“No, I suppose not,” said Philippa, half absently, for in her own mind she was thinking, “How strange it must be to care for anybody more than for one’s own people! I cannot picture it to myself at all.”
The few minutes she had spoken of to her mother turned out thirty at least, for more than half an hour had passed before her younger daughter rejoined Mrs Raynsworth in the drawing-room. And even then Philippa seemed so carried away and preoccupied that her mother felt again slightly irritated by her manner.
“Are you very tired this evening, Philippa?” she said at last; “or is there anything the matter? You don’t seem like yourself.”
Philippa gave a little start.
“I’m quite well – not the least tired, I mean,” she said, quickly. “I am thinking about Evelyn; there is nothing else the matter.”
“You mean about her going to-morrow alone?” said Mrs Raynsworth; “I am not at all happy about it myself. She looks so fragile, poor little thing. She is not nearly as strong as you, Philippa, in any way. But it is always a satisfaction to me to see how fond you are of each other; she clings to you so. And to tell you the truth, before she and the children came to us, I had some misgiving as to how it would be, for you were practically a child when she married, and those two or three years made all the difference. You had come to be so thoroughly the daughter at home – helping your father and me. I have perhaps never said to you before in so many words that I have been very pleased, very gratified by your whole tone towards and about Evey. You have been unselfish and self-forgetting all through.”
The young girl’s eyes glistened with pleasure. It was not often that Mrs Raynsworth – as a rule a somewhat silent and undemonstrative woman – expressed herself so unreservedly.
“Dear mamma,” said Philippa, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Evelyn. And I am so glad, so particularly glad, that you understand it. Thank you so much for what you’ve said. Now, I think I will go to bed if you don’t mind,” and she kissed her mother warmly.
“She must be tired, though she won’t own to it,” thought Mrs Raynsworth as Philippa left the room. “It is generally so difficult to get her to go to bed early,” and again the feeling came over her of there being something slightly unusual about her younger daughter that evening.
She would have been still more perplexed and surprised could she have seen Philippa an hour or two later in her own room. For long after the whole household was asleep, the girl was busily sewing at various articles of her attire, altering them and modifying them with the help of some small purchases she had made that afternoon. And when at last all was completed to her satisfaction, she drew out a small light trunk, already partially packed, which she proceeded to fill.
“I think that will do,” she said to herself, as she stood up and surveyed it with satisfaction. “With this and a hand-bag, and the things I’ll manage to get into Evelyn’s roll of rugs, I am sure I shall have all I need. Now I’ve only to write my letter of explanation to mamma. Dorcas must give it to her when it is quite certainly too late to overtake me.”
And half an hour later she was in bed and fast asleep, her mother’s words having removed any misgivings she had felt as to what she was about to do.
Mrs Headfort looked a little better the next morning, thanks to a good night’s rest; thanks also, perhaps, to the not unnatural excitement she was feeling about her journey and its results. Between her anticipations and her regret at leaving her children, she was sufficiently distracted not to notice that Philippa had slipped away in some mysterious fashion quite an hour before the time fixed for her own departure. It was actually not till she was standing at the hall door, waiting till the luggage should be safely established on the top of the fly before getting in herself, that she suddenly exclaimed:
“Where can Philippa be, mamma? I haven’t seen her since breakfast.”
Mrs Raynsworth glanced round with an air of annoyance.
“I have no idea,” she said. “She is certainly not with your father. What was it she was saying last night about not going to the station with you?”
“Oh, just that she couldn’t go; she has some mysterious engagement. But she might at least have said good-bye first.”
“It is so unlike her,” replied the mother. “And somehow I didn’t take it in, otherwise I would have got ready to see you off myself.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that part of it in the least,” said Evelyn. “It’s not as if it were a big crowded station. But tell Philippa, all the same, that I don’t understand her going off like that. Now, good-bye, dear mamma, and don’t worry about me. I shall be all right if I get good news of the children, and you or Phil will write every day, I’m sure – a mere word would be enough.”
“Yes, dear, of course we shall,” replied Mrs Raynsworth, reassuringly, though her face had a more anxious expression than usual. “I won’t ask you to write every day,” she went on, “for I know how tiresome it is to feel bound to do so when one is staying with people. Only let us know of your arrival as soon as you can, and say how you are.”
She stood watching the fly as it made its way down the short drive, waving her hand in response to Evelyn’s last smile and nod. Then she went slowly back into the house.
“I couldn’t have said anything to disturb Evelyn just as she was starting,” she thought to herself, “but I really do think Philippa is behaving most extraordinarily. I hope these very independent ways of hers are not the result of her visit to Dorriford. I wonder, by-the-by, if Dorcas knows where she is gone.”
But, strange to say, Dorcas was not to be found in any of her usual haunts, though one of the under-servants said she had seen her not five minutes before, up-stairs in Miss Philippa’s room. Tired and somewhat depressed, though she scarcely knew why, Mrs Raynsworth sat down in the drawing-room with a vague intention of writing a letter or otherwise employing herself usefully, but contrary to her usual habits, more than an hour passed before she exerted herself to do anything but gaze dreamily out of the window, where the now fast-falling leaves were whirling about fantastically in the breeze.
“I feel as if I were waiting for something, though for what I don’t know,” she thought, and it was with a start of surprise that the clock, striking one, caught her ear. “Dear me, how idle I have been – one o’clock! Evelyn must be well on her way by this. I wonder when Philippa intends to come in?”
Just then the door opened and Dorcas appeared. She carried a salver in her hand, and on it lay a letter.
“If you please, ma’am,” the old servant began, “Miss Philippa wished me to give you this at one o’clock, but not before. I don’t know what it’s about, I don’t, indeed,” she added, anxiously, “but I do hope there’s nothing wrong.”
Her words were well intended, but they only served to sharpen the uneasiness which Mrs Raynsworth was already feeling. Her face grew pale, and her heart beat painfully fast as she took hold of the envelope.
“A letter, and from Philippa!” she exclaimed; “what can it mean? No, don’t go away, Dorcas,” though the old servant had shown no sign of doing so. “If – if there is anything wrong,” – though what could have been wrong she would have been at a loss to say – “I must keep calm. Don’t go till I see what it is.” And with trembling fingers she opened the letter.
For Philippa had been preoccupied and unlike herself the night before, and even this very morning, there was no denying.
Chapter Four
Fellow-Travellers
In the meantime all had progressed smoothly with Mrs Headfort.
The train was already in the station when she and her boxes found themselves on the platform, for Marlby was a terminus in its small way. It lay about an hour off the main line, and as express