We went on, however, a few steps, still at the foot of the wall.

Suddenly Tib gave a little exclamation.

"Look here, Gussie," she said, and with her hands she pulled back some branches of ivy--"look here--there's a door in the wall--a very old door, and not opened for ever so long; for see, the ivy has grown right across it."

Gerald and I pushed forward eagerly. Yes, Tib was right. There was a door in the wall--not a very big one, but very strong, for it did not rattle or shake at all when we pounded on it. It was locked, firmly locked we soon found out, when we had torn away as much of the ivy as we could. The lock was a great big one, clumsy, but very strong, and so rusty that, even without the testimony of the ivy, it would have been clear that no one had pa.s.sed through that doorway for a great number of years.

We all three stood and looked at each other.

"Another mystery," was what Tib and I were thinking, though we did not say it aloud.

But Gerald looked rather "funny;" his round rosy cheeks were rosier than usual, and there was a queer sparkle in his eyes as he said--

"_Wouldn't_ you like to open it? _Wouldn't_ it be nice if one could find the key?" and he jumped about and turned--or tried to turn--head over heels: there wasn't much room in among the bushes, and he kept saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if somebody could find a key to fit it? But little boys are too little and silly to know anything, aren't they? They're not like big young ladies."

And though Tib got hold of him, and we both _shook_ him we were so provoked, that was all he would say. So we settled that he was just in one of his teasing humours; he didn't have them very often, it is true.

So the only use to make of the door in the wall was another pretence.

We settled that it should be the entrance to the dungeon; it didn't do badly for that, as two or three steps, looking very black and slimy, led down to it. And we fixed that, instead of "scaling the wall," the lady should escape by hiding in the wood till the prince who was to be her rescuer pa.s.sed that way. Gerald had to be the prince, in turns with the horrid little hump-back, for I had to be the baron, and also a lady attendant on the heiress, and Tib, of course, was the heiress. We didn't much like having Gerald after the tiresome way he had been going on, but there was no help for it.

And the next two or three days pa.s.sed very happily. There was still a great deal to see and inspect about Rosebuds; the house itself--especially the drawing-room, with its treasures, which Mrs. Munt showed us, and sometimes, when she found that we were careful children, allowed us to examine for ourselves; the stables, where lived the old pony who was still able to draw the still older pony-carriage, or "shay"--as the farm-man called it--as far as the little town, where Mrs.

Munt liked to go once a month, and to bring home her purchases herself instead of trusting them to the railway. Then there were the dairy and poultry-yard, her great pride, though she was rather mortified to hear that we had never known that the b.u.t.ter and fresh eggs we ate in London were sent up from Rosebuds every week.

"Why, we never even heard of Rosebuds till a few days before we came here," I told her.

Her face grew sad at this, and I was sorry I had said it.

"Grandpapa is very _funny_," I went on, thinking, perhaps, we might get round to the subject of the "young ladies" and the scored-out name, which we couldn't help connecting together; "he never tells us anything.

I don't believe he'd have ever told us we'd had a papa and mamma if nurse hadn't been our mamma's nurse, and so could tell us all about her."

"Your grandpapa's had a deal of trouble, my dears," said Mrs. Munt. "And there's some as trouble softens and makes more loving to all about them and some as it hardens, or seems to harden, leastways to shut them up in themselves. And I think it's no harm of me to tell you, now I see what sensible children you are, that it's been that way with your grandpapa. It's not really hardened him, for you know he has not got selfish or unmindful of others. He is very good to you?" and poor Mrs.

Munt made the question anxiously, as if half afraid of what we might answer.

"Nurse says he's very good to us," said Tib, slowly. "He gives us everything we have."

"But it isn't our fault that we are his grandchildren," I said, rather bitterly. "We didn't ask to be it. And he has plenty of money--what could he do with it if he hadn't us?"

"Gussie," said Tib, reproachfully. But old Mrs. Munt only looked distressed, not vexed.

"He does love you, my dears: I feel sure of it," she said. "Only he's got out of the way of showing it--that's what's wrong. If you had your grandmamma now, or----" and then she stopped. "A lady--a woman in the family makes all so different. But try, my lovies, to believe that he does love you. It is true, as Miss Gussie says--for I'd never be one to say to children what their own sense feels is nonsense--that it would be very wrong of your grandpapa _not_ to give you all you should have.

You're his own flesh and blood, for sure. Still, he might have done it in a different way--he might have sent you to some sort of school, or to some lady who'd have taken care of you all, and him have no trouble about it. No one would have thought it unnatural if he'd done that way, instead of taking up house again in London, when he'd got quite out of the way of it, and settling all so that he should have you always near him."

We both looked surprised.

"Did he do that?" we said.

"Yes," said Mrs. Munt, "he did indeed; and much more that he didn't, so to speak, _need_ to have done--without, all the same, having fallen short of his duty."

"I wish he would tell us things like that," I said. "How are we to know?"

"No," said Tib, "not quite that. I think it seems more for his _not_ telling. But I wish--I wish he'd let us feel that he loves us, and then we would, indeed we would, love him;" and some tears slowly made their way into Tib's blue eyes.

"Well, well, dears, that's the right way to feel, any way. And maybe things will change somehow. It's wonderful how things come round when people really mean right. So keep up heart, and don't be afraid of letting master see that you want to please him, and to love him too."

This talk with the old housekeeper made a great impression on us--so great that it almost put the mystery out of our heads altogether. For a great deal seemed explained by the thought of grandpapa's old troubles, and what these had been in time past we knew quite well. He had lost so many dear to him. Grandmamma, to begin with, had died quite young; then there was the brother Baldwin, killed in India, and the sister Mary, buried at Ansdell Friars. That was sad enough--and then his only son to have died too, leaving us three helpless babies.

"I dare say he'd just as soon have been without us, and have had n.o.body at all belonging to him," I said to Tib. "It must have been a great nuisance to have us stupid little things sent home, and not even poor mamma to take care of us. Do you remember, Tib, how we used to cry and run back to nurse when he sent for us down to the library to see him? We thought him a sort of an ogre."

A few days after this talk with Mrs. Munt, grandpapa came down to Rosebuds from a Sat.u.r.day to a Monday. We weren't exactly glad to see him, but what the old housekeeper had said was fresh in our minds, and we were all anxious to do our best to please him. So we made no objection when nurse called us a full hour before he could possibly arrive, "to be made neat against your dear grandpapa comes." Poor old Liddy--she would have thought it her duty to call him our dear grandpapa even if he _had_ been an ogre, I do believe!

And we had worked ourselves up to being so extra good, that we did not even grumble at the long time we had to sit still doing nothing on the window-seat in the hall, watching, or listening rather, for the first rumble of the carriage wheels as the signal for all running out into the porch to meet him. That part of it was a "plan" of Tib's--everything with her was sure to run into "plans," and with this new idea of pleasing grandpapa, she was constantly casting about in her head what we could do.

"I think seeing us standing together in the porch will touch him, you see, Gussie," she said. "It is a little like some scene I've read of in a story-book--the orphans, you know--oh, _where_ was it?--and the stern guardian, and it quite melts him, and----"

"He begins to cry, I suppose," I said, rather contemptuously, I fear; "I must say I'd be a good deal astonished to see _grandpapa_ begin to cry over us, wouldn't you, Gerald?"

But the idea was quite beyond Gerald's imagination.

"I do wish one thing," he said solemnly.

"What?" asked Tib and I eagerly. When Gerald had an idea, it was rather startling.

"If he--grandpapa, you know--really wished to please us--he might be thinking of us on the journey, you know--wouldn't it be beautiful if he was to bring us each a packet of that splendid b.u.t.ter-scotch that there was at the station in London? I looked at it while we were waiting. I really _could_ love him if he did."

"You greedy little pig!" said Tib.

It wasn't often Tib condescended to use such expressions, but no doubt Gerald's b.u.t.ter-scotch seemed rather a come-down from her romantic ideas. I was sorry for her, but I _couldn't_ help laughing at the look of disgust in her face, and at Gerald's face of astonishment. He muttered something I couldn't hear--of course there was something about "girls," and "sha'n't get it out of me," which I didn't understand. But Tib's indignation next fell upon me.

"How can you laugh at him--such low ideas," she said, reproachfully, to which I answered rather crossly. Indeed, we were all on the verge of a quarrel when at last the sound of wheels turning in at the gate was heard, and up we all jumped.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT GERALD FOUND.

"Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back."--RUSKIN.

It was very funny, after all poor Tib's great preparations, when she really saw grandpapa that she seemed as if she could say nothing. I had already run forward, and quite without thinking of pleasing him, or of anything except that I was awfully glad he was there, because I _was_ so tired of sitting still and squabbling, I called out quite loudly--

"Oh, grandpapa, I _am_ so glad you've come!"

He was just getting down from the dog-cart--he had had it and a horse and groom sent down to Rosebuds to be ready for taking him to and from the station; the old one-horse fly wouldn't have suited grandpapa, I can a.s.sure you!--and when he heard me he turned round with quite a nice, not the least "making-fun-of-you," smile on his face. I don't think I had ever before seen his face look so nice. "Are you really glad I have come, Gussie? I'm sure I feel very flattered."

I felt both pleased and vexed. I did so wish I could have let him go on thinking I meant it that way, and I felt myself getting very red as I blurted out--

"Yes, grandpapa, I am--we are all glad you've come. But I meant, perhaps, partly that we've been dressed and waiting for you _such_ a time, and we were all getting rather cross."