The Palace in the Garden Part 9

CHAPTER VII.

GRANDPAPA'S SECRETARY.

... "Children are the best judges of character at first sight in the world."--HOGG.

Grandpapa 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 sc.r.a.p 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 gla.s.s 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 _G.o.dson_ 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?"