Chapter 24 The Lady of the Forest by L. T. Meade
A GREAT ALARM
“Katharine,” said Miss Griselda to her younger sister, “do you happen to remember the address of those lodgings in London where we wrote years ago to Rachel’s and Kitty’s mother? The 5th of May will be this day week, and although I dislike the woman, and of course cannot possibly agree with you as to her being in any sense of the word a lady, yet still when Griselda Lovel passes her word she does pass it, and I think it is right, however painful, to give the young woman the invitation for the 5th of May.”
“We wrote one letter nearly six years ago to No. 10 Abbey Street, Marshall Road, S.W., London,” answered Miss Katharine in a sharp voice for her. “One letter to a mother about her own children; but that was the address, Griselda.”
“No. 10 Abbey Street,” repeated Miss Griselda. “I shall send the young woman an invitation to-day. Of course it won’t reach her, for she is dead long ago; but it is only right to send it. Katharine, you don’t look well this morning. Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing more than usual,” answered Miss Katharine. “One letter in six years to Valentine’s wife. Oh, no, I was not likely to forget the address.”
“Allow me to congratulate you on your excellent memory, my dear. Oh, here comes Phil’s mother. I have much to talk over with her.”
Miss Katharine left the room; her head was throbbing and tears rose unbidden to her eyes. When she reached the great hall she sat down on an oak bench and burst into tears.
“How cruel of Griselda to speak like that of Valentine’s wife,” she said under her breath. “If Valentine’s wife is indeed dead I shall never know another happy moment. Oh, Rachel and Kitty, my dears, I did not see you coming in.”
“Yes, and here is Phil too,” said Kitty, dragging him forward. “Why are you crying, Aunt Katharine? Do dry your tears and look at our lovely flowers.”
“I am thinking about your mother, children,” said Miss Katharine suddenly. “Does it ever occur to you two thoughtless, happy girls that you have got a mother somewhere in existence – that she loves you and misses you?”
“I don’t know my mother,” said Kitty. “I can’t remember her, but Rachel can.”
“Yes,” said Rachel abruptly. “I’m going all round the world to look for her by and by. Don’t let’s talk of her; I can’t bear it.”
The child’s face had grown pale; a look of absolute suffering filled her dark and glowing eyes. Miss Katharine was so much astonished at this little peep into Rachel’s deep heart that she absolutely dried her own tears. Sometimes she felt comforted at the thought of Rachel suffering. If even one child did not quite forget her mother, surely this fact would bring pleasure to the mother by and by.
Meanwhile Miss Griselda was holding a solemn and somewhat alarming conversation with poor Mrs. Lovel. In the first place, she took the good lady into the library – a dark, musty-smelling room, which gave this vivacious and volatile person, as she expressed it, “the horrors” on the spot. Miss Griselda having secured her victim and having seated her on one of the worm-eaten, high-backed chairs, opened the book-case marked D and took from it the vellum-bound diary which six years ago she had carried to the old squire’s bedroom. From the musty pages of the diary Miss Griselda read aloud the story of the great quarrel; she read in an intensely solemn voice, with great emphasis and even passion. Miss Griselda knew this part of the history of her house so well that she scarcely needed to look at the words of the old chronicler.
“It may seem a strange thing to you, Mrs. Lovel,” she said when she had finished her story – “a strange and incomprehensible thing that your white-faced and delicate-looking little boy should in any way resemble the hero of this quarrel.”
“Phil is not delicate,” feebly interposed Mrs. Lovel.
“I said delicate-looking. Pray attend to me. The Rupert who quarreled with his father – I will confess to you that my sympathies are with Rupert – was in the right. He was heroic – a man of honor; he was brave and stalwart and noble. Your boy reminds me of him – not in physique, no, no! but his spirit looks out of your boy’s eyes. I wish to make him the heir of our house.”
“Oh, Miss Griselda, how can a poor, anxious mother thank you enough?”
“Don’t thank me at all. I do it in no sense of the word for you. The boy pleases me; he has won on my affections; I – love him.”
Miss Griselda paused. Perhaps never before in the whole course of her life had she openly admitted that she loved any one. After a period which seemed interminable to poor Mrs. Lovel she resumed:
“My regard for the boy is, however, really of small consequence; he can only inherit under the conditions of my father’s will. These conditions are that he must claim direct descent from the Rupert Lovel who was treated so unjustly two hundred years ago, and that he has, as far as it is possible for a boy to have, perfect physical health.”
Mrs. Lovel grew white to her very lips.
“Phil is perfectly strong,” she repeated.
Miss Griselda stared at her fixedly.
“I have judged of that for myself,” she said coldly. “I have studied many books on the laws of health and many physiological treatises, and have trusted to my own observation rather than to any doctor’s casual opinion. The boy is pale and slight, but I believe him to be strong, for I have tested him in many ways. Without you knowing it I have made him go through many athletic exercises, and he has often run races in my presence. I believe him to be sound. We will let that pass. The other and even more important matter is that he should now prove his descent. You have shown me some of your proofs, and they certainly seem to me incontestable, but I have not gone really carefully into the matter. My lawyer, Mr. Baring, will come down here on the afternoon of the 4th and carefully go over with you all your letters and credentials. On the 5th I have incited many friends to come to Avonsyde, and on that occasion Katharine and I will present Philip to our many acquaintances as our heir. We will make the occasion as festive as possible, and would ask you to see that Philip is suitably and becomingly dressed. You know more of the fashions of the world than we do, so we will leave the matter of device in your hands, of course bearing all the expense ourselves. By the way, you have observed in the history I have just read how the old silver tankard is mentioned. In that terrible scene where Rupert finally parts with his father, he takes up the tankard and declares that ‘Tyde what may’ he will yet return vindicated and honored to the old family home. That was a prophecy,” continued Miss Griselda, rising with excitement to her feet; “for you have brought the boy and also the very tankard which Rupert took away with him. I look upon your possession of the tankard, as the strongest proof of all of the justice of your claim. By the way, you have never yet shown it to me. Do you mind fetching it now?”
Muttering something almost unintelligible, Mrs. Lovel rose and left the library. She crossed the great hall, opened the oak door which led to the tower staircase, and mounting the winding and worn stairs, presently reached her bedroom. The little casement windows were opened, and the sweet air of spring was filling the quaint chamber. Mrs. Lovel shut and locked the door; then she went to one of the narrow and slit-like windows and looked out. A wide panorama of lovely landscape lay before her; miles of forest lands undulated away to the very horizon; the air was full of the sweet songs of many birds; the atmosphere was perfumed with all the delicious odors of budding flowers and opening leaves. In its way nothing could have been more perfect; and it was for Phil – all for Phil! All the beauty and the glory and the loveliness, all the wealth and the comfort and the good position, were for Phil, her only little son. Mrs. Lovel clasped her hands, and bitter tears came to her eyes. The cup was almost to the boy’s lips. Was it possible that anything could dash it away now?
The tankard – she was sent to fetch the silver tankard – the tankard which Phil himself had lost! What could she do? How could she possibly frame an excuse? She dared not tell Miss Griselda that her boy had lost it. She felt so timid, so insecure, that she dared not confess what an ordinary woman in ordinary circumstances would have done. She dreaded the gaze of Miss Griselda’s cold, unbelieving gray eyes; she dreaded the short sarcastic speech she would be sure to make. No, no, she dared not confess; she must dissemble; she must prevaricate; on no account must she tell the truth. She knew that Miss Griselda was waiting for her in the library; she also knew that the good lady was not remarkable for patience; she must do something, and at once.
In despair she rang the bell, and when Newbolt replied to it she found Mrs. Lovel lying on her bed with her face partly hidden.
“Please tell Miss Lovel that I am ill, Newbolt,” she said. “I have been taken with a very nasty headache and trembling and faintness. Ask her if she will excuse my going downstairs just for the present.”
Newbolt departed with her message, and Mrs. Lovel knew that she had a few hours’ grace. She again locked the door and, rising from her bed, paced up and down the chamber. She was far too restless to remain quiet. Was it possible that the loss of the tankard might be, after all, her undoing? Oh, no! the dearly loved possession was now so close; the auspicious day was so near; the certainty was at her door. No, no! the letters were proof of Philip’s claim; she need not be so terribly frightened. Although she reasoned in this way, she felt by no means reassured, and it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps if she went into the forest she might find the tankard herself. It might be lying even now forgotten, unnoticed under some bush beside the treacherous bog which had almost swallowed up her boy. What a happy thought! Oh, yes, she herself would go to look for it.
Mrs. Lovel did not know the forest as Phil and Rachel and Kitty did. The forest by itself had no charms whatever for her. She disliked its solitude; she saw no beauty in its scenery; no sweetness came to her soul from the song of its happy birds or the brilliance of its wild flowers. No, no – the city and life and movement and gayety for Mrs. Lovel; she was a poor artificial creature, and Nature was not likely to whisper her secrets into her ears.
When Phil came up by and by his mother questioned him minutely as to the part of the forest into which he had wandered. Of course he could not tell her much; but she got a kind of idea, and feeble as her knowledge was she resolved to act on it.
Early the next morning she rose from an almost sleepless bed, and carefully dressing so as not to awaken her sleeping boy, she stole downstairs and, as Phil had done some months before, let herself out by a side entrance into the grounds. It was winter when Phil had gone on his little expedition – a winter’s morning, with its attendant cold and damp and gloom; but now the spring sun was already getting up, the dew sparkled on the grass, and the birds were having a perfect chorus of rejoicing. Even Mrs. Lovel, unimpressionable as she was to all nature’s delights, was influenced by the crisp and buoyant air and the sense of rejoicing which the birds and flowers had in common. She stepped quits briskly into the forest and said to herself:
“My spirits are rising; that terrible depression I underwent yesterday is leaving me. I take this as a good omen and believe that I may find the tankard.”
Phil had given her certain directions, and for some time she walked on bravely, expecting each moment to come to the spot where the boy had assured her the beaten track ended and she must plunge into the recesses of the primeval forest itself. Of course she lost her way, and after wandering along for some hours, seated herself in an exhausted state at the foot of a tree, and there, without in the least intending to do so, fell asleep.
Mrs. Lovel was unaccustomed to any physical exercise, and her long walk, joined to her sleepless night, made her now so overpoweringly drowsy that she not only slept, but slept heavily.
In her sleep she knew nothing at all of the advance the day was making. The sun’s rays darting through the thick foliage of the giant oak tree under which she slumbered did not in the least disturb her, and when some robins made their breakfast close by and twittered and talked to one another she never heard them. Some rabbits and some squirrels peeped at her quite saucily, but they never even ruffled her placid repose. Her head rested against the tree, her bonnet was slightly pushed back, and her hands lay folded over each other in her lap.
Presently there was a sound of footsteps, and a woman came up and bent over the sleeping lady in the forest. The woman was dressed in a short petticoat, strong boots, a striped jersey jacket, and a shawl thrown over her head; she carried a basket on her arm and she was engaged in her favorite occupation of picking sticks.
“Dearie me! now, whoever is this?” said Nancy White as she bent over Phil’s mother. “Dearie, dearie, a poor white-looking thing; no bone or muscle or go about her, I warrant. And who has she a look of? I know some one like her – and yet – no, it can’t be – no. Is it possible that she features pretty little Master Phil?”
Nancy spoke half-aloud, and came yet nearer and bent very low indeed over the sleeper.
“She do feature Master Phil and she has got the dress of a fine lady. Oh, no doubt she’s his poor, weak bit of a mother! Bless the boy! No wonder he’s ailing if she has the mothering of him.”
Nancy’s words were all muttered half-aloud, and under ordinary occasions such sounds would undoubtedly have awakened Mrs. Lovel; now they only caused her to move restlessly and to murmur some return words in her sleep.
“Phil, if we cannot find that tankard we are undone.” Then after a pause: “It is a long way to the bog. I wonder if Phil has left the tankard on the borders of the bog.”
On hearing these sentences, which were uttered with great distinctness and in accents almost bordering on despair, Nancy suddenly threw her basket to the ground; then she clasped her two hands over her head and, stepping back a pace or two, began to execute a hornpipe, to the intense astonishment of some on-lookers in the shape of birds and squirrels.
“Ah, my lady fair!” she exclaimed, “what you have let out now makes assurance doubly sure. And so you think you’ll find the precious tankard in the bog! Now, now, what shall I do? How can I prevent your going any further on such a fool’s quest? Ah, my pretty little ladies, my pretty Miss Rachel and Miss Kitty, I believe I did you a good turn when I hid that tankard away.”
Nancy indulged in a few more expressions of self-congratulation then, a sudden idea coming to her, she fumbled in her pocket for a bit of paper, and scribbling something on it laid it on the sleeping lady’s lap.
When Mrs. Lovel awoke, somewhere close on midday, she took up the little piece of paper and read its contents with startled eyes:
“Come what may come, tyde what may tyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.
“False heirs never yet have thriven;
Tankards to the right are given.”
The last two lines, which Nancy had composed in a perfect frenzy of excitement and rapture at what she considered a sudden development of the poetic fancy, caused poor Mrs. Lovel’s cheeks to blanch and her eyes to grow dim with a sudden overpowering sense of fear. She rose to her feet and pursued her way home, trembling in every limb.