PHYLLIS.
_Die aeltre Tochter gaehnet
"Ich will nicht verhungern bei euch,
Ich gehe morgen zum Grafen,
Und der ist verliebt und reich."_
HEINE.
"Lucy, dear, you must go."
"But, Gerty, you can never manage to get through the work alone."
"I will make Phyllis help me. It will be the best thing for her, and she
works better than any of us when she chooses."
The sisters were standing together in the studio, discussing a letter
which Lucy held in her hand--an appeal from the heartbroken "old folks"
that she, who was to have been their daughter, should visit them in
their sorrow.
"It is simply your duty to go," went on Gertrude, who was consumed with
anxiety concerning her sister; then added, involuntarily, "if you think
you can bear it."
A light came into Lucy's eyes.
"Is there anything that one cannot bear?"
She turned away, and began mechanically fixing a negative into one of
the printing frames. She remembered how, on that last day, Frank had
planned the visit to Cornwall. Was he not going to show her every nook
and corner of the old home, which many a time before he had so minutely
described to her? The place had for long been familiar to her
imagination, and now she was in fact to make acquaintance with it; that
was all. What availed it to dwell on contrasts?
The sisters spoke little of Lucy's approaching journey, which was fixed
for some days after the receipt of the letter; and one cold and foggy
November afternoon found her helping Mrs. Maryon with her little box
down the stairs, while Matilda went for a cab.
At the same moment Gertrude issued from the studio with her outdoor
clothes on.
"No one is likely to come in this Egyptian darkness," she said; "it is
four o'clock already, and I am going to take you to Paddington."
"That will be delightful, if you think you may risk it," answered Lucy,
who looked very pale in her black clothes.
"I have left a message with Mrs. Maryon to be delivered in the
improbable event of 'three customers coming in,' as they did in _John
Gilpin_," said Gertrude, with a feeble attempt at sprightliness.
Matilda appeared at this point to announce that the cab was at the door.
"Where is Phyllis?" cried Lucy. "I have not said good-bye to her."
"She went out two hours ago, miss," put in Mrs. Maryon, in her sad
voice.
"No doubt," said Gertrude, "she has gone to Conny's. I think she goes
there a great deal in these days."
Mrs. Maryon looked up quickly, then set about helping Matilda hoist the
box on to the cab.
"How bitterly cold it is," cried Gertrude, with a shudder, as they
crossed the threshold.
An orange-coloured fog hung in the air, congealed by the sudden change
of temperature into a thick and palpable mass.
"I shouldn't be surprised if we had snow," observed Mrs. Maryon, shaking
her head.
"Oh, how could Phyllis be so wicked as to go out?" cried Gertrude, as
the cab drove off: "and her cough has been so troublesome lately."
"I think she has been looking more like her old self the last week or
two," said Lucy; then added, "Do you know that Mr. Darrell is back? I
forgot to tell you that I met him in Regent's Park the other day."
"I hope he will not wish to renew the sittings; but no doubt he has
found some fresh whim by this time. I wish he had let Phyllis alone; he
did her no good."
"Poor little soul, I am afraid she finds it dismal," said Lucy.
"I mean to plan a little dissipation for us both when you are away--the
theatre, probably," said Gertrude, who felt remorsefully that in her
anxiety concerning Lucy she had rather neglected Phyllis.
"Yes, do, and take care of yourself, dear old Gerty," said Lucy, as the
cab drew up at Paddington station.
The sisters embraced long and silently, and in a few minutes Lucy was
steaming westward in a third-class carriage, and Gertrude was making her
way through the fog to Praed Street station. At Baker Street she
perceived that Mrs. Maryon's prophecy was undergoing fulfilment; the fog
had lifted a little, and flakes of snow were falling at slow intervals.
Before the door of Number 20B a small brougham was standing--a brougham,
as she observed by the light of the street lamp, with a coronet
emblazoned on the panels.
"Lord Watergate is in the studio, miss," announced Mrs. Maryon, who
opened the door; "he only came a minute ago, and preferred to wait. I
have lit the lamp." As Gertrude was going towards the studio the woman
ran up to her, and put a note in her hand. "I forgot to give you this,"
she said. "I found it in the letter-box a minute after you left."
Gertrude, glancing hastily at the envelope, recognised, with some
surprise, the childish handwriting of her sister Phyllis, and concluded
that she had decided to remain overnight at the Devonshires.
"She might have remembered that I was alone," she thought, a little
wistfully as she opened the door of the waiting-room.
Lord Watergate advanced to meet her, and they shook hands gravely. She
had not seen him since the night of the _conversazione_ at the Berkeley
Galleries. His ample presence seemed to fill the little room.
"It is a shame," he said, "to come down upon you at this time of night."
She laid Phyllis's note on the table, and turned to him with a smile of
deprecation.
"Won't you read your letter before we embark on the question of slides?"
"Thank you. I will just open it."
She broke the seal, advanced to the lamp, and cast her eye hastily over
the letter. But something in the contents seemed to rivet her attention,
to merit more than a casual glance. For some moments she stood absorbed
in the carelessly-written sheet; then, suddenly, an exclamation of
sorrow and astonishment burst from her lips.
Lord Watergate advanced towards her.
"Miss Lorimer, you are in some trouble. Can I help you, or shall I go
away?"
She looked up, half-bewildered, into the strong and gentle face. Then
realising nothing, save that here was a friendly human presence, put the
letter into his hand.
This is what he read.
"MY DEAR GERTY,--This is to tell you that I am not coming home
to-night--am not coming home again at all, in fact. I am going to
marry Mr. Darrell, who will take me to Italy, where the weather is
decent, and where I shall get well. For you know, I am horribly
seedy, Gerty, and very dull.
"Of course you will be angry with me; you never liked Sidney, and
you will think it ungrateful of me, perhaps, to go off like this.
But oh, Gerty, it has been so dismal, especially since we heard
about poor little Frank. Sidney hates a fuss, and so do I. We both
of us prefer to go off on the Q.T., as Fred says. With love from
"PHYLLIS."
As Lord Watergate finished this characteristic epistle, an exclamation
more fraught with horror than Gertrude's own burst from his lips. He
strode across the room, crushing the paper in his hands.
"Lord Watergate!" Gertrude faced him, pale, questioning: a nameless
dread clutched at her.
Something in her face struck him. Stopping short in front of her, in
tones half paralysed with horror, he said--
"Don't you know?"
"Do I know?" she echoed his words, bewildered.
"Darrell is married. He does not live with his wife; but it is no
secret."
The red tables and chairs, the lamp, Lord Watergate himself, whose voice
sounded fierce and angry, were whirling round Gertrude in hopeless
confusion; and then suddenly she remembered that this was an old story;
that she had known it always, from the first moment when she had looked
upon Darrell's face.
Gertrude closed her eyes, but she did not faint. She remained standing,
while one hand rested on the table for support. Yes, she had known it;
had stood by powerless, paralysed, while this thing approached; had
seen it even as Cassandra saw from afar the horror which she had been
unable to avert.
Opening her eyes, she met the gaze, grieved, pitiful, indignant, of her
companion.
"What is to be done?"
Her lips framed the words with difficulty.
A pause; then he said--
"I cannot hold out much hope. But will you come with me to--to--his
house and make inquiries?"
She bowed her head, and gathering herself together, led the way from the
room.
The snow was falling thick and fast as they emerged from the house, and
Lord Watergate handed her into his brougham. It had grown very dark, and
the wind had risen.
"The Sycamores," said Lord Watergate to his coachman, as he took his
seat by Gertrude, and drew the fur about her knees.
Mrs. Maryon, watching from the shop window, shrugged her shoulders.
"Who would have thought it? But you never can tell. And that Phyllis!
It's twice I've seen her with the fair-haired gentleman, with his beard
cut like a foreigner's. It's what you'd expect from her, poor
creature--but Gertrude!"
"They have got the rooms on lease," grumbled Mr. Maryon, from among his
pestles and mortars.
[Illustration: Decoration]
[Illustration: Decoration]