CHAPTER XLVI
WHEN Joyce was left quite alone, and felt the shelter of the silence and solitude, she dropped again, as she had done in the room downstairs, upon the rug before the fire. Great distress and trouble are chilling things; they make the sick heart creep to the fire—the warmth gives a little forlorn comfort when all is low and ice-bound in the soul. She dropped there like a child—half seated, half on her knees. There was a kind of luxury in the feeling that no one could see or interrupt or sympathise with her—that she was safe for the long hours of the winter night, safe and alone.
What had she done? She had listened when she could not silence him. She had lost herself in listening, feeling his heart beat against her and his voice in her ears. She seemed to hear them now as soon as other people had left her—as soon as she was free from interrupting, unintelligible voices of others. He had told her, over and over again, what she knew—nothing but what she knew; and he must have felt her heart beating too, though not like his—beating heavily, loudly,—beating like a thing half stifled in bonds and ligatures—for he had not waited for any answer. He had taken her to himself when the climax came, and between them there could be no more said. Joyce recognised that there could have been no more said. She remembered that she was sobbing, unable to draw her breath, and that his breath too was exhausted, and all the words that could be used. She was not angry with him for taking her consent for granted—it was all that remained to be done. Their marriage and their long life together, and the height and crown of mortal existence, were all summed up in that moment. It had been, it was, and now it was past. She sat sunk upon herself by the fire and went over everything. That was the only way it could have been. She had for a time held him apart from her with good reasons, telling him how it could not be. And then she had been silenced; the words might have been withstood, but the throbbing of the heart (she could feel it still against her arm)—how could that be withstood? That was something more than words; and her own, so heavily throbbing, had sprung for a moment into the same measure, like something Joyce had never heard of nor read of—something that made an end of time and space and all limits. It had been too bewildering, too transporting, to think of. It was for a moment only; and whether it ought to have been or not was a different question. It had been, and nothing could undo it. And it was past. That was the one thing of which she was sure.
She had never consented, she had said nothing, she had not deceived him. Though she might have deceived others, him she had not deceived. So long as she could speak to him, she had said No. Afterwards, when her voice failed her, when she could only sob, that moment had been—not by her will, but by his will—by something which was inevitable and could not be resisted. But now it was all over and past. Now she was separated from him as far as if worlds lay between them. There was no longer any time to hesitate. It was all fixed and settled, like the laws of the Medes and Persians. She had seen him for the last time. It was not on that subject that she had any further conflict with herself. The question was not that—not that any longer. The question was, What must be done? what in the few hours that remained to her she must do?
She lay there for a long time where she had sunk down, quite still and motionless, notwithstanding that she had so little time, not even thinking at all. Things flitted across her brain, but scarcely moved her—broken scenes, broken words, a look there, an exclamation here. Oftenest in her confusion it was her own name she seemed to hear—Joyce! Joyce!—called out by everybody in turn, as everybody had appealed to her. Andrew whom she had deceived—he had the most right to blame her. She had never said that she loved him, but he had believed it. Poor Andrew! It would not be any gain to him though she lost. And her lady, who had been so dear, and then had changed—to whom she had said that Joyce would do what was wished of her. And then the oracle—the oracle that had said, ‘You could do—no other thing.’ No, she could do no other thing. That was settled. It was not to be discussed; there was no change possible in that. The only thing was what to do—oh, what to do!
Joyce never thought of taking away her own life. She would have given it joyfully for any of them to save them a pang; but take it away at her own caprice, no. She did not consciously reject this way, for she never took it into consideration. It was not among the things that were possible. And though she roused herself now and then at the end of a long discursive round of imaginations, some of them having no connection at all with what had happened, or was about to happen, to ask herself what she was to do, for a long time she did not think at all. Her candles burned, showing a light at her window long after every other light was out. In the barges lying about the bridge some way down the river, there were people who saw it shining, as was reported afterwards, through all the night. But Joyce was not even thinking. What roused her at last was the chill creeping over her—the cold of the deep night: her fire had fallen low, almost to nothing, a faint little red glow all blackening into darkness, and she shivered, and felt in her uncovered arms and shoulders the creeping dead cold, as if the frost had got in. This physical sensation, the shivering dullness, and ague of the cold, roused her when her trouble did not rouse her. She rose benumbed, her limbs stiff, and her heart sore, and wrapped a shawl round her, drawing it close for warmth. How grateful warmth is, when everything else has gone! It is the one thing in which there seems a little comfort. It brought her to life again, and the necessary movement helped that good effect. But bringing her back to life was to bring her back to thought; and she became conscious that time was running on, and that she had not yet decided what to do.
Time was running on. It was long past midnight, it was morning—the black morning of winter when everything is at its coldest, and all the world is desolate. Folding her arms in her shawl over her bosom to keep warm, her hand encountered the little frame of the miniature pinned on her breast. The touch woke her up with a keen prick of reality—as if it had been a sharp cold steel that had touched her. She unpinned it from her breast, and held it in her hand, and looked at it. There must have been magnetism in it. It seemed to bring a new flood of feeling, and will, and impulse over her. She had felt that strange inspiration in her veins before, that desire to arise and flee, she knew not whither. Her mother’s inheritance left behind her when she had fled—where no one could follow. It was a sad inheritance to come into the world with, but it was the only one that Joyce had. She looked at the pictured face so like her own, and that brief long-ended tragedy became clear to Joyce. The other Joyce had endured as long as she could, and then there had come upon her that irrestrainable despairing desire to fly and be seen no more. Oh that I had wings like a dove! It had not perhaps in some ways been so difficult for her as for the second Joyce it would be. There was nobody to go after her, to move heaven and earth to find her—there were perhaps, Joyce thought, confusedly exaggerating the time, and its changes, as youth is so apt to do—no telegraphs, no railways then—at least there was no father, no lover, no friends ready to put all modes of discovery in motion. For a moment she envied her mother; but then said to herself, with a sudden warm flush all over her. No, no! Thank God, in her case there was no second life involved; nobody to come into the world as she herself had done, in confusion and trouble, with all the lines of her life wrong from her birth, and this tragic conclusion always coming! The touch of the cold little miniature seemed to send thrills and icy touches through her veins. The eyes had a strange look in them, like the eyes of a hunted creature. Mrs. Hayward had said that her own eyes were more deep and true. She rose up to look at herself, to see if perhaps that look had come to her too. A girl does not think what is the expression in her eyes; but they had always been quiet eyes, she thought—not with that look. She went to the glass, with the miniature in her hand, to see. But when she stood before the glass, it was not her own expression, but the strange world of darkness and vacancy beyond, which caught Joyce’s confused and troubled intelligence. She remembered all the fanciful superstitions, half poetry, half mirth, of the countryside. How some one would come behind you and look over your shoulder, and you would see in the mirror the man you were to marry,—your fate; or how perhaps it might be a white-robed ghost, or a death’s-head that would advance out of the unseen and look over your shoulder; or how in that strange fathomless darkness of the mirror there might rise before you scenes—of what was going on among those you loved, or what was to happen in the future, shadows of the real. She could not see her own eyes for the wonder which carried her beyond them, which made her look into the reflected air as if it were another world.
What a waste of time it was, and how the time was running on! Only a few hours now before the step must be taken, and as yet no decision come to as to what it was to be! She went and sat down at the table where were her writing things, and in her writing-case the letters—Mrs. Bellendean’s note of farewell, and Andrew’s—poor Andrew’s! Even now she could not think, but only look at these two momentous bits of paper, and wonder what they would think, how they would feel, whether they would blame themselves. She even smiled to herself at the astonishment, the incredulity that would come over Andrew’s face, and his conviction that whoever she had fled from it could not be from him. The lady would know better—it would give her a pang—but so long as everything came as she wished, the pang would not hurt her, it would go away. And then the wonder, and the questions, and the strong feelings would widen out and die away like circles in the water, and Joyce would go down and disappear like a stone.
Again this vague round of thought and nothing decided on, nothing done—and the time was running on. Twelve hours hence it would be the afternoon of the November day, and he would be here. And before then all must be settled and done. And in the meantime the glow of the fire had gone out in the blackness of the night, and it was cold—cold—a cold that went to the heart.
At breakfast next morning Joyce showed little trace of a sleepless night; her eyes were quite clear, her colour varying, but sometimes bright, her aspect not radiant as might become a girl in her position, yet very clear, like a sky that has cleared after rain. Thinking it all over in the light of after events no one could recollect anything about her that had called for special notice. She was grave, yet not without a smile: and a girl on the eve of the greatest change in her life, though she may be very gay if she is happy, has reason to be grave as well. Joyce was always thoughtful, and there was nothing wonderful in the fact that underneath the soft smile with which she responded to what was said to her there should be a gravity quite natural in the circumstances. No doubt there was a great deal to think about—the opposition that might be raised, the difficulties she would have to encounter. It would not be all plain sailing. Mrs. Hayward, a little anxious in the strength of her newly awakened sympathies, thought that she quite understood. Joyce went out for her usual morning walk with her father, just as usual so far as the Colonel could see. She talked a little more than usual, perhaps to prevent him talking of the great subject of the moment. He for his part was much excited with the information his wife had given. He was full of enthusiasm for Norman. ‘If I had chosen the whole world through I could not have found a man whom I should have liked better,’ he said. ‘I always liked Norman Bellendean. I never could have imagined when we first came in contact in India, he a young sub and I his commanding officer, that he would ever be my son-in-law. How could I, not even knowing that I had—what good fortune was in store for me in finding you, my dear? But he was always a capital fellow. I liked him from the very first—fond of his profession and always ready for whatever was wanted—as good a fellow as ever lived,’ cried the Colonel, as he had done on his first introduction into these pages, taking upon him to answer to all the neighbours and tenants for the excellences of Captain Bellendean. Joyce listened very gravely, very sweetly, with a little inclination of her head in assent to all these praises. It pleased her to hear them, even though it was no business of hers.
‘But you must remember,’ she said, ‘always—that if there’s a pain in it, it’s leaving you. You’ve been good, good to me. I never knew what it was——’
‘Good!’ cried the Colonel, ‘there’s no credit in being good to you—and as for pain, my dear, no doubt we’ll miss you dreadfully, but it’s not as if he had to go away with the regiment to the end of the world. We’ll come and see you at Bellendean, and you’ll come to see us. I scarcely consider, with a man I like so thoroughly as Bellendean, that it will be leaving me.’
‘I was very ignorant when I came here,’ said Joyce; ‘I did not know what a father was. I was shy—shy to call you so. My old grandfather was so different. But, father, you have always understood, never discouraged me when I was most cast down, never lost patience. And I wish I could make you always mind that, when perhaps you may think of me—differently from what you do now.’
‘Why should I think of you differently? I may grudge a little to see my pretty Joyce marrying so soon, when I would have liked to keep her to myself: but it is the course of nature, my dear, and what parents must expect.’
‘I will always think upon you like this,’ she said: ‘the river flowing, and the banks green even though it’s winter, and the red oak-leaves stiff on the branches, and all the other big trees bare. And the sky blue, with white clouds flitting, and with a little cheerful wind, and the shining sun.’
‘Why in winter, Joyce?’ he said, smiling. ‘You might as well put me in a summer landscape if you are so fanciful! but you need not speak as if we were to be parted for ages, or as if you might not see me again. I’m not so dreadfully old, if that is what you mean.’
‘You will not be angry, father, if I speak to you of my old grandfather at home. When I saw him last he did not see me. He was walking through the corn, with his head bent and his heart sore. It was a bonnie summer day, and the corn all rustling in the wind, and high, almost up to his old bent shoulders. But he saw nothing, for he was thinking of poor little Joyce that he had bred up from a baby, and that was going away. I have been a great trouble to everybody that has cared for me.’
‘I am afraid I did not think enough of what it was to these old people, Joyce. To be sure, it was a loss never to be made up; but then when they knew it was for your good——’
‘It is for our good,’ said Joyce, ‘when we die: but it’s hard, hard to take comfort in that. I have never had that to bear, but I’ve seen it; and though a poor woman will believe that her little child has become one of the angels and will never have any trouble more, yet her heart will break just the same.’
‘That’s true, that’s true,’ he said: ‘but it’s not a cheerful subject, my dear, and just when your life is at its happiest——’
‘Don’t you think, father,’ said Joyce, ‘that when you are at your happiest it is like coming to an end?—for it seems as if heaven itself couldn’t do any more for you, and the next step must just be coming down among common folk.’
‘Don’t say that to Bellendean,’ cried the Colonel, ‘for you may be sure he thinks that heaven can do a good deal more for him, and you too.’
But it was always an effort on the Colonel’s part to bring her back to the contemplation of more cheerful prospects. She came in, however, freshened by the lively wind, her colour raised, her hair playing about her forehead in little rings, disentangled by the breeze, and was cheerful at luncheon, responding to all that was said. When they had left the table, she drew Mrs. Hayward aside for a moment, and asked if she might keep the miniature which had been given her to wear the previous night.
‘I think so, Joyce: you have the best right to it. Ask your father, if you have any doubt on the subject.’
‘I would rather ask you. It was kind, kind to bring it to me: nobody else would have had that thought.’
‘I have always wanted to be kind,’ Mrs. Hayward said, moved by an emotion which surprised her. ‘We may not always have understood each other, Joyce. I may have been sometimes not quite just, and you were not responsive. It was neither your fault nor mine. The circumstances were hard upon us: but in the future——’
‘I cannot call you mother,’ said Joyce. ‘You would maybe not like it, and I’m slow, slow to move, and I could not. But I would like to call you a true friend. I am sure you are a true friend. And we will never misunderstand each other again.’
‘My dear, there’s a kiss to that bargain,’ said Elizabeth, with her eyes full of tears. She said after a moment, with a tremulous laugh, ‘But we’ll misunderstand each other a hundred times, only after this it will always come right.’
There were no tears in Joyce’s eyes, but there was something in them which was not usually there. Mrs. Hayward, after she had kissed her, looked at her again with mingled anxiety and curiosity. ‘Joyce,’ she said, ‘you are tired out. I don’t think you can have slept last night. Go and lie down and rest a little. You have got that look that is in your mother’s eyes.’
When Joyce had gone upstairs, Mrs. Hayward went to the library, where the Colonel was seated with his paper. She said to him that she was not half so sure as she had been that Joyce was happy. ‘I thought there could be no doubt about it. If ever two people were in love with each other, I thought these two were: but I don’t feel so comfortable about it now.’
‘Nonsense, my dear!’ said the Colonel, who was a little drowsy. The room was warm, and the paper not interesting, and he had been proposing to himself to have a doze before Bellendean came to talk business and settlements. Mrs. Hayward did not disturb him further, but she was uneasy and restless. Some time after, she heard the outer door close, and came out into the hall with a little unexplainable anxiety to know who it was. ‘It was Miss Hayward, ma’am, a-going out for a walk,’ Baker said. Mrs. Hayward thought it was strange that Joyce should choose that time for going out, when Captain Bellendean might arrive at any moment. And then she suggested to herself that perhaps Joyce had gone to meet her lover——’ Anyhow, a little walk in the fresh air will do her good,’ she said to herself.
Norman arrived about half an hour afterwards, and was astonished and evidently annoyed that Joyce was not there to receive him. He went into the library, and had a long talk with the Colonel, and he came out again to the drawing-room where the tea-table was set out; but no Joyce.
‘Send up one of the maids to see if Miss Hayward is in her room,’ Mrs. Hayward said.
‘Miss Hayward have never come in, ma’am,’ said Baker; ‘for she never takes no latch-key, and nobody but me has answered the door.’
‘It is quite extraordinary. I cannot understand it,’ cried the mistress of the house. And then the usual excuses were suggested. She must have walked too far; she must have been detained. She had not taken her watch, and did not know how late it was. Norman said nothing, but his looks were dark; and thus the early evening past. The dinner-hour approached, and they all went upstairs somewhat silently to dress. Mrs. Hayward was pale with fright, though she did not know of what she was afraid. She had already sent off her own maid to go to Miss Marsham’s, to Mrs. Sitwell’s, to the rectory, to inquire if Joyce was at either of these places. But the answer was No; she had not been seen by any one. What did it mean? They met in the drawing-room—Mrs. Hayward more scared and pale, Captain Bellendean more dark and angry, than before.
‘Where is Joyce?’ said the Colonel. ‘You don’t mean to say she has never come back! Then there must be something wrong.’
‘If she is staying away on account of me——’ said Bellendean, looking almost black, with his eyebrows curved over his eyes, and his moustache closing sternly over his mouth.
‘On account of you! My dear fellow, what a strange idea! It’s only because of you that I’m surprised at all,’ said the Colonel, as if it had been the most ordinary thing in the world that Joyce should not come home to dinner. Mrs. Hayward said nothing, but she was very pale; though why Joyce should absent herself, or what was the meaning of it, she could not guess. ‘Let us go in to dinner,’ said the Colonel. ‘If anything had happened to her we must have heard at once. Probably she is dressing in a hurry now, knowing that we will all fall upon her as soon as she shows. Give my wife your arm, Bellendean.’ He was quite cheerful and at ease now that there was really, as Mrs. Hayward reflected, something to be anxious about; and he continued to talk and keep up the spirits of the party throughout dinner; but it was a lugubrious meal.
Mrs. Hayward ran upstairs to Joyce’s room as soon as she was free. She made a hurried survey of her tables and drawers, where nothing seemed to be wanting. She stood bewildered in the orderly silent room, where nothing had been disturbed since the morning—no signs of usage about, no ribbon or brooch on the table, or disarray of any kind. How cold it looked, how dead!—like a place out of which the inhabitant had gone. It exercised a kind of weird influence upon her mind. She stood back in alarm from the glass before which Joyce had stood last night, gazing into the unknown. Mrs. Hayward was not at all superstitious, but it frightened her to see the blank of the reflected vacancy, as if something might come into it. It could not be more blank than the vacant room, which threw no light whatever on the mystery. Where had she gone? There could not be anything in those suggestions which she had made, not without a chill of doubt, in the afternoon. Joyce could not be detained anywhere all this time, could not have taken too long a walk, or mistaken the time. It was impossible to believe in any such simple solution now: nearly nine o’clock—and she knew that her lover was to be here; and all the decorums of the dinner-hour and the regulations of the house. No, no, that was impossible. Could she be ill?—could she——
Mrs. Hayward started violently, though it was only a soft knock at the door. ‘If you please, Miss Marsham is downstairs wishing to see you.’ Ah, it was that then! she cried to herself, her heart giving a bound of relief. She was ill. Something had happened—a sprained ankle, or some easy matter of that kind. She ran downstairs relieved, almost gay. It might be a troublesome business, but so long as that was all——
Miss Marsham was standing in front of the fire with a large black veil tied over her hat. She was one of the feeble sisters who are always taking cold. She came forward quickly, holding out cold hands without gloves. ‘Oh!’ she cried, ‘has Joyce come back? is it all right? is there anything wrong?’
‘Do you mean,’ cried Mrs. Hayward harshly, ‘that you’ve only come to ask me questions—not to tell me anything?’
‘Oh!’ cried Miss Marsham, clasping her thin hands, ‘then she must have done it, though I did not advise her to do it: I did not understand——’
‘What?’ cried Mrs. Hayward, darting upon her, seizing her arm.
Miss Marsham told her story incoherently, as well as in her agitation she could tell it. ‘She asked my advice. There was some lady whose heart would be broken—who had never suffered, never been disappointed, and who had to be saved. And there were two gentlemen—— I cannot tell you any more—indeed, I cannot; I only half understood her. I told her—that to sacrifice one’s self was always the easiest.’
The gentlemen came in while Miss Marsham was speaking. The Colonel, still quite cheerful, saying, ‘Depend upon it, we shall find her in the drawing-room.’ Captain Bellendean was as dark as night. ‘I told her—that to sacrifice one’s self was always the easiest,’ were the words they heard as they came into the room; the sound of voices had made their hearts jump. Norman had taken a quick step forward when he saw that Mrs. Hayward was not alone. This strange figure was not like Joyce, but who could tell?——
‘I told her that it came easiest to women—that to sacrifice one’s self——’
‘To whom did you say that?’
‘Oh, Captain Bellendean! if I said what was wrong. I did not understand her. There was some one whose heart would be broken, a girl who had never been disappointed. I said to sacrifice one’s self——’
‘To sacrifice one’s self!’ cried Captain Bellendean, with a roll of low sound like the roar of an animal in pain.
‘I said it was the easiest—rather than to let some one else suffer, whoever it might be. Oh, God forgive me—God forgive me—if I said wrong!’
At this moment there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Hayward’s maid came in. ‘If you please, ma’am,’ she said.
‘What is it? Miss Hayward has come back?’
‘If you please, ma’am,’ said the maid, ‘some of her clothes are—not there. And Mr. Baker says she sent away a box this morning.’
‘Where is Baker?’ said the Colonel.
He was not far off, but at the door, fully prepared for the emergency. He did not wait to be questioned. ‘It was a box,’ he said, ‘like as Miss Hayward have sent off before,—I didn’t take particular notice. The baker took it to the station. He had his cart at the door.’
‘What do you mean by a box!’ said the Colonel, to whom they all left this examination, and who asked the question without excitement, as only partially understanding the importance of it.
‘A box, Colonel!—well, just a common sort of a box—like the ladies sent to the ’Ospital Christmas-time—like Miss Hayward have sent off before——’
‘Did you see the address?’
‘You see, ma’am, the baker, his cart was at the door,—and he ups and says, if the young lady had no objection, he’d take it and welcome. So I gives him a hand up with it, and never see the address—except just London.’
‘You are sure it was London?’
‘Oh yes, Colonel—at least, I wouldn’t like to take nothing in the nature of an oath: but so far as being sure——’
‘That will do,’ said Mrs. Hayward quickly. ‘Now, you may go.’ She burst forth as soon as the door was closed, ‘She has done what her mother did; but why—but why?’
A little later, before this mournful company separated, Joyce’s little writing-case was brought downstairs, and in it was found Andrew’s letter and Mrs. Bellendean’s folded together. On a piece of paper separate—which, however, had no appearance of being intended for a letter—Joyce had written something in a large straggling hand, very different from her usual neat writing. It was this——
‘I can do no other thing. To him I would be mansworn—and to her no true friend. And what I said was, Joyce will do—what is wanted of her. I can do no other thing.’