Chapter VI: The Enchanted Palace

T HE dun pony ambled through the lanes to the village of
Basingstead Minor where Mrs. Carthew and her four daughters
lived in a house called Cobble Place. It stood close to the
road and was two stories high, very trim and covered with
cotoneaster. On either side of the door were two windows and
above it in a level row five more windows: the roof was
thatched. On the left of the house were double doors which led
into the stable-yard, a large stable-yard overlooked by a
number of irregular gables in the side of the house and
continually fluttered by white fantail pigeons. Into the
stable-yard the dun pony turned, where, clustered in the side
entrance of Cobble Place under a clematis-wreathed porch, stood
Mrs. Carthew and Miss May Carthew and Miss Joan Carthew, all
smiling very pleasantly at Michael and all evidently very glad
to see him safely arrived. Michael climbed out of the chaise
and politely shook hands with Mrs. Carthew and said he was very
well and had had a comfortable journey and would like some tea
very much, although if Nancy thought it was best he was quite
ready to see her donkey before doing anything else. However,
Nancy was told that she must wait, and soon Michael was sitting
at a large round table in a shady dining-room, eating hot
buttered tea-cake and chocolate cake and macaroons, with
bread-and-butter as an afterthought of duty. He enjoyed
drinking his tea out of a thin teacup and he liked the silver
and the satin tea-cosy and the yellow Persian cat purring on
the hearthrug and the bullfinch flitting from
perch to perch of his bright cage. He noticed with pleasure
that the pictures on the wall were full of interest and
detail, and was particularly impressed by two very long steel
engravings of the Death of Nelson and the Meeting of
Wellington and Blücher on the field of Waterloo. The only flaw
in his pleasure was the difficulty of addressing Miss May
Carthew and Miss Joan Carthew, and he wished that his own real
Miss Carthew would suggest a solution. As for the bedroom to
which he was taken after tea, Michael thought there never
could have been such a jolly room before. It was just the
right size, as snug as possible with its gay wall-paper and
crackling chintzes and ribboned bed. The counterpane was
patchwork and therefore held the promise of perpetual
entertainment. The dressing-table was neatly set with china
toilet articles whose individual importance Michael could not
discover. One in particular like the antler of a stag stuck
upright in a china tray he was very anxious to understand, and
when he was told it was intended for rings to hang upon, he
wished he had a dozen rings to adorn so neat a device.

After he had with Miss Carthew’s help unpacked and put his clothes away, Michael joined Nancy in the stable-yard. He stroked the donkey and the dun-coloured pony and watched the fantail pigeons in snowy circles against the pale blue sky. He watched the gardener stirring up some strange stuff for the pig that grunted impatiently. He watched the pleasant Carthew cook shelling peas in the slanting sunlight by the kitchen door. The air was very peaceful, full of soft sounds of lowing cows, of ducks and hens and sheep. The air was spangled with glittering insects: over a red wall hung down the branch of a plum tree, loaded with creamy ovals of fruit, already rose-flushed with summer. Nancy said they must soon go into the garden.

“Is there a garden more than this?” Michael asked.
His bedroom window had looked out on to the stable-yard.

“Through here,” said Nancy. She led the way to a door set in the wall, which when open showed a green glowing oblong of light that made Michael catch his breath in wonder.

Then together he and Nancy sauntered through what was surely
the loveliest garden in the world. Michael could scarcely bear
to speak, so completely did it fulfil every faintest hope. All
along the red walls were apples and pears and plums and
peaches; all along the paths were masses of flowers, phloxes
and early Michaelmas daisies and Japanese anemones and
sunflowers and red-hot pokers and dahlias. The air was so
golden and balmy that it seemed as though the sunlight must
have been locked up in this garden for years. At the bottom of
the vivid path was a stream with real fish swimming backwards
and forwards, and beyond the stream, safely guarded and
therefore perfectly beautiful, were cows stalking through a
field beyond which was a dark wood beyond which was a high hill
with a grey tower on the top of it. Some princess must have
made this garden. He and Nancy turned and walked by the stream
on which was actually moored a punt, a joy for to-morrow,
since, explained Nancy, Maud had said they were not to go on
the river this afternoon. How wonderful it was, Michael
thought, to hear his dearest Miss Carthew called Maud. Never
was spoken so sweet a name as Maud. He would say it to himself
in bed that night, and in the morning he would wake with Maud
calling to him from sleep. Then he and Nancy turned from the
tempting stream and walked up a pleached alley of withies woven
and interarched. Over them September roses bloomed with fawn
and ivory and copper and salmon-pink buds and blossoms. At the
end of the pleached alley was a mulberry tree with a seat round
its trunk and a thick lawn that ran right up to the
house itself. On the lawn Nancy and Michael played quoits and
bowls and chased Ambrose the spaniel, until the sun sent still
more slanting shadows across the garden and it was possible to
feel that night was just behind the hill beyond the stream.
The sun went down. The air grew chilly and Miss Carthew
appeared from the door, beckoning to Michael. She sat with him
in the dusky dining-room while he ate his bread and milk, and
told him of her brother the midshipman, while he looked
pensively at the picture of the Death of Nelson. Then Michael
went to the drawing-room where all the sisters and Mrs.
Carthew herself were sitting. He kissed everybody good night
in turn, and Mrs. Carthew put on a pair of spectacles in order
to follow his exit from the room with a kindly smile. Miss
Carthew sat with him while he undressed, and when he was in
bed, she told him another story and kissed him good night and
blew out the candle, and before the sound of pleasant voices
coming upstairs from the supper-table had ceased, Michael was
fast asleep.

In the morning while he was lying watching the shadows on the ceiling, Nancy’s freckled face appeared round the door.

“Hurry up and dress,” she cried. “Fishing!”

Michael had never dressed so quickly before. In fact when he was ready, he had to wait for Nancy who had called him before she had dressed herself. Nancy and Michael lived a lifetime of delight in that golden hour of waiting for breakfast.

However, at Cobble Place every minute was a lifetime of delight
to Michael. He forgot all about everything except being happy.
His embarrassment with regard to the correct way of addressing
May and Joan was terminated by being told to call them May and
Joan. He was shown the treasures of their bedrooms, the
butterfly collections, the sword of Captain Carthew, the dirk
of their brother the midshipman,
the birds’ eggs, the fossils, the bones, the dried flowers,
the photographs, the autographs, in fact everything that was
most absorbing to look at. With Mrs. Carthew he took sedate
walks into the village, and held the flowers while she
decorated the altar in church, and sat with her while she
talked to bed-ridden old women. With Nancy on one memorable
day he crossed the river and disembarked on the other side and
walked through the field of cows, through the meadowsweet and
purple loosestrife and spearmint. Then they picked
blackberries and dewberries by the edge of the wood and walked
on beneath the trees without caring about trespassing or
tramps or anything else. On the other side they came out at
the foot of the high hill. Up they walked, up and up until
they reached the grey tower at the top, and then, to Michael’s
amazement, Nancy produced the key of the tower and opened the
door.

“Can we really go in?” asked Michael, staggered by the adventure.

“Of course. We can always get the key,” said Nancy.

They walked up some winding stone steps that smelt very damp, and at the top they pushed open a trap-door and walked out on top of the tower. Michael leaned over the parapet and for the second time beheld the world. There was no sea, but there were woods and streams and spires and fields and villages and smoke from farms. There were blue distances on every side and great white clouds moving across the sky. The winds battled against the tower and sang in Michael’s ears and ruffled his hair and crimsoned his cheeks. He could see the fantail pigeons of Cobble Place circling below. He could look down on the wood and the river they had just crossed. He could see the garden and his dearest Miss Carthew walking on the lawn.

“Oh, Nancy,” he said, “it’s glorious.”

“Yes, it is rather decent,” Nancy agreed.

“I suppose that’s almost all of England you can see.”

“Only four counties,” said Nancy carelessly. “Berkshire and I forget the other three. We toboggan down this hill in winter. That’s rather decent too.”

“I’d like to come here every day,” sighed Michael. “I’d like to have this tower for my very own. What castle is it called?”

“Grogg’s Folly,” said Nancy abruptly.

Michael wished the tower were not called Grogg’s Folly, and very soon Nancy and he, shouting and laughing, were running at full speed down the hill towards Cobble Place, while the stalks of the plantains whipped his bare legs and larks flew up in alarm before his advance.

The time of his stay at Cobble Place was drawing to a close:
the hour of his greatest adventure was near. It had been a
visit of unspoiled enjoyment; and on his last night, Michael
was allowed for a treat to stay up to supper, to sit at the
round table rose-stained by the brooding lamp, while the rest
of the room was a comfortable mystery in which the
parlour-maid’s cap and apron flitted whitely to and fro. Nor
did Michael go to bed immediately after supper, for he actually
sat grandly in the drawing-room, one of a semicircle round the
autumnal fire of logs crackling and leaping with blue flames.
He sat silent, listening to the pitter-pat of Mrs. Carthew’s
Patience and watching the halma board waiting for May to
encounter Joan, while in a low voice Nancy read to him one of
Fifty-two Stories of Adventure for Girls. Bed-time came at the
end of the story and Michael was sad to say good night for the
last time and sad to think, when he got into his ribboned bed,
that to-morrow night he would be in Carlington Road among brass
knobs and Venetian blinds and lamp-posts and sounds of London.
Then came a great surprize that took away nearly all the
regrets he felt at leaving Cobble Place,

for Miss Carthew leaned over and whispered that she was coming
to live at Sixty-four.

“Oh!” Michael gasped. “With us—with Stella and me?”

Miss Carthew nodded.

“I say!” Michael whispered. “And will Stella have lessons when I’m going to school?”

“Every morning,” said Miss Carthew.

“I expect you’ll find her rather bad at lessons,” said Michael doubtfully.

He was almost afraid that Miss Carthew might leave in despair at Stella’s ineptitude.

“Lots of people are stupid at first,” said Miss Carthew.

Michael blushed: he remembered a certain morning when capes and promontories got inextricably mixed in his mind and when Miss Carthew seemed to grow quite tired of trying to explain the difference.

“Will you teach her the piano now?” he enquired.

“Oh dear, no. I’m not clever enough to do that.”

“But you teach me.”

“That’s different. Stella will be a great pianist one day,” said Miss Carthew earnestly.

“Will she?” asked Michael incredulously. “But I don’t like her to play a bit—not a bit.”

“You will one day. Great musicians think she is wonderful.”

Michael gave up this problem. It was another instance of the chasm between youth and age. He supposed that one day he would like Stella’s playing. One day, so he had been led to suppose, he would also like fat and cabbage and going to bed. At present such a condition of mind was incomprehensible. However, Stella and the piano mattered very little in comparison with the solid fact that Miss Carthew was going to live in Carlington Road.

On the next morning before they left, Michael and Mrs.
Carthew walked round the garden together, while Mrs. Carthew
talked to him of the new life on which he was shortly going to
enter.

“Well, Michael,” she said, “in a week, so my daughter tells me, you will be going to school.”

“Yes,” corroborated Michael.

“Dear me,” Mrs. Carthew went on. “I’m glad I’m not going to school for the first time; you won’t like it at all at first, and then you’ll like it very much indeed, and then you’ll either go on liking it very much or you’ll hate it. If you go on liking it—I mean when you’re quite old—sixteen or seventeen—you’ll never do anything, but if you hate it then, you’ll have a chance of doing something. I’m glad my daughter Maud is going to look after you. She’s a good girl.”

Michael thought how extraordinary it was to hear Miss Carthew spoken of in this manner and felt shy at the prospect of having to agree verbally with Mrs. Carthew.

“Take my advice—never ask questions. Be content to make a fool of yourself once or twice, but don’t ask questions. Don’t answer questions either. That’s worse than asking. But after all, now I’m giving advice, and worst of anything is listening to other people’s advice. So pick yourself some plums and get ready, for the chaise will soon be at the door.”

Nurse was very grumpy when he and Miss Carthew arrived. She did
not seem at all pleased by the idea of Miss Carthew living in
the house, and muttered to herself all the time. Michael did no
more lessons in the week that remained before the autumn term
began; but he had to go with Miss Carthew to various outfitters
and try on coats and suits and generally be equipped for
school. The afternoons he spent in Carlington Road, trying to
pick up information about St. James’ Preparatory School from
the boys already there. One of these boys was Rodber, the son
of
a doctor, and probably by his manner and age and appearance
the most important boy in the school. At any rate Michael
found it difficult to believe that there could exist a boy
with more right to rule than this Rodber with his haughty eye
and Eton suit and prominent ears and quick authoritative
voice.

“Look here,” said Rodber one evening, “can you borrow your mail-cart? I saw your sister being wheeled in one this morning. We’ve got three mail-carts and we want a fourth for trains.”

Michael ran as fast as he could back to Sixty-four, rushed down the area steps, rang the bell half a dozen times and tapped continuously on the ground glass of the back door until Cook opened it.

“Whatever’s the matter?” said Cook.

Michael did not stop to answer, but ran upstairs, until breathless he reached the schoolroom.

“Please, Miss Carthew, may we have Stella’s mail-cart? Rodber wants it—for trains. Do let me. Rodber’s the boy I told you about who’s at school. Oh, do let us have the cart. Rodber’s got three, but he wants ours. May I, Miss Carthew?”

She nodded.

Michael rushed downstairs in a helter-skelter of joy and presently, with Cook’s assistance in getting it up the steps, Michael stood proudly by the mail-cart which was of the dogcart pattern, very light and swift when harnessed to a good runner. Rodber examined it critically.

“Yes, that’s a fairly decent one,” he decided.

Michael was greatly relieved by his approval.

“Look here,” said Rodber, “I don’t mind telling you, as you’ll be a new kid, one or two tips about school. Look here, don’t tell anybody your Christian name and don’t be cocky.”

“Oh, no, I won’t,” Michael earnestly promised.

“And don’t, for goodness’ sake, look like that when chaps speak to you, or you’ll get your head smacked.”

This was the sum of Rodber’s advice, and presently Michael was stationed as signalman by the junction which was a pillar-box, while Rodber went off at express speed, bound for the next station which was a lamp-post. A signalman’s life on the Carlington Road line was a lonely one, and it was also a very tiring one, when any obstruction caused the signals to be up. Michael’s arm ached excruciatingly when Rodber’s train got entangled with Garrod’s train and Macalister’s train had to be kept from running into them. Moreover, the signalman’s life had none of the glories of controlling other people; a signalman on the Carlington Road line was dependent on the train for his behaviour. He was not allowed to interfere with the free running of any freight, but if the engine-driver insisted he had to let him go past, and if there was an accident, he was blamed. A signalman’s life was lonely, tiring, humiliating and dangerous.

These few fine days of mid-September went quickly by and one evening Rodber said casually, almost cruelly it seemed to Michael:

“Well, see you to-morrow in the break, young Fane.”

Michael wondered what on earth a ‘break’ was; he longed to ask Rodber, but he dared not display at the very beginning of his career what would evidently be a disgraceful ignorance, and so he said that he would see Rodber in the ‘break’ to-morrow. He asked Miss Carthew when he got home what a ‘break’ was, and she told him it was a large wagonette sometimes driven by four horses. Michael was very much puzzled, but thought school would be fun if large wagonettes were commonplace objects of school life, and dreamed that night of driving furiously with Rodber in a gigantic mail-cart along the Hammersmith Road.

At breakfast Miss Carthew asked Michael if he would like
her to come with him. He thought for a moment, and wished that
Rodber had invited him to accompany him that first morning.

“You know, it’s for you to choose, Michael,” said Miss Carthew.

“Well, I would like you to come,” said Michael at last.

So at ten minutes past nine they set out. All sorts of boys were going to school along the Hammersmith Road, boys of every size carrying satchels or bags or loose bundles of books. Most of them wore the Jacobean cap, and Michael eyed them with awe; but many wore the cap of St. James’ Preparatory School, and these Michael eyed with curiosity as well as awe. He spoke very little during the walk and felt all the way a sinking of the heart. When actually he reached the gate of Randell House, the less formal appellation of St. James’ Preparatory School, he longed to turn back with Miss Carthew, as he thought with sentimental pangs of the pleasant schoolroom and of Stella sitting by Miss Carthew, learning to read through a sunlit morning.

“Don’t come in with me,” he whispered.

“Quite right,” said Miss Carthew approvingly. “Much better without me.”

“And don’t wave, will you?” he begged. Then with an effort he joined the stream of boys walking confidently through the big gate.

In the entrance hall a ginger-haired foxy-faced man in a green uniform said sharply:

“New boy?”

Michael nodded.

“Stand on one side, please. Mr. Randell will see you presently.”

Michael waited. He noticed with pride that the boy next to him
had brought with him either his mother or his sister or his
governess. Michael felt very superior and was
glad he had resisted the temptation to ask Miss Carthew to
come in with him. He noticed how curiously the other boys eyed
this lady and fancied that they threw contemptuous glances at
the boy who had introduced her. Michael was very glad indeed
that he had let Miss Carthew turn back.