CHAPTER XVII
COLONEL HAYWARD’S house was at Richmond, in one of the most beautiful spots that could be imagined. It stood on the slope of the hill, and commanded a view of the winding of the river upward towards Twickenham: and the grounds about it were exquisite, stretching down to the Thames, with a long if somewhat narrow sweep of lawn descending to the very water’s edge. Nothing could be more warm and sheltered, more perfect in greenness and shade, nothing more bright and sunny than the combination of fine trees and blossoming undergrowth and elastic velvet turf, the turf of age, which had been dressed and tended like a child from before the memory of man, and never put to any rude use. The perfection of the place was in this lawn and the gardens and grounds, which were the Colonel’s hobby, and to which he gave all his attention. But the house was also a very pretty house.
It was not large, and it was rather low: a verandah, almost invisible under the weight of climbing roses, clematis, honeysuckle, and every kind of flowering thing, went round the front; and here, looking over the river, were the summer quarters of the family. Wicker-chairs, some of Indian origin, little tables of all convenient kinds, Indian rugs in all their subdued wealth of colour, like moss under the feet, made this open-air apartment delightful. It combined two kinds of luxury with the daintiest yet most simple success. If there was a drawback it was only in bad weather, when the pretty drawing-room behind was by reason of this verandah a little wanting in light; but no one could think of that in the June weather, when the sunshine touched everything with pleasantness.
Mrs. Hayward was as proud of the house as the Colonel was of the garden. After India it cannot be described how delightful it was to them, both very insular people, to get back to the greenness and comfort of this English home; and they both watched for the effect it would have upon Joyce, with highly raised expectations. To bring a girl out of a Scotch cottage to such a place as this, to open to her all at once, from Peter Matheson’s kitchen, in which the broth was made and the oatcakes baked, the glories of that drawing-room, which Mrs. Hayward could scarcely leave to be tended by a mere housemaid, which she herself pervaded every morning, giving loving touches everywhere, arranging draperies, altering the positions of the furniture, laying out those lovely pieces of oriental stuff and Indian embroideries which, always put carefully away at night, adorned the sofas and chairs. Though she did not love ‘the girl’ she yet looked forward to the moment when all this splendour should dawn upon Joyce, with a feeling half sympathetic, realising the awe and admiration with which for the first time her untutored eyes must contemplate the beautiful room, and all the luxury of the place, which to her must look like splendour. Mrs. Hayward did not pretend that it was splendid—‘our little place’ she called it, with proud humility; but she knew that it was more perfect than anything about, and in itself without comparison, a sight to see. That Joyce would be dazzled, almost overwhelmed, by her sudden introduction into such a home, she had no manner of doubt. And this anticipation softened her, and gave her a certain interest in Joyce. She talked to her husband at night, after their arrival, about his daughter in a more friendly tone than she had yet employed.
‘I thought of giving her the little west room for herself. She will want a place to herself to be untidy in—all girls do: a place where she can keep her work—if she works—or her books: or—whatever she is fond of.’ Mrs. Hayward had a distinct vision in her eye of a little old-fashioned box—the ark of the relics which the Colonel had recognised—and made up her mind that it should be at once endued with a chintz cover, so that it might be recognisable no more.
‘There is nobody like you, Elizabeth, for kind thoughts,’ he said gratefully. Then with the same expectation that had softened her, he went on— ‘She has never been used to anything of the kind. I shouldn’t wonder if it was too much for her feelings—for she feels strongly, or else I am mistaken; and she is a girl who—if you once bind her to you by love and kindness——’ The Colonel’s own voice quivered a little. He was himself touched by that thought.
‘Don’t speak nonsense, Henry—we know nothing about the girl, neither you nor I. The thing in her favour is, that all those Scotch friends of yours thought very well of her: but then the Scotch stick to each other so——’ She has a spirit—and a temper too, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘No, my dear, it was only a flash, because she thought—because she was taken by surprise.’
‘I think none the worse of her for having a little temper; I have one myself,’ said Mrs. Hayward with candour. ‘People like that are far safer than the sweet yielding ones who show nothing. And another thing—we shall have to account for her. I don’t know if you have thought of that.’
‘Account for her?’
‘Yes, to be sure. People will be calling—and they will wonder how it was they never heard of your daughter before. One of the hardest things in life is, that whenever you are in any society you must explain. That was one advantage of being in none.’
‘I never liked it, Elizabeth. I always thought you were too particular—as the event has proved, my dear, as the event has proved!’
Mrs. Hayward withdrew a little from him and his congratulations. Now that her position was beyond question, she was unwilling in her impatient soul that any reference should be made to the doubt which had shadowed her life before. That was all over. She would have had it forgotten for ever, and in her heart resented his recollection of it. She resumed the previous subject without taking any notice of this.
‘Fortunately, we don’t know the people here so well that we need go into it from the beginning and tell everything. I have been thinking it over, and this is what I shall say—I shall say, Your daughter has been brought up by some old relations in Scotland, but that we both felt it was time she should come home. If they say, “O! we did not know Colonel Hayward had any family,” I shall answer, “Did I never tell you?” as if it had been quite an accidental oversight. Now don’t go and contradict me, Henry, and say more than there is any occasion for. Let us both be in one tale.’
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘to think that you should have settled all that while I was thinking about nothing; but why should we be in a tale at all? Why shouldn’t I just say simply——’
‘It is such a simple story, isn’t it?’ she cried, ‘that you should have had a child—an only child, as you said in Bellendean——’
There was a tone of exasperation in this which made Colonel Hayward look up. He said, ‘But it was quite true, Elizabeth. Providence has not thought meet to give us——’
‘As if I did not know that!’ cried the woman whom Providence—that synonym of all that goes against the wishes of humanity—had not permitted to be a mother. ‘But,’ she added quickly, taking up the thread again, ‘you will see, if you think of it, that we can’t go into all that story. There would be so much to explain. And besides, it’s nobody’s business.’
‘Then why say anything at all, my dear?’ the Colonel said.
‘Why know anybody at all, you mean? As if we could avoid explaining a thing which is a very strange thing, however you take it! Unless you have anything better to suggest, that is what I shall say. Brought up by some old relations in Scotland—you can say her mother’s relations if you please; but that we felt it was not right to leave her there any longer, now we are quite settled and she is grown up. Don’t contradict me just when I am in the middle of my story, Henry. Back me up about the relations—unless you have anything better to suggest.’
Colonel Hayward, however, had nothing to suggest, though he was much embarrassed by having a story to tell. ‘I’ll forget what it is you want me to say—or I’ll go too far—or I’ll—make a muddle of it one way or other,’ he said. ‘I shall feel as if there was something wrong about it, Elizabeth: and there is nothing wrong—nothing, nothing! all the time.’
‘Go to bed,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘you are too tired to begin to think at this hour. You know the railway always upsets you. Go to bed, my dear—go to bed.’
‘Well, perhaps it will be the best thing,’ the Colonel said.
They both got up next morning with one pleasant thought in their minds, that of dazzling Joyce. It took away the line even from Mrs. Hayward’s brow. It was pleasant to anticipate the astonishment, the admiration, the deep impression which all these unaccustomed splendours would make. Poor girl! it would be almost too much for her; and they both wondered what she would say—whether she would break down altogether in amazement and rapture—whether it would be by words or tears that she would show her sense of this wonderful change in her life.
Alas! Joyce had awoke with a pang of disappointment almost as keen as that which seized her when she was first told that Colonel Hayward was her father. She woke in a pretty room all dainty and fresh, with pretty paper, pretty furniture, everything that was most suitable and becoming for the character and dimensions of the place; and she hurried to the window and looked out eagerly upon the pretty English lawn so trim and well cared for, the trees that formed two long lines down to the river, shutting it out from other enclosures on either side, the brilliant flower-beds near the house, the clustering climbers that surrounded her window. And the cottage girl felt her high-vaulting thoughts go down, down, with a disappointment which made her giddy. Was ever anything so foolish, so wicked, so thankless? From the little garret in the cottage to this room filled with convenient and pretty things, of some of which she did not even understand the use—from the village street of Bellendean, seen through the open door or greenish bad glass of the cottage windows, to this warm luxurious landscape, and the silver Thames, and the noble trees! And yet Joyce was disappointed beyond what words could say.
She had no knowledge of this limited comfortable luxurious littleness; all that she knew was the cottage life—and Bellendean. There were, to be sure, the farmers’ houses, and the manse; but neither of these types resembled this, nor was either consistent with the image of Colonel Hayward, the Captain’s colonel, the ‘distinguished soldier’ with whose name Joyce had begun to flatter herself everybody was acquainted. She stood half dressed and gazed out upon the long but confined stretch of lawn, and the low gable which was within sight from the window, with dismay. A chill struck to her heart. She thought of Bellendean, not half so daintily cared for as this little demesne, with its groups of great trees, its wide stretches of park, its careless size and greatness. Poor Joyce! had she been the minister’s daughter at the manse, she might have been dazzled and delighted, as was expected from her. But she understood nothing of this. She knew the poor and their ways, and she knew the great people—the great houses and big parks, the cottages with a but and a ben and a little kailyard. The one was all-familiar to her—the other was her ideal, the natural alternative of poverty: but this she knew nothing about—nothing at all.
She did not understand it. The toil and care which made that lawn like velvet, perfect, without a weed, elastic, springing under the foot, soft as moss, and green as constant waterings and mowings could make it, was totally lost upon Joyce. She saw the two lines of trees and flowering shrubs, elaborately masking all more arbitrary lines of limitation on each side, shutting it off—and the sight of those green bonds made her heart turn back upon herself. Her father had recovered in her mind the greatness necessary for her ideal: he was a distinguished soldier—what could be better? He was finer in his fame (she said to herself) than if he had been a prince or a duke. But his house! She retired from her window and covered her face with her hands, and went back into the secret citadel of herself with a dismayed heart. She had never calculated upon this. To be just one among a crowd, to be nobody in particular, to have suffered this convulsion in her life and rending asunder of her being, for nothing—to be nobody. And all the time these two good people were forestalling each other in their anticipations, making pictures to themselves of Joyce’s transport and delight!
How she got through the ordeal will be best seen in the long letters which she wrote that evening to her old home.
‘My dearest old Granny, my own real true Mother—I wonder how you are, and how the day has passed, and how grandfather is, and even the cat, and everything at home. Oh what a thing it is to go away from your home, to be taken from the true place you belong to! You will never know how I felt when it all melted away into the sky, and Bellendean was a thing I could see no more. Oh my bonnie little Bellendean, where I’ve lived all my life, and the old ash-tree, and the rose-bushes, and my garret-window where I could see the Firth, and our kindly table where we ate our porridge and where I could see you! O Granny, my own Granny, that’s all gone away into the skies, and the place that has known me knows me no more: and here I am in a strange place, and I cannot tell whether I’m Joyce still, or if I’m like the woman in the old song, “and this is no’ me.”
‘Dear Granny, the journey was well enough: it was the best of all. I got a paper full of pictures (the Graphic, you know it), and they just talked their own talks, and did not ask me much: and then the country span along past the carriage-window, towns and castles, and rivers, and fields of corn, and all the people going about their business and knowing nothing at all of a poor lassie carried quick, quick away from her home. I pictured to myself that I might be going away for a governess to make some money for my grandfather and you—but that would not have been so bad, for I would have gone back again when I got the money: and then I tried to think I might be going to take care of somebody, perhaps a brother I might have had that was ill, and that you would be anxious at home—very anxious—but not like the present: for he would have begun to get better as soon as I was there to nurse him, and every day the time would have come nearer for taking him home. And I tried a great many other things, but none was bad enough—till I just came back to the truth, that here I was flying far away to a new life and a new name, and to try and be content and live with new people that I never saw, and leave all my own behind. Oh, Granny, I am ungrateful to say this, for they’re very good to me, and my father is kind and sweet and a real true gentleman: and would be that, as grandfather is, if he were a ploughman like grandfather: and what could you say more if you were Shakespeare’s self and had all the words in the world at your command?
‘We stopped in London, but I could not see at all what like it was, except just hundreds of railway lines all running into each other, and trains running this way and that way as if they were mad—but never any harm seemed to be done, so far as I could see: and then we took another train, and, after a little while, came here. To tell you about it is very difficult, for it is so different from anything that ever was before. Do you remember, Granny, the place where Argyle took Jeanie Deans after she had spoken to the Queen? where she said it would be fine feeding for the cows, and he just laughed—for it was the finest view and the most beautiful landscape, with the Thames running between green banks and big beautiful trees, and boats upon the river, and the woods all like billows of green leaves upon the brae? You will cry out when I tell you that this is here, and that the house is on that very brae, and that I’m looking out over the river, and see it running into the mist and the distance, going away north—or rather coming down from the north—where my heart can follow, but farther, farther away. And it is a very beautiful landscape: you never saw anything to compare to it; but oh, Granny, I never knew so well before what Sir Walter is and how he knew the hearts of men, for I’m always thinking what Jeanie said, “I like just as well to look at the craigs o’ Arthur Seat, and the sea coming in ayont them.” For me, I think of Bellendean and the Firth, and the hills drawing close round Queen Margaret’s Hope; but chiefly because you are there, Granny, and all I care for most.
‘I will tell you one thing: my father’s house is not, as we were fond to think, like Bellendean. The houses here are not great houses like that. I think they wonder I am not an enthusiast, as Mrs. Bellendean always said I was, for the things they have here. All the policy,[A] and everything in the house, is taken care of—as you used to take care of me. I can’t think of any other image. They are always at them. Mrs. Hayward puts on the things upon the chairs and the tables with her own hands. The things I mean are pieces of beautiful silk, sometimes woven in flowers like Mrs. Bellendean’s grandest gown, sometimes all worked with the needle as they do in India, fine, fine. I would like to copy some of them: but what would be the use? for they have them all from India itself, and what I did would be but an imitation. I am afraid to sit down upon the chairs for fear there should be some dust upon my gown, and I think I ought to take off my shoes before I go upon the carpet. You would like to go round and round as if you were in a collection, and look at everything. It will sometimes be ivory carving, and sometimes china that is very old and precious, and sometimes embroidery work, and sometimes silk with gold and silver woven in. And what you will laugh at, Granny, Mrs. Hayward has plates hung up instead of pictures—china plates like what you eat your dinner from, only painted in beautiful colours—and an ashet[B] she has which is blue, and very like what we have at home. All these things are very pretty—very pretty: but not to me like a room to live in. Of the three—this house, and Bellendean, and our own little housie at home—I would rather, of course, have Bellendean, I will not deny it, Granny; but next I would rather have our own little place, with my table at the back window, and you aye moving about whatever there was to do. They are more natural; but I try to look delighted with everything, for to Mrs. Hayward it is the apple of her eye.
‘She has never had any children.
‘My father is just as fond of his policy and his gardens—(but it’s too little for a policy, and it’s more than a garden). The gardeners are never done. They are mowing, or they are watering, or they are sweeping, or they are weeding, all the long day. And it’s all very bonnie—very bonnie—grass that is like velvet, and rose-bushes not like our roses at home, but upon a long stalk, what they call standards, and trees and flowers of kinds that I cannot name. I will find out about them and I will tell you after. But oh, Granny, the grand trees are like a hedge to a field; they are separating us from the garden next door. It is very, very strange—you could not think how strange—to be in a fine place that is not a place at all, but just a house with houses next door—not like Bellendean, oh, not like Bellendean—and not like any kind of dwelling I have seen, so pretty and so well kept, and yet neither one thing nor another, not poor like us—oh, far from that!—and yet not great. I am praising it all, and saying everything I can think—and indeed it’s very pretty, far finer than anything I ever saw: but I think she sees that I am not doing it from my heart. I wish I could; but oh, Granny dear, how can I think so much of any place that takes me away from my real home?
‘My dear, dear love to my grandfather, and tell him I never forget his bowed head going through the corn, as I saw him last when he did not see me. To think his good grey head should be bowed because of Joyce, that never got anything but good from him and you, all her life! Tell me what they are all saying, and who is to get the school, and if the minister was angry. What a good thing it was the vacation, and all the bairns away! You must not be unhappy about me, Granny, for I will do my best, and you can’t be very miserable when you do that; and perhaps I will get used to it in time.
‘Good night, and good night, and God be with us all, if not joy, as the song says.—Always your own and grandfather’s
‘JOYCE.’
She wrote at the same time her first letter to Halliday, lingering with the pen in her hand as if unwilling to begin. She was a little excited by what she had just written, her outpouring of her heart to her foster-mother. And this was different. But at last she made the plunge. She dried her eyes, and gave herself a little shake together, as if to dismiss the lingering emotion, and began, ‘Dear Andrew’; but then came to another pause. What was in Joyce’s thoughts? There was a spot of ink on the page, an innocent little blot. She removed the sheet hastily from the other paper, and thrust it below the leaves of her blotting-book. Then she took a steel pen, instead of the quill with which she had been hurrying along the other sheets—a good hard, unemotional piece of iron, which might make the clean and exact writing which the schoolmaster loved—and began again: and this time a little demure mischief was in Joyce’s eyes:—
‘DEAR ANDREW—We arrived here last night, tired but not worn out, and came home at once to my father’s house. The journey was very interesting—to see so many places I had heard of, even if they only flew past the carriage-windows. Of course it was the train that flew, and not Durham and Newcastle and all the rest. You have been to London yourself, so you will not require me to tell you all I saw, and I was thinking a great deal on what I left behind, so that I did not see them with an easy heart, so as to get the good of them, as you would do.
‘I wonder if you have ever seen Richmond—it is a beautiful place: the Thames a quiet river, not like any I know; but I have seen so little. It is like a picture more than a river, and the trees all in waves of green, one line above another, rich and quiet, with no wind to blow them about. I thought upon the poem, “As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean:” though there is neither ship nor ocean, but only the stream that scarcely seems to flow, and the little boats that scarcely seem to move—everything so warm and so still. My father’s house is called Rosebank, as you will see by the printing on the paper. It is rather a foolish name, but it was the name of the house before they came here. It is the most wonderful place I ever saw, so carefully kept and beautifully furnished. I never understood before what all the novels say now about furniture and the pretty things scattered about. There is a quantity of things in the drawing-room which I should have taken the children to an exhibition to see, and I should have had to read up a great deal to explain everything to them. But no one thinks of explaining: they are just lying about, and no one pays any attention to them here. My father takes a great interest in the gardens and the grounds, which are beautiful. And the best thing of all is the view of all the bits of the Thames, and the beautiful woods.
‘It is a great change, and it makes one feel very unsteady at first, and I scarcely realise what the life will be, but I must trust that everything will turn out well: and my father and Mrs. Hayward are very kind. I am to have a sitting-room to myself to do what I like in, and I am to be taken about to see everything. You will not expect me to tell you much more at present, for I don’t know much more, it being only the first day; but I thought you would like to hear at once. It is a great change. I wonder sometimes if I may not perhaps wake up to-morrow and find I am at home again and it is all a dream.
‘I hope you will go and see Granny, when you can, and cheer them a little. Grandfather is glad of a crack, you know. They will be lonely at first, being always used to me. I will be very thankful to you, dear Andrew, if you will see them when you can, and be very kind—but that, I am sure, you will be. When I think of them sitting alone, and nobody to come in and make them smile, it just breaks my heart.—Yours affectionately,
‘JOYCE HAYWARD.’
Joyce Hayward—it was the first time she had signed her name. Her eyes were too full thinking of the old people to see how it looked, but when that lump had melted a little in her throat, and she had dried her eyes, turning hastily aside that no drop might fall upon the fair page and blot the nice and careful writing, Joyce looked at it, and again there came upon her face a faint little smile. Joyce Hayward—it did not look amiss. And it was a beautifully written letter, not a t but was crossed, not an i but was dotted. She had resisted all temptations to abridge the ‘affectionately.’ There it stood, fully written out in all its long syllables. That would please Andrew. When she had put up her letters, she rose from her seat and looked out once more, softly pushing aside the carefully drawn curtains, upon the landscape sleeping in the soft summer haze of starlight and night. All so still—no whisper of the sea near, no thrill of the north wind—a serene motionless stretch of lawn and river and shadowy trees. It was a lovely scene, but it saddened Joyce, who felt the soft dusk fill her soul and fold over all her life. And thus ended her first day in her father’s house.