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The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

CHAPTER XX
THE WAXEN MAN

‘You know what Rupert was saying that day,’ said Charles one day when Rupert as usual was down at Mr. 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. I wish we could make a wax image of some one.’

‘Not to stick pins in,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘That would be ink-black magic, I’m certain. And very very wrong and unkind besides.’

‘No pins, I don’t mean,’ said Charles, ‘but just make one. We could decide what to stick into it after we’d made it.’

‘Caro and I wouldn’t agree to sticking anything into it,’ said Charlotte; ‘and, anyhow, you haven’t got any wax.’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Charles triumphantly; ‘so there! I’ve been saving it up ever since he said that.’

‘Where from?’ asked the girls together.

‘The sticking-out bits of candles,’ said Charles, ‘and one or two ends out of candlesticks in the morning when they are put on the boot-shelf in the scullery to be cleaned. It’s a good big lump now. Shall I get it?’

‘It would be fun to model something,’ Caroline admitted, and Charles, falling flat on his front, felt behind the big books on the bottom shelf and produced a large ball of a grey semi-transparent nature.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll tell you what I’ve thought. Only don’t tell Rupert. We’ll do it first and tell Rupert afterwards. And then he’ll have to believe.’

‘Well, what is it?’

‘We’ll make,’ said Charles slowly and seriously, ‘a wax image of the Murdstone man, and we’ll make him hollow, his legs and arms needn’t be, nor his head, but just his chest. And make his heart separate, and put it in. And take out his heart and melt it every day. That would soften his heart, and he would say he was sorry and Rupert would forgive him.’

‘“When hollow hearts shall wear a mask,”’ said Charlotte.

‘That’s only song-nonsense. People die if you take their hearts out,’ said Caroline with conviction.

‘Well, then, don’t let’s make him hollow. Let’s make him solid and then think what to do.’

‘I know,’ said Charlotte; ‘but if he’s a pig, he’s a pig, however solid you make him. What’s bred in the bone will come out in the wash. And if we’re not to stick pins in him, what’s the good?’

‘Oh,’ said Caroline, ‘I think I know. Look here! We’ll make the wax image and then be kind to it. You can tame wild beasts with kindness.’

‘It kills cats,’ said Charlotte.

‘No, it was Care killed the cat,’ Caroline reminded her, ‘and, anyway, this won’t be a cat, even if it did. We’ll think of nice things to do to it. Let’s make it now.’

‘Bags I!’ said Charles hastily. ‘It was my idea, and I collected the wax.’

‘Like an old bee,’ said Charlotte. ‘All right, fire ahead.’

Charles had been warming the wax between his hands, and now, hardly waiting for Caroline to fetch and spread a newspaper, he began to divide the wax into six pieces.

‘One head, two arms, two legs, one body,’ he explained.

The girls watched with breathless interest. Charles rolled the smallest piece of wax round in his hands till it was like a marble, and the biggest piece till it was like a fives ball; the remaining four he rolled lengthwise till they were like thick tobacco-pipes. Then he stuck the four pipey bits and the round marble on to the fives ball and held the whole thing out triumphantly.

‘I think it’s awfully like,’ he said, ‘especially the right arm that he hit Rupert with. I should like to stick just one pin in that.’

‘You mustn’t,’ said Caroline. ‘Yes, it’s awfully nice, but it hasn’t any clothes. I know statues of Greek heroes don’t have any clothes. But he’s not a Greek hero. And nowadays people have to have clothes even in their statues. Look at Mr. Gladstone. And it would be more like real if it had a nose and ears, wouldn’t it?’

‘I say,’ said Charlotte, ‘let’s get bits of bent twigs and pretend they’re him, and then make wax clothes. Do let us help, Charles. It does look so interesting to do. You shall do the first kind thing for him if you’ll let us help make him.’

‘I think he’s all right,’ said Charles, looking at the blobby thing he had made, which was more like an imperfect octopus than a man; ‘but if you promise me to do the first thing, I don’t mind.’

‘Right O! I’ll get the sticks.’

When the sticks had been found, the three children began to model parts of the Murdstone man, but Caroline and Charles soon stopped and were content to watch Charlotte. She really seemed to know what she was about, which the others felt could not be said of them. She chose suitable twigs, fastened them together with bits of wax, and then began to clothe them with wax. She produced an arrangement not at all unlike a jacket and waistcoat. The trousers were a failure. The most accomplished sculptors have admitted that trousers are difficult to treat artistically. But they remembered that, last time they had seen him, the Murdstone man had worn knickerbockers, and in these, revealing the shape of the stockinged human leg, Charlotte was considered to have surpassed herself. The head was very difficult, but even this was managed, the hair question being settled by a large flat cap with a peak. The new model had a nose and mouth, ears large, but still ears, and hands each with four fingers and a thumb. And when Charlotte rolled up the tiniest bits of wax, flattened them and stuck them on the coat and waistcoat for buttons, Caroline shouted, ‘Bravo! You’re as good as Praxi – what’s-his-name!’ and even Charles said it wasn’t half bad.

‘Now,’ said Charlotte, ‘the first nice thing to do for him is to put him in a bed of rose leaves. That’s what they say when they mean a life without a sorrow or care.’

‘And then burn incense. 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. ‘We made him and we know what he’s got to like.’

‘Then we might make it so that he’d like having pins stuck into him,’ Charles suggested hopefully.

‘We might; only we shouldn’t be so silly. Come on, bring the Language Of and the Murdstone man. I’ll get a box and Caro can get the rose leaves. We’ll go out and find a secret place in the wood.’

A cardboard box that had held Charlotte’s best shoes was filled with sweet pink petals and the waxen image put in it. It looked better standing up, but you don’t stand up in a bed, even of rose leaves. A sort of pedestal was built of old bricks brought with some toil from the ruins of the deserted lodge’s pig-stye. A flat stone, which took all three to lift, was placed on top. And on this the box. But the box, which said ‘Smarm and Simple’s Hygienic Footwear’ in blue letters outside, troubled the girls because it was ugly, and Charles because it was untruthful.

‘Whatever he is, he isn’t footwear,’ said Charles. ‘We could make it true by trampling on him, but you won’t agree to that.’

‘No,’ said Caroline, ‘but look here. Let’s paste a bit of my green sash on it, and then put moss round. That’ll make it more woodland-like.’

Cook provided the paste, and Caroline cut the sash. She paste-wetted the first piece of silk so that it came out in wet spots, very messy looking, as Charles did not fail to point out.

‘Never mind,’ said Caroline, ‘I’ll cut another bit – it’s much too long – and use less paste.’

‘More paste less speed,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’ll cut mine. Then they’ll be alike, just as they were before.’

This time the box certainly looked very rich, and the moss round it looked very fresh and beautiful.

A smaller pile of bricks supported the lid of a cocoa-tin for incense.

The Language of Flowers, hurriedly consulted, informed them that jasmine stood for amiability, St. John’s wort for animosity, Indian pink for aversion, the pimpernel for change, sage for esteem, and the hazel for reconciliation. Further, that the tamarisk stood for crime and the potato for benevolence.

All these were found in the Wonderful Garden except the potato, and none of the children knew what a potato looks like when it is growing, and they did not like to ask any one, for fear they in turn should be asked what they wanted it for.

‘Never mind,’ said Charles, ‘we can save one from dinner. I don’t suppose it will matter its being cooked.’

That the potatoes that day should happen to be mashed, seemed to all a mishap yet not a calamity. A quantity, deemed sufficient to influence Mr. Murdstone through his waxen image, was secreted in the envelope of a letter from Aunt Emmeline, and not more than an eighth of the potato escaped into Charles’s pocket through the square hole where the Italian stamp had been cut out for his collection.

‘We’ll arrange the things we want him to be round the box,’ said Caroline, ‘and the things we want him not to be we’ll burn and call it incense.’

Charles owned that he had been wondering what sort of incense you could make out of mashed potato.

Jasmine, with its white stars, bright Indian pinks, gay tufts of sage, and the oval-ringed leaves of the hazel, arranged round the box, made a charming tangle. ‘The silk wasn’t wanted, really,’ said Charles. ‘The hygienic boots would never have shown through the flowers.’ But the girls agreed that it was nice to know it was there.

The mashed potato and the rather faded pimpernel were carefully concealed under the more attractive offerings.

‘It looks fine,’ Charles said, and what he said they all thought.

It is very hard to make small pieces of green things burn in a cocoa-tin lid in the open air by means of a box of matches, and the fragments of a potato-dampened envelope from an aunt in Italy. Nothing much happened except smoke, and the head of a match burnt Charles’s finger.

‘There’s no more paper,’ said he, ‘except the bit we’ve written his name on.’

‘There’s the match-box,’ said Caroline; ‘let’s make a little bonfire with twigs and then put the incense things on when it’s burnt up.’ This they did; and the starry gold of St. John’s wort, the gay brightness of Indian pinks, and the feathery greenness of the tamarisks twisted and writhed amid flames and smoke.

‘Now we’ll leave it. 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. The others agreed, and after having put on the box the label with the Murdstone man’s name, so that Destiny could not pretend to make any mistake as to who the witchcraft was meant for, they went away through green coverts, in Indian file, to build a wigwam in another part of the wood with three hop poles, three red blankets, and their three mackintoshes.

‘I hope Rupert won’t ask a lot of questions about what we’ve been doing to-day,’ said Charles. But Rupert did not ask any. He came home singularly silent, and went to bed early, announcing that he was going to spend the following day, also, with Mr. Penfold.

‘So we needn’t tell him,’ said Charlotte, ‘till the good work is done. I’m glad of that.’

Next day, with a fresh armful of suitable flowers and some more potatoes, fried this time and bearing heavy traces of their close intimacy with the breakfast bacon, the children sought the secret spot where they had laid the waxen image of Mr. Murdstone on its bed of roses. The ashes of the incense bonfire were there, the pedestal was there, the green-covered box was there, half filled with half-faded rose leaves; but the waxen image was gone!

‘He must have fetched it away himself,’ said Charlotte, breaking an awe-struck pause; ‘he must have felt what we were doing and made up his mind to be benevolent. And he fetched it away so that we shouldn’t waste any more good potatoes on him.’

‘I wish he’d do something to show that he’s changed into a Real Good and what sort of Good he’s changed into,’ said Charles. And it certainly is tiresome to work magic and then not to know exactly how it has acted. That their magic had acted, the children were of course quite certain. They had done magic too many times, as you know, to entertain a moment’s doubt as to whether their spells were going to work or not. And the fact that the spell they had worked was not worked exactly as the book said, did not trouble them. For, as Caroline said, ‘If you can do harm to wax people, you can do good to them. More really, I should think. Because one’s wrong and the other’s right.’

But it was a rather disappointed party that took its way through the greenwood, leaving the secret spot with its trampled flowers and scattered ashes. They came across their wigwam and spent the rest of the morning there, and, when the dinner-bell rang, loaded themselves with the mackintoshes and blankets which had been forgotten yesterday.

As they trailed out of the wood into the drive, Charles, who was first, dropped his blanket and stopped short, blocking the view of the others, who were following him down the narrow path.

‘What is it? what is it?’ they asked.

‘Shish!’ said Charles and backed into the hazel bushes, and the girls pressed forward to see what there was to shish about. Then they in turn backed into the green covert, and the bushes closed over them as they stood there holding their breath as footsteps went by them along the drive. When the footsteps had passed far enough away for the children to dare to move, they backed with one consent into the wood, not stopping till they came to an open glade where they could comfortably look at each other and exclaim, ‘Well!’ They were past all other words. For what they had seen was Rupert coming up the drive, looking pale but not unhappy. And beside him, with his hand on Rupert’s shoulder, and talking to him in the friendliest way, was – the Murdstone man!

‘Rupert will have to believe now!’ was the first thing any one found breath to say. It was Caroline who said it. The others still had not breath enough for more than ‘Rather!’

CHAPTER XXI
THE ATONEMENT OF RUPERT

‘I do wonder what has happened,’ Charlotte whispered. ‘I suppose the Murdstone man was coming to tell Rupert he had been spell-changed into being nice now. And he must have met Rupert on the way.’

‘But he could have said that in the road and then gone home. There must be some reason for his coming home with Rupert. He can’t,’ said Charles hopefully, ‘be going to tell us that he’s changed? That would be ripping.’

‘I expect he’s telling the Uncle,’ said Caroline. ‘When the wicked Magician takes off his spell and the wicked Prince turns good, he always tells everybody at once.’

‘Then he’ll come and tell us,’ said Charles. ‘We’re part of everybody, the same as grown-up people are.’

The three C.’s had come slowly back to the house, and, seeing no sign of Rupert and the changed Murdstone man, had, with great tact, chiefly Caroline’s, refrained from going in search of Rupert or of information.

They had just shut themselves into the dining-room, and waited. For it was quite plain that something more must happen. The once-hated Murdstone man could not just come to the house and go away again and the matter end there. But waiting is tiresome work, however proud you may be feeling of your tact and delicacy, and you are so interested and anxious that it is idle even to pretend to read. The three C.’s were very glad indeed when at last they heard footsteps in the hall, and voices.

‘Now!’ said Caroline. ‘Now they’re coming. We’ll be most awfully nice to him, won’t we. Now he’s sorry and he’s owned up.’

‘Of course,’ said Charles. ‘Do you think I could ask him to let me have the wax image of him to keep in memorio?’

‘No,’ said Caroline, ‘of course you couldn’t. Hush! for goodness’ sake, hush!’

But there seemed to be no urgent need for hushing. The footsteps and the voices went past the dining-room towards the front door, which was at the side, as you know. No one listened, yet no one could help hearing, through the open window, the parting words of Rupert and the Murdstone man:

‘I’ll do it now. That’ll be the last. Thank you, sir. Good-bye!’

Then came the sound of retreating boots on gravel. The front door banged, and next moment Rupert came in. His eyes were very bright and his face very pale. He came in, shut the door, leaned against it, and seemed to swallow nothing, twice. Then he said, looking straight in front of him, and Charlotte noticed that his hands were clenched:

‘Look here, I’ve got something to tell you. I don’t suppose you’ll want to speak to me again after it.’

‘Yes, we shall,’ said Charles, ‘whatever it is.’

Rupert took no notice. He went on, after a moment’s silence:

‘I told a lie about Mr. Macpherson, a beastly lie. He didn’t hit me like I said he did. I didn’t mean to say it, I just said it, and then I couldn’t take it back. I’ve been most awfully wretched. That’s all.’

‘But you’ve owned up now,’ was the only comforting thing even Caroline could think of in that terrible moment. Charles, as pale as Rupert, with his eyes quite round, said:

‘You couldn’t have!’

Charlotte said nothing.

‘I’d like you to understand,’ said Rupert miserably, ‘before I go away.’

‘Go away?’ said Charlotte quite as miserably. ‘Where?’

‘Back to Mr. Macpherson, of course. Your uncle won’t keep me after this.’

‘Did he say so?’

‘No, he said I was to come back to him when I’d taken Mr. Macpherson to the door. But I feel I must tell you first, in case he sends me off right away.’

‘Oh, Rupert,’ said Caroline, ‘I am so sorry!’ And then she did something rather heroic. She saw that Rupert wanted to say more, wanted it desperately, and that he could not possibly say it to all three of them together, though he could have told it to one of them, either to her or to Charlotte, if they had been alone. So Caroline got up and said:

‘Charles, come outside. I want to say something’; and when she got him outside the door, ‘come out,’ she said earnestly. ‘Yes, you shall. Rupert doesn’t want the lot of us. Let him talk to Charlotte. He can’t stand a crowd.’

‘Isn’t it dreadful,’ said Charles in very shocked tones, ‘Rupert turning out a liar like this?’

‘Oh, don’t,’ said Caroline hotly; ‘it must have been awful for him, all this time. And now he’s sorry and he’s owned up. We’ve got to try and forget about it. Let’s talk about something else.’

But it was very difficult to talk about something else.

Rupert, left with Charlotte, saw the others go past the window.

‘I wanted to tell you before,’ he said; ‘that day when you talked about being disagreeable. Only I couldn’t.’

‘Dear old Rupert!’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m so jolly glad you’ve got rid of it. That was the black dog. I knew there was something. Do tell me, old chap, unless you’d rather not. The others are off down the avenue.’

Rupert left the door and came to the table, and, half-sitting on it, with his face turned away, and twisting the table-cloth into pleats, he said:

‘You know I always thought I was going to be an extra honourable sort of chap. Father used to say things. I never did anything like it before. You see I was awfully sick at having to go with Mr. Macpherson at all. He treated me as if I was a baby. At least that’s what I thought. He says now he meant to be kind and he thought I was younger than I am. And the bread and milk. Everything else I told you was true except hitting me. And he did say there were ways of dealing with sulky boys. And I decided I would run away. And I hurt my hand on a gate. And I was so angry, it seemed the only thing to do.’

‘I know,’ said Charlotte.

‘And then, when I was explaining to you, somehow I couldn’t find the proper words to explain how hateful it was, and I thought you’d think I’d run away just for nothing. And then my hand hurt, and I thought you thought something more ought to have happened. And then I said that. Mean beast!’

‘I do wish you hadn’t,’ said Charlotte.

‘It didn’t seem to matter just at first. I can’t think why. I thought he meant to hit me next day, and, anyhow, you didn’t know him. And then I got ill and nothing mattered. But when I got better, it kept on getting worse and worse and worse, like a corkscrew worming into you harder and harder and harder all the time.’

‘But why didn’t you own up before?’ Charlotte asked.

‘I couldn’t. I never should have if it hadn’t been for this.’

He pulled his handkerchief with some difficulty from his pocket. Something was wrapped in it. Rupert, his face still turned away, unfolded and held out the waxen man.

‘I came back through the woods yesterday, and then I saw you’d been trying that beastly spell I told you with the pins.’

‘Oh!’ said Charlotte.

‘And I knew it was because I’d told that beastly lie.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t,’ said Charlotte. ‘We did everything nice for him, to make him sorry he was hateful and to make him friends with you. And oh, Rupert, the spell did work! We did it to make him friends with you. And he is.’

‘He’s been jolly decent about it, anyhow,’ said Rupert. ‘I found the wax thing as I came home from Mr. Penfold’s last night, and I took it away and put it at the back of my collar-drawer. And this morning I took it down to Mr. Penfold’s. It made it easier to tell, somehow. And he was jolly decent too. He took me over to Tonbridge to tell Mr. Macpherson. And he said a lot of things. He said he’d known all along I’d got something I wanted to get off my chest. And he said things about repentance and things. I do like him.’

‘I’m glad we made the image,’ said Charlotte, because it seemed unkind to say nothing, and she could think of nothing else to say.

‘And I’m going to stick it, whatever it is. Mr. Macpherson is all right, but it will be hateful leaving here. Only I suppose you’ll all be glad I’m going.’

‘Rupert!’

‘Well, then, I know you won’t really. I say, Charlotte, you might tell the others. And tell them I know I’ve been a grumpy brute, but it was that going on all the time inside me like a beastly Spartan fox. It’s been like waiting at the dentist’s all the time, and this is like having all your teeth out at once, twenty times over.’

He tried to laugh, but he did not succeed very well. Charlotte also tried, and burst into tears.

‘Don’t!’ said Rupert awkwardly. Charlotte came close to him and rubbed her wet face against his coat sleeve.

‘You’re sorry,’ she said, ‘and you’ve owned up and you’ll never do it again.’

‘You bet I won’t,’ said Rupert. ‘I say, don’t! It makes it ever so much worse. Now I’ve got to go back to your uncle and get the kick-out. And I jolly well deserve it.’

‘Just wait a minute,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m going to get something I want to give you before you go. Wait here, won’t you?’

‘Don’t be long then,’ said Rupert in calm wretchedness.

Charlotte dried her eyes and went out, went to her own room and got her favourite Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. She wrote Rupert’s name in it and then marched straight to her uncle’s room, opened the door, and went in.

Uncle Charles, for once, was not reading or writing. He was sitting by his table drumming on it with his fingers and looking both sad and angry.

‘Uncle!’ said Charlotte.

‘Where is Rupert?’ said the Uncle, frowning.

‘He doesn’t know I’m here,’ said Charlotte, answering her uncle’s thoughts rather than his words. ‘I asked him to wait while I got something to give him. Uncle, you aren’t going to send him away, are you?’

‘I feel it only due to Mr. Macpherson to send Rupert back,’ said the Uncle, ‘to show that we regret the aspersions’ – the Uncle spoke as to a grown-up equal – ‘the aspersions cast on him by my abetting Rupert in his flight and removing him from Mr. Macpherson’s care. If it is a punishment to Rupert, it is not an undeserved one.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlotte, who hadn’t thought of this, ‘but Rupert’s been punished – all the time he has. No one else knows but me. He’s been perfectly miserable. Only he just couldn’t tell. And now he has, has told everybody, honourably everybody. Oh, dear uncle, don’t; I am so mizzy!’

‘Come here,’ said the Uncle, and Charlotte found a thin black-coated shoulder a very good place to cry on.

‘But you see,’ he said, ‘it’s only fair to Mr. Macpherson to send Rupert back. I am willing to believe that he has been punished enough.’

‘You don’t know,’ said Charlotte; ‘he’s been simply as unbearable as a bear, he’s been so unhappy.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said the Uncle slowly; ‘but no, it’s not fair to that man. Rupert must go.’

Then Charlotte had one of her bright ideas, and its brightness dried her tears.

‘Look here, uncle,’ she said, ‘I’ve got it – I really have. Wouldn’t it make up to Mr. Macpherson and show your confidence just the same if you asked him to come here on a visit?’

‘I couldn’t,’ said the Uncle, and it was plain he spoke from the heart; ‘my work would all go – to pieces. I simply can’t have visitors, grown-up ones, I mean. The books you’ve found, they’ve revolutionised the whole scheme of my work. Yet,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I owe you something for that.’

‘Then pay us with Rupert,’ said Charlotte eagerly. ‘Couldn’t you bear Mr. Macpherson just for one week-end? Then everybody would know you were friends with him. Oh, uncle, poor Rupert, he is so sorry. And he did own up.’

‘What was that about a waxen image?’ asked the Uncle. Charlotte told him, and he nodded now and then and said, ‘Yes, yes!’ and ‘Exactly!’ And at the end he said:

‘Well, you have attained your end. You have reconciled them. The charm seemed to have worked.’

‘They’ve all worked,’ said Charlotte, ‘every single charm we’ve tried. Have yours, uncle?’

‘I wish they had,’ he answered, sighing. ‘Charlotte, I wish I could do what you wish. Don’t try spells to make me, because I can’t. Rupert must go back to-morrow, for a fortnight at least. But he shall come back then till the end of the holidays. Will that do? And I’ll explain to him that it’s not punishment, but just the consequences of what he did. If he hadn’t told that lie he wouldn’t have had to go back.’

‘But would you have kept him at first, if he hadn’t told it?’ Charlotte asked.

‘He was unhappy there. That would have been enough,’ said the Uncle – ‘that and your spells.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Rupert to Charlotte later. ‘Your uncle’s forgiven me and I’m to come back. And he explained why I must go. And I see it. And I can stick it all right. And I’d rather suffer it up and start fair. I’d rather pay something. I shall have to write and tell my father. That’s worse than anything.’

‘And when you come back,’ said Charlotte, ‘we shall think it was all a bad dream.’

He went next day. The three C.’s saw him off at the station, all wearing arbor vitæ in their button-holes to signify ‘unchanging friendship,’ and Charlotte at the last moment pressed the Scottish Cavaliers into his hand.

‘I say, though, wasn’t it dreadful, him telling that lie,’ said Charles as they turned away from the platform. It was a public place, but one of his sisters shook him, then and there, and the other said, ‘Look here, Charles, if you ever say another word about it, we’ll never speak to you again. See?’

And Charles saw. ‘I don’t mean I don’t like him and all that,’ he tried to explain, ‘but you wouldn’t like me not to think lying was wrong, would you?’

Then the girls saw.

‘You needn’t think we think anything,’ said Caroline. ‘You just shut up, Charles. We’re two to one.’