The Fairy Doll (5 page)

‘I thought so too,’ said Josie. She sounded disappointed.

‘How could they be?’ asked Godfrey.

‘They couldn’t,’ said Christabel, who after all was twelve now and ought to know. ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Christabel. ‘She was just a doll.’

‘
Fairy
Doll.’ It was Great-Grandmother who corrected Christabel, but her voice sounded high up and far away – As if it came from somewhere else? asked Elizabeth.

In the country, November and December are the best times for hedges, but now no one picked the old man’s beard for a mattress, or winter berries to bake; no one went to
the wood for fresh moss and new toadstools. The fairy house was broken up; the bicycle basket was on the bicycle.

For Christmas they each chose what they would get.

‘A writing case,’ said Christabel.

‘A reversing engine, Number Fifty-one, for my Hornby trains,’ said Godfrey.

‘A kitchen set,’ said Josie.

Elizabeth did not know what she wanted. ‘Another fairy doll?’ suggested Christabel.

‘Another! There isn’t another,’ said Elizabeth, shocked. ‘She was Fairy Doll.’

On Christmas Eve the tree was set up in the drawing room. Mother opened the cedar chest and brought the decorations down, the tinsel and the icicles, the witch balls and trumpets and bells, the
lights and candle clips. There were new candles, new boxes of sweets, new little bags of nuts, shining new coins, and new crackers. ‘But what shall we put at the top?’ asked
Christabel.

Elizabeth ran out of the room, upstairs to the cedar chest.

She was going to cast herself down – ‘and stay there; I don’t want Christmas,’ said Elizabeth – but the lid of the chest was open, and, on top of a pile of blankets
and folded summer vests, she saw the cotton-reel box that had held Fairy Doll.

‘Empty,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Empty.’

She was just beginning to sob when, ‘Look in the box,’ went a loud, clear ‘ting’. ‘Look in the box.’

Elizabeth stopped in the middle of a sob, but she was cleverer now, and she argued. ‘Why?’ asked Elizabeth.

The ‘ting’ took no notice. ‘Look in the box.’

‘Why? It’s
empty
.’

‘Look in the box.’

‘It’s
empty
.’

‘Look.’

It was more than a ‘ting’, it was a stir, as if the box were alive, as if – a wand were waving?

Slowly Elizabeth put out her hand. The lid of the box flew off – ‘Did I open it?’ asked Elizabeth. She heard the blue tissue paper rustle – ‘Did I rustle it?’
– and out, in her hand, came Fairy Doll.

‘But how?’ asked Christabel. ‘How? And how did Elizabeth
know
? I said, “What shall we put on top?” and –’

‘She ran straight upstairs,’ said Godfrey, ‘and came back with Fairy Doll –’

‘Who was lost,’ said Josie. ‘Wasn’t she lost?’

‘We don’t understand,’ they said, all three together.

*

You may think that when Josie was jealous she stole Fairy Doll and put her back in the cedar chest. I thought so too, but then why was Josie so surprised? And how was it that
Fairy Doll was not draggled at all, but clean, in a fresh new dress, with new silver wings and another pair of mice-sewn shoes?

Perhaps it was Mother who found her and put her away because it was time that Elizabeth had ‘tings’ of her own. Mother could have made the dress and wings, but, ‘I
couldn’t have sewn those shoes,’ said Mother.

Fairy Doll looked straight in front of her, and the wand stirred gently, very gently in her hand.

Fairy Doll went back in her place on the top of the Christmas tree. After Christmas she was laid away in the cedar chest till next year. ‘She has done her work,’
said Mother.

Christabel had her writing case; Godfrey had his engine; Josie, who was cured of being jealous, had a kitchen set with pots and pans, a pastry board, a rolling pin, and a kettle. Elizabeth had a
long-clothes baby doll, with eyes that opened and shut.

She loves the baby doll, but every time she goes up and down the stairs she stops on the landing and puts her hand on the cedar chest; every time she does it – it may be her imagination
– from inside comes a faint glass ‘ting’ that is like a Christmas bell.

Rumer Godden
was born in England but brought up mainly in India. She became one of the UK’s most distinguished and successful authors. She wrote many well-known
and much-loved books for both adults and children, including
The Story of Holly and Ivy
and
The Dolls’ house. The Diddakoi
won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in
1972.

She was awarded the OBE in 1993 and died in 1998, aged ninety.

Gary Blythe
is a successful illustrator best known for
The Whale Song
, which won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award, and
I Believe in Unicorns
by
Michael Morpurgo. He lives in Merseyside.

Also by Rumer Godden
and published by Macmillan Children’s Books

The Diddakoi

The Story of Holly and Ivy

The Dolls’ House

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

Little Plum

For older readers

The Peacock Spring

The Greengage Summer

First published 1956 by Macmillan

This edition published 2007 by Macmillan Children’s Books

This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-447-21017-7 EPUB

Text copyright © Rumer Godden 1956
Illustrations copyright © Gary Blythe 2006

The right of Rumer Godden and Gary Blythe to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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