And Philippa, who could be resolute in little things as well as in big, carried her point. Half an hour later both sisters were in bed and asleep, and though Philippa did not know it, her care of Evelyn had saved herself from a disturbed and perhaps sleepless night. For Mrs Headfort could certainly not have narrated the events of the evening in any detail without repeating her conversation with both the Greshams, and thereby awakening much graver anxiety in Philippa’s mind than what she had felt herself.
As it was, Philippa slept soundly, her dreams being no more than an amusing jumble of the experiences of the day before. When she awoke, it was from a peculiarly absurd one, in which Solomon was seated at the end of the housekeeper’s table, doing the honour in Mrs Shepton’s place, with Philippa’s own spectacles on his nose, assuring her that his master was the same Mr Gresham whom she had met at Dorriford, and that it was only the fact of his travelling second-class which had made her imagine him less good-looking than before.
But though her dreams had been thus concerned with the realities of the preceding day, Miss Raynsworth felt strangely confused when she first awoke. It was daylight, though not yet very clear, for the morning was cloudy—so cloudy, indeed, that in most parts of the country one would have imagined it must be raining. The girl’s eyes strayed round the little room, and for a moment or two she could not imagine where she was. Gradually things took shape in her memory, and she half started up in affright.
“It must be late,” she thought, “and of all things I must be ready early in the morning.”
But her fears were exaggerated; she took her watch to the window and found that it was only half-past six. There was plenty of time to get ready for her own breakfast at eight, and to carry in Evelyn’s early cup of tea.
She peeped cautiously through the door of her sister’s room, as soon as she was dressed, and was pleased to see her still sleeping peacefully.
“She must not get up to breakfast if she is very tired,” thought Philippa. “Mrs Shepton was sure they would not mind her staying in bed, especially this first morning. But if I am to judge her by myself, I rather think she will wake feeling quite rested and invigorated; the air here must be wonderfully bracing.”
She had returned to her own little room, and sat down beside the window which she had already thrown open. It was not cold, though a fresh breeze, to Philippa’s fancy laden with the scents of the surrounding moors, blew on her face gently.
“Only a quarter past seven,” she said to herself. “I know what I’ll do. I will go down-stairs and have a little run, or walk, I suppose—it would never do for a maid to be seen running—before the breakfast-bell rings. I can keep away from the front of the house, for fear of possibly meeting any one who might notice me.” With the impulsiveness so curiously mingled with her habit of careful consideration, this was no sooner said than done. Two minutes later the slight, black-clad figure of young Mrs Headfort’s maid might have been seen making its way through some of the paths thickly strewn with fir “needles,” among the woods, which at one side of the house almost extended to the walls.
“Yes,” she thought. “It is quite charming here, though perhaps in time one would get tired of the monotony of these fir-trees. If only I were free, and not obliged to be in to breakfast till half-past nine, how I would enjoy a rush across the moor beyond! I do hope I shall have some chance of a solitary ramble now and then while I am here. For one thing I will not do, and that is, go out walks with the other ladies’ maids who are staying in the house, who, ten to one, would be inviting the valets to accompany them. All I should want would be a—”