If she had been in a condition to examine what Captain Bellendean had said, or in any way to question what Mrs. Hayward called his intentions, Joyce’s feelings might have been very different. But of this she took no thought whatever, nor asked herself any question. What she did ask, with a triumphant yet trembling certainty, was whether this was not the Vita Nuova of which she had read? The answer came in the same breath with that question. She knew it was the Vita Nuova—the same which had made the streets of Florence an enchanted land such as never was by sea or shore, and turned the woods of Arden into Paradise. The pride and glory and delight of having come into that company of lovers, and received her inheritance, softly turned her dreaming brain. She had never been so much herself—for all those references to other people and pervading circumstances which shape a young woman’s dutiful existence had disappeared altogether from her consciousness—and yet she was not herself at all, but a dream. The accompaniment of her kind father’s pleasant voice, running on with his old stories, gave her a delightful shelter and cover for the voiceless song which was going on in her own heart. She had put her cause into his hands, as she felt, though she was not clear how it had been done. He would not blame her, though she was wrong. He would defend her. And thus Joyce escaped from life with all its burdens and penalties, and floated away upon the soft delicious air into the Vita Nuova. Never was such a walk—her feet did not touch the ground, her consciousness was not touched by any vulgar sound or sight. Soft monosyllables of assent dropped from her dreaming lips as the delighted historian by her side went on with the records of his youth. He felt that he had all her interest—he felt how sweet it was to have a dear child, a girl such as he had always wished for, who had given him her full confidence, and who cared for everything that ever had happened to him, and was absorbed in it as if the story had been her own. In all their goings and comings together, there had never been a walk like this.
CHAPTER XXXI
‘Well?’ said Mrs. Hayward, somewhat sharply, as she followed her husband upstairs.
‘Well, my dear! everything is quite right and sweet and true about her, as I always thought it was.’
‘I daresay. That is all very charming, Henry, and I am delighted that you are so much pleased. But what about Captain Bellendean?’
‘Oh!—about Captain Bellendean,’ said the Colonel, rubbing his hands with an attempt to look quite at his ease and comfortable. Then he added still cheerfully, but with a sinking of his heart, ‘Do you know, I don’t think there was anything quite definitely said between us about Norman Bellendean.’
‘Oh, there was nothing definitely said!’
‘Not by name, you know,’ said Colonel Hayward, with a propitiatory smile, still softly rubbing his hands.
‘And what did you talk of definitely, may I ask? You’ve been a long time out. I suppose something came of it,’ said Mrs. Hayward more sharply than ever.
‘Oh yes, certainly,’ said the Colonel, very conciliatory. ‘Joyce desired nothing better than to give me her full confidence, Elizabeth. She has a heart of gold, my dear. She said at once that she knew I would never misunderstand her—that I would always help her; and nothing could be more true. I think I may say we understand each other perfectly now.’