by L. T. Meade
CHAPTER VII.--"BETYDE WHAT MAY."
In a handsomely furnished dining-room in a spacious and modern-lookinghouse about three miles outside the city of Melbourne, threechildren--two girls and a boy--were standing impatiently by a wide-openwindow.
"Gabrielle," said the boy, "have you any idea when the mails fromEngland are due?"
The boy was the taller of the three, splendidly made, with squareshoulders, great breadth of chest, and head so set on the same shouldersthat it gave to its young owner an almost regal appearance. The brightand bold dark eyes were full of fire; the expressive lines round thefinely cut lips were both kindly and noble.
"Gabrielle, is that Carlo riding past on Jo-jo? If it is, perhaps he isbringing our letter-bag. Father has gone to Melbourne to-day; but hesaid if there were English letters he would send them out by Carlo."
"You are so impatient about England and English things, Rupert," saidlittle Peggy, raising a face framed in by soft flaxen hair to her bigbrother. "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 isbeginning to speak so well and James Grasper is improving. If Carlo hasno letters you need not expect me back, either of you."
The little maid stepped quickly out of the open window, and ran fleet asthe wind across a beautifully kept lawn and in the direction where ahorse's quick steps were heard approaching.
Gabrielle was nearly as tall as her brother, with a stately bearing anda grave face.
"If father does decide on taking you to Europe, Rupert, I wish to saynow that I am quite willing to stay here with Peggy. I don't want to goto school at Melbourne. I would rather stay on here and housekeep, andkeep things nice the way our mother would have liked. If Peggy and I goaway, Belmont will have to be shut up and a great many of the servantsdismissed, and that would be silly. I am thirteen now, and I think I amwise for my age. You will speak to father, won't you, Rupert, and askhim to allow me to be mistress here while you are away."
"If we are away," corrected Rupert. "Ah! here comes Peggy, and theletter-bag, and doubtless a letter. What a good child you are, PeggyWhite!"
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 hiswatch-chain opened it. It only contained one letter, and this wasdirected to himself:
"Mr. Rupert Lovel, "Belmont, "Near Melbourne, "Victoria, "Australia."
"A letter from England!" said Rupert. "And oh! Gabrielle, what do youthink? 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 oftenthought 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. Alittle letter, written with considerable pains and difficulty, withrather shaky and blotted little fingers, and quite uncorrected, just, inshort, as nature had prompted it to a small, eager, and affectionatemind, 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 epistlewithout comment. When they had finished it, Rupert slipped it back intoits envelope and gave it to his sister.
"We must both write to the poor little chap," he said. "The postmark onthe envelope is Southampton. I suppose Southampton, England, will findhim." Then he added after a pause: "I wonder what queer thing Aunt Bellais thinking about now?"
"She always was the silliest person in the world," said Gabrielle in atone of strong contempt. "If she were my mother I shouldn't love her. Iwonder how Phil loves her. Poor little Phil! He always was a dear littlefellow--not a bit like Aunt Bella, thank goodness!"
Rupert laughed.
"Why, Gabrielle," he said, "you can have no observation; Phil is theimage of his mother. There is nothing at all belonging to his fatherabout 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 hehas got Aunt Bella's uninteresting features? He has nothing more of herin him. Oh, she always was a silly, mysterious person! Just think of hernot 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 littlehouse at the back of our garden, Gabrielle, and how Betty found herburning an English newspaper; and how queer and nervous and flurried shebecame all of a sudden; and then how she asked father to give her thatL200 he had of hers in the bank; and how she hurried off without sayinggood-by to one of us? We have not heard a word about her from that dayuntil now, when Phil's little letter has come."
"She never even bid mother good-by," continued Gabrielle in a painedvoice. "Mother always stood up for Aunt Bella. She never allowed us tolaugh at her or to grumble at her funny, tiresome ways."
"Did mother allow us to laugh at any one?" continued Rupert. "There wasnothing 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 mothergood-by," pursued Gabrielle, "for I think she was a little fond ofmother, and mother was so weak and ill at the time. I saw tea
rs in AuntBella's eyes once after mother had been talking to her. Yes, her goingaway was certainly very queer; but I have no time to talk any more aboutit now. I must go to my work. Rupert, shall we ride this afternoon? Thisis just the most perfect weather for riding before the great summer heatcommences."
"Yes, we'll be in summer before we know where we are," said Rupert; "itis 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 differentvocations, and a short time afterward an old servant, with a closelyfrilled cap tied with a ribbon under her chin, came into the room. Shewas the identical Betty who had been Mrs. Lovel's maid-of-all-work, andwho had now transferred her services to the young people at Belmont.Betty was old, wrinkled, and of Irish birth, and sincerely attached toall the Lovels. She came into the room under the pretext of looking forsome needlework which Gabrielle had mislaid, but her real object was topeer into the now open post-bag, and then to look suspiciously round theroom.
"I smell it in the air," she said, sniffing as she spoke. "As sure asI'm Betty O'Flanigan there's news of Master Phil in the air! Was there aletter? Oh, glory! to think as there might be a letter from my ownlittle master, and me not to know. Miss Gabrielle's mighty close, and nomistake. Well, I'll go and ask her bold outright if she has bad news ofthe darlint."
Betty could not find Gabrielle's lost embroidery, and perceiving thatthe post-bag was absolutely empty, she pottered out of the room againand upstairs to where her young lady was making up some accounts in apretty little boudoir which had belonged to her mother.
"Och, and never a bit of it can I see, Miss Gabrielle," said the oldwoman as she advanced into the room; and then she began sniffing the airagain.
"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. "Idreamed of him three times last night, and that means tidings; and now Ismell 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 handsunder her apron and her mouth wide open prepared herself not to lose aword.
Gabrielle read the letter from end to end, the old woman now and theninterrupting her with such exclamations as "Oh, glory! May the saintspresarve him! Well, listen to the likes of that!"
At last Gabrielle's voice ceased; then Betty hobbled to her feet, andsuddenly seizing the childish letter, not a word of which she couldread, pressed it to her lips.
"Ah! Miss Gabrielle," she said, "that mother of his meant mischief. Shemeant mischief to you and yours, miss, and the sweet child has neitherpart nor lot in the matter. If I was you, Miss Gabrielle, I'd ferret outwhere Mrs. Lovel is hiding Master Phil. What business had she to getinto such a way about a bit of an English newspaper, and to hurry offwith the child all in a twinkling like, and to be that flustered andnervous? And oh! Miss Gabrielle, the fuss about her clothes; and 'didshe 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 fathernor Rupert is likely to be injured by a weak kind of woman like AuntBella. I am sorry for little Phil; but I think you are silly to talk asyou do of Aunt Bella. Now you may take the letter away with you and kissit and love it as much as you like. Here comes father; he is backearlier than usual from Melbourne, and I must speak to him."
Mr. Lovel, a tall, fine-looking man, with a strong likeness to both hisson and daughter, now came hastily into the room.
"I have indeed come back in a hurry, Gabrielle," he said. "Thatadvertisement has appeared in the papers again. I have had a long talkwith our business friend, Mr. Davis, and the upshot of it is that Rupertand I sail for Europe on Saturday. This is Tuesday; so you will haveyour hands pretty full in making preparations for such a sudden move, mydear daughter."
"Is it the advertisement that appeared six months ago, father?" saidGabrielle in an excited voice. "Mother pointed it out to you then andyou 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'sinterests. I went to consult with Davis, and Davis promised to makeinquiries in England. He came to me this morning with the result of hisinvestigations and with this advertisement in the Melbourne Times. Hereit is; it is three months old, unfortunately. It appeared three monthsafter the first advertisement, but Davis did not trouble me with ituntil he had got news from England. The news came this morning. It is ofa satisfactory character and to the effect that the last ValentineLovel, of Avonsyde, in the New Forest, Hampshire, died without leavingany male issue, and the present owners of the property are two unmarriedladies, neither of whom is young. Now, Gabrielle, you are a wise lassfor 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, mydaughter, and tell me what you make of it."
As Mr. Lovel spoke he unfolded a sheet of the Melbourne Times, andpointing to a small paragraph in one of the advertisement columns whichwas strongly underscored with a blue pencil, he handed it to Gabrielle.
"Read it aloud," he said. "They are strange words, but I should like tohear 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, orrather a second advertisement which immediately follows the first, is ofmore 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 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.
"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, raising her eyes to the face of the tallman who stood near her, "do you really believe a little bit in it atlast? Don't you remember how I used to pray of you to tell me traditionsof the old English home when I was a little child, and how often youhave repeated that old rhyme to me, and don't you know how mother usedto treasure the tankard with the family crest and 'Tyde what may' inthose queer, quaint English characters on it? Mother was quite excitedwhen the first advertisement appeared, but you said we were not to talkor 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 agrave voice. "He is undoubtedly a lineal descendant of the Rupert Lovelwho left Avonsyde in 1684, a
nd he also fulfills the conditions of theold ladies' advertisement, for he is under fifteen and splendidlystrong; but it is also a fact that I cannot find some very importantletters which absolutely prove Rupert's claim. I could swear that I leftthem 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, andwill have a strict search instituted for them. The loss of the papersmakes a flaw in my boy's claim; but I shall not delay to go to Englandon that account. Davis will mail them to me as soon as ever they arerecovered; and in the mean time, Gabrielle, I will ask you to pack upthe old tankard and give it to me to take to England. There is no doubtwhatever that that tankard is the identical one which my forefather tookwith him when almost empty-handed he left Avonsyde."
"I will fetch it at once," said Gabrielle. "Mother kept it in thecupboard at the back of her bed. She always kept the tankard and ourbaptismal mugs and the diamonds you gave her when first you were marriedin that cupboard. I will fetch the tankard and have it cleaned, and Iwill pack it for you myself."
Gabrielle ran out of the room, returning in a few moments with aslightly battered old drinking-cup, much tarnished and of antiquepattern.
"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? Ihave 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 thinkof it, you tiresome old woman, it is of great value to us, andparticularly to your favorite, Rupert."
Muttering to herself, Betty hobbled downstairs, and Gabrielle and herfather continued their conversation. In about half an hour the old womanreturned and presented the cup, burnished now to great brilliancy, toher young mistress.
"I said it wasn't worth much," she repeated. "I misdoubt me if it'ssilver at all."
Gabrielle turned it round in her hand; then she uttered a dismayedexclamation.
"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 themotto?"
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, butthis is not my forefather's tankard. I believe Betty is right, and thisis not even silver; here is no crown mark. No letters, Gabrielle, and notankard! Well, never mind; these are but trifles. Rupert and I sail allthe same for England and the old property on Saturday."
