The Children of the Castle

Mavis looked puzzled.

“I don’t think that’s mermaids,” she said. “There’s another name for those naughty, unkind creatures.”

“Syrens,” came Winfried’s voice from the other end of the boat. And he looked up with a smile at the little girls’ start of surprise. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “my friends are neither mermaids nor syrens; you’re not going to be shipwrecked in this boat, I promise you.” Somehow the boy seemed to have gained a new kind of dignity now that the children were, so to say, his guests. Ruby said, “Thank you,” quite meekly and submissively for her.

Then they were all quite silent for a while, only the plash of Winfried’s oars broke the stillness. And somehow out there on the water it seemed to have grown warmer, at least the children felt conscious of neither cold nor heat, it was just perfectly pleasant. And the sun shone on mildly. There was a thorough feeling of “afternoon,” with its quiet and mystery and yet faint expectation, such as one seldom has except in summer.

“It is lovely,” said Mavis presently; “only I’m a little afraid I’m getting sleepy.”

“No, you needn’t be afraid,” said Winfried; and just as he said the words, Mavis started, as something flitted against her cheek.

“Ruby, Ruby!” she exclaimed, “did you see it? A butterfly – a blue butterfly – in November! Oh, where has it gone to?” and she gazed all round anxiously.

Chapter Five.

The Fisherman’s Hut

”… There are things which through the gazing eye

Reach the full soul and thrill it into love.”

To my Child.

Ruby burst out laughing.

“You’ve been asleep and dreaming, you silly girl,” she said. “Winfried, do you hear? Mavis says a blue butterfly flew past.”

“It kissed my cheek,” said Mavis.

Winfried smiled: “It’s quite possible,” he said. Ruby was just turning upon him with her laughter, when something made her jump in turn. Something cold and damp touched her hand: she had taken her glove off and was dabbling idly in the water.

“Ugh,” she said, “I do believe that was a toad.” The laugh was against her now.

“A toad, Ruby, out at sea! What are you thinking of?” said Mavis. “You needn’t make fun of my butterfly if you talk of toads.”

“Well, it was something slimy and horrid like a toad,” said Ruby. “Perhaps it was only a fish. But whatever it was, I believe it was a trick of Winfried’s. I’m sure, positive sure, you’re a wizard, Winfried.”

She was half in fun and half in earnest. But the boy took it quite composedly.

“No, I’m not,” he said; “and no more is gran. But – people don’t understand, you see. If they see that one’s a bit different from others they’ve no words for it but wizard and uncanny, and they get frightened when it should be just the other way.”

This was much more of a speech than the fisher-boy was in the habit of making. Both the children listened with interest.

“How is your gran different from others?” asked Ruby.

“You’ll see it in his face; at least, I think you will,” said Winfried. “But now I mustn’t talk, we’re close to the little creek.”

He got the boat in most cleverly, to a very tiny creek, where was a little landing-place, and leading upwards from it a flight of steps cut in the rock.

“How funny, how very funny we never saw this place before,” exclaimed the little girls. “Do you keep the boat here, Winfried?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, “but not to-day. We won’t need it again.”

He folded up the shawls and laid them neatly on the cushions, then he drew in the oars, and in another moment he had helped the children to get on shore, and all three had mounted several of the rock steps when Winfried called to them to stop for a moment.

“Look down,” he said; and as he spoke, the little girls saw something moving there below where they had just landed. It was the little boat; calmly and steadily it was moving out to sea, though it had no sails, and the oars were lying just as Winfried had drawn them in.

“Oh Winfried,” exclaimed Ruby; “the dear little boat, it’s drifting out, it will be lost. Can’t you jump into the water and drag it back?”

“It’s all right,” said the boy. “It’s going home till it’s needed again. I only wanted you to see how quietly it goes off, once its business is done.”

And he turned and began to whistle softly as he went on up the steps.

“Now,” said Ruby, half triumphant and half frightened, in a whisper to Mavis, “now, can you say he’s not a wizard? I think cousin Hortensia was very silly to let us come with him, but it was all you, Mavis, going on about him so. If we’re not turned into toads or lizards before we get home, I – ”

“Butterflies would be nicer,” said Mavis, laughing.

“I’ll ask Winfried and his gran to make me into a blue butterfly, and you can be a yellow one if you like.”

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?”

“Yes,” said the little girl, speaking steadily, though in a whisper, “I see you, and I see your eyes. Who are you? I may ask you, may I not?”

The fairy – if fairy she was – smiled.

“I have many names,” she said; “but if you like you may think of me by the one Winfried loves. He calls me ‘Princess with the Forget-me-not Eyes,’ or ‘Princess Forget-me-not.’”

“Yes,” said Mavis, “I like that; and I will never forget you, princess.”

Again the lovely vision smiled.

“No, my child, you never will, for, to tell you a secret, you cannot, even if you wished. Afterwards, when you know me better, you will see how well my name suits me. But it does not seem to all a sweet name, as I think it always will to you,” and she sighed a little. “There are those who long to forget me; those who wish they had never seen me.”

The sadness in her eyes was reflected in the child’s.

“How can that be?” asked Mavis.

The blue-eyed princess shook her head.

“Nay, my darling, I cannot tell you, and I scarce would if I could,” she said gently. But then a brighter look came over her face again, “Don’t look so sad. They change again some of them, and seek me as earnestly as they would have before fled from me. And some day you may help and guide such seekers, simple as you are, my little Mavis. Now I must go – call Ruby – she would not stay for me; she has not yet seen me. But she heard my voice, that is better than nothing. Good-bye, little Mavis, and if you want me again before I come of myself, seek me in the west turret.”

Mavis’s face lighted up.

“Then it was you – you are cousin Hortensia’s fairy, and it wasn’t a dream after all. And of course you must be a fairy, for that was ever, ever so long ago. She was a little girl then, and now she is quite old, and you look as young as – as – ”

“As who or what?” asked the princess, smiling again.

“As the Sleeping Beauty in the wood,” replied Mavis, after deep consideration.

At this the princess did more than smile; she laughed, – the same clear delicate laugh which the children had heard that day in the distance.

And Mavis laughed too; she could not help it.

“May I tell cousin Hortensia?” she asked. “Oh do say I may.”

“You may,” said Forget-me-not, “if – if you can!”

And while Mavis was wondering what she meant, a breath of soft wind seemed to blow past her, and glancing up, the princess was gone!

Mavis rubbed her eyes. Had she been asleep? It seemed a long time since Winfried told her and Ruby to wait for him in the grotto; and where was Ruby? Why did she not come back? Mavis began to feel uneasy. Surely she had been asleep – for – was she asleep still? Looking round her, she saw that she was no longer in the grotto-cave behind old Adam’s cottage, but standing in the archway at the sea side of the castle – the archway I have told you of into which opened the principal entrance to the grim old building. And as she stood there, silent and perplexed, uncertain whether she was not still dreaming, she heard voices coming near. The first she could distinguish was Ruby’s.

“There you are, Mavis, I declare,” she exclaimed. “Now it’s too bad of you to have run on so fast without telling, and I’ve been fussing about you all the way home, though Winfried said he was sure we should find you here. How did you get back?”

“How did you?” asked Mavis in return. “And why didn’t you come back to me in the grotto? I – I waited ever so long, and then – ” but that was all she could say, though a smile broke over her face when she thought of what she had seen.

“You look as if you had been asleep,” said Ruby impatiently.

“And having pleasant dreams,” added Winfried. “But all’s well that ends well. Won’t you run in now, my little ladies, and let Miss Hortensia see that I’ve brought you safe back. It is cold and dark standing out here, and I must be off home.”

“Good-night then,” said Ruby; “you’re a very queer boy, but you brought me home all right any way, and those cakes were very good.”

“You will come to see us soon again, won’t you, Winfried?” said Mavis, who felt as if she had a great deal to ask which only he could answer, though with Ruby there beside her she could not have explained what she wanted to know.

“To be sure I will, if you want me,” said the boy.

“Don’t be puzzled, Miss Mavis, pleasant dreams don’t do any one harm.”

And as they pushed open the great, nail-studded door which was never locked till after nightfall Winfried ran off.

They stood still for a moment just inside the entrance. They could hear him whistling as he went, smoothly at first, then it seemed to come in jerks, going on for a moment or two and then suddenly stopping, to begin again as suddenly.

“He’s jumping down the cliff. I can hear it by his whistle,” said Ruby. “How dangerous!”

“He’s very sure-footed,” said Mavis with a little sigh. She was feeling tired – and —was it a dream? If so, how had she got home? Had the fairy lady wrapped her round in her cloak of mist and flown with her to the castle? Mavis could not tell, and somehow Ruby did not ask her again.

“How did you come home, Ruby?” Mavis asked as they were going along the passage to their sitting-room.

“Oh,” said Ruby, “Winfried took me down some steps, and then up some others, and before I knew where we were, we were in the rock path not far from home. It was like magic. I can’t make out that boy,” she said mysteriously; “but we’re not turned into frogs or toads yet. Here we are, cousin Hortensia,” she went on, as the good lady suddenly appeared at the end of the passage, “safe home from the wizard’s haunts.”

But Miss Hortensia only smiled.

“I was not uneasy,” she said. “I thought you would be quite safe.”

Chapter Six.

Bertrand

“But the unkind and the unruly,And the sort who eat unduly,Theirs is quite a different story.” Good and Bad Children: Louis Stevenson.

They were just beginning tea, and Ruby’s tongue was going fast as she described to Miss Hortensia all that happened that afternoon, while Mavis sat half-dreamily wondering what the fairy lady had meant by saying she might tell her cousin about her “if she could,” when there came a sudden and unusual sound that made them all start. It was the clanging of the great bell at the principal entrance on the south side – the entrance by which, you remember, all visitors, except those coming by sea, came to the castle.

“Who can that be?” exclaimed Ruby, jumping up and looking very pleased – Ruby loved any excitement. “Can it be father? What fun if he’s come to surprise us! Only I hope he won’t have forgotten our presents. He generally asks us what we want before he comes.”

Mavis had grown a little pale; somehow the things that Ruby was frightened of never alarmed her, and yet she was more easily startled by others that Ruby rather enjoyed.

“I hope it isn’t a message to say that anything is the matter with dear father,” she said anxiously.

Miss Hortensia got up from her seat and went to the door. She did not seem frightened, but still rather uneasy.

“I’m afraid,” she began, “I’m afraid – and yet I should not speak of it that way; it is not kind. But I did so ask them to give us notice of his coming.” She had left the room almost before she had finished speaking. The children looked at each other.

“I say, Mavis,” said Ruby, “it’s Bertrand! Don’t you think we might run out and see?”

“No,” Mavis replied decidedly, “certainly not. Cousin Hortensia would have told us to come if she had wanted us.”

But they went to the open door and stood close beside it, listening intently. Then came the sound of old Joseph’s steps along the stone passage from the part of the house which he and Bertha – Joseph was Bertha’s husband – inhabited, then the drawing back of the bolts and bars, and, most interesting and exciting of all, a noise of horses stamping and shaking their harness as if glad to have got to the end of their journey. Then followed voices; and in a minute or two the children heard Miss Hortensia coming back, speaking as she came.

“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.