Joyce

CHAPTER XXI

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.

CHAPTER XXII

‘But, my dear, I bought it only because it chanced to take my fancy—in the shop-window,’ said the scheming Colonel, with wiles which he had learned of recent days. His wife knew as well as he did that this little fable was of doubtful credence, but she said no more. After all, if he could not give his child a bracelet or two, it would be a strange thing, Mrs. Hayward said to herself with a little heat. She was determined to be reasonable, but she could not help being slightly suspicious of his meaning, when he announced his intention at the breakfast-table of taking a little run up to town, and seeing how those fellows were getting on. He meant his old cronies at the club, whom he was always pleased to see; but it always turned out that there were other little things to be done as well.

And Joyce was far from being without pleasure in these pretty presents, and in the tenderness which beamed from the Colonel’s face when he stole his little packet out of his pocket with the air of a schoolboy bringing home a bird’s nest. ‘My dear, I happened to see this as I passed, and I thought you would like it.’ She did not know much about the value of these gifts, overestimating it at first, underrating it afterwards—and cared very little, to tell the truth, after the first sensation of awe with which she had regarded the gold and precious stones, when she found such unexpected treasures in her own possession. But what was of far greater importance was the tender bond which, by means of all the kind thoughts which resulted in these gifts, and the grateful and pleased sentiment which these kind thoughts called forth, grew up between the Colonel and his daughter. She became the companion of a morning walk which up to this time he had been in the habit of taking alone—Mrs. Hayward considering it necessary to be ‘on the spot,’ as she said, and looking after her household. The Colonel, who never liked to be alone, took advantage one lovely morning of a chance meeting with Joyce, who was straying somewhat listlessly along the shrubbery walk, thinking of many things. ‘I am going for my walk,’ he said—his walk being a habit as regular as the nursery performance of the same kind. ‘If you have nothing to do, get your hat and come with me, my dear.’ And this walk came to be delightful to both, Joyce making acquaintance thereby with those genuine reflections of a mind uninstructed save by life, which are so often full of insight and interest; while the Colonel on his side listened with delighted admiration to Joyce’s information on all kinds of subjects, which was drawn entirely from books. He talked to her about India and his old friends there and all their histories, enchanted to rouse her interest and to have to stir up his memory in order to satisfy her as to how an incident ended, or what became of a man.

‘What happened after? My dear, I believe he was killed at Delhi, poor fellow!—after all they had gone through. Yes, it was hard: but that’s a soldier’s life, you know; he never knows where he may have to leave his bones. The poor little woman had to be sent home. We got up some money for her, and I believe she had friends to whom she went with her baby. That’s all I know about them. As for Brown, he got on very well—retired now with the rank of a general, and lives at Cheltenham. The last time I saw him, he was at Woolwich with his third boy for an exam. It is either the one thing or the other, Joyce—either they get killed young, or they live through everything and come home, regular old vieux moustaches, as the French say, with immense families to set out in the world. The number of fine fellows I’ve seen drop! and then the number of others who survive everything, and are not so much the better for it after all.’

‘When I read the vision of Mirza to my old granny at home—— at Bellendean—she said life was like that,’ said Joyce gravely,—‘some dropping suddenly in a moment, so that you only saw that they had disappeared.’

‘The vision of—— what, my dear? It has an Eastern sound, but I don’t think it’s in the Bible. Very likely I’ve heard it somewhere: but my memory is rather bad’—(he had been giving her a hundred personal details of all kinds of people, in the range of some thirty or forty years)—‘especially for books.’ Colonel Hayward added, ‘More shame to me,’ with a shake of his grey head.

And then she told him Mirza’s vision, with the warm natural eloquence of her inexperience and profound conviction that literature was the one deathless and universal influence. The Colonel was greatly pleased with it, and received it as the most original of allegories. ‘It’s wonderful,’ he said, ‘what imagination these Eastern chaps have, Joyce. They carry it too far, you know, calling you the emperor’s brother, the flower of all the warriors of the West, and that sort of thing, which is nonsense, and never after the first time takes in the veriest Johnny Raw of a young ensign. Well, but your old woman was very right, my dear. If I were to tell you about all the fellows that started in life with me—such a lot of them, Joyce; as cheery a set—not so clever, perhaps, as the new men nowadays, but up to anything—it’s very like that old humbug’s bridge, which, between you and me, never existed, you know—you may be quite sure of that.’

Joyce held her breath when she heard the beloved Addison called an old humbug, but reflected that the Colonel did not mean it, and made no remark.

‘It is very like that,’ he continued musingly. ‘One doesn’t even notice at the time—but when you look back. There was Jack Hunter went almost as soon as we landed: such a nice fellow—I seem to hear his laugh now, though I haven’t so much as thought upon him for forty years,—dropped, you know, without ever hearing a shot fired, with the laugh in his mouth, so to speak. And Jim Jenkinson, the first time we were under fire, in a bit of a skirmish for no use. His brother, though—by George! he hasn’t dropped at all; for here he comes, as tough an old parson as ever lived, Joyce. Excuse the exclamation, my dear. It slips out, though I hate swearing as much as you can do. We’ll have to stop and speak to Canon Jenkinson. I think, on the whole, rather than grow into such a pursy parson, I’d rather have dropped like poor Jim.’

Colonel Hayward directed his daughter’s attention to a large clergyman, who was walking along on the other side of the road. The Colonel had the contempt of all slim men for all fat ones; and Joyce, too, being imaginative and young, looked with sympathetic disapproval at the rotundity which was approaching. Canon Jenkinson was more than a fat man—he was a fat clergyman. His black waistcoat was tightly, but with many wrinkles, strained across a protuberance which is often anything but amusing to the unfortunate individual who has to carry it, but which invariably arouses the smiles of unfeeling spectators; the long lapels of his black coat swung on either side as he moved quickly with a step very light for such a weight—swinging, too, a neatly rolled umbrella, which he carried horizontally like a balance to keep his arm extended to its full length. When he saw Colonel Hayward he crossed the road towards him, with a larger swing still of his great person altogether. ‘Halloa, Hayward!’ he said, in a big, rolling, bass voice.

‘Well, Canon; I am glad to see you have come back.’

‘And what is this you have been about in my absence, my good fellow,—increasing and multiplying at a time of life when I should have thought you beyond all such vanities? Is this the young lady? As a very old friend of your father’s, Miss Hayward, and as he doesn’t say a word to help us, I must introduce myself.’

He held out a large hand in which Joyce’s timid one was for a moment buried, and then he said, ‘You’ve hidden her away a long time, Hayward, and kept her dark; but I’ve always remarked of you that when you did produce a thing at the last, it was worth the trouble. My wife told me you had sprung a family upon us. No story was ever diminished by being retold.’

‘No, no, my daughter only—Joyce, who has been brought up by—her mother’s relations—in Scotland.’ The Colonel had learned his lesson, but he said it with a little hesitation and faltering.

‘Oh!’ said the clergyman, and then he added in an undertone, ‘Your first poor wife, I suppose?’

The Colonel replied only by a nod, while Joyce stood embarrassed and half indignant. She was deeply vexed by the interrogatory of which she was the subject, and still more by her father’s look and tone. For the poor Colonel was the last person in the world to be trusted with the utterance of a fiction, and his looks contradicted the words which he managed to say.

‘Ah!’ said Canon Jenkinson: and then he turned suddenly upon Joyce. ‘Are you a good Churchwoman, or are you a little Presbyterian?’ he said. ‘I must have that out with you before we are much older. And I hear you are going to range yourself on the side of Sitwell, and help him to defy me. His school feast, par exemple, when I am having the whole parish three or four days after! You know a good deal of the insubordination of subalterns, Hayward, but you don’t know what the incumbent of a district can do when he tries. He is not your curate, so you can’t squash him. Miss Hayward, I take it amiss of you that you should have gone over to Sitwell’s side.’

‘I don’t know even the gentleman’s name,’ said Joyce. ‘There was somebody spoke of his schools—and I am very fond of schools.’

‘His schools! You shall come and see the parish schools, and tell me what you think of them. Don’t take a wretched little district as an example. I’ll tell you what, Hayward,—she shall come with me at once and see what we can do. I don’t go touting round for unpaid curates, as Sitwell does. But I do think a nice woman’s the best of school inspectors—in an unofficial way, bien entendu. I don’t mean to propose you to the Government, Miss Hayward, to get an appointment, when there are so much too few for the men.’

He spoke with a swing, too, of such fluent talk, rolling out in the deep, round, agreeable bass which was so well known in the neighbourhood, that the two helpless persons thus caught were almost carried away by the stream.

‘I don’t think she can go now, Jenkinson. Elizabeth will be wondering already what has become of us.’

‘Is that so?’ said the Canon, with a laugh. ‘We all know there’s no going against the commanding officer. Another time, then—another time. But, Miss Hayward, you must give me your promise not to let yourself be prejudiced; and, above all, don’t go over to Sitwell’s side.’

He pressed her hand in his, gave her a beaming smile, waved his hand to the Colonel, and swung along upon his way, exchanging greetings with everybody he encountered.

‘My dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, ‘there is no telling what that man might have plunged you into if I had not been here to defend you. Let us go home lest something worse befall us. I think I see the Sitwells coming up Grove Road. If you should fall into their hands, I know not what would happen. Walk quickly, and perhaps they will not see us. Elizabeth will say I am not fit to be trusted with you if I let you be torn to pieces by the clergy. The Canon, you see, Joyce, was the means of having this new district church set up. And Sitwell has not behaved prudently—not at all prudently. He has played his cards badly. He has taken up the opposition party—those that were always against the Canon, whatever he might do. They are good people, and mean well, but—— Oh, Mrs. Sitwell! I am sure I beg your pardon. I never imagined it was you.’

There had been a quick little pattering of feet behind them, and Mrs. Sitwell, out of breath, panting out inquiries after their health and the health of dear Mrs. Hayward, captured the reluctant pair. She was a small woman, as light as a feather, and full of energy. She took Joyce by both her hands. ‘Oh, dear Miss Hayward!’ she cried, breathless, ‘I ran after you to tell you about the school feast. I hope you don’t forget your promise. Austin’s coming after me—he’ll be here directly, but I ran to tell you. To-morrow afternoon in Wombwell’s field. Colonel Hayward, you’ll bring her, won’t you? I know you like to see the poor little children enjoying themselves.’

‘My dear lady,’ said the Colonel, ‘I am distressed to see you so out of breath.’

‘Oh, that’s nothing. There’s no harm done,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘I am always running about. Here is Austin to back me up. He will tell you how I have been calculating upon you, Miss Hayward. Dear, don’t pant, but tell her. I have told every one you were coming. Oh, don’t disappoint me—don’t, don’t!’

‘I can’t help panting,’ said the clergyman; ‘it is my usual state. I am always running after my wife. But, Miss Hayward, it is quite true. We want you very much, and she has quite set her heart upon it. I do hope you will come—as I think you said.’

Mrs. Sitwell left Joyce no time to reply. ‘You must, you must, indeed,’ she said. ‘Ah, Colonel Hayward, I saw what you did. You brought down the Great Gun upon her. Was that fair? when we had been so fortunate as to see her first, and when she had begun to take to us. And whatever he may say, you are in our district. Of course the parish includes everything. I think that man would like to have all England in his parish—all the best people. He would not mind leaving us the poor.’

‘Hush, Dora,’ said her husband. ‘I don’t wonder you should form a strong opinion: but we must not say what is against Christian charity.’

‘Oh, charity!’ cried the clergyman’s wife; ‘I think he should begin. I am sure he told Miss Hayward that she was to have nothing to do with us. Now, didn’t he? I can read it in your face. Austin himself, though he pretends to be so charitable, said to me when we saw him talking, “Now you may give up all hopes;” but I said, No; I had more opinion of your face than that. I knew you would stick to your first friends and hold by your word.’

‘You ought to be warned, Miss Hayward,’ said the Rev. Austin Sitwell; ‘my wife’s quite a dangerous person. She professes to know all about you if she only sees your photograph—much more when she has the chance of reading your face.’

‘Don’t betray me, you horrid tell-tale,’ said his wife, threatening him with a little finger. There was a hole in the glove which covered this small member, which Joyce could not but notice as it was held up; and this curious colloquy held across her bewildered her so much, that she had scarcely time to be amused by it. For one thing, there was no need for her to reply. ‘But I do know the language of the face,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘I don’t know how I do it, it is just a gift. And I know Miss Hayward is true. Wombwell’s field at three o’clock to-morrow afternoon. You won’t fail me! Colonel Hayward, you’ll bring her, now won’t you? or it will quite break my heart.’

‘Sooner than do that, my dear lady,’ said the Colonel, with his hat in his hand——

‘Ah, you laugh—you all laugh; you don’t think what it is to a poor little woman trying to do her best. Good-bye, then, good-bye till to-morrow—Wombwell’s field. I shall quite calculate on seeing you. My love to dear Mrs. Hayward. Tell her we got the cakes this morning—such lovely cakes. I shall keep a piece for my own chicks. Good-bye, good-bye.’

‘Thank heaven, Joyce, my dear,’ said the Colonel piously, ‘we have got away without any pledge. If Elizabeth had only been there! but I don’t think she is very sure herself which side she is on. The Canon is the head of the parish, to be sure, and a sort of an old friend besides; but these young people take a great deal of trouble. And we were all instrumental in getting this new church built, so I think we ought to stand by them. But, thank goodness, we neither said one thing nor another. So we can’t be blamed, my dear, neither you nor I.’

CHAPTER XXIII

‘You have no occasion to assure me of anything, Henry—I hope I know him well enough. He is just the sort of man,’ Mrs. Hayward said. And on the next afternoon she dressed very well indeed, as for one of the best of her afternoon parties, and went to the school feast. To see her going in at the swinging-gate, with Joyce and the Colonel following in her train, was a very fine sight. But the group was not so conspicuous as it might have been, from the fact that a great many people equally fine had already gathered in Wombwell’s field, where the Sitwells, though they were poor, had gone to the expense of having a tent put up,—an extravagance which the people who shared their humble hospitalities did not forget for many a long day. It was not a school feast only, but a demonstration of the faction of St. Augustine’s as against the parish. Mrs. Sitwell had worked for this great end with an energy worthy of the best of causes. She had not neglected any inducements. ‘The Haywards are coming,’ she said, ‘with their daughter, you know,—the young lady whom no one ever heard of before. I am sure there is some mystery about that daughter.’ This was how it was that she had been so anxious and importunate with Joyce.

It was the very first occasion on which Joyce had found herself among a company of ladies and gentlemen as one of themselves, and she had not at all expected it. She had gone expecting to find children, among whom she was always at home,—poor children who, though they would be English, and talk with that accent which, to Joyce’s unaccustomed ears, meant refinement almost as extraordinary as the strange acquirement of speaking French, which continues to astonish unaccustomed travellers on the other side of the Channel—would still be not so much unlike Scotch children that one used to them should not find means of making friends. She had made sure that there would be some young woman in charge of them with whom, perhaps, she might be allowed to make acquaintance, who would tell her how she managed, and what were her difficulties, and which was the way approved in England. In short, Joyce had looked forward wistfully to a momentary half-clandestine return to what had heretofore been her life. It was disappointing to go in company with her father and his wife, who would be on the outlook to see that she did not commit herself. But then, on the other hand, she was unexpectedly reinforced by the arrival of Captain Bellendean, in whom she found a curious support and consolation. He knew—that she was Joyce the schoolmistress, not a fine young lady. That of itself felt like a backing up—just as it had been a backing up in the old times that the lady at Bellendean knew that perhaps she was not altogether Joyce the schoolmistress, but Joyce the princess, Lady Joyce, if all were known.

But when Joyce found herself in the midst of this well-dressed company, and understood that she was, so to speak, quite accidentally plunged into the world, a great tremor came over her. The scene was very animated and pretty, though not exactly what it professed to be. Wombwell’s field was a large grassy space, very green and open, surrounded on three sides by overhanging foliage, and with a few trees at the upper end, where the ground sloped a little. In the flat ground at the bottom the travelling menageries which visited Richmond were in the habit of establishing themselves from time to time, whence its name. The round spot created by innumerable circuses showed upon the grass; but beyond the turf was of unbroken greenness, and there stood the little tent within which tea was dispensed to the company. The children were at the other end of the field occupied with divers games, with a few of the faithful of the district superintending and inspiring. But Joyce found herself not in that division of the entertainment, where she might have been at her ease, but in the midst of all the well-dressed people—the people who knew each other, and exchanged greetings and smiles and polite conversation.

‘Dear Mrs. Hayward, how kind of you to come to our little treat! Dear Miss Hayward, how sweet of you to remember! Colonel, you are always so kind; I am sure you have been working for me,’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, meeting them with extended hands. She was beaming with smiles and delight. ‘I asked a few friends to look in, and people are so kind, everybody has come. It is quite an ovation! Dear Austin is quite overcome. It is such an encouragement in the face of opposition to find his friends rallying round him like this.’

‘Why are his friends rallying round him?’ said Captain Bellendean. ‘I thought it was a school feast.’

‘And so did I,’ said Joyce, looking somewhat piteously round her, and wistfully at the children in the distance. The Colonel and Mrs. Hayward had both been swallowed up by the crowd. They were shaking hands with all their acquaintances, exchanging smiles and remarks. Joyce said to herself, with a thrill of mingled alarm and self-congratulation, What should I have done had not the Captain been here?

Norman looked round upon the company, though with different feelings from those of Joyce. ‘I don’t know a soul,’ he said, with a little amusement—the consciousness, so soon acquired by a man who has been for however short a time ‘in society’—not only that it is a very extraordinary thing to know nobody, but also that the people among whom he cannot find a single acquaintance cannot be of much account.

‘And neither do I,’ said Joyce, with a wistful look. Her feeling was very different. She was a little fluttered by the sight of so many people, and looked at them with a longing to see a face she knew, a face which would smile upon her. She met many looks, and could even see that there were little scraps of conversation about her, and that she was pointed out to one and another; but there was no greeting or recognition for her among the pleasant crowd. She turned round again, very grateful, to the Captain, whose society sustained her—but, alas! the Captain had been spied and seized upon by Lady St. Clair, and Joyce felt herself left alone. She looked wistfully at the collection of daughters who surrounded Lady St. Clair, ready to claim acquaintance with a smile if the Miss St. Clair who had called should be among the array. But either the Miss St. Clair who had called was not there, or else she had forgotten Joyce. She stood for a moment shy yet desolate, not knowing where to turn; then, with a little sense of taking flight, moved quickly away to where the children were.

‘Miss Hayward, Miss Hayward!’ cried a voice behind. She paused, glad that some one cared enough to stop her, and saw Mr. Sitwell hastening after her, with a young man following closely,—a very young man in the long coat and close waistcoat which were quite unusual things to Joyce. ‘You are so kind as really to wish to help with the children? Let me introduce my young friend and curate, Mr. Bright; he will take you to them,’ the clergyman said.

The other little clergyman made his bow, and said how fortunate they were in having such a fine day, and what a pretty party it was. ‘I always think this is such a nice place for outdoor parties: not so nice as one’s own lawn, of course—but if one has no lawn, what can one do? In most places there is no alternative but a vulgar field. Now this is quite pretty—don’t you think it is quite pretty, Miss Hayward?’

‘There is so much green, and such fine trees, that everything here is pretty,’ said Joyce.

‘You put it much more nicely than I did; but I’m so glad you like the place; and how very gratifying for the Sitwells! It really was time that there should be a demonstration. After beguiling Sitwell here with such large promises, to have the rectory set itself against him! But there is a generosity about society, don’t you think, Miss Hayward, as soon as people really see the state of affairs. It will be a dreadful slap in the face for Jenkinson, don’t you think?’

‘Indeed——’ Joyce had begun, meaning to say she was too ignorant to form an opinion, but her new companion did not wait for the expression of her sentiments.

‘Yes, indeed—you are quite right; and for Mrs. Jenkinson, who, between ourselves, is a great deal worse than the Canon. Every one who comes to St. Augustine’s she seems to think is taking away something from her. That is the greatest testimonial we can give to the ladies,’ said the little gentleman, with a laugh; ‘when they are disagreeable, they are so very disagreeable—beyond the power of any man. But, fortunately for us, that happens very seldom.’ The curate glanced up for the smile of approval with which his little sallies were generally received, but getting none, went on again undismayed. ‘Which kind of children do you like, Miss Hayward,—the quite little ones, the roly-polies, or the big ones? I prefer the babies myself: they roll about on the grass like puppies, and they are quite happy—whereas you have to keep the other ones going. Miss Marsham takes the big girls in hand. You must let me introduce her to you. She is our great stand-by in the district—a little peculiar, but such a good creature. Well, Miss Marsham, how are you getting on here?’

‘Very well, oh, very well. We always do nicely. We have been playing at Tom Tidler’s ground. We just wanted some one to take the head of the other side. Oh, Mr. Bright,’ cried this new personage, clasping her hands together, ‘what a pleasure for everybody; what a good thing; what a thorough success!’

‘Isn’t it?’ cried the curate; and they both turned round to look down upon the many-coloured groups below with beaming faces.

‘Nobody can say now that St. Augustine’s was not wanted,’ said the lady.

‘No, indeed; I have just been saying to Miss Hayward what a slap in the face for the Canon,’ the gentleman added, again giving vent to his feelings in a triumphant laugh.

‘Oh, is this Miss Hayward?’ said Miss Marsham, offering her hand to Joyce. She was a thin woman, with long meagre arms, and hands thrust into gloves too big for her. Without being badly dressed, she had the general air of having been taken out of a wardrobe of old clothes: everything she wore being a little old-fashioned, a little odd, badly matched, and hanging unharmoniously together. Even those gloves, which were too big, had the air of having had two hands thrust into them at random, without any thought whether or not they were a pair. But the old clothes were all of good quality; the little frills of lace were what ladies call ‘real,’ not the cottony imitations which are current in the present day. She had a worn face, lit up by a pair of soft brown eyes, in which there was still a great deal of sparkle left, when their owner pleased.

‘I have heard so much of you,’ she said. ‘Dear Mrs. Sitwell takes such an interest! it is so very kind to come and see how the children are getting on: and here they are all waiting for their game. Mr. Bright, you must take the other side. Now then, children, I hope that is high enough for you. Come on.’

Joyce stood by with great gravity while the game proceeded—Mr. Bright and Miss Marsham making an arch with their joined hands, through which the children streamed. The curate, no doubt, would have taken this part of his duties quite simply if it had not been for the presence of this spectator, whose momentary smile died off into a look of very serious contemplation as she stood by, taking no part in the fun, which, with the stimulus of Mr. Bright’s presence, grew fast and furious. Joyce could not have told why she felt so serious. She stood looking on at Miss Marsham’s old clothes on the one side—the thin wrist, with its little edge of yellow lace, the big glove, made doubly visible by the elevation of the hand—and Mr. Bright in his neat coat, falling to his knee, extremely spruce in his professional blackness, against the vivid green of the sloping field. Joyce thought him very good to do it, nor was she conscious of any ridicule. She compared Mr. Bright with the minister at home, who would have looked on as she herself was doing, but certainly would not have joined in the play: and she thought that the children were very much made of in England, and should be very happy. Presently, however, Mr. Bright detached himself from the game, and came and joined her.

‘I am afraid you thought me a great gaby,’ he said; ‘but at a school feast, you know, one can’t stand on one’s dignity.’

‘Oh no,’ said Joyce, ‘it was I that was the great—— for not joining in. I should like to do something; but I don’t know what would please them.’

‘Something new to play at,’ said Miss Marsham. ‘I always ask strangers if they can’t recommend something new. Look, look!’ she cried, suddenly clutching the curate’s arm; ‘do you see? the Thompsons’ carriage, his very greatest supporters! Dear me, dear me! who could have thought of that!’

‘And Sir Sam himself,’ said the curate exultantly. ‘Well, this is triumph indeed. I must go and see what they say.’

‘Sir Sam himself,’ said Miss Marsham musingly. ‘Do you know, Miss Hayward, if you will not think it strange of me to say it, I am beginning to get a little sorry for the Canon. It is not that Sir Sam is such a great person. He is only a soap-boiler, or something of that sort; but he is enormously rich, and the Canon has always been by way of having him in his pocket. Whatever was wanted, there was always a big subscription from Sir Sam. Yes, dear, by all means. Hunt the Slipper is a very nice, noisy—— You will think it very queer, Miss Hayward, but I am beginning to get sorry for the Canon. I can’t help recollecting, you know, the time before St. Augustine’s was thought of. Yes, yes, my dear; but let me talk for a moment to the young lady.’

‘I know so little,’ said Joyce,—‘scarcely either the one or the other.’

‘And you must think us so frivolous,’ said the kind woman, with a sigh. ‘The fact is, I was very anxious it should be a success. St. Augustine’s was very much wanted—it really was. There are such a number of those people that live by the river, you know—boatmen, and those sort of people—and so neglected. I tried a few things—a night-school, and so forth; but by one’s self one can do so little. Have you much experience, Miss Hayward, in parish work?’

‘Oh, none—none at all.’

‘Ah!’ said Miss Marsham, with a sigh, ‘that’s how one’s illusions go. I thought you would be such a help. But never mind, my dear, you’re very young. Oh, you’ve begun, children, without me! All right, all right; I am not disappointed at all. I want to talk to this young lady. They think we care for it just as much as they do,’ she went on turning to Joyce; ‘but if truth be told, I am a little stiff for Hunt the Slipper. And you can’t think how good the Sitwells are. He is in the parish—I ought to say the district—morning, noon, and night. And she—well, if I did not know she had three children, and did everything for them herself, and really only one servant, for the other is quite a girl, and always taken up with the baby—besides her work about the photographs, you know—I should say she was in the parish too, morning, noon, and night.’

Joyce stood and looked down upon the people flitting in and out of the tent, arranging and rearranging themselves in different groups, and on the rush of the hosts to the swinging-gate, at which a fat man and a large lady were getting down, and listened to the narrative going on in her ear with the accompaniment of the cries and laughter of the children, all in that tone which, to her northern ears, was high-pitched and a little shrill. How strange it all was! She might have fallen into a new world. It was curious to listen to this new opening of human life; but she was young, and not enough of a spectator to be able to disengage herself, and be amused with a free mind by the humours of a scene with which she had nothing to do. She looked still a little wistfully at the little crowd, where there was nobody who knew anything of herself, or thought her worth the trouble of making acquaintance with. Joyce had not heard any fine conversation as yet, nor had she encountered any of the wit or wisdom which she had expected; but still she could not free herself from the idea that to be among the ladies and the gentlemen would be more entertaining than here, with Miss Marsham giving her a sketch of the history of the Sitwells and the church controversies of the place, and the school children quite beyond her reach playing Hunt the Slipper in the background. She was much too young to take any comfort in the thought that such is life, and that the gay whirl of society very often resolves itself into standing in a corner and hearing somebody else’s private history, not always so innocent or from so benevolent a historian.

But presently, and all in a moment, the aspect of affairs changed for Joyce. It changed in a completely unreasonable, and, indeed, altogether inadequate way,—not by an introduction among the best people, the crowd whose appearance filled the clergyman and his wife, and all their retainers, with transports a trifle short of celestial; not in making acquaintance with Sir Sam Thompson, the soap-boiler, whose appearance was the climax of the triumph—a climax so complete that it turned the scale, and made the Sitwells’ hard-hearted partisan sorry for the Canon. None of these great things befell Joyce. All that happened was the appearance of a tall individual, separating himself from the crowd, and walking towards her from the lower level.

‘Here is a gentleman coming this way,’ said Miss Marsham. ‘I don’t think he is one of the school committee, or any one I know. But I am rather short-sighted, and I may be mistaking him for some one else, as I do so often. Dear Miss Hayward, I am sure you must have good eyes: will you look and tell me. Ah, I see you know him.’

‘It is Captain Bellendean,’ said Joyce. Her musing face had grown bright.

‘Who is Captain Bellendean? Does he take an interest in Sunday schools? Is he——’ Here Miss Marsham turned to look at her companion, and though she was short-sighted, she was not without certain insights which women seldom altogether lose. ‘Oh!’ she said, and, with a subdued smile and a sparkle out of her brown eyes, which for a moment made her middle-aged face both young and bright, returned to the children who were playing Hunt the Slipper, and though she had said she was too stiff for that game, was down among them in a moment as lively as any there.

It is to be doubted whether Joyce was conscious that her friend of ten minutes’ standing had left her, or how she left her. She stood looking down upon the same scene, her face still full of musing, but touched with light which changed and softened every line. ‘I have been looking for you everywhere,’ said Captain Bellendean; ‘when I got free of that rabble you were nowhere to be seen. I might have thought you would turn to the children, who have some nature about them. And so I had the sense to do at last.’

‘Do you call them rabble?’ said Joyce.

‘Not if it displeases you,’ he said. ‘But what are they after all? Society is always more or less a rabble, and here you get it naked, without the brilliancy and the glow which takes one in town.’

Perhaps Captain Bellendean had not found himself so much appreciated as he thought himself entitled to be in town, and thus produced these sentiments, which are so common, with a little air of conviction, as if they had never been heard before. And indeed, save in books, where she had often met them, Joyce had never heard them before.

‘And yet,’ said Joyce, ‘when educated people meet—people that have read and have seen the world—it must be more interesting to hear them talk than—than any other pleasure.’

‘May we sit down here? the grass is quite dry. Educated people? I am sure I don’t know, for I seldom meet them, and I’m very uninstructed myself. But I’ll tell you what, Miss Joyce, you are the only educated person I know. Talk to me, and I will listen, and I have no doubt it will be far more entertaining to me than any other diversion; but whether it may have the same effect on you——’ he said, looking up to her from the grass upon which he had thrown himself, with inquiring eyes.

Oh, Andrew Halliday! whose boast was education, who would have tackled her upon the most abstruse subjects, or talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses as long as she pleased,—how was it that the soldier’s brag of his ignorance seemed to Joyce far more delightful than any such music of the spheres?