rose. And not even the constraint and unusual seriousness of her
mother’s manner as she met the travellers at the station, whither she
had expressly come to meet them, could prevent the relief and delight
of knowing herself at home again.
“I have brought one of your hats and ordinary jackets for you to change
at once,” Mrs Raynsworth said eagerly. “They are in the waiting-room in
a small bag with my name on. Run and put them on while I look after the
luggage with Evelyn. I could not risk the servants seeing you in that
masquerade.”
The word stung Philippa. But she knew she had deserved it, and she felt
touched by her mother’s thoughtfulness. Two minutes later she stood on
the platform with the others, looking for all the world like the
everyday Philippa, though a trifle paler and thinner than her wont, who
had come to meet her sister on her arrival.
Evelyn glanced at her approvingly. But by tacit consent no allusion was
made to the transformation, or the circumstances that had led to it,
during the drive home of the mother and daughters in the Marlby fly;
and the elder sister, who, whatever in the way of thoughtfulness she
was deficient in, was certainly not wanting in tact, above all, where
those dear to her were concerned, managed to ward off any painful sense
of constraint by her graphic accounts of her visit and its undoubted
success, intermingled with her delight at “coming home” again, home to
her mother and the darling children.
“Bonny’s cough is better, you say, dear mamma? Oh, then it _can’t_ be
going to be whooping-cough. Indeed I have never felt really anxious
about it. I don’t see how he _could_ have caught it, with all the care
you have taken of him. I shall have nothing but good news to send to
poor old Duke by this mail. And don’t you think I am looking better? I
feel quite different.”
“Yes, dear, I think the bracing air up there must have done you good,”
Mrs Raynsworth replied, more brightly than she had yet spoken.
“It is only poor, dear Phil who is looking pale,” Evelyn went on,
leaning forward to kiss her sister as she spoke. They were close to
their own gate by this time. “Mother, dearest,” she added, coaxingly,
“I _can’t_ tell you all she has been to me, nor how _beautifully_ she
managed everything. You—you and father aren’t angry with her? It was
all out of devotion, and after all, my allowing it puts quite half the
blame on to me. For that morning, when she came into the railway
carriage, I was feeling so ill and weak and frightened. I was, in spite
of all, so _thankful_ to see her, that at the bottom of my heart I
could not send her away. Mamma, dear, _don’t_ be vexed with her.”
The tears were coursing each other down Philippa’s pale cheeks by this
time—some were trembling too on Evelyn’s pretty eyelashes. Mrs
Raynsworth was already softened. The sight of the two, the one so
bright and invigorated, the other so timid and evidently apprehensive
of what was in store for her, had already done its work.
“My poor, dear child,” she said, gently, as she held out her hand to
her younger daughter; and Philippa felt herself forgiven. “I can only
hope,” she said, “earnestly hope that no harm will ever come of it. I
am quite sure I need not warn you never to do such a thing again.”
Philippa shook her head; she could not speak.
“We need never allude to it,” Mrs Raynsworth added. “Only Dorcas knows,
and she will take care that no one ever hears of it. I cannot
imagine,”—for after all it was impossible not to feel some curiosity as
to how the extraordinary little drama had been carried out—“I cannot
imagine how you managed it. But I daresay we had better try to forget
about it and never mention it again. Your father—”
“Oh! there he is,” exclaimed Evelyn, “coming down the drive to meet us.
And, yes, he has got Bonny with him. How sweet of him! Phil, do look at
them—”
Chapter Fourteen.
Charley’s plan.
But as for “never mentioning it again?”
Before Philippa fell asleep that night, her mother was in possession of
every detail of all that had happened since they parted. More, far more
of course than Evelyn knew, or ever would know. The younger sister was
not one to do things by halves, and when she gave her confidence it was
completely given. She had confided in her mother all her life, and the
longing to do so now, even at the risk of causing Mrs Raynsworth
increased pain and mortification, was irresistible.
And it was far better so.
The fact which, naturally, was the most difficult for the mother to
bear with equanimity was that of the necessity which Philippa had felt
herself under of appealing to Michael Gresham.
“I could not have done it myself,” she said; “it came on, you see,
mamma, through his knowing the housekeeper so well. Though what would
have happened if he had _not_ been told, I really do not like to
think.”
“He suspected something, then, you think?” said Mrs Raynsworth,
uneasily.
“Suspected,” Philippa exclaimed. “I beg your pardon, mamma, for
repeating your words. Far more than that, he _knew_ there was something
not straightforward about us. And the worst of it was that he thought
poor Evey so double and insincere. Oh, mamma, I _was_ mad to do it.”
Self-blame disarms any kindly judge. Mrs Raynsworth could say nothing
more to add to her daughter’s keen regret. On the contrary, she gently
stroked her hand. They were sitting by themselves in Philippa’s own
room after Evelyn had gone to bed.
“We can only hope,” she said again, “and, I think we _may_ do so, that
no harm will ever come of it. I am very grateful, truly grateful, to
that good Mrs Shepton, and I should like her to know it.”
“I can write to her,” said Philippa, eagerly. “I should like her to see
that I have told you everything, and I can say it all without—without
mentioning names, or anything that would matter if by any accident the
letter were seen. Oh, yes, as far as the housekeeper is concerned, I
have no misgiving or sore feeling. It is that—that Mr Gresham I have
such a horror of ever meeting again.”
“The one that Evelyn liked so much—who has asked you both—Evelyn and
Duke at least,” (Mrs Raynsworth interrupted herself hastily, recalling
certain injunctions in the confidences her elder daughter had already
found time to give her as to the “impression” Philippa had made on
Bernard Gresham at Dorriford), “I should say, to stay with him at his
place, the place with the queer name?”
“No, I don’t mean _Mr_ Gresham,” the girl replied; “but, mamma, you
need not hesitate. I know he spoke of me to Evelyn and said something
about her bringing me—me in my proper character, of course,” with a
somewhat rueful smile. “And, if it had not been for all this, I daresay
I should have liked to go. Evelyn says he is charming. But it is not
_he_ I am afraid of meeting again; he suspects nothing; as I told you,
mamma, by some lucky chance he never caught sight of me once at
Wyverston, and at the end, you know, when there was that risk of his
travelling with us, I strongly suspect his cousin put a stop to it on
purpose.”
“That was kind of him,” said her mother. “It shows you can trust him.”
“Oh, yes, he is a gentleman, of course, and Mrs Shepton says he is very
kind-hearted and everything good. But, oh, mamma, I have a perfect
horror of ever seeing him again; I felt so—so _degraded_, when I had,
as it were, to throw myself on his mercy. You cannot think what it felt
like,” and she shivered slightly.
Mrs Raynsworth did not at once answer. She seemed to be thinking
deeply. Then she said:
“Philippa, my child, it will not do any good, or undo what cannot be
undone, for you to allow yourself to grow morbid about it. Put it out
of your mind as far as it is possible for you; you owe it to us all to
do so, now that there is nothing more to explain, and that all is
forgiven. Promise me that you will try to do this.” Philippa sighed
deeply.
“Yes, mamma, I will try. I know it is the least I can do when you—papa
and you—are so very, very good to me,” her voice trembled a little. “I
will try. But do promise me, dear mamma, that if the question comes up
of my going to Merle-in-the-Wold with Evelyn and Duke—they are sure to
go some time or other—you will help me to get out of it? _That_ is not
morbid.”
No, under the circumstances, Mrs Raynsworth could scarcely call it so,
as nothing was more probable, almost certain, than that Michael Gresham
would be one of the party at his cousin’s. Under the circumstances,
however, she much doubted if Evelyn’s zeal for a visit to Merle would
hold good, though this opinion she kept to herself.
“I will promise never to urge you to do anything as painful to you as
this idea seems at present,” Mrs Raynsworth replied. “And perhaps,”
with a little sigh—for unworldly though the mother was, it could
scarcely be that Evelyn’s glowing description of the master of Merle,
and the evident “admiration at first sight” which her sister had
aroused in him, had made no impression on the maternal
imagination—“perhaps your instinctive dread of meeting the younger
Gresham again is well founded.”
“I am sure of it,” said Philippa, in a tone of relief. “And, oh, mamma,
there is one thing we—I—should be glad of, and that is that Charley did
not come here while we were away. Of course,” (as had been the case)
“his last letter—the last before we left—showed it was unlikely; but
everything unlikely seems to have happened to me! And I could not bear
him to know what I did—he would be furious.”
“Yes,” Mrs Raynsworth agreed, “I am afraid he would be. And I see no
reason why he should ever hear of it. We took care not to let Hugh and
Leonard know where you had gone. I just told them that you had gone
away again unexpectedly for a few days. I believe they had some vague
idea that you had been summoned back to Dorriford.”
And after that first evening, though with no definite _parti pris_ on
the subject, Philippa’s eccentric escapade was practically buried.
Circumstances greatly helped to bring this about. For the very next
morning came the looked-for news of Charley’s definite return—a return
“for good,” as his people had got into the way of calling it. He was to
stay at home, indefinitely at least, working at the special branch of
literature which he had made his own, and in which his father’s advice
and experience were of great value to him, and acting at the same time
as Mr Raynsworth’s secretary, thus relieving his younger sister from
the somewhat onerous duties of the last year or two.
“Tell poor old Phil,” he wrote, “that she is to have a regular
right-down good holiday at last, to be idle and frivolous, and taken up
about her clothes like other girls. She’s not had fun enough in her
life, and it’s time she had some now. With Evey being at home, surely
we can plan something of a change for Phil? We must talk it over when I
get back. I have a few pounds by me that I have managed to get
together, and I am determined to spend them on her.”
Philippa’s eyes glistened when her mother read aloud her brother’s
letter, but though she smiled, her face was a little sad.
“I know what would be best,” said Evelyn, “if only we were sure of
Duke’s coming next month! I am to let Mr Gresham know whenever it is
quite settled; then he will invite us to Merle, and on the way there,
at least we will _make_ it the way there, Duke, and Phil, and I will
stay a few days in London, and I shall choose two or three of the
prettiest dresses you ever saw, for you, Phil.” But Philippa did not
respond to the proposal.
“I count that I have had my holiday,” she said. “I enjoyed the visit to
Dorriford exceedingly, and I shall enjoy having Charley more than
anything. Don’t ask me to leave home again. Mamma,” with an appeal in
her voice that was new to the self-reliant Philippa, “you won’t, will
you?”
“Nobody will want you to do anything you don’t like, my dear child,”
her mother replied, reassuringly. “That would be a strange use to make
of poor Charley’s thoughtfulness.”
And Philippa’s face grew calm again; she could depend upon “mamma.”
“Besides,” said Evelyn, “you needn’t work yourself up about a thing
that may not come to pass for ever so long. Duke _may_ not get home
till next year. And I think it’s not very nice of you, Phil, to be so
lugubrious about a plan I only thought of for your sake. You might
understand that I would like to do something to—to make up a little, as
it were, for all you went through for me.”
Evelyn’s voice grew tremulous, and her pretty eyes were dewy as she
finished speaking. In a moment Philippa was kneeling beside her—her
arms flung round her sister in a close embrace.
“Evey dear, you might understand,” she whispered. “Mamma does. I have
got nervous about it all. But don’t think me ungrateful. I shall be
quite right again soon, and it will be so nice to have Charley at home.
He will cheer us up; he always does, and I am sure Duke _will_ get back
before Christmas, at the very latest.”
Evelyn kissed her in return, and the little cloud melted. Still
Philippa felt very glad when her brother’s arrival brought a diversion
and a still stronger certainty that the Wyverston travesty would
henceforth be allowed to sleep in peace.
How _very_ rarely, how “almost never,” do things turn out as we have
pictured them to ourselves? How the misfortunes which we foresee and
prepare to face disappear; how wholly unexpected difficulties and
complications weave themselves about our unwary feet till we scarcely
dare to risk a step! “If we had but known,” “if I had had any idea of
this happening,” “ifs” without end, and better disregarded.
The unexpected came to Philippa Raynsworth this winter, though not
altogether in painful guise, and she found, as so many of us do, that
she had expended fears and misgivings in quite unnecessary directions.
Charles Raynsworth was the eldest of the family, and the only plain
member of it. He had none of Philippa’s graceful stateliness, nor
Evelyn’s charm of manner and appearance, some traces and promise of all
of which were to be found in the two younger boys—handsome Hugh and
blue-eyed Leonard. But no one of the five brothers and sisters was more
loved and trusted by the other four than the insignificant-looking head
of the party. For the insignificance began and ended with his outward
appearance; he was far above the average in every other direction;
intellectually gifted and possessing, in addition to undoubted talent,
the “genius” of perseverance and steady application; honest and
straightforward like all his family, unselfish and with a power of
sympathy unusual in a man. No wonder that “Charley’s” home-coming was
the best of good news.
And for a day or two the pleasure of all being together again shed a
rosy hue over everything. Charley was in such request that he had
scarcely time to think. If he were not closeted with his father in the
study, he was button-holed by his mother in the drawing-room; if he
were not in the thick of the boys’ pets—feathered, guinea-pigs, and all
the rest of them—admiring, advising, and doing his best to make sense
of Hugh and Leonard both talking at once, he was pretty sure to be in
the nursery, with Bonny riding on his shoulder, or listening to
Evelyn’s maternal raptures over baby Vanda’s attempts at conversation.
It was not till he had been some days at home that he one morning
waylaid his mother and drew her out to the front of the house for a
stroll up and down the gravel drive.
“You are not busy, are you, mother?” he said. “You have got your
cook-interviewing and all that sort of thing over for the day, haven’t
you? I want a talk with you without being interrupted, as we always are
in the drawing-room, and in the afternoon it is even worse. Next week I
must buckle to work regularly; but for these two or three days I have
been giving myself time to settle down.”
It was a mild day—“mild for November,” as one so often hears people say
when that maligned daughter of the year is with us, forgetting how very
often the early days of the month are altogether charming.
“Shall I get you a shawl?” Charles Raynsworth went on, but his mother
negatived the proposal.
“I am not the least cold,” she said, “and if we keep at this side of
the house it is always sheltered. What is it, dear, that you want to
talk about? Nothing wrong?” and a slight furrow of anxiety made itself
seen between her eyebrows. For the moment, unreasonable though it was,
a fear startled her that possibly—_could_ it be?—was Charley going to
tell her that Philippa’s escapade had come to his ears?
But her son’s first words reassured her.
“Don’t look so startled and anxious, mother,” he said, eagerly. “No, of
course it’s nothing wrong. I only want to take the bull by the horns,
so as to prevent anything wrong coming to pass. Mother, I don’t think
my father is looking well—one notices looks, you see, dropping in among
you all from the outside, as it were. And once the idea struck me it
made me watch him; no, he is not what he was last year, I am quite sure
of it. He is overdone. I can see that he has been working too hard.”
Mrs Raynsworth drew a long breath. This was not what she had feared,
but it startled her. She grew rather pale.
“Charley!” she said.
“Don’t looked so appalled, mother,” he said, reassuringly. “I have not
the least fear of there being anything seriously wrong; if I _had_ had,
of course I should have done something else—spoken to a doctor or to my
father himself before frightening you. But I am perfectly sure it is
overwork only; he should have a holiday—a holiday and a change. And
that brings me to the second head of my discourse. Phil isn’t looking
well, either. I believe the two of them have been buried in that study
far too much and for far too long together. I should have been here at
home some months ago, but it was impossible, so there is no use going
back upon that. What I want now—”
But Mrs Raynsworth interrupted him.
“I daresay you are right about your father,” she said; “but as to
Philippa, I don’t know; she has had some change this autumn. There was
the visit to Dorriford, you know, which she enjoyed very much, and—”
But in his turn Charles interrupted, fortunately so, perhaps, for Mrs
Raynsworth was beginning to feel very guilty.
“A week,” he said, “a week or ten days at most—what’s that? Oh, no, she
needs much more thorough change than that sort of thing. She has grown
nervous, mother, that is what I have noticed, for it is so unlike her.
She changes colour for nothing and starts if one opens the door
suddenly. No, I am sure I am right about them both, and this is what I
want you to help me to manage. Father and Phil should go abroad
together this winter for three or four months. They would enjoy it
thoroughly. Phil has never been out of England, and father can take her
over some of the old ground he knows so well. It would be new life to
him. Phil is so intelligent, you see, and would enter into all that
interested him,” and Charley’s commonplace greenish-grey eyes lighted
up with eagerness till they looked almost beautiful. He was nearly
breathless, as he stopped short in the path and stood facing his
mother.
She could not but be infected to some extent by his enthusiasm, but Mrs
Raynsworth was eminently practical.
“My dearest boy!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I agree with you; nothing could
be more delightful for both your father and Philippa,” and as she named
her younger daughter there flashed through her mind the special benefit
to the girl of such a complete change of life and surroundings at the
present time; “nothing,” she repeated, “could be better. But, Charley,
you forget—the ways and means!—and your father’s work. We should never
persuade him to leave it.”
“He need not do so; at least, I mean to say, it need not suffer,” said
the young man. “I have gone into all that part of it already since I
came, without my father’s finding it out. He can quite well leave his
work at its present stage to me—he said so himself. And the time I
would give it need be no more than I could give to him if he were here.
I can quite fit it in with my own work. The only thing father must do
is to defer starting on his new book for a few weeks, and all the
better if he does so. He would gather some fresh material if he was in
Italy, and—”
“But—but—Charley—there is the money part of it.”
Charley’s fair, freckled face flushed.
“_That’s_ all right,” he said. “You know, mother, I wrote that I had
saved a few pounds—saved and made, I should have said. Well, to cut a
long story short, the few pounds have turned out more than I expected.
I have a hundred, a clear hundred, mother, ready for this scheme of
mine. And a hundred pounds will go a long way with two people like my
father and Phil; he knowing the ground so well, and she so economical
and managing as I know she is. Besides, once my father made up his mind
to go, he would no doubt put something to the hundred.”
Mrs Raynsworth, well as she knew her son, was greatly touched.
“My dearest boy,” she said again, “I cannot tell you how good I think
it of you to have planned such a thing. But I fear your father would
never consent to take your money—your own earnings.”
Charley laid his hand on his mother’s arm and drew her forward again.
It felt rather chilly standing still.
“My dearest mother,” he said, as they resumed their stroll, “leave that
to me. How can you think such a thing, when you remember all my father
and you have done for me? Stinting yourselves, and even, indirectly, my
sisters too a little, to give me the best of educations. It is all
thanks to that that I am now where I am, certain of earning my own
livelihood at the very worst, and with every reasonable prospect of
greater success. Leave it to me, my dear mother; only promise me to
back me up when I have broached the idea with both my father and Phil.”
The promise was given and acted upon. For the more Mrs Raynsworth
thought over her son’s idea the more it commended itself to her. And
the verdict of the doctor—an old friend who knew him well—whom Mr
Raynsworth appealed to with the expectation of his pronouncing the
proposed holiday, however agreeable, by no means a necessity, decided
the turning of the scale. The benefit to Philippa herself was not made
prominent, though in her heart the mother was almost as glad of the
proposed scheme for her daughter’s sake as for her husbands. But
Charley was not without his reward. The glow of pleasure which
overspread the girl’s face at the first mention of the plan made her
brother determine that it should be carried out, and Philippa’s
misgivings that it would be “selfish” and wrong to leave home for so
long, and that “mamma” should profit by Charley’s generosity rather
than herself, were overruled by her father’s assurance that no one
except her brother could be as useful to him as his already
well-trained little secretary.
Circumstances in other directions too added their influence. Captain
Headfort telegraphed his arrival by the next mail but one, and under
the new aspect of things it became much easier to arrange for his
making his headquarters at Greenleaves—the Raynsworths’ home—with his
family for the first few months of the year, during which his eventual
plans were to be decided.
“I _could_ not have gone away with any sort of comfort, Phil dear, you
see,” said her mother. “And as it is, I shall really enjoy the time at
home with Charley and Duke, and helping Evelyn to settle what to do,
and with _no_ anxiety about your father on my mind. I think everything
has fitted in beautifully.”
And on the whole, Evelyn’s sentiments agreed with her mother’s, though
she could not help sighing in private when alone with Mrs Raynsworth
over the downfall of her castle-in-the-air.
“I shall not care to go to Mr Gresham’s in the least without Phil, even
if he asks us now,” she said, disconsolately. “I suppose I must write
to tell him that Duke is really coming, as I promised I would. And, of
course, I will tell him that my sister is going abroad. But ten to one
before the winter is over we shall hear he is going to be married; men
are just like that, even when they do fall in love at first sight, as I
shall always firmly believe he did.”