IN WHICH THE HEROINE IS GIVEN A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
During the remaining days of that gladsome rose-red June, Philomène went
about the house with a face as glad as any sunbeam and as rosy as any
flower. Nurse thought that the prospect of riding in a hay-cart and
digging in the sand with a new spade sufficiently accounted for these
radiant looks, but though the haystacks loomed large, they loomed only
in the background—it was Godmother’s figure which occupied the
foreground.
The plan cast only one shadow. Philomène felt very sorry at having to
leave Master Mustardseed and Sweet William, and when the day for packing
arrived, she had tears in her eyes as she opened the cage-door, and put
in her hand so that the canary might perch upon her wrist. Unhappily
Nurse was present, so Philomène could only kiss the canary’s green head
tenderly, and whisper, “It isn’t for so very long, dear,” before she
again closed the cage-door. As for Queen Mab, she put a soft padded paw
into her mistress’s hand, and rubbed a soft whiskered face against her
mistress’s arm, as who should say, “Goodbye, and don’t get too fond of
any other pussycats.”
Then Philomène went into the garden and let herself into Sweet William’s
house. He had been expecting her visit, and held out a lean little brown
hand with what was for him an air of unusual condescension.
“Sit down,” he said, “you are a good child, and I shall miss you. But we
shall meet again in September, I understand. By the way, I have decided
to give you a letter of introduction to the fairy agent at the Cushats.
The garden must have one, though I do not happen to know him. I don’t
expect you will see very much of him, for you will not be as lonely
there as here, and so much left to yourself. Considering that she isn’t
a proper fairy godmother, yours seems to do very well by you. Still, it
would be nicer for you to have the chance of getting to know another
fairy if you could.”
All this while Sweet William had been rummaging in his cupboard. He now
drew from it a white Japanese anemone, with its petals tightly shut up.
This he handed to Philomène. “Is it the envelope?” she asked,
wonderingly.
“No, child,” he replied, “it is the letter. I have written all that is
necessary on the inside of the petals, and the anemone will open only
when you have found the person for whom it is intended.” Philomène
thanked him, and they took a friendly farewell of each other.
It was Lilian Augusta with whom she travelled to the little country
station where Godmother was to meet her. She sat bolt-upright in her
corner of the carriage, looking at the daisied fields as they sped by;
she watched the miniature carts and horses as they toiled along the road
below the level of the train, and her spirits were so high that nothing
could chill or damp them, not even the drink concocted by Nurse for the
journey, a horrible mixture of tea and milk with far too much sugar in
it.
The little station of Wyndham-on-Ferry, at which the travellers
presently arrived, was altogether too sleepy for this bustling age. The
fiery red geraniums in the station-master’s garden nodded drowsily in
the hot sun, the solitary porter seemed almost as drowsy as the
geraniums, and the only wide-awake creature about the place was a cock
that crowed from a neighbouring farmyard. Outside the station Godmother
was waiting with the new trap and the white donkey, and Philomène had
soon scrambled up on to the seat beside her.
“O Godmother,” she cried, “he really is a dear, with just the same big
brown eyes as the donkey in the picture over the schoolroom mantelpiece,
and the same long ears laid back.”
They had not driven far before the breath of the pinewoods met them, and
that sound which is older than all the world beside, the primeval
cadence of the league-long surf.
The gate of the Cushats stood open, white and friendly. The pigeons were
cooing heart to heart in the woods, and the mingled sweets of
heliotrope, rose, and jasmine, streamed out in wordless welcome. The
lime-tree outside the bow-window of the drawing-room was casting a
tremulous shadow on the lush-green turf of the lawn, and the pale gold
of early evening was on the little old gabled house.
The furnishing of Philomène’s room was as innocently white and as
hopefully green as any snowdrop; there was no carpet on the floor, only
some green and white matting in places. A copy of one of Watts’
pictures, that of a knight standing lost in thought beside his white
horse, was hanging where Philomène could see it as she lay in bed.
“The knight’s horse is very beautiful, Godmother,” she murmured just
before dropping off to sleep, “but I think I like a white donkey even
better.” Her hand was in Isolde’s, and the shoheen of the night wind in
the pinewoods sounded in her ears as the sound of the sea.