Gerald laid hands on it. It was his turn, but what I had failed in, it was not likely his little, fat, stumpy paws would achieve. But Gerald is sharp in some ways. He first examined the key all over. Then he took up the oily feather again.
"See here," he said, "some parts of the key are quite oily, but some, inside, are quite dry. We should have oiled the key as well as the lock."
He was right; his small grasp did what ours had failed in. Grunting and groaning still, but forced to obey, the old key woke from its sleep of thirty or forty years and did the work it was made for. And in another minute we had tugged at the door till it moved on its rusty hinges—you will understand afterwards how they came to be no rustier—slowly opening and revealed—
What did it reveal? For a few minutes we were too dazzled to tell—really dazzled—as well as amazed. A perfect flood of light seemed to pour out upon us, and instead of the dingy, musty tool-house we had been expecting, we found ourselves standing at what at first sight appeared like the entrance to some fairy palace of brightness and brilliance. We stood, dazed, rubbing our eyes and looking at each other. Was it magic? Had we chanced upon some such wonder of old world times as our little heads were stuffed with? Tib—and Gerald too, perhaps—would have been ready to believe it. Had the door there and then shut upon us, leaving us but the remembrance of the vision, they would have lived upon beautiful fancies for the rest of their lives. But I—practical I—did not long stand bewildered. A slight creak of the door brought me back to common-place.
"Come inside, quick!" I said, pulling at the others—we were all huddled together on the steps—"shut the door, or else some one will see the light through the trees," for I have told you how very dark the tangle is, even on a bright day. "Stay—dare we shut the door? Is there a keyhole on the inside? Oh, yes; and not rusty at all," and quick as thought I drew the key out and fitted it in to the other side; it turned now with ease. "That's right;" and before Tib or Gerald had found out for certain whether they were awake or dreaming, we were all three safe inside the enchanted palace, at liberty to look about us and find out where we really were.
I feel in a way sorry to explain it. But this is not a fairy story; and in the end I think you will allow, when you have come to know the whole, that it is very interesting, perhaps more interesting than a fairy story after all. So I will go on without leaving you in perplexity any more.
The place where we found ourselves was a conservatory: it was prettily built in a high, round-roofed sort of way, so as to catch all the light and sun-heat possible. It was, to begin with, a very bright afternoon; then the shrubbery on our side was very dark; high up in the conservatory there was a band of coloured glass, rich red, and little bits of every colour at the edge, like a strip of rainbow, through which the light came in gleams of all sorts of beautiful tints. You can easily see how startlingly brilliant it had seemed to us; and besides this, the conservatory itself was not at all in a neglected state. There were few pots of flowers; the shelves were mostly empty; but there were plants growing in earth borders along the sides, which were evidently cared for, as they twined up the walls luxuriantly. And the whole place was heated, though not very much. That, you see, was how the door and the lock remained in such good condition.
We found out all these particulars for ourselves by degrees; and gradually we noticed other things. The conservatory had evidently, at some time or other, been a favourite place to sit in. There was a little very old and shaky rustic table, and two or three seats to match; there was a little corner shelf on which still lay two or three old books. After we had got over our first surprise, we were conscious of something about the whole place which made the tears come to our eyes. But our spirits soon rose again.
"What a bower for the princess!" exclaimed Tib.
I felt quite out of patience with her.