CHAPTER VIII

In a few days they are back again in Brook Street, George, Mabel and Philippa. It is the beginning of September and anything more dreary and deserted than the parks could not be imagined. No one is in London. Who would be when the seaside is everything delightful and the moors are covered with heather and grouse? Philippa shudders as she looks out of her bedroom window into the mews, even that is deserted, a canary in a very small cage and a lean cat are the only living creatures to be seen.

'Well,' she says, 'it might almost be the city of the dead ...' here her meditations are interrupted by Teddy, who rushes in and flings his arms round her neck. 'How brown you are,' she exclaims.

'Yes, ain't I,' he answers. 'Me and Marie have been in the Square most of the days and it has been so hot, have you enjoyed yourself?'

'Yes, thank you,' replies Philippa.

'I don't think you have,' says Teddy, who is as sharp as a needle, 'because, well, you don't look very happy now.'

'That is just it perhaps, I am so sorry it is over.'

'Oh,' and Teddy goes to the window only half convinced, 'there's that canary,' he says, 'I watch him often and often, and never can see n.o.body feeding it. I asked Marie to let me go and see if it had got some seed; but she was cross and said I wasn't to--oh, Aunt Lippa, isn't it hot?'

'It is rather, but it must be nearly tea-time, let us have some tea and then go out.'

'Can't; Marie's gone to see her sister,' replies Teddy, trying to see himself in the k.n.o.b at the end of the bedstead.

'Perhaps mother will come; but really Teddy do get off my bed, you are making it in such a mess,' and she rushes at him, seizing him in her arms, 'oh, what a dreadful little nephew you are.'

'Let go, let go,' he cries, between struggling and laughing, and then mischievously, 'You don't look half pretty now, you're quite red.

I'll--tell Mr Dal--'

'Mr who?' asks Lippa, putting him down.

'Sha'n't tell you,' he says, making for the door, but Philippa is too quick for him, and placing her back against it, says in tones of mild reproof,

'Do you know, it is very rude to make personal remarks.'

'Is it?' he asks, 'well you see it was only to Mr Dalrymple, and I've known him for such a great many years, I met him yesterday, he was walking the same way as me, and--you've got a hair-pin coming out, Aunt Lippa.'

'Never mind that,' says she, adjusting the straying article, 'and--'

'Oh, him or I began, I don't 'xactly remember, but we talked about pretty persons, and he said he was glad he wasn't a pretty person, because they were nearly always nasty, and then I said they weren't, 'cos there's mother and you, and I said you're always pretty.'

'And what did he say?' asks Lippa.

'He said,' replies Teddy, in the gruffest voice he can a.s.sume, trying to imitate Jimmy, '"More's the pity," and now you see I can just tell him you don't look pretty a bit, when you're holding somebody in your arms.'

'You must not say anything of the kind,' says she; it would be useless to exact a promise from him, probably be the way to make him repeat the conversation word for word; but Philippa has found out what she wanted to know, namely, that Jimmy is in London, and it causes her for the moment exquisite pain, to feel that he is not so far away, for though the Metropolis is a large place, there is always the chance of meeting one's friends in the street.

After deep thought Philippa has made up her mind to tell no one, of all she has heard and of all that has happened in consequence. She can rely on Ponsonby keeping secret the little he knows of it; but what is hardest to bear is the having nothing to look forward to, for the future looks, oh, so dark and dreary. Sometimes she feels that it cannot be true, and she shrinks with horror from the remembrance of the fate that may be awaiting her. But Mabel does not notice that something has changed her; that her step is not so light as it was, or her laugh so gay. How little we know of each other, although living the same lives, seeing the same people and things; we have all got an inner existence which no one but ourselves knows anything about, it is so shadowy and unreal, that contact with the outer world would crush all the beauty and poetry of it.

'I think we might go to the sea somewhere,' says Mrs Seaton, one day as she and Philippa are sitting together under the trees in the park, while Teddy is hunting for caterpillars, 'it is really too unutterably dull here, and it would do that boy good to have a change, what do you say to a fortnight or three weeks at Folkestone?'

'It would be very nice, I should think,' replies Lippa, who is watching the ungainly not to say peculiar movements, of a stout elderly female who is taking equestrian exercise.

'We could get rooms at an hotel,' goes on Mabel, 'you know some cousins of mine are there; and George said that I might do anything I liked, while he's up in Scotland; do you really think it would be nice?'

'Yes, I do,' Lippa replies, feeling that one place is the same to her as another. The stout elderly female has b.u.mped away, and she is staring straight in front of her, when suddenly the colour rushes to her face leaving it whiter than it was before.

'Why, there's Jimmy Dalrymple,' says Mabel, 'and I do believe he's not going to see us. I really think he might, it would be quite refreshing to talk to somebody else besides you--'

'Am I such a dull companion then?'

Mabel laughs good-naturedly.

There is not any doubt that Dalrymple will see them, for Master Seaton has observed him and rushing to the railings gesticulates violently, and the former attracted by some magnetic influence turns, hesitates for a moment and then crosses over.

'So glad to see you. Lippa and I were so afraid you were going to cut us,' says the unsuspecting Mabel. 'What are you doing in London now?'

'I have to be up at the barracks,' says he.

'Come and sit here, do, and tell us some news,' says she motioning him to the chair at her side.

Philippa has become deeply interested in one of her nephew's caterpillars, and beyond extending him a limp hand; pays no attention to Dalrymple, but her outward calm hides the tumult within, for her heart is throbbing violently.

At any other time and under any other circ.u.mstances, Dalrymple would be very willing to spend any length of time with Mabel, for he is very fond of pretty little Mrs Seaton and carrying on a mild flirtation with her would be the reverse of unpleasant to him, but to be so near the object of his affection, no, he couldn't do it, so excusing himself he raises his hat and pa.s.ses on.

'He seems in a great hurry,' says Mabel turning to Lippa who is looking in exactly the opposite direction to the one Dalrymple has taken.

Her 'Yes,' and something in her expression opens Mabel's eyes to the fact that something is up, however she says nothing just then for Teddy would be sure to hear, but she intends to find out everything.

On the eve of their trip to Folkestone she begins to cross-examine her sister-in-law.

'Philippa, dear,' she says as soon as the coffee-cups have been taken away after their dinner and they are left alone. 'I am going to ask you something, which you must not mind, come nearer.'

Lippa who has been gazing out of the window into the gaslit street below turns slowly, and going up to Mrs Seaton sits down on a stool at her feet, she is looking very lovely in a pale blue tea-gown and the lamp-light falling on her golden hair.

'Well, Mab,' she says, 'is it a lecture or good advice, I'm not to mind?'

'Neither one nor the other,' is the reply, 'but I want to know if there is anything between you and--Mr Dalrymple. Well Lippa?' as there is no answer for a second--and then,

'Nothing,' she replies.

'Not at present perhaps,' suggested Mabel, 'but hasn't there been?'

'Why do you want to know?' asks Miss Seaton.

'Well, dear, you see it is awkward, as he comes here so often, and--'

'Like all other women you're dying of curiosity to know; own the truth!'

and after a pause Lippa adds, apparently deeply interested in the point of her shoe, 'If you must know, he did ask me to marry him, but I said I couldn't,' here the shoe is drawn out of sight as though it had not found favour in its owner's eyes. Mabel is astonished, tries to see Lippa's face and not succeeding says,

'Do you mean that you do not like him?'