“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.
But want of courage was by no means a characteristic of the girl, and with the practical good sense which contrasted curiously with the dash of recklessness in her temperament, she now told herself that, after all, there was no real ground for these mental tremors.
“I am actually mistress of the situation,” she thought. “It does depend upon myself, and I am not afraid of breaking down once I am really started, for I have plenty of imagination. Rather too much, in some ways—if we had been arriving on a bright summer afternoon, with the sun shining and no feeling of mystery and gloom, I should have been quite in high spirits. After all, considering everything, I daresay it is safer for me to be rather depressed.”
Very grave she was, very grave, indeed, as she stood behind Mrs Headfort in the hall a moment or two later. She was intensely eager to judge of the nature of Evelyn’s reception by her new relatives, but for the present she had small opportunity for observing anything. No member of the family was visible—only an irreproachable, grey-haired butler was informing her sister that the ladies were in the drawing-room, ere he turned to show her the way thither, and Evelyn, as she followed him, glanced back for an instant with a half-piteous, half-humorous expression which made Philippa feel as if she must either laugh or cry—which, she could not have decided.
To neither inclination, of course, did she yield; she did not even speak, as, in her turn, she followed a younger man-servant who civilly offered to show her the way to the housekeeper’s room, a new question presenting itself to her mind at the words. What sort of person would the housekeeper turn out to be? A great deal might hang upon this—everything almost, in fact; and as the vision of some housekeepers she had seen, stout and self-satisfied, innately vulgar in their very civility and obsequiousness to their superiors, rose before her mind’s eye, again it came home to Miss Raynsworth that she had been far from realising what she was undertaking.
A door in the somewhat dimly-lighted passage was thrown open, and as the footman stood aside to let her pass in, a pleasant, gentle voice met her ears.
“Good-evening,” it said, quietly; “you must have had rather a cold journey. You have just arrived with Mrs Marmaduke Headfort, have you not? Take a seat by the fire,” and as Philippa murmured her thanks and glanced round her at the neat, comfortable little room, Mrs Shepton, for such was her name, went on with increasing kindliness of tone, as she saw that the girl seemed young, and suspected that she was timid.—“It is long past tea-time, of course, but I have ordered a little for you. I thought you would be glad of it.”
“I shall be very glad of it, indeed,” said Philippa, looking up gratefully, and speaking in the slow, careful way she had determined to adopt, and in the housekeeper’s face she read nothing to modify the first instinct of confidence and satisfaction drawn forth by the tone of her voice.
Mrs Shepton was an elderly woman, with a pleasant though somewhat careworn face. She had “known trouble” in her time, and many details of her sad, though by no means uncommon little history were confided to Philippa’s sympathising ears before her stay at Wyverston came to an end. And with some natures sorrow elevates as well as softens; though not in any conventional sense superior to her class, the good housekeeper was one whom no true woman, of whatever position, need have hesitated to call a friend. And Philippa’s instincts were quick and keen.
“She is nice, and good, and kind,” she decided at once. “It will make the greatest possible difference to me to have to do with such a woman. I feel as if she were a superior sort of Dorcas.”