‘But I do not like it,’ said Joyce. ‘I did not think I could bear it any longer: everything is so strange to me. I used to think I would know by instinct; but it appears I was very silly all the time—for I don’t think I know how to behave.’
Joyce hated herself for feeling so near crying: why should a girl cry at everything when she does not wish to cry at all? The same thought was flying through Mrs. Hayward’s mind, who had actually dropped one hot and heavy tear, which she hoped no one saw. She put up her hand hastily to stop the Colonel, who was about to make one of those speeches which would have given the finishing touch.
‘Then,’ she said, ‘run and get your work, if you have any work, or your book, or whatever you are doing, and come to the drawing-room like a Christian: for we should all go out of our senses altogether if we went on much longer in this way.’
The Colonel patted his daughter’s arm and hastened to open the door for her like an old courtier. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘turning round to his wife, ‘that as soon as you spoke to her, Elizabeth, she would respond. You are a little hasty, my dear, though never with me. I knew that as soon as she saw what a heart you have——’
‘Oh, never mind my heart, Henry! Don’t talk to Joyce about my heart. I think she has a little common-sense. And if that’s so, we shall get on.’
And then Joyce began to spend all her time in the drawing-room, sadly ill at ease, not knowing what to do. She sat there sounding the depths of her own ignorance, often for hours together, as much alone as when in the west room, feeling herself to sit like a wooden figure in her chair, conscious to her finger-tips of awkwardness, foolishness, vacancy, which had never come into her life before. She had no needlework to give her a pretence of occupation: and as for books, those that were about on the tables were not intended to be read, except the novels from Mudie’s, which had this disadvantage, that when they were readable at all, Joyce got absorbed in them, and forgot herself, and would sometimes forget Mrs. Hayward too. She had a feeling that she should be at Mrs. Hayward’s disposal while they were together, so that this lapse occurring now and then, filled her with compunction and shame. But when visitors came, that was the worst of all.
CHAPTER XIX
On one of these mornings the Colonel came to her almost stealthily, with a very soft step, while she was in the drawing-room alone. Joyce had no book that morning, and was more in despair than ever for something to do. She was kneeling in front of one of the pretty pieces of Indian work, copying the pattern on a sheet of paper. When she heard her father’s step, she started as if found out in some act of guilt, grew very red, and dropped her pencil out of her trembling hand.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said involuntarily. ‘I—had nothing to do. It is a wonderful pattern. I thought I should like to copy it——’
‘Surely, my dear—and very prettily you have done it too; but you must try to recollect that everything is yours, and that you have no need to ask pardon. I want you to come with me into my library. I believe you have never seen my library, Joyce.’