The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

Dear Parents – I am running away to sea through being so ill-treated by Macpherson. I will write from the first port. I shall get a ship at Hastings, I expect. – Your affecate son,

    Rupert.

‘Well!’ said the Police; ‘if that don’t beat all! Lucky we saw this.’

‘Yes, ain’t it,’ said William, ‘and this the Hastings road and all. You ought to catch up easy if you start right away now.’

‘I shall now blow my whistle,’ said the Police as usual, ‘and acquaint the boy’s guardian with our discovery.’

‘If we can’t be any more use,’ said Caroline hastily, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t mind our going back to our dinners. They’ll be getting dreadfully cold for the time of year,’ she added a little wildly.

‘Best go back through the gap,’ said William. ‘It ought to be mended, though. Here, you,’ he said to the gardener’s boy, ‘go round by the lodge and tell Peters to get it seen to.’

‘There is no need to detain you,’ said the Police, ‘and thanking you for your assistance, which shall be mentioned in my report. Good morning to you.’ He blew his whistle and they hastened back through the gap.

Once through it the others refused to meet Caroline’s eye. But she did not seem to notice it.

‘I know listening’s wrong,’ she said; ‘but when you’re playing detectives the rules are different, and I should like – ’

‘Slip along by the pale, Miss,’ said William. ‘“All’s fair in love an’ war,” as the saying is.’

She slipped, and the others could not help following her. William went too.

The boots of the Murdstone tutor were now heard on the road. Then came the voice of the Police, explaining how clever he had been in finding the footsteps, the handkerchief, and the letter. ‘And you’d best read the letter,’ the Police added.

A brief letter-reading silence was broken by the Murdstone man, very angry indeed.

‘Monstrous!’ he said; ‘and left in the public road for any stranger to see! Monstrous! There’s not a word of truth in it.’

‘You can tell that to the Magistrate,’ said the Police. ‘Beg pardon, sir, I mean I think I’ve cleared up this little difficulty for you.’

‘I suppose I can get a trap in the village?’ the Murdstone man asked.

‘At the Green Dragon, sir.’

‘Right,’ said Mr. Macpherson smartly. ‘Good morning!’ And he turned and walked quickly away, leaving the Police planted there, as they say in France.

‘Well – I’m – dished!’ said the Police aloud, after a moment’s silence, to what he supposed to be solitude; ‘not so much as tuppence to drink his blooming bad health in. The stingy blighter! He can look for his own boys after this. And I hope the young ’un gets off, so I do.’

‘Same here,’ whispered William behind the grey oak paling.

The Police walked heavily away.

‘Best go in to dinner,’ said William, and the four walked in silence across the park. When they got to the side door William spoke.

‘You’re a fair masterpiece, Miss Caroline,’ he said; ‘that I will say.’

‘Thank you,’ said Caroline.

Charles and Charlotte both felt – they owned it afterwards – almost choked by all the things they wanted to say to Caroline and couldn’t, because of William. They drew long breaths and almost snorted with mixed emotions.

‘I say,’ said Caroline eagerly, as William turned away. But Charles interrupted.

‘We don’t mean to speak to you,’ he said.

And just then Mrs. Wilmington appeared at the door, and no one could say anything further; anything that mattered, that is.

She escorted the girls to their room. In her superior lady-like way she was curious about the missing boy. Charlotte told the story briefly, while Caroline buried her hot face in a big basin of cold water and blew like a grampus. Then there was dinner, and Mrs. Wilmington stayed all through that to hear more details. When dinner was over Caroline disappeared.

‘I expect she’s gone away to cry,’ Charlotte whispered to her brother. ‘I say, I wish we hadn’t. But we did agree we oughtn’t to speak to a traitor till it was sorry: you said so yourself in the wood.’

‘It’s all very beastly,’ said Charles. ‘I wish it hadn’t happened, upsetting everything.’

‘I say,’ Charlotte said, ‘let’s forgive her now. I expect she thought she was doing right, being like a Spartan boy or something. Caro is silly like that sometimes. Let’s go and find her and forgive her, and talk it all over comfortably, the three of us.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Charles; ‘let’s find her, if you like.’

But they couldn’t find her.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEROINE

It was William who, when they had searched house and garden and park for nearly an hour, greeted the two as they trailed forlornly into the stable-yard on the last wild chance of finding her there. By this time both were thoroughly sorry and remorseful, and very anxious indeed to know what had become of their sister.

‘I suppose you haven’t seen Caroline anywhere about?’ they said to William, who was sitting in the harness-room door, with a rose in his button-hole, smoking a black clay pipe.

‘She was out in the garden a bit back,’ he said; ‘give me this ’ere button-hole. She’s a sister to be proud on, she is.’

‘Why?’ asked Charles blankly.

‘What she done this morning,’ William answered.

‘I suppose she thought it was right.’

‘I don’ know about right,’ said William, scratching his ear. ‘Anyhow she went down along towards where you was messing about in the wood this morning. Just after dinner she went with a book under her arm and her pinny full of roses. I’m coming along that way myself when I’ve finished my pipe.’

Charlotte and Charles went down slowly to the wood, and they were both very uncomfortable. However right Caroline might have been…

‘I can’t understand how she can– the very place where he was – all safe only this morning,’ said Charlotte, and walked slower than ever. They went so slowly that William had almost caught them up before they had reached the wood.

Just before they turned in among the dappled shadows of the wood, Charles said, ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlotte; ‘it’s only Caro talking to herself.’ And they went on. They did not hear any more talking, and when they reached the lair Caroline was sitting there silent with a splash of red rose colour beside her among the fern.

‘Oh, Caro!’ cried Charlotte, almost weeping and flumping down beside her sister; ‘I’m sorry we were horrid. We see now you must have thought you were being Spartan-boyish or something. And it’s too perfectly horrid. And do let’s make it up; do.’

‘I did think you’d more sense,’ said Caroline, but she kissed Charlotte too, ‘or that you’d know that I had – more sense, I mean. And directly I began to tell you, you said That.’ She sniffed. It was plain that she had been crying.