Chapter 19 The Lady of the Forest by L. T. Meade
A TENDER HEART
Phil’s heart was very low within him. During the last few days, ever since that terrible interview with his mother, he had built his hopes high. He had been almost sure that the tankard was waiting for him in the lady’s house in the forest, that he should find it there when he went to make inquiries, and then that he might bring it back to his mother and so remove the shadow from her brow.
“I never knew that mother could miss a thing Gabrielle had given her so very, very much,” thought the little boy. “But there’s no doubt at all she does miss it and that she’s fretting. Poor, dear mother! she’s not unkind to me. Oh, no, she’s never that except when she’s greatly vexed; but, all the same, I know she’s fretting; for those lines round her mouth have come out again, and even when she laughs and tries to be merry downstairs I see them. There’s no doubt at all that she’s fretting and is anxious. Poor mother! how I wish I could find the green lady of the forest and that she would give me the bag of gold which would satisfy mother’s heart.”
Phil walked very slowly, his eyes fixed on the ground. He was now startled to hear a voice addressing him, and looking up with a quick movement, he saw the lady who lived in the pretty little cottage coming to meet him. He was not particularly elated at sight of her; he had nothing in particular to say to her; for as Nancy had assured him that the tankard was not at the cottage, it was quite useless making further inquiries about it.
“What are you doing here, Philip?” asked the lady in a kind voice. She knew him at once, and coming up to him, took his hand and looked kindly into his face. “You are a long way from home. Have you lost yourself in this dear, beautiful forest a second time, little man?”
Then Phil remembered that if this lady of the forest meant nothing in particular to him she meant a great deal to Rachel. He could not forget how Rachel’s eyes had shone, how Rachel’s face had looked when she spoke about her. The color flew into his own pale little face, and he spoke with enthusiasm.
“I am glad I have met you,” he said, “even though I don’t know your name. Will you come for a walk with me now through the forest? Will you hold my hand and look at me while you speak? Will you walk with me, and will you turn your face to the right, always to the right, as you go?”
“You are a queer little boy,” said the lady, and she laughed, almost merrily. “But I have just taken a very long walk and am tired. You also look tired, Philip, and your face is much too white. Suppose we alter the programme and yet keep together for a little. Suppose you come into the cottage with me and have some tea, and Nancy makes some of her delicious griddle-cakes.”
“That would be lovely. I should like it beyond anything; but may Rachel come in too?”
“Rachel!” said the lady of the forest. She put her hand suddenly to her heart and stepped back a pace or two.
“Yes, my cousin, Rachel Lovel; she is standing up yonder, at the other side of the great oak tree. She wants to see you, and she is standing there, hoping, hoping. Rachel’s heart is very hungry to see you. When she speaks of you her eyes look starved. I don’t understand it, but I know Rachel loves you better than any one else in the world.”
“Impossible!” said the lady; “and yet – and yet – but I must not speak to her, child, nor she to me. It – oh! you agitate me. I am tired. I have had a long walk. I must not speak to little Rachel Lovel.”
“She knows that,” said Phil in a sorrowful voice; for the lady’s whiteness and agitation and distress filled him with the keenest sympathy. “Rachel knows that you and she may not speak, but let her look at you. Do! She will be so good; she will not break her word to you for the world.”
“I must not look on her face, child. There are limits – yes, there are limits, and beyond them I have not strength to venture. I have a secret, child; I have a holy of holies, and you are daring to open it wide. Oh! you have brought me agony, and I am very tired!”
“I know what secrets are,” said little Phil. “Oh! they are dreadful; they give great pain. I am sorry you are in such trouble, lady of the forest, and that I have caused it. I am sorry, too, that you cannot take a very little walk with me, for it would give Rachel such pleasure.”
“It would give Rachel pleasure?” repeated the lady. And now the color came back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes. “That makes all the difference. I will walk with you, Phil, and you shall take my hand and I will turn my face to the right. See: can Rachel see my face now?”
“Yes,” said Phil; “she will peep from behind the oak tree. How glad, how delighted she will be!”
The lady and Phil walked slowly together, hand in hand, for nearly half an hour; during all that time the lady did not utter a single word. When the walk came to an end she stooped to kiss Phil, and then, moved by an impulse which she could not restrain, she kissed her own hand fervently and waved it in the direction of the oak tree. A little childish hand fluttered in the breeze in return, and then the lady returned to the cottage and shut the door after her.
Phil ran panting up to the oak tree and took Rachel’s hand.
“I did what I could for you, Rachel,” he said. “You saw her – did you not? She kept her face turned to the right, and you must have seen her quite plainly.”
Rachel’s cheeks were blazing like two peonies; the pupils of her eyes were dilated; her lips quivered.
“I saw her!” she exclaimed. “I looked at her, and my heart is hungrier than ever!”
Here she threw herself full length on the ground and burst into passionate sobs.
“Don’t, Rachel!” said Phil. “You puzzle me. Oh, you make my heart ache! Oh, this pain!”
He turned away from Rachel, and leaning against the oak tree writhed in bodily agony. In a moment Rachel had sprung to her feet; her tears had stopped; and raising Phil’s hat she wiped some drops from his white brow.
“I ran a little too fast,” he panted, after a moment or two. “I am a strong boy, but I can’t run very fast; it gives me a stitch; it catches my breath. Oh, yes, thank you, Rachel; I am better now. I am a strong boy, but I can’t run very fast.”
“You are not a bit a strong boy!” said Rachel, wiping away her own tears vigorously. “I have discovered that secret too of yours, Phil. You are always pretending to be strong, but it is only pretense.”
Phil looked at his cousin in alarm.
“If you guess my secrets you won’t tell them?” he said.
“Of course I won’t tell. What do you take me for? Now you must not walk for a little, and the children are quite happy without us. Is not this a nice soft bank? I will sit by your side and you shall tell me what the lady said to you and you to her.”
“No,” said Phil, with sudden energy. “I cannot tell you what she said.”
“You cannot tell me?”
“No. I took the lady by surprise and she let out some of her secrets – not all, but some. It would not be fair to tell them to any one else. I asked her to walk with me, and she knew that you were watching. Now, Rachel, I am quite well again, as well as ever. Shall we go back to the other children?”
Rachel rose slowly to her feet.
“I hate secrets,” she said, “and the very air seems full of them sometimes. You have lots of secrets, and my aunts have secrets, and the lady of the forest has a secret, and there is a secret about my mother, for I know she is not dead and yet I never see her. These secrets are enough to starve my heart. Phil, how soon would a girl like me be supposed to be grown up?”
“Oh, Rachel, how can I tell?”
“I shall be thirteen in May and I am tall. When I am fifteen – that is, in two years’ time – I shall begin to go round the world looking for my mother. I don’t intend to wait any longer. When I am fifteen I shall begin to go.”
“In Australia girls are nearly grown up at that age,” said Phil, who was thinking of Gabrielle. “Now, Rachel, let us go back to the others.”
The others were getting impatient. They had played hide-and-seek, and hunted for squirrels, and climbed trees, and quarreled and made it up again, until all their resources had come to an end; and when Rachel and Phil made their appearance they found that Robert had packed up the remains of the picnic, and that Clementina and Abby had already mounted their ponies, preparatory to riding home. Robert was leading up the other ponies as the two missing children appeared.
Rachel’s mind was still a good deal preoccupied, and it was not until she was preparing to mount her own pony that she discovered that Clementina had secured Ruby and was now seated comfortably on his back.
“Oh, Clementina, it is not safe for you to ride Ruby,” she called out at once. “He’s only just broken in and he’s full of spirit.”
“Thank you,” replied Clementina. “I prefer riding horses with spirit. I would not have another ride on that slow little creature, Surefoot, for the world.”
“But indeed that is not the reason,” said Rachel, who felt herself, she scarcely knew why, both softened and subdued. “It is that Ruby is not safe. I am the first girl who has ever been on his back. He knows me and will do what I tell him, but I am sure it is dangerous for you to ride him. Is it not dangerous, Robert, for Miss Marmaduke to ride Ruby?” called out Rachel to the groom.
Robert came up and surveyed the spirited little horse and the young rider critically.
“If Miss Marmaduke don’t whip him, and if she humors him a good bit and don’t set him off in a canter, why, then no harm may be done,” he said. “Ruby’s fresh, miss, and have a good deal of wild blood in him, and I only broke him in for Miss Rachel a fortnight back.”
Clementina’s color had risen very high during this discussion.
“I presume,” she said in an insolent tone, “that a pupil of Captain Delacourt’s can ride any horse that a pupil of one of the grooms at Avonsyde can manage! I’m sorry you’re so disobliging as to grudge me your horse, Rachel. I’ll just ride on in front now, and you all can follow me when you are ready.”
She turned Ruby’s head as she spoke and rode away under the forest trees.
“If she gives Ruby a taste of the whip she’ll repent of all her proud airs,” muttered Robert. “Now, young ladies, you had better mount and get under way. I suppose, Miss Rachel, that that ’ere young lady knows the right road home?”
“Hadn’t I better get on Brownie and ride after her?” asked Phil.
“No, sir; no. Ruby couldn’t bear horses’ hoofs a-galloping after him. It would set him off mad like, and there wouldn’t be a hope for Miss Marmaduke. No; the only thing now is to trust that the young lady won’t touch Ruby with the whip and that she knows the way home.”
The other children mounted without any more discussion, and the ride home was undertaken with a certain sense of depression,
No sign of Clementina could be seen, and when they reached the stables at Avonsyde neither she nor Ruby had put in an appearance.