CHAPTER XLIV
THE Canon had brought Joyce home. He had tucked her hand under his arm, and led her through the dark as carefully as her father would have done, talking much, but getting very little response. He looked like a mountain moving along in the gloom, or like a big ship with a slim little yacht in tow; and other wayfarers could hear his voice coming out in the mist, with sometimes a faint note of reply. The Canon was not talking to her of moral difficulties or cases of conscience, but of a party which was to take place at the rectory, and at which he wished her to look her best. ‘If you will do me a favour,’ he said, ‘you will put those questions all away, and put on the pretty looks with which you captivated me, Joyce. Eh? don’t you remember? it’s not so long ago; how you went and put yourself on the other side, and waved your flag in my face, you little—— But it was all in vain, my dear, for we fell in love with each other just the same.’
A smile came upon her face as she looked up at him through the fog and the faint lamplight that streamed in distinct rays across that solid atmosphere. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You can’t deny it,’ said the Canon; ‘for my part, it was at first sight. Well, Joyce, to please me, and your father—though I don’t know that he has the same right—you will go back to that moment, and look your best. I want you to look very nice indeed—so does my wife. We mustn’t give the adversary occasion to blaspheme.’
‘But I have no adversary,’ said Joyce, ‘unless it were——’
‘Eh? I don’t doubt you have somewhere, as all of us have, somebody you’ve been too good to. And keep away from that little parson woman, Joyce. I’m a parson myself, you will say; but there are parsons and parsons. Is that some one leaving your house? and there is your father standing out in the night air without a hat; the most foolish thing he could do. You catch cold without any warning, and then there’s no getting rid of it. Hey, Hayward! don’t shut the door upon us, please; I’ve brought you home your little girl.’
The Colonel shouted, ‘Why, Jenkinson, is it you?’—as we have seen—and stood in the doorway to greet his visitor. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘come in out of the fog. If you had been coming in the opposite direction you’d have run into Bellendean. He has not been five minutes gone.’
‘I only wish we had run into him,’ said the Canon in his rolling bass; ‘it might have cleared up some things.’
‘What do you mean, Canon? He’s a nice fellow, but not particularly clever. Come in, and don’t stand out in the fog.’
‘Go in yourself, and don’t catch cold. I’ve done my duty now; I’ve brought you home, Joyce. Take care of her, Hayward,’ said the Canon, as he strode away, marching like a regiment, with his long coat swinging, and the black silk waistcoat charging the heavy air. Colonel Hayward withdrew within the shelter of the door, putting up his hand to his head, which was his vulnerable point.
‘Take care of her!’ he said; ‘my own girl! I should think I would take care of her. These parsons take a great deal upon them. They think they always know better than other people though they have neither chick nor child.’ The Colonel repeated these words to himself with a little chuckle, as he went back to his library to finish something he had been reading in the paper before dinner. The Canon looked very big and imposing, and took a great deal of authority upon himself, but he was wholly without experience in the point upon which he presumed to lecture his old friend. Take care of her—his own little girl! a pretty thing for a man to say who had never succeeded in securing anything of the kind for himself.
Joyce went into the drawing-room with her heart beating, sick and faint. She seemed to feel in the air that he had been there. There was something of him still about the room—the mark of his elbow on a cushion, the sensation of his breath. He had come after all. She wanted to stand where he had stood, to breathe the same air, and then—and then—to fly where she could never see him—where it should be impossible to be tempted to his destruction. No, no; and to break Greta’s heart. Her own throbbed quick but low. There had been a momentary spring, but only for a moment. No, no, not for his harm, and the breaking of Greta’s heart. His coming seemed to have precipitated and brought near what was so far off a little while ago. She was on the edge of the precipice now—and there was something in the sense of the giddy vacancy before her that seemed to sweep and suck her towards the edge. She went in—and found Mrs. Hayward standing waiting for her in the middle of the room.
‘Where have you been, Joyce? where have you been?—to-day of all days! Captain Bellendean has been here——’
She said, ‘Yes, I heard,’ almost under her breath.
‘And why were you not here to meet him? I don’t suppose it was your fault. It could not be your fault. But why, why were you not here? It is like a bad fate.’
‘It would be rather a providence,’ said Joyce, in her subdued voice—‘for it’s better; oh, it’s better not. I am—glad—I wasn’t here.’
Mrs. Hayward grasped her hand with an impatient exasperation. ‘Glad—you weren’t here—glad to have driven him almost frantic—and me too!’
Joyce looked at her step-mother, wondering. She was so forlorn that any sympathetic tone, even though it was angry, caught her ear. And she felt the circumstances to be so desperate that she was no longer afraid. ‘You?—are you caring—anyway?’
‘Am I caring! You mean, do I care? Yes, I care. Joyce!’ cried Mrs. Hayward, gripping her hands tightly, then losing them with a little impatient gesture, as if she had flung them away, ‘you are a strange girl—you have never tried to make me love you. And I don’t know that I do. It was a great change to me, that had been everything to my husband, to have you a stranger brought in: and you never tried to make me care——’
‘I was bewildered,’ the girl said. ‘I was—like a creature astray——’
‘Very likely. I am not asking the cause; I am only telling you. But now there’s something got up that we must stand against. They’ve got to know about that man—and that you were only—a poor girl before. They are making a stand against you.’
Joyce stood up against the glow of the fire listening, yet only half roused. She was taller than Mrs. Hayward, and the energetic, almost impassioned little woman looked up at her pale face, and thought it like a face in a dream. It was abstracted, the eyes veiled, as if they were looking inward. And neither to have thus lost her lover’s visit, nor to be threatened with a conspiracy against her, awakened her out of the mist of her own thoughts. Mrs. Hayward put her hand on Joyce’s arm with the quick impatience of her nature— ‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you have in your mind: but give your attention to what I am saying. Wake up! it is of the greatest importance, if not to yourself, to your father and to me——’
‘Yes,’ said Joyce, with a little start; ‘I am hearing every word you say, and minding. Oh, don’t think I’ve a cold heart. I am only just all astray—since ever I came. I was a stranger, as you say. And I might learn better—if there was time.’
‘There is plenty of time,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with a little moisture in her eyes. ‘Men never see it—but it was a great trial for you and me. Yes, yes, for both of us. I always saw that. But we must make a stand now, and do it together. They say you’re not your father’s daughter, but a foundling—and they say you’ve got a man coming after you that made a disturbance—a low man. Don’t contradict me or put my temper up! He was not a low man, but quite respectable, I know that—but all the same a man to be put a stop to. Joyce! don’t you understand what a vexation it is that you were not here! He came with his heart in his mouth to lay everything at your feet. And the triumph it would have been for us all to have faced them, with you engaged to Norman Bellendean!’
A colour like the flash of a light passed over Joyce’s face. Her eyes filled suddenly with large hot tears. She shook her head, with a trembling going over her like the sudden shiver of ague. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no—never that; oh, never that!’
‘Why never that? Don’t be a fool, Joyce, don’t be a fool. Though he’s an excellent match, there’s nobody near, nobody anywhere that would suit you so well. You understand each other. For goodness’ sake,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, exasperated and anxious, ‘don’t spoil your life with any romantic nonsense! Why, even his people like you and seek you. Mrs. Bellendean——’
‘I must tell you the truth,’ said Joyce, ‘for oh, I am in a great strait, and I know not what to do. Mrs. Bellendean would rather I were dead than that. There is one he should marry that would break her heart—and there is one I should marry: that I will not do; but I will marry nobody nor think of anything that could hurt her—or him. No, not for all the world.’
Mrs. Hayward clapped her hands together in the wild impatience and rage which could not find utterance in mere words. ‘Oh, that was it!’ she cried. ‘I thought there was something treacherous in it. I thought she did not come for nothing, that woman! I never liked her, for all her show of kindness. I never put any faith in her. And she came to take advantage of your simplicity, you poor thing—you poor innocent thing!’ Elizabeth’s temper was warm, but her heart no less. She caught Joyce suddenly in her arms, and gave her a quick kiss, which was like a soft little blow—and the girl felt that the cheek which touched hers was wet. But it was only a momentary touch, and Mrs. Hayward was half ashamed of her emotion. She gave an imperative grasp to Joyce’s arms as she let her go, and added with a little laugh, ‘But let us stand together, Joyce—you and me! and we’ll be too many for them. I don’t mind how strong they are—we’ll be too many for them yet—you and me!’
Colonel Hayward coming in at this moment, with his newspaper in his hand to read something aloud to his wife (who had seen it before breakfast), found them standing very close together, and heard the sound of his wife’s laugh, which sounded to him more like crying than laughing. And he knew that the sound meant a good deal of commotion in Elizabeth’s mind. He did not know what might have been going on; and while he was eager to interfere, his better angel kept him back by means of that prejudice against prying, which is a happy part of English training. Accordingly he did not come near, but pretended it was necessary to hold up his paper to the lamp. ‘My dear, I just wished to read you this little bit,’ he said, turning his shoulder to the pair. Mrs. Hayward could scarcely restrain the exclamation of impatience on her lips; but perhaps it was well that so exciting an interview should thus be brought to a simple and unconcerted end.
After this there followed two uneventful days—uneventful to the rest of the world; not quite so to Mrs. Hayward, who was employed in searching out all the ramifications of the social conspiracy against her husband and Joyce, with a warmth of defensive feeling and determination to support and vindicate what was her own side and her own belongings, which roused every amiable sentiment—and there were many—in her heart. She was kept in a subdued fever of expectation at the same time, looking almost every hour for the arrival of Norman Bellendean, who would not, she believed, keep to the invitation given him for Thursday, but might at any moment burst in upon them and set everything right. She did not believe that he would have the coolness to wait till that appointed time, and her devices for retaining Joyce within reach were manifold and sometimes very amusing, had there been any one with a mind free to observe the situation. Colonel Hayward, without having any reason given, was charged to be punctual in bringing her back from the morning walk at a certain hour—and Elizabeth herself took the direction of affairs in the afternoon, taking Joyce with her when she herself went out, and regulating a succession of returns which made it impossible that any visitor could have very long to wait. It must be allowed that this extreme care was harassing to Joyce, unaccustomed to so numerous a round of little engagements, and who hitherto had been free to follow her own devices and think her own thoughts. These thoughts, it was true, could be carried on anywhere, and were as possible in the drawing-room under her step-mother’s eyes as when alone; but they were confused and weakened by the sense of some one near—by the interruption of questions which she had to answer, and remarks to which she was supposed to pay attention.
The gathering web of purpose and meaning was thus confused into a sort of cobweb maze, like the threads of a spider twisted with everything they encountered; and Joyce felt herself thus held in suspense, still with that sweep and suction in the air which betrayed the precipice close by—but rather with the sensation of one who lay upon the edge bound and helpless, perhaps to be swept over by the first gale, but in herself quiescent, capable of no movement—than of the despairing agent of her own fate, by whose action alone the end could be accomplished. She lay there still, listening for the hurricane that must sweep her away—not taking, as she must do, that tremendous step for herself. But the closeness of it half stupefied, half paralysed her. The moment would come when she must wake, when the step would have to be taken; but what if in the meantime some celestial storm, some great heavenly chance impulse might burst in and carry her away? This happens sometimes—so that a man who intended to kill himself dies innocently in the meantime, and is saved all that trouble and pain. No one can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth. ‘Perhaps the world may end to-night,’ as the poet has said. But Joyce was not in hourly expectation like Mrs. Hayward. She accepted Thursday as the limit of her suspense. Before Thursday it must be done: but in the meantime, and for these two days, quiescence—something that, in the pause of despair, looked almost like peace.
This was not, however, undisturbed. There came a little note from Mrs. Bellendean with a final good-bye:—
‘Just my love to my dear Joyce before I go away. Wishing her every good, and very confident that she will never forget me, nor all that has passed between us for long years; and that I am always her affectionate friend
M. B.’
All that had passed between them—for long years! No, Joyce would not forget.
There was also a letter from Andrew, announcing, as if nothing particular had happened, his return home.
‘And though my visit was not all that could be desired, yet I am glad that I made it, for it lets us both see, my dear Joyce, what is before us, and forewarned is forearmed. Also, I am anxious to let you know that I made acquaintance with a very respectable lady, the wife of a minister, who was most kind, so kind, indeed, that it was a difficulty to accept her attentions without the power of making any return. But I thought it my duty, as she seemed to be a friend of yours, to speak freely to her, so that you might find a support in her, as one lady can with another, and a person to whom, being unfortunately not at ease at home in that respect, you could talk freely of me.’
It was a pity that nobody save Joyce saw this effusion of the schoolmaster’s genius. She was not capable of seeing the humour in it. It was so wonderful that her dreamy eyes opened wide with mingled consternation and astonishment. That he should speak so calmly of the tragic episode which had first opened to her the mystery of dreadful life which lay before her! That he should be so little capable of understanding what were the contradictions and the miserable limits of humanity! But she was too deep in that mystery to think of it. The two letters were found folded together afterwards.
And the evening and the morning made another day. It was Wednesday, the day of the party at the rectory, which had been turned into an opportunity for magnifying and exhibiting Joyce. The Jenkinsons and Mrs. Hayward had put their heads together for this object. That they thus acted together was due to Mrs. Hayward, who in the heat of her indignation and agitation had hurried to the rectory, on the morning after her enlightenment, to demand, not apologetically but passionately— ‘Have you heard what they are saying about our Joyce? Do you believe it?’ Do you dare to believe it? was what Elizabeth’s tone said. ‘She is a little hoity-toity,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson afterwards; ‘but you know, Canon, I have always said she was a good woman.’ The Canon, who did nothing but walk about the house overseeing (as he pretended) the preparations and making all the glass and the silver ring again, agreed in the judgment. ‘But I think it was I that always upheld Elizabeth,’ he said. Anyhow, whoever was in the right or wrong, these three people were agreed. If the rectory was of any weight in society, and Mrs. Jenkinson’s accent in pronouncing that If was a model of polished sarcasm, then there could be no further doubt as to the opinion of the place. Everybody was coming—indeed one person was coming of whom no one knew, no, not even the Canon, excepting Mrs. Jenkinson and Mrs. Hayward alone. ‘You could not ask him, I allow—but there can be no possible reason why I should not ask him. I will say I heard he was in town. I might have heard that from any one, from the St. Clairs themselves. No doubt they must know.’ The knowledge of this secret invitation made Mrs. Hayward feel guilty when she confronted her husband and Joyce, of whom she now spoke as ‘my daughter’ to all her friends. But neither of these innocent persons observed her look of guilt: the Colonel, because he knew nothing at all about it, neither the conspiracy to shame Joyce, nor that which had been formed for her vindication; and Joyce, partly for this same reason, partly because she was paralysed, lying on the edge of that precipice, waiting for the cyclone, and that everything outside passed over her like a dream.
Mrs. Hayward herself superintended Joyce’s dressing for this party. She came into the girl’s room carrying a small miniature in an old-fashioned gold mount, to which was attached a knot of ribbon. ‘I wish you to wear this,’ she said—‘your father sends it to you, Joyce. Look at the name upon the back, and you will see why I am going to pin it where it may be well seen. And if any one asks you who it is, say it is your mother.’
‘Is it my mother—was she like that?’ said Joyce, taking the miniature in her hand with a great tremor. It seemed to send some strange magnetism into her, tingling from the finger-points over her whole frame.
‘She must have been like that, for it is the image of you,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘people will think it is your own picture you are wearing—but if you like, Joyce, you can let them see the inscription on the back. It is exactly you—but I think there is something more deep and steadfast in your eyes,’ she said, looking at her earnestly. Mrs. Hayward was greatly stirred and excited. Perhaps it was this more than any warm impulse of feeling which made her give Joyce a sudden kiss after she had inspected her. She was pleased with her ‘daughter’s’ appearance. Joyce wore a dress of soft white Indian silk, made very simply, with little ornament. It suited her slim youthful figure, which wanted no elaborate drapings or loopings. The miniature with its bow of dark-blue ribbon was pinned on her breast. It was a curious ornament. The Joyce in the picture had her hair arranged in curls which fell upon her shoulders, and her dress was of the fashion of twenty-five years before—otherwise it was precisely like the Joyce who wore it now, only—and this thought pleased Mrs. Hayward, and gave a little outlet to feelings less admirable—there was something ‘more deep and steadfast’ in the eyes. Mrs. Hayward herself pinned the ribbon upon the girl’s breast. ‘I was always very sorry for her,’ she said in a low tone; ‘but she made great misery by disappearing like that. I hope, I believe, you have more stuff in you. Now, are you ready?’
The Colonel was standing in the hall waiting for his ladies, pleased and proud, and somehow more happy than usual in the conviction that at last Elizabeth had thoroughly ‘taken to’ Joyce. The thorn among his roses had been the absence of sympathy between those two. He said to himself, twinkling his eyes to get rid of a little moisture, that no mother could be more anxious about a girl’s appearance than was his wife about Joyce. She gave those little pats and pinches to her dress as they came downstairs which happy girls sometimes resent, but which come only from the mother’s hand. Now the crown of his happiness had come, for Elizabeth certainly at last had taken to Joyce. How could she have stood out against her, the Colonel thought, looking with pride at his child; and yet even as this proud thought passed through his mind, a little accompanying chill came with it. For she was pale, she was very quiet. There was little expectation of pleasure, of conquest, of admiration in her. Perhaps she had always been too grave and a little frightened in society, though with gleams of brightness. She was very quiet to-night.
Mrs. Hayward did not remark this. She was herself much excited, tremulous with feeling both belligerent and tender. Joyce had become the heroine of the most agitating romance—a romance in which she herself was too much involved to be calm. That guilty secret made her heart flutter. What if it might be thought to be her fault? What if Joyce should think her dignity compromised? She was so strange a girl, so little moved by ordinary motives. Mrs. Hayward took a little comfort from the fact that Joyce was not at all suspicious, and would never think of the possibility of a plot to bring her lover to her side—which partially reassured her; but still there was a flutter at her heart.
They were late of entering the rectory, and the rooms were full. Everybody was there. Mrs. Jenkinson received her friends rarely, but when she did so, invited all ‘the best people.’ It was a little difficult to make the entrance which Mrs. Hayward had intended, so as to strike all objectors dumb. Mrs. Jenkinson, however, at the door of the room took Joyce in her arms in the sight of everybody with an unusual demonstration of delight. She held her at arm’s-length for a moment and looked at her with admiring criticism. ‘You are looking very nice—very nice indeed, my dear!’ she said very audibly, as if she had been a niece at least. There is nothing like being a partisan. She had never perceived Joyce’s beauty before, and that curious dignity—which came of the girl’s shyness, and ignorance of social rules, and anxiety not to put her father to shame. ‘I don’t think there is any one here to compare with her,’ she said to the Colonel, with a conviction which was dogmatic, and at once made a different opinion heresy.
Mrs. Sitwell, very ill at ease, had been hanging about the door until the Haywards appeared. She made an instant effort to secure Joyce’s attention. ‘Oh Joyce, let me speak to you—I have a great deal to say to you! she cried, in a shrill whisper through the curious crowd. Mrs. Hayward confronted the parson’s wife with an impulse of war which tingled through and through her, and raised her stature and brightened into fierce splendour her always bright eyes. ‘Perhaps I will do as well as Joyce,’ she said grimly, facing the traitor. What happened in that corner afterwards, we dare not pause to tell.
In the meantime the Canon appeared, with his big round black silk waistcoat, like a battering-ram cleaving the press before him, and held out his arm, bent to receive hers, almost over the heads of the wondering ladies. ‘Come and take a turn with me, Joyce,’ he cried, his large mellow voice rolling like the pervasive and melodious bass it was, making a sort of background to all the soprano chatter. He, too, paused to look at her when he had led her through the line of the new arrivals. ‘Yes,’ he said approvingly, ‘you are looking very well and handsome; but not as you used to do—I miss my little enemy. There’s neither war in your eye nor fun to-night. Come, Joyce, not so serious! We’ve met to enjoy ourselves. What’s that you are wearing on your breast? Bless my soul!’ The Canon paused, drawing a quick breath. ‘Who put this upon you? It’s your mother’s picture?’ He had turned so quickly to look at it, that her hand was disengaged from his arm. He took it in his own and held it while he gazed, and it became very evident to the circle about that the Canon was winking his eyes suspiciously as if to get rid of a little moisture there. ‘Poor little Joyce!’ he said. ‘Where did you find it? I remember her exactly like that; and you are exactly like it. You can never deny your parentage, my dear, as long as you wear that.’
It was not intended, nor in the programme; but the little surprise was very effectual. It collected a little crowd round the pair. The people who had been so deeply impressed by the imposture practised upon them in respect to Joyce, and even Lady St. Clair herself, were drawn into that circle by the strong inducement of something to see which is so potent in an evening party. It had not been in the programme, it had all the force of an accident. It brought spectators from all the corners of the room to see what it was. ‘The most extraordinary resemblance,’ people said. ‘A very pretty portrait; no one could have thought it was meant for anybody but Joyce Hayward; but it appears it is her mother.’ ‘With curls and an old-fashioned dress.’ ‘The dress we all wore in those days.’ ‘Then that story about her that she was a foundling, etc., etc.’ ‘It was a cruel bad story,’ cried Lady Thompson, crying with pleasure and kindness, and the heat of the room which upset her nerves. ‘I always knew it wasn’t true.’ Lady St. Clair and her little coterie retired into a corner, and there seemed to laugh and nod their heads among themselves, commenting on the scene; but their discomfiture was clear.
All this that was passing round her was uncomprehended by Joyce. She was aware neither of the gossip nor of her own triumph. She stood by the Canon’s side, confused with the flutter about her, the exclamations, the many looks that passed from her to the portrait, from the portrait to herself back again. The Canon had again drawn her hand within his arm, and she stood silent, patient, with a faint smile, pleased enough to find nothing more was required of her, leaning a little weight upon his fatherly arm, a slim white figure against his substantial bulk of black. Her other hand hung by her side amid the white folds of her dress. As she stood thus quietly, subdued, her attention not lively for anything, Joyce felt her hand suddenly taken and warmly, passionately pressed, with a touch which was most unlike the usual shaking of hands. There must have been something magnetic in it, for she started, and a sudden flood of hot colour poured over her from head to foot. She turned her head almost reluctantly yet quickly, and met, burning upon her in the heat of feeling long restrained, the eyes of Norman Bellendean.