YES, the white hat, lying there all battered and crushed on the white
snow, must be the hat of Sir Runan! Who else but the tigerish aristocrat
that disdained the homely four-wheeler and preferred to walk five
miles to his victim on this night of dread--who else would wear the gay
gossamer of July in stormy December?
In that hat, thanks doubtless to its airy _insouciant_ grace, he had won
Philippa; in that hat he would have bearded her, defied her, and cast
her off! The cruelty of man! The larger and bulkier crumpled heap which
lay on the road a little beyond the hat, that heap with all its outlines
already blurred by snow, that heap must be the baronet himself!
Oh, but this was vengeance, swift, deadly vengeance!
But how, but how had she wreaked it? _She_, already my heart whispered
_she!_
Was my peerless Philippa then a murderess?
Oh, say not so; call hers (ye would do so an she had been an Irish
felon) ‘the wild justice of revenge,’ or the speedy execution of the
outraged creditor.
Killed by Philippa!
Yes, and why? The answer was only too obvious. She must have gone
forth to meet him, and to wring from him, by what means she might, that
quarter’s salary which the dastard had left unpaid. Then my thoughts
flew to the door-key, the cause of that fierce family hatred which
burned between Philippa and her betrayer. That latch-key she had wrested
from him, it had fallen from her hand, and I--I had pitched it into
space!
Overcome with emotion, I staggered in the direction of the ‘pike. All
the way, in the blinding, whirling snow, I traced the unobliterated
prints of a small fairy foot.
This was a dreary comfort! Philippa had gone before me; the prints of
the one small foot were hers. She must, then, have hopped all the way!
Could such a mode of progression be consistent with a feeling of guilt?
Could remorse step so gaily?
My man William, the Sphynx, opened the door to me. Assuming a natural
air, I observed:--
‘Miss South is at home?’
‘Yes, sir. Just come in, sir.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Well, sir, she just is on the rampage. “I’ll make ‘is fur fly,” she up
and sez, sez she, when she heard as you was hout. Not a nice young lady
for a small tea-party, sir,’ he added, lowering his voice; ‘a regular
out-and-outer your sister is, to be sure.’
The Sphynx, in spite of his stolidity, occasionally ventured upon some
slight liberty when addressing me.
I made a gay rejoinder, reflecting on the character of his own unmarried
female relations, and entered the room.
Philippa was sitting on the lofty, dark oak chimney-piece, with her feet
dangling unconventionally over the fireplace. The snow, melting from her
little boots and her hair, had made a large puddle on the floor.
I came up and stood waiting for her to speak, but she kept pettishly
swinging her small feet, as one who, by the action, means to signify
displeasure.
‘Philippa,’ I said sternly, ‘speak to me.’
‘Well, here’s a gay old flare-up!’ cried Philippa, leaping from the
chimney-piece, and folding her arms fiercely akimbo.
‘Who are you? Where’s the baby? _You_ a brother; you’re a pretty
brother! Is _this_ the way you keep ‘pointments with a poor girl? Who
killed the baby? You did--you _all_ did it.’
Her words ran one into the other, as with an eloquence, which I cannot
hope to reproduce (and indeed my excellent publisher would not permit
it for a moment), she continued to dance derisively at me, and to heap
reproaches of the most vexatious and frivolous nature on my head.
‘Philippa,’ I remarked at last, ‘you frivol too much.’
A sullen look settled on her face, and, with the aid of a chair, she
reseated herself in her former listless, drooping attitude upon the
chimney-piece.
On beholding these symptoms, on hearing these reproaches, a great wave
of joy swept over my heart. Manifestly, Philippa was indeed, as Mrs.
Thompson had said, ‘as mad as a hatter.’ Whatever she might have done
did not count, and was all right. We would plead insanity.
She had fallen a victim to a mental disease, the source of which I have
no hesitation in saying has not yet been properly investigated. So far
as I know there is no monograph on the subject, or certainly I would
have read it up carefully for the purpose of this Christmas Annual. I
cannot get on without a mad woman in my stories, and if I can’t find a
proper case in the medical books, why, I invent one, or take it from the
French. This one I have invented.
The details of Philippa’s case, though of vast and momentous
professional interest, I shall reserve for a communication to some
journal of Science.
As for the treatment, I measured out no less than sixty drops of
laudanum, with an equal amount of very old brandy, in a separate vessel.
But preparing a dose and getting a patient like this to take it, are two
different things. I succeeded by the following device.
I sent for some hot water and sugar and a lemon. I mixed the boiling
element carefully with the brandy, and (separately) with the laudanum.
I took a little of the _former_ beverage. Philippa with unaffected
interest beheld me repeat this action again and again. A softer, more
contented look stole over her beautiful face. I seized the moment. Once
more I pressed the potion (the _other_ potion) upon her.
This time successfully.
Softly murmuring ‘More sugar,’ Philippa sank into a sleep--sound as the
sleep of death.
Philippa might awaken, I hoped, with her memory free from the events of
the day.
As Princess Toto, in the weird old Elizabethan tragedy, quite forgot
the circumstance of her Marriage, so Philippa might entirely forget her
Murder.
When we remember what women are, the latter instance of obliviousness
appears the more probable.