Mrs. Oliphant

“ They took her in, they brought her to the fire, they took off her cloak which was wet, and the hat that was ornamented like jewels with glistening drops of the Scotch mist. They made her sit down, touching her shoulders, her hair, her arms, the very folds of her dress, with fond caressing touches, laughing and crying over her. Poor old Peter was inarticulate in his joy and emotion. Nothing but a succession of those low rolling laughs would come from him, and great lakes of moisture were standing under the furrows of his old eyebrows. ”

“ Joyce, don’t be hard upon me. I have taken a long time to think, for there were many things involved, but here I am; and if I’ve been long of coming, it shows the more the force that’s brought me. Joyce, if you had not been the only woman for me I should not have been here.’
‘It is a mistake,’ she said—‘it is a mistake,’ scarcely able to command her voice; ‘there is another woman. And there is—another man! Oh, hold your peace, Captain Bellendean! you and me, we have nothing to do with each other. You would repent it all your life long. ”

“ To have had that horrible Bothwell for a father, or some one else as dreadful, instead of delightful Colonel Hayward.’
‘My father,’ said Joyce, with a little flush and stir of feeling which was always called forth by his name, ‘is better—than anything I ever could have dreamed.’
‘Then why are you not happy?’ cried Greta, going direct to the heart of the matter, as children do.
‘But perhaps I am happy,’ said Joyce, with a little sigh, followed by a smile. ‘To be happy is a strange thing: it is not at your own will, nor because you are well off, and have everything you can want. ”

“ Sitwell said.
Joyce had a curious sensation as if she were standing quite alone, separate from all the world, and that this was some ‘airy tongue that syllables men’s names’ echoing in her ears. She heard herself murmur as if she too were but a voice, ‘Yes, I think so’—while the glowing river and the drooping trees, and all the gleams of mingled colour, melted and ran into each other confusedly like the mists of a dream.
‘I am sure it is. What a wonderful thing when one has all sorts of things to do, to watch those people who have nothing to do but amuse themselves! ”

“ There will be nothing half so old as Queen Margaret——’
‘Oh,’ cried Greta, her countenance falling, ‘I never thought of that.’
Joyce hesitated a moment, and the light returned to her eyes. ‘I will go up with you to the house now, if granny can spare me, and I will speak to Merritt, and we will think, she and I; and when you come out from your dinner we will have settled something. Oh, never fear but we will find something. It is just what I like,’ said Joyce, restored to full energy—‘to make out what’s impossible. That’s real pleasure!’ she cried, with sparkling eyes. ”

“ Hayward—‘it is what I care most for in the world,’ she said, with a sudden blush of shame to feel herself stopped in that avowal of enthusiasm for the work itself.
‘Indeed!’ cried the clergyman. ‘Do you hear, Dora? here is a help for you. Miss Hayward says that schools are what she cares most for in the world.’
‘Joyce says a little more than she means,’ said Mrs. Hayward quickly. ‘Young ladies have a way of being enthusiastic.’
‘Don’t damp it, please!’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, clasping her hands; ‘enthusiasm is so beautiful in young people: and there is so little of it. ”

“ She had been humiliated by Greta; she was indignant now. ‘What have I to betray?’ she cried; ‘that I am a waif, and a foundling, and an abandoned creature that belongs to nobody? or that I am a trouble and a charge to everybody that has to do with me, breaking my poor Granny’s heart because she wants me, and a shame to the others that don’t want me? Myself! what is it to betray myself? Oh, you are kind; you are very kind. You were my dear lady that I honoured above everything. But you kiss me to-day because I’m—not Joyce, but Colonel Hayward’s daughter ”

“ The sudden blaze of awakening, of enlightenment, of delight and misery, had ceased as suddenly as it rose. She never now heard Norman Bellendean’s name. He did not come, he gave no sign: he might be dead, or gone back to India, or in the farthest part of the earth, for anything she knew. He had disappeared as if he never had been, leaving in her heart and mind only the miserable consciousness that she loved him—oh, shame to think of! She so proud in her reserve and maidenly withdrawal! she, affianced to another man! she, Joyce, who had been so proud! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Joyce felt this with a sharp and keen sensation which she said to herself was not envy. Oh no, no! for envy is unkind, whereas she desired no harm, but only good and every pleasantness to the delightsome company where there were so many whom she was fond of; but only a forlorn consciousness of her own position as one who could not get access there, yet was at home nowhere else. No; all that youthful folly about Lady Joyce was nonsense, she knew. She would never be Lady Joyce, never find a place in the Queen’s Court, or among the people who are grand and great, and the flower of the land ”

“ There had been a sombre anger roused in Joyce’s heart by that appeal. She had said, Why should one be spared by the pain of another? Why should her heart break, that Greta’s should be saved from aching? But she no longer asked herself that question. She said to herself that it was just. There are some that must be saved while the others go bleeding. It is the rule of life—not justice, perhaps, but something that is above justice. Some must have flowers strewn upon their path, while others walk across the burning ploughshares. ”

“ I am a wicked woman, I ought not to feel so. Here I find her again, not a recollection, not an idea, but a grown-up girl, the same age as her mother. Joyce over again, always Joyce!’
Mrs. Bellendean did not know how to reply. She sat and gazed at the woman whom she wanted to console, who touched her, revolted her, horrified her all in one, and yet whose real emotion and pain she felt to the bottom of her sympathetic heart. Too much sympathy is perhaps as bad as too little. She was all excitement and delight for Joyce, and yet this other woman’s trouble was too genuine not to move her. ”

“ He pretended to look with great interest at the willows sweeping into the water, and the lawn, with its little fringe of forget-me-nots reflected in the softly flowing stream. Joyce had lost the colour which was half excitement, and had kept coming and going like the shadows over the sky, while they walked together down the shady walk. It is very interesting to see a face change in this way, and to think that one’s own society, the quickening of the blood produced by one’s sudden advent, may have something to do with it. ”

“ Joyce dared not call to him, dared not follow him. With a natural pang she stood and watched the old father bereaved going out to his work. Perhaps it would console him a little: she for whom he sorrowed could do so no more.
But Joyce had not the same awe of Janet. Is it perhaps that there is even in the anguish of the affections a certain luxury for a woman which is not for the man? She ran along the vacant sunny village street, and pushed open the half-closed door, and flung herself upon the old woman’s neck, who received her with a shriek of joy. ”

“ It was hard work for Janet to keep sight of Joyce when they came to the great Edinburgh station: she was little accustomed to crowds—to be hustled and pushed about as a poor old woman getting out of a third-class carriage so often is: but fortunately her eyes had kept the long sight of youth, and she managed to trace the movements of her child. One thing was sure, that nobody was there to meet Joyce, not even a maid. The girl made her way by dark passages and corners to the place where another little train was starting for Leith, where Janet followed her breathless. ”

“ It would be like falling and disappearing through Mirza’s bridge. Joyce stood still for a moment, moved by a wild prick of that unreasoning impulse which was in her blood. By the side of the house was a dim opening which admitted to that world, strange, dark, and cold, in which a poor girl could lose herself who had no true place, no natural nest in the other. She paused for a moment, clasping her hands, appealing to she knew not what—not God this time: there are moments when the bewildered soul becomes pagan in its broken faith—to something, she knew not what, above, around. ”

“ There is something in a threat which rouses the most placid blood. If it was impossible, what would happen? Joyce was in no way in fault; the circumstances which had changed her life, and transplanted her from her home, were not of her creating any more than they were of Mrs. Hayward’s. But Mrs. Hayward said nothing more. She went on tearing, wounding, cutting her calico with stabs and thrusts of the scissors that seemed as if they must draw blood. But she had gone as far as could be done unintentionally by sudden impulse—which, and no set purpose, was what had moved her. ”

“ Joyce turned upon him, with a sudden flush taking the place of her paleness. ‘Granny would make you think that I was not worthy to be trusted,’ she said; ‘that to ware your heart upon me, as she says, was to be cheated and betrayed.’
‘No, no,—I never could believe that!’ he cried, not unwilling to prove the superiority of his own trust to that of the old people, who, Halliday felt, it would not be a bad thing to be clear of, or as nearly clear of as circumstances might permit. ”

“ But we might be friends for all that—so long as she has sense—— Don’t you see, child, that we can’t live if you go on in this way? It is getting on my nerves!’ cried Mrs. Hayward with excitement, ‘and upon his nerves, and affecting the whole house. Why should you like to shut yourself up as if we were your enemies, and upset everybody? I can’t settle to anything. I can’t sleep. I don’t know what I am doing. And how you can like——’
‘But I do not like it,’ said Joyce. ‘I did not think I could bear it any longer: everything is so strange to me. ”

“ I don’t know what to think—but if it’s a question between you and another, which is to take the happiness and let the other suffer—oh, my child, my dear! do I need to say it to you—do I need to tell you? Joyce, your heart tells you—it’s like a, b, c, to a woman. You know——’
‘I thought,’ said Joyce, with that sob in her throat, following with intent eyes every little movement of her agitated instructor— ‘I thought that was what you would say.’
‘Yes,’ said the vestal, the priestess of this new Dodona, ‘it is not in our will to choose or to change. You can’t leave the heartbreak to another. ”

“ A half-forlorn wonder arose in her mind that so much useless, aimless talk should mingle with the torture through which she was going. Better that the stones should all be thrown, and the victim left in peace. But this was not how it was to be. The gong sounded, beaten by Baker’s powerful hand, and the little procession went in to luncheon. Joyce had to expose her face, with all its clouds, the burning red which she felt on her cheek, the heavy shadow about her eyes, to the full daylight and Mrs. Bellendean’s searching gaze. ”

“ They have no other thought but to be good and do their best.’
‘Oh!’ said the Canon, this time in a dubious and disturbed tone.
‘They go among the poor folk every day,’ said Joyce; ‘they would like to take the command of them, and give them everything, and guide them altogether. It is not—oh, not my way—not our way at all, at home; but they say it is the way here. They never spare themselves any trouble. They would like to take it all on their shoulders; to nurse all the ill people, and mend all the bad ones, and even cut out all the clothes for the poor little things that have none. ”

“ Whether it was the strain of argument which Janet still carried on, though Joyce had not consciously listened to it, or whether the mere effect of the short lapse of time which quenches excitement had operated unawares upon her mind, it is certain that her vehemence of feeling and rebellion of heart had sunk into that despondent suspension of thought which exhaustion brings. Resistance dies out, and the chill compulsion of circumstance comes in, making itself felt above all flashes of indignation, all revolts of sentiment. ”

“ But, as was equally natural, Joyce,{31} since she had been old enough to understand, had built a hundred castles in the air on the subject of her birth, and occupied many an hour with dreams of perhaps a father who should come and seek her, perhaps a mother’s mother, like an old queen—people who would be noble in look and thought—perhaps, who could tell, in birth too? The Lady Joyce, with which old Janet taunted her, had not been altogether a fiction. Who could say? Mysteries were more common among the great than among the small, the girl said to herself. ”

“ And then he came to Bellendean. All this time he has been seeing Greta every day. He has made her believe that it is she whom he loves.’
The heart of Joyce gave one bound as if it would have burst out of her breast.
‘And she believes it,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘She is a tender little flower; she has never been crossed in her life. She believes that it is she whom he loves—and she loves him.’
There was a momentary silence, complete and terrible. ”

“ You’re like other women, Joyce, which is no shame to you; you would like me to be at all the expense of the talk, my dear, and give you my advice without any knowledge of the circumstances. Let us see what premisses we’ve got. If I were one of two and knew that one must suffer, would I take it upon me without question that the sufferer must be I—is that what you call the a, b, c, that every woman knows? A great many women are fools, my dear, but not such fools as that. ”

“ Who is there guilty of such infidelity, forsaking an old love for a new, who cannot excuse herself in such words? And of many such it is true, as with Joyce, that the first love had been a mere name, a something not understood, an acquiescence—no more. If she had sinned against Andrew in accepting the love which was true enough on his side, without any real response, it had been done without guile, with no knowledge of any harm. Joyce had been conscious that it was not the love of which her beloved poets had sung ”

“ The room it lighted was full of thoughts and cares, and sheltered a human creature facing a sea of troubles, doing her best to keep afloat—sometimes almost submerged by these rising waves: and there is this additional pang in the troubles of a woman—of a girl like Joyce—that there is no motive to strive against them. The Hamlets of existence have a great life and great possibilities before them; but what profit is there to the world in one poor girl the more or less? ”

“ And that one man should die for the people, I allow—and that you should die physically rather than let another die, if it is in your heart to do it, that I allow. But that you should make yourself the judge in other circumstances, and shame another by suffering for him when you know neither his heart, nor what is best for him, nor anything but your own wild enthusiasm—that I forbid, Joyce. ”

“ It was natural Joyce should be with me.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs. Hayward; ‘and accordingly Captain Bellendean, with that self-denial which distinguishes young men, put out his own people in order that you might have her near you. How considerate!’
‘Elizabeth! not more considerate, I am sure, than you would be for any one who might feel herself a little out of it,—a little strange, perhaps, not knowing many people,—not with much habit of society.’
‘My dear Henry, you are an old goose,’ was what his wife said. ”

“ Joyce had twice avoided the direct response he demanded. She paused before she replied. ‘Some,’ she said, ‘father, are happy enough never to need to think, or ask such a question. I wish I had been always where you were, and never to have had any life but yours; or else——’ Colonel Hayward fortunately did not remark these two syllables, which were softly said, and breathed off into a sigh.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘under the best of circumstances that could never have been, for you know the most of my life has been spent in India. The worst of India is, that parents must part with their children. ”

“ She was not so sure about Joyce’s good sense as her husband was; but even in the midst of her annoyance a certain compassion for Joyce had awakened in her mind. Poor thing! to feel herself bound to such a man. ‘And we are not done with him,’ Mrs. Hayward said to herself. She sighed for the calm of those days when there were no complications—when it was quite unnecessary to give Baker any instructions as to who should be admitted—when a disturbance and angry controversy in her pretty drawing-room would have been a thing inconceivable. ”

“ We should not really have known very much more of each other if—if you had been born, as you should have been, in your father’s house.’
‘Then there is little harm done,’ said Joyce, this time with a smile.
‘Not if you trust us fully, my dear, and love your home.’ He patted her hand again, then moved on unsatisfied. ‘I think, however, you are beginning to like the people, and feel at home among them. And they like you. I am sure they like you—and admire you, Joyce, and feel that you are—— There is Lady St. Clair, my dear, with all her bevy of girls. You will want to stop and speak to them. ”

“ Her father would not suffer, and no one else in the world would care. There was no mother, no sister, to wish her woes their own—not even a friend—not a friend! for Mrs. Bellendean and Greta were those who had been most dear. There would be some use in her suffering, but none in her happiness—none at all: rather evil to all concerned. A selfish good purchased by others’ disadvantage. No good—no good to any one in the world.
Joyce said to herself, in her profound discouragement, that after all Mrs. Bellendean’s prayer had made no change in anything. ”

“ I will never forget it: my father, that is like God, to know the meaning in my heart, even if I am far wrong: and not to be hard on me, but to see where I was deceived, and to take my cause in hand.’
‘Deceived!’ the Colonel faltered, with mingled consternation and wrath. ‘Show me the man that would deceive you, my dear child, and leave him to me—leave him to me.’
‘What man? There is no man,’ said Joyce, shaking her head. ”