What surprised the Professor himself, when he came to think of it, was
that, left alone with Malvina, and in spite of all the circumstances,
he felt neither embarrassment nor perplexity. It was as if, so far as
they two were concerned, the whole thing was quite simple--almost
humorous. It would be the other people who would have to worry.
The little serving maid was hovering about the garden. She was
evidently curious and trying to get a peep. Mrs. Muldoon's voice could
be heard calling to her from the kitchen. There was this question of
clothes.
"You haven't brought anything with you?" asked the Professor. "I mean,
in the way of a frock of any sort."
Malvina, with a smile, gave a little gesture. It implied that all
there was of her and hers stood before him.
"We shall have to find you something," said the Professor. "Something
in which you can go about--"
The Professor had intended to say "our world," but hesitated, not
feeling positive at the moment to which he himself belonged; Malvina's
or Mrs. Muldoon's. So he made it "the" world instead. Another gesture
conveyed to him that Malvina was entirely in his hands.
"What really have you got on?" asked the Professor. "I mean
underneath. Is it anything possible--for a day or two?"
Now Commander Raffleton, for some reason of his own not at all clear to
Malvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat. But had said
nothing about undoing it. So by way of response Malvina undid it.
Upon which the Professor, to Malvina's surprise, acted precisely as
Commander Raffleton had done. That is to say, he hastily re-closed the
coat, returning the buttons to their buttonholes.
The fear may have come to Malvina that she was doomed never to be rid
of Commander Raffleton's coat.
"I wonder," mused the Professor, "if anyone in the village--" The
little serving maid flittering among the gooseberry bushes--she was
pretending to be gathering goose-berries--caught the Professor's eye.
"We will consult my chatelaine, Mrs. Muldoon," suggested the Professor.
"I think we shall be able to manage."
The Professor tendered Malvina his arm. With her other hand she
gathered up the skirts of the Commander's coat.
"I think," said the Professor with a sudden inspiration as they passed
through the garden, "I think I shall explain to Mrs. Muldoon that you
have just come straight from a fancy-dress ball."
They found Mrs. Muldoon in the kitchen. A less convincing story than
that by which the Professor sought to account to Mrs. Muldoon for the
how and the why of Malvina it would be impossible to imagine. Mrs.
Muldoon out of sheer kindness appears to have cut him short.
"I'll not be asking ye any questions," said Mrs. Muldoon, "so there'll
be no need for ye to imperil your immortal soul. If ye'll just give a
thought to your own appearance and leave the colleen to me and
Drusilla, we'll make her maybe a bit dacent."
The reference to his own appearance disconcerted the Professor. He had
not anticipated, when hastening into his dressing gown and slippers and
not bothering about his socks, that he was on his way to meet the chief
lady-in-waiting of Queen Harbundia. Demanding that shaving water
should be immediately sent up to him, he appears to have retired into
the bathroom.
It was while he was shaving that Mrs. Muldoon, knocking at the door,
demanded to speak to him. From her tone the Professor came to the
conclusion that the house was on fire. He opened the door, and Mrs.
Muldoon, seeing he was respectable, slipped in and closed it behind her.
"Where did ye find her? How did she get here?" demanded Mrs. Muldoon.
Never before had the Professor seen Mrs. Muldoon other than a placid,
good-humoured body. She was trembling from head to foot.
"I told you," explained the Professor. "Young Arthur--"
"I'm not asking ye what ye told me," interrupted Mrs. Muldoon. "I'm
asking ye for the truth, if ye know it."
The Professor put a chair for Mrs. Muldoon, and Mrs. Muldoon dropped
down upon it.
"What's the matter?" questioned the Professor. "What's happened?"
Mrs. Muldoon glanced round her, and her voice was an hysterical whisper.
"It's no mortal woman ye've brought into the house," said Mrs. Muldoon.
"It's a fairy."
Whether up to that moment the Professor had really believed Malvina's
story, or whether lurking at the back of his mind there had all along
been an innate conviction that the thing was absurd, the Professor
himself is now unable to say. To the front of the Professor lay
Oxford--political economy, the higher criticism, the rise and progress
of rationalism. Behind him, fading away into the dim horizon of
humanity, lay an unmapped land where for forty years he had loved to
wander; a spirit-haunted land of buried mysteries, lost pathways,
leading unto hidden gates of knowledge.
And now upon the trembling balance descended Mrs. Muldoon plump.
"How do you know?" demanded the Professor.
"Shure, don't I know the mark?" replied Mrs. Muldoon almost
contemptuously. "Wasn't my own sister's child stolen away the very day
of its birth and in its place--"
The little serving maid tapped at the door.
Mademoiselle was "finished." What was to be done with her?
"Don't ask me," protested Mrs. Muldoon, still in a terrified whisper.
"I couldn't do it. Not if all the saints were to go down upon their
knees and pray to me."
Common-sense argument would not have prevailed with Mrs. Muldoon. The
Professor felt that; added to which he had not any handy. He directed,
through the door, that "Mademoiselle" should be shown into the
dining-room, and listened till Drusilla's footsteps had died away.
"Have you ever heard of the White Ladies?" whispered the Professor to
Mrs. Muldoon.
There was not much in the fairy line, one takes it, that Mrs. Muldoon
had not heard of and believed. Was the Professor sure?
The Professor gave Mrs. Muldoon his word of honour as a gentleman. The
"White Ladies," as Mrs. Muldoon was of course aware, belonged to the
"good people." Provided nobody offended her there was nothing to fear.
"Shure, it won't be meself that'll cross her," said Mrs. Muldoon.
"She won't be staying very long," added the Professor. "We will just
be nice to her."
"She's got a kind face," admitted Mrs. Muldoon, "and a pleasant way
with her." The good body's spirits were perceptibly rising. The
favour of a "White Lady" might be worth cultivating.
"We must make a friend of her," urged the Professor, seizing his
opportunity.
"And mind," whispered the Professor as he opened the door for Mrs.
Muldoon to slip out, "not a word. She doesn't want it known."
One is convinced that Mrs. Muldoon left the bathroom resolved that, so
far as she could help it, no breath of suspicion that Malvina was other
than what in Drusilla's holiday frock she would appear to be should
escape into the village. It was quite a pleasant little frock of a
summery character, with short sleeves and loose about the neck, and
fitted Malvina, in every sense, much better than the most elaborate
confection would have done. The boots were not so successful. Malvina
solved the problem by leaving them behind her, together with the
stockings, whenever she went out. That she knew this was wrong is
proved by the fact that invariably she tried to hide them. They would
be found in the most unlikely places; hidden behind books in the
Professor's study, crammed into empty tea canisters in Mrs. Muldoon's
storeroom. Mrs. Muldoon was not to be persuaded even to abstract them.
The canister with its contents would be placed in silence upon the
Professor's table. Malvina on returning would be confronted by a pair
of stern, unsympathetic boots. The corners of the fairy mouth would
droop in lines suggestive of penitence and contrition.
Had the Professor been firm she would have yielded. But from the black
accusing boots the Professor could not keep his eyes from wandering to
the guilty white feet, and at once in his heart becoming "counsel for
the defence." Must get a pair of sandals next time he went to Oxford.
Anyhow, something more dainty than those grim, uncompromising boots.
Besides, it was not often that Malvina ventured beyond the orchard. At
least not during the day time--perhaps one ought to say not during that
part of the day time when the village was astir. For Malvina appears
to have been an early riser. Somewhere about the middle of the night,
as any Christian body would have timed it, Mrs. Muldoon--waking and
sleeping during this period in a state of high nervous tension--would
hear the sound of a softly opened door; peeping from a raised corner of
the blind, would catch a glimpse of fluttering garments that seemed to
melt into the dawn; would hear coming fainter and fainter from the
uplands an unknown song, mingling with the answering voices of the
birds.
It was on the uplands between dawn and sunrise that Malvina made the
acquaintance of the Arlington twins.
They ought, of course, to have been in bed--all three of them, for the
matter of that. The excuse for the twins was their Uncle George. He
had been telling them all about the Uffington spectre and Wayland
Smith's cave, and had given them "Puck" as a birthday present. They
were always given their birthday presents between them, because
otherwise they did not care for them. They had retired to their
respective bedrooms at ten o'clock and taken it in turns to lie awake.
At the first streak of dawn Victoria, who had been watching by her
window, woke Victor, as arranged. Victor was for giving it up and
going to sleep again, but Victoria reminding him of the "oath," they
dressed themselves quite simply, and let themselves down by the ivy.
They came across Malvina close to the tail of the White Horse. They
knew she was a fairy the moment they saw her. But they were not
frightened--at least not very much. It was Victor who spoke first.
Taking off his hat and going down on one knee, he wished Malvina good
morning and hoped she was quite well. Malvina, who seemed pleased to
see them, made answer, and here it was that Victoria took charge of the
affair. The Arlington twins until they were nine had shared a French
nurse between them; and then Victor, going to school, had gradually
forgotten; while Victoria, remaining at home, had continued her
conversations with "madame."
"Oh!" said Victoria. "Then you must be a French fairy."
Now the Professor had impressed upon Malvina that for reasons needless
to be explained--anyhow, he never had explained them--she was not to
mention that she was a fairy. But he had not told her to deny it.
Indeed how could she? The most that could be expected from her was
that she should maintain silence on the point. So in answer to
Victoria she explained that her name was Malvina, and that she had
flown across from Brittany in company with "Sir Arthur," adding that
she had often heard of England and had wished to see it.
"How do you like it?" demanded Victoria.
Malvina confessed herself charmed with it. Nowhere had she ever met so
many birds. Malvina raised her hand and they all three stood in
silence, listening. The sky was ablaze and the air seemed filled with
their music. The twins were sure that there were millions of them.
They must have come from miles and miles and miles, to sing to Malvina.
Also the people. They were so good and kind and round. Malvina for the
present was staying with--accepting the protection, was how she put it,
of the wise and learned Christopher. The "habitation" could be seen
from where they stood, its chimneys peeping from among the trees. The
twins exchanged a meaning glance. Had they not all along suspected the
Professor! His black skull cap, and his big hooked nose, and the
yellow-leaved, worm-eaten books--of magic: all doubts were now
removed--that for hours he would sit poring over through owlish
gold-rimmed spectacles!
Victor's French was coming back to him. He was anxious to know if
Malvina had ever met Sir Launcelot--"to talk to."
A little cloud gathered upon Malvina's face. Yes, she had known them
all: King Uthur and Igraine and Sir Ulfias of the Isles. Talked with
them, walked with them in the fair lands of France. (It ought to have
been England, but Malvina shook her head. Maybe they had travelled.)
It was she who had saved Sir Tristram from the wiles of Morgan le Fay.
"Though that, of course," explained Malvina, "was never known."
The twins were curious why it should have been "of course," but did not
like to interrupt again. There were others before and after. Most of
them the twins had never heard of until they came to Charlemagne,
beyond which Malvina's reminiscences appeared to fade.
They had all of them been very courteous to her, and some of them
indeed quite charming. But...
One gathers they had never been to Malvina more than mere
acquaintances, such as one passes the time with while waiting--and
longing.
"But you liked Sir Launcelot," urged Victor. He was wishful that
Malvina should admire Sir Launcelot, feeling how much there was in
common between that early lamented knight and himself. That little
affair with Sir Bedivere. It was just how he would have behaved
himself.
Ah! yes, admitted Malvina. She had "liked" him. He was always so--so
"excellent."
"But he was not--none of them were my own people, my own dear
companions." The little cloud had settled down again.
It was Bruno who recalled the three of them to the period of
contemporary history.
Polley the cowman's first duty in the morning was to let Bruno loose
for a run. He arrived panting and breathless, and evidently offended
at not having been included in the escapade. He could have given them
both away quite easily if he had not been the most forgiving of
black-and-tan collies. As it was, he had been worrying himself crazy
for the last half-hour, feeling sure they had forgotten the time.
"Don't you know it's nearly six o'clock? That in less than half an
hour Jane will be knocking at your doors with glasses of hot milk, and
will probably drop them and scream when she finds your beds empty and
the window wide open." That is what he had intended should be his
first words, but on scenting Malvina they went from him entirely. He
gave her one look and flopped down flat, wriggling towards her, whining
and wagging his tail at the same time. Malvina acknowledged his homage
by laughing and patting his head with her foot, and that sent him into
the seventh heaven of delight. They all four descended the hill
together and parted at the orchard gate. The twins expressed a polite
but quite sincere hope that they would have the pleasure of seeing
Malvina again; but Malvina, seized maybe with sudden doubts as to
whether she had behaved with discretion, appears to have replied
evasively. Ten minutes later she was lying asleep, the golden head
pillowed on the round white arm; as Mrs. Muldoon on her way down to the
kitchen saw for herself. And the twins, fortunate enough to find a
side door open, slipped into the house unnoticed and scrambled back
into their beds.
It was quarter past nine when Mrs. Arlington came in herself and woke
them up. She was short-tempered with them both and had evidently been
crying. They had their breakfast in the kitchen.
During lunch hardly a word was spoken. And there was no pudding. Mr.
Arlington, a stout, florid gentleman, had no time for pudding. The rest
might sit and enjoy it at their leisure, but not so Mr. Arlington.
Somebody had to see to things--that is, if they were not to be allowed
to go to rack and ruin. If other people could not be relied upon to do
their duty, so that everything inside the house and out of it was
thrown upon one pair of shoulders, then it followed as a natural
consequence that that pair of shoulders could not spare the necessary
time to properly finish its meals. This it was that was at the root of
the decay of English farming. When farmers' wives, to say nothing of
sons and daughters old enough one might imagine to be anxious to do
something in repayment for the money and care lavished upon them, had
all put their shoulders to the wheel, then English farming had
prospered. When, on the other hand, other people shirked their fair
share of labour and responsibility, leaving to one pair of hands...
It was the eldest Arlington girl's quite audible remark that pa could
have eaten two helpings of pudding while he had been talking, that
caused Mr. Arlington to lose the thread of his discourse. To put it
quite bluntly, what Mr. Arlington meant to say was this: He had never
wanted to be a farmer--at least not in the beginning. Other men in his
position, having acquired competency by years of self-sacrificing
labour, would have retired to a well-earned leisure. Having yielded to
persuasion and taken on the job, he was going to see it through; and
everybody else was going to do their share or there would be trouble.
Mr. Arlington, swallowing the remains of his glass in a single gulp,
spoilt a dignified exit by violently hiccoughing, and Mrs. Arlington
rang the bell furiously for the parlourmaid to clear away. The pudding
passed untouched from before the very eyes of the twins. It was a
black-currant pudding with brown sugar.
That night Mrs. Arlington appears to have confided in the twins, partly
for her own relief and partly for their moral benefit. If Mrs.
Arlington had enjoyed the blessing in disguise of a less indulgent
mother, all might have been well. By nature Mrs. Arlington had been
endowed with an active and energetic temperament. "Miss
Can't-sit-still-a-minute," her nurse had always called her.
Unfortunately it had been allowed to sink into disuse; was now in all
probability beyond hope of recovery. Their father was quite right.
When they had lived in Bayswater and the business was in Mincing Lane
it did not matter. Now it was different. A farmer's wife ought to be
up at six; she ought to see that everybody else was up at six; servants
looked after, kept up to the mark; children encouraged by their
mother's example. Organisation. That was what was wanted. The day
mapped out; to every hour its appointed task. Then, instead of the
morning being gone before you could turn yourself round, and confusion
made worse confounded by your leaving off what you were doing and
trying to do six things at once that you couldn't remember whether you
had done or whether you hadn't...
Here Mrs. Arlington appears to have dissolved into tears. Generally
speaking, she was a placid, smiling, most amiable lady, quite
delightful to have about the house provided all you demanded of her
were pleasant looks and a sunny disposition. The twins appear to have
joined their tears to hers. Tucked in and left to themselves, one
imagines the problem being discussed with grave seriousness, much
whispered conversation, then slept upon, the morning bringing with it
ideas. The result being that the next evening, between high tea and
supper, Mrs. Muldoon, answering herself the knock at the door, found
twin figures standing hand in hand on the Professor's step.
They asked her if "the Fairy" was in.