‘As I am doing now,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. She could not see Joyce, who was behind her, but she was noting, with the intensest observation, every movement and word. She was on a voyage of discovery, not quite knowing what she expected, almost too eager to distinguish what she imagined from what she saw.
‘Shooting, I suppose,’ said the Colonel. ‘I hope he has had good sport. There was some talk of his coming back, but I never expected him for my part, until the moors began to pall; and that doesn’t happen soon, your first year at home. You preserved, of course, at Bellendean.’
‘There are always plenty of partridges—nothing more exciting. He has been up in the Highlands, coming and going. I think he has thoroughly enjoyed himself—as you say, the first year at home.’
These words were all very simple and natural; but there was a little emphasis here and there, which betrayed a meaning more than met the ear. Joyce felt them fall upon her heart like so many stones, thrown singly, resolutely, with intention. It had never occurred to her before that any one could wish to give her pain: and that her own lady should do it—her model of all that was greatest and sweetest! The cruel boys throw stones at wounded, helpless things. She remembered suddenly, with that quickness of imagination which enhances every impression, a scene which detached itself from the past—a boy in the village aiming steadily at a lame dog, and how she had flung herself upon him in a blaze of indignation, to his supreme astonishment. Why this should come into her head she could not tell. The dog could yelp at least, but Joyce could not cry out. It seemed to her that it was Mrs. Bellendean, in her mature, middle-aged beauty, tall, dignified, and serene, who stood and took aim. It was all new to Joyce—the covert blow, the deliberate intention, the strong necessity of keeping still, uttering no sound, giving no look even of consciousness. Nothing in her past experience had prepared her for this.
‘I have more sympathy with your plans than with Captain Bellendean’s amusements,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘Sport’s monotonous, at least to women who only look on. But to get away for the winter is always delightful. Oh, not to you, Henry, I know! You like your walks. And he tells me it is so English, so like home. Very English indeed, and pleasant, for girls who skate, and all that; but when one begins to get old and go about in a shawl!’
‘I would willingly compound for the shawl,’ said the visitor. ‘It is cold enough at Bellendean; but there one had both duties and pleasures. I hate to be one of a useless crowd, drifting about pleasure-places. When it’s health it is dismal enough; but at least there is some meaning in that.’
‘Oh, there is a great deal of meaning in being warm,’ cried Mrs. Hayward, with a little shiver, ‘in seeing sunshine and the blue sky instead of universal greyness and fogs. The Colonel takes a pleasure in it, even in east wind; but so do not I.’
‘My dear,’ cried Colonel Hayward anxiously, ‘if you really do feel so strongly about it, you don’t think that I would ever object? I like my own country, I confess; and to understand what everybody’s saying—but if you feel the cold so much——’
It was not much wonder that he should not understand; but Joyce, for whom the thing was done, knew almost as little as he did that this diversion was for her benefit. A half-forlorn wonder arose in her mind that so much useless, aimless talk should mingle with the torture through which she was going. Better that the stones should all be thrown, and the victim left in peace. But this was not how it was to be. The gong sounded, beaten by Baker’s powerful hand, and the little procession went in to luncheon. Joyce had to expose her face, with all its clouds, the burning red which she felt on her cheek, the heavy shadow about her eyes, to the full daylight and Mrs. Bellendean’s searching gaze. Nobody could help her now.