The Children of the Castle

“You must be very cold, my dear boy, and hungry too,” she was saying. “We are just beginning tea, so you had better come in at once as you are.”

“It’s terribly cold, and that fool of a driver wouldn’t come any faster; he said his horses were tired. I wish I could have got a cut at them – what are horses for?” was the reply to Miss Hortensia’s kind speech.

Mavis touched Ruby.

“Come in. Cousin Hortensia wouldn’t like to see us standing at the door like this,” she said.

They sat down at their places again, only getting up as Miss Hortensia came in.

She was followed by a boy. He was about the height of the twins, broad and strong-looking, wrapped up in a rich fur-lined coat, and with a travelling cap of the same fur still on his head. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, a handsome boy with a haughty, rather contemptuous expression of face – an expression winch it did not take much to turn into a scowl if he was annoyed or put out.

“These are your cousins, Bertrand; your cousins Ruby and Mavis – you have heard of them, I am sure, though you have never met each other before.”

Bertrand looked up coolly.

“I knew there were girls here,” he answered. “Mother said so. But I don’t care for girls – I told mother so. I’m awfully hungry;” and he began to pull forward a chair.

“My dear,” said Miss Hortensia, “do you know you have not taken off your cap yet? You must take off your coat too, but, above all, your cap.”

Bertrand put up his hand and slowly drew off his cap.

“Mother never minds,” he said. But there was a slight touch of apology in the words.

Then, more for his own comfort evidently than out of any sense of courtesy, he pulled off his heavy coat and flung it on to a chair. The little girls had not yet spoken to him, they felt too much taken aback.

“Perhaps he is shy and strange, and that makes him seem rough,” thought Mavis, and she began drawing forward another chair.

“Will you sit here?” she was saying, when Bertrand pushed past her.

“I’ll sit by the fire,” he said, and he calmly settled himself on what he could not but have seen was her seat or Ruby’s; “and I’m awfully hungry,” he went on.

“At home I have dinner, at least if I want it, I do. It’s only fit for girls to have tea in this babyish way.”

He helped himself to a large slice of cake as he spoke; and not content with this, he also put a big piece of butter on his plate. Miss Hortensia glanced at him, and was evidently just going to speak, but checked herself. It was Bertrand’s first evening, and she was a very hospitable person. But when Bertrand proceeded to butter his cake thickly, Ruby, never accustomed to control her tongue, burst out.

“That’s cake, Bertrand,” she said. “People don’t butter cake.”

“Don’t they just?” said the boy, speaking with his mouth full. “I do, I know, and at home mother never minds.”

“Does she let you do whatever you like?” asked Ruby.

“Yes,” said Bertrand; “and whether she did or not I’d do it all the same.”

Then he broke into a merry laugh. It was one of the few attractive things about him, beside his good looks, that laugh of his. It made him seem for the time a hearty, good-tempered child, and gave one the feeling that he did not really mean the things he said and did. And now that his hunger was appeased, and he was warm and comfortable, he became much more amiable. Ruby looked at him with admiration.

“I wish I lived with your mother,” she said, “how nice it must be to do always just what one likes!”

“Do you think so,” said Mavis. “I think it would be quite miserable.”

“Quite right, Mavis,” said Miss Hortensia. “When I was a child I remember reading a story of a little girl who for a great treat one birthday was allowed to do just what she wanted all day, and – oh dear! – how unhappy she was before evening came.”

Bertrand stared at her with his big eyes. Some eyes are very misleading; his looked now and then as if he had nothing but kind and beautiful thoughts behind them.

“What a fool she must have been,” he said roughly. And poor Miss Hortensia’s heart sank.

The evening was not a long one, for Bertrand was tired with his journey, and for once willing to do as he was told, by going to bed early. A room near his cousins’ had been preparing for him, and though not quite ready, a good fire made it look very cosy. They all went upstairs with him to show him the way. As they passed the great baize door which divided their wing from the rest of the house. Bertrand pushed it open.

“What’s, through there?” he asked, in his usual unceremonious way.

“Oh, all the rest of the castle,” said Ruby importantly.

Bertrand peered through. It was like looking into a great church with all the lights out, for this door opened right upon the gallery running round the large hall.

“What a ramshackle old cavern!” said Bertrand. A blast of cold air rushed in through the doorway as he spoke and made them all shiver.

“Nonsense, Bertrand,” said Miss Hortensia, more sharply than she had yet spoken to him. “It is a splendid old house.”

“You should see the staircases up to the turrets,” said Ruby. “They are as high as – as I don’t know what. If you are naughty we can put you to sleep in the west turret-room, and they say it’s haunted.”

“I shouldn’t mind that,” laughed Bertrand.

“Nor should I,” said Ruby boastfully. “Mavis here is a dreadful coward. And – oh, Bertrand – I’ll tell you something to-morrow. I have such an idea. Don’t you love playing tricks on people – people who set themselves up, you know, and preach at you?” Her last words were almost whispered, and Miss Hortensia, who had gone on in front – they had closed the swing door by this time – did not hear them. But Mavis caught what Ruby said, and she waited uneasily for Bertrand’s answer.

“Prigs, you mean,” he said. “I hate prigs. Yes, indeed, I’ll join you in any game of that kind. You should have seen how we served a little wretch at school who tried to stop us teaching a puppy to swim – such a joke – the puppy could scarcely walk, much less swim. So we took Master Prig and made him swim instead. It was winter, and he caught a jolly cold, and had to leave school.”

“Did he get better?” said Mavis, in a strange voice.

“Don’t know, I’m sure. I should think not. His mother was too poor to pay for a doctor, they said. He’d no business to be at a school with gentlemen,” said Bertrand brutally.

Mavis gasped. Then suddenly, without saying good-night to any one, she rushed down the passage to the room she shared with her sister; and there Ruby found her a few minutes later on her knees and all in the dark.

“What’s the matter with you? Cousin Hortensia told me to say good-night to you for her. It wasn’t very civil to fly off like that the first night Bertrand was here. I’m sure cousin Hortensia thought so too,” said Ruby carelessly. “My goodness, are you crying?” as the light she carried fell on Mavis’s tear-stained face.

“Cousin Hortensia didn’t hear,” said Mavis. “Oh, Ruby, I can’t bear it.”

“What?”

“That wicked boy. Oh, Ruby, you can’t say you like him?”

“I think he’s lots of fun in him,” said Ruby wonderingly. “He’s only a boy; you are so queer, Mavis.” But catching sight again of her sister’s expression she suddenly changed. “Poor little Mavie,” she cried, throwing her arms round her, “you’re such a goose. You’re far too tender-hearted.”

Mavis clung to her, sobbing.

“Oh, Ruby, my Ruby,” she said, “don’t speak like that. I couldn’t bear you to get hard and cruel.”

But Ruby was, for her, wonderfully gentle and kind, and at last the two little sisters kissed each other, promising that nothing should ever come between them.

A good night’s rest and a huge breakfast put Master Bertrand into a very fairly amiable humour the next morning. He flatly refused, however, to do any lessons, though it was intended that he should; and Miss Hortensia, judging it best to make a virtue of necessity, told him he should have his time to himself for three days, after which he must join the twins in the school-room.