The Palace in the Garden by Mrs. Molesworth - HTML preview

CHAPTER VII.

GRANDPAPA'S SECRETARY.

randpapa did not come down to Rosebuds again for three or four weeks. Mrs. Munt wrote to him regularly to tell him how we were, and we, once or twice—it was she who put it in our heads, I must confess—wrote a little scrap to put inside hers, for which he told her to thank us when he wrote back to her, but he never sent us any letter.

We didn't mind his not coming, except that now and then we thought we should like to tell him of our discovery, and hear what he said about it. But we were very happy; we never cared to go out for walks, which I don't think nurse regretted; we always said we were much happier playing about. And the conservatory and the saloon became our regular haunts every, or almost every, afternoon. No one ever disturbed us—we never heard the slightest sound in the house where the big drawing-room was; indeed, for all we knew, it might not have been a house at all, but just that one large room, for the other door—the proper door of the room—was never opened. We tried it two or three times; it was always firmly locked. But still it was clear that somebody came to dust the room and the conservatory, if not every day, at least two or three times a week, for they were not allowed to get any dustier.

It was a good thing we were quiet children, not given to mischief, or rough and wild, otherwise we might have done harm in some way, such as breaking the glass in the conservatory, or spoiling the beautiful "parquet" floor. And we certainly would have been discovered. It was partly the fear of this that made us so careful, as well as a queer fancy we had that the picture on the wall—the princess, as we still called her—watched all we did, and that she would be very vexed if we were not quite good.

"Of course," Tib used to say, "it's a great honour to be allowed to play in a palace, and we must show we are to be trusted."

For after a while we got tired of our play-story about the baron and the humpback and all the rest of it, and then we pretended that we came to visit the princess in her beautiful palace, and that she was very kind to us indeed.

Sometimes we brought our books and work with us; on a rainy day we always found it difficult to get to our secret haunts, for of course we wouldn't tell stories about it, and nurse naturally didn't approve of our going out in the damp. But after a while, when nurse found that we came in quite dry, and that we never caught cold even when she left us to our own devices on a wet day, she gave up being so fidgety, and so we often did get to our palace all the same.

One Friday at last there came a letter, saying grandpapa would be down the next day and a gentleman with him.

"What a bore that he's not coming alone," said I. "We shan't have a word with him, and the gentleman's sure to be one of those stupid Parliamentary people that talk to grandpapa about 'the House,' and 'so-and-so's bill,' all the time." For we had had some experience of grandpapa's friends sometimes at Ansdell, when we had come in to dessert and heard them talking. "I wonder if they go on all day long in the 'House' about bills, Tib? There must be a fearful lot of people who never pay theirs if it takes all those clever gentlemen all their time to be settling about them in the 'House.'" We were rather proud of knowing what the "House" meant, you see. We thought from grandpapa's being in it, that we knew all about the government things.

Tib looked rather solemn.

"I suppose it's because of the National Debt," she said. "It shows how careful people should be not to spend too much, doesn't it, Gussie? But I'm not sure that I care to speak to grandpapa more than usual. I'm so awfully afraid of his stopping us going to the palace."

"Are you?" said I. "I'm not. That is to say, if I thought he'd mind it, I wouldn't go there. What I want is to find out about it from him. I have still such an idea that it has something to do with the old mystery."

"If I thought that," said Tib, "I'd be far too frightened to tell him about it."

We spent a long time that afternoon in the big drawing-room. When we were coming away, we all somehow felt a little melancholy.

"We are pretty sure not to be able to come to-morrow, and certainly not on Sunday," said Tib, sadly. "Dear princess," she went on, looking at the portrait, "you mustn't forget us if we don't come to see you for a few days. It won't be our fault, you may be sure;" and really we could have fancied that the sweet face smiled at us as we turned to go.

We were playing on the lawn when grandpapa arrived the next day. Nurse had intended to have us all solemnly prepared, like the last time, but he came by an earlier train, and somehow she didn't know about it early enough, so we were all in our garden things quite comfortably messy, when we heard the sound of wheels, and looking round, saw to our astonishment that it was the dog-cart.

There was no help for it; we hadn't even time to wash our hands, and there was no use trying to get out of the way, for to have gone hurry-skurrying off as if we were ashamed would have vexed grandpapa more than anything, especially as he had a friend with him. So we marched boldly across the lawn and stood waiting, while the gentlemen got down.

"How do you do, grandpapa?" I said. "We didn't expect you quite so soon."

"Indeed," said he, as he kissed us in his usual cool sort of way, "an unwelcome surprise—eh?"

Tib got red at this, and looked as if she were going to cry. But I didn't feel inclined to be put down like that, before a stranger, too.

"No, grandpapa; it's not an unwelcome surprise, but we would have liked to have been tidier; you know we generally are quite tidy when you see us."

"For my part, I prefer to see small people when they're not very tidy," said a pleasant, hearty voice; and then the owner of it came round from the other side of the dog-cart where he had jumped down. "You must introduce me, Mr. Ansdell, please, to my—small, I was going to say, but I'm surprised to see the word would be almost a libel—cousins."

"Umph," said grandpapa, "'cousins,' in the Scotch sense; how many degrees removed, it would be difficult to say."

"I've not been taught to count you so very far away," said the gentleman, good-humouredly, but with something in his tone that showed he wasn't the sort of person to be very easily put down; "besides, sir, as I'm your godson as well as your cousin——"

"I might be a little more civil, eh, Charles?" said grandpapa, laughing a little. "Ah, well, I'm too old to learn, I fear. Nevertheless, I have no objection to your calling each other cousins if you choose. Mercedes, Gustava, and Gerald—your cousin, Mr. Charles Truro."

We looked at him, and he looked at us. What we saw was a well-made, pleasant-looking young man, not very tall, though not short, with merry-looking grey eyes, close cut brown hair, and a particularly kindly expression, a great improvement upon most of grandpapa's gentlemen friends, who never looked at us as if they saw us.

"Mercedes and Gustava," he repeated, slowly. "I thought one of them was called Re——"

But grandpapa interrupted him.

"Mercedes is an absurd name for an English child," he said. "It was a fancy of poor Gerald's—they were in Spain, you know."

"But you needn't call Tib 'Mercedes,' unless you like," I said, boldly—I don't really know what spirit of defiance, perhaps of curiosity, made me say it—"she has another name; her second name is Regina, like——"

Would you believe it? I was on the point of saying "like the picture;" but I cut myself short before I said more, and even had I not stopped, grandpapa's tone would have startled me into doing so.

"Will you be so good, Gustava, as to answer questions and remarks that are addressed to you, and those only?" he said, in his horrible, icy way.

I felt myself getting red now, especially as I was certain Mr. Truro was looking at me. I made a silent vow that I wouldn't try to be nicer to grandpapa, and that I would certainly not tell him about our secret. This comforted me a little, and I glanced up, to find that the stranger was looking at me, but in such a nice way that I couldn't have felt vexed if I had tried.

"Will you take me round the garden?" he said. "I am quite stiff with sitting so long."

He spoke to us all, but I think he meant it most for me. Grandpapa didn't seem to mind. I think that when he had said anything very crabbed, he was sorry, though he wouldn't say so.

"Don't be very long, Charles," he said, as he went into the house and we turned the other way, "I shall want you to look over those papers."

"All right, sir, I won't be long," Mr. Truro called back in his cheery tone.

"Why does he want you to do his papers?" I asked.

Mr. Truro laughed.

"Because I'm acting as Mr. Ansdell's secretary just now," he said.

Tib looked disappointed.

"Oh," she said, "I thought you were a——" and she stopped.

"Say on," said Mr. Truro.

"A—a gentleman," said Tib.

"Well, I hope I am," he said, smiling.

"But doesn't he," I said, nodding my head towards the house, for I perfectly understood what Tib meant, "pay you for being that?"

"In point of fact Mr. Ansdell does not pay me," he said. "What I learn from being with him is far more valuable than money to me. But all the same, if your grandfather did pay me for my services, that would not make me less of a gentleman!" and Mr. Truro stood erect, and gave a little toss to his head, which showed he could be in earnest when he liked. But then he laughed again, and we saw he was not really vexed. "May I make a remark in turn?" he said. "Are you young people in the habit of talking of Mr. Ansdell as 'he' and 'him?' 'She,' I know, is 'the cat.' I have yet to learn who 'he' is."

We laughed, but we blushed too, a little.

"We don't always," said Tib; "but you see you are a cousin; mayn't we tell him things?" she exclaimed, impulsively, turning to Gerald and me. "He's got such a kind face, and—and we haven't anybody like other children."

Mr. Truro turned his face away for half a second. I fancy he didn't want us to see how sorry he looked. By this time we had sauntered round to the other side of the lawn, out of sight of the house almost. There was a garden seat near where we stood. Mr. Truro took Tib and me by the hand, and Gerald trotted after.

"Let's sit down," he said. "Now, that's comfortable. Yes, dears, I am a cousin, and I think you'll find me a faithful one. Do tell me 'things.' I won't let you say anything not right of your grandfather; there is no man living I respect more. But perhaps I may help you to understand him better."

"Is he never cross to you?" asked Tib; "at least, not so much cross as that horrid laughy-at-you-way—laughy without being funny or nice, you know."

"Yes, I do know," he answered. "I think Mr. Ansdell is inclined to be that way to everybody a little. I wish you could hear how he makes some of them smart now and then in the House."

"The people who don't pay their bills—the people who make the National Debt, do you mean?" I asked.

"The how much?" asked our new cousin in his turn, opening his eyes very wide.

And when I explained what I meant, about all the talk we had heard about bills, and how Tib had read something about the National Debt, and thought it must mean that, you should have seen how he laughed; not a bit like grandpapa, but just roaring. I know better now, of course. I know that there are different kinds of bills, and that the ones we had heard of being talked about in Parliament are new plans or proposals that the gentlemen there—"members," like grandpapa—want to have made into laws, because they think they would be good laws. I know, too, pretty well—at least a little—about the National Debt, and that somehow it isn't a bad thing, though little debts are very bad things. I don't see how, but I suppose I shall understand when I'm big, that things that are bad when they're little aren't always bad when they're very big.

When Mr. Truro had finished laughing, he began to listen to all we had to tell him. You would hardly believe how much we told him. Indeed, when we thought it over afterwards we could hardly believe it ourselves; to think that here was a strange gentleman we hadn't known an hour, whose name we had never heard in our lives, and that we were talking to him as we had never before talked to anybody. He had such a way of looking as if he really cared to hear. I think it was that that made it so easy to talk to him; and then, of course, his being a cousin made a difference. He wasn't a very near one, but I have noticed that sometimes rather far-off cousins care for you quite as much or more than much nearer ones. And anything in the shape of a cousin was a great deal to us; we had never heard of having any at all.

After we had chattered away for some time, some little remark, I forget what exactly, something about what we did with ourselves all day after lessons were over, seeing that we had no friends or companions, for we had told him about grandpapa's not allowing us to know any neighbours; something of that kind brought us dreadfully near the subject of our discovery. We had already said something, though very little, about the old book with the scored-out name, and Mr. Truro listened eagerly, though it struck me afterwards more than at the time that he had not seemed very surprised.

And when we did not at once answer about how we amused ourselves, he repeated the question. We looked at each other. Then Tib got rather red, and said, quietly,

"We can't tell you all we do, at least, I don't think we can," she said, glancing at Gerald and me.

Mr. Truro looked a little startled.

"Why not?" he said. "I am sure, at least I think I may be, that you wouldn't do anything you shouldn't. If, for example, you had been tempted to make friends with any of the village children, it would be much better to tell your grandfather; he might not mind if they were good children, even if they were not of the same class as you. But it would be wrong not to tell him."

We began to feel a little frightened, and for the first time a misgiving came over us that perhaps grandpapa might be angry at our having played in the palace. I suppose our faces grew so solemn that Mr. Truro felt more uneasy.

"Come now," he said, "can't you tell me all about it? I don't look very ogre-y, do I? That is, if you've no real objection to telling me before you tell Mr. Ansdell."

"We meant to tell him; we were going to tell him to-day," I said. "Indeed, we, at least I, wanted to tell him. I thought perhaps he'd explain, or that we'd find out about it. But he isn't as kind this time as he was the last, and perhaps he'd be angry, really angry. I never thought before that it was a thing he could be angry about, did you, Tib?"

"No," said Tib, faintly; "and it would be so dreadful not to go there any more."

Gerald began to cry.

Mr. Truro's face grew graver and graver.

"My dear children," he began, "my dear little cousins, I must speak very earnestly to you. You must tell this secret, whatever it is, to your grandfather. It might not make him angry just now, but if you did not tell him, I very much fear it might."

"But he is so very sharp to-day," said Tib; "you could see he was. And when he is like that we can't tell things properly, and it somehow seems as if we were naughty when we aren't really. We can't tell him to-day, can we?"

Mr. Truro reflected.

"It is true," he said, "that Mr. Ansdell is particularly busy and worried. He has been terribly overworked lately; indeed, he came down here expressly to be able to work without interruption. Can't you confide in me, children? I promise to advise you to the very best of my ability."

"And you wouldn't tell him—grandpapa, I mean," said Tib, correcting herself, "without telling us you were going to?"

"Certainly not. I should have no right to tell him without your leave," he replied.

We all looked at each other again.

"I suppose we'd better, then," I said. "You begin, Tib. It's rather difficult to think where it began," I went on. "It had to do with grandpapa telling us so about not knowing the neighbours, or making friends with any one, and we had never heard of Rosebuds before, you know, and then I remembered seeing it in the book, and Tib likes mysteries so, and——"

"Take breath, Gussie, there's no such dreadful hurry," said Mr. Truro, and his face grew more smiling as I went on.

"We fixed to make a story about it. It didn't seem like prying to play at it that way," said Tib.

And then we went on to tell all about the imprisoned princess, and the old arbour, and the supposed tool-house, which was to be a dungeon, and Gerald finding the key, and just everything—all that I have written; I needn't tell it all again. And with every word Mr. Truro's kind face grew kinder and brighter; all the grave, uneasy look went quite out of it, and this, of course, made it much easier to tell it all quite comfortably. By the time we had quite finished—it took a good while, for Gerald would interrupt to tell that he had found the key, and he had made it turn when Tib and Gussie couldn't—Mr. Truro's face had grown more than bright, it looked quite beaming.

"And the portrait of the princess is like Tib, you say—Mercedes, I should say? I would like best of all to call you 'Regina';" and he passed his hand softly over Tib's dark hair.

"Awfully like Tib, only prettier," I said, bluntly. But Tib didn't mind. Something in Mr. Truro's tone had caught her attention.

"Did you ever know any one called Regina?" she asked. "You seem to like it so."

Mr. Truro did not answer for a moment. Then he said, quietly, "It is a family name with me, too. I have heard it all my life. You know I am your cousin."

"Oh, of course," we all said.

Then he went on to talk of what we had been telling him.

"Will you let me think over about it?" he said. "I am the last person to advise you not to tell your grandfather everything, but I do not think it would be wise to tell him anything just now, as he is extremely busy and worried. I will tell you what I think you should do before I go."

Of course we agreed readily to what he said.