by Edith Nesbit
“Where?”
“Beyond the dinosaurus. He said he’d tell me all about the anteddy-something animals—it means before Noah’s Ark; there are lots besides the dinosaurus—in return for me telling him my agreeable fictions. Yes, he called them that.”
“When?”
“As soon as the gates shut. That’s five.”
“We might take Mademoiselle along,” suggested Gerald.
“She’d be too proud to have tea with a bailiff, I expect; you never know how grown-ups will take the simplest things.” It was Kathleen who said this.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Gerald, lazily turning on the stone bench. “You all go along, and meet your bailiff. A picnic’s a picnic. And I’ll wait for Mademoiselle.”
Mabel remarked joyously that this was jolly decent of Gerald, to which he modestly replied: “Oh, rot!”
Jimmy added that Gerald rather liked sucking-up to people.
“Little boys don’t understand diplomacy,” said Gerald calmly; “sucking-up is simply silly. But it’s better to be good than pretty and—”
“How do you know?” Jimmy asked.
“And,” his brother went on, “you never know when a grown-up may come in useful. Besides, they like it. You must give them some little pleasures. Think how awful it must be to be old. My hat!”
“I hope I shan’t be an old maid,” said Kathleen.
“I don’t mean to be,” said Mabel briskly. “I’d rather marry a travelling tinker.”
“It would be rather nice,” Kathleen mused, “to marry the Gipsy King and go about in a caravan telling fortunes and hung round with baskets and brooms.”
“Oh, if I could choose,” said Mabel, “of course I’d marry a brigand, and live in his mountain fastnesses, and be kind to his captives and help them to escape and—”
“You’ll be a real treasure to your husband,” said Gerald.
“Yes,” said Kathleen, “or a sailor would be nice. You’d watch for his ship coming home and set the lamp in the dormer window to light him home through the storm; and when he was drowned at sea you’d be most frightfully sorry, and go every day to lay flowers on his daisied grave.”
“Yes,” Mabel hastened to say, “or a soldier, and then you’d go to the wars with short petticoats and a cocked hat and a barrel round your neck like a St. Bernard dog. There’s a picture of a soldier’s wife on a song auntie’s got. It’s called ‘The Veevandyear.’ ”fb
“When I marry—” Kathleen quickly said.
“When I marry,” said Gerald, “I’ll marry a dumb girl, or else get the ring to make her so that she can’t speak unless she’s spoken to. Let’s have a squint.”
He applied his eye to the stone lattice.
“They’re moving off,” he said. “Those pink and purple hats are nodding off in the distant prospect; and the funny little man with the beard like a goat is going a different way from everyone else—the gardeners will have to head him off. I don’t see Mademoiselle, though. The rest of you had better bunk. It doesn’t do to run any risks with picnics. The deserted hero of our tale, alone and unsupported, urged on his brave followers to pursue the commissariat waggons, he himself remaining at the post of danger and difficulty, because he was born to stand on burning decks whence all but he had fled, and to lead forlorn hopes when despaired of by the human race!”
“I think I’ll marry a dumb husband,” said Mabel, “and there shan’t be any heroes in my books when I write them, only a heroine. Come on, Cathy.”
Coming out of that cool, shadowy summer-house into the sunshine was like stepping into an oven, and the stone of the terrace was burning to the children’s feet.
“I know now what a cat on hot bricks feels like,” said Jimmy.
The antediluvian animals are set in a beech-wood on a slope at least half a mile across the park from the castle. The grandfather of the present Lord Yalding had them set there in the middle of last century, in the great days of the late Prince Consort,fc the Exhibition of 1851, Sir Joseph Paxton,fd and the Crystal Palace. Their stone flanks, their wide, ungainly wings, their lozenged crocodile-like backs show grey through the trees a long way off.
Most people think that noon is the hottest time of the day. They are wrong. A cloudless sky gets hotter and hotter all the afternoon, and reaches its very hottest at five. I am sure you must all have noticed this when you are going out to tea anywhere in your best clothes, especially if your clothes are starched and you happen to have a rather long and shadeless walk.
Kathleen, Mabel, and Jimmy got hotter and hotter, and went more and more slowly. They had almost reached that stage of resentment and discomfort when one “wishes one hadn’t come” before they saw, below the edge of the beech-wood, the white waved handkerchief of the bailiff.
That banner, eloquent of tea, shade, and being able to sit down, put new heart into them. They mended their pace, and a final desperate run landed them among the drifted coppery leaves and bare grey and green roots of the beech-wood.
“Oh, glory!” said Jimmy, throwing himself down. “How do you do?”
The bailiff looked very nice, the girls thought. He was not wearing his velveteens, but a grey flannel suit that an Earl need not have scorned; and his straw hat would have done no discredit to a Duke; and a Prince could not have worn a prettier green tie. He welcomed the children warmly. And there were two baskets dumped heavy and promising among the beech-leaves.
He was a man of tact. The hot, instructive tour of the stone antediluvians, which had loomed with ever-lessening charm before the children, was not even mentioned.
“You must be desert-dry,” he said, “and you’ll be hungry, too, when you’ve done being thirsty. I put on the kettle as soon as I discerned the form of my fair romancer in the extreme offing.”
The kettle introduced itself with puffings and bubblings from the hollow between two grey roots where it sat on a spirit-lamp.
“Take off your shoes and stockings, won’t you?” said the bailiff in matter-of-course tones, just as old ladies ask each other to take off their bonnets; “there’s a little baby canal just over the ridge.”
The joys of dipping one’s feet in cool running water after a hot walk have yet to be described. I could write pages about them. There was a mill-stream when I was young with little fishes in it, and dropped leaves that spun round, and willows and alders that leaned over it and kept it cool, and—but this is not the story of my life.
When they came back, on rested, damp, pink feet, tea was made and poured out, delicious tea with as much milk as ever you wanted, out of a beer bottle with a screw top, and cakes, and gingerbread, and plums, and a big melon with a lump of ice in its heart—a tea for the gods!
This thought must have come to Jimmy, for he said suddenly, removing his face from inside a wide-bitten crescent of melon-rind:
“Your feast’s as good as the feast of the Immortals, almost.”
“Explain your recondite allusion,” said the grey-flannelled host; and Jimmy, understanding him to say, “What do you mean?” replied with the whole tale of that wonderful night when the statues came alive, and a banquet of unearthly splendour and deliciousness was plucked by marble hands from the trees of the lake island.
When he had done the bailiff said:
The joys of dipping one’s feet in cool running water
“Did you get all this out of a book?”
“No,” said Jimmy, “it happened.”
“You are an imaginative set of young dreamers, aren’t you?” the bailiff asked, handing the plums to Kathleen, who smiled, friendly but embarrassed. Why couldn’t Jimmy have held his tongue?
“No, we’re not,” said that indiscreet one obstinately; “everything I’ve told you did happen, and so did the things Mabel told you.”
The bailiff looked a little uncomfortable. “All right, old chap,” he said. And there was a short, uneasy silence. “Look here,” said Jimmy, who seemed for once to have got the bit between his teeth, “do you beli
eve me or not?”
“Don’t be silly, Jimmy!” Kathleen whispered. “Because, if you don’t I’ll make you believe.”
“Don’t!” said Mabel and Kathleen together.
“Do you or don’t you?” Jimmy insisted, lying on his front with his chin on his hands, his elbows on a moss-cushion, and his bare legs kicking among the beech-leaves.
“I think you tell adventures awfully well,” said the bailiff cautiously.
“Very well,” said Jimmy, abruptly sitting up, “you don’t believe me. Nonsense, Cathy! he’s a gentleman, even if he is a bailiff.”
“Thank you!” said the bailiff with eyes that twinkled.
“You won’t tell, will you?” Jimmy urged.
“Tell what?”
“Anything.”
“Certainly not. I am, as you say, the soul of honour.”
“Then—Cathy, give me the ring.”
“Oh, no!” said the girls together.
Kathleen did not mean to give up the ring; Mabel did not mean that she should; Jimmy certainly used no force. Yet presently he held it in his hand. It was his hour. There are times like that for all of us, when what we say shall be done is done.
“Now,” said Jimmy, “this is the ring Mabel told you about. I say it is a wishing-ring. And if you will put it on your hand and wish, whatever you wish will happen.”
“Must I wish out loud?”
“Yes—I think so.”
“Don’t wish for anything silly,” said Kathleen, making the best of the situation, “like its being fine on Tuesday or its being your favourite pudding for dinner tomorrow. Wish for something you really want.”
“I will,” said the bailiff “I’ll wish for the only thing I really want. I wish my—I wish my friend were here.”
The three who knew the power of the ring looked round to see the bailiff’s friend appear; a surprised man that friend would be, they thought, and perhaps a frightened one. They had all risen, and stood ready to soothe and reassure the newcomer. But no startled gentleman appeared in the wood, only, coming quietly through the dappled sun and shadow under the beech-trees, Mademoiselle and Gerald, Mademoiselle in a white gown, looking quite nice and like a picture, Gerald hot and polite.
“Good afternoon,” said that dauntless leader of forlorn hopes. “I persuaded Mademoiselle—”
That sentence was never finished, for the bailiff and the French governess were looking at each other with the eyes of tired travellers who find, quite without expecting it, the desired end of a very long journey. And the children saw that even if they spoke it would not make any difference.
“You!” said the bailiff.
“Mais ... c’est done vous,”* said Mademoiselle, in a funny choky voice.
And they stood still and looked at each other, “like stuck pigs,” as Jimmy said later, for quite a long time.
“Is she your friend?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes—oh yes,” said the bailiff “You are my friend, are you not?”
“But yes,” Mademoiselle said softly. “I am your friend.”
“There! you see,” said Jimmy, “the ring does do what I said.”
“We won’t quarrel about that,” said the bailiff “You can say it’s the ring. For me—it’s a coincidence—the happiest, the dearest—”
“Then you—?” said the French governess.
“Of course,” said the bailiff. “Jimmy, give your brother some tea. Mademoiselle, come and walk in the woods: there are a thousand things to say.”
“Eat then, my Gerald,” said Mademoiselle, now grown young, and astonishingly like a fairy princess. “I return all at the hour, and we re-enter together. It is that we must speak each other. It is long time that we have not seen us, me and Lord Yalding !
“So he was Lord Yalding all the time,” said Jimmy, breaking a stupefied silence as the white gown and the grey flannels disappeared among the beech-trunks. “Landscape painter sort of dodge-silly, I call it. And fancy her being a friend of his, and his wishing she was here! Different from us, eh? Good old ring!”
“His friend!” said Mabel with strong scorn; “don’t you see she’s his lover? Don’t you see she’s the lady that was bricked up in the convent, because he was so poor, and he couldn’t find her. And now the ring’s made them live happy ever after. I am glad! Aren’t you, Cathy?”
They stood still and looked at each other
“Rather!” said Kathleen; “it’s as good as marrying a sailor or a bandit.”
“It’s the ring did it,” said Jimmy. “If the American takes the house he’ll pay lots of rent, and they can live on that.”
“I wonder if they’ll be married tomorrow!” said Mabel.
“Wouldn’t if be fun if we were bridesmaids,” said Cathy.
“May I trouble you for the melon,” said Gerald. “Thanks! Why didn’t we know he was Lord Yalding? Apes and moles that we were!”
“I’ve known since last night,” said Mabel calmly; “only I promised not to tell. I can keep a secret, can’t I?”
“Too jolly well,” said Kathleen, a little aggrieved.
“He was disguised as a bailiff,” said Jimmy; “that’s why we didn’t know”
“Disguised as a fiddle-stick-end,” fe said Gerald. “Ha, ha! I see something old Sherlock Holmes never saw, nor that idiot Watson, either. If you want a really impenetrable disguise, you ought to disguise yourself as what you really are. I’ll remember that.”
“It’s like Mabel, telling things so that you can’t believe them,” said Cathy.
“I think Mademoiselle’s jolly lucky,” said Mabel.
“She’s not so bad. He might have done worse,” said Gerald. “Plums, please!”
There was quite plainly magic at work. Mademoiselle next morning was a changed governess. Her cheeks were pink, her lips were red, her eyes were larger and brighter, and she had done her hair in an entirely new way, rather frivolous and very becoming.
“Mam’selle’s coming out!” Eliza remarked.
Immediately after breakfast Lord Yalding called with a wagonette that wore a smart blue cloth coat, and was drawn by two horses whose coats were brown and shining and fitted them even better than the blue cloth coat fitted the wagonette, and the whole party drove in state and splendour to Yalding Towers.
Arrived there, the children clamoured for permission to explore the castle thoroughly, a thing that had never yet been possible. Lord Yalding, a little absent in manner, but yet quite cordial, consented. Mabel showed the others all the secret doors and unlikely passages and stairs that she had discovered. It was a glorious morning. Lord Yalding and Mademoiselle went through the house, it is true, but in a rather half-hearted way. Quite soon they were tired, and went out through the French windows of the drawing-room and through the rose garden, to sit on the curved stone seat in the middle of the maze, where once, at the beginning of things, Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy had found the sleeping Princess who wore pink silk and diamonds.
The children felt that their going left to the castle a more spacious freedom, and explored with more than Arctic enthusiasm. It was as they emerged from the little rickety secret staircase that led from the powdering-room of the state suite to the gallery of the hall that they came suddenly face to face with the odd little man who had a beard like a goat and had taken the wrong turning yesterday.
“This part of the castle is private,” said Mabel, with great presence of mind, and shut the door behind her.
“I am aware of it,” said the goat-faced stranger, “but I have the permission of the Earl of Yalding to examine the house at my leisure.”
“Oh!” said Mabel. “I beg your pardon. We all do. We didn’t know.”
“You are relatives of his lordship, I should surmise?” asked the goat-faced.
“Not exactly,” said Gerald. “Friends.”
The gentleman was thin and very neatly dressed; he had small, merry eyes and a face that was brown and dry-looking.
“You are playing some game, I sho
uld suppose?”
“No, sir,” said Gerald, “only exploring.”
“May a stranger propose himself as a member of your Exploring Expedition?” asked the gentleman, smiling a tight but kind smile.
The children looked at each other.
“You see,” said Gerald, “it’s rather difficult to explain—but—you see what I mean, don’t you?”
“He means,” said Jimmy, “that we can’t take you into an exploring party without we know what you want to go for.”
“Are you a photographer?” asked Mabel, “or is it some newspaper’s sent you to write about the Towers?”
“I understand your position,” said the gentleman. “I am not a photographer, nor am I engaged by any journal. I am a man of independent means, travelling in this country with the intention of renting a residence. My name is Jefferson D. Conway.”
“Oh!” said Mabel; “then you’re the American millionaire.”
“I do not like the description, young lady,” said Mr. Jefferson D. Conway. “I am an American citizen, and I am not without means. This is a fine property—a very fine property. If it were for sale—”
“It isn’t, it can’t be,” Mabel hastened to explain. “The lawyers have put it in a tale, so Lord Yalding can’t sell it. But you could take it to live in, and pay Lord Yalding a good millionairish rent, and then he could marry the French governess—”
“Shish!” said Kathleen and Mr. Jefferson D. Conway together, and he added:
“Lead the way, please; and I should suggest that the exploration be complete and exhaustive.”
Thus encouraged, Mabel led the millionaire through all the castle. He seemed pleased, yet disappointed too.
“It is a fine mansion,” he said at last when they had come back to the point from which they had started; “but I should suppose, in a house this size, there would mostly be a secret stairway, or a priests’ hiding place, or a ghost?”
“There are,” said Mabel briefly, “but I thought Americans didn’t believe in anything but machinery and newspapers.” She touched the spring of the panel behind her, and displayed the little tottery staircase to the American. The sight of it worked a wonderful transformation in him. He became eager, alert, very keen.
