No child was allowed to enter the sacred precincts of Roseholme, for Colonel Ferrers regarded children, and especially boys, as the fountain-head of all mischief, flower-breaking, bird-nesting, turf-destroying. His own nephew had had to wait eighteen years for an invitation. How could it be possible to introduce little Hugh, a boy and a stranger, into the charmed garden?
If "Mammina" could only take him! No one could resist her mother, Hildegarde thought; certainly not Colonel Ferrers, who admired her so much. But this dear mother had sprained her ankle a week before, slipping on a mossy stone in the garden, and was only now beginning to get about, using a crutched stick.
Mrs. Grahame and Hildegarde put their heads together, and talked long and earnestly. Then they sent for Jack, and took counsel with him; and a plan was made for the first act of what Hildegarde called the Drama of the Conspirators.
A day or two after, when Mrs. Beadle drove to the town of Whitfield, some miles off, on her weekly marketing trip, it was Jack Ferrers, instead of Giuseppe, the faithful manservant, who held the reins and drove the yellow wagon with the stout brown cob. He wanted to buy some things, he said: a necktie, and some chocolate, and—oh, lots of things; and Mrs. Beadle was only too glad of his company. The good housekeeper was dressed, like Villikins' Dinah, in gorgeous array, her cashmere shawl being of the finest scarlet, her gown of a brilliant blue, while her bonnet nodded with blue and yellow cornflowers. Not a tradesman in Whitfield but came smiling to his door when he saw Mrs. Beadle's yellow cart; for she was a good customer, and wanted everything of the best for her Colonel. When they at last turned Chow-chow's head homeward, the wagon was nearly filled with brown-paper parcels, and Jack's pockets bulged out in all directions. As they drove along the pleasant road, fringed with oaks and beeches, Jack broke silence with, "Biddy, did you ever have any children?"
"Bless me, Master Jack, how you startled me!" cried Mrs. Beadle, who was deep in a problem of jelly and roly-poly pudding. "No, dear! no jelly—I should say, no chick nor child had I ever. I wasn't good enough, I suppose."
"Nonsense. Biddy!" said Jack. "But you must have had some relations; some—nieces or nephews, or something of that sort."
Mrs. Beadle sighed, and fell straightway into the trap.
"I had, dear! I had, indeed, once upon a time. But they're no good to me now, and never will be."
She sighed again.
"How no good to you?" queried this artful Jack.