Chapter III

JOYCE had always plenty of time to herself, for when aunt and cousins were out driving or visiting she had to choose between solitary walks in the grounds or the society of Sarah Keene and a seat beside her ironing table, her uncle being often from home.

"The carriage is not comfortable with more than three in it," Mrs. Evans would say, when her daughters accompanied her. If only one of these went, and Mr. Evans suggested that Joyce should make a third, he was told, "Your niece has not been used to a carriage. Why spoil her by accustoming her to luxuries she is not likely to possess in future?"

"How do you know? Joyce may marry well. She is sweet-looking and a good girl, who would be a treasure worth the winning to a man who had sense enough to prefer worth to money."

Mr. Evans made this remark without the slightest intention of paining his wife, but it called forth derisive words from his younger daughter, in reference to Joyce, and an angry response from Mrs. Evans.

"Of course your penniless niece is more charming than my daughters. But Joyce Mirlees shall be taught to know her place, and find something better to do than to idle her time in gossiping with a servant."

"Your niece—my house—my daughters!"

Mr. Evans did not say these words, but as he repeated them to himself, a picture came to mind, and words from the most touching of all parables spoke to his heart.

"The forgiving father spoke of the penitent prodigal on his home-coming as, 'my son who was dead and is alive again,' and to the elder who had never strayed as, 'thy brother.' But this last had no thought of tenderness for him who lost all and had returned hungry, penniless, destitute. It was not 'my brother' with him, but 'thy son.' Poor Joyce! Homeless, orphaned, hungering just for love, is nothing to my wife but 'your niece,' when she speaks of her to me. Three days hence will be her twenty-first birthday, too; she came here in March, and this is nearly the end of June. I thought that a girl so sweet in herself must win the good-will of my wife and girls, but all she has received is a bare shelter, grudgingly permitted rather than given during three weary months."

When Joyce's birthday morning came there were no costly gifts for her such as her cousins were accustomed to receive. Mrs. Evans remarked coldly—

"So it is your birthday, Joyce. Of course, we all wish you many happy returns of it."

Her cousins echoed "Of course," as they seated themselves at the breakfast table, and Joyce replied, "Thank you."

"And you are actually twenty-one," said Mrs. Evans. "I suppose you would expect a present of an ornamental kind, but, under the circumstances, something useful will be better. The girls are going to leave off mourning entirely now. Three months is quite long enough for a mere connection by marriage, and many people would not wear it more than half the time."

"Many would not wear it at all, unless—"

Joyce began a sentence but could not finish it, for her heart was too full to permit her to continue without breaking down utterly.

"Unless the connection had lived quite near them, and every one knew of it. Was that what you were going to say?" asked Mrs. Evans.

"No; I meant something very different, but I will not trouble you with it now. Only, please do not think I expected any present. I neither looked nor wished for any."

"But you are going to have one," replied Mrs. Evans, in an unusually gracious tone. "As I said, my girls are leaving off their mourning, and I intend you to have their simpler dresses. Black silks and satins they will not part with. Those are useful always, but their worst are of beautiful material and—"

"Quite too good for me," said Joyce.

"No, no. They will look very nice, but not too handsome. Russell will show you how to alter them and you can sit in her room so as to be near whilst you are at work. Afterwards, I have no doubt you will be glad to render a little assistance in remodelling some of your cousins' gowns which had to be put aside, in a manner, on your account."

Mrs. Evans thought she had managed a somewhat delicate matter with great tact and success. She had planned to turn Joyce's time and good taste to account on behalf of herself and her daughters, from the first day that the girl, pale and worn with watching and weeping, arrived at The Chase.

There was a red spot on each of Joyce's cheeks which told of inward excitement; but she was outwardly calm as she replied—

"Thank you for offering me these dresses, but I cannot take, and I shall not need them. Besides, however willing my cousins might be to spare them, Russell will expect to have them when done with. When my one black gown is too bad to wear, I shall use those I had before my—I mean what I brought with me from Welton."

"But those are coloured. Respect for your relatives and for society demands that you wear black during at least a year, for your father. As to your cousins' dresses, they would not go to Russell whilst nearly as good as new; but I presume your pride will not let you be seen in them, though you have never been used to anything so handsome before."

"The dresses are very good," said Joyce; "but you will not see, and society does not know me. Has not my uncle told you that I am going to leave The Chase?"

"Going to leave! And pray where are you going? It is just like your uncle to know of your plans and say nothing, but I consider it disgraceful of you to act in such an underhand way, especially after having had such a home as this." And Mrs. Evans waved her hand, as if to indicate that all around her had been as much for Joyce's use and comfort as for her own.

"I do not want to seem ungrateful," replied the girl. "I have been sheltered here, and I have had far more dainty food than I needed, and been surrounded with many more beautiful things than my eye was ever accustomed to before. Yet, forgive me for saying it, I have not been happy. Nobody loves me, nobody wants me here, and I am very lonely. Perhaps, if my cousins and I had seen a good deal of each other when we were children, it would have been different; but I was really almost a stranger when I came. I hoped they would have liked me, but being relatives always at a distance from each other is not like growing up as playfellows and friends. I suppose people cannot like each other just because they wish to do, and Adelaide and Augusta have so many friends of their own without me. So I thought it would be better for me to try and obtain a situation—and work for my bread. I should like to feel that I have a place to fill, and something to do; to know that I am wanted, if only by little children. I have obtained a situation to which I shall go in two days. My uncle knows about it, but he only heard the particulars just before he was called from home so suddenly yesterday, and I suppose he had not time to tell you. He does not blame me for wishing to be independent of help and owe my livelihood to my own exertion. He has always been very good to me."

The girl's voice trembled a little at this allusion to her uncle, but Mrs. Evans showed no sign of sympathy. She sat and listened with the frigid manner which she deemed dignified and becoming, and Joyce continued—

"I once thought of leaving The Chase unknown even to him, but afterwards I felt sorry and ashamed that I could have entertained such an idea for a moment. I am sure I should never have carried it out, though I was going to ask a friend to tell him at once."

"And pray may I ask how you obtained this situation?"

"By advertising. I had several answers. I needed a recommendation, and the old true friend of my father and mother, Mrs. Caruth, of Fernsclough, gave me one, after having urged me to accept a home with her for an indefinite period. No one else has had a finger in my arrangements."

For the first time Mrs. Evans manifested something like interest in Joyce's explanation, and at the mention of Mrs. Caruth's name significant glances were exchanged between her and her second daughter—the one who most resembled her in appearance and disposition.

"I should have thought the fact of your being Mr. Evans' niece would have been recommendation enough. Pray what kind of situation have you engaged to fill? I must say, however, that had you wished to be useful to those who have the first claim upon you, I have just indicated a way in which you could be so, and without leaving The Chase."

"I am afraid I shall make a poor assistant to your maid, as I have not learned dressmaking," replied Joyce, with quivering lips. "I did not mention my uncle's name or yours in applying for the situation I am engaged to fill. I am going to attend on two little children."

"Teach them, I presume you mean?"

"Not exactly. I shall try to teach them, but I shall really be their maid. You always told me that I was not fit for a governess, because I was so different from my cousins. A nursery governess's duties would take in too much, so I resolved to be 'only a servant.'"

Mrs. Evans' voice rose to a positive shriek as she replied—

"I am thankful, very thankful, you are no relative of mine, and that though you are my husband's niece you do not bear the same surname. I wash my hands of you!"

And with a look of combined anger and contempt, Mrs. Evans swept from the room.

She was not wholly sorry in thinking of the decisive step Joyce had taken. It would give her a good excuse for severing all connection with so undesirable a relative. But there was one drawback to her self-gratulation. If any of her fashionable neighbours were to hear that Mr. Evans' niece had taken such a situation, it would be too dreadful. They would not, perhaps, draw so nice a distinction as she had done, and despite the fact that the connection was only by marriage, Joyce might be regarded as her relative also. There was no getting over the fact that she was first cousin to Adelaide and Augusta.

"If that girl's surname had been the same as ours, I would have taken steps to assume a different one, at whatever cost."

"Would you have had us called by your maiden name of Smittles?" asked Augusta, who had followed her mother from the morning room. "I like Evans much better."

Mrs. Evans blushed, for that name was doubly objectionable, and she was most anxious that the fact of her having been Miss Smittles, the daughter of a notoriously unscrupulous speculator, should be forgotten. She said no more about giving up her present surname.

"Do you think," asked Augusta, "that the Mrs. Caruth my cousin spoke of could be the lady, whom we met with her son at Mentone last winter! They were delightful people—so refined, and knew everybody that was worth knowing there, and numbers of people we should like to meet here. You remember he had come back invalided from the Soudan, and though he was quite young, about thirty, he had gained great distinction. He was Major Caruth, I think, and his name must have been Alexander, for his mother called him 'Alec.' Everyone liked them both, but we used to think him just a little reserved."

"I thought him extremely polite—quite a model of courtesy, in fact."

"Well, yes, he was, and especially to the elder ladies; but he never showed any marked attention to any of the younger ones. He was the most devoted son possible, and it was quite beautiful to see the manner in which he looked up in his mother's face when she came to his side with that inquiring glance on hers."

"He had nearly died, and he was all she had," replied Mrs. Evans. "Heir to a fine property, I believe. I scarcely think that Mrs. Caruth could be the one Joyce mentioned. Was it likely there would be any intimacy between the daughter of a poor country clergyman and people of position like those Caruths?"

"I do not know. You see, clergymen go everywhere."

"But not always their wives and daughters," said Mrs. Evans.

"Did you notice the name of the place Joyce's friend lived at? I have the address of those we met at Mentone; it was Ferns—something—crag, probably."

"Was it Fernsclough?" said Augusta, eagerly.

"I really believe it was."

"Then the lady is the same. Her place is Fernsclough, Salop."

"Well, what of that? Her giving Joyce a character to go out as children's maid puts away the suggestion of intimacy at once. She might do that, and never speak to or communicate again with one who was disgracing herself by taking a sort of servant's place."

"Joyce said that Mrs. Caruth wanted her to go to Fernsclough for an indefinite time."

"Perhaps that was an invention, in order to raise herself in our eyes, my dear child. I have seen more of life and character than you have, Augusta."

"I can hardly think that," replied the girl; "I could not imagine Joyce saying an untrue word. She is not that sort of girl. And, mamma, she is my cousin and a lady, though she is not rich. I cannot help feeling sorry for her. If these friends of hers should turn out to be the Caruths we met, and at some future time we should see them again, what will they think of us for letting Joyce go?"

"Think, you foolish girl! What can they think? Just that as she was too proud to go to Fernsclough, she was too headstrong to be guided by us, and went her own wilful way. You need not trouble your head about that."

But Augusta was not quite happy, in spite of her mother's assurances; and Adelaide was still less so.