CHAPTER XI.

MEETING.

From the time of the Bishop's visit, Mrs. Falconer began to resume her usual employments. She covered her c.r.a.pe with a large ap.r.o.n, and pinned back the long "weepers" of her large widow's cap, and went about the house again, with none of her old sprightly manner, but still going through her duties in regular order.

It was a time which needed much patience, for, as was natural, Mrs.

Falconer saw many things which she considered neglected, and Joyce felt herself held responsible for the misdemeanours of the maids, especially of Susan Priday.

The schoolmistress at Mendip had given Susan an excellent character, and Mrs. More had dictated a note to Joyce from her sick bed, telling her that she believed Susan might really prove a friend as well as a servant, for grat.i.tude would be the spring of all her work, grat.i.tude to Joyce for taking her, and holding her free from all blame in her father's ill-doings and bad life, which had apparently been the cause of the great sorrow which had fallen upon Fair Acres.

Mrs. Falconer had consented with the cold apathetic consent which was discouraging enough. She had taken little or no notice of Susan's presence in the kitchen and dairy till she began to come forth from her seclusion. Then, indeed, poor Susan had a hard time of it; but love, and grat.i.tude to Joyce, were too strong for her to show any resentment for the many unjust suspicions and sharp reproofs which she had to bear.

"It's only what I must look for, Miss Joyce," she said one day, when the breaking of a plate, which she had never touched, was at once laid to her charge. "It's only what I must look for. My dear mother always used to say, when poor father beat and ill-used her, that she remembered some words of St. Peter, that if you were buffeted for doing _well_, that is, doing your best, and took it patiently, it was acceptable in G.o.d's sight. Besides, Miss Joyce, I have been used to hard words, and I know how brokenhearted the poor mistress is; why, she is even a bit cross to Master Piers and you, which is more than I can understand, for you are next door to an angel, Miss Joyce."

"No, Susan I don't feel at all angelic. That is a mistake. I feel angry and discontented sometimes, if I don't show it. There are so many troubles which can't be talked of."

"Yes, miss, I know that well enough; but you can tell them to G.o.d, and that's a rare comfort. Dozens of times in the day I tell Him of my biggest trouble, that I have a father who----"

Susan stopped, threw her coa.r.s.e ap.r.o.n over her head, and ran away to scour the pans in the dairy till they shone like silver.

The bright November weather soon vanished, and the winter closed in rapidly. Except for a visit of a few days from Miss Falconer and Charlotte, nothing occurred to break the monotony of this dead time of the year. Farming and gardening operations were suspended, and Ralph got out his beloved books again, and Piers arranged and re-arranged his large collection of curiosities, and Christmas drew near.

Joyce had given up listening for a footstep on the road, or looking anxiously for the old postman, who trudged from Wells, on fine days, with the letters, but in bad weather pleased himself as to the length of his rounds.

Mrs. Falconer worked, and knitted, and darned, and, when the wind blew fiercely round the house on the dark winter nights, thought of her little Middies tossing about on the wide sea; and of Melville in that far-off land, which she knew more by its shape of a boot on the map Piers had hung up in his room, than by any distinct notion of what was to be seen there.

Rome, Florence, Naples, were but names to her, and as dim and distant as Haiphong or Hong Kong are to many in the present day.

'Melville was in Italy,' and her interest in the country was expressed in these words. Melville's letter, written on hearing of his father's death, was sad enough. Weak natures like his, always find relief in trouble by many words, and give vent to grief by vain protestations of affection and of remorse.

Mrs. Falconer treasured the letter, and read it many times, and thought Joyce unfeeling in expressing so little sympathy with her brother. There could be no doubt that all his wilful disregard of his father's wishes started up before Melville, now that it was too late to atone for them, and for the time, as he said, "he was distracted with grief." But there was no word of a desire to redeem the past by coming to Fair Acres and doing his best to perform his duties there. Selfish people are not cured by trouble of their selfishness. It commonly happens that they are more selfish in their grief than in their joy, more self-absorbed by pain than pleasure.

While Melville could write of his distracted condition, of his love for his father, of his burning indignation against the wretch who had caused his death, and of his determination to have him brought to justice, Joyce was silent; only sometimes, when kneeling by Piers' bed, would she allow her grief full vent; only when alone in the seat under the fir trees would she cry out in the bitterness of her heart for the lost father who had been so dear to her.

And there were other causes of trouble, which she could scarcely confess to herself. Not another word had Gilbert Arundel written, not another sign had he made of remembrance. She knew now, as the time went on, that she loved him, and that, after all, she was nothing to him. How could she have been so foolish? How often she had laughed at Charlotte's fancied admirers, at her continual discovery that some one was in love with her, but was kept back by circ.u.mstances from declaring his devotion! For the minor canon was one of a long list of visionary admirers, and he had been followed by the pale-faced clergyman she had met at Barley Wood, about whom, during the few days Charlotte had spent at Fair Acres, she had talked, till Joyce grew weary of the theme.

"Such nonsense!" she had said. "Besides, no girl ought to acknowledge herself to be in love till she has had good reason given her. It is not nice; it is not womanly."

And as day by day pa.s.sed, and night after night, when she leaned against the cas.e.m.e.nt of her window, when the stars were throbbing and shining in the deep-blue of the winter's sky, she had to confess, with deep abas.e.m.e.nt of spirit, that she had been as weak as poor Charlotte, nay, weaker; for as Charlotte's heroes fell from their pedestals, or vanished into thin air like the mirage in the desert, she could always replace them, and pour forth her romantic soul in verses addressed to new objects, as if the old had never existed.

But Joyce told herself she must suffer the consequences of her weakness for ever and a day. No one could ever again be to her what Gilbert had been, in that first happy time of awakening love.

Joyce's pale cheeks and wistful eyes at last attracted her mother's notice. In these days she would have been taken to see a doctor, ordered change of air and scene, and put upon some _regime_ as to food. But, except in cases of severe illness, people did not resort to doctors as they do now-a-days, and the nervous patients and chronic invalids, resigned themselves to unlimited home physic, and took their poor health as a matter of course.

"Joyce," Mrs. Falconer said, one day, early in February, when the season of Christmas they had all dreaded so much was past; "Joyce, I think it would do you good to spend a few days with Aunt Let.i.tia at Wells."

Joyce tried to smile.

"I don't want to be done good to, mother; besides, I can't leave you."

"Yes, you can. Mr. Paget said yesterday you looked as if you wanted a change. It's a wonder Mrs. More has not asked you to Barley Wood again."

"She has been so ill," Joyce said; "it is not likely she could invite me."

"And then there is Mrs. Arundel and her niece that came here last fall; not a word have we heard of them."

"Yes, mother; you forget. I have heard twice, about--about Lord Maythorne. Mrs. Arundel has kept him from coming here again. Besides, she is busy settling into a home, and besides----"

"I think it is very odd, Mr. Arundel has never written, or come here again."

"He wrote to me once," Joyce said, in a low voice.

"Did you answer the letter?"

"No, mother," Joyce said, springing up quickly, and, with a great effort, throwing off her sadness. "No; there was nothing to answer. But I _will_ go and stay a day or two with Aunt Let.i.tia, if you want to get rid of me. Ralph can take a note in to Wells to-morrow, when he goes in to the market. I shall only stay two days, but we must find out whether Aunt Let.i.tia wants me first."

Miss Falconer was really pleased that Joyce should propose a visit, and the little guest-chamber in the Vicar's Close was made ready with willing hands, and Charlotte hailed Joyce's appearance, that she might tell her of all her hopes and fears.

Charlotte had been twice at the Palace during the winter. Mrs. Law, gentle and kindly, had taken an interest in the young people in Wells, and had invited Charlotte, amongst others, to tea. Tea at six o'clock, on some day when the bishop and his chaplain and Mr. Henry Law, were absent on some business in the diocese.

If it had been a great thing to visit Mrs. Hannah More at Barley Wood, it was a greater to take tea at the palace. With the wigs of the last and preceding century, the bishops have thrown off a great deal of the episcopal state, which was once considered a part of the duty of the peer spiritual. And a certain air of solemnity pervaded the Wells palace, even when presided over by such true "gentlefolks" as the bishop and Mrs. Law. That old-fashioned word seems to suit the host and hostess at the Wells palace far better than any other term I could use.

That innate grace and refinement of feeling is sometimes, it is true, acquired, but it is a plant of slow growth, especially amongst those, who suddenly raised to a position of importance in the Church, feel the elevation makes them a little dizzy. The Bishop's wife, then presiding over the palace, had always moved in the higher circles of society, and, therefore, neither at Carlisle nor Wells did she find it necessary to impress upon humbler people that she stood on a vantage ground to which few could approach. She was dignified, though she was gentle, and no one would ever pa.s.s the barrier which divides familiarity, from free and pleasant intercourse. Mrs. Law, like everyone else, was greatly taken with Joyce Falconer; and again poor Charlotte began to feel that with no effort at all her cousin was winning her way, and making an impression which, with all her efforts, she felt she did not succeed in doing.

Miss Falconer was surprised when, the day after the girls had spent an evening at the palace, Mrs. Law sent a little three-cornered note of invitation to Joyce to spend Sunday at the palace before she returned to Fair Acres. The footman waited for a reply, and the discussion of Mrs. Law's note caused no little excitement in the parlour, of which the servant, if he had been so minded, could have heard every word.

"My dear Joyce, what will you do? You have no suitable dress for such a visit; and yet it is a pity to miss it. I really do not know what to advise."

"I think I should like to go to the palace, Aunt Let.i.tia," Joyce said.

"Like! yes; but are you prepared for such a visit?"

"Oh! yes; I have my best frock, the black bombazine, and my c.r.a.pe bonnet. That need not hinder me."

"But, my dear, people in Mrs. Law's position wear evening gowns, with low necks and short sleeves. _I_ have moved in these circles, and of course----"

"We must not keep the servant waiting, Aunt Let.i.tia; if you give me leave, I should like to accept the invitation."

"Very well," said Miss Falconer; "there is my writing-case; take care how you write; begin, 'Miss Joyce Falconer presents her respects.'"

"But Mrs. Law addresses me as, 'Dear Miss Falconer'; had I not better begin, 'Dear Madam, or dear Mrs. Law'?"

"Oh! _not_ 'Dear Mrs. Law.' My dear child, how ignorant you are of etiquette."

Joyce seated herself, and wrote a few words accepting the invitation from Sat.u.r.day to the Monday following, and took it herself to the footman.

"You should have rung for Phoebe, really Joyce, my _dear_!" But it was too late. Charlotte, who had been "composing" in the sitting-room upstairs, had heard voices, and now came down just as Joyce had closed the door on the footman from the palace.