E. Nesbit

“ But Charles and Caroline still felt that it was less likely that the Murdstone man should be so hateful than that Rupert should be drawing long-bows to excuse his running away. If he had been timid and miserable they would have believed him more. As it was, he was easy when he wasn’t defiant.
You know that feeling—when you are not quite sure of some one you want to be kind to—when you can’t be quite certain that if you believe what they say you won’t be being unjust to somebody else. It is a hateful feeling. ”

“ How was she to know that generous double helpings of beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, summer cabbage, rhubarb pie and custard were hidden behind the books on the dining-room shelf, for the later refreshment of a runaway boy at present lurking in the straw-loft?
‘We must put the things in tumblers,’ Caroline said, ‘because plates would be missed; but the tumblers live in the sideboard, and there are dozens.’
So a row of tumblers, containing such greasy things as never before had profaned their limpid depths, stood in a row like beakers on the bench of a secret laboratory. ”

“ Wilmington drew Caroline aside and said:
‘If you’d like to ask the gentleman to lunch, Miss Caroline, please yourself. There’s fowls, as it happens, and a Paradise pudding, and peas. Perhaps your uncle would wish it.’
So the gentleman stayed to luncheon, and very good company they found him. He told the most amusing stories, all new to the hearers. He carved the fowls in a masterly way and had two goes of pudding. And all the time he looked with exactly the right admiration and wonder at the portrait of Dame Eleanour in her ruff, with her strange magic philtres and her two wonderful books. ”

“ Please, Murdstone man, let your crimes and your animosity and your aversion be burnt away, and may you lie on beds of roses really as soon as you are changed and amiable. Then when you are truly benevolent, Rupert and us will esteem you, and the hazel is for reconciliation. Now let’s go away and leave the incense to do its healing work, and to-morrow we’ll come and put a fresh rose-bed and burn new incense.’ Thus Caroline. ”

“ You must remember that day, Charles—the day you upset the ink over my Hereward the Wake.’
‘Here, I say, chuck it,’ said Charles, rather red. ‘I never——’
‘Oh, Pax, for goodness’ sake,’ said Charlotte; ‘if we begin ragging just when we ought to stand by each other, we’re like deserters. United we stand, divided we fall a victim to the Wilmington. Hark! that’s the Uncle’s door.’
They flung themselves into the hall; and the astonished doctor, just saying a few last words of politeness to Uncle Charles, was met by a charge of children all firmly asking, ‘How is Rupert? Is he worse? Is he better? ”

“ You’ll wake the Wilmington and the Uncle and the whole lot if you pound.’
‘I thought,’ said Caroline, hesitating with the fern-fronds in her hand, and her little short pig-tail sticking out like a saucepan handle, as Charles put it later, ‘I thought—it sounds rather nasty, but it isn’t really, you know, if you remember it’s all you—I thought we might chew them. Each do our own, you know, and put them on our eyes like a poultice. ”

“ It was kind of you,’ said Lord Andore, and before he could say any more Charlotte hastened to say:
‘You see, it’s not just an ordinary nosegay, please, and don’t thank us, please, because it wasn’t to please you but to serve our own ends, though, of course, if we’d known how nice you are, and if we’d thought you’d care about one, we would have, in a minute.’
‘I see,’ said Lord Andore, quite as if he really had seen.
‘I’m sure you don’t,’ said Caroline; ‘don’t be polite, please. Say if you don’t understand. What we want is justice. ”

“ They had also telegraphed to the Murdstone master telling him that Rupert would not return to him. So that now there seemed to be no bar to complete enjoyment, except that one little fact that Rupert wouldn’t believe in spells.
‘But the fern-seed acted,’ said Caroline, ‘and the secret rose acted, and the Rosicurian rose leaves acted.’
‘I don’t see how you can say the fern-seed acted. I wasn’t invisible, because you all saw me through the window.’
‘Oh, but,’ said Charlotte eagerly, ‘don’t you see? You wanted us to see you. You can’t expect a spell to act if you don’t want it to act. ”

“ No one knew what Mr. Murdstone’s power might be. Could he seize on Rupert and take him away? Could he call the police? Anything seemed possible in that terrible instant when they were confronted, suddenly and beyond hope of retreat, with the hated master.
And nothing happened at all. The Murdstone man passed by. He gave a cold, sour, unrecognising glance at the three C.’s, but he never looked at Rupert. He looked over his head as though Rupert had not been there, and passed on.
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He looked over his head as though Rupert had not been there. ”

“ The sun had shone now for days and days, and it had seemed as though it must always go on shining.
‘Rupert won’t be able to hide in the wood, will he?’ said Charlotte after a dismal silence.
‘Oh, Charlotte,’ said Caroline in deep reproach, holding up her little silver watch, ‘it’s only a quarter to five. I’m going to sleep again. You know how thin and rotten you feel in the afternoon if you get up too early. Come on. ”

“ Checkles might turn out to be a gentleman, the everyday kind that we know. Lords’ servants seem more common than other people’s, and I expect the Lord’s something like them. They say, Like master like man.’
As if in answer to Caroline’s wish, a door in the wall opened, showing a glimpse of more garden beyond, and a jolly-faced youth came towards them. He was a very big young man, and his clothes, which were of dust-coloured Harris tweed, were very loose. He looked like a sixth-form boy, and Charles at once felt that here was a man and a brother. ”

“ Penfold’s, ‘about doing something real with our magic?’
‘Like making her come alive,’ said Charlotte, looking up at the picture of Dame Eleanour.
‘No, like making wax images of people and sticking pins in them. I should like to do that. I feel as if the Language Of was bust up, somehow.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ said Caroline, pained.
‘Well, not for always, perhaps,’ said Charles kindly; ‘but we did give the Uncle such a tremendous blow-out for his presentation, and we did the leopard, and we sowed the F. of H.D., and anything else seems rather piffling after that. ”

“ The children looked at the lady in the white ruff and black velvet dress, and they liked her face.
‘What a shame!’ they said.
‘Yes,’ said the Uncle. ‘You see she’s resting her hand on two books. There’s a tradition that those books contain her magic secret. I used to look for the books when I was young, but I never found them—I never found them.’ He sighed again.
‘We’ll look, uncle,’ said Charlotte eagerly. ‘We may look, mayn’t we? Young heads are better than old shoulders, aren’t they? ”

“ The lady glided to a spot from which she could look straight into the mirror and into the children’s eyes.
‘I am here,’ she said, in what Charlotte said afterwards was a starry voice. ‘Do not move or speak. I have come to you because you have believed in the old and beautiful things. You sought for my books and found them; also you have tried to use the magic spells to help the poor and needy, and to reconcile them who are at strife. Therefore you see what you desired to see, and when the flowering time is here, you shall have your heart’s desire. Do not speak or move lest you break the spell. ”

“ The ostler from the Peal is over the other side, case he gets out that way. Unless he’s had to get back to his work already.’
‘Let’s go and have another look at those birds’-nests while we’re waiting,’ said Charlotte, with great presence of mind. And so it was through the little diamond panes of the lodge that they saw again the Murdstone gentleman, in evening dress and an overcoat, with his tie in a crumpled state under one ear, and his face, as Charlotte said, exactly like the face of a baffled executioner. ”

“ And there weren’t any birthday-cards for her, either.
All the letters were for Miss Sandal. And just as the leopard-skin had been spread on the floor she came to the door of the children’s room with one of the letters in her hand.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ she said.
‘Do come in and sit down,’ said Caroline. That was another nice thing about Aunt Emmeline. She always treated the children’s room as though it really was the children’s room, and expected to be treated as a visitor when she came into it. She never sat down without being asked. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Or must I make you?’
‘We hear,’ said Caroline, speaking as calmly as one can speak when one is almost choking with mingled rage, disappointment, fear, and uncertainty.
‘And I defy you to lay a finger on your master’s visitors,’ said Charlotte. ‘How do you know who we are? We haven’t given you our names.’
The footman must have felt a sudden doubt. He hesitated a moment, and then, muttering something about seeing Mr. Checkles, he retired, leaving the children in possession of the field. And there they sat, in a row, on Lord Andore’s steps, with the bouquet laid carefully on the step above them. ”

“ THE PORTRAIT There were now two things for the three C.’s to look forward to: the return of Rupert and Lord Andore’s coming-of-age party. The magic of the waxen man had ended so seriously that no one liked to suggest the trying of any new spells, though Charlotte still cherished the hope that it might some day seem possible to try a spell for bringing the picture to life. There were no directions for such a spell in any of the books. ”

“ I cannot tell you what the row was about, for I know no more than you do, or than Charlotte did. And you must have noticed that grown-up people’s quarrels are very large and most mysterious. When you quarrel with your brothers or sisters it is always about some simple thing—as, for instance, who left your paint-brushes in the water, or who forgot your Water Babies out in the hayfield, or whether it was you who upset the gum over your brother’s map, or walked on the doll’s house sofa that day when you all upset it scrapping, and the furniture was put back in a hurry. ”

“ Caroline sat rocking herself to and fro, with her fingers in her ears to shut out Charles’s comments and advice, and tried in vain to think of some way of using a spell to help the Mineral woman.
‘It’s no use, you know,’ Charles said, ‘looking up the spells in the books until we know how we’re going to use it.’ And Caroline had to agree that this was so. So she rocked herself and racked her brains and felt herself [245] growing slowly more and more stupid, as you do when you are trying very hard to think of something that has made up its mind that it is not going to be thought about. ”

“ The lips of the face outside moved, as though it were speaking.
‘No,’ cried Charlotte. ‘I don’t want it to be true.’
A hand was raised—a hand outside the window. Would it knock at the window? The fern-seed only made you see the unseen, not hear the unheard. If the hand knocked at the window—and plainly it was going to knock,—if the hand knocked, would they hear it?
The hand knocked.
[65]
A hand was raised. ”

“ We can make the incense out of the proper flowers,’ Caroline said.
‘Rose leaves are dull,’ Charles said, ‘and perhaps the Murdstone man doesn’t like incense.’
‘The real one mayn’t. This one’s got to like what we want it to like,’ said Charlotte. ”

“ A right-down good talking to is never a pleasant thing to record. And I am not sure whether the three C.’s deserved this one or not. Was it chance or magic that made them do exactly the right thing for Rupert? Of course they explained fully to the Uncle that as it was a threefold spell it was bound to act exactly as it had acted. He shook his head, did not smile, and went on talking about responsibility and carefulness and so on. He really did smile when Charlotte, very near to tears, explained that they had only been acting like the Rosicurians in olden days. ”