The Children of the Castle
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“Angels,” said Mavis. “Joan says he’s good. But – Ruby – I shouldn’t think angels would laugh.” She had scarcely said the words when they saw running down the rough slope from the hut the figure of a boy. He ran fast and lightly, his feet scarcely seeming to touch the stones; he was slight and very active-looking; it was pretty to watch him running, even though as he came close it was plain that he was only a simple fisher-boy, in rough clothes, barefoot and sunburnt. He slackened his pace a little as he came near the children, then glancing at them with a smile he lifted his dark blue cap and stopped short.
“Can I?” he began, then hesitated. He had a pleasant face and clear grey eyes, which looked one straight in the face with interest and inquiry.
“What do you say?” asked Ruby rather haughtily.
“I thought perhaps you had lost your way,” he answered quietly. “There’s not many gentry comes round here;” and then he smiled, for no very particular reason apparently, though his smile nevertheless gave one the feeling that he had a reason if he chose to give it.
“No, we haven’t lost our way,” said Ruby; “we came here on purpose. Do you know the old man who lives up there?” and she pointed to the hut.
“Is it true that there’s something queer about him?”
The boy looked at her, still smiling.
“Queer?” he repeated.
Ruby began to feel annoyed. She tapped her foot impatiently.
“Yes,” she said, “queer. Why do you repeat my words, and why don’t you say ‘Miss,’ or ‘My Lady?’ Lots of the people here call me ‘My Lady.’ Do you know who I am?”
The boy’s face had grown graver.
“Yes,” he said. “You are the little ladies from the castle. I have seen you sometimes. I have seen you in church. We always call you the little ladies – grandfather and I – when we are talking. He has told me about you – and – I’ve heard about the castle, though I’ve never been in it. It’s very fine. I like to look up at it from the sea.”
Ruby felt a little smoothed down. Her tone became more gracious. Mavis, who had drawn near, stood listening with great interest, and as the boy turned towards her the smile came over his face again.
“Who do you mean by ‘grandfather’?” asked Ruby eagerly. “Is it old Adam? I didn’t know he had any children or grandchildren.”
“Yes,” the boy replied, “I’m his grandson. Was it grandfather you meant when you said he was queer?”
“Oh,” said Mavis, “Ruby didn’t mean to be rude. It was only nonsense. People say – ”
“They say he’s very queer indeed,” said Ruby, who had no intention of deserting her colours. “They say he’s a kind of a wizard or an ogre, and that you hear all sorts of sounds – music and talking and I don’t know all what – if you’re near his cottage in the evening, and that there are lights to be seen in it too, not common lights like candles, but much more. Some say he’s friends with the mermaids, and that they come to see him – is that true?” and notwithstanding her boasted boldness Ruby dropped her voice a little, and glanced over her shoulder half nervously seawards, as if not quite sure but that some of the tailed ladies in question might be listening to her.
The boy did more than smile now. He laughed outright; but his laugh, though bright and ringing, was not the laugh the sisters had heard from the cottage.
“The mermaids,” he said. “No, indeed, poor little things, they never visit grandfather.”
“Well, why do you laugh?” said Ruby angrily again. “You speak as if there were mermaids.”
“I was thinking of stories I have heard about them,” said the boy simply. “But I couldn’t help laughing to think of them coming to see grandfather. How could they ever get up these stones?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure,” Ruby answered impatiently. “If he’s a wizard he could do anything like that. I wish you’d tell us all about him. You must know, as you live with him.”
“I’ve not been long with him,” said the boy. “He may be friends with the mermaids for all I know. He’s friends with everybody.”
“You’re mocking at me,” said Ruby, “and I won’t have it. I’m sure you could tell me things if you chose.”
“We did hear talking and laughing,” said Mavis gently, speaking almost for the first time, “and it seemed as if there was some one else there.”
The boy looked at her again, and a very pleasant light came into his eyes – more than that, indeed, as Mavis watched him it seemed to her that they changed in colour. Was it the reflection from the sky? No, there was a mingling of every hue to be seen over by the western horizon certainly, but scarcely the deep clear midsummer sky-blue they suddenly became.
“What funny eyes you’ve got,” exclaimed the child impulsively. “They’re quite blue now, and they weren’t a minute ago.”
Ruby stared at him and then at Mavis. “Nonsense,” she said, “they’re not. They’re just common coloured eyes. You shouldn’t say such things, Mavis; people will think you’re out of your mind.” Mavis looked very ashamed, but the boy’s face flushed up. He looked both glad and excited.
“If you please, miss,” he said, “some people see things that others don’t. I don’t even mind that nonsense about gran and the mermaids; those that say it don’t know any better.”
Ruby looked at him sharply.
“Then there is something to know,” she said. “Now you might as well tell us all about it. Is old Adam a wizard?”
“That he’s not,” answered the boy stoutly, “if so be, as I take it, that a wizard means one that has to do with bad spirits – unkind and mischief-making and unloving, call them what you will. None of such like would come near gran, or, if they did, he’d soon send them to the right-about. I’d like you to see him for yourself some day, but not to-day, if you’ll excuse it. He’s very tired. I was running down to the shore to fetch a pailful of sea water to bathe his lame arm.”
“Then we mustn’t keep you,” said Mavis. “But might we really come to see your grandfather some day, do you think?”
“I’ll ask him,” said the boy; “and I think he’d be pleased to see you.”
“You might come up to the castle if there’s anything he would like – a little soup or anything,” said Ruby in her patronising way. “I’ll speak to the housekeeper.”
“Thank you, miss,” said the boy, but more hesitatingly than he had spoken before.
“What’s your name?” asked Ruby. “We’d better know it, so that you can say who you are when you come.”
“Winfried,” he answered simply.
“Then good-bye, Winfried,” said Ruby. “Come on, Mavis;” and she turned to pursue her way home past the cottage.
Winfried hesitated. Then he ran a step or two after them.
“I can show you a nearer way home to the castle,” he said, “and if you don’t mind, it would be very kind of you not to go near by our cottage. Grandfather is feeble still – did you know he had been very ill? – and seeing or hearing strangers might startle him.”
“Then you come with us,” said Ruby. “You can tell him who we are.”
“I’m in a hurry to get the salt water,” said the boy. “I have put off time already, and if you won’t think me rude I’d much rather you came to the cottage some day when we could invite you to step in.”
His manner was so simple and hearty that Ruby could not take offence, though she had been quite ready to do so.
“Very well,” she said, “then show us your nearer way.”
He led them without speaking some little distance towards the shore again. After all there was a path – not a bad one of its kind, for here and there it ran on quite smoothly for a few yards and then descended by stones arranged so as to make a few rough steps.
“Dear me,” said Ruby, “how stupid we were not to find this path before.”
Winfried smiled. “I scarce think you could have found it without me to show you,” he said, “nor the short way home either for that matter. See here;” and having come to the end of the path he went on a few steps along the pebbly shore, for here there was no smooth sand, and stopped before a great boulder stone, as large as a hay-cart, which stood out suddenly among the broken rocks. Winfried stepped up close to it and touched it apparently quite gently. To the children’s amazement it swung round lightly as if it had been the most perfectly hung door. And there before them was revealed a little roadway, wide enough for two to walk abreast, which seemed to wind in and out among the rocks as far as they could see. It was like a carefully rolled gravel path in a garden, except that it seemed to be of a peculiar kind of sand, white and glistening.
Ruby darted forward.
“What a lovely path!” she exclaimed; “will it take us straight home? Are you sure it will?”
“Quite sure,” said Winfried. “You will see your way in no time if you run hand-in-hand.”
“What a funny idea,” laughed the child; and Mavis too looked pleased.
“I’m quite sure it’s a fairy road,” she was beginning to say, but, looking round, their little guide had disappeared. Then came his voice:
“Good-night,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve shut-to the stone door, and I’m up on the top of it. Good-night, little ladies. Run home hand-in-hand.”
The girls looked at each other.
“Upon my word,” exclaimed Ruby, not quite knowing what to say, “if old Adam isn’t a wizard his grandson is. I think we’d better get out of this as quick as we can, Mavis.”
She seemed half frightened and half provoked. Mavis, on the contrary, was quite simply delighted.
“I shouldn’t wonder if this was the mermaid’s own way to the cottage,” she said. “I’m sure old Adam and Winfried aren’t wizards; but I do think they must be some kind of good fairies, or at least they must have to do with fairies. Come along, Ruby, hand-in-hand;” and she held out her own hand.
But Ruby by this time had grown cross.
“I won’t give in to such rubbish,” she said. “I don’t want to go along hand-in-hand like two silly babies. If it was worth the trouble I’d climb up to the top of the stone and go home the proper way.”
This was all boasting. She knew quite well she could not possibly climb up the stone. But she walked on a few steps in sulky dignity. Suddenly she gave a little cry, slipped, and fell.
“Oh, I’ve hurt my ankle!” she exclaimed. “This horrid white gravel is so slippery.”
Mavis was beside her almost before she had said the words, and with her sister’s help Ruby got on to her feet again, though looking rather doleful.
“I believe it’s all a trick of that horrid boy’s,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t made me come to see that dirty old cottage, Mavis.”
Mavis stared.
“Me make you come, Ruby?” she said. “Why, it was yourself.”
“Well, you didn’t stop it, any way,” said Ruby, “and you seem to have taken such a fancy to that boy and his grandfather, and – ”
“Ruby, we must go home,” said Mavis. “Try if you can get along.”
They were “hand-in-hand.” There was no help for it now. Ruby tried to walk; to her surprise her ankle scarcely hurt her, and after a moment or two she even began urging Mavis to go faster.
“I believe I could run,” she said. “Perhaps the bone in my ankle got out of its place and now has got into it again. Come on, Mavis.”
They started running together, for in spite of her boasting Ruby had had a lesson and would not let go of Mavis. They got on famously; the ground seemed elastic; as they ran, each step grew at once firmer and yet lighter.
“It isn’t a bit slippery now, is it?” said Mavis, glowing with the pleasant exercise. “And oh, Ruby, do look up at the sky – isn’t it lovely? And isn’t that the evening star coming out – that blue light up there; no, it’s too early. See – no, it’s gone. What could it be? Why, here we are, at the gate of the low terrace!”
They had suddenly, as they ran, come out from the path, walled in, as it were, among the broken rocky fragments, on to a more open space, which at the first moment they scarcely recognised as one of the fields at the south side of the castle.
Ruby too gazed about her with surprise.
“It is a quick way home, certainly,” she allowed, “but I don’t see any star or blue light, Mavis. It must be your fancy.”
Mavis looked up at the sky. The sunset colours were just beginning to fade; a soft pearly grey veil was slowly drawing over them, though they were still brilliant. Mavis seemed perplexed.
“It is gone,” she said, “but I did see it.”
“It must have been the dazzle of the light in your eyes,” said Ruby. “I am seeing lots of little suns all over – red ones and yellow ones.”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” said Mavis; “it was more like – ”
“More like what?” asked Ruby.
“I was going to say more like a forget-me-not up in the sky,” said her sister.
“You silly girl,” laughed Ruby. “I never did hear any one talk such nonsense as you do. I’ll tell cousin Hortensia, see if I don’t.”
“I don’t mind,” said Mavis quietly.
Chapter Three.
The Princess with the Forget-me-not Eyes
“For, just when it thrills me most,The fairies change into phantoms cold,And the beautiful dream is lost!”Miss Hortensia was looking out for the little girls as they slowly came up the terraces.
“There you are at last,” she called out. “You are rather late, my dears. I have been round at the other side, thinking I saw you go out that way.”
“So we did,” said Ruby. “We went down to the cove and along the shore as far as – . Oh, cousin Hortensia, we have had such adventures, and last of all, what do you think? Mavis has just seen a forget-me-not up in the sky.”
Miss Hortensia smiled at Mavis; she had a particular way of smiling at her, as if she was not perfectly sure if the little girl were quite like other people. But Mavis, though she understood this far better than her cousin imagined, never felt angry at it.
“A forget-me-not in the sky,” said the lady; “that is an odd idea. But you must tell me all your adventures when we are comfortably settled for the evening. Run in and take your things off quickly, for I don’t want you to catch cold, and the air, now the sun is set, is chilly. There is a splendid fire burning, and we shall have tea in my room as I promised you.”
“Oh, how nice,” said Ruby. “Come along, Mavis. I’m as hungry as a hawk.”
“And you’ll tell us stories after tea, cousin Hortensia, won’t you?” said Mavis; “at least you’ll tell us about your queer dream.”
“And about mamma’s going to court,” added Ruby, as she dashed upstairs. For by this time they were inside the house.
The part of the castle that the children and their cousin and the few servants in attendance on them occupied was really only a corner of it. A short flight of stairs led up to a small gallery running round a side-hall, and out of this gallery opened their sleeping-rooms and what had been their nursery and play-rooms. The school-room and Miss Hortensia’s own sitting-room were on the ground-floor. To get to any of the turrets was quite a long journey. They were approached by the great staircase which ascended from the large white and black tiled hall, dividing, after the first flight, into two branches, each of which led to passages from which other smaller stairs went upwards to the top of the house. The grandest rooms opened out of the tiled hall on the ground-floor, and out of the passages on the first floor. From this central part of the house the children’s corner was shut off by heavy swing doors seldom opened.
So when Ruby and Mavis visited the turrets they had to pass through these doors, and go some way along the passages, and then up one of the side stairs – up, up, up, the flights of steps getting steeper and narrower as they climbed, till at last they reached the door of the turret-chamber itself. Of these chambers there were two, one in each turret, east and west. The west was their favourite, partly because from it they saw the sunset, and partly because it was nearer their own rooms. They had been allowed to make a sort of private nest of it for themselves, and to play there on rainy days when they could not get out, and sometimes in very cold or snowy weather they had a fire there, which made the queer old room very cheery. There were three windows in each turret, and they were furnished in an odd, irregular way with all sorts of quaint old-fashioned furniture discarded from other parts of the castle. In former days these turret-rooms had sometimes been used as guest-chambers when the house was very full of visitors. For the large modern rooms and the hall I have spoken of had been added by the children’s grandfather – a very hospitable but extravagant man. And before he made these improvements there were often more guests than it was easy to find room for.
Ruby and Mavis were not long in taking off their out-door things and “tidying” themselves for their evening in Miss Hortensia’s pleasant little room. They made a pretty picture as they ran downstairs, their fair curls dancing on their shoulders, though if I were to describe to you how they were dressed, I am afraid you would think they must have been a very old-world looking little pair.
“Here we are, cousin Hortensia,” exclaimed Ruby as they came in, “and I do hope it’s nearly tea-time.”
“Not quite, my dear,” Miss Hortensia replied, glancing at a beautifully carved Swiss clock which stood on the mantelpiece; “the little trumpeter won’t tell us it’s six o’clock for half an hour yet – his dog has just barked twice.”
“Lazy things,” said Ruby, shrugging her shoulders, “I’d like to shake that old trumpeter sometimes.”
“And sometimes you’d like to pat him to sleep, wouldn’t you?” said Mavis. “When cousin Hortensia’s telling us stories, and he says it’s bed-time.”
Miss Hortensia looked at Mavis in some surprise, but she seemed very pleased too. It was not often Mavis spoke so brightly.
“Suppose you use up the half-hour in telling me stories,” said their cousin. “Mine will keep till after tea. What were all the adventures you met with?”
“Oh,” said Ruby, “it was too queer. Did you know, cousin, that there was a short way home from the sea-shore near old Adam’s cottage? Such a queer way;” and she went on to describe the path between the rocks.
Miss Hortensia looked very puzzled.
“Who showed it to you?” she said; for Ruby, in her helter-skelter way, had begun at the end of the story, without speaking of the boy Winfried, or explaining why they – or she – had been so curious about the old man whom the villagers called a wizard.
“It was the boy,” Mavis replied; “such a nice boy, cousin Hortensia, with funny bluey eyes – at least they’re sometimes blue.”
“Oh, Mavis, do not talk so sillily,” said Ruby; “his eyes aren’t a bit blue. She’s got blue on the brain, cousin, she really has. Seeing forget-me-nots in the sky too! I don’t think he was a particularly nice boy. He was rather cool. I’m sure we wouldn’t have done his grandfather any harm. Did you ever hear of him, cousin? Old Adam they call him;” and then she went on to give a rather more clear account of their walk, and all they had seen and heard.
Miss Hortensia listened attentively, and into her own eyes crept a dreamy, far-away, or rather long-ago look.
“It is odd,” she said; “I have a kind of fancy that I have heard of the old ‘solitary,’ for he must be almost a hermit, before. But somehow I don’t think it was here. I wonder how long he has lived here?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruby. “A good while, I should think. He was here when Joan was our nurse.”
“But that was only two years ago,” said Miss Hortensia, smiling. “If he had been here many years the people would not count him so much of a foreigner. And the boy you met – has he come to take care of the old man?”
“I suppose so. We didn’t ask him,” said Ruby carelessly. “He was really such a cool boy, ordering us not to go near the cottage indeed! I told him he might come up to get some soup or jelly for his grandfather,” she went on, with a toss of her head. “I said it, you know, just to put him in his place, and remind him whom he was speaking to.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to be rude,” said Mavis; “and, cousin, there really was something rather ‘fairy’ about him. Isn’t it very queer we never heard of that path before?”
“Yes,” Miss Hortensia replied. “Are you sure you didn’t both fall asleep on the shore and dream it all? Though, to be sure, it is rather too cold weather for you to have been overcome by drowsiness.”
“And we couldn’t both have dreamt the same thing if we had fallen asleep,” said Mavis, in her practical way. “It wasn’t like when you were a little girl and saw or dreamt – ”
“Don’t you begin telling the story if cousin Hortensia’s going to tell it herself,” interrupted Ruby. “I was just thinking I had forgotten it a good deal, and that it would seem fresh. But here’s tea at last – I am so glad.”
They were very merry and happy during the meal. Ruby was particularly pleased with herself, having a vague idea that she had behaved in a very grand and dignified way. Mavis’s eyes were very bright. The afternoon’s adventure had left on her a feeling of expecting something pleasant, that she could hardly put in words. And besides this, there was cousin Hortensia’s story to hear.
When the table was cleared, cousin Hortensia settled herself with her knitting in a low chair by the fire, and told the children to bring forward two little stools and seat themselves beside her. They had their knitting too, for this useful art had been taught them while they were so young that they could scarcely remember having learnt it. And the three pairs of needles made a soft click-click, which did not the least disturb their owners, so used were they to it. Rather did it seem a pleasant accompaniment to Miss Hortensia’s voice.
“You want me to tell you the story of my night in the west turret-room when I was a little girl,” she began. “You have heard it before, partly at least, but I will try to tell it more fully this time. I was a very little girl, younger than you two – I don’t think I was more than eight years old. I had come here with my father and mother and elder sisters to join a merry party assembled to celebrate the silver wedding of your great-grandparents. Your grandfather himself, their eldest child, was about three and twenty. He was not then married, so it was some time before your father was born. I don’t quite know why they had brought me. It seems to me I would have been better at home in my nursery, for there were no children as young as I to keep me company. Perhaps it was that they wished to have me to represent another generation, as it were, though, after all, that might have been done by my sisters. The elder of them, Jacintha, was then nineteen; it was she who afterwards married your grandfather, so that besides being cousins of the family, as we were already, I am your grandmother’s sister, and thus your great-aunt as well as cousin.”
The little girls nodded their heads.
“I was so much younger than Jacintha,” Miss Hortensia went on, “that your father never called me aunt. He and I have always been Robert and Hortensia to each other, and to me he has always been like a younger brother.”
“But about your adventure,” said Ruby, who was not of a sentimental turn.
“I am coming to it,” said their cousin. “Well, as I said, the party was a merry one. They had dancing and music in plenty every evening, and the house, which was in some ways smaller than it is now, was very full. There were a great many bedrooms, though few of them were large, and I and my sisters, being relations, were treated with rather less ceremony than some of the stranger guests, and put to sleep in the turret-room. I had a little bed in one corner, and my sisters slept together in the same old four-poster which is still there. I used to be put to bed much earlier than they came, for, as I said, there were dancing and other amusements most evenings till pretty late. I was not at all a nervous or frightened child, and even sometimes when I lay up there by myself wide awake – for the change and the excitement kept me from going to sleep as quickly as at home – I did not feel at all lonely. From my bed I could see out of the window, for the turret windows are so high up that it has never been necessary to have blinds on them, and I loved to lie there watching the starlit sky, or sometimes, when the moon was bright and full, gazing up at the clouds that went scurrying over her face. One night I had been unusually wakeful. I lay there, hearing now and then very, very faint, far-off sounds of the music down below. It was a mild night, and I think the windows were a little open. At last I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, or rather when I thought I awoke, the room was all in darkness except in one corner, the corner by the west window. There, there was a soft steady light, and it seemed to me that it was on purpose to make me look that way. For there, sitting on the old chair that still stands in the depth of that window was some one I had never seen before. A lady in a cloudy silvery dress, with a sheen of blue over it. My waking, or looking at her, for though it must all have been a dream, I could not make you understand it unless I described it as if it were real, seemed to be made conscious to her, for she at once turned her eyes upon me, then rose slowly and came over the room towards me.”