The Children of the Castle

She seemed to have caught something of Winfried’s happy confidence, Ruby looked at her in surprise, but it was mixed with anger. What she was going to have said I don’t know, for just then their guide called out again.

“Here we are,” he said, “if you’ll stoop your heads a little;” and looking up, the children saw before them a narrow, low archway, at the entrance to which the steps stopped. Ruby hung back a little, but Mavis ran forward.

“It’s all right, Ruby,” she called back; “and oh, what a pretty garden! Do come quick.”

Ruby followed. It was only necessary to stoop for a moment or two, then she found herself beside her sister, and she could not help joining in her exclamation of pleasure. Somehow or other they had arrived at the back of the cottage, which at this side, they now saw, stood in a pretty and sheltered garden. Perhaps garden is hardly the word to use, for though there were flowers of more than one kind and plants, there were other things one does not often see in a garden. There were ever so many little bowers and grottoes, cleverly put together of different kinds of queerly-shaped and queerly-coloured fragments of rock; there were two or three basins hollowed out of the same stones, in which clear water sparkled, and brilliant seaweed of every shade, from delicate pink to blood-red crimson, glowed; there were shells of strange and wonderful form, and tints as many as those of the rainbow, arranged so that at a little distance they looked like groups of flowers – in short, Ruby was not far wrong when returning to her old idea, she whispered to Mavis, “It’s a mermaid’s garden.”

“And I only hope,” she went on in the same tone, “we shan’t find that somehow or other he has got us down under the sea without our knowing.”

Mavis broke into a merry laugh.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Look up; there’s the good old sun, smiling as usual, with no water between him and us. And see here, Ruby,” and she ran forward, “there are earth flower’s too, as well as sea ones.”

She was right; on a border sheltered by the wall of the cottage were great masses of fern, still green and luxuriant, and here and there among them clumps, brilliantly blue, of the tender, loving forget-me-not.

“It’s just like that bunch of it we found on our terrace,” said Mavis, joyfully. “I really could believe you had brought a root of it and planted it there for us, Winfried. I never saw such beauties.”

“Gran loves it,” was all the boy said. Then he led them round to the front of the house, and opened the door for them to enter.

Inside the cottage all was very plain, but very, very neat and clean. In an old-fashioned large wooden arm-chair by the fire sat old Adam. He looked very old, older than the children had expected, and a kind of awe came over them. His hair was white, but scarcely whiter than his face, his hands were unusually delicate and refined, though gnarled and knotted as are those of aged people. He looked up with a smile, for his sight was still good, as his visitors came in.

“You will forgive my not standing up, my dear little ladies,” he said. “You see I am very old. It is good of you to come to see me. I have often seen you, oftener than you knew, since you were very tiny things.”

“Have you lived here a long time, then?” asked Ruby.

“It would seem a long time to you, though not to me,” he said with a smile. “And long ago before that, I knew your grandmother and the lady who takes care of you. When I was a young man, and a middle-aged man too for that matter, my home was where theirs was. So I remember your mother when she was as little as you.”

“Oh, how nice,” exclaimed Mavis. “Was our mother like us, Mr Adam?”

“You may be very like her if you wish,” he said kindly.

But their attention was already distracted. On a small table, close beside the old man’s chair, in what at first sight looked like a delicate china cup, but was in reality a large and lovely shell, was a posy, freshly gathered apparently, of the same beautiful forget-me-nots.

“Oh, these are out of your garden,” said Ruby; “how do you manage to make them grow so well and so late in the year?”

“The part of the garden where they grow is not mine,” said Adam quietly; “it belongs to a friend who tends it herself. I could not succeed as she does.”

“Is – is she a mermaid?” asked Ruby, her eyes growing very round.

“No, my dear. Mermaids’ flowers, if they have any, would scarcely be like these, I think.”

“You speak as if there are no such things as mermaids; do you not think there are?” said Mavis.

Old Adam shook his head.

“I have never seen one; but I would never take upon myself to say there is nothing but what I’ve seen.”

“Tell us about the friend who plants these in your garden,” said Ruby, touching the forget-me-nots. “Could it have been she who put some on the terrace at the castle for us?”

“Maybe,” said the old man.

“Is she a lady, or – or a fairy, or what is she, if she’s not a mermaid?” asked Ruby.

Before the old man could answer, Winfried’s voice made her start in surprise.

“She’s a princess,” he said; and he smiled all over his face when he saw Ruby’s astonishment.

“Oh!” was all she said, but her manner became more respectful to both Adam and his grandson from that moment.

Then the old man made a sign to Winfried, and the boy went out of the room, coming back in a moment with a little plain wooden tray, on which were two glasses of rich tempting-looking milk and a basket of cakes, brown and crisp, of a kind the children had never seen before. He set the tray down on a table which stood in the window, and Adam begged the children to help themselves.

They did so gladly. Never had cake and milk tasted so delicious. Ruby felt rather small when she thought of her condescending offer of soup from the Castle kitchen.

“But then,” she reflected, “of course I didn’t know – how could I? – that a princess comes to see them. I daresay she sends them these delicious cakes. I wish Bertha could make some like them.”

“I never saw cakes like these before,” said little Mavis. “They are so good.”

Old Adam seemed pleased.

“My boy isn’t a bad cook,” he said proudly, with a glance at Winfried.

“Did you make them?” said Ruby, staring at Winfried. “I thought perhaps as a princess comes to see you that she sent you them – they are so very good.”

Winfried could not help laughing: something in Ruby’s speech seemed to him so comical.

Then at the little girls’ request he took them out again to examine some of the wonders of the grotto-garden. He fished out some lovely sprays of seaweed for them, and gave them also several of the prettiest shells; best of all, he gathered a sweet nosegay of the forget-me-nots, which Mavis said she would take home to cousin Hortensia. And then, as the sun by this time had travelled a long way downwards, they ran in to bid old Adam good-bye, and to thank him, before setting off homewards.

“How are we going?” asked Ruby. “You’ve sent away the boat.”

“I could call it back again, but I think we had better go a shorter way,” said Winfried. “You’re not frightened of a little bit of the dark, are you? There’s a nice short cut to the rock path through one of the arbours.”

The little girls followed him, feeling very curious, and, perhaps, just a tiny scrap afraid. He led them into one of the grottoes, which, to their surprise, they found a good deal larger than they had expected, for it lengthened out at the back into a sort of cave. This cave was too dark for them to see its size, but Winfried plunged fearlessly into its recesses.

“I must see that the way is clear,” he said, as he left them; “wait where you are for a few minutes.”

Ruby was not very pleased at being treated so unceremoniously.

“I don’t call waiting here a quick way of getting home,” she said, “and I hate the dark. I’ve a good mind to run out and go back the regular way, Mavis.”

“Oh no,” Mavis was beginning, but just then both children started. It seemed to have grown suddenly dark outside, as if a cloud or mist had come over the sky; and as they gazed out, feeling rather bewildered, a clear voice sounded through the grotto.

“Ruby; Mavis,” it said.

Ruby turned to Mavis.

“It’s a trick of that boy’s,” she said. “He wants to startle us. He has no business to call us by out names like that. I’ll not stay;” and she ran out. Mavis was following her to bring her back when a ray of light – scarcely a ray, rather, I should say, a soft glow – seemed to fill the entrance to the grotto. And gradually, as her eyes got used to it, she distinguished a lovely figure – a lady, with soft silvery-blue garments floating round her and a sweet grave face, was standing there looking at her. A strange thrill passed through the child, yet even as she felt it she knew it was not a thrill of fear. And something seemed to draw her eyes upwards – a touch she could not have resisted if she had wished – till they found their resting-place in meeting those that were bent upon her – those beautiful, wonderful blue eyes, eyes like none she had ever seen, or – nay, she had heard of such eyes – they were like those of the fairy lady in her old cousin’s dream. And now Mavis knew in part why the strange vision did not seem strange to her; why, rather, she felt as if she had always known it would come, as if all her life she had been expecting this moment.

“Mavis,” said the soft yet clear and thrilling voice, “you see me, my child?”