Joyce

‘He kent the way to get roond ye,’ said Peter, ‘aye flatterin’ aboot that bit lassie there.’

‘He was real kind. He would just sit for hours, and mind everything.’

‘Granny,’ cried Joyce, interrupting hastily, ‘you have told me nothing about the new mistress, and how she took up my place.’

‘But I wrote it a’ down in my letters,’ said Janet. ‘That’s no like word of mouth, you’re thinking? Well, you see, Joyce’—and Janet went over the whole career of the new schoolmistress, who had not given entire satisfaction. ‘As wha could?’ said the old woman. ‘Ye just spoiled them, they could get nobody that would have pleased them after you.’

‘You’re no asking aboot Andrew,’ said Peter.

‘Eh, poor lad!’ cried Janet, ‘I wouldna have wondered if he had come ower the nicht: but now it’s too late.’

‘Granny,’ cried Joyce, with a little cry of alarm, ‘you’ll say nothing to Andrew? Oh, not a word! Never let him know I was here. I would fain, fain not be unkind—but there are some things that cannot be. Oh, I was very silly, I should have known. You’ll tell him to think of me no more—that I’m not worthy of it; but, oh, never tell I’ve been here.’

‘No, my bonnie lamb, no, my ain dear. He never was worthy o’ you. He shall hear not a word—nor nae ither person, if that’s your pleasure, Joyce.’

‘Oh, granny dear! but it’s time now, and I must go.’

Janet’s heart was very heavy; but there was no time for questions, and she saw that Joyce was little disposed to explain. ‘We’ll go with her to the station, and see her off,’ she said, taking her big shawl out of the aumrie. ‘I’m laith, laith to part with you, Joyce: but it would be nae kindness to make ye late, and they’ll be meeting you at the train.’

‘I must not be late,’ Joyce replied. She looked round with a faint smile, and tears were in her eyes, and her lips moved as if she was saying something. Janet’s heart was sore for her child. Why was she left to travel all alone in a wild and dark night like this? Why should she say nothing of her father, or of any one that was with her? Janet’s mind misgave her—she was full of fears: Joyce was ‘no hersel’. She was very loving, very tender, and smiled, and tried to look at ease; but she could not deceive the old woman whom love enlightened, who knew all her ways and her looks. There was something in her eyes which Janet did not know. She did not understand what it meant, but it meant trouble. There was trouble written all over Joyce. Her fond old guardian knew not what it was, only knew it was there.

The two old people went to the station with her through the windy, weeping night, saying little on either side. Joyce clasped her old grandmother’s arm tightly in hers, but scarcely spoke, and Peter stalked beside them, half exhilarated, half heart-broken—he did not know which. To have had her for a little was sweet, but then to see her go away. She clung to them, crying quietly under her veil, as they put her into a corner of a vacant carriage—not without a forlorn pride that it was first class—and wrapped her cloak round her. They had no fine phrases, but to smooth the folds of her dress, to tuck the cloak round her, was always some faint satisfaction. ‘I’ll write,’ she said, ’as soon as I can, but it may be long. You’ll not lose heart, only wait, wait, and I’ll write——’

‘Oh, my darlin’, we’ll wait—but, Joyce, where are you goin’, where are you goin’, that you speak like that?’

‘Good-bye, grandfather,—good-bye, granny, dear granny!’

Janet clutched Peter with a grasp that hurt even that old arm of his, all muscle and sinew. ‘Noo,’ she said, in an imperative whisper, ‘gang hame to your bed: I’m goin’ after her. Dinna say a word to me, but gang hame to you bed. I’ll come back the morn’s morning, or as soon as I can.’

‘Gaun after her! and what good will that do her?’ cried Peter in consternation.

‘At least, I’ll see her safe,’ said Janet, clambering into a third-class carriage. The train was almost in motion, and carried her off before her astonished husband could say another word. The old man stood bewildered, and looked after the train which carried them both from him. But he had that inexhaustible rural patience which makes so many things supportable. After a few minutes he went away, slowly shaking his head. ‘She has nae ticket,’ he said to himself, ‘and little money in her pooch, and what guid can she do in ony case?’ But after a while he obeyed Janet’s injunction and went slowly home.

It was hard work for Janet to keep sight of Joyce when they came to the great Edinburgh station: she was little accustomed to crowds—to be hustled and pushed about as a poor old woman getting out of a third-class carriage so often is: but fortunately her eyes had kept the long sight of youth, and she managed to trace the movements of her child. One thing was sure, that nobody was there to meet Joyce, not even a maid. The girl made her way by dark passages and corners to the place where another little train was starting for Leith, where Janet followed her breathless. It was very raw and cold, windy and gusty, the wind blowing about the light of the lamps, driving wild clouds across the sky, dashing rain from time to time against the carriage windows, and the atmosphere was dreary with a sense of the wilder darkness of the approaching sea. Presently they came to the port and to the quay, where a confused mass of vessels, made half visible by the flaring melancholy lights, lay together, with lamps swinging at their masts. The pavement was wet and slippery, the wind was keen and cold, and blew blasts of stinging rain like tears over her face as she toiled along. But she never lost sight of Joyce. The Firth was tumbling in dark waves, faintly visible in a liquid line, apparent at least so far that it was not solid earth, but something wilder, more dreadful, insecure—and it raved and dashed against the pier and the sides of the ships, sometimes sending up a leaping white vision of spray like something flying at your throat, and always a sound as of contending voices, the shout of oncoming, the long grinding drag of the withdrawal as wave followed wave. The boats moved and creaked at anchor, the lamps and dim masts and funnels rising and falling. There were gangways each with its little coloured smoky lamp, from one steamboat to another, lying ready to start, three or four deep against the pier. Janet saw the solitary figure which she had tracked so long pause, as if with a moment’s hesitation, at the first of these gangways, and she made a rush forward at the last after this long course, to grip her child by the dress, by whatever thing she could clutch and hold, and cry, ‘No, no; you’ll gang no further! oh, Joyce, my bairn, you’ll gang no further!’ But she slipped and fell, being exhausted with the long and weary walk, and, breathless with labour and fatigue, could get nothing out but a panting No, no, which had no meaning. When she got to her feet again the slim figure was gone. She thought she could trace it on the farthest point, standing upon the paddle-box of the steamer, and ever after believed that the speck of whiteness in the dark was Joyce’s face turned back towards home. That was the last she saw.

The old woman stood upon the pier for long after. She stood and watched while a few other passengers arrived, talking dolefully about the stormy night, and tried to take a little comfort thinking that perhaps ‘the Cornel’ might be among them, and Joyce after all have a protector and companions. There was one tall man, indeed, speaking ‘high English,’ whom Janet almost made up her mind, with an unspeakable lightening of her heart, must be ‘the Cornel.’ Her old eyes could not trace him through the maze of the steamboats to the one upon which she had kept a despairing watch: but fatigue and misery had by this time dimmed her faculties. Then that farthest boat, the one that held her child, with shouts and shrieks of steam, and lights wavering through the gloom, and every dreadful noise, got into motion, and went out upon the tumbling, stormy sea. Janet watched the light rising and sinking, the only thing visible, till that too disappeared in the darkness. And then all was quiet but the booming of the Firth against the piers, and the creek and jar of the other steamboats preparing to follow. She withdrew a little and leant against a post, and dried her eyes with a trembling hand. ‘Oh, my bairn! my bairn!’ she said to herself.

‘What ails the woman?’ said the watchman on the pier. ‘There’s naething to make a wark about; they’ll get a bit heezy, but nae danger. It’ll be a son or a daughter ye’ve been seeing off.’

‘Oh, man, I’m thankful to you!’ said Janet. ‘Are they a’ for the same airt.’

‘They’re a’ for the far north,’ said the watchman, continuing his heavy march.

CHAPTER XLVIII

‘My good woman,’ said the Colonel, breathless, too, ‘don’t be unkind, but tell us where my daughter is. We’ve come from London. I never denied your interest in her—never opposed her love for you. Bellendean will tell you. Let me see Joyce, for God’s sake!’

‘Colonel,’ said Janet, with a little tremble, ‘you should see her if she was in my keeping without such a grand plea. But she’s no here. I thought till this moment she was with—her ain folk.’

‘Don’t try to deceive us,’ cried Captain Bellendean, ‘we have traced her here.’ He was very much agitated to have forgotten his ‘mainners’ in this wonderful way.

‘Track or no track,’ said Janet, ‘you’ll get no lies frae me. Yes, she’s been here. There’s the chair she sat upon only yestreen and late at nicht wi’ Peter and me.’

The Colonel came in and looked at the chair with the instinct of a simple mind. It seemed to throw a certain light upon Joyce’s disappearance. ‘Then where is she now?’ he said, with a sigh of impatience and disappointment. ‘Let me sit down, if you please, for all my strength seems to have gone out of me. Where is she now?’

‘That’s mair than I can tell,’ said Janet with the fervour of undeniable truth.

‘We are in great trouble,’ said Captain Bellendean. ‘She has gone away—in a mistake. Janet, you’re very fond of her, I know. She has been troubled about Halliday the schoolmaster, and—some one else. She has thought the best thing was to go away—and it’s the worst thing. It’s misery to everybody. I know you’re fond of her.’

‘Fond of her!’ said Janet. She said to herself that it was a bonnie question to be asked of her that would give her last drop of blood for Joyce. ‘Ay, ye may say I’m fond of her,’ she replied grimly.

‘And it is all a mistake. She’s taken up a mistaken idea. Halliday had no such claim upon her—nor had—any other. It was altogether a false fear. I would never—for pity’s sake, if you can tell us anything. You know me! She would never be forced to anything. She might have been sure of that,’ the Captain added hurriedly, with a flush of forlorn pride.

‘Eh, Captain,’ said Janet, ‘I would be far, far happier if I kent where she was. She just said, “I’m goin’ on a voyage, and that she had come to see us.” And it was my belief that the Cornel and his lady were just waiting upon her at Leith.’

‘At Leith!’ they both exclaimed. Then Colonel Hayward turned to the Captain with an air of relief. ‘It’s but a little port, isn’t it? We’ll soon be on the track now.’

‘At least,’ said Janet, ‘I’m thinking it was Leith, for where else would she gang to join a ship? but I thought naething but that the Cornel and his lady were waiting upon her—for ane o’ your toors, or whatever you ca’ them,’ she added, with a certain tone of disdain.

‘And she said she was going—where?’

‘She said it would be a long voyage. Ye needna think to trap me, Captain—it’s no like you—as if I was speaking a falsehood with your “Where?” Na; she said not a word to me, but just a long voyage. I would gie my little finger to ken,’ cried Janet, with tears; ‘but she said not a word to me.’

‘Are there boats for America at Leith? God bless my soul! poor little trading things—not even a mail-boat where she could have been comfortable,’ cried the Colonel. And then he added, ‘You must think we’ve been cruel to her to drive her away; but it’s not so—it’s not so. Bellendean will tell you.’

Janet remained grimly silent, offering no contradiction.

As for the Captain, he turned his back upon them both before he gave the called-for testimony. ‘She is flying from love,’ he said, in a choked voice. ‘And to sacrifice herself for—us: and to make us all miserable!’ If he was angry as well as unhappy, there was perhaps little wonder.

‘That’s a’ I can tell ye,’ said Janet. ‘We saw her off from the station, Peter and me. I had nae thought but that her father—her father that she belonged to, that took her from me—would be waitin’ for her at the other end. I never said a word to keep her from her duty to her ain folk; but if I had kent she was her lane, going forth upon the wide world and the sea, on a wild night—Lord! I would have followed her to the ends o’ the earth,’ cried Janet, with hot fervour and tears.

But she said nothing of how far she had followed. How did she know that it might not be prejudicial to Joyce? If Joyce had left them it could not be without reason. No doubt she had kept secret about her destination lest it should be found out by her pursuers. ‘She might have kent me better, that I would have stood for her against all the land and never let on I kent,’ the old woman said to herself. But it was no doubt better that within the strict boundaries of truth she could thus baffle the pursuit and confuse all researches. But what had the Captain to do with it? and what did they mean by flying from love? This gave Janet a cold thrill for many a day.

The search was long, and extended over many seas. Though there was no mail-boat for America, there were, as the Colonel divined, ‘trading things,’ but no trace in any of them of Joyce; and there were ships for the Mediterranean and many other places. Half a dozen times at least they thought they were on her track, but failed and failed again. She had but little money for a long voyage. All indeed was darkness from the time when they traced her to the station at Bellendean. A young lady in company with an old woman had been seen at Leith; but Janet, who alone could have thrown any light on this, remained silent. Indeed, she had no confession to make, for she had only been with Joyce as a watcher is with the object of his stealthy pursuit. And Janet was all the more safe a guardian that she knew absolutely nothing. There never departed from her old eyes the vision of the lamp upon the mast, tossing with the movement of the waves, disappearing into the blackness of the night, a forlorn spark in the immeasurable vacancy of invisible sky and sea. Where had that symbol of humanity gone? what fathomless gloom had it penetrated with its faint-coloured gleam of living? All her superiority over the others lay in the image of that tossing light, and the faint spars it illuminated for a moment in the black gulf of the unknown.

So Joyce disappeared and was seen no more.

Miss Marsham never forgot nor could think, without a sinking of the heart, of that unfortunate night when the oracle had spoken by her mouth, all unaware of the nature of the being addressed, or the tragical matters involved. For the consequences of that self-sacrifice were disastrous all round. The Haywards’ pleasant house was shut up, while they travelled the world, looking for the lost girl. Mrs. Hayward was the most energetic in the pursuit—for the Colonel, though he missed her more, and was more ‘fond’ of Joyce, had neither any sense of wrong to move him, nor any prick of the intolerable such as wrings the heart of an impatient woman, half thinking herself to blame. Canon Jenkinson, though so much less concerned, would probably not have gone to America at all on that famous expedition of his, about which his well-known book was written, had it not been for a hope that in some American school or lecture-hall he would find her, though everybody else failed. Norman Bellendean was affected most of all. He had a dreadful scene with his step-mother, from which that poor lady did not recover for a long time; and instead of going home, and finally allowing himself to be drawn into the natural circle of county politics and relationships, with Greta for his pretty and happy wife, as had been desired and hoped—he went back, sullen and wretched, a misanthrope and woman-hater, to his regiment in India, leaving his estate in the hands of an agent, the house shut up and uninhabited. Greta married after a while, and was just as comfortable as if she had attained the man of her first choice, whose loss it was believed would break her heart. She was the only one quite unaffected by all that had taken place, although her comfort was the one prevailing cause of all this trouble. Mrs. Bellendean was severed once for all from Bellendean and everything near. And yet she could say to herself truly that she meant no harm, that she had never expected serious harm to follow. All she meant was to avert an unsuitable marriage, which it is every woman’s duty to do, by encouraging a girl, who was already engaged, and had no right to accept another man’s attentions, to keep to her plighted word. Perhaps it was hard upon her to suffer so much for so little—and almost harder, seeing that Greta, in whose interests she acted, did not suffer at all.

Andrew Halliday, who also was, so far as he was aware, perfectly innocent, and who never knew what harm he had done by betraying Joyce’s story to the very respectable lady, the minister’s wife, who had been so kind to him—came through the trial as a man of native worth and respectability was likely to do. He waited for some time hoping to hear from Joyce, who, he felt sure, even if circumstances separated her from her family, would communicate with him. He thought the step she had taken ill-judged and excessive, even though it was in consequence of their opposition to the wishes of her heart in respect to himself. ‘These hasty steps are always to be regretted,’ Andrew said, ‘especially as no doubt the Cornel would have been brought to see what was best for her interest if she had but given him a little time.’ But when months came and brought no sign, Andrew’s dignified disapproval changed into a judicial anger. ‘Poor thing,’ he said, ‘she never had any real perception of her own best interests.’ And in course of time he married a very respectable lady with a little money, and was much happier than he could have been with Joyce.

And silence closed over Joyce and all her ways: she sank out of sight as if she had never been. Her name and image lingered in some faithful recollections, then in mystery and silence disappeared, and was seen and heard no more.

It was curious, however, that within a year Janet and Peter Matheson disappeared also from their cottage. They sold their few goods, ‘no able to bide the place after what had happened,’ Janet said. But Peter, instead of echoing this judgment, shook with a long low subterranean laugh, such as used to mark his enjoyment of Joyce’s remarks and pleasant ways. They disappeared and nobody ever knew where they had gone. ‘To their friends in the North,’ the village people said, but nobody before had ever heard of these friends.

It was not till years after that there came a curious rumour to the mainland far away at the most distant point of Scotland, of a great transformation that had been going on in one of the most remote and inaccessible of the isles. Whether it was St. Kilda or the Fair Isle, or some other scrap of rock and mountain in the middle of the wild northern seas, this chronicler has no information. But the legend ran that suddenly, upon a wild wintry afternoon, a lady had landed on that island. Whether her wealth was boundless and her power miraculous, as some said, could not be proved save by rare visitors to the islands. But at all events, there seemed no reason to doubt that she had acquired a wonderful ascendancy, and made many extraordinary changes among the primitive people. She taught them many things, among others what domestic comfort and cleanliness and beneficent learning meant, and knew everything, according to the story. The few sportsmen who touched upon these wild shores were not, however, ever gratified with a sight of this Princess of the Isle. They heard of the lady, but never saw her, and from their wondering accounts and conjectures, it appeared that she was young, and considered by her subjects beautiful. But no stranger nor Englishman, nor any wandering visitor, has ever found out more than this respecting the Lady of the Isle.

THE END


Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.