‘At last I can get a word with yourself, Joyce!’

Mrs. Bellendean led her out under the verandah to the garden path beyond with an anxiety and eagerness which startled Joyce. She half enveloped the girl in the warmth of her cloak and of the caressing arm which held hers. It was a caressing hold, but very firm, not leaving any possibility of escape. More than an hour had passed slowly in the usual vague interchanges of drawing-room conversation, when there is nothing particular to talk about on either side; but the visitor had said nothing about going—had not even mentioned, as such visitors are bound to do, the train by which she intended to leave. She had kept a furtive watch upon Joyce, following all her movements, but she had not transgressed against decorum and domestic rule by asking to speak with her alone. Accident, however, had done what Mrs. Bellendean did not venture to do. Mrs. Hayward had been called away for some domestic consultation, the Colonel had gone out, and Joyce was left with her visitor alone.

‘Are you afraid of the cold?—but it isn’t cold—and I do want to say a dozen words where no one can possibly hear. Joyce, my dear girl, do let me speak to you while there is time. Joyce—I don’t know how to open the subject—I would not venture if I were less anxious. Joyce, you heard what I was saying about Norman, my stepson?’

‘Yes.’ Joyce did not look up, nor did she feel herself able to say more.

‘You used to be—devoted to me, Joyce; as I always was very fond of you. A little cloud has come between us somehow—I can’t tell how—but it has made no difference to my feelings.’ Mrs. Bellendean was a little short of breath. She paused, pressing Joyce’s arm with hers, leaning over her, with anxious eyes upon her face. But something prevented Joyce from making any response—that cloud was still between them, whatever it was.

‘You know very well the interest I have always taken in you from the very beginning, before any one suspected—— And Greta—Greta was always fond of you. You have not met much lately.’

‘No.’ Nothing would come but monosyllables.

‘I want to speak to you of Greta, Joyce. She is younger than you are, though you are young enough. She has never been crossed or disappointed in her life. I can’t think of that for her without a shudder. She would die. It would break her heart.’

‘What?’ said Joyce.

‘Joyce, I am going to take you into our confidence—to tell you our secret; you will never betray us. If things should happen so that what we wish never came to pass, you would not betray us?’

For the first time Joyce raised her eyes to Mrs. Bellendean’s face.

‘I know—I know—I never doubted for a moment. It will rest with you to decide. Joyce, you have got Greta’s life in your hands.’

‘I! in my hands.’ She looked up again into the face which was bending so closely with such an anxious look over hers. The lace of Mrs. Bellendean’s veil swept her forehead. The breath, which came so quick, breathed upon her cheek.

‘Joyce,’ said the lady again, ‘I know that it was not a little that you saw Norman. I know that he was here day after day. I know that he was—in love with you.’

Joyce detached herself suddenly from that close enlacement. She drew her arm away, shook off the draperies which half enveloped her. ‘I do not think you have any right—to say that to me,’ she said.

‘If I did not know it to be true—and you know it’s true. He came here day after day till he imagined—he was in love with you. 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. A little gust of wind burst forth suddenly, and sent a small shower of leaves at their feet. They both started, as if these had been the footsteps of some intruder.

‘It has always been our desire:’—the visitor began again in a low voice, as if she were afraid of being overheard—‘everybody has wished and expected it. They suit each other in every way. She has been brought up for him. She has always thought of Norman all her life. Poor little Greta! she is so young—not strong either; her mother died quite young. And she doesn’t know what disappointment is. We are all to blame; we have petted her and made her think there was nothing but happiness before her. And she was always fond of you, Joyce. You, too’—Mrs. Bellendean added, after a pause—‘you were devoted to her.’

Joyce’s voice sounded harsh and hoarse. After the silence it came out quite suddenly, all the music and softness gone out of it: ‘What have I to do with all this? What has it to say to me?’

‘Joyce! do you think I would come to you without strong reason—betraying Greta?’

‘This has nothing to do with me,’ said Joyce again.

‘It has everything to do with you. So long as he has been at home all has been well. He has seen her every day. He has got to appreciate her, and to see that she is the right wife for him, his own class, his own kind, fit to take her place in the county, and help him to his right position. But he is coming up to town. He will be coming here,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, putting her hand again upon the girl’s arm. ‘Oh, Joyce, Joyce——’

‘I have nothing to do with it,’ said Joyce. ‘What—what do you think I can do?’

‘He—can be nothing to you,’ said the visitor tremulously. ‘You—you’re engaged already. You’ve given your word to a—good respectable man. Norman is only a stranger to you.’

Joyce did not reply. She drew herself away a little, but could not escape the pressure of that eager, persuasive hand.

‘I understand it all,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘He is not clever, but he has the manners of a man that knows the world, and he has been very much struck with you. And you have been—flattered. You have liked to have him come, even though he could never be anything to you.’

She had got Joyce’s arm again in her close clasp, and she felt the strong pulsations, the resistance, the movements of agitation, which, with all her power of self-control, the girl could not restrain.

‘Oh, think, Joyce, before it goes any further! Will you for simple vanity—or like one of the flirts that would have every one at their feet—will you break Greta’s heart, and make a desert of both their lives? All for what?—for a brag,—for a little pleasure to your pride,—for it can be nothing else, seeing you’re engaged to another man!’

The woman was cruel, remorseless,—for she felt Joyce’s arm vibrate in her clasp, which she could not loosen,—and thus commanded her secrets, and forced her to betray herself. The girl felt herself driven to bay.

‘I don’t understand—the things you say,’ she answered slowly at last. ‘You speak as if I had a power—a power—that I know nothing about. And oh, you’re cruel, cruel! to put all that in my mind. What—do you think I can do?’

‘Oh, Joyce, I knew you would never fail me. You have such a generous heart. Let him see, only let him see, that between him and you there can be nothing. He will accept it quickly enough. A man’s pride is soon up in arms. It has only been a passing fancy, and he will soon see that everything is against it; while everything is in favour of the other. If you will only be firm, and let him see—oh, Joyce, you who are so clever! dear Joyce!’

Joyce’s heart swelled almost to bursting. ‘You call me clever, and dear,’ she cried; ‘and you tell me I must save Greta’s heart from breaking; but what if I were to break mine,—and what if I were to hurt his,—and what if I were to make three miserable instead of one? You never think of that.’

‘No,’ cried Mrs. Bellendean, with a tone of indignation; ‘because I would never do you that wrong, Joyce,—you that are honour itself and the soul of truth,—to believe that you had even a thought of Norman, being engaged to another man.’

Joyce shrank as if she had received a blow. ‘Oh,’ she cried, in a broken voice, ‘you never ceased to say that I had done wrong—that it was not a fit thing for me—that I would change, that I would find it not possible to keep my word. You said so—not I.’

‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Mrs. Bellendean.

‘No,’ said Joyce, ‘don’t call me so. I am not dear any more. You know that there was a time when Joyce would do what you said, if it was small or great, if it was to give you a flower or to give you her heart; and then you changed, and that ceased to be; and we got all wrong because I was Colonel Hayward’s daughter. And now you come and put me back again in my old place, but far, far lower—the girl engaged to Andrew Halliday, whom you never could bear to hear of—and bid me do what may be, perhaps, for all you know, a heartbreak to me——’

‘No, Joyce—no, dear Joyce!’

‘For what?’ she said sadly—‘that you may call me that—you that raised me up to your arms, for being not myself but my father’s daughter—and now drop me down, down again, for fear I should come in your way. And why should I break my heart more than Greta? why should I be disappointed and not she? why should I give up my hope to save her—if it was so?’

‘But, Joyce, Joyce!—it is not so!’

Joyce made no reply.

The two figures moved on together slowly in silence, with the autumn leaves dropping over them, and the afternoon growing grey. Mrs. Bellendean felt upon her arm the strong beating of the girl’s heart, and the tremor that went through her; and her own heart smote her for what she was doing: but not for so little as that did she give up the work which was already more than half done. She followed all the movements of the girl’s mind with an extraordinary sympathy, even while she set herself to the task of overcoming them; for she was not the less fond of Joyce, and scarcely felt with her less, for this determination to subdue her. She was conscious of the commotion, the revolt, the sense of personal wrong, yet underneath all the strong fidelity and loyalty of the spirit over which she was exercising a tyrannical power. She let her own influence work in the silence, without saying a word, with an assurance of victory. The only thing that lessened the cruelty of the undertaking was that she did not really know whether Joyce’s heart was or was not engaged—even now she could not fathom that—but was able to persuade herself that the girl’s protest was one of indignation only, not of outraged love; and that the sacrifice, if she made it, would only be a sacrifice of her pleasure in a conquest and of her vanity, not of any real happiness or hope.

Mrs. Bellendean’s confidence was justified. After a minute or two, which had seemed hours, Joyce spoke again. ‘There is no need to tell you,’ she said, very low, so that the lady had to stoop to hear her—for Joyce’s head was bent, and her voice scarcely audible—‘there is no need to tell you—that as far as in me lies I will do what you say.’

‘My dearest, kind girl—my own Joyce!’

‘No,’ she said, with a shudder, drawing away her arm, ‘not that—never that. It is all changed and different, Mrs. Bellendean. I am not even Joyce, your schoolmistress, that was so proud to please you; but in another parish, with another name—as you think best for me.’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, with real pain, ‘don’t say that! I only think so because you yourself thought so; and with your father’s help and that of your friends, it need not be another parish, nor any parish. He is a most respectable, clever man. We will find him something far better, something more worthy of you.’

Joyce said nothing more. She turned round and led the way back to the house, keeping apart from her companion, walking with a new-born dignity and pride. There was not another word said as they returned to the verandah, from which Mrs. Hayward was looking out, looking for them. She had a shawl wrapped close round her, yet shivered a little in the early falling twilight. ‘You will both get your death of cold,’ she cried. ‘Come in, come in, and have some tea. Joyce, you really carry rashness too far: you must be chilled to death.’

‘I am afraid it is my fault,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘I forgot she had no wrap. It was such a pleasure to have a little talk with her’—the lady hesitated for a moment, then added with a tremble in her voice—‘as in the old days.’

As in the old days!—a pleasure to talk! ‘Yes, it is very cold,’ said Joyce, holding her hands to the fire. She stood up there, a dark shadow against the warm glow. A strange fascination kept her in the presence of the woman whom she had so loved, who had turned her love to such account. She stood there without moving, trembling with the cold, and something more than the cold. So long as these entreaties were not repeated here! so long as her step-mother was not taken into the lady’s confidence too. Nothing was further from Mrs. Bellendean’s mind. She took with pleasure the warm cup of tea, which, and the warm air of the fire-lighted room, brought back a genial heat all over her. She was a little tremulous, yet satisfied, feeling that she had done all for which she had come. And no harm had been done to Joyce—no harm. She wished the girl would not stand there, cold, reproaching her by the silent shiver with which she held her hands to the fire. But that was all. What is a little cold at her age?—no more than the little puncture of her vanity, the little salutary wound which was all, Mrs. Bellendean persuaded herself, that she had given.

‘It was foolish of me to forget that Joyce had no shawl. She has always been so hardy, I hope it will not matter. It is such a long time since I have seen her.’ It seemed impossible to change the subject, to get out of these banalitÉs which meant so much worse than nothing, which conveyed so false a sense to Joyce’s keen ear. Mrs. Bellendean was embarrassed, but she was not conscious of being false. She added, ‘And it will be a long time before we meet again. I shall have to try and dismiss all my anxieties about my friends from my mind. Joyce is one whom I can always trust not to misunderstand me, not to forget anything,’ Mrs. Bellendean said.

Joyce heard everything, even the rustle of Mrs. Bellendean’s gown, the movement of her arm as she lifted her teacup to her lips, but could not move or say a word. She stood still, warming herself, while the two ladies carried out the usual little interchange of nothings. All they said entered into her brain, and remained in her memory like something of importance. But it was of no importance. Presently Mrs. Bellendean remembered that she must go by a certain train, and a cab had to be sent for. There was a little bustle of leave-taking. Joyce felt herself enclosed in a warm embrace, tenderly kissed, still more tenderly said farewell to. ‘I don’t say, Remember, for I am sure you will not forget me, Joyce,’ were Mrs. Bellendean’s last words, ‘nor what I have said.’ But to this also Joyce replied nothing.

‘I thought she was never going away,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘She must have had something very particular to say to you, Joyce.’

Joyce was walking across the hall towards the stair without any response. Mrs. Hayward stood still under the light and cried impatiently, ‘You don’t seem to have heard me. You look dazed. What had she to say to you, Joyce?’

Joyce turned half round, holding by the banister of the stair. She said, ‘Nothing—it was I myself——’ then paused. ‘She was telling me about Greta. Greta—has never been disappointed—not like—like other folk.’

‘Never disappointed!’ cried Mrs. Hayward. ‘Do they think she can get through life like that? And was this all Mrs. Bellendean came to say? I think she might have saved herself the trouble. I would let Miss Greta look after her own affairs.’