The Palace in the Garden
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We found out all these particulars for ourselves by degrees; and gradually we noticed other things. The conservatory had evidently, at some time or other, been a favourite place to sit in. There was a little very old and shaky rustic table, and two or three seats to match; there was a little corner shelf on which still lay two or three old books. After we had got over our first surprise, we were conscious of something about the whole place which made the tears come to our eyes. But our spirits soon rose again.
"What a bower for the princess!" exclaimed Tib.
I felt quite out of patience with her.
"Rubbish!" I said, "I can't think any more of the princess or any make-up things. This is far more interesting. I want to find out all about what place it is, and why it is shut up and deserted, as it evidently is."
"Perhaps it's been shut up for hundreds of years," suggested Gerald.
"That's rubbish, if you like," answered Tib. "It doesn't look as if anybody lived here, but it's not dirty – scarcely even dusty."
"There must be some other way of getting into it besides our door, then," I said, "for certainly the door hasn't been opened for a great many years. If we look about, perhaps we'll find some other entrance."
At first sight there was no appearance of any, and we began to think the conservatory must, after all, belong to Rosebuds, and that from time to time the gardener did open the door and get in to clean it. Only why, then, was it always locked up? Just as we were feeling quite puzzled, Gerald called out —
"Oh! see here, Tib and Gussie, this is another door – here in the glass; here's a handle that turns. Why, see, it's a door made of looking-glass!"
That was why we had not noticed it. It was cleverly managed to imitate panes, like the rest of the conservatory, and it was somewhat in the shade in one corner. There was no lock to this door; it opened at once, and before us we saw a long, rather narrow, covered passage, lighted by a skylight roof. It was all growing more and more mysterious; half frightened, but too eager and curious to think of being afraid, on we ran. The passage ended in a short flight of steps, at the top of which was another door, a regular proper door this time, with a handle and a lock, but no key in the lock.
"Oh! supposing it's locked," I cried, excitedly; "it will be too bad. We can't find out any more."
But it wasn't. The key, as we afterwards found, was inside, and not turned in the lock. They were evidently not very afraid of robbers. All the years the house had stood empty, no one had ever broken into it; we were the first intruders.
We pressed forward. First we found ourselves in a sort of little ante-room, very small, hardly bigger than a closet, and out of this, through another door, opened a very large and handsome drawing-room. It had a row of windows at one side looking out upon a terrace, and a large bow window at one end, with closely-drawn blinds – we could not see what it looked on to; the floor was of beautifully polished wood, inlaid in a pattern such as you see more often in French houses than in English ones; the two mantelpieces were very high, and beautifully carved, and from the centre of the ceiling hung an immense gilt and crystal chandelier, covered up in muslin. There was not much furniture in the room, and what there was looked stiff and cold: two or three great cabinets against the walls, and some gilt consol-tables, and in one corner a group of sofas, and chairs, and arm-chairs all drawn together, and all in white linen covers. Everything was handsome, and stately, and melancholy; the very feeling of the room told you it had not been really lived in for many a day.
But the one thing which caught our attention was a life-size portrait hanging at the end of the room opposite the bow window. It was the only picture of any kind, and even though we were ignorant children, we could see in a moment that it was a very beautiful one. It represented a young girl, richly dressed in the fashion of a hundred years ago or more, with long-waisted bodice, and skirt of white satin, looped up over an under-one of rose-coloured brocade. She was standing on a terrace – this very terrace we afterwards found – her hat hanging on her arm, and a greyhound beside her. It was all pretty much the same as one often sees in portraits of that time, but her face was so charming! And immediately we saw it, both Gerald and I exclaimed —
"Oh, Tib, she is exactly like you!" and going close to examine it more particularly, I saw some letters in one corner, and, to my immense surprise, they were those of the name scored out in the old book, "Ornaments Discovered," and of Tib's second name also – "Regina." The initials of the artist – "L.K.," I think – were there also.
"It is my name," said Tib, opening her eyes in astonishment; "how very strange! Can it be the picture of some great-great-grandmother of ours, I wonder? But this is not grandpapa's house. How could any portrait of our family be here?"
We were completely puzzled, but, children-like, we did not think very much more about it. It was such fun to slide up and down the polished floor, or to climb over among the shrouded chairs and sofas, and make ourselves a comfortable nest among them. For it was plain that our discoveries were not to go further – the large double doors of this drawing-room were securely locked from the outside.
We went close up to this door, putting our ears to the keyhole even, and listened, but not the least sound was to be heard.
"The house must be shut up," I said. "There is certainly no one moving about in it."
"Perhaps it is enchanted," said Gerald, in an awe-struck tone. "Perhaps that lady is really alive, and the fairies have fastened her up into that picture till – till – " and he hesitated; his imagination had come to an end of its flight.
Tib and I looked at each other without speaking. We did not snub Gerald as we often did for such speeches – somehow it didn't seem so very impossible! Everything was so strange; the room itself so unlike anything we had ever seen, the mysterious way into it, the silence and desertedness, yet the signs of care; above all, the portrait so wonderfully like Tib, and actually bearing her name. There was no explaining it by anything we could think of or imagine.
"We may as well use it all to make a play of," said Tib, at last, returning to her favourite idea. "We can pretend that the lady in the portrait is the princess something, as Gerald says. Yes, it would be still nicer to make her be enchanted instead of only shut up, and then, Gussie, you must help me to plan how she's to be got out."
"But, Tib," I said, "do you think we can come here again? Don't you think grandpapa would mind, after all he said to us about not making friends, or going into any houses in the village?"
"And are we making friends?" said Tib. "Unless the portrait comes out of its frame some day, and begins talking to us, there's certainly nobody else to talk to here."
"Do you think there's nobody living in the house?" I said, doubtfully.
"I'm sure there's not. Most likely some one comes to dust it every now and then."
"And don't you remember," said Gerald, "that last Sunday I asked grandpapa if we might come through the door in the wall if we could, and he said 'yes'? P'r'aps he knew about this place, and didn't mind if we did come here to play."
"Perhaps," I said; "anyway we can ask him the next time he comes."
"We needn't say anything about it to Mrs. Munt, or nurse," said Tib, decidedly. "As long as we haven't been told not to come, we're not disobeying, and it's much nicer not to ask any one but grandpapa himself."
With that I quite agreed, especially as I felt sure grandpapa himself would like it better. We knew we were doing no mischief; there was nobody to speak to, as Tib had said, so we felt quite at ease, and spent a most agreeable afternoon. When we had examined everything there was in the big drawing-room, or saloon, as Tib preferred to call it – and that did not take us very long; there were no curiosities or small ornaments about, as in the Rosebuds drawing-room – we began to plan again about our play story. We arranged it most beautifully, and the portrait was a great help, for it almost gave us another actor, as we could always pretend it was the princess, when Tib was wanted for another person. And it was such a wonderfully life-like picture – you could really have fancied its expression changed as we talked to it.
But at last we began to get frightened that we should be missed at home if we stayed any longer.
"We must go, Gussie," said Tib, "let us all say good-night to the princess. It is sad to leave you alone here, princess," she went on, turning to the portrait, and speaking in the tone of one of the ladies in the play, who were going to help her to escape, "but, alas, there is no other way to do. If we stayed longer we should only be suspected of plotting, so we must resign ourselves."
"And I dare say you're pretty well accustomed to being left alone by this time. You must be nearly a hundred years old, though you look so young," said Gerald, as he bowed to her. I could not help laughing, though Tib was rather vexed.
"I wish you wouldn't think it clever to turn everything into ridicule, Gerald," but he looked up with such a surprised face that we saw he hadn't been in fun at all.
"There's one thing we'd better do if we want ever to get in here again," I said. "We must hide the key of the door leading from the passage. I dare say the person who comes to dust will never notice it's not there. They can't be in the habit of locking it regularly; but it's as well to hide it," and so saying, I took the key out of the lock and slipped it inside a drawer of one of the big cabinets, where it may be lying still, for all I know (I must look, by the by: writing this all out has reminded me of several things I had forgotten).
Then we closed the door carefully and ran down the passage to the conservatory again, where we found everything just as we had left it —our key, as we called it, sticking in the lock inside. It was still rather stiff to turn – and the next morning we oiled it again – but we managed to unlock it, and then to lock the door again on the outside.
And Gerald ran off with the key to hide it again in the summer-house; only we wrapped it up in paper before burying it in the fir dust.
"Who would have thought," said Tib, as we ran in, "who could have thought, what we should find this afternoon?"
But our surprises, as you shall hear, were not yet at an end.
CHAPTER VII
GRANDPAPA'S SECRETARY
… "Children are the best judges of character at first sight in the world." – Hogg.
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,