“Evelyn thought it a fine place, a good comfortable old house, though with nothing very striking about it, except, perhaps, the contrast with the great lonely moorland, on one side at least, round about it. There is something very impressive about moorland—so grim and yet pathetic,” said Philippa, half dreamily. Her eyes seemed to be gazing on the scene she suggested; and it was so. At that moment, instead of the sunny terrace, with the orange trees in their green tubs, and down below, the blue Mediterranean gleaming sapphire-like in the sun, with overhead the deep, all but cloudless sky, she was picturing to herself the cold grey morning aspect of the far-stretching lands on the east of Wyverston. She felt the very wind on her cheek, the breeze “with a flavour of the sea,” as the Headforts were fond of saying; she saw the tops of the trees in the pine woods to the left, and then emerging from their shade she seemed again to catch sight of the long smooth body of poor Solomon, ready to wriggle with pleasure at her approach. And Solomon’s master in his rough tweed suit and honest, kindly face—yes, it was an honesty kindly face—not far behind! What a pity—what a pity that he had come to think so poorly of her; there was something about the man that made her feel he would have been a good and steady friend. She could have learnt to like him. If ever—but here she was startled back into the present by Maida Lermont’s rallying tones.
“Philippa,” it said, “for the third time of asking! The thought of the moors up there in that bleak north seems to have bewitched you. Has Evelyn such graphic powers of description, for you have never been there yourself? What are you dreaming about? I spoke to you three times without your hearing me.”
Philippa turned to her cousin.
“I was dreaming about the moors; the moors and the pine woods,” she said simply. “It is not necessary to have seen places to think about them, is it? I often feel as if I knew all about scenes and countries I have even heard but little of; do you not feel so, sometimes? When I was little I used to fancy I must have seen places in my dreams—in real dreams, I mean, not daydreams.”
“Yes,” Maida agreed. “I think I have had the same fancy. And what is almost as curious is the way in which the slightest association brings back scenes that we had practically forgotten. A word, or a touch in a picture, or very often with me a scent or smell, is like magic. I find myself recalling certain events, or remembering minutely certain scenes and perhaps people that I had not thought of for years and years. It does seem as if what we are so often told must be true—that we do not really forget anything. But I think, dear, we must be going in; the sun gets very hot on this terrace. We shall drive a little later, and there is some plan about meeting the Bertrams—going there to afternoon tea, I think. So we shall probably see Evelyn’s hero.”
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 surely 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.