The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

They all drank tea much too strong for them, out of respect to their host, who had forgotten that when he was a little boy milk was what one had at tea-time.

And slowly, by careful questioning, and by making a sudden rule that no one was to say more than thirty-seven words without stopping, Lord Andore got at the whole story in a form which he could understand.

‘I see,’ he would say, and ‘I see,’ and then ask another question.

And at last when tea was really over, to the last gladly accepted peach and the last sadly unaccepted strawberry, he stood up and said:

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you are regular little bricks to have taken all this trouble. And I am really and truly very much obliged. Because I do mean to be just and right to my tenants, only it’s very difficult to know about things if nobody tells you. And you’ve helped me a lot, and I thank you very much.’

‘Then you will?’ said Charlotte breathlessly.

‘Not let her be turned out of her cottage, she means,’ Caroline explained.

‘She means the Mineral woman,’ said Charles.

‘Of course I won’t,’ said Lord Andore; ‘I mean, of course, I will. I mean it’s all right. And I’ll drive you home, and if you’re a minute or two late, I’ll make it all right with uncle.’

The motor was waiting outside the great arch that is held between the two great towers of Andore Castle. It was a dream of a car, and there was room for the three C.’s in front beside the driver, who was Lord Andore himself.

The footman was there, and the proudest moment of the day for Charles was that in which Lord Andore gave the petition bouquet into that footman’s care, and told him to see that it was put in water, ‘Carefully, mind; and tell them to put it on the dinner-table to-night.’

The footman said ‘Yes, m’lord,’ as though he had never seen the bouquet before. Charlotte’s proudest moment was when the woman at the lodge gate had to curtsey when the motor passed out.

Rupert was waiting for them at their own lodge gate, and when he saw the motor, his eyes grew quite round like pennies.

‘Oh, do stop, it’s Rupert,’ said the three C.’s; and Rupert was bundled into the body of the car, where he travelled in lonely splendour. Yet, even after that, and when the motor had gone away, and the three C.’s had told him all their adventures and the splendid success of their magic nosegay, Rupert only said:

‘It’s Chance, I tell you. It’s just accidental. Co – what’s its name – incidence. It would all have happened just the same if you hadn’t taken that hideous old mixed assorted haystack with you.’

‘Still disagreeable?’ said Charlotte brightly.

‘Oh, been all the same, would it?’ said Charles; ‘that’s all you know.’

‘It’s not all I know,’ said Rupert; ‘as it happens, I know heaps of things that you don’t. And I could find out more if I wanted to. So there!’

‘Oh, Rupert, don’t be cross,’ said Caroline, ‘just when we’re all so happy. I do wish you’d been there, especially at tea-time.’

‘I’m not cross,’ said Rupert. ‘As it happens, I was feeling extra jolly until you came home.’

‘Oh, don’t,’ said Caroline; ‘do let’s call it Pax. We haven’t told you half the little interesting things that happened yet. And if you can’t believe in the magic, it’s your misfortune. We know you can’t help it. We know you don’t unbelieve on purpose. We know we’re right, and you think you know you are.’

‘It’s the other way round,’ said Rupert, still deep in gloom.

‘I know it is, when you think it, and when we think it, it’s the other way,’ said Caroline. ‘Oh, Pax! Pax! Pax!’

‘All right,’ said Rupert. ‘I had a good swim. Your Mr. Penfold’s not half a bad sort. He taught me a new side-stroke.’ But it was plain that Rupert’s inside self still felt cloudy and far from comfortable.

Next day the three C.’s and Rupert, in the middle of Irish stew, were surprised by the sudden rustling entrance of Mrs. Wilmington.

‘A person wishes to see you,’ she said to Caroline; ‘quite a poor person. I asked her to wait till dinner was completed; but she says that she hopes you will see her now, as she ought to commence going home almost at once.’

‘Of course!’ said Caroline; ‘it must be the Mineral woman.’

‘She seemed to me,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘to have an animal face.’

But Caroline was already in the hall, and the figure that rose politely from the oak chair was plainly – though disguised in her Sunday clothes – that of the Mineral woman.

‘Oh, Miss!’ she said; ‘oh, Miss!’ She took hold of both Caroline’s hands and shook them, but that was not enough. Caroline found herself kissed on both cheeks, and then suddenly hugged; and ‘Oh, Miss!’ the Mineral woman said; ‘oh, Miss!’ And then she felt for her handkerchief in a black bag she carried, and blew her nose loudly.

Mrs. Wilmington had gone through the hall very slowly indeed; but even she could not go slowly enough not to be gone by the time the Mineral woman had, for the time being, finished with her nose. And as Mrs. Wilmington went through the baize door, she heard again, ‘Oh, Miss!’

Mrs. Wilmington came back five minutes later, and this time she heard:

‘And it’s all right, Miss; and two bright new five-pound notes “to buy more rose trees with,” and a letter in his own write of hand thanking us for making the place so pretty; and I’m to be tenant for life, Miss. And it’s all your doing, bless your kind heart. So I came to tell you. I never thought I should feel like I do about any strange little gell. It was all your doing, Miss, my dear.’

Which was a very mysterious and exciting thing to be overheard by any housekeeper who was not in the secret. And a very heartwarming and pleasant thing to be listened to by a little girl who was.

‘You see,’ said Caroline, when she had told the others of the Mineral woman’s happiness, ‘the magic always works.’

CHAPTER XVII

THE LE-O-PARD

‘We simply must write to Aunt Emmeline,’ said Caroline earnestly. ‘I’ve got three new pens and some scented violet ink. I got it at the shop yesterday; it’s lovely. And I’ve been counting up the picture post-cards she and Uncle Percival have sent us. There are forty-two, and twenty-eight of those have come since we wrote last.’

‘I’d almost rather not have the post-cards; they make you feel so horrid when you don’t write,’ said Charles. ‘Suppose we send picture post-cards. You don’t have to write nearly so much.’

I think that would be shirking,’ said Charlotte, who did not want to go out, and more than half believed what she said. ‘Come on. If we must, we must. Necessity doesn’t know the law.’

‘You write, too, Rupert,’ said Charles kindly. ‘Put some Latin in. They’ll love that. Or perhaps you’d tell me some to say. I can put it in if you say how I ought to spell it.’

But Rupert said he couldn’t be bothered, and took down a book – Jesse’s Anecdotes of Dogs it was, with alluring pictures and delightful stories; but he did not really read it.

Caroline, looking up in an agony of ignorance as to the way you spelt assafœtida, which the medicine book said was good for ‘pains in the head brought about by much ſtudy of the printed book,’ saw that Rupert’s eyes were fixed in a dismal stare on the portrait above the mantelpiece, the portrait of Dame Eleanour.

He was looking at it as though he did not see it, and yet Charlotte could not help saying, ‘Isn’t she splendid? She knew all about spells and things. It’s her books we do it out of – at least, most of it.’

‘If she knew all about them, she knew what rotten rot they were,’ said Rupert. ‘You never try to do anything with your spells except the things that would happen just the same without your spelling.’

‘What’s that about my spelling?’ asked Caroline, who had made a bold dash for what she remembered of the way the word looked in the medicine book, and written, in a violent violet smudge, ‘Aſſerphrodite.’

‘I say your magic isn’t real.’

‘We saw you when you were invisible,’ Caroline began, laying down her pen, whose wet nib at once tried to dry, turning from purple to golden green bronze. And then:

‘Yes, I know,’ said Rupert; ‘but if it’s really real, why don’t you do something with it that can’t really happen in puris naturalatibus?– that means just naturally. Why don’t you bring back Mrs. Wilmington’s cat that’s lost? Or find my Kohinore pencil. Then there’s a thing in that book Mr. Penfold’s got. He told me about it. You make a wax image of your enemy and stick pins into it, and every time you stick in a pin your enemy feels a pain in the part you stick the pins into.’

‘How awfully wicked!’ said Caroline in an awe-struck voice.