CHAPTER XXXI
‘WELL?’ said Mrs. Hayward, somewhat sharply, as she followed her husband upstairs.
‘Well, my dear! everything is quite right and sweet and true about her, as I always thought it was.’
‘I daresay. That is all very charming, Henry, and I am delighted that you are so much pleased. But what about Captain Bellendean?’
‘Oh!—about Captain Bellendean,’ said the Colonel, rubbing his hands with an attempt to look quite at his ease and comfortable. Then he added still cheerfully, but with a sinking of his heart, ‘Do you know, I don’t think there was anything quite definitely said between us about Norman Bellendean.’
‘Oh, there was nothing definitely said!’
‘Not by name, you know,’ said Colonel Hayward, with a propitiatory smile, still softly rubbing his hands.
‘And what did you talk of definitely, may I ask? You’ve been a long time out. I suppose something came of it,’ said Mrs. Hayward more sharply than ever.
‘Oh yes, certainly,’ said the Colonel, very conciliatory. ‘Joyce desired nothing better than to give me her full confidence, Elizabeth. She has a heart of gold, my dear. She said at once that she knew I would never misunderstand her—that I would always help her; and nothing could be more true. I think I may say we understand each other perfectly now.’
Elizabeth’s keen eye saw through all this confidence and plausible certainty. ‘What did she tell you then—about last night?’ she said.
‘About last night? Well, my dear, I told you we did not go into things very definitely—we did not put all the dots on the i’s. It was rather what you might call—general. No names, you know,’ he repeated, looking at her with a still more ingratiating smile.
‘No names, I know! In short, Henry, you are no wiser than when you went out,’ Mrs. Hayward said, with an exasperation that was not unnatural. ‘I knew how it would be,’ she added. ‘She has just thrown dust in your eyes, and made you believe whatever she pleased. I never expected anything else, for my part.’
‘Indeed, my dear, you are quite mistaken. She said to me in the most trusting way that she had the fullest confidence—— My dear Elizabeth, I don’t think you do justice to Joyce.’
‘Oh, justice!’ she cried: perhaps she did well to be angry. ‘I must trust, then, to myself,’ she said, ’as I generally have to do.’
‘But Elizabeth—Elizabeth!’
‘Oh, don’t bother me, please!’ the angry woman said.
Joyce went up stairs to take off her hat, and as she did so her eyes fell upon certain little closed cases upon her table. One of them was that photograph of old Janet Matheson in her big shawl and black satin bonnet, with Peter, a wide laugh of self-ridicule yet pleasure on his face, looking over her shoulder. It was from no scorn of those poor old people that the little case was closed. Mrs. Hayward’s maid had made some silly remark about ‘an old washerwoman,’ and Joyce, almost with tears of anger, had shut it from all foolish eyes. She took it up and opened it now, and kissed it with quivering lips—wondering would granny understand her? or would she be so overjoyed, so uplifted, by the thought of the Captain, that everything else would be dim to her. Joyce put down the little homely picture, but in so doing touched another, which lay closed, too, beside it. She did not open that case—she recoiled with a low cry. The outside was enough—it filled her with a sudden repugnance, a kind of horror. She moved even from the side of the table where it was. She thought she saw him standing there looking at her, in the attitude in which he had stood for his portrait; and she remembered, nay, saw with a clearness beyond that of mere vision, his look as he had presented her with this memorial of himself. ‘It is said to be very like,’ he had said; ‘I am no judge.’ She remembered the ineffable little tone in which he had said it—a tone which even then filled her with something between ridicule and shame.
And now—oh, how could Joyce think of it! how could she look back upon that time! Now it was odious to her to recall him at all, to see him spring up and put himself into his attitude—so gentlemanly, as his mother said. Joyce grew crimson, a scorching flush came all over her. She shrank away from the wretched little photograph as if it had been a serpent, and could sting her. She had never liked it. It had always seemed an uncomfortable revelation, fixing him there in black and white, much worse even than he was: even! Joyce hid her face in her hands, in an agony of self-horror and shame. Oh, how mean, dishonourable, vulgar, she was! He had been better than all the lads about, who would have thrust their awkward love upon her in the old days. An educated man, able to talk about poetry and beautiful things. She had been honoured by his regard—it had been a great thing for her to be engaged to such a man—and now! There was nothing, nothing which could excuse the baseness of her desertion of him. What could she say for herself? There was only one thing she could say, and that was what no one would understand. The one thing was, that she had not known what love was, and now love had come. Ah! if it had been love for some one poorer, less desirable than Andrew, her plea might have been believed. But love for Norman Bellendean—love that would put her in the place which was as good as a queen’s to all the country-side—love by which she would better herself beyond conception.
Joyce felt a chill come to her heart after that hot rush of shame—how was she to say it, how accept it even in her own heart? Even granny would be ashamed—granny who had prophesied that he would be the first to be cast off—but without thinking that it would be Joyce—Joyce herself, not any proud father—who would cast off the poor schoolmaster. Joyce’s honest peasant breeding, with its contempt for the parvenu, gave her a keener horror and shame than would have been possible, perhaps, to any other class. She felt humiliated to the very dust, angry with herself, disgusted at her own treachery. What should she do?—how represent it to those keen cottage critics, who would look at her behaviour with such sharp eyes? To give up Andrew Halliday for the Captain,—the meanest woman might do that—the one that was most ignoble. And who was to know, who was to understand, that it was true love, the first love she had ever known, and not pride or advantage that, before she knew it, had snatched Joyce’s heart away?
She was not sufficiently composed to allow herself to think that she had never shown to her rustic suitor any more preference than was natural to the fact that he was more congenial to her than the ploughman. She had accepted sedately his attentions. She had consented vaguely to that half proprietorship which he had claimed in her; but there had been little wooing between them, and Joyce had put aside all those demonstrations of affection which Andrew had attempted. But she said to herself none of these things. She even did not say that it was a mistake, for which in her youthfulness and ignorance she was scarcely to blame. She took it very seriously, as a sin which she had committed, but meaning no harm, meaning no harm, as she repeated to herself, with tears in her eyes. For the other had come upon her like a flood, like a fire, like some natural accident of which there was no warning. All had been tranquillity in her heart one moment—and in the next she knew that she was a traitor, forsworn. There had been no warning. She had not known of any danger—but in a moment she had discovered that she was a false woman, false and forsworn.
She went down to the luncheon-table after a long interval—long enough to make her late for that meal, which was a fault Mrs. Hayward did not approve. But Joyce had to bathe her hot eyes which could not shed any tears, but burnt in their sockets like fiery coals, she thought, and then to wait till the glaze and flush produced by the bathing had worn off. It had not altogether worn off when she came downstairs, but remained in a suspicious glow, so that she seemed to have been crying, though she had not been able to afford herself that relief. The Colonel cried, ‘Why, Joyce!’ when she appeared, and was about to make some further remark, when a look from his wife checked him. This looked like mercy on Mrs. Hayward’s part, but perhaps it was only in order to inflict a more telling blow.
For, after some time when all was quiet, and Joyce, taking refuge in the tranquillity, had begun to breathe more freely, Mrs. Hayward all at once introduced a subject of which as yet there had been no discussion. ‘By the way,’ she said, suddenly and lightly, ‘where are we going this autumn? It is nearly August, and we have not yet settled that.’
The Colonel answered, that for his part he was always very well disposed to stay at home; and that he thought, as there had been a great deal of excitement that year——
‘No, I don’t feel disposed to give up my holiday,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘Where shall we go? I know what you mean, Henry. You mean to beguile us into staying quietly here, and then when the Twelfth comes you will find some irresistible business that calls you away—to Scotland or somewhere. And you do not care what we are to do in the meantime, Joyce and me.’
The Colonel protested very warmly that this was not what he meant. ‘Indeed it is very seldom I get an invitation for the Twelfth, not once in half a dozen years; and as for leaving you behind——’
‘We will not be left behind,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with that alarming gaiety. ‘No. I’ll tell you what we will do to suit all parties. You shall go to Scotland for the Twelfth, and Joyce and I will do what I know her heart is set upon. We will go to see her old people in her old home. That will please you, Joyce, I know?’
This terrible suggestion was to Joyce as if a gun had suddenly been fired at her ear. She was entirely unprepared for anything of the kind, and she started so that the very table shook.
‘To go to—my old home?’
‘Yes, my dear. It would give the old people a great pleasure. We promised, you know, to bring you back.’
It was a cruel experiment to try. Joyce flushed and paled again with an agitation beyond control. ‘It is very kind,’ she faltered, ‘to think of—but they would not look for me now.’
‘Why not now? They don’t go away on a round of visits in autumn, I presume.’
‘My dear!’ said the Colonel, in a shocked admonitory voice.
‘Well, Henry! I mean no harm; but one time is the same as another to them, I should suppose. And we all know how fond they are of Joyce, and she of them. What more natural than that she should go to see them when the chance occurs?’
It was natural. There was nothing to reply. If all was true that Joyce had professed of love and reverence for these old people, what could be thought of her refusal, her reluctance to go and see them? She sat there like a frightened wild creature driven into a corner, and not knowing how to escape, or what to do, looking at them with scared eyes.
‘My dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, that all looks reasonable enough, and if Joyce wished it—but she must know best when it would be convenient to them. It might not be convenient at this time of the year, for anything we know.’
‘It would be harvest,’ said Joyce, thankful for the suggestion; ‘they would be busy, busy: another time it would be better. Oh,’ she cried suddenly, in an outburst of despair, ‘how can I go home?’
‘Joyce!’
‘Oh, I’m unnatural! I’m not fit to live! How am I to go home!’ cried the girl, who, less than three months ago, had left old Peter and Janet with, as she thought, a breaking heart. The two calm people at either end of the table put down their knives and forks to look at her—the Colonel with great sympathy, yet a certain pleasure; Mrs. Hayward with suppressed scorn.
‘It is not so very long since you were sighing for it, Joyce,’ she said; ‘but a girl at your age may be allowed to change her mind.’
‘And, my dear,’ said her father, ‘I am very joyful to think that your own real home is more to you than any other; for that’s how it ought to be.’
Joyce looked at them both with the troubled, dumb stare of helpless panic and stupefied cruel terror which comes to a wild thing in a snare. Her cry had been uttered and was over. She had no more to say; but she had not sufficient command of herself to perceive that she should not have uttered that cry, or should seek to put some gloss upon it, now that it was beyond recall.
‘And now you see that Joyce does not wish it, my dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, ‘of course you will never press that. It was only because we thought it would please you, Joyce; but you may be sure she is right, Elizabeth. It would be too soon—too soon.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, if she thinks so,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘Of course I don’t mean to press it. I thought it would delight Joyce; but it appears I have made a mistake. Let us think of something else, Henry. Let us go abroad.’
‘You would like that, my dear child?’ her father said. He was greatly touched by this clinging to himself, as he thought it—this preference of her new home to the old. To him there was neither variableness, nor the desertion of old ties, nor anything in it which impaired the character of his child, but only a preference for himself, a desire to be with him and near him, her father, upon whom she had made so tender a claim,—who, she had said, would be like God. Naturally she would rather be with him than with any one. He put out his hand and stroked hers caressingly. ‘You would like that? It would be a complete change. We might go to Switzerland, or even to the Italian lakes. You are very fond of Como, Elizabeth. Come now, say you would like that.’
Their eyes were upon her, and how were they to know the tempest of feeling that was in Joyce’s mind? She seemed to see the two old figures rise reproachful, their faces looking at her across the table—oh, so deeply wounded, with long looks of inquiry. Was it possible that already—already her heart had turned from them? And Janet’s words came surging back in the tempest of Joyce’s thoughts, how she would mean no harm, yet be parted from them, and find out all the differences. So soon, so soon! Janet’s eyes seemed to look at her with deep and grieved reproach; but, on the other hand, who were these two who shut out Janet’s face from her? Andrew in the attitude of the photograph, complacent, self-assertive, and Norman Bellendean, stooping, looking down upon her. Oh no, no, no! not home where these two were—not home, not home!
‘I must say I am surprised, Joyce. Still, if that is what you feel, it is not for me to press the visit upon you. And so far as I am concerned, I like home much the best. I am not very fond of Scotland. It’s cold, and I hate cold. Of course Joyce would like Como—every girl would like it—so long,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with meaning, ’as there was not absolutely any other place which they liked best.’
This arrow fell harmlessly upon Joyce, who had fallen into such a storm of troubled thoughts that missiles from without failed to affect her. Of all places in the world there was but one only which was impossible to her, the beloved home where the man whom she loved was in the high place, and the man who loved her was in the lowly. These two antagonistic figures blurred out the two others—the old pair to whom she owed everything, to whom her heart went out with an aching and longing even while she thus abandoned them; and dear Bellendean, of which she thought with such horror and panic, the place she loved best in the world,—the only place in the world to which she dared not, must not go.
‘There is no engagement,’ said Mrs. Hayward to her husband when Joyce had escaped to her room.
‘No engagement?’ he repeated, with a surprised question.
‘There has been no explanation. He has said nothing to her. And I think, after dangling after her for nearly three months, that he is not treating her well. If he comes back, Henry, I have told you what is your duty. You must ask him what his intentions are.’
‘I would rather shoot him, or myself. You don’t know what you are saying, Elizabeth,’ the Colonel cried.
‘Shooting him, or yourself, would not advance matters at all,’ his wife said.