“There aren’t any doves, you know,” said Isolde, “I don’t particularly want to keep any. There are quite enough in the woods all round.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter a bit,” said Philomène, “one can always pretend.”
So Godmother settled herself to write on the verandah, and Philomène brought out the Bible. It was a very bulky book, for it contained not only the Old and New Testaments, but the Old and New Testament Apocryphas as well. Judging from the dog’s-eared pages thereabouts, it would appear that Godmother’s Granny had looked oftenest at the picture of Jacob blessing his twelve sons from a four-poster bed, and at another of the Last Judgment, the grouping of which suggested nothing so much as a prize-giving. But Philomène preferred Martha, cumbered with a pepper-pot and a soup-tureen, because she reminded her of Lilian Augusta, and Pharaoh’s daughter with the rosettes on her shoes, and best of all she liked S. Anne by the laurel-bush, complaining to the sparrow in its nest that she had no child. Again and again had Philomène peeped over the edge of that nest to count the eggs, but the mother bird spread wide its brooding wings, and baffled her curiosity.
As soon as Philomène had had a look at her favourite pictures, she put away the book and wrote two whole sheets to her father. After that she began to play with Don Whiskerandos, Isolde’s black Persian, who sat blinking in the sun at his mistress’s feet. Occasionally he roused himself sufficiently to wash his front paws, which were like velvet tassels for softness, but for the rest he was sleepy and undemonstrative. Philomène had christened him Dives, because he fared sumptuously every day and took no notice of his neighbours, and she soon gave up trying to play with him, and went in search of Lazarus, the gingery stable cat. Lazarus was certainly as plain and as under-bred as it is possible for a cat to be, but as Philomène always loved anything which other people did not consider it worth their while to love, his very gingerliness and the bullet shape of his head cried out to her for affection.
By the time Lazarus had had his full share of attention, the bell rang for luncheon on the verandah, and when lunch was over, Isolde gave herself up to her godchild. She swung her untiringly in the swing between the two horse-chestnut trees, she tucked her up in the hammock and read to her, they played battledore and shuttlecock together on the lawn, and at tea-time retreated to the shadow of a giant haystack in a field close by, to eat home-made scones and strawberries and cream.
It was here that the vicar found them. He was no stranger to Philomène, for he often dropped in at the Cushats on a Sunday afternoon, and she was not shy with him, but as soon as he and her godmother began talking politics, she thought it was about time for the dove-cot. As she left the field and came back into the garden, it occurred to her that it might be as well to take with her Sweet William’s letter of introduction. The tall silver savings-box stood on the dressing-table in her room, and inside were the latchkey and the anemone. With the flower in her hand she hurried towards the disused dove-cot, and upon reaching it was very much surprised by a slight flutter of wings from inside it. She put her hand into one of the pigeon-holes, and something brushed past it and flew out into the open. Could it be a dove after all? she wondered. But then she saw that the anemone was full blown, and in another minute she became aware of a little creature perched upon the dove-cot. It was a fairy; who but a fairy could have had such glistering wings, and worn a dress of tussore-coloured silk from a caterpillar’s cocoon? The elf rather reminded Philomène of Master Mustardseed, for she had small, bright eyes like those of a bird, and her little head was cocked on one side as she sat and looked at the intruder.
“I am very sorry to have disturbed you,” began Philomène, “but I had no idea that this was your house. I think I have a letter for you,” and so saying she handed the Japanese anemone to the fairy, who buried her face in its petals. When she looked up from the letter, she was smiling kindly.
“Did you have any green ribbons——”
“Yes,” interrupted Philomène eagerly, “I did; on my christening robe.”
“Ah, that accounts for it,” said the elf, still smiling, “and I shall be very glad to do anything I can to amuse you while you are here. I only wish I were not quite so busy, but the grounds are large, very large for the size of the house, and my time is not my own. However, I will do what I can, during the hours when you and your godmother are not together. I do not know Sweet William at all, not even by name, but he has written of you in the most flattering terms. I was asleep just now when you put your hand into my bedroom, and I am sure I ought to feel very grateful to you for waking me up out of my shockingly long noon-day nap, for I have any amount of work before me, so that I am afraid I cannot be of much service to you this afternoon.”