"No," said I; "it's better not to tell him. Of course, Tib, we mustn't do anything naughty. It would be naughty to go prying into grandpapa's secrets, if he has any. But what we've found out hasn't been with prying. It's impossible not to wonder a little about it. And it's grandpapa's own fault for telling us so sharply not to know anybody or speak to anybody at Rosebuds. Of course, we'll obey him, but we can't help our minds wondering—they're made to wonder."
Tib considered for a while. Then her face cleared.
"I'll tell you what we can do, Gussie," she said; "we can turn it into a play. We can't leave off wondering, as you say, but we can mix up our wondering with fancy, and make up a plan of how it all was. It will be very interesting, for we shall know there is something real, and yet we can make it more wonderful than anything real could be now that everything's grown so plain and—and—I don't know the word—the opposite of poetry and fairy stories, I mean—in the world. We must think about it, Gussie. We might make it an 'ancient times' story, or an ogre story, or——"
"Yes," I said, "we'll think about it."
I did not want to disappoint Tib, and I thought, in a way, it was rather a good idea. But I am not so fond of fancying or pretending as Tib—I like real things. And the idea of a real secret or mystery had taken hold of my mind, and I wanted to find out about it. Still, the making a play of it wasn't a bad idea. As Tib said, it would be more interesting than an altogether make-up play.
We didn't say anything about the name in the book to Liddy. It was no use worrying the poor old thing by teasing her about what she thought would be wrong to tell; even if it had not anything to do with our mystery, it would have been wrong and unkind of us. And we said nothing to Gerald either; and indeed for some days we did not think or speak much about our discovery even to each other; we were so very much taken up about the real preparing to go away.
It was much more of a nice bustle and fuss than it had ever been to go to Ansdell Friars. There, everything was left from year to year just as we had always had it. The rooms had all we needed, and there was very little besides our clothes to pack up and take. But for going to Rosebuds it was quite different. None of the servants had ever been there, and they were all in a to-do about it, especially as only about half of them were to go; and the other half were cross at being sent away, and kept telling the others they'd be sure to find everything wrong there.
Nurse was the only one who was really pleased to go; and I am sure, dear old thing, it was more for our sakes than her own.
"It'll be a real change for them, poor dears," she kept saying; and this gave her patience to bear all our teasing and the servants' grumbling. What a time she had of it, to be sure! From Gerald's "Nursey, may I take all my horses? If I leave Sultan in the cupboard won't the mouses and butterflies eat him?"—Gerald always called moths butterflies—"Will there be any wheelbarrows, like at Ansdell?" to Fanny's suggestion that there'd be no nursery tea-service there—"a house that nobody's been in for years and years"—everything fell on old Liddy! And you see she dared not go asking grandpapa all sorts of things, as if he'd been a lady. He was even rather cross when she went trembling one day to ask if there were shops anywhere near Rosebuds, or if she must plan to take everything we could want for all the summer.
"Shops," said grandpapa—I heard him, for Liddy had caught him on his way down stairs one morning, and I was standing just inside the school-room doorway; "of course there are shops near enough—five miles off or so. I'm not going to take you to the middle of Africa. I dare say there are shops enough in the village for common things. Mrs. Munt will tell you all that. No need to worry me about it."