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

CHAPTER IV.

THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN WALL.

he next thing we knew it was to-morrow morning—our first morning at Rosebuds!

I have told already about this first morning—how beautiful it was to wake to all the fresh sweet country sounds and feelings. I have felt this several times since then in my life, but never quite so newly and strongly as that morning, and every time since then that I have felt it, that day has come back to my mind.

It was very fine and bright, and immediately after breakfast we got leave to go out into the garden.

"Not outside, of course," said nurse, anxiously. "When you want to go a walk I will go with you—I or Fanny. Mrs. Munt will tell us all the nicest walks."

"We shall never want to go walks here, I am sure," said Tib. "The garden is much nicer, and we can find lots of things to amuse us in it. Besides, nursey, you know you don't care about walks with your rheumatics, and Fanny is sure to say she hasn't time, as she has to be housemaid too here."

"It's much best to let us play in the garden always," I said. "I'm sure grandpapa would like it best."

"Any way, till the new Miss Evans comes," said Gerald.

But Tib and I turned on him.

"Oh, you horrid little boy!" we said; "what is the use of spoiling our nice first day by speaking of anything so dreadful?"

"I don't believe there ever could be anybody at all like Miss Evans—that's one comfort, any way," I added. But Gerald looked rather grumpy: he couldn't bear being called a "little boy"—he wouldn't have minded being called "horrid" if we hadn't put in the "little."

All grumpiness, however, was forgotten when we found ourselves out of doors, and free to do as we chose. This first day, of course, the great thing to do was to explore, and that we did pretty thoroughly. The lawn in front was a beautiful place for running races on, or for "Miller's ground," or games like that—and the walk all round it was interesting because Mrs. Munt told us that twelve times round it, made a mile.

"We might have walking matches," said Tib, consideringly. "It wouldn't be very amusing; but still, if we got tired of everything else, it would be worth remembering;" and then we proceeded to inspect the rest of our domain.

The place of places was the tangle, or shrubbery, as Mrs. Munt had called it, away down at the back. It was quite a large place, and you could not distinguish easily where it ended, for the wall which edged it was so old, and so covered with ivy and other creepers run wild, that till you actually felt it you couldn't have told it was there. Here and there in the tangle there were little clearings, as it were, carefully enough kept—indeed, the gardeners did clear out the tangle itself once or twice a year, only it was meant to be wild—where you were sure to find a bench, or a rustic seat, and in one place there was even a summer-house, though a rather unhappy looking one.

"I don't suppose," said Tib, when we came upon this arbour, "I don't suppose any one's been here since those children—grandpapa and the brothers and sisters who are dead, or that we can't hear about—played here, ever, ever so long ago. Papa hadn't any brothers or sisters, and he wasn't much here—nurse knows that much. It looks like as if it had never been touched since then—doesn't it? Isn't it queer to think of?" and Tib sat down on one of the shady seats, still feebly holding together, and looked very serious. "Isn't it queer?" she repeated.

"It would be a nice place for a robber's castle," said Gerald, who had mounted up beside Tib, and was peeping out at a little slit in the side which had been meant to let light in by, in the days when the summer-house had a door that would shut. "See here, this hole would just do for an archer to shoot through when he saw the—the others you know," he went on, getting rather muddled, "marching up the hill—we could fancy it was a hill."

"Nonsense, Gerald!" I said. "You're mixing up robbers' dens and feudal castles. You're too little to plan plays. All you can do is to be what Tib and I fix for you in our plans."

Gerald was very indignant. He muttered something about "just like girls," but he dared not say it loud out; we kept him in far too good order for that. Tib and I went on talking without noticing him, and he sat down in a corner, and amused himself by poking about among the dry fir needles that lay like a sort of sand on the floor, for the arbour was made of fir branches and cones. I remembered afterwards hearing him give a sort of little squeak, and say, "Hi! I declare!" or something like that, but at the time I paid no attention, and he stayed quite quiet in his corner.

His words, though I snubbed him so, had reminded Tib of her plans, and we went on talking about them for some time. She was all for a regular romance—there was to be a beautiful lady shut up by a cruel baron, who wanted to get all her money by forcing her to marry his hump-backed son (I am afraid that among the old children's books, one or two not quite children's books had got in; I remember one, called "The Imprisoned Heiress," which we read a chapter or two of, and then it got stupid), and she was to escape by "scaling the fortress wall," which meant, we had a hazy idea, stripping it down stone by stone, as if it were a fish with scales. We decided that the summer-house would do very well for the lonely tower, and we sallied forth at last, all three of us, to inspect the wall and choose a good place for the imaginary escape. But time had fled faster than we fancied; we had only gone a few steps, when we heard Fanny's voice in the distance.

"Miss Tib, Miss Gussie, Master Gerald! Master Gerald, Miss Gussie, Miss Tib! oh, dear, dear, wherever can they be? Your dinner's ready—din—ner! din—ner!" she went on at last, as if she thought the word "dinner" would be the best bait to catch us by.

We were rather hungry again already. We all set up a shout, and set off in a scamper to where Fanny stood, the image of despair, at the beginning of the tangle, which she dared not enter in her thin London slippers, as the moss-grown paths looked damp and dirty.

That afternoon, to our vexation, was showery—it was not so hopelessly rainy as to prevent our going out at all, but nurse told us we must stay in the front, on the short-cropped lawn and the dry gravel paths.

So it was not till the next day that we returned to the old summer-house and the tangle. We had, in the meantime, talked over the plan of the play, and got it more into shape. You will see that it had nothing to do with the "mystery," as Tib and I still called it to ourselves. We had decided to wait a little before playing at it. I did not care for Gerald to hear about it, for fear he should chatter to nurse, and I also wanted to see if there really was anything else to find out. There was no knowing but what in time Mrs. Munt would tell us more about the family history, and though Tib was rather reluctant to give up making a story of it, I persuaded her that so far we really knew too little.

We began cleaning out the summer-house, for I wanted to make it habitable for the unfortunate heroine.

"You see," said I, "it would be more natural for the cruel baron to persuade her that he was bringing her here for safety, as he had heard his castle was going to be attacked by some enemy; so he makes it pretty comfortable for her. And then, when she's been living here alone for some time, and she must be finding it very dull, he sends the horrid little hump-back, who pretends to be against his father, and tells her she is going to be kept there unless she'll marry him, and that he is dreadfully sorry for her, and——"

"I don't see why he need pretend to be against his father," said Tib; "he might just say straight off that she must marry him or else she'll never get out. But I think it would be much better to fancy it was a horrid dungeon. Gerald, I don't think you need trouble to rake up the cones and leaves into a bed for her. I don't see any sense in pretending it's comfortable."

"I do—and it makes it much more of a play," I said. "Any way, we might make it that way at first, and have her thrown into the dungeon afterwards, and escape from there."

Tib did not object to this. But the word "escape" reminded her of the wall. She proposed that we should examine it, and find the best place.

We had to scramble in among the bushes before we got to the wall. And it proved to be a much higher one than we expected.

"The play will have to be all pretence," said Tib; "we couldn't possibly get over this, or pull any stones away. It is far too strong."

We went on, however, a few steps, still at the foot of the wall. Suddenly Tib gave a little exclamation.

"Look here, Gussie," she said, and with her hands she pulled back some branches of ivy—"look here—there's a door in the wall—a very old door, and not opened for ever so long; for see, the ivy has grown right across it."

Gerald and I pushed forward eagerly. Yes, Tib was right. There was a door in the wall—not a very big one, but very strong, for it did not rattle or shake at all when we pounded on it. It was locked, firmly locked we soon found out, when we had torn away as much of the ivy as we could. The lock was a great big one, clumsy, but very strong, and so rusty that, even without the testimony of the ivy, it would have been clear that no one had passed through that doorway for a great number of years.

We all three stood and looked at each other.

"Another mystery," was what Tib and I were thinking, though we did not say it aloud.

But Gerald looked rather "funny;" his round rosy cheeks were rosier than usual, and there was a queer sparkle in his eyes as he said—

"Wouldn't you like to open it? Wouldn't it be nice if one could find the key?" and he jumped about and turned—or tried to turn—head over heels: there wasn't much room in among the bushes, and he kept saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if somebody could find a key to fit it? But little boys are too little and silly to know anything, aren't they? They're not like big young ladies."

And though Tib got hold of him, and we both shook him we were so provoked, that was all he would say. So we settled that he was just in one of his teasing humours; he didn't have them very often, it is true.

So the only use to make of the door in the wall was another pretence. We settled that it should be the entrance to the dungeon; it didn't do badly for that, as two or three steps, looking very black and slimy, led down to it. And we fixed that, instead of "scaling the wall," the lady should escape by hiding in the wood till the prince who was to be her rescuer passed that way. Gerald had to be the prince, in turns with the horrid little hump-back, for I had to be the baron, and also a lady attendant on the heiress, and Tib, of course, was the heiress. We didn't much like having Gerald after the tiresome way he had been going on, but there was no help for it.

And the next two or three days passed very happily. There was still a great deal to see and inspect about Rosebuds; the house itself—especially the drawing-room, with its treasures, which Mrs. Munt showed us, and sometimes, when she found that we were careful children, allowed us to examine for ourselves; the stables, where lived the old pony who was still able to draw the still older pony-carriage, or "shay"—as the farm-man called it—as far as the little town, where Mrs. Munt liked to go once a month, and to bring home her purchases herself instead of trusting them to the railway. Then there were the dairy and poultry-yard, her great pride, though she was rather mortified to hear that we had never known that the butter and fresh eggs we ate in London were sent up from Rosebuds every week.

"Why, we never even heard of Rosebuds till a few days before we came here," I told her.

Her face grew sad at this, and I was sorry I had said it.

"Grandpapa is very funny," I went on, thinking, perhaps, we might get round to the subject of the "young ladies" and the scored-out name, which we couldn't help connecting together; "he never tells us anything. I don't believe he'd have ever told us we'd had a papa and mamma if nurse hadn't been our mamma's nurse, and so could tell us all about her."

"Your grandpapa's had a deal of trouble, my dears," said Mrs. Munt. "And there's some as trouble softens and makes more loving to all about them and some as it hardens, or seems to harden, leastways to shut them up in themselves. And I think it's no harm of me to tell you, now I see what sensible children you are, that it's been that way with your grandpapa. It's not really hardened him, for you know he has not got selfish or unmindful of others. He is very good to you?" and poor Mrs. Munt made the question anxiously, as if half afraid of what we might answer.

"Nurse says he's very good to us," said Tib, slowly. "He gives us everything we have."

"But it isn't our fault that we are his grandchildren," I said, rather bitterly. "We didn't ask to be it. And he has plenty of money—what could he do with it if he hadn't us?"

"Gussie," said Tib, reproachfully. But old Mrs. Munt only looked distressed, not vexed.

"He does love you, my dears: I feel sure of it," she said. "Only he's got out of the way of showing it—that's what's wrong. If you had your grandmamma now, or——" and then she stopped. "A lady—a woman in the family makes all so different. But try, my lovies, to believe that he does love you. It is true, as Miss Gussie says—for I'd never be one to say to children what their own sense feels is nonsense—that it would be very wrong of your grandpapa not to give you all you should have. You're his own flesh and blood, for sure. Still, he might have done it in a different way—he might have sent you to some sort of school, or to some lady who'd have taken care of you all, and him have no trouble about it. No one would have thought it unnatural if he'd done that way, instead of taking up house again in London, when he'd got quite out of the way of it, and settling all so that he should have you always near him."

We both looked surprised.

"Did he do that?" we said.

"Yes," said Mrs. Munt, "he did indeed; and much more that he didn't, so to speak, need to have done—without, all the same, having fallen short of his duty."

"I wish he would tell us things like that," I said. "How are we to know?"

"No," said Tib, "not quite that. I think it seems more for his not telling. But I wish—I wish he'd let us feel that he loves us, and then we would, indeed we would, love him;" and some tears slowly made their way into Tib's blue eyes.

"Well, well, dears, that's the right way to feel, any way. And maybe things will change somehow. It's wonderful how things come round when people really mean right. So keep up heart, and don't be afraid of letting master see that you want to please him, and to love him too."

This talk with the old housekeeper made a great impression on us—so great that it almost put the mystery out of our heads altogether. For a great deal seemed explained by the thought of grandpapa's old troubles, and what these had been in time past we knew quite well. He had lost so many dear to him. Grandmamma, to begin with, had died quite young; then there was the brother Baldwin, killed in India, and the sister Mary, buried at Ansdell Friars. That was sad enough—and then his only son to have died too, leaving us three helpless babies.

"I dare say he'd just as soon have been without us, and have had nobody at all belonging to him," I said to Tib. "It must have been a great nuisance to have us stupid little things sent home, and not even poor mamma to take care of us. Do you remember, Tib, how we used to cry and run back to nurse when he sent for us down to the library to see him? We thought him a sort of an ogre."

A few days after this talk with Mrs. Munt, grandpapa came down to Rosebuds from a Saturday to a Monday. We weren't exactly glad to see him, but what the old housekeeper had said was fresh in our minds, and we were all anxious to do our best to please him. So we made no objection when nurse called us a full hour before he could possibly arrive, "to be made neat against your dear grandpapa comes." Poor old Liddy—she would have thought it her duty to call him our dear grandpapa even if he had been an ogre, I do believe!

And we had worked ourselves up to being so extra good, that we did not even grumble at the long time we had to sit still doing nothing on the window-seat in the hall, watching, or listening rather, for the first rumble of the carriage wheels as the signal for all running out into the porch to meet him. That part of it was a "plan" of Tib's—everything with her was sure to run into "plans," and with this new idea of pleasing grandpapa, she was constantly casting about in her head what we could do.

"I think seeing us standing together in the porch will touch him, you see, Gussie," she said. "It is a little like some scene I've read of in a story-book—the orphans, you know—oh, where was it?—and the stern guardian, and it quite melts him, and——"

"He begins to cry, I suppose," I said, rather contemptuously, I fear; "I must say I'd be a good deal astonished to see grandpapa begin to cry over us, wouldn't you, Gerald?"

But the idea was quite beyond Gerald's imagination.

"I do wish one thing," he said solemnly.

"What?" asked Tib and I eagerly. When Gerald had an idea, it was rather startling.

"If he—grandpapa, you know—really wished to please us—he might be thinking of us on the journey, you know—wouldn't it be beautiful if he was to bring us each a packet of that splendid butter-scotch that there was at the station in London? I looked at it while we were waiting. I really could love him if he did."

"You greedy little pig!" said Tib.

It wasn't often Tib condescended to use such expressions, but no doubt Gerald's butter-scotch seemed rather a come-down from her romantic ideas. I was sorry for her, but I couldn't help laughing at the look of disgust in her face, and at Gerald's face of astonishment. He muttered something I couldn't hear—of course there was something about "girls," and "sha'n't get it out of me," which I didn't understand. But Tib's indignation next fell upon me.

"How can you laugh at him—such low ideas," she said, reproachfully, to which I answered rather crossly. Indeed, we were all on the verge of a quarrel when at last the sound of wheels turning in at the gate was heard, and up we all jumped.