‘Oh, haud your tongue, man!’ cried Janet; ‘can ye keep them oot with a steekit door—them that has the law on their side, and nature too?’
The old man took his blue bonnet, which hung on the back of his chair. ‘Stand back, sir,’ he said sternly to Andrew, who had risen to go to the door; ‘if my hoose is mine nae mair, nor my bairn mine nae mair, it’s me, at least, that has the richt to open, and nae ither man.’ He put his bonnet on his head, pulling it down upon his brows. ‘My head’s white and my heart’s sair: if the laird thinks I’ve nae mainners, he maun just put up wi’t, I’m no’ lang for this life that I should care.’ He threw the door wide open as he spoke, meeting the look of the newcomers with his head down, and his shaggy eyebrows half covering his eyes. ‘Gang in, gang in, if ye’ve business,’ he said, and flung heavily past them, without further greeting. The sound of his heavy footstep, hastening away, filled all the silence which, for a moment, no one broke.
Norman made way, and almost pushed the Colonel in before him. ‘They expect you,’ he said. And Colonel Hayward stepped in. A more embarrassed man, or one more incapable of filling so difficult a position, could not be. How willingly would he have followed Peter! But duty and necessity and Norman Bellendean all kept him up to the mark. Joyce stood straight up before him in front of the window. She turned to him her pale face, her eyes heavy with tears. The good man was accustomed to be received with pleasure, to dispense kindness wherever he went: to appear thus, in the aspect of a destroyer of domestic happiness, was more painful and confusing than words can say.
‘Young lady,’ he began, and stopped, growing more confused than ever. Then, desperation giving him courage, ‘Joyce—— It cannot be stranger to you than it is to me, to see you standing here before me, my daughter, when I never knew I had a daughter. My dear, we ought to love one another,—but how can we, being such strangers? I have never been used to—anything of the kind. It’s a great shock to us both, finding this out. But if you’ll trust yourself to me, I’ll—I’ll do my best. A man cannot say more.’
‘Sir,’ said Joyce; her voice faltered and died away in her throat. She made an effort and began again, ‘Sir,’ then broke down altogether, and, making a step backwards, clutched at old Janet’s dress. ‘Oh, granny, he’s very kind—his face is very kind,’ she cried.
‘Ay,’ said the old woman, ‘ye say true; he has a real kind face. Sir, what she wants to tell ye is, that though a’s strange, and it’s hard, hard to ken what to say, she’ll be a good daughter to ye, and do her duty, though maybe there’s mony things that may gang wrang at first. Ye see she’s had naebody but Peter and me: and she’s real fond of the twa auld folk, and has been the best bairn’—Janet’s voice shook a little, but she controlled it. ‘Never, never in this world was there a better bairn—though she’s aye had the nature o’ a lady and the mainners o’ ane, and might have thought shame of us puir country bodies. Na, my bonnie woman, na,—I ken ye never did. But, sir, ye need never fear to haud up yer head when ye’ve HER by your side. She’s fit to stand before kings—ay, that she is,—before kings, and no before meaner men.’
The Colonel gazed curiously at the little old woman, who stood so firm in her self-abnegation that he, at least, never realised how sadly it went against the grain. ‘Madam,’ he said, in his old-fashioned way, ‘I believe you fully; but it must be all to your credit and the way you have brought her up, that I find her what she is.’ He took Janet’s hand and held it in his own,—a hard little hand, scored and bony with work, worn with age—not lovely in any way. The Colonel recovered himself and regained his composure, now that he had come to the point at which he could pay compliments and give pleasure. ‘I thank you, madam, from the bottom of my heart, for what you have done for her, and for what you are giving up to me,’ he said, bowing low. Janet had no understanding of what he meant; and when he bent his grizzled moustache to kiss her hand, she gave a little shriek of mingled consternation and pleasure. ‘Eh, Colonel!’ she exclaimed, her old cheeks tingling with a blush that would not have shamed a girl’s. Never in her life had lips of man touched Janet’s hand before. She drew it from him and fell back upon her chair and sobbed, looking at the knotted fingers and prominent veins in an ecstasy of wonder and admiration. ‘Did you see that, Joyce? he’s kissed my hand; did ever mortal see the like? Eh, Colonel! I just havena a word—no’ a word—to say.’
Joyce put out both her hands to her father, her eyes swimming in tears, her face lighted up with that sudden gleam of instantaneous perception which was one of the charms of her face. ‘Oh, sir!’ she said: the other word, father, fluttered on her lips. It was a gentleman who did that, one of the species which Joyce knew so little, but only that she belonged to it. In her quick imagination rehearsing every incident before it happened, that was what she would have had him do. The little act of personal homage was more than words, more than deeds, and changed the current of her feelings as by magic. And the Colonel now was in his element too. The tender flattery and sincere extravagance of all those delicate ways of giving pleasure were easy and natural to him, and he was restored to himself. He took Joyce’s hands in one of his, and drew her within his arm.
‘My dear,’ he said, with moisture in his eyes, ‘you are very like your mother. God forgive me if I ever frightened her or neglected her! I could not look you in the face if I had ever done her conscious wrong. Will you kiss me, my child, and forgive your father? She would bid you do so if she were here.’
It was very strange to Joyce. She grew crimson, as old Janet had done, under her father’s kiss. He was her father; her heart no longer made any objections; it beat high with a strange mixture of elation and pain. Her father—who had done her mother no conscious wrong, who had proved himself, in that high fantastical way which alone is satisfactory to the visionary soul, to be such a gentleman as she had always longed to meet with: yet one whom she would have to follow, far from all she knew, and, what was far worse, leaving desolate the old parents who depended upon her for all the brightness in their life. Her other sensations of pain fled away like clouds before the dawn, but this tragic strain remained. How would they do without her?—how could they bear the separation? The causeless resentment, the fanciful resistance which Joyce had felt against her father, vanished in a moment, having no cause; but the other burden remained.