one think to hear you still speaking to me like that?” she said,
forgetting that her own way of addressing the young man was now equally
inappropriate, “and I don’t like you to think that I would be unkind to
a poor dumb creature, especially one you are fond of. Dogs are all very
well in their proper place! But when it comes to finding one in a young
gentleman’s bed with its head on the pillow and the clothes tucked
under its chin, as I have seen you have Toby many and many a time in
the old days at Allerton—well, no, I can’t say but what that was going
too far.”
Michael Gresham laughed.
“I remember,” he said, “especially once when Bernie and I stole one of
old Aunt Serena’s caps—a nightcap I suppose it must have been—and tied
it neatly on to Toby’s head with the frills sticking out beautifully
all round.”
“I don’t remember Master _Bernard_ ever doing anything of the kind,”
said Mrs Shepton, with a marked accent on the name. “If there was ever
any mischief afoot, it wasn’t often it had to be laid at _his_ door.”
“Not _often_, perhaps,” said Michael, “though I wouldn’t say never. If
there was a scrape to be got into, it was, I allow, pretty sure to be I
who found myself in it. But we stuck to each other very faithfully in
those days. Poor old Bernie!” and he gave a little sigh. “After all, it
isn’t his fault if all the plums have fallen to his share, and I’m sure
I don’t grudge them to him, though I would not object to a few for
myself sometimes.”
A shade of distress crossed Mrs Shepton’s face.
“They will come, my dear,” she said, affectionately patting the young
man’s hand. “Never fear; they will come, all in good time, and none the
less sweet that you have had to wait for them, and work for them too.”
“Oh, bless you, don’t think I mind the working,” he said, lightly.
“Life would be unbearable without it. Don’t think I was grumbling, Mrs
Shepton, ma’am, but,” and he rose to his feet, as an unmistakable sound
of scratching and whining on the other side of the door made itself
heard, “some one _is_ grumbling, and that’s Solomon. May I let him in?”
“Of course, dearie; I’ll let him in myself. No,” as the young man was
moving towards the door, “let me do it; I should like him to see I was
friendly.”
In another moment Solomon was inside, pawing and jumping on the
housekeeper, who did her best to hide any sign of apprehension for her
black silk skirt. “You see he is fond of me,” she said, with a touch of
rather tremulous triumph in her tone.
“Moderately so,” Mr Gresham replied, eyeing the pair with considerable
amusement, “but not as fond of you as he is of a young person who
travelled down in our carriage the other day—third class—I always come
third, you know. By-the-by, I wanted to ask you about her. She is Mrs
Marmaduke Headfort’s maid, I believe.” Mrs Shepton looked considerably
surprised.
“Yes, sir?” she said, interrogatively.
“Now, don’t be stupid,” said Michael, with some irritation. “You know
very well I’m not likely to begin gossiping! But there is something
unusual about this girl, and I cannot help feeling sorry for her. I had
meant to speak of her to you before. What do you think of her?”
The housekeeper’s brow had cleared, but now a look of perplexity came
over her face.
“To tell you the truth, Master Michael, I really don’t know,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say as much to any one but yourself, and I would not for
worlds betray her confidence—”
“Has she given you her confidence, then?” interrupted the young man.
“She has and she hasn’t! She has allowed that there is something about
her present position that she cannot explain, and as far as things here
go she has put herself in my hands, saying how inexperienced she is,
and begging me to advise her if I see it necessary. But beyond that, I
know no more than you do. Perhaps,”—with a touch of curiosity—“not as
much, if you entered into conversation with her on the journey?”
Michael laughed slightly.
“Oh, dear, no,” he said, “she would have snubbed me at once if I had
said anything but the merest commonplace—and even that was only brought
about by Solomon’s making such friends with her, which threw her a
little off her dignity once or twice. She is a _lady_, nurse, I am
perfectly certain of it, and that is why I am so sorry for her. The
impression she made upon me,” he continued, slowly, “was that she is
acting a part.” Mrs Shepton looked rather startled.
“I don’t like you to say that, Master Michael,” she replied, quickly.
“I have felt from the first that I could trust her—and now that I know
her better, and she has, as it were, thrown herself upon me, I couldn’t
bear to go back from doing so.”
“You misunderstand me,” said Mr Gresham, with some annoyance. “Do you
suppose I think she’s a burglar in disguise? People are forced into
seeming what they are not sometimes, by no fault of their own.” Almost
her own words to Philippa! The housekeeper in her turn hastened to
exonerate herself.
“I took up your words wrongly,” she said. “I think I feel just as you
do, Master Michael, about the poor girl. I am doing all I can to be a
friend to her.”
“I’m very glad of that,” said Michael, heartily. “That was just what I
had in my mind—to ask you to be good to her.”
He spoke with his usual perfect simplicity, and as his old friend
glanced at him she said to herself: “Just the same kind heart as
always! Well, if others don’t, there’s one that does you justice, and
that’s your old nurse, my dear.”
Aloud she said nothing in reply to his last words, and Michael, too,
sat silent. He was stroking Solomon’s soft back half absently, and
pondering something in his mind, which the sight of his dachshund had
recalled to his memory. Should he, or should he not say anything to Mrs
Shepton of the curiously similar way in which both mistress and maid
had alluded to a former “Solomon of their own.”
“Have you seen anything of Mrs Marmaduke?” he said at last,
tentatively.
“Miss Christine brought her in here for a few minutes yesterday,”
answered Mrs Shepton. “Of course I had seen her before, several times,
but not to speak to. She is a sweet-looking young lady, very, and so
devoted to her little children. I am very pleased, indeed, that the
family seems to be taking to her so much; Miss Headfort has quite
cheered up over it.”
The tone of her words decided Michael to say no more. He could scarcely
have related the little incident without a suggestion of something not
altogether to the young wife’s advantage, though in what way he himself
would have been utterly at a loss to define. And the faintest
suggestion of such a kind would have been most unfair to young Mrs
Headfort, for if her maid had a secret—a secret of which she herself
even was cognisant, it would be most unjustifiable to lay to the young
lady’s account any supposition of underhand dealing or subterfuge.
“I think she is—Mrs Marmaduke, I mean—a nice little woman, and
certainly very pretty. I should not say she was particularly clever,
but I daresay that doesn’t matter much in a woman if her looks are all
right,” he said, with a slight superciliousness not lost on his hearer.
“Now, Master Michael, I am not going to have you beginning in that
way,” she said, remonstratingly. “If a young lady is pretty, that’s no
reason why she shouldn’t have other gifts as well. You would not like
me to say Mr Gresham had nothing but his good looks?”
Again there was just a shade of bitterness in the young man’s voice as
he replied:
“Nobody could say such a thing of Bernard. He has got—well, what is
there he hasn’t got?”
Michael’s old nurse seemed rather nonplussed.
“It was a stupid remark of mine, Master Michael,” she answered. “And I
daresay it will make it no better if I say that whatever Mr Bernard
has, and is, there are some ways in which I could never feel that he
comes up to you.”
“Mrs Shepton, ma’am, you’re a silly old woman. I must be going. If I
stay much longer you will be persuading me that my features are the
most regular you have ever seen.”
“Nay, nay, my dear. I know what I mean, though I can’t put it in words.
‘All is not gold that glitters,’” she added, sententiously.
The proverb seemed scarcely relevant, but Michael understood the
feeling that suggested the quotation, and there was affection as well
as amusement in the smile with which he looked back at his old friend,
as, followed by Solomon, he left the room.
The elder Mr Gresham had that day been the subject of discussion in
another quarter as well. He had been almost from the first very
gracious to Evelyn, and this naturally pleased her the more as she
gradually came to see that Mr Gresham did not always give himself much
trouble about those with whom he might be thrown in contact. The
attractiveness of his appearance and the invariable gentleness of his
manner had in themselves an undoubted charm, which often made his
coldness and indifference the more irritating to those who could not
flatter themselves that they had aroused in him the slightest interest
in their persons or their conversation.
“I do wish you could see him, Phil,” Evelyn was saying to her sister at
the very time that Mr Michael Gresham was paying his visit to Mrs
Shepton. “He is really so charming. Felicia and Christine tell me they
have never seen him make friends so quickly, and I think they are very
pleased at it. Every one thinks so much of his opinion.”
“Then it is no wonder if he is a little spoilt,” said Philippa.
“But I don’t think he _is_ spoilt,” returned Evelyn, eagerly. “He is so
gentle and considerate, such a contrast to his cousin—I never saw such
a ‘brusque’ man as _he_ is; and if it is affectation, he has no right
to be affected! He is so ugly, and of course his position is different
in every way.”
“Then it is no wonder if he is a little spoilt,” said Philippa.
“But I don’t think he _is_ spoilt,” returned Evelyn, eagerly. “He is so
gentle and considerate, such a contrast to his cousin—I never saw such
a ‘brusque’ man as _he_ is; and if it is affectation, he has no right
to be affected! He is so ugly, and of course his position is different
in every way.”
“I should scarcely think he was really affected,” said Philippa; “he is
just rather rough. But certainly,” she went on, “the elder cousin is
quite unusually good-looking.”
Evelyn gave a little laugh.
“What is amusing you?” said Philippa, rather sharply.
“Oh, nothing,” said Evelyn.
“When people answer ‘nothing’ in that way, it always means something,”
said Philippa, sententiously. “You laughed at what I said, and I want
to know why?”
“I didn’t—at least, not exactly. I was only thinking—now don’t be
cross—how absurd it is! You admiring Mr Gresham, allowing, at any rate,
that he made some impression upon you—for you are very critical, you
know, Philippa—and he on his side entertaining me, whenever he can get
round to the subject with his appreciation of your beauty and charms.”
Philippa reddened, and not altogether with gratification.
“That sort of thing is very common, Evelyn; I don’t like it. Besides
which, it is incredible that the man should remember me so distinctly.
We only met for one afternoon, and what chiefly impressed me about him
was his unusual dearth of conversation. It forced me to talk, I
remember—you know the hateful feeling of being _tête-à-tête_ with any
one, and we were _tête-à-tête_ for some little time, in dead silence.
No, Evelyn, he has found out one of your weak points, you unsuspicious
little goose, not your _weakest_, but he couldn’t praise up Bonny and
Vanda, as he has never seen them. You shouldn’t be so open to
flattery.”
“But, indeed, it isn’t flattery,” said Evelyn; “he would be incapable
of anything so coarse, and you should have a higher opinion of _my_
taste and perception too. All he says is in the very nicest way, really
showing that he saw you to be—well, something out of the common, which
you certainly are.”
“All the same,” said Philippa, “I wish you would leave off talking
about me while you are here, at all. It is very unwise.”
“I don’t think so,” said Evelyn. “When I’m talking about you to Mr
Gresham, I feel quite comfortable! I quite forget about you being here,
and think of you as if you were at home. Of course,” looking a little
ashamed of herself, “I have said once or twice: ‘How I do wish she were
here!’ thinking of you as your proper self, you know.”
Philippa looked very grave. She did not like the idea of any such
prevarication on her sister’s part, and was on the point of saying so,
till a moment’s reflection reminded her that she had scarcely a right
to do so. So she contented herself with remarking quietly that in
future she begged her sister to avoid all mention of her name.
“I cannot promise anything of the kind,” said Evelyn. “Mr Gresham has
got interested in you now, and I am—” She stopped short.
“Well, what?” asked Philippa.
Evelyn blushed a little.
“Interested in his interest, I suppose,” she admitted, with a little
laugh. “I cannot help wondering,” she went on, “when or where, or how,
you and he may meet again. I am sure you would have so much in common,”
and it did not require much flight of imagination on the younger
sister’s part to see whither Evelyn’s thoughts were tending.
She was both touched and annoyed, the practical effect of this
conversation being to make her wish more devoutly than ever that their
time at Wyverston were over. Other feelings were strongly influencing
her in this wish. For utterly unreasonable as she knew it to be, she
was conscious of a curious resentment against Michael Gresham, whom she
had not been able to avoid meeting—thanks generally to Solomon now and
then, either on the moor or nearer home, for tacitly accepting her
present personality, even while in a sense grateful to him for doing
so. For that he had guessed some part of her secret, guessed, at least,
that she _had_ a secret, she felt perfectly sure, and the consciousness
of this irritated her and reacted in curiously contradictory and
capricious ways.
Fortunately, as she told herself, though here, too, her inconsistency
came in, she had never come across the elder of the two cousins.
Evelyn’s dissertations made her doubly careful as regarded him, yet she
had a worrying curiosity to see him again, if only she could do so,
herself unseen. And but for an additional reason for precaution which
reached her a day or two later through her sister, she might have been
tempted to some more or less reckless step for the gratification of
this same curiosity, absurd and contemptible though she called it to
herself.
This new danger lay in the discovery of the fact that should fate lead
to the two Greshams laying their heads together about “Miss
Raynsworth,” her identity with Michael’s fellow-traveller would be by
no means unlikely to suggest itself.
Evelyn was full of her last piece of interesting information concerning
Mr Bernard Gresham when she came up to bed a night or two after the
conversation already recorded.
“Philippa,” she exclaimed, as soon as they were safely shut in for the
night, “I have found out ever so much more about my charming Mr
Gresham. His home is in Nethershire—a place called
Merle-in-the-Wold—isn’t that a fascinating name? I am sure I have heard
of it before. Didn’t _you_ speak of it, by-the-by? I said to him I was
sure I had heard it mentioned quite lately, as such a lovely part of
the country.”
“Oh, Evelyn,” said Philippa, aghast, “do be careful. Yes, no doubt I
spoke of it. I passed that way on my return from Dorriford. But what
might not come of it, if you had mentioned me in connection with it?”
“Nothing,” says Evelyn, sensibly enough. “He knows my sister was at
Dorriford, there is no secret about _that_, and he probably knows that
you would pass Merle-in-the-Wold on your way to Marlby. You are getting
morbid and stupid, Phil, about being found out. And no one heard what
we were talking about, except—oh, Mr Gresham has all but asked us to
pay him a visit, I, of course, as your chaperon, though he would have a
married sister and her husband there, too. Phil,” clasping her hands,
“we _must_ go. It would be too lovely—we two together.”
“And what about a maid?” said Philippa, grimly.
“Oh, I don’t exactly know; I must plan something when we go home. I am
sure I could think of some arrangement if I had a little time. I almost
think I will send away the under-nurse—she is a stupid little thing,
and though her wages are small, Dorcas says her appetite is enormous. I
could get a nice _young_ maid, who would not object to help a little
with the children, for a few pounds a year more. I am sure Duke would
not mind, and very likely her eating less would make up the difference.
You see, I shall have to be planning all about a house in a very few
months now, Phil. And if the old people here really take us up, Duke
will be so delighted that he will agree to anything.”
She was chattering on, when a word in her former speech recurred to
Philippa.
“Wait a moment, Evey,” she said. “You did not finish what you were
saying before. You said no one heard what you and Mr Gresham were
talking about, ‘except?’ Except whom—one of the Headforts?”
“No—what does it matter? I was only going to say except that stupid
Michael Gresham—he was staring at a book, as far as I remember. I don’t
suppose he did hear what we were saying. And, do listen, Phil—don’t you
see, as I was saying, once Duke has the position—almost, one may say,
the _recognised_ position of heir, there will be things that we _must_
do, out of respect for the family even, like my having a—”
But the latter part of Evelyn’s speech had conveyed little meaning to
her sister’s brain, so startled was she by the careless announcement
that if any one had overheard what Evelyn and Mr Gresham had been
talking about, it had been his cousin.
Had he done so, or had he not? Who could say? And what possibility was
there of discovering the facts of the case?
Philippa trembled as she realised the consequences of Michael Gresham’s
having taken in the whole bearings of her sister’s chatter. No special
power of discernment would be required, nothing but the simplest, most
everyday faculty on his part of putting two and two together, to
satisfy him as to the identity of Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s sister and
the girl he had travelled with. And her trepidation was by no means
selfish; she forgot about the disagreeables which would certainly ensue
to herself if the strange little plot were to be disclosed, in
realising the injurious effect it would certainly have upon Evelyn and
her belongings.
“Oh, Evey!” she began, impulsively, but checked herself before saying
more. What right had she to blame Evelyn, whose words would have been
perfectly harmless but for her own unnecessary communication to Michael
Gresham in the train? Still more, what could be less expedient than
now, when the mischief was done, to startle and alarm her sister, and
effectually destroy her ease and unconstraint during the few days they
must still pass at Wyverston?
“No,” she decided in her own mind. “I must think it over by myself, and
I must face it by myself. I have got Evelyn into the danger, and I must
get her out of it at all costs. No one must ever be able to blame _her_
in the least.”
But, oh! if she could but think that Michael had not caught the sense
of Evelyn’s words—Evelyn called him “stupid;” but that he certainly
could not be in the real sense of the word, for she had heard, even in
the servants’-hall, allusions to the position he had gained for himself
in his profession, but “unobservant?” Could she hope that his
perceptions were not very keen? Many clever men were dull and slow in
ordinary life, and by all accounts he did not shine in society. But
even this flattering unction failed her as she recalled the keen,
“interested” expression of his somewhat deep-set eyes, and the
half-sarcastic, half-humorous lines of the whole physiognomy that first
morning of meeting him in the wood—the unlucky morning when she had
forgotten her spectacles, and in the exhilaration of the fresh air and
novel surroundings had been far less on her guard than she now was.
All this train of thought passed through her mind far more rapidly than
it takes to describe the process, so rapidly that she had made up her
mind to silence as regarded Evelyn, before her sister had fully taken
in the scant attention which Philippa was bestowing on her words.
“Philippa,” she exclaimed, at last catching sight of the girl’s grave
face, “what are you thinking about? You are always very good at
cheering me up when I am in low spirits, but I must say that when I am
feeling bright and hopeful, and with good reason, you are _not_ very
sympathising. Don’t you care to hear about my plans?”
“Of course I do,” said Philippa, compelling herself to speak lightly,
“but we have oceans of time before us to talk over everything in, and
you have _not_ too much time for a good night; it is getting very late,
and if we go on talking you will never get to sleep.”
Evelyn was well-trained by this time; she made but faint resistance to
her sister’s ultimatum.
Of the two it was certainly Philippa who found the greater difficulty
in getting to sleep that night, and long before the dawn broke, she was
wide awake again, revolving in her own mind the whole tormenting
question of what to do, and how to do it.
“Or, after all,” said she to herself, “might it not be safer to leave
things alone, and do nothing?”
Chapter Eleven.
A Cold Nose.
Things if left alone often do shape themselves.
Philippa had come to no decision as to the best course to pursue, when
further revelations from Evelyn intensified her alarm.
“Philippa,” she began, the very next afternoon. “I don’t understand
that Michael Gresham, and I almost think I dislike him as much as I
like his cousin. Of course I have always thought him rough and abrupt,
but that he is to every one, more or less. But now there is something
in his manner to me almost indescribable—well, not exactly offensive,
that is too strong a word, but approaching it—a sort of tacit
disapproval, that I really cannot stand from a young man like that, who
has nothing whatever to do with me. I would not stand it if he were my
brother; I feel as if I should have an open quarrel with him before
long if it goes on!”
Philippa felt cold with apprehension.
“Don’t talk of such a thing, _Evey_,” she said; “your first visit here,
and the Greshams such old friends of these people! Nothing could be
more disagreeable. You don’t mean to say that he has ever been actually
rude to you?”
“No, nothing actually tangible. But he looks at me, especially when I
am talking to his cousin, in a sort of hard, questioning way, as if he
would like to pull me up for everything I was saying. At luncheon
to-day Mr Gresham alluded again to the visit we are to pay him. He was
asking about when I expect Duke back, and he turned to Michael with
some remark about the shooting—I forget what, exactly—in connection
with our going there, and the horrid young man scarcely answered. He
was as gruff as anything.”
“But that was more rude to his cousin than to you,” said Philippa.
Evelyn shook her head.
“No, it had to do with me. I think Mr Gresham noticed it, in fact I am
sure he did, for afterwards I saw them together as I was crossing the
hall, and I think I heard Mr Gresham calling him a bear, or a boor, I’m
not sure which.”
There was no time for more just then, as Evelyn was going out for a
drive with Mrs Headfort, and the summons came, before her sister had
time to do more than repeat one little word of warning, as Mrs
Marmaduke flew off. But once she found herself alone, while
mechanically occupying herself in arranging Evelyn’s things with her
usual deft carefulness, the poor girl’s thoughts were by no means to be
envied. Things _were_ coming to a crisis, thanks to her sister’s
innocent indiscretion and that—yes, she could join with Evelyn in
calling him “that horrid young man”—that horrid young man’s impertinent
interference; for that he was about to interfere she felt convinced,
though as yet he could scarcely be said to have done so.
“And if,” thought Philippa, “he thinks it his duty—officious people
always think things their duty—to warn his cousins that we are acting a
part and deceiving others, who knows what may come of it? Poor Evey
will in one sense suffer more than I, and it will be _all_ my doing! I
may have ruined everything for them by my recklessness and self-will.”
She sat down beside the window in a state very nearly bordering on
despair. She dared not let herself cry, though to one of her
temperament the very rarity of her tears made them the greater relief.