”‘Ill-will’ is a strong word,” she said, “but I can’t say that I think Miss Bailey likes you; that was why I gave you the little warning about seeming so stand-off,” “I will be very careful,” said Philippa.
And as the days went on, Miss Raynsworth felt more and more glad to have had this conversation with the housekeeper, for, as she realised increasingly the complications to which by her rash action she was exposing herself and her sister, she grew conscious of many little awkwardnesses which she had never thought of or in the least foreseen, and which might have aroused the suspicion of a commoner-minded woman than the good old housekeeper. Among these was the fact of her apparently receiving no letters, the importance of which she perhaps exaggerated, from Bailey’s drawing attention to it once or twice when the servants’-hall correspondence was distributed at table. In reality the letters she had received, under cover to Evelyn, had enormously added to her anxiety and caused her the greatest distress—distress which was all the more hard to bear as she had to endure it alone, for her parents charged her on no account to upset Evelyn, under the circumstances of her present surroundings especially, by telling her of their very grave displeasure.
“I cannot conceive,” wrote her mother, “how you ventured to do such a thing, so utterly to set at nought all your father and I could not but feel at a daughter of ours placing herself in such a position. Your father was on the point at first of setting off, at all costs, to bring you back again, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I persuaded him to give up doing so, by reminding him on whom the ‘costs’ in this case would fall—I mean poor Evelyn and her husband. Such an esclandre would certainly have been utterly fatal to the Headforts thinking well of Duke’s wife or her family. We are very annoyed with Evelyn herself, too, for not insisting on your returning the moment she found you were in the train, and to prevent her doing so you must have made an unjustifiable use of your greater strength of character and determination to carry out your own way. I shall say as little as possible to your sister till you are both home again. I am counting every day—indeed every hour, till this visit is over, and I only pray that no terribly disastrous consequences may follow on what you have done.”
It was hard to bear, feeling conscious, as she did, that at least three-fourths of her motives had been purely unselfish, and only now did Philippa allow to herself that a certain love of adventure—a touch of the reckless impulsiveness and defiance of conventionality which Maida Lermont, though vaguely, had been conscious of in her young cousin—only now did it dawn upon the girl that these less worthy incentives had gone far to make up the remaining balance.
“I have never meant to be wild or headstrong,” she said to herself. “I have always thought I was almost too practical and unimpulsive. I planned all this so carefully and even cautiously. I never dreamt of papa and mamma taking it up so severely; I don’t think they ever have been really angry with me before in my life. And after all,” with a touch of half-humorous defiance, as she dashed away the tears which she dared not indulge in, for fear of her sister’s discovering them, “after all, I do not know what Evelyn would have done without me. I am perfectly certain she would not have got on so well; most assuredly she would not have looked as she has done!”
For Philippa’s rule over her sister had been a very stringent one. Mrs Marmaduke Headfort was not allowed to overtire herself by walking too far or driving too long, by sitting up too late, or spasmodically getting up too early, all of which vagaries she was addicted to when her own mistress. Her tonic was never forgotten, nor her stated hours of resting curtailed. In consequence of all these precautions, Evelyn looked and felt wonderfully invigorated. The credit of this was attributed by her well-pleased hosts, and in part by herself, to the bracing air of Wyverston, and Philippa was too unselfish and generous to feel annoyed at this, though she secretly hugged herself with satisfaction as to what she knew had been her own share in this good state of things.
“I don’t think mamma can be so vexed with me when I tell her about it,” she thought. “She does know that Evelyn is not fit to take care of herself.”
There was really, for the moment, no crumpled rose-leaf in young Mrs Headfort’s path. To her facile nature, in spite of her capacity for “fussing,” it came easy to accept things as she found them. Long before the first week was at an end she had got used to the anomalous position in which her sister, and, to a certain extent through her sister, she herself were placed. Beyond this, she even allowed herself the gratification of claiming Philippa’s admiration for her strong-minded behaviour.
“I really think I have managed beautifully,” she said. “I have not worried about you at all, Phil, and I have determined not to be homesick for Bonny and Vanda, though,” with a sudden realisation of what she owed to her sister, “I’m quite sure my good spirits are principally owing to your being here.”
And Philippa felt rewarded.