"Oh, Racey!" I exclaimed. "No, let _me_ guess, Miss Goldy hair. She found herself in the bird"s garden."
"Yes," said Miss Goldy-hair, "she found herself standing in the middle of a most lovely garden. Nothing that poor Letty had ever seen in her life could have given her any idea--not the faintest--of anything so beautiful, though for you, children, who have lived in the country and know what gra.s.s _can_ be, and what trees, whose leaves have never known smoke, can look like, it is not so impossible as it would have been for her, to picture to yourselves this delicious garden. There were flowers of every shape and hue; there were little silvery brooks winding in and out, sometimes lost to view among the trees, then suddenly dancing out again with a merry rush; there were banks to run down and grottos to lose your way in--there was just everything to make a garden delightful.
And yet, after all, the word "garden" scarcely describes it--it was more like a home for honeysuckle and eglantine than like what _we_ generally call a garden, with trimly-cut beds and parterres of brilliant roses.
There was a beautiful wildness about it and yet it was _perfectly_ in order--there was no sign of withering or decay, no dead leaves lying about, no broken or dried-up branches on the trees, though they were high and ma.s.sive and covered with foliage--it was all fresh and blooming as if nothing hurtful or troubling had ever entered it. The water of the streams was pure and clear as crystal, the scent of the flowers was refreshing as well as sweet.
"Letty looked about her in a happiness too great for words--the sight and feeling of this lovely garden were for the poor tired and dulled little girl, ecstasy past telling. She did not care to go running about to find where the streams came from or to pluck the flowers, as some children would have done. She just sat down on the delicious gra.s.s and rested her tired little head on a bank and felt _quite_ happy.
""Oh, thank you, white dove," she said aloud, "for bringing me here. He said he could not take me to Fairyland," she added to herself, "but no Fairyland could be more beautiful than this," and she sat there with the soft warm sunlight falling on her--such sunlight as never in her life she had seen before--the brooks dancing along at her feet, the gentle little breezes kissing her face, in, as I said, complete content.
Suddenly from the groves here and there about the garden, there came the sound of warbling birds. There were many different notes, even Letty could distinguish that--there was the clear song of the lark, the thrilling melody of the nightingale--even, most welcome of all to Letty, the soft coo of the dove--there were these and a hundred others--but all in perfect tune together. And as she listened, the music seemed to come nearer and nearer, till looking up, Letty saw the whole band of songsters approaching her--hundreds and hundreds of birds all slowly flying together till they lighted on a low-growing band of trees not far from where she sat. And now Letty understood that this beautiful garden was the home of the birds as the dove had said. And when the concert was over she saw, to her delight, a single white dove separate himself from the rest and fly to where she sat. She knew him again--she felt sure it was her dove and no other.
""Are you pleased, little Letty?" he said, in his soft cooing voice.
""Oh! dear white dove, how can I thank you?" she answered.
""You need not thank me," he said. "I have done only what I was meant to do. Now listen, Letty; the pleasures of this garden are endless, never, if you lived to a thousand, could you see all its beauties. And to those who have found the way here, it will never be closed again but by their own fault. You may come here often for rest and refreshment--in childhood and womanhood and even in quite old age, and you will always be welcome. You may perhaps never see me again, but that will not matter. I am only a messenger. Remember all I say, be gentle and good and do your work well, and whenever the moonlight shows you the door, you will find entrance here."
"He gently raised his wings and flew away--to join the other birds who were already almost out of sight. And a pleasant sleepy feeling came over Letty. She closed her eyes, and when she woke it was morning--she was in her own little bed in the dull room she shared with her sisters, and Hester was already up and dressed and calling to her to make haste.
But it was not a dream, for firmly clasped in her hand was the silver key and the white ribbon.
""How did it get there?" said Letty to herself, for she could not remember having taken it out of the lock. "The white dove must have brought it back to me," she thought."
"And was the cupboard door still in the wall?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes," said Miss Goldy-hair; "and when Letty, still hardly awake, said something to Hester about whether it had always been there, Hester laughed at her and said, "Yes, of course; had Letty never seen inside it?--it was where mother kept the best linen." And so Letty said no more about it--she knew she would only have been laughed at and perhaps scolded, and yet she knew there was nothing wrong in her beautiful secret, so she just kept it in her own little heart.
"The days went on, and life seemed now quite a different thing to Letty; through all the tiredness and dulness the thought of the fairy garden which she was free to enter cheered and strengthened her. She did not go _very_ often--it would not perhaps have been good for her to go too constantly--but every moonlight night she was sure to wake at the right moment, and if I had time I could tell you many things of the new beauties she found at each visit. But there came a time--it was miserable, cold, rainy winter weather, and the sky was so covered with clouds that neither sunlight nor moonlight could get through--when for several weeks Letty had no chance of getting to the garden--the moon never shone, and do what she would she never woke up. She grew impatient and discontented; she did her work less willingly, and answered crossly when her mother reproved her. And one night she went to bed in a very bad humour, saying to herself the dove had deceived her, or some nonsense like that. Two or three hours later she woke suddenly--to her delight the moon was shining brightly. Up jumped Letty and got her key ready. It slipped as usual into the lock, but, alas! do what she would she could not turn it. She pulled and pushed, she twisted about and tried to turn it by main force. Fortunately it was a fairy key, otherwise it certainly would have been broken. And at last in despair she sat down on the edge of her bed and cried. Suddenly the words came into her mind--"Be good and gentle and do your work well--if the door is ever closed to you it will be by your own fault," and Letty"s conscience whispered to her that it _was_ by her own fault."
Miss Goldy-hair paused a minute as if she wanted to hear what we had to say.
"And did she never get in again?" said Tom. "Oh, poor Letty!"
"Oh yes," said Miss Goldy-hair, "she took her punishment well, and though a good while pa.s.sed before she had another chance of visiting the garden, she was very patient and did her best. And when a moonlight night did come again it was all right--the key turned without the least difficulty. And never had the garden seemed to her more beautiful than this time, and never had Letty felt more cheered and refreshed by its sweet air and sunshine and all its lovely sights and sounds. And now, dears, I must leave off, for it is almost time for me to go home; and indeed if I went on talking all night I could never tell you a half nor a quarter of the pleasures of Letty"s wonderful garden."
Miss Goldy-hair stopped.
"Didn"t her never have nussing to eat in that garden?" said Racey.
Miss Goldy-hair smiled.
"I dare say she did," she said. "You may fancy she did. If you fancy all the nicest and prettiest things you know, you will not be wrong."
"Oh," said Tom, "that"s very nice. We can make plays to ourselves about Letty"s garden. Did she keep going till she was big? Did she never lose the key?"
"Never," said Miss Goldy-hair. "She never lost the key. And she went not only when she was big, but when she was old, quite old. Indeed she got fonder and fonder of it the longer she lived, and it helped her through a hard and often suffering life. And I don"t know but what in quite old age her visits to the garden were the happiest of all."
"Miss Goldy-hair," I said, "isn"t there something to find out like in the story of Letty?"
Miss Goldy-hair smiled.
"Think about it," she said. "I suspect you will be able to tell me something if you do."
But the boys didn"t care to find out anything else. They thought it was great fun to play at Letty and the dove, and they pretended to get into the garden through the door of the cupboard where our cloaks hung. And the play lasted them for a good while without their getting tired of it, and Miss Goldy-hair was quite pleased, and said that was one way of turning the key in the lock, and not a bad way either for such little boys. Her saying that puzzled me a little at first, but then it came clearer to me that by the beautiful garden she meant all sweet and pretty fancies and thoughts which help to brighten our lives, and that these will come to children and big people too whose hearts and minds are good and gentle and kind.
The next day Tom was better, and two or three days after that we went at last to dinner and tea at Miss Goldy-hair"s. If I were to tell you all we did, and what pretty things she showed us, and how delighted Racey was with the _inside_ of her air-garden, it would take a whole other book. For just fancy, we have counted over the lines and the pages I have written, and there is actually enough to make a whole little book, and just in _case_, you know, of its ever coming to be printed, it"s better for me to leave it the right size. And besides that, I don"t know that I have very much more to tell that would be interesting, for the happy days that now began for us pa.s.sed very much like each other in many ways. Our new nurse came and she turned out very kind, and I think she was more sensible than poor Pierson in some ways, for she managed to get on better with Mrs. Partridge. But as for poor Mrs. Partridge, she didn"t trouble us much, for her rheumatism got so very bad that all that winter she couldn"t walk up-stairs though she managed to fiddle about down-stairs in her own rooms and to keep on the housekeeping. And this, by the by, brings me to the one big thing that happened, which you will see all came from something that I told you about almost at the beginning of this little story.
All through this winter, as you will have known without my telling you, of course our happiness came mostly from Miss Goldy-hair. She didn"t often come to see us after Tom got better, but at least twice a week _we_ went to see _her_. And what happy days those were! It was she that helped us with everything--she held Racey"s hand for him to write a letter "his own self," to mother; she showed me how to make, oh! _such_ a pretty handkerchief-case to send mother for her birthday; and taught Tom how to plait a lovely little mat with bright-coloured papers. She helped me with my music, which I found very tiresome and difficult at first, and she was so dear and good to us that when at last as we got to understand things better, it had to be explained to us that not three months but three _years_ must pa.s.s before we could hope to see papa and mother again, it did not seem nearly so terrible as it would have done but for having her. She put it such a nice way.
"You can learn so much in three years," she said. "Think how much you can do to please your mother in that time." And it made us feel a new interest in our lessons and in everything we had to learn.
Well, one day in the spring Uncle Geoff told me that he had a plan for us he wanted to consult me about. He smiled a little when he said "consult," but I had learned not to take offence at Uncle Geoff"s smiles.
"Poor old Partridge is going to leave us, Audrey," he said. "She feels she is no longer fit for the work, and indeed it would have been better if she had said so before. I think her feeling it and not liking to say so had to do with the troubles when you first came."
"But she"s never vexed with us now," I said eagerly. "Nurse is very nice to her, and then Miss Goldy-hair told us about Mrs. Partridge being so old, and that we should be res--respecting and all that way to her."
""Respectful," you mean, my dear," said Uncle Geoff smiling a little, for I had stumbled over the word. "Ah yes--I think Miss Goldy-hair has been a sort of good fairy to us all;" and then he went on to tell me his plan. He was going to make some changes in the house, he said. Several of the rooms were to be painted and done up new, and it would be better for us to be away for two or three weeks. So what do you think he had thought of--wasn"t it a good idea?--he had written to Pierson to ask if she could find rooms for us in her village, and she had written back to say she had two very nice rooms in her own house which she was meaning to let to visitors in the summer time, and oh! she would be so pleased to have us! So it was settled, and in a week or two we went--Tom, Racey, and I, with our kind nurse. Uncle Geoff himself took us to the station, and though we were in high spirits we really felt sorry to leave him; and I felt quite pleased when he said, "It will be nice to have you back again, looking very strong and rosy."
We had said good-bye to Miss Goldy-hair the night before, and even though it was only for a little while we really nearly cried.
"You"ll come to see us as soon as ever we come back, Miss Goldy-hair, won"t you?" said Tom.
"Yes," said Miss Goldy-hair, "you may be sure of that."
"The first evening," persisted Tom, "the very first evening?" and rather to my surprise--for generally when the boys teased like that about settling anything _exactly_, Miss Goldy-hair would reply, "I can"t _promise_," or "We"ll see nearer the time "--she answered again, "Yes, Tom dear. I"ll be here the very first evening."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Racey was really rather frightened of him, he looked so black and queer.]
So we went, and we stayed a month--four whole weeks. And we were very happy, for the weather was fine and we were out nearly all day gathering primroses and daffodils; and Pierson was very kind indeed, and her husband was very polite, though the first time Racey saw him in the smithy he was really rather frightened of him, he looked so black and queer. And Cray was really a very pretty village, just as Pierson had said, and we had no lessons and lots of fresh eggs and new milk. So altogether it was very nice. But yet when the last evening came we couldn"t help saying to each other--though of course we were sorry to leave Pierson--that for _always_, you know, counting rainy days and all, we"d rather be in London with Uncle Geoff, and with dear Miss Goldy-hair coming to see us. And we thought--Tom and I at least--_what_ a good thing it was we had lost our way that night and had found Miss Goldy-hair, instead of running away to Pierson. And all the way home in the train we kept thinking how nice it would be to see her--Miss Goldy-hair--again, and wondering if she"d be at the house when we got out of the cab. Uncle Geoff we knew we"d see at the station, for he had sent us a letter to Cray to say he"d be there, and so he was.
He looked so merry and nice we somehow were surprised.
"Uncle Geoff," I said to him, "you must have enjoyed yourself very much when you were away. You look so very merry."
"Yes," he said smiling, "I enjoyed my holiday very much."
We knew he had been away, for he had written to tell us.
"Do you think Miss Goldy-hair will be at the house to see us when we get there?" I asked. "Have you seen her while we were away?"
"Yes," said Uncle Geoff. "I have, and I think she will be there."
The cab stopped. Out we all jumped. What a different coming from the last time!--for there in the hall, looking as if she would have liked to run out into the street to see us, stood dear Miss Goldy-hair.
We all flew into her arms. Then we all looked at her. She seemed a little different. She had a grey dress--a very pretty one--instead of her black one. She had put it on, she told us afterwards, on purpose for this evening, though she had still to wear black for a good while.
"Miss Doldy-hair," said Racey, "is you doin" to stay to tea? You has no bonnet on."
By this time we were all in the dining-room, where the table was spread out for a most beautiful tea.