The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls

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.

CHAPTER XXV. – A DREAM WITH A MEANING

Phil had a dream which had a great effect on him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, it wanted but two days to the great 5th of May; in the second place, he was feeling really ill, so was making greater efforts than usual to conceal all trace of languor or weariness; in the third place, Rachel came to him about half an hour before he went upstairs to bed and burst out crying, and told him she knew something was going to happen. Rachel was not a child who was particularly given to tears, but when she did cry she cried stormily. She showed a good deal of excitement of a passionate and over-wrought little heart to Phil now, and when he questioned her and asked her why she was so excited about her birthday, she murmured first something about the lady of the forest and then about her mother, and then, afraid of her own words, she ran away before Phil could question her further. Phil’s own mother, too, seemed to be in a most disturbed and unnatural state. She was always conning a piece of paper and then putting it out of sight, and her eyes had red rims round them, and when Phil questioned her she owned that she had been crying, and felt, as she expressed it, “low.” All these things combined caused Phil to lay his head on his white pillow with a weary sigh and to go off into the land of dreams by no means a perfectly happy little boy.

Once there, however, he was happy enough. In the first place, he was out of his bed and out of the old house, where so many people just now looked anxious and troubled; and, in the second place, he was in a beautiful new forest, his feet treading on velvet grass, his eyes gazing at all those lovely sights in which his little soul delighted. He was in the forest and he was well, quite well; the tiredness and the aching had vanished, the weakness had disappeared; he felt as though wings had been put to his feet, as though no young eagle could feel a keener and grander sense of strength than did he. He was in the forest, and coming to meet him under the shadows of the great trees was a lady – the lady he had searched for so long and hitherto searched for in vain. She came quite naturally and gently up to him, took his little hand, looked into his eyes, and stooping down she touched his fore head with her lips.

“Brave little boy!” she said. “So you have come.”

“Yes,” answered Phil, “and you have come. I have waited for you so long. Have you brought the gift?”

“Beauty of face and of heart. Yes, I bring them both,” answered the lady. “They are yours; take them.”

“My mother,” whispered Phil.

“Your mother shall be cared for, but you and she will soon part. You have done all you could for her – all, even to life itself. You cannot do more. Come with me.”

“Where?” asked Phil.

“Are you not tired of the world? Come with me to Fairyland. Take my hand – come! There you will find perpetual youth and beauty and strength and goodness – come!”

Then Phil felt within himself the wildest, the most intense longing to go. He looked in the lady’s face, and he thought he must fly into her arms; he must lay his head on her breast and ask her to soothe all his life troubles away.

“I know you,” he said suddenly. “Some people call you by another name, but I know who you are. You give little tired boys like me great rest; and I want beyond words to go with you, but there is my mother.”

“Your mother will be cared for. Come. I can give you something better than Avonsyde.”

“Oh, I don’t want Avonsyde! I am not the rightful heir.”

“The rightful heir is coming,” interrupted the lady of the forest. “Look for him on the 5th of May, and look for me too there. Farewell!”

She vanished, and Phil awoke, to find his mother sitting by his bedside, her face bent over him, her eyes wide open with terror.

“Oh, my darling, how you have looked! Are you – are you very ill?”

“No, mammy dear,” answered the little boy, sitting up in the bed and kissing her in his tenderest fashion. “I have had a dream and I know what is coming, but I don’t feel very ill.”

Mrs. Lovel burst into floods of weeping.

“Phil,” she said when she could speak through her sobs, “it is so near now – only one other day. Can you not keep up just for one more day?”

“Yes, mother; oh, yes, mother dear. I have had a dream. Hold my hand, mother, and I will try and go to sleep again. I have had a dream. Everything is quite plain now. Hold my hand, mammy dear. I love you; you know that.”

He lay back again on his pillows and, exhausted, fell asleep.

Mrs. Lovel held the little thin hand and looked into the white face, and never went to bed that night. Ever since her sleep in the forest she had been perturbed and anxious; that mysterious bit of paper had troubled her more than she cared to own. She was too weak-natured a woman not to be more or less influenced by superstition, and she could not help wondering what mysterious being had come to her and, reading her heart’s secret, had told her to bid good-by to hope.

But all her fears and apprehensions had been nothing, had been child’s play, compared to the terror which awoke in her heart when she saw the look on her boy’s face as she bent over him that night. She knew that he bad never taken kindly to her scheme; she knew that personally he cared nothing at all for all the honors and greatness she would thrust upon him. He was doing it for her sake; he was trying hard to become a rich man some day for her sake; he was giving up Rupert whom he loved and the simple life which contented him for her. Oh, yes, because, as he so simply said, he loved her. But she laid too heavy a burden on the young shoulders; the long strain of patient endurance had been too much, and the gallant little life was going out.

On the instant, quick, quick as thought, there overmastered this weak and selfish woman a great, strong tide of passionate mother’s love. What was Avonsyde to her compared to the life of her boy? Welcome any poverty if the boy might be saved! She fell on her knees and wept and wrung her hands and prayed long and piteously.

When in the early, early dawn Phil awoke, his mother spoke to him.

“Philip dear, you would like to see Rupert again?”

“So much, mother.”

“Avonsyde is yours, but you would like to give it to him?”

“If I might, mother – if I might!”

“Leave it to me, my son. Say nothing – leave it to me, my darling.”

CHAPTER XXVI. – LOVE VERSUS GOLD

“Katharine!”

“Yes.”

“I have received the most extraordinary letter.”

“What about, Grizel?”

“What about? Had you not better ask me first who from? Oh, no, you need not turn so pale. It is not from that paragon of your life, Rachel’s and Kitty’s mother.”

“Grizel, I do think you might speak more tenderly of one who has done you no harm and who has suffered much.”

“Well, well, let that pass. You want to know who my present correspondent is. She is no less a person than the mother of our heir.”

“Phil’s mother! Why should she write? She is in the house. Surely she can use her tongue.”

“She is not in the house and is therefore obliged to have recourse to correspondence. Listen to her words.”

Miss Griselda drew out of her pocket an envelope which contained a sheet of thick note-paper. The envelope was crested; so was the paper. The place from which it was written was Avonsyde; the date was early that morning. A few words in a rather feeble and uncertain hand filled the page.

“Dear Miss Lovel: I hope you and Miss Katharine will excuse me. I have made up my mind to see your lawyer, Mr. Baring, in town. I know you intended him to come here this afternoon, but if I catch the early train I shall reach his office in time to prevent him. I believe I can explain all about proofs and credentials better in town than here. I shall come back in time to-morrow. Don’t let Phil be agitated. Yours humbly and regretfully,

“Bella Lovel.”

“What does she mean by putting such an extra ordinary ending to her letter?” continued Miss Grizel as she folded up the sheet of paper and returned it to its envelope. “‘Yours humbly and regretfully!’ What does she mean, Katharine?”

“It sounds like a woman who had a weight on her conscience,” said Miss Katharine. “I wonder if Phil really is the heir! You know, Grizel, she never showed you the tankard. She made a great talk about it, but you never really saw it. Don’t you remember?”

“Nonsense!” snapped Miss Grizel. “Is it likely she would even know about the tankard if she had not got it? She was ill that day. Newbolt said she looked quite dreadful, and I did not worry her again, as I knew Mr. Baring was coming down to-day to go thoroughly into the whole question. She certainly has done an extraordinary thing in writing that letter and going up to London in that stolen sort of fashion; but as to Phil not being the heir, I think the fact of his true title to the property is pretty clearly established by this time. Katharine, I read you this letter in order to get a suggestion from you. I might have known beforehand that you had none to make. I might have known that you would only raise some of your silly doubts and make things generally uncomfortable. Well, I am displeased with Mrs. Lovel; but there, I never liked her. I shall certainly telegraph to Mr. Baring and ask him to come down here this evening, all the same.”

Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine had held their brief little colloquy in the old library. They now went into the hall, where family prayers were generally held, and soon afterward Miss Griselda sent off her telegram. She received an answer in the course of a couple of hours:

“Have not seen Mrs. Lovel. Will come down as arranged.”

But half an hour before the dog-cart was to be sent to the railway station to meet the lawyer another little yellow envelope was thrust into Miss Lovel’s hands. It was dated from the lawyer’s chambers and ran as follows:

“Most unexpectedly detained. Cannot come to-night. Expect me with Mrs. Lovel to-morrow.”

This telegram made Miss Griselda very angry.

“What possible information can detain Mr. Baring when I summon him here?” she said to her younger sister. She was doomed, however, to be made yet more indignant. A third telegram arrived at Avonsyde early in the evening; it also was from Mr. Baring:

“Disquieting news. Put off your guests. Expect me early to-morrow.”

Miss Griselda’s face grew quite pale. She threw the thin sheet of paper indignantly on the floor.

“Mr. Baring strangely forgets himself,” she said. “Put off our guests! Certainly not!”

“But, Griselda,” said Miss Katharine, “our good friend speaks of disquieting news. It may be – it may be something about the little girls’ mother. Oh, I always did fear that something had happened to her.”

“Katharine, you are perfectly silly about that woman. But whatever Mr. Baring’s news, our guests are invited and they shall come. Katharine, I look on to-morrow as the most important day of my life. On that day, when I show our chosen and rightful heir to the world – for our expected guests form the world to us, Katharine – on that day I fulfill the conditions of my dear father’s will. Do you suppose that any little trivial disturbance which may have taken place in London can alter plans so important as mine?”

“I don’t think Mr. Baring would have telegraphed if the disturbance was trivial,” murmured Miss Katharine. But she did not venture to add any more and soon went sadly out of the room.

Meanwhile Mrs. Lovel was having a terribly exciting day. Impelled by a motive stronger than the love of gold, she had slipped away from Phil’s bedside in the early morning, and, fear lending her wings, had gone downstairs, written her note to Miss Griselda, and then on foot had made her way to the nearest railway station at Lyndhurst Road. There she took the first train to London. She had a carriage to herself, and she was so restless that she paced up and down its narrow length. It seemed to her that the train would never reach its destination; the minutes were lengthened into hours; the hours seemed days. When, when would she get to Waterloo? When would she see Mr. Baring? Beside her in the railway carriage, beside her in the cab, beside her as she mounted the stairs to the lawyer’s office was pale-faced fear. Could she do anything to keep the boy? Could any – any act of hers cause the avenger to stay his hand – cause the angel of death to withdraw and leave his prey untouched? In the night, as she had watched by his bedside, she had seen only too plainly what was coming. Avonsyde might be given to Phil, but little Phil himself was going away. The angels wanted him elsewhere, and they would not mind any amount of mother’s weeping, of mother’s groans; they would take the boy from her arms. Then it occurred to her poor, weak soul for the first time that perhaps if she appealed to God he would listen, and if she repented, not only in word, but in deed, he would stay his avenging hand. Hence her hurried flight; hence her anguished longing. She had not a moment to lose, for the sands of her little boy’s life were running out.

She was early in town, and was shown into Mr. Baring’s presence very soon after his arrival at his office. Unlike most of the heirs-presumptive to the Avonsyde property, Phil had not been subjected to the scrutiny of this keen-eyed lawyer. From the very first Miss Griselda had been more or less under a spell as regards little Phil. His mother in writing to her from Australia had mentioned one or two facts which seemed to the good lady almost conclusive, and she had invited her and the boy direct to Avonsyde without, as in all other cases, interviewing them through her lawyer.

Mr. Baring therefore had not an idea who his tall, pale, agitated-looking visitor could be.

“Sit down,” he said politely. “Can I assist you in any way? Perhaps, if all the same to you, you would not object to going very briefly into matters to-day; to-morrow – no, not to-morrow – Thursday I can carefully attend to your case. I happen to be called into the country this afternoon and am therefore in a special hurry. If your case can wait, oblige me by mentioning the particulars briefly and making an appointment for Thursday.”

“My case cannot wait,” replied Mrs. Lovel in a hard, strained voice. “My case cannot wait an hour, and you need not go into the country. I have come to prevent your doing so.”

“But, madam – ”

“I am Mrs. Lovel.”

“Another Mrs. Lovel? Another heir forthcoming? God help those poor old ladies!”

“I am the mother of the boy who to-morrow is to be publicly announced as the future proprietor of Avonsyde.”

“You! Then you have come from Avonsyde?”

“I have. I have come to tell you a terrible and disastrous story.”

“My dear madam, pray don’t agitate yourself; pray take things quietly. Would you like to sit in this easy-chair?”

“No, thank you. What are easy-chairs to me? I want to tell my story.”

“So you shall – so you shall. I trust your boy is not ill?”

“He is very ill; he is – good God! I fear he is dying. I have come to you as the last faint chance of saving him.”

“My dear Mrs. Lovel, you make a mistake. I am a lawyer, not a physician. ’Pon my word, I’m truly sorry for you, and also for Miss Griselda. Her heart is quite set on that boy.”

“Listen! I have sinned. I was tempted; I sinned. He is not the heir.”

“My good lady, you can scarcely know what you are saying. You would hardly come to me with this story at the eleventh hour. Miss Lovel tells me you have proofs of undoubted succession. I was going to Avonsyde this afternoon to look into them, but only as a form – merely as a form.”

“You can look into them now; they are correct enough. There were two brothers who were lineally descended from that Rupert Lovel who quarreled with his father two hundred years ago. The brothers’ names were Rupert and Philip. Philip died and left a son; Rupert lives and has a son. Rupert is the elder of the brothers and his son is the true heir, because – because – ”

Here Mrs. Lovel rose to her feet.

“Because he has got what was denied to my only boy – glorious health and glorious strength. He therefore perfectly fulfills the conditions of the late Squire Lovel’s will.”

“But – but I don’t understand,” said the lawyer. “I have seen – yes, of course I have seen – but pray tell me everything. How did you manage to bring proofs of your boy’s title to the old ladies?”

“Why should I not know the history of my husband’s house? I saw the old ladies’ advertisement in a Melbourne paper. I knew to what it alluded and I stole a march on Rupert and his heir. It did not seem to me such a dreadful thing to do; for Rupert and his boy were rich and Phil and I were very poor. I stole away to England with my little boy, and took with me a bundle of letters and a silver tankard which belonged to my brother-in-law, but which were, I knew, equally valuable in proving little Philip’s descent. All would have gone well but for one thing – my little boy was not strong. He was brave – no boy ever was braver – and he kept in all tokens of terrible suffering for my sake. He won upon the old ladies; everybody loved him. All my plans seemed to succeed, and to-morrow he is to be appointed heir. To-morrow! What use is it? God has stretched out his hand and is taking the boy away. He is angry. He is doing it in anger and to punish me. I am sorry; I am terrified; my heart is broken. Perhaps if I show God that I repent he will withdraw his anger and spare my only boy. I have come to you. There is not a moment to lose. Here are the lost letters. Find the rightful heir.”

Mr. Baring was disturbed and agitated. He got up and locked the door; he paced up and down his room several times; then he came up to the woman who was now crouching by the table, her face hidden in her hands.

“Are you aware,” he said softly, for he feared the effect of his words – “are you aware that Rupert Lovel and his boy are now in London?”

Mrs. Lovel raised her head.

“I guessed it. Thank God! then I am in time.”

“Your news is indeed of the most vital importance. I must telegraph to Avonsyde. I cannot go there this afternoon. The whole case must be thoroughly investigated, and at once. I require your aid for this. “Will you return with me to Avonsyde to-morrow?”

“Yes, yes.”

“It will be a painful exposure for you. Do you realize it?”

“I realize nothing. I want to hold Phil to my heart; that is the only desire I now possess.”

“Poor soul! You have acted – I won’t say how; it is not for me to preach. I will telegraph to Miss Griselda and then go with you to find Rupert Lovel and his boy.”

CHAPTER XXVII. – TWO MOTHERS

“Here is a letter for you, ma’am.”

Nancy was standing by her mistress, who, in a traveling cloak and bonnet, had just come home.