The Fairy Doll (2 page)

Elizabeth rang the bell and once or twice she put her foot on the pedal and took it off again. Then she wheeled the bicycle home.

That year Elizabeth was naughtier than ever and seemed able to help it less and less.

She spilled milk on the Sunday newspapers before Father had read them; she broke Mother’s Wedgwood bowl, and by mistake she mixed the paints in Christabel’s new paint box.
‘Careless little idiot,’ said Christabel. ‘I told you not to touch.’

When Mother sent Elizabeth to the shop she forgot matches or flour or marmalade, and Godfrey had to go and get them. ‘You’re a perfect duffer,’ said Godfrey, furious. Going to
dancing, she dropped the penny for her bus fare, and Josie had to get off the bus with her.

‘I’ll never forgive you. Never,’ said Josie.

It grew worse and worse. Every morning when they were setting off to school, ‘Elizabeth, you haven’t brushed your teeth,’ Christabel would say, and they had to wait while
Elizabeth went back. Then they scolded her all the way to school.

At school it was no better. She seemed more silly and stupid every day. She could not say her tables, especially the seven-times; she could not keep up in reading, and when she sewed, the cloth
was all over bloodspots from the pricks. The other children laughed at her.

‘Oh Elizabeth, why are you such a stupid child?’ asked Miss Thrupp, the teacher.

Sometimes, that year, Elizabeth got down behind the cedar chest, though it was dusty there, and lay on the floor. ‘I wish it was Christmas,’ she said to the fairy doll inside. Then
she would remember something else and say, ‘I wish it never had been Christmas,’ because worst of all, Elizabeth could not learn to ride her bicycle.

Father taught her, and Mother taught her; Christabel never stopped teaching her. ‘Push, pedal; pedal pedal pedal,’ cried Christabel, but Elizabeth’s legs were
too short.

‘Watch me,’ said Godfrey, ‘and you won’t wobble.’ But Elizabeth wobbled.

‘Go fast,’ said Josie. ‘Then you won’t fall.’ But Elizabeth fell.

All January, February, March, April, and June she tried to ride the bicycle. In July and August they went to the sea so that she had a little rest; in September, October, November she tried
again, but when December came, I am sorry to tell you, Elizabeth still could not ride the bicycle.

‘And you’re seven years old!’ said Christabel.

‘More like seven months!’ said Godfrey.

‘Baby! Baby!’ said Josie.

Great-Grandmother was to come that year for Christmas; none of the children had seen her before because she had been living in Canada. ‘Where’s Canada?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Be quiet,’ said Christabel.

Great-Grandmother was Mother’s mother’s mother. ‘And very old,’ said Mother.

‘How old?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Ssh,’ said Godfrey.

There was to be a surprise, the children were to march into the drawing room and sing a carol, and when the carol was ended Great-Grandmother was to be given a basket of roses. But the basket
was not a plain basket; it was made, Mother told them, of crystal.

‘What’s crystal?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Shut up,’ said Josie, but, ‘It’s the very finest glass,’ said Mother.

The roses were not plain roses either; they were Christmas roses, snow-white. Elizabeth had expected them to be scarlet. ‘
Isn’t
she silly?’ said Josie.

Who was to carry the basket? Who was to give it? ‘I’m the eldest,’ said Christabel. ‘It ought to be me.’

‘I’m the boy,’ said Godfrey. ‘It ought to be me.’

‘I’m Josephine after Great-Grandmother,’ said Josie. ‘It ought to be me.’

‘Who is to give it? Who?’ In the end they asked Mother, and Mother said ‘Elizabeth.’

‘
El
izabeth?’

‘
Eliza
beth?’

‘
Elizabeth?
’

‘Why?’ They all wanted to know.

‘Because she’s the youngest,’ said Mother.

None of them had heard that as a reason before, and –

‘It’s too heavy for her,’ said Christabel.

‘She’ll drop it,’ said Godfrey.

‘You know what she is,’ said Josie.

‘I’ll be very, very careful,’ said Elizabeth.

How proud she was when Mother gave the handsome, shining basket into her hands outside the drawing-room door! It was so heavy that her arms ached, but she would not have given it up for anything
in the world. Her heart beat under her velvet dress, her cheeks were red, as they marched in and stood in a row before Great-Grandmother. ‘Noel, Noel,’ they sang.

Great-Grandmother was sitting in the armchair; she had a white shawl over her knees and a white scarf patterned with silver over her shoulders; to Elizabeth she looked as if she were dressed in
white and silver all over; she even had white hair, and in one hand she held a thin stick with a silver top. She had something else, and Elizabeth stopped in the middle of a note; at the end of
Great-Grandmother’s nose hung a dewdrop.

*

An older, cleverer child might have thought, Why doesn’t Great-Grandmother blow her nose? But to Elizabeth that trembling, shining drop was beautiful; it caught the shine
from the Christmas tree and, if Great-Grandmother moved, it twinkled; it reminded Elizabeth of something, she could not think what – can you? – and she gazed at it. She gazed so hard
that she did not hear the carol end.

‘. . . Born is the King of Is-ra-el.’

There was silence.

‘Eliza
beth
!’ hissed Christabel.

‘Go
on
,’ whispered Godfrey.

Josie gave Elizabeth a push.

Elizabeth jumped and dropped the basket.

The Christmas roses were scattered on the carpet, and the crystal basket was broken to bits.

Hours afterward – it was really one hour, but to Elizabeth it felt like hours – Mother came upstairs. ‘Great-Grandmother wants to see you,’ she said.

Elizabeth was down behind the chest. The velvet dress was dusty now, but she did not care. She had not come out to have tea nor to see her presents. ‘What’s the use of giving
Elizabeth presents?’ she heard Father say. ‘She doesn’t ride the one she has.’

Elizabeth had made herself flatter and flatter behind the cedar chest; now she raised her head. ‘Great-Grandmother
wants
to see me?’ she asked.

Great-Grandmother looked at Elizabeth, at her face, which was red and swollen with tears, at her hands that had dropped the basket, at her legs that were too short to ride the
bicycle, at her dusty dress.

‘H’m,’ said a voice. ‘Something will have to be done.’

It must have been Great-Grandmother’s voice; there was nobody else in the room; but it seemed to come from high up, a long way up, from the top of the tree, for instance; at the same
moment there was a swishing sound as of something brushing through branches, wings perhaps, and the fairy doll came flying – it was falling, of course, but it sounded like flying – down
from the tree to the carpet. She landed by Great-Grandmother’s stick.

‘Dear me! How fortunate,’ said Great-Grandmother, and now her voice certainly came from her. ‘I was just going to say you needed a good fairy.’

‘Me?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘You,’ said Great-Grandmother. ‘You had better have this one.’

Elizabeth looked at the fairy doll, and the fairy doll looked at Elizabeth; the wand was still stirring with the rush of the fall.

‘What about the others?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘You can leave the others to me,’ said Great Grandmother.

‘What about next Christmas and the tree?’

‘Next Christmas is a long way off,’ said Great-Grandmother. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

Slowly Elizabeth knelt down on the floor and picked up the fairy doll.