‘You never had your father before to give it you, Joyce.’ A little word calmed down the Colonel’s superficial resentment. It did more, it went straight to his heart. He came up to her and put his arm round her. ‘My child,’ he said, in the words of the parable, ’"all that I have is thine.” You forget that.’
‘Father, if I could only feel that you were mine. It is all wrong—all wrong!’ cried Joyce. ‘It is like what the Bible says; I want to be born again.’
The Colonel did not know what to say to this, which seemed to him almost profane; but he did better than speaking—he held her close to him, and patted her shoulder softly with his large tender hand.
‘And I will, I will,’ said Joyce, with a Scotch confusion of tenses, ‘if you will have a little patience with me. It cannot come all in a moment; but I will, I will.’
‘We’ll all have patience,’ said the Colonel, stooping over her, feeling in his general weakness, and with even a passing sigh for Elizabeth going through his mind, that it was sweet to have the positions reversed sometimes, and to feel somebody depend upon him, and appeal to his superior wisdom.
At this moment Mrs. Hayward opened the door of her husband’s room quickly, coming in with natural freedom. She stopped ’as if she had been shot’ when she saw this group—Joyce sheltered in her father’s arm, leaning against him. She made a rapid exclamation, ‘Oh!’ and turning as quickly as she had come, closed the door after her with a quick clear sound which said more than words. She did not slam it—far from that. She would not have done such a thing, neither for her own sake, nor out of regard for what the servants would say: but she shut it sharply, distinctly, with a punctuation which was more emphatic than any full stop could be.
In the afternoon there were callers, and Joyce became aware, for the first time, of the social difficulties of her position. She heard the words, ‘brought up by relations in Scotland,’ as she went through the drawing-room to the verandah where the visitors were sitting with Mrs. Hayward. Joyce did not apply the words to herself, but she perceived a little stir of interest when she appeared timidly at the glass door. The lady was a little woman, precise and neat, with an indescribable air of modest importance, yet insignificance, which Joyce learned afterwards to understand, and the gentleman was in a long black coat, with a soft felt hat in his hands. Eyes more instructed would have divined the clergyman and clergywoman of the district, not rector and rectoress, but simple incumbents. They rose up to meet her, and shook hands in a marked way, as ‘taking an interest’ in a new member of their little cure; but Joyce, unaccustomed, did not understand the meaning of this warmth. It disconcerted her a little, and so did the conversation into which Mr. Sitwell at once began to draw her, while his wife conversed in a lower tone with the lady of the house. He talked to her of the river and boating, of which she knew nothing, and then of lawn-tennis, to which her response was not more warm. The good clergyman thought that perhaps the game had not penetrated to the wilds of Scotland, and changed the subject.
‘We are going to have our children’s treat next week,’ he said. ‘It would be very kind of you to come and help my wife, who has everything to manage. Our district is but a new one—we have not much aid as yet. Do you take any interest in schools, Miss Hayward?’
‘Oh yes, a great interest,’ cried Joyce, lighting up, ‘that is just my——’ she was going to say profession, having a high opinion of the dignity of her former office: but before the word was said she caught a warning glance from Mrs. Hayward—‘it is what I care most for in the world,’ she said, with a sudden blush of shame to feel herself stopped in that avowal of enthusiasm for the work itself.
‘Indeed!’ cried the clergyman. ‘Do you hear, Dora? here is a help for you. Miss Hayward says that schools are what she cares most for in the world.’