The Children of the Castle

“He’s had a fall, cousin Hortensia,” said Mavis. “But I don’t think it’s very bad, he says he’s only bruised and sore. Bertrand, do you think you can manage to get down to your own room?”

“If you’ll come at one side and Joseph at the other, I’ll try,” said the boy, with unusual graciousness. “And when I’m in bed, will you stay beside me, Mavis? I think the pain isn’t so bad when you’re there,” he whispered, so that no one else could hear.

Miss Hortensia was quick-witted.

“I will order a fire to be lighted in Bertrand’s room,” she said; “and if you like, Mavis, you may have your supper there beside him.”

She hurried away, calling Ruby to go with her. It was a sign of a very different state of things with Ruby that she showed, and felt, no jealousy at Bertrand’s preference for her sister.

“Poor Bertrand,” she said to herself softly, “perhaps I made him naughtier than he would have been.”

The boy was more hurt than he would allow, but he put great constraint on himself, and limped downstairs with scarcely a groan.

“It’s nothing compared to the other pain,” he murmured. And when he was at last safely deposited in his little bed, he looked so white and pitiful that for the first time Mavis stooped down and gave him a loving kiss. Bertrand started.

“What is it?” said Mavis.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “When you kissed me, the pain got worse for a moment; it gave a great stab, but now it seems better. If you’ll kiss me again, Mavis, the last thing when you say good-night, perhaps I’ll be able to go to sleep.”

She stayed beside him all the rest of the evening. He scarcely spoke, only groaning a little from time to time. When Miss Hortensia came in to send Mavis to bed, she began for the first time to feel really uneasy about the boy.

“Mavis,” she said, not meaning Bertrand to hear, “if he isn’t better to-morrow morning, we must send for the doctor.”

“Perhaps,” said the little girl, “he could do something to take away the aching – poor Bertrand is aching all over from his fall.”

“I don’t mind that,” said the boy suddenly. “It isn’t that, you know it isn’t, Mavis, and I won’t have the doctor.”

Ruby, who had stolen in behind her cousin, crept up to Mavis.

“Do you think,” she whispered, “do you think, Mavis, that he has seen her, and that that’s it?” Mavis did not answer.

“Bertrand,” she said, “we are going to bed now; do you mind being left alone for the night?”

“No,” he said, “I’d rather, unless it was you, and you can’t stay. You’d be too tired. Listen,” and he drew her down to him, “do you think perhaps she’ll come again and take away the pain? For I am sorry now – I am sorry – and I didn’t know how bad I was.”

“Poor Bertrand,” whispered Mavis pityingly. “Perhaps she will come. Any way, if you are patient and try to think the pain has to be, I think it will get better, even if it doesn’t go away altogether.”

And again she kissed him.

“Mavis,” said Ruby, as the two little sisters were lying side by side in their white curtained beds, “cousin Hortensia may not know it, and nobody may know it, but I know it, and it is that years have passed since we went to bed here last night.”

“Yes,” said Mavis. “I think so too. There are some things that you can’t count time for, which are really far more than any time.”

“All my hating of Bertrand has gone away now,” continued Ruby. “Only I don’t want him to stay here, because the naughty in him and the naughty in me might get together again like it did before.”

“Why don’t you think of the good in him and the good in you joining to make you both better; and the good in me too! I suppose it isn’t conceited to think there is a little good in oneself, at least there’s trying to be and wanting to be,” said Mavis, with a little sigh. “But you’re so much quicker and cleverer than I am, Ruby, I wish you would think about helping me and not about being naughty. And, oh Ruby, isn’t it lovely to think that we may go sometimes to Forget-me-not Land?”

“Let’s go to sleep now as quick as we can and dream of it,” said Ruby.

Bertrand looked still very white and ill the next day. He was very quiet and subdued, and even gave in to Miss Hortensia’s decision that the doctor must be sent for. The doctor came “and shook his head.” The boy was not in a satisfactory condition, – which they knew already as it happened, otherwise the doctor would not have been sent for, – he had been shaken by the fall, and it was possible that his back had been injured. There was not much comfort in all this, certainly, but it decided one thing, that he was to stay where he was for the present, not to attempt to get up or to move about. And, strange to say, this too Bertrand accepted uncomplainingly.

He said no word to the doctor of the strange pain he had confided about to Mavis; and though his eyes seemed sad and wearied, they had a new look in them which had never been there before. Even Miss Hortensia was moved by it, though hitherto, and rightly, she had been inclined to treat Bertrand’s troubles as well deserved.

“Is there anything we can do for you, my poor boy?” she said kindly.

“No, thank you,” he replied; “except to let Mavis come to stay beside me sometimes – and – ” he hesitated, “if the fisher-boy, Winfried, comes to the castle, I’d like to see him.”

“Certainly,” Miss Hortensia answered. “But I doubt if he will come any more. I hear in the village that his grandfather has gone away, quite away, to a milder part of the country. I can’t understand it, it seems so sudden.”

But Winfried did come, that very afternoon. His new home was not so very far away, he told Miss Hortensia with a smile. “Gran’s home, that is to say,” he went on. “But I myself am going to have a different kind of home now. I’m going to sea; I’ve always wished it, and gran has wished it for me.”

“But won’t he miss you terribly?” asked the lady. “I’ll often be with him, and he’s well cared for where he is,” said the boy.

And then Mavis took him up to see Bertrand, with whom she left him alone for some time.

There was a brighter look in the boy’s face when she went back to him.

“Winfried has promised to come again before he goes quite away,” he said. “Did you know, Mavis, that he is going ever so far away? He is going to be a sailor, a real sailor, not a fisherman. He says he has always wanted it, but he couldn’t leave his grandfather alone here where the village people were not – ” Bertrand stopped suddenly, as it struck him that it was not the ignorant village people only who had been unkind to good old Adam. Mavis understood but said nothing. And after a bit Bertrand went out again.

“Mavis,” he said, “I’ve seen her again. Either I saw her or I dreamt of her. I don’t much mind which it was, for it’s all come true. She said I must try to bear it, like what you said, Mavis; and it has got better. But she said it would come back again, and that I’d get to want it to come back – at least, unless I wanted to forget her, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t think I could, even if I tried. And she kissed me – my eyes, Mavis; so you see I couldn’t forget her now.”

“You never could, I’m sure,” said Mavis; “that’s what she is; it’s her name.”

Bertrand threw himself back with a sigh.

“I can’t feel like you,” he said. “I’ve never thought about being good, and sometimes I think I won’t try. Oh Mavis!”

“Was it the pain again?” said the little girl sympathisingly, though in her heart she felt inclined to smile a very little.

“Yes,” said Bertrand dolefully, “I’m afraid it will take an awfully long time before I begin to get the least bit good,” and he sighed again still more deeply.

Just then Ruby put her head in at the door. She and Bertrand were not yet quite at ease with each other, but she came up to his bedside very gently and said she hoped he was better, to which he replied meekly enough, though rather stiffly.

“Mavis,” said Ruby eagerly, pleased to find something to talk about, “have you heard about Winfried? about his going to be a real sailor?”

“Yes,” said Mavis. “Bertrand was talking about it.”

Bertrand sat up and his eyes sparkled.

“I didn’t mean to tell you,” he said, “but I think I must. Do you know, I believe I shall be a sailor too? Papa has always wanted it since I was quite little, and I shall soon be old enough to begin. But I thought I wouldn’t like it till I came here and saw the sea; and now Winfried’s talking has made it come into my mind, just the way papa said it did into his when he was a boy.”

Ruby glanced at him admiringly.

“How brave you are, Bertrand!” she said, which was a very foolish speech.

“No,” he said with a touch of his old roughness, “I’m not. It isn’t that at all. Mavis, would you be glad for me to be a sailor?”

“If you found it the best thing for you I’d be glad,” said Mavis. “Sailors must see wonderful and beautiful things,” she went on thoughtfully.