CHAPTER XI
THE party was diminished, but still it was a large party. The dining-room at Bellendean was a long room lighted by a line of windows at one side in deep recesses, for the house was of antique depth and strength. The walls were hung with family portraits, a succession of large and imposing individuals, whose presence in uniform or in robes of law, contemplating seriously the doings of their successors, added dignity to the house, but did not do much to brighten or beautify the interior, save in the case of a few smaller portraits, which were from the delightful hand of Raeburn, and made a sunshine in a shady place. The long table, with its daylight whiteness and brightness, concentrated the light, however, and made the ornaments of the walls of less importance; and the cheerful crowd was too much occupied with its own affairs to notice the nervousness of the newcomer, the Colonel’s wife, who had only made a brief appearance at breakfast to some of them, and attracted as little warmth of interest as a woman of her age generally does. She sat near Mr. Bellendean at the foot of the table, but as he was one of the men to whom it is necessary to a woman to be young and pretty, Mrs. Hayward had full opportunity to compose and calm herself with little interference from her host. She was separated almost by the length of the table from her husband, and consequently was safe from his anxious observation; and in the bustle of the mid-day meal, and the murmur of talk around her, Mrs. Hayward found a sort of retirement for herself, and composed her mind. Her self-arguments ended in the ordinary fatalism with which people accept the inevitable. ‘If it must be, it must be,’ she said to herself. Perhaps it might not turn out so badly as she feared; that vision of the pupil-teacher, the perfectly well-behaved, well-instructed girl, who would make her life a burden, and destroy all the privacy and all the enjoyment of her home, was a terrible image: but the sight of so many cheerful faces gradually drove it away.
‘Who was I, Uncle Bellendean? I was a Saxon court lady. I was in attendance upon Queen Margaret. But she was not queen then; she was only princess, and an exile, don’t you know? We had all been nearly drowned, driven up from the Firth by the wind in the east.’
‘And where were you exiled from? and what were you doing in the Firth?’ said Mr. Bellendean, who was not perhaps thinking much of what he said.
‘Well I am sure,’ said Greta, with her soft Scotch intonation, ‘I don’t very well know; but Joyce does. She will tell you all about it if you ask her.’
‘This Joyce is a very alarming person. I hear her name wherever I turn. She seems the universal authority. I thought she must be an old governess; but I hear she’s a very pretty girl,’ said young Essex, who was at Greta’s side.
‘Far the prettiest girl in the parish, or for miles round.’
‘Speak for yourself, Greta,’ said a good-natured, blunt-featured young woman beside her, with a laugh. ‘I have always set up myself as a professional beauty, and I don’t give in to Joyce—except in so far, of course, as concerns Shakespeare and the musical glasses, where she is beyond all rivalry.’
Sir Harry, who was as little open to the pleasantry of Mid-Lothian as the Scotch in general are supposed to be to English wit, stared a little at the young person who assumed this position. He thought it possible she might be ‘chaffing,’ but was by no means sure. And he had no doubt that she was plain. He was too polite, however, to show his perplexity. ‘Does she receive any male pupils?’ he asked. ‘My tastes are quite undeveloped: even Shakespeare I don’t know so well as I ought. One has to get up a play or two now and then for an exam.: and there’s “Hamlet,” etc., at the Lyceum of course.’
‘Joyce would never forgive you that “Hamlet,” etc.,’ said the plain young lady. ‘You need never hope after that to be pupil of hers.’
‘Why, what should I say? Irving has done a lot of them. Shylock and—and Romeo, don’t you know? You don’t expect me to have all the names ready. A middle-aged fellow had no business to try Romeo. Come, I know as much as that.’
‘They are all real people to Joyce,’ said Greta. ‘She is not like us, who only take up a book now and then. She lives among books: she thinks as much of Shakespeare as of Scotland. He is not only a poet, he is a—he is a—well, a kind of world,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘I don’t know what other word to use.’
‘You could not have used a better word,’ said Norman Bellendean. ‘I am not a very great reader, but I’ve found that up at a hill-station where one had neither books nor society. I think that was very well said.’
Norman looked with a friendly admiration at his little cousin, and she, with a half glance and blush of reply, looked at Mrs. Bellendean at the head of the table, who, on her side, looked at them both. There was a great deal more in this mutual communication than met the eye.
‘Decidedly,’ said Sir Harry; ‘no one is good enough for this society unless he has undergone a preliminary training at the hands of Miss Joyce.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said a new voice hurriedly, with a ring of impatience in it, ‘that to bandy about a young lady’s name like this is not—not—quite good taste? Probably she would dislike being talked about—and certainly her friends——’
The young people turned in consternation to the quarter from which this utterance came. The Colonel’s wife had not hitherto attracted much attention. It had been settled that he was ‘an old darling:’ but Mrs. Hayward had not awakened the interest of these judges. They had decided that she was not good enough for him—that she had been the governess perhaps, or somebody who had nursed him through illness, or otherwise been kind to him—and that it was by some of these unauthorised methods that she had become Colonel Hayward’s wife. Greta blushed crimson at this rebuke.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘no one meant anything that was not kind. I would not allow a word to be said. I—am very fond of her. She is my dear friend.’
‘Perhaps it is not very good taste to discuss any one,’ said the plain young lady. ‘But Mrs. Hayward probably does not know who she is.’
‘I know that she is your inferior,’ said Mrs. Hayward quickly; ‘but that should make you more particular, not less, to keep her name from being bandied about.’
‘What is that my wife is saying?’ said Colonel Hayward from the other end of the table. ‘I can hear her voice. What are you saying, Elizabeth? She must be taking somebody’s part.’
‘It is nothing, Henry, nothing; I am taking nobody’s part,’ said Mrs. Hayward, becoming the colour of a peony. He had leaned forward to see her, for she sat on the same side of the table; and she leaned forward to reply to him, meeting the looks of half the table, amused at this conjugal demand and response. And then she shrank back, obliterating herself as well as she could, half angry, half ashamed, with a look of high temper and nervous annoyance which the young people set down to her disadvantage, whispering between themselves, ‘Poor Colonel Hayward!’ and what a pity it was he had not a nicer wife!
After this another wave of conversation passed over the company. A new subject, or rather half a dozen new subjects, drew the attention and interest of the young people away from this, of which the new and crowning interest was still unknown; and it was not till some time after, in the course of a lively debate upon the universally attractive theme of private theatricals, that the name which had caused that little controversy and stir of discussion was mentioned again.
Naturally, as it had been already subject to comment, there was at that moment a sudden pause all round the table, and the word came forth with all the more effect, softly spoken with a pause before and after— ‘Joyce.’
‘Upon my word,’ said Mr. Bellendean impatiently, ‘I agree with Mrs. Hayward. The girl is not here, and she has done nothing to expose herself to perpetual comment. We hear a great deal too much of Joyce.’
And now it was that there occurred the extraordinary incident, remembered for years after, not only in Bellendean but elsewhere, which many people even unconnected with that part of the country must have heard of. There rose up suddenly by the side of Mrs. Bellendean, at the other end of the table, a tall figure, which stood swaying forward a little, hands resting on the table, looking down upon the astonished faces on either side. At sight of it Mrs. Hayward pushed back her chair impatiently, and bent her flushed face over her plate; while every one else looked up in expectation, some amused, all astonished, awaiting some little exhibition on the part of the guileless old soldier. Norman Bellendean turned his face towards his old Colonel with a smile, but yet a little regret. The vieux moustache, out of pure goodness of heart and simplicity of mind, was sometimes a little absurd. Probably he was going once again to propose his young friend’s health, to give testimony in his favour as a capital fellow. Norman held himself ready to spring up and cover the veteran’s retreat, or to take upon himself the inevitable laugh. But he was no more prepared than the rest for what was coming. Colonel Hayward stood for a moment, his outline clear against the window behind him, his face indistinct against that light. He looked down the table, addressing himself to the host at the end, who half rose to listen, with a face of severe politeness, concealing much annoyance and despite. ‘The old fool,’ Mr. Bellendean was saying to himself.
‘I want to say,’ said the Colonel, swaying forward, as if he rested on those two hands with which he leant on the table, rather than on his feet, ‘that a very great event has happened to me here. I came as a stranger, with no thought but to pass a few days, little thinking that I was to find what would affect all my future life. I owe it to the kindness of your house, Mr. Bellendean, and all I see about me, to tell you what has happened. Her name is on all your lips,’ he said, looking round him with the natural eloquence of an emotion which, now that the spectators were used to this strange occurrence, could be seen in the quiver of his lips and the moisture in his eyes. ‘It is a name that has long been full of sweetness but also of pain to me. Now I hope it will be sweetness only. Joyce—my kind friends, that have been so good to her when I knew nothing—nothing! How can I thank you and this kind lady—this dear lady here! Joyce—belongs to me. Joyce—is Joyce Hayward. She is my daughter. She is my—my only child.’
Close upon this word sounded one subdued but most audible sob from the other end of the table. It was from Mrs. Hayward, who could contain herself no longer. That, at least, might have been spared her—that the girl was his only child. She pushed back her chair and rose up, making a hurried movement towards the door; but fortunately Mrs. Bellendean had divined and frustrated her, and in the universal stir of chairs and hum of wondering voices, Mrs. Hayward’s action passed unnoticed, or almost unnoticed. And she escaped while the others all gathered round the Colonel, all speaking together, congratulating, wondering. These were moments when he was very able to act for himself, and did not think at all what Elizabeth would say.