In a few days they are back again in Brook Street, George, Mabel and
Philippa. It is the beginning of September and anything more dreary and
deserted than the parks could not be imagined. No one is in London. Who
would be when the seaside is everything delightful and the moors are
covered with heather and grouse? Philippa shudders as she looks out of
her bedroom window into the mews, even that is deserted, a canary in a
very small cage and a lean cat are the only living creatures to be
seen.
'Well,' she says, 'it might almost be the city of the dead ...' here her
meditations are interrupted by Teddy, who rushes in and flings his arms
round her neck. 'How brown you are,' she exclaims.
'Yes, ain't I,' he answers. 'Me and Marie have been in the Square most
of the days and it has been so hot, have you enjoyed yourself?'
'Yes, thank you,' replies Philippa.
'I don't think you have,' says Teddy, who is as sharp as a needle,
'because, well, you don't look very happy now.'
'That is just it perhaps, I am so sorry it is over.'
'Oh,' and Teddy goes to the window only half convinced, 'there's that
canary,' he says, 'I watch him often and often, and never can see
nobody feeding it. I asked Marie to let me go and see if it had got some
seed; but she was cross and said I wasn't to--oh, Aunt Lippa, isn't it
hot?'
'It is rather, but it must be nearly tea-time, let us have some tea and
then go out.'
'Can't; Marie's gone to see her sister,' replies Teddy, trying to see
himself in the knob at the end of the bedstead.
'Perhaps mother will come; but really Teddy do get off my bed, you are
making it in such a mess,' and she rushes at him, seizing him in her
arms, 'oh, what a dreadful little nephew you are.'
'Let go, let go,' he cries, between struggling and laughing, and then
mischievously, 'You don't look half pretty now, you're quite red.
I'll--tell Mr Dal--'
'Mr who?' asks Lippa, putting him down.
'Sha'n't tell you,' he says, making for the door, but Philippa is too
quick for him, and placing her back against it, says in tones of mild
reproof,
'Do you know, it is very rude to make personal remarks.'
'Is it?' he asks, 'well you see it was only to Mr Dalrymple, and I've
known him for such a great many years, I met him yesterday, he was
walking the same way as me, and--you've got a hair-pin coming out, Aunt
Lippa.'
'Never mind that,' says she, adjusting the straying article, 'and--'
'Oh, him or I began, I don't 'xactly remember, but we talked about
pretty persons, and he said he was glad he wasn't a pretty person,
because they were nearly always nasty, and then I said they weren't,
'cos there's mother and you, and I said you're always pretty.'
'And what did he say?' asks Lippa.
'He said,' replies Teddy, in the gruffest voice he can assume, trying to
imitate Jimmy, '"More's the pity," and now you see I can just tell him
you don't look pretty a bit, when you're holding somebody in your arms.'
'You must not say anything of the kind,' says she; it would be useless
to exact a promise from him, probably be the way to make him repeat the
conversation word for word; but Philippa has found out what she wanted
to know, namely, that Jimmy is in London, and it causes her for the
moment exquisite pain, to feel that he is not so far away, for though
the Metropolis is a large place, there is always the chance of meeting
one's friends in the street.
After deep thought Philippa has made up her mind to tell no one, of all
she has heard and of all that has happened in consequence. She can rely
on Ponsonby keeping secret the little he knows of it; but what is
hardest to bear is the having nothing to look forward to, for the future
looks, oh, so dark and dreary. Sometimes she feels that it cannot be
true, and she shrinks with horror from the remembrance of the fate that
may be awaiting her. But Mabel does not notice that something has
changed her; that her step is not so light as it was, or her laugh so
gay. How little we know of each other, although living the same lives,
seeing the same people and things; we have all got an inner existence
which no one but ourselves knows anything about, it is so shadowy and
unreal, that contact with the outer world would crush all the beauty and
poetry of it.
'I think we might go to the sea somewhere,' says Mrs Seaton, one day as
she and Philippa are sitting together under the trees in the park, while
Teddy is hunting for caterpillars, 'it is really too unutterably dull
here, and it would do that boy good to have a change, what do you say to
a fortnight or three weeks at Folkestone?'
'It would be very nice, I should think,' replies Lippa, who is watching
the ungainly not to say peculiar movements, of a stout elderly female
who is taking equestrian exercise.
'We could get rooms at an hotel,' goes on Mabel, 'you know some cousins
of mine are there; and George said that I might do anything I liked,
while he's up in Scotland; do you really think it would be nice?'
'Yes, I do,' Lippa replies, feeling that one place is the same to her as
another. The stout elderly female has bumped away, and she is staring
straight in front of her, when suddenly the colour rushes to her face
leaving it whiter than it was before.
'Why, there's Jimmy Dalrymple,' says Mabel, 'and I do believe he's not
going to see us. I really think he might, it would be quite refreshing
to talk to somebody else besides you--'
'Am I such a dull companion then?'
Mabel laughs good-naturedly.
There is not any doubt that Dalrymple will see them, for Master Seaton
has observed him and rushing to the railings gesticulates violently, and
the former attracted by some magnetic influence turns, hesitates for a
moment and then crosses over.
'So glad to see you. Lippa and I were so afraid you were going to cut
us,' says the unsuspecting Mabel. 'What are you doing in London now?'
'I have to be up at the barracks,' says he.
'Come and sit here, do, and tell us some news,' says she motioning him
to the chair at her side.
Philippa has become deeply interested in one of her nephew's
caterpillars, and beyond extending him a limp hand; pays no attention to
Dalrymple, but her outward calm hides the tumult within, for her heart
is throbbing violently.
At any other time and under any other circumstances, Dalrymple would be
very willing to spend any length of time with Mabel, for he is very
fond of pretty little Mrs Seaton and carrying on a mild flirtation with
her would be the reverse of unpleasant to him, but to be so near the
object of his affection, no, he couldn't do it, so excusing himself he
raises his hat and passes on.
'He seems in a great hurry,' says Mabel turning to Lippa who is looking
in exactly the opposite direction to the one Dalrymple has taken.
Her 'Yes,' and something in her expression opens Mabel's eyes to the
fact that something is up, however she says nothing just then for Teddy
would be sure to hear, but she intends to find out everything.
On the eve of their trip to Folkestone she begins to cross-examine her
sister-in-law.
'Philippa, dear,' she says as soon as the coffee-cups have been taken
away after their dinner and they are left alone. 'I am going to ask you
something, which you must not mind, come nearer.'
Lippa who has been gazing out of the window into the gaslit street below
turns slowly, and going up to Mrs Seaton sits down on a stool at her
feet, she is looking very lovely in a pale blue tea-gown and the
lamp-light falling on her golden hair.
'Well, Mab,' she says, 'is it a lecture or good advice, I'm not to
mind?'
'Neither one nor the other,' is the reply, 'but I want to know if there
is anything between you and--Mr Dalrymple. Well Lippa?' as there is no
answer for a second--and then,
'Nothing,' she replies.
'Not at present perhaps,' suggested Mabel, 'but hasn't there been?'
'Why do you want to know?' asks Miss Seaton.
'Well, dear, you see it is awkward, as he comes here so often, and--'
'Like all other women you're dying of curiosity to know; own the truth!'
and after a pause Lippa adds, apparently deeply interested in the point
of her shoe, 'If you must know, he did ask me to marry him, but I said I
couldn't,' here the shoe is drawn out of sight as though it had not
found favour in its owner's eyes. Mabel is astonished, tries to see
Lippa's face and not succeeding says,
'Do you mean that you do not like him?'
Not like him, oh, to be accused of that, not like him, when poor little
soul she is desperately in love with him. Oh, Mabel! Mabel! why can't
you guess? a few words from you would put everything right, and make two
people happy, but such is life!
'He has not much to live on,' says Lippa evasively.
'Now, child, you don't think you are going to take me in like that,' and
Mrs Seaton becomes quite vehement. 'What do you care about money, or
know about it either.'
'I know there are girls who can fall in love,' is the answer. 'I knew
one once who told me her idea of bliss was love in a cottage, but that
wouldn't suit me at all. I shouldn't know how to get on without heaps of
things that I could not have, if I married a poor man.' Lippa's fingers
are doing great damage to the ribbons which are attached to her gown,
and till they are reduced to a crumpled mess, she continues to take the
beauty out of them, by folding and refolding them. Mabel is only half
convinced and says no more to Philippa, but a long letter is written to
dear George, begging him to come to them soon, and he enjoying himself
vastly shooting and fishing does not come, and time passes on.
Philippa tries to forget Jimmy, and wonders how he is getting on, she
has yet to learn that,--
'Man's love is a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence.'
Love is forgotten and put on one side, for racing, shooting, hunting,
etc., and it is well that it is so, for a love-lorn youth is a decided
bore.
But James Dalrymple of the Guards has been more deeply wounded than he
owns to himself, his love for Miss Seaton is more than a passing fancy,
that causing pain for a short time, will be laughed over in about a
year. Love Lippa, he does hopelessly, madly, and so he will till the end
of the chapter.
Real true love is not a thing to be taken up and cast aside at will,
like a broken toy; it may grow upon us or come suddenly, why we cannot
tell, and although we hardly acknowledge to ourselves that Cupid, who
has wrought so much harm as well as good in the world, has paid us a
visit, yet we never feel quite the same again; maybe we are happier than
we have ever been before, or else, and alas it happens to very many,
that Eros' darts have only made a wound which might almost have been
caused by a poisoned arrow; ah me! the healing takes a weary long time
or maybe can never heal. Truly love is a dangerous thing.