MY long separation from my father was at length drawing to a close. He spoke hopefully of his return to England, and even named the vessel in which he intended to take his passage. "Shall I find my girl much altered, I wonder?" he wrote. "Taller, no doubt, and I hope wiser, but in heart just the same as when she left me, and with as tender a corner as ever for her poor old dad." I made so many plans for Father's return. All my best sketches and collections were put by to show to him, and I toiled hard at music, so that he might not be disappointed with my playing. I thought how I would introduce Cathy to him, and how much he would admire her, and how perhaps we could go and stay somewhere near Marshlands in the holidays, so that he could see all the Winstanleys together. I imagined him coming to our Mid-summer breaking-up party, and how proud and happy I should be to have him there. It was an annual occasion to which the parents and friends of the girls were invited, and I had often felt, with a little pang, when I saw the warm greetings between others, that it seemed hard to have no one there to love me specially above everyone else. At last I was to have my own dear one all to myself, and I counted the days till his return, crossing each off on the calendar when I went to bed at night, and thinking that I was one day nearer to our meeting. Now that his arrival seemed so close, I was full of impatience, and felt that the time would scarcely pass, and I wondered sometimes how I had managed to live through those five long years without him.
He was to sail in the Ignacia, a Spanish vessel bound for London, and the steamer was cabled to have started on her voyage. Each night I thought of Father tossing on the ocean, and each morning when I awoke, I pictured him a little nearer to me than when I had fallen asleep. I was so excited I could scarcely attend to my lessons, and the teachers, knowing my story, did not press me too hard. And so the weeks passed by, and the great day of my happiness drew near.
I was sitting one afternoon at my drawing class. It was early June, and the windows were wide open, letting in the fragrant scent of the lilac and hawthorn from the garden below, and the imperative song of a chaffinch to his mate in the elm-tree close by. Sometimes, in memory of greater events, little incidents make a great impression upon one's mind. I can recall every line of the Italian boy's head which I was copying, and the sound of the scratch of Janet's pencil, as she laboriously shaded a chalk study. I felt unusually restless and disinclined to apply myself to my work. The air was heavy and still, there was a grumble of thunder in the distance, and the silence of the room broken only by an occasional criticism from the master, as he corrected our drawings, grew almost unbearable. Gathering clouds were already darkening the sky, and threatened a storm, and a vague foreboding of evil seemed to come over my mind, dulling the keen edge of my happiness. Does some subtle instinct, as yet neither known nor understood, warn us when those we hold dear are in peril? Does our love set in motion unseen waves of sympathy, so that the heart feels the message which has not yet been told in words? I think so; for when the door opened and Miss Wilton entered, I knew before she spoke that she had come for me. There was an unwonted pity and kindness in her voice as she quietly ordered me to leave my drawing, and come to Mrs. Marshall. With trembling fingers I put away my pencils and obeyed. She took my hand, and led me silently downstairs. There was a sound of voices in the drawing-room, and Aunt Agatha was there, seated on the sofa. She had been crying, and she rose quickly when I entered. Mrs. Marshall put her arm round my neck and kissed me, but said nothing.
"Philippa dear," said my aunt, with more tenderness than I had ever given her credit for, "can you bear me to tell you some very bad news?"
I could not speak. A great fear rose in my heart, and almost choked me. My speechless lips framed the one question: "Father?"
"He is not come yet. He will be a long time coming. Oh! my poor child, he will never come! The Ignacia has gone down with all hands on board."
I would pass over the first outbreak of my grief, for it is so black a remembrance, such a thickness of utter darkness and despair, that the very memory of it hurts. I begged to be allowed to remain at school. Many kind friends wished me to visit them, but I felt that to plunge myself more than ever into my lessons and the coming examinations was the only way to dull the keen edge of the sorrow that was wounding me so sorely. Mrs. Marshall agreed with me, and by keeping my time most fully occupied did me the truest kindness that in the circumstances she was able to perform. A kind of dull passiveness came over me, which they mistook for resignation. They thought I was beginning to forget, but there are some sorrows which never really die, however deeply we may seek to bury them, and every now and then my grief would awaken with renewed force. The summer term dragged on towards its close. How I dreaded the breaking-up party, with all its festivities! I wished I could go away before it, though I did not like to ask to do so. The examinations were over, and I stood high in my class, but my success gave me no pleasure. What was the use of doing well, I thought bitterly, when my father was not there to rejoice over it! I felt so unutterably solitary and alone in the world, and even Cathy's love and the many thoughtful kindnesses of my friends could not make up to me for that greatest of all losses.
The day of the party at last arrived. How different from anything I had planned! I set out my white dress and black sash with a sigh. Cathy, who was watching me with anxious eyes, tried to talk about home, for I was returning to Marshlands with her for part of the holidays, and Janet, too, did her best to give the conversation a hopeful turn.
"This visitor's arriving early," said Millicent, who was leaning out of my window, looking down the drive, as a cab drew up at the front-door. "It's a gentleman," she announced, standing back a little behind the curtain, so as not to be seen, "I don't know who he is. One of Mrs. Marshall's friends, I suppose. Do you want to peep, Phil?"
I felt no interest in the guests of the evening, however, and I had not even the curiosity to look out. We heard a slight bustle of arrival downstairs, and I did not give the matter another thought. But a short time afterwards Lucy came running into our bedroom with a look of peculiar excitement on her face.