Mrs. Molesworth - Philippa

“We are not very far from the coast, I know,” she thought to herself, “but I had no idea it was such hilly country. It must be very bleak in winter,” and the thought made her hasten to her sister to ensure her wrapping up before leaving the shelter of her comfortable compartment.

Mrs Headfort was looking out for her.

“Evey,” began Philippa hastily, but in an instant corrected herself. “You must let me undo the rugs, ma’am,” she said in the quiet tone of voice she had adopted to suit her new personality. “It is ever so much colder here than at home.”

“Naturally,” said Evelyn; “we have been coming north all the way. Yes, I suppose we had better get out my fur cloak.”

There was no time to do so in the carriage, however. But when all their belongings were safely collected on the platform, Philippa hastened to extricate the garment in question. She had laid the bundle of rugs on the top of a portmanteau, imagining it to be one of their own boxes; but as she strapped up the roll again, the letters “M.V.G.” on the surface beneath caught her eyes, and glancing round she noticed a gun-case on which was painted in white letters the name “M.V. Gresham.”

“How odd!” she thought; “whose things can these be? No other passenger has got out. And what a strange coincidence that I had said to myself that Solomon’s master somehow reminded me of Mr Gresham at Dorriford!”

“This luggage is not ours,” she went on aloud, to the attendant porter; “has it been put out by mistake?”

“It’s all right, miss,” said a young footman, whom she now observed for the first time; “it’s to go up in the cart along of your lady’s. Mr Gresham – I should say Mr Michael – always gets out at Linley and walks up across the moor.”

Philippa’s heart for a moment seemed to stand still. She saw it all in a flash. The young man, her fellow-traveller, some relation no doubt of his namesake at Dorriford, was evidently an habitué of Wyverston – an expected guest there like her sister Evelyn!

She bit her lips with vexation and dismay. “To think what a fool I have made of myself! Was there ever anything so unlucky?” and her inward feelings gave a stiffness to her manner scarcely judicious under the circumstances, as she turned to the civil-spoken young servant, hardly more than a boy in years.

“Will you see to those things then,” she said, as she turned with the cloak to wrap it round her sister, already shivering with the fresh air, which to Philippa’s stronger frame seemed pleasantly bracing.

“The maid’s far high-and-mightier than the lady,” thought the young fellow to himself, as Evelyn thanked him with her usual pretty graciousness as he arranged a fur carriage-rug round her when she was seated in the brougham. And this first impression was not improbably communicated to his fellow-servants at the Hall.

“Phil,” said Evelyn, eagerly, as they drove off, “I’ve quite made up my mind already that I don’t at all want Duke to succeed to Wyverston. It’s far too bleak and cold. It would kill me; I don’t know how I shall stand even my week here.”

Philippa could not help laughing.

“You really are too absurd, Evey,” she said, “in the way you jump at conclusions. I shouldn’t wonder if the bracing air were to do you a great deal of good, and the house is pretty sure to be warm and comfortable. But there, now, you are tempting me again to forget whom I am. You really mustn’t do it, Evelyn; it makes it so much harder to get into it again each time.”

“We can’t sit looking at each other without speaking, and when we are alone together it would be a perfect absurdity to keep up the farce. Why, you said yourself what a comfort it would be to have a good talk now and then,” remonstrated Mrs Headfort.

“We shall have to be very guarded about it,” said Philippa, gravely, “very guarded indeed. To tell you the truth, I do not think I realised how very difficult I should find it to act my part consistently.”

“Why, you have scarcely begun it yet,” said her sister. “You have had no opportunity of testing yourself.”

Philippa did not reply at once, then she said more lightly:

“All the more reason for beginning it now in good earnest. Don’t let us talk about anything personal just at present; I wish we were in an open carriage, this sort of country is so new to me, such a contrast with home. I like the feeling of the air, a mixture of moor and sea.”

“I think it’s awfully chilly and bleak-looking,” said Evelyn, with a little shiver. “But I always have a sort of cold feeling on arriving at a strange place. It may go off after a little.”

“It is only nervousness,” said Philippa, encouragingly.

“No, no,” said Evelyn, “it is worse than that. If you weren’t here, I should be most terribly homesick already. You don’t know what I suffered, Phil, after I was married, when we went out to India, even though Duke was always so kind. And now, since I came back, I have learnt to lean on you so! I am afraid I am rather contemptibly weak.”

“Poor little Evey,” said her sister, tenderly. “You mustn’t say that of yourself; I understand you perfectly. Physical strength has a great deal to do with moral strength, after all. But, oh, dear! we are falling back worse than ever! Now, I am not going to say another word till we get to the house.”

Evelyn was not attracted by the rather wild scenery through which they were passing. She leant back in her corner and shut her eyes, which her sister did not regret, as anything was better than going on talking as they had been doing. To her the look of the country was full of interest, and from its very novelty invigorating.

“I hope I shall sometimes be able to go a good walk by myself,” she thought. “If only I could make friends with some nice dog who would come with me – dogs generally like me – but, oh, dear! that reminds me of Solomon, he is sure to be there; how shall I be able to keep out of his way? Dogs are so acute. What ill-fate made me get into that unlucky compartment!”

Her reflections and misgivings, however, were brought to an end more quickly than she had expected. They had got over the four miles between the railway station and Wyverston Hall with greater rapidity than she had realised, and she almost started as they suddenly, or so it seemed to her, turned in at lodge gates, exchanging the hard high-road for the pleasant smoothness of a well-kept drive. It had grown much darker, too, for the avenue at Wyverston was bordered by massive trees of too sturdy growth to suffer much from the exposed situation. What manner of trees they were, just now it was impossible to tell – only the faint fragrance of the falling leaves, and their rustle under the wheels passing over them, told that autumn winds were already at work.

Sensitive to every natural influence, however trivial, Philippa peered out into the dusk with a curious sense of enjoyment.

“There is something ever so much more romantic about it than about my arrival at Dorriford,” she thought. “I really feel as if I were on the brink of something tremendously interesting. I wonder what? I daresay it’s all excitement! I have often had these presentiments before, without their leading to anything. Certainly the thought of tea in the servants’-hall, or possibly in the housekeeper’s room – let me devoutly hope it will be the latter – is enough to damp any attractive anticipations,” and suddenly there came over her a strong yearning to be where she was, in her own character – an instinctive revolt from the position she had placed herself in, however praiseworthy the motive. And as she sat there in silence, these mingled sensations culminated in a vague fear, almost amounting to terror, of what might be before her, of the unknown risks to which she might be exposing herself by the extraordinary step she had taken – risks outside herself, in no way connected with the completeness or incompleteness with which she might carry out her part.