imaginative, however difficult it might be to credit this when one gazed at her delicate, almost ethereal features and lovely, dreamy blue eyes.
“One can’t have everything,” she would reply, prosaically enough, to her sister. “You’re a hundred, thousand times cleverer than I, and quite as capable or more so, and, to my mind, quite as nice-looking. You really needn’t grudge me my voice. I only care about it because all of you do.”
But for the dissimilarity between them – possibly, indeed, to some extent in consequence of it – never were two sisters more heartily attached to each other. Never was a home less disturbed by the friction of opposing tastes or unrestrained moods than theirs. There was, no doubt, dormant intensity of feeling, depths of devotion and capacity for suffering in the younger girl’s nature not yet gauged – potentialities which, it is to be questioned, if any of those about her could have understood even had she been sufficiently conscious of them herself to attempt to express them, or egotistical enough to wish to do so. But though possibly there was less power of sympathy with her deepest self than she had any idea of, there had been nothing in her life or surroundings to stunt or thwart her individuality. Nay, rather very much the reverse – calm and stillness are excellent guardians of character in certain stages of its development.
Chapter Three
“So Unlike Her.”
The next few days were fully occupied with Evelyn’s preparations for her visit. And here, perhaps, it may be well to explain why so apparently unimportant a matter as young Mrs Headfort’s spending a few days with her husband’s relations should have been looked upon by herself and her own family as an event of such moment.
It was now nearly four years since Evelyn Raynsworth’s marriage to Captain Headfort, and during that time two deaths had taken place in the immediate family of his cousin – the head of the house and master of Wyverston – which had greatly altered the young man’s position as a Headfort, with regard to the future. For the deaths had been those of Mr Headfort’s two sons, and though the large estates were not entailed, the family feeling of respect for the male line was proverbially strong. Marmaduke was an only son, and had been early left an orphan; the care of him in childhood and youth devolving upon relatives on his mother’s side, elderly people now dead. They had done their duty by the boy in a conscientious, unemotional fashion, and had left him a small addition to his own little patrimony: all, indeed, that they had it in their power to dispose of. So, though Captain Headfort’s childhood had been a somewhat loveless one, he remembered his uncle and aunt with gratitude – never so warm, perhaps, as when, at eight-and-twenty, he fell in love with Mr Raynsworth’s charming daughter – as but for this opportune legacy he would scarcely have thought it possible to marry. It had never occurred to him in his wildest dreams, that a day might come when he should be looked upon as the probable heir to the large estates belonging to the head of his family, of which he considered himself a very unimportant member; he was not even disappointed or hurt when no special notice was taken of his marriage, beyond a somewhat formal letter of good wishes and a wedding present of the orthodox type. There had scarcely, indeed, been time for an invitation to visit Wyverston, as the marriage took place immediately before he and his bride left for India; but the news of the death of his two cousins, little more than a year after his own marriage, and the birth of his own son had inevitably altered the aspect of things, even to a man uncalculating and single-minded as was Evelyn’s husband.
“There is actually no one of the name to succeed except myself and Bonny,” he said to his wife, when the first shock of natural concern for his cousins’ untimely fate had somewhat subsided, “for though Louis was married, he had only two daughters, and poor cousin Marmaduke is now quite an old man.”
“It is very sad,” said Evelyn, “very sad, indeed. Shall you write to them, Duke?”
He hesitated.
“I really can’t say,” he replied; “I know them so little. And, under these circumstances, don’t you see, I rather shrink from reminding them of my existence just now.”
“I don’t see that you can help writing,” said Evelyn. “The not doing so would be only too marked. And it isn’t as if the property were entailed; it is all actually nothing more to you than to any one else.”
So Captain Headfort wrote – a short, manly letter of honest sympathy – a letter which, however, in the months that followed, he often more than half regretted, though he was too generous to say so to Evelyn. For it brought forth no response, not even a formal acknowledgment.
“No doubt,” he thought to himself, “they looked upon it as a piece of officiousness. However, it was done for the best, and I’ll think no more about it.”
Two years later saw Evelyn obliged to return to England with her children, for her health had suffered to some extent from the climate, and little Marmaduke – Bonny, as he was called – was growing thin and pale. She had been with her own people for several months, when at last the coming of the little-looked-for invitation to visit Wyverston was announced to her by her husband, as has been related. Nothing could have been more unexpected, Captain Headfort having had no communication till now with his cousins. He was even at a loss to explain their knowing of his wife’s return home. And naturally he was anxious to respond cordially to this friendly overture; anxious, perhaps, above all, that no considerations of misplaced economy should prevent Evelyn’s making her début among his relatives with befitting dignity.
Hence the sensation in the Raynsworths’ family circle concerning an event, on the surface, so simple and commonplace. And no one, perhaps, of all the family party had taken the matter so deeply to heart as Philippa. It was never out of her head during the few days which succeeded her return home, and by night her dreams were haunted by absurd complications and variations of the theme.
As to Duke’s wife herself, the younger sister had no misgivings whatever.
“Evelyn may be shy,” she thought, “but she is never awkward. She can always be stately if occasion calls for it. And her clothes will be all right; indeed, she looks nice in anything, though I do wish she had some one to help her to put them on. Yes, it is the going without a maid that spoils it all. I don’t know what can be done!”
For the previous day had destroyed the last hope of a temporary maid being procurable, and Evelyn, with the touch of laisser-aller inherent in her, and which her life in India had not tended to decrease, had made up her mind to face Wyverston unattended.
“If only you keep quite well, it won’t matter so much,” said Mrs Raynsworth.
“I shall take care not to let the Headforts know, if I don’t,” said Evelyn. “I should hate them to think that Duke had married a limp, delicate sort of a girl, and, unluckily, I always look much more so than I am.”
“But you are not really strong yet,” said her mother. “And if you do anything foolish out of a kind of bravado, you may really lay yourself up, and think how disagreeable that would be!”
Philippa, who was present, glanced at her sister. She was certainly looking more fragile than usual. The excitement, and, to a certain extent, fatigue of the last few days were telling upon her, and a feeling of additional anxiety came upon the younger girl.
“I shall really not be a bit surprised at anything that happens,” she said, in a tone of annoyance. “You are quite right, mamma, and I wish you would frighten Evelyn well. She is sometimes as silly about herself as if she were no older than Vanda,” and the laugh with which Mrs Headfort treated this remonstrance was by no means reassuring.
This conversation took place on Tuesday – Friday was the day fixed for Evelyn’s journey. Late on Thursday
