When Joyce had gone upstairs, Mrs. Hayward went to the library, where the Colonel was seated with his paper. She said to him that she was not half so sure as she had been that Joyce was happy. ‘I thought there could be no doubt about it. If ever two people were in love with each other, I thought these two were: but I don’t feel so comfortable about it now.’
‘Nonsense, my dear!’ said the Colonel, who was a little drowsy. The room was warm, and the paper not interesting, and he had been proposing to himself to have a doze before Bellendean came to talk business and settlements. Mrs. Hayward did not disturb him further, but she was uneasy and restless. Some time after, she heard the outer door close, and came out into the hall with a little unexplainable anxiety to know who it was. ‘It was Miss Hayward, ma’am, a-going out for a walk,’ Baker said. Mrs. Hayward thought it was strange that Joyce should choose that time for going out, when Captain Bellendean might arrive at any moment. And then she suggested to herself that perhaps Joyce had gone to meet her lover——’ Anyhow, a little walk in the fresh air will do her good,’ she said to herself.
Norman arrived about half an hour afterwards, and was astonished and evidently annoyed that Joyce was not there to receive him. He went into the library, and had a long talk with the Colonel, and he came out again to the drawing-room where the tea-table was set out; but no Joyce.
‘Send up one of the maids to see if Miss Hayward is in her room,’ Mrs. Hayward said.
‘Miss Hayward have never come in, ma’am,’ said Baker; ‘for she never takes no latch-key, and nobody but me has answered the door.’
‘It is quite extraordinary. I cannot understand it,’ cried the mistress of the house. And then the usual excuses were suggested. She must have walked too far; she must have been detained. She had not taken her watch, and did not know how late it was. Norman said nothing, but his looks were dark; and thus the early evening past. The dinner-hour approached, and they all went upstairs somewhat silently to dress. Mrs. Hayward was pale with fright, though she did not know of what she was afraid. She had already sent off her own maid to go to Miss Marsham’s, to Mrs. Sitwell’s, to the rectory, to inquire if Joyce was at either of these places. But the answer was No; she had not been seen by any one. What did it mean? They met in the drawing-room—Mrs. Hayward more scared and pale, Captain Bellendean more dark and angry, than before.
‘Where is Joyce?’ said the Colonel. ‘You don’t mean to say she has never come back! Then there must be something wrong.’
‘If she is staying away on account of me——’ said Bellendean, looking almost black, with his eyebrows curved over his eyes, and his moustache closing sternly over his mouth.
‘On account of you! My dear fellow, what a strange idea! It’s only because of you that I’m surprised at all,’ said the Colonel, as if it had been the most ordinary thing in the world that Joyce should not come home to dinner. Mrs. Hayward said nothing, but she was very pale; though why Joyce should absent herself, or what was the meaning of it, she could not guess. ‘Let us go in to dinner,’ said the Colonel. ‘If anything had happened to her we must have heard at once. Probably she is dressing in a hurry now, knowing that we will all fall upon her as soon as she shows. Give my wife your arm, Bellendean.’ He was quite cheerful and at ease now that there was really, as Mrs. Hayward reflected, something to be anxious about; and he continued to talk and keep up the spirits of the party throughout dinner; but it was a lugubrious meal.
Mrs. Hayward ran upstairs to Joyce’s room as soon as she was free. She made a hurried survey of her tables and drawers, where nothing seemed to be wanting. She stood bewildered in the orderly silent room, where nothing had been disturbed since the morning—no signs of usage about, no ribbon or brooch on the table, or disarray of any kind. How cold it looked, how dead!—like a place out of which the inhabitant had gone. It exercised a kind of weird influence upon her mind. She stood back in alarm from the glass before which Joyce had stood last night, gazing into the unknown. Mrs. Hayward was not at all superstitious, but it frightened her to see the blank of the reflected vacancy, as if something might come into it. It could not be more blank than the vacant room, which threw no light whatever on the mystery. Where had she gone? There could not be anything in those suggestions which she had made, not without a chill of doubt, in the afternoon. Joyce could not be detained anywhere all this time, could not have taken too long a walk, or mistaken the time. It was impossible to believe in any such simple solution now: nearly nine o’clock—and she knew that her lover was to be here; and all the decorums of the dinner-hour and the regulations of the house. No, no, that was impossible. Could she be ill?—could she——