V
THE LITTLE HOUSE
Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington
Gardens, which is the only house in the whole world that the
fairies have built for humans. But no one has really seen it,
except just three or four, and they have not only seen it but
slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you never see it. This
is because it is not there when you lie down, but it is there
when you wake up and step outside.
In a kind of way every one may see it, but what you see is
not really it, but only the light in the windows. You see the
light after Lock-out Time. David, for instance, saw it quite
distinctly far away among the trees as we were going home from
the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw it the night he stayed so
late at the Temple, which is the name of his father's office.
Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted because then
she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she
saw hundreds of them all together; and this must have been the
fairies building the house, for they build it every night, and
always in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of
the lights was bigger than the others, though she was not quite
sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have been another
one that was bigger. But if it was the same one, it was Peter
Pan's light. Heaps of children have seen the light, so that is
nothing. But Maimie Mannering was the famous one for whom the
house was first built.
Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night
that she was strange. She was four years of age, and in the
daytime she was the ordinary kind. She was pleased when her
brother Tony, who was a magnificent fellow of six, took notice
of her, and she looked up to him in the right way, and tried in
vain to imitate him, and was flattered rather than annoyed when
he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting, she would pause
though the ball was in the air to point out to you that she was
wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the
daytime.
Peter Pan is the
fairies' orchestra
But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost
his contempt for Maimie and eyed her fearfully; and no wonder,
for with dark there came into her face a look that I can
describe only as a leary look. It was also a serene look that
contrasted grandly with Tony's uneasy glances. Then he would
make her presents of his favourite toys (which he always took
away from her next morning), and she accepted them with a
disturbing smile. The reason he was now become so wheedling and
she so mysterious was (in brief) that they knew they were about
to be sent to bed. It was then that Maimie was terrible. Tony
entreated her not to do it to-night, and the mother and their
coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her
agitating smile. And by and by when they were alone with their
night-light she would start up in bed crying 'Hsh! what was
that?' Tony beseeches her, 'It was nothing—don't, Maimie,
don't!' and pulls the sheet over his head. 'It is coming
nearer!' she cries. 'Oh, look at it, Tony! It is feeling your
bed with its horns—it is boring for you, O Tony, oh!' and she
desists not until he rushes downstairs in his combinations,
screeching. When they came up to whip Maimie they usually found
her sleeping tranquilly—not shamming, you know, but really
sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel, which
seems to me to make it almost worse.
But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens,
and then Tony did most of the talking. You could gather from his
talk that he was a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it
as Maimie. She would have loved to have a ticket on her saying
that she was his sister. And at no time did she admire him more
than when he told her, as he often did with splendid firmness,
that one day he meant to remain behind in the Gardens after the
gates were closed.
'O Tony,' she would say with awful respect, 'but the fairies
will be so angry!'
'I dare say,' replied Tony carelessly.
'Perhaps,' she said, thrilling, 'Peter Pan will give you a
sail in his boat!'
'I shall make him,' replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of
him.
But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they
were overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton
leaves, from which the little people weave their summer
curtains, and after that Tony was a marked boy. They loosened
the rails before he sat on them, so that down he came on the
back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his bootlace,
and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty
accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the fairies
have taken an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be
careful what you say about them.
Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing
things, but Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which
day he was to remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he
merely replied, 'Just some day'; he was quite vague about which
day except when she asked, 'Will it be to-day?' and then he
could always say for certain that it would not be to-day. So she
saw that he was waiting for a real good chance.
This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white
with snow, and there was ice on the Round Pond; not thick enough
to skate on, but at least you could spoil it for to-morrow by
flinging stones, and many bright little boys and girls were
doing that.
When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight
to the pond, but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk
first, and as she said this she glanced at the time-board to see
when the Gardens closed that night. It read half-past five. Poor
ayah! she is the one who laughs continuously because there are
so many white children in the world, but she was not to laugh
much more that day.
Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they
returned to the time-board she was surprised to see that it now
read five o'clock for closing-time. But she was unacquainted
with the tricky ways of the fairies, and so did not see (as
Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they had changed the hour
because there was to be a ball to-night. She said there was only
time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as they
trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling
their little breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a
fairy ball. Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
One day they were
overheard by a fairy
He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him.
Her eager eyes asked the question, 'Is it to-day?' and he gasped
and then nodded. Maimie slipped her hand into Tony's, and hers
was hot, but his was cold. She did a very kind thing; she took
off her scarf and gave it to him. 'In case you should feel
cold,' she whispered. Her face was aglow, but Tony's was very
gloomy.
As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her,
'I'm afraid nurse would see me, so I shan't be able to do it.'
Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing
but their ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear,
and she said aloud, 'Tony, I shall race you to the gate,' and in
a whisper, 'Then you can hide,' and off they ran.
Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she
known him speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he
hurried that he might have more time to hide. 'Brave, brave!'
her doting eyes were crying when she got a dreadful shock;
instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the gate! At this
bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful of
darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very
disdain she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all
puling cowards she ran to St. Govor's Well and hid in Tony's
stead.
When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she
thought her other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight
crept over the Gardens, and hundreds of people passed out,
including the last one, who always has to run for it, but Maimie
saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight and glued them with
passionate tears. When she opened them something very cold ran
up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart. It was
the stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then
from another part clang, then clang, clang far
away. It was the Closing of the Gates.
Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly
heard a voice say, 'So that's all right.' It had a wooden sound
and seemed to come from above, and she looked up in time to see
an elm-tree stretching out its arms and yawning.
The little people
weave their summer curtains from skeleton leaves
She was about to say, 'I never knew you could speak!' when a
metallic voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well
remarked to the elm, 'I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?'
and the elm replied, 'Not particularly, but you do get numb
standing so long on one leg,' and he flapped his arms vigorously
just as the cabmen do before they drive off. Maimie was quite
surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were doing
the same sort of thing, and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
crouched observantly under a Minorca holly which shrugged its
shoulders but did not seem to mind her.
She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a
russet-coloured pelisse and had the hood over her head, so that
nothing of her showed except her dear little face and her curls.
The rest of her real self was hidden far away inside so many
warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a ball. She
was about forty round the waist.
There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, where Maimie
arrived in time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over
the railing and set off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky
sort of way certainly, but that was because they used crutches.
An elderberry hobbled across the walk, and stood chatting with
some young quinces, and they all had crutches. The crutches were
the sticks that are tied to young trees and shrubs. They were
quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never known what
they were for until to-night.
There was a good deal
going on in the Baby Walk
She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a
street boy fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping
trees. The way he did it was this: he pressed a spring in the
trunks and they shut like umbrellas, deluging the little plants
beneath with snow. 'O you naughty, naughty child!' Maimie cried
indignantly, for she knew what it was to have a dripping
umbrella about your ears.
Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but a
chrysanthemum heard her, and said so pointedly, 'Hoity-toity,
what is this?' that she had to come out and show herself. Then
the whole vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
An afternoon when the
Gardens were white with snow
'Of course it is no affair of ours,' a spindle-tree said
after they had whispered together, 'but you know quite well you
ought not to be here, and perhaps our duty is to report you to
the fairies; what do you think yourself?'
'I think you should not,' Maimie replied, which so perplexed
them that they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. 'I
wouldn't ask it of you,' she assured them, 'if I thought it was
wrong,' and of course after this they could not well carry
tales. They then said, 'Well-a-day,' and 'Such is life,' for
they can be frightfully sarcastic; but she felt sorry for those
of them who had no crutches, and she said good-naturedly,
'Before I go to the fairies' ball, I should like to take you for
a walk one at a time; you can lean on me, you know.'
At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up
the Baby Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a
finger round the very frail, setting their leg right when it got
too ridiculous, and treating the foreign ones quite as
courteously as the English, though she could not understand a
word they said.
They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that
she had not taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or
Dorothy, and others jagged her, but it was quite unintentional,
and she was too much of a lady to cry out. So much walking tired
her, and she was anxious to be off to the ball, but she no
longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more fear was that it
was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember, Maimie was
always rather strange.
They were now loth to let her go, for, 'If the fairies see
you,' they warned her, 'they will mischief you—stab you to
death, or compel you to nurse their children, or turn you into
something tedious, like an evergreen oak.' As they said this
they looked with affected pity at an evergreen oak, for in
winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
'Oh, la!' replied the oak bitingly, 'how deliciously cosy it
is to stand here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked
creatures shivering.'
This made them sulky, though they had really brought it on
themselves, and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of
the perils that would face her if she insisted on going to the
ball.
She ran to St. Govor's
Well and hid
She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in
its usual good temper at present, the cause being the
tantalising heart of the Duke of Christmas Daisies. He was an
Oriental fairy, very poorly of a dreadful complaint, namely,
inability to love, and though he had tried many ladies in many
lands he could not fall in love with one of them. Queen Mab, who
rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls would
bewitch him, but alas! his heart, the doctor said, remained
cold. This rather irritating doctor, who was his private
physician, felt the Duke's heart immediately after any lady was
presented, and then always shook his bald head and murmured,
'Cold, quite cold.' Naturally Queen Mab felt disgraced, and
first she tried the effect of ordering the court into tears for
nine minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed that
they should wear fools' caps until they thawed the Duke's frozen
heart.
'How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little
fools' caps!' Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them
very recklessly, for the Cupids hate to be laughed at.
It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball is being
held, as ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous
parts of the Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the
dance without wetting their pumps. This night the ribbons were
red, and looked very pretty on the snow.
She escorted them up
the Baby Walk and back again
Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without
meeting anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade
approaching. To her surprise they seemed to be returning from
the ball, and she had just time to hide from them by bending her
knees and holding out her arms and pretending to be a garden
chair. There were six horsemen in front and six behind; in the
middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held up by two
pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a
lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel
about. She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable
part of her was her neck, which was blue in colour and of a
velvet texture, and of course showed off her diamond necklace as
no white throat could have glorified it. The high-born fairies
obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which lets
the blue blood come through and dye them, and you cannot imagine
anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies' busts in
the jewellers' windows.
Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in
a passion, tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for
even fairies to tilt them, and she concluded that this must be
another case in which the doctor had said, 'Cold, quite cold.'
An elderberry hobbled
across the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces
Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a
bridge over a dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and
been unable to climb out. At first this little damsel was afraid
of Maimie, who most kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat in
her hand chatting gaily and explaining that her name was
Brownie, and that though only a poor street singer she was on
her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
'Of course,' she said, 'I am rather plain,' and this made
Maimie uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was
almost quite plain for a fairy.
It was difficult to know what to reply.
'I see you think I have no chance,' Brownie said falteringly.
'I don't say that,' Maimie answered politely; 'of course your
face is just a tiny bit homely, but——' Really it was quite
awkward for her.
Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar.
He had gone to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful
ladies in London were on view for half a crown the second day,
but on his return home, instead of being dissatisfied with
Maimie's mother, he had said, 'You can't think, my dear, what a
relief it is to see a homely face again.'
Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie
tremendously, indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that
the Duke would choose her. So she scudded away up the ribbon,
calling out to Maimie not to follow lest the Queen should
mischief her.
But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at
the seven Spanish chestnuts she saw a wonderful light. She crept
forward until she was quite near it, and then she peeped from
behind a tree.
A chrysanthemum heard
her, and said pointedly, 'Hoity-toity, what is this?'
The light, which was as high as your head above the ground,
was composed of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each
other, and so forming a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring.
There were thousands of little people looking on, but they were
in shadow and drab in colour compared to the glorious creatures
within that luminous circle, who were so bewilderingly bright
that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she looked at them.
It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of
Christmas Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a
moment: yet out of love his dusky grace still was: you could see
it by the shamed looks of the Queen and court (though they
pretended not to care), by the way darling ladies brought
forward for his approval burst into tears as they were told to
pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke's
heart and hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was
particularly sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools'
caps in obscure places and, every time they heard that 'Cold,
quite cold,' bowed their disgraced little heads.
She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well
tell you now why he was so late that night. It was because his
boat had got wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating
ice, through which he had to break a perilous passage with his
trusty paddle.
The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could
not dance, so heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps
when they are sad, and remember them again when they are merry.
David tells me that fairies never say, 'We feel happy': what
they say is, 'We feel dancey.'
Well, they were looking very undancey indeed, when sudden
laughter broke out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who
had just arrived and was insisting on her right to be presented
to the Duke.
Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared,
though she had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least
hope except Brownie herself, who, however, was absolutely
confident. She was led before his grace, and the doctor putting
a finger carelessly on the ducal heart, which for convenience'
sake was reached by a little trap-door in his diamond shirt, had
begun to say mechanically, 'Cold, qui—,' when he stopped
abruptly.
'What's this?' he cried, and first he shook the heart like a
watch, and then he put his ear to it.
'Bless my soul!' cried the doctor, and by this time of course
the excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies
fainting right and left.
They warned her
Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much
startled, and looked as if he would like to run away. 'Good
gracious me!' the doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart
was evidently on fire, for he had to jerk his fingers away from
it and put them in his mouth.
The suspense was awful.
Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, 'My Lord Duke,' said
the physician elatedly, 'I have the honour to inform your
excellency that your grace is in love.'
You can't conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her
arms to the Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt
into the arms of the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the
court leapt into the arms of her gentlemen, for it is etiquette
to follow her example in everything. Thus in a single moment
about fifty marriages took place, for if you leap into each
other's arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman has to
be present.
How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon
came out, and immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its
rays as if they were ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild
abandon round the fairy ring. Most gladsome sight of all, the
Cupids plucked the hated fools' caps from their heads and cast
them high in the air. And then Maimie went and spoiled
everything.
She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight over her
little friend's good fortune, so she took several steps forward
and cried in an ecstasy, 'O Brownie, how splendid!'
Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out,
and all in the time you may take to say, 'Oh dear!' An awful
sense of her peril came upon Maimie; too late she remembered
that she was a lost child in a place where no human must be
between the locking and the opening of the gates; she heard the
murmur of an angry multitude; she saw a thousand swords flashing
for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of
her head. Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up
and ran on again. Her little mind was so entangled in terrors
that she no longer knew she was in the Gardens. The one thing
she was sure of was that she must never cease to run, and she
thought she was still running long after she had dropped in the
Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes falling on
her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought her
coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over
her head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she
thought it was mother bringing father to the nursery door to
look at her as she slept. But it was the fairies.
I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired
to mischief her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with
such cries as 'Slay her!' 'Turn her into something extremely
unpleasant!' and so on, but the pursuit was delayed while they
discussed who should march in front, and this gave Duchess
Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and demand a boon.
Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was
Maimie's life. 'Anything except that,' replied Queen Mab
sternly, and all the fairies echoed, 'Anything except that.' But
when they learned how Maimie had befriended Brownie and so
enabled her to attend the ball to their great glory and renown,
they gave three huzzas for the little human, and set off, like
an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front and the
canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her
footprints in the snow.
But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed
impossible to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They
went through the form of thanking her—that is to say, the new
King stood on her body and read her a long address of welcome,
but she heard not a word of it. They also cleared the snow off
her, but soon she was covered again, and they saw she was in
danger of perishing of cold.
'Turn her into something that does not mind the cold,' seemed
a good suggestion of the doctor's, but the only thing they could
think of that does not mind cold was a snowflake. 'And it might
melt,' the Queen pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.
A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered
spot, but though there were so many of them she was too heavy.
By this time all the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs,
but presently the Cupids had a lovely idea. 'Build a house round
her,' they cried, and at once everybody perceived that this was
the thing to do; in a moment a hundred fairy sawyers were among
the branches, architects were running round Maimie, measuring
her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at her feet, seventy-five
masons rushed up with the foundation-stone, and the Queen laid
it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings
were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and
turning-lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the
glaziers were putting in the windows.
Queen Mab, who rules
in the Gardens
The house was exactly the size of Maimie, and perfectly
lovely. One of her arms was extended, and this had bothered them
for a second, but they built a verandah round it leading to the
front door. The windows were the size of a coloured picture-book
and the door rather smaller, but it would be easy for her to get
out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as is their custom,
clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they
were so madly in love with the little house that they could not
bear to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many
little extra touches, and even then they added more extra
touches.
For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a
chimney.
'Now we fear it is quite finished,' they sighed.
But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some
smoke to the chimney.
'That certainly finishes it,' they said reluctantly.
'Not at all,' cried a glow-worm; 'if she were to wake without
seeing a night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her
night-light.'
'Wait one moment,' said a china merchant, 'and I shall make
you a saucer.'
Now, alas! it was absolutely finished.
Oh, dear no!
'Gracious me!' cried a brass manufacturer, 'there's no handle
on the door,' and he put one on.
An ironmonger added a scraper, and an old lady ran up with a
door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters
insisted on painting it.
Finished at last!
'Finished! how can it be finished,' the plumber demanded
scornfully, 'before hot and cold are put in?' and he put in hot
and cold. Then an army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and
spades and seeds and bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had
a flower-garden to the right of the verandah, and a vegetable
garden to the left, and roses and clematis on the walls of the
house, and in less time than five minutes all these dear things
were in full bloom.
Shook his bald head
and murmured, 'Cold, quite cold'
Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at
last finished true as true, and they had to leave it and return
to the dance. They all kissed their hands to it as they went
away, and the last to go was Brownie. She stayed a moment behind
the others to drop a pleasant dream down the chimney.
All through the night the exquisite little house stood there
in the Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept
until the dream was quite finished, and woke feeling deliciously
cosy just as morning was breaking from its egg, and then she
almost fell asleep again, and then she called out, 'Tony,' for
she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it
opened like the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw
all around her the Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she
was not in the nursery she wondered whether this was really
herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and then she knew it was
herself, and this reminded her that she was in the middle of a
great adventure. She remembered now everything that had happened
to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away from
the fairies, but how ever, she asked herself, had she got into
this funny place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the
garden, and then she saw the dear house in which she had passed
the night. It so entranced her that she could think of nothing
else.
'O you darling! O you sweet! O you love!' she cried.
Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe
it now knew that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie
spoken than it began to grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that
she could scarce believe it was shrinking, yet she soon knew
that it could not contain her now. It always remained as
complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller, and the
garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer,
lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a
little dog's kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, but still you
could see the smoke and the door-handle and the roses on the
wall, every one complete. The glow-worm light was waning too,
but it was still there. 'Darling, loveliest, don't go!' Maimie
cried, falling on her knees, for the little house was now the
size of a reel of thread, but still quite complete. But as she
stretched out her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all
sides until it met itself, and where the little house had been
was now one unbroken expanse of snow.
Fairies never say, 'We
feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'
Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her
fingers to her eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, 'Don't
cry, pretty human, don't cry,' and then she turned round and saw
a beautiful little naked boy regarding her wistfully. She knew
at once that he must be Peter Pan.
* * *
VI
PETER'S GOAT
Maimie felt quite shy, but Peter knew not what shy was.
'I hope you have had a good night,' he said earnestly.
'Thank you,' she replied, 'I was so cosy and warm. But
you'—and she looked at his nakedness awkwardly—'don't you feel
the least bit cold?'
Now cold was another word Peter had forgotten, so he
answered, 'I think not, but I may be wrong: you see I am rather
ignorant. I am not exactly a boy; Solomon says I am a
Betwixt-and-Between.'
'So that is what it is called,' said Maimie thoughtfully.
'That's not my name,' he explained, 'my name is Peter Pan.'
'Yes, of course,' she said, 'I know, everybody knows.'
You can't think how pleased Peter was to learn that all the
people outside the gates knew about him. He begged Maimie to
tell him what they knew and what they said, and she did so. They
were sitting by this time on a fallen tree; Peter had cleared
off the snow for Maimie, but he sat on a snowy bit himself.
'Squeeze closer,' Maimie said.
'What is that?' he asked, and she showed him, and then he did
it. They talked together and he found that people knew a great
deal about him, but not everything, not that he had gone back to
his mother and been barred out, for instance, and he said
nothing of this to Maimie, for it still humiliated him.
'Do they know that I play games exactly like real boys?' he
asked very proudly. 'O Maimie, please tell them!' But when he
revealed how he played, by sailing his hoop on the Round Pond,
and so on, she was simply horrified.
'All your ways of playing,' she said with her big eyes on
him, 'are quite, quite wrong, and not in the least like how boys
play.'
Poor Peter uttered a little moan at this, and he cried for
the first time for I know not how long. Maimie was extremely
sorry for him, and lent him her handkerchief, but he didn't know
in the least what to do with it, so she showed him, that is to
say, she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to him, saying,
'Now you do it,' but instead of wiping his own eyes he wiped
hers, and she thought it best to pretend that this was what she
had meant.
Looking very undancey
indeed
She said out of pity for him, 'I shall give you a kiss if you
like,' but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what
kisses are, and he replied, 'Thank you,' and held out his hand,
thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a
great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without
shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble
which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a
kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her, and to this day he
wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely any one who
needs a thimble so little. You see, though still a tiny child,
it was really years and years since he had seen his mother, and
I dare say the baby who had supplanted him was now a man with
whiskers.
But you must not think that Peter Pan was a boy to pity
rather than to admire; if Maimie began by thinking this, she
soon found she was very much mistaken. Her eyes glistened with
admiration when he told her of his adventures, especially of how
he went to and fro between the island and the Gardens in the
Thrush's Nest.
'How romantic!' Maimie exclaimed, but this was another
unknown word, and he hung his head thinking she was despising
him.
'I suppose Tony would not have done that?' he said very
humbly.
'Never, never!' she answered with conviction, 'he would have
been afraid.'
'What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must
be some splendid thing. 'I do wish you would teach me how to be
afraid, Maimie,' he said.
'I believe no one could teach that to you,' she answered
adoringly, but Peter thought she meant that he was stupid. She
had told him about Tony and of the wicked thing she did in the
dark to frighten him (she knew quite well that it was wicked),
but Peter misunderstood her meaning and said, 'Oh, how I wish I
was as brave as Tony!'
It quite irritated her. 'You are twenty thousand times braver
than Tony,' she said; 'you are ever so much the bravest boy I
ever knew.'
He could scarcely believe she meant it, but when he did
believe he screamed with joy.
'And if you want very much to give me a kiss,' Maimie said,
'you can do it.'
Very reluctantly Peter began to take the thimble off his
finger. He thought she wanted it back.
'I don't mean a kiss,' she said hurriedly, 'I mean a
thimble.'
'What's that?' Peter asked.
'It's like this,' she said, and kissed him.
'I should love to give you a thimble,' Peter said gravely, so
he gave her one. He gave her quite a number of thimbles, and
then a delightful idea came into his head. 'Maimie,' he said,
'will you marry me?'
'My Lord Duke,' said
the physician elatedly, 'I have the honour to inform your
excellency that your grace is in love'
Now, strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the
same time into Maimie's head. 'I should like to,' she answered,
'but will there be room in your boat for two?'
'If you squeeze close,' he said eagerly.
'Perhaps the birds would be angry?'
He assured her that the birds would love to have her, though
I am not so certain of it myself. Also that there were very few
birds in winter. 'Of course they might want your clothes,' he
had to admit rather falteringly.
She was somewhat indignant at this.
'They are always thinking of their nests,' he said
apologetically, 'and there are some bits of you'—he stroked the
fur on her pelisse—'that would excite them very much.'
'They shan't have my fur,' she said sharply.
'No,' he said, still fondling it, however, 'no. O Maimie,' he
said rapturously, 'do you know why I love you? It is because you
are like a beautiful nest.'
Somehow this made her uneasy. 'I think you are speaking more
like a bird than a boy now,' she said, holding back, and indeed
he was even looking rather like a bird. 'After all,' she said,
'you are only a Betwixt-and-Between.' But it hurt him so much
that she immediately added, 'It must be a delicious thing to
be.'
'Come and be one, then, dear Maimie,' he implored her, and
they set off for the boat, for it was now very near Open-Gate
time. 'And you are not a bit like a nest,' he whispered to
please her.
'But I think it is rather nice to be like one,' she said in a
woman's contradictory way. 'And, Peter, dear, though I can't
give them my fur, I wouldn't mind their building in it. Fancy a
nest in my neck with little spotty eggs in it! O Peter, how
perfectly lovely!'
Building the house for
Maimie
But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little,
and said, 'Of course I shall go and see mother often, quite
often. It is not as if I was saying good-bye for ever to mother,
it is not in the least like that.'
'Oh no,' answered Peter, but in his heart he knew it was very
like that, and he would have told her so had he not been in a
quaking fear of losing her. He was so fond of her, he felt he
could not live without her. 'She will forget her mother in time,
and be happy with me,' he kept saying to himself, and he hurried
her on, giving her thimbles by the way.
But even when she had seen the boat and exclaimed
ecstatically over its loveliness, she still talked tremblingly
about her mother. 'You know quite well, Peter, don't you,' she
said, 'that I wouldn't come unless I knew for certain I could go
back to mother whenever I want to? Peter, say it.'
He said it, but he could no longer look her in the face.
'If you are sure your mother will always want you,' he added
rather sourly.
'The idea of mother's not always wanting me!' Maimie cried,
and her face glistened.
'If she doesn't bar you out,' said Peter huskily.
'The door,' replied Maimie, 'will always, always be open, and
mother will always be waiting at it for me.'
'Then,' said Peter, not without grimness, 'step in, if you
feel so sure of her,' and he helped Maimie into the Thrush's
Nest.
'But why don't you look at me?' she asked, taking him by the
arm.
Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push off, then he
gave a great gulp and jumped ashore and sat down miserably in
the snow.
She went to him. 'What is it, dear, dear Peter?' she said,
wondering.
'O Maimie,' he cried, 'it isn't fair to take you with me if
you think you can go back! Your mother'—he gulped again—'you
don't know them as well as I do.'
And then he told her the woeful story of how he had been
barred out, and she gasped all the time. 'But my mother,' she
said, 'my mother——'
'Yes, she would,' said Peter, 'they are all the same. I dare
say she is looking for another one already.'
Maimie said aghast, 'I can't believe it. You see, when you
went away your mother had none, but my mother has Tony, and
surely they are satisfied when they have one.'
Peter replied bitterly, 'You should see the letters Solomon
gets from ladies who have six.'
Just then they heard a grating creak, followed by
creak, creak, all round the Gardens. It was the Opening of
the Gates, and Peter jumped nervously into his boat. He knew
Maimie would not come with him now, and he was trying bravely
not to cry. But Maimie was sobbing painfully.
'If I should be too late,' she said in agony, 'O Peter, if
she has got another one already!'
Again he sprang ashore as if she had called him back. 'I
shall come and look for you to-night,' he said, squeezing close,
'but if you hurry away I think you will be in time.'
Then he pressed a last thimble on her sweet little mouth, and
covered his face with his hands so that he might not see her go.
'Dear Peter!' she cried.
'Dear Maimie!' cried the tragic boy.
She leapt into his arms, so that it was a sort of fairy
wedding, and then she hurried away. Oh, how she hastened to the
gates! Peter, you may be sure, was back in the Gardens that
night as soon as Lock-out sounded, but he found no Maimie, and
so he knew she had been in time. For long he hoped that some
night she would come back to him; often he thought he saw her
waiting for him by the shore of the Serpentine as his bark drew
to land, but Maimie never went back. She wanted to, but she was
afraid that if she saw her dear Betwixt-and-Between again she
would linger with him too long, and besides the ayah now kept a
sharp eye on her. But she often talked lovingly of Peter, and
she knitted a kettle-holder for him, and one day when she was
wondering what Easter present he would like, her mother made a
suggestion.
'Nothing,' she said thoughtfully, 'would be so useful to him
as a goat.'
'He could ride on it,' cried Maimie, 'and play on his pipe at
the same time.'
'Then,' her mother asked, 'won't you give him your goat, the
one you frighten Tony with at night?'
'But it isn't a real goat,' Maimie said.
'It seems very real to Tony,' replied her mother.
'It seems frightfully real to me too,' Maimie admitted, 'but
how could I give it to Peter?'
Her mother knew a way, and next day, accompanied by Tony (who
was really quite a nice boy, though of course he could not
compare), they went to the Gardens, and Maimie stood alone
within a fairy ring, and then her mother, who was a rather
gifted lady, said—
'My daughter, tell me, if you can,
What have you got for Peter Pan?'
To which Maimie replied—
'I have a goat for him to ride,
Observe me cast it far and wide.'
She then flung her arms about as if she were
sowing seed, and turned round three times.
Next Tony said—
'If P. doth find it waiting here,
Wilt ne'er again make me to fear?'
And Maimie answered—
'By dark or light I fondly swear
Never to see goats anywhere.'
She also left a letter to Peter in a likely place, explaining
what she had done, and begging him to ask the fairies to turn
the goat into one convenient for riding on. Well, it all
happened just as she hoped, for Peter found the letter, and of
course nothing could be easier for the fairies than to turn the
goat into a real one, and so that is how Peter got the goat on
which he now rides round the Gardens every night playing
sublimely on his pipe. And Maimie kept her promise, and never
frightened Tony with a goat again, though I have heard that she
created another animal. Until she was quite a big girl she
continued to leave presents for Peter in the Gardens (with
letters explaining how humans play with them), and she is not
the only one who has done this. David does it, for instance, and
he and I know the likeliest place for leaving them in, and we
shall tell you if you like, but for mercy's sake don't ask us
before Porthos, for he is so fond of toys that, were he to find
out the place, he would take every one of them.
Though Peter still remembers Maimie he is become as gay as
ever, and often in sheer happiness he jumps off his goat and
lies kicking merrily on the grass. Oh, he has a joyful time! But
he has still a vague memory that he was a human once, and it
makes him especially kind to the house-swallows when they visit
the island, for house-swallows are the spirits of little
children who have died. They always build in the eaves of the
houses where they lived when they were humans, and sometimes
they try to fly in at a nursery window, and perhaps that is why
Peter loves them best of all the birds.
And the little house? Every lawful night (that is to say,
every night except ball nights) the fairies now build the little
house lest there should be a human child lost in the Gardens,
and Peter rides the marches looking for lost ones, and if he
finds them he carries them on his goat to the little house, and
when they wake up they are in it, and when they step out they
see it. The fairies build the house merely because it is so
pretty, but Peter rides round in memory of Maimie, and because
he still loves to do just as he believes real boys would do.
But you must not think that, because somewhere among the
trees the little house is twinkling, it is a safe thing to
remain in the Gardens after Lock-out time. If the bad ones among
the fairies happen to be out that night they will certainly
mischief you, and even though they are not, you may perish of
cold and dark before Peter Pan comes round. He has been too late
several times, and when he sees he is too late he runs back to
the Thrush's Nest for his paddle, of which Maimie had told him
the true use, and he digs a grave for the child and erects a
little tombstone, and carves the poor thing's initials on it. He
does this at once because he thinks it is what real boys would
do, and you must have noticed the little stones, and that there
are always two together. He puts them in twos because they seem
less lonely. I think that quite the most touching sight in the
Gardens is the two tombstones of Walter Stephen Matthews and
Phoebe Phelps. They stand together at the spot where the parish
of Westminster St. Mary's is said to meet the parish of
Paddington. Here Peter found the two babes, who had fallen
unnoticed from their perambulators, Phoebe aged thirteen months
and Walter probably still younger, for Peter seems to have felt
a delicacy about putting any age on his stone. They lie side by
side, and the simple inscriptions read—
David sometimes places white flowers on these two innocent
graves.
I think that quite the
most touching sight in the Gardens is the two tombstones of
Walter Stephen Matthews and Phoebe Phelps
But how strange for parents, when they hurry into the Gardens
at the opening of the gates looking for their lost one, to find
the sweetest little tombstone instead. I do hope that Peter is
not too ready with his spade. It is all rather sad.
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