The Lady of the Forest Part 8

"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 ha.s.sock, and with her hands under her ap.r.o.n 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 fl.u.s.tered 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 Sat.u.r.day. 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Melbourne Times. Here it is; it is three months old, unfortunately. It appeared three months after the first advertis.e.m.e.nt, 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, Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 la.s.s 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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, Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, or rather a second advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 reestablish 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.