Kitobni o'qish: «Philippa»

Chapter One
Good-Byes

Autumn – scarcely late autumn yet – and the day had been mild. But as the afternoon wore on towards evening, there came the chilliness and early gloom inevitable at the fall of the year – accompanied, to those who are sensitive to such things, by the indescribable touch of melancholy never present in the same way at other seasons.

Philippa Raynsworth shivered slightly, though half-unconscious that she did so, and turned towards the shelter of the friendly porch just at her side. As she moved, a hand was laid on her shoulder.

“Come in, you silly girl,” said its owner. “Do you want to catch cold?”

Philippa had been watching the gradual disappearance of a carriage down the long drive, till a turn in the road suddenly hid it altogether. Others had been watching it too, but she was standing somewhat aloof – she had no special interest in the departing guests; she had never seen them till to-day, and might very probably never see them again. But something nevertheless had impressed her – the kind of day, the approach of the gloaming, the evening scents from the garden, the little shy breeze that murmured and grew silent again – there was a plaintive harmony in it all, and even the prosaic, measured sound of the horses’ feet, growing fainter and fainter, and the carriage receding from sight while the “good-byes” still seemed hovering about, all fitted in. She did not seek to define what it reminded her of, or what feelings it awakened in her. It was just a scene – a passing impression, or possibly a lasting one. There is never any accounting for the permanence of certain spots in our experience – why some entirely trivial incident or sensation should remain indented on our memory for ever; while others which we would fain recall, some which it seems extraordinary that we should ever be able to forget, fade as if they had never been – who can say?

“I was just coming in,” Philippa replied, with a slight sense of feeling ashamed of herself. She hated any approach to what she called “affectation,” and she glanced quickly to where the little group had stood but a moment before. It had dispersed. There was no one to be seen but her cousin Maida and herself, and with a sense of relief Philippa stopped again.

“Wait a moment, Maida,” she said. “There is really no danger of catching cold, and it is nice out here. It will feel hot and indoors in the drawing-room, with the tea still about and the talking. Let us stay here just for a moment and watch the evening creeping in. You understand the feeling I mean, I’m sure?”

Miss Lermont did not at once reply. She was older than Philippa – a great deal older she would have said herself, and in some ways it would have been true, though not in all. She had suffered much in her life, which, after all, had not been a very long one, for she was barely thirty; she had suffered more, probably, than any one realised, and – even a harder trial – she knew that she would have to suffer a great deal more still, if she lived. All this, the remembrance of suffering past, and to some extent still present, and the anticipation, in itself an additional present suffering, of what was yet to come, had made her old before her time. Yet it had kept her young, too, by its intensification of her power of sympathy. It is not all sufferers who acquire this peculiar sympathy, nor is it the only good gift to be gained by passing through the fire. But Maida Lermont’s sympathy was remarkable. It was not solely or even principally for physical suffering, though to all but the few who knew her well, physical suffering only had been her fire.

“She has a happy nature,” most people would say of her, “though, of course, she has had a great deal to bear. I really don’t think any one so constitutionally cheerful is as much to be pitied as nervous patients or very sensitive people. There are, no doubt, some who feel pain much more than others. And then the Lermonts are rich. She has everything she wants.”

How little they knew! Maida was not “constitutionally cheerful” – the worst side, by far the worst, of her suffering had been to her, her vivid consciousness of the wreck it might make of her altogether – mind, heart, and soul.

But she had conquered, and more than conquered. She had emerged from her trial not only chastened, but marvellously lifted and widened. Intellect and spirit had risen to a higher place, and the rare and delightful power of her sympathy knew no limits. It unlocked doors to her as if she were the possessor of a magic key. Philippa was right when she turned to her cousin with the words “you understand.”

“Yes,” she said, after her momentary delay – a delay spent in gazing before her with her young cousin’s words in her ears. “Yes – it is fascinating to get inside nature, as it were, sometimes – to feel it all. I love to watch the evening coming, as you say, and I love to watch the dawn creeping up – even more, I think. That has fallen to my lot oftener than to yours, I hope, Philippa.” She smiled as she spoke, so her cousin was not afraid to laugh softly.

“I am generally fast asleep at that time, I must confess. But even if I were awake, I should not care for it as much as for evening. And to-day it all seemed of a piece. You know it is my last evening here – and I heard you all saying good-bye to those people who have just gone, and Lady Mary’s voice sounded so silvery when she called back ‘good-night’ for the last time. Don’t you think, Maida, that there is always something pathetic, if we stopped to think about it, in farewells, even if we expect to meet again quite soon? One never can be sure that a good-bye may not be a real good-bye.”

“Yes, I have often felt that. And the real good-byes, as you call them, are so seldom known to be such. Last times are not often thought to be last times – strangely seldom, indeed.”

“And yet there must be a last time to everything,” said Philippa, “even to the most commonplace little details of life.”

They were silent for a moment or two.

Then said Miss Lermont:

“I hope you will come back to us soon again, dear; I should like you to see more of the neighbourhood and the neighbours.”

“I like what I have seen of both,” said Philippa. “Lady Mary is a dear little thing.”

“All the Bertrands are pleasant, kindly people,” Maida replied. “They are happy people, and allow that they are so. It is refreshing nowadays when so many are either peculiarly unhappy, or determined to think themselves so. By-the-by, what a very silent man that friend of Captain Bertrand’s is. Mr Gresham, I mean.”

“I scarcely spoke to him,” said Philippa, adding, with a laugh, “but he certainly scarcely spoke to me, so I have no reason for disagreeing with you.”

“Very silent people are almost worse than very talkative ones,” said Maida. “I suppose you are a very lively party at home, now, with Evelyn and the children.”

“Fairly so. Evey fusses a little, but she is always sweet, and we love having them. We shall miss them terribly when Duke comes home and they go to him, though I suppose it would be selfish not to be glad when he does. I shall miss them almost the most of all.”

“They keep you pretty busy, I daresay.”

“Ye-es, but not too busy. I am so thankful not to be one of those poor girls who can’t find anything to do. There is no doubt about what I have to do. But things are much clearer than they were, now that papa is better. And when Charlie is at home for good, they will be easier still.”

“We shall have you crying for work to do then,” said Maida, smiling.

But Philippa shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

Miss Lermont turned to go in.

“Come, Philippa; we really shall catch, cold if we stay out here longer,” and Philippa followed her into the house.

“How few people understand each other!” thought the elder woman, as she went across the hall and down the wide passage to the drawing-room. “Nobody, to see her as she commonly is, would think that Philippa had those undertones in her character – that tenderness and sensitiveness that come out now and then. She seems just a very charming girl – bright and energetic, and full of humour.”

And two minutes later, when Maida was resting on her sofa again, and heard Philippa’s voice in spite of her reluctance to return to the “talking,” one of the liveliest in the family party, and noticed her quick tactful readiness to suit herself to whatever was going on, the contrast with the dreamy girl who had stood gazing at the darkening sky outside, responsive to every whisper of Nature’s evening prayer, struck her even more.

“She is very interesting,” thought Miss Lermont. “I care for her increasingly every day.”

It was Philippa’s first visit to Dorriford. The relationship was not a very near one – only that of second cousins on the parents’ side. And the Lermonts were very rich, and almost unavoidably self-engrossed, though not selfish. For they were a large family party, though Maida, the second daughter, was now the only unmarried one left at home. But a constant succession of incursions from married sons and daughters, unexpected swoopings down or turnings up of younger brothers from India, or grandchildren “for the holidays,” kept the house in a state of never-ending, active hospitality. It was accident – a chance meeting, that is to say, which had brought about renewed intercourse between the Lermonts and Philippa’s family, resulting in a week’s visit on the young girl’s part.

It was to a great extent a new experience to her. Her family “lines” were cast in very different places to luxurious Dorriford; her life, though happily far from an intellectually narrow one, had been passed amidst the restrictions of small means and many cares; her work, almost indeed before she had left childhood behind her, had been “cut out” for her distinctly enough.

The next morning brought her own farewells to Dorriford and its inmates.

“I have enjoyed myself so much,” she said, with her usual heartiness, to Mrs Lermont, when it came to saying good-bye. “It really has been a treat to me, and it will be a treat to them all at home to hear about it.”

“Well, then, dear, I hope you will soon come to see us again,” said her hostess, kindly. “We have enjoyed having you, I assure you.”

“Thank you for saying so,” Philippa replied. “But as for coming again soon,” and she shook her head. “Some time or other I shall hope to do so, but not soon, I fear.”

“They cannot well spare you, I daresay. But after all, they could surely always do without you for a week. So you must pay us more frequent visits, if they cannot be long ones.”

“If it were nearer,” said Philippa, “there is nothing I should enjoy more. But you see, dear Mrs Lermont,” she went on naïvely, “it isn’t only the ‘sparing’ me. I am not so tremendously important as all that. It is also that we can’t afford much travelling about.” Mrs Lermont looked uncomfortable.

“How I wish I had spoken of it before!” she thought. “She will perhaps be hurt at it now that she has said that herself. I wish I had taken Maida’s advice.”

She glanced round; there was no one within hearing. She half-nervously slipped her hand into her pocket.

“Philippa, my dear,” she began, “you must promise me not to mind what I am going to say. I – I know – of course it is only natural I should – relations as you are – that you have to consider such things, and I – I had prepared this.” She held out a small envelope addressed to “Miss Raynsworth.”

“You will accept it, dear to please me? And I want you to remember that whenever you can come to us, the cost of the journey must not enter into your consideration. That must be my affair. If there were no other reason, the pleasure that having you here gives Maida, makes me beg you to let this be understood.”

The old lady spoke nervously, and a pink flush rose to her face. But the moment the tone of Philippa’s voice in reply reached her, she felt relieved.

“How very good of you, dear Mrs Lermont!” she exclaimed, heartily. “I never thought of such a thing; if I had – ” She stopped and coloured a little, but without a touch of hurt feeling. “I was going to say,” she went on, laughingly, “that if I had dreamt of such kindness, I would not have alluded to the expense. But you had thought of it before I said anything about it, hadn’t you? And of course you know we are not at all rich. ‘Mind,’” as Mrs Lermont murmured something; “no, of course, I don’t mind, except that I think you are very, very kind, and I am sure they will all think so at home too.”

She kissed her cousin again, and the old lady patted her affectionately on the shoulder as she did so.

“Then it is a bargain,” she said. “Whenever they can spare you – remember.”

Philippa nodded in reply, though she had not time to speak, for just then came one of her cousins’ voices from the hall, bidding her hurry up if she did not mean to miss the train.

“She is a thoroughly nice, sensible girl,” said Mrs Lermont to her daughter, when Maida entered the drawing-room that morning an hour or two later.

“Yes,” Maida replied. “She is all that and more. I like her extremely. But I do not know that life will be to her quite what one would feel inclined to predict, judging her as she seems now.”

“How do you mean?” said her mother. “I should say she will get on very well, and meet troubles pretty philosophically when they come. She is not spoilt, and there is nothing fantastic or in the least morbid about her.”

“N-no,” Miss Lermont agreed. “But she is more inexperienced than she thinks, and though not spoilt in the ordinary sense of the word, she has not really had much to try her. And her nature is deeper than you would think – deeper than she knows herself.”

“Possibly so,” Mrs Lermont replied. “But though you are certainly not morbid, Maida, I think you are a trifle fantastic – about other people, never about yourself. You study them so, and I think you put your own ideas into your pictures of them. Now I should say that Philippa Raynsworth is just the sort of girl to go through life in a comfortable – and by that I don’t mean selfish – satisfactory sort of way, without anything much out of the commonplace. She has plenty of energy, and, above all, any amount of common-sense.” Maida laughed. This sort of discussion was not very uncommon between the mother and daughter; they were much together, owing to Mrs Lermont’s increasing lameness and Maida’s chronic delicacy, and often alone. And they understood each other well, though in many ways they were very different.

“Perhaps you are right, mother,” the daughter said, “Perhaps I do work up people in my imagination till they grow quite unlike what they really are. People, some especially, interest me so,” she went on, thoughtfully. “I feel very grateful to my fellow-creatures; thinking them over helps to make my life much pleasanter than it might otherwise be.”

Mrs Lermont glanced at her half anxiously. It was so seldom that Maida alluded to the restrictions and deprivations of her lot.

“I am sure, dear, you always think of them in the kindest possible way; you may be critical, but you are certainly not cynical,” and she glanced at her daughter affectionately. Mrs Lermont was an affectionate mother to all her children, but her daughter Maida had the power of drawing out a strain of tenderness of which one would scarcely have suspected the existence in her. Miss Lermont smiled back.

“I am glad you think so, mother,” she said; “all the same, I often feel I should be on my guard lest the interest of dissecting others’ characters should lead me too far. As for Philippa, I shall be only too glad, poor child, if her life is a happy and uncomplicated one.” And the subject for the time was dropped, though Maida’s memory, above all where her affections were concerned, was curiously retentive. From that time her young cousin had her own place in what Maida sometimes to herself called her invisible picture-gallery; there were many touches still wanting to the completion of the portrait, some which no one could have predicted.

Philippa herself, tranquilly seated in the corner of her second-class railway compartment, would have been not a little astonished could she have overheard what her cousins were saying about her —herself was not, as a rule, the subject of her cogitations.

It was a long journey to Marlby, the nearest station to Philippa’s home; long, comparatively speaking, that is to say, for the length of journeys, like the measure of many other things, is but a relative matter, and the young girl had travelled so little in her short life that the eight hours across country seemed to her no trifling matter. She enjoyed it thoroughly; even the waitings at junctions and changing of trains, at which many would have murmured, added to the pleasurable excitement of the whole. There was something exhilarating in the mere fact of passing through places whose names were unfamiliar to her.

“What a pretty name!” she said to herself, at one station where some minutes had to be spent for no apparent reason, as nobody got out or got in, and neither express nor luggage train passing by solved the enigma – ”‘Merle-in-the-Wold!’ and what a pretty country it seems about here! I don’t remember noticing it on my way coming. I wonder how long it will be before I pass by here again. They won’t be so afraid about me at home after this, when they see how well I have managed – catching trains and everything quite rightly, and not losing my luggage, or anything stupid like that – though, I suppose, I’d better not shout till I’m out of the wood. I should feel rather small if my things don’t turn up at Marlby.”

But these misgivings did not trouble her long; she was absorbed by the picturesque beauty of the country around, which was shown to its greatest advantage by the lovely autumn weather.

“There is really some advantage in living in an uninteresting part of the world as we do,” Philippa went on thinking; “it makes one doubly enjoy scenery like this. I wonder I never heard of it before. I wonder what those turrets can be over there among the trees; they must belong to some beautiful old house. Dear me, what delightful lives some fortunate people must have, though, I suppose, there are often drawbacks – for instance, in Maida Lermont’s case! I wouldn’t change with her for anything, except that she’s so very, very good. It is so nice to be strong, and able to enjoy any lucky chance which comes in one’s way, like this visit to Dorriford. I shall have to be content now with quiet home life for a good while.”

But home, quiet and monotonous as it might be, was essentially home to Philippa. Her spirits rose still higher as she knew herself to be nearing it, and she had never looked brighter than when she sprang out of the lumbering old fly which had brought her and her belongings from Marlby station, and eagerly questioned the servant at the door as to which members of the family were in.

“Mamma is, you say, but not my father – and Mrs Headfort and the children? Everybody is quite well, I suppose?”

“All quite well, Miss Philippa,” replied Dorcas, the elderly handmaid who had once been Philippa’s nurse. “Your mamma and Miss Evelyn – Mrs Headfort, I should say – are in the drawing-room. I don’t think they expected you quite so soon. My master has gone to meet the young gentlemen on their way back from school. I don’t suppose they’ll be in for some time.”

“All the better,” said Philippa, “so far as the boys are concerned, that is to say. I do want to have a good talk with mamma and Evey first.”

“Yes, of course, Miss Philippa, you must have plenty to tell, and something to hear too, maybe;” this rather mysteriously.

“What can you mean?” said Philippa, stopping short on her way; but Dorcas only shook her head and smiled.

“Philippa already! How nice!” were the words that greeted her as she opened the drawing-room door. “Darling, how well you’re looking!” – and – “Evey, dear, ring for tea at once, the poor child must be famishing,” from her mother.

Certainly there could be no two opinions as to the warmth of the young girl’s welcome home.

“It is nice to be back again,” said Philippa, throwing herself on to a low chair beside her mother, “and with such lots to tell you. They have all been so kind, and I have so enjoyed it; but, by-the-by, before I begin, what does Dorcas mean by her mysterious hints about some news I had to hear?”

“Dorcas is an old goose,” said Mrs Headfort, “and,” (Page 21 missing) tively. “And as if I didn’t realise only too fully how terrible it is, Duke writes pages and pages of warnings and instructions and directions, and heaven knows what! down to the minutest detail. If he had known more about the fashions, he would have told me exactly how my dresses were to be made, and my hair done – ”

“He might have saved himself the trouble as to the last item,” said Philippa, consolingly. “You never have been and never will be able to do your hair decently, Evelyn.”

Mrs Headfort’s pretty face grew still more dejected in expression.

“I really don’t think you need be such a Job’s comforter, Philippa,” she said, reproachfully, “just when mamma and I have been longing so for you to come home. Duke didn’t write about my hair, so you needn’t talk about it. What he did write was bad enough, and the worst of all is – ”

“What?” said Philippa.