WHICH HERALDS A CHANGE
“Daddy is calling me, Nurse. Do remember to take the price off the
herald angels, and the cornflower calendar with the ten commandments on
it will go for a halfpenny. I thought the commandments might make it
over-weight, but they don’t. Coming, Daddy!” It was the afternoon of
Christmas Eve; Philomène was busy with all sorts of cards and parcels,
and later on she was to go to her godmother’s for tea and presents and a
Christmas tree.
Her father was waiting for her in the study. He took her on his knee,
and stroked her hair for a little while before speaking. Then he said
tenderly; “I have not been a very good Daddy to you these last few
months, little maid, and I am sorry, and I want to explain.”
Philomène opened her eyes wide. “You know, little Miss Muffet,”
continued her father gently, “if one cares very, very much, ever so
much, for someone, and doesn’t know if that someone cares back, it makes
one very unhappy.”
“But why don’t you ask and find out, right away?” said Philomène.
“I have asked, and I have found out, but it took me a long time to make
up my mind, and meanwhile I was so much worried that I’m afraid I was
often cross to my little girl. Has she forgiven me, I wonder?”
Philomène hid her face. “Oh, Daddy,” she whispered, “don’t talk so; it
doesn’t sound quite proper, somehow, for you to put it that way round.”
The doctor laughed. “My dear,” he said, “if it sometimes occurred to
parents that their children might possibly have something to forgive in
them, they would have a good deal less to forgive in their children.”
He gave her a fond kiss, and she flung her arms round him, declaring
that he was the best Daddy in the world, and got down from his knee. Not
long afterwards he was standing in Isolde’s boudoir, holding both her
hands in his.
“I have loved you,” she was saying slowly, “ever since I first met you.”
“And did Rachel know?”
“No, it was the only secret I had from her.”
“I waited,” said the doctor, “I waited, dear, because I was a coward.
Two things held me back. Your riches, for I found it hard to take so
much from any woman, and my fear lest you should think that it was only
for the child’s sake, just because I could not bear to see her
motherless any longer.”
She looked at him wistfully, knowing that what he had given to his first
wife he could not give again, but she knew also that his love for her
was deep and true. She smiled at him, and was about to answer when
Philomène’s voice was heard outside.
“You had better go now,” said Isolde hastily, “I would rather be alone
with her when I tell her.”
In another moment Philomène had entered. The cold wind had heightened
her colour, and her hazel eyes shone with eager expectation. “O,
Godmother,” she exclaimed, running up to Isolde, “I have been thinking
all to-day how very, very sorry one ought to feel for the poor people in
the Old Testament who never had any Christmases. I do so wonder how they
got on without them.”
“I daresay they had a great many more birthdays than we have, little
cushat,” Isolde replied merrily, “you see, they are supposed to have
lived so very very long. Only think how many birthdays Methuselah must
have had, and they would more than make up for the Christmas presents he
didn’t get!”
“I suppose so,” said Philomène, thoughtfully, “and of course they had
the Passover; not that they got anything then, except dull roast lamb
and parsley, but at least it must have been rather fun striking the
hyssop on to the door lintels.”
The Christmas tree was standing in the bow-window, decorated with fir
cones and lighted candles, and below it was a little crèche, with the
Madonna and the Christchild, and the ox and ass standing by the manger.
Beside it was a table, on which Philomène’s Christmas presents had been
spread, and it was when these had been looked at and admired, that
Isolde sat down on the floor close to the crèche, and drew Philomène
towards her.
“Little cushat,” said she, “on this night, of all nights in the year,
when we are thinking of the best and dearest mother that ever was or
will be, I want to tell you that Daddy has asked me to be your mother.
Are you a little bit glad?”
Philomène was very glad, too glad to speak at first. Then a shadow fell.
“Godmother,” she whispered, “there is just one thing I should like to
say, but I’m afraid it may hurt you. I was thinking that you would want
me to call you “Mother,” as though I were really your own little girl,
and I wish I were, or at least I wish I had been to start with, because
you know how I love you, Godmother dear, and I should have been ever so
glad if you had been my real mother properly from the beginning. But you
aren’t, you see, and it seems to me it would be better not to call you
‘Mother,’ nor to make-believe, but to go on calling you Godmother just
as I used to do, and to keep ‘Mother’ for when I meet my own mother
later on. Don’t you think she might feel a little bit sorry and left out
if I had used up that name for someone else, even for you?”
“You are right,” said Isolde in a very low voice, “we will not defraud
the dead.”
The next day Philomène went to announce the news to Sweet William. She
sat opposite to him on the toadstool which she had come to consider her
own, with her elbows propped on the mushroom table between them, as she
had sat many and many a time during the past year.
“I quite see that it cannot be helped,” said Sweet William, when she had
finished speaking, “but I am sorry.”
A startled look came into Philomène’s eyes. “What do you mean?” she
asked uneasily, “why should you be sorry?”
“For one thing, you will not live at Sideview any longer,” replied Sweet
William, gravely. This had not yet occurred to Philomène, and now that
she realised it she put her head down on the mushroom, and cried
bitterly.
“Oh, and I used to think it such a dull little house,” she sobbed, “and
now I shall be ever so sorry to leave it. I have found a fairy in the
garden, and another indoors, and a witch and a White Létiche as well,
such a dear, pretty little White Létiche. Are the fairies going to leave
me, Sweet William, all because Daddy wants to marry again?”
“You are not putting the matter quite fairly,” replied Sweet William,
with a momentary return of his severest manner, “it is not your father’s
marriage in itself which will oblige us to leave you for the present, or
rather, you to leave us. It is that the Good People are only the
comrades of lonely children, and now you will not be lonely any more.
Your godmother will make you a good mother, and a good friend, and you
will need us no longer. Remember, Griselda never went up into the cuckoo
clock again after she had found a playmate.”
“But even if I have to leave you behind me,” said Philomène, fighting
with her tears, “I shall have Master Mustardseed and Queen Mab with me
still, and Speedwell and Spirea live at the Cushats.”
Sweet William shook his head. “That makes no difference,” he said, “you
will still have a canary and a cat, but not a fairy and a white witch. I
daresay you may catch a glimpse of the twins now and then when it is
growing dusk, but it will be of no use trying to get them to speak to
you, unless they make the first move. Of course I don’t for a moment say
that you and I will never meet again; I may very possibly turn up years
hence in some other garden. After all, you had the green ribbons on your
christening robe, and that will always count for something.”
Philomène dried her tears, but she was far from feeling comforted. She
looked sadly all round the little room, and had hard work to prevent
them from flowing afresh as she wished Sweet William good-bye. She was
half way down the garden path before she remembered that she had left
her latchkey sticking in the lock. She went back at once, but it was
gone.
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DADDY TAKES US CAMPING
“Oh, Hal!” cried Mabel Blake, as she ran down the garden walk. “Guess
what’s going to happen.”
“I don’t know,” answered Hal, who was making a kite. “What?”
“Daddy is going to take us camping!” went on Mab.
“Oh, joy!” cried Hal.
Camping in the woods, living in a tent, and having many wonderful
adventures, are only a few things Hal, Mab and their father did. You
liked to read the Bedtime Stories, and you will like these new books by
the same author, Howard R. Garis.
Send to your book store, and get the volume “Daddy Takes Us Camping.”
The book tells of nature, outdoor life and animals in a way children
like.
R. F. Fenno & Company, of 18 East 17th Street, New York City, publish
the Daddy books, of which there are several. They will mail any volume
on receipt of price, if your store does not have it. The books are
prettily gotten up, with pictures.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 65, changed “fairy in the case” to “fairy in the castle”.
2. Table of Contents added by transcriber.
3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Fairy Latchkey, by Magdalene Horsfall