the next scene in which joyce found herself which broke the ordinary routine of her life was the great garden-party at the soap-boiler’s, which was all that the poor sitwells had got out of their supposed great demonstration and triumph of the school-feast. sir samuel thompson lived in a large mansion on the hill overlooking the whole panorama of the thames valley, with its winding river and happy woods—a scene enchanting enough to have satisfied any poet, and which this rich and comfortable person looked upon with much complacency, as in a manner belonging to himself, and deriving a certain importance from that fact. he was a man who was fond of great and costly things, and it seemed natural to him that his windows should command the best thing in the way of a view that was to be had near enough london to be valuable. and it gave him much satisfaction to gather around him all ‘the best people’ from miles round: it was pleasant thus to be able to prove the value of money, which was the thing that had made him great, and which he liked to glorify accordingly. ‘they all knock under to it in the end,’ he was fond of saying. ‘they think a deal of themselves and their families, and rank and all that, but money’s what draws them in the end.’ and sir sam was right. some people came because his house was a show house, and his table the most luxurious of any far or near; and some because to see him swelling like a turkey-cock in the midst of his wealth was funny; and some by that indefinable attraction which wealth has, which brings the most rebellious to their knees: at all events, everybody came.
sir sam was, to use his own phraseology, the chief partner in his own concern. nobody remarked lady thompson. she was not the leader of the expenditure and display, as the wife of a self-made man so often is. she was a homely stout little person, who did not love her grandeur—who would have been far happier in
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the housekeeper’s room. even in the finest dresses—and she had very fine dresses—there was to understanding eyes the shadow of an apron, a sort of ghostly representation of a soft white comfortable lap to which a child might cling, where stockings to be darned might lie. she stood a step behind sir sam to receive their guests. he said, ‘how do you do? hope i see you well. hope you’ve brought a large party—the more the merrier; there’s plenty of room for all;’ while she only shook hands with the visitors and beamed upon them. she went everywhere with her husband, but always in this subsidiary capacity. and sir sam was by no means reluctant to bestow the light of his countenance. it was not so difficult a thing to persuade him to appear at an afternoon party as the deluded sitwells had supposed. he liked to show himself and his fat horses and his carriage, which was the last and newest and most comfortable that had ever been fashioned. but there he stopped. he took a cup of tea from any one; but if they thought to get anything more in return they were mistaken, and justly too,—for why should a millionaire’s good offices be purchased by a cup of tea? he had the right on his side.
this poor mrs. sitwell found when she made her anxious and at last desperate attempt to gain his ear. to waste his attentions upon the wife of the incumbent of st. augustine’s did not in the least commend itself to sir sam. he was not aware that she was amusing, and could take off all his friends; and he thought with justice that she was not worthy to be selected out from that fine company only because she had asked him to her school-feast. in return for the cup of tea offered to him there—which he did not drink—he had asked her and her husband to his gorgeous house, and put it within their power to drink tea of the finest quality, coffee iced and otherwise, claret-cup or champagne-cup; and to eat ices of various kinds, cakes, fruit, grapes, which at that time of the year, had they been sold, would have been worth ever so much a pound. sir sam thought he had given the parson of st. augustine’s and his wife a very ample equivalent for their cup of tea.
joyce went to this great gathering in mrs. hayward’s train, as usual, following—with a silence and gravity which were gradually acquiring for her the character of a very dignified and somewhat proud young woman—her stepmother’s active steps. she knew a few people now, and silently accepted offered hands put out to her as she bowed with a smile and response to the greeting, but no more. the crowd was no longer a blank to her. she did not now feel as if left alone and among strangers when, in the course
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of mrs. hayward’s more brilliant career, she was left to take care of herself. on this occasion it was not long before she saw the portly canon swinging down upon her, with the lapels of his long coat swinging too, on either side of the round and vast black silk waistcoat. she had been watching, with a disturbed amusement, the greetings made at the corner of a green alley between mrs. jenkinson and mrs. sitwell. they had been full of cordiality—the elder lady stooping to give the younger one a dab upon her cheek, which represented a kiss. ‘i could not think it was you,’ mrs. jenkinson said; ‘i have been watching you these ten minutes. how are you, and how are the dear children? i am very pleased to see you here. i did not know you knew the thompsons.’
‘oh yes; very well indeed,’ said the parson’s wife, with a beaming smile. ‘what a pretty party it is!’
‘a party cannot well fail to be pretty when it is given in such gardens as these; and with such a house behind it, flowing with wine and oil.’
‘you mean with ices and tea. it’s very fine, no doubt; but i like something humbler, that one can call one’s own, quite as well.’
‘no one should attempt these parties,’ said mrs. jenkinson, ‘who has not a large place to give them in, and plenty of things going on—tennis and all that, or music, or a beautiful prospect: we have them all here.’
‘oh,’ said mrs. sitwell, ‘we did very well indeed, i assure you, in wombwell’s field. you did not do me the honour to come, but everybody else did—the thompsons and all.’
‘really,’ mrs. jenkinson said. she added pointedly, feeling that she was not a match for the lively and nimble person with whom she was engaged— ‘it must, i fear, have been very expensive.’
‘oh, not at all,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘you see, we gave nothing but tea. people don’t come for what they get, though dear sir sam thinks so; they come to see other people, and meet their friends, and spend the afternoon pleasantly. don’t you think so, dear mrs. jenkinson? if i had the smallest little place of my own, with a little bit of a garden, such as we might have if there ever is a parsonage to st. augustine’s, i should not be at all afraid to ask even the duchess to tea. she would come for me, she is such a dear,’ mrs. sitwell said.
‘i am afraid i am not half so courageous,’ the canon’s wife replied; and she added quickly, ‘there is lady st. clair; excuse
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me, i must say a word to her,’ and hastened away. she was routed, horse and foot; for mrs. jenkinson did not know the duchess, and this little district incumbent, this nobody, this scheming, all-daring little woman, actually did, by some freak of fortune,—and probably would have the audacity—and succeed in it, as such sort of persons so often do—to ask that great lady to tea.
the canon swooped down upon joyce after this little scene was over. she was standing by herself, only half-seeing the fun, perhaps because her sense of humour was faint, perhaps only because of her vague understanding of all that lay underneath, and made it funny. he took her hand and drew it within his arm. ‘here you are, you little rebel,’ he said. ‘i have got you at last. there is nobody eligible within sight. come and take a walk with me.’
joyce had very little idea what he meant by some one eligible; but she was very well content to be led away, hurrying her own steps to suit the swinging gait of the big churchman. he led her through the green alleys and broad walks of the soap-boiler’s magnificent grounds to the mount of vision which crowned them. ‘there now! look at that view,’ he said, ‘and tell me if you have anything like it in scotland. you brag us out for scenery, i know; but where did you ever see anything like that?’
joyce looked up in his face for a moment, then answered, with a smile, ‘i like as well to see the crags below arthur’s seat, and the sea coming in ayont them.’
‘eh!’ cried the canon, lifting his brows. ‘what do you mean by that? you don’t generally speak like that.’
with nobody was joyce so much at her ease as with this big impetuous man. ‘there was once,’ she said, in the tone, half bantering, half reproachful, with which she had once been wont to recall her ‘big’ class to the horror of having forgotten something in shakespeare, ‘a little scotswoman whose name was jeanie deans.’
‘eh!’ cried the canon again; and then he pressed, with half angry affectionateness, the hand that was on his arm. ‘oh, you are at me with scott!’ he said—‘taking a base advantage; for it’s a long time since i read him. so jeanie deans said that, did she? i don’t remember much about her. they say scott is played out, you know, in these days.’
‘then, sir,’ said joyce quickly, ‘they say what they don’t understand; for look how it comes to me just as the natural thing to say. sir walter knew—he and some others, they know almost
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like god—what is in the hearts of the common people that have no words to speak.’
‘ah!’ said the canon; and then he laughed and added, ‘so you are one of the common people that have no words to speak? it’s not the account i should have given of you. sit down here, and let’s pluck our crow. you have gone entirely off, you little schismatic, to the other side.’
‘no,’ said joyce.
‘no! how can you tell me no, when i know to the contrary? you’ve been out in the district visiting with her. you are going to undertake something about the schools. they’ve had you to tea in company with the curate and that fat dolt cosham whom they lead by the nose. oh, you wonder how i know! my dear,’ said the canon, with a slight blush, if it is to be supposed that a canon can blush, ‘a clergyman in a country parish knows everything—whether he will or not. now, isn’t it true?’
‘yes, it is quite true,’ said joyce; and then she added, looking up at him again with a smile, and a little rising colour, caused by what she felt to be her boldness, ‘but still i like you best.’
‘my dear girl,’ cried the canon. he patted her shoulder with his large white hand, and joyce saw with astonishment a little moisture in his big eyes. ‘i always knew you were an exceeding nice little girl,’ he said. ‘i took a fancy to you the first time i met you. it gives me the greatest pleasure that you should like me best. but, my dear, why do you go over to the other side if you are so wise and discerning and sensible as to prefer me?’
joyce hesitated a little, and then she said, ‘they wish very much to do everything that is best.’
‘eh?’ the canon cried, this time in astonished interrogation.
‘they want to do good to everybody,’ said joyce, in her slow soft voice, which to ears accustomed to lighter and louder tones had an air of being very emphatic. ‘they would like to make their parish perfect.’
‘district,’ said the canon.
‘district—but i don’t know the difference; and i don’t know many of the things they want to do. i was not brought up that way. many things they say are all dark to me; but what they want in their hearts is to do good to everybody. they would like to have their church service and everything perfect.’
‘high ritual, as they call it,—music and all sorts of fal-lals.’
‘and to get everybody to come,’ continued joyce, ‘and to teach everybody, and to help the poor folk. i could not do it that way,’ she added, shaking her head, ‘but to them it’s the right
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way. 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. they will sometimes do things that look as if they were—very different: but it is all for this end.’
‘for making themselves important, and proving their own merit, and last, but not least, getting themselves that parsonage about which they make my life a burden to me. why, your father has taken it up now—that must be your doing. these people, though your excellent sense keeps you from liking them, are taking you in, my dear. the parsonage—that’s what they’re aiming at.’
‘and why not?’ said joyce.
‘eh?’ the canon turned round upon her with a snort of impatience. then he elevated his large hands, and gave forth a still larger sigh. ‘you women are so gullible,’ he said; ‘you believe whatever is told you.’
‘i believe,’ said joyce, ‘that it would be better to have a house of your own, and not to pay rent when you have very little money for one that lets in the rain, and is very, very small—so small, it would scarcely hold you,’ she said, looking at her companion.
‘it is fortunate i haven’t got to live in it,’ he said.
‘very fortunate—for you. but, sir,’ said joyce, feeling more and more the authority and power of this big friendly man, like a very kind inspector in the old days—‘you are far more fortunate than they are. you are like a prince to them. you have everything you want—money and honour, and a beautiful house, and plenty of room, and power to do what you please. they say in my country, “it is ill talking between a full man and a fasting,"—if you understand that.’
the canon humphed and shook his head, and then he laughed and said, ‘oh yes, i understand that. so i am the full man and sitwell the empty one, you think, miss joyce.
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’
‘it makes a great difference,’ said joyce; ‘and then they think—that it was promised to them before they came here.’
‘yes,’ said the canon, after a pause, ‘it was promised to them in a way—before they showed what sort of free-lances they were.’
‘and that makes a sense of wrong,’ said joyce, wisely taking no notice of the last remark. ‘if you think there is an injustice, it always hangs on the heart.’
‘the canon is ‘ere before us,’ said the fat voice of sir samuel, as the sound of much scattering of the gravel under heavy feet broke suddenly upon this colloquy; ‘and i would say, by the looks of them, that this young lady has been a-lecturing the canon. good joke that, preaching to the canon, that most times ‘as it all his own way.’
sir sam’s laugh was a little asthmatic—it shook him subterraneously and in a succession of rolling echoes. ‘good joke that, preaching to the canon,’ he went on, as if his announcement of the fact was the climax of the joke. he was followed by mrs. jenkinson, tall and energetic, wrapped in a white chudder, the softest and most comfortable of shawls—and by lady thompson, panting and red in the face with the climb, and gorgeous in all the colours of the rainbow. the canon made room for the two ladies on the bench, and sir sam got a garden-chair and seated himself in front of them, against the view which they had come to see, half shutting it out with his bulky person. but the view was no novelty to any there.
‘yes,’ said the canon, ‘it is quite true. this little thing has been lecturing me. indeed i don’t hesitate to say she’s been giving it me hot and strong—about the sitwells,’ he added, in a sort of aside to his wife.
‘i must say,’ said that lady indignantly, ‘i think that young ladies should keep their hastily-formed opinions to themselves. what can she know about the sitwells that we don’t all know?’
‘well, she says she likes us best,’ said the canon, quite irrelevantly; ‘so it’s not from partiality, or taking their side.’
‘oh!’ cried mrs. jenkinson, darting a glance of anger mingled with a certain respect at the girl, whom she immediately set down as a foeman worthy of her steel.
‘she says they’re very hard-working people, working at their district night and day. she doesn’t understand their ways (she’s scotch, you know), but she sees they mean the best by their people—hush for a moment, my dear. and she says that they think they were promised a parsonage, and that this makes a sense
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of wrong. well, you know, she’s about right there—they were promised a——’
‘before any one knew what they were—before we understood all the schemes and designs—the setting up to be something altogether above—the ridiculous fuss about everything—the flowers and the lights and the surpliced choir, and bach’s music, with little johnny cosham to sing the soprano parts—if she doesn’t do it herself, as i verily believe she does, done up in a surplice and put at the end of the row: such a thing as was never heard of!’
‘well, my dear—well, my dear! joyce here’, patting her hand, ‘who has no sympathy with all that (being scotch, you know), says they mean it all well, to get people to go to church. and they do get a number of that hopeless lot down by the river to go. but, however, that’s not the question; they were promised a parsonage if they got on and stayed a year or two. i can’t say but what that’s quite true.’
the canon looked at sir samuel, and sir sam looked at the canon. the rich man’s countenance fell a little in harmony with that of his oracle, and he replied subdued, ‘i don’t say neither but what it’s true.’
‘she says it makes a sense of wrong: well, perhaps it does make a sense of wrong. we have very nice houses, sir samuel,—mine naturally not magnificent like yours, but on the whole a nice, comfortable, old-fashioned place.’
‘oh, very nice,’ sighed lady thompson, who till now had been recovering herself, and had just got back her voice; ‘nicer than this, canon, if you were to ask me.’
there was a pause, and the two pairs looked at each other, a little conscious, pleased with their own good fortune, feeling perhaps a little prick of conscience—at all events aware that a moral was about to be drawn.
‘well, and what then?’ mrs. jenkinson said at last, in her highest pitch of voice.
nobody spoke until joyce said timidly, ‘they would be happier, and she would not scheme any more. the rain comes in upon the little children.’ she had half said ‘bairns,’ which was not at all joyce’s way, and she changed the word, which would have been very effective if she had but known. ‘there is no room for the little children.’
‘people in such circumstances ‘as no business with children. i always said so,’ said sir sam, with a wary eye upon his spiritual director, of whose opinion he stood much in awe.
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joyce was as innocent and ignorant as a girl should be. she lifted up her fair serene brow with no false shame upon it, knowing none. ‘how can they help that?’ she said. ‘it is god that sends the children, not the will of men.’
‘oh, my pretty dear!’ cried lady thompson, who was so homely a woman, reaching across mrs. jenkinson’s prim lap to seize joyce’s hand. ‘oh, my dear!’—with tears in her homely eyes—‘however you knows it, that’s true.’
mrs. jenkinson did not say a word: emotion of this kind is contagious, and these two women, though without another feature in common, were both childless women, and felt it to the bottom of their hearts.
‘canon,’ said sir sam, with a slight huskiness in his voice, ‘if you’re of that opinion i’ve got a cheque-book always ‘andy. it was an understood thing, so far as i can remember. there was to be an ‘ouse.’
‘yes, there was to be an ‘ouse,’ the canon replied, without any intention of mimicry. at this moment of feeling he could not reprove the soap-boiler even by too marked an accentuation of the h which he had lost. he turned to his wife as he rose to accompany the soap-boiler, laying his hand upon joyce’s shoulder. ‘this child has got very pretty turns of phraseology,’ he said. ‘her scotch is winning. you should have heard one or two things she said.’
‘oh, go away, canon!’ cried his wife. ‘she is just a pretty girl, and that is what you never could resist in your life.’
thus joyce’s first interference, and attempt to ascertain whether plain truth might not be more effectual than scheming, ended fortunately, as such attempts do not always do. it was her first appearance separately in the society of the new world she had been so strangely thrown into. but she had not time for much more, and perhaps it was as well. such a success may happen once in a way, but it is seldom repeated. she was found sitting on that garden-seat with those two ladies a short time afterwards by her father, who had come late, and who brought with him captain bellendean.
joyce had not seen bellendean since that curious moment when she stood a spectator and watched him like a stranger, passing with his friends, steering the laden boat with all the ladies down the river. she was as much startled by his appearance now as if some strange embarrassing thing, requiring painful explanations, had passed since last they met.
