Part 9 (1/2)
”It is unfortunate,” he muttered. ”I have been writing to him to tell him the state of affairs here, and I am sure he will come if he can.
Let us hope their worry about the boy will soon be over. The little chap has a splendid const.i.tution. I shall be over to-morrow morning.
Don't hesitate to send for me if you want me, and don't go into Francis Heathcote's room until I have prepared him for your visit--not unless there is any crisis and you are obliged to do so. But I think he will be quiet enough. Go to bed, my dear young lady, and get a good rest; you must need it. And forgive me having detained you for so long.”
CHAPTER VII
INDECISION
”When conscience sees clear, conscience need not budge: But there are times it cannot clearly see This way or that, and then it strives to stand, Holding an even balance in its hand.”--ALFRED AUSTIN.
Sleep was impossible. All through the long hours of the night Philippa lay wide awake, every nerve, every faculty of her mind tuned to the highest point of tension, going over and over the story she had heard.
Her keen sympathy and ready imagination filled in the details which had been omitted, and she pictured the endless succession of weary days which lengthened into years--the mother's anguish as hope grew fainter and was at last extinguished, and, the central figure of the tragedy, the man who for all the years, day in, day out, had waited. ”Just waited.” The very simplicity of the doctor's words had only added to their pathos.
She thought of her father, and of what his feelings in the matter must have been. She knew well that to a man of his rigid integrity of mind and purpose his sister's action must have been beyond all possible excuse. The mere fact that she had broken her plighted word would have been hard to condone, for to him the violation of a promise once given was impossible, and against all the principles which ruled his life.
He would have felt a personal shame that one of his own family should have been guilty of it, and more especially his dearly loved sister; and that in addition she should have acted with what could only be described as utter heartlessness towards the man who had been his dearest friend must have been a sorrow beyond all words.
That this had been literally so was proved to Philippa by the fact that, in spite of the intimacy of thought and speech which had existed between them, he had allowed her to remain in utter ignorance of the whole affair. She had enjoyed his fullest confidence; he had frequently spoken to her of old days, of his boyhood and early manhood, but never once had the names of either Francis Heathcote or his sister pa.s.sed his lips. And yet, had he not, by his reticence, acted the kindest part? Was not silence the only tribute love could lay upon the grave of the woman who had failed? And he did not foresee, indeed how was it possible that he should, that by the mysterious working of that power which erring men call Chance, the whole sad happening would be brought to light again.
If he had for a moment deemed it possible that his daughter would come face to face with Francis Heathcote, he would surely have prepared her in some way for the meeting, have given her some notion of how he would wish her to act. But even if he had antic.i.p.ated the possibility of a meeting he could never have imagined that it would come about under such extraordinary circ.u.mstances, or that his girl would be called upon to stand in the dead woman's place, and to a.s.sume her very personality.
And if by some miracle he stood by her side now, what would he wish her to do? That was the question which seemed to dance before Philippa's tired eyes, limned in letters of flame against the black wall of doubt and difficulties which barred the way she was to take.
What would he wish her to do? Would he feel that some heritage of duty left undone was hers to accomplish, to fulfil? a point of honour as it were--pride of race insisting that there was a debt owing, which she was called upon to pay? Would he not in his affection for his friend be the first to echo the doctor's plea, ”just a little happiness for all the years he has missed”?--the happiness which it seemed that she of all people was alone able to give.
She thought of the little brooch, ”Your heart and mine,”--the only visible link which connected her father with the story at all. How had it come into his possession? Surely, if Phil had returned it with other tokens of her engagement, it must have fallen into Lady Louisa's hands. Had she perhaps overlooked it at first, and then, before she died, sent it to her brother--a mute appeal for forgiveness, a silent confession of regret? The explanation was conjectural, but it was possible. Philippa would have liked to know it true, for it would have been some comfort to her father.
She thought of old Jane Goodman, comforted by the certainty which seemed to the girl so entirely without foundation, that her mere presence would dispel all the trouble that had wrecked a life.
She tried to think consecutively, to argue fairly, weighing the matter judicially, noting all points, for and against, in the hope that by this means her decision might be rendered more simple, but it was impossible. Her thoughts would not be controlled, they wandered this way and that. At one moment she felt certain that she could not condemn a fellow-creature to distress if any action of hers could prevent it, the next she was tortured by the simple question of right and wrong: whether if she allowed Francis Heathcote to remain under his misapprehension as to her ident.i.ty, it was not much the same thing as deliberate deception, a lie, in short? And yet, the truth was to him nothing more nor less than his death sentence. Could she be the one to push him back into the darkness from which she had all unwittingly rescued him?
”A little happiness for all the years he has missed--a little happiness until he dies.” For a few hours, or perhaps weeks--who could tell?
Was it not an act of simple human charity she was called upon to perform? Could it not be considered something similar to acting as an understudy--continuing a role which had been left with some last lines unsaid by the princ.i.p.al actor? Why need she hesitate to respond to the urgent appeal for comfort and for help? ”No brightness--only darkness, until you came. Ah, dear love! the shadows when you do not come!
Phil! Dear love! At last!”
Small wonder that the dawn found her wide-eyed and unrested, and that when the hour came for her to rise she was prostrated with nervous headache and fatigue, utterly incapable of the slightest effort. And so the next day pa.s.sed. At noon there came a note from the doctor, saying she need be under no anxiety. His patient was quiet and as well as could be expected.
On the afternoon of the next day but one, the necessity of obtaining fresh air and a strong desire to meet Isabella Vernon again drove her out of doors. She was almost surprised to find how keen was her wish to pursue the acquaintance so informally begun; she could not account for it. It was certainly not at the moment any desire to gain information about the past; that had entirely left her. She wished rather to gain relief from the subject, to try if possible to lay it aside for a time, and she had not the smallest intention of admitting a stranger into the difficulties which beset her. No, it was some personal attraction about the woman which drew her in a most unusual way. Philippa was not in the habit of feeling drawn to people of whom she had so slight a knowledge, and she was inclined to think that it was only a feeling of loneliness which prompted her to seek the only person to whom she could talk in an ordinary, everyday way, and so obtain an antidote for the clamour and unrest of mind of which she was only too conscious.
She had barely mounted the hill on to Bessmoor, and felt the wind blowing cool from the sea with a salt tang most refres.h.i.+ng to her, than she saw, a few yards off the road, and under the shelter of some gnarled thorn-bushes, a little encampment, and she directed her steps towards it.
Miss Vernon was seated on the ground beside a small cart, and at a little distance away a donkey stood contentedly, flicking away the flies which disturbed his peace.
To a critical observer the down-trodden state of the gra.s.s and undergrowth might have suggested that the place had been occupied for more than a few hours, but Philippa was not in a mood to be observant, or to wonder how long the other had waited for her arrival. Nor did Isabella Vernon say a word to betray the fact that she had spent the whole of the previous day in precisely her present position, having carefully chosen a point of vantage from which any one coming along the road from Bessacre could not by any means fail to be visible to her.
She scrambled to her feet. ”I am so pleased to see you,” she said.
And the warmth of her greeting was unmistakable, not so much in the words, which were conventional enough, as in the tone of real welcome in which they were spoken.