It was some days before the new difficulties which possessed all Mrs. Hayward’s thoughts were fully revealed to Joyce. These early days were long, being full of so many confusing circumstances and new problems to be encountered, solved, or left aside for further trouble in their turn; and what she had heard her stepmother say about her bringing up had passed over Joyce’s mind with little effect. She had enough to do in other ways: to find out a mode of living which would be practicable, to subdue her own spirit, to reconcile herself with so many new necessities all rushing upon her at once. How to apportion her time was in itself a difficulty almost beyond her untried powers: to be long enough, yet not too long, with Mrs. Hayward—to find something to do during these hours which she had to pass in that drawing-room which was so pretty and comfortable, but so little homelike to the stranger. Joyce had abundant resources in herself. She was fully instructed in all kinds of work—a mistress of fine-sewing and mending, able to clothe her household with needlework, like the woman in the Proverbs; but there was no need for these qualifications here. And she had gone through all the studies which were open to her in design, besides having found out somehow, amid those gifts of nature which to all her early friends had seemed so lavish, a faculty for drawing, which had been of endless pleasure to her, and pride to her belongings in the old time. Music, indeed, was left out, except in so far as it belonged to her profession. She had learned the Hullah system, or something like it, and could read easily all the simple songs which were taught to the children; but a piano had never been within her reach, nor had she heard anything that a musician would think worth hearing. At home in Bellendean the old people thought that nobody could sing the ‘Flowers of the Forest, or the ‘Banks of Doon,’ or the old Psalm tunes, which were still dearer, like, their Joyce. But
{174}
 these were not the sort of performances with which to please Mrs. Hayward.
Thus, though she was full of accomplishments in her way, none of Joyce’s acquirements stood her in much stead in her new circumstances. She had to contrive something for herself to do, which was far from being easy. She had to think of what she could talk about, to take her fit part in the household intercourse—not to sit like an uninterested spectator between these two strange people, who were her nearest relations. And this was almost the hardest of all; for Colonel Hayward and his wife were like so many people of their class—they had read little, they were puzzled by references to books, and did not understand that keen sense of association and fellowship with her favourite writers and their productions which made Joyce an inhabitant of a second world, to her consciousness almost more real than the external sphere. The Colonel said ‘Eh?’ as if he had become a little deaf, with a kind but bewildered smile, when she adduced the example—to Joyce more natural than the most familiar examples of every day—of somebody in Scott, or, as she loved to say, Sir Walter, to illustrate a position; while Mrs. Hayward was more apt to frown and to say impatiently that she thought it very wrong for young people to read so many novels. They did not even know what she meant by Sir Walter!—her father, with his puzzled look, suggesting, ‘Sir Walter—Gilbert, did you mean, my dear? Now, where can you have met Gilbert, Joyce? and what could he know about the oyster-dredging in the North?’ Thus it was against her that she knew more than they did, as well as that she knew less: in either case, she was left out of their circle, out of their world,—her very wealth futile, and more useless than had she been without endowment at all.
But in the preoccupation of so many matters, important beyond measure to her new existence, and much pondering of the way to make that existence possible, which seemed to her sometimes a problem almost beyond her powers of solving, Joyce was not at all quick to catch up the allusions of her stepmother, or to perceive what it was that filled Mrs. Hayward’s mind with new alarms. The possibility of there being something to be ashamed of in respect to herself—something to conceal or gloss over, in case it might revolt the visitors, of whom Joyce, hitherto measuring them by the standard of Bellendean, had not formed a very high idea—had never entered her mind; and she was startled beyond measure when Mrs. Hayward opened the subject directly in a moment of impatience, and notwithstanding her own excellent
{175}
 resolutions against doing so. Joyce had been betrayed into some reference to her old work, which she had instinctively felt to be distasteful and seldom alluded to, but which would crop up now and then. It was Mr. Sitwell, the clergyman, and his school feast, which was the original subject of the talk.
‘I think they are playing at school work,’ Joyce said. ‘I would like to see the mistress, and hear what she says.’
‘I beg you will do nothing of the kind,’ cried Mrs. Hayward. ‘I did not at all like your enthusiasm about the schools when the Sitwells were here. I think you said you were more interested in them than in anything else in the world. I am never fond of extravagance.’
‘But it was true,’ said Joyce, with a deprecating smile. ‘When you have been interested about one thing all your life, and always thinking which is the best way, what can you do but feel it the most important?’
‘It is time,’ said Mrs. Hayward, ‘that you should find another channel for your thoughts. I didn’t mean to say anything to vex you, Joyce. But you must know that your father’s daughter should have been brought up in a very different way; and, to tell the truth, I would much rather our friends here knew as little as possible—about your antecedents.’
Joyce looked up astonished, with a quick cry, ‘Antecedents!’ which was a word that seemed to imply something bad, like the reports in the newspapers. She was, to be sure, too well instructed to think that implication necessary; but there are prejudices of which even the best-informed persons cannot shake themselves free.
‘You know what I mean!—the teaching, and all that. That you should be fond of the schools, and interested in them, is all very well; but that you were a——’
A flush of deep colour had rushed over Joyce’s uplifted face. ‘A—schoolmistress,’ she said, with the quiver of a piteous little smile.
‘I can’t bear to hear you say it—your father’s daughter!—and of course it is impossible to enter into particulars, and explain everything to everybody. I think it better, far better, to draw a veil. You were brought up by relations in Scotland—that is what I mean to say.’
‘Relations!’ repeated Joyce softly; ‘thank you for saying that. Oh, and so they were!—the kindest relations that ever a poor little girl had.’
‘I am glad I have pleased you, so far as that goes,’ said Mrs.
{176}
 Hayward, in a tone of relief. ‘Well, then, I hope you will back me up, and show yourself grateful to your old friends. There are various other things I may mention as we are on this subject. For instance, when you were talking to Alice St. Clair you said Miss Greta. Now that young lady, if you were to renew your acquaintance with her, would certainly not allow you to call her Miss now.’
Joyce opened her eager lips to reply, but, struck by a sudden sense of the uselessness of any explanation, closed them again—a movement not unnoticed by her companion.
‘I notice also,’ said Mrs. Hayward, ‘that you have a way of calling Mrs. Bellendean the Lady. That’s all very well if it’s one of the fantastic names that girls are so fond of nowadays—I mean, if other young people use it as well as you; but if it’s one of your terms of respect—— Remember, Joyce, that to go on speaking in that way is a—is a kind of insult to your father and to your own family, which is quite as good as Mrs. Bellendean’s.’
As good as Mrs. Bellendean’s!—her heart revolted against this claim. The old homage which she had given with youthful enthusiasm was not to Mrs. Bellendean’s position or her family. But how was Joyce to explain this to her judge, who did not look upon her or her romances with a favourable eye? And yet she could not but say a word in self-defence. ‘It was for kindness,’ she said,—‘for,’ hesitating with her Scotch shyness, ‘for love!’
‘For love!’ Mrs. Hayward echoed the word with a tone of opposition, and almost offence. ‘She is one of the women who seem to have the gift of attracting girls. I don’t know how they do it, for girls have always seemed to me the most uncertain, unappreciative——’ She sighed impatiently, then added in a softened tone, ‘If it’s only a sort of pet name, that’s different. But you must see that it is your duty to avoid everything that could seem to—to discredit your father. And we can’t explain the circumstances to everybody, and prove that it was not his fault. For my part,’ she cried, with a flash of quick feeling in her clear eyes, ‘I’d say anything or do anything rather than let it be supposed for a moment that the Colonel—had anything to be ashamed of in the whole course of his existence. He has not, and never had, whatever you may think. That’s what I call love,’ she cried, vehemently, with a sudden tear or two taking her by surprise.
Joyce turned towards her step-mother with a quick responsive look; but Mrs. Hayward was ashamed of her own emotion, and had turned away to conceal it, thus missing the eager overture of
{177}
 sympathy. She went on in another moment with a little laugh: ‘It shows we never should be sure of anything. If there was one thing more unlikely than another, I should have said it was the gossip of a Scotch village getting abroad here. I should have thought that nobody here had ever heard the name of Bellendean—when lo! it turns out that we are in a perfect wasp’s nest of relations and connections. Your Miss Greta, as you call her, a cousin, and the St. Clairs themselves visitors of the Bellendeans. I suppose before another week is over all Richmond will know the story. It is very vexatious, when I had planned to take you about everywhere, and do all sorts of things!’
She was called out of the room at this moment by some domestic requirement, and did not hear Joyce’s troubled murmur. ‘Was there anything, then, to think shame of?’ Joyce had said, her voice trembling, with the Scotch idiom which Mrs. Hayward disliked. She added to herself, ‘in me,’ with a wondering pang. Perhaps the girl had too high a conception of herself, which it was well to bring down; but such an operation is always a painful one. Though she had been brought up in a ploughman’s cottage, and occupied the humblest position, yet nothing had ever happened in her life to humiliate Joyce. She had been admired and praised, and placed upon a little pedestal from her earliest consciousness: and that any one should be ashamed of her struck her as something so incredible and extraordinary, that it took away her breath,—‘anything to think shame of—in me.’ She had no defence against such a sudden dart: it went through and through her, cutting to her heart. She rose up quickly, with a sensation intolerable—a quick and passionate impulse. To do what? She could not tell. To have the wings of a dove and fly away—but where? She stopped herself, clasping her hands together, holding herself fast that she might not be so unreasonable as to do it. The mother had done it, and what had come of it? To herself madness and death, and to her poor child this,—that the people to whom she belonged were ashamed o............