Produced by Al Haines
EAST OF THE SHADOWS
BY
MRS. HUBERT (Edith Noel) BARCLAY
AUTHOR OF
"TREVOR LORDSHIP," "THE GIANT FISHER," "A DREAM OF BLUE ROSES," ETC.
"Dawn harbours surely
East of the shadows."
W.E.H.
TORONTO
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED
1913
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
"PHILIPPA"
CHAPTER II
"PHIL!"
CHAPTER III
THE STRANGER
CHAPTER IV
FRANCIS
CHAPTER V
ISABELLA
CHAPTER VI
DOCTOR GALE
CHAPTER VII
INDECISION
CHAPTER VIII
THE HEART OF BESSMOOR
CHAPTER IX
A SQUARE IN THE PATCHWORK
CHAPTER X
THE MAJOR'S VISIT
CHAPTER XI
VIOLETS
CHAPTER XII
PROGRESS
CHAPTER XIII
THREADS
CHAPTER XIV
ROPES OF GOSSAMER
CHAPTER XV
REVELATION
CHAPTER XVI
HOPES FOR THE FUTURE
CHAPTER XVII
ISABELLA'S POINT OF VIEW
CHAPTER XVIII
MARION SPEAKS HER MIND
CHAPTER XIX
HALCYON DAYS
CHAPTER XX
BITTER-SWEET
CHAPTER XXI
POOR RIP
CHAPTER XXII
FRIENDSHIP
CHAPTER XXIII
CONTENT
CHAPTER I
"PHILIPPA"
"Her air, her manners, all who saw admired,
Courteous though coy, and gentle, though retired:
The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed,
And ease of heart her every look conveyed."--CRABBE.
The porter slammed the door with all the unnecessary vehemence usual to
his class and touched his hat, a shrill whistle sounded, the great
engine gave several vehement not to say petulant snorts, and the long
train glided slowly out of the terminus. Gaining speed with every
second, it whirled along through the maze of buildings which form the
ramparts of London--on past rows of dingy backyards where stunted
bushes show no brighter colour than that of the family washing which
they support every week--on through the suburbs where the backyards
give place to gardens trim or otherwise, and beds of gay flowers
supplant the variegated garments--on until at last it reached the open
country, spreading fields and shady woodlands, where it seemed to
settle to a steady pace that threw the miles behind it, as it rushed
forward with mighty throb and roar.
Philippa Harford breathed a sigh of relief at finding herself alone in
her compartment, and arranging her belongings round her with the method
of an experienced traveller, she settled herself in a corner seat and
took up her book. She did not read for long, however, for in a few
moments her eyes wandered to the window and there fixed themselves on
the swiftly passing landscape. She let her hands fall into her lap and
sat thinking.
Some of her friends (or perhaps acquaintance would be the truer word)
had been known to describe Philippa Harford as an "odd girl," and if
this indefinite adjective meant that she was somewhat different from
the majority of young women of her generation, there was truth in the
description. For while freedom of action and of speech are notably
characteristic of the young of the present day, there was about her a
reserve, one might almost say a dignity, beyond her years. Where the
modern girl will cheerfully collect friends haphazard by the roadside,
Philippa allowed very few to pass the line which divides the stream of
acquaintanceship from the deep waters of friendship.
There are, and always will be, some people who display to the world a
formidable aspect, as it were a stone wall with a bristling row of
broken bottles on the top, or an ugly notice board with injunctions,
such as "Strictly Private," or "Keep off the Grass," but Philippa was
not one of these. You might wander in her company along paths of
pleasant conversation, through a garden where bloomed bright flowers of
intelligence and humour, and it was only afterwards that you realised
what in the enjoyment of the moment you had failed to notice, namely,
that inside the garden a high hedge, which had appeared merely a
pleasing background for the flowers, had completely hidden the part you
most particularly wished to see, and that the paths had brought you out
at the exact spot where you entered.
It was just because this hedge of gentle reticence denied to a curious
mob admission to the inner sanctuary of her thoughts, that they
designated her as "odd." They found it impossible to know just what
she meant and felt and thought. In their own parlance "they got no
further." But it must be added that no one attempted to deny the
existence of the inner sanctuary.
In spite of this rather tantalising trait in her character she was
popular--every one liked her, for her natural kindness of heart,
combined with great charm of manner and more than ordinary good looks,
made her gladly welcome wherever she went.
She was an excellent person to confide in, for she accepted the
confidences of other women with sympathetic and frequently helpful
interest; but when it came to returning those confidences--well, that
was quite a different matter.
In her life Philippa had possessed few intimate friends, and the chief
of them had been her father. From him she had inherited, with her dark
hair and straight eyebrows, a certain direct outlook on life. It was
not an attitude of superiority or even of conscious criticism, but more
an instinct for the people and things which were, as she expressed it,
"worth while," a keen desire for the very best, and a preference for
doing without should that best be unobtainable.
Mr. Harford understood as did no one else the depth of pity and the
enormous capacity for affection in the heart of his child, and had from
her earliest youth striven to inculcate self-reliance and
thoughtfulness. "Most women are frivolous and empty-headed fools," he
would assert hotly, "with no strength of mind, and no notion of playing
the game;" and yet, by one of those inexplicable contradictions with
which men of his type so frequently give the lie to their expressed
opinions, he had married a woman in whom the attributes he professed to
admire were conspicuously lacking.
Graceful, charming, and extraordinarily attractive, but with no thought
beyond the pleasures of the moment, Mrs. Harford fluttered through life
like a butterfly.
Mr. Harford's diplomatic appointments had necessitated their living
abroad, and for a surprising number of years his wife had been one of
the acknowledged beauties of Europe. No one could have been prouder of
her than was her husband, who was always her foremost and most devoted
admirer. For him, her beauty and her charm never waned, and to the day
of his death, which occurred some three years before my story opens, he
had regarded her as a most precious possession, to be gazed at,
caressed and guarded, if hardly to be depended on. For her part she
returned him all the affection of which she was capable.
At the age of fourteen Philippa had been sent to school in England, and
when she returned to her parents, who were then living in Berlin, the
tender intimacy which had existed between father and daughter had lost
nothing by absence, and their mutual devotion increased day by day.
It was soon after that a certain episode happened which, slight as it
was, must be recorded, as it was not without effect on Philippa's
development.
A man, attracted by the freshness and originality of the young girl,
and possibly piqued by the fact that she gave him no encouragement,
declared his affection and set himself deliberately to gain hers in
return.
This was not to be done in a day, and presently his fickle fancy found
a new attraction and he wearied of the game. His marriage with another
woman came as a surprise to the community, who had been watching the
affair with the usual interest evinced in such matters, and much
indignation was expressed at his behaviour. There had been no
engagement--it is doubtful if Philippa's heart had really been
touched--but his protestations of devotion had been fervent and she had
believed him, and her trust in her fellow-creatures suffered a shock.
It was unfortunate that Mr. Harford, with all his love for his child,
had been unable to guard her from the experience, which could not fail
to be hurtful to one of her over-sensitive nature, but he had been
absent on a special mission at the time. Philippa's attitude towards
the world in general, and towards men in particular, was changed; it
became one of amused toleration. Men were interesting, certainly, and
pleasant companions, but were not to be taken seriously or to be
believed in.
Since then several eligible suitors had presented themselves, but they
had never succeeded in convincing Philippa of their sincerity, and Mrs.
Harford, whose idea of a good mother was one who successfully married
off her daughter in her first, or at least her second, season, was
doomed to disappointment.
Since her father's death Philippa had been with her mother, living in
Paris, or Dresden, or on the Riviera, as the elder lady's wayward mind
directed. Mrs. Harford, who had mourned her husband with all sincerity
for longer than her friends anticipated, had recently married again.
Philippa had just bade good-bye to the bridal pair, and seen them start
off on their journey to St. Petersburg, where her stepfather, who was,
as her father had been, in the Diplomatic Service, was attached to the
Embassy as First Secretary.
She had no anxiety with regard to her mother's choice, nor fortunately
did she feel any resentment that her beloved father should have been so
easily replaced in her mother's affections. She realised clearly that
Mrs. Harford, or, as we should call her now, Lady Lawson, having all
her life depended absolutely on a man's care, was lost and unhappy
without it, and she could only feel grateful that her choice had fallen
on a man entirely able to give her all she wanted, and, so far as the
future could be foretold, to make her life happy.
At all events her mother would continue in the same surroundings that
she had enjoyed for many years, and in a position which she would
undoubtedly fill to her own and every one else's satisfaction.
To be honest, Philippa, although fond of her mother, had found the last
year or two very trying. For some time after her father's death their
mutual grief and loss had drawn the two near together, but as Mrs.
Harford's powers of enjoyment and her love of excitement reasserted
themselves, Philippa had discovered that she was quite uninterested in
her mother's pleasures, and that they had very little in common.
A constant round of gaiety such as the older woman revelled in was
quite unsatisfying to her daughter. In consequence the girl was really
lonely. She had not yet found an outlet for her desire to be of some
use in the world, or to fill the void left by the loss of her father's
constant companionship.
But just at this moment she was enjoying a certain sense of freedom
which the shifting of the responsibility of her mother on to stronger
shoulders had given her. She had, owing to the circumstances I have
related, seen very little of her native country, although she had
travelled widely on the Continent and in more distant lands, and she
anticipated with keen enjoyment the visit she was about to pay to a
friend who lived in the east of England.
This friend had been a school-fellow--that is to say, she had been one
of the older girls when Philippa, a shy child of fourteen, had arrived,
unhappy and awkward, among a crowd of new faces in an unknown land.
Marion Wells, as she then was, was one of those people in whom the
motherly instinct is strong, even in youth. She had taken Philippa
under her wing, and being by no means daunted by an apparent want of
response which she rightly attributed to its proper cause, a strong
friendship had grown up between them, which had continued, in spite of
meetings few and far between, until the present day.
Marion had married, very soon after leaving school, a man who, while
invalided home from South Africa, had excited her first to pity and
then to love. She mothered her big soldier regardless of his stalwart
size and now perfect physique much in the same way in which she had
mothered Philippa in her childhood, and her loving heart was still
further satisfied by the possession of a son, now eight years old.
Bill Heathcote had retired from the army, and was living on a property
to which he had succeeded on the death of his grandmother some three
years ago.
Lady Lawson's last words returned to Philippa's memory: "Good-bye, my
darling child. I do hope you will have a good time!"
She smiled at the recollection. A good time! It was an expression
which had been very frequently on her mother's lips, as it is on the
lips of so many people now-a-days. It may mean so many things. To
Lady Lawson it meant a succession of social gaieties. Well, she
thought with thankfulness, these were hardly to be expected at Bessacre.
Marion had expressly stated that Philippa must not look forward to
anything of the kind. Their only excitements at this season of the
year were a few garden parties which could hardly be called amusing,
but that she might have plenty of golf if she cared for the game.
Also, if time hung too heavily, they might indulge in the frantic
dissipation of motoring over to Renwick and listening to the band on
the pier.
Renwick, which had been a quiet fishing village a few years ago, was
now metamorphosed with surprising rapidity, by the enterprise of its
newly formed Parish Council, into a fashionable watering-place, with
pier, concert-hall, esplanade and palatial hotels all complete, for the
pleasure and comfort of the summer visitors, and also incidentally for
the personal profit of the members of the aforesaid Council: a state of
things much regretted by the residents in the neighbourhood, whose
peace was disturbed during the holiday season by char-a-bancs and
picnic parties. So much Marion Heathcote had explained in her last
letter.
Philippa sat enthralled by the beauty of the country through which she
passed. The wide-spreading cornfields, the cosy flint farm-houses,
with their red roofs, the byres and orchards, the glitter of the placid
Broads lying calm and serene under the summer sun, reeds and rushes
reflected as in a mirror on the water, which was so still that hardly a
ripple disturbed its even surface.
It was so utterly unlike anything she had ever seen that it possessed
for her an intense fascination. Later, as she was approaching the end
of her journey, her first view of the low heather-crowned hills made
her heart thrill.
A freshness in the air, and the curious one-sided appearance of the
wind-swept trees, made her aware of the nearness of the sea--then
presently she saw it--just a line of deeper blue against the azure of
the sky, with the square tower of Renwick Church girdled with
clustering red roofs clearly visible in the middle distance.
In a few moments the train stopped, and she alighted at the station to
find a carriage drawn by a fine pair of horses awaiting her.
The long drive in the cool of the waning sunlight was to her pure
delight. The road led first through beautiful beechwoods, out into the
open country where low banks, bright with wild flowers--scabious,
willow-herb and yellow ragwort--divided the corn-fields, now golden and
ready for harvest; up on to a wide heath where the bell heather flooded
the landscape with glowing purple light--through pine-woods dim and
fragrant--and so on until the carriage turned through a gateway, past a
low lodge of mellow ancient brickwork, and entered a well-kept carriage
drive.
A few minutes more and Philippa was being assisted out by her host, and
warmly welcomed by Marion, to the accompaniment of the cheerful if
noisy greetings of two West Highland terriers who squirmed and yapped
in exuberant hospitality.
"At last," said Marion, embracing her fondly. "I expect you are very
tired."
"Oh no," replied Philippa quickly, "I thoroughly enjoyed the
journey--every moment of it."
"Come in and have some tea," said Major Heathcote.
"Isn't it too late for tea?"
"Never too late for tea with your sex, is it?" he returned, laughing.
"I thought ladies always wanted tea!"
"Perhaps ours won't suit you," said Marion as they entered the hall.
"Don't you like yours made in a samovar and flavoured with lemon?"
"Not a bit of it," rejoined Philippa. "Nice English tea with plenty of
cream, please."
"I can promise you that. Just sit down here. Now, Bill, give her a
cushion and hand her the scones. They are freshly made and hot. Try
some honey with them, real heather honey from Bessmoor. Don't ask her
any questions. Let her have her tea in peace, and then you can ask as
many as you like."