there had been great exultation in st. augustine’s over the demonstration. at the lively supper-party which was held in the little house which the sitwells occupied, en attendant the parsonage which had been promised them (it was one of their chief grievances that no steps had been as yet taken towards carrying out this promise), on the evening after the school-feast, the parson’s wife had been more animated, more witty even, than usual. she had made quite a little drama of the possible scene going on in the rectory, where the canon and his wife were supposed to be discussing the matter. she walked about the room to represent mrs. jenkinson panting with rage, demanding, ‘canon, what where you doing that you let it be? why didn’t you stop it? why didn’t you interfere? i’d rather have written to the bishop, and had them turned off on the spot—that man: and that woman! the woman is far the worst, in my opinion. i am very surprised that you didn’t interfere!’ then mrs. sitwell puffed herself out so that you would actually have believed her to be canon jenkinson, and made her small voice into something as like his softly rolling bass as was possible to so different an organ. ‘if you will consider, my dear, there was nothing to go to the bishop with. the most contemptible of creatures, even a curate, is committing no crime when he gets up a school-feast; and he may even be so abandoned as to give a garden-party, and still his bishop would not interfere. bishops have too little power—their hands are dreadfully tied. if ever i take a bishopric, i hope they’ll be good for something more——’ ‘i should hope so, indeed!’ cried the imaginary canon’s wife in asthmatic pants. ‘the thompsons too—poor sir sam, who is too good-natured for anything. you will see that odious little woman will turn him round her finger. he’ll build their parsonage—he’ll back them up in everything. he’ll get them a grant for their schools, canon;
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and it will be your fault if you let him slip through your fingers. austin, dear!’ cried little mrs. sitwell, suddenly becoming herself, with her little ingratiating look, and her voice a little thin, high-pitched, and shrill— ‘austin, dear! will you turn upon me if i let him slip out of mine?’
austin dear had laughed until he had cried over these sketches of his ecclesiastical superiors, and so had the rev. mr. bright, and even good miss marsham—for they were well done; and the cleverness with which this small person made herself into the semblance of two large people was wonderful. but afterwards mr. sitwell shook his head a little. ‘i hope he will do what you, or rather mrs. jenkinson, thinks,’ he said. ‘i sha’n’t mind how much you turn him round your little finger: but these fat men are not so easily influenced as you would suppose,’ he added, with a sigh.
‘and, my dear,’ said miss marsham, nervously pulling out the little bit of yellow lace round her wrist, and keeping her eyes upon it, ‘though you make me laugh—i can’t help it, it is so funny to hear you do them—yet, you know, if they feel it as much as that, i am sorry. i want you to get your parsonage, and i want st. augustine’s to get on. i am sure if i had money enough i should like, above all things, to give it you for all your schemes; but i don’t want them to suffer—i don’t, indeed,’ she said, making a little hole in her lace, and then trying with nervous efforts to draw it together. miss marsham was of opinion, ever after, that this hole in her old mechlin was in some way judicial,—a judgment upon her for having participated, however unwillingly, in the ridicule of her old friends.
‘as for sir sam, if he resists mrs. sitwell, he will be the first who has done it,’ said mr. bright admiringly. he was not aware that she called him ‘angels ever bright and fair’ when he was not present, and sang that sacred ditty with all his little airs and graces, so that the circle permitted to see the performance nearly died with laughter—or so at least they said.
but the demonstration was over, and nothing more happened. the sudden stop which comes to all excitement when it has been stirred up to a boiling pitch, and afterwards has just to subside again and nothing happens—is painful. the sitwells went on from day to day expecting a letter from sir sam, in which he should propose to build the parsonage (he could so easily!—it would not have cost him a truffle from his dinner, of which the doctor said he ate far too much), or to start the subscription for it with a good round sum, so as to induce others to follow—or, at the very
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least, enclosing a cheque for the schools. but nothing came, not even an invitation to dinner, which would have afforded an occasion to the parson’s wife to turn the fat gentleman round her finger, as she had almost engaged to do. nothing came except, in a fortnight’s time, an invitation to—a garden-party! mrs. sitwell cried with anger and disappointment when this arrived. she took it in to her husband in his study, after she had calmed down a little. ‘look what i have got!’ she said; ‘an invitation to alkaleigh—to a garden-party—next month. what shall i say?’
‘a garden-party! is that all it has come to?’ cried the parson; and then he added, angrily, ‘say we’ve no time for such nonsense—say we never go to garden-parties—say we’re engaged.’
‘i don’t think we should do that. i was very angry too, for the first moment; but when i came to think of it, i felt sure it was her doing. women never want their husbands to give away their money. and at a garden-party, you know, austin, there are such opportunities—when you have your wits about you, and can make use of them.’
‘it doesn’t seem as if we did much when we had him in wombwell’s field—at your command,’ the parson said.
this change of pronouns was very significant, and the sharp little clergywoman perceived it instantly. austin did not like the idea of wheedling a soap-boiler—especially when it was entirely unsuccessful. he did not want it to be supposed, even by himself, that he ever countenanced such unworthy ways. a man cannot (notwithstanding all biblical and other warrants for it) control his wife, or get her to refrain from using her own methods; and so long as it is clearly understood that he is not responsible for them—— adam did not object to the apple,—rather liked it, so far as we have any information; but he wished it to be known that it was his wife’s doing, not any suggestion of his. unfortunately, however, he could not slide out of the responsibility, as mr. sitwell, among a community always disposed to think it was her doing, was not unhopeful of being able to do.
‘i gave in to you about making a demonstration,’ he said. ‘it cost a good deal of money, dora, and i can’t say i ever heartily approved of it; but i gave in, thinking you knew more of society than i did, and that you might be right. and it was a great success, you all said. no; i don’t say anything against that. i daresay it was a success; but what has come of it? nothing at all—except twenty pounds for the schools, counting that ten of cissy marsham’s, which we should have had anyhow.
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’
‘twenty pounds is always something, austin,’ said mrs. sitwell, ignoring the drawback. ‘and it is a great deal to have made it so fully known. sow your bread, don’t you know, by all waters, and it will return to us after many days.’
‘that’s all very well, my dear,’ said the parson, a little subdued—for how is a man of his cloth to answer when you stop his mouth with a text? he added, however, somewhat dolefully, ‘and not a move about the parsonage; and if we are to stay here another winter, when not a single door or window fits, and the rain is always coming in through the roof——’
‘we must stay here another winter, and there is an end of it!’ cried his wife.’ if the subscriptions were full and money to spare, they couldn’t build the parsonage in four months. you must see the landlord, austin, and get him to do something. and we must think of something else to get up the money; we haven’t tried half the things we might. why, if the worst comes to the worst we can have a bazaar. there’s always money to be made in that way: and private theatricals, and a concert—and——’
‘dora, you know i hate bazaars.’
‘everybody says so,’ said mrs. sitwell. ‘but everybody goes, and everybody buys, no matter what rubbish it is. people that won’t give a shilling will spend twenty in materials for making up some trumpery or other, and twenty more in buying other trumpery that other people have made. bazaars must respond to some need of human nature, austin, which it has been left to this generation to find out.’
‘it looks like it,’ says the parson. ‘but don’t talk to me about it, dora. if it has to be, i suppose i shall find philosophy enough to tolerate it when the time comes.’
‘oh, tolerate it! you will be out and in ten times a day, making pretty speeches to all the ladies,’ cried little mrs. sitwell, with a laugh. ‘depend upon it, you will find a bazaar responds to some need of your nature too.’ she said this, though he did not find it out, so exactly in her husband’s own tone, and with his manner, that she had to laugh herself at the double joke of her own fun and his unconsciousness. ‘and “angels ever bright and fair” will enjoy it above all things. he will wonder how we never thought of a thing so delightfully calculated to bring people together before.’
this time it was the parson who laughed, recognising the voice of mr. bright and all his ways, and even his appearance evolved as if by witchcraft.
‘you are really incorrigible, dora,’ he said, turning back to his
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sermon with a mind amused. but he did not know altogether how incorrigible she was, and that he himself, all innocent and unsuspecting, had been a victim too.
‘and i’ll go and see whether i can’t get joyce to make her father do something,’ cried the parson’s wife.
joyce had been plunged in spite of herself into this new and strange current of life. the miss st. clairs, notwithstanding the momentary intimacy of the boating party, made few advances towards friendship; but mrs. sitwell was very eager to secure her society, and also her help in the many activities which absorbed the clergywoman’s busy life. and there could be no doubt that it was very convenient to mrs. hayward that her step-daughter should have a friend who would relieve herself from the duty of tolerating joyce’s constant companionship, and providing for her entertainment. joyce, with a singular impartiality and fairness of mind, herself perceived the advantages of this, and what it must be to her father’s wife to be now and then free of her presence, and able to act as if no grown-up daughter, no unexpected much-claiming personage had ever been in existence. she had a certain sympathy even with mrs. hayward—and she allowed herself to be drawn into the other current, with wistful yet genuine understanding of its expediency. indeed, joyce went on day by day making discoveries, learning fully only now when she seemed to have settled into her place in her father’s house, all the difficulties, the almost impossibilities of it. she felt her disjunction from her past growing day by day, and that was perhaps the worst of all.
the very climax of disquietude and distress came upon her suddenly one day when she was sitting in her room writing her usual letter to janet, the long journal-letter which had been her safety-valve in her early troubles. in the midst of her writing, while she was giving that minute account of herself and of all her actions, which was everything to her old grandmother, joyce suddenly awoke as from a dream, with a burning blush, and threw away her pen out of her hand, as if it had been that that was in the wrong. that little implement, which, one way or other, does so much for us, betraying us, expounding us even to ourselves, seemed to her for the moment like a tricksy demon drawing out of her things which it was against her honour to say. she got up suddenly, pushing away the table and the letter—things that were in the conspiracy! and with a great deal of agitation walked about the room to subdue the beating in her heart. how was it she had never felt, never recognised till now, the difference? not
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janet’s child, free to secure in everything the sympathy of those old people who belonged to her, but joyce hayward, her father’s daughter, bound by a hundred ties, bound above all to betray his household to no one, not to those who were dearest to her. joyce was very miserable for a time over this discovery. it stopped not only her letter but the whole course of her thoughts. when she resumed her writing, it was with a poignant sense of unreality, a feeling that her letter was fictitious, written not to reveal but to conceal, which took all the comfort and pleasure out of it. she felt that janet would read between the lines that it was no longer her joyce that was writing, but colonel hayward’s daughter. their relationship seemed to change in a moment, to become a thing unreal, no longer full of solace and confidence, but fictitious, strained, and untrue.
for a time she no longer cared to write at all, making excuses, finding that she had not time—that to put off till to-morrow was a relief. the change made her heart sick. she felt as if she had been over again cut adrift from what she loved best. and yet it had to be. hers was not the hand to lift any veil from the doorways of her father’s house, or hand over its household manners to remark, or take refuge from it in another. she wrote a longer letter than usual to janet after that abrupt awakening, and kissed and cried over it when she sent it away, redoubling the tender words in which she was usually shy of indulging, and writing protestations of affection which had been unnecessary, and which she felt to ring untrue. but how could she better it? it was her first false letter, yet so loyal—the first little rift within the lute, and the music was mute already. she accompanied it with many an anxious, wondering thought, but never knew what janet thought of it, if janet had perceived. if janet did perceive, she never let her nursling suspect it. and not a word was said between them; but it is scarcely to be believed that the acute and keen intellect of the old woman, and her tremulous sympathy with every movement in the mind of her child, could pass over that change which to joyce’s consciousness was so complete.
to say that the letters to andrew halliday grew few and rare would be to say little. joyce began to feel the writing of them as the greatest burden of her life. she did not know what to say to him—how to address him. his very name made her tremble. her heart, which had never beaten two beats quicker for his presence, sank now into depths unknown at the thought of him. what if he were to come to claim her! that he would do so one day, joyce felt a terrifying, awful conviction. and would she be
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bound to arise and go with him—to leave everything that she was beginning to love? joyce knew nothing else that could be done. she had pledged him her word. to withdraw from it because—because, as she had said, she was colonel hayward’s daughter—how should she do that? he was the inevitable, standing at the end of all things—a sort of visible fate.
joyce shuddered and turned away from this thought. to escape from it, to hide her face and not see that image in her pathway, became more and more a necessity as the days went on. and this was another reason for finding refuge in the society which was close to her, though it was so perplexing and unfamiliar. anyhow, it was more comprehensible than garden-parties and lawn-tennis, which, to the spirit of the scotch peasant which was in her, were inscrutable pleasures regarded with awe. joyce did not understand these rites. she understood mrs. sitwell’s schemes a little better, though still with wonderment and many failures in comprehension. and it took her a long time to find out that the parson’s wife intended to employ her for the furtherance of her own purposes, and that it was the novelty of her and her unlikeness to other people which made her attractive to her new friend. mrs. sitwell wooed joyce with flattering pertinacity. she showered invitations upon her. she took the girl into her confidence, telling her how much she wanted, how little she had, and unbosoming herself about her pecuniary concerns in a way which horrified her listener. for joyce had the strong scotch prejudice against any confession of poverty or appeal for help. she had been trained in the stern doctrine that to starve or die was possible, but not to beg or expose your sorrows to the vulgar eye. when the parson’s wife told of her poverty, which she was quite willing to do, to the first comer, joyce listened with a painful blush, with a sense of shame. she was very sorry—but horrified to see behind the scenes, to be admitted thus, as she felt, to the sanctuary which ought to be kept sacred. but for the woman who had bestowed upon her this painful confidence, joyce felt that she must be ready to do everything. it could not be for nothing that such a confidence was bestowed.
mrs. sitwell, for her part, did not care at all for what poor joyce considered this exposure of her circumstances. she told her tale with a light heart. she was not ashamed of being poor. ‘it’s very nice of you to be so sorry,’ she said. ‘and, my dear, if you would just say a word to the colonel, and get him to set things agoing. he could do it quite, quite easily. if you were to take an opportunity when you are walking with him, or when
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you have him alone. but i don’t doubt you would have done that, you kind thing, without being asked——’
‘oh no,’ said joyce; ‘i would not have betrayed your confidence, nor said a word——’
‘oh, my confidence! it is only rich people that can hope to keep their affairs to themselves. i didn’t want you to make any secret of it. just say to your father, who is so kind—whatever you please, my dear. i can trust you. say, “dear daddy, those sitwells are so poor! don’t you think you could do something for them?” or any other thing that will please him and make him think well of us.’
‘oh,’ said joyce, with a low exclamation of fright and horror. the suggestion that she should say ‘dear daddy’ put a final crown upon the extraordinary mission confided to her. but mrs. sitwell thought it the most natural thing in the world.
‘don’t do it when mrs. hayward is by, that’s all. oh, she’s an excellent woman, i know; but it’s always the women, you know, that hold back. but for the women, we should have had the parsonage long ago; they won’t let people be liberal. i often say, if there were no ladies in the parish—oh, what a difference! i shouldn’t be a bit afraid even of the great gun himself.’
‘you seem to think that it is women who do everything—especially everything that is bad,’ said joyce, with a gleam of amusement.
‘and so it is,’ said mrs. sitwell, with a sigh. ‘if one could only get hold of the gentlemen by themselves. i should like to be the one woman to make them do all i wanted,’ she continued, with a laugh. she was the product of a very advanced civilisation, much beyond anything which her untrained companion knew.
