“Poor Phil,” thought Mrs Marmaduke, as she entered the drawing-room, with a curious mingling of pride in her sister, and regret almost amounting to irritation at the state of things she had brought about, “I really can’t bear to think of her up there alone! For I do feel as if it were all going to be very nice, and that, but for her, I could really enjoy myself. So I must just try not to think of her for the time. I am sure it is what she would wish.”
And acting on this comfortable determination, she was able to respond with unembarrassed graciousness to the cordial, though somewhat formal, greeting of her host, who came forward to meet them as soon as he caught sight of his elder daughter’s entrance into the room.
And, as Felicia had predicted, the charm of Evelyn’s half-appealing yet dignified manner, added to her extreme prettiness, did its work. From that moment the old man’s subjugation was complete.
That it was so, was from the first a source of satisfaction to his wife and daughters. For they were not only good, high-principled women—they were personally unselfish, and superior to all petty, feminine jealousies, and with much latent tenderness of nature, unsuspected by those who only judged them by the surface stiffness of manner.
Christine, the second Miss Headfort, though some years younger than her sister, scarcely appeared so. She was less handsome in features, but so much brighter in complexion and colouring that at first sight she was the most striking; but in spite of Wyverston Manor and its traditions, there was a touch of the “advanced woman” about her, which showed itself unpleasingly in a rather obtrusive “superiority” to her dress and general appearance.
“I am plain-looking,” she was wont to inform her friends, with a certain pride, “and no longer young, and I am not going to pretend to be otherwise. And I am splendidly strong, and intend to keep my health at all costs, so I do not care in the least about my complexion or my figure. I go out in all weathers, and ignore the existence of whalebone and steel.”
But she was a very agreeable woman, nevertheless—her bark infinitely worse than her bite—full of real kindness of heart. And if a trifle dictatorial in her way of showing this, and perhaps irritatingly convinced that a Miss Headfort of Wyverston could “do no wrong,” it was easy to forgive and even forget those foibles in one so ready to put herself aside whenever called upon to do so for the sake of others; so genuinely compassionate to the suffering or oppressed. She loved all animals, and was loved by them in return; she would have loved little children had she known more about them; thus with her, too, Evelyn’s fragile and almost childlike appearance only prepossessed her in the young wife’s favour.
Chapter Eight.
A Morning Ramble.
The party this evening was not a very large one; still, a comparatively small number of people is enough to be somewhat confusing to a new-comer, to whom they are all absolute strangers. More especially when the new-comer in question is in such a position as was Evelyn Headfort on this occasion in the Wyverston drawing-room, where, as a recognised member of the family, to whom honour was due, it behoved her host and hostess to introduce with considerable formality all the other guests.
To all appearance she stood this little ordeal well, considerably to Mrs Headfort’s satisfaction.