by L. T. Meade
CHAPTER VI.--THE TOWER BEDROOM.
Avonsyde was a very old property. The fair lands had been bestowed byWilliam Rufus on a certain Rupert Lovel who was fortunate enough to earnthe gratitude of this most tyrannical and capricious of monarchs. RupertLovel had laid the first stone of the present house and had lived thereuntil his death. He was succeeded by many wild and lawless descendants.As time went on they added to the old house, and gained, whether wronglyor 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 squiresruled those under them by what was considered at that period the onlysafe and wholesome rule--that of terror. They were a proud,self-confident, headstrong race, very sure of one thing--that whateverhappened Avonsyde would never cease to be theirs. An old prophecy washanded down from father to son to this effect. It had been put into acouplet 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 bedeciphered in very quaint lettering just over the arch which supported acertain portion of the tower. The tower was almost if not quite sevenhundred years old, and was another source of great pride and interest tothe family.
Miss Griselda and Miss Katharine could not have done little Philip Lovela greater honor than when they arranged the tower bedroom for hisreception. In their opinion, and in the opinion of every retainer of thefamily, they indeed showed respect to the child and the child's claimwhen they got this gloomy apartment into order for him and his mother;but when Mrs. Lovel, a timid and nervous woman, saw the room, shescarcely appreciated the honor conferred upon her and hers.
Avonsyde was a house which represented many periods; each addition was alittle more comfortable than its predecessor. For instance, the newwing, with the beautiful drawing-rooms and spacious library, was allthat was luxurious; the cozy bedrooms where Rachel and Kitty slept, withtheir thick walls and mullioned windows and deep old-fashionedcupboards, were both cheerful and convenient; but in the days when thetower was built ladies did without many things which are now consideredessential, and Mrs. Lovel had to confess to herself that she did notlike her room. In the first place, the tower rooms were completelyisolated from the rest of the house; they were entered by a door at oneside of the broad hall; this door was of oak of immense thickness, andwhen it was shut no sound from the tower could possibly penetrate to therest of the house. At the other side of the oak door was a winding stonestaircase, very much worn and hollowed out by the steps of manygenerations. 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 atall timid, was very glad to lay hold of a slack rope which was looselyrun through iron rings at intervals in the wall.
After a great many of these steps had been climbed a very narrow stonelanding 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 lowceiling and very narrow windows. The furniture was not onlyold-fashioned, but shabby; the room was small; the bed was thatmonstrosity, a four-poster; the curtains of velvet were black and rustywith age and wear. In short, the one and only cheerful object which poorMrs. Lovel found in the apartment was the little white bed in one cornerwhich had been prepared for Philip's reception.
"Dear, dear, what remarkably steep stairs; and what a small--I mean not avery large room! Are all the bedrooms of Avonsyde as small as this?" shecontinued, interrogating Newbolt, who, starched and prim, but with acomely 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 twoover. That has always been the fashion at Avonsyde--the heir has thisroom and the reigning ladies sleep overhead. This room is seven hundredyears old, mem."
Mrs. Lovel shivered.
"Very antiquated and interesting," she began, "but isn't it just alittle cold and just a little gloomy? I thought the other part of thehouse so much more cheerful."
Newbolt raised her eyebrows and gazed at Mrs. Lovel as if she weretalking the rankest heresy.
"For them as don't value the antique there's rooms spacious and cheerfuland abundantly furnished with modern vanities in the new part of thehouse," she replied. "Miss Rachel and Miss Kitty, for instance; theirbedroom isn't built more than three hundred years--a big room enough andwith 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 thedrawing-rooms, where we put strangers. Very large they are and quiteflooded with sunlight; but of course for antiquity there are no rooms tobe compared with this one and the two where the ladies sleep. I am sorrythe room don't take your fancy, mem. I suppose, not being of the bloodof the family, you can't appreciate it. Shall I speak to the ladies onthe 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'venever seen such a room. And do your ladies really sleep higher up thanthis? They must have wonderfully strong hearts to be able to mount anymore of those steep--I mean curious stairs."
Newbolt did not deign to make any comment with regard to the soundcondition of Miss Griselda's and Miss Katharine's physical hearts. Shefavored the new-comer with a not-too-appreciative glance, and havingarranged matters as comfortably as she could for her in the dismalchamber, left her to the peace and the solitude of a most solitary room.
The poor lady quite trembled when she found herself alone; the knowledgethat the room was so old filled her with a kind of mysterious awe. Afterher experiences in the New World, she even considered the drawing-roomsat Avonsyde by no means to be despised on the score of youth. Thosejuvenile bedrooms of two hundred or three hundred years' standing whereRachel and Kitty reposed were, in Mrs. Level's opinion, hoary andweighted with age; but as to this tower-room, surely such an apartmentshould only be visited at noon on a sunny day and in the company of alarge party!
"I'm glad the old ladies do sleep overhead," she said to herself. "Whattruly awful attics theirs must be! I never saw such a terriblydepressing room as this. I'm certain it is haunted; I'm convinced theremust be a ghost here. If Philip were not sleeping here I shouldcertainly die. Oh, dear! what a risk I am running for the sake ofPhilip. Much of this life would kill me! I find, too, that I am not verygood at keeping in my feelings, and I'll have to act--act all the time Iam here, and pretend I'm just in raptures with everything, when I amnot. That dreadful Newbolt saw through me about this room. Oh, dear! Iam a bad actor. Well, at any rate I am a good mother to Philip; it's asplendid chance for Philip. But if he speaks about that pain in his sidewe are lost! Poor Phil! these steep stairs are extremely bad for him."
There was plenty of daylight at present, and Mrs. Lovel could move abouther ancient chamber without any undue fear of being overtaken by theterrors of the night. She took off her traveling bonnet and mantle,arranged her hair afresh before a mirror which caused her to squint anddistorted every feature, and finally, being quite certain that she couldnever lie down and rest alone on that bed, was about to descend thestone stairs and to return to the more cheerful part of the house, whengay, quick footsteps, accompanied by childish laughter, were heardascending, and Philip, accompanied by Kitty, bounded without anyceremony into the apartment.
"Oh, mother, things are so delightful here," began the little boy, "andKitty fishes nearly as well as Rupert. And Kitty has got a pony and I'mto have one; Aunt Grizel says so--one of the forest ponies, mother. Doyou know that the forest is full of ponies? and they are so rough andjolly. And there are squirrels in the forest--hundreds of squirrels--andall 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 yourhands and brushing your hair, we can go back
through the armory--that'sthe next oldest part to the tower. I steal into the armory sometimes inthe dusk, for I do so hope some of the chain-armor will rattle. Do youbelieve in ghosts, Phil? I do and so does Rachel."
"No, I'm not such a silly," replied Phil. "Mother, dear, how white youare! Don't you like our jolly, jolly bedroom? Oh! I do, and wouldn'tRupert 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 cousinwill meet you downstairs presently. Oh, Phil, my dear," continued thepoor lady when Kitty had succeeded in banging herself noisily andunwillingly 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, wehad 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 handsin despair. "You know what Rupert is--so strong and manly and beautifulas 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 oldladies know about Rupert we are lost!"
Phil had a most comical little face; a plain face decidedly--pale, withfreckles, and a slightly upturned nose. To those who knew it well it hadmany charms. It was without doubt an expressive and speaking face; inthe course of a few minutes it could look sad to pathos, or so brimfulof mirth that to glance at it was to feel gay. The sad look now filledthe beautiful brown eyes; the little mouth drooped; the boy went up andlaid his head on his mother's shoulder.
"Do you know," he said, "I must say it, even though it hurts you. I wantRupert to have everything. I love Rupert very dearly, and I think itwould be splendid for him to come here, and to own a lot of the wildponies, and to fish in that funny little river which Kitty calls theAvon. Rupert would let me live with him perhaps, and maybe he'd give mea pony, and I could find squirrels and spiders and ants in theforest--oh! and caterpillars; I expect there are splendid specimens ofcaterpillars here. Mother, when my heart is full of Rupert how can Ihelp 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 nottell me something of this before now, for I have broken into mylast--yes, my very last L20 to come here. We have not enough money totake us back to Australia and to Rupert; still, we must go away, for theold ladies will look upon us as impostors, and I could not bear that foranything 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 youbest!"
"Do you really, Phil? Better than that boy? I never could see anythingin him. Do you love me better than Rupert, Phil?"
"Yes, of course; you are my mother, and when father died he said I wasalways to love you and to do what you wanted. If you want Avonsyde, Isuppose you must have it some day when the old ladies die. I'll do mybest not to talk about Rupert, and I'll try to seem very strong, andI'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 beenchattering here, and Kitty is waiting for me, and I do so want to seethe armory! I wonder if there are ghosts there? It sounds silly tobelieve in them; but Kitty does, and she's a dear little girl, nearly asnice as Gabrielle. Good-by, mother; I'm off. I'll try to remember."
