Kitty and Philip ran off together hand in hand. They were about the same height, but Kitty’s fair, healthy, flushed face showed in strong contrast to Phil’s pallor, and her round and sturdy limbs gave promise of coming health and beauty; whereas Phil’s slight form only suggested possible illness, and to a watchful eye would have betokened a short life. But the boy was wiry and just now he was strongly excited. It was delightful to be in the real country and more than delightful to go out with Kitty.
“You are my cousin, aren’t you?” said the little maid, favoring him with a full, direct glance.
“I suppose so,” he answered. “Yes, I suppose so. I don’t quite know.”
Kitty stamped her foot.
“Don’t say that!” she replied. “I hate people who are not quite sure about things. I want to have a real boy cousin to play with. Two or three make-believes came here, but they went away again. Of course we all found them out at once, and they went away. I do trust you are not another make-believe, Philip. You’re very pale and very thin, but I do hope what’s of you is real.”
“Oh, yes; what’s of me is real enough,” said Phil, with a little sigh. “Where are you going to take me, Kitty? Into the forest? I want to see the forest. I wonder will it be as fine as the forest where Ru——I mean where a cousin of mine and I used to play?”
“Oh, have you another cousin besides me? How exciting!”
“Yes; but I don’t want to talk about him. Are we going into the forest?”
“If you like. You see those trees over there? All that is forest; and then there is a bit of wild moorland, and then more trees; and there is a pine wood, with such a sweet smell. It’s all quite close, and I see it every day. It isn’t very exciting when you see it every day. Your eyes need not shine like that. You had much better take things quietly, especially as you are such a very thin boy. Aunt Katharine says thin people should never get excited. She says it wears them out. Well, if you must come into the forest I suppose you must; but would you not like something to eat first? I know what we are to have for tea. Shall I tell you?”
“Yes,” said Phil; “tell me when we have got under the trees; tell me when I am looking up through the branches for the birds and the squirrels. You have not such gay birds as ours, for I watched yours when I was coming in the train from Southampton; but oh! don’t they sing!”
“You are a very queer boy,” said Kitty. “Birds and squirrels and forest trees, when you might be hearing about delicious frosted cake and jam rolly-polies. Well, take my hand and let’s run into the forest; let’s get it over, if we must get it over. I’ll take you down to the Avon to fish to-morrow. I like fishing—don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Phil. “I like nearly everything. Do you fish with flies or bait?”
“Oh, with horrid bait! that is the worst of it; but I generally get Robert—one of our grooms—to bait my lines.”
The children were now under the shade of the trees, and Kitty, after running about until she was tired, climbed into one of the branches of a wide-spreading beech tree and rocked herself in a very contented manner backward and forward. Phil was certainly a very queer little boy, but she was quite convinced he must be her real true cousin, that he was not a make-believe, that he would stay on at Avonsyde as the heir, and that she would always have a companion of her own age to play with.
“He will get tired of the forest by and by,” she said to herself, “and then he will like best to play with me, and we can fish all day together. How jolly that will be! What a good thing it is that he is so nearly my own age, and that he is not older; for if he were he would go every where with Rachel and be her friend. I should not like that at all,” concluded the little girl, with a very selfish though natural sigh of satisfaction.
Presently Phil—having wandered about to his heart’s content, having ascertained the color of several birds which sang over his head, having treasured up the peculiar quality of their different notes, and having ascertained beyond all doubt that the English forest was quite the quaintest and most lovely place in the world—came back and climbed into the tree by Kitty’s side.
“I’d like him to see it awfully,” he said.
“Who, Phil?”
“I can’t tell you—that’s my secret. Kitty, you’ll never find that I shall get accustomed to the forest—I mean so accustomed that I shan’t want to come here. Oh, never, never! A place like this must always have something new to show you. Kitty, can you imitate all the birds’ notes yet?”
“I can’t imitate one of them,” said Kitty, with an impatient frown coming between her eyebrows.
“But I know what I want to be doing, and I only wish you had the same want.”
“Perhaps I have. What is it?”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. You’re just like the goody-goody, awfully learned boys of the story-book. I do wish you wouldn’t go into raptures about stupid trees and birds and things!”
Phil’s little pale face flushed.
“Rupert—I mean—I mean my dearest friend—a boy you know nothing about, Kitty—never spoke about its being goody-goody to love things of this sort, and he is manly if you like. I can’t help loving them. But what is your want, Kitty?”
“Oh, to have my mouth crammed full of jam rolly-poly! I am so hungry!”
“So am I too. Let’s run back to the house.”
When Philip and Kitty had gone off together for their first exploring expedition, when the two little strangers to one another had clasped hands and gone out through the open hall-door and down the shady lawns together, Rachel had followed them for a few paces.
She stood still shading her eyes with one hand as she gazed after their retreating figures; then whistling to an English terrier of the name of Jupiter, she ran round to the stables and encountered one of the grooms.
“Robert, put the side-saddle on Surefoot and come with me into the forest. It is a lovely evening, and I am going for a long ride.”
Robert, a very young and rather sheepish groom, looked appealingly at the bright and pretty speaker.
“My mother is ill, Miss Rachel, and Peter do say as I may go home and see her. Couldn’t you ride another evening, missy?”
“No, I’m going to ride to-night. I wish to and I’m going; but you need not come with me; it is quite unnecessary. I should like nothing so well as having a long ride on Surefoot all alone.”
“But the ladies do say, Miss Rachel, as you are not to ride in the forest by yourself. Oh, if you will go, missy, why, I must just put off seeing my poor mother until to-morrow.”
Rachel stamped her foot impatiently.
“Nonsense, Robert!” she said. “I am going to ride alone. I will explain matters to my aunts, so you need not be at all afraid. Put the side-saddle on Surefoot at once!”
Robert’s conscience was easily appeased. He ran off and quickly returned with the rough little forest pony, and Rachel, mounting, cantered off.
She was an excellent rider and had not a scrap of fear in her nature. She entered the forest by the long straight avenue; and Surefoot, delighted to feel his feet on the smooth, velvety sward, trotted along gayly.
“Now I am free!” said the girl. “How delightful it is to ride all by myself. I will go a long, long way this beautiful evening.”
It was a perfect summer’s evening, and Rachel was riding through scenery of exquisite beauty. Birds sang blithely to her as she flew lightly over the ground; squirrels looked down at her from among the branches of the forest oaks; many wild flowers smiled up at her, and all nature seemed to sympathize with her gay youth and beauty.
She was a romantic, impulsive child, and lived more or less in a world of her own imaginings.
The forest was the happiest home in the world to Rachel; Avonsyde was well enough, but no place was like the forest itself. She had a strong impression that it was still peopled by fairies. She devoured all the legends that Mrs. Newbolt, her aunt’s maid, and John Eyre, one of the agisters of the forest, could impart to her. Both these good people had a lurking belief in ghosts and fairies. Eyre swore that he had many and many a time seen the treacherous little Jack-o’-lanterns. He told horrible stories of strangers who were lured into bogs by these deceitful little sprites. But Mrs. Newbolt had a far more wonderful and exciting tale to tell than this; for she spoke of a lady who, all in green, flitted through the forest—a lady with a form of almost spiritual etherealness, and with such a lovely face that those who were fortunate enough to see her ever after retained on their own countenances a faint reflection of her rare beauty. Rachel had heard of this forest lady almost from the first moment of her residence at Avonsyde. She built many brilliant castles in the air about her, and she and Kitty most earnestly desired to see her. Of course they had never yet done so, but their belief in her was not a whit diminished, and they never went into the forest without having a dim kind of hope that they might behold the lady.
Newbolt said that she appeared to very few, but she admitted that on one or two occasions of great and special moment she had revealed herself to some fair dames of the house of Lovel. She never appeared to two people together, and in consequence Rachel always longed to go into the forest alone. She felt excited to-night, and she said to herself more than once, “I wonder if I shall see her. She comes on great occasions; surely this must be a great occasion if the long-looked-for heir has come to Avonsyde. I do wonder if that little boy is the heir!”
Rachel rode on, quite forgetful of time; the rapid motion and the lovely evening raised her always versatile spirits. Her cheeks glowed; her dark eyes shone; she tossed back her rebellious curly locks and laughed aloud once or twice out of pure happiness.
She intended to go a long way, to penetrate further into the shades of the wonderful forest than she had ever done yet; but even she was unconscious how very far she was riding.
It is easy to lose one’s way in the New Forest, and Rachel, accustomed as she was to all that part which immediately surrounded Avonsyde, presently found herself in a new country. She had left Rufus’ Stone far behind and was now riding down a gentle descent, when something induced the adventurous little lady to consult her watch. The hour pointed to six o’clock. It would be light for a long time yet, for it was quite the middle of summer, and Rachel reflected that as tea-time was past, and as she would certainly be well scolded when she returned, she might as well stay out a little longer.
“‘In for a penny, in for a pound!’” she said. “The aunties will be so angry with me, but I don’t care; I mean to enjoy myself to-night. Oh, what a tempting green bank, and what a carpet of bluebells just there to the right! I must get some. Surefoot shall have a rest and a nibble at some of the grass, and I’ll pick the flowers and sit on the bank for a little time.”
Surefoot was very well pleased with this arrangement. He instantly, with unerring instinct, selected the juiciest and most succulent herbage which the place afforded, and was happy after his fashion. Rachel picked bluebells until she had her hands full; then seating herself, she began to arrange them. She had found a small clearing in the forest, and her seat was on the twisted and gnarled roots of a giant oak tree. Her feet were resting on a thick carpet of moss; immediately before her lay broken and undulating ground, clothed with the greenest grass, with the most perfect fronds of moss, and bestrewn with tiny silvery stems and bits of branches from the neighboring trees. A little further off was a great foreground of bracken, which completely clothed a very gentle ascent, and then the whole horizon was bounded by a semicircle of magnificent birch, oak, and beech. Some cows were feeding in the distance—they wore bells, which tinkled merrily; the doves cooed and the birds sang; the softest of zephyrs played among the trees; the evening sun flickered slant-wise through the branches and lay in brightness on the greensward; and Rachel, who was intensely sensitive to nature, clasped her hands in ecstasy.
“Oh, it is good of God to make such a beautiful world!” she said, speaking aloud in her enthusiasm; but just then something riveted Rachel’s attention. She sprang to her feet, forgot her bluebells, which fell in a shower around her, and in this fresh interest became utterly oblivious to the loveliness of the scene. A lady in a plain dark dress was walking slowly, very slowly, between the trees. She was coming toward Rachel, but evidently had not seen her, for her eyes were fixed on the pages of an open book, and as she read her lips moved, as though she were learning something to repeat aloud. This part of the forest was so remote and solitary for it was miles away from any gentleman’s seat, that Rachel for a moment was startled.
“Who can she be?” was her first exclamation; her second was a delighted—
“Oh, perhaps she is the lady of the forest!”
Then she exclaimed with vexation:
“No, no, she cannot be. The lady always wears green and is almost transparent, and her face is so lovely. This lady is in dark clothes and she is reading and murmuring words to herself. She looks exactly as if she were learning a stupid lesson to say aloud. Oh, I am disappointed! I had such a hope she might be the lady of the forest. I wonder where she can live; there’s no house near this. Oh, dear! oh, dear! she is coming this way; she will pass me. Shall I speak to her? I almost think I will. She seems to have a nice face, although she is not very young and she is not very beautiful.”
The lady walked slowly on, her eyes still bent on her book, and so it happened that she never saw the radiant figure of pretty little Rachel until she was opposite to her. Her quiet, darkly fringed gray eyes were lifted then and surveyed the child first with astonishment; then with curiosity; then with very palpable agitation, wonder, and distress.
Rachel came a step nearer and was about to open her lips, when the lady abruptly closed her book, as abruptly turned on her heel, and walked rapidly, very rapidly, in the opposite direction away from the child.
“Oh, stop!” cried Rachel. “I want to speak to you. Who are you? It’s very interesting meeting you here in the very midst of the forest! Please don’t walk away so fast! Do tell me who you are! There, you are almost running, and I can’t keep up with you! What a rude forest lady you are! Well, I never knew any one so rude before!”
The lady had indeed quickened her steps, and before Rachel could reach her she had disappeared through a small green-covered porch into a tiny house, so clothed with innumerable creepers that at a distance it could scarcely be distinguished from the forest itself. Rachel stood panting and indignant outside the door. She had forgotten Surefoot; she had forgotten everything in the world but this rude lady who would not speak to her.
Rachel was a very passionate child, and in her first indignation she felt inclined to pull the bell and insist upon seeing and conversing with the strange, silent lady. Before she could carry this idea into execution the door was opened and a neatly dressed elderly servant came out.
“Well, little miss, and what is your pleasure?” she said.
“I want to see the lady,” said Rachel; “she is a very rude lady. I asked her some civil questions and she would not answer.”
The old servant laid her hand on Rachel’s arm and drew her a few steps away from the bowerlike house.
“What is your name, little miss?” she said.
“My name? Rachel Lovel, of course. Don’t you know? Everybody knows me in the forest. I’m Rachel Lovel of Avonsyde, and my pony’s name is Surefoot, and I have a sister called Kitty.”
“Well, missy,” continued the old woman, “I have no reason at all to misdoubt your tale, but the forest is a big place, and even the grandest little ladies are not known when they stray too far from home. I have no doubt, missy, that you are Miss Lovel, and I have no doubt also that you have a kind heart, although you have a hasty tongue. Now, you know, it was very rude of you to run after my lady when she didn’t want to speak to you. My lady was much upset by your following her, and you have done great mischief by just being such a curious little body.”
“Mischief, have I?” said Rachel; then she laughed. “But that is quite impossible,” she added, “for I never even touched the rude lady.”
“You may do mischief, Miss Lovel, by many means, and curiosity is one of the most spiteful of the vices. It’s my opinion that more mischief can be laid to curiosity’s door than to any other door. From Eve down it was curiosity did the sin. Now, missy, my lady is lonely and unhappy, and she don’t want no one to know—no one in all the wide world—that she lives in this little wild forest house; and if you tell, if you ever tell that you have seen her, or that you know where she lives, why, you will break the heart of the sweetest and gentlest lady that ever lived.”
“I don’t want to break any one’s heart,” said Rachel, turning pale. “What very queer things you say. I don’t want to break any one’s heart. I think I’ll go home now.”
“Not until you have promised me first, Miss Lovel—not until you have promised me true and faithful.”
“Oh, I’ll only tell Kitty and my aunties. I never care to talk to strangers about things. There’s a new little boy come to Avonsyde—a new little boy and his mother. Of course I won’t say anything to either of them, but I never keep secrets from Kitty—never!”
“Very well, miss; then my lady will have to go away. She is very tired and not strong, and she has just settled down in this little house, where she wants to rest and to be near—to be in the forest; and if you tell those aunts of yours and your little sister—if you tell anybody in all the wide world—she will have to go away again. We must pack up to night and we will be off in the morning. We’ll have to wander once more, and she’ll be sad and ill and lonely; but of course you won’t care.”
“What a cruel old woman you are!” said Rachel. “Of course I don’t want anybody to be sad and lonely. I don’t want to injure the forest lady, although I cannot make out why she should have to live so secret here. Is she a wicked lady and has she committed a crime?”
“Wicked?” said the old woman, her eyes flashing. “Ah, missy, that such words should drop from your lips, and about her! Are the angels in heaven wicked? Oh, my dear, good, brave lady! No, missy. She has to keep her secret, but it is because of a cruel sin and injustice done to her, not because of any wrong done by her. Well, good-night, miss. I’ll say no more. We must be off, we two, in the morning.”
“No, don’t go!” called out Rachel. “Of course I won’t tell. If she’s such a dear, good lady, I’ll respect her and love her and keep her secret; only I should like to see her and to know her name.”
“All in good time, my dear little missy. Thank God, you will be faithful to this good and wronged lady.”
“Yes, I’ll be very faithful,” said Rachel. “Not even to Kitty will I breathe one word. And now I must really go home.”
“God bless you, dear little miss—eh, but you’re a bonny child. And is the one you call Kitty as fair to look at?”
“As fair to look at?” laughed Rachel. “Why, I’m as brown as a nut and Kitty is dazzling. Kitty is pink and white, and if you only saw her hair! It’s like threads of gold.”
“And the little gentleman, dear?—you spoke of a little gentleman as well. Is he your brother, love?”
“My brother?” laughed Rachel. “I have no one but Kitty. I have a mother living somewhere—she’s lost, my mother is, and I’m going all round the world to look for her when I’m old enough; but I have no brother—I wish I had. Philip Lovel is a little new, strange boy who is going to be heir of Avonsyde. He came to-day with his mother. I don’t much like his mother. Now good-night, old woman. I’ll keep the good lady’s secret most faithfully.”
Rachel blew a kiss to the anxious-looking old servant, then ran gayly back to where she had left Surefoot. In the excitement of the last half-hour she had quite forgotten her withered bluebells. Mounting her pony, she galloped as fast as she could in the direction of Avonsyde. It was very late when she got back, but, strange to say, the old aunts were so much interested in Mrs. Lovel and in Mrs. Lovel’s boy that they forgot to scold her or to remark her absence. She longed intensely to tell Kitty all about the thrilling and romantic adventure she had just gone through, but she was a loyal child, and having once passed her word, nothing would induce her to break it. Kitty, too, was taken up with Philip Lovel, and Rachel, finding she was not wanted, ran up to her bedroom and lost herself in the charms of a fairy tale.
Avonsyde was a very old property. The fair lands had been bestowed by William Rufus on a certain Rupert Lovel who was fortunate enough to earn the gratitude of this most tyrannical and capricious of monarchs. Rupert Lovel had laid the first stone of the present house and had lived there until his death. He was succeeded by many wild and lawless descendants. As time went on they added to the old house, and gained, whether wrongly or rightly no one could say, more of the forest lands as their own. Avonsyde was a large property in the olden days, and the old squires ruled those under them by what was considered at that period the only safe and wholesome rule—that of terror. They were a proud, self-confident, headstrong race, very sure of one thing—that whatever happened Avonsyde would never cease to be theirs. An old prophecy was handed down from father to son to this effect. It had been put into a couplet by a rhymer as great in his way as Thomas of border celebrity:
“Tyde what may betyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.”
These words were taken as the motto of the house, and could be deciphered in very quaint lettering just over the arch which supported a certain portion of the tower. The tower was almost if not quite seven hundred years old, and was another source of great pride and interest to the family.
Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine could not have done little Philip Lovel a greater honor than when they arranged the tower bedroom for his reception. In their opinion, and in the opinion of every retainer of the family, they indeed showed respect to the child and the child’s claim when they got this gloomy apartment into order for him and his mother; but when Mrs. Lovel, a timid and nervous woman, saw the room, she scarcely appreciated the honor conferred upon her and hers.
Avonsyde was a house which represented many periods; each addition was a little more comfortable than its predecessor. For instance, the new wing, with the beautiful drawing-rooms and spacious library, was all that was luxurious; the cozy bedrooms where Rachel and Kitty slept, with their thick walls and mullioned windows and deep old-fashioned cupboards, were both cheerful and convenient; but in the days when the tower was built ladies did without many things which are now considered essential, and Mrs. Lovel had to confess to herself that she did not like her room. In the first place, the tower rooms were completely isolated from the rest of the house; they were entered by a door at one side of the broad hall; this door was of oak of immense thickness, and when it was shut no sound from the tower could possibly penetrate to the rest of the house. At the other side of the oak door was a winding stone staircase, very much worn and hollowed out by the steps of many generations. The stairs wound up and up in the fashion of a corkscrew; they had no rail and were very steep, and the person who ascended, if at all timid, was very glad to lay hold of a slack rope which was loosely run through iron rings at intervals in the wall.
After a great many of these steps had been climbed a very narrow stone landing was discovered; three or four steps had then to be gone down, and Mrs. Lovel found herself in an octagon-shaped room with a very low ceiling and very narrow windows. The furniture was not only old-fashioned, but shabby; the room was small; the bed was that monstrosity, a four-poster; the curtains of velvet were black and rusty with age and wear. In short, the one and only cheerful object which poor Mrs. Lovel found in the apartment was the little white bed in one corner which had been prepared for Philip’s reception.
“Dear, dear, what remarkably steep stairs; and what a small—I mean not a very large room! Are all the bedrooms of Avonsyde as small as this?” she continued, interrogating Newbolt, who, starched and prim, but with a comely fresh face, stood beside her.
“This is the tower bedroom, mem,” answered the servant in a thin voice. “The heir has always slept in this room, and the ladies has the two over. That has always been the fashion at Avonsyde—the heir has this room and the reigning ladies sleep overhead. This room is seven hundred years old, mem.”
Mrs. Lovel shivered.
“Very antiquated and interesting,” she began, “but isn’t it just a little cold and just a little gloomy? I thought the other part of the house so much more cheerful.”
Newbolt raised her eyebrows and gazed at Mrs. Lovel as if she were talking the rankest heresy.
“For them as don’t value the antique there’s rooms spacious and cheerful and abundantly furnished with modern vanities in the new part of the house,” she replied. “Miss Rachel and Miss Kitty, for instance; their bedroom isn’t built more than three hundred years—a big room enough and with a lot of sunlight, but terrible modern, and not to be made no ’count of at Avonsyde; and then there are two new bedrooms over the drawing-rooms, where we put strangers. Very large they are and quite flooded with sunlight; but of course for antiquity there are no rooms to be compared with this one and the two where the ladies sleep. I am sorry the room don’t take your fancy, mem. I suppose, not being of the blood of the family, you can’t appreciate it. Shall I speak to the ladies on the subject?”
“Oh! by no means, my good creature,” replied poor Mrs. Lovel in alarm. “The room of course is most interesting and wonderfully antiquated. I’ve never seen such a room. And do your ladies really sleep higher up than this? They must have wonderfully strong hearts to be able to mount any more of those steep—I mean curious stairs.”
Newbolt did not deign to make any comment with regard to the sound condition of Miss Griselda’s and Miss Katharine’s physical hearts. She favored the new-comer with a not-too-appreciative glance, and having arranged matters as comfortably as she could for her in the dismal chamber, left her to the peace and the solitude of a most solitary room.
The poor lady quite trembled when she found herself alone; the knowledge that the room was so old filled her with a kind of mysterious awe. After her experiences in the New World, she even considered the drawing-rooms at Avonsyde by no means to be despised on the score of youth. Those juvenile bedrooms of two hundred or three hundred years’ standing where Rachel and Kitty reposed were, in Mrs. Level’s opinion, hoary and weighted with age; but as to this tower-room, surely such an apartment should only be visited at noon on a sunny day and in the company of a large party!
“I’m glad the old ladies do sleep overhead,” she said to herself. “What truly awful attics theirs must be! I never saw such a terribly depressing room as this. I’m certain it is haunted; I’m convinced there must be a ghost here. If Philip were not sleeping here I should certainly die. Oh, dear! what a risk I am running for the sake of Philip. Much of this life would kill me! I find, too, that I am not very good at keeping in my feelings, and I’ll have to act—act all the time I am here, and pretend I’m just in raptures with everything, when I am not. That dreadful Newbolt saw through me about this room. Oh, dear! I am a bad actor. Well, at any rate I am a good mother to Philip; it’s a splendid chance for Philip. But if he speaks about that pain in his side we are lost! Poor Phil! these steep stairs are extremely bad for him.”
There was plenty of daylight at present, and Mrs. Lovel could move about her ancient chamber without any undue fear of being overtaken by the terrors of the night. She took off her traveling bonnet and mantle, arranged her hair afresh before a mirror which caused her to squint and distorted every feature, and finally, being quite certain that she could never lie down and rest alone on that bed, was about to descend the stone stairs and to return to the more cheerful part of the house, when gay, quick footsteps, accompanied by childish laughter, were heard ascending, and Philip, accompanied by Kitty, bounded without any ceremony into the apartment.
“Oh, mother, things are so delightful here,” began the little boy, “and Kitty fishes nearly as well as Rupert. And Kitty has got a pony and I’m to have one; Aunt Grizel says so—one of the forest ponies, mother. Do you know that the forest is full of ponies? and they are so rough and jolly. And there are squirrels in the forest—hundreds of squirrels—and all kinds of birds, and beetles and spiders, and ants and lizards! Mother, the forest is such a lovely place! Is this our bedroom, mother? What a jolly room! I say, wouldn’t Rupert like it just?”
“If you’re quick, Phil,” began Kitty—“if you’re very quick washing your hands and brushing your hair, we can go back through the armory—that’s the next oldest part to the tower. I steal into the armory sometimes in the dusk, for I do so hope some of the chain-armor will rattle. Do you believe in ghosts, Phil? I do and so does Rachel.”
“No, I’m not such a silly,” replied Phil. “Mother, dear, how white you are! Don’t you like our jolly, jolly bedroom? Oh! I do, and wouldn’t Rupert love to be here?”
Mrs. Lovel’s face had grown whiter and whiter.
“Phil,” she said, “I must speak to you alone. Kitty, your little cousin will meet you downstairs presently. Oh, Phil, my dear,” continued the poor lady when Kitty had succeeded in banging herself noisily and unwillingly out of the room—“Phil, why, why will you spoil everything?”
“Spoil everything, mother?”
“Yes; you have spoken of Rupert—you have spoken twice of Rupert. Oh, we had better go away again at once!”
“Dear Rupert!” said little Phil, with a sigh; “darling, brave Rupert! Mother, how I wish he was here!”
“You will spoil everything,” repeated the poor lady, wringing her hands in despair. “You know what Rupert is—so strong and manly and beautiful as a picture; and you know what the will says—that the strong one, whether he be eldest or youngest, shall be heir. Oh, Phil, if those old ladies know about Rupert we are lost!”
Phil had a most comical little face; a plain face decidedly—pale, with freckles, and a slightly upturned nose. To those who knew it well it had many charms. It was without doubt an expressive and speaking face; in the course of a few minutes it could look sad to pathos, or so brimful of mirth that to glance at it was to feel gay. The sad look now filled the beautiful brown eyes; the little mouth drooped; the boy went up and laid his head on his mother’s shoulder.
“Do you know,” he said, “I must say it, even though it hurts you. I want Rupert to have everything. I love Rupert very dearly, and I think it would be splendid for him to come here, and to own a lot of the wild ponies, and to fish in that funny little river which Kitty calls the Avon. Rupert would let me live with him perhaps, and maybe he’d give me a pony, and I could find squirrels and spiders and ants in the forest—oh! and caterpillars; I expect there are splendid specimens of caterpillars here. Mother, when my heart is full of Rupert how can I help speaking about him?”
Mrs. Lovel pressed her hand to her brow in a bewildered manner.
“We must go away then, Philip,” she said. “As you love Rupert so well, better even than your mother, we must go away. It was a pity you did not tell me something of this before now, for I have broken into my last—yes, my very last £20 to come here. We have not enough money to take us back to Australia and to Rupert; still, we must go away, for the old ladies will look upon us as impostors, and I could not bear that for anything in the world.”
“It is not only Rupert,” continued Phil; “it’s Gabrielle and Peggy; and—and—mother, I can’t help being fond of them; but, mother, I love you best!”
“Do you really, Phil? Better than that boy? I never could see anything in him. Do you love me better than Rupert, Phil?”
“Yes, of course; you are my mother, and when father died he said I was always to love you and to do what you wanted. If you want Avonsyde, I suppose you must have it some day when the old ladies die. I’ll do my best not to talk about Rupert, and I’ll try to seem very strong, and I’ll never, never tell about the pain in my side. Give me a kiss, mother. You shan’t starve nor be unhappy. Oh! what an age we have been chattering here, and Kitty is waiting for me, and I do so want to see the armory! I wonder if there are ghosts there? It sounds silly to believe in them; but Kitty does, and she’s a dear little girl, nearly as nice as Gabrielle. Good-by, mother; I’m off. I’ll try to remember.”
In a handsomely furnished dining-room in a spacious and modern-looking house about three miles outside the city of Melbourne, three children—two girls and a boy—were standing impatiently by a wide-open window.
“Gabrielle,” said the boy, “have you any idea when the mails from England are due?”
The boy was the taller of the three, splendidly made, with square shoulders, great breadth of chest, and head so set on the same shoulders that it gave to its young owner an almost regal appearance. The bright and bold dark eyes were full of fire; the expressive lines round the finely cut lips were both kindly and noble.
“Gabrielle, is that Carlo riding past on Jo-jo? If it is, perhaps he is bringing our letter-bag. Father has gone to Melbourne to-day; but he said if there were English letters he would send them out by Carlo.”
“You are so impatient about England and English things, Rupert,” said little Peggy, raising a face framed in by soft flaxen hair to her big brother. “Oh, yes, I’ll run to meet Carlo, for of course you want me to, and I’ll come back again if there’s any news; and if there is not, why, I’ll stay and play with my ravens, Elijah and James Grasper. Elijah is beginning to speak so well and James Grasper is improving. If Carlo has no letters you need not expect me back, either of you.”
The little maid stepped quickly out of the open window, and ran fleet as the wind across a beautifully kept lawn and in the direction where a horse’s quick steps were heard approaching.
Gabrielle was nearly as tall as her brother, with a stately bearing and a grave face.
“If father does decide on taking you to Europe, Rupert, I wish to say now that I am quite willing to stay here with Peggy. I don’t want to go to school at Melbourne. I would rather stay on here and housekeep, and keep things nice the way our mother would have liked. If Peggy and I go away, Belmont will have to be shut up and a great many of the servants dismissed, and that would be silly. I am thirteen now, and I think I am wise for my age. You will speak to father, won’t you, Rupert, and ask him to allow me to be mistress here while you are away.”
“If we are away,” corrected Rupert. “Ah! here comes Peggy, and the letter-bag, and doubtless a letter. What a good child you are, Peggy White!”
Peggy dashed the letter-bag with some force through the open window. Rupert caught it lightly in one hand, and detaching a small key from his watch-chain opened it. It only contained one letter, and this was directed to himself:
“Mr. Rupert Lovel,
“Belmont,
“Near Melbourne,
“Victoria,
“Australia.”
“A letter from England!” said Rupert. “And oh! Gabrielle, what do you think? It is—yes, it is from our little Cousin Philip!”
“Let me see,” said Gabrielle, peeping over her brother’s shoulder. “Poor, dear little Phil! Read aloud what he says, Rupert. I have often thought of him lately.”
Rupert smiled, sat down on the broad window-ledge, and his sister, kneeling behind him, laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder. A little letter, written with considerable pains and difficulty, with rather shaky and blotted little fingers, and quite uncorrected, just, in short, as nature had prompted it to a small, eager, and affectionate mind, was then read aloud:
“Dear Cousin Rupert: You must please forgive the spelling and the bad writing, and the blots (oh! I made a big one now, but I have sopped it up). This letter is quite secret, so it won’t be corrected, for mother doesn’t know that I am writing. Mother and I are in England, but she says I am not to tell you where we are. It isn’t that mother isn’t fond of you, but she has a reason, which is a great secret, for your not knowing where we are. The reason has something to do with me. It’s something that I’m to have that I don’t want and that I’d much rather you had. It’s a beautiful thing, with spiders, and rivers, and caterpillars, and wild ponies, and ghosts, and rattling armor, and a tower of winding stairs. Oh! I mustn’t tell you any more, for perhaps you’d guess. You are never to have it, although I’d like you to. We are not very far from the sea, and we’re going there to-morrow, and it is there I’ll post this letter. Now, I am quite determined that you and Gabrielle and Peggy shall know that I think of you always. Mother and me, we are in a beautiful, grand place now—very grand—and most enormous old; and I have two little girls to play with, and I have got a pony, and a white pup, and I am taught by a tutor, and drilled by a drill-sergeant, and I fish and play cricket with Kitty, only I can’t play cricket much, because of my side; but, Rupert, I want to say here, and I want you and Peggy and Gabrielle always and always to remember, that I’d rather be living with mother in our little cottage near Belmont, with only Betty as servant and with only Jim to clean the boots and do the garden, for then I should be near you; and I love you, Rupert, and Gabrielle, and Peggy, better than any one in the world except my mother. Please tell Peggy that I don’t think much of the English spiders, but some of the caterpillars are nice; and please tell Gabrielle that the English flowers smell very sweet, but they are not so bright or so big as ours, and the birds sing, oh! so beautiful, but they haven’t got such gay dresses. Good-by, Rupert. Do you shoot much? And do you ever think of me? And are you good to my little dog Cato?
“Phil Lovel.
“P. S.—Please, I’d like to hear from you, and as mother says you are not on no account to know where we are, will you write me a letter to the post-office at the town where this is posted? You will see the name of the town on the envelope, and please direct your letter:
‘Master Phil Lovel, ‘Post-office. ‘To be called for.’
“Be sure you put ‘to be called for’ in big letters.
“Good-by again. Love to everybody. Phil.”
Gabrielle and Rupert read this very characteristic little epistle without comment. When they had finished it, Rupert slipped it back into its envelope and gave it to his sister.
“We must both write to the poor little chap,” he said. “The postmark on the envelope is Southampton. I suppose Southampton, England, will find him.” Then he added after a pause: “I wonder what queer thing Aunt Bella is thinking about now?”
“She always was the silliest person in the world,” said Gabrielle in a tone of strong contempt. “If she were my mother I shouldn’t love her. I wonder how Phil loves her. Poor little Phil! He always was a dear little fellow—not a bit like Aunt Bella, thank goodness!”
Rupert laughed.
“Why, Gabrielle,” he said, “you can have no observation; Phil is the image of his mother. There is nothing at all belonging to his father about Phil except his eyes.”
“And his nature,” proceeded Gabrielle, “and his dear, brave little soul. I am sure if trial came to him Phil could be a hero. What matter that he has got Aunt Bella’s uninteresting features? He has nothing more of her in him. Oh, she always was a silly, mysterious person! Just think of her not allowing Phil to tell us where he is!”
“My father says that there is method in Aunt Bella’s silliness,” continued Rupert. “Don’t you remember how suddenly she sold her little house at the back of our garden, Gabrielle, and how Betty found her burning an English newspaper; and how queer and nervous and flurried she became all of a sudden; and then how she asked father to give her that £200 he had of hers in the bank; and how she hurried off without saying good-by to one of us? We have not heard a word about her from that day until now, when Phil’s little letter has come.”
“She never even bid mother good-by,” continued Gabrielle in a pained voice. “Mother always stood up for Aunt Bella. She never allowed us to laugh at her or to grumble at her funny, tiresome ways.”
“Did mother allow us to laugh at any one?” continued Rupert. “There was nothing at all remarkable in our mother being kind to poor Aunt Bella, for she was good to every one.”
“But there was something strange in Aunt Bella not bidding our mother good-by,” pursued Gabrielle, “for I think she was a little fond of mother, and mother was so weak and ill at the time. I saw tears in Aunt Bella’s eyes once after mother had been talking to her. Yes, her going away was certainly very queer; but I have no time to talk any more about it now. I must go to my work. Rupert, shall we ride this afternoon? This is just the most perfect weather for riding before the great summer heat commences.”
“Yes, we’ll be in summer before we know where we are,” said Rupert; “it is the 4th of November to-day. I will ride with you at three o’clock, Gabrielle—that is, if father is not back.”
The brother and sister left the room to pursue their different vocations, and a short time afterward an old servant, with a closely frilled cap tied with a ribbon under her chin, came into the room. She was the identical Betty who had been Mrs. Lovel’s maid-of-all-work, and who had now transferred her services to the young people at Belmont. Betty was old, wrinkled, and of Irish birth, and sincerely attached to all the Lovels. She came into the room under the pretext of looking for some needlework which Gabrielle had mislaid, but her real object was to peer into the now open post-bag, and then to look suspiciously round the room.
“I smell it in the air,” she said, sniffing as she spoke. “As sure as I’m Betty O’Flanigan there’s news of Master Phil in the air! Was there a letter? Oh, glory! to think as there might be a letter from my own little master, and me not to know. Miss Gabrielle’s mighty close, and no mistake. Well, I’ll go and ask her bold outright if she has bad news of the darlint.”
Betty could not find Gabrielle’s lost embroidery, and perceiving that the post-bag was absolutely empty, she pottered out of the room again and upstairs to where her young lady was making up some accounts in a pretty little boudoir which had belonged to her mother.
“Och, and never a bit of it can I see, Miss Gabrielle,” said the old woman as she advanced into the room; and then she began sniffing the air again.
“What are you making that funny noise for, Betty?” said Miss Lovel, raising her eyes from a long column of figures.
“I smell it in the air,” said Betty, sniffing in an oracular manner. “I dreamed of him three times last night, and that means tidings; and now I smell it in the air.”
“Oh! you dreamed of little Phil,” said Gabrielle in a kind tone. “Yes, we have just had a letter. Sit down there and I’ll read it to you.”
Betty squatted down instantly on the nearest hassock, and with her hands under her apron and her mouth wide open prepared herself not to lose a word.
Gabrielle read the letter from end to end, the old woman now and then interrupting her with such exclamations as “Oh, glory! May the saints presarve him! Well, listen to the likes of that!”
At last Gabrielle’s voice ceased; then Betty hobbled to her feet, and suddenly seizing the childish letter, not a word of which she could read, pressed it to her lips.
“Ah! Miss Gabrielle,” she said, “that mother of his meant mischief. She meant mischief to you and yours, miss, and the sweet child has neither part nor lot in the matter. If I was you, Miss Gabrielle, I’d ferret out where Mrs. Lovel is hiding Master Phil. What business had she to get into such a way about a bit of an English newspaper, and to hurry off with the child all in a twinkling like, and to be that flustered and nervous? And oh! Miss Gabrielle, the fuss about her clothes; and ‘did she look genteel in this?’ and ‘did she look quite the lady in that?’ And then the way she went off, bidding good-by to no one but me. Oh! she’s after no good; mark my words for it.”
“But she can do us no harm, Betty,” said Gabrielle. “Neither my father nor Rupert is likely to be injured by a weak kind of woman like Aunt Bella. I am sorry for little Phil; but I think you are silly to talk as you do of Aunt Bella. Now you may take the letter away with you and kiss it and love it as much as you like. Here comes father; he is back earlier than usual from Melbourne, and I must speak to him.”
Mr. Lovel, a tall, fine-looking man, with a strong likeness to both his son and daughter, now came hastily into the room.
“I have indeed come back in a hurry, Gabrielle,” he said. “That advertisement has appeared in the papers again. I have had a long talk with our business friend, Mr. Davis, and the upshot of it is that Rupert and I sail for Europe on Saturday. This is Tuesday; so you will have your hands pretty full in making preparations for such a sudden move, my dear daughter.”
“Is it the advertisement that appeared six months ago, father?” said Gabrielle in an excited voice. “Mother pointed it out to you then and you would take no notice of it.”
“These things are often put into newspapers simply as a kind of hoax, child,” said the father, “and it all seemed so unlikely. However, although I appeared to take no notice, I was not unmindful of Rupert’s interests. I went to consult with Davis, and Davis promised to make inquiries in England. He came to me this morning with the result of his investigations and with this advertisement in the Melbourne Times. Here it is; it is three months old, unfortunately. It appeared three months after the first advertisement, but Davis did not trouble me with it until he had got news from England. The news came this morning. It is of a satisfactory character and to the effect that the last Valentine Lovel, of Avonsyde, in the New Forest, Hampshire, died without leaving any male issue, and the present owners of the property are two unmarried ladies, neither of whom is young. Now, Gabrielle, you are a wise lass for your thirteen years, and as I have not your mother to consult with, I am willing to rely a little bit on your judgment. You read this, my daughter, and tell me what you make of it.”
As Mr. Lovel spoke he unfolded a sheet of the Melbourne Times, and pointing to a small paragraph in one of the advertisement columns which was strongly underscored with a blue pencil, he handed it to Gabrielle.
“Read it aloud,” he said. “They are strange words, but I should like to hear them again.”
Gabrielle, in her clear and bright voice, read as follows:
“Lovel.—If any of the lineal descendants of Rupert Lovel, of Avonsyde, New Forest, Hampshire, who left his home on the 20th August, 1684, are now alive and will communicate with Messrs. Baring & Baring, 128 Chancery Lane, London, they will hear of something to their advantage. Only heirs male in direct succession need apply.”
Gabrielle paused.
“Read on,” said her father. “The second part of the advertisement, or rather a second advertisement which immediately follows the first, is of more interest.”
Gabrielle continued:
“I, Griselda Lovel, and I, Katharine Lovel, of Avonsyde, New Forest, of the county of Hampshire, England, do, according to our late father’s will, earnestly seek an heir of the issue of one Rupert Lovel, who left Avonsyde on the 20th August, 1684, in consequence of a quarrel between himself and his father, the then owner of Avonsyde. By reason of this quarrel Rupert Lovel was disinherited, and the property has continued until now in the younger branch. According to our late father’s will, we, Griselda and Katharine Lovel, wish to reëstablish the elder branch of the family, and offer to make a direct descendant of the said Rupert Lovel our heir, provided the said descendant be under fifteen years of age and of sound physical health. We refuse to receive letters or to see any claimant personally, but request to have all communications made to us through our solicitors, Messrs. Baring & Baring, of 128 Chancery Lane, London, E. C.
“‘Tyde what may betyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.”
Gabrielle’s cheeks flushed brightly as she read.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, raising her eyes to the face of the tall man who stood near her, “do you really believe a little bit in it at last? Don’t you remember how I used to pray of you to tell me traditions of the old English home when I was a little child, and how often you have repeated that old rhyme to me, and don’t you know how mother used to treasure the tankard with the family crest and ‘Tyde what may’ in those queer, quaint English characters on it? Mother was quite excited when the first advertisement appeared, but you said we were not to talk or to think of it. Rupert is the rightful heir—is he not, father? Oh, how proud I shall be to think that the old place is to belong to him!”
“I believe he is the rightful heir, Gabrielle,” said her father in a grave voice. “He is undoubtedly a lineal descendant of the Rupert Lovel who left Avonsyde in 1684, and he also fulfills the conditions of the old ladies’ advertisement, for he is under fifteen and splendidly strong; but it is also a fact that I cannot find some very important letters which absolutely prove Rupert’s claim. I could swear that I left them in the old secretary in your mother’s room, but they have vanished. Davis, on the other hand, believes that I have given them to him, and will have a strict search instituted for them. The loss of the papers makes a flaw in my boy’s claim; but I shall not delay to go to England on that account. Davis will mail them to me as soon as ever they are recovered; and in the mean time, Gabrielle, I will ask you to pack up the old tankard and give it to me to take to England. There is no doubt whatever that that tankard is the identical one which my forefather took with him when almost empty-handed he left Avonsyde,”
“I will fetch it at once,” said Gabrielle. “Mother kept it in the cupboard at the back of her bed. She always kept the tankard and our baptismal mugs and the diamonds you gave her when first you were married in that cupboard. I will fetch the tankard and have it cleaned, and I will pack it for you myself.”
Gabrielle ran out of the room, returning in a few moments with a slightly battered old drinking-cup, much tarnished and of antique pattern.
“Here it is!” she exclaimed, “and Betty shall clean it. Is that you, Betty? Will you take this cup and polish it for me at once yourself? I have great news to give you when you come back.”
Betty took the cup and turned it round and round with a dubious air.
“It isn’t worth much,” she said; “but I’ll clean it anyhow.”
“Be careful of it, Betty,” called out Gabrielle. “Whatever you may think of it, you tiresome old woman, it is of great value to us, and particularly to your favorite, Rupert.”
Muttering to herself, Betty hobbled downstairs, and Gabrielle and her father continued their conversation. In about half an hour the old woman returned and presented the cup, burnished now to great brilliancy, to her young mistress.
“I said it wasn’t worth much,” she repeated. “I misdoubt me if it’s silver at all.”
Gabrielle turned it round in her hand; then she uttered a dismayed exclamation.
“Father, do look! The crest is gone; the crest and the old motto, ‘Betyde what may,’ have absolutely vanished. It is the same cup; yes, certainly it is the same, but where is the crest? and where is the motto?”
Mr. Lovel took the old tankard into his hand and examined it narrowly.
“It is not the same,” he said then. “The shape is almost identical, but this is not my forefather’s tankard. I believe Betty is right, and this is not even silver; here is no crown mark. No letters, Gabrielle, and no tankard! Well, never mind; these are but trifles. Rupert and I sail all the same for England and the old property on Saturday.”
Mr. Lovel told Gabrielle that the loss of the tankard and the letters were but trifles. His daughter, however, by no means believed him; she noticed the anxious look in his eyes and the little frown which came between his brows.
“Father’s always like that when he’s put out,” she said. “Father’s a man who never yet lost his temper. He’s much too big and too great and too grand to stoop to anything small of that kind, but, all the same, I know he’s put out. He’s a wonderful man for sticking out for the rights of things, and if he thinks Rupert ought to inherit that old property in England he won’t leave a stone unturned to get it for him. He would not fret; he would not think twice about it if it was not Rupert’s right; but as it is I know he is put out, and I know the loss of the tankard is not just a trifle. Who could put a false tankard in the place of the real one? Who could have done it? I know what I’ll do. I’ll go up to mother’s room again and have a good look round.”
Mrs. Lovel was not a year dead, and Gabrielle never entered the room which had known her loved presence and from which she had been carried away to her long rest without a feeling of pain. She was in many respects a matter-of-fact girl—not nearly as sensitive as Rupert, who with all his strength had the tenderest heart; nor as little Peggy, who kept away from mother’s room and never spoke of her without tears filling her eyes. To enter mother’s room seemed impossible to both Rupert and Peggy, but Gabrielle found a certain sad pleasure in going there; and when she had shut the door now she looked around her with a little sigh.
“I’ll make it homelike, as if mother were here,” she said to herself. “I’ll make it homelike, and then sit by the open window and try and believe that mother is really asleep on that sofa, where she has lain for so many, many hours.”
Her eyes brightened as this idea came to her, and she hastened to put it into execution. She drew up the window-blinds and opened the pretty bay-window, and let the soft delicious air of spring fill the apartment; then she took the white covers off the chairs and sofa, pulled the sofa forward into its accustomed position, and placed a couple of books on the little table which always stood by its side. These few touches transformed the large room; it lost its look of gloom and was once more bright and homelike. A wistaria in full bloom peeped in at the open window; the distant sounds of farm life were audible, and Gabrielle heard Peggy’s little voice talking in endearing tones to the cross old ravens, Elijah and Grasper. She knelt by the open window and, pressing her cheeks on her hands, looked out.
“Oh, if only mother were on the sofa!” That was the cry which arose, almost to pain, in her lonely heart. “Peggy and Rupert and I have no mother, and now father and Rupert are going to England and I shall have to do everything for Peggy. Peggy will lean on me; she always does—dear little Peg! but I shall have no one.”
The thought of Rupert’s so speedily leaving her recalled the tankard to Gabrielle’s memory. She got up and unlocked the cupboard, which was situated at the back of her mother’s bed. The cupboard was half-full of heterogeneous matter—some treasures, some rubbish; numbers of old photographs; numbers of childish and discarded books. Some of the shelves were devoted to broken toys, to headless dolls, to playthings worthless in themselves, but treasured for memory’s sake by the mother. Tears filled Gabrielle’s eyes, but she dashed them away and was about to institute a systematic search, when Rupert opened the door and came in. His ruddy, brightly colored, healthy face was pale; he did not see Gabrielle, who was partly hidden by the large bedstead. He entered the room with soft, reverent footsteps, and walked across it as though afraid to make a sound.
Gabrielle started when she saw him; she knew that neither Rupert nor Peggy ever came to the room. What did this visit mean? Why was that cloud on Rupert’s brow? From where she stood she could see without being seen, and for a moment or two she hesitated to make a sound or to let her brother know she was near him. He walked straight across the room to the open window, looked out as Gabrielle had looked out, then turning to the sofa, laid one muscular brown hand with a reverent gesture on the pillow which his mother’s head had pressed. The little home touches which Gabrielle had given to the room were unnoticed by Rupert, for he had never seen it in its shrouded and dismantled state. All his memories centered round that sofa with the flowering chintz cover; the little table; the small chair, which was usually occupied by a boy or girl as they looked into the face they loved and listened to the gentle words from the dearest of all lips. Rupert made no moan as Gabrielle had done, but he drew the little chair forward, and laying his head face downward on the pillow, gave vent to an inward supplication. The boy was strong physically and mentally, and the spiritual life which his mother had fostered had already become part of his being. He spoke it in no words, but he lived it in his upright young life. To do honor to his mother’s memory, to reverence and love his mother’s God, was his motto.
Gabrielle felt uncomfortable standing behind the bedstead. She coughed, made a slight movement, and Rupert looked up, with wet eyelashes.
“Gabrielle!” he said, with a start of extreme surprise.
“Yes, Rupert, I was in the room. I saw you come in. I was astonished, for I know you don’t come here. I was so sorry to be in the way, and just at first I made no sound.”
“You are not a bit in the way,” said Rupert, standing up and smiling at her. “I came now because there are going to be immense changes, and—somehow I could not help myself. I—I—wanted mother to know.”
“Yes,” said Gabrielle, going and standing by his side. “Do you think she does know, Rupert? Do you think God tells her?”
“I feel that she does,” said Rupert. “But I can’t talk about mother, Gabrielle; it is no use. What were you doing behind that bedstead?” he added in a lighter tone.
“I was looking for the tankard.”
“What, the old Avonsyde tankard? But of course it is there. It was always kept in what we used to call the sacred cupboard.”
“Yes; but it is gone,” said Gabrielle. “It was there and it has vanished; and what is more wonderful, Rupert, another tankard has been put in its place—a tankard something like it in shape, but not made of silver and without the old motto.”
“Nonsense!” said Rupert almost sharply. “We will both go and look in the cupboard, Gabrielle. The real tankard may be pushed far back out of sight.”
“No; it is too large for that,” said Gabrielle. “But you shall come and see with your own eyes.”
She led the way, and the two began to explore the contents of the cupboard, the boy touching the sacred relics with almost more reverent fingers than the girl. The tankard, the real tankard, was certainly nowhere to be found.
“Father is put out about it,” said Gabrielle. “I know it by his eyes and by that firm way he compresses his lips together. He won’t get into a passion—you know he never does—but he is greatly put out. He says the tankard forms important evidence, and that its being lost is very disastrous to your prospects.”
“My prospects?” said Rupert. “Then father is not quite sure about my being the lawful heir?”
“Oh, Rupert, of course he is sure! But he must have evidence; he must prove your descent. Rupert, dear, are you not delighted? Are you not excited about all this?”
“No, Gabrielle. I shall never love Avonsyde as I love Belmont. It was here my mother lived and died.”
Tears came into Gabrielle’s eyes. She was touched by Rupert’s rare allusion to his mother, but she also felt a sense of annoyance at what she termed his want of enthusiasm.
“If I were the heir——” she began.
“Yes, Gabrielle—if you were the heir?”
“I should be—oh, I cannot explain it all! But how my heart would beat; how I should rejoice!”
“I am glad too,” said Rupert; “but I am not excited. I shall like to see Europe, however; and I will promise to write you long letters and tell you everything.”