‘At last I can get a word with yourself, Joyce!’
Mrs. Bellendean led her out under the verandah to the garden path beyond with an anxiety and eagerness which startled Joyce. She half enveloped the girl in the warmth of her cloak and of the caressing arm which held hers. It was a caressing hold, but very firm, not leaving any possibility of escape. More than an hour had passed slowly in the usual vague interchanges of drawing-room conversation, when there is nothing particular to talk about on either side; but the visitor had said nothing about going—had not even mentioned, as such visitors are bound to do, the train by which she intended to leave. She had kept a furtive watch upon Joyce, following all her movements, but she had not transgressed against decorum and domestic rule by asking to speak with her alone. Accident, however, had done what Mrs. Bellendean did not venture to do. Mrs. Hayward had been called away for some domestic consultation, the Colonel had gone out, and Joyce was left with her visitor alone.
‘Are you afraid of the cold?—but it isn’t cold—and I do want to say a dozen words where no one can possibly hear. Joyce, my dear girl, do let me speak to you while there is time. Joyce—I don’t know how to open the subject—I would not venture if I were less anxious. Joyce, you heard what I was saying about Norman, my stepson?’
‘Yes.’ Joyce did not look up, nor did she feel herself able to say more.
‘You used to be—devoted to me, Joyce; as I always was very fond of you. A little cloud has come between us somehow—I can’t tell how—but it has made no difference to my feelings.’ Mrs. Bellendean was a little short of breath. She paused, pressing Joyce’s arm with hers, leaning over her, with anxious eyes upon her face. But something prevented Joyce from making any response—that cloud was still between them, whatever it was.
‘You know very well the interest I have always taken in you from the very beginning, before any one suspected—— And Greta—Greta was always fond of you. You have not met much lately.’
‘No.’ Nothing would come but monosyllables.
‘I want to speak to you of Greta, Joyce. She is younger than you are, though you are young enough. She has never been crossed or disappointed in her life. I can’t think of that for her without a shudder. She would die. It would break her heart.’
‘What?’ said Joyce.
‘Joyce, I am going to take you into our confidence—to tell you our secret; you will never betray us. If things should happen so that what we wish never came to pass, you would not betray us?’