The Children of the Castle

“Yes, of course I did. I want you to say something about that queer boy. I suppose you think him very nice, or you wouldn’t let Mavis and me go to his cottage. You’re generally so frightened about us.”

“I do think he is a very nice boy,” said Miss Hortensia. “I am sure he is quite trustworthy.”

“I believe he’s a bit of a fairy, and I’m sure his old grandfather’s a wizard,” murmured Ruby. “And I quite expect, as I said to Joan, that we shall be turned into sea-gulls or frogs if we go there.”

“I shouldn’t mind being a sea-gull,” said Mavis. “Not for a little while at least. Would you, cousin Hortensia?”

But Miss Hortensia had not been listening to their chatter.

“My dears,” she said suddenly, “I will tell you one reason why I should be glad for you sometimes to have Winfried as a companion if he is as good and manly as he seems. I have had a letter from your father, telling me of a new guest we are to expect. It is a cousin of yours – a little nephew of your father’s – your aunt Margaret’s son. He is an only child, and, your father fears, a good deal spoilt. He is coming here because his father is away at sea and his mother is ill and must be kept quiet, and Bertrand, it seems, is very noisy.”

“Bertrand,” repeated Ruby, “oh, I remember about him. I remember father telling us about him – he is a horrid boy, I know.”

“Your father did not call him a horrid boy, I’m sure,” said Miss Hortensia.

“No,” said Mavis, “he only said he was spoilt. And he said he was a pretty little boy, and nice in some ways.”

“Well, we must do our best to make him nicer,” said Miss Hortensia; “though I confess I feel a little uneasy – you have never been accustomed to rough bearish ways. And if Winfried can be with you sometimes he might help you with Bertrand.”

“When is he coming?” asked Ruby.

“Very soon, but I do not know the exact day. Now run off, my dears; there is time for you to have half an hour’s play in the garden before dinner.”

It was curious that of the two little girls Mavis seemed the more to dislike the idea of the expected guest.

“Ruby,” she said rather dolefully, “I do wish Bertrand weren’t coming. He’ll spoil everything, and we shan’t know what to do with him.”

“There’s not much to spoil that I see,” said Ruby.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, our nice quiet ways. Cousin Hortensia telling us stories and all that,” said Mavis. “And I’m sure Winfried won’t want to have to look after a rough, rude little boy. It’s quite different with us– Winfried likes us because we’re – ladies, you know, and gentle and nice to him.”

Ruby laughed.

“How you go on about Winfried – Winfried!” she said mockingly. “I think it’s a very good thing Bertrand is coming to put him down a bit – a common fisher-boy! I wonder at cousin Hortensia. I’m sure if father knew he wouldn’t be at all pleased, but I’m not going to tell him. I mean to have some fun with Master Winfried before I have done with him, and I expect Bertrand will help me.”

“Ruby!” exclaimed Mavis, looking startled, “you don’t mean that you are going to play him any tricks?” Ruby only laughed again, more mockingly than before.

“I’d like to lock him up in the haunted room in the west turret one night,” she said. “I do hope he’d get a good fright.”

Mavis seemed to have recovered from her alarm.

“I don’t believe he’d mind the least scrap,” she said; “that shows you don’t understand him one bit. He’d like it; besides, you say yourself you think he’s a fairy boy, so why should he be afraid of fairies?”

“Nobody’s afraid of fairies, you silly girl. But if cousin Hortensia saw anything in the turret – and I don’t believe she did, – it wasn’t a fairy, it was quite different – more a sort of witch, I suppose.”

“You’re always talking of witches and wizards,” retorted Mavis, who seemed to be picking up a spirit which rather astonished Ruby. “I like thinking of nicer things – angels and – oh Ruby!” she suddenly broke off, “do look here – oh, how lovely!” and stooping down she pointed to a thick cluster of turquoise blossoms, almost hidden in a corner beneath the shrubs. “Aren’t they darlings? Really it’s enough to make one believe in fairies or kind spirits of some kind – to find forget-me-nots like these in November!” and she looked up at her sister with delight dancing in her eyes.

Even Ruby looked surprised.

“They are beauties,” she said; “and I’m almost sure they weren’t there yesterday. Didn’t we come round by here, Mavis?”

“Not till it was nearly dark. We ran in this way, you know, after we came out of Winfried’s path,” said Mavis.

“Oh, yes, I remember,” Ruby replied, and a half dreamy look stole over her face.

They were standing on the lower terrace. This side of the castle, as I have said, was much more sheltered and protected than the other, but still already in November it was bleak and bare. The evergreen shrubs had begun to look self-satisfied and important, as I think they always do in late autumn, when their fragile companions of the summer are shivering together in forlorn misery, or sinking slowly and sadly, leaf by leaf, brown and shrivelled, into the parent bosom of Mother Earth, always ready to receive and hide her poor children in their day of desolation. Nay, more, far more than that does she for them in her dark but loving embrace; not a leaf, not a tiniest twig is lost or mislaid – all, everything, is cared for and restored again, at the sun’s warm kiss to creep forth in ever fresh and renewed life and beauty. For all we see, children dear, is but a type, faint and shadowy, of the real things that are.

Then a strange sort of irritation came over Ruby. The soft wondering expression so new to her disappeared, and she turned sharply to Mavis.

“Rubbish!” she said. “Of course they were there yesterday. But they shan’t be there to-morrow – here goes;” and she bent down to pick the little flowers.

Mavis stopped her with a cry.

“Don’t gather them, Ruby,” she said. “Poor little things, they might stay in their corner in peace, and we could come and look at them every day. They’d wither so soon in the house.”

Ruby laughed. She was much more careless than actually unkind, at least when kindness cost her little.

“What a baby you are,” she said contemptuously. “You make as much fuss as when I wanted to take the thrush’s eggs last spring. Wouldn’t you like to give your dear Winfried a posy of them?”

“No,” Mavis answered, “he wouldn’t like us to gather them; there are so few and they do look so sweet.” The next day was clear and bright, but cold; evidently winter was coming now. But old Bertha had started the fires at last, as the date on which it was the rule at the castle for them to begin on was now past. So inside the house it was comfortable enough – in the inhabited part of it at least; though in the great unused rooms round the tiled hall, where all the furniture was shrouded in ghostly-looking linen covers, and up the echoing staircase, and up still higher in the turret-rooms where the wind whistled in at one window and out again at the opposite one, where Jack Frost’s pictures lasted the same on the panes for days at a time – dear, dear, it was cold, even Bertha herself allowed, when she had to make her weekly tour of inspection to see that all was right.

“I will ask Miss Hortensia not to let the little ladies play in the west turret this winter,” thought the old woman. “I’m sure it was there Miss Mavis caught her cold last Christmas. A good fire indeed! It’d take a week of bonfires to warm that room.”

But old Bertha was mistaken, as you will see. There was no thought of playing in the west turret this half-holiday, however, for it was the right sort of day for a bright winter walk. And while the afternoon was still young, Ruby and Mavis, warmly wrapt up in their fur-lined mantles and hoods, were racing downstairs to Winfried, who had come punctually and was waiting for them, so Ulrica had come in to say, at the door in the archway on the sea side of the castle.

“What are you here for?” was Ruby’s first greeting. “Why didn’t you come to the garden side? Aren’t you going to take us by the path between the rocks, down below the field?”

“No, Miss Ruby,” said the boy, his cap in his hand. “We’re going another way to-day. I think you will like it just as well. We must go down to the cove first.”

“I don’t mind,” said Ruby, dancing on in front of the two others; “but I’m afraid Mavis has been dreaming of that nice cosy little path. She wouldn’t let me even look for the entrance to it yesterday; she said we should wait for you to show it us.”

“I think Miss Mavis will like to-day’s way just as well,” Winfried repeated.

They were some little distance down the cliff by this time. It was very clear and bright; for once, the waves, even though the tide was close up to the shore, seemed in a peaceful mood, and only as a distant murmur came the boom of their dashing against the rocks, round to the right beyond the little sheltered nook. Winfried stood still for a moment and gazed down seawards, shading his eyes with his hand, for winter though it was, the afternoon sunshine was almost dazzling.

“What is it? What are you looking for?” asked Ruby, coming back a step or two and standing beside him. “Do come on; it’s too cold to hang about.”

For once Winfried was less polite than usual. He did not answer Ruby, but turned to Mavis, who was a little behind.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

And Mavis, following his eyes, answered, “Yes – there’s – oh, there’s a little boat drifting in – a tiny boat – is it drifting? No; there’s some one in it, – some one with a blue cloak; no, it must have been the waves just touching; the waves are so blue to-day.”

The boy gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“I thought so,” he said. Then he sprang forward eagerly: “Come on,” he cried, “we mustn’t be late.”