Chapter Sixteen
Sunshiny Days
The Bertrams were the most hospitable people in the world. Wherever you came across them, in London, or at their own rambling country-house, in a villa at Cannes, or on board a dahabeeyah on the Nile, it was all one. They were always delighted to see you, and uneasy till you promised to stay with them indefinitely, or, at least, to come to luncheon or dinner as long as you were within hail.
And all this in spite of a constant amount of things to see to, none of which were neglected by her, and very far from robust health on little Lady Mary’s part! Her Irish ancestry explained a good deal, said some, “Irish people are so hospitable, you know,” As if the virtue in question was an inherited quality for which no credit was due to the possessor. “Her kind heart,” for sorely no kinder heart ever beat, had something to say to it, said those who knew and loved her as she deserved, among whom Maida Lermont was certainly to be reckoned.
Yet, notwithstanding the prepossessions in their favour which Philippa could not but feel, when it came to the actual moment of her following Mrs Lermont and her daughter into the pretty drawing-room where Lady Mary was fluttering about among her guests and her children, the girl could not but be conscious of an exceeding wish that Egypt, or Algeria, or any other of their various haunts, had this winter attracted the Bertrams elsewhere.
For control herself as she would, the thought of meeting Mr Gresham again, without even the support of Evelyn’s presence, made her nervous.
“Supposing – just supposing” she said to herself, “that he did see me at Wyverston, or that his cousin by some inadvertence had given the least hint of any secret.”
It was a mistake to allow her imagination to dwell on such possibilities; but the effect on herself personally was scarcely to be regretted. For there was a certain timidity and wistfulness in her manner which had not been there before, and which, in the eyes of one of those present at least, added greatly to her charm.
“She is even lovelier than I thought,” said Bernard Gresham to himself, “and she has lost that touch of the girl-of-the-day self-confidence which jarred a little.”
For the first time they had met, that autumn afternoon at Dorriford, Philippa in her cheerful inexperience had taken it for granted that the handsome silent man was probably “rather shy,” and had exerted herself to “draw him out” in consequence.
Two or three other women entered the room almost at the same moment as the Lermonts and their young cousin. And the names were not clearly announced. But Mr Gresham from the farther side of the room “spotted” Miss Raynsworth at once, and managed cleverly to place himself in her way as she turned, with some little uncertainty of bearing, from shaking hands with her hostess. He was far too much a man, not only of the world, but of drawing-rooms, to run any risk of making her or himself conspicuous, yet he was resolved at once to take the place which he intended to hold while the fates left Philippa in his vicinity – that of a former acquaintance. So he would ask for no fresh introduction, but stepped forward with quiet matter-of-fact ease to greet her.
“How do you do, Miss Raynsworth?” he said. “You arrived yesterday? I knew you were coming, as I had a letter from Mrs Marmaduke Headfort two or three days ago.”
He brought in Evelyn’s name purposely, being in his heart slightly doubtful of the girl’s immediate recognition of him, little dreaming of the familiarity to her of his whole personality among the guests she had so often watched from Evelyn’s window at Wyverston! But even without that, she would have known him again.
She looked up with her pretty, half-startled eyes, a slight pink rising to her cheeks, as she held out her hand.
“You have heard from Evelyn more recently than I have done, then,” she said. “Were they all well? Did she give you any ‘family’” – with a smile – “news?”
Mr Gresham was inwardly triumphant. How well he had managed this first introductory move! Nothing could have happened better than the whole combination of events. Here, at Cannes, a few days would be worth weeks elsewhere; the life was so much less formal, the opportunities of meeting so much more frequent and less observed. He would have ample time in which to judge further of this girl, whose strong individuality, whose “uncommonness” had even at first sight so attracted him, ferré à glace though he believed himself, and that not altogether without reason, in such matters.
So he at once stepped on to the platform which his own tact, and Philippa’s simplicity, and circumstances, the accidental isolation in which she momentarily found herself for one, had erected.
“News,” he said, pleasantly; “oh, dear, yes, any amount. The actual reason of my being honoured with a letter just now was that Mrs Headfort thought it would interest me, which it certainly does, extremely, to hear that she and Duke are going up to Wyverston next week.”
Philippa’s eyes sparkled.
“Are they really?” she said. “I had not heard of it. At least I knew that they were to go some time or other, but I fancied not till I – father and I, I should say – were home again.”
She was so interested that all her constraint and self-consciousness disappeared. Nothing could have suited Mr Gresham better. His superior information from Greenleaves put him in the position of being applied to by Miss Raynsworth, and set her and himself at once on friendly and almost confidential relations.
He glanced round. They were still both standing, and near Lady Mary, who was eagerly talking to Miss Lermont, and not noticing any one else’s movements. There were no seats close at hand, but some tempting wicker lounges stood just outside on the balcony, on to which opened the long low windows.
“Won’t you come outside?” said Mr Gresham. “It is crowded in here; and then I can glance through what Mrs Headfort says.”
So within five minutes of the dreaded entrance into Lady Mary’s drawing-room, Philippa found herself seated most comfortably beside the very man whose presence had been the cause of her nervous misgiving.
No one could have reproached Mr Gresham with “silence.” He exerted himself to the utmost, without seeming to do so in the least; he talked, though not too much; he made the girl forget everything (little as he suspected that there was anything for her to forget) except the present pleasant intercourse. For he believed that all the opportunity he wished to obtain for himself depended upon this first tête-à-tête, and, however he might hereafter judge it expedient to alter or modify his tactics, he had no doubt as to the advisability of his present exertions.
Maida Lermont, from the couch which was quickly provided for her in a corner of the room, started with surprise when she heard her young cousin’s peculiarly pretty and musical laugh ring out, as some half-hour or so later, Philippa, followed by Mr Gresham, made her way back into the drawing-room, and looking round for her special friend, drew forward a low chair to Miss Lermont’s side.
“She used to laugh like that at Dorriford,” thought Maida, “but it is the first time I have heard it here. And it is Mr Gresham who has made her look so bright and happy? Yet she has only seen him once before, and I am sure she was rather nervous about meeting him – I cannot make it out.”
But if – and this possibility she would doubtless, if taxed with it, have indignantly denied —if any shadow of misgiving as to Philippa’s ingenuousness momentarily crossed her mind, it was dispelled the instant the sweet face approached her own, as the girl said, in a somewhat low voice:
“Isn’t it nice! Mr Gresham has given me such good news of them all at home, especially about Duke and Evey; they are going – but no, I must wait to tell you all about it afterwards,” and here Mr Gresham, who had half heard, half guessed the drift of her words, interposed with the gentle considerateness which marked his bearing to the invalid Miss Lermont:
“Shall I get you a cup of tea, or an ice, or whatever you would like best?” he said. “I can easily bring it here – it is all in the next room.”
“Thank you, thank you very much,” Maida replied. “Yes, I should like some tea and a sandwich very much. – And you, Philippa, you have had nothing?”
“I will go and get something for myself when Mr Gresham brings your tea,” said Philippa, and the young man noted her words approvingly. This was not the sort of girl, he thought, to care to have a man – or “the man” would probably have more accurately described his thought – dragging about after her in any conspicuous way. No, there was no doubt of it, she was a type apart. And he smiled to himself, half apologetically, at the idea that, after all his several years’ experience of society, and the caution with which he had steered his way amidst manoeuvring mammas and scarcely less sophisticated daughters, he might be about to fall a victim to the common malady – to find himself, if he did not take care, as genuinely in love as any Henry Hawkins of the people!
But the very candour with which he realised the possibility, showed that so far he had himself well in hand. And well in hand he intended to keep himself. For it would be a complete mistake to suppose that this was in any sense a case of “love at first sight.” Mr Gresham had long vaguely intended to marry, if – a great “if” – he came across the woman who completely satisfied his fastidious taste, and seemed likely to prove the realisation of his ideal. An ideal, not perhaps of the very loftiest, but admirable enough so far as it went. “She” must be endowed with all the orthodox and specially feminine virtues and graces; she must be refined and “unworldly” – to insure, indeed, the last qualification, he was prepared to sacrifice some amount of conventional “style” or “fashion;” that indescribable touch of finish which tells of a certain position in the world of the day. The very words employed to define it, testifying to its variability and intangible characteristics.
He did not wish for any great preponderance of brains or culture. There were times when Miss Raynsworth struck him as having been too severely educated for his standard. Femininity was his sine quâ non. So long as a little Greek and Latin, some notion of mathematics even, did not unduly harden or stiffen a woman, he would not exactly object to them, though any approach to obtrusive learning he strongly deprecated. But Philippa was too unaffected, too self-forgetful, to jar him by any such putting forward of her acquirements – acquirements which, in contrast with the real learning of her father and brother, seemed to her, as indeed they were, but the merest sips of the “spring.” And above all, he was so sure of her perfect propriety – there was no slightest taint of “fastness” or “loudness,” or any such horror, in this irreproachable girl, no love of eccentricity or Bohemianism, no possibility of mad escapades turning up in which she had taken a part!
“No,” thought the master of Merle, “there could be no risk – no risk whatever in it. Of course, people would be surprised at the marriage, but what do I care for that! Everybody knows,” and he smiled half cynically; “everybody knows that my possibilities of choice have not been restricted.”
And this was certainly true.
Nor would it be fair to accuse the young man of fatuity, inasmuch as he was little troubled by any misgiving as to his personal acceptability to Miss Raynsworth, should he decide to go through with his suit. He had every possible grounds for believing in it; he knew himself to be attractive and good-looking far beyond the average; he believed himself also to be affectionate and endowed with all the qualifications for making a good husband (though he did not add, “to a wife who would see everything through his eyes and have no will but his”); and so far – for this résumé of Mr Gresham’s views of the whole situation is somewhat ante-dated – that is to say, as the day drew near for Philippa and her father to leave Cannes, he had no reason to doubt that the young girl liked his society, and was in a fair way to feeling still more attracted by him.
This fortnight in the beautiful south was propitious in the extreme to pleasant projects. The weather was faultless, and not as hot as is sometimes the case, even early in the spring. The circle of residents and visitors, to whom the Lermonts had come temporarily to belong, seemed specially anxious to make the last weeks of their southern sojourn agreeable. Scarcely a day passed without some plan being set on foot for diversion or amusement in which even Maida could take part, and few, if any, guessed how many of these were really skilfully initiated by Mr Gresham, who was well aware that it would have been of little use to try to decoy Philippa away from her cousin.
So there was no question of balls or large evening parties for the girl. Such would have been quite out of her father’s line; nor could she have expected Mrs Lermont, quietly congratulating herself that such exertions for herself were over, to have begun again the arduous duties of chaperon. One exception only in this direction was made, and that was in the case of a large private dance on the very eve of the Raynsworths’ departure, at which kind Lady Mary Bertram set her heart on Philippa’s appearing. But before this there had been gaieties, or what seemed such to the young girl, in constant succession, and such as she had little dreamt of taking part in when she left home.
Her letters to Evelyn described fully all that was going on, and Evelyn’s spirits rose high.
“Nothing could be better,” she said to her mother, just as she herself was starting with her husband for Wyverston. “Now, mamma, was I not sensible when I made you get and send her those two new dresses, as soon as we heard of the Cannes visit?”
And Mrs Raynsworth could not but agree with her. “I don’t suppose it could ever have occurred to Mrs Lermont to give her the pretty blue evening-dress Phil is so pleased with, unless she had arrived with one or two decent things. It would have been just like her and papa to say they had nothing but travelling clothes with them, and could go nowhere and see nobody. I cannot tell you how delighted I am for the poor dear to have some fun at last. And,” she added to herself, “to see something of Bernard Gresham,” though she dared not say this, in so many words, to her mother!
Picnics were among the favourite amusements of the moment at Cannes, and picnics on the luxurious scale that these were carried out were new to Philippa, whose only experience of out-of-doors entertainments was a holiday tea-drinking in the Marlby woods, when one old donkey carried on his back the whole material part of the repast. After two or three of these expeditions she found, it is true, that they began to pall a little. Still, it was always a pleasure to be with Maida, especially in the charming surroundings of lovely scenery and weather; and, more, probably, than she would have allowed herself to own, never did Mr Gresham show to greater advantage than on these occasions. His tact was wonderful; without making her or himself in the least conspicuous he yet succeeded in giving her the feeling that she was never forgotten, that her amusement and enjoyment were his first consideration, and that once satisfied that these were insured, his own pleasure was complete. No girl, certainly no girl of Philippa’s sensitive and responsive nature, could have been unconscious of this subtle and delicate consideration; to her, singularly free from vanity in any form, unspoilt and unselfish, there was something almost intoxicating in this refinement of homage.
Spots of interest, either by reason of their own beauty, or sometimes from historic association, now and then indeed combining both, were usually chosen for the scene of the picnics.
One of the last to which the Lermonts and their guests were bidden was given by Mr Gresham himself, and he had bestowed much thought and consideration upon its locality.
Nor were his labours unrewarded. It proved to be one of the most successful parties of the season, and but for an incident which momentarily affected Philippa unpleasantly by recalling events which the last fortnight, with its sunshine and distractions, had almost ended by banishing from her memory altogether, the day would have been one of unalloyed enjoyment.
The picnic was to be at an old château a few miles off. An old “manor-house,” with remains of the domestic fortification necessary in those turbulent medieval times, would perhaps better describe it. For it had never been large, and now one part of it had fallen into picturesque ruin, while the remainder had been not unskilfully restored, more strictly speaking, perhaps, kept in repair, without any jarring modern innovations such as the French positif way of looking at such things often introduces.
The château had not descended to the rank only of a farm-house, for its owners, the bearers of a name which would at once serve to identify the original home of the family, still visited it from time to time. And during most of the year, with good-nature, not unmingled very probably with legitimate pride in the old, old home, they allowed any who cared to do so, to visit it, and wander all over the demesne and the château itself with perfect freedom.
It lay, however, somewhat off the usual routes of pleasure-seekers, and was less known than it deserved to be. Maida Lermont had never seen it, and though her eyes lighted up with pleasure at the idea of a visit, some doubts were expressed by her mother as to whether the distance and the reported roughness of the roads would not make it too fatiguing for her.
“Oh, mamma,” she exclaimed, speaking for once with almost the disappointment of a child in her voice, “please don’t say so. The Château de C – is one of the places I have longed to see ever since we came.”
Philippa glanced at her affectionately. Maida’s “humanness” was one of the characteristics that attracted her young relation to her so much. She never, notwithstanding the long discipline of her life, affected to be above or apart from the natural tastes and interests of those about her.
“I won’t go, if you don’t,” whispered Miss Raynsworth, stooping over Maida.
But Bernard Gresham caught the words; a slight frown, showed itself on his face. He was pleased – more than pleased indeed – to gratify Miss Lermont, whom he cordially liked and admired, but for Philippa to suggest giving up the expedition for Maida’s sake, when she must in her heart have known that he had planned it all for her, was most annoying. And for the first time he mentally accused Miss Raynsworth of affectation.
“She shall see her mistake,” he said to himself, “if she takes that line with me. I shall throw up the whole affair if there is any risk of her not coming, I should have the Worthings thinking, or the mother pretending to think, I had got it up for them – how I do detest that woman! ‘So kind of you to look us up at once; you know we were only here en passant,’ when I didn’t know they were here at all, and cared less.” But a moment after, the sound of Philippa’s sweet voice speaking in half-appealing, half-coaxing tones to her hostess, made him glance round from the window whither he had turned to hide his annoyance; and Mrs Worthing and her iniquities faded from his mind as if they had never existed.
“I really think, Mrs Lermont,” he said, “that the risk of over-fatigue for your daughter can be guarded against I shall look out for a specially easy carriage, and we can take our time about it and drive slowly if Miss Lermont prefers. We shall not be at all a large party, and nearly all, people who know each other well – the Denvers and Maxtons and one or two more – the only strangers a mother and daughter who have just arrived, whom I suppose I must invite, friends of the Wyverston Headforts, by-the-by,” he added, turning to Philippa.
But for once the name of Wyverston foiled to catch her attention, so engrossed was she in the question of Maida’s joining the picnic.
“Yes,” she said, speaking with reference to the first part of Mr Gresham’s speech, of which he felt instinctively that she greatly approved, “yes, dear Mrs Lermont, I really am sure it would do Maida no harm. We should all take such care of her, and you would be there yourself.”
“Of course,” said Mr Gresham, cordially, “I am counting on you and Mr Lermont, and Mr Raynsworth; I think the touch of antiquarian interest about the château may be a lure to him, may it not?” with a glance at Philippa.
“I have no doubt it would be,” she replied. “But I will make him come whether he cares about the fifteenth-century tower still standing or not,” said Philippa, laughingly.
“Miss Raynsworth, Miss Raynsworth,” said Mr Gresham, “you have been ‘reading up,’ and you will come out with your learning to shame us all.”
“That would be so like Philippa!” said Maida, touching the girl’s shoulder affectionately. “But, mother, we are waiting for your decision,” for Mrs Lermont had not spoken again.
“Silence gives consent,” said Philippa, and as her hostess only smiled, so her reply was interpreted.