great was the consternation in bellendean over the unsatisfactory interview which it was so soon known had taken place between joyce and her father. colonel hayward’s public intimation of the facts at luncheon had created, as might have been expected, the greatest commotion; and the ladies of the party assembled round mrs. bellendean with warm curiosity when the whisper ran through the house that joyce had come—and had gone away again. gone away! to explain it was very difficult, to understand it impossible. the schoolmistress, the village girl, to discover that she was colonel hayward’s daughter, and not to be elated, transported by the discovery! why, it was a romance, it was like a fairy tale. mrs. bellendean’s suggestion that there was a second side to everything, though the fact was not generally recognised in fairy tales, contented no one; and a little mob of excited critics, all touched and interested by colonel hayward’s speech, turned upon the rustic heroine and denounced her pretensions. what did she expect, what had she looked for—to turn out a king’s daughter, or a duke’s? but it was generally agreed that few dukes were so delightful as colonel hayward, and that joyce showed the worst of taste as well as the utmost ingratitude. mrs. bellendean was disappointed too; but she was partly comforted by the fact that captain bellendean, who was much bewildered by the girl’s caprice and folly, had fallen into a long and apparently interesting argument on the subject with greta, her own special favourite and protégée. it is almost impossible for any natural woman to find a man in norman’s position, well-looking, young, and rich, within her range, without forming matrimonial schemes for him of one kind or another; and mrs. bellendean had already made up her mind that the pang of leaving bellendean would be much softened could she see her successor in greta, the favourite of the house, a girl full of her own partialities and ways of thinking, and whom
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she had influenced all her life. she forgot joyce in seeing the animated discussion that rose between these two. it was disappointing, however, that when in the very midst of this discussion captain bellendean saw from the window at which he was standing his old colonel walking to and fro on the terrace with heavy steps and bowed head, his point of interest changed at once. he looked no more at greta, though she was a much prettier sight: evidently all his sympathy was for colonel hayward; and after the talk had gone on languishing for a few moments, he excused himself for leaving her. ‘poor old chap! i must go and try if i can do anything to console him,’ he said.
norman found colonel hayward very much cast down and melancholy. he was pacing up and down, up and down—sometimes pausing to throw a blank look over the landscape, sometimes mechanically gathering a faded leaf from one of the creepers on the wall. he endeavoured to pull himself up when captain bellendean joined him; but the old soldier had no skill in concealing his feelings, and he was too anxious to get support and sympathy to remain long silent. he announced, with all the solemnity becoming a strange event, that mrs. hayward was lying down a little. ‘she travelled all night, you know; and though she can sleep on the railway, it never does one much good that sort of sleep; and there has been a great deal going on all day—a great deal that has been very agitating for us both. i persuaded her to lie down,’ colonel hayward said, looking at his companion furtively, as if afraid that norman might think elizabeth was to blame.
‘it was the best thing she could do,’ said captain bellendean.
‘that is exactly what i told her—the very best thing she could do. it is seldom she leaves me when i have so much need of her; but i insisted upon it. and then i am in full possession of her sentiments,’ said the colonel. ‘she told me exactly what she thought; and she advised me to take a walk by myself and think it all out.’
‘perhaps, then, i ought to leave you alone, colonel? but i saw you from the window, and thought you looked out of spirits.’
‘my dear boy, i am glad—too glad—to have you. thinking a thing out is easy to say, but not so easy to do. and you had always a great deal of sense, bellendean. when we had difficulties in the regiment, i well remember—— but that was easy in comparison with this. you know what has happened. we’ve found my daughter. for i was married long before i met with my wife. it was only for a little time; and then she disappeared,
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poor girl, and i never could find out what became of her. it gave me a very great deal of trouble and distress—more than i could tell you; and now we have found out that she left a child. i told you all to-day at luncheon. joyce, the girl they all talk about, is my daughter. can you believe such a story?’
‘i had heard about it before; and then what you said to-day—it is very wonderful.’
‘yes; but it’s quite true. and we told her—in mrs. bellendean’s room. and if you will believe it, she—— she as good as rejected me, norman—refused to have me for her father. it has thrown me into a dreadful state of confusion. and elizabeth can’t help me, it appears. she says i must work it out for myself. but it seems unnatural to work out a thing by myself; and especially a thing like this. yes, the girl would have nothing to say to me, bellendean. she says i must have ill-treated her mother—poor joyce! the girl i told you that i had married. and i never did—indeed i never did!’
‘i am sure of that, sir. you never injured any one.’
‘ah, my dear fellow! you don’t know how things happen. it seems to be nobody’s fault, and yet there’s injury done. it’s very bewildering to me, at my age, to think of having a child living. i never—thought of anything of the kind. i may have wished that my wife—and then again it would seem almost better that it shouldn’t be so.’
colonel hayward put his arm within that of norman; he quickened his pace as they went up and down the terrace, and then would stop suddenly to deliver an emphatic sentence. ‘she looked me in the face, as if she defied me,’ he said, ‘and then went away and left me—with that old woman. did you ever hear of such a position, bellendean? my daughter, you know, my own daughter—and she looks me in the face, and tells me i must have harmed her mother, and why did i leave her? and goes away! what am i to do? when you have made such a discovery, there it is; you can’t put it out of your mind, or go upon your way, as if you had never found it out. i can’t be as i was before. i have got a daughter. you may smile, bellendean, and think it’s just the old fellow’s confused way.’
‘i don’t indeed, sir. i can quite understand the embarrassment——’
‘that’s it—the embarrassment. she belongs to me, and her future should be my dearest care—my dearest care—a daughter, you know, more even than a boy. just what i have often thought would make life perfect—just a sort of a glory to us,
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elizabeth and me; but when you think of it, quite a stranger, brought up so different! and elizabeth opposed, a little opposed. i can’t help seeing it, though she tries to hide it, telling me that it’s my affair—that i must think it out myself. how can i think it out myself? and then my daughter herself turning upon me! what can i do? i don’t know what to do!’
‘everybody,’ said captain bellendean—though a little against the grain, for he was himself very indignant with joyce—‘speaks highly of her; there is but one voice—every one likes and admires her.’
the colonel gave a little pressure to the young man’s arm, as if in thanks, and said with a sigh, ‘she is very like her mother. you would say, if you had known her, the very same—more than a likeness. elizabeth has had a good deal to put up with on that account. you can’t wonder if she is a little—opposed. and everything is at a standstill. i have to take the next step; they will neither of them help me—and what am i to do? children—seem to bring love with them when they are born in a house. but when a grown-up young woman appears that you never saw before, and you are told she is your daughter! it is a dreadful position to be in, bellendean. i don’t know, no more than a baby, what to do.’
‘that is rather an alarming view to take,’ said norman. ‘but when you know her better, most likely everything will come right. you have a very kind heart, sir, and the young lady is very pretty, and nice, and clever, and nature will speak.’
the colonel shook his head. ‘i believed this morning in nature speaking—but i am sadly shaken, sadly shaken, bellendean. why did she turn against me? you would have thought that merely to say, i am your father—but she turned upon me as if i had been her enemy. and what can i do? we can’t go away to-morrow and leave her here. we must have her to live with us, and perhaps she won’t come, and most likely she’ll not like it if she does. i am dreadfully down about it all. joyce’s girl whom i don’t know, and elizabeth, who gives me up and goes to lie down because she’s tired—just when i need her most!’
‘but, colonel, it is true that mrs. hayward must be very tired: and no doubt she feels that you and miss joyce will understand each other better if you meet by yourselves, when she is not there.’
‘eh? do you think that’s what she means, bellendean? and do you think so too? but even then i am no further advanced than i was before; for my daughter, you know, she’s not here,
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and how do i know where to find her, even if i were prepared to meet her? and heaven knows i am less prepared than ever—and very nervous and anxious; and if she were standing before me at this moment i don’t know what i should say.’
‘i can show you where to find her,’ said captain bellendean. ‘come and see her, sir; you don’t want to be prepared—you have only to show her that she may trust to your kind heart, and settle everything before mrs. hayward wakes up.’
‘my kind heart!’ said colonel hayward. ‘i’m not so sure that my heart is kind—not, it appears, to my own flesh and blood. i feel almost as if i should be glad never to hear of her again.’
‘that is only because you are out of sorts, and got no sleep last night.’
‘how do you know i got no sleep? it’s quite true. elizabeth thinks i only fancy it, but the truth is that when my mind is disturbed i cannot sleep. i am dreadfully down about it all, bellendean. no, i haven’t the courage, i haven’t the courage. if she were to tell me again that her mother had much to complain of, i couldn’t answer a word. and yet it’s not so. i declare to you, bellendean, upon my honour, it was no fault of mine.’
‘i am sure of it, sir,’ said bellendean. ‘don’t think any more of that, but come with me and see miss joyce, and settle it all.’
the colonel said little as he walked down to the village leaning on young bellendean’s arm. he was alarmed and nervous; his throat was dry, his mind was confused. norman’s society, the touch of his arm, the moral force of his companionship, kept colonel hayward up to the mark, or it is possible that he might have turned back and fled from those difficulties which he did not feel himself able to cope with, and the new relationship that had already produced such confusion in his life. but he was firmly held by norman’s arm, and did not resist the impulse, though it was not his own. he did not know what he was going to say to joyce, or how to meet this proud young creature, filled with a fanciful indignation for her mother’s wrongs. he had never wronged her mother. pitiful as the story was, and tenderly as he had always regarded her memory, the joyce of his youth had been the instrument of her own misery and of much trouble and anguish to him, though the gentle-hearted soldier had accepted it always as a sort of natural calamity for which nobody was responsible, and never blamed her. but even the gentlest-hearted will be moved when the judgment which they have refrained from making is turned against
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themselves. it was not his fault, and yet how could he say so? how could he explain it to this second hot-headed joyce without blaming the first who had so suffered, and over whom death had laid a shadowy veil of tenderness, an oblivion of all mistakes and errors? colonel hayward did not articulately discuss this question with himself, but it was at the bottom of all the confusion in his troubled mind. he was afraid of her, shy of her presence, not knowing how to address or approach this stranger, who was his own child. he had looked with a tender envy at other people’s daughters before now, thinking if only elizabeth—— but a daughter who was not elizabeth’s, and to whom his wife was even, as he said to himself, a little—opposed, was something that had never entered into his thoughts. how easy it was in the story-books!—how parents and children long separated sprang into each other’s arms and hearts by instinct. but it was very different in real life, when the problem how to receive into the intimacy of so small a household a third person who was so near in blood, so absolutely unknown in all that constitutes human sympathy, had to be solved at a moment’s notice! he had been very much excited and disturbed the day before, but he had not doubted the power of elizabeth to put everything right. now, however, elizabeth had not only for the first time failed, but was—opposed. she had not said it, but he had felt it. she had declared herself tired, and lain down, and told him to work it out himself. such a state of affairs was one which colonel hayward had never contemplated, and everything accordingly was much worse than yesterday, when he had still been able to feel that if elizabeth were only here all would go well.
the party in the cottage were in a very subdued and depressed condition when captain bellendean knocked at the door. the heat of resistance in joyce’s mind had died down. 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. joyce knew now, though she had not acknowledged it in words, that her power over her own life was gone,—that there was no strength in her to resist the new laws and subordination under which she felt herself to have fallen. she had not even the con
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sciousness which a girl in a higher class might have been supported by, that her father’s rights over her were not supreme. she believed that she had no power to resist his decrees as to what was to become of her; and accordingly, after the first outburst of contradictory feeling, the girl’s heart and courage had altogether succumbed. she had fallen upon the neck of her old guardian—the true mother of her life—with tears, which quenched out every spark of the passion which had inspired her.
joyce felt herself to be within the grasp of fate. she was like one of the heroines of the poets in a different aspect from that in which she had identified herself with rosalind or miranda. what she was like now was iphigenia or antigone caught in the remorseless bonds of destiny. she did not even feel that forlorn satisfaction in it which she might have done had there been more time, or had she been less unhappy. the only feeling she was conscious of was misery, life running low in her, all the elements and powers against her, and the possibility even of resistance gone out of her. old janet had pressed her close, and then had repulsed her with the impatience of highly excited feeling; and joyce stood before the window, with the light upon her pale face, quite subdued, unresistant, dejected to the bottom of her heart. the only one of the group who showed any energy or satisfaction was andrew halliday, who could not refrain a rising and exhilaration of heart at the thought of being son-in-law to a man who was the ‘captain’s’ commanding officer, and consequently occupied a position among the great ones of the earth. andrew’s imagination had already leaped at all the good things that might follow for himself. he thought of possible elevations in the way of head-masterships, scholastic dignities, and honours. ‘they’ would never leave joyce’s husband a parish schoolmaster! he had not time to follow it out, but his thoughts had swayed swiftly upwards to promotions and honours undefined.
‘wha’s that at the door?’ said janet, among her tears.
‘it’s the captain,’ said joyce, in a voice so low that she was almost inaudible. then she added, ‘it’s—it’s—my father.’
‘her father!’ peter rose up with a lowering brow. ‘my hoose is no’ a place for every fremd person to come oot and in at their pleasure. let them be. i forbid ainy person to open that door.’
‘oh, haud your tongue, man!’ cried janet; ‘can ye keep them oot with a steekit door—them that has the law on their side, and nature too?’
the old man took his blue bonnet, which hung on the back of
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his chair. ‘stand back, sir,’ he said sternly to andrew, who had risen to go to the door; ‘if my hoose is mine nae mair, nor my bairn mine nae mair, it’s me, at least, that has the richt to open, and nae ither man.’ he put his bonnet on his head, pulling it down upon his brows. ‘my head’s white and my heart’s sair: if the laird thinks i’ve nae mainners, he maun just put up wi’t, i’m no’ lang for this life that i should care.’ he threw the door wide open as he spoke, meeting the look of the newcomers with his head down, and his shaggy eyebrows half covering his eyes. ‘gang in, gang in, if ye’ve business,’ he said, and flung heavily past them, without further greeting. the sound of his heavy footstep, hastening away, filled all the silence which, for a moment, no one broke.
norman made way, and almost pushed the colonel in before him. ‘they expect you,’ he said. and colonel hayward stepped in. a more embarrassed man, or one more incapable of filling so difficult a position, could not be. how willingly would he have followed peter! but duty and necessity and norman bellendean all kept him up to the mark. joyce stood straight up before him in front of the window. she turned to him her pale face, her eyes heavy with tears. the good man was accustomed to be received with pleasure, to dispense kindness wherever he went: to appear thus, in the aspect of a destroyer of domestic happiness, was more painful and confusing than words can say.
‘young lady,’ he began, and stopped, growing more confused than ever. then, desperation giving him courage, ‘joyce—— it cannot be stranger to you than it is to me, to see you standing here before me, my daughter, when i never knew i had a daughter. my dear, we ought to love one another,—but how can we, being such strangers? i have never been used to—anything of the kind. it’s a great shock to us both, finding this out. but if you’ll trust yourself to me, i’ll—i’ll do my best. a man cannot say more.’
‘sir,’ said joyce; her voice faltered and died away in her throat. she made an effort and began again, ‘sir,’ then broke down altogether, and, making a step backwards, clutched at old janet’s dress. ‘oh, granny, he’s very kind—his face is very kind,’ she cried.
‘ay,’ said the old woman, ‘ye say true; he has a real kind face. sir, what she wants to tell ye is, that though a’s strange, and it’s hard, hard to ken what to say, she’ll be a good daughter to ye, and do her duty, though maybe there’s mony things that may gang wrang at first. ye see she’s had naebody but peter
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and me: and she’s real fond of the twa auld folk, and has been the best bairn’—janet’s voice shook a little, but she controlled it. ‘never, never in this world was there a better bairn—though she’s aye had the nature o’ a lady and the mainners o’ ane, and might have thought shame of us puir country bodies. na, my bonnie woman, na,—i ken ye never did. but, sir, ye need never fear to haud up yer head when ye’ve her by your side. she’s fit to stand before kings—ay, that she is,—before kings, and no before meaner men.’
the colonel gazed curiously at the little old woman, who stood so firm in her self-abnegation that he, at least, never realised how sadly it went against the grain. ‘madam,’ he said, in his old-fashioned way, ‘i believe you fully; but it must be all to your credit and the way you have brought her up, that i find her what she is.’ he took janet’s hand and held it in his own,—a hard little hand, scored and bony with work, worn with age—not lovely in any way. the colonel recovered himself and regained his composure, now that he had come to the point at which he could pay compliments and give pleasure. ‘i thank you, madam, from the bottom of my heart, for what you have done for her, and for what you are giving up to me,’ he said, bowing low. janet had no understanding of what he meant; and when he bent his grizzled moustache to kiss her hand, she gave a little shriek of mingled consternation and pleasure. ‘eh, colonel!’ she exclaimed, her old cheeks tingling with a blush that would not have shamed a girl’s. never in her life had lips of man touched janet’s hand before. she drew it from him and fell back upon her chair and sobbed, looking at the knotted fingers and prominent veins in an ecstasy of wonder and admiration. ‘did you see that, joyce? he’s kissed my hand; did ever mortal see the like? eh, colonel! i just havena a word—no’ a word—to say.’
joyce put out both her hands to her father, her eyes swimming in tears, her face lighted up with that sudden gleam of instantaneous perception which was one of the charms of her face. ‘oh, sir!’ she said: the other word, father, fluttered on her lips. it was a gentleman who did that, one of the species which joyce knew so little, but only that she belonged to it. in her quick imagination rehearsing every incident before it happened, that was what she would have had him do. the little act of personal homage was more than words, more than deeds, and changed the current of her feelings as by magic. and the colonel now was in his element too. the tender flattery and sincere extravagance of all those delicate ways of giving pleasure were easy and natural
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to him, and he was restored to himself. he took joyce’s hands in one of his, and drew her within his arm.
‘my dear,’ he said, with moisture in his eyes, ‘you are very like your mother. god forgive me if i ever frightened her or neglected her! i could not look you in the face if i had ever done her conscious wrong. will you kiss me, my child, and forgive your father? she would bid you do so if she were here.’
it was very strange to joyce. she grew crimson, as old janet had done, under her father’s kiss. he was her father; her heart no longer made any objections; it beat high with a strange mixture of elation and pain. her father—who had done her mother no conscious wrong, who had proved himself, in that high fantastical way which alone is satisfactory to the visionary soul, to be such a gentleman as she had always longed to meet with: yet one whom she would have to follow, far from all she knew, and, what was far worse, leaving desolate the old parents who depended upon her for all the brightness in their life. her other sensations of pain fled away like clouds before the dawn, but this tragic strain remained. how would they do without her?—how could they bear the separation? the causeless resentment, the fanciful resistance which joyce had felt against her father, vanished in a moment, having no cause; but the other burden remained.
meanwhile there was another burden of which she had not thought. andrew halliday had discreetly withdrawn himself while the main action of the scene was going on. he stepped aside, and began to talk to captain bellendean. it was not undesirable in any circumstances to make friends with captain bellendean; and the schoolmaster had all his wits about him. he took up a position aside, where he could still command a perfect view of what was going on, and then he said, ‘we are having very good weather for this time of the year.’
‘yes,’ norman said, a little surprised, ‘i think so. it is not very warm, but it is always fine.’
‘not warm! that will be your indian experiences, captain; for we all think here it is a very fine season—the best we have had for years. the corn is looking well, and the farmers are content, which is a thing that does not happen every year.’
‘no, indeed,’ said norman. he was not very much interested in the farmers, who had not yet begun to be the troublesome members of society they now are; but he did not wish to have his attention distracted from the scene going on so near; and but for innate civility, he would willingly have snubbed the school
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master. andrew, however, was not a person to be suppressed so.
‘you are more interested,’ he said confidentially, ‘in what’s going on here; and so am i, captain bellendean. i have reason to be very deeply interested. everything that concerns my dear joyce——’
‘your dear—what?’ cried the captain abruptly, turning quickly upon him with an indignant air. then, however, captain bellendean recollected himself. ‘i beg your pardon,’ he said quickly; ‘i believe i have heard—something.’
‘you will have heard,’ said halliday, ‘that we’ve been engaged for some time back. we should have been married before now but for some difficulties about—about her parents and mine. not that there was not perfect satisfaction with the connection,’ he added, with his air of importance, ‘on both sides of the house.’
‘oh,’ said norman. he felt himself grow red with annoyance at this intrusive fellow, whose affairs were nothing to him. he added with conscious sarcasm, ‘let us hope it will always continue to be equally satisfactory.’
‘i hope so,’ said halliday. ‘it could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise, seeing that joyce was my choice in very humble circumstances, when i might well have found a partner in a different sphere. my mother’s first word was, “andrew, you might have done better;” but joyce’s own merits turned the scale. she is an excellent creature, captain bellendean, admirable in tuition. she raises an enthusiasm in the children, especially the bigger girls, which really requires quite a gift. i looked forward to the day when she should be transferred to my own parish, and work under me. judicious guidance was all she required—just a hint here, a suggestion there—and there would not be a head-mistress in scotland to equal her.’
‘i fear,’ said norman, smoothing his annoyance into a laugh, ‘that colonel hayward will put a stop to schoolmistressing.’
‘why, sir, why? it’s a noble office. there could not be a finer occupation, nor one in which you can serve your country better. ladies, indeed, after marriage, when they get the cares of a family, sometimes begin to flag a little,’ said halliday, giving a complacent look at joyce. ‘of course,’ he added, after a pause—and, though he did not know it, he had never been so near being kicked out of a house in his life—‘if colonel hayward should wish her to settle near him, there are many fine appointments to be had in england. i would not say that i should insist upon remaining here.
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’
‘that would be kind,’ said captain bellendean, with a sarcasm which was scarcely intentional. he was confounded by the composure and by the assurance of this fellow, who was so calmly persuaded of his own property in joyce.
‘i would think it only duty,’ said halliday; ‘but you’ll excuse me, captain,—i think i am wanted.’ he turned with a smile towards joyce, still awed and astonished by the sudden change in her own sentiments, who continued to stand shy and tremulous within her father’s encircling arm.
‘joyce,’ said andrew, ‘i am glad to see this happy conclusion; but you have not yet introduced me to the cornel—and we can have no secrets from him now.’
the colonel turned with astonishment and something as like hauteur as was possible to his gentle and courteous temper, to the new speaker. he looked him over from head to foot, with a dim recollection of having seen him before, and of having somehow resented his appearance even then. he resented it much more now, when this half-bred person, whose outside was not that of a gentleman, yet was not that of a labouring man, came forward claiming a place between his daughter and himself. he turned upon andrew that mild lightning of indignant eyes which had proved so efficacious in the regiment. but halliday was not to be intimidated by any man’s eyes. he drew still nearer with an ingratiating smile, and said again, ‘introduce me to the cornel, joyce.’
joyce had accepted andrew halliday’s love—as little of it as possible: because he had forced it upon her, because his talk and acquaintance with books had dazzled her, because she had found a certain protection in him from other rustic suitors. she had allowed it to be understood that some time or other she would marry him. he was the nearest to herself in position, in ambition, of any in the country-side. but she lifted her eyes to him now with a shrinking and horror which she herself could not understand. he stood between her and captain bellendean, contrasting himself without the smallest reluctance or sense of danger with the man whose outward semblance was more like that of a hero than any man joyce had seen. she made in a moment the comparison which it had never occurred to halliday to make. his under-size, his imperfect development, the absence of natural grace and refinement in him, made themselves apparent to her sharply, as if by the sting of a sudden blow. she gazed at him, the colour again flushing over her face, with a slight start of surprise and something like repugnance. he had got her promise that she would marry
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him, but she had never promised to present him to her unknown dream-father as his future son.
‘who is it?’ said colonel hayward. he curved his eyebrows over his eyes to assist his vision, which gave him a look of displeasure; and he was displeased to see this man,—a man with whom he had some previous unpleasant association, he could not tell what,—thrusting himself in at such an inappropriate moment between his daughter and himself.
‘it is—andrew halliday,’ said joyce, very low, turning her head away. halliday held his ground very sturdily, and acknowledged this abrupt description with an ingratiating smile.
‘how do you do, cornel?’ he said. ‘after all, she’s shy—she leaves me to introduce myself; which is not perhaps to be wondered at. we have been engaged for nearly a year. i came here to-day, knowing nothing, to try and persuade her to name the day, and put an end to a wretched bachelor’s life. but when i arrived i found everything turned upside down, and joyce quite past giving any heed to me. i hope i may leave my cause in your hand, cornel,’ said the schoolmaster, with the utmost absence of perception. he thought he had made a very agreeable impression, and that his affairs were, as he said, safe in the cornel’s hands.
‘you are engaged to this—gentleman?’ colonel hayward said.
joyce felt herself quail as she looked into her father’s face. she read all that was in his at a glance. colonel hayward was quite ignorant of halliday, quite unaccustomed to the kind of man, unprepared for this new claim; and yet his eyes expressed the same thoughts which were in hers. a little shiver of keen sympathetic feeling ran through her. she felt herself unable to say anything. she assented with a look in which, with horror at herself, she felt the shrinking, the reluctance to acknowledge the truth, the disinclination which she had never allowed even to herself up to this time. the colonel looked from joyce, standing with downcast eyes and that half-visible shrinking in every line of her figure and attitude, to the commonplace man with the smirk on his countenance: and breathed once more the habitual aspiration of his life, ‘oh that elizabeth were here!’ but then he remembered that elizabeth had sent him away to work it out for himself.
‘we always knew,’ said halliday, ‘that this day would come some time, and that her real origin would be known. i have looked forward to it, cornel. i have always done my best to help her to prepare—for any position. i am not rich,’ he added, with demonstrative frankness; ‘but among people of high tone tha
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t’s but a secondary matter, and i know you’ll find we are true partners and mates, joyce and myself, in every other way.’
‘sir, i am very much confused with one discovery,’ said the colonel, hesitating and tremulous. ‘i—i—can scarcely realise yet about my daughter. let the other stand over a little—let it wait a little—till i have got accustomed—till i know how things are—till i——’
he looked at joyce anxiously to help him out. but for the first time in her life joyce failed in this emergency. she stood with her eyes cast down, slightly drawn back, keeping herself isolated by an instinctive movement. she had never been in such a strait before.
‘oh,’ said halliday, ‘i understand. i can enter into your feelings, cornel; and i am not afraid to wait.’ he took joyce’s hand, which hung by her side, and clasped it close. ‘joyce,’ he said, ‘will speak for me; joyce will see that i am not put off too long.’
a sudden heat like a flame seemed to envelop joyce. she withdrew her hand quickly, yet almost stealthily, and turned upon her father—her father whom she had known only for a few hours, whose claims she had at first rejected—an appealing look. then joyce, too, remembered herself. truth and honour stood by halliday’s side, though he was not of their noble strain. the flame grew hotter and hotter, enveloping her, scorching her, turning from red to the white flames of devouring fire. she turned back to her betrothed lover, scarcely seeing through eyes dazzled by that glare, and put out her hand to him as if forced by some invisible power.
