Joyce

CHAPTER XXXV

After that glowing afternoon, when she had heard from Norman Bellendean words which she could never forget, not another sign or token from him had reached her. It is not an unprecedented thing that a gap like this should happen in the midst of a love-tale. A declaration interrupted, a question unanswered, may expose any pair of lovers to such a blank. The man may be kept back by many reasons; the woman on her side cannot gather up the broken threads. Joyce, above all, had no initiative to take. He had said he would come back, but he had not come back; and thus the story of her awakened heart had seemed to close, as it began, in agitation and shame. It had been wrong to listen to him, wrong to allow the thought of him to enter into her heart. She had not intended it, she said to herself, as is always said. The strong new tide which she did not understand, the character of which she had begun to suspect too late, had carried her away. What defence could she have put up against it when she never suspected it,—when it was to her a surprise most painful, though so intoxicating? Who is there guilty of such infidelity, forsaking an old love for a new, who cannot excuse herself in such words? And of many such it is true, as with Joyce, that the first love had been a mere name, a something not understood, an acquiescence—no more. If she had sinned against Andrew in accepting the love which was true enough on his side, without any real response, it had been done without guile, with no knowledge of any harm. Joyce had been conscious that it was not the love of which her beloved poets had sung; but how could she tell? As there was no second Shakespeare, so perhaps that love of the poets had died away into something calm and poor, like the dull prose of to-day; and when the dulness about her had burst asunder like a husk, and flowers had come forth, and a blossoming and brightness indescribable, the girl, bewildered, had tried to attribute that illumination to other causes, to give it other names.

The revelation, when it came, lasted but for a moment. Before she had been able to realise the sunshine that suddenly blazed upon her life, there had as suddenly followed a blank. The bewilderment and confusion of all things, which had been great enough before, were by this brought to a climax. Norman’s declaration or half-declaration completed the cutting off of her heart and existence from every ancient tie. She dared not seek light in the chaos of her mind from any one near her. She dared not betray it to the tender ears of the old people who would not understand, to whom she could not say all. To whom could she say all?—to no one, no one on earth. She had to fall back upon herself, a creature straying about in worlds not realised. Andrew appeared to her through the mists like the vision of a nightmare, whose approach would be death. Never, even when no distraction was in her mind, when he was the most near and the most natural of all companions, had she been able to tolerate the idea of a closer union. She had vaguely looked for something to happen, to prevent any further rapprochement. She had surrounded herself with reasons why no further step should be taken. But she had never felt as now the horror of the bond which held her like iron—which she had escaped from, yet from which she never could escape. And, on the other hand, scarcely less terrible was the brighter vision which had burst upon her in one dazzling, bewildering blaze—the revelation which at first seemed to be that of Norman Bellendean’s love for her, but which soon settled into a shameful, terrible consciousness of her love for him. He had lighted up that blaze, and then he had disappeared out of her life, leaving her to contend alone with this discovery and consciousness. He had not asked for an answer from her—he had only asked to come back. And he had not come back; he had disappeared as if he had never existed, only leaving this revelation, this overturn of everything—the glory, the horror, the shame.

Joyce, it is true, had been absent for a great part of this blank period of darkness through which no word or sign of life had come. She had been taken away into new scenes, into a new world, the novelty and delight of which might have saved her had she ever remained long enough in one place to realise and understand it. But it was only to her of all her party that Switzerland was a novelty. Her father and his wife were accustomed to travel. They moved from one tourist centre to another carrying all their usual habits with them, possessing a terrible monotony of acquaintance with everything there was to do and to see. Mrs. Hayward took Mont Blanc as calmly as she did the river of which she felt her own lawn and trees to be one of the great charms. The Colonel thought more of the occasional old Indian comrade whom he would meet in one of the big noisy hotels, than of all the mysteries of the Alps.

Joyce had therefore little aid in healing her wounds herself, as she might have done, by that strong fascination of nature to which her spirit was so open. The mountains were not still to her, nor was there solitude to be found in the wildest ravine. She was taken there in the midst of a party which discussed their usual concerns, and were intent upon luncheon at the usual hour. The snowy peaks only formed a new background for the prattle of common life, for talk about St. Augustine and the new parsonage. The new world was to her like the old, only more bewildering—a phantasmagoria in which the great and the petty were jumbled together,—the great too cold and unfamiliar to reach her soul, the petty like a babbling torrent carrying her away. Oh for the crags of Arthur’s Seat and the sea coming in ayont them! Oh for the quiet where thought is possible! But then with a shiver poor Joyce felt that there was nothing for her but flight from the dear familiar scenes, and from the very stillness for which her heart craved. For the one was full of conflicting passions and the other of conflicting thoughts. Of all places in the world, that place which, with the obstinacy of the heart, she still called home was the most impossible to her. She dared not even turn her face in that direction, lest the subdued struggle within her might become a real conflict. For there was all that she dreaded as well as all that she loved.

And even when the travelling was over things did not mend. Summer was gone, and all its events. She came back to a blank, to the level of an existence no longer new to her, but which she had never learned to love. The sudden blaze of awakening, of enlightenment, of delight and misery, had ceased as suddenly as it rose. She never now heard Norman Bellendean’s name. He did not come, he gave no sign: he might be dead, or gone back to India, or in the farthest part of the earth, for anything she knew. He had disappeared as if he never had been, leaving in her heart and mind only the miserable consciousness that she loved him—oh, shame to think of! She so proud in her reserve and maidenly withdrawal! she, affianced to another man! she, Joyce, who had been so proud! She felt herself, she who had been a kind of princess in her own thoughts, reduced to the humble state of the Eastern handmaiden, waiting till perhaps some token of favour might be shown to her,—some word upon which she could build her hopes. It is rare that any shame, real and deserved, is felt with the same sting of suffering and self-horror as attends the altogether fantastic shame of a sensitive girl, when she finds that she has given her love unsought. It was torture and misery to Joyce. To allow to herself that she was disappointed—that her ear was always intent on every coming step, her heart ready to beat loudly for every sudden call, filled her with a bitterness of humiliation such as crime itself would scarcely bring. But nobody had any clue to these thoughts. Her father saw nothing but that his daughter became every day more delightful to him, more indispensable. Mrs. Hayward, with a faint disdain which it pleased her to be able to entertain for her husband’s daughter, concluded that Joyce, whom everybody thought so clever, was in reality dull. She had not shown any appreciation of Switzerland. She was a girl who might know books, perhaps, but nothing else. She had not cared for the mountains. It was impossible not to allow that Mrs. Hayward was rather satisfied on the whole that this should be. Perhaps only old Janet, with a sore and sad heart, felt that something was amiss. She did not know what it was that was wanting, but something was wanting. The letters which Peter found an inexhaustible source of happiness were to her dark. She could not see her child through them. ‘There is something the maitter,’ Janet said to herself. But nobody else divined, and to no one did Joyce breathe a word.

It was in this condition that she had begun the sunshiny, hazy, November day. It was Friday, the Friday of the winter Preachings, the Fast-day in Bellendean. She had remembered this when she set out with Colonel Hayward for their morning walk, with a tender thought of Janet in her great shawl, and Peter in his Sunday clothes, sitting in the kirk in rustic state and religious recueillement. And now the blank was broken, the silence disturbed, but not as she thought.

‘My dear, don’t you be afraid—I am here to protect you, Joyce; your father is surely good for that. This man can do nothing, nothing. Thank God that you don’t love him—that there is not that to struggle against.’

‘Father, it is quite true. Oh, I have behaved badly—I am not fit to be among honourable folk. I have not respected my word.’

‘Stuff and nonsense, my dear. What did a girl like you know? He took advantage of your ignorance. You could never have—cared for that fellow, Joyce.’ The Colonel himself blushed at the thought.

Joyce made no reply.

‘He took advantage of your inexperience—he never could have been a match for you. I remember—he was there that afternoon in the cottage. He tried to thrust his claims upon me, but Norman Bellendean took him off me. Ah, Norman Bellendean!’

The Colonel broke off quickly. He was not clear about it at all, but he remembered that Elizabeth—that there was something about Bellendean. He stopped confused; and, with a sudden start, Joyce raised herself from the sofa. He had brought her to life, though he did not know it, by that violent stimulant. ‘I must not,’ she said, in a broken voice, ‘go back from my word.’

‘I set you free from it,’ said the Colonel. ‘You were under age. You had no right to bind yourself. I set you free from it.’

She shook her head at him with a wistful smile. ‘It was once thought a priest could do that,’ she said.

‘I am not a priest, but I am your father, Joyce. I set you free from it. It is in the Bible—you know your Bible better than I do. I set you free from it. You had no right to bind yourself.’

She shook her head still. ‘I cannot get any comfort out of that. I was a woman, well knowing what I was doing.’

‘My dear, you are not of age even now.’

‘Oh, father,’ she cried, ‘don’t say anything to me. I cannot go back from my word.’

‘Joyce, I hear my wife coming back. I am not clever, I know. Elizabeth is the one to tell us what to do. If she will only take it up—if you will let her take it up.’

Joyce rose quickly to her feet. ‘Not now—not now. I couldn’t speak to any one. Father, you must let me settle it by myself.’

‘Joyce! Oh, have confidence in us both, Joyce!’

Joyce escaped from his restraining hand and imploring look. She hastened out of one door while Mrs. Hayward entered by the other, and, with her limbs trembling under her, got to the refuge of her own room, where at least there was no one to question her, and tell her what she ought to do. She was not capable of any more. She threw herself down in a chair, and did not move for hours, turning it over and over—helplessly over and over in her mind. It was all she could do. The scene through which she had just passed repeated itself before her—every word that had been said, every look. When she was called to go downstairs for lunch, she made excuses for herself she knew not what, and sat there with a sort of helpless craving only to be alone—to be left to herself—through all the daylight hours. It seemed to Joyce that everything else had disappeared for ever, that every vision of her soul was gone,—that Andrew alone stood before her, the only stable and steadfast thing. She saw him before her eyes all the time, with all his imperfections. There had never been any glamour in her eyes to blind her to these. His familiar aspect, with which she had grown unfamiliar, came back to her with all the force at once of recollection and of new discovery. He had come to claim her, and he had a right to claim her; and how could she resist that claim? He had not hesitated, nor had he been cowed even by her dread of him, by her father’s vehemence. He had stood for his rights like a man. A respect for the man at whom she shuddered, whose approach was dreadful to her, had come into Joyce’s mind: even with strange inconsistency she was half proud of him in his immovableness—in the resolution and force he had shown. She tried to face it all calmly, to contemplate her fate,—to ask herself whether, perhaps, her old life, the duties to which she had been born, were not after all the best, the only existence for her? There would be plenty to do, there would not be much time to think. The clamour of the school, and all the old emulations, and the ambitions which at once seemed enough to fill any mind, would shut out all echoes and banish all ghosts. Only for a few months had she been absent—not enough to change her habits, to change the fashion of her mind. Why should she resist and strive against her fate?

She tried to soothe and put away other visions by that—the school, the children’s looks of interest, the clinging of the girls about her, the books in which she could always escape from all that troubled her. With her trembling hands clasped, with her eyes in an abstract gaze, she saw all these things again, and for a moment her heart beat calm. But then once more, with a sudden flash, with a start, with a cry of horror, she recognised in front of all, him—Andrew—as he had stood before her to-day, as she remembered him, as he was and had always been. Joyce sprang to her feet to escape that steady, calm, immovable image. She put her hands over her hot eyes, but could not shut it out. She paced about her room, but could not get beyond the place in which he stood. He filled all the sphere of her vision, as he would fill her whole life. Oh, how to escape—how to escape! Oh for the wings of a dove!—but where to fly? She flung herself down on her knees by the side of her bed. Sometimes in that attitude merely there is a relief. She was not praying, but laying her heart with all its confusions, its whirl of contradictory thoughts, its wild longings for escape, open where God could see it, calling wistfully His attention to it as human creatures will, in human forgetfulness that everywhere and in all attitudes He sees, and does not neglect.

Later in the afternoon Joyce stole out to seek counsel from the evening breeze and the cold flow of the river. She was afraid to go beyond the limits of the garden and grounds lest she should meet him alone, and forestall the decision of her fate. The November evening was chill with cold dews falling, the grass penetrated with wet, the half-naked trees all heavy with moisture, sprinkling cold showers over her when the breeze moved them. She went down to the river-edge, and looked out upon it in the grey of the twilight, flowing, glistening, giving back the little light there was. A boat was drawn up here and there on the bank, but there was none on the stream, which, swollen with early rains, and bearing on its dark clear surface specks of the leaves that every air swept off the overhanging trees, flowed on through the darkness, a ceaseless wayfarer. The willows, still in ragged robes of pale yellow, gave a faint light to the darkling scene. Joyce leant over, almost feeling the sweep of the stream, and there came upon her a strong temptation to detach the boat that lay within her reach, and trust herself to the flowing water and the night. The possibilities of that flight came before her instantaneously like a picture. The stream itself would carry her along; the movement itself would soothe her troubled spirit. She seemed to feel the rush of the water under the bridge, to see the lights of the town twinkling reflected on the water, the opening of the dim evening skies beyond, the dark shadows of barges and ships as the widening stream flowed on. She saw in a moment all the dark panorama float past her, the increasing rush of the Thames, the sound of its gurgle in her ears, the growing dangers of the darkness, and the crowded ways. The little boat might go down under the bows of some monster in the dark, and no one ever know what young despairing heart was in it. She saw, too, the dark mass heaving up high above, the frail little vessel turning over, the choking inky stream, and drew back with a low cry of terror. It was indeed a kind of despair which was closing round her, but she wanted to escape and not to die—not yet to die.

The shuddering of that sensation brought her back slowly away from the dark fascination of the flowing water. She came back picking her steps across the wet grass, chilled by the damp and the dark, the cold raindrops suspended on the branches coming down upon her in an icy shower as she passed under the trees. The lights in the windows, the warmth of the house, shone through the twilight, attracting her, putting forth a strong appeal. But what was warmth and shelter to freedom, if she could but get her freedom and escape from it all? Joyce had got beyond all power of thinking. Her mind saw pictures, visions of what might be, as more reasonable people see the motives and arguments which tell for or against every course of action. As she turned her face from the river and reached the gravel path, there suddenly came before her a vision of a still and quiet country road, such as she had seen in her walks, leading far away into far level distances, the long perspective of the low-lying country. She bethought herself of a dozen turns and byways, all leading into the unknown. She saw them stretching for miles and miles, leading the wayfarer far out of sight of every one who knew her, and the dark line of the hedgerows that would keep her from straying, and the sleeping villages she would pass through. There would be no dangers in a country road, and she was strong: she could go a long way without requiring to pause. There would be ten hours of darkness in which she could walk on. She was not afraid of her strength failing. And at the end surely there would be some quiet place where nobody would ever think of finding a strayed creature. It would be like falling and disappearing through Mirza’s bridge. Joyce stood still for a moment, moved by a wild prick of that unreasoning impulse which was in her blood. By the side of the house was a dim opening which admitted to that world, strange, dark, and cold, in which a poor girl could lose herself who had no true place, no natural nest in the other. She paused for a moment, clasping her hands, appealing to she knew not what—not God this time: there are moments when the bewildered soul becomes pagan in its broken faith—to something, she knew not what, above, around.

The lamp had been lighted in the drawing-room, but no curtains drawn or shutters closed. Another picture, a real one, caught her eyes there as she hesitated, standing on the edge. She was close to the verandah upon which the window opened, and she heard the sound of the voices within, now raised, now sinking low. The sudden spell of a stronger interest seized upon Joyce. She came forward a few steps at a time, unwilling and yet eager, until she commanded a full view of the party within. Her father stood facing the window. He was talking with much vehemence, referring occasionally to his wife, who sat in her usual place, a very watchful spectator—now and then breaking off with a flourish of his hand, as a man does when he has said something unanswerable. With his back towards the window, Andrew sat squarely on a chair, his hat at his feet. There came upon Joyce an impulse of painful laughter in the midst of her misery. It was a look, an attitude she knew so well—ludicrously, horribly familiar in this crisis of her fate,—for it was her fate, her life or death, they were deciding, while he sat there like a rock, unconvincible, immovable, as he had sat through many a discussion that mattered nothing. For who could ever convince Andrew? She drew closer in the sudden smart of the recollection, the keen sense of incongruity, the reality of this scene dispersing every vision. The living drama, in which she was herself the chief figure, had a stronger force than any imagination. She went into the verandah, to the window against which, on the other side, she had leant in the morning. It was not fastened, and yielded to her touch. They all turned upon her at the sound of the faint cry she gave.

CHAPTER XXXVI

‘Joyce,’ said Mrs. Hayward angrily, ‘either put a stop to this at once, or come with me and let your father settle it. You make everything worse by being here.’

Joyce stood between them trembling, unable to command, as she had once so vainly thought she could, the situation in which she found herself. Oh, how much easier to fly, either by the dark river or the darker country! ‘I will respect my father,’ she said, ‘in everything—in everything—but——’

The last word did not reach the Colonel’s ear. He drew her hand within his arm. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said. ‘Then it is all right. Mr. Halliday, or whatever your name is, there must be no more of this. I might lose my temper. I might forget that you are under my roof. Don’t you hear what my daughter has said? In such a matter a gentleman gives way at once. It’s no question of love.’ He pressed Joyce’s trembling hand in his arm. ‘If you’ve any regard for her, sir, or for your own character, you’ll go away and disturb her no more.’

Andrew had risen slowly to his feet. He came forward with his hand raised, as if he were about to address a class. ‘You’ll observe,’ he said, ‘that the circumstances only, and not the persons, are changed. It was a question of love six months ago. I was a man in a good position, my father very respectable, a little money in the family. And she was Joyce, a female teacher, with nobody to stand for her but Peter Matheson, a ploughman.’

‘You insult me, sir,’ cried Colonel Hayward—‘you insult my daughter!’ He held her hand close, pressing it in his to console her. ‘My poor Joyce, my poor child!’ he exclaimed.

‘Nevertheless,’ said Andrew, with composure, ‘it is true. Joyce knows that it is true. My mother, who expresses herself strongly, put it in other words: It was said I was throwing myself away. I did not think so; but that being the case, Cornel, you need not think I will be daunted because she is your daughter, or any man’s daughter. She’s Joyce—and engaged to me.’

‘Leave my house, sir,’ cried the Colonel. ‘You have insulted my child. For that there is no excuse and no pardon. Leave my house.’

‘Father,’ said Joyce, ‘it’s no insult—it is all true. I am always Joyce, whatever I am besides. And when I was poor, it was thought a—credit to me. He should not have said it, but it’s true. I never thought of that, and he should not have said it: but it’s true. He held out his hand to me when I was—beneath him.’

‘Joyce!’

‘Yes, I see it all, though I did not think of it then. Oh, excuse him! He does not know a man should never say that! They do it and think no harm where we come from. We were common folk. He did me honour, and am I to do him discredit? I cannot, I cannot. I must keep to my word.’

‘Joyce, for heaven’s sake, don’t act like a mad woman! Come away with me and let them settle it,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, seizing her arm on the other side.

‘Joyce behaves just as I should have expected from her,’ said Andrew, facing this agitated group with his own supreme self-possession and calm. ‘I knew I could not be deceived. I am willing to make every allowance for your feelings, Cornel. You naturally look for a richer man than me to be your daughter’s husband. I respect even the prejudices of a man like you. But there is no real reason to be disturbed about that. I am a young man. I have always been successful, so far as has been in my power. There is no need for me to remain in the humble place I now fill. With your interest and my own merits——’

‘Good Lord!’ the Colonel cried. He dropped his daughter’s arm in his consternation, and stood with his lips apart, with a stare of horror.

‘My own merits,’ repeated Andrew, ‘I think we might soon so modify the circumstances that you need object no longer. I am not afraid of the circumstances,’ he said, with a smile of complaisance. ‘You can tell your father, Joyce, what testimonials——’

‘Father,’ said Joyce eagerly, with a burning blush, ‘he is to be excused. That is how they think where—where we came from. He is—not a gentleman: we were—common folk. Father, he means it all right, though he does not know. He’s good, though—though he speaks another language.’ Her own horror and dismay took the form of apology. She was roused by her consternation into full and eager life.

‘And you hold by this man, Joyce, and you plead for him!’ Colonel Hayward cried.

‘You will understand, Cornel,’ said Andrew, who had drawn himself up indignantly, and sacrificed all the advantage of his self-possession in sudden discomposure and resentment, ‘that I ask nobody to plead for me. Joyce has been carried away with trying to please both parties. She is sacrificing me to soothe you down. Women will do such things; they will not learn. But for my part, I reject her excuses. I’ll have no forbearance on that score,’ cried Andrew, holding up his head and throwing back his shoulders. ‘I stand upon my own merits as between man and man.’

Then the Joyce of other days found words—not the tremulous girl, all strange in strange places, who was Colonel Hayward’s daughter, but the swift speaking, high-handed Joyce, the possible princess, the lady born of Janet’s cottage. ‘Oh,’ she cried, her words pouring forth on a sudden passionate breath, ‘how dare you bring up your merits here, and all your worldly thoughts! My old grandfather was but a ploughman, but he was a gentleman like my father. He would have put you to the door if you had said all that to him. And you stand before a man that has fought, and has the Queen’s medals on his breast—that has been wounded in battle, and faced cannon and sword; and before a lady that has no knowledge of the ways of common folk; and before me, that you said you loved; and you stand up and tell them of the female teacher that you held out your hand to, and of your merits, that make you good enough for the best—for Colonel Hayward’s daughter, that is a great soldier, a great captain, far too noble and great to put you to the door like Peter Matheson. Oh, Andrew Halliday, for shame, for shame!—you, after all the books you have read, and all the fine words you have said. I am ashamed myself,’ said Joyce, turning from him with a proud despair, ‘for I thought that Shakespeare and all the poets would make a gentleman even out of the commonest clay.’

Andrew bore this without quailing, with a smile on his face. When she stopped, he drew a long breath, and turned with an explanatory air to Colonel Hayward. ‘That is just one of her old tirades,’ he said.

The Colonel paid him no attention: he put his arm round his daughter, as tremulous as she was. ‘Joyce,’ he said faltering— ‘Joyce, my dear child, you see it all. You see through him, and—and all of us. Thank God that it’s all over now!’

Joyce drew back from him, trembling with the reaction from her own excitement. The flush that had given her a temporary brilliancy and force faded away. ‘But yet that alters nothing,’ she said.

Mrs. Hayward put her hand upon the girl’s arm with an impatient pressure. ‘Do you mean that you are going to marry that man, Joyce?’

‘Mr. Halliday,’ said the Colonel, ‘I hope, after what my daughter has said, that you will see the inexpediency of—of continuing this discussion. She has her ideas of honour, which are a little overstrained—overstrained, as is perhaps natural; but she sees all the discrepancies—all the—— You know, you must see that it’s quite impossible. My consent you will never get—never! and as for Joyce, she will not—you can see by what she has said—go against me.’

‘She will never go against her word.’

‘Oh, this is endless!’ the Colonel cried. ‘We may go on contradicting each other till doomsday. You understand that I will hear no more, and that Joyce, as she has told you, will hear no more.’

‘She may object to my manners, Cornel, but she will keep her word to me,’ said Andrew, regaining all the force of his conviction. ‘But, as you say, it is little use bandying words. I will withdraw. I have made a long journey for very little—not half-a-dozen words by ourselves with the young lady to whom I am engaged to be married. But I will not keep up a needless discussion. She understands me, and you understand. If you meet me in a friendly spirit, everything may yet be arranged for the best; if not, she will be of age at least in a year, and we will have no need of your consent. Joyce,’ he said, suddenly, making a quick step towards her, seizing her hand, ‘I’ll bid you good-bye, my dearest. You’ll mind your honour and duty to me. Rich or poor, high or low, makes no difference. You have my word, and I have yours. Have you any message for the old folk.’

‘Andrew!’ she said, trembling. She had shrunk back for the first moment, but now held herself upright, very tremulous, leaving her hand in his, with an evident great exertion of her will. Her lips quivered, too, and she said no more.

‘I understand,’ he said, in a soothing tone, putting his other hand for a moment over hers. ‘Well, if that’s all, it will have to do. Good-bye, Joyce—but not for long. I have learned the road to you, and it shall not be untrodden. We’ll meet soon—without other eyes always on us. Good-bye. I put my full trust in you. You will mind your word and your duty, Joyce. Good evening, madam. Cornel, you will understand that we are agreed, she and I.’

‘I understand nothing of the sort, sir! On the contrary, I forbid you my house, sir! I will give orders——’

‘Good-bye, Cornel,’ said Andrew, with a smile. He gathered up his hat from the floor, waved his hand with a general leave-taking, and walked to the door. ‘You will hear from me very soon, Joyce, my dear,’ he said, looking round before he finally disappeared. He went out, he felt, with all the honours of war.

It was very near the dinner hour, and Baker was busy in the dining-room. Andrew had to let himself out. He did so with a reflection that to have been asked to stay to dinner, as was his due, would have been much more agreeable; yet with another reflection following, that probably in this house they went through the somewhat mysterious ceremony called dressing for dinner, and that he had no means of altering his costume. The odour that filled the house was very agreeable; and however unhappy or even tragical this interview had been to the others, it was not so to Andrew. He had calculated upon opposition. He had calculated, too, with certainty upon Joyce’s fidelity to her word. There had been, it was true, that tirade—which did not in the least surprise him—which was quite natural, much more like the Joyce he knew than was the dignified silent young lady who had first appeared to him. He could forgive her the tirade. Otherwise he felt that he had lost nothing. He knew exactly the position the parents would take up, and he did not even despair that when they fully saw the situation, they would be moved to make the best of it, and that even the headmastership might still be within reach. He went out, carefully closing the door behind him, a little disgusted about the dinner, not discouraged about anything else, and met at the gate, coming in, the lady who had directed him, so clearly that he could not miss it, to Colonel Hayward’s door. There was a lamp not far from the gate, and some light came from the gaslight in the hall, which revealed him to her before he could close the door.

‘Oh!’ she cried, in a breathless, rapid way; ‘so you found the place.’

‘Yes, madam,’ said Andrew, mindful of his p’s and q’s. He felt that in addressing a lady, especially one whom he did not know, it was the safest course to err by a little more, not less, respect. ‘Yes, thanks to you.’

‘And you found them—you found her? It was Joyce you wanted, I feel sure.’

‘Yes, it was Joyce I wanted.’

‘Oh! this is so interesting,’ Mrs. Sitwell cried—‘so interesting! I know her very well, and I take the greatest interest in her. You are—an old friend, I am sure?’

‘Yes, an old friend—a very old friend,’ said Andrew,—‘a very warm friend; something—something more than a friend, if the truth were known.’

‘Oh!’ cried the little lady, clasping her hands together, ‘this is more interesting than I can say. Let me go back with you a little, Mr.—Mr.——’

‘Halliday—my name is Halliday. She has spoken of me, no doubt.’

‘I am so glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Halliday. I really must walk with you a little way. I was going to see Joyce, but I am sure she has something else to think of, and it is a little too late. By the way, I suppose you are going back there to dinner?’

‘It is natural to think so,’ said Andrew with a grim little laugh, ‘but no.’

‘No?’ cried Mrs. Sitwell. Her curiosity, her interest in this drama, her determination to know everything, rose to fever-heat. She had taken him all in at the first glance, when she had met him in the morning: his long—too long—coat, his round hat, the colour of his gloves. Her eyes danced with eagerness and interest. She could scarcely contain herself.

‘No,’ he said; ‘I am not good enough for Cornel Hayward’s daughter. You may be surprised—but, so far as lies with the old people, I am sent away.’

‘Sent away!’ she repeated, with a little shriek. (‘And not much wonder!’ she said to herself.) ‘You must not think it mere curiosity,’ she cried; ‘I am so interested in dear Joyce. Ah, please tell me. I shall see her to-morrow, and if I can be of any use, or take her any message——’

‘It is unnecessary,’ said Andrew, with a wave of his hand. ‘I know Joyce, and she understands me.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, ‘how interesting all this is to me. Though I have never seen you before, Mr. Halliday, I feel that I know you through dear Joyce. I wonder, as you are not dining at the Haywards’, if you would come and take your evening meal with my husband and me—Rev. Austin Sitwell, St. Augustine’s. You must have heard of my husband; he would be charmed to make your acquaintance. We don’t say we dine, you know; we are quite poor people, and don’t make any fuss; but we will give you something to eat—and true sympathy,’ cried the parson’s wife, with a little friendly touch of her hand upon his arm.

‘I am sure you are exceedingly kind,’ said Andrew. He was a little alarmed, if truth must be told. Had it happened in London, he would at once have understood that a snare of some sort was being laid for him; but as he was at some distance from London, he was only doubtful, slightly alarmed, and uneasy. He reflected, however, that he had all his wits about him, and was not a man to be led into a snare; and he did not know (though he had heard of a place called the Star and Garter) where to go for a dinner; and he had great need of some one to speak to—to open his heart to. And certainly she had been going to Colonel Hayward’s when he met her, and knew Joyce, and therefore was a person who could be trusted. He thought, on the whole, he might venture to accept the invitation, secure of being able to take care of himself, whatever happened. ‘You are exceedingly kind,’ he said again; ‘I should be very glad, ma’am, to make your husband’s acquaintance. He will be of the Established Church, no doubt? It would be a pleasure to compare experience, especially in the way of schools.’

‘Have you to do with schools?’ she asked.

Andrew turned in the lamplight to cast a glance of inquiry at the ignorant little person beside him. ‘Surely,’ he said, in a tone of suppressed surprise,—‘what else? as my poor Joyce was, too, before it all came out. You speak of poverty, which I don’t doubt is a figure of speech so far as you are concerned—but Joyce was in a very humble position, though always above it in her mind, before the Cornel came.’

‘This is more interesting than ever,’ cried the parson’s wife, clasping her hands.

‘My only trouble was that my family were not very well content, constantly throwing it in my teeth that I might have done better,’ said Andrew; ‘which makes it the more wonderful,’ he added, with a faint laugh, ‘to be put to the door as it were, and told I am not good enough for the Cornel’s daughter? It is a turning of the tables which I never looked to see.’

‘But nothing will shake Joyce—Joyce will always be faithful,’ Mrs. Sitwell cried.

‘Oh yes, Joyce—Joyce has a high sense of duty; and besides, she knows my position, which an ignorant officer and his wife are not likely to do. I am not afraid of Joyce,’ he added, with sedate self-confidence. ‘She is a good girl. She knows what she owes to me.’

‘This way, Mr. Halliday,’ cried Mrs. Sitwell. ‘Ours is only a little place, but you will have a warm welcome. I must hear all about you and Joyce.’

He was a stranger, and she took him in—there could not have been a more Christian act. And such acts often have their recompense here, without waiting for that final reward which is promised. Andrew became very watchful and suspicious when he found himself face to face with a clerical person in a coat much longer than his own, and a costume which recalled in a general way what he had heard of Jesuits—a name of terror. He was much on his guard for the first hour. But after supper Mrs. Sitwell’s magic began to tell. Notwithstanding his self-control, he could not but be sore and injured, and to be able to speak and unburden himself was a relief indescribable. He fell into the snare delicately arranged around his feet. Mrs. Sitwell’s keen little eyes danced with delight. She wiped off a tiny fictitious tear when she had drawn it all out, one detail after another. ‘I shall go and see her to-morrow,’ she cried. ‘I will give her a kiss and say, You dear girl, now I know all.’

‘It is all to her credit—nothing but to her credit,’ said Andrew.

The Rev. Austin had a meeting on his hands, and had been obliged to go out, leaving the new acquaintance to be dissected at his wife’s pleasure. He was uneasy about the adventure altogether. ‘A fellow like that,’ he cried,—‘would you let him marry one of your sisters, Dora?’

‘Yes, dear, if he were rich enough,’ cried his wife. ‘But to think what a romance it has been all the time. How astonished everybody will be. I am not going to publish it abroad——’

‘I hope not, I hope not, Dora.’

‘But naturally I will tell the people who are most interested in her,’ Mrs. Sitwell said.

Mrs. Sitwell took charge of Andrew as if he had been a respectable tramp. She procured him a lodging for the night, having got every detail out of him that it was possible to gather. He had to leave early the next morning, which was a relief; and she could scarcely sleep all night for excitement and satisfaction. She felt like the finder of a treasure—like a great inventor or poet. To whom should she communicate first this wonderful piece of news? It would act as a stimulant in the dull season all over the place. ‘Don’t talk of it?’ she said to her husband, who acted his usual part of wet blanket to subdue her ardour; ‘oh no, not in society generally—I hope you know me better than that, Austin. I will only tell a few of her friends—her friends ought to know. What a showing up it will be of those Haywards! I never liked that woman. I see now why she has been so anxious to keep everything quiet. No, I shall not talk of it—except to Joyce’s friends; for it is all to Joyce’s credit,—all, all!’ Mrs. Sitwell said.

CHAPTER XXXVII

‘I’ll swear she never took Mrs. Hayward’s fancy, Charlotte!’

‘Well, well. Mrs. Hayward is a woman of sense; she knows it is vain to go against a man when he has taken a notion in his head. The Colonel saw her, it appears, and thought her like his first wife. These romantic plans never succeed. It appears she was engaged to a man in her own class, and he has been here making a disturbance. I am very distressed for these poor people. Well? You know all about it, of course, a great deal better than I do.’

‘My dear, I think that notion of yours about a telephone is quite just. Of course I have heard it all—first, that she had been a schoolmarm, as these troublesome Americans say (we’ll all find ourselves speaking American one of these days), then a board schoolmistress, additional horror! Yesterday, however, nobody had any doubt she was old Hayward’s daughter. The other thing has come up to-day. I don’t believe a word of it, if that’s any satisfaction to you.’

‘It is very little satisfaction to me, Canon,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson, shaking her head, ‘for I know how you are swayed by your feelings. You like her, therefore nothing that tells against her can be true. But unfortunately I can’t give up my judgment in that way.’

‘What has your judgment got to do with it? That’s a big thing to be put in movement for such a small matter,’ said the Canon, pushing his chair from the table. The rotundity of the vast black-silk waistcoat burst forth from under that shadow with an imposing air. He crossed one leg over the other, filling half the vacant space with a neat foot in a black gaiter and well-brushed shoe.

‘I don’t call it a small matter. I am very surprised that you should think so. A Scotch country girl, with a pupil-teacher’s training, brought among us—presented to us all as a young lady!’

‘Well, wasn’t she a young lady? What fault have you to find with her? She puts me to my p’s and q’s, I can tell you, with what you call her pupil-teacher’s——’ The Canon changed his position impatiently, bringing his other foot into that elevated position. ‘It’s all a horrid nuisance!’ he cried. ‘I don’t know when I’ve been more vexed. Hayward’s an old fool—I always knew it. I wish they had never settled here.’

‘I knew you’d think so, Canon,’ Mrs. Jenkinson cried.

‘What was the good, if you knew I’d think so, of aggravating everything? I’ll tell you what it is,—it’s those pernicious people at St. Augustine’s. That woman must be in mischief. I told you so. She can’t keep out of it. And to fall foul of the people who have been her best friends! But for that poor girl, whom she’s fixing her fangs in, neither old Sam nor I would have moved a step. I’ve a great mind to go and stop the building. It would serve them right.’

‘I don’t defend Dora Sitwell, Canon; but if there had been nothing wrong she could not have made a story. It is the people who shock all the instincts of society and break its rules—as the Haywards have done——’

‘Well, I said he was an old fool,’ said the Canon, getting up and marching about the room, which shook and creaked under him—the windows rattling, the boards bending. ‘I give him up to you—flay him alive, if you like—— Still, at the same time,’ he added, stopping in front of her, with his long coat swinging, and his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, ‘if a man should happen by any misfortune to find his own child in an inferior position—suppose she had been a housemaid instead of a board schoolmistress—should he have left her there? is that what you ladies think the right thing to do? Respect the delicate breeding of girls who have run about town for two or three seasons, and don’t bring the rustic Una here.’

‘The Una!’ said Mrs. Jenkinson. ‘Canon, when you are very excited, you always become extravagant. Una was a princess, not a schoolmistress. Oh yes, of course, it’s all one in a fairy tale; but a Una, with a lover who comes and makes a disturbance——! And besides, everybody says she’s not their daughter—only a country girl to whom they took a fancy.’

‘A strange fancy on the wife’s part!’

‘I do wish you would be reasonable. The wife, of course, saw the difficulties, poor woman! Very likely she disapproved of all that romantic nonsense, adopting a stranger—if it had been a child even! but a grown-up girl with a lover. It has not been for her happiness either, poor thing. To have been left in her own sphere, and married, as she would naturally have done, would have been far better. I am sorry for her, and I am sorry for Mrs. Hayward. As for him, it is all his fault, and I have no patience with him,’ cried Mrs. Jenkinson. ‘You are quite right, Canon; he is an old fool.’

‘Still, I don’t see, if he had been Solomon, how he was to have left the poor little girl behind him when he had once found her. Do you?’

‘Canon,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson, with a dignified look of reproach, ‘I allow that you may be a partisan; but don’t keep up that transparent fiction with me.’

The Canon said, ‘By!’ in an access of feeling, and with a fling which made the rectory ring. It is not permitted to a Churchman to swear: even By Jove! comes amiss with a clerical coat and gaiters; but the use of that innocent monosyllable can be forbidden to no one—the wealthy English language would fall to pieces without it. He said ‘By!’ making a fling round the room which caused every window in the old house to tremble, and then he came to a sudden stop in front of his wife, like a ship arrested in full sail. ‘Fiction!’ he said; ‘the girl’s the image of her mother. My brother Jim was in Hayward’s regiment. I remember the poor thing, and the marriage, and all about it. Hayward behaved like a fool in that business too—he’ll probably wreck his daughter’s happiness now,—but mind you, Charlotte, there’s no fiction about it. You can say I said so. I mean to say so myself till I make the welkin ring—whatever that may be,’ he added, with a short laugh.

‘Oh, you’ll make the welkin ring, I don’t doubt, anyhow: but, of course, that’s strong evidence, Canon—if you stick to it.’

‘I’ll stick to it,’ Dr. Jenkinson said. ‘Poor little girl! I knew she’d get into trouble; but, my dear, if I were you, I’d go forth to all the tea-parties and sweep these cobwebs away.’

‘My dear, if I were you, I’d do it myself,’ said the lady. ‘You had better go now, while you are so hot, to Lady St. Clair’s.’

The Canon flung himself down in his study chair, once more making the rectory ring. He said something about tabbies and old cats, which a clerical authority ought not to have said, and then he informed his wife that he was writing his sermon—the sermon which she knew he had to preach before a Diocesan Conference. ‘I felt very much in the vein before you came in. I must try to gather together my scattered ideas.’

‘You don’t seem to have made much progress,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson, looking severely at a blank sheet of paper on the writing-table. The Canon uttered a low chuckle of conscious guilt, and drew it towards him.

‘I’ll tell you what—I’ll give them a good rousing sermon on scandal and tea-parties.’

‘Oh, tea-parties! your clubs and things are worse than all the tea-parties in the world,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson, rising with dignity. The rectory was an old house, and very ready to creak and rattle; but scarcely a window moved in its frame, or a board vibrated under her movements. The Canon’s lightest gesture, when he threw himself back in his chair, or pulled it forward in the heat of composition, made every timber thrill.

Mrs. Jenkinson took her way with dainty steps along the road, where there were puddles, for it had been raining, to Lady St. Clair’s. Now that the days were closing in, and winter approaching, the season of tea-parties had set in. The gardens were all bare and desolate, not so much as a belated red geranium left in the beds. Everything naked and sodden with autumn rains. But in Lady St. Clair’s, who followed the fashion even in flowers, there was a sort of supernatural summer in the conservatory, a many-coloured glow of chrysanthemums which lit up one side of her drawing-room. The day was mild, the fire was hot, and so was the tea; and the crowd of people in the warm room were hot too, in their unnecessary furs and wrappings, and disposed to be sour and out of temper. Lady Thompson had got a seat near the fire; she had a cup of tea in her hand; she was being served with hot tea-cake and muffins, and she wore a sealskin cloak trimmed with deep borders of another and still more costly fur. Her good-humoured countenance was crimson, her breath came in gasps. By her side sat Mrs. Sitwell, busy and eager. ‘Of course I was interested,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘A tale of true love. We ought all to do what we can for them. You, dear Lady Thompson, that have so much influence——’

‘I don’t think,’ said Lady St. Clair, with emphasis, ‘that anything of the kind should be asked from us. We have been made to receive a girl on false pretences, who should never have been admitted among us. I always had a feeling about that girl. She was so gauche. One could see she had been accustomed to no society. And my girls had quite the same feeling. It was instinctive; one has a sort of creepy sensation just as when one rubs against some one in a crowd—some one who is not of one’s own class.’

‘I was always fond of ’er,’ said Lady Thompson, in the middle of her muffin. ‘I never ’ad no creepy feeling. If you ask my opinion, she’s a pretty dear.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, clasping her hands with enthusiasm, ‘everything, everything that has come out has been favourable to Joyce!’

‘Not to thrust herself into society on false pretences,’ said the eldest Miss St. Clair. ‘I really know nothing of her. I have been from home most of the summer; but to push her way among gentlepeople—a little schoolmistress! Why, Dolly and Daisy were very nearly making a friend of her!—a girl with these antecedents!’

‘It was dreadful cheek,’ said Dolly aforesaid.

Miss Marsham, who had been pulling the lace round her thin wrists into tatters, here put forward a timid plea. ‘Oh, I am sure there was no thrusting herself forward! If there was anything, she was too shy—dear Joyce! She always said it was the schools she was interested in—from the first. Mrs. Sitwell, you remember, in Wombwell’s field.’

‘Oh,’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, ‘I never have said anything but praise of her. I think it is noble to work like that,—to exert yourself for your people. Her poor old parents were so poor, living in a wretched cottage upon oatmeal and I don’t know what messes, as the Scotch do. And she occupied herself to get them a little comfort in their old days. It was noble of her; everything is to Joyce’s credit—everything! Wild horses would not have drawn it out of me but for that.’

‘I never ’ad no creepy feeling,’ said Lady Thompson, pulling at the velvet strings of her bonnet (which had been carefully pinned, poor woman, by a careful maid). ‘She’s always been as nice as nice to me.’

‘What seems very strange,’ said another of the company, ‘is that the Bellendeans, really nice people, who must have known all about it, should have countenanced such an imposition; and your little cousin, Lady St. Clair.’

‘Oh, Greta’s a mere child,—and you know the silly ways some girls have. They think it’s fine to take up people, and have a protégée out of their own class—bringing the rich and poor together, don’t you know—that’s what they say.’

‘They are so silly, all those revolutionary ways!’

‘And then Captain Bellendean, who should have known better, dangling after her everywhere—compromising the girl, I always said.’

‘Oh, we always knew,’ said Lady St. Clair, with a smile, ‘that nothing would come of that. A young man, of course, will take his amusement where he can find it—and if a girl allows herself to be compromised it is her own fault.’

‘The parents are most to blame, I think,’ another lady said.

‘The parents!’ said Miss St. Clair, with a laugh.

‘My dear Mrs. John—a mere matter of adoption, and not a successful one. Mrs. Hayward, I believe, never approved of it. It was all the Colonel’s doing—a foolish fancy about a resemblance.’

‘And who was she, then, to begin with?’

‘A foundling—picked up by the roadside—adopted by some cottagers—the lowest of the low.’

‘Oh!’ cried Miss Marsham, behind backs, with a cry of pain. ‘Poor child, poor dear!—if it is so, it’s not her fault.’

Mrs. Sitwell had grown pale. She was not done up in velvet strings like Lady Thompson, who sat gasping, making vain efforts to release herself, unable to speak. ‘I don’t think it is so bad as that. I never said—I was never told—only poor people, that was all—poor village people—very respectable. And everything to Joyce’s credit, or I never should have said a word.’

Mr. Sitwell and Mr. Bright had come in from one of their many services in the pause of awe which followed the severe statement of Joyce’s fabulous origin. ‘Who was that?’ said the curate, in Miss Dolly’s ear.

‘Oh, the girl at the Haywards’—don’t you know? You ought to know, for you saw a great deal of her in the summer. You ought to have found out all her secrets.’

‘I never pry into a lady’s secrets,’ said the curate.

‘Oh, don’t you just! But she turns out to be nothing and nobody, though they took her everywhere. Did you ever hear such awful cheek?’

‘I always tell you, Miss Dolly, human nature is so depraved—except in some exceptional cases,’ Mr. Bright said, with an ingratiating smile, bending over the young lady’s chair.

Mr. Sitwell asked the same question of the elder circle, standing up in the severity of his clerical coat amid the group of ladies. Two or three answered him at once.

‘It is Joyce, Austin,’ his wife said, in a faint voice.

‘It is Miss Hayward.’

‘It is,’ said Lady St. Clair, emphatically, ‘the young person—Colonel Hayward’s protégée—whose appearance has always been such a wonder to us.’

‘Dora,’ the parson said, in consternation, ‘you never told me this.’

‘Oh no—oh no. I told Lady St. Clair so. It was not half so much, not half so much! only that they were poor people, quite respectable; and that Colonel Hayward recognised her directly. Didn’t I say so? I never, never meant it to be understood——’

‘Mrs. Sitwell evidently thinks—which is a pity—that all my information on the subject is derived from her,’ Lady St. Clair said. ‘She forgets that my husband is Scotch, and that we have many connections about the country. The story is no novelty to me.’

Lady Thompson could bear her dreadful position no longer. She stumbled from her seat, a mass of hot furs, and thrust her teacup into Mr. Sitwell’s hand. ‘Then how was it that Miss Dolly was nearly making a friend of ’er?’ she cried. ‘Oh, let me get away from the fire—there’s a dear!’

This cry of anguish took something from the force of the strong point which the homely lady had made. A little bustle ensued, and general changing of places, in the midst of which Mrs. Jenkinson came in, full of the important contribution which her husband had made to the evidence on the subject. But she found the conclave breaking up, and had no opportunity of putting forth her testimony. It was still discussed in corners. Mrs. Sitwell, quite pale, and very eager and demonstrative, stood under her husband’s shadow, who looked exceedingly severe and grave, making explanations to two ladies aside; and Lady Thompson had been led into the conservatory to recover, where she had been joined by Miss Marsham. These two poor women were in a great state of emotion and excitement. It was not tears, indeed, which the soap-boiler’s wife was wiping from her crimson forehead. Yet she was all but crying, too.

‘I took a fancy to ’er the first day. If she ain’t a lady, Miss Marsham, dear, I don’t know when I ’ave seen one,’ Lady Thompson said.

‘Oh, poor dear! poor dear! If she has made a sacrifice for the sake of her people, who could blame her?’ the other gentle creature cried, with sniffs and sobs. They were the helpless ones who could not affect society—even the suburban society which was led by Lady St. Clair.

Lady Thompson had loosed her great cloak: the coolness of the conservatory gave her courage. ‘How can we help ’er?’ she said. ‘Me and Sir Sam would do anything. And I don’t believe—not one word. Not one word!’ she repeated with emphasis—‘as them cats says.’ She was vulgar, it could not be denied, but her heart was in the right place.

Miss Marsham, poor lady, was not vulgar at all. She could not refuse to believe what was told her, being incapable of understanding how anybody could, as she said, ‘Look her in the face’ and tell a lie—a characteristic which the school children and the people in her district knew and worked pitilessly. ‘Oh, poor dear! poor dear!’ she said, ‘I for one would never, never blame her. There is nothing in the world so natural as to sacrifice yourself, if it’s to do anybody any good. I understand her,’ said the good woman. ‘I am sure there’s been nothing wrong in it. But, oh, I don’t know in the least what to do.’

Lady St. Clair, however, was talking of other things among her guests, who had begun to disperse, and there was no opportunity for Mrs. Jenkinson. This roused that lady to a wholesome sense of opposition, and a growing determination to interfere.