The Little White Horse (16 page)

‘But what fun to live in a cave!’ she cried, looking about her delightedly.

‘There’s something about pink that makes even a cave look homelike,’ said Loveday. ‘I love pink. Now come upstairs, my dear, and see where we sleep.’

‘We?’ wondered Maria, as she followed her beautiful hostess up the narrow staircase. Had Loveday got a husband? There were none of the usual signs of a husband, no muddy boots about or tobacco ash upon the floor. He must be a very tidy husband.

The stone staircase brought them out into Loveday’s beautiful bedroom. Here again there were fern-shaded
windows to west and east, with curtains patterned this time with pink convolvulus. Loveday’s four-poster stood against the south wall. It had curtains of the same convolvulus chintz, and a lovely patchwork quilt, with pink predominating in the colour scheme. The furniture here looked very old. Beside the bed there was a press for clothes and an oak chest black with age, with a mirror hanging over it. This mirror was not made of glass but of burnished silver, and forming a panel across the top of it was the figure of a little horse in full gallop.

‘Hundreds of years ago, when that mirror was made, there was no such thing as glass,’ said Loveday, seeing Maria’s astonished eyes resting upon the mirror. ‘They had to use burnished metal instead.’ She laughed softly. ‘But it gives back a softened and becoming reflection. Look at yourself in my mirror and you’ll find you are prettier than you thought you were.’

With a beating heart Maria went to the mirror and looked, and it was indeed a very lovely face that looked back at her. Her freckles seemed to have disappeared, and her hair, instead of having a reddish tinge, was pure silvery gold. And behind her head there shone a soft moony radiance.

‘But it’s not
me
in the mirror,’ she whispered to Loveday.

‘Yes it is,’ said Loveday softly, taking her hand. ‘Do not be afraid.’ Then she pulled Maria away from the mirror. ‘Look! That little staircase leads to his room.’

Beside the door another ladder-like staircase led up against the wall, but so much steeper and narrower than the other one that Maria thought one would have to be very small and agile to get up it. Loveday must have, surely, a fairy sort of husband, so small and tidy and surefooted as he evidently was. She longed to see what his room was like, but just as Loveday was moving towards the staircase a bell rang.

‘That’s Digweed back,’ said Loveday, and sped down the stairs to the living-room again; and Maria was obliged
to follow her, for well-brought-up people do not in another person’s house enter their rooms without permission. Also she was puzzled to know what the bell had to do with Digweed being back.

When she reached the living-room again the bell that hung beside the door in the south wall was still vibrating, and Loveday had put on her long black hooded cloak and was unlatching the door. ‘Come, child,’ she said to Maria. ‘Digweed will be able to give you a lift back to the manor, and that will save your legs, for by this time they are surely weary.’

Maria followed her out into a dark damp tunnel, lit only by the light that came from the living-room. They turned to the right, and there before them was a great oak door, securely barred by the slender trunk of a tree laid across it on supports like a bolt.

Now Maria knew where she was; this was the same tunnel through which they had driven on the evening of their arrival. And that shadowy figure that she had seen there had been Loveday in her black cloak, opening the door to them, as she was doing now, pulling the hood of her cloak forward with one hand, so that her face was hidden before she lifted the tree-trunk away from the door. She must be very strong, thought Maria, even though she is so tiny; as strong as a fairy woman.

The great door swung open, and Digweed in the gig, with Darby between the shafts, drove through.

‘I’m alone, Ma’am,’ he called to Loveday, and she let the hood fall back from her face again.

‘Stop and pick up our little lady,’ she said, and he stopped and waited, smiling broadly at Maria while Loveday shut and barred the great door again. When she had done it she helped Maria climb up into the gig beside Digweed. Then she stood beside it, looking earnestly up at Maria, the green light from the open doorway behind her making her beautiful face look strangely unearthly.

‘Maria,’ she said, ‘do not tell Sir Benjamin that you have seen me. Because, you see, he does not know that
I live here. Old Parson knows, the whole village knows, Digweed knows that I am Porteress of the Moonacre Gate, but Sir Benjamin does not know.’

Maria was by this time getting used to living in a perpetual state of astonishment and used to curbing her curiosity, so that at this startling piece of information she just nodded, and one question only escaped her.

‘But if he doesn’t know you are Porteress, who does he think
is
?’ she demanded.

‘There was an old woman who used to be Porteress,’ said Loveday. ‘She lived at the manor-house once, but she asked so many questions that Marmaduke Scarlet got annoyed and was rude to her, and so she wouldn’t live there any longer, and Sir Benjamin made her Porteress so that she should have a comfortable home. But she quarrelled with him too, for I am afraid she was rather a bad-tempered old woman as well as a curious one; and she would not speak to him or let him set foot in the gatehouse. Then she died and I took her place. But Sir Benjamin does not know that she has died and does not know that I have taken her place. This is her cloak that I wear, and she was a little woman, so that if Sir Benjamin catches sight of me as he drives through he only thinks that he sees old Elspeth. I know that I can trust you, Maria. I know that you will keep my secret, as all the village people do.’

‘You can trust me,’ said Maria, and she bent down from the gig and she and Loveday kissed each other, and then she and Digweed drove on through the tunnel and out into the warm still loveliness of the park.

Maria had not driven this way since the night of her arrival, and she looked about her eagerly. It looked very different in daylight; but the glades that wound away between the trees were just as mysterious, and it would not have surprised her if she had seen the little white horse galloping up one of them. But she didn’t, and presently
she left off looking and attended to Digweed’s conversation, for he had enjoyed himself at the market-town and wanted to tell her all about it. He had bought a new spade and a new scythe, ten new mousetraps, a bottle of cough mixture for his own use, a pig, a canary in a cage, an enormous meatbone, a bag of biscuits, a bunch of radishes, a paper bag full of bull’s-eyes and another full of bright pink boiled sweets, a cod’s head, and a large packet of tobacco. It was rather a noisy journey, for the pig was squeaking, the canary was singing at the top of its voice, the mousetraps leaped and rattled at every bump in the road, and the cod’s head had the sort of smell that one could almost hear. But Maria enjoyed the drive, in spite of the cod’s head, for Digweed was so kind and companionable and she loved him very much.

Sir Benjamin and Miss Heliotrope were walking together in the formal garden, and Digweed stopped the gig, so that Maria could get down and join them. When she was down he handed her the pink boiled sweets.

‘For you, little Mistress,’ he said very shyly.

And then, getting purple in the face, he handed the bull’s-eyes to Miss Heliotrope. ‘For you, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I knows you be partial to peppermint.’

And then he handed the tobacco to Sir Benjamin, and drove quickly off before any of them had time to say thank you properly.

‘Always brings us presents from town,’ chuckled Sir Benjamin as the three of them strolled back towards the manor. ‘That canary, I think, is for Marmaduke Scarlet. Marmaduke is fond of birds, but his pets are apt to be rather short-lived, owing to Zachariah.’

Miss Heliotrope, Maria thought, was looking a little agitated, and Sir Benjamin now explained why.

‘I am taking Miss Heliotrope for a little walk in order to calm her nerves,’ he said. ‘For this morning Marmaduke decided to make himself known to her. Instead of drawing her curtains, and placing her jug of hot water in her basin in his usual noiseless fashion, which does not awaken the
lightest sleeper, he did it so noisily that she woke up and saw him.’

‘It was a shock,’ quavered poor Miss Heliotrope. ‘A great shock. No man, except of course my father, has ever set foot in my bedchamber.’

‘Marmaduke Scarlet is scarcely a man, Miss Heliotrope,’ comforted Sir Benjamin. ‘He is — well — Marmaduke Scarlet. And his revealing himself to you is an enormous compliment, for as a general rule his dislike of the female sex causes him to avoid women like the plague.’

‘So now you know, Miss Heliotrope, who does the work of the house so beautifully,’ said Maria.

‘So now I know,’ said Miss Heliotrope, beginning to smile a little. ‘And I could not have believed that so small and aged — well — I must say gentleman, for lack of a better term — could have been so expert a housewife!’

‘Nevertheless, you have had a shock,’ said Sir Benjamin sympathetically. ‘Would a little carriage exercise this afternoon be beneficial, do you think? I do not believe it will rain before nightfall. You and Maria could go for a drive in the pony carriage. It is a lady’s pony carriage, though no lady has used it for twenty years. But Digweed can soon clean it up again.’

‘I should like it of all things,’ said Miss Heliotrope graciously.

‘Oh, Sir,’ cried Maria delightedly. ‘Could we drive to Paradise Hill?’

‘Certainly,’ said Sir Benjamin.

They were at the house now, and while Sir Benjamin and Miss Heliotrope paused for a last look at the garden Maria ran up to the hall. All four animals — Wrolf, Zachariah, Wiggins, and Serena the hare — were grouped amiably about the fire, each happily engrossed with the gift Digweed had brought from the town; Wrolf with the huge bone, Zachariah with the cod’s head, Wiggins with the biscuits, and Serena with the radishes. They looked round at her with champing jaws and moved
their tails and ears in friendly welcome, and she moved from one to the other caressing their soft heads. It all seemed very friendly and homely, and she felt more than ever that her period of introduction to Moonacre was over, and that she was firmly embedded here now, like a jewel in its setting. She felt this more than ever when the kitchen door opened and Marmaduke Scarlet’s rosy bearded face was inserted into the aperture, with the very broadest grin running right up into its ears.

‘I beg that you will do me the favour, Mistress, of entering the scene of my culinary labours,’ he said in his squeaking voice. ‘We were informed by Zachariah the cat that you would partake of breakfast at the establishment of the Reverend the Vicar of Silverydew, but having from past experience formed an unfavourable opinion of the sustenance provided in clerical establishments, I have taken the liberty of augmenting the repast of which you have already partaken with a small cold collation. Will you do me the favour of stepping inside?’

Maria stepped inside and found the kitchen table spread with a fair white cloth, and upon it was a plate of pink-iced fairy cakes, a foaming mug of milk, and a small silver dish full of candied cherries. While she munched the sugar cakes and nibbled at the cherries and took long satisfying draughts of the lovely new milk, Marmaduke Scarlet stood upon a stool and hung his canary in the window, and all the while he was adjusting the cage he never ceased smiling at her, and once he even tipped her a wink with his left eye. He was, she could see, very, very pleased with her; almost as though he knew and highly approved the decision to which she had come in Old Parson’s parlour while he was telling her the past history of her family.

‘Marmaduke Scarlet,’ she said, actually daring to ask a question because he was so extraordinarily sunny and friendly, ‘how
did
Zachariah deliver Old Parson’s message?’

Marmaduke Scarlet nodded towards the great hearth.

‘Any communication which Zachariah is called upon to deliver he inscribes with his right forepaw in the ashes,’ he said. ‘Zachariah is an exceptionally gifted cat. His ancestors were worshipped as gods by the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, so he tells me, and the blood in his veins is blue, so he tells me. That latter statement I can corroborate, for upon one occasion he had the misfortune to insinuate his nose too near the meat hatchet, while his Sunday meal of beef and liver and bacon was in preparation, and the blood that flowed from the resultant wound was deep bluebell blue.’

Maria set down her mug of milk, ran to the hearth and looked at the ashes. They had been spread smoothly, as though with the swish of a long tail, and little pictures bearing a marked resemblance to Egyptian hieroglyphics had been traced on them. First came the outline of a fiddle, then the outline of a sickle moon, and these two were joined together by a circle. Next came a little picture of a church and then of a coffee-pot. Maria laughed in delight. The fiddle, she saw, was Old Parson, and the moon was herself, and they were together, and had gone together to church and breakfast.

‘Zachariah deserves his cod’s head,’ said Maria.

‘And you, little Mistress,’ said Marmaduke Scarlet, motioning her back to the table, ‘deserve your sugar cakes, your cherries, and your milk.’

A
FTER
dinner, Digweed brought round the pony carriage. He had furbished it up, so that it looked quite bright and shining, though very peculiar . . . It was of basket-work, and shaped like a very large, almost circular, baby’s cradle, set very low to the ground on four large substantial wheels. It had a basket-work hood lined with quilted red twill, and beneath it a wooden seat with red cushions. Digweed had spread fresh clean straw on the floor, and ornamented the whip with a scarlet bow, and Periwinkle had a scarlet bow on the top of her head.

Attended by Sir Benjamin, Miss Heliotrope and Maria and Wiggins descended the steps with considerable pomp, feeling that this first drive in a pony carriage that had not been used for twenty years was something of an occasion. Miss Heliotrope was wearing one of her beautiful new fichus on her purple bombasine dress, her black cloak, and her poke bonnet. She carried her reticule with her book of essays in it, and her beautiful blue eyes were very bright and shining. Maria had put on her green linen dress, beneath a green cloak lined with yellow, and a green bonnet with a yellow feather in it. Wiggins, in his green leather collar, had had an extra good brushing in honour of the occasion, and looked particularly beautiful. Serena, who was now so much better that she could get about quite easily on three legs, followed them down the steps looking very smart in the collar of plaited silver cord that Maria had made for her, with her long ears cocked in happy anticipation.