imagining that Fantosina was held tightly in his hand, and listening to
every word she said.
'I never wait for anybody!' exclaimed the king; 'kindly sit down to
luncheon.'
'I will just put the bird in a cage,' said Abdullah. 'I wish Fantosina
would come. How pleased she will be; won't she, mother?'
Abdullah left the room and soon found an empty bird-cage, then he put
Fantosina into it, and she sat down on its floor with all her feathers
ruffled, and feeling extremely miserable as you may imagine. When
luncheon ended and still there was no sign of Fantosina, the king became
even more alarmed than the queen; he sent men in all directions to
search for her, but night came and no Fantosina. The king and queen did
not go to bed all night, and a light was kept burning in every window of
the palace. They were both very tired at breakfast the next morning, and
when Fantosina sat on a perch in her cage and sang her loudest in her
effort to make them know who she really was, the queen said the song
made her head ache, and ordered that the cage should be covered over.
How miserable Fantosina felt in the darkened cage! How she longed to be
able to fly from tree to tree again even if she could not return to her
proper shape! But all the longing in the world was of no use. Day after
day passed, the king's hair grew gray from grief, and the queen became
pale and thin, while Abdullah took no pleasure in anything but the bird.
Everybody in the palace went into the deepest mourning because they
thought Fantosina must be dead, and once she heard her father and mother
talking about the prince who was coming to marry their daughter.
'I wish we could prevent him from coming,' said the king; 'and if I knew
which direction he had taken, I would send messengers to meet him.'
'It will be a great disappointment to him,' answered the queen; 'but
when he sees we are in sorrow, he will not stay long.'
One day Fantosina heard that he had arrived, and she saw him through the
bars of her cage that evening at dinner. He was very tall and handsome,
just the kind of prince she had hoped he might be, but all she could do
was to sing her best in his honour.
'What a charming song!' exclaimed the prince, 'and what beautiful
plumage! I have never seen a bird like that before.'
'Abdullah caught it the day poor Fantosina disappeared,' said the queen,
and she became so deeply distressed that she apologised to the prince
and left the table.
'It was a pity to catch the bird,' answered the prince; 'its plumage
will fade in the cage and its song will die away.'
'I caught it to please my sister,' said Abdullah, 'for I knew she would
be delighted with it.' Fantosina's wings felt redder than ever, for she
blushed to remember that it was quite true she had often kept birds in
cages, though she was sure she should never do so again even if she had
the opportunity.
'As I have found you all in such distress,' said the prince presently,
'I shall of course not stay so long as I intended. I think I shall ask
you to let me depart to-morrow.'
The king offered no objection to this, for to tell you the truth, he
felt pleased to get rid of the prince now he had lost Fantosina; it was
not a time for visitors. After breakfast the next morning, the prince
ordered a large parcel to be carried in, and when it had been unfastened
he took out the costly presents he had brought from his father's
kingdom. These consisted of embroideries and jewels and swords and
various other things which the king and queen and Abdullah admired
exceedingly. Then the king said--
'I do not know what to offer you in return for all these treasures,
because I had intended to give you the most valuable of all my
possessions, and that was my poor Fantosina. Now, alas! I have no
daughter, and I do not know what to offer you.'
'There is one thing I should like, if you will graciously present it to
me,' said the prince.
'I beg you will do me the honour to choose whatever in my kingdom
pleases you the best,' answered the king.
'Then,' said the prince, 'I choose this beautiful bird.'
As the prince spoke Fantosina began to sing, for although she had made
up her mind she could never be other than a bird as long as she lived,
she had already grown to love the prince so dearly that she felt pleased
at the idea of going away with him. The prince was to set forth at four
o'clock the same afternoon, and from the window where her cage hung
Fantosina could see the people making ready for his departure. When the
four white horses were put into his carriage, she began to fear lest she
should be forgotten, and to remind the prince, she began to sing her
loudest. Presently Abdullah came to the room and climbed on to a chair
to take down the cage, which he carried outside the palace. The king and
queen and several courtiers stood around the prince to bid him farewell,
and when Abdullah joined the group with the cage in his hand, the king
felt ashamed of the smallness of his gift.
'I fear,' he said, as Abdullah handed the cage to the prince, 'you will
find the bird troublesome on your journey.'
'No,' answered the prince, 'I shall not find it in the least
troublesome, because I do not intend to take it on my journey.' And
Fantosina felt deeply disappointed to think she was going to be left
behind after all. But the next moment the prince held the cage above his
head and opened the door. The instant the door was opened Fantosina flew
out of the cage, but Abdullah, thinking she had escaped by an accident
and that the prince would be disappointed to lose the bird, ran after
her, followed by the prince, who vainly called to him to come back. The
king followed his guest, from politeness, but at a slower pace, and even
the queen and the courtiers walked in the same direction.
Fantosina felt almost too much excited to fly; after her confinement in
the cage, her wings were a little stiff too, so that long before she
reached the cowslip bank, she feared she might fall exhausted to the
ground and be caught again. Then she wondered whether she find all the
cowslips dead, and this idea alarmed her so much that she flew slower
and slower, though she tried to fly faster and faster. Abdullah was
close to her tail, the prince a little behind him, the king was in the
next field, and the queen and the courtiers in the next but one.
As Fantosina drew near to the bank, she could not see one cowslip; at
last she was exactly over the bank, and just as she felt she could not
fly another yard, she saw a single cowslip under her claws. In an
instant she dropped to the ground, and at the same moment Abdullah
seized her tail. But Fantosina put forth her beak as far as it would go
and just succeeded in touching the pale yellow petal of the one cowslip
which was left.
To the astonishment of Abdullah and of the prince, the blue bird with
the scarlet wings disappeared and in its place stood the most beautiful
princess the prince had ever seen.
'Fantosina!' exclaimed Abdullah.
'Fantosina!' cried the king, almost out of breath.
'Fantosina!' cried the queen in the next field. But the prince said
nothing until Fantosina held out her hand to him.
'If you had not been so good to me,' she said, 'I should have lived in a
cage all my life.'
'I had no idea I was serving the Princess Fantosina,' he answered with a
smile.
'No,' she said, 'but a kind action is never quite wasted,' and then the
queen came up with her hand on her heart, for she had begun to run as
soon as she saw her daughter, and she took Fantosina in her arms, and
they all seemed very pleased to see her again, and presently they walked
back to the palace. The prince's horses were sent to the stables, for of
course he did not go away that day, and all the people retired to
exchange their mourning garments for the very gayest they could find. A
few weeks later the prince and Fantosina were married, and she went with
him to his own country. But although a great many primroses grow there
each spring-time, Fantosina has never changed into a bird again.
XI
MARY SEES MRS. COPPERT AND MRS. COPPERT SEES MARY
During the next few days Mary saw nothing of Evangeline, though she
would have liked very much to hear another story. Sister Agatha often
took her on to the beach, and Mary found that, although it is possible
to make a great many things out of mud, you can make more and much nicer
things out of sand.
Sometimes she thought she should like to have other children to play
with, but not the same little boys and girls with whom she used to play
in William Street, because she wished never to have anything to do with
William Street or Mrs. Coppert again.
One day Mary was sitting with Sister Agatha as usual, when Evangeline
entered the room, but she seemed too busy to take much notice of
anything except the new dress which she had come to show Sister Agatha.
The dress was all white and shiny, with small flowers about it, white
flowers, too, and Mary admired it so much as Evangeline held it across
her arms that she touched it with her finger-tips.
'Don't you think Mary might go out into the garden?' said Evangeline.
'I ought to fetch her hat then,' said Sister Agatha.
'It is beautifully warm,' answered Evangeline; 'I don't think it can
hurt her to go as she is.'
So Sister Agatha told Mary she might go, and she stepped out through the
open window just as she was--pinafore and all. For a few minutes she
walked about the grass watching a gardener who was mowing it. She looked
on whilst he swept the grass he had cut into a basket and emptied the
basket into a wheel-barrow. Then he wheeled the barrow to an iron gate,
and having passed through the gate, he disappeared round the corner.
Now, Mary thought it would be rather nice to go through that gate and
round the corner too, and a minute later she found herself in the same
road, with trees on each side of it, along which Evangeline had driven
the cream-coloured ponies on the day of her arrival. Mary walked on and
on, until presently she reached the cottage where she had seen the old
woman in the red cloak. But no one was to be seen at present, and on
going close to the gate, Mary found there was a smaller one by its side,
and as this happened to be open, she passed through it into the public
road.
She felt so glad to be in the road that she began to jump about and to
clap her little hands. And yet she did not know why she should be glad,
for the park was a far nicer place after all. Still she did feel
pleased, and without thinking where she was going, or whether Sister
Agatha would like her to go or not, Mary began to scamper away from the
house.
The sun felt very hot, and Mary soon became breathless, so she stopped
just where the road bent round towards the railway station and sat down
by a high, green, flowery bank.
It really seemed very nice sitting there in the brilliant sunshine, and
she leaned back until her head touched the green bank. Presently Mary
closed her eyes, and though she opened them once or twice it was not
long before she fell fast asleep. She did not know how much later it was
when she awoke in a great fright, for she dreamed she heard Mrs.
Coppert's voice, heard it quite distinctly, as if it were only a few
yards from her ears. Of course it was a dream! Mary told herself that
before she had time to open her eyes; but when she did open them she
looked up and saw Mrs. Coppert in the road, staring down at her.
Nobody was in sight--nobody but Mrs. Coppert! Mrs. Coppert was a fat
woman and tall; she had a large, shiny, red face, and great arms and
hands under her cloak, and a bright blue feather in her bonnet. She was
not a nice-looking person at all, and she spoke as if she were going to
cry. But Mary had never seen her cry, though she had seen her make
children cry very often.
'Dear me!' exclaimed Mrs. Coppert, 'if it isn't little Mary Brown! So
smart, too,' she said, leaning forward and taking Mary's skirt between
her fingers. 'And to think of those other poor children at home. They
don't wear such fine dresses, and you haven't even asked how they are!'
'How are they?' whispered Mary, feeling very frightened.
'Haven't they got names of their own?' asked Mrs. Coppert.
'How are Sally and 'Liza and Tubby?' said Mary, knowing it was always
the best to obey Mrs. Coppert.
'So happy, you'd never believe it,' was the answer. 'Troublesome, I must
say; but that's overfeeding. I always did overfeed my children. And
they're quite longing to see Mary Brown again, and so they shall, bless
'em!'
Mary still sat on the grass with her right hand in her pocket. Tightly
between her finger and thumb she held her purse which contained the
Magic Counter. Perhaps you wonder why she did not give it to Mrs.
Coppert and tell her to go away at once. It is quite true that Mary
believed that if she gave it to anybody, it would make her do whatever
she wished, and she certainly wished Mrs. Coppert to go away. But at the
same time Mary felt sure that Mrs. Coppert would keep whatever was given
to her, and put it in her large pocket; while she was a woman who never
did what she was asked to do. What Mary hoped was that some one else
might come along the road, and then she would take out the Magic Counter
at once and ask that Mrs. Coppert should be sent away.
'I'm not going to see them,' said Mary with tears in her eyes; 'I don't
want to see them.'
'There now!' cried Mrs. Coppert, 'there's ingratitude! And them like
brothers and sisters almost. You just get up off that grass and come
along of me.'
'I want to go home,' answered Mary. 'I must go home, I must,' she said,
and now she was crying as if her heart would break.
'Of course you must!' exclaimed Mrs. Coppert. 'Ain't I going to take you
home? Isn't William Street your home? Haven't you lived there all your
life? Haven't I been a mother to you?'
'But I--I can't go without saying good-bye to Sister Agatha and
Evangeline!' cried Mary, as she stood upright. 'I must say good-bye,'
she sobbed; 'they won't know where I am.'
'Oh yes they will,' was the answer. 'I'll see to that,' said Mrs.
Coppert, taking one of Mary's arms; 'never you fear. Wait till we get
back to William Street and I'll write a nice letter. So just you come
along and no nonsense!'
Mrs. Coppert held Mary's arm so tightly that it quite hurt, but
fortunately it was the left arm which she held, so that Mary could still
keep her right hand in her pocket. And she managed to put one of her
fingers inside the purse and to take out the Magic Counter.
She held it all ready to give to the first person she saw come along the
road, and although she felt more frightened than she had ever felt
before, Mary still hoped that something might happen to prevent her from
being taken back to William Street. But at present Mary saw nobody from
one end of the road to the other, nobody but Mrs. Coppert, whom she did
not want to see. She was dragged along the sunny road almost blind with
tears, but as they drew nearer the railway station Mrs. Coppert held her
less tightly.
Mary wondered whether it was the same road that Evangeline had brought
her along the day she arrived, but she did not think it could be the
same, for, to-day, she had not passed the shops and small houses. At all
events, whether it was the same road or not she thought she could see
the small railway station only a little way off, and now Mary grew more
afraid than ever, for if she was once inside the station she might be
put into a train and taken back to London after all! She was just
wondering whether it would not be possible to give the Magic Counter to
the man who drove the train and tell him to take her back to Sister
Agatha, when she uttered a cry of surprise, for she saw a tall young man
coming towards them and she recognised him at once.
'It's the prince!' she exclaimed, 'it's the prince!'
Now Mary had never felt very, very fond of the prince, because he was
going to take Evangeline away from her. Of course she admired him, for
he was a very handsome prince, but Mary had never spoken to him although
she had often seen him in the garden. She felt greatly delighted to see
him now, however, and she held her Magic Counter so that she could take
it out of her pocket directly he came near. Still it is not very nice to
have to speak to a person you have never spoken to before, and Mary felt
a little shy about it.
'It's the prince, is it?' said Mrs. Coppert laughing; 'as if princes
went walking about in that way.'
'I know he is a prince,' answered Mary, 'because Sister Agatha says so.'
'Oh, so he's a friend of hers, is he?' asked Mrs. Coppert; and Mary
thought she looked rather anxious. 'I suppose now he doesn't happen to
know you?'
'No,' answered Mary; 'but that doesn't matter,' she added.
'Well,' said Mrs. Coppert, 'just you listen to me. What you've got to do
is to walk nicely by my side as if you were coming willingly--none of
your crying or hanging back, or it'll be the worse for you.'
She released Mary's arm now, and for a few yards the child walked
quietly by her side, but as soon as the prince drew nearer, Mary ran
away from Mrs. Coppert and stopped right in front of him, looking up
anxiously into his face and holding the Magic Counter out for him to
take.
'Hullo!' he cried, looking a little amused, 'what's that for?'
'Take it, please,' said Mary, pressing it against his hand. 'Please take
it,' she said. 'I do want you to take it quickly,' and she glanced over
her shoulder at Mrs. Coppert, who had stopped in the middle of the road.
'Are you Mary Brown?' asked the prince, taking the Magic Counter in his
hand. For although he had never spoken to her, it is very likely he had
heard her story from Evangeline.
'Yes,' answered Mary, 'I'm Mary Brown, and this is Mrs. Coppert. She
wants to take me back to William Street and I don't want to go. And I
shan't have to go now, because you must send Mrs. Coppert away and take
me back to Sister Agatha.'
Then the prince looked at Mrs. Coppert and she made a curtsey. 'I
understood,' said the prince, 'that Miss Royal had arranged everything
satisfactorily with you.'
'It ain't very satisfactory to part with one you've been more than a
mother to,' answered Mrs. Coppert, and Mary thought her voice sounded as
if she were going to cry. 'You come along of me,' she added, seizing
Mary's arm again. But the prince would not allow this, and in fact Mary
did not feel in the least frightened now, because she had given him the
Magic Counter, you see! He lifted Mary Brown in his arms and carried her
towards the house, and as she looked back over his shoulder, she saw
Mrs. Coppert following some distance off. When the prince carried Mary
into the park Mrs. Coppert began to run, and her large face looked
redder and more shiny than ever. The prince carried Mary in at the front
door, and a lot of people who were pushing balls about on the green
table with long sticks left off to laugh at him.
But suddenly Evangeline appeared amongst them; Mary did not know where
she came from, but of course Evangeline could appear when and where she
pleased; and instead of laughing when she saw the prince with Mary in
his arms, she ran towards him looking very glad and whispering something
that Mary could not hear. Then Evangeline took her upstairs to the
bedroom, where she found Sister Agatha. Sister Agatha took Mary on her
knees and said she had done wrong to leave the garden, but she kissed
her instead of scolding her any more, and Mary liked it much better.
'Only you must never go away like that again,' she said. 'Because we did
not know what had happened to you, and you frightened us very much. But
still,' Sister Agatha added, 'even if Mrs. Coppert had taken you to
London, we should have come to fetch you away again.'
XII
EVANGELINE SAYS GOOD-BYE TO MARY BROWN
Mary felt greatly relieved to hear that Sister Agatha would have fetched
her away again if Mrs. Coppert had taken her to William Street, but
still she seemed tired after her adventure, and as soon as she finished
tea she was put to bed. She did not have very agreeable dreams that
night, and even the next morning she could think of nothing but Mrs.
Coppert.
When Evangeline came to see her during the afternoon, Mary looked up
wonderingly into her face and said--
'What I can't make out is how Mrs. Coppert knew where I was! How did she
know I was here?'
'If you sit down,' answered Evangeline, 'I will tell you a story.'
'Bring your stool close to me,' said Sister Agatha. And without losing a
moment, Mary carried her stool to Sister Agatha's side and sat down.
Then Evangeline began the story.
'Once upon a time there lived in London a young woman whom we will
call--what shall we call her? Suppose we say her name was Gertrude! She
lived in a large house and she had a lot of money, and she was very fond
of driving nice horses. One afternoon, being a little late, she drove
through the streets more quickly than she ought to have done. It was
growing dark, and as she drove along a narrow street she ran over a poor
little girl who was making mud-pies in the gutter, and knocked her down
and hurt her very much.
'At first Gertrude feared she was dead, for her face was quite white,
and her eyes were closed, and she neither spoke nor moved. But presently
she moved a little, although she did not open her eyes.
'Now Gertrude felt very sorry, especially because she knew she had been
to blame in driving too fast through the street, and she felt anxious to
do whatever she could to make Lucy--we will call the little girl
Lucy--quite well again. Of course a crowd soon collected to see what was
the matter, and some one in the crowd told Gertrude where Lucy lived.
But Gertrude thought the child would be more likely to get well if she
took her to her own house, so she sent one of her servants to Lucy's
friends to explain what had happened, but Lucy, herself, was put into
the carriage and driven away with Gertrude.
'When they reached the house Lucy was carried upstairs to a spare room
and put to bed, then a doctor was sent for, and when the doctor had gone
Gertrude wrote to the best woman she knew. This person used to be a
great friend of Gertrude's until she made up her mind to have nothing
more to do with such idle, good-for-nothing people. So she went away
from her friends and spent her life nursing poor folk who were sick.
Well, this person, whose name ought to have been Sister Benevolence,
agreed to take care of Lucy until the child grew strong again.
'But Gertrude feared she would never be quite so strong as she used to
be, and she felt very, very sorry about it. But, you see, she couldn't
undo what was done; she could only make up her mind to be much more
careful in the future. She saw Lucy's friends, who were not very nice
persons, and they said that Lucy had neither a father nor a mother, nor
anybody who really belonged to her, so--so Gertrude gave her friends
money, and they said she might keep Lucy at her house for ever.
'You must understand that Gertrude made up her mind that Lucy should not
go back to the place she had come from, but that as soon as she grew
better, she should be sent to school. But now I am going to tell you
both a little secret about Gertrude. She often said she would do things,
and yet when the time came she found she could not possibly do them. She
intended to be very good, and when she saw people unhappy she always
wanted to make them happy. Only she thought a great deal about her own
happiness too, and in thinking of herself she forgot the others, and
when she remembered them again, sometimes it was too late.
'So when Lucy grew stronger, and the doctor said she would soon be able
to walk quite nicely again, perhaps Gertrude did not think about her so
much as she had done at first. She was going to be married, you see, and
to live in a foreign country, and even if she sent Lucy to boarding
school, she did not know who was to look after her during the holidays.
But to tell you the truth, Gertrude had so many other things to think of
that she forgot all about Lucy's future, and although she would be going
away very soon now, nothing had been done to provide for the child.
'Then something happened to remind Gertrude how necessary it was that
Lucy should be taken care of after she went away, only she had so little
time left that she did not know in the least what to do.
'One day Lucy wandered out of the garden and into the road, where the
woman with whom she used to live saw her and wanted to take her back
again. Not that the woman was fond of Lucy; she only wanted to take her
away so that Gertrude should pay more money to get her back again.'