voice, not any to answer,
nor any that regarded."
Nineteen years after that summer day, a girl of twenty-two sat gazing
from the casement in that turret-chamber--a girl whose face even a
flatterer would have praised but little; and Philippa Fitzalan had no
flatterers. The pretty child--as pretty children often do--had grown into
a very ordinary, commonplace woman. Her hair, indeed, was glossy
and luxuriant, and had deepened from its early flaxen into the darkest
shade to which it was possible for flaxen to change; her eyes were dark,
with a sad, tired, wistful look in them--a look
"Of a dumb creature who had been beaten once, And never since was
easy with the world."
Her face was white and thin, her figure tall, slender, angular, and rather
awkward. None had ever cared to amend her awkwardness; it signified
to nobody whether she looked well or ill. In a word, she signified to
nobody. The tears might burn under her eyelids, or overflow and
fall,--she would never be asked what was the matter; she might fail
under her burdens and faint in the midst of them,--and if it occurred to
any one to prevent material injury to her, that was the very utmost she
could expect. Not that the Lady Alianora was unkind to her
stepdaughter: that is, not actively unkind. She simply ignored her
existence. Philippa was provided, as a matter of course, with necessary
clothes, just as the men who served in the hall were provided with
livery; but anything not absolutely necessary had never been given to
her in her life. There were no loving words, no looks of pleasure, no
affectionate caresses, lavished upon her. If the Lady Joan lost her
temper (no rare occurrence), or the Lady Alesia her appetite, or the
Lady Mary her sleep, the whole household was disturbed; but what
Philippa suffered never disturbed nor concerned any one but herself. To
these, her half-sisters, she formed a kind of humble companion, a
superior maid-of-all-work. All day long she heard and obeyed the
commands of the three young ladies; all day long she was bidden,
"Come here", "Go there", "Do this", "Fetch that." And Philippa came,
and went, and fetched, and did as she was told. Just now she was off
duty. Their Ladyships were gone out hawking with the Earl and
Countess, and would not, in all probability, return for some hours.
And what was Philippa doing, as she sat gazing dreamily from the
casement of her turret-chamber--hers, only because nobody else liked
the room? Her eyes were fixed earnestly on one little spot of ground, a
few feet from the castle gate; and her soul was wandering backward
nineteen years, recalling the one scene which stood out vividly, the
earliest of memory's pictures--a picture without text to explain
it--before which, and after which, came blanks with no recollection to
fill them. She saw herself lifted underneath a woman's veil--clasped
earnestly in a woman's arms,--gazing in baby wonder up into a
woman's face--a wan white face, with dark, expressive, fervent eyes, in
which a whole volume of agony and love was written. She never knew
who that woman was. Indeed, she sometimes wondered whether it were
really a remembrance, or only a picture drawn by her own imagination.
But there it was always, deep down in the heart's recesses, only waiting
to be called on, and to come. Whoever this mysterious woman were, it
was some one who had loved her-- her, Philippa, whom no one ever
loved. For Alina, who had died in her childhood, she scarcely
recollected at all. And at the very core of the unseen, unknown heart of
this quiet, undemonstrative girl, there lay one intense, earnest,
passionate longing for love. If but one of her father's hawks or hounds
would have looked brighter at her coming, she thought it would have
satisfied her. For she had learned, long years ere this, that to her father
himself, or to the Lady Alianora, or to her half-brothers and sisters, she
must never look for any shadow of love. The "mother-want about the
world," which pressed on her so heavily, they would never fill. The dull,
blank uniformity of simple apathy was all she ever received from any
of them.
Her very place was filled. The Lady Joan was the eldest daughter of the
house--not Mistress Philippa. For the pleasure of the Countess had been
fulfilled, and Mistress Philippa the girl was called. And when Joan was
married and went away from the castle (in a splendid litter hung with
crimson velvet), her sister Alesia stepped into her place as a matter of
course. Philippa did not, indeed, see the drawbacks to Joan's lot. They
were not apparent on the surface. That the stately young noble who
rode on a beautiful Barbary
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