bound and helpless, perhaps to be swept over by the first gale, but in
herself quiescent, capable of no movement--than of the despairing agent
of her own fate, by whose action alone the end could be accomplished.
She lay there still, listening for the hurricane that must sweep her
away--not taking, as she must do, that tremendous step for herself. But
the closeness of it half stupefied, half paralysed her. The moment would
come when she must wake, when the step would have to be taken; but what
if in the meantime some celestial storm, some great heavenly chance
impulse might burst in and carry her away? This happens sometimes--so
that a man who intended to kill himself dies innocently in the meantime,
and is saved all that trouble and pain. No one can tell what a day or an
hour may bring forth. ‘Perhaps the world may end to-night,’ as the poet
has said. But Joyce was not in hourly expectation like Mrs. Hayward. She
accepted Thursday as the limit of her suspense. Before Thursday
it must be done: but in the meantime, and for these two days,
quiescence--something that, in the pause of despair, looked almost like
peace.
This was not, however, undisturbed. There came a little note from Mrs.
Bellendean with a final good-bye:--
‘Just my love to my dear Joyce before I go away. Wishing her every
good, and very confident that she will never forget me, nor all
that has passed between us for long years; and that I am always her
affectionate friend
M. B.’
All that had passed between them--for long years! No, Joyce would not
forget.
There was also a letter from Andrew, announcing, as if nothing
particular had happened, his return home.
* * * * *
‘And though my visit was not all that could be desired, yet I am glad
that I made it, for it lets us both see, my dear Joyce, what is before
us, and forewarned is forearmed. Also, I am anxious to let you know that
I made acquaintance with a very respectable lady, the wife of a
minister, who was most kind, so kind, indeed, that it was a difficulty
to accept her attentions without the power of making any return. But I
thought it my duty, as she seemed to be a friend of yours, to speak
freely to her, so that you might find a support in her, as one lady can
with another, and a person to whom, being unfortunately not at ease at
home in that respect, you could talk freely of me.’
* * * * *
It was a pity that nobody save Joyce saw this effusion of the
schoolmaster’s genius. She was not capable of seeing the humour in it.
It was so wonderful that her dreamy eyes opened wide with mingled
consternation and astonishment. That he should speak so calmly of the
tragic episode which had first opened to her the mystery of dreadful
life which lay before her! That he should be so little capable of
understanding what were the contradictions and the miserable limits of
humanity! But she was too deep in that mystery to think of it. The two
letters were found folded together afterwards.
And the evening and the morning made another day. It was Wednesday, the
day of the party at the rectory, which had been turned into an
opportunity for magnifying and exhibiting Joyce. The Jenkinsons and Mrs.
Hayward had put their heads together for this object. That they thus
acted together was due to Mrs. Hayward, who in the heat of her
indignation and agitation had hurried to the rectory, on the morning
after her enlightenment, to demand, not apologetically but
passionately-- ‘Have you heard what they are saying about _our_ Joyce? Do
you believe it?’ Do you dare to believe it? was what Elizabeth’s tone
said. ‘She is a little hoity-toity,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson afterwards;
‘but you know, Canon, I have always said she was a good woman.’ The
Canon, who did nothing but walk about the house overseeing (as he
pretended) the preparations and making all the glass and the silver ring
again, agreed in the judgment. ‘But I think it was I that always upheld
Elizabeth,’ he said. Anyhow, whoever was in the right or wrong, these
three people were agreed. If the rectory was of any weight in society,
and Mrs. Jenkinson’s accent in pronouncing that _If_ was a model of
polished sarcasm, then there could be no further doubt as to the opinion
of the place. Everybody was coming--indeed one person was coming of whom
no one knew, no, not even the Canon, excepting Mrs. Jenkinson and Mrs.
Hayward alone. ‘You could not ask him, I allow--but there can be no
possible reason why I should not ask him. I will say I heard he was in
town. I might have heard that from any one, from the St. Clairs
themselves. No doubt they must know.’ The knowledge of this secret
invitation made Mrs. Hayward feel guilty when she confronted her husband
and Joyce, of whom she now spoke as ‘my daughter’ to all her friends.
But neither of these innocent persons observed her look of guilt: the
Colonel, because he knew nothing at all about it, neither the conspiracy
to shame Joyce, nor that which had been formed for her vindication; and
Joyce, partly for this same reason, partly because she was paralysed,
lying on the edge of that precipice, waiting for the cyclone, and that
everything outside passed over her like a dream.
Mrs. Hayward herself superintended Joyce’s dressing for this party. She
came into the girl’s room carrying a small miniature in an old-fashioned
gold mount, to which was attached a knot of ribbon. ‘I wish you to wear
this,’ she said--‘your father sends it to you, Joyce. Look at the name
upon the back, and you will see why I am going to pin it where it may be
well seen. And if any one asks you who it is, say it is your mother.’
‘Is it my mother--was she like that?’ said Joyce, taking the miniature
in her hand with a great tremor. It seemed to send some strange
magnetism into her, tingling from the finger-points over her whole
frame.
‘She must have been like that, for it is the image of you,’ said Mrs.
Hayward; ‘people will think it is your own picture you are wearing--but
if you like, Joyce, you can let them see the inscription on the back. It
is exactly you--but I think there is something more deep and steadfast
in your eyes,’ she said, looking at her earnestly. Mrs. Hayward was
greatly stirred and excited. Perhaps it was this more than any warm
impulse of feeling which made her give Joyce a sudden kiss after she had
inspected her. She was pleased with her ‘daughter’s’ appearance. Joyce
wore a dress of soft white Indian silk, made very simply, with little
ornament. It suited her slim youthful figure, which wanted no elaborate
drapings or loopings. The miniature with its bow of dark-blue ribbon
was pinned on her breast. It was a curious ornament. The Joyce in the
picture had her hair arranged in curls which fell upon her shoulders,
and her dress was of the fashion of twenty-five years before--otherwise
it was precisely like the Joyce who wore it now, only--and this thought
pleased Mrs. Hayward, and gave a little outlet to feelings less
admirable--there was something ‘more deep and steadfast’ in the eyes.
Mrs. Hayward herself pinned the ribbon upon the girl’s breast. ‘I was
always very sorry for her,’ she said in a low tone; ‘but she made great
misery by disappearing like that. I hope, I believe, you have more stuff
in you. Now, are you ready?’
The Colonel was standing in the hall waiting for his ladies, pleased and
proud, and somehow more happy than usual in the conviction that at last
Elizabeth had thoroughly ‘taken to’ Joyce. The thorn among his roses had
been the absence of sympathy between those two. He said to himself,
twinkling his eyes to get rid of a little moisture, that no mother could
be more anxious about a girl’s appearance than was his wife about Joyce.
She gave those little pats and pinches to her dress as they came
downstairs which happy girls sometimes resent, but which come only from
the mother’s hand. Now the crown of his happiness had come, for
Elizabeth certainly at last had taken to Joyce. How could she have stood
out against her, the Colonel thought, looking with pride at his child;
and yet even as this proud thought passed through his mind, a little
accompanying chill came with it. For she was pale, she was very quiet.
There was little expectation of pleasure, of conquest, of admiration in
her. Perhaps she had always been too grave and a little frightened in
society, though with gleams of brightness. She was very quiet to-night.
Mrs. Hayward did not remark this. She was herself much excited,
tremulous with feeling both belligerent and tender. Joyce had become the
heroine of the most agitating romance--a romance in which she herself
was too much involved to be calm. That guilty secret made her heart
flutter. What if it might be thought to be her fault? What if Joyce
should think her dignity compromised? She was so strange a girl, so
little moved by ordinary motives. Mrs. Hayward took a little comfort
from the fact that Joyce was not at all suspicious, and would never
think of the possibility of a plot to bring her lover to her side--which
partially reassured her; but still there was a flutter at her heart.
They were late of entering the rectory, and the rooms were full.
Everybody was there. Mrs. Jenkinson received her friends rarely, but
when she did so, invited all ‘the best people.’ It was a little
difficult to make the entrance which Mrs. Hayward had intended, so as to
strike all objectors dumb. Mrs. Jenkinson, however, at the door of the
room took Joyce in her arms in the sight of everybody with an unusual
demonstration of delight. She held her at arm’s-length for a moment and
looked at her with admiring criticism. ‘You are looking very nice--very
nice indeed, my dear!’ she said very audibly, as if she had been a niece
at least. There is nothing like being a partisan. She had never
perceived Joyce’s beauty before, and that curious dignity--which came of
the girl’s shyness, and ignorance of social rules, and anxiety not to
put her father to shame. ‘I don’t think there is any one here to compare
with her,’ she said to the Colonel, with a conviction which was
dogmatic, and at once made a different opinion heresy.
Mrs. Sitwell, very ill at ease, had been hanging about the door until
the Haywards appeared. She made an instant effort to secure Joyce’s
attention. ‘Oh Joyce, let me speak to you--I have a great deal to say to
you! she cried, in a shrill whisper through the curious crowd. Mrs.
Hayward confronted the parson’s wife with an impulse of war which
tingled through and through her, and raised her stature and brightened
into fierce splendour her always bright eyes. ‘Perhaps I will do as well
as Joyce,’ she said grimly, facing the traitor. What happened in that
corner afterwards, we dare not pause to tell.
In the meantime the Canon appeared, with his big round black silk
waistcoat, like a battering-ram cleaving the press before him, and held
out his arm, bent to receive hers, almost over the heads of the
wondering ladies. ‘Come and take a turn with me, Joyce,’ he cried, his
large mellow voice rolling like the pervasive and melodious bass it was,
making a sort of background to all the soprano chatter. He, too, paused
to look at her when he had led her through the line of the new arrivals.
‘Yes,’ he said approvingly, ‘you are looking very well and handsome; but
not as you used to do--I miss my little enemy. There’s neither war in
your eye nor fun to-night. Come, Joyce, not so serious! We’ve met to
enjoy ourselves. What’s that you are wearing on your breast? Bless my
soul!’ The Canon paused, drawing a quick breath. ‘Who put this upon you?
It’s your mother’s picture?’ He had turned so quickly to look at it,
that her hand was disengaged from his arm. He took it in his own and
held it while he gazed, and it became very evident to the circle about
that the Canon was winking his eyes suspiciously as if to get rid of a
little moisture there. ‘Poor little Joyce!’ he said. ‘Where did you find
it? I remember her exactly like that; and you are exactly like it. You
can never deny your parentage, my dear, as long as you wear that.’
It was not intended, nor in the programme; but the little surprise was
very effectual. It collected a little crowd round the pair. The people
who had been so deeply impressed by the imposture practised upon them in
respect to Joyce, and even Lady St. Clair herself, were drawn into that
circle by the strong inducement of something to see which is so potent
in an evening party. It had not been in the programme, it had all the
force of an accident. It brought spectators from all the corners of the
room to see what it was. ‘The most extraordinary resemblance,’ people
said. ‘A very pretty portrait; no one could have thought it was meant
for anybody but Joyce Hayward; but it appears it is her mother.’ ‘With
curls and an old-fashioned dress.’ ‘The dress we all wore in those
days.’ ‘Then that story about her that she was a foundling, etc., etc.’
‘It was a cruel bad story,’ cried Lady Thompson, crying with pleasure
and kindness, and the heat of the room which upset her nerves. ‘I always
knew it wasn’t true.’ Lady St. Clair and her little coterie retired into
a corner, and there seemed to laugh and nod their heads among
themselves, commenting on the scene; but their discomfiture was clear.
All this that was passing round her was uncomprehended by Joyce. She was
aware neither of the gossip nor of her own triumph. She stood by the
Canon’s side, confused with the flutter about her, the exclamations, the
many looks that passed from her to the portrait, from the portrait to
herself back again. The Canon had again drawn her hand within his arm,
and she stood silent, patient, with a faint smile, pleased enough to
find nothing more was required of her, leaning a little weight upon his
fatherly arm, a slim white figure against his substantial bulk of black.
Her other hand hung by her side amid the white folds of her dress. As
she stood thus quietly, subdued, her attention not lively for anything,
Joyce felt her hand suddenly taken and warmly, passionately pressed,
with a touch which was most unlike the usual shaking of hands. There
must have been something magnetic in it, for she started, and a sudden
flood of hot colour poured over her from head to foot. She turned her
head almost reluctantly yet quickly, and met, burning upon her in the
heat of feeling long restrained, the eyes of Norman Bellendean.