Last Miss Phillips

by Briggs, Laura

  The Last Miss Phillips

  By Laura Briggs and Sarah Burgess

  Smashwords Edition

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 Laura Briggs

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Image: “A Cup of Tea on a Grey Afternoon”. Altered art digital photo. Used with artist’s permission, all rights reserved.

  For Elizabeth

  Whom I hope would have enjoyed such a story as both reader and writer.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  France 1817

  It was raining; a light, soft sound against the glass panes of the villa. Bleak and cold, grey and overcast, it was not the scenes of Paris and its outlying countryside which charms poets or foreigners venturing abroad for a "finishing tour."

  One such example of those latter youthful minds was seated in a damask chair, gazing at the drizzling scene with an expression almost as cold as the downpour felt by those unfortunate individuals hurrying on the streets below. Not a man, but a woman–a rare specimen of English culture to be taken abroad in comparison to her male counterparts, although her surroundings, if this be her home, suggested hers was not the fortnight’s sojourn of a traveler.

  She was scarcely twenty, if at all close in years; golden hair coiled high, a pale green gown more expensive than the drapes of the music room in which she was seated. Poorly decorated walls in the humility of a dwelling rented but not made over to the tastes of its occupants, either from lack of funds or the indifference of those who seldom entertain in this residence. A large pianoforte to one side, sheets of music propped in a straggling line of expense and grandeur, is the foremost object of wealth in the music room.

  A man enters the room, approaching her with reluctant steps. His suit, expensive yet careless, even shabby, lends his appearance a humility in opposition to his dignified features. A foreboding countenance recently transformed from strength to humility, lines of sadness evident in his imposing features sculpted with wide jaw and heavy brow. His coal black hair is overly-long and trimmed poorly by an unsure hand, the ends flying out below his jaw and ears despite the plastered appearance of the rest.

  He extends one hand, as if to touch her shoulder, before withdrawing it again. His breath stirs in his throat with the sound of a hoarse cough.

  "There is no possibility," he said. "That you have changed your mind." Thick foreign tones attempting dignity, perhaps something else, beneath the surface tremor of these words.

  "No," she answered. Her figure did not move, but remained perfectly posed. An upright form with a haughty grace that was assuredly aware of its charms. Too aware.

  The hand withdrew. So did its master, whose steps turned him away from the girl at the window and towards the open door of the music room, leaving her to gaze at the grey world alone.

  Chapter One

  England 1832

  There are countless nurseries in English townhouses and manors; countless corner tables devoted to juvenile theaters of Pollock or West's contrivance, manipulated by small hands in performance for themselves or the entertainment of friends and relations. Paper theaters are obliged to perform scenes of Shakespeare's dramas every day–but such is not the obligation of Catherine Phillip's grown-up fingers, which are painstaking in the process of performing them with her sister's children.

  Her hand was alongside her niece’s as the paper figures moved across the stage by a strip of cardboard's manipulation; then, hovered overhead as another slot of scenery threatened to topple momentarily when nudged by the overly-eager elbow of her nephew. Eye level with the stage, she appraises the work of her scissors and paste closely, the gilded fringe she added to a paper elephant's costume, snipped from a supply in her sewing bag.

  There is no one more obliging to children than Miss Catherine Phillips. She is the real heroine of this paper drama enacted: assembler and costume mistress, willing player of all unwanted and obscure parts, scenery painter and stagehand beneath the direction of an imperious nine-year-old director. No task beneath her, no hesitation to defer all authority in the production to the youngest players in its company.

  It was rehearsal, not a real performance at all, declared pert nine-year-old George, the director. They should have to do it all over again for a proper audience, a proposal to which his aunt gave her assent most readily.

  Such a mixture of youthful activity and mature judiciousness did not linger with Catherine beyond the nursery chamber. Afterwards, in the drawing room, she contemplated the scenes outside the window, the long, even stretch of lawn obscured by a mist of rain against the glass.

  "What a dreary afternoon it is, Kitty." Her sister, Mrs. John Hobbins spoke from her seat on the sofa, where she was in the act of pouring a second cup of tea.

  "The rain is not so dreary," Kitty replied. "I think it only seems so, because of the glass between us and the outside." Her voice was low and soft, as if she were speaking to herself rather than her sister several feet away.

  "Come away from the window, before you catch your death from that dreadful chill. You remember what a trial your colds always are this time of year."

  Kitty obeyed. Her own cup had grown cold in her hands, half-finished.

  "Your poor dress is torn at the collar. You really must stop letting the children pull upon your lace and shawl when they are at play, my dear. They are such precious folk, I know, but they would never take such liberties with Nollie.

  "Nollie is not their aunt, Louisa," Kitty answered, a hint of a smile in her quiet voice. "She is their nurse; and they would not wish to put such a burden on her with all else she does for them."

  "They have playmates enough among themselves, to be sure; they are to look to you for instruction," said Louisa. "I had hoped your being with us would save us from a governess for yet longer, or at least the need of a music instructor. We should not wish to engage anyone until we are in town, for the talent here is dreary except among the best families, where they are all students themselves."

  "We were without an instructor for a long period ourselves, you know," ventured Kitty. "I seem to recall–when father was much engaged with his brother's creditors–we amused ourselves with the pianoforte as we liked. Mama would give us guidance, of course, but..."

  "Dear Mama had more talent than either you or I," said Louisa, with a sigh. "Such an ear she had for music. She found fault with your playing until the last, although you obliged her almost daily. I should have played for her more often, of course, but the
girls gave me such trouble it was more than I could endure." Louisa's spoon clinked softly against her saucer.

  Kitty made no reply to these words, with evidence that something troubled her with regards to Mrs. Hobbin's words. She consented to have her teacup refilled, although there was no pleasure in the look or hand with which the second cup was received.

  Outside, the lawns of Enderly were faded carpets of damp green stretching from the stones of the house to the distant crest of trees. Enderly was a flat place, situated like a tabletop in the wilds of Yorkshire. The village in the distance was almost unnoticed in a land which resembled a painting seen from a distance, a haze of green and pale brown stone carved in a weathered monument to the ages of British gentility.

  Mrs. John Hobbins dwelled there most of the year with her children and servants, her closest neighbor the curate of her husband's parish. Mr. John Hobbins held a seat in Parliament; consequently, he removed himself from the countryside whenever the Government was in session.

  To this dreary place, Kitty had come over five years ago, after the death of her mother, Mrs. Phillips. She had been nurse and caretaker, soothing the brow of a tired, cross woman confined to her bed and resigned to Providence's will after a weary struggle. Life had not been unhappy for Mrs. Phillips, but life in its in final stages has a way of gathering its disappointments into the foreground of certain melancholy minds. It was sadness seeping into her thoughts, as if condensation upon the walls and ceiling of her townhouse chambers. As below her daughter brewed cups of tea and heated flannel clothes and bedwarmers.

  The view from Kitty's room at Enderly was of a sea of grass rolling towards the almost-invisible village and Mr. Hobbins's fine stables; not the view of the upper servants, but also not the family's favored front view of the sparse collection of trees like a narrow wood. She stood before the window's glass more often than the mirror at her dressing table: for the latter revealed the weaknesses of a woman past middle age in society's estimation, the fine lines gathered around the corners of her mouth and eyes, the thickened figure and thinning sandy hair pulled harshly from her face and neck.

  It resembled her mother's profile in the years before her illness, Kitty had decided. The same folds along her neckline, the same nose and narrow chin. She lacked only the forceful temperament and reserve of her mother which had occasionally given rise to harsh remarks or a coldness of manner which masked her deeper regard. In Kitty’s eyes and features, there was more sorrow present than passion; more meekness than force of willpower. When she rose from her dressing table, she invariably covered the glass with a veil. She would pass the rest of the day without glimpsing her face again.

  Once a year, Mrs. Hobbins, her children, and a few carefully-chosen servants would removed themselves from Enderly to London for the Season. It was not for the full term–no, Mr. Hobbins departed for the session on his own, months prior–but for the few glories of the Season which still promised Louisa an opportunity to make her presence known as the most prosperous descendant of the noble name of Phillips. They ventured forth to the house where the Phillipses had lodged in the city in their youth, the same rooms where the infant Phillips daughters were rocked in their nursery and educated at their mother's knee.

  Kitty was with them when they entered the townhouse doors, the footman and valet overseeing the luggage, the prized cook bustling off to the kitchen immediately. The youngest members of the Hobbins family lost themselves with wild abandon as they hurried upstairs, their manners not recalled to order by Louisa’s commanding tones.

  There was dust on the windowsill as Kitty’s fingers brushed the frame. Dust lightly touching the panes of glass which her fingers had once rested against in cool and heat as she watched the passing carriages upon the street.

  There were pleasant associations with this house; still others unpleasant. She waited for this moment with foreboding and yearning each year, the experience growing at once distant and painful as she visited the scenes of her father’s life and her mother’s lingering hours. In these rooms she had celebrated her sisters’ marriages and many a Christmas Eve. Here, she had wept on other occasions, and prayed without words upon her lips as the pain of loss flowed and ebbed in slow degrees.

  Her mother’s furniture beneath the sheets, her father’s portrait above the library mantel. The same sheet music she had played all her life would be upon the pianoforte in the drawing room where the same notes had resounded before as her mother lay dying upstairs.

  Had it really been so long ago? Not so long. Not to someone who was no longer a youth in the estimate of herself or society. In the window glass, her reflection was faint and greenish, the speckled surface on the other side framing a bleak London street as damp and dreary as the lawns of Enderly.

  Behind her, Louisa sighed in the main hall. “Well, here we are at last,” she declared, now that her children and servants were dispersed throughout the empty rooms, leaving her fumbling with the strings of her bonnet and traveling cloak.

  “Here we are,” repeated Kitty, within hearing of no one but herself.

  Chapter Two

  Seven years ago, there had been a wedding in a parish church in Kent–a country wedding, near the home of the groom, the church bedecked in flowers in honor of the sensible bride, whose wedding breakfast would entertain a handful of London friends and well-wishers among the groom’s country folk. The wedding bells pealed, the church doors opened for the bride, a plain figure in a handsome but plain gown, on the arm of a groom of stout figure and advancing years, who escorted her to the hired carriage awaiting them.

  “It’s a mercy this day ever came,” remarked Mrs. Fitzwilliam, huffing slightly as she trailed forth from the church doors. “I fancied I would never live to see Eliza Barton married–although to a clergyman, that’s no surprise.” She leaned heavily upon the arm of Mrs. Phillips, whose features seemed more aged than the stout good woman bearing down upon her for strength, as if Mrs. Fitzwilliam was forged of sterner stuff.

  “Eliza seems pleased with the match,“ said Kitty. “There is no good woman in all the countryside who would make him a better wife.” She wore the same flowers in her hair as the ones woven in the garland above them. The pink and white roses had seemed becoming with her fawn-colored gown when she helped the children decorate the doorway’s arbor. She had concealed them now beneath her hat, their presence likely to earn disapproval since she was no longer young. Six years upon the marriage market in London and all to no avail, it seemed, since there was not one offer, one likely suitor, in all the prospective beaus of society.

  “A good housekeeper, you mean,” grunted Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “That’s what he’s marrying Eliza Barton for, mark my words.”

  “Then he chose the most sensible mind in the Barton family for the task, for the flights of fancy of her sister would drive any member of the clergy half-mad,” said Mrs. Phillips.

  “Perhaps he shall find her a husband among his congregation,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliams. “Then he shan’t have two women beneath his roof, both fussing and fidgeting over each pin and wrinkle until the place is driven to distraction with such order.”

  Kitty’s eye was upon the bridal carriage visible on the road, feeling a prick of sympathy for her old friend in the wake of these words. Eliza’s happiness seemed to pale in the realities of these two females wiser by long years and wit.

  “In the end, Eliza was lucky to find anyone at her age. Twenty-seven and practically an old unmarried soul from the day she was born,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam. At this remark, the flush in Kitty’s cheeks vanished as if a candle flame blown out behind a veil; her mother’s features became a trifle more stony.

  “Eliza Barton was a perfectly good match for any young man who might have had sense enough to choose a proper English girl for companionship and management of the home,” retorted Mrs. Phillips. “A marriage for the right reasons is appropriate at her age.”

  “Any woman with dignity would rather live simply and quietly than be chosen on
a foolish whim,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam, her hand pressed to her side as she moved.

  Kitty was twenty-five; the figure beneath the fawn dress was already losing its girlish curves even as the smooth, taut skin on her face and hands had begun to fade. Gazing straight ahead, she pretended not to overhear this conversation, to feel no effect from the remarks, although they burned keenly in her thoughts. In the warm summer breeze, a loose strand of hair fanned her cheek and neck in the breeze as she walked on, feeling the rustle of the dress against the cluster of flowers in her hand.

  Her gown was too girlish, she knew; the hat and the flowers were inappropriate, as were the romantic thoughts she entertained throughout the ceremony. She did not need the reproach of her elders, nor her mother’s reproof for her feelings, to know it was true. She walked towards the house of Eliza Barton, now Eliza Cook, in the midst of a straggling line of well-wishers, the last to cross the bridal threshold to the wedding breakfast.

  It was the last day on which Kitty Phillips would be young in her mind and heart, although she did not know it at the time. Her girlhood ended in a very different manner from the blushing Eliza, whose stern and sensible countenance was altered for this single day by her status above all other women present at the feast.

  *****

  “What a tragedy for Sir Frederick’s family, to end up with an heir that prefers his pointers over his family’s good name,” tisked Mrs. Fitzwilliam, her voice still high and shrill despite the frailty in its tones. “Here he is, running about in every low gambling den within twenty miles while his family pretends to have fortune enough to cover his indiscretions.”

  Time had altered the good woman’s ability to move with speed and swiftness and to speak her mind with the same loud forcefulness as before. It had withered her frame from its stout, ample proportions. It had not softened her tongue or her opinions, however, merely the instrument by which they were delivered.