ISABELLA

"In life there are meetings which seem like a fate."--OWEN MEREDITH.

The sun was low upon the horizon, casting cool shadows across the summer landscape, as Philippa walked out of the lodge gates the same evening, and turned up the road which climbed the incline leading up on to the moorland.

She had pa.s.sed through many emotions in a short s.p.a.ce of time, and she craved for solitude--to be at peace to think over the extraordinary events of the last few hours, and steady her mind, which seemed to be whirling under the strain she had endured.

The day had been hot, but now a cool breeze, very refreshing to the tired girl, was blowing in from the sea. She walked slowly along, thinking deeply, and as she thought, gradually little points of light shone out from the dim past, and played upon the story she had heard, and which had touched her so profoundly. Little actions of her father's--words which he had spoken, unheeded at the time, or at any rate not understood, now seemed to acquire a new meaning. She had been utterly ignorant of her aunt's existence, or if she had known her in early childhood, she had lost all recollection of her. Her father had never mentioned his sister.

One incident which had happened when she was about thirteen returned very clearly to her memory. A young friend had come to spend the afternoon with her, and as the two girls were playing in the school-room Mr. Harford had come in, and had joined in their game. He was always a delightful playmate, and they had welcomed him with glee.

The fun was at its height when Philippa's friend, in the excitement of the moment, called to her, addressing her as Phil. Philippa well recalled how her father had risen from his chair, and in a voice so stern as to be utterly unlike his own, had said, "My daughter's name is Philippa, and I must ask you never to address her again as you did just now." The girl, taken aback and rather frightened at the displeasure she had all unintentionally provoked, apologised instantly, and Mr.

Harford, realising that his rebuke must have seemed over severe for the innocent offence, patted her on the shoulder and begged her to think no more of the matter. But it was evident that he could not shake off the effect of the occurrence, the game came to an end, and shortly afterwards he left the room. At the time Philippa had wondered why the simple abbreviation of her name should have caused him so much distress, but the reason was very clear to her now. What painful memories it must have conjured up in a moment!

Also, she remembered a young secretary in Berlin whom they had known very intimately, Phil L'Estrange. Every one had called him Phil with the exception of her father, who had invariably addressed him as Philip, in spite of the young man's laughing a.s.surance that he did not answer to the name.

"How could she have done it?" she murmured half aloud. "How could she have done it?" Twenty-two years of waiting! What a love this man must have given to the other Philippa--a love so strong that it dominated weakness of the body, and even of mind, and through all the long years burnt on with the same clear flame of youth.

Would he die now, this man who had waited so long?--would he die happy, satisfied that his love had come to him again? It was an absorbing thought. Why did these coincidences happen? Were they coincidences?

Here was she, a stranger, with, it would seem, a human life hanging on her coming--at least it had appeared so this morning, when her voice had roused him from the lethargy of weakness which was drifting him out of life. And if he died, what would his meeting be with that Philippa who had pa.s.sed before him into the Unknown, the land where there was no marriage or giving in marriage?

Yet, in that land of which we speak so glibly and picture each of us according to our personal fancy, and of which we are so absolutely ignorant--in that future state there surely must be love. Was a wonderful human love like this to come to an abrupt end--to be left behind with the body's frail sh.e.l.l? Surely not. Surely, although human, it held too much of the divine to perish with the earthly clay; and yet, if the love of Francis Heathcote pa.s.sed with his spirit, how would he meet Phil? or, rather, how would she meet him? Would she be changed while he remained unaltered? Would heaven itself be heaven for him without her love? Oh, the awful mystery of the future life!

And--if he did not die? She stopped abruptly, and stood quite still as the recollection of the words which the old woman had spoken returned to her mind. "Now you have come, and he will be content."

What did she mean? What had she, the living Philippa Harford, to do with Francis Heathcote? a man of whose very existence she had been ignorant, known nothing, until yesterday--nothing.

And if clear reason a.s.serted itself in his shadowed mind, as seemed possible, how could the truth be explained to him?

She walked on again overwhelmed by the difficulty of her position.

Unthinkingly--unwittingly--she had, in the pitying impulse of the moment, drawn a fellow-soul back to earth and life. If she had not been there he must have died--so much was certain; and yet----

So engrossed had she been in her thoughts that she had paid no heed to the road along which she pa.s.sed, but now, as she lifted her eyes and gazed round her, this way and that, as if seeking some solution of the problem that confronted her, she found that she had reached the moor.

Before her stretched a wide expanse of earth and sky, lit into splendour by the rays of the sun which was sinking, a ball of fire, into a sea of flame. So calm was the distant water that its unruffled surface mirrored the glory of the sky above it in wonderful tones of scarlet and orange and palest rose. The moor itself, brilliant with bell heather, seemed a magnificent robe clothing the world in regal purple; while across it, winding like a ribbon laid lightly over its richness, ran the road--further and further into the distance until it vanished from sight at the meeting-place of land and water. Philippa gazed entranced--her perplexities forgotten--her whole being stirred--uplifted by the beauty of the scene.

Even as she looked the vision changed. The sun dropped below the horizon, throwing, as it fell, great shafts of light like gleaming spears, up across the splendour to the azure overhead--spears which glittered for a moment, flashing a signal to herald the approach of the dusk which on the instant, as if in response to a command, threw a mysterious veil over the pageant of departing day.

No sound broke the stillness--the very earth was hushed.

Philippa gave a little shiver. It was as if with the waning of the glory something had pa.s.sed from her spirit, leaving her strangely cold and small--an atom in an immeasurable loneliness.

Instinctively she turned to seek human companionship, as a child might turn to seek its mother's hand in a moment of awe. She searched in vain and could see no living thing, but presently she distinguished far off upon the road a figure which gradually she made out to be that of a woman walking towards her. Half impatient with herself at the relief which the sight afforded her, she watched intently.

The woman came steadily on, glancing neither to left nor right, but with her eyes bent upon the ground; and it was not until she was within a few yards of where the girl was standing that she became aware that she was not alone.

She raised her head, and met Philippa's gaze. A look of intense surprise and bewilderment came over her face; she started forward, and as she did so she caught her foot on some unnoticed stone, stumbled, and almost fell. Philippa made a movement towards her, but immediately the stranger recovered herself.

"You," she said, in a quick low tone, almost as if she was speaking unconsciously, her eyes all the while fixed in a curious, scrutinising stare upon Philippa's face. The girl showed no astonishment. There seemed no room for astonishment in the world of strange happenings in which she found herself, but before she could reply the woman spoke again.

"I am not mad, as you might easily imagine," she said. "Please forgive me, but--will you tell me who you are?"

"My name is Harford--Philippa Harford."

The other nodded. It was evidently the answer she had expected.

"For a moment I took you for--some one I used to know many years ago.

Of course it is quite impossible that it should be her, but coming upon you suddenly like this surprised me out of my senses."

She was a tall, angular woman of what is sometimes called uncertain age, that is to say, she might have been anything from thirty to five-and-forty. She was dressed in a simple gown of brown holland, and it was singularly unbecoming to one of her complexion, for her hair was a faded, nondescript colour which might possibly have been red in early youth, and her skin was sallow and colourless.

Her face could not, even by the most charitable, have been called anything but plain--the cheekbones were high, the features rugged, the eyes small and light; but Philippa noted something very attractive in the expression. There was cleverness in the broad low brow under the wide-brimmed hat so deplorably innocent of all suggestion of prevailing fashion, and a whimsical twist about the corners of the mouth which showed its possessor to be rich in humour. And yet it was a sad face--in some indefinite way it suggested patience and expectancy.

Just now the eyes were wistful, questioning.

"It must have been a relation of yours, I think," she was saying, "because her name was Philippa Harford too." It was an a.s.sertion, but Philippa answered the eyes rather than the words.

"She was my aunt."

"How the years go by, don't they?" The stranger seemed to be trying to lead the conversation away from the personal. "And one really doesn't notice their pa.s.sing. One lies on the shelf and gets dusty as the world goes on. Are you going this way? May I walk with you? This is an unconventional meeting. Will you count it sufficient introduction that I knew your aunt many years ago? My name is Isabella Vernon, but that probably conveys nothing to you."

"By all means let us walk together," answered Philippa readily. "I had been watching the sunset, and the moor seemed so solitary."

"It is. That is why I love it. Dear Bessmoor. Ever changing, yet ever the same--suiting all moods--sympathetic--enveloping. I have a cottage in the heart of her, where I live the simple life, which I like, but which for most people is a synonym for few baths and many discomforts. Do you live near here?"

"No, I am only staying here."

"But you know this part of the country."

"No," replied Philippa again. "It is all new to me. I only arrived yesterday."

And in her heart she was thinking, "Here is some one who could probably tell me many things I want to know," and yet how impossible to speak of such matters to a stranger.

Isabella Vernon seemed anxious to make friends.

"If you do not know the neighbourhood, I will explain the geography,"

she said pleasantly. "This is an excellent point of view. See, over there,"--she indicated the direction with her hand as she spoke,--"on the other side of the moor lies the village of Denwick. It has a very fine church--you can just see the tower--and it used to be a place of some importance in the dim ages. There are villages dotted all over this part of the country, right down to the sea.

"'Renwick and Deanwick, Bessmoor and Ling, Northam and Southam lie all in a ring,'

as the country-people say about here. Eastminster is over there----"

again she pointed. "On fine days you can see the spire of the cathedral, but not from here--from a point about two miles further across Bessmoor. If you are staying some time you ought to explore."

Again her eyes questioned, and Philippa answered--

"I do not know yet how long I shall stay."

"You will find many beautiful spots about here which will well repay a visit. Now, you can see Bessacre lying in the little hollow below us.

The woods over there belong to--Major Heathcote----" She paused tentatively.