Philippa
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She smiled at the thought, and as she did so, Evelyn opened her eyes.
“What are you laughing at?” she inquired, languidly, and as her sister told her, she, too, smiled.
“Yes,” she replied, “you are quite right. They have all three got dark hair, as smooth as – oh, I can’t trouble to find a comparison – ‘as smoove as smoove’ as Bonny says – dear Bonny! But I do think they mean to be nice, really nice and cordial, Phil, especially Felicia, the one you saw just now; she is the eldest. Perhaps I’d better not talk much – ”
“You had better talk in a lower voice,” said Philippa; “it is less tiring, and safer too. All I want to know just now is that you do think you will be able to get on with them without much effort.”
“Ye-es, I do think so,” answered Evelyn. “I must try to be a little more dignified than I am at home, and that is rather a strain.”
“You can be beautifully dignified when you choose,” said Philippa, encouragingly.
“It is not on the daughters’ account I must be so,” continued Evelyn. “I think they would like me the better if I seemed rather childish; there is no affectation of being younger than they are, about either of them. But it is Mrs Headfort; she associates me, I feel instinctively, with the wife of the possible future master of Wyverston, who, she thinks, no doubt, should be as stately as herself.”
“I only hope she does associate with you that personage,” said Philippa, brightly; “it would certainly incline us to like her all the better. I think,” she went on thoughtfully, “there is something beautiful and elevating in that sort of regard for one’s family, if not carried too far. Some people call it only an extended form of selfishness, but at least it is not a low kind. And, after all, doing one’s best for those nearest us is not selfishness; it is simply right.”
“There is something almost beautiful about Mrs Headfort herself,” said Evelyn, “though there is something wanting, too, in her face. It is a little hard, and yet certainly not unfeeling; she has evidently felt tremendously.”
“But troubles do harden some people,” said Philippa, “though often more on the surface than lower down. They get afraid of ever loosening their armour, as it were, for fear of breaking down.”
“How wise you are, Phil!” said Evelyn, admiringly. “I never thought of things in that way when I was your age. I shouldn’t wonder,” she went on, reflectively, as if she had made a great discovery, “if it were partly Mrs Headfort’s hair that makes her look hard. It is quite dark, did I tell you? And when people get old, I think grey or white hair is so much prettier. I do hope mine will get white – mamma’s is so nice,” and she put up her hand to her own wavy locks as if to feel if the desired transformation had already taken place.
“Now, Evelyn,” said Philippa, seriously, “leave off chattering. You may go to sleep for twenty minutes still; I will undertake to get you perfectly ready in the time that remains. I have got out nearly everything you will want, and you are to wear exactly what I have chosen.”
Evelyn smiled submissively.
“I must just say one thing, Phil,” she began again, “and that is for your satisfaction. I do believe the Headforts would have been perfectly aghast if I had come without a maid. And that reminds me – how do you think you are going to bear it? Will it be endurable?”
“Much better than endurable,” said Philippa, “but I will tell you about it afterwards. The housekeeper is a dear old woman. And on your side you must notice everything, to amuse me. I shall want to know all about the other people staying in the house.”
Then she resolutely turned away, and busied herself afresh with completing the preparations for her sister’s evening toilet.
At the appointed time came Miss Headfort’s tap at the door, and in response to Evelyn’s “come in,” the eldest daughter of the house made her appearance. Philippa looked at her with considerable interest – a double interest, indeed; she was both curious to have a better view of Miss Headfort herself, and also most anxious to observe the effect upon her of the charming personality before her. Mingled with her sisterly pride in Evelyn, there was now what one may almost call the pride of the artist in his handiwork, and for both there was good cause.
Evelyn had left herself entirely to her sister’s mercies, and the result was such that even Felicia Headfort’s melancholy eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of her cousin’s wife, whose lovely fairness was shown to great advantage by the pale, blush-rose tint of her dress. Her naturally beautiful hair owed much also to Philippa’s careful manipulation, all the more deft and clever in that there was not the slightest appearance of studied art about it – the little bow of pink velvet to match her dress really looking as if it had flown down of itself to nestle among the wavy coils. Evelyn’s stock of jewellery was limited; for this important occasion she wore the one good ornament which her Duke had, with much unsuspected self-denial, gathered together enough money to procure for her – a string of fair-sized pearls.
“My dear,” said Miss Headfort, impulsively, “your dress is quite charming, and you do not look the least tired now. You will quite bewitch my father, I am sure.” Evelyn smiled.
“How nice you look yourself,” she said to her cousin, gently stroking the sleeve of Felicia’s soft, grey velvet bodice, for though far more than the orthodox term of black attire for the loss of their two brothers had passed, the Headfort sisters had not yet – if indeed they ever would discard it – worn anything but half-mourning.
Miss Headfort looked very handsome in her velvet and rich old lace; handsomer than Philippa had expected from her former glimpse of her. And the two figures together harmonised from their very dissimilarity. The sight was gratifying to the girl’s sensitive perceptions of beauty; but as she stood there in the background in her plain, black dress and disfiguring spectacles, unnoticed, and in a sense unthought of, even by her sister, it would be untrue to human nature, to girl nature especially, to say that no shadow of mortification passed over her as she again realised, and this time more fully than hitherto, the abnormal position she had placed herself in.
But almost simultaneously her vigorous resolution of character, greatly assisted in the present case by her vivid sense of humour, reasserted itself. There was a considerable amount of triumph, too, in the success of her plan.
“I do believe,” she thought, “that I shall be able to carry it through perfectly to the – no, I won’t say ‘bitter end’ – but till the curtain drops for ever, I hope, for I am quite sure I shall have had enough of my rôle by then, as ‘Phillis Ray, lady’s-maid.’ Though but for her, goodness only knows what Mrs Marmaduke Headfort would have been looking like at the present moment – as to her headgear above all!”
A glance of affectionate gratitude from Evelyn as she followed her conductress out of the room, added to Philippa’s self-congratulation. Still more so, a word or two from Miss Headfort which caught her ears as, suddenly discovering that her sister’s fan was still reposing on the dressing-table, she ran after her with it, a few steps down the passage – “very clever maid yours seems to be; she must – ” But the rest of the sentence was deferred, as Evelyn turned to take the fan held out to her.
“Poor Phil,” thought Mrs Marmaduke, as she entered the drawing-room, with a curious mingling of pride in her sister, and regret almost amounting to irritation at the state of things she had brought about, “I really can’t bear to think of her up there alone! For I do feel as if it were all going to be very nice, and that, but for her, I could really enjoy myself. So I must just try not to think of her for the time. I am sure it is what she would wish.”
And acting on this comfortable determination, she was able to respond with unembarrassed graciousness to the cordial, though somewhat formal, greeting of her host, who came forward to meet them as soon as he caught sight of his elder daughter’s entrance into the room.
And, as Felicia had predicted, the charm of Evelyn’s half-appealing yet dignified manner, added to her extreme prettiness, did its work. From that moment the old man’s subjugation was complete.
That it was so, was from the first a source of satisfaction to his wife and daughters. For they were not only good, high-principled women – they were personally unselfish, and superior to all petty, feminine jealousies, and with much latent tenderness of nature, unsuspected by those who only judged them by the surface stiffness of manner.
Christine, the second Miss Headfort, though some years younger than her sister, scarcely appeared so. She was less handsome in features, but so much brighter in complexion and colouring that at first sight she was the most striking; but in spite of Wyverston Manor and its traditions, there was a touch of the “advanced woman” about her, which showed itself unpleasingly in a rather obtrusive “superiority” to her dress and general appearance.
“I am plain-looking,” she was wont to inform her friends, with a certain pride, “and no longer young, and I am not going to pretend to be otherwise. And I am splendidly strong, and intend to keep my health at all costs, so I do not care in the least about my complexion or my figure. I go out in all weathers, and ignore the existence of whalebone and steel.”
But she was a very agreeable woman, nevertheless – her bark infinitely worse than her bite – full of real kindness of heart. And if a trifle dictatorial in her way of showing this, and perhaps irritatingly convinced that a Miss Headfort of Wyverston could “do no wrong,” it was easy to forgive and even forget those foibles in one so ready to put herself aside whenever called upon to do so for the sake of others; so genuinely compassionate to the suffering or oppressed. She loved all animals, and was loved by them in return; she would have loved little children had she known more about them; thus with her, too, Evelyn’s fragile and almost childlike appearance only prepossessed her in the young wife’s favour.
Chapter Eight
A Morning Ramble
The party this evening was not a very large one; still, a comparatively small number of people is enough to be somewhat confusing to a new-comer, to whom they are all absolute strangers. More especially when the new-comer in question is in such a position as was Evelyn Headfort on this occasion in the Wyverston drawing-room, where, as a recognised member of the family, to whom honour was due, it behoved her host and hostess to introduce with considerable formality all the other guests.
To all appearance she stood this little ordeal well, considerably to Mrs Headfort’s satisfaction.
“Though she looks so young,” thought the elder woman, “she has plenty of self-possession as well as charming manners.”
But inwardly Evelyn had been feeling considerable trepidation, and it was not without some relief that she found herself and the man allotted to her safely on their way to the dining-room. His name her memory had retained, though she was in a state of mystification as to those of most of the others. She glanced up at her cavalier. She was not peculiarly small, but he seemed to tower above her, and had to bend his head to catch some little commonplace remark which she felt it due to herself to volunteer, “for fear,” as she afterwards confessed to Philippa, “he should have thought me shy.”
“Certainly,” was the reply; “quite so,” but that was all, and Evelyn’s little feeler, which she had sent out in hopes of its breaking the ice, had no effect beyond that of making her wish she had left the sentence unsaid.
Seated at table, however, where she found herself, to her alarm, at her host’s left hand, she hazarded a second observation – anything, the silliest speech in the world was better than for her new relations to think her in any sense unequal to the occasion.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr Gresham, for such was his name; and as he bent slightly towards her, she was struck for the first time by his really remarkable good looks, enhanced by a gentleness of expression which tended to reassure her. She laughed and coloured slightly as she repeated her very commonplace, little observation.
“I was only saying that it feels ever so much colder here than farther south!” she said.
“You’ve come from the south,” he responded, with some appearance of interest. “Have you travelled f r to-day?”
“Oh, no, not really very far,” she replied. “After all, one can’t travel very far in England; but any cross-country journey makes you feel as if you had – it wastes so much time, though we fitted in our trains pretty well.”
“Is your husband with you?” her companion rejoined, in reality for the sake of drawing her out, for he knew perfectly well that Duke Headfort was still in India, and likely to be there for some time. For, as the housekeeper had mentioned to Philippa, the elder Mr Gresham was a very frequent visitor at Wyverston, and intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of the Headfort family affairs.
Evelyn started slightly.
“I shouldn’t have said ‘we,’” she thought to herself. “Oh, no,” she said, aloud, “I’m quite alone here, and it is my first visit to this part of the country. It is considered very – well, I don’t exactly know what to say – not picturesque, I suppose, but not commonplace?”
“Far from commonplace. It is bleak in some directions – bleak and bare; but the moors are very fine, and at some seasons their colouring is wonderful. And the stretch of the Wildering Hills to the west is very imposing. You will think it so, I have no doubt, as you come from – ” He stopped, and went on again:
“Did I not understand you to say that you live in a flat country?”
“Well, yes,” said Evelyn, though she did not remember having volunteered any information of the kind. ” – shire is flat, certainly, and where we live there is no beauty except good trees. My sister,” she continued, feeling as if she were talking very inanely, and with a nervous dread of letting the conversation drop, “was staying lately in Westshire. She was delighted with it. She said part of the route coming back was as pretty as – as Switzerland.” – “How idiotic that sounds!” she said to herself.
But her companion appeared rather to appreciate her remarks.
“Westshire,” he repeated. “Yes, some parts of Westshire are charmingly picturesque. May I ask what part of the country your sister was staying in?”
“I don’t know what part it was that she thought so pretty,” said Evelyn, gratified by his interest. “The place she was staying at was Dorriford. It belongs to the Lermonts – cousins of ours.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Mr Gresham, thawing more and more; “I know Dorriford – at least I was there the other day. I drove over with some friends in the neighbourhood. Your sister’s name is?” and he glanced at her questioningly.
“Raynsworth,” said Evelyn, quickly.
“Exactly,” rejoined her companion. “I remember her perfectly. But you are not like each other – Strikingly unlike, even; for Miss Raynsworth is dark – dark and tall. I remember.”
An appalling misgiving seized Evelyn. He “remembered her perfectly;” perhaps, by no means improbably, suggested her sisterly pride, he had been struck by Philippa’s somewhat uncommon style of beauty. Why, in heaven’s name, had she drawn the conversation round to Philippa at all, the very last topic she should have chosen to talk about while at Wyverston? And fearful lest Mr Gresham’s watchful eyes should detect the least trace of confusion, she forced herself to smile and to say lightly:
“What a coincidence! I must remember to mention it to my sister when I go home.” Then, somewhat at random, she plunged suddenly into some of her Indian reminiscences – a subject she usually avoided as hackneyed and commonplace.
Mr Gresham seemed somewhat perplexed, though he listened courteously, but without his former interest.
“I have never been in India,” he said, with a touch of languor, “and I don’t think I want to go. Were you born there? I’ve often noticed that people who were born there have a sort of liking for the place,” as if the great empire of the east were some insignificant village.
“Oh, no,” said Evelyn, “we are all quite English, and I don’t think I do like India. I am not very fond of travelling. I fear I am the lazy one of the family.”
“Your sister certainly struck me as very vigorous,” began Mr Gresham again; “the Lermonts were talking of wonderful expeditions they had been making while she was with them.”
“Oh, why did I say I had a sister,” thought Evelyn, in desperation, “and why did I ever give in to this mad escapade of Philippa’s? I feel certain it is going to land us in some dreadful hobble,” and unconsciously to herself her expression grew so tragic that Mr Gresham began to wonder what in the world was the matter.
Just then, to Evelyn’s enormous relief, came a happy interruption. A voice from the opposite side of the table, which was not a very wide one, addressed her by name.
Evelyn looked up in surprise, forgetting for the moment that as all the guests had been introduced to her, the owner of the voice had every reason to know who she was.
“I hope, Mrs Headfort,” he said, “that my dog did not really frighten you to-day? He is very demonstratively affectionate when he takes a fancy, and he had made great friends with – with your maid.”
”‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire,’” thought the unfortunate Evelyn; “this time I must brave it out.”
“Is your dog a dachs?” she said, quickly. “Oh, yes, I remember seeing him; he tried to jump into the carriage, but I wasn’t really frightened, only startled for a moment. Is he with you here? You must introduce him formally, if so. I love dachshunds – our favourite dog was a dachs. He died – some years ago. We can hardly bear to talk of it even now.”
A perplexed look stole over Michael Gresham’s face at her words. Was he dreaming? or going through one of those strange experiences familiar to us all, in which it seems as if we were living for a second time through some event, or train of events, often of the most trivial, which has already happened?
No; the conviction he now felt that words almost similar to those Mrs Headfort had just uttered had quite recently been addressed to him, was too strong, too unmistakable to have anything of fancy about it.
“By Jove,” he thought, “it was the girl in the railway carriage – her maid – who told me the very same thing about a dachshund she had had. I can’t make it out. They didn’t seem to be talking like mistress and maid when Solomon jumped at them, though I didn’t hear clearly what they were saying. There was something inconsistent about the girl from the first. Well, it’s no business of mine.” Then, conscious that Evelyn’s eyes were still directed towards him, he threw off his hesitation and answered lightly:
“I hope the association will not be too painful to prevent your making friends with my Solomon. Not that I don’t sympathise in the loss of a dog – it’s a terrible thing.”
“Don’t let my cousin get on to dogs, Mrs Headfort, his own dogs especially,” interrupted the elder Gresham; “he’ll go on for hours about that Solomon of his, I warn you.”
Evelyn smiled gently. In her heart she was not very devoted to dogs. Bonny and Vanda were much more adorable pets. Nor was she anxious in any way to grow more familiar with the dachshund’s master.
“He must be rather a stupid young man,” she thought, as she glanced across the table at Michael’s somewhat rugged face. “His cousin evidently thinks him so, and all the better for us if he is not observant. And, oh! how plain-looking he is compared to this one!”
For the moment, however, she had not much opportunity of admiring her neighbour’s clear-cut features. For her host, having done his duty so far by the elderly dowager on his right hand, now felt free to turn his attention to his cousin’s pretty young wife. A kindly question or two about her “Duke” and his doings – even more, some allusion to the incomparable Bonny, set Evelyn perfectly at her ease. The conversation which ensued, though of the liveliest interest to herself and not without charm for the squire himself, naturally left her orthodox companion somewhat out in the cold. For on his other side was placed a certain Miss Worthing, a person whom he would have characterised as a “bread-and-butter miss,” whose timid attempt at breaking the silence met with but faint success, for all the answers that Mr Gresham condescended to make to her were monosyllabic and discouraging in the extreme.
It was not this first evening that young Mrs Headfort discovered how much honour had been done her by her companion’s animation, though as she rose to follow in the file of women on their way to the drawing-room, it did strike her that Mr Gresham’s face looked bored in the extreme.
“How I do wish he could know Philippa and she him!” she thought. “She would be just the person to shake him out of that silent hauteur, and I do believe he was struck by her at Dorriford. If only she were here in her proper character!”
The rest of the evening seemed somewhat long. Evelyn was beginning to feel very tired, for she had really exerted herself to the utmost. Fortunately it was not the Wyverston habit to keep late hours, and it was with a feeling of inexpressible relief that she accepted Felicia’s hint that she must not hesitate to say good-night, even before the two or three guests from the neighbourhood had taken their departure.
“They will be going immediately,” Miss Headfort added; “and,” on second thoughts, “if you like to come away quietly with me, I will explain it to mamma afterwards, and say good-night for you.”
Evelyn thankfully took advantage of this offer, but begged her cousin to let her go up-stairs alone.
“I can find my way quite well, and I know I shall have everything I want in my room.”
“Very well,” said Felicia, kindly. “I think I can trust your maid, from what you say of her, to look after you properly. And our dear old Shepton really does love to make people comfortable, especially if they are relations.”
Nothing could have been more gratifying. And how delightful not to have to wait till she could write home for sympathy in her satisfaction!
“Oh, Phil,” she exclaimed, as she carefully shut the door of her room where her sister was already awaiting her. “Oh, Phil, darling, I am awfully sleepy, I can scarcely keep my eyes open, but I am longing to tell you how well I have got on. Everything has been as nice as possible.”
“I am so glad,” said Philippa, warmly. “But, Evelyn dear, you must not talk to-night. Even I am feeling very tired. I believe I had fallen asleep while I was sitting here waiting for you.”
And Philippa, who could be resolute in little things as well as in big, carried her point. Half an hour later both sisters were in bed and asleep, and though Philippa did not know it, her care of Evelyn had saved herself from a disturbed and perhaps sleepless night. For Mrs Headfort could certainly not have narrated the events of the evening in any detail without repeating her conversation with both the Greshams, and thereby awakening much graver anxiety in Philippa’s mind than what she had felt herself.
As it was, Philippa slept soundly, her dreams being no more than an amusing jumble of the experiences of the day before. When she awoke, it was from a peculiarly absurd one, in which Solomon was seated at the end of the housekeeper’s table, doing the honour in Mrs Shepton’s place, with Philippa’s own spectacles on his nose, assuring her that his master was the same Mr Gresham whom she had met at Dorriford, and that it was only the fact of his travelling second-class which had made her imagine him less good-looking than before.
But though her dreams had been thus concerned with the realities of the preceding day, Miss Raynsworth felt strangely confused when she first awoke. It was daylight, though not yet very clear, for the morning was cloudy – so cloudy, indeed, that in most parts of the country one would have imagined it must be raining. The girl’s eyes strayed round the little room, and for a moment or two she could not imagine where she was. Gradually things took shape in her memory, and she half started up in affright.
“It must be late,” she thought, “and of all things I must be ready early in the morning.”