IN WHICH THE HEROINE TAKES ADVICE
Philomène ran down the garden walk, her mind in a turmoil. Queen Mab was
trotting to meet her along the path, and as soon as she caught sight of
her pet, she knelt down on the gravel and held out her arms to it. “O
Queen Mab, Queen Mab,” she cried, “I am so happy! It seems it doesn’t
matter being ordinary, if only the Good People love one.” The cat had
scrambled upon her lap in an instant, and was rubbing a white velvety
head against her arm, and licking her hand with a little tongue as rough
as it was red. Philomène carried her pussy into the schoolroom, and set
it down on the bearskin hearth-rug; then she glanced curiously at the
canary in his cage, but he was pecking at the seeds in his seed-trough,
and took no notice of her.
Before nightfall it rained. Nurse said it was because Lilian Augusta had
sung “Summer suns are glowing” that morning, which, she declared,
invariably brought on wet weather. The next day it went on raining, but
despite the downpour Miss Mills happened to be in a good humour, and
this was just as well, for it was the turn of what Philomène called “the
little speckled book,” and it is not easy to give your attention to
little speckled books when your thoughts are full of fairies. “The World
and All About It” was a very plump little volume, and the squatness of
its figure was only equalled by the omniscience of its author. It
explained at the beginning who had made the world and why; it gave the
exact date for the invention of pottery, and described the best way of
handling chopsticks. Philomène had just been learning all about the
chameleon, and of how by changing its colour it escapes the notice of
its enemies.
“Does not this show the care which Providence takes of all its
creatures?” demanded Miss Mills.
“I suppose so,” replied Philomène, thoughtfully.
“Don’t say, ‘I suppose so,’” returned Miss Mills, “the answer in the
book is Yes.” But the rebuke was given gently and with a smile, and
Philomène was gladder than ever of this easy-going mood when it came to
the Scripture lesson, which was her weekly nightmare. For when Miss
Mills taught the Scriptures she succeeded in making them as dry as the
biscuit which the Red Queen gave to Alice. “Thirst quenched, I hope?”
said the Red Queen, and happily did not wait for an answer.
Nurse declined to venture out of doors that day, and an interview with
Master Mustardseed was impossible, so when lessons were over Philomène
went down to the kitchen to help Lilian Augusta grate the chocolate for
a pudding. She found her singing to herself, “And now this holy day is
drawing to its end.” “But I don’t see that it is so very holy,”
reflected Philomène, “and it isn’t anywhere near its end either. Nurse
says it is just out of contrariness that Lilian Augusta likes to sing,
“The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended” while she is washing up the
breakfast things, and “When morning gilds the skies” over the
tea-things, but then I think Nurse is sometimes very cross to Lilian
Augusta, and perhaps she doesn’t mean all she sings.”
Lilian Augusta and Philomène were good friends, and had quarrelled only
twice, once when the first canary had been allowed to make its escape,
and another time on Queen Mab’s account. Lilian Augusta had no love for
cats, and she was not pleased therefore when after some fruitless
advertising it was settled that Queen Mab should become a member of the
household. Philomène, bent on making peace, had carried her new pet into
the kitchen and had placed it on the table.
“You know, Lilian Augusta,” she said coaxingly, “we really couldn’t have
put such a little, little cat out into the street again, could we? Only
see how small it is, and who would have fed it?”
“God, I suppose, Miss,” replied Lilian Augusta unmoved, as she measured
out the curry-powder. But Philomène would not hear of this.
“Poor Pussy!” she exclaimed resentfully, “poor, poor Pussy!” And
snatching up Queen Mab she walked straight out of the kitchen and did
not re-visit it that day. Lilian Augusta, however, had grown first
indifferent to the white cat, and then fond of it, for Queen Mab had
pretty endearing ways, besides which, devotion to Philomène was at all
times a passport to the faithful servant’s good opinion.
For several days the steady rain continued; gardeners rejoiced, other
people grumbled. Philomène consoled herself with an occasional peep at
her tall silver savings-box, in which she now treasured her latchkey.
This savings-box of hers was never looked at, for her father wished her
to do as she pleased with her pocket-money, and she had therefore chosen
it as a hiding-place for the key. On these wet days, when she could not
play in the garden, it was a comfort merely to look at the key through
the slit in the lid of the box. Towards the end of the week the rain
abated, though it did not stop altogether. People were beginning to
cheer up all round, excepting, of course, the gardeners, who said that
the soil was sodden, and that the rain had brought the slugs.
Nurse laid aside the pinafore she had been making, and shut her work-box
with a snap. “I want to get some insertion,” she announced, “the same as
is on your other pinafores. I must see if I can match it,”
“Am I to come too, Nurse?” inquired Philomène anxiously.
“I don’t see the necessity, Miss. You had your walk this morning. You
had better stay in and meet your father when he comes home, I should
say. He might be back within the next hour.”
Philomène breathed more freely. “I would ask Lilian Augusta to do that
much shopping for me,” continued Nurse, “but it’s her time off to-day,
and what’s more she never can match things, not so much as a bit of
binding. I’m sure it’s very good of the Lord to make me as patient as I
am with Lilian Augusta every day of my life.”
No sooner had the hall-door banged downstairs than Master Mustardseed
burst into song, so full of joyous trills and turns and crushing-notes,
that someone who knew no better might have supposed he was merely
showing what difficult music he could contrive to sing if he gave his
mind to it. Philomène cautiously put two fingers through the bars of his
cage, and at that the canary stopped singing as abruptly as he had
begun, cocked his little green head on one side, and perched upon her
hand. Then he spoke in a shrill, small voice,
“No need to introduce myself, I suppose?” he said gaily. His manner was
good-humoured and easy, and Philomène thought, rightly enough, that he
would prove far slower to take offence than her friend the land-agent.
“No,” she said, “Sweet William has told me that Master Mustardseed is
really your name; and oh! you cannot think what a difference it has made
to me during lesson time to feel that there is a real fairy in the
schoolroom. I used to think sometimes, when it was quiet and getting
late, that if I listened I might hear my toys talking, as they do in
nearly all the story-books, but that never came to anything. Perhaps I
didn’t wait long enough, or perhaps they knew I was listening.”
“The story-books are not always as accurate on that point as they ought
to be,” replied the canary, “it is really not at all so easy to hear
toys talk as they make out. To begin with, the house has to be quite
empty; there must be no daylight in the room, only firelight or
moonlight; and there must be no time going on.”
“How could that be managed?” asked Philomène, as Master Mustardseed
paused to take breath, for he spoke nearly as fast as he sang.
“The clock must have stopped,” said Master Mustardseed, “so you see, it
is rather a difficult matter first and last. You have no idea, by the
way, what confusion you caused in the dolls’ house the other day by
making the dolls play at a wedding.”
“I am sorry if I upset them,” said Philomène in distress, “I thought I
should like to have a wedding, because I had read in my history lesson
that morning about King Louis XII. of France, and how he over-ate
himself at his own wedding-banquet when he married Mary Tudor, and he
died, and she was ever so pleased, and went quickly and married someone
else.”
“I daresay,” said Master Mustardseed, laughing, “but you married two
dolls who did not in the least want to marry each other, poor things,
and what was worse, the mistress of the house had invited the Gollywog
and the Father Christmas to lunch, and she had to tell them not to come,
as there were not enough plates to go round. How would you like to have
to do that if you were a hostess? The dolls’ own lives are constantly
being interrupted and interfered with by those who play with them, but
of course I see that it cannot be helped, and it isn’t your fault. It is
the fault of whoever made them dolls.”
“I will look very hard at them next time I want to play,” said Philomène
remorsefully, “and perhaps I shall see from the expression on their
faces whether they have a funeral or a party or anything of their own
fixed for that day. Poor dears, I hope they don’t hate me. But, oh
please, will you tell me something about yourself now, and why you are
here?”
“Well, as you have already heard,” replied the canary, “I am Master
Mustardseed, one of the fairy queen’s four favourite pages, so you made
a remarkably good shot at my name. As for why I am here—well, have you
never heard that once every hundred years fairies have to turn into
animals for a year and a day, and if they are killed during that time,
so much the worse for them, for you see, we haven’t what you call souls.
However, if we survive that year and that day, we can go back to
Fairyland for another hundred years. Now my friend and brother page,
Master Moth, of whom I daresay you have heard, had to put in his time
before my turn came, and he lived with you as your first canary; but
when his year was over he flew away, and knowing that I had shortly to
make up my mind what to change into myself, he recommended me to come
here, saying that you were a very kind little mistress, and that I might
go farther and fare worse. That is why I came, and as for my staying
longer than a year and a day, why, my dear, before I left Fairyland I
played a prank on the Man in the Moon. He had come to court for the
first time, and we pages thought him something of a country cousin. You
see, he did not know anything at all about court etiquette, and made
absurd mistakes. I thought out the prank all by myself, for I did not
want Puck or Moth or Cobweb or Peasblossom to know anything about it; it
does not do to have too many people in a secret. All would have gone off
well enough, had not the Man in the Moon complained to headquarters. It
appears he cannot take a joke; and indeed I might have guessed as much,
for I expect you have noticed even at this distance what a wry face he
can make. The king and queen were so much displeased that they banished
me from court for three years, and I thought I had much better stay on
here. But if one day I leave you, you must not be sorry, for I shall
only have flown back to Fairyland.”
“Do many of the fairies turn into song-birds?” asked Philomène.
“Yes, a good many of them,” replied Master Mustardseed, “and the court
musician always turns into a nightingale. As for the fairies who dislike
the bother of housekeeping, they become cuckoos, and lay their eggs in
other birds’ nests, which saves them a lot of trouble. Brownies become
bees and ants, for they cannot bear to be idle, and a court-lady as
often as not turns into a butterfly or humming-bird for the sake of the
fine clothes.”
“Have you ever heard the Lorelei sing?” inquired Philomène, “I had to
leave out the question about her in Sweet William’s examination paper.”
“No,” replied Master Mustardseed decidedly, “I have always avoided the
lady. You know, I suppose, what it is that she sings for? The boatmen
hear her, and listen and listen, and watch her combing her shimmering
hair, and forget to steer their boats, so that they are sucked down into
the whirlpools of the Rhine. The gnomes never did mortals a worse turn
than when they made that golden comb for her, and when all’s said and
done her hair is no prettier than your own godmother’s. But don’t let’s
talk about her any more; I know plenty of stories about much nicer
people. Perhaps you would like to hear one right away. Stop me if I talk
too fast; Moth says it is a failing of mine.”