Old Janet Matheson followed her child with feelings of almost equal intensity, but of a contradictoriness and mingled character which defies description. Her despair in the anticipation of losing Joyce was mingled with elation in the thought that Joyce was proved a lady beyond all possibility of doubt, fit to be received as an equal in the grand society at the House—which, however, in no way modified her profound and passionate sense of loss and anger against the fate which she declared to herself bitterly she had always foreseen. That she should not have felt a momentary joy in her child’s apparent rejection of the new life opening before her was impossible; but that too was mingled still more seriously by regret and alarm lest the girl should do anything to forfeit these advantages, and also by the dictates of honest judgment which showed her that resistance was impossible, and that it was foolish, and Joyce’s revolt a mere blaze of temporary impulse which could not, and must not, stand against the necessities of life. All these mixed and contradictory sentiments were in Janet’s mind as she hurried along, trying vainly to keep up with the swift, impassioned figure in front of her; trying, too, to reason with the unreasonable, and bring Joyce—strange travesty of all the usual circumstances of her life—to bring Joyce, the quick-witted, the all-understanding, to see what was right and wrong, what was practicable and impracticable. Her efforts in this respect were confined at present to a breathless interjection now and then— ‘Oh, Joyce!’ ‘Oh, my dear!’ ‘Oh, my bonnie woman!’ in various tones of remonstrance and deprecation. But Joyce’s impulse of swift passion lasted long and carried her far, straight down the long avenue, and out into the village road beyond; and her mind was so preoccupied that she did not take into consideration the fatigue and trouble of her companion, as, under any other circumstances, Joyce would have been sure to do. It was only when the sight of the village houses, and the contact once more with other human creatures, and the necessary reticences of life suddenly checked Joyce in her career, that she slackened her pace, and, turning round to keep her face from the keen investigation of some neighbours grouped around a door, suddenly perceived a little behind her the flushed cheeks and labouring breath of Janet, who would not be separated from her side, and yet had found the effort of keeping up with her so difficult. Joyce turned back to her faithful old friend with a cry of self-reproach.
‘Oh, granny! and I’ve tired you struggling after me, and had not the sense to mind.’
‘Oh ay, you have the sense to mind. You have sense for most things in this world—- but no’ the day, Joyce, no’ the day; you havena shown your sense the day.’
‘Granny,’ said Joyce, with trembling lips, ‘there has been nothing in my life till now that you have not had all authority in: but you must say nothing about this. I must be the judge in this. It is my business, and only mine.’
‘There is nothing,’ said Janet, ‘that can be your business and no’ mine: until the time comes when you yoursel’ are none of my business—when you’re in your father’s hands.’
‘Oh no, no,’ said Joyce under her breath, clasping her hands,—‘oh no, no, no!’
‘What are you murmurin’ and saying ower as if it was a charm? No, you havena shown your sense. You think the like of that can be at your pleesure to tak’ it or to leave it? Na, na, my bonnie woman. I’m the one that will have the most to bear. Ye needna answer me, though I can see the words in your mouth. I’m the one, whatever happens, that will have the maist to put up with. But I say it’s no’ at your pleesure. What’s richt is richt, and what’s nature is nature, whatever ye may say. I tell ye, Joyce Matheson—but you’re no Joyce Matheson: eh! to think me, that never used it, that I should gie ye that name noo! Ye’re Joyce Matheson nae mair.
‘Granny, granny, don’t throw me off—don’t cast me away, for I’ve nobody but you,’ cried Joyce, with a voice full of tears.
‘Me cast ye off! but it’s true ye’ve nae richt to the name, and Peter and me, we’ve nae richt to you; and the moment’s come which I’ve aye foreseen: oh, I have foreseen it! I never deceivit mysel’ like him, or made up dreams and visions like you. And it’s no’ at your command to tak’ it or to leave it—na, na. I’m no’ one that can deceive mysel’,’ said Janet, mournfully shaking her head, and in the depth of her trouble finding a little sad satisfaction in her own clear-sightedness. ‘The rest o’ ye may think that heaven and earth will yield to ye, and that what ye want is the thing ye will get if ye stand to it; but no’ me—oh, no’ me! It’s little comfort to the flesh to see sae clear, but I canna help it, for it’s my nature. Na, na. We canna just go back to what we were before, as if nothing had happened. It’s no’ permitted. Ye may do a heap o’ things in this world, but ye canna go back. Na, na. Yesterday’s no dead, nor ye canna kill it, whatever ye may do. It’s mair certain than the day or the morn, and it binds ye whether ye like it or no,—oh, it binds ye, it binds ye! We canna go back.
These little sentences came from her at intervals with breaks and pauses between, as they went along towards the cottage, sometimes interrupted by an exclamation from Joyce, sometimes by the greeting of a neighbour, sometimes by Janet’s own breathlessness as she laboured along in the warm evening under the weight of her big shawl. Such monologues were not unusual to her, and Joyce had accompanied them by a commentary of half-regarded questions and exclamations, in all the mutual calm of family understanding on many a previous occasion. The girl had not lent a very steady ear to the grandmother’s wisdom, nor had the grandmother paused to answer the girl’s questions or remonstrances. Half heard, half noted, they had gone on serenely, the notes of age and experience mingling with the dreams and impulses of youth. But that soft concert and harmony in which the two voices had differed without any jar, supplementing and completing each other, was not like this. The old woman was flushed and tearful, and Joyce was pale, with excited eyes that looked twice as large as usual, and a trembling in the lips which were so apt to move with impatient intelligence, answering before the question was made. It was apparent even to the neighbours that something must have happened, and still more apparent to Peter, who stood at the open door of the cottage looking out for them with a look which varied from the broad smile of pleasure with which he had perceived their two familiar figures approaching, to a troubled perception of something amiss which he could not fathom. Peter’s mind was slow in operating; and as all previous information had been kept from him, he was without any clue to the origin of the trouble which he began to feel about him. To return and find the cottage closed, and neither wife nor child waiting for him, was in itself a prodigy; and though his astonishment had been partly calmed by the explanation of the neighbours who gave him the key of the door, and informed him that Joyce and her granny had been sent for to ‘the Hoose,’ it was roused into a kind of dull anxiety by the agitated air which he slowly recognised as he watched them approaching, convinced, against his will, that something ailed them,—that some new event had happened. Nevertheless, Peter, in the voiceless delicacy of his peasant soul, assumed the smile, trembling on the edge of a laugh, which was his usual aspect when addressing his womenfolk.