And they all shook hands with him and came away, leaving the
Christmas-tree, with all its seventy-two candles, still making the
pearly room a dream of fairy beauty.
They ran all the way home, because it was rather late, and they did not
want the servants to fetch them from the parish schoolroom, where they
had not spent the evening. It would have been very difficult to explain
exactly where and how they _had_ spent it, and the fact that they had
promised not to say anything about it would have added considerably to
the difficulty.
When they had been let in, and had taken off their hats and jackets and
got their breaths, they looked at each other.
'Well?' said Phyllis.
'Yes,' said Mabel; 'what an inciting adventure! What a dear he is! I do
hope we shall see his little girl to-morrow.'
'Yes,' said Guy slowly, 'but I don't think we shall.'
'Why ever not?'
'Because I don't believe he's got any little girl. We went into all the
rooms, and the hall and landing. There wasn't any other room for the
little girl to be in.'
'Perhaps it was really her under the sheet, trying to be ghosts,' said
Phyllis.
'It was too high up,' said Mabel.
'She might have been standing on a stool,' said Phyllis.
'Well,' said Guy, with a satisfied look; 'it's a very thrilling
mystery.'
It was. And it gave them something to think of for the next few days.
For that evening when they went to fetch the Christmas-tree, they found
the door of Sir Christopher's castle tight shut, and their
Christmas-tree was standing alone on the doorstep in the dark.
After vainly knocking several times, they put the tree into the
wheelbarrow and got it home, only upsetting it three times by the way.
When they got it into the light of their schoolroom they saw that there
was a piece of paper on it--a note.
'My dears,' it said, 'here is your beautiful tree. Thank you very much.
If you knew how much pleasure it had given me you would be glad. Why not
give the tree to some poor child? Good-bye. God bless you!'
There were some letters tangled together at the bottom of the page.
'His initials, I suppose,' said Guy. But nobody could read them.
'Anyway, it means he doesn't want to see us any more,' said Phyllis.
'Oh, I do wish we knew something more about him.'
But they took his advice, and the tree went to the gardener's little
boy, who was ill. It made him almost forget his illness for days and
days.
When father came home they asked him who lived in the Grotto. He told
them.
'He has lived there for years,' he said. 'I have heard that when he came
into his property he found that his property was almost all debts. So he
sold the tea-gardens for building on, and has lived there in the Grotto
on next to nothing, and all these years he's been paying off his
father's creditors. I should think they're about paid off by now.'
'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!'