Chapter 13 The Lady of the Forest by L. T. Meade
ONE MORE SECRET
When Phil opened his eyes he was quite sure for several moments that all his best dreams were realized. He was in a very tiny parlor (he loved small rooms, for they reminded him of the cottage at the back of the garden); he was lying full length on an old-fashioned and deliciously soft sofa, and a lady with a tender and beautiful face was bending over him; the firelight flickered in a cozy little grate and the sunlight poured in through a latticed window. The whole room was a picture of comfort, and Phil drew a deep sigh of happiness.
“Have you given mother the bag of gold? And are we back in the cottage at the back of the garden?” he murmured.
“Drink this, dear,” said the quiet, grave voice, and then a cup of delicious hot milk was held to his little blue lips, and after he had taken several sips of the milk he was able to sit up and look round him.
“You are the lady of the forest, aren’t you? But where’s your green dress?”
“I am a lady who lives in the forest, my dear child. I am so glad I came down to that dreadful bog and rescued you. What is your name, my dear little boy?”
“My name? I am Phil Lovel. Do you know, it is so sad, but I am going to have Avonsyde. I am the heir. I don’t want it at all. It was principally about Avonsyde I came out this morning to find you. Yes, I had a great escape in the bog, but I felt almost sure that you would come to save me. It was very good of you. I am not a strong boy, and I don’t suppose I could have stood up in that dreadful cold, damp bog much longer. Although I’m not bad at bearing pain, yet the ache in my legs was getting quite terrible. Well, it’s all right now, and I’m so glad I’ve found you. Are you very rich, lady of the forest? And may I tell you everything?”
Had Phil not been absorbed in his own little remarks he might have noticed a curious change coming over the lady’s face. For one brief instant her eyes seemed to blaze, her brows contracted as if with pain, and the band with which she held the restorative to Phil’s lips trembled. Whatever emotion overcame her its effect was brief. When the boy, wondering at her silence, raised his eyes to look at her, it was only a sweet and quiet glance which met his.
“I have heard of little Philip Lovel,” she said. “I am glad to see you. I am glad I saved you from a terrible fate. If no one had come to your rescue you must eventually have sunk in that dreadful bog.”
“But I was quite sure you would come,” answered Phil. “Do you know, I went out this morning expecting to meet you. Betty and I have spoken of you so very, very often. We have made up lovely stories about you; but you have always been in green and your face dazzled. Now you are not in green. You are in a dark, plain dress – as plain a dress as mother used to wear when we lived in the house behind the garden; and though you are beautiful – yes, I really think you are beautiful – you don’t dazzle. Well, I am glad I have met you. Did you know that a little boy was wandering all over the forest looking for you to-day? And did you come out on purpose to meet him and to save him? Oh, I trust, I do trust you have got the gift with you!”
“I don’t quite understand you, my dear little boy,” said the lady. “No, I did not come to meet you. I simply took a walk between the showers. You are talking too much and too fast; you must be quiet now, and I will put this warm rug over you and you can try to sleep. When you are quite rested and warm, Nancy, my servant, will take you back to Avonsyde.”
Phil was really feeling very tired; his limbs ached; his throat was dry and parched; he was only too glad to lie still on that soft sofa in that tiny room and not pretend to be anything but a sadly exhausted little boy. He even closed his eyes at the lady’s bidding, but he soon opened them again, for he liked to watch her as she sat by the fire. No, she was scarcely dazzling, but Phil could quite believe that she might be considered beautiful. Her eyes were dark and gray; her hair was also dark, very soft, and very abundant; her mouth had an expression about it which Phil seemed partly to know, which puzzled him, for he felt so sure that he had seen just such resolute and well cut lips in some one else.
“It’s Rachel!” he said suddenly under his breath. “How very, very queer that Rachel should have a look of the lady of the forest!”
He half-roused himself to watch the face, which began more and more to remind him of Rachel’s.
But as he looked there came a curious change over the lady’s expressive face. The firm lips trembled; a look of agonized yearning and longing filled the pathetic gray eyes, and a few words said aloud with unspeakable sadness reached the little boy.
“So Kitty speaks of me – little, little Kitty speaks of me.”
The lady covered her face with her hands, and Phil, listening very attentively, thought he heard her sob.
After this he really closed his eyes and went to sleep. When he awoke the winter’s light had disappeared, the curtains were drawn across the little window, and a reading-lamp with a rose-colored shade made the center of the table look pretty. There was a cozy meal spread for two on the board, and when Phil opened his eyes and came back to the world of reality, the lady was bending over the fire and making some crisp toast.
“You have had a nice long sleep,” she said in a cheerful voice. “Now will you come to the table and have some tea? Here is a fresh egg for you, which Brownie, my dear speckled hen, laid while you were asleep. You feel much better, don’t you? Now you must make a very good tea, and when you have finished Nancy will take you as far as Rufus’ Stone, where I have asked a man with a chaise to meet her; he will drive you back to Avonsyde in less than an hour.”
Phil felt quite satisfied with these arrangements. He also discovered that he was very hungry; so he tumbled off the sofa, and with his light-brown hair very much tossed and his eyes shining, took his place at the tea-table. There he began to chatter, and did not at all know that the lady was leading him on to tell her as much as possible about Rachel and Kitty and about his life at Avonsyde. He answered all her questions eagerly, for he had by no means got over his impression that she was really the lady whom he had come to seek.
“I don’t want Avonsyde, you know,” he said suddenly, speaking with great earnestness. “Oh, please, if you are the lady of the forest and can give those who seek you a gift, let my gift be a bag of gold! I will take it back to mother in the chaise to-night, and then – and then – poor mother! My mother is very poor, lady, but when I give her your gold she will be rich, and then we can both go away from Avonsyde.”
For a moment or two the lady with the sad gray eyes looked with wonder and perplexity at little Phil – some alarm even was depicted on her face, but it suddenly cleared and lightened. She rose from her chair, and going up to the child stooped and kissed him.
“You don’t want Avonsyde. Then I am your friend, little Phil Lovel. Here are three kisses – one for you, one for Rachel, one for Kitty. Give my kisses as from yourself to the little girls. But I am not what you think me, Phil. I am no supernatural lady who can give gifts or can dazzle with unusual beauty. I am just a plain woman who lives here most of the year and earns her bread with hard and daily labor. I cannot give money, for I have not got it. I can be your friend, however. Not a powerful friend – certainly not; but no true friendship is to be lightly thrown away. Why, my little man, how disappointed you look! Are you really going to cry?”
“Oh, no, I won’t cry!” said Phil, but with a very suspicious break in his voice; “but I am so tired of all the secrets and of pretending to be strong and all that. If you are not the lady and have not got the bag of gold, mother and I will have to stay on at Avonsyde, for mother is very poor and she would starve if we went away. You don’t know what a dreadful weight it is on one’s mind always to be keeping secrets.”
“I am very sorry, Phil. As it happens I do know what a secret means. I am very sorry for you, more particularly as I am just going to add to your secrets. I want you to promise not to tell any one at Avonsyde about my little house in the forest nor about me. I think you will keep my secret when I tell you that if it is known it will do me very grave injury.”
“I would not injure you,” said Phil, raising his sweet eyes to her face. “I do hate secrets and I find them dreadfully hard to keep, but one more won’t greatly matter, only I do wish you were the real lady of the forest.”
When Nancy came back to the little cottage after disposing of Phil comfortably in the chaise and giving the driver a great many emphatic directions about him, she went straight into her lady’s presence. She was a privileged old servant, and she did not dream of knocking at the door of the little sitting-room; no, she opened it boldly and came in, many words crowding to her lips.
“This will upset her fine,” she muttered under her breath. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! I’ll have to do a lot of talking to-night. I’m not one to say she gives way often, but when she do, why, she do, and that’s the long and short of it.”
Nancy opened the door noisily and entered the room with a world of purpose depicted on her honest, homely face.
“Now, ma’am,” she began, “I have seen him off as snug and safe as possible, and the driver promises to deliver him sure as sure into his mother’s arms within the hour. A pretty sort of a mother she must be to let a bit of a babe like that wander about since before the dawn and never find him yet. Now, ma’am, you’re not settling down to that needlework at this hour? Oh, and you do look pale! Why, Mrs. Lovel, what’s the use of overdoing it?”
The lady so addressed raised her sad eyes to the kindly pair looking down at her and said gently:
“I am determined to be at least as brave as that brave little boy. He would not cry, although he longed to. I must either work or cry, so I choose to work. Nancy, how many yards of the lace are now finished?”
“Ten, I should think,” answered Nancy, whose countenance expressed strong relief at the turn the conversation had taken. “I should say there was ten yards done, ma’am, but I will go upstairs and count them over if you like.”
“I wish you would. If there are ten yards upstairs there are nearly two here; that makes just the dozen. And you think it is quite the best lace I have made yet, Nancy?”
“Oh, ma’am, beautiful is no word; and how your poor eyes stand the fine work passes my belief. But now, now, where’s the hurry for to-night? Why, your hands do shake terrible. Let me make you a cup of cocoa and light a fire in your bedroom, and you go to bed nice and early, Mrs. Lovel.”
Mrs. Lovel threw down her work with a certain gesture of impatience.
“I should lie awake all night,” said Mrs. Lovel. “Do you know, Nancy, that the little boy spoke of Kitty? He said my baby Kitty often mentioned the lady of the forest – that he and she both did. At first I thought that he meant me and that Kitty really spoke of her mother; but now I believe he was alluding to some imaginary forest lady.”
“The green forest lady,” interposed Nancy. “I don’t say, ma’am, that she’s altogether a fancy, though. There’s them – yes, there’s them whose words may be relied on who are said to have spoke with her.”
“Well, no matter. I am finishing this lace to-night, Nancy, because I mean to go to London to-morrow.”
“You, ma’am? Oh, oh, and it ain’t three months since you were there!”
“Yes, I must go. I want to see my husband’s lawyers. Nancy, this suspense is killing me!”
“Oh, my poor, dear, patient lady! But it ain’t so many months now to wait. Miss Rachel’s birthday comes in May.”
“Nancy, the mother-hunger is driving me wild. If I could only see them both and kiss them once I should be satisfied.”
“You shall kiss them hundreds of times when May comes,” answered the old servant. “And they are well and bonny and Miss Rachel loves you; and the little one, why, of course her heart will go out to you when you hold her in your arms again.”
“Six years!” repeated the poor lady, clasping her hands, letting the lovely lace fall to the ground, and gazing into the glowing fire in the grate. “Six years for a mother to starve! Oh, Nancy, how could good women be so cruel? I believe Miss Grizel and Miss Katharine are good. How could they be so cruel?”
“Old maids!” said Nancy, with a little snort. “Do you suppose, ma’am, that those old ladies know anything of the mother feel? Well, Mrs. Lovel, the children are two bonny little lassies, and you have given up much for them. You did it for their good, ma’am – that they should have full and plenty and be provided for. You did it all out of real self-denial, ma’am.”
“I made up my mind the day Kitty fainted for want of food,” answered Mrs. Lovel. “I made up my mind and I never flinched; but oh! Nancy, think of its being in vain! For, after all, that little boy is the true heir. He is a dear little fellow, and although I ought to hate him I can’t. He is the true heir; and if so, you know, Nancy, that my little girls come back to me. How have I really bettered them by giving them six years of luxury when, after all, they must return to my small life?”
“And to the best of mothers,” answered Nancy. “And to two or three hundred pounds put by careful; and they hearty and bonny and Miss Rachel’s education half-complete. No, ma’am, they are not worse off, but a deal better off for what you have done for them – that’s if the worst comes. But how can you say that that little boy will have Avonsyde? Why, he hasn’t no strength in him – not a bit. Thin is no word for him, and he’s as light as a feather, and so white! Why, I carried him in my arms as far as the Stone, and I didn’t feel as if I had nothing in them. Why, ma’am, all the country round knows that the ladies at Avonsyde are looking out for a strong heir; they go direct against the will if they give the old place to a sickly one. No, ma’am, Master Phil Lovel ain’t the heir for Avonsyde. And is it likely, ma’am, that the ladies would be putting advertisements in all the papers, foreign and otherwise, for the last five years and a half, and sending over special messengers to the other side of the globe, and never yet a strong, hearty, real heir turn up? Why, of course, Mrs. Lovel, he ain’t to be found, and that’s why he don’t come.”
Mrs. Lovel smiled faintly.
“Well, Nancy,” she said, “I must at least go to town to-morrow, and as that is the case I will take your advice and go up to my room now. No, I could not eat anything. Good-night, dear Nancy.”
When Mrs. Lovel left the little sitting-room Nancy stayed behind to give it a good “redding-up” as she expressed it. With regard to sitting-rooms, and indeed all rooms arranged for human habitation, Nancy was a strict disciplinarian; rigid order was her motto. Chairs placed demurely in rows; a table placed exactly in the middle of the room; books arranged at symmetrical intervals round it; each ornament corresponding exactly to its fellow; blinds drawn to a certain level – these were her ideas of a nice cheerful apartment. Could she have had her own choice with regard to carpets, she would have had them with a good dash of orange in them; her curtains should always be made of moreen and be of a bright cardinal tone. A tidy and a cheerful room was her delight; she shuddered at the tendencies, so-called artistic, of the present day. Putting the little sitting-room in order now, her feet knocked against something which gave forth a metallic sound; stooping, she picked up from the floor Phil’s tankard. She examined it curiously and brought it to the light. The quaint motto inscribed on one of its sides – “Tyde what may” – was well known to her as the motto of the house of Lovel.
“I know nothing about this old cup,” she said to herself; “it may or may not be of value; but it looks old – uncommon old; and it has the family coat of arms and them outlandish, meaningless words on it. Of course it was little Master Phil brought it in to-day and forgot all about it. Well, well, it may mean something or it may not; but my name ain’t Nancy White if I don’t set it by for the present and bide my time about returning it. Ah, my dear, dear lady, it won’t be Nancy’s fault if your bonny little girls don’t get their own out of Avonsyde!”