The Lady of the Forest Part 21

"If Miss Marmaduke was like you, Master Lovel, or like Miss Rachel or Miss Kitty, why, I'd say there weren't a hope of her; but being what she is--well, maybe she'll be given a little more time to mend her manners in."

Phil's face a.s.sumed a puzzled expression. He said nothing further, and the two rode hard and fast.

In this manner they did at last find poor Clementina, who, much subdued and softened, received them with almost rapture.

"There's nothing like affliction for bringing characters of that sort low," muttered Robert as he helped the young lady on his own horse. "And now, where's that little beauty Ruby, I wonder? Dashed hisself to pieces as likely as not agin' some of them rocks up there. Oh, yes, and there'll be no 'count made at all of one of the prettiest little horses I ever broke in."

Robert had to run by Clementina's side, who was really considerably shaken and who gave way to violent hysterics soon after they started.

"Somehow, Phil, I thought you would remember," she said at last, turning to her little companion and speaking in a broken voice.

"Why, of course we all remembered," said Phil. "We were all more sorry about you than I can say; and as to Rachel, she has been crying like anything. It seems a pity, Clementina, it really does, you know----" And then he stopped.

"What seems a pity, Phil?"

"That you should be so obstinate. You know you were; and you were rude, too, for you should not have taken Rachel's horse. It seems to me a great pity that people should try to pretend--everybody's always trying to pretend; and what is the use of it? Now, if you had not tried to pretend that you could ride as well or better than Rachel, you wouldn't have got into this trouble and we wouldn't have been so terribly sorry.

Where was the use of it, Clementina?" added Phil, gazing hard at the abashed and astonished young lady; "for n.o.body could expect you to ride as well as Rachel, who is a country girl and has been on horseback such a lot, you know."

Phil delivered his lecture in the most innocent way, and Clementina received it with much humility, wondering all the time why she was not furiously angry; for surely this was the strangest way to speak to a girl who had been for three seasons under Captain Delacourt.

She made no reply to Phil's harangue and rode on for some time without speaking.

Suddenly a little sigh from the boy, who kept so bravely at her side, reached her ears. She turned and looked at him. It was quite a new sensation for Clementina to observe any face critically except her own; but she did notice now the weariness round the lips and the way the slight little figure drooped forward.

"You're tired, Phil," she said. "You have tired yourself out to find me."

"I am tired," he replied. "We rode very fast, and my side aches, but it will be better by and by."

"You can scarcely sit on your horse," said Clementina in a tone of real feeling. "Could not your groom--Robert, I think, you call him--mount the horse and put you in front of him? He could put his arm round you and you would be nicely rested."

"That's a good thought, miss," said Robert, with sudden heartiness.

"And, to be sure, Master Philip do look but poorly. It's wonderful what affliction does for them sort of characters," he muttered under his breath as he complied with this suggestion.

When the little party got near home, Phil, who had been lying against Robert and looking more dead than alive, roused himself and whispered something to the groom. Robert nodded in reply and immediately after lifted the boy to the ground.

"I'm going to rest. Please, Clementina, don't say I am tired," he said; and then he disappeared down a little glade and was soon out of sight.

"Where is he going?" asked Clementina of Robert.

"To a little nest as he has made for hisself, miss, just where the trees grow thickest up there. He and me, we made it together, and it's always dry and warm, and n.o.body knows of it but our two selves. He often and often goes there when he can't bear up no longer. I beg your pardon, miss, but I expect I have no right to tell. You won't mention what I have said to any of the family, miss?"

"No," said Clementina; "but I feel very sorry for Phil, and I cannot understand why there should be any mystery made about his getting tired like other people."

"Well, miss, you ask his lady mother. Perhaps she can tell you, for certain sure no one else can."

Clementina went into the house, where she was received with much excitement and very considerable rejoicing. She presented a very sorry plight, her habit being absolutely coated with mud, her hair in disorder, and even her face bruised and discolored. But it is certain that Rachel had never admired her so much as when she came up to her and, coloring crimson, tried to take her hand.

"Phil said I was rude to you, Rachel, and I am sorry," she muttered.

"Oh, never mind," answered Rachel, whose own little face was quite swollen with crying. "I was so dreadfully, dreadfully unhappy, for I was afraid Ruby had killed you, Clementina."

Clementina was now hurried away to her own room, where she had a hot bath and was put to bed, and where her mother fussed over her and grumbled bitterly at having ever been so silly as to come to such an outlandish part of the country as Avonsyde.

"I might have lost you, my precious," she said to her daughter. "It was nothing short of madness my trusting you to those wild young Lovels."

"Oh, mother, they aren't a bit to blame, and I think they are rather nice, particularly Phil."

"Yes, the boy seems a harmless, delicate little creature. I wonder if the old ladies will really make him their heir."

"I hope they will, mother, for he is really very nice."

In the course of the evening, as Clementina was lying on her pillows, thinking of a great many things and wondering if Phil was yet rested enough to leave his nest in the forest, there came a tap at her door, and to her surprise Phil's mother entered. In some ways Mrs. Lovel bore a slight resemblance to Clementina; for she also was vain and self-conscious and she also was vastly taken up with self. Under these circ.u.mstances it was extremely natural that the girl and the woman should feel a strong antipathy the one to the other, and Clementina felt annoyed and the softened expression left her face as Mrs. Lovel took a chair by her bedside.

"How are you now, my dear--better, I hope?"

"Thank you, I am quite well," answered Clementina.

"You had a wonderful escape. Ruby is not half broken in. No one attempts to ride him except Rachel."

Clementina felt the old sullen feeling surging up in her heart.

"Such a horse should not be taken on a riding-party," she said shortly.

"I have had lessons from Captain Delacourt. I can manage almost any horse."

"You can doubtless manage quiet horses," said Mrs. Lovel. "Well, you have had a wonderful escape and ought to be thankful."

"How is Phil? questioned Clementina after a pause.

"Phil? He is quite well, of course. He is in the armory with the other children."

"He was not well when I saw him last. He looked deadly tired."

"That was his color, my dear. He is a remarkably strong boy."

Clementina gave a bitter little laugh.

"You must be very blind," she said, "or perhaps you don't wish to see.

It was not just because he was pale that he could not keep his seat on horseback this afternoon. He looked almost as if he would die. You must be a very blind mother--very blind."

Mrs. Level's own face had turned white. She was about to make a hasty rejoinder, when the door was again opened and Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine came in.

"Not a word, my dear! I will explain to you another time--another time,"

she whispered to the girl. And then she stole out of the room.

CHAPTER XXI.--WHAT THE HEIR OUGHT TO BE.