am better; I don’t think there is actually much the matter with me; I
have just overtired myself a little. I shall be all right once I start
to-morrow.”
“It is your going alone,” said Mrs Raynsworth, despondently.
Evelyn stroked her mother’s hand.
“How funny you are!” she said; “you didn’t mind it half so much at
first as Philippa did, and now she says nothing more about it, and you
have begun to worry yourself. But as for Philippa, where can she be?
I’ve scarcely seen her to-day.”
“She was out for some time this afternoon,” said Mrs Raynsworth. “I was
rather surprised at it, for she knows I am uneasy about you.”
As she spoke, the door opened and her younger daughter entered.
“Where have you been?” said Mrs Headfort; “with papa?”
“No,” Philippa replied, “I’ve been up in my own room.”
“You might have stayed with me the last evening,” her sister continued,
with a touch of reproach. “And I must go to bed immediately—poor
mamma’s unhappy about my looking so ill.”
Philippa glanced at her critically.
“I don’t wonder,” she said; “you certainly are not looking well. Yes, I
think the best thing you can do is to go to bed. Let me see, what time
do you leave to-morrow?”
“Not till eleven—that’s to say, eleven from this house. The train goes
at twelve.”
Philippa’s face grew grave.
“Don’t think it horrid of me,” she began, “but I can’t possibly be here
to say good-bye to you at eleven, or to go to the station with you. I
_must_ be at Marlby before then, to-morrow morning.”
“Well, if you’re to be there, why not come to the station to see me
off?” said Evelyn. “I shall think it rather horrid of you if you
don’t!”
“I am very sorry,” Philippa replied, “very sorry to seem horrid, but I
can’t even see you off.”
“How strange you are, Philippa!” exclaimed Mrs Raynsworth. “You
shouldn’t have made any pressing engagement for to-morrow morning. You
seemed so anxious about Evelyn!”
“So I am, mamma,” Philippa replied, “but the mere fact of my seeing her
off wouldn’t do her much good.”
But Mrs Raynsworth still looked annoyed. She was feeling really anxious
and concerned about her elder daughter, and was in consequence less
calm than usual.
“Evelyn,” said Philippa, “do come up to bed. I’ll stay with you while
you undress.”
Mrs Headfort got up slowly.
“Philippa is queer this evening,” she thought to herself. “She’s not
very nice to mamma.”
“I will come down again in a few minutes,” said Philippa, as they left
the room. “I only want to make sure of Evelyn taking her medicine, and
to prevent her going into the nursery again to-night.—What will you do
without me to look after you,” she added, turning to her sister.
“There will be no nursery for me to wander into,” said Evelyn, with a
sigh, “when I feel dull or lonely, as there is here.”
Philippa turned quickly.
“But you never do feel dull or lonely—at least not _lonely_, here with
mamma and me, surely?” she said, with a touch of reproach.
“Oh, well, no, not in the same way, of course. But there must be times
when I feel lonely without Duke, even though I love so being at home
with all of you. It wouldn’t be natural if I didn’t miss him.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Philippa, half absently, for in her own mind
she was thinking, “How strange it must be to care for anybody _more_
than for one’s own people! I cannot picture it to myself at all.”
The few minutes she had spoken of to her mother turned out thirty at
least, for more than half an hour had passed before her younger
daughter rejoined Mrs Raynsworth in the drawing-room. And even then
Philippa seemed so carried away and preoccupied that her mother felt
again slightly irritated by her manner.
“Are you very tired this evening, Philippa?” she said at last; “or is
there anything the matter? You don’t seem like yourself.”
Philippa gave a little start.
“I’m quite well—not the least tired, I mean,” she said, quickly. “I am
thinking about Evelyn; there is nothing else the matter.”
“You mean about her going to-morrow alone?” said Mrs Raynsworth; “I am
not at all happy about it myself. She looks so fragile, poor little
thing. She is not nearly as strong as you, Philippa, in any way. But it
is always a satisfaction to me to see how fond you are of each other;
she clings to you so. And to tell you the truth, before she and the
children came to us, I had some misgiving as to how it would be, for
you were practically a child when she married, and those two or three
years made all the difference. You had come to be so thoroughly the
daughter at home—helping your father and me. I have perhaps never said
to you before in so many words that I have been very pleased, very
gratified by your whole tone towards and about Evey. You have been
unselfish and self-forgetting all through.”
The young girl’s eyes glistened with pleasure. It was not often that
Mrs Raynsworth—as a rule a somewhat silent and undemonstrative
woman—expressed herself so unreservedly.
“Dear mamma,” said Philippa, “there isn’t _anything_ I wouldn’t do for
Evelyn. And I am so glad, so particularly glad, that you understand it.
Thank you so much for what you’ve said. Now, I think I will go to bed
if you don’t mind,” and she kissed her mother warmly.
“She must be tired, though she won’t own to it,” thought Mrs Raynsworth
as Philippa left the room. “It is generally so difficult to get her to
go to bed early,” and again the feeling came over her of there being
something slightly unusual about her younger daughter that evening.
She would have been still more perplexed and surprised could she have
seen Philippa an hour or two later in her own room. For long after the
whole household was asleep, the girl was busily sewing at various
articles of her attire, altering them and modifying them with the help
of some small purchases she had made that afternoon. And when at last
all was completed to her satisfaction, she drew out a small light
trunk, already partially packed, which she proceeded to fill.
“I think that will do,” she said to herself, as she stood up and
surveyed it with satisfaction. “With this and a hand-bag, and the
things I’ll manage to get into Evelyn’s roll of rugs, I am sure I shall
have all I need. Now I’ve only to write my letter of explanation to
mamma. Dorcas must give it to her when it is quite certainly too late
to overtake me.”
And half an hour later she was in bed and fast asleep, her mother’s
words having removed any misgivings she had felt as to what she was
about to do.
Mrs Headfort looked a little better the next morning, thanks to a good
night’s rest; thanks also, perhaps, to the not unnatural excitement she
was feeling about her journey and its results. Between her
anticipations and her regret at leaving her children, she was
sufficiently distracted not to notice that Philippa had slipped away in
some mysterious fashion quite an hour before the time fixed for her own
departure. It was actually not till she was standing at the hall door,
waiting till the luggage should be safely established on the top of the
fly before getting in herself, that she suddenly exclaimed:
“Where can Philippa be, mamma? I haven’t seen her since breakfast.”
Mrs Raynsworth glanced round with an air of annoyance.
“I have no idea,” she said. “She is certainly not with your father.
What was it she was saying last night about not going to the station
with you?”
“Oh, just that she couldn’t go; she has some mysterious engagement. But
she might at least have said good-bye first.”
“It is so unlike her,” replied the mother. “And somehow I didn’t take
it in, otherwise I would have got ready to see you off myself.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that part of it in the least,” said Evelyn. “It’s not
as if it were a big crowded station. But tell Philippa, all the same,
that I don’t understand her going off like that. Now, good-bye, dear
mamma, and don’t worry about me. I shall be all right if I get good
news of the children, and you or Phil will write every day, I’m sure—a
mere word would be enough.”
“Yes, dear, of course we shall,” replied Mrs Raynsworth, reassuringly,
though her face had a more anxious expression than usual. “I won’t ask
_you_ to write every day,” she went on, “for I know how tiresome it is
to feel bound to do so when one is staying with people. Only let us
know of your arrival as soon as you can, and say how you are.”
She stood watching the fly as it made its way down the short drive,
waving her hand in response to Evelyn’s last smile and nod. Then she
went slowly back into the house.
“I couldn’t have said anything to disturb Evelyn just as she was
starting,” she thought to herself, “but I really do think Philippa is
behaving most extraordinarily. I hope these very independent ways of
hers are not the result of her visit to Dorriford. I wonder, by-the-by,
if Dorcas knows where she is gone.”
But, strange to say, Dorcas was not to be found in any of her usual
haunts, though one of the under-servants said she had seen her not five
minutes before, up-stairs in Miss Philippa’s room. Tired and somewhat
depressed, though she scarcely knew why, Mrs Raynsworth sat down in the
drawing-room with a vague intention of writing a letter or otherwise
employing herself usefully, but contrary to her usual habits, more than
an hour passed before she exerted herself to do anything but gaze
dreamily out of the window, where the now fast-falling leaves were
whirling about fantastically in the breeze.
“I feel as if I were waiting for something, though for what I don’t
know,” she thought, and it was with a start of surprise that the clock,
striking one, caught her ear. “Dear me, how idle I have been—one
o’clock! Evelyn must be well on her way by this. I wonder when Philippa
intends to come in?”
Just then the door opened and Dorcas appeared. She carried a salver in
her hand, and on it lay a letter.
“If you please, ma’am,” the old servant began, “Miss Philippa wished me
to give you this at one o’clock, but not before. I don’t know what it’s
about, I don’t, indeed,” she added, anxiously, “but I do hope there’s
nothing wrong.”
Her words were well intended, but they only served to sharpen the
uneasiness which Mrs Raynsworth was already feeling. Her face grew
pale, and her heart beat painfully fast as she took hold of the
envelope.
“A letter, and from Philippa!” she exclaimed; “what can it mean? No,
don’t go away, Dorcas,” though the old servant had shown no sign of
doing so. “If—if there is anything wrong,”—though what could have been
wrong she would have been at a loss to say—“I must keep calm. Don’t go
till I see what it is.” And with trembling fingers she opened the
letter.
For Philippa _had_ been preoccupied and unlike herself the night
before, and even this very morning, there was no denying.
Chapter Four.
Fellow-Travellers.
In the meantime all had progressed smoothly with Mrs Headfort.
The train was already in the station when she and her boxes found
themselves on the platform, for Marlby was a terminus in its small way.
It lay about an hour off the main line, and as express trains do not
_always_ wait the arrival of small local ones, departures from Marlby
for the junction were characterised by most praiseworthy punctuality,
any wafting that might occur being pretty sure to take place at
Wrexhill junction itself.
But to-day the express proved worthy of its name, barely five minutes
having been passed at the big station before Evelyn found herself
re-established in her favourite corner of a first-class compartment,
otherwise empty, of the train.
“Now I shall feel settled,” she said to herself, with satisfaction, “no
more changes till I get almost to my journey’s end. I do hope nobody
will get in. I wish I could go to sleep and then I should feel fresh on
arriving, and I never like to shut my eyes with strangers in the
carriage—for one thing, one looks so silly; I’ve often laughed at other
people. I wish the train would start—oh, dear,”—as at that moment the
door opened to admit a new-comer—“what a bother!” and as she made this
mental ejaculation the train began to move.
“How rash of her!” thought Mrs Headfort, glancing at the intruder,
whose back for the moment was turned towards her.
She was a tall, slender woman, neatly but simply dressed in black,
young too, as far as Mrs Headfort’s present chances of observation
could decide. “She looks like a maid—she must have got in first-class
by mistake sorely,” but at this point in her reflections the
black-robed figure turned, calmly seating herself opposite Evelyn, and
lifting the thick veil she wore, disclosed to the gazer’s astonished
eyes the face of her sister Philippa!
Mrs Headfort grew pale—more than pale indeed, perfectly white—and
uttered a faint scream. For the moment, in the confusion of ideas
always engendered by the utterly unexpected, she really felt as if she
had seen a ghost. It was impossible for her at once to grasp the fact
that before her was indeed her sister, a flesh-and-blood Philippa. She
could scarcely have been more amazed had the figure in front of her
proceeded to dissolve into thin air and disappear! And the effect on
the girl herself of her sister’s agitation was for an instant
paralysing. Any enjoyment she had anticipated in this _coup d’état_,
any thought of “fun” completely faded. She felt so terrified and
startled at the effect upon Evelyn of what she had imagined would cause
at the most but a start of surprise, and probably some vehement
remonstrance, that she was utterly unable to speak. Only, when at
length—or what seemed at length, for in reality not twenty seconds had
passed since the new-comer had revealed herself—Evelyn’s pale lips
murmured with a gasp, “Philippa!” did her own power of utterance return
to her.
“Evey, Evey,” she exclaimed, “don’t look like that I never thought you
would be so frightened. I—I thought that on the whole you’d be
pleased.”
The distress in Philippa’s face touched her sister. She tried to smile,
and the effort brought some colour back again to her pale face.
“It was silly of me,” she said at last, “but I don’t understand! Did
you mean to come with me to Wrexhill? Oh, no, I forgot, we have passed
it; we shall not stop again till Crowminster, ever so far away.
Philippa, what are you thinking of?” and again her face grew very
troubled.
“Of course I know we don’t stop for ever so long,” said Philippa,
trying to speak easily. “I looked it all out in the railway guide; that
was why I wouldn’t let you know I was in the train till after we had
passed the junction. It’s too late to send me back now, Evey; the
trains don’t match in the least I should have hours to wait at
Crowminster, and again at the junction. I shouldn’t get home till who
knows when, and what is still more to the purpose,” she added, but in a
lower voice, “I wouldn’t go back if you told me to—nothing in the world
would make me go back.”
The sense of her last words did not reach her sister’s brain. She sat
staring at Philippa with more and more widely opening eyes.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she exclaimed, gradually taking in the
fact of her sister’s unusual get-up. “Is it some trick you are playing,
Philippa—some silly, practical joke? I _cannot_ understand you, just
now, especially, when I wanted to be calm and as easy-minded as
possible for this visit!”
The reproach in her tone roused Philippa’s indignation.
“Trick—practical joke!” she repeated. “How can you say such a thing?
What do you take me for?” and her voice faltered. “You are very stupid,
Evelyn,” she went on, more lightly. “You surely must understand what I
mean to do. I am no longer Philippa Raynsworth, I am Mrs Headfort’s
maid—a very good, trustworthy girl, though rather young and not very
experienced. So I hope, ma’am, I have made things clear.”
Evelyn gasped.
“Phil!” was all she could find breath to say for a moment. “Yes,
indeed,” she went on, “I have been fearfully dense and stupid. I might
have suspected something from your manner the last day or two, and when
you so suddenly gave in about my going alone. But, oh, Phil, you are
perfectly mad; such a thing cannot possibly be allowed. Just think if
it were found out! What _would_ Duke say?”
“Duke shall never hear of it!” Philippa replied, composedly. “It is my
secret, Evelyn; I throw myself upon your honour never to tell
_anybody_—do you hear—anybody without my leave. You must _promise_.”
“But papa and mamma?” said Evelyn, bewilderedly. “Papa and mamma,”
repeated Philippa again, forgetting good manners in her excitement.
“_They_ know, of course. I mean,”—catching the increasing amazement on
her sister’s face—“I mean they will know by this time. I left a letter
for Dorcas to give mamma as soon as it was quite too late to stop me.
In her heart I do believe mamma will be thankful to know I am with you,
to take care of you, my poor little sweet, with your troubled white
face. Oh, darling, do cheer up and see the bright side of it. _Its
going to be_—nothing would make me give it up—do understand that, and
let yourself be comfortable. Think how beautifully I can do your hair,
and dress you, and everything, and what nice talks we can have when you
are tired and come up to your room for a little rest. I can be ever so
much more use to you even for talking and consulting, than if I were
going with you as your sister. And think, if you feel ill or very
depressed, how glad you will be to know I am at hand. And how glad
mamma will be—why, I can write to her every day and keep her mind at
rest.”
Evelyn’s face relaxed a little.
“But, Phil,” she began, and by the tone of her voice, in spite of the
remonstrating, “but,” Philippa knew the battle was won, “but, Phil, the
life for you—among the _servants_—you, my sister! Oh, no, it—”
“It will be such a chance for studying one part of the other side of
things as falls to very few,” she interrupted. “Just what I shall
enjoy. Why, if ever I come to write stories, as papa says I may do some
day, think how valuable it will be to me to have actually made one at
the ‘second table’ myself. It will be something like a
night-in-a-casual-ward experience.”
Evelyn shuddered.
“Don’t say such things, Philippa, it makes it worse and worse. At least
the servants will be _clean_.”
“It is to be hoped so,” said her sister, coolly.
“But the men-servants,” continued Mrs Headfort; “fancy you sitting down
between the butler and the valet! Oh, Philippa, when papa hears of it I
believe he will come off by the first train to fetch you himself.”
“He will do nothing of the kind,” returned Philippa. “He will shrug his
shoulders and say it will be a good lesson for me, and in his heart he
will enjoy the humour of it. You can certainly trust me to keep all the
butlers and valets in the world in their place, even though I’m only a
lady’s-maid,” and she drew up her head proudly. “But seriously, Evey,”
she went on, “I’m sure there will be nothing of the kind required at
Wyverston; you may be pretty certain the servants will be a most
decorous, old-fashioned set. I shall not be expected to do more than
‘speak when I’m spoken to’ and ‘mend _your_ clothes’ if you tear them.”
Philippa knew what she was about. She went on talking in the same
strain till she succeeded in making Evelyn smile and even laugh, taking
care to treat the whole affair as irrevocable—a _fait accompli_—knowing
Mrs Headfort’s mind to be so constituted that taking her acceptance for
granted was in nine cases out of ten to insure it.
An hour and more passed, Evelyn’s intended opposition to the
extraordinary drama arranged by Philippa, growing, half unconsciously
to herself, feebler and fainter. She was feeling very tired, too, as
the result of the agitation she had gone through, and in such
conditions it came naturally to her to cling with childlike appeal to
those around her. And Philippa’s stronger personality made her a very
rock of support to poor Evey.
Suddenly a thought struck her.
“Phil,” she said, “how is it you are travelling in here? Did you take a
first-class ticket?”
Miss Raynsworth shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she replied; “I am going to get out at Crowminster. There is
a second-class compartment next door. I don’t suppose there will be any
difficulty about my having come this bit of the way with you, but if
there should be, I can pay the difference. It is much better for me not
to stay with you: we shall get into our rôle more quickly if we start
at once. I will look in at every station to see if you want anything.
We must be getting near Crowminster now.”
Evelyn did not speak for a moment or two.
“There is just one little thing to be settled,” Philippa went on, with
a touch of hesitation. “What will you call me, Evey?”
Evey glanced at her.
“Oh, Phil,” she exclaimed, “it is altogether impossible. I shall never
be able to keep it up.”
“Nonsense,” said her sister, with a touch of asperity. “_You_ will have
no keeping up, as you call it, to do, and as for my part of it, you can
safely leave that to me.”
“I shall never be able to call you anything but Phil,” said Mrs
Headfort, plaintively.
“I’ve thought of that,” replied the young girl. “We had better choose a
name which would not clash—I mean, so that if you _did_ call me ‘Phil’
by mistake, people would either not notice it or think you had
interrupted yourself. What do you say to ‘Phillis’? It would do very
well, I think?”
“I daresay it would,” said Mrs Headfort, with a curious kind of
resignation in her voice.
“Of course it is a _perfect_ name for a maid,” said Philippa, “if
people didn’t always use surnames. But you can truthfully say, if any
one remarks upon it, that you’ve known me all my life, though I’ve only
lately entered your service.”
“I cannot go into any explanations of the kind, whatever people say, I
warn you, Philippa. I haven’t the nerve for it. Even if my _words_ were
true, I should feel as if I were telling stories.”
“Oh, well, say nothing, then,” her sister replied, tranquilly. “On the
whole it will be as well, or perhaps better. But now, Evey, we are
getting near Crowminster, and I must go back to my own carriage.
There’s only just one thing more I want to prepare you for.—Shut your
eyes for a minute.”
Evey meekly obeyed; she was past the stage of any attempt at
restiveness by this time.
“Now,” said Philippa, and Evelyn, looking up, gave a slight
exclamation.
“Who would have thought it would change you so? Where in the world did
you get them?”
The “it” and the “them” referred to a pair of bluish-tinted spectacles
which Philippa had composedly donned.
“Aren’t they splendid?” she said. “Don’t you remember them? They’re a
pair mamma had that summer ages ago, when she went to Switzerland with
papa, to shade her eyes from the glare. Of course they’re only plain
glass, and very dark blue ones wouldn’t have done; they look so like a
disguise. At least, in all the sensational stories, they are always
used for that. And real spectacles would have dazed me, for my sight’s
as keen as—”
“A hawk’s!” said Mrs Headfort, with a spark of reviving vivacity. “But,
oh, Phil, the train is slackening. I wish you could have stayed with
me.”
“It is much better not,” said Philippa, philosophically. “Very much
better not. We should have gone on talking and forgetting the new state
of things. My being in another compartment is the first act in the
play—it will help us to realise it. And now, ma’am,” she continued,
rising as she spoke, for by this time the train had stopped, “I had
better leave you. I will come to see if you desire me for anything at
the next station we stop at.”
Without the undue effort or constraint, which would have accompanied
any complete change of tone for a prolonged period, she had managed
slightly to modify her usual inflection of voice and manner of
speaking. It was slower and more monotonous than its wont, with a
slight suggestion of choosing her words, as might be done by an
intelligent girl of a lower class with enough education to make her
aspire to perfect correctness.
“All right, Phillis,” Mrs Headfort replied, with a somewhat pitiful and
not very successful attempt at following her sister’s lead. “No,” she
continued, with a sudden change of tone, “don’t speak to me. I can’t
stand it! I will do my best to brace myself up to it, but it won’t be
easy. Perhaps it _is_ better for you to leave me alone.”