the truth, far less easy-minded than she looked. She was becoming
conscious that till now she had not sufficiently taken into account
Evelyn’s peculiar unfitness for acting a part of any kind; all she had
directed her attention to having been the mere obtaining of her
sister’s consent to her scheme.
“Yet, after all,” she thought to herself, as she stepped into the
second-class compartment next door, “after all, all she will have to do
will be very easy; there will be no acting involved. We shall hardly
ever be seen together, and if her manner is constrained and peculiar,
it will only be thought to be her way with servants. It isn’t as if we
were going among people who had ever seen her before.”
With these reflections she did her best to quell her misgivings, and
feeling that it would be better not to let her mind dwell too long on
her own concerns, she looked about her for a little diversion.
There were two or three other occupants of the compartment, and her
glance fell almost immediately on one of them who at once riveted her
attention. This was a long-nosed, melancholy-eyed dachshund, whom
Philippa’s judgment, experienced in matters pertaining to his family,
straightway mentally labelled as a “perfect beauty.” In other words, as
consistently and entirely ugly as the strictest connoisseur could
demand.
Philippa loved dogs, and in general her amiable feelings towards them
were reciprocated. She had a very tender association with dachshunds,
the tragic death of one such pet having been literally the sorest grief
of her childhood, and as she gazed on her four-footed fellow-traveller,
whose soft eyes gazed back at her in return from the seat exactly
opposite hers, where he was comfortably established in a corner, it was
perhaps well for her that the blue-tinted spectacles hid the tears
which involuntarily dimmed their surface.
_Never_ since that terrible day—now, what the young girl would have
called “so many, many years ago,” when the broken-hearted child had
sobbed itself to sleep for the loss of her darling—never had she seen
another dog so exactly like “Valentine.”
“Oh, you dear, dear dog,” she said, under her breath, “I feel as if you
must know me.”
The words were quite inaudible, but some doggie instinct must have
carried their meaning to the brain of poor Valentine’s double, for with
something between a smile and a sigh—literally speaking, a yawn of
regret at the interruption of his comfortable repose—the dachshund, at
the cost of considerable self-denial, slowly lifted himself, and with
something between a spring and a stretch, landed his lengthy person on
Philippa’s knee. Thence he lifted his reddy-brown eyes, gleaming with
mingled pathos and humour, to her face for approval.
[Illustration: ] “I beg your pardon; I never saw Solomon take such
liberties before.”
“You dear little man, good doggie,” exclaimed Miss Raynsworth, too
delighted to remember her rôle, “how sweet of you to come to me! How
did you find out I wanted you?”
Suddenly a voice interrupted her. Till this moment, absorbed by the
dog, his owner had not attracted her attention. She was vaguely
conscious of two elderly women at the other end of the carriage, and a
man of some kind on the same side as the dachs, but that was all.
Now, glancing up quickly at the preliminary “I beg your pardon,” she
became aware of a pair of eyes, reddy-brown eyes, which might have been
the dog’s own transferred to a human face, looking at her with an
expression in which, however, there was nothing pathetic, only kindly
and good-humoured surprise.
“I beg your pardon,” their owner repeated; “I never saw Solomon take
such liberties before.—Down, Solomon; down, sir.”
But Solomon demurred.
“She likes having me,” he said, as plainly as dog language can speak,
with a deprecatory wag of his tail, and Philippa passed her arm round
him.
“I love him,” she said, eagerly; “he is so like—one I had,” her voice
dropping a little. “Do let him stay with me. ‘Solomon’—what a nice
name!”
Solomon wagged his tail more energetically. For him the situation was
quite agreeably clear; not so for his master. As Philippa glanced again
at the young man the expression of surprise, almost of perplexity, on
his face came home to her, bringing with it the remembrance of her
assumed personality. The colour rushed into her face as she realised
how imperfect was her preparation for carrying out her part.
“The very first time I have had to speak to any one,” she thought to
herself, “I have completely forgotten it all! Dear me, how shall I ever
get on? It was all your fault, Solomon,” giving him an affectionate
little hug.
Solomon’s master, meanwhile, was increasingly perplexed. The
discrepancy between the young girl’s easy manner and well-bred tone of
voice, and the rigorous simplicity of her dress, which even his
masculine eyes perceived to be not that of a lady, struck him more and
more.
“What was there to make her get so red about?” he said to himself, and
he was turning away, out of pity for her embarrassment, when she again
addressed him.
“I am so fond of dogs, sir,” she said, slowly. “I am quite accustomed
to taking care of them.”
“Certainly, if you like to be troubled with him,” the young man
replied, somewhat inconsequently. He spoke with perfect civility, yet
there was an impalpable change in his tone at once perceptible to
Philippa’s quick ears—her last sentences had succeeded in their object.
Yet the consciousness of this was accompanied to her by an altogether
unreasonable touch of annoyance.
“He is quite satisfied already that I am a servant,” she reflected.
“Really, if beauty is but skin deep, social distinctions, or the
outward signs of them, are far less so,” and again the blood mounted to
her cheeks, this time, however, without attracting the notice of her
fellow-traveller, who had now opened a magazine and was absorbed in its
contents.
Chapter Five.
“Solomon.”
Philippa sat quietly in her corner, one arm thrown comfortably round
Solomon’s plump little person, perfectly to that philosopher’s content.
Among the various preparations for her journey, it had not occurred to
the young girl to provide herself with any literature. Her eyes were
consequently at leisure to occupy themselves with anything of interest
that might come in their way. But the country through which the train
was just then passing was flat and monotonous; she soon grew tired of
staring out of the window, and she dared not amuse herself with Solomon
for fear of attracting his master’s attention.
Furthermore, the dachs, by this time was contentedly asleep.
Philippa’s eyes strayed to the end of the carriage. One of the elderly
ladies had already followed Solomon’s example; her sister, for sisters
they unmistakably were, returned Philippa’s slight glance in her
direction with a somewhat severe look of doubtful approval.
“What a forward girl!” she had been saying to herself, and Philippa
almost felt the words.
She only smiled to herself, however.
“I am really going through excellent training already,” she thought,
and again she turned to the window.
A moment or two later, however, some instinct, possibly merely a
sensation of suppressed restlessness, led her to glance at Solomon’s
master, and this time she was able to do so unobserved, for maiden-lady
number two had also closed her eyes in peaceful repose.
“How ugly he is!” was Miss Raynsworth’s first idea, and the adjective
was in some sense justified, for the charm of the young man’s face
doubtless lay in his pleasant eyes, at present lowered so as he read.
But there is ugliness and ugliness, and in the face under Miss
Raynsworth’s scrutiny, in spite of its somewhat rugged features, there
was nothing in the very slightest degree repellent or hard. The mouth
was excellent, the rest of the features in no way remarkable, and yet
not commonplace or in any sense weak, and a good mouth means a great
deal. On the whole the face was interesting, and the longer Philippa
observed him the more inclined she felt to modify her first somewhat
wholesale opinion.
“I wonder how old he is,” she said to herself; “he might be almost any
age between twenty-four and thirty-four.”
Then as he turned a leaf of his magazine, she hastily glanced away for
fear of detection. There was another motive, besides that of an ever
ready interest in her fellow-creatures, strongly developed in the girl;
the face before her reminded her of some other that she had seen
lately, though when or where she could not for some time recall. She
glanced up furtively, and at last it flashed upon her, so much to her
satisfaction, that she could scarcely suppress an exclamation of
triumph.
“I know whom he is like, and yet they are as different as possible; it
is that Mr Gresham whom I saw at Dorriford, that very silent man. And
yet he was _so_ handsome, and this man is just the opposite. What
curious things likenesses are!”
At this point in her reflections she must have got a little drowsy, for
which Solomon’s gentle, monotonous breathing close to her ear may
possibly to some extent have been accountable. Whether this was the
case or not, she knew nothing more till she was roused by the
slackening of the train, quickly followed by preparations on the part
of the two elderly ladies for leaving the carriage, which they did with
their various rugs and bags as soon as it drew up at a large important
station, one of the two or three at which the express stopped on its
northward route.
Solomon yawned and looked about him, then fixed his gaze inquiringly on
his master as if to ask: “Do _we_ get out here too?” But to this
inarticulate question the young man vouchsafed no reply, and Solomon
settled himself down again.
“Are you not getting tired of having him?” he said to Philippa, when he
had courteously helped the old ladies and their belongings on to the
platform.
“Oh, no, no, thank you, sir,” she replied, “not at all; but,” getting
up from her seat, “I must go to see if my lady wants anything. She is
in the next carriage.”
“You had better be quick,” said her fellow-traveller, warningly; “we
are going on again almost immediately, and I fancy we are a little
behind time.”
Philippa managed, however, to peep in next door where Evelyn was still
alone, apparently very comfortable and rather sleepy.
“I am all right, thank you, quite right,” she volunteered, before her
sister had time to make any inquiry. “I think I must have been asleep a
little, but I don’t mind when there is nobody in the carriage.”
“The best thing you could have done,” said Philippa, approvingly. “I
don’t think we stop again now till Great Malden, where we change, you
know, for the local line,” and nodding cheerfully she turned away, but
not till some last words from Evelyn reached her.
“It is nice to know you’re next door, Phil.”
The girl sprang up into her own compartment just as the train began to
move. Her former fellow-traveller, who was near the door, caught her
arm to help her in.
“You really should be more careful,” he said; “there is nothing so
risky as waiting till the last moment.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Philippa, feeling guilty; “it was careless of
me.”
She ensconced herself in her corner again, but with a sensation of
annoyance, which even Solomon’s unmistakable satisfaction at her
reappearance did not allay.
“How stupid I am,” she thought to herself, “always doing something or
other to attract notice when I should be quite unobserved!” and her
face, as she sat staring out of the window, had lost its former
cheerful expression.
So, at least, it seemed to Solomon’s master, as in spite of himself he
glanced at her more than once.
“There’s something uncommon about the girl,” he thought to himself,
“hyper-sensitive, I should say, for her position—possibly she was born
in a better one. I don’t see that there was anything to hurt her
feelings in what I said just now.”
But he was essentially kind-hearted, and the worried look on the girl’s
countenance, and the absent way in which she returned the little dog’s
friendly demonstrations, made him feel sorry for her.
“Perhaps her mistress is down upon her, poor girl,” he thought; “some
women must be terribly tyrannical to their servants.”
They travelled on in silence, however, for a considerable time. By
degrees the aspect of the country through which they were passing
changed for the better—a little exclamation of pleasure escaped
Philippa involuntarily as a charming view burst upon them. It was that
of a small lake, its shores beautifully wooded, with rising ground on
the farther side.
“Oh, how pretty!” she said, quickly, though instantly checking herself
as she remembered that she was not alone. Rather to her surprise her
fellow-traveller responded to her exclamation.
“Yes,” he said, “the part of the country we are coming to now is worth
looking at, if you’ve never been here before. It’s rather like the
prettiest part of Nethershire.”
“Oh,” said Philippa, impulsively, interested at once; “isn’t
Merle-in-the-Wold in Nethershire? I passed that way last week—it was
charming.”
Again the change in her tone and way of speaking struck her companion
curiously. There was a coincidence, too, in the name she had just
mentioned.
“Yes,” he replied; “it is that part I was thinking of; I know it well.”
But already Philippa had had time to repent her impulsiveness, and a
slight feeling of alarm added to her discomfort—alarm at her own
indiscretion.
“I shall be telling where my own home is next,” she thought to herself;
“I really am too foolish for words.”
It was too late, however, to do away with the impression her
inconsistency had produced. The young man went on speaking.
“Have you seen the ruins of the old abbey at Merle-in-the-Wold?” he
said.
“Oh, no, sir, I have never stayed there,” Philippa replied, but she
felt that she was not playing her part as she should. For something in
his manner, quiet as it was, convinced her that her companion’s
curiosity was aroused.
“Oh, I thought that you knew that part of Nethershire?” he said, more
for the sake of saying something to cause her to reply than from any
definite motive in the inquiry.
“N-no,” said Philippa, “I have only passed that way. I never heard of
the ruins.”—“How I wish I had a book!” she thought to herself; “though
he is perfectly nice, he is evidently trying to make me out I am afraid
to speak, and I am afraid not to speak. I wish to goodness he hadn’t
had a dog with him, though you _are_ such a darling,” this last with
reference to Solomon, who, seeming to read her thoughts, poked his long
nose affectionately right up into her face.
Something in her manner made the young man conscious that his speaking
to her caused her annoyance, and he turned his attention again to his
magazine, greatly to Philippa’s relief.
“I suppose it is really a very good thing,” she thought again, “that I
have had this experiment. I had no idea I should be so utterly silly
and without presence of mind; I really must drill myself!”
For the present, however, there was no further opportunity of doing so,
her fellow-traveller leaving her and his dog to their own devices for
the rest of the time that had to pass till they reached Great Malden.
At this station the sisters were to leave the main line for a branch
one, by which an hour’s much slower travelling would bring them to
their journey’s end.
As they entered the large station, Philippa collected her few
belongings preparatory to getting out and rejoining Mrs Headfort.
“Good-bye, poor doggie,” she said, softly, as she patted Solomon’s
sleek head; and, short as their acquaintance had been, a curious
feeling of sadness stole over her as she caught sight of the
unmistakable regret in the dachs’ wistful eyes. His master read on till
after Philippa had left the compartment, apparently unconscious of the
farewell and of the girl’s departure.
Evelyn, by this time more or less in a fluster as to catching the other
train without leaving her luggage behind her, or similar catastrophes,
welcomed her sister joyfully.
“Really,” she said, when she found herself once more comfortably
established for the third and last time with nothing missing or left
behind, “really, Phil, what a splendid courier you are! I have got
quite out of things with India, and leading such a stay-at-home life
since I came back, and you never seem to lose your head in the least,”
she concluded, admiringly.
“I have always been stronger than you, you know, Evey,” said Philippa,
glancing affectionately at her sister, whose pretty face had just now
the added charm of a soft flush of excitement. “And really,” she added,
“there has been nothing whatever just now to lose one’s head about. To
all appearance this little train might have been peacefully waiting for
us all day, and, now we are here, it shows no signs of intending to
move.” Then, with a sudden change of tone—“Oh, I declare,” she
exclaimed, as at that moment a dog, catching sight of her as she stood
at the door of Mrs Headfort’s carriage, rushed up and sprang at her
with the liveliest delight.
It was Solomon.
“Down, down, good doggie, be quiet,” said Philippa, hastily, afraid of
startling Evelyn. But that small piece of mischief was already
accomplished. Mrs Headfort jumped up in alarm.
“Phil, Phil,” she cried, “do send him away! A strange dog dashing at
you like that; he must be mad!”
“Nonsense,” said Philippa: “look at him; he’s a perfect dear—just like
Valentine; as gentle as he can be. Don’t be so silly, Evey.”
But as she said the last words, looking round, to her horror, she
caught sight of Solomon’s owner standing, as might have been expected
under the circumstances, but a few paces off.
Could he have heard her! Philippa trembled at the thought.
“And I, who had imagined he was safely whizzing off northwards in the
express!” she reflected.
Nerving herself she turned round so as to face him. His expression of
countenance was entirely imperturbable; it told her nothing. Coolly
whistling the dog off, he walked along the platform to the farther end
of the train—whether to get into it, or to pass the time while waiting
for some other, Philippa could not discover—Solomon obediently, though
reluctantly, following him.
“The dog’s gone,” said Miss Raynsworth, turning to her sister with a
touch of sharpness in her voice. “He was all right, I assure you. He
knew me again, because he travelled in the same compartment with me
from Crowminster.”
“Well, you might have said so,” said her sister, half ashamed of her
fright. “I wish you’d get into your carriage, Philippa; we are sure to
start immediately.”
“I’m going,” the girl replied. “But _isn’t_ he like Valentine, Evey?”
She moved away, however, without waiting for a reply.
The rest of the journey passed without incident. She spent the time in
taking herself to task for having again lapsed into her ordinary tone
to Evelyn, too confident of not being overheard, and in mentally
drilling herself for the future.
“It was all Solomon’s fault,” she said to herself, “both just now and
in the other train. I do hope he and his master are safely off in a
different direction. But even if they are in the train, there is no
reason why they should be going on to Wyverston station. I shall look
out every time we stop on the chance of seeing: them.”
She had plenty of opportunities for so doing. Never had a train gone on
its way more deliberately, or come to a standstill more frequently. But
on none of the small platforms alongside of which they drew up did
Philippa perceive the pair of travellers for whom she was on the
outlook. Her hopes began to rise.
“I really think,” she said to herself, “that they can’t have come by
this train. I daresay I am silly, but the very idea of that man’s being
in the neighbourhood makes me nervous. I am so certain he was curious
about me.”
This satisfaction at her fellow-travellers’ disappearance proved,
however, premature. A station or two before that of the sisters’
destination, lo and behold! on a deserted-looking roadside platform,
there stood, having evidently just emerged from the train, the
dachshund and his master!
Quick as thought, Philippa, who had been glancing out half carelessly,
drew back, retiring to the farther end of her solitary compartment. It
might have been fancy, but she felt certain that Solomon was looking
out for her. There was an indescribable air of alertness about him,
even his long nose was elevated, and one of his pendent ears
unmistakably cocked. Philippa felt almost guilty.
“Poor darling,” she thought, “I hate disappointing him, but I dare not
risk it. I devoutly hope the pair are not in the habit of country
strolls anywhere near Wyverston, for we can’t be far from there now.”
But in what direction they bent their steps, or whether any conveyance
was waiting for them, she had no means of discovering. Before the train
slowly moved on again they must have left the station; no trace of them
remained, not even a little heap of luggage awaiting deliberate removal
by a country porter.
Chapter Six.
“Miss Ray.”
In the interest of their near approach to their journey’s end, Philippa
put her recent fellow-travellers out of her mind. The afternoon was
drawing in as she stepped out on to the platform at Wyverston; a fresh,
invigorating breeze met her, bringing with it what she could almost
have fancied a faint scent of the sea.
“We are not very far from the coast, I know,” she thought to herself,
“but I had no idea it was such hilly country. It must be very bleak in
winter,” and the thought made her hasten to her sister to ensure her
wrapping up before leaving the shelter of her comfortable compartment.
Mrs Headfort was looking out for her.
“Evey,” began Philippa hastily, but in an instant corrected herself.
“You must let me undo the rugs, ma’am,” she said in the quiet tone of
voice she had adopted to suit her new personality. “It is ever so much
colder here than at home.”
“Naturally,” said Evelyn; “we have been coming north all the way. Yes,
I suppose we had better get out my fur cloak.”
There was no time to do so in the carriage, however. But when all their
belongings were safely collected on the platform, Philippa hastened to
extricate the garment in question. She had laid the bundle of rugs on
the top of a portmanteau, imagining it to be one of their own boxes;
but as she strapped up the roll again, the letters “M.V.G.” on the
surface beneath caught her eyes, and glancing round she noticed a
gun-case on which was painted in white letters the name “M.V. Gresham.”
“How odd!” she thought; “whose things can these be? No other passenger
has got out. And what a strange coincidence that I had said to myself
that Solomon’s master somehow reminded me of Mr Gresham at Dorriford!”
“This luggage is not ours,” she went on aloud, to the attendant porter;
“has it been put out by mistake?”
“It’s all right, miss,” said a young footman, whom she now observed for
the first time; “it’s to go up in the cart along of your lady’s. Mr
Gresham—I should say Mr Michael—always gets out at Linley and walks up
across the moor.”
Philippa’s heart for a moment seemed to stand still. She saw it all in
a flash. The young man, her fellow-traveller, some relation no doubt of
his namesake at Dorriford, was evidently an _habitué_ of Wyverston—an
expected guest there like her sister Evelyn!
She bit her lips with vexation and dismay. “To think what a fool I have
made of myself! Was there ever anything so unlucky?” and her inward
feelings gave a stiffness to her manner scarcely judicious under the
circumstances, as she turned to the civil-spoken young servant, hardly
more than a boy in years.
“Will you see to those things then,” she said, as she turned with the
cloak to wrap it round her sister, already shivering with the fresh
air, which to Philippa’s stronger frame seemed pleasantly bracing.
“The maid’s far high-and-mightier than the lady,” thought the young
fellow to himself, as Evelyn thanked him with her usual pretty
graciousness as he arranged a fur carriage-rug round her when she was
seated in the brougham. And this first impression was not improbably
communicated to his fellow-servants at the Hall.
“Phil,” said Evelyn, eagerly, as they drove off, “I’ve quite made up my
mind already that I don’t at all want Duke to succeed to Wyverston.
It’s far too bleak and cold. It would kill me; I don’t know how I shall
stand even my week here.”
Philippa could not help laughing.