The Magic Nuts

by Mrs. Molesworth

  CHAPTER IX

  A CONCERT

  A kiss on each forehead and she was gone!

  _The Fairy's Visit._

  Greatly wondering, Hildegarde and Leonore followed the fairy to the endof the large hall, where there hung by silver cords from the roof twolittle seats, cushioned with the softest down.

  'Rest yourselves in there,' she said; and though the little swingingchairs were a few feet from the ground, they sprang into them withoutthe least difficulty, as their wings at once unfolded to waft themupwards.

  'You may swing yourselves in time to the music, if it amuses you,' saidthe fairy; 'and now I must meet my sisters to get all ready for ourconcert.'

  The children were well content to stay where they were, watching andlistening with the greatest eagerness. A door at the farther end fromthat by which they had entered opened, admitting the sound of softmusic, and in a few moments a procession of air-fairies appeared,marching two and two, each with some instrument on which she wasplaying.

  They ranged themselves in the very centre of the hall, the two fairieswho had received the children standing at each end of the group tocommand and direct. The music stopped; there was a flutter of excitementamong the birds. Then the accompaniment of the instruments beganagain--softly at first, then louder, then sinking once more to gentlertones. But now--words fail to describe the wonderful sounds which filledthe air in one great harmony, though to those learned in such things,and with ears endowed with the magic gift of perfect hearing, everylittle voice could be distinguished.

  In such company the peacock's harsh cry sounded like a distant butmusical call, the duck's quacking like the pleasant clatter ofcastanettes; all was lovely, for all told of happiness and harmony, andthe children felt as if they could sit there listening for ever. Andwhen, almost suddenly, the music stopped in one great triumphantoutburst, it seemed to them as if, for the first time in their lives,they had known what it was truly to _hear_.

  Then came a loud, merry flapping of wings; the birds flew off theirperches and soared about the hall, then ranged themselves again, andpassed in rows before the fairies, with twitters of farewell before theyflew, or hopped, or waddled out of the doors and windows of the greathall, many more of which had opened of themselves as the music ceased.The fairies who had taken part in the concert glided out, two and two,as they had entered, playing a soft, low march, and then the great hallwas empty again, save for the two children and their two fairyhostesses.

  At a sign from their friends, Hildegarde and Leonore sprang to theground.

  'Have you enjoyed the concert?' asked one of the fairies.

  'Oh,' exclaimed the children together, it was too wonderful, toobeautiful.' 'We can never hear anything like it again,' added Leonorehalf-sadly; 'down where we live the air is too thick and heavy, Isuppose, to hear anything so perfectly.'

  'Yes,' said the fairy, 'that is so; but those who have once heard cannever again be as if they had not done so. You will always remember andbe able to catch the echoes, though far away, of perfect harmony, evenin common sounds.'

  For a moment or two the children were silent; perhaps they did not quiteunderstand, but they remembered, which was as good, or better.

  'Is it time for us to go home now?' asked Hildegarde. 'Thespinning-wheel fairy said we should easily find her, and she will showus how to get back.'

  'There is no hurry,' said one of their friends. 'Would you not like tosee a little more of our country? We are always busy, for we have muchto do, but to those sent by the spinning-wheel fairy we have time togive.'

  She held out a hand to each child, the second fairy smiling in token offarewell.

  'I will go now, sister,' she said. 'I must see to some of the fledglingswho are just beginning to chirp. For the birds come to us from all partsof your world,' she added, turning to the children, 'and it is notautumn everywhere, you know!'

  'May we ask you questions?' said Hildegarde. 'You won't think it rude,will you? We were so afraid of offending the gnomes that we scarcelydared to speak when we were with them.'

  'Ask what you like,' was the reply, 'and what I may I will answer. Butwe needn't stay here any longer. Outside you will see more of ourcountry.'

  Outside the great hall it was still brighter and more sunshiny thanwithin, though over everything was the lovely faint blue haze which hadmet them when they passed through the first silver gate. It was like,and yet not like, a garden--for there was nothing distinct in the shapeof plants or flowers, though everywhere beautiful tree-like forms,quivering amidst waves of opal colour, were to be seen.

  'It must be something like the bottom of the sea,' said Hildegarde,'where the mermaids live.'

  'No,' said Leonore, 'I think it is just like the sky at sunset. I haveoften wished I could get up on one of the clouds and see over to theother side.'

  'And now that is what you are seeing,' said the fairy.

  'But please,' began Hildegarde again, 'if I may ask you questions, dotell me what you are all busy about, besides teaching the birds tosing?'

  'I will tell you a few things,' said the fairy, 'though you would notunderstand if I tried to tell you all. We have charge of the zephyrs andthe breezes. We send them out on their errands, and we have to see thateach does its appointed task.'

  'Oh,' interrupted Leonore, 'is this the home of the Four Winds?--is thisthe place where they start from, and meet again and make all theirplans?'

  The fairy shook her head.

  'No,' she replied, 'the Four Winds are not fairies, they are spirits,and above us all; it is only the little winds, so to say--which are tothe great ones like the little brooks compared to the great ocean--overwhom we have authority. And,' she added more lightly, 'they aretroublesome enough sometimes, I assure you--mischievous littleimps--though they can be very sweet too, and seldom do real harm, andindeed, as a rule, a great deal of good. But for them your world wouldbe dull and dreary.'

  'Yes,' said Leonore, 'I should not like to live where everything wasalways quite still. And the little breezes are kind, aren't they? Whenit is very hot, it is lovely to feel one of them softly blowing roundyour face.'

  'They are kind and tender too,' said the fairy; 'some of the gentlestamong them are specially employed in refreshing poor sick people intheir hot stifling rooms. They wait outside the windows patiently tillthey get a chance of entering. Then some of them spend most of theirtime in playing with little children, filling the sails of their tinyboats, or flying their kites and shuttlecocks for them.' While talkingthus, the fairy had led them onwards. But now she stopped in front againof another silver gate.

  'Inside here,' she said, 'is one of the nurseries of the little clouds;we let them out every now and then for a race. Would you like to seethem? It is prettiest perhaps by moonlight, but I must not keep you heretill night.'

  She opened the gate, and out flew a crowd of feathery forms, dancing,leaping, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape; then at asign from the fairy, off they flew, upwards, a dozen or more together,in a whirl and flutter.

  You can scarcely imagine anything prettier than it was.

  They flew so high that for a minute or two they were out of sight, thenback they came again, some much in advance of the others, till the firstone who had gained the race floated down to the fairy's feet, takingshape as it did so till it grew into the shadowy form of a littlecherub, smiling up with its sky-blue eyes for its reward.

  'Well done,' said the fairy. 'Now off you can go, all of you, for anhour or two; some little streams are very thirsty to-day, I hear, andwill be glad to see you.'

  And at once the whole feathery troop disappeared. The children turned tothe fairy with smiling delight.

  'How pretty and good they are,' said Hildegarde. 'I shall always thinkof you when I see the little clouds scudding across the sky--I haveoften thought they looked so alive. Do you never come down to our worldyourself, fairy?'

  'Oh yes,' she replied, 'we have to keep all the wind instruments inorder. Some we bring bac
k with us here to repair, in the middle of thenight, so that nobody misses them; but some we work at down where theyare, and people say the weather has changed, and that somehow theirinstruments have got right again of themselves. That is one of oursecrets, you see.'

  'I wish you would let us know when you come,' said Hildegarde.

  'We wouldn't tell anybody, and I am sure we would gladly sit up allnight.'

  But the fairy shook her head.

  'That cannot be,' she said, 'you would not be able to see me downthere. Still, I can send you messages sometimes; the little breezes willalways be glad to carry you my love or to kiss you for me.'

  Suddenly she stopped speaking and held up her hand.

  'Hush,' she said; 'yes, I thought I heard it. It is the spinning-wheelfairy--don't you hear the whirr? It means, I fear, that you must begoing. Yes, there she is, though your eyes can't see her; she is almoststraight above us. She has caught two of the little clouds on their waydown, and is sailing on them.'

  'How shall we get to her?' exclaimed the children.

  'You forget,' laughed the fairy, 'you forget what wings are for,' andwith the words she blew softly on their shoulders, the wings stretchedthemselves, and off flew the children.

  The quickness of their flight made them close their eyes, and for amoment or two they could hear nothing but the rush of the air as theymet it. Soon, however, came the sound of a now well-known voice.

  'So I had to come to fetch you,' it said, 'instead of your looking forme. That shows, I hope, that the air-fairies entertained you well?'

  'Yes, indeed,' said both the children. 'It was all so pretty, and theywere so kind that we didn't feel the least frightened of offending them.It was quite different from gnomeland,' Hildegarde went on, 'and yet yousay that both these countries are on the way to real Fairyland?'

  'Yes,' replied their friend, 'so they are, and so are many, manyothers.'

  'I wish we could see them all,' said Leonore.

  'That would not do,' said the fairy. 'It would take you too much out ofyour own country, which is not good for any one. But now, dears, I wantyou to rest a little; even if you go to sleep it won't matter, while Iam taking you home.'

  She held out her arms, and both little girls nestled down beside her.

  'Are you going to take us all the way home yourself?' asked Leonore.'That will be very nice.' The fairy did not reply, but she beganspinning again, which certainly no one but a fairy could do seated on acloud, and with a little girl tucked under each arm. The soft whirr wasvery soothing and pleasant to hear; soon both pairs of eyes closeddrowsily, and it seemed to their little owners that quite a long timehad passed when they awoke, roused by the touch of a feathery kiss ontheir foreheads, and a softly whispered 'Goodbye, my dears, goodbye forthe present.'

  And again they found themselves among the trees a little to the rear ofthe Castle. It was quite daylight, though the afternoons were drawing innow. They felt perfectly bright and rested, and looked at each otherwith happy faces.

  'It was all too lovely, wasn't it?' said Leonore, 'and this time I don'tfeel as if we had been dreaming, do you, Hildegarde?'

  Hildegarde was on the point of replying, when from far above their headscame the note of some bird as it flew by.

  'To think that we know where you were taught to sing, you little dear,'she said, gazing upwards. 'There will be lots of things to remind usalways of the air-fairies--every time we feel the little breezes on ourcheeks, or see the clouds chasing each other across the sky!'

  'And we have still two nuts left,' said Leonore. 'I wonder what willhappen when we crack _them_, Hildegarde?'

  'We must be patient,' was the reply; 'perhaps we may have to wait a goodwhile before the time comes for that. But we must hurry home now, Ithink, or grandmamma may be getting anxious.'

  For this day was one which Leonore was spending with Hildegarde at theCastle, as happened now and then for a change, especially when theweather was unsettled. And these were happy days; for the Castle, asHildegarde had said, was a splendid place for playing in when there weretwo to play, though rather too large and lonely for one little girl byherself.

  Their coffee and cakes were waiting for them in the little turret-room,which was Hildegarde's own when on a visit to her grandparents. And whenthey had thoroughly enjoyed these, for travels through the air naturallymake little flesh-and-blood girls hungry and thirsty, Hildegarde tookher friend to the drawing-room, where the old Baroness usually sat. Shewas a tall, fine-looking old lady, a little bit 'frightening' at first,till one got to know her, for her dark eyes were still bright andpiercing, not like Aunt Anna's gentle, dreamy, blue ones. She spent agreat deal of her time in working at beautiful embroidery, as her sightwas still good, though in the cold weather, which was now coming on, shewas not strong enough to go out of doors except on very fine days.

  She looked up with a smile as they entered the room.

  'Well, my dear children,' she said, 'I hope you have had some good hotcoffee, for you have stayed out rather late, and the evenings aregetting very cold. Soon you will scarcely be able to go out afterdinner, especially as every one is prophesying that we are to have anearly winter and a severe one.'

  'We have not been at all cold, thank you, grandmamma,' said Hildegarde.'I hope it won't be a very severe winter, at least not beforeChristmas--for do you know, Leonore,' and she turned to her littlefriend, 'that sometimes when it snows heavily here, we cannot even getfrom the Castle to Aunt Anna's house?'

  'Oh dear,' said Leonore, rather startled, 'I shouldn't like that at all;it would be dreadfully dull if we couldn't be together at Christmas.'

  'Dull for us too,' said the Baroness, 'for many, many years my dearfriend, Fraulein Anna, has spent Christmas with us. But if there is anysign of snowstorms before then, the best plan will be for you three tocome and stay at the Castle for a week or two.'

  The children's faces lighted up with pleasure at the idea.

  'In that case,' said Hildegarde, 'I shall almost hope for signs of asnowstorm. You have no idea how nice and warm the Castle can be made.Grandpapa loves huge fires, and the walls are so thick that once therooms get well heated they don't get cold again quickly.'

  'Not in your turret, I am afraid, Hildegarde,' said her grandmother.'You will have to move out of it, I expect. Indeed, this very day I havebeen talking to old Maria about preparing a room for you on the southside. The turret-rooms cannot but be cold, as they have so much outerwall.'

  Hildegarde looked a little distressed.

  'I do so love my turret-room,' she murmured, 'unless,' and shehesitated, 'oh grandmamma,' she went on after a moment's pause, 'if Imight have the blue-silk room. I should be so careful to keep it verynice, and in the alcove two little beds could stand, so that if Leonorecomes to stay here we might be together all night as well as all day.'

  Her grandmother smiled.

  'We shall see,' she said, but even this seemed to satisfy the littlegirl. She jumped up and threw her arms round the Baroness.

  'Most big people when they say "We shall see" mean "No," she said, butyou are not like that, grandmamma. _Generally_, your "We shall sees"mean "Yes, you shall have what you want if it is possible."'

  'I should like to see the blue-silk room,' said Leonore, half timidly,'it is such a pretty name. Are the chairs all covered with blue silk?'

  'Better than that,' said Hildegarde, 'the walls are hung with blue silk,and there are wreaths of roses worked at the top of the curtains and onthe sofas and everywhere. Who was it that worked them, grandmamma? Mygreat-great-great-grandmother, wasn't it?'

  'No; two "greats" are enough,' said the Baroness, 'the embroidery wasdone by my grandmother; it is really wonderfully beautiful, and it isdifficult to believe that one pair of hands did it all. So it isscarcely surprising that there should be an old story telling that thefairies helped my grandmother to do it.'

  The children glanced at each other.

  'I daresay it's quite true,' said Hildegarde, but her grandmother onlyla
ughed.

  'Come now, my dear,' she said, 'you must not be too fanciful. Thefairies who helped our ancestors were probably those of industry andperseverance--very good fairies too.'

  'But now, my child,' she went on, turning to Leonore, 'I do not, ofcourse, want to hurry you away, but I am afraid Aunt Anna and Elsa willbe wondering what has become of you, besides which, I do not want you tocatch cold through coming to visit my Hildegarde.'

  Leonore started up. 'Yes, I must go,' she said.

  Hildegarde accompanied her as usual to the foot of the hill.

  'Ask Fraulein Elsa,' said Hildegarde, as they parted, 'to let you cometo-morrow morning instead of my going to you, and I will getgrandmamma's leave to show you the blue-silk room by full daylight. Thenin the afternoon, I daresay, grandmamma will let me run down to you.'

  'Yes,' Leonore replied, 'I should like that very much; I have a feeling,Hildegarde, that there must be something "fairy" about that room.' Andso saying she ran off.