Joyce

CHAPTER XLII

Ah! but the oracle is pitiless too. It has no regard for the weakness of—common folk. Joyce was one who had held her head very high, who never in her consciousness had been one of the common folk. But now, in her despair, consenting to the sacrifice demanded of her, yet with partial revulsions of her mind against it, she took refuge in that common strain of humanity. Those oracles which spoke out of the veiled heights, from which the votaries with bleeding hearts, all torn with special wounds, received such stern and abstract answers—they were right, but they were remorseless. They took nothing into consideration, not the weakness of the victim, nor that bewildering way in which, though cleared off for a moment, doubts and mists would rise again, obscuring, confusing the most certain truth. They had no pity. The devotee, indeed, went to them only for that—to have the support of a certain reply, to hear what, beyond all control of circumstances, was just and right. And for a moment there would be a great calm after the reply had come. But then there would start into the aching heart this complaint: It was remorseless that reply, there was no pity in it. You could not—do any other thing. It was true, true! and yet there were so many other things that could be done; and it was hard, hard for flesh and blood to conform to that pitiless abstract law: it had no regard for the weakness of—common folk. And what was Joyce, after all, but a girl like another?—very little different from Greta, who had to be shielded from trouble: just like the rest—young, fragile, like the girls whom everybody took care of. Oh, the oracle was hard! it had no pity. It never took into account how much or how little a girl could bear!

This murmur in the heart growing louder as she went on, with strange additions and exasperations from the cold, and the dark, and the physical discomfort around, at last roused Joyce to a kind of despairing rebellion. After you have made your sortes and read your fate, does it ever happen that you do not try, or wish to try, another time? Open the book again—be it Virgil, be it the Bible, be it anything, at haphazard, from which superstition or fancy can take a fancied guidance. Try the oracle again. It was the suggestion of despair. But Joyce had always thought of two from whom she might seek the direction she could no longer give herself. She reminded herself now, stopping in her hurried walk towards home, saying with natural sophistry that her consultation of fate was incomplete, that she had always meant the trial to be double. She had always intended it. She had meant to lay her case before him too. He was very unlike the other—the priestess, the vestal, whose decisions Joyce felt in her despair no one could have doubted for a moment. He was very, very different. It was only just that he too should give his verdict. They were the two sides which ought to stand in every question, which see the matter from different points, which balance and temper each other. Joyce’s heart beat very high; the blood again began to run warm in her veins, reaching her feet, her hands, which were so cold. She turned and hastened back to the rectory, which she had passed.

It was dark by this time, and the lamps were being lighted, coming into life one by one along the darkling way. And the house was half dark, the lights dazzling her in the hall, while there was nothing but soft firelight in the drawing-room, which she passed hastily, telling the servant that it was the Canon she came to see. The Canon was seated at his table writing, or pretending to himself to write, his sermon. He bounded up from his seat with a violent convulsion through all the house, making the windows ring and the boards creak, and the very walls shake, when with some difficulty he realised who his visitor was. ‘Joyce!’ he cried, with a roll of mild thunder in his voice, and took her by the hand and placed her in a chair. He was much astonished by her visit, yet felt that he knew what had brought her here. The poor girl had heard what was being said about her, and she had come perhaps to confess, if there was anything in that story, that she was a mere foundling, and not Hayward’s daughter (but the Canon knew there was nothing in that)—perhaps to ask him for his help, for his advice. And he was pleased beforehand, before she opened her mouth, that she should come to him—not to that man at St. Augustine’s, though she had been so much with those Sitwells, but to himself, a much better guide, whom she had said she liked best. Jealousies do not exist between man and man, we know, as they do between woman and woman—and especially not between clergyman and clergyman—but yet the Canon was pleased that it was to him Joyce had come.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘here you are, and I’m delighted to see you. It is not often you go about paying visits, Joyce.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘never.’ The shock of finding herself here, opposite to him, in the place of a penitent, come to tell her tale, brought the colour to Joyce’s face. She gave him one look, and then turned her eyes away. He was very, very different from Miss Marsham. To sit there and tell him everything struck Joyce as impossible. She had never intended to tell everything. She had meant that the oracle should half divine, should understand before she spoke.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘don’t lose courage now you are here. You’ve come to tell me all about it, Joyce.’

Joyce only looked at him again, her eyes enlarged with alarm and terror, wondering after all, she who desired to be understood without speaking, what and how he knew. She said under her breath, her eyes being the chief speakers, the words seeming nothing, ‘I want you to tell me what to do.’

‘You want me——? What are you saying, Joyce? Come, you are not afraid of me. I’m your father’s old friend, you know. I don’t believe any of that nonsense, and I’m your friend against the world, my dear. Come, speak out, don’t be afraid of me.’

He drew his chair nearer hers, once more making the house quiver, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, patted it encouragingly. ‘Come, Joyce, be a man,’ the Canon said, with the little tremble of a laugh in his big voice.

Joyce answered him only with her eyes. They seemed to grow bigger and bigger in her pale face, telling him a hundred things; but she could not find her voice. She had meant to tell him as much at least as she had told Miss Marsham; but when she found herself before him, a man, with that confused story of hers which was not for a man’s ears, Joyce was struck dumb. She made an effort to say something, but failed again. He kept his hand on her shoulder patting it, encouraging her as if she had been a child, ‘Come, Joyce, tell me all about it. You are not afraid of me.’

Her voice burst forth suddenly, as if she had forced it, or rather as if it had forced an outlet for itself from some place where it had been pent up. ‘Oh, sir!’ Joyce cried, ‘I cannot speak; but tell me one thing,—if there are two and one must suffer, and you are one of them—must you never make a question, but consent and accept that it shall be you?’

The Canon was altogether taken by surprise. The burst of the voice, hoarse at first, afterwards clearing and quickening in its passionate strain, the question that had nothing to do with what he had expected to hear, but was an abstract question, startled him beyond expression. ‘Why, Joyce, Joyce—what is this?’ he said.

She turned to him, growing bolder. ‘If you are one of two, and one of them must break her heart—and you are the one that is used to that, and the other has known no trouble. Do not ask me what I mean,’ said Joyce, ‘but oh, you that are a minister, you that have to guide those that are wandering and lost, tell me! They say that it is like a, b, c, and every woman knows; but you are not a woman, you are a man. You will not be carried away by feeling as they are. You will be more just. You will know.’

‘My poor child,’ said the Canon. He too, like Miss Marsham, took her hand, in utter failure of any other way to help her, and held it, patting it softly between his. ‘Joyce,’ he said, ‘my dear you’re right. I am only a man, I can’t divine what you mean unless you tell me. As far as I can make out, somebody has been talking nonsense to you. What is this a, b, c, that every woman knows? If you’ll believe me, Joyce, a woman is just like a man so far as duty goes. There’s no law for one more than the other. Tell me what it is, seriously, Joyce.’

She looked up at him once more and opened her lips to speak; but again the impossibility of telling that tale to him closed her lips. Joyce was nearly in despair, and she had a clinging to him as to her friend, one who would help her if he could, one who knew many things and might understand. But when she looked up at the Canon’s middle-aged countenance and at his large prosperous person, and the capacious round of his black silk waistcoat, and the air about him of a man who had everything and abounded, her courage and confidence failed her. She was dumb. To tell her youthful trouble to him, all mixed up as it was with love and lovers and trifling things, though so great to her, a matter of life and death—to him, who would be moved by none of these matters—how could she do it? She drew a long breath, which ended in something like a sob— ‘It is—it is a case of conscience,’ she said, with her wistful eyes fixed upon him, making revelations which he could not understand.

‘A case of conscience!’ he said; ‘this is one of your evasions not to speak out. You’re like other women, Joyce, which is no shame to you; you would like me to be at all the expense of the talk, my dear, and give you my advice without any knowledge of the circumstances. Let us see what premisses we’ve got. If I were one of two and knew that one must suffer, would I take it upon me without question that the sufferer must be I—is that what you call the a, b, c, that every woman knows? A great many women are fools, my dear, but not such fools as that. No, Joyce! I should take up no such idea. I should say, let him suffer who deserved it, who had brought it on himself.’

‘No,’ said Joyce very low. ‘She has not done that: we are not ill-deserving—it’s no—no wrong—oh, neither her nor me!’

‘It is something between two women,’ said the clear-sighted Canon. ‘It is love then, and there is a man in the question too.’

She made him no reply; but she turned away her face from him, and the Canon saw the colour rise like a fire over her cheek from throat to brow.

‘And somebody has put it into your head that the easy way out of it—the fairest way—is to sacrifice yourself? It was a woman that said that, and told you it was the a, b, c. I shouldn’t wonder if it was that old fool Cissy Marsham, it would be just like her. Now, Joyce listen to me——’

‘She is not a fool,’ said Joyce, turning her face to him again.

‘Don’t tell me! She’s worth a dozen of any of us, but she may be a fool for all that. Now listen to me, Joyce. I say no: do you hear? There’s no a, b, c, but plain right and wrong. As for self-sacrifice, in the majority of cases it’s a mere silly, idiotic, if not horrible, mistake. Generally it does good to nobody. You fling your own happiness away, and you don’t secure any one else’s. My dear girl, to consider other people first is in some cases not only uncalled for but wrong.’

Joyce had kept her eyes fixed upon his face. At this there came over hers a faint smile, and she softly shook her head.

‘She doesn’t believe me,’ said the Canon,—‘none of them do; on this point good women are all fools, and the better they are the greater fools they are. God bless my soul!—who made you your brother’s keeper? How do you know what’s best for him? Who gave you the right to humiliate him by sacrificing yourself to him—or her? what does it matter? it’s all the same, him or her. I tell you,’ cried the Canon, jumping up suddenly, walking round to the fireplace, and standing up against the glow of the fire, his large person rising like a mountain, flinging over Joyce a great shadow, ‘women like Cissy Marsham are a pest, they’re a plague in the place, with their a, b, c, and their creed for a woman. Nonsense, my dear! that’s all nonsense, my dear! What’s law for a man is law for a woman. There’s no other. Don’t break anybody’s heart if you can help it; but in the name of common-sense, go your own way and take what God gives you, and have the courage to be happy if He puts happiness into your hands!’ The Canon puffed out a hot breath of impatience, and shook himself in his easy large garments as if to settle them all into their places, shaking the house at the same time and making everything ring—‘whatever Cissy Marsham may say, the old fool, God bless her!’ he cried, with a laugh, throwing himself down again into a big easy-chair.

But Joyce made no reply. It is in the nature of an oracle to divine what is congenial to the nature of the devotee—to give a deliverance which, however confusing, will have something in it which will carry out its natural tendencies, and agree with his inner sense. But to Joyce this voice brought no such message. To be bidden to be happy was no part of her requirements. She did not understand what happiness in the abstract was. According to her austere peasant training, it was so far from being the object of life, that to seek it was an unworthy and undignified, even wrong thing. She had been happy all her life without knowing; but to look for happiness, to seek it, to make it the object of every exertion, was incompatible with all the rules of life which she knew. ‘Happy! you will just do your work and your duty, and be thankful for what the Lord sends ye,’ Janet Matheson would have said. What the Canon said was not very different: ‘Go your own way and take what God gives.’ But the meaning was different; oh, the meaning was different! Don’t break anybody’s heart if you can help it; but if you do, never mind—have the courage to be happy all the same. This oracle spoke too loudly, too plainly, with too distinct a note. It found no echo in her heart. It was not the guidance for which she craved.

The Canon saw perhaps that he had not been successful. He tried to draw her into conversation of a less momentous kind. ‘I hear you’ve had some visitors from your old home, Joyce. I fear they’ve been injudicious visitors, talking a great deal of nonsense; but I hope they brought you good news at least of your people—old people, weren’t they, that brought you up? I’m ready to give them a certificate of success in that line,’ the Canon added in his fine bass, which lent itself very tenderly to these paternal words, and with a pleasant laugh.

Joyce looked up at him with a startled glance. She had, indeed, put no question to Andrew as to the beloved old people. There had not been a word about them, or any other question of life—nothing but his claim, and her resistance yet acknowledgment, and all the confused miserable discussions. She seemed to fall into a slough of despond, the miry pit and the horrible clay of the Scriptures, when her heart went back, sick, to that visit. Ah! she thought, had that been all—had there been nothing but Andrew! But with the instinct of her natural reticence she only replied, ‘They are well—they always write that they are well.’

‘That’s good.’ Dr. Jenkinson meant to take advantage of the opportunity to ask further questions, to elicit, if he could, something of the true story upon which Mrs. Sitwell had built her romance; but when he looked at Joyce’s pale and musing face, and saw that the girl could scarcely withdraw herself from the consideration of her perplexity, whatever it was, to answer him, and that she had no attention to give to other matters, his heart smote him. He could not question her, force her out of herself, to satisfy his curiosity. He said nothing more for a whole minute; but the silence did not frighten Joyce, nor force her to speak. She sat lost in her own problem, to which he felt his energetic counsel had brought no light. The Canon had been impatient; he had thought it best to crush these foolish womanish thoughts on the threshold of her mind; but he had not succeeded. What he had said had been a disappointment and confusion only—no enlightenment to Joyce.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘we can’t sit silent like this and look at the fire. When you and me get together we want to talk, Joyce. Give me some of your opinions. You’re not satisfied with mine, I can see.’

She looked up at him without any smile and shook her head.

‘Out with it!’ cried the Canon. ‘We always do have a little fight. Let me hear where I am wrong. That’s the worst of your Saint Cissy, and other such. They don’t say a word for themselves, they’re only meekly obstinate after the manner of saints. Come! out with it, Joyce!’

‘Oh,’ said Joyce, ‘I cannot speak! My heart says no to you, but I cannot give a reason—it’s because it’s far too serious. I thought of her and of you, that are so different, that might give me a light where all is dark—but I can give no reason. I must just go on till the moment, and then do—what is put into my heart.’

‘My poor child!’ cried the Canon, alarmed, ‘can’t you tell me what is wrong? Do nothing rash, whatever it is—do nothing that can’t be undone. Joyce, I am afraid of you. You are not like the rest of them: never mind any nonsense I have said, but tell me, tell me sincerely, what is wrong. Don’t shake your head. You have come to consult me of your own free will—tell me what it is——’

‘I cannot,’ she said piteously; ‘I cannot!—oh, I would if I could: it’s maybe nothing at all—I cannot speak. It’s—it’s love that is stronger than death,’ cried the girl, ‘and love that is nothing, that is but fancy, and a dream—— I’ll think nothing more of it. I’ll think nothing! The moment may never come, and if it comes, no one can help me. I must do—what is in my heart——’

The Canon drew his chair in front of her with a look that was more searching than his questions, and which she could not support save for a second. ‘Mind what I say, Joyce. Nobody made you your brother’s keeper. If it’s beautiful to make a sacrifice, as you women think, it’s shameful to accept one. Remember that. You’ve no right to put a shame and humiliation upon another. It’s a humiliation—you would yourself refuse it and scorn it. Joyce, whatever you may be tempted to do, remember what I say——’

She tried to speak, struggling with tears. ‘The greatest of all—was a sacrifice, a sacrifice——’

‘Hush!’ he said imperatively. ‘When there is One to be found in His conditions there need be no discussion. And that one man should die for the people, I allow—and that you should die physically rather than let another die, if it is in your heart to do it, that I allow. But that you should make yourself the judge in other circumstances, and shame another by suffering for him when you know neither his heart, nor what is best for him, nor anything but your own wild enthusiasm—that I forbid, Joyce. I forbid it, being your priest, to whom you have come for light.’

Joyce raised her wistful eyes, which were wet with tears hanging on the lashes. But she shook her head. She was a little Presbyterian, as he had said. Perhaps the name of the priest lessened instead of strengthening his power.

CHAPTER XLIII

‘Oh, has she? I had something to say to her. (She would not have Baker think that it was because of Captain Bellendean’s visit that she wanted Joyce.) Ask her to come to me in the drawing-room the moment she comes in.’

‘I will, ma’am,’ said Baker, with stolid gravity; but he chuckled when his mistress, much put out, turned towards the drawing-room door. He knew very well why Joyce was so urgently wanted. ‘He ’ave come up to the scratch at last,’ Baker said to himself.

Captain Bellendean stood by himself upon the Persian rug before the fire. He was in a very restless mood. There was something in this warm, soft afternoon atmosphere, the sense of domestic calm, the composure of settled life, which was like an insufficient opiate, exciting instead of calming. He was not in a comfortable or happy state of mind. The last time he had been here he was at the height of warm and spontaneous love, bewitched by the presence of the girl who had transported him out of all his bachelor reluctances and defences. This is perhaps a strange way in which to speak of the lover. It is the woman who is supposed to defend herself, to hold back with reluctance, either real or assumed. However, it is one of the enlightenments of our age to recognise that there are two sides to that question. Norman Bellendean had not made up his mind to marry when he took possession of his estate. He did not want even to take possession of his estate; he would have preferred that his father should have held it in his place a few years longer, until he felt more disposed to settle down. But that had not suited Mr. Bellendean’s ideas or plans: and Norman, fresh from India, and with a natural desire after the pleasant experiences of a rich young man’s untrammelled career at home, found himself at once introduced into the responsibilities of an estate and the bondage of a conspicuous position much against his will. But he had set his face against the natural results. He knew that it was expected of him that he should marry and ‘settle down.’ He had an idea even that his neighbours had kindly selected for him a certain number of eligible young ladies among whom he would be expected to make his choice. To be sure nobody could force him to make any such choice. He was free as the air to choose elsewhere, or not to choose at all. But the consciousness that this was what was expected of him chafed the young man. He was coy at first like a girl, on his defence, yet sometimes, with laughter and shame, became conscious of his own little coquetries, and felt how ludicrous was the situation altogether. And then he fled to town, to the excitements of the season, to take his share, for the first time, in that whirl and hurry of entertainment and assembling together which we call society. And then—but this was the thing unaccountable in the midst of so many things which he saw through and understood—he fell in love; and before he knew, was on the eve of asking to share his fortunes, and to ‘settle down’ with him at Bellendean, the girl who had been, a few months before, the village schoolmistress there.

Norman had fallen in love honestly, spontaneously, without any preparation or arrière-pensée. He had neither said to himself that this was the one woman for him, or that she was altogether out of the question for him being what she was. Before he had begun to suspect it, the thing was done. He had thought it was the river, the rowing, the greater simplicity and freedom of the merry party, something in the summer air that was itself delicious as an escape out of London, before he found out that it was Joyce. He had indeed just found out that it was Joyce on the last occasion, when he walked with her home from the garden-party at Sir Sam’s. He had found it out, and in the rush and flood of feeling had told her—he scarcely knew what. He tried to recollect after what he had said, and he could not. He knew that she had not responded; that she had kept him at arm’s-length; and that when he had rushed away, unable to bear the constraint of other people’s society while it was she—she only—whom he wanted, he had said he would come back. The recollection was all confused, disturbed, made uncertain even by excessive thinking over and attempts to remember every detail. And then he had been called away, and it was not possible for him to go back; and then cold afterthought had seized upon him in his heat of love. She had made no reply—what she had said had been ‘No,’ though he did not believe that she had meant the final ‘No’ which would annihilate all his pretensions. He had known that she did not mean that: he had seen in her something of the flood of feeling which had overwhelmed himself. He had gone up to town with his heart throbbing and his head swimming, in anticipation of what would happen when he went back. That was not how a man felt when he expected the ‘No’ which would make an end of all.

But he did not come back—for the moment could not, being called back to Bellendean; and then—did not. Why? Because of the chill of the afterthought which took possession of him; because he remembered, not immediately but after a time, who Joyce was. She was his old Colonel’s daughter, it was true, who was a match for any gentleman. Yes, a match for any gentleman. Colonel Hayward’s daughter, a distinguished soldier, a man who was as good as the best. Under royalty, Colonel Hayward’s daughter might have married any one—no man daring to have said that it was a mésalliance. But then at Bellendean she was the village schoolmistress. Nobody knew much about Colonel Hayward, though they had all heard the story; but everybody knew Joyce. He was aware, for he had heard it talked of, that for Joyce herself it was hard to throw off the habits of her previous existence; and that she was wounded even when told that she must no longer say Miss Greta, and must submit to be treated on a footing of equality by the lady to whom she had looked up. He remembered all this with an acute sense of pain, when he had time to think. That his wife should still have these instincts of inferiority; that she should wish to say Miss Greta; that she should look up to his step-mother as to a being of a superior kind—he grew hot and red at the thought. His wife! It was impossible—it could not be.

These thoughts chilled him to his very heart, and stopped the flood of love which was carrying him away. And many other thoughts came in to add to them. Norman himself was not well known in his county. There was a slight feeling against him as a man who had (though quite innocently on his part) supplanted his own father. He wanted a wife who should be unquestionable, who should be popular—able to help him to the full acquisition of his proper standing in the place. And if he were to bring home to be the mistress of Bellendean a girl whom everybody knew indeed, but knew as Joyce the schoolmistress!—his heart sank within him at that thought, which was suggested by several concurring things; by his step-mother, who, without mentioning Joyce, had laid the state of affairs very clearly before him, and by other incidental remarks and occurrences which supported her view. All these things disturbed his mind greatly. And he had occupations, perhaps arranged for the purpose, to keep him at home. And Greta’s home was at hand, where there was always a sympathetic listener for everything he wanted to say. He did not speak to Greta of Joyce, but Greta spoke of her freely, always with love and admiration, which soothed him, yet at the same time diverted his thoughts a little in affectionate gratitude and approval of this generous little creature, who combined everything that was most desirable in a wife, just as Joyce combined everything that was least desirable. And then there were the poor couple in the village, whom Norman went religiously to see at first, to tell them about their lost child; then with a hunger of the heart that could not be satisfied, to talk about her. He never asked himself how he would like to have this old couple, so excellent, so blameless—worthy of all respect, and more than respect—at Bellendean, calling its mistress J’yce, and weeping over her; but the thought, of which he was ashamed, shot across his mind like lightning every time he heard their name.

These things worked in his mind and made him miserable. His step-mother talked to him of marrying, and of the necessity of making a wise choice to establish his position; and Greta met him at every corner—either he was invited to her father’s house, or she came to see her dear aunt Margaret. The girl was entirely innocent of any conspiracy in the matter; but Norman was her hero, and it was scarcely possible for her to conceal her interest in him—her joy when he came, her regret when he went away. It was not difficult for him to discover that in everybody’s opinion Greta was the fittest of wives for him. He could not shut his eyes to the fact that it was so. If he had never seen Joyce, if he had never entered that enchanted country in which she dwelt, never floated on that magic river, never strayed in that garden of dreams—never met and parted—then Greta would have been his bride. She would have come to Bellendean so naturally and simply, with such a carrying out of all good wishes for its new lord, that the marriage would have been pronounced by all to be one of those made in heaven.

But now another image had come in. Sometimes he would wish in his distress that it had never done so—that he had never seen her: but that did not change the fact that she had come in and changed everything. The conflict had grown harder every day. Then he had gone to the Highlands, to the moors, and there the struggle took another form. His demon, his other self, who maintained the controversy with him, began to put it before Norman that he had ‘behaved badly’ to Joyce. Perhaps—we know so little about these demons or dæmons, who are continually interfering in our affairs, making and meddling, and have so little light as to their motives—perhaps that most secret of companions meant to deter him by the shame of that bad behaviour from going near Joyce again. But if so, he calculated without his host. For Norman, in a blaze of shame and self-indignation which drove him like a fiery wind, hurried straight off to London, on the spot, to see Joyce instantly and put himself right.

It was in this mood that he arrived, and found himself in the familiar scene of his summer romance, under grey twilight skies, and in the cosy empty room, lighted with the red firelight, silent, comfortable, full of the poetry of domestic life, which is different from the poetry of the river and the garden. He knew that Mrs. Hayward had gone to look for Joyce, and that she would not come back to disturb the tête-à-tête, but would leave them together, as mothers seemed to do, with an instinct of what is coming. He would rather have met Joyce unawares without any warning, without any possibility of a concerted meeting of which the parents should be in the secret. It annoyed him to think that she would be warned, that along with the sudden intimation that he was there, there would be a word of advice or at least a look, to show her what was expected of her. This added to his restlessness as he stood before the red glow of the fire changing from one foot to the other, anxious, impatient, yet feeling that the chill fit, the mental ague which alternated with the fever, might be on its way. He heard little movements in the house—some one walking overhead—some one running upstairs—a voice sounding faintly calling some one. Was Joyce reluctant then to come? Was she angry with him for not returning sooner? Was she displeased with the warning given her, and unwilling to come down to him in the empty drawing-room while everybody knew what must take place there? It would be like her to refuse. It would be what he should expect of her; but in what a position would it place him!—a lover understood yet undeclared, whose object was unmistakable, yet who was not to be allowed to carry it out. His heart began to beat, partly with anger, partly with suspense, partly with love. Would not she come? He was so impatient that he could have seized her and shaken her in exasperation and excitement; and yet he could not but grumble in his moustache, that by Jove she was right, and that it was just what he would have expected of Joyce.

Presently, however, the sounds outside became more audible, and he made out that it was the Colonel’s step which was coming towards the drawing-room. ‘Captain Bellendean!’ Colonel Hayward was saying; ‘why didn’t you bring him to the library? Why, Norman, my fine fellow! how do you do?—I’m delighted to see you; but why that ass should have sent you in here in the dark—I can’t see you a bit—is more than any mortal could divine—when he knew the ladies were out, and I was sitting by myself.’

‘I came in with Mrs. Hayward. I assure you it wasn’t the man’s fault.’

‘Oh, well, if Elizabeth knows. She’ll be down immediately, no doubt. Bring us some light, Baker. Yes, yes, the firelight is very pretty, but I always like to see to talk. Come up about business, Bellendean?’

‘Yes,’ said Norman, with a little hesitation. ‘I may say it is business, though not quite what is usually called by that name.’

‘I thought so. Nothing else would bring one of you young fellows to town at this time of the year. Tell your mistress, Baker, we are waiting for her to give us some tea. Mrs. Bellendean was here yesterday to bid us good-bye; or perhaps I should say to bid good-bye to Joyce: for I think we came a long way after Joyce in her estimation, my wife and I.’

‘I hope,’ said Bellendean, with a catch in his breath, ‘that Miss Hayward—is quite well.’

‘Oh yes, she is very well. I have thought sometimes that this air didn’t suit her—it’s a great change from the North. It gave me great pleasure, however, to find, when we were talking the other day, that she likes it on the whole. She has a wonderfully pretty way of expressing herself. I should like to tell you a thing she said to me. I was questioning her on this subject, anxious to get her true sentiments. And she said, “You are my home, father."—Eh, don’t you think it was pretty? Well, I’m an old fool—it brought the water to my eyes. Hush, here’s Elizabeth; she says I am like a child with a new toy. I bore everybody with my stories of Joyce.’

‘It would not be easy to bore me—on that subject.’

These last words were drowned by the entrance of Mrs. Hayward. She had taken off her things, leaving it to her husband to entertain the visitor. Joyce’s absence annoyed her exceedingly. It was quite unusual, and seemed a sort of climax of misfortune—or perversity: perversity was the view to which Mrs. Hayward inclined.

‘I don’t know what can have become of Joyce,’ she said, after she had poured out tea for the gentlemen. ‘She is never out at this hour. It is getting dark, too late for her to be out.’

‘Are you anxious, my dear?’ cried the Colonel, rising. ‘Bless me! it is always you who think of everything. I’ll go at once and bring her home.’

‘Nonsense, Henry!—there is nothing to be anxious about. She has stayed somewhere for tea. Last time we saw you, Captain Bellendean, you expected to return to town—earlier than this. I suppose you had still a good deal to arrange before your father and Mrs. Bellendean left you to your own devices?’

‘I have been very busy,’ said Bellendean in a subdued tone, which the Colonel did not understand.

‘He has come up about business now,’ said Colonel Hayward; ‘and very dull you will find it, Bellendean, I don’t doubt, though I am told that more people come to London at this time of the year than used to do so. You must run down as often as you can and look us up—as you did in summer, you know——’

‘Summer and winter are two very different things,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘and Captain Bellendean feels that, Henry. In summer there’s the river, you know, and—other things.’

‘The other things,’ said Norman with an effort, ‘last all the year through; and they are more important even than the river.’

Captain Bellendean was very ill at ease. He had not thought of these surroundings at all, nor of any questions that might be put to him on the subject of his long delay, nor of anything indeed but Joyce. It had been comparatively easy in the outdoor summer life to secure an interview with her. Now as he looked round him, and saw Mrs. Hayward seat herself in her habitual chair by her habitual table, with that air of settled and permanent possession which the mistress of a house has in her own corner, and the Colonel thrown back in a larger chair on the other side, a sense of being surrounded and shut in came upon him. Joyce was not here, which took all the meaning out of his coming; but if she had been here between this pair to whom she belonged, what could he have said to her? Colonel Hayward’s daughter surrounded by all the fortifications of life was a different thing from Joyce,—the girl whom to love and seek was a sort of social crime. There was no question here of a tremendous social downfall, of the mésalliance and mistake against which he had been warned. He had fully understood that side of the question, and it had chilled him even in his heat of love. Now the tables were turned; it was he who was suspected and disapproved of, and from whom the parents were defending their daughter. This unexpected drawback chilled him still more.

Norman sat for a long time in that exceedingly comfortable, warm, beautifully furnished room, with his old Colonel, for whom he had the greatest respect, and the Colonel’s commander, the much-famed Elizabeth, over whose name he had jested, but of whose personality he had always been a little afraid. He sat and made conversation, or rather listened to that which went on across him, growing more and more embarrassed and uncomfortable. He seemed to hear doors opening and closing all over the house, but Joyce never appeared; and footsteps in the hall and on the stairs, but no sign of her coming. His head began to get confused with the contrariety and annoyance. Fate and Mrs. Hayward seemed to have joined the conspiracy against him, in which everybody was at Bellendean—and, as he now blushed to think, he had not expected any contrariety here. He had thought—coxcomb that he was!—that here he would be master of the situation. He had thought he knew that Joyce would not say him nay. The shy glance, the rising colour, even the startled opposition to his half-spoken love-making on their last interview, had given him an assurance that Joyce was not indifferent. But even this assurance came back upon him with a keen sense of shame and wounded vanity. He had been a fool. How could he tell what she would say to him, while here were the father and mother talking, perhaps keeping her out of sight, at least securing that even if she came nothing could be said? And she did not come—though it seemed to Captain Bellendean that hours had elapsed since he entered the drawing-room in the firelight, and imagined to himself the little comedy, the mother seeking the daughter, hurrying her downstairs and into the arms of the waiting lover. He realised with the most stinging shame that he had imagined that—though the reality was so different, so ludicrously different, he tried to say with a laugh at himself—so painfully different, as he felt in his heart.

After a long time he rose. ‘I am afraid it is getting late. I must not lose—the next train. I have—something to do in town,’ he said.

‘Go! without your dinner!’ said the Colonel, in his cheerful ignorance. ‘No, no, you must not think of that. And Joyce would be disappointed not to see you. Tell him, my dear, he must stay to dinner at least. We don’t let old friends go like this.’

‘I am afraid I must go,’ said Norman, with the stony air of a departing Englishman, always uneasy lest he should be made to change his resolution. He was offended, wounded, shamed by the difference between the reality and his imagination. ‘I—have a great deal to do in town—and the little time——’

‘Then you are leaving again soon?’ Mrs. Hayward said. She had risen from her chair at once as if to give him no excuse for changing his mind; though that was not what she meant.

‘But we must see him again, Elizabeth. No, no, I’ll take no denial. Why, Joyce will be distressed not to see you. You must come another day and stay to dinner. It is a long time since we have had a good talk,’ cried the Colonel. ‘I want to hear all your plans. Come, come, Bellendean, there’s no getting off it. You must come another day.’

He was turned all the wrong way. He had come with great strain of purpose, feeling all the magnitude of the step before him, knowing the sacrifice that was involved as well as the gain. And nothing at all had come of it, not even a recognition on the part of the spectators of the immense importance of what he had been about to do. ‘I am afraid it’s impossible,’ he said, with stony looks; and then there came over him a sudden vision of Joyce in all her sweetness. Joyce, the only poetry he had ever felt, the only romance that had ever revealed itself to him. Was he to give her up for this? ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘if you are disengaged on Thursday.’ His tone was ungracious, but his heart gave a leap, belying the outward stolidity of disappointment and half offence.

‘Thursday, or any day,’ cried the Colonel, in his hospitality. ‘You don’t think we should count any trumpery little engagement against a visit from you! Well, that’s better—that’s better, Bellendean; and good-bye, my dear fellow; you’ll have a run for the train, if you must go.’

The Colonel came out bareheaded to the door to hasten the departure of the guest to whom it was so indispensable not to lose the train. He stood there for a moment looking at his watch in the light of the lamp in the hall. ‘It is all he will do to catch it,’ he said; ‘but he has good long legs of his own, which is better than a cab when you’re in a hurry. Shut the door, Baker, there’s a dreadful draught. Why, Jenkinson, is that you? You’ve brought my girl home, like a good fellow. And, Joyce, my dear, you’ve come five minutes too late. Norman Bellendean has just darted off to catch his train.’

CHAPTER XLIV

‘Eh? I don’t doubt you have somewhere, as all of us have, somebody you’ve been too good to. And keep away from that little parson woman, Joyce. I’m a parson myself, you will say; but there are parsons and parsons. Is that some one leaving your house? and there is your father standing out in the night air without a hat; the most foolish thing he could do. You catch cold without any warning, and then there’s no getting rid of it. Hey, Hayward! don’t shut the door upon us, please; I’ve brought you home your little girl.’

The Colonel shouted, ‘Why, Jenkinson, is it you?’—as we have seen—and stood in the doorway to greet his visitor. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘come in out of the fog. If you had been coming in the opposite direction you’d have run into Bellendean. He has not been five minutes gone.’

‘I only wish we had run into him,’ said the Canon in his rolling bass; ‘it might have cleared up some things.’

‘What do you mean, Canon? He’s a nice fellow, but not particularly clever. Come in, and don’t stand out in the fog.’

‘Go in yourself, and don’t catch cold. I’ve done my duty now; I’ve brought you home, Joyce. Take care of her, Hayward,’ said the Canon, as he strode away, marching like a regiment, with his long coat swinging, and the black silk waistcoat charging the heavy air. Colonel Hayward withdrew within the shelter of the door, putting up his hand to his head, which was his vulnerable point.

‘Take care of her!’ he said; ‘my own girl! I should think I would take care of her. These parsons take a great deal upon them. They think they always know better than other people though they have neither chick nor child.’ The Colonel repeated these words to himself with a little chuckle, as he went back to his library to finish something he had been reading in the paper before dinner. The Canon looked very big and imposing, and took a great deal of authority upon himself, but he was wholly without experience in the point upon which he presumed to lecture his old friend. Take care of her—his own little girl! a pretty thing for a man to say who had never succeeded in securing anything of the kind for himself.

Joyce went into the drawing-room with her heart beating, sick and faint. She seemed to feel in the air that he had been there. There was something of him still about the room—the mark of his elbow on a cushion, the sensation of his breath. He had come after all. She wanted to stand where he had stood, to breathe the same air, and then—and then—to fly where she could never see him—where it should be impossible to be tempted to his destruction. No, no; and to break Greta’s heart. Her own throbbed quick but low. There had been a momentary spring, but only for a moment. No, no, not for his harm, and the breaking of Greta’s heart. His coming seemed to have precipitated and brought near what was so far off a little while ago. She was on the edge of the precipice now—and there was something in the sense of the giddy vacancy before her that seemed to sweep and suck her towards the edge. She went in—and found Mrs. Hayward standing waiting for her in the middle of the room.

‘Where have you been, Joyce? where have you been?—to-day of all days! Captain Bellendean has been here——’

She said, ‘Yes, I heard,’ almost under her breath.

‘And why were you not here to meet him? I don’t suppose it was your fault. It could not be your fault. But why, why were you not here? It is like a bad fate.’

‘It would be rather a providence,’ said Joyce, in her subdued voice—‘for it’s better; oh, it’s better not. I am—glad—I wasn’t here.’

Mrs. Hayward grasped her hand with an impatient exasperation. ‘Glad—you weren’t here—glad to have driven him almost frantic—and me too!’

Joyce looked at her step-mother, wondering. She was so forlorn that any sympathetic tone, even though it was angry, caught her ear. And she felt the circumstances to be so desperate that she was no longer afraid. ‘You?—are you caring—anyway?’

‘Am I caring! You mean, do I care? Yes, I care. Joyce!’ cried Mrs. Hayward, gripping her hands tightly, then losing them with a little impatient gesture, as if she had flung them away, ‘you are a strange girl—you have never tried to make me love you. And I don’t know that I do. It was a great change to me, that had been everything to my husband, to have you a stranger brought in: and you never tried to make me care——’

‘I was bewildered,’ the girl said. ‘I was—like a creature astray——’

‘Very likely. I am not asking the cause; I am only telling you. But now there’s something got up that we must stand against. They’ve got to know about that man—and that you were only—a poor girl before. They are making a stand against you.’

Joyce stood up against the glow of the fire listening, yet only half roused. She was taller than Mrs. Hayward, and the energetic, almost impassioned little woman looked up at her pale face, and thought it like a face in a dream. It was abstracted, the eyes veiled, as if they were looking inward. And neither to have thus lost her lover’s visit, nor to be threatened with a conspiracy against her, awakened her out of the mist of her own thoughts. Mrs. Hayward put her hand on Joyce’s arm with the quick impatience of her nature— ‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you have in your mind: but give your attention to what I am saying. Wake up! it is of the greatest importance, if not to yourself, to your father and to me——’

‘Yes,’ said Joyce, with a little start; ‘I am hearing every word you say, and minding. Oh, don’t think I’ve a cold heart. I am only just all astray—since ever I came. I was a stranger, as you say. And I might learn better—if there was time.’

‘There is plenty of time,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with a little moisture in her eyes. ‘Men never see it—but it was a great trial for you and me. Yes, yes, for both of us. I always saw that. But we must make a stand now, and do it together. They say you’re not your father’s daughter, but a foundling—and they say you’ve got a man coming after you that made a disturbance—a low man. Don’t contradict me or put my temper up! He was not a low man, but quite respectable, I know that—but all the same a man to be put a stop to. Joyce! don’t you understand what a vexation it is that you were not here! He came with his heart in his mouth to lay everything at your feet. And the triumph it would have been for us all to have faced them, with you engaged to Norman Bellendean!’

A colour like the flash of a light passed over Joyce’s face. Her eyes filled suddenly with large hot tears. She shook her head, with a trembling going over her like the sudden shiver of ague. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no—never that; oh, never that!’

‘Why never that? Don’t be a fool, Joyce, don’t be a fool. Though he’s an excellent match, there’s nobody near, nobody anywhere that would suit you so well. You understand each other. For goodness’ sake,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, exasperated and anxious, ‘don’t spoil your life with any romantic nonsense! Why, even his people like you and seek you. Mrs. Bellendean——’

‘I must tell you the truth,’ said Joyce, ‘for oh, I am in a great strait, and I know not what to do. Mrs. Bellendean would rather I were dead than that. There is one he should marry that would break her heart—and there is one I should marry: that I will not do; but I will marry nobody nor think of anything that could hurt her—or him. No, not for all the world.’

Mrs. Hayward clapped her hands together in the wild impatience and rage which could not find utterance in mere words. ‘Oh, that was it!’ she cried. ‘I thought there was something treacherous in it. I thought she did not come for nothing, that woman! I never liked her, for all her show of kindness. I never put any faith in her. And she came to take advantage of your simplicity, you poor thing—you poor innocent thing!’ Elizabeth’s temper was warm, but her heart no less. She caught Joyce suddenly in her arms, and gave her a quick kiss, which was like a soft little blow—and the girl felt that the cheek which touched hers was wet. But it was only a momentary touch, and Mrs. Hayward was half ashamed of her emotion. She gave an imperative grasp to Joyce’s arms as she let her go, and added with a little laugh, ‘But let us stand together, Joyce—you and me! and we’ll be too many for them. I don’t mind how strong they are—we’ll be too many for them yet—you and me!’

Colonel Hayward coming in at this moment, with his newspaper in his hand to read something aloud to his wife (who had seen it before breakfast), found them standing very close together, and heard the sound of his wife’s laugh, which sounded to him more like crying than laughing. And he knew that the sound meant a good deal of commotion in Elizabeth’s mind. He did not know what might have been going on; and while he was eager to interfere, his better angel kept him back by means of that prejudice against prying, which is a happy part of English training. Accordingly he did not come near, but pretended it was necessary to hold up his paper to the lamp. ‘My dear, I just wished to read you this little bit,’ he said, turning his shoulder to the pair. Mrs. Hayward could scarcely restrain the exclamation of impatience on her lips; but perhaps it was well that so exciting an interview should thus be brought to a simple and unconcerted end.

After this there followed two uneventful days—uneventful to the rest of the world; not quite so to Mrs. Hayward, who was employed in searching out all the ramifications of the social conspiracy against her husband and Joyce, with a warmth of defensive feeling and determination to support and vindicate what was her own side and her own belongings, which roused every amiable sentiment—and there were many—in her heart. She was kept in a subdued fever of expectation at the same time, looking almost every hour for the arrival of Norman Bellendean, who would not, she believed, keep to the invitation given him for Thursday, but might at any moment burst in upon them and set everything right. She did not believe that he would have the coolness to wait till that appointed time, and her devices for retaining Joyce within reach were manifold and sometimes very amusing, had there been any one with a mind free to observe the situation. Colonel Hayward, without having any reason given, was charged to be punctual in bringing her back from the morning walk at a certain hour—and Elizabeth herself took the direction of affairs in the afternoon, taking Joyce with her when she herself went out, and regulating a succession of returns which made it impossible that any visitor could have very long to wait. It must be allowed that this extreme care was harassing to Joyce, unaccustomed to so numerous a round of little engagements, and who hitherto had been free to follow her own devices and think her own thoughts. These thoughts, it was true, could be carried on anywhere, and were as possible in the drawing-room under her step-mother’s eyes as when alone; but they were confused and weakened by the sense of some one near—by the interruption of questions which she had to answer, and remarks to which she was supposed to pay attention.

The gathering web of purpose and meaning was thus confused into a sort of cobweb maze, like the threads of a spider twisted with everything they encountered; and Joyce felt herself thus held in suspense, still with that sweep and suction in the air which betrayed the precipice close by—but rather with the sensation of one who lay upon the edge bound and helpless, perhaps to be swept over by the first gale, but in herself quiescent, capable of no movement—than of the despairing agent of her own fate, by whose action alone the end could be accomplished. She lay there still, listening for the hurricane that must sweep her away—not taking, as she must do, that tremendous step for herself. But the closeness of it half stupefied, half paralysed her. The moment would come when she must wake, when the step would have to be taken; but what if in the meantime some celestial storm, some great heavenly chance impulse might burst in and carry her away? This happens sometimes—so that a man who intended to kill himself dies innocently in the meantime, and is saved all that trouble and pain. No one can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth. ‘Perhaps the world may end to-night,’ as the poet has said. But Joyce was not in hourly expectation like Mrs. Hayward. She accepted Thursday as the limit of her suspense. Before Thursday it must be done: but in the meantime, and for these two days, quiescence—something that, in the pause of despair, looked almost like peace.

This was not, however, undisturbed. There came a little note from Mrs. Bellendean with a final good-bye:—