PHIL OR TOR?
The following morning dawned bright and clear. Tor woke early,
despite his late hours the previous evening, and woke with a joyous
consciousness of being once more his own self—Torrington Torwood; no
longer obliged to play a part, no longer obliged to watch his words and
guard his conduct, and, above all, no longer forced to act towards Maud
as if he were merely an affectionate brother.
With intense satisfaction Tor awoke to the fact that his task was done;
and as he lay and considered the events of the past months, he thought
to himself that, on the whole, it had been well done.
Things at Ladywell were on a very different footing now, from what they
had been three months back. Then Mr. Belassis had had considerable
influence in all affairs which concerned his nephew’s property; he
knew exactly what was done upon the estate, and how it was done. He
had, during a brief period, managed all the buying and selling, and
regulated the expenditure of the household and farms. Maud was all but
engaged to marry his son, and did not attempt to deny that, had no
strong hand held her back, she would most likely have pledged herself
to do so.
Now, all idea of this marriage had been abandoned, and Mr. Belassis
had gradually sunk into a very different position from the one he had
formerly occupied in reference to the Ladywell property.
Firmly and quietly Tor had shelved his supposed uncle, and had
gradually deprived him of every opportunity of tampering with his
affairs.
He had not quarrelled with him, had not openly told him that he thought
him a knave and a fool both; but he had conveyed to him in a hundred
different forms the suggestion that he had much better mind his own
business.
He had soon found that when he and the bailiff had the buying and
selling to manage, the profits were much larger and the expenses less
heavy. Belassis had been making a pretty profit out of the transactions
he had carried on for three months, and was evidently hoping that his
nephew would leave a good deal of responsibility in his hands still.
Phil might have done so, as Tor was fully aware. Phil was
good-tempered, easy-going, and perfectly innocent of all malice or
resentment. Anybody could get round Phil, who was a true Debenham in
his dislike for ‘a row’ and his distaste for trouble; and any couple so
unscrupulous as Mr. and Mrs. Belassis would soon have had him quite in
their power.
‘I don’t think they can catch him now, though,’ said Tor to himself.
‘I’ve put them in their place, and they’ll be obliged to stay there.
Phil isn’t a fool, though he’s something of a muff in his laziness and
good-nature; but I am pretty sure, after what I have to tell him, that
he’ll never have much to say to his precious relatives. And I think the
Belassis’ have too much sense to try to get round him, as long as I am
on the spot, and that may be some time, unless Maud will have nothing
to do with me;’ and here Tor smiled to himself, as though he did not
anticipate any very severe rebuff at Maud’s hands.
When he was dressed he sought out Phil, who looked more than ever like
himself, after another shave and a more vigorous attempt to remove his
bronze.
Tor laughed aloud when he saw him.
‘To think that yesterday you were that confounded Italian! Oh, Phil!
I’ll never forgive you for playing me such a shabby trick!’
‘Now just hold your tongue, Phil Debenham,’ laughed Phil. ‘Don’t
you know I’m Mr. Torwood this morning, just returned from my
travels—arrived late last night? There, let me brush my hair over my
forehead. Don’t I look just like Maud? Why don’t you make love to me,
Tor, old man?’
‘Make love to an ass!’ retorted Tor. ‘Just part your hair decently, and
come along. I’ve heard Maud and Miss Marjory go down. Don’t snigger
when you’re introduced, or I won’t go through with it.’
‘All right,’ answered Phil, beginning, nevertheless, to ‘snigger’
promptly. ‘I’ll be propriety itself. I don’t promise not to grin when I
see you kiss Maud, though!’
‘If you do——’
‘Oh, well, then I won’t. Anything for a quiet life. Do come on. I want
to see them all, and how they’ll take it. Will Miss Marjory know?’
‘Yes, but she won’t spoil anyone’s game. Come on.’
Two minutes later, Tor brought his guest into the breakfast-room. All
the ladies were assembled there, some seated, some standing about,
looking at their letters, and exchanging amiable remarks.
Maud sprang forward to greet Tor.
‘Phil, you bad boy, you’re late!’ she said; and then she saw that he
was followed by a stranger.
‘My friend, Mr. Torwood, Maud!’ said Tor, presenting Phil, who behaved
very well, all things considered. ‘He turned up late last night, and
gave me no end of a surprise. You would give him a very warm welcome,
if you half knew how glad I am to see him here.’
Maud turned to the stranger with her brightest smile, gave him her
hand, and glanced into his face. Then the words of welcome seemed
suddenly to die away. She looked at him, and then she looked at Tor,
and back again at the new-comer, and she held her peace.
‘Very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Debenham,’ said Phil, in a
voice as exactly like her own as a man’s can be like a woman’s. ‘My
friend’s relations almost seem to be mine.’
A warning look from Tor checked any further claim to relationship,
otherwise he might have gone on from bad to worse.
Mrs. Lorraine had turned somewhat pale, and had sat gazing at Phil ever
since he had entered, very much as one might gaze at one returned from
the dead. She had not moved or spoken, nor did she seem capable of
doing either.
Ethel was staring hard at Maud and the stranger, her round eyes full of
astonishment.
Miss Marjory alone was equal to the occasion—as when was she not?
‘Mr. Torwood!’ she exclaimed, rising and advancing with her most
gracious smile, ‘this is an unexpected pleasure. Mr. Torwood, senior,
was one of my best and most intimate friends, and I am delighted to
make the acquaintance of the son, whom I have not seen since he was a
baby in long-clothes.’
‘He has grown a little since then, has he not?’ said Phil, with his
merry, mischievous smile (which made him more like Maud than ever), as
he shook hands with Miss Marjory.
The ice thus broken, the remaining ladies were presented, and the party
sat down to breakfast—Tor and Miss Marjory, as usual, making talk, to
cover the unwonted silence of the others.
There was no mistaking the puzzled look on the faces round the table.
Phil, of course, was all ‘on the grin and the giggle,’ as Maud
afterwards described it, and was so bubbling over with secret amusement
that it was all Tor could do to preserve a decent gravity, and address
him in a natural way.
Mrs. Lorraine could do nothing but look at the stranger, and from him
to Maud and back again; and her face wore an expression of bewildered
perplexity that was almost pathetic.
Ethel’s eyes were abnormally round; and Maud sat as if tongue-tied.
She did not even wish to think; but she could not rid herself of the
presentiment that some startling revelation was imminent.
‘Where is Signor Pagliadini?’ she asked presently, remembering for the
first time their guest of the previous evening.
Phil sniggered audibly.
‘He seems to have taken to himself the wings of the morning,’ answered
Tor readily. ‘His room was empty as I came down. He’s an odd chap.
Perhaps he’s off to Meredith’s again. He’s always doing something
ridiculous.’ Here he looked severely at Phil.
‘I never thought Signor Pagliadini at all ridiculous,’ observed Maud,
by way of keeping up the conversation. ‘He always seemed dignified and
self-possessed.’
‘So does a jackass at times,’ returned Tor. Whereat Phil choked in a
way which drew the eyes of the whole table upon him.
Tor felt that this state of things could not further be prolonged; but
his instinct of mischief had been aroused, and he was determined to
get what amusement he could out of the situation.
‘What makes you stare so at Mr. Torwood, Maud?’ he asked suddenly. ‘You
hardly ever seem to me to take your eyes off his face.’
Maud coloured vividly, and looked daggers at her wicked brother.
‘Mademoiselle doubtless admires me greatly,’ said Phil, with his Signor
Pagliadini bow and smile. ‘Mademoiselle flatters me more than I can
say.’
Although he spoke English, there was something in tone and look so
unmistakably identical with those of the supposed Italian, that an
expression of utter mystification passed over all faces, save those of
the two conspirators. Even Miss Marjory looked puzzled for a moment;
but she quickly mastered the true bearing of past events, and laughed
to herself heartily and silently.
Tor continued in his gravest way:
‘Aunt Olive, you seem equally fascinated by my friend. His charms
of person seem so to entrance you that you cannot even eat your
breakfast. Tor, old man, I shan’t be able to take you into society
again, if you are going to cut me out like this.’
Phil’s face quivered. He tried to answer, but failed signally, and,
after several struggles to restrain himself, gave way and laughed
irrepressively.
Maud sprang from her chair with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes. She
made a sort of rush towards the man she had believed to be her brother,
and then stopped suddenly short.
‘Phil,’ she said, in a trembling voice, ‘what does it all mean?’
‘What?’
‘You know—you know quite well. Who is that man? and who are you?’
‘“That man,” as you forcibly describe him, is your brother, and my
esteemed friend, Philip Debenham; and I, who by force of circumstances
have heretofore been his _locum tenens_ and representative, am now able
to lay aside my borrowed plumes, and make myself known to you under my
true name—Torrington Torwood.’
Phil had risen too, and was standing beside his sister.
‘Maud,’ he said softly, ‘my own dear little sister, have you no word
for me? You used to be fond of me, when we were little children playing
together by the wishing-well. Our wish has come true—Ladywell is mine,
but I shall not value it half so much as I do my sister’s love.’
She knew him then, knew without a doubt that this man was her own
brother; and with a sense of mingled sorrow, joy, and relief, she
turned to him, and put her arms about his neck.
‘Phil, dear Phil! It is you after all, then! Oh, Phil! what does it all
mean?’
‘It means that I have had the noblest, most generous friend that ever
man did have. Maud, my little sister, you must love him for my sake and
his own. We both owe very much to him.’
Phil had whispered these words as they stood close together, and the
tumult of wondering voices drowned his low tones, which were only heard
by Maud.
She knew well enough that what he said was true, and that to Tor’s
courage and independence of action they did owe very much.
He was not her brother at all; but she could not lose the sense of
intimacy which the past three months had established between them. It
was impossible all in a moment to realize that, in a manner, they were
now strangers to one another.
She turned from Phil, who was at once folded in Aunt Olive’s loving
embrace, and faced Tor with one of her most bewitching looks—smiles,
blushes, shyness and confidence all struggling together for mastery.
‘I don’t know what to say to you, sir, who have deceived us all these
months; but I can’t help being very glad you did, for I’m sure things
would never have been so comfortably arranged if it had been Phil,
not you, who had had the first settling to manage. I am ever so much
obliged to you—Mr. Torwood.’
And she held out her hand, which he took, and kept possession of,
whilst he looked long and smilingly into her downcast face.
‘Thank you, Miss Debenham,’ he said, releasing her; ‘I am glad you have
not cast me off altogether, in indignation at my deception. I have no
intention of being cast off, I can tell you; and I shall lay claim to
my privilege of a walk round the garden with you after breakfast, as
usual.’
‘Very well,’ said Maud.
Her face suddenly crimsoned, and she hastily retired to her own seat
behind the sheltering urn.
Her feelings were in such a tumult, that it was no wonder she desired
to elude observation and give herself time to recover.
‘But who and what was Signor Pagliadini?’ cried Miss Marjory, when a
little of the hubbub had subsided, and all had returned to their seats.
‘Signora,’ said Phil, in his polished Italian, ‘you see now before you
that misguided man, whom you so mercilessly frightened by trying to
strip him of his disguise, before the time had come.’
‘You Signor Pagliadini!’ exclaimed Miss Marjory. ‘Why, I shouldn’t have
thought you’d have the brains to play the part so well!’
‘Exactly what my friend Tor told me. It’s a great thing to have
a faithful friend, isn’t it? I see he has been faithful in his
delineation of my character to you. It is gratifying to my vanity to
have successfully deceived two such clever people.’
‘You’d not have deceived me if I’d ever seen you as you are,’ answered
Miss Marjory stoutly.
‘No, I don’t believe I should,’ Phil assented readily. ‘Miss Marjory,
you nearly frightened me into a fit at Maud’s majority dinner.’
‘I wish I’d frightened you more,’ returned she viciously. ‘You’ve
not got half what you deserve, practising on the credulity of honest
people, and making us all so uncomfortable. What did you do it for?’
‘Because I was an ass—a dignified jackass, as Tor has so aptly
described me. I can’t resent the description, because it’s true to the
life. I’ll tell you all about it soon; but let me enjoy myself now.’
‘The dear boy!’ murmured Mrs. Lorraine tenderly. ‘The dear, dear boy!
So like his father! Poor dear Philip—if only he could have lived to see
this day!’
‘Aunt Olive, you’ve not changed a bit,’ cried Phil. ‘You’re just as
pretty as ever. Do you remember how I used to upset your workbasket
every day, and tell you not to mind, because I’d marry you when I’d
grown as big as you?’
‘Bless you, I remember it like yesterday,’ answered Mrs. Lorraine, with
tears in her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry the old house has gone. I should have liked to have
seen the little octagon room again, where you used to sit and work,
Aunt Olive. I slept in the room over it, I know, and liked it so much
because it had the evening and morning sun, both. Do you remember the
big griffin I drew on the wall to frighten Maud? And how frightened I
was myself because it wouldn’t rub out, and always seemed grinning at
me in the dark? You papered the room with rosebuds yourself, then, you
dear old auntie, to save me from a scolding from papa.’
There was certainly no mistaking the real Phil when once he had come.
He was full of reminiscences of former places and old friends. Tor had
done well with what slight knowledge he possessed of Phil’s childhood;
but the real Phil could go on by the hour with boyish recollections of
Ladywell and home.
Maud escaped to the garden when the breakfast-party rose. Just at
present she could not talk freely to the newly-found brother; she was
too much startled and perplexed by the suddenness of the change.
It had been a habit from the first, that she and Tor should stroll
round the garden together before the day’s work began; and from what
he had said, she fancied that he intended still to keep up this habit.
How would he treat her now? how would he behave? He had always been so
quiet and reserved in his affection, she so open and familiar.
She felt glad now that he had acted thus, for she saw that he had taken
no undue advantage of his position, and respected him the more for it;
but she did wish (and her cheek crimsoned at the thought) that she had
herself been a little more reserved in the affection she had expressed
for himself.
‘But it wasn’t my fault,’ she said to herself, half aloud; ‘for I
thought he was my brother, and I did love him ever so much.’
‘Don’t put it into the past tense, Maud,’ said a voice behind her; and
she found that her hands were held fast by Tor. ‘Is a brother the only
person in the world you can love?’
Maud’s eyes fell before his, but she did not try to withdraw her hands.
‘Have you transferred _all_ the love you had for me to the real Phil?’
he asked again.
‘I suppose I ought,’ answered Maud, beginning to smile. ‘I suppose
in time I shall; but, you know, you have told me that transfers are
tedious and tiresome affairs.’
‘So they are, Maud,’ he answered—‘much too tedious and tiresome to be
worth the undertaking in some cases. Look here—let me help you out of
a difficulty. Give Phil as much love as ever you like—new love for the
new Phil, and let me keep the old love that I have won. It was not
_all_ given to me, was it, Maud, because I was thought to be a brother?’
He drew her towards him, and she did not resist, not even when her head
was touching his shoulder.
‘You love me, Maud?’
‘You know I do. I’m sure I’ve told you so often enough. It’s no good
going on in the proper way and pretending I don’t,’ said poor Maud, who
felt that her maiden’s privilege of fibbing was taken away from her by
force of circumstances.
‘I have loved you ever since I knew you. You don’t know how hard it has
been to call you “sister.”’
Maud nestled more comfortably against his shoulder then.
‘You dear boy! Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. I’ve had a few youthful spoons, Maud. I won’t lie to you,
even in a moment like this. But I’ve never really loved a woman till I
loved you; and I feel as if I could love as well as most men. You shall
be the one to prove if it is not so.’
‘You dear boy!’ said Maud again.
‘Sometimes you’ve complained that I haven’t kissed you often enough,
Maud. If you don’t mind, I’ll make up for the deficiency now.’
Maud did not seem to mind at all. She turned up a happy face, which was
certainly well kissed.
‘I’m glad you’re not my brother, Tor,’ said Maud, when the kissing was
over.
‘So am I,’ he answered gravely. ‘This is much more satisfactory, isn’t
it?’
‘Very much more,’ she answered; and by-and-by she added, ‘and Tor’s a
much nicer name than Phil. Phil doesn’t suit you: it sounds too small.
I wonder I never thought of it before.’
‘If we stay here much longer, we shall have other people upon us,’
remarked Tor.
‘Let us go, then, and hide,’ cried Maud eagerly. ‘We’ve got such lots
to say.’
‘Haven’t you lots to say to Phil?’
‘Oh, Phil can wait!’
Not displeased at this sentiment, Tor led Maud away to a secluded
part of the park, where they passed a couple of hours in a fashion
infinitely satisfactory to themselves, but not interesting to the
historian.
They were soon missed by those that remained; but Phil and Miss Marjory
only smiled, and said they had better not be sought for.
Phil told his story to her, and received a good deal of the verbal
castigation for which Miss Marjory was famous.
‘Not trust Mr. Torwood! You who had known him eighteen years! I never
heard anything so disgraceful in my life! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself! I knew he was to be trusted before I had known him eighteen
hours.’
‘We cannot all be so clever as you, Miss Marjory.’
‘Now——’ she began warningly; and Phil was silenced, though not for long.
‘Don’t hate me, Miss Marjory, please.’
‘I don’t think you’re worth hating.’
‘No, I’m not—I assure you I’m not. You’ve just hit the mark. I’m not
worth your lofty scorn and contempt, so please reserve it for a more
deserving object.’
And then Miss Marjory laughed, and she and Phil made friends.
‘Ah, my dear,’ she said, an hour or two later, as she met Maud dancing
and singing along the corridor, ‘didn’t I give you good advice, when I
told you that you had better wait for Mr. Torwood?’
‘You did indeed, Miss Marjory.’
‘Was I very wrong in asserting that he might possibly resemble the
adored “Phil”?’
Maud kissed her suddenly on both cheeks.
‘You were right, as you always are—a real fairy godmother; and I was a
very good child, and did exactly as you advised!’