The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘Or you can roast the wax man in front of a fire, and as the wax melts, the man wastes away,’ said Rupert hardly.

‘Oh, don’t!’ said Charlotte.

‘Yes, do,’ said Charles; ‘what else?’

‘Oh, nothing else. It’s better if you get a bit of the enemy’s hair, and put that on your wax man’s head. Mr. Penfold read me bits out of a piece of poetry about it.’

‘Didn’t he say it was wicked?’ Caroline asked.

‘Yes,’ said Rupert reluctantly; ‘but I know what’s wicked without Mr. Penfold telling me, or you either. Just fancy how your enemy would squirm when he felt the pin-pricks; they’d be like sword-thrusts, you know, to him.’

‘Don’t!’ said Caroline; ‘don’t, Rupert, it’s horrid. Please don’t. I don’t want to know about those sort of spells.’

‘Rupert wouldn’t do it, of course,’ said Charles. ‘He’s only talking.’

‘How do you know I wouldn’t?’ said Rupert savagely. ‘Next time you have a pain in your leg, Caroline, you’ll think it’s growing pains, but really it’ll be me, sticking a long hat-pin into the wax image I’ve secretly made of you.’

Caroline got up.

‘Come, Char,’ she said, ‘we’ll go and sit in the drawing-room if Rupert’s going on like this.’

‘He doesn’t mean it,’ said Charles again.

‘Of course I don’t,’ said Rupert, and suddenly smiled. ‘I don’t know why I said it. Don’t be silly. There’s lots of things you could try, though, and not hurt any one. Why don’t you – ?’ He looked vaguely round the room, and his eyes lighted once more on the portrait. ‘Why don’t you make that come to life? If she was a witch, her picture ought to be good for that, anyhow.’

‘I wish we could,’ said all the children together, with deep earnestness.

‘Well, do it then,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s the sort of thing to make me believe, not the duffing things you’ve kept on doing ever since I’ve been here.’

There was a silence. Then, ‘How do you spell “impossible”?’ asked Charles, and then nothing more was heard but the scratching of violet pens.

But from that time, and in between all other thoughts and happenings, Charlotte kept on thinking about that idea. If only the picture could be made to come alive!

And Charles’s fancy played timidly with the idea of the wax man. Not to hurt the person it was like, of course, but just to see if anything happened. Not pins. But just pinching its foot a very very very little, secretly, with the image in your pocket, when the person it was the image of was there, just to see if the person jumped or called out, as you do if you’re suddenly pinched, no matter how gently.

Charlotte’s mind busied itself then and later, in and between other thoughts, with the question of what was the matter with Rupert, and whether something couldn’t be done to help him.

For there was no doubt of it. Rupert wasn’t at all what they had first thought him. Sometimes, it is true, he would be as jolly as you need wish a boy to be. He would start new games and play them in the most amusing and satisfactory way. But always, sooner or later, and generally sooner, the light of life seemed to go out of him, and he would seem suddenly to be not only tired of the game but tired of everything else, and not only tired of everything, but angry with everybody.

‘I’m sure he’s bewitched,’ said Charlotte more than once in those intimate moments when Caroline and she ‘talked things over’ as they brushed their hair. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if somebody’s made a wax image of him, and it’s when they stick the pins in it that he goes all savage all in a minute.’

‘I do think that’s nonsense,’ Caroline always said. ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be allowed.’

‘How would you make an image of a person’s mind?’ Charlotte woke Caroline up to ask, one night; and when Caroline with sleepy sharpness said, ‘You can’t; go to sleep, do,’ Charlotte answered, ‘I believe you can; there was something written under somebody’s portrait in history, about painting his mind; and if you can paint a mind, you can make a wax image of it. I believe that’s what somebody’s done to Rupert, don’t you? And stuck knives into it? Oh, well, if you will go to sleep!’ said Charlotte.

Rupert grew grumpier and grumpier as the days went on, and seemed to care less and less for being with the three C.’s. He would go for long walks by himself, and seemed to prefer to be with William, who ‘put up’ with him, or even with Mrs. Wilmington, who adored him, to being with the children.

‘And we thought it would be so jolly,’ sighed Charlotte; ‘and the worst of it is Charles tries to imitate him. He speaks quite rudely sometimes, even to you, Caro, and you know he always used to like you best.’

The only thing Rupert seemed truly and constantly to care for was swimming. He went down to the river with Mr. Penfold almost every day, or met him at the bathing-place, and they swam together. With Mr. Penfold, Rupert was nearly always at his best, perhaps because Mr. Penfold never seemed to notice it when he wasn’t.

The village was growing more and more busy and excited as the day drew near when Lord Andore’s coming of age was to be celebrated by what the people called a Grangaileranfeat. This was to be held in Lord Andore’s park and in certain meadows adjoining; there were to be roundabouts and cocoanut-shies and shooting-galleries, and a real circus, with a menagerie and performing elephants and educated seals, – all free. The children looked forward longingly to the day. Lord Andore had sent them cards with his mother’s name and his on them in print, and the name of each child in writing, requesting the pleasure of their company on the occasion of Lord Andore’s twenty-first birthday. And they had joyously, and with much violet ink, accepted. And the day came nearer and nearer. It did not seem worth while to engage in any new magic while there was this real pleasure to look forward to.

And then, the very day before the day, when the roundabouts had arrived and been set up, and the menagerie was howling invitingly in its appointed field, the cup of joy was dashed, as Charlotte said, into little bits. Lady Andore slipped on an orange pip and broke her ankle, and the festivities were postponed until September. So said a card brought by the very footman who had not known their names.

‘He jolly well knows them now,’ said Charles. It was his only comfort.

‘There’s many a pip ’twixt the cup and the lip,’ said Charlotte; and Caroline said, ‘Oh, bother!’

Rupert said nothing. He had been invited too, of course, and had, at moments, seemed pleased. Now he just took his cap and went out, and came home late for tea. The three C.’s learned with feelings of distress, mingled with anger, that Rupert had been to the menagerie by himself, and had seen all the beasts, and that he had also witnessed a performance of the circus people, which they had thought it worth while to give to such of the villagers as cared to pay for their amusements. He had seen everything, from the accomplished elephants to the educated seals.

‘You might have told us you were going,’ said Charles.

‘You could have gone if you’d wanted to,’ said Rupert.

‘Never mind, Charles,’ said Caroline; ‘we’ll ask the Uncle to take us to-morrow.’

‘They’re off to-morrow,’ said Rupert; ‘that’s why I went to-day.’ He added something bitter and almost unbearable about a parcel of kids.

But the circus, as it turned out, was not off next day. An accident had happened. Something was missing, and the circus could not go on its travels till that something was found.

‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Harriet, when she told them about it at breakfast; ‘but they’ve lost something they set store by. Some says it’s an improving seal, and others says it’s a boar-conjector-snake, and Poad told my gentleman friend it was the white-eyed Kaffir made a bolt for freedom and India’s coral strand, where he was stole from when a babe; but I don’t know the rights of it. They sent for Poad. My gentleman friend’ll know all about it next time I see him.’

‘When shall you see him again?’ Charles asked.

‘I can see him whenever I’ve a mind,’ said Harriet proudly. ‘I’m not one of those as has to run after their gentlemen friends.’

‘I do wonder what it is,’ Charlotte said. ‘Do see your friend as soon as you can and ask him, won’t you, Harriet? I do hope it’s not snakes or bears. You’ll be sure to tell us directly you know, won’t you?’

‘Sure,’ said Harriet.

It was from William, however, that they heard what it was that the circus had really lost.

‘It’s a tame Le-o-pard,’ said William; ‘him with the spots that you can’t change, and the long tail.’

‘I know,’ said Charlotte; ‘there’s a leopard’s skin in the drawing-room. Very spotty they are. And fierce, too, I believe. Oh, William! I do hope it won’t come this way.’

‘There’s something about it in the book,’ said Caroline, who, as usual, had her magic books under her arm. She found the place and read, ‘Leopard’s-bane, its government and virtues’ – quite a long piece. When she had done, William said:

‘Thank you very much; quite pretty, ain’t it?’ And Rupert said it was all nonsense.

‘But it won’t come this way, will it?’ Charlotte repeated.

‘It’s a tame one,’ said William, grinning. ‘At least that’s the character it’s got from its last place. But it won’t be any too tame for Poad, I expect. I hear he’s got the job of catching of it. And serve him right too.’

‘Oh, why?’ asked Charlotte.

‘Because,’ said William shortly, and was told not to be cross about nothing.