any serious way, or to lose her spirits and nerve,” said Mrs
Raynsworth. “And there is no doubt, Evey, that that wild affair has had
a strange effect upon her; it seems to have been almost a shock to her
to realise _how_ wild and rash it was, and how disastrous its
consequences might have been. I doubt very much, Evey, if she would
have agreed to go to Mr Gresham’s.”
“It would have been very absurd of her to have been afraid of it,” said
Evelyn, impatiently. “He never saw her at Wyverston, she allows that
herself. And as for the other one—Michael Gresham—I don’t suppose his
cousin has him very much at Merle; they did not seem very specially
friendly. Besides, he only saw her in the railway, and with those
horrid spectacles on. One does not remember every person one meets in a
railway carriage. Phil will get quite morbid if she is so fanciful.”
“That is why I am so glad for her to have this complete change,” said
Mrs Raynsworth, quietly.
Chapter Fifteen.
Maida at Fault.
So, after all, the hobgoblin of a visit to Merle melted into thin air,
as often happens with the things we dread the most. Not that, in this
case, there was do element of disappointment to Philippa mingled with
the very relief she was so grateful for. She had a distinct curiosity
about Evelyn’s hero, and a decided wish to see him again, and when,
some two months or so later, a letter with the date of
“Merle-in-the-Wold,” reached her in her wanderings with her father, she
felt it undoubtedly regrettable that she could not, without misgiving,
look forward to joining the Headforts in their next visit there, as her
sister alluded to.
“You cannot think what a _perfect_ place this is,” wrote Evelyn. “Duke
was not very eager to come, so soon after arriving and before he had
settled down at all, he said. He _is_ such an old bachelor; he has
fallen back into all his fussy methodical ways with being two years
away from scatter-brained me. But now he is quite as much in love with
it all as I am, and is talking of looking out for a little house
somewhere hereabouts, if he decides on leaving his regiment. And he
likes Mr Gresham very much; at least he says, as everybody must, what a
charming host he is, though I don’t know that he appreciates him
_quite_ as much as I do. But he likes talking to him about Wyverston
and the Headforts. And oh, by-the-by, the old squire has written _so_
cordially to Duke, as soon as he heard of his arrival. We are to go up
there for a week whenever the worst of the winter is over, etc, etc.”
And in a postscript she had scribbled: “Michael Gresham is not here,
and his cousin says very little about him. I always told you that I was
sure they were not so very intimate. Mr Gresham has just begged me to
say that the next time we come he hopes _you_ will accompany us, though
he scarcely dares flatter himself that you can remember him.”
Philippa smiled a little as she read the last words.
“Well, perhaps,” she said to herself, “perhaps I may go there some time
or other without any misgiving. It will be curious if I never come
across Solomon’s master again. He _was_ kind, after all, though rather
gruff about it. And I am sure he is to be relied upon. But the
_feeling_ of being there with him, knowing that he knew, and that he
knew I knew he knew! Oh, it would be insufferable.”
She made a gesture as if to shake off the very thought of such a thing.
But her nerves and spirits were fast recovering themselves. Charley’s
plan had been a grand success. Mr Raynsworth and his daughter had
enjoyed themselves to their heart’s content—nor had they been idle.
Philippa had taken her part in all her father’s researches and
explorings, for the new book he had in view dealt largely with the
history of the old Italian towns which they had been staying at, one
after the other, since leaving home.
Three months fled only too quickly. At the expiration of that time,
just as they were deciding, not without reluctance, that they must turn
homewards—for with all the good management in the world money develops
very slippery qualities in travelling!—a letter from Cannes somewhat
altered their plans. It was from Miss Lermont, with whom, since her
visit to Dorriford, Philippa had kept up a regular correspondence, so
that Maida was quite _au courant_ of her young relative’s whereabouts.
The Lermonts had been spending the winter, or a part of it, in the
south, and now, by her father’s and mother’s request, she wrote to beg
Mr Raynsworth and his daughter to join them in their villa for two or
three weeks.
“I do not see why we should not do so,” said Mr Raynsworth, “I should
like to see something more of the Lermonts, and the quiet time would
enable me to arrange my papers and notes a little better than it has
been possible to do so far. They seem all right at home—eh,
Philippa?—and you would like a week or two with Maida?”
“Very much, very much indeed,” his daughter replied.
So it came to pass that it was not at Dorriford, but in the sunny south
that Philippa met again the friend she had already learnt to prize.
“You are changed, Philippa,” said her cousin, the first morning when
they were strolling about in the pretty garden of the Lermonts’ villa.
“Changed somehow, though I scarcely can say how.”
“Am I?” said the girl, “and yet it is only six months, barely that
indeed, since you saw me last.”
But she _was_ changed, and the consciousness of it made her colour
deepen, even though she knew how much more cause for her remark Maida
would have had, had they met before Philippa’s winter in Italy.
“I know, that is what makes me notice it the more. One expects to see
change at your age after an interval of a year or two—I counted you
scarcely grown-up when you came to us last year. But in six months! No,
I can’t quite make it out.”
“What is it?” said Philippa, lightly. “Am I fatter, or thinner, or
paler, or what?”
Miss Lermont looked at her scrutinisingly, which did not tend to
increase the young girl’s composure.
“No,” said the elder woman at last, “it is not in that sort of way so
much—though you _are_ thinner, rather thinner, and perhaps a little
paler. Nevertheless you have grown still—prettier,” checking herself in
the use of a more imposing adjective. “I am not afraid of telling you
so, as I know you are not the _least_ conceited. But you have changed
otherwise. You are not _quite_ as bright and self-reliant as you
were—you look anxious every now and then, and sometimes you are rather
absent. Tell me, my dear child, have you fallen in love with any one?”
It was the greatest relief to Philippa that Maida’s kindly
cross-questioning should have turned in this direction. For even if she
herself had thought it well to take Miss Lermont into her confidence as
to her adventures, she was not free to do so, Mrs Raynsworth having
bound her down to tell no one the story without first consulting
herself. The laugh, therefore, with which the young girl prefaced her
reply was quite natural and unconstrained.
“No indeed,” she said, “I can’t fancy myself falling in love with any
one unless I were very sure that the person in question had first
fallen very thoroughly in love with me. And—I can scarcely picture such
a state of things as that.”
“Naturally,” said Miss Lermont. “I don’t think any girl—not a girl such
as you are, at least, dear Philippa—_can_ picture it till it comes to
pass.”
Philippa hesitated.
“I mean more than that,” she said. “I do not feel as if I were the sort
of girl a man is likely to care for in that way. I am not—oh, not
yielding, and appealing, and all that sort of thing. There is something
of a boy about me. Long ago, when I was a tiny girl, the nurses used to
tell me I had no ‘pretty ways.’” Maida could not help smiling at
Philippa’s self-deprecation. But as the girl looked down at her—Miss
Lermont was by this time established in her invalid-chair, her cousin
standing beside her—with a certain wistfulness in her expression, it
struck the elder woman still more strongly that Philippa _was_ changed,
softened and somewhat saddened. Her present estimate of herself was far
less correct now than a few months ago. “You forget,” Maida replied,
“that tastes differ as to human beings’ attraction for each other,
luckily for the peace of society, more widely than in any other
direction. It is not every man, by any means, whose ideal woman is of
the type which _you_ evidently think the most winning. But all the
same, my dear child, you are much more—‘womanly,’ shall I say?—less
self-confident and gentler than you were at Dorriford. _Something_ has
changed you. Don’t you feel conscious of it yourself?”
“Growing older perhaps,” said Philippa, trying to speak lightly. But it
was impossible for her to be anything but genuine with Maida. “No,” she
continued, with a sudden alteration of voice, “I will not talk
nonsense. I know that I have changed; you are very quick and
discriminating to have found it out, and I wish I could tell you all
about it. But I cannot, not at present at any rate. So don’t let us
talk any more about it. I do want to enjoy this delightful place and
weather and _you_ to the very utmost.”
She sat down beside her cousin and looked at her with what she meant to
be a perfectly happy smile. But somewhat to Maida’s surprise the pretty
mouth was quivering a little, and there was a suspicious glistening in
the deep brown eyes.
“My dear child!” Maida exclaimed, impulsively, her anxiety increasing.
“Can you not—”
“No, dear,” Philippa replied to the uncompleted inquiry, “I cannot
explain anything. But there is nothing to be anxious about—really
nothing.”
“Only tell me,” Miss Lermont persisted, “this trouble, whatever it is,
or—”
“It is quite over,” said Philippa.
“Or has been, then—have you had to keep it altogether to yourself? Have
you been unable to confide in any one?”
“Oh, no,” Philippa replied. “They all—at least Evey and papa and
mamma—knew about it, and _mamma_ knows everything, yes, _everything_.
And if she had known I was to be with you, here, I daresay she would
have wished me to tell you; at least I think she would have done,
but—but—I am not quite sure. After all, it isn’t anything very
dreadful, only it opened my eyes to my own self-will and presumption,
and I don’t feel as if I ever could trust myself again.”
“Poor dear,” said Maida, tenderly. “Remember it is not the ‘thinking we
stand’ that keeps us from falls. I am quite happy now I know that your
mother knows it all, and whether you ever tell me the whole or not is a
matter of no consequence. Put it out of your head, dear, and let us
enjoy this treat—for a treat it is to _me_.”
“And most certainly to me, too,” said her cousin, affectionately. “I
had no idea Cannes was so charming, Maida.”
“It has been an exceptionally good winter, even for Cannes,” said Miss
Lermont. “Lots of people we know have been here. Almost too many
sometimes, as I am so stupidly easily knocked up and mother has bustle
enough at home all the year round. Now, the visitors are dropping off a
little, but we know a good many of the so-called residents. That is to
say, the people who have permanent houses here which they inhabit for
four or five months of the year. By-the-by, Philippa, did you not see
the Bertrams when you were at Dorriford?”
“Yes,” Philippa replied, “I did. But they are not here?”
There was the slightest possible—so slight that at the time Miss
Lermont thought her ears must have misled her—inflection of anxiety in
the girl’s tone as she made the inquiry.
“Here—yes indeed, very much here,” Maida replied. “Captain Bertram and
Lady Mary, and all the five children, and an army of governesses, and
nurses, and maids, and horses, and grooms. They are very rich, you
know. And they have had friends visiting them or coming to be near
them, all the time, several of whom we knew, so that has helped to
extend our acquaintance here. Oh, yes, by-the-by, that Mr Gresham, ‘the
silent man,’ as we called him, is staying with them now. He has just
arrived; do you remember him one day at Dorriford? I had forgotten
about it, but he asked me when he called with Lady Mary, if I had heard
from you lately, and—”
Philippa interrupted her.
“Evelyn and Duke have been staying with him,” she said, speaking with
studied deliberateness; “that must have reminded him of me, as Evey is
far too fond of talking about me.”
She did not turn away as she spoke, and her whole manner was peculiarly
calm, but to Miss Lermont’s amazement the colour surged up into her
cheeks, leaving them again as suddenly—she herself apparently
unconscious, or determined to appear unconscious, that it was so.
Maida felt completely taken aback. She was not of an inquisitive frame
of mind, and was eminently unsuspicious when she had once learnt to
give her confidence. But she was very observant by nature, and as has
been already mentioned, in her peculiar, semi-invalid life, the post of
spectator had often fallen to her, and she had come to feel great
interest in the affairs of her neighbours—interest which in an inferior
class of mind might have degenerated into love of gossip. And aware of
this danger, Miss Lermont was specially careful to keep her concern for
“other people’s business” well within bounds, even where conscious that
real affection and sympathy prompted her.
So for a moment or two she hesitated before putting to Philippa the
question that most naturally rose to her lips. Then an instant’s
reflection showed her that the refraining from so simple an inquiry
would of itself suggest some possibly annoying suspicion.
“Have you never seen him again, then? Somehow his manner seemed to
imply that he knew more of you than that one afternoon’s introduction,
when he did _not_ distinguish himself by either ‘feast of reason or
flow of soul.’”
Before Philippa replied, her cousin _felt_ that she hesitated. Yet
nothing could be more straightforward than her reply when it came.
“I have never met Mr Gresham since that day at Dorriford,” and the
substitution of the vaguer participle for the more definite “seen,” did
not catch Miss Lermont’s attention. Yet her perplexity increased.
“She _did_ change colour when she heard his name and she _was_ uneasy
when she heard of the Bertrams being here,” thought Maida. “Yet I know
she is not only truthful, but candid. The very way she told me there
was something she _could_ not tell, shows it. Can it be merely that her
sister has got it into her head that Mr Gresham would be a good
_parti_, which I suppose he would be, for her sister, and that some
hints of hers have annoyed Philippa? She _is_ almost morbidly
sensitive, I know. I suppose it must be that.”
But feeling the girl’s eyes fixed upon her, she hastened to reply to
her last words.
“You are pretty sure to meet him _here_” she said. “There is scarcely a
day on which we do not see or hear something of the Bertrams. So we
shall have an opportunity of finding out if our silent friend can talk
when he chooses to do so.”
“But you have had an opportunity of that already, have you not?” said
Philippa. “Did you not say you had seen Mr Gresham since his arrival?”
“Yes, the day before yesterday, but only for a few minutes. He did
talk, I must allow. He found time, as I said, to ask if I had heard
from you lately. He _may_ have said something of Evelyn and her husband
having been with him, but if so, I did not pay attention. He is
certainly a very handsome man, and the Bertrams think everything of
him. I suppose he is made a great deal of, and if he is a little
affected and spoilt, it is excusable.”
“Did he strike you as affected?” said Philippa. Now that she had got
over the first start of hearing Mr Gresham’s name, she had pulled
herself together and regained her composure. After all, it was not
_Michael_; and when she recalled that quite recently she had been
contemplating the possibility of accompanying the Headforts before very
long on another visit to Merle, she realised the inconsistency of
shrinking from meeting her sister’s late host in the present easy and
informal circumstances. “I don’t think I can take Evelyn’s account of
him quite without a grain of salt. She seems so fascinated by him.”
“And your brother-in-law?” said Maida. “I always like to hear a man’s
opinion of a man, as well as a woman’s.”
“Oh, yes, Duke likes him very much, I think,” said Philippa. “He would
not appreciate his charm of manner as Evelyn does, very possibly. Duke
is a regular man, something of a boy about him, don’t you know, a
little too rough and ready, perhaps. Then Evelyn knows Mr Gresham
better. She saw a good deal of him at—at Wyverston,” and Philippa
suddenly stooped to pick an innocent daisy looking up in her face from
the grass at her feet, only to fling it down again impatiently, poor
daisy!
Why had she mentioned Wyverston, she asked herself; why trench quite
unnecessarily on ground where she could not be open and communicative
with her friend, as she loved to be?
“I am a perfect idiot,” she thought, and again the expression on her
face struck Miss Lermont as unusual.
“At Wyverston,” she repeated. “_The_ Headforts’ place. Oh, yes, I
remember your telling me in your very first letter from home about
Evelyn’s going there. But you never said anything more—as to how the
visit went off and if she enjoyed it. You were not very well about that
time, if I remember rightly. I think your mother wrote and said so?”
“I don’t think there was much the matter with me,” said Philippa, “but
mamma was a little anxious. They will think me looking brilliantly well
when I go home after this splendid holiday, I am sure. You were asking
about Evey’s visit? Yes, she enjoyed it very much, and it was a great
success. She took to the Headforts and they to her wonderfully.”
“Then,” began Miss Lermont, “but don’t answer if it is indiscreet of me
to ask, do you think the old man is going to recognise your
brother-in-law as his heir and—to treat him accordingly?”
“We don’t quite know,” said Philippa, “and after all, as Duke says,
there is no hurry _to_ know. The squire is not a very old man, and he
must be wiry to have lived through the shocks he has had. He knows
nothing almost of Duke except by hearsay, though there is nothing but
good to hear of him. All he has said has been to express a wish that
Duke should give up India and settle down at home, and he worded it as
if he meant to help him to do so. Of course we shall know more after
they have met.”
“Will that be soon?” asked Miss Lermont.
“Yes, I believe Evey and he are going north very shortly after we get
back,” said Philippa. “And they are taking the boy, Bonny, with them.
The Wyverston people have specially invited him.”
“I think that all looks very promising,” said Maida. “You would be very
glad for your sister not to have to go abroad again, would you not?”
“_Very_,” said Philippa, heartily. “It would be the greatest comfort in
the world; even if they had to go to live in the north, it would seem
delightful after India.”
“Is Wyverston a pretty place?” said Maida, but she checked herself
almost as she said the words. “Of course you have never been there, so
how could you know.”
“Evelyn thought it a fine place, a good comfortable old house, though
with nothing very striking about it, except, perhaps, the contrast with
the great lonely moorland, on one side at least, round about it. There
is something very impressive about moorland—so grim and yet pathetic,”
said Philippa, half dreamily. Her eyes seemed to be gazing on the scene
she suggested; and it was so. At that moment, instead of the sunny
terrace, with the orange trees in their green tubs, and down below, the
blue Mediterranean gleaming sapphire-like in the sun, with overhead the
deep, all but cloudless sky, she was picturing to herself the cold grey
morning aspect of the far-stretching lands on the east of Wyverston.
She felt the very wind on her cheek, the breeze “with a flavour of the
sea,” as the Headforts were fond of saying; she saw the tops of the
trees in the pine woods to the left, and then emerging from their shade
she seemed again to catch sight of the long smooth body of poor
Solomon, ready to wriggle with pleasure at her approach. And Solomon’s
master in his rough tweed suit and honest, kindly face—yes, it _was_ an
honesty kindly face—not far behind! What a pity—what a pity that he had
come to think so poorly of her; there was something about the man that
made her feel he would have been a good and steady friend. She could
have learnt to like him. If ever—but here she was startled back into
the present by Maida Lermont’s rallying tones.
“_Philippa_,” it said, “for the third time of asking! The thought of
the moors up there in that bleak north seems to have bewitched you. Has
Evelyn such graphic powers of description, for you have never been
there yourself? What are you dreaming about? I spoke to you three times
without your hearing me.”
Philippa turned to her cousin.
“I _was_ dreaming about the moors; the moors and the pine woods,” she
said simply. “It is not necessary to have seen places to think about
them, is it? I often feel as if I knew all about scenes and countries I
have even _heard_ but little of; do you not feel so, sometimes? When I
was little I used to fancy I must have seen places in my dreams—in real
dreams, I mean, not daydreams.”
“Yes,” Maida agreed. “I think I have had the same fancy. And what is
almost as curious is the way in which the slightest association brings
back scenes that we had practically forgotten. A word, or a touch in a
picture, or very often with me a scent or smell, is like magic. I find
myself recalling certain events, or remembering minutely certain scenes
and perhaps people that I had not thought of for years and years. It
does seem as if what we are so often told must be true—that we do not
_really_ forget anything. But I think, dear, we must be going in; the
sun gets very hot on this terrace. We shall drive a little later, and
there is some plan about meeting the Bertrams—going there to afternoon
tea, I think. So we shall probably see Evelyn’s hero.”
Chapter Sixteen.
Sunshiny Days.
The Bertrams were the most hospitable people in the world. Wherever you
came across them, in London, or at their own rambling country-house, in
a villa at Cannes, or on board a dahabeeyah on the Nile, it was all
one. They were always delighted to see you, and uneasy till you
promised to stay with them indefinitely, or, at least, to come to
luncheon or dinner as long as you were within hail.
And all this in spite of a constant amount of things to see to, none of
which were neglected by her, and very far from robust health on little
Lady Mary’s part! Her Irish ancestry explained a good deal, said some,
“Irish people are _so_ hospitable, you know,” As if the virtue in
question was an inherited quality for which no credit was due to the
possessor. “Her kind heart,” for surely no kinder heart ever beat, had
something to say to it, said those who knew and loved her as she
deserved, among whom Maida Lermont was certainly to be reckoned.
Yet, notwithstanding the prepossessions in their favour which Philippa
could not but feel, when it came to the actual moment of her following
Mrs Lermont and her daughter into the pretty drawing-room where Lady
Mary was fluttering about among her guests and her children, the girl
could not but be conscious of an exceeding wish that Egypt, or Algeria,
or any other of their various haunts, had this winter attracted the
Bertrams elsewhere.
For control herself as she would, the thought of meeting Mr Gresham
again, without even the support of Evelyn’s presence, made her nervous.
“Supposing—just _supposing_” she said to herself, “that he _did_ see me
at Wyverston, or that his cousin by some inadvertence had given the
least hint of any secret.”
It was a mistake to allow her imagination to dwell on such
possibilities; but the effect on herself personally was scarcely to be
regretted. For there was a certain timidity and wistfulness in her
manner which had not been there before, and which, in the eyes of one
of those present at least, added greatly to her charm.
“She is even lovelier than I thought,” said Bernard Gresham to himself,
“and she has lost that touch of the girl-of-the-day self-confidence
which jarred a little.”
For the first time they had met, that autumn afternoon at Dorriford,
Philippa in her cheerful inexperience had taken it for granted that the
handsome silent man was probably “rather shy,” and had exerted herself
to “draw him out” in consequence.