An old gardener was sweeping the terrace steps, and gave the children ‘Good morning.’
They gave it back, and stayed to watch him. It seemed polite to say something before turning away. So Caroline said:
‘How beautifully everything grows here.’
‘Ay,’ said the old man, ‘it do. Say perfect and you won’t be far out.’
‘It’s very clever of you,’ said Charlotte. ‘Ill weeds don’t grow in a single place in your garden.’
‘I don’t say as I don’t do something,’ said the old man, ‘but seems as if there was a blessing on the place – everything thrives and grows just-so. It’s the soil or the aspick, p’raps. I dunno. An’ I’ve noticed things.’
‘What things?’ was the natural question.
‘Oh, just things,’ the gardener answered shortly, and swept away to the end of the long steps.
‘I say’ – Caroline went after him to do it – ‘I say, may we pick the flowers?’
‘In moderation,’ said the gardener, and went away.
‘I wonder what he’d call moderation,’ said Charles; and they discussed this question so earnestly that the dinner-bell rang before they had picked any flowers at all.
The gate at the end of the garden was open, and they went out that way. Over the gate was a stone with words and a date. They stopped to spell out the carved letters:
Caroline copied the last two words in the grey-covered pocket-book; and when Mrs. Wilmington came in to carve the mutton, Caroline asked what the words meant.
‘I never inquired,’ said the housekeeper. ‘It must be quite out of date now, whatever it meant once. But you must have been in the garden to see that. How did you get in?’
An awkward question. There was nothing for it but to say:
‘By the secret passage.’ And Charles said it.
‘No one uses that but your uncle,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘and you were requested to keep out of doors till dinner-time.’
She shut her mouth with a snap and went on carving.
‘Sorry,’ said Caroline.
‘Granted,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, but not cordially; and having placed two slices of mutton on each plate went away.
‘It is jolly having meals by ourselves,’ said Charlotte; ‘only I wish she wasn’t cross.’
‘We ought to be extra manner-y, I expect, when we’re by ourselves,’ said Caroline. ‘May I pass you the salt, Charles?’
‘No, you mayn’t,’ said Charles. ‘Thank you, I mean; but there’s one at each corner. That’s one each for us, and one over for – ’
‘For her.’ Charlotte pointed to the picture of the dark-eyed, fair-haired lady.
‘Let’s put a chair for her,’ said Charlotte, ‘and pretend she’s come to dinner. Then we shall have to behave like grown-up people.’
‘I never can remember about behaving,’ said Charles wearily; ‘such a lot of things – and none of them seem to matter. Why shouldn’t you drink with your mouth full? It’s your own mouth.’
‘And eating peas with your knife. I think it would be as good as conjuring, doing it without cutting yourself’ – Charlotte tried to lift the peas from her plate with her knife – ‘let alone the balancing,’ she added, as they rolled off among the mutton.
‘Don’t,’ said Caroline. ‘She’s looking at you. Charles, you’re the only gentleman, worse luck – I wish I was a boy – put a chair for her.’
And a large green-seated chair, whose mahogany back was inlaid with a brass scroll pattern, was wheeled to the empty space on the fourth side of the table.
‘Now we must none of us look at her – in the picture, I mean. And then we can’t be sure that she isn’t sitting in that chair,’ said Caroline.
After dinner Caroline looked up ‘Remorse’s regret’ in The Language of Flowers. It was agreed that Mrs. Wilmington had better have a bouquet.
‘Brambles,’ Caroline said, her finger in the book, ‘they’re Remorse – but they wouldn’t make a very comfortable nosegay. And Regret’s verbena, and I don’t even know what it is.’
‘Put pansies with the brambles,’ said Charlotte; ‘that’ll be thoughts of remorse.’
So the housekeeper, coming down very neat in her afternoon dress of shiny black alpaca, was met by a bunch of pansies.
‘To show we think we’re remorsish about the secret stairs,’ said Charlotte; ‘and look out, because the brambles are the remorse and they prick like Billy-o!’
Mrs. Wilmington smiled, and looked quite nice-looking.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am sure you will remember not to repeat the fault.’
Which wasn’t the nicest way of receiving a remorse bouquet; but, then as Charlotte said, perhaps she couldn’t help not knowing the nice ways. And anyhow, she seemed pleased, and that was the great thing, as Charlotte pointed out.
Then, having done something to please Mrs. Wilmington, they longed to do something to please some one else, and the Uncle was the only person they could think of doing anything to please.
‘Suppose we arranged all the books in the dining-room bookcase, in colours, – all the reds together and all the greens, and the ugly ones all on a shelf by themselves,’ Charlotte suggested. And the others agreed. So that the afternoon flew by like any old bird, as Caroline put it; and when tea came, and the floor and sofa and chairs were covered with books, and one shelf was gay with red books and half a shelf demure in green —
‘Your uncle isn’t coming in to-day,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘and I’m sure it’s just as well. What a mess! Here, let me put them back, and go and wash your hands.’
‘We’ll put them back,’ the children said, but in vain. They had to go to wash their hands, and Mrs. Wilmington continued to put the books back all the time they were having tea. Patiently and carefully she did it, not regarding the colours at all, and her care and her patience seemed to say, more loudly than any words she could have spoken, ‘Yes; there you sit, having your nice tea, and I cannot have my tea, because I have to clear up after you. But I do not complain. No.’
They would have much rather she had complained, of course. But they couldn’t say so.
CHAPTER IV
IN THESSALONIANS
Now you may say it was Chance, or you may say it was Fate; or you may say it was Destiny, or Fortune; in fact, you may say exactly what you choose. But the fact remains unaltered by your remarks.
When Mrs. Wilmington placed a fat brown volume of sermons on the shelf and said, ‘There, that’s the last,’ she, quite without meaning it, said what was not true. For when tea was over the children found that the fat sermon-book had not been the last. The last was Shadoxhurst on Thessalonians, a dull, large book, and Mrs. Wilmington had not put it back in its place because she had not seen it. It was, in fact, lying on the floor, hidden by the table-cloth. If Charles had not happened to want his handkerchief, and gone down to look for it on the floor – its usual situation when it was needed – they would not have seen the book either.
Charles picked up Thessalonians, and the cover ‘came off in his hand,’ as the handles of cups do in the hands of washing-up maids.
What was inside the cover fell on the floor with a thump, and Caroline picked that up.
‘Shadoxhurst on Thessalonians,’ Charles read from the cover.
‘This