her brain as to the possibility of telegraphing to her mother to summon
them home at once, or of an appeal, however repugnant to every feeling,
to Michael Gresham to—nay, what could she say to him, without giving
him her full confidence? and that, she scarcely felt that it would be
possible to do. Of all men she had ever met, as far as she could judge,
he seemed the last in any way likely to understand or to sympathise
with the motives which had led her to act as she had done. Indeed, no
_man_, she said to herself, could enter into all the feelings, some of
them so apparently trivial and frivolous, which had actuated her.
“And a man like him least of all,” she thought. “One can see that he
prides himself on excessive honesty and straightforwardness. No doubt
he could be very good at saying disagreeable things from the best of
motives, and he could be quite incapable of entering into shades of
feeling, he is so rough. Now if it had been his cousin who was in
question—oh, it would have been quite different! He must be so refined
and delicate in perception.”
She gave a deep sigh. Her eyes turned mechanically to the window, and
she gazed out half vacantly. The afternoon was very still, and the grey
sky in any other part of the world would almost certainly have
prognosticated rain. But Philippa was learning her bearings better by
now in this northern country, where the greyness often meant nothing
special as regarded the weather.
The wind had been high the night before, and the trees almost looked as
if winter had already come, the paths being thickly strewn with their
discarded vesture.
A little shiver passed through the girl.
“It does look dreary,” she thought, for her window overlooked some of
the back premises, where no gardener’s broom had as yet tidied up the
traces of the wind’s undoing. One corner of the great stable-yard was
visible, and as Philippa still looked out, the silence was broken by a
sound she loved to hear, the eager barking of a huge watch-dog, whom
she had already made friends with in her rambles about the place.
“I hope they are going to loose him,” she thought, with interest,
craning her neck to see what was happening.
Just at that moment she caught sight of Mrs Shepton’s slight and still
erect figure, as she made her way back to the house, and a sudden
suggestion flashed into the girl’s mind.
“I believe it is the only thing to do,” she said to herself. “She may
be able to ask him what I cannot and will not ask for myself,” for by
this time Philippa had learnt something of the relations existing
between Michael Gresham and the housekeeper, though the latter had been
scrupulously careful to avoid anything approaching to gossip about the
young man whom she was still so devoted to.
Without giving herself time to reconsider what she was about to do,
Philippa, pale with suppressed nervousness, hurried down-stairs in
hopes of catching Mrs Shepton on her entrance to the house. In this she
succeeded, for in answer to her tap at the door of the housekeeper’s
room, its owner’s voice replied, “Come in.”
“Are you alone?” said Philippa, glancing round, “and can you spare me a
few minutes? Mrs Shepton, I am in such trouble, and I promised you to
ask your advice, if need arose.”
The housekeeper glanced at her anxiously. The girl had been greatly in
her thoughts the last few days, though she had not seen much of her,
for it had seemed to her that she was looking ill and careworn, unless,
indeed, her own eyes had been sharpened by the younger Mr Gresham’s
communications.
“Sit down, my dear,” she said, kindly.
Philippa obeyed her at once. Indeed, now that she was within the
shelter of the kind woman’s own little sanctum, and felt the protection
of her motherly tone and words, a reaction, not unnaturally, from the
constraint she had been putting upon herself, set in. She trembled so
that she could scarcely have stood a moment longer, and when she began
to speak, her voice entirely failed her and she burst into tears.
Mrs Shepton felt positively alarmed, but she spoke calmly.
“Try to be composed, my dear,” she said, still more kindly than before,
“otherwise you will not be able to tell me what is wrong. Will you have
a glass of water? I have some here which is as cold as ice.”
The girl made a little sign in the affirmative, and when she had drunk
the water, she was able to some extent to check her sobs.
“Now tell me,” said Mrs Shepton, “tell me all about it. Have you had
bad news? No, it can’t be that, for I have seen you twice since the
letters came, and you did not seem upset. Is Mrs Marmaduke vexed with
you for anything? You must not take it so to heart, if it is that; I am
sure she is a kind—”
But before she got further in these suggestions of consolation,
something in their nature suddenly struck her as strangely discrepant
with the whole look and even attitude of the young girl before her. The
disguising spectacles were discarded—the handkerchief with which
Philippa was brushing away her tears was of the finest cambric, with a
monogram beautifully worked in one corner—the whole pose of the figure,
even in its abandonment of distress, was full of grace and refinement.
It did not require Philippa’s shake of the head, accompanied
involuntarily by a faint little smile, to bring home to the housekeeper
that Michael Gresham had been right in the opinion he had expressed as
to the social status of his fellow-traveller, and which, on first
hearing it, had struck his old friend as scarcely warranted.
For Philippa was now completely herself, in the sense, that is to say,
of having thrown off all attempt at appearing other than she really
was, even while less self-controlled, more thoroughly unstrung than she
had ever been before in her life.
Yet there was something almost queenly in her bearing, as at last,
resolutely choking down the sobs which still would rise, she sat
straight up in her chair and looked Mrs Shepton clearly in the face.
“I am going to tell you everything,” she began. “I know you will be
kind, however startled and even shocked you may feel. Mrs Shepton, my
real name is Philippa Raynsworth, I am Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s
sister.”
For a moment or two the housekeeper was too confused to take in
distinctly the meaning of the words which reached her ears.
“Sister,” she repeated vaguely, while some romantic notion of
“foster-sister,” “adopted sister,” or the like, floated through her
brain. “You don’t mean really—”
“Yes, I do,” interrupted her visitor. “I am her actual, full sister.
You know her name was Raynsworth before she married?”
Mrs Shepton nodded, waiting breathlessly for further revelations.
“I will tell you how it all came about,” the girl went on, “But first
of all you must promise me to believe that it was no one’s doing but my
own. My father and mother are as vexed with me as they can possibly be,
and Evelyn—it has been very trying for her,” she was going to have
added, but the words remained unsaid, as with a faint smile of
amusement, which even in the midst of her distress she could not
altogether suppress, she recalled the comfortable philosophy with
which, once she had accepted it as a _fait accompli_, her sister had
resigned herself to her new lady’s-maid. “It has been,” she went on, “I
see now, a great risk to run for Mrs Marmaduke; if Mrs Headfort and her
daughters suspected that we have been deceiving them, I do not know
what harm might come of it.”
She glanced up tentatively at Mrs Shepton, but there was nothing
reassuring in the housekeeper’s grave face.
“I can’t say—” she began. “No, Miss—” and again she hesitated—“I can’t
say how it might be. They are _very_ straightforward ladies—practical
jokes, or wagers, or things of that sort that some people would think
nothing of, they would judge very sharply.”
“But you misunderstand,” said Philippa, eagerly; “it is nothing of that
sort at all. You will sympathise with my motives when you hear them, I
know, however you may blame me for what I have done. Now, please,
listen, and I will tell all exactly. To begin with, we are not at all
rich, and lately, with my sister’s return home with the two
children—all three far from strong—and other things, which will get
easier before long, just lately we have had to be very careful and
economical.”
Then with this preface she related to the housekeeper how the idea of
accompanying her sister had first taken shape in her mind, and how one
thing after another had combined to make it seem both desirable and
feasible, with but infinitesimal risk of the secret ever being
disclosed. And by the softening expression of the kind woman’s face,
she saw that her sympathy was enlisted.
Then came the recital of the really extraordinary coincidences which
had aroused her misgivings in the direction of the two Greshams,
especially the younger.
“It is he I am so afraid of,” she said, in conclusion; “though he has
never seen me before and could not identify me as his cousin could, I
dread him far more. Hitherto, I have managed to keep out of Mr Bernard
Gresham’s way, and we have only two or three days more here. But what I
have just told you of this very morning, makes me almost certain that
Mr Michael Gresham has guessed the whole, or very nearly the whole, and
what is still worse, that in time we shall have a very severe
judge—even now he may be speaking about it to his cousin or to the
Headforts, probably thinking it his ‘duty’ to do so,” with a rather
sarcastic emphasis on the word.
“Not to his cousin,” said Mrs Shepton. “I know enough to reassure you
as to that. There is no great confidence between them.”
“They must be so very different,” said Philippa.
“_Very_ different indeed,” said the housekeeper. “Nor,” she went on
after this little parenthesis, “do I think it likely that Mr Michael
will have said anything to my ladies as yet. The first person,” with a
touch of importance, “he would come to about it, would, I think, be
myself.”
An expression of great relief overspread Philippa’s face.
“Do you really think so?” she said. “That would be the very best thing
for me. You see, you could now tell him you know the whole—that I have
confided it to you, but,” with a sudden change of tone, as another
aspect of the affair struck her, “do you mean, Mrs Shepton, that he has
already talked me over with you?” And as the housekeeper did not
negative the inference to be drawn from her former words, the girl’s
face grew scarlet. “What did he say or think?” she said. “It does seem
so dreadfully lowering! As if I were a sort of adventuress! Was he
afraid of my letting burglars into the house? I think he must be a
most—officious young man!”
In her turn the housekeeper reddened a little, but she kept her
self-control.
“My dear young lady,” she began, with a slight effort. “You must not
think me officious for what I cannot help reminding you of—that all the
disagreeables which you have to bear, or may have to bear as to this
affair, are of your own causing, and,” with a very slight tremble in
her voice, “even from what you know of me, I think you might trust me
not to talk over any girl—whatever her position—in any way that could
possibly be objected to—least of all with a young gentleman, even if he
were the kindest and best in the world.”
“Which indeed,” she added to herself almost inaudibly, “Master Michael
is.”
Her words brought to Philippa a quick rush of regret for her hasty
words, as she recalled the affectionate relations which existed between
her old friend and the younger Gresham.
“Please forgive me,” she said, penitently. “You have been very, very
good to me, Mrs Shepton, and you are very good to me now, in listening
and sympathising, instead of at once saying you must tell it all to Mrs
Headfort, for fear of any possible blame to yourself hereafter, as many
selfish people would have done. Please forgive me, and oh, do tell me
what I had better do.”
She clasped her hands in entreaty, and the charm of her appeal went
home to the housekeeper’s heart.
“My dear young lady,” she began again, then hesitated. “I do wish to
advise you for the best, but it is very difficult. I have never heard
of such a thing. I don’t think I have ever even read of anything like
it in a story-book,” and for the first time the humorous side of the
situation struck her. But the faint smile which this drew forth soon
faded. “I wish I were quite sure of what is right to do. I cannot bear
concealing anything that happens in this house from my masters, and
yet—it is not as if your parents did not know of it, and _they_, as I
understand, have thought it forced upon them to keep the secret.”
For, in spite of the deception Philippa had been practising, her innate
truthfulness had impressed itself upon Mrs Shepton. Not for one moment
did she doubt the absolute accuracy of every word in the girl’s
narration. “I should like,” she continued, “as far as I may say so
without presumption, to say just what your own mamma would say if she
were here and knew what things have come to.”
[Illustration: ] His presence was first revealed to the weeping girl by
the touch of a cold nose on her hand.
At the mention of her mother’s name, Philippa’s overstrung nerves gave
way again completely. She buried her face in her hands and burst into
fresh tears.
“Oh, Mrs Shepton,” she cried, “don’t speak of mamma; I can’t bear it.
She has never, never before in all my life been really angry with me. I
would do anything, humble myself in any way, rather than bring further
trouble upon her and papa.”
But for the moment there came no reply from the housekeeper, who had
started to her feet at the sound of a knock at the door, which in her
agitation had not reached Philippa’s ears.
Nor had the intruder waited for the usual response, so confident was he
of his welcome, and before Mrs Shepton could take any precaution on
Miss Raynsworth’s account, Michael Gresham was in the room, staring
with amazement at the scene before him—amazement increased by the sense
of the last words she had uttered.
And not Michael alone—indeed _his_ presence was first revealed to the
weeping girl by the touch of a cold nose on the hand still covering her
face as she bent forward in her chair. For Solomon’s ready sympathy was
not restrained by any fear of intrusion; something was the matter with
a some one he was attached to, and he must at once see to it, and offer
all the comfort in his power.
Chapter Twelve.
An Appeal.
“Solomon!” exclaimed Philippa, looking up with a start, “how have you—”
But the rest of the words died on her lips, for there before her stood
Solomon’s master, his eyes fixed on her in astonishment, not unmingled
with concern, which latter detail, however, at the moment escaped her
notice.
Alarmed and indignant at what seemed to her an unjustifiable intrusion,
Philippa sprang to her feet, making a futile effort to remove the
traces of her tears. She was brushing past the young man with the one
idea of escaping from the room, when the housekeeper, recovering from
her own first start of annoyance, stopped her.
“My dear,” she began, “my dear young lady—as—as Mr Michael _is_ here,
will you not wait a moment? Perhaps it may be the best opportunity of—”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs Shepton,” replied the girl, haughtily.
“I would not have come to see you if I had thought any one else—”
“I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Michael, recollecting himself, as he
realised that he was the culprit.—“I will come back again, nurse,” he
added to his old friend.
But now it was on him that the housekeeper’s detaining hand was laid.
“Stay a moment, Master Michael,” she began; and acting on a sudden
impulse, she again appealed to Philippa. “Will you give me leave,” she
said, “to consult Mr Michael about—about this difficulty, as we have
reason to think that he knows so much already? May it not be better to
tell him all?”
Philippa turned upon her with flaming cheeks, too angry now to care
whether the young man saw her tear-stained face and swollen eyes or
not.
“Mrs Shepton,” she said, indignantly, “you leave me no choice. What you
have said now is equivalent to telling everything! Say what you like, I
don’t care, but I cannot stay to hear it. And remember if—if Mr Gresham
agrees to what I know you mean to ask him, he will do so for your sake,
not for mine.—_I_ make no appeal to you,” she ended, coldly, glancing
at the young man, as she determinedly crossed the room and disappeared,
closing the door behind her.
The two she had left looked at each other in consternation. Then
Michael gave a short laugh.
“What a whirlwind of a girl!” he ejaculated. “What does it all mean,
Mrs Shepton, ma’am? I suppose you must tell me now, and I suppose I’ve
got to listen. But why is your young friend so furious with
_me_—whatever have _I_ done?” and in his tone, beneath its lightness,
Mrs Shepton perceived a considerable spice of indignation.
The housekeeper, though sharing his indignation, looked ready to cry.
“What have you done, sir?” she repeated. “Nothing, of course nothing,
except that you have been very kind and considerate about a
self-willed, headstrong young lady—for a young lady she is, as you
suspected from the first. And never in all my life have I heard of such
a wild scheme as she has planned and carried out. If she had fallen
into some hands, a nice scandal there would have been! But yet,” she
went on, her voice softening, “I am so sorry for her too, for her
motives were good and most unselfish. And when she goes home, she will
have to face her parents’ great displeasure.”
Michael Gresham raised his eyebrows.
“I am glad to hear that,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder what sort
of people they could be to countenance such a proceeding, for this very
moment I had come to tell you what I had grown sure of, that this most
eccentric young lady’s-maid is no other than Mrs Marmaduke’s own
sister—Miss Raynsworth.” And he hastily recapitulated the various twos
and twos which had offered themselves to be made fours of, without any
special efforts at detection or very great exercise of acuteness on his
part.
Mrs Shepton looked considerably relieved, for the having acted on her
impulse had already begun to frighten her a little.
“I shall be glad to tell Miss Raynsworth that you had found it all
out,” she said, “when she has calmed down a little, and then she will
not be vexed with me. She was sure you suspected something, and that
was what brought it all out to-day. She is terribly frightened, and no
wonder! And yet her pride makes her angry at the very idea of appealing
to any one—to you, Mr Michael—to keep her secret, you see?”
“Yes, naturally; but what I _don’t_ see is why I should be expected to
do so. A girl who can behave so wildly, and in defiance of her parents,
should be pulled up for it, and the sooner the better, I should say.”
His tone was hard; all the softness and geniality seemed to have melted
out of his face. Mrs Shepton looked distressed. She began to feel as if
by her appeal to him she had let the genii out of the bottle—not that
she, good woman, would have thus expressed it—there was a look in her
“boy’s” face which she had encountered more than once before in his
progress from babyhood to manhood, and which meant a good deal beyond
what she was able to cope with.
“Master Michael, my dear,” she began, sitting down as she spoke, and
motioning him to a seat beside her, “you don’t understand. Wait till
you hear the whole, and all that the poor, dear young lady had in her
mind;” and trying not to seem too eager in her defence of Philippa, for
she was not without experience in the “little ways” of the sterner sex,
the housekeeper related with considerable detail all that she had
learnt from Miss Raynsworth as to the home life of her family, her
sisterly devotion and not unreasonable anxiety about Evelyn at the
present crisis, all—down even to the little difficulties which had
attended the efforts to find a suitable attendant to accompany Mrs
Marmaduke Headfort to Wyverston. She drew, too, a touching picture of
Philippa’s anguish of mind on receiving the sternly disapproving letter
from her parents.
“Poor dear, I couldn’t but feel for her, however rash and foolish she
may have been, when she looked up at me so piteous-like through her
tears, and said, ‘Don’t speak of mamma; she has never been really angry
with me before in my life.’ It quite went to my heart, Master Michael,
but of course that’s a woman’s way of looking at it, I know,” she
added, diplomatically.
Michael emitted an indefinite sound, something between a “humph,” and a
“pshaw,” but the lines of his face had softened; there was a touch of
amusement, too, in his eyes as he glanced up.
“She is a very silly girl,” he said, at last, “and a very bad actress,
though I don’t know that I like her any the less for that.—Eh, Solomon,
what do you say to it, old boy? _You_ saw through her from the first,
didn’t you?—Solomon is very fastidious in his friendships, you know,
Mrs Shepton, ma’am, and he took to her at once, as I have told you.”
His old nurse’s spirits rose. Master Michael wouldn’t speak like that,
she thought, if he was going to be hard and unsympathising, but she was
wise enough not to show her elation.
“Of course, sir,” she agreed, “_silly_ is no word for it! It was
perfectly wild, but the wilder it was, the more mischief may come of it
if we cannot help her. That is what she is now so wretched about; she
thought of how it might turn our ladies, here, indeed, the whole
family, against poor Captain Marmaduke and his wife, little as either
deserves it,” for Mrs Shepton had not forgotten to exculpate Evelyn
from all concerted share in the mad freak.
Michael’s face darkened a little.
“I don’t understand that young woman altogether,” he said; “either she
is a better actress than her sister, or extraordinarily childish.”
“She is quite straightforward,” said the housekeeper, “but her sister
has not allowed her to take it up deeply. She knows nothing of the
angry letter from their home, or of all this trouble just now. And she
has not nearly the strength of character of her sister, I am sure. Miss
Raynsworth tells me that Mrs Marmaduke really forgets about it from
time to time! And it must be so, or she would never have been so
incautious. Why, it’s mainly thanks to her that there’s all this now.”
The smiles which had been lurking somewhere in the corners of Michael’s
physiognomy now made itself visible, and broadened as he caught sight
of the dubious expression it called forth on his old friend’s face.
“I can’t help thinking,” he began, half apologetically, “of the scene
there might be here if it all came out. I mean nothing disrespectful to
this family, nurse, when I say that they are not remarkable for their
sense of humour. Christine, perhaps, has the most of it, of a rather
blunt kind, but Mrs Headfort’s face would grow so long that it would
never shorten again, and Felicia would certainly faint and be more
melancholy than ever, if they once discovered the trick that had been
played upon them.”
“Indeed, yes, sir,” Mrs Shepton replied, gravely, too decorous to join
in his smile. “It would be no laughing matter.”
“But what have _I_ to do with it,” said Michael, reverting to the
earlier part of their conversation. “What do you—or she—want me to do,
or not to do?”
“Oh, that is quite easy to explain, sir,” replied the housekeeper,
briskly. “It is _not_ to do that we ask of you. Just to keep her
secret, in short, for the two or three days that remain.”
Michael again raised his eyebrow’s.
“And after that—shall I be at liberty to tell anybody who cares to
hear? It is rather like giving the burglars time to escape; does Miss
Raynsworth intend leaving the country?”
But Mrs Shepton did not smile. On the contrary, she shook her head.
“It is no joking matter, sir,” she repeated, dolefully; “it is not,
indeed. I wish I saw a clear end to it, that I do. No, Master
Michael—of course I did not mean what you say. She will depend on you
_never_ to betray her, I feel sure. I only mentioned the two or three
days she will still be here, because once they are over, it is not
likely the poor young lady or her troubles will ever come into your
mind again—there would be no difficulty in keeping her secret after
that.”
From behind her own spectacles the old woman eyed the young man with a
somewhat curious expression. But he was looking down; his face was
perfectly composed, almost stolid. Only his old nurse knew that when he
“put on that face,” it was often more as a mask than as indicating
indifference.