CHAPTER XVI
THE little family party left Bellendean two days after. It was not expedient, they all felt, to linger long over the inevitable separation. Even old Janet was of this mind. ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then it were well it were done quickly.’ The sentiment of these words was in the old woman’s mind, though possibly she did not know them. Joyce was finally taken from her foster-parents when she left them for Bellendean on the evening before, half heart-broken, yet half ecstatic, not knowing how to subdue the extraordinary emotion and excitement that tingled to her very finger-points. She was going to dine at the table which represented everything that was splendid and refined to the village schoolmistress, to be waited on by the servants who thought themselves much superior to old Peter and Janet, to hear the talk, to make acquaintance with the habits of those whom she had looked up to all her life. The Bellendean carriage came for her, to bring her away not only from the cottage, but from all her past existence—from everything she had known. By Janet’s advice, or rather commands, Joyce had put on her one white dress, the soft muslin gown which she had sometimes worn on a summer Sunday, and in which the old people had always thought she looked like a princess. Peter sat by the open door of the cottage while these last preparations were being made. The anger of great wretchedness was blazing in the old man’s eyes. ‘What are you doing with that white dud?’ he said, giving her a glance askance out of his red eyes. ‘I aye said it was not fit for a decent lass out of my house. Mak’ her pit on a goon that’s like her place, no like thae lightheaded limmers.’ He waved his hand towards the east end of the village, where there lived an ambitious family with fine daughters. ‘Dod! I would tear it off her back.’
‘Haud your tongue,’ said his wife; ‘what good will it do you to fecht and warstle with Providence? The time’s come when we maun just submit. Na, na, never heed him, Joyce. The white’s far the best. And just you step into your carriage, my bonnie lady: it’s the way I’ve aye seen you going aff in my dreams. Peter, dinna sit there like a sulky bear. Give her a kiss and your blessing, and let her go.’
A laugh of hoarse derision burst from Peter’s lips. ‘I’m a bonnie man to kiss a grand lady! I never was ane for thae showings-off. If she maun go, she will hae to go, and there is an end o’t. Farewell to ye, Joyce!’
He got up hastily from his seat at the door. The footman outside and the coachman on the box, keenly observant both, looked on—and Peter knew their fathers and mothers, and was aware that any word he said would be public property next day. He gave himself a shake, and pulled his bonnet over his eyes, but did not stride away as he had done before. He stood leaning his back against the wall, his face half buried in the old coat-collar which rose to his ears when he bent his head, and in the shadow of his bonnet and the forest of his beard. It was Janet, in her quavering voice, who gave the blessing, putting up two hard hands, and drawing them over Joyce’s brown satin hair and soft cheeks: ’"The Lord bless thee and keep thee: the Lord lift up the light o’ His countenance upon thee.” Gang away, gang away! It will maybe no’ be sae hard when you’re out o’ our sight.’
The horses seemed to make but one bound, the air to fill with the sound of hoofs and wheels, and Joyce found herself beginning again to perceive the daylight through her blinding tears. And her heart, too, gave a bound, involuntary, unwilling. It was not so hard when they were out of sight, and the new world so full of expectation, of curiosity, of the unknown, opened before her in a minute. Joyce in her white dress, in the Bellendean carriage driving up the avenue to dinner, with her father waiting at the other end to receive her, was and could be Joyce Matheson no more. All that she knew and was familiar with departed from her like the rolling up of a map, like the visions of a dream.
There was, however, so much consciousness, so much curiosity, so many comments made upon Joyce and her story, that the strange witching scene of the dinner-table—a thing of enchantment to the girl, with its wonderful flowers and fine company—was for the other guests somewhat embarrassing and uncomfortable. Strangely enough Joyce was almost the only one at table who was unaffected by this feeling. To her there was something symbolical in the novelty which fitted in with all her dreams and hopes. The flowers, the pretty dresses, the glitter and show of the white table with its silver and porcelain, the conversation, a dozen different threads going on at once, the aspect of the smiling faces as they turned to each other,—all carried out her expectations. It seemed to Joyce, sitting almost silent, full of the keenest observation, that the meal, the vulgar eating and drinking, was so small a part of it. She could not hear what everybody was saying, nor was she, in the excitement and confusion of her mind, very capable of understanding the rapid interchange of words, so many people talking together; but it represented to her the feast of reason and the flow of soul better than the most brilliant company in the world, more distinctly heard and understood, could have done. She was not disappointed. Joyce knew by the novels she had read that in such circumstances as hers the newcomer full of expectation generally was disappointed, and found that, seen close, the finest company was no better than the humblest. Her imagination had rebelled against that discomfiting discovery even when she read of it; and now it was with great elation that she felt she had been right all through and the novels wrong. She was not disappointed. The food and the eating were quite secondary, as they ought to be. When she looked along the table, it was to see smiling faces raised in pleasure at something that had been said, or saying something with the little triumphant air of successful argument or happy wit, or listening with grave attention, assenting, objecting, as the case might be. She did not know what they were saying, but she was convinced that it was all beautiful, clever, witty, true conversation, the food for which her spirit had hungered. She had no desire for the moment to enter into it herself. She was dazzled by all the prettiness and brightness, moved to the heart by that sensation of having found what she longed for, and at last obtained entrance into the world to which she truly belonged. She smiled when she met Mrs. Bellendean’s eye, and answered slightly at random when she was spoken to. She was by her father’s side, and he did not speak to her much. She was kindly left with her impressions, to accustom herself gradually to the new scene. And she was entirely satisfied, elated, afloat in an ethereal atmosphere of contentment and pleasure. Her dreams, she thought, were all realised.
But next morning the old life came back with more force than ever. Joyce went over and over the scene of the evening. ‘Gang away, gang away! It will maybe no’ be sae hard when you’re out o’ our sight.’ Her foster-parents had thrust her from them, not meaning to see her again; and though her heart was all aching and bleeding, she did not know what to do, whether to attempt a second parting, whether to be content that the worst was over. She made the compromise which tender-hearted people are so apt to do. She got up very early, following her old habit with a curious sense of its unusualness and unnecessariness—to use two awkward words—and ran down all the way to the village through the dewy grass. But early as she was, she was not early enough for Peter, whom she saw in the distance striding along with his long, heavy tread, his head bowed, his bonnet drawn over his brows, a something of dreary abandon about him which went to Joyce’s heart. He was going through a field of corn which was already high, and left his head and shoulders alone visible as he trudged away to his work—the sun beating upon the rugged head under its broad blue bonnet, the heavy old shoulders slouched, the long step undulating, making his figure fall and rise almost like a ship at sea. The corn was ‘in the flower,’ still green, and rustled in the morning air; a few red poppies blazed like a fringe among the sparse stalks near the pathway; the sky was very clear in the grey blue of northern skies under summer heat; but the old man, she was sure, saw nothing as he jogged onward heavy-hearted. Joyce dared not call to him, dared not follow him. With a natural pang she stood and watched the old father bereaved going out to his work. Perhaps it would console him a little: she for whom he sorrowed could do so no more.
But Joyce had not the same awe of Janet. Is it perhaps that there is even in the anguish of the affections a certain luxury for a woman which is not for the man? She ran along the vacant sunny village street, and pushed open the half-closed door, and flung herself upon the old woman’s neck, who received her with a shriek of joy. Perhaps it crossed Janet’s mind for a moment that her child had come back, that she had discovered already that all these fine folk were not to be lippened to; but the feeling, though ecstatic, was but momentary, and would indeed have been sternly opposed by her own better sense had it been true.
‘Eh, and it’s you!’ she cried, seizing Joyce by the shoulders, gazing into her face.
‘It is me, granny. For all you said last night that I was better out of your sight, I could not. I could not go—without seeing you again.’
‘Did I say that?—the Lord forgive me! But it’s just true. I’ll be better when you’re clean gane; but eh! I am glad, glad. Joyce—my bonnie woman, did ye see him?’
‘Oh, granny, I saw him going across the big cornfield. Tell him I stood and watched him with his head down on his breast—but I daredna lift my voice. Tell him Joyce will never forget—the green corn and the hot sun, and him—alone.’
‘What would hinder him to be his lane at six o’clock in the morning?’ said Janet, with a tearful smile. ‘You never gaed wi’ him to his work, ye foolish bairn. If he had left ye sleeping sound in your wee garret, would he have been less his lane? Ay, ay, I ken weel what you mean; I ken what you mean. Well, it just had to be; we maunna complain. Run away, my dawtie: run away, my bonnie lady—ye’ll write when ye get there; but though it’s a hard thing to say, it’ll be the best thing for us a’ when you’re just clean gane.’
Two or three hours afterwards, Joyce found herself, all the little confusion of the start over, seated in the seclusion of the railway carriage, with the father and mother who were henceforward to dispose of her life.
She had seen very little of them up to this moment. Colonel Hayward, indeed, had kept by her during the evening, patting her softly on her arm from time to time, taking her hand, looking at her with very tender eyes, listening, when she opened her mouth at rare intervals, with the kind of pleased, half-alarmed look with which an anxious parent listens to the utterances of a child. He was very, very kind—more than kind. Joyce had become aware, she could scarcely tell how, that the other people sometimes smiled a little at the Colonel—a discovery which awoke the profoundest indignation in her mind; but she already began half to perceive his little uncertainties, his difficulty in forming his own opinion, the curious helplessness which made it apparent that this distinguished soldier required to be taken care of, and more or less guided in the way he had to go. But she had done nothing towards making acquaintance with Mrs. Hayward, whose relation to her was so much less distinct, and upon whom so much of her comfort must depend. This lady sat in the corner of the carriage next the window, with her back to the engine, very square and firm—a far more difficult study for her new companion than her husband was. She had not shown by look or word any hostility towards Joyce; but still a sentiment of antagonism had, in some subtle way, risen between them. With the exclusiveness common to English travellers, they had secured the compartment in which they sat for themselves alone; so that the three were here shut up for the day in the very closest contact, to shake together as they might. Joyce sat exactly opposite to her step-mother, whilst the Colonel, who had brought in with him a sheaf of newspapers, changed about from side to side as the view, or the locomotion, or his own restlessness required. He distributed his papers to all the party, thrusting a Graphic into Joyce’s hands, and heaping the remainder upon the seat. Mrs. Hayward took up the Scotsman which he had given her, and looked at it contemptuously. ‘What is it?’ she said, holding it between her finger and her thumb. ‘You know I don’t care for anything, Henry, but the Times or the Morning Post.’
‘You can have yesterday’s Times, my dear,’ said the Colonel; ‘but you know we are four hundred miles from London. We must be content with the papers of the place. There are all the telegrams just the same—and very clever articles, I hear.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to read Scotch articles,’ said Mrs. Hayward. She meant no harm. She was a little out of temper, out of heart. To say something sharp was a kind of relief to her; she did not think it would hurt any one, nor did she mean to do so. But Joyce grew red behind her Graphic. She looked at the pictures with eyes which were hot and dry with the great desire she had to shed the tears which seemed to be gathering in them. Now that Bellendean was left behind like a dream, now that the familiar fields were all out of sight, the village roofs disappeared for ever, and she, Joyce, not Joyce any longer, nor anything she knew, shut up here as in a strait little house with the people,—the people to whom she belonged,—a wild and secret anguish took possession of her. She sat quite still with the paper held before her face, trying to restrain and subdue herself. She felt that if the train would but stop, she would dart out and fly and lose herself in the crowd; and then she thought, with what seemed to her a new comprehension, of her mother who had done so—who had fled and been lost. Her poor young mother, a girl like herself! This thought, however, calmed Joyce; for if her mother had but been patient, the misery she was at present enduring need never have been. Had the first Joyce but subdued herself and restrained her hasty impulses, the second Joyce might have been a happy daughter, knowing her father and loving him, instead of the unhappy, uneasy creature she was, with her heart and her life torn in two. She paused with a kind of awe when that thought came into her mind. Her mother had entailed upon her the penalty of her hastiness, of her impatience and passion. She had paid the cost herself, but not all the cost—she had left the rest to be borne by her child. The costs of every foolish thing have to be borne, Joyce said to herself. Some one must drink out that cup to the dregs; it cannot pass away until it has been emptied by one or another. No; however tempting the crowd might be in which she could disappear, however many the stations at which she could escape, she would not take that step. She would not postpone the pang. She would bear it now, however it hurt her; for one time or another it would have to be borne.
The conversation went on all the same, as if none of these thoughts were passing through the troubled brain of Joyce,—and she was conscious of it, acutely yet dully, as if it had been written upon the paper which she held before her face.
‘You must not speak in that tone, my dear, of Scotch articles—before Joyce,’ the Colonel said. ‘I have never found that they liked it, however philosophical they might be——’
‘Does Joyce count herself Scotch?’ Mrs. Hayward asked, as if speaking from a distance.
‘Do you hear your mother, my dear, asking if you call yourself Scotch?’ he said.
Both Joyce and Mrs. Hayward winced at the name. There was nothing to call for its use, and neither of them intended to pick it up out of the oblivion of the past, or the still more effectual mystery of the might have been, to force it into their lives. But Joyce could not take notice of it: she could only reply to his question with a little exaggerated warmth— ‘I have never been out of Scotland, and all I care for has been always there. How could I call myself anything else?’
It was not very long since Peter had accused her of ‘standing up for the English.’ That had been partially true, and so was this. She thought of it with almost a laugh of ridicule at herself. Now she felt Scotch to the tips of her fingers, resenting everything that was said or hinted against her foster-country.
‘I see I must mind my p’s and q’s,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘but, fortunately, there will be no means of getting the Scotsman in Richmond, so we shall be exempt from that.’
There was something in Mrs. Hayward’s tone which seemed to imply that other subjects of quarrel would not be wanting, and there was a little smile on her lips which gave further meaning to what she said, or seemed to do so; though, as a matter of fact, poor Mrs. Hayward had no meaning at all, but could not, though she tried, get rid of that little bit of temper which had sprung up all lively and keen at sight of the Colonel’s solicitude about his daughter and her ‘things’—a solicitude which was quite new and unaccustomed, for he was not in the habit of thinking of any one’s ‘things,’ but rather, whenever he could, of losing his own. Among Joyce’s small baggage there was one little shabby old-fashioned box—a box which Mrs. Hayward divined at the first glance must contain the little relics of the mother, of itself a pitiful little object enough. There had not been a word said on the subject, but the Colonel had been startled by the sight of it. He had recognised it, or imagined that he recognised it, she said to herself severely, and had himself seen it put in the van, with a care which he had never taken for anything of hers. It was only a trifle, but it touched one of those chords that are ready to jar in the wayward human instrument of which the best of men and women have so little control. She could not get that jarring chord to be still; it vibrated all through her, giving an acrid tone to her voice, and something disagreeable to the smile that came, she could not tell how, to her lip. All these vibrations were hateful to her, as well as to the hapless antagonist who noted and divined them with quick responding indignation. But Mrs. Hayward could not help it, any more than she could help Joyce perceiving it. The close vicinity into which this little prison of a railway carriage brought them, so that not a tone or a look could be missed, was intolerable to the elder woman too. But she knew very well that she could not run away.