THE ENCHANTED CASTLE (Illustrated Edition). Edith Nesbit
bien?" she said rather impatiently.
"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Gerald, in whose mouth, it seemed, butter would not have melted.
"But no," she said, somewhat softened. "What is it that you desire?"
"I thought I ought to come and say how do you do," said Gerald, "because of you being the lady of the house."
He held out the newly-washed hand, still damp and red. She took it.
"You are a very polite little boy," she said.
"Not at all," said Gerald, more polite than ever. "I am so sorry for you. It must be dreadful to have us to look after in the holidays."
"But not at all," said Mademoiselle in her turn. "I am sure you will be very good childrens."
Gerald's look assured her that he and the others would be as near angels as children could be without ceasing to be human.
"We'll try," he said earnestly.
"Can one do anything for you?" asked the French governess kindly.
"Oh, no, thank you," said Gerald. "We don't want to give you any trouble at all. And I was thinking it would be less trouble for you if we were to go out into the woods all day to-morrow and take our dinner with us—something cold, you know—so as not to be a trouble to the cook."
"You are very considerate," said Mademoiselle coldly. Then Gerald's eyes smiled; they had a trick of doing this when his lips were quite serious. Mademoiselle caught the twinkle, and she laughed and Gerald laughed too.
"Little deceiver!" she said. "Why not say at once you want to be free of surveillance, how you say—overwatching—without pretending it is me you wish to please?"
"You have to be careful with grown-ups," said Gerald, "but it isn't all pretence either. We don't want to trouble you—and we don't want you to——"
"To trouble you. Eh bien! Your parents, they permit these days at woods?"
"Oh, yes," said Gerald truthfully.
"Then I will not be more a dragon than the parents. I will forewarn the cook. Are you content?"
"Rather!" said Gerald. "Mademoiselle, you are a dear."
"A deer?" she repeated—"a stag?"
"No, a—a chérie," said Gerald—"a regular A1 chérie. And you shan't repent it. Is there anything we can do for you—wind your wool, or find your spectacles, or——?"
"He thinks me a grandmother!" said Mademoiselle, laughing more than ever. "Go then, and be not more naughty than you must."
* * *
"Well, what luck?" the others asked.
"It's all right," said Gerald indifferently. "I told you it would be. The ingenuous youth won the regard of the foreign governess, who in her youth had been the beauty of her humble village."
"I don't believe she ever was. She's too stern," said Kathleen.
"Ah!" said Gerald, "that's only because you don't know how to manage her. She wasn't stern with me."
"I say, what a humbug you are though, aren't you?" said Jimmy.
"No, I'm a dip—what's-its-name? Something like an ambassador. Dipsoplomatist—that's what I am. Anyhow, we've got our day, and if we don't find a cave in it my name's not Jack Robinson."
Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had ever seen her, presided at supper, which was bread and treacle spread several hours before, and now harder and drier than any other food you can think of. Gerald was very polite in handing her butter and cheese, and pressing her to taste the bread and treacle.
"Bah! it is like sand in the mouth—of a dryness! Is it possible this pleases you?"
"No," said Gerald, "it is not possible, but it is not polite for boys to make remarks about their food!"
She laughed, but there was no more dried bread and treacle for supper after that.
"How do you do it?" Kathleen whispered admiringly as they said good-night.
"Oh, it's quite easy when you've once got a grown-up to see what you're after. You'll see, I shall drive her with a rein of darning cotton after this."
Next morning Gerald got up early and gathered a little bunch of pink carnations from a plant which he found hidden among the marigolds. He tied it up with black cotton and laid it on Mademoiselle's plate. She smiled and looked quite handsome as she stuck the flowers in her belt.
"Do you think it's quite decent," Jimmy asked later—"sort of bribing people to let you do as you like with flowers and things and passing them the salt?"
"It's not that," said Kathleen suddenly. "I know what Gerald means, only I never think of the things in time myself. You see, if you want grown-ups to be nice to you the least you can do is to be nice to them and think of little things to please them. I never think of any myself. Jerry does; that's why all the old ladies like him. It's not bribery. It's a sort of honesty—like paying for things."
"Well, anyway," said Jimmy, putting away the moral question, "we've got a ripping day for the woods."
They had.
The wide High Street, even at the busy morning hour almost as quiet as a dream-street, lay bathed in sunshine; the leaves shone fresh from last night's rain, but the road was dry, and in the sunshine the very dust of it sparkled like diamonds. The beautiful old houses, standing stout and strong, looked as though they were basking in the sunshine and enjoying it.
"But are there any woods?" asked Kathleen as they passed the market-place.
"It doesn't much matter about woods," said Gerald dreamily, "we're sure to find something. One of the chaps told me his father said when he was a boy there used to be a little cave under the bank in a lane near the Salisbury Road; but he said there was an enchanted castle there too, so perhaps the cave isn't true either."
"If we were to get horns," said Kathleen, "and to blow them very hard all the way, we might find a magic castle."
"If you've got the money to throw away on horns ..." said Jimmy contemptuously.
"Well, I have, as it happens, so there!" said Kathleen. And the horns were bought in a tiny shop with a bulging window full of a tangle of toys and sweets and cucumbers and sour apples.
And the quiet square at the end of the town where the church is, and the houses of the most respectable people, echoed to the sound of horns blown long and loud. But none of the houses turned into enchanted castles.
So they went along the Salisbury Road, which was very hot and dusty, so they agreed to drink one of the bottles of gingerbeer.
"We might as well carry the gingerbeer inside us as inside the bottle," said Jimmy, "and we can hide the bottle and call for it as we come back."
Presently they came to a place where the road, as Gerald said, went two ways at once.
"That looks like adventures," said Kathleen; and they took the right-hand road, and the next time they took a turning it was a left-hand one, so as to be quite fair, Jimmy said, and then a right-hand one and then a left, and so on, till they were completely lost.
"Completely," said Kathleen; "how jolly!"
And now trees arched overhead, and the banks of the road were high and bushy. The adventurers had long since ceased to blow their horns. It was too tiring to go on doing that, when there was no one to be annoyed by it.
"Oh, kriky!" observed Jimmy suddenly, "let's sit down a bit and have some of our dinner. We might call it lunch, you know," he added persuasively.
So they sat down in the hedge and ate the ripe red gooseberries