“Yes, please do,” said Philippa, heartily. – “Mr Gresham, did you say,” she continued. “Is that a gentleman with a dog? I saw the name on some luggage at the station, which must have belonged to him. They travelled part of the way in our train – in the carriage I was in – second-class, but I didn’t see any valet.”
There was a touch of curiosity in her tone, which rather surprised and possibly disappointed the housekeeper.
“The Mr Gresham I alluded to,” she said, somewhat stiffly, “has been staying here some time. The young gentleman who came down to-day is Mr Michael, his cousin. You must excuse me, my dear, if I remind you not to speak of your lady as Mrs Headfort, but as Mrs Marmaduke,” she went on. “She is, of course, Mrs Headfort next to my lady, but still – ”
“Certainly,” interrupted Philippa, heartily, “I will be careful about it. Thank you for reminding me, Mrs Shepton. And indeed,” she continued, “I should be very much obliged to you if you will tell me – me myself – of anything you think I require advice about. I am not very experienced, as you can see;” and in her own mind she thought, “this is an excellent precaution to take. It will prevent any gossip about me which might not otherwise come to my ears. For I am sure this good woman is thoroughly to be trusted. And if the Mr Gresham here really proves to be the one I met at Dorriford, I must be doubly on the alert. It is really too strange a coincidence.”
Philippa’s last words quite gained Mrs Shepton’s heart, and made her slight sensation of disapproval of the young girl’s apparent lapse into gossip concerning any of the visitors at Wyverston disappear. Her eyes had the kindliest light in them as she replied:
“It will please me very much indeed, my dear, if you will look upon me while you’re here as if I were in a mother’s place to you; and now, I daresay, I had better take you to your room – the sooner you take your things off the better, as the dressing-gong will be sounding soon. Take care,” as Philippa wavered a little on first getting up; “are you so very short-sighted?”
“Oh, no,” said Philippa, “I wear spectacles as a precaution;” the truth being that her unaccustomedness to the glasses, and the reflection of the firelight upon them, had dazzled her a little.
“Oh,” said Mrs Shepton, tranquilly. “It is best to err on the safe side if your eyes are at all weakly. But I should have been sorry if you had really feeble sight, it stands so much in a maid’s way.”
So saying, she opened the door of the room and led the way along the passage to a staircase at the farther end.
Chapter Seven
A Successful Début
In all large country-houses of a certain importance, there is more or less resemblance in the internal aspect of things. And this Philippa felt conscious of as she followed Mrs Shepton up-stairs – across landings, down passages, and up-stairs again.
“I could fancy myself back at Dorriford,” she said to herself, with mingled sensations. “It is barely a week since I left it. What would Maida Lermont think if she could see me now? What would I have thought myself, if I had had a vision of the present state of things? Yet Dorriford is as different as possible from this place – all bright and fresh there, and this old house seems to breathe stiffness and formality. I am sure Evey will be frightened if they put her into one of the state bedrooms. I do hope my room won’t be far from hers.”
She was learning prudence, however, and said nothing till surer of her ground. And her reticence was rewarded. For just as, with some dismay, she caught sight of another staircase, evidently leading to some very upper regions indeed, the housekeeper stopped short, turning down a small and almost dark passage on the floor where they were.
“Our own maidservants’ rooms are up that staircase,” said the housekeeper, “and also two or three for visitors’ ladies’ maids. But there is a little room close beside Mrs Marmaduke’s, which my lady thought would be best for you. It opens into her dressing-room by another door – this is therefore a sort of back-way to her rooms. My ladies thought she might feel strange, this being her first visit, and with her not being very strong, as I understand.”
The good woman did not add that the suggestion had in great measure emanated from herself, however readily it had been adopted by her mistress.
“Oh, I am glad, said Philippa, eagerly. I don’t mind anything as long as I am near her,” for as Mrs Shepton opened the door of the small apartment intended for Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s maid, she murmured something, almost in a tone of apology, about its very restricted size.
The housekeeper glanced at her with kindly approval, not unmixed, however, perhaps, with a little amusement. Philippa had spoken impulsively and more in her own character than she realised.
“How devoted she is to her lady,” thought the elder woman. “She will be laughed at for it, I daresay, by other servants, and perhaps it may be well for her not to express it quite so warmly. But it reflects credit on them both. Mrs Marmaduke must be a sweet young lady. It will be very nice if my ladies take a fancy to her, and then some day, perhaps, we shall be having the dear little boy here.”
For the premature death of the two sons of the house, and the failure of an heir to Wyverston, had been felt scarcely less acutely by the attached old servants than by the Headforts themselves. And Mrs Shepton had been full of eager interest in the overtures at last, though somewhat tardily made, to her master’s cousin, now the next in succession.
Philippa’s modest luggage was already standing unstrapped in her room. It was evident that all the arrangements at Wyverston were punctual and orderly.
“Through here are Mrs Marmaduke’s rooms,” said Mrs Shepton. “I daresay you will have time to get some unpacking done before she comes up to dress. And you must be sure to tell me of anything she wants, or anything not quite to her mind. There are two bells, you see,” and she went on to explain where they rang to; “it is just as well to have one to up-stairs, even though you are close at hand. For this part of the house is rather shut out from the rest, as you see; it is a sort of little wing apart, and there is another to match it on the north side. My lady chose these south rooms, as so much warmer.”
They were very good rooms, rendered more cheerful than they would otherwise have been by bright fires. For as Philippa had anticipated, they were very stately and somewhat gloomy.
“I am quite certain Evey would have been awfully afraid of sleeping here alone,” she thought, but aloud she thanked the housekeeper for all her care and consideration.
“And where shall I go, when Mrs Marmaduke is dressed and gone down to dinner?” she inquired, half timidly.
Mrs Shepton considered. She felt quite a motherly interest in Phillis Ray.
“You will be busy for some time arranging all your lady’s things,” she said. “I will send up to fetch you in time for supper; it would be pleasanter for you than coming down to the room by yourself.”
“The room?” Philippa repeated, in some perplexity.
“Our room, of course, I mean,” said the housekeeper, smiling. “Supper is at half-past nine. Our second-housemaid is a very nice girl, rather young, perhaps, for the post, but a superior girl in many ways. Her name is Bell – Isabella Bell, a curious first name to choose, isn’t it? The head-housemaid is quite an elderly woman, who has been here for many years. My ladies think very highly of her, and,” – with the slightest touch of hesitation – “she expects to be treated very respectfully by the younger ones.”
Philippa laughed slightly.
“Thank you for warning me, Mrs Shepton,” she said.
As she spoke she was already taking off her bonnet and cloak, and again the housekeeper felt approval of her evident alertness.
“I will leave you now,” she said; “you will need all your time to get things ready,” and so saying, she went away.
As soon as she had the room to herself, Philippa sat down on the little bed with a deep sigh of relief.
“How nice it is to be myself again, even for a moment,” she thought. “How shall I ever be able to endure the not being it for a whole week or more? But how thankful I am that the housekeeper is such a nice, good woman; how very thankful! At the worst, at the very worst, if any really terrible complications arise, I almost think I might confide in her; I am sure she has nice feelings in every way.”
This was something to fall back upon, and indeed she required it; for the realisation of the presence in the house, of a man whom she was almost sure was the same as the “silent Mr Gresham” whom she had met at Dorriford, was undoubtedly appalling.
“I mustn’t frighten Evey about it,” she considered, “but I must find out about him from her without betraying why. His being here and having seen me before, might not, after all, have mattered much; he saw so little of me, and when we were walking about the garden I could scarcely get him to speak. I wonder if he thought me very young? I noticed him, as anybody must have done, because he is so extremely good-looking! But the thing that frightens me is the stupid way in which I drew the other Mr Gresham’s attention upon me in the train. One could not have invented anything so unlucky,” but here the sound of an opening door startled her. “I must be quick,” she thought, with a glance in the looking-glass, and a hasty touch at her somewhat ruffled hair, “or I shall have nothing ready for Evey.” It was not her sister, however, only a housemaid with hot water, as Philippa saw, as she made her way through the dressing-room. A civil “good-evening,” however, was all that the servant stopped to say, being evidently in a hurry.
“Now,” thought Philippa, “comes a part of my rôle that I shall really enjoy. It will be charming to make Evelyn look her prettiest, and I know she will wear exactly what I tell her. I do love nice clothes,” and with great satisfaction she proceeded to lift out her sister’s carefully chosen “trousseau” for the occasion.
She had just finished laying out on the bed the dress she had mentally fixed upon as the most suitable for this first evening – a sort of début it seemed to Philippa, and far from an unimportant one, when again the door opened, this time to admit Evelyn herself, followed, or rather, strictly speaking, preceded by the eldest of the unmarried daughters of the house.
“I do hope you will find everything as you like it, and do ask for anything you want,” said Miss Headfort, as she ushered in the young guest. “Dinner is at eight, so you have nearly an hour still; time to rest a little before dressing.”
The voice was a pleasantly modulated one, and its tone was undoubtedly cordial. From the other side of the room, Philippa glanced round with curiosity to catch sight of the speaker. She was a tall, rather slight woman, in figure and bearing looking perhaps younger than her age, which was quite forty. But her face was not young; there were lines of sorrow upon it, and her dark eyes, though really sweet in expression when one came to see them closely, were wanting in vivacity and light.
“Why,” thought Philippa to herself, “she looks a hundred times more melancholy than Maida, and yet her life cannot have been as hard – except, of course, for the brothers’ deaths,” – with a little pang of self-reproach at her momentary forgetfulness, “but I do think she seems nice and kind to Evey,” and this agreeable impression was confirmed by the sound of her sister’s voice in reply.
“Thank you; I am sure I shall be as comfortable as possible,” said Evelyn. “Will you call for me on your way down-stairs?” she added, with the touch of appeal which to her sister’s discerning ears told at once of her having “taken to” this new relative.
“Certainly, if you like,” was the reply, and the little touch Miss Headfort gave to Evelyn’s shoulder as she left the room told of evident gratification.
For a moment or two after the door closed, Philippa remained stooping over a trunk without speaking. It was not till Evelyn flung herself on the sofa and called out to her half petulantly, that she thought it safe to reply.
“Why don’t you speak, Phil?” she said. “You surely don’t intend to keep up the farce when we are safely alone by ourselves?”
“It would really be better to do so,” replied Philippa, cautiously, glancing round at both doors before she finally emerged from the shelter of the big trunk, “but, of course, I won’t do anything to worry you, Evey. I suppose there is no fear of any one coming to this room before Miss Headfort returns?”
She crossed the floor to the sofa where her sister lay, as she spoke.
Evelyn in her turn glanced round half-nervously.
“You will make me too fidgety for anything,” she said. “No, I don’t think it is the least likely that any one will come; the housemaid has brought the hot water, I see, and the trunks are all up. And even if any one did come, they would knock at the door – oh, bother, there are two doors! I hate a room with two doors. I never know which to be most frightened of in the night.”
“This one,” said Philippa, indicating it as she spoke, “leads into a dressing-room, and out of that again, the little room where I sleep. It was very thoughtful of them to put me so near you, but if you would rather lock the doors between us at night, I have no objection.”
She spoke laughingly, but underneath the jesting tone there was a touch of slightly hurt feeling. She had been longing so to see her sister again, even after the one half-hour’s separation; she was so intensely anxious to know what had passed in the drawing-room, and now here was Evelyn, not even affectionate, the very reverse of clinging!
“Nonsense,” said her sister; “of course I’m only too delighted to have you close by. I would like to look at the rooms,” and she half sat up as if with the purpose of doing so, but sank down again. “Oh, I am tired,” she said, wearily. “Get a footstool, Philippa, if there is one, and come and sit on the floor beside me, the way we do at home. Oh, don’t you wish we were at home again? It’s all so strange and – ”
“No,” interrupted Philippa, her warm heart going out again with a rush of tenderness the very instant any appeal was made to it. “No, you’re not to say ‘lonely’ just when I am here on purpose to prevent you feeling so.”
She had espied a footstool by this time and drew it forward as her sister wished.
“Now,” she said, “we can talk comfortably for a few minutes; unless, indeed, it would be better for you not to talk at all, and rest entirely till you have to dress.”
Evelyn lay back with closed eyes; she certainly was looking very pale now, but what else could have been expected?
“I am glad I came,” thought her sister, conscious that a momentary feeling almost of jealousy of the new cousin had passed through her. “I am glad I came, and if she does get on well with these people, even to the extent of not seeming to need me, I won’t mind. I shall know it is only on the surface. What she would have done without me, practically speaking, I really don’t know! She is about as fit just now to look out her things and dress herself, as a mouse to draw a train. And what would her hair be like? It’s in a perfect chaos of fluff, and I am certain that the Headforts wear theirs perfectly smooth and have no fringes.”
She smiled at the thought, and as she did so, Evelyn opened her eyes.
“What are you laughing at?” she inquired, languidly, and as her sister told her, she, too, smiled.
“Yes,” she replied, “you are quite right. They have all three got dark hair, as smooth as – oh, I can’t trouble to find a comparison – ‘as smoove as smoove’ as Bonny says – dear Bonny! But I do think they mean to be nice, really nice and cordial, Phil, especially Felicia, the one you saw just now; she is the eldest. Perhaps I’d better not talk much – ”
“You had better talk in a lower voice,” said Philippa; “it is less tiring, and safer too. All I want to know just now is that you do think you will be able to get on with them without much effort.”
“Ye-es, I do think so,” answered Evelyn. “I must try to be a little more dignified than I am at home, and that is rather a strain.”
“You can be beautifully dignified when you choose,” said Philippa, encouragingly.
“It is not on the daughters’ account I must be so,” continued Evelyn. “I think they would like me the better if I seemed rather childish; there is no affectation of being younger than they are, about either of them. But it is Mrs Headfort; she associates me, I feel instinctively, with the wife of the possible future master of Wyverston, who, she thinks, no doubt, should be as stately as herself.”
“I only hope she does associate with you that personage,” said Philippa, brightly; “it would certainly incline us to like her all the better. I think,” she went on thoughtfully, “there is something beautiful and elevating in that sort of regard for one’s family, if not carried too far. Some people call it only an extended form of selfishness, but at least it is not a low kind. And, after all, doing one’s best for those nearest us is not selfishness; it is simply right.”
“There is something almost beautiful about Mrs Headfort herself,” said Evelyn, “though there is something wanting, too, in her face. It is a little hard, and yet certainly not unfeeling; she has evidently felt tremendously.”
“But troubles do harden some people,” said Philippa, “though often more on the surface than lower down. They get afraid of ever loosening their armour, as it were, for fear of breaking down.”
“How wise you are, Phil!” said Evelyn, admiringly. “I never thought of things in that way when I was your age. I shouldn’t wonder,” she went on, reflectively, as if she had made a great discovery, “if it were partly Mrs Headfort’s hair that makes her look hard. It is quite dark, did I tell you? And when people get old, I think grey or white hair is so much prettier. I do hope mine will get white – mamma’s is so nice,” and she put up her hand to her own wavy locks as if to feel if the desired transformation had already taken place.
“Now, Evelyn,” said Philippa, seriously, “leave off chattering. You may go to sleep for twenty minutes still; I will undertake to get you perfectly ready in the time that remains. I have got out nearly everything you will want, and you are to wear exactly what I have chosen.”
Evelyn smiled submissively.
“I must just say one thing, Phil,” she began again, “and that is for your satisfaction. I do believe the Headforts would have been perfectly aghast if I had come without a maid. And that reminds me – how do you think you are going to bear it? Will it be endurable?”
“Much better than endurable,” said Philippa, “but I will tell you about it afterwards. The housekeeper is a dear old woman. And on your side you must notice everything, to amuse me. I shall want to know all about the other people staying in the house.”
Then she resolutely turned away, and busied herself afresh with completing the preparations for her sister’s evening toilet.
At the appointed time came Miss Headfort’s tap at the door, and in response to Evelyn’s “come in,” the eldest daughter of the house made her appearance. Philippa looked at her with considerable interest – a double interest, indeed; she was both curious to have a better view of Miss Headfort herself, and also most anxious to observe the effect upon her of the charming personality before her. Mingled with her sisterly pride in Evelyn, there was now what one may almost call the pride of the artist in his handiwork, and for both there was good cause.
Evelyn had left herself entirely to her sister’s mercies, and the result was such that even Felicia Headfort’s melancholy eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of her cousin’s wife, whose lovely fairness was shown to great advantage by the pale, blush-rose tint of her dress. Her naturally beautiful hair owed much also to Philippa’s careful manipulation, all the more deft and clever in that there was not the slightest appearance of studied art about it – the little bow of pink velvet to match her dress really looking as if it had flown down of itself to nestle among the wavy coils. Evelyn’s stock of jewellery was limited; for this important occasion she wore the one good ornament which her Duke had, with much unsuspected self-denial, gathered together enough money to procure for her – a string of fair-sized pearls.
“My dear,” said Miss Headfort, impulsively, “your dress is quite charming, and you do not look the least tired now. You will quite bewitch my father, I am sure.” Evelyn smiled.
“How nice you look yourself,” she said to her cousin, gently stroking the sleeve of Felicia’s soft, grey velvet bodice, for though far more than the orthodox term of black attire for the loss of their two brothers had passed, the Headfort sisters had not yet – if indeed they ever would discard it – worn anything but half-mourning.
Miss Headfort looked very handsome in her velvet and rich old lace; handsomer than Philippa had expected from her former glimpse of her. And the two figures together harmonised from their very dissimilarity. The sight was gratifying to the girl’s sensitive perceptions of beauty; but as she stood there in the background in her plain, black dress and disfiguring spectacles, unnoticed, and in a sense unthought of, even by her sister, it would be untrue to human nature, to girl nature especially, to say that no shadow of mortification passed over her as she again realised, and this time more fully than hitherto, the abnormal position she had placed herself in.
But almost simultaneously her vigorous resolution of character, greatly assisted in the present case by her vivid sense of humour, reasserted itself. There was a considerable amount of triumph, too, in the success of her plan.
“I do believe,” she thought, “that I shall be able to carry it through perfectly to the – no, I won’t say ‘bitter end’ – but till the curtain drops for ever, I hope, for I am quite sure I shall have had enough of my rôle by then, as ‘Phillis Ray, lady’s-maid.’ Though but for her, goodness only knows what Mrs Marmaduke Headfort would have been looking like at the present moment – as to her headgear above all!”
A glance of affectionate gratitude from Evelyn as she followed her conductress out of the room, added to Philippa’s self-congratulation. Still more so, a word or two from Miss Headfort which caught her ears as, suddenly discovering that her sister’s fan was still reposing on the dressing-table, she ran after her with it, a few steps down the passage – “very clever maid yours seems to be; she must – ” But the rest of the sentence was deferred, as Evelyn turned to take the fan held out to her.
“Poor Phil,” thought Mrs Marmaduke, as she entered the drawing-room, with a curious mingling of pride in her sister, and regret almost amounting to irritation at the state of things she had brought about, “I really can’t bear to think of her up there alone! For I do feel as if it were all going to be very nice, and that, but for her, I could really enjoy myself. So I must just try not to think of her for the time. I am sure it is what she would wish.”
And acting on this comfortable determination, she was able to respond with unembarrassed graciousness to the cordial, though somewhat formal, greeting of her host, who came forward to meet them as soon as he caught sight of his elder daughter’s entrance into the room.
And, as Felicia had predicted, the charm of Evelyn’s half-appealing yet dignified manner, added to her extreme prettiness, did its work. From that moment the old man’s subjugation was complete.
That it was so, was from the first a source of satisfaction to his wife and daughters. For they were not only good, high-principled women – they were personally unselfish, and superior to all petty, feminine jealousies, and with much latent tenderness of nature, unsuspected by those who only judged them by the surface stiffness of manner.
Christine, the second Miss Headfort, though some years younger than her sister, scarcely appeared so. She was less handsome in features, but so much brighter in complexion and colouring that at first sight she was the most striking; but in spite of Wyverston Manor and its traditions, there was a touch of the “advanced woman” about her, which showed itself unpleasingly in a rather obtrusive “superiority” to her dress and general appearance.
“I am plain-looking,” she was wont to inform her friends, with a certain pride, “and no longer young, and I am not going to pretend to be otherwise. And I am splendidly strong, and intend to keep my health at all costs, so I do not care in the least about my complexion or my figure. I go out in all weathers, and ignore the existence of whalebone and steel.”
But she was a very agreeable woman, nevertheless – her bark infinitely worse than her bite – full of real kindness of heart. And if a trifle dictatorial in her way of showing this, and perhaps irritatingly convinced that a Miss Headfort of Wyverston could “do no wrong,” it was easy to forgive and even forget those foibles in one so ready to put herself aside whenever called upon to do so for the sake of others; so genuinely compassionate to the suffering or oppressed. She loved all animals, and was loved by them in return; she would have loved little children had she known more about them; thus with her, too, Evelyn’s fragile and almost childlike appearance only prepossessed her in the young wife’s favour.