"Doesn't it seem to you that the windows let in more sunlight of late,
ma'am?" asked a housemaid. She had just finished cleaning those in the
octagonal dining-room. Burbage inspected the windows.
"There is no change in the windows that I can see," she replied. "But
there's more sunlight in the house than in many a year."
This comment of his old housekeeper, six weeks after Sir Peter brought
Phyllis home, might be accepted as the epitome of her life there for ten
long years. Sir Peter was as grim as ever to the servants; but, bless
your heart, hadn't they caught him at his pranks on the floor? Hadn't
they seen his haggard face when the doctor pronounced it diphtheria?
Hadn't they seen him carry her downstairs in his own arms on the first
day it was allowed? Hadn't they seen him helping her with her lessons,
at night,--solving her complex problems in his head while she struggled
over columns of figures, and waiting at the end of that tortuous road
with a smile on his gaunt face, and the right answer, to prove hers
right or wrong? But in languages, Sir Peter was left at the post. Her
master in French was astonished until he learned her mother's name,--by
accident, for it was rarely spoken in that house. The dead languages
were alive to her, too. The shelves in her study-room, upstairs,
contained Sir Peter's old "classics," prettily rebound. The commission
went to Mr. Rowlandson; the execution was Rivière's. Sir Peter had
scarcely looked into them since the old days at Cambridge.
Sunlight in the house, indeed. Her sweet voice, in sudden song, might be
heard at any moment of the day; or the ripple of her piano; or her gay
laughter, musical as the joyous notes of a bird.
She had her intent of them all. Even the determined mind of Burbage,
stern-featured and steel-spectacled, she moulded to a plastic
acquiescence with her own sweet will. In extreme urgency, when Burbage
was very firm, indeed, Phyllis had a way of referring to dear
Farquharson. Burbage learned to anticipate this by yielding in the nick
of time.
By the way, they had not found a trace of Farquharson.
Several short, sharp battles she had with Sir Peter; the cause, in each
instance, the same. He did not try to disguise his desire that she
should forget her mother. The first encounter between them took place
within a year of her home-coming.
"If I cannot remember my darling, darling mamma in your house, Uncle
Peter, I shall not stay here," she declared. "I will go away and never,
never come back any more. And then you would be sorry."
Sir Peter compromised with irrelevant sweets. But he saw she was
terribly in earnest, for such a little girl.
From time to time a similar incident disturbed the loving relationship
between them; a relationship that was perfect otherwise, in confidence,
sincerity and affection.
When she was eighteen, some one told her she began to look like her
mother.
"God forbid!" said Sir Peter, when she told him.
Phyllis went white.
"Uncle Peter, my mother was an angel. She was my father's----"
"Ruin," interposed Sir Peter, his brows darkening.
"She was his dream of Heaven. I heard him tell her so. She was a dear,
sweet woman."
Sir Peter growled; but Phyllis always had the last word on these
occasions.
"I love her memory and I always shall, as I should have dearly loved her
if--if she could have stayed with me. You must never speak or even think
unkindly of her if you want me to love you, or if you want me to live
with you. She was my mother and----" Then she fled to her room. Burbage
could have been heard murmuring, "There, there, my pretty."
It was true. As she grew older it became apparent she had inherited her
mother's marvelous beauty. She was a tall girl; a mass of golden coils
surmounted the proud head, set so well on her neck and shoulders; her
eyes were the deepest blue; you might have thought her expression sad,
but her sensitive mouth was mirthful as well as tender; in merriment
her eyes danced. When she talked earnestly she caught her breath in the
prettiest way; she had indescribable charm. Her hands were long and
slender, unadorned with rings; she simply didn't care for them. She
usually wore white, and the larger the hat the better she liked it.
By the time Phyllis was twenty, she had read all that was good for her,
and was ready to look at life itself with frankness, and judge it by
standards of her own. The windows of the Carlton Club knew Sir Peter no
more. She led him everywhere. You might have seen them at the Abbey one
day; on another in the Temple Gardens or looking up at Dr. Johnson's
house, in Gough Square. Sir Peter gloomed in the doorways of shops while
she made leisurely purchases within. He pointed out the best pictures in
the National Gallery; and could tell her why they were the best. They
motored through England and France; Sir Peter absorbed in old
fortifications, Phyllis regardful of the babies tumbling through cottage
doorways. In London one often saw them walking in the park, her face
aglow with animation, her movements as free from constraint as a young
deer; her flow of conversation never failing. Sir Peter, keeping step,
regarded her, idolatrous. Unconsciously she showed him her soul, and
looking therein he found his eyes blurred with unexpected tears.
Soft but imperious Phyllis! The theater bored Sir Peter beyond
expression. But on First Nights you might be certain he would have a
box. Radiant Phyllis, in white silk, leaning forward eagerly to catch
every word, was tremulous with excitement at the end of the play. During
the drive homeward Sir Peter endeavored, artfully, to conceal that he
had slept through half an act.
You may be sure that mothers with eligible sons invited him to dine;
grumbling, but facing the inevitable, he accepted. His hawk's eyes
glowered at the young men: from Cambridge and Oxford, but he invited
them to his house. Coaxed by their mothers they called the first time,
and thereafter were with difficulty restrained. Phyllis was kind to
each, and interested in all; but Sir Peter observed with satisfaction
that she was most pleased when they came in pairs. He chuckled over his
magazine, under a reading-lamp, at the far end of the library many
times, while Phyllis entertained her admirers; but at times he scowled.
"Too fast, too fast, you young fool," he muttered to his white mustache.
They were thoroughly agreeable young men, and Phyllis enjoyed it all
hugely. She approached the consideration of the sex from a perfectly
fresh and candid point of view. Sir Peter had the benefit of her
impressions each morning with his egg and toast and tea. "The Times" had
long since been banished from breakfast.
One morning she was spiritless.
"Uncle Peter, I have something very, very important to tell you."
"I am listening most attentively, my dear."
"Uncle Peter, you know Mr. Holroyd,--Mr. Mark Holroyd, I mean, not his
brother Dick."
"I can't say I know him very well, my dear. He has called several times,
to be sure, and dined with us once. We have dined at General Holroyd's
twice, I think, when Mark was present. I believe he has made three
remarks to me: first, that Cambridge was slow; second, that he liked a
Doherty racket best,--I think it was a Doherty he preferred; and third,
that the Halls, this month, were--'rather.'"