‘And, my dear,’ said her father, ‘I am very joyful to think that your own real home is more to you than any other; for that’s how it ought to be.’
Joyce looked at them both with the troubled, dumb stare of helpless panic and stupefied cruel terror which comes to a wild thing in a snare. Her cry had been uttered and was over. She had no more to say; but she had not sufficient command of herself to perceive that she should not have uttered that cry, or should seek to put some gloss upon it, now that it was beyond recall.
‘And now you see that Joyce does not wish it, my dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, ‘of course you will never press that. It was only because we thought it would please you, Joyce; but you may be sure she is right, Elizabeth. It would be too soon—too soon.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, if she thinks so,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘Of course I don’t mean to press it. I thought it would delight Joyce; but it appears I have made a mistake. Let us think of something else, Henry. Let us go abroad.’
‘You would like that, my dear child?’ her father said. He was greatly touched by this clinging to himself, as he thought it—this preference of her new home to the old. To him there was neither variableness, nor the desertion of old ties, nor anything in it which impaired the character of his child, but only a preference for himself, a desire to be with him and near him, her father, upon whom she had made so tender a claim,—who, she had said, would be like God. Naturally she would rather be with him than with any one. He put out his hand and stroked hers caressingly. ‘You would like that? It would be a complete change. We might go to Switzerland, or even to the Italian lakes. You are very fond of Como, Elizabeth. Come now, say you would like that.’
Their eyes were upon her, and how were they to know the tempest of feeling that was in Joyce’s mind? She seemed to see the two old figures rise reproachful, their faces looking at her across the table—oh, so deeply wounded, with long looks of inquiry. Was it possible that already—already her heart had turned from them? And Janet’s words came surging back in the tempest of Joyce’s thoughts, how she would mean no harm, yet be parted from them, and find out all the differences. So soon, so soon! Janet’s eyes seemed to look at her with deep and grieved reproach; but, on the other hand, who were these two who shut out Janet’s face from her? Andrew in the attitude of the photograph, complacent, self-assertive, and Norman Bellendean, stooping, looking down upon her. Oh no, no, no! not home where these two were—not home, not home!
‘I must say I am surprised, Joyce. Still, if that is what you feel, it is not for me to press the visit upon you. And so far as I am concerned, I like home much the best. I am not very fond of Scotland. It’s cold, and I hate cold. Of course Joyce would like Como—every girl would like it—so long,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with meaning, ’as there was not absolutely any other place which they liked best.’
This arrow fell harmlessly upon Joyce, who had fallen into such a storm of troubled thoughts that missiles from without failed to affect her. Of all places in the world there was but one only which was impossible to her, the beloved home where the man whom she loved was in the high place, and the man who loved her was in the lowly. These two antagonistic figures blurred out the two others—the old pair to whom she owed everything, to whom her heart went out with an aching and longing even while she thus abandoned them; and dear Bellendean, of which she thought with such horror and panic, the place she loved best in the world,—the only place in the world to which she dared not, must not go.
‘There is no engagement,’ said Mrs. Hayward to her husband when Joyce had escaped to her room.
‘No engagement?’ he repeated, with a surprised question.