The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘She’s up in the loft, Mum,’ said William. ‘I let her go up just to ’ave a peep. ’Ere, Miss, you come along down. You seen all there is to see.’

Caroline rustled through the straw and down the ladder. Mrs. Wilmington, cloaked and with a brown plaid shawl over her head, stood in the stable door.

‘I’m quite dry, really I am,’ said Caroline, as William climbed the ladder to padlock the trap-door.

‘You best come in at once,’ said Mrs. Wilmington. And at that moment a faint sound was heard from the loft. Rupert had coughed again.

‘What’s that?’ Mrs. Wilmington asked, pausing on one galosh to listen.

‘My dawg’s up there,’ said William; ‘’e catches rats now and again.’

‘It was a strange noise for a dog,’ said the housekeeper with a thoughtful air.

‘Weren’t it now?’ said William admiringly. ‘Can’t think ’ow they does it! You wouldn’t believe the noises dogs make when they’re after rats. It’s the way it takes ’em, you see.’

‘I see,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, and turned away, picking her galoshed steps delicately, and followed by Caroline, who now ventured to breathe again, and splashed in all the puddles.

‘Your uncle,’ said the housekeeper, taking off her shawl and shaking it at the back door, ‘was inquiring for you. He does not weesh you to go out in the reen.’

‘No,’ said Caroline.

‘And I always understood,’ said the housekeeper, ‘that young ladies was, were, better away from low company.’

‘If you mean William,’ began Caroline hotly, but Mrs. Wilmington interrupted her with —

‘I mean dogs in straw-lofts. Now you know.’

Caroline decided to get Mrs. Wilmington a soothing bouquet as soon as the rain cleared off.

‘Your uncle’s in the dining-room,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Wipe your shoes on the mat, please.’

From the dining-room came the sound of talking. Caroline heard:

‘You see, uncle, you just sit on the wreck and we’ll come and rescue you with the raft.’

She paused in the doorway. Could it be true that the Uncle was playing? No, it could not.

‘Thank you,’ said the Uncle; ‘I feel safer on the wreck. I’m glad you’ve been having a game,’ he said, blinking kindly at her.

‘I hope you don’t mind the room being a little untidy, uncle,’ said Caroline. For, indeed, the others had decided that the clearing-up bargain was off, and had gone on with the game.

‘Not at all, if you don’t break things,’ he said a little nervously.

‘We’re most awfully careful,’ Charles explained. ‘You see we keep the raft on the carpet for fear of scratching it.’

‘I think it polishes it, being dragged about on this Turkish sea,’ Charlotte told them.

‘And so you’re not dull, even on this rainy day? I feared you might find it wearisome.’

‘Oh no,’ said every one; ‘it’s the loveliest house in the world.’ And Charlotte asked him kindly how his magic was getting on.

‘Poorly,’ he said; ‘poorly. And yours?’

There was a silence, full of the thoughts of the magic of fern-seed and of the great Rupert-secret.

‘We’ve invented a Secret Society,’ Caroline said difficultly and in haste: ‘the Secret Society of the Rose. You wear one full blown rose and two buds, you see.’

‘I see. And what is the secret?’ asked the innocent and kindly uncle.

Everyone became scarlet except the Uncle, who looked more like oyster shells than ever, and said:

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘We’d tell you in a minute if we could. But you see it is a Secret Society.’

‘I see. I am very sorry I was so indiscreet. But tell me this,’ he added hastily. ‘You haven’t broken anything, have you?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t,’ the Uncle assured them. ‘Mrs. Wilmington was of opinion that you would break almost everything in the house. But that was before she saw you, of course. If you do break anything you’ll tell me, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ they answered in various tones of surprise.

‘Quite so. I might have known. I wish I could do something to amuse you. If you had any friends in the neighbourhood you might have the carriage and drive out to see them. But of course you have no acquaintances here.’

‘The clergyman is a friend of ours,’ Charles remarked.

And Caroline said if only they might go and see him.

‘By all means,’ said the Uncle; ‘bring him back to tea with you. I am sincerely glad to find that you are making yourselves at home.’

With that he went away.

‘Do you think that was snarkasm? About making ourselves at home?’ Charles asked.

‘Not it,’ Charlotte assured him. ‘I’m sure the Uncle’s open as the day.’

‘All the same we’d better clear up,’ said Charlotte, and on the word Harriet came in to lay the cloth. Mrs. Wilmington followed. And it was she who cleared up, with pinched lips and a marked abstaining from reproaches.

The children dined alone, and the cook remarked on the sudden growth of their appetites. How was she to know that generous double helpings of beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, summer cabbage, rhubarb pie and custard were hidden behind the books on the dining-room shelf, for the later refreshment of a runaway boy at present lurking in the straw-loft?

‘We must put the things in tumblers,’ Caroline said, ‘because plates would be missed; but the tumblers live in the sideboard, and there are dozens.’

So a row of tumblers, containing such greasy things as never before had profaned their limpid depths, stood in a row like beakers on the bench of a secret laboratory.

‘It’s all very well,’ said Charlotte, replacing the last book and ringing the bell, ‘but how shall we get them to him?’

‘William will manage it at tea-time,’ Caroline was sure.