A few days after these exciting events the Marmadukes went away. Unless
a sense of relief, they left no particular impression behind them. The
grown-up people had not made themselves interesting to the old ladies;
the lady's-maid and the parrot alike had disturbed Newbolt's equanimity;
and the children of Avonsyde had certainly not learned to love the
Marmaduke children. Clementina had been humbled and improved by her
accident, but even an improved Clementina could not help snubbing Rachel
every hour of the day, and Rachel did not care to be snubbed. On the day
they left Phil did remark, looking wistfully round him: "It seems rather
lonely without the Marmadukes." But no one else echoed the sentiment,
and in a day or two these people, who were so important in their own
eyes, were almost forgotten at Avonsyde.
On one person, however, this visit had made a permanent impression: that
person was poor Mrs. Lovel. She was made terribly uneasy by Clementina's
words. If Clementina, an ignorant and decidedly selfish girl, could
notice that Phil was not strong, could assure her, in that positive,
unpleasant way she had, that Phil was very far from strong, surely Miss
Griselda, who noticed him so closely and watched all he did and said
with such solicitude, could not fail to observe this fact also. Poor
Mrs. Lovel trembled and feared and wondered, now that the tankard was
lost and now that Phil's delicacy was becoming day by day more apparent,
if there was any hope of that great passionate desire of hers being
fulfilled.
Just at present, as far as Miss Griselda was concerned, she had no real
cause for alarm.
Miss Griselda had quite made up her mind, and where she led Miss
Katharine was sure to follow. Miss Griselda was certain that Phil was
the heir. Slowly the conviction grew upon her that this little
white-faced, fragile boy was indeed the lineal descendant of Rupert
Lovel. She had looked so often at his face that she even imagined she
saw a likeness to the dark-eyed, dark-browed, stern-looking man whose
portrait hung in the picture-gallery. This disinherited Rupert had
become more or less of a hero in Miss Griselda's eyes. From her earliest
years she had taken his part; from her earliest years she had despised
that sickly younger line from which she herself had sprung. Like most
women, Miss Griselda invested her long-dead hero with many imaginary
charms. He was brave and great in soul. He was as strong in mind as he
was in physique. When she began to see a likeness between Phil's face
and the face of her old-time hero, and when she began also to discover
that the little boy was generous and brave, that he was one of those
plucky little creatures who shrink from neither pain nor hardship, had
Phil's mother but known it, his cause was won. Miss Griselda began to
love the boy. It was beginning to be delightful to her to feel that
after she was dead and gone little Phil would have the old house and the
lands, that he should reign as a worthy squire of Avonsyde. Already she
began to drill the little boy with regard to his future duties, and
often when he and she took walks together she spoke to him about what he
was to do.
"All this portion of the forest belongs to us, Phil," she said to him
one day. "My father often talked of having a roadway made through it,
but he never did so, nor will Katharine and I. We leave that as part of
your work."
"Would the poor people like it?" asked Phil, raising his eyes with their
queer expression to her face. "That's the principal thing to think
about, isn't it--if the poor people would like it?"
Miss Griselda frowned.
"I don't agree with you," she said. "The first and principal thing to
consider is what is best for the lord of Avonsyde. A private road just
through these lands would be a great acquisition, and therefore for that
reason you will have to undertake the work by and by."
Phil's eyes still looked grave and anxious.
"Do you think, then--are you quite sure that I am really the heir, Aunt
Griselda?" he said.
Miss Griselda smiled and patted his cheek.
"Well, my boy, you ought to know best," she said. "Your mother assures
me that you are."
"Oh, yes--poor mother!" answered Phil. "Aunt Griselda," he continued
suddenly, "if you were picturing an heir to yourself, you wouldn't think
of a boy like me, would you?"
"I don't know, Phil. I do picture you in that position very often. Your
Aunt Katharine and I have had a weary search, but at last you have come,
and I may say that, on the whole, I am satisfied. My dear boy, we have
been employed for six years over this search, and sometimes I will own
that I have almost despaired. Katharine never did; but then she is
romantic and believes in the old rhyme."
"What old rhyme?" asked Phil.
"Have you not heard it? It is part and parcel of our house and runs in
different couplets, but the meaning is always the same:
"'Come what may come, tyde what may tyde,
Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.'"
"Is that really true?" asked Phil, his eyes shining. "I like the words
very much. They sound like a kind of speech that the beautiful green
lady of the forest would have made; but, Aunt Griselda, I must say it--I
am sorry."
"What about, dear?"
"That you are satisfied with me as an heir."
"My dear little Phil, what a queer speech to make. Why should not I be
satisfied with a nice, good little boy like you?"
"Oh, yes, you might like me for myself," said Phil; "but as the
heir--that is quite a different thing. I'd never picture myself as an
heir--never!"
"What do you mean, Phil?"
"I know what I mean, Aunt Griselda, but it's a secret, and I mustn't
say. I have a lovely picture in my mind of what the heir ought to be.
Perhaps there is no harm in telling you what my picture is like. Oh, if
you only could see him!"
"See whom, Philip?"
"My picture. He is tall and strong and very broad, and he has a look of
Rachel, and his cheeks are brown, and his hair is black, and his arms
are full of muscle, and his shoulders are perfectly square, and he holds
himself up so erect, just as if he was drilled. He is strong beyond
anybody else I know, and yet he is kind; he wouldn't hurt even a fly.
Oh, if you only knew him. He's my picture of an heir!"
Phil's face flushed and his lovely eyes shone. Aunt Griselda stooped
down and kissed him.
"You are a queer boy," she said. "You have described your ancestor,
Rupert Lovel, to the life. Well, child, may you too have the brave and
kindly soul. Phil, after the summer, when all is decided, you are to go
to a preparatory school for Eton and then to Eton itself. All the men of
our house have been educated there. Afterward I suppose you must go to
Oxford. Your responsibilities will be great, little man, and you must be
educated to take them up properly."
"Mother will be pleased with all this," said Phil; "only I do wish--yes,
I can't help saying it--that my picture was the heir. Oh, Aunt Grizel,
do, do look at that lovely spider!"
"I believe the boy is more interested in those wretched spiders and
caterpillars than he is in all the position and wealth which lies before
him," thought Miss Griselda.
Late on that same day she said to Miss Katharine:
"Phil this morning drew a perfect picture, both mental and physical, of
our ancestor, Katharine."
"Oh," said Miss Katharine; "I suppose he was studying the portrait.
Griselda, I see plainly that you mean to give the boy the place."
"Provided his mother can prove his descent," answered Miss Griselda in a
gentle, satisfied tone. "But of that," she added, "I have not, of
course, the smallest doubt."
"Does it occur to you, Griselda, to remember that on the 5th of May
Rachel's and Kitty's mother comes here to claim her children?"
"If she is alive," said Miss Griselda. "I have my doubts on that head.
We have not had a line from her all these years."
"You told her she was not to write."
"Yes, but is it likely a woman of that class would keep her word?"
"Griselda, you will be shocked with me for saying so, but the young
woman who came here on the day our father died was a lady."
"Katharine! she served in a shop."
"No matter, she was a lady; her word to her would be sacred. I don't
believe she is dead. I am sure she will come here on the 5th of May."