Complete Novels of E Nesbit
Page 567
‘Has he a little girl?’ asked Phyllis.
‘Yes — I believe so,’ said father absently.
‘It’s very odd,’ Mabel was beginning, but the others silenced her.
After this the children were more interested than ever in Sir Christopher. They used to paint illuminated texts, and make picture-frames of paper rosettes, and buy toys, and leave them on his doorstep in the dark, ‘For the little girl,’ and as the spring came on, bunches of flowers.
It was one evening when Phyllis came to the castle with a big bunch of plumy purple lilac. She was earlier than usual, and it was not quite dark, and — wonder of wonders — the door of the castle was open. Still more wonderful, Sir Christopher stood on the doorstep.
‘I was watching for you,’ he said. ‘I had a sort of feeling you’d come to-night. Will you come in?’
He led her into the black marble room and stood looking wistfully at her.
‘Would you like to see my little girl?’ he said suddenly.
‘Yes,’ said Phyllis.
‘I didn’t think you’d understand,’ he said, ‘when you came at Christmas. But you’ve been so kind and faithful all these months. I think you will understand. Look!’
He pulled the sheet from the statue, and Phyllis looked on the white likeness of a little girl of her own age, dressed in a long gown like a nightgown.
‘It is very beautiful,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Have you ever heard any tales about me?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Phyllis, and told him.
‘It’s not true,’ he said. My father had no debts. But I married someone he didn’t like; and then I got ill, and couldn’t work. My father was very hard. He wouldn’t help us. My wife died, and then my father died, and all his great wealth came to me. Too late! too late! The letter that told me I was rich came to me when I was sitting beside my dead child. The money came then — the money that would have saved her. The first money I spent out of it all was spent on that statue. It was done as she lay dead.’
Phyllis looked at the statue, and felt — she didn’t know why — very frightened. Then she looked at him, and she was not frightened any more. She ran to him and put her arms round him.
‘Oh, poor, poor, dear Sir Christopher!’ she said.
‘That’s how she looked when she was dead,’ he said; ‘would you like to see my ladybird as she was when she was alive and well, and I was a strong man able to work for her?’
‘Yes — oh yes,’ said Phyllis.
He led the way into the pearly room, and drew back a green curtain that hung there. Phyllis caught her breath sharply, and tears pricked her eyes. Not because the picture was a sad one — ah, no! not that!
As the curtain was withdrawn the figure of a child seemed to spring towards them from the canvas — a happy, laughing child, her arms full of roses, her face full of health and beauty and the joy of life; a child whose glad, unclouded eyes met Phyllis’s in a free, joyous look.
‘Oh no!’ cried Phyllis; ‘she can’t be dead — she can’t!’
The old man took her in his arms, for she was crying bitterly.
‘Thank you — thank you, dear,’ he said, soothing her. ‘Now I know that you are the right person to help me.’
‘I? Help you?’
Phyllis’s tears began to dry at the beautiful thought, but she still sobbed.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, and gently drew the green curtain over the lovely laughing face. ‘Don’t cry. I want to tell you of many things. When that money came — I’ve told you when — as soon as I could see or think again, I saw what I ought to do. Ever since I’ve not spent a penny of that money on myself — on anything but the plainest food, the plainest clothes. If I’ve made the house beautiful for her picture to live in, it’s been with my own work. All the rest of the money has gone to help little girls whose fathers can’t work for them — little girls that can be saved, as my little girl could have been saved. That’s the work I want you to carry on for me when you grow up. Will you promise?’
‘Yes,’ said Phyllis; ‘only I’m very stupid.’
‘I will have you taught. You shall learn how to do my work. Ask your father to come and see me. And now, good-bye. Perhaps I shan’t see you again. Will you always remember that your Christmas-tree came to me like a light in a dark night to show me that there was someone still who cared to be kind.... Good-bye.’
Father, when he heard the story, almost thought that Phyllis was dreaming. But he went to the Grotto, and when he came back his face was very sad.
‘It is a very great honour for you, Phyllis,’ he said gravely. ‘Are you sure that you understand how much hard work it will mean?’
‘I don’t mind hard work,’ said Phyllis, ‘if only I can do what he wants.’
So Phyllis is learning many things and preparing for the great work that has so wonderfully come to her. I think she will do it well, because she is not at all stupid really, and she has the gift of being sorry for sad people, and happy with happy ones. I think Sir Christopher chose well.
Some distant relations of Sir Christopher’s have tried to make out that he was mad, and so couldn’t do what he liked with his money. But when they took the matter to the judges to decide, hundreds and hundreds of people he had been good to and helped broke the promise of secrecy that he had always asked of them. And all England rang with the tale of his goodness, and of all the kind and clever things he had done for poor children all those long years, for the sake of his own little child. And the judges decided he was quite right to use his money in that way, and not mad at all. So the tiresome relations got nothing but lawyers’ bills for their pains.
Phyllis only saw Sir Christopher once again. He sent for her when he was dying. They had moved his bed into the pearly room, and he lay facing the green curtain.
‘If it seems too hard when the time comes,’ he said, ‘you need not do the work. Your father knows how to arrange that.’
‘You needn’t be afraid,’ said Phyllis; ‘it’s the most splendid chance anyone ever had.’
‘Kiss me, dear,’ he said, ‘and then draw back the curtain.’
But before Phyllis’s hand had touched the green curtain he sat up in the bed and held out his arms towards the picture.
‘Why, ladybird!’ he cried, his face all alight with love and joy. ‘Why, my little girl!’
MUSCADEL
Of course, there was a grand party when Princess Pandora came of age. The palace was hung with garlands of white roses, all the carpets were taken up, and the floor of every room was covered close with green turf with daisies in it, for in that country the cruel practice of rooting daisies out of lawns with a spud was a crime.
The Queen-mother had died when Pandora was a little baby, so now the Princess had to be hostess, and to receive all the guests, and speak to each one a little, and see that everyone had enough to eat and the right sort of person to talk to.
She did it all very nicely indeed, for she was a properly brought up Princess and had been to a school for the daughters of monarchs only, where, every Wednesday evening, she and her school-fellows were taught ‘deportment, manners, and how to behave at Court.’
All the guests went away very pleased with her and with themselves, which is how people ought always to feel after a party.
When they had all gone she went and curled up at the feet of her father, who had sunk back on his throne exhausted by his hospitable exertions. The two were quite alone, except for a particularly fine house-fly who had settled on the back of the throne, just above the carved Royal arms. Of course, neither the King nor the Princess noticed such a little thing as a fly.
‘Well, daddy dear,’ said the Princess, ‘did it go off all right? Did I behave prettily?’
‘Ah!’ said the King, ‘you’re a born Princess, my pet. Pretty face, pretty manners, good heart, good head. You’re your dear mother over again. And that reminds me — —’
‘Yes?’ said the Princess.
‘How lovely!’ cried the Princess, jumping up; ‘won’t you come too, daddy?’
‘I’d rather not, dear,’ said the King, so sadly that Pandora at once said:
‘Well, then, I won’t either. I’ll stay with you.’
But the King said ‘No,’ and she had better take a housemaid or two with brooms and dusters. ‘The dust grows thick in twenty-one years,’ said he.
But the Princess didn’t want any of the palace housemaids to help her to explore her mother’s rooms. She went alone, holding up her cloth-of-silver train because of the dust.
And the rooms that she unlocked with the six gold keys with pearls in their handles were very dusty indeed. The windows were yellow with dust, so the Princess threw them all open. And then, even through the dust, she could see how beautiful the rooms were — far more beautiful even than her own — and everyone had always said that hers were the most beautiful rooms in the seven kingdoms. She dusted the tops of a few of the tables and cabinets with her lace handkerchief, so that she could just see how everything was inlaid with ivory and jade and ebony and precious stones.
Six of the keys — the pearly ones — opened six beautiful rooms, but the seventh had rubies in its handle, and it was a little, little key, not at all like a door-key; so Pandora looked about for a little keyhole that the key would fit, and at last she found a cabinet of ebony inlaid with gold and red tortoiseshell, and the little seventh key just fitted through the opening of the gold lock-plate and into the keyhole. Pandora turned the key and opened the cabinet. Inside the cabinet were seven little drawers with gold handles set with rubies, like the key.
Pandora pulled the drawers out one after the other. She was alone, except for the house-fly, who had followed her and now sat on the top of the cabinet door, watching her with all his hundreds of eyes. But no one notices a fly.
Five of the drawers contained jewels. The first was full of necklaces, the second held rings and brooches, the third had tiaras and chaplets, the fourth girdles, and the fifth bracelets, and they were all of the most beautiful jewels in the world — rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearls and diamonds, and opals, and many other stones that the Princess did not even know the names of.
In the sixth drawer was a dry brown wreath that fell to pieces as Pandora lifted it. It had been jasmine once, and the Queen had worn it at her wedding.
And in the seventh drawer was just one jewelled ring. It lay on a written page.
The Princess read the writing:
‘This ring is for my son’s wife, or for my daughter, if I have no son. It is the magic ring given thousands of years ago to a Queen of this country. It has the power of changing the wearer into whatever shapes he chooses. But it has never been used, because the Kings of this country have always been so good and kind, and clever and beloved, that their wives could never think of any change that would not be a change for the worse. There is only one thing in the world that this jewel cannot touch or change. And this is of all things in the world the most important thing.’
Pandora kissed the written words and slipped the ring on to her finger. It was a wonderful stone, like a sapphire that had tried to change into an opal, and stopped halfway.
There was not a happier Princess living than Pandora. Yet she was not afraid of change. Girls are like this sometimes, and she was very young for her age.
She stood looking at the ring and turning it on her finger, and the fly watched her with all its hundreds of eyes.
Now, you will, perhaps, have guessed that this fly was not an ordinary fly, and you are right. But if you think he was an enchanted Prince or anything of that sort you are wrong. The fly was simply the cleverest fly of all flies — someone must be the cleverest in any society, you know — and he was just clever enough to like to be where the Princess was, and to look at her beauty with all his hundreds of eyes. He was clever enough to like this and to know that he liked it, but he was not clever enough to know why.
So now, as the Princess stood fingering her ring and trying to make her mind up, he gave an interested buzz, and the Princess jumped.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s only a horrid fly! But it has wings. It must be lovely to have wings. I wish I were a fairy no bigger than that fly.’
And instantly she and her silver-trained gown, and her silver shoes, and the magic ring, and everything about her, grew suddenly small, till she was just as big as the fly and no bigger, and that is flower-fairy size. Silver gauze wings grew out of her shoulders; she felt them unfolding slowly, like a dragon-fly’s wings when he first comes out of that dull brown coat of his that hasn’t any wing-parts.
She gave a tiny shriek of joyous surprise, and fluttered out through the open window and down across the marble terraces to the palace flowergarden. The fly buzzed heavily after her.
Pandora fluttered among roses and lilies on her bright, light, white wings, but presently she was tired, because flying is much harder work than you would think, especially when you have not been brought up to it from a child. So she looked about for a place to rest in, and saw near her the cool pink cave of a foxglove flower. She alighted on its lip, folded her wings, and walked in on her little fairy feet. It was very pleasant inside the foxglove. The Princess sat down by a drop of dew, which was quite a pool to the tiny lady, and presently she took off her rings and laid them on the smooth floor of the pink cave, and began to dabble her hands in the dew-pool. The fly had settled on the outer edge of the flower, and watched her with all his hundreds of eyes.
And now the dreadful thing happened. Pandora, her hands and face wet with dew, suddenly saw the daylight darken at the entrance of her foxglove cave. Then a black-winged monster, with hundreds and hundreds of eyes, came quickly towards her on its six legs. Pandora was very frightened, and squeezed herself close to the back of her cave. The fly moved on, and quickly picked up the magic ring, now so tiny that it fitted nicely on to one of its front feet.
Next moment it had backed out of the foxglove, taking the ring with it, and had flown off, and the Princess was left alone.
If she cried a little you can hardly blame her. You wait till you find yourself one million three hundred thousand two hundred and seventy-four times as small as you usually are, with no means whatever of getting back to your proper size, then you’ll understand how the Princess felt.
But she was a brave Princess; so she soon stopped crying, spread her gauzy wings, and flew across the garden and up over the marble terraces and in at the library window of the palace.
The King was reading the account of the birthday-party in the evening paper, and he did not notice the Princess at all till she settled on his ear. Then he put up his hand to brush her away, for he thought she was a fly. She dodged his hand and settled again, and shouted ‘Papa!’ into his ear as loud as ever she could. And the shout was no louder than a fly’s buzzing, but, as it was close to his ear, the King heard it very distinctly.
‘Bless my soul!’ said the King, sitting very bolt upright.
‘Don’t move, daddy,’ said the tiny Princess, ‘even if I tickle your ear with my wings. I found a magic jewel in one of dear mother’s cabinets, and I made it turn me into a fairy, and now a horrid fly has buzzed off with the jewel, and I can’t get back to my right size.’
‘I must be dreaming,’ said the King.
‘I wish you were — I mean I wish I was — but it’s true. I’ll settle on your hand now, and you’ll see.’
The King looked at the tiny winged thing — flower-fairy size — that settled on his hand. And he put on his spectacles and looked again. And then he got a magnifying-glass and looked through that.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it certainly is you! What a thing to happen, and on your birthday, too! Oh dear! oh dear!’
‘It is rather hard, daddy,’ said the poor Princess; ‘but you are so wise and clever, you’ll be able to get me back to my right size again.’
‘My dear,’ said the King, ‘I received a thorough commercial education, but I never learned magic. In fact, I doubt whether it is still taught even at Oxford.’
‘Daddy dear,’said the Princess shyly, ‘I’ve read a good many books about magic — fairy-tales they’re called, you know — and — —’
‘Yes,’ said the King, who saw at once what she meant. ‘Of course, I shall do that first thing.’
And next morning all the newspapers contained an advertisement:
‘Wanted, competent Prince to undo magic and restore Princesses to their right size. None but eldest sons need apply. The usual reward offered. Apply at the palace.’
‘I think that’s a mistake, daddy,’ said the Princess; ‘in the fairy stories it’s always the youngest son who makes everything come right. And people don’t know their fairy history nowadays; they mayn’t know what the reward is.’
So the next day the advertisement was changed to:
‘Any sons of respectable monarchs may apply. The successful candidate will receive the Princess’s hand in marriage.’
‘It’s all very well to put that in,’ said the Princess to herself, ‘but if I don’t like him I shan’t marry him. I’ll give him all my jewels instead.’
But all the Kings’ sons in the world had forgotten their magic, if they ever knew any, and not one single Prince applied at the palace.
So the Princess had to do the only possible thing — make the best of it. And she did it bravely.
Now, when the fly, whose name, by the way, was Muscadel, flew off from the foxglove-bell with the magic jewel on his feathery foot, he flew straight to the Princess’s boudoir and settled down on his favourite spot, the corner of the frame of her mirror. And there he sat and wondered how he could best use the magic jewel. And he thought so hard that he never noticed a large spider who spun a web right across the corner where he sat, and when he spread his wings to assist his meditations by a little exercise he was caught in the web.