Chapter II Avrillia
"I make it a rule," the Plynck was saying, as Sara dropped the curtainbehind her the next morning, "to fly around the fountain at leasttwice every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from abundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree,something that looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easilywith one golden claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out withcareless grace for another.
"Oh," breathed Sara, clasping her hands. And she could not help adding,shyly, "If I could only see you when you fly--Madame Plynck!"
Sara was very proud of herself after she had said that. She had nevercalled anybody "Madame" before, but she had read it in books, and itseemed just the title for a creature so beautiful and gentle andstately as the Plynck. It seemed so suitable that it gave her courageto repeat, "If I could only see you fly!"
"But I don't do it often, you see," answered the Plynck, quietly.
"Why--!" exclaimed Sara. "I thought you just said--" Not for worldswould she have seemed rude or impolite to the Plynck, but she wascompletely puzzled.
The Plynck looked very kind. "I said I make it a rule," she said,gently. "I didn't say--you explain it to her," she said suddenly toher Echo in the pool, who had been looking on with rather an amusedexpression.
The Echo fluffed out her deep blue plumes a little and took up thetask. "What are rules for, my dear?" she began.
"Why--to keep, I guess," ventured Sara, a little flustered. "Aren'tthey?"
The Echo glanced up at the Plynck with a twinkling smile. "Do you hearthat?" she asked. "Bless the child! She says rules are made to keep!"She laughed to herself a little longer, then she turned to Sara moresoberly. "As far as your country is concerned, my dear, you aredoubtless right, and I suppose it's important for you to keep thatfact in mind. But here it's very different. Our rules are made tobreak. Don't you hear the Plynck breaking them?"
So that was what she was doing! For the first time, Sara understoodwhy she had so enjoyed the delightful little snapping sounds, whichmade her think of corn dancing against the lid of a corn-popper--or ofthe snapping of little dry twigs under the pointed shoes of a brownie,slipping through the woods alone on Christmas Eve. She thought it wasthe most completely satisfying sound she had ever heard. She thought,too, that the broken rules under the tree made a charming litter, andwished that the Gunki who were raking them up would leave them thereinstead. But they went on piling them into wheelbarrows and trundlingthem down the road toward the smithy.
"They are taking them to be mended," said the Echo of the Plynck, whohad been watching her. "We believe in conservation, you see. Schlorgemends them one day, and she breaks them the next, and so we usuallyhave plenty."
Sara was charmed. But as she stood gazing at the Plynck she rememberedwhat she had heard her say as she came in. "Will--will she fly?" shewhispered to the Echo.
"Well, I don't know," said the Echo of the Plynck. "There's a rulethat she must, and so it's quite an effort. And there's a rule thatshe must not sit on that particular branch of the Gugollaph-tree. Soof course she usually sits there. You wouldn't think, yourself, thatshe'd want to sit there, day after day, if there wasn't--would you?"
Sara was speechless; she was wondering why anything that seemed soreasonable and familiar should sound so strange. But it was a blissfulwonder, and she stood spellbound, while the sound of breaking rulescontinued to fall with an enchanting effect upon the still air of theGarden. All at once she was startled nearly out of her wits by thePlynck, who dropped an unbroken rule and shrieked,
"Look! Be careful! Oh, dear, oh, dear, it's in!"
"Oh, what is it?" cried Sara, afraid to move, yet longing to clap herhand to her cheek; for she knew by a sudden terrible tickling therethat something had happened to her southwest dimple--and she had meantto be so careful! And yet she had allowed herself to get so interestedin the talk of the Plynck and her Echo that she had walked right pastSchlorge's beautiful dimple-holder. "What is it?" she cried, jumpingup and down. "Oh, what is it?"
"It's one of the Zizzes!" cried the Plynck. "Where are the forceps?Run for Schlorge--won't somebody please run for Schlorge?"
She sat fluttering her lovely pink plumes and gazing around with hersweet, wild, golden eyes in such acute distress that the sight of hergrieved and terrified Sara even more than the awful tickling. "I'llgo--" she began, desperately.
But that seemed to frighten the Plynck more than ever. "Oh, don't yougo," she cried, more wildly than before. "You stay right here where Ican watch it! Oh, somebody--"
"I can't come out of the pool," panted her Echo, fluttering around therim distressfully.
"I know I could never in Zeelup get there, with this consanguineoushandle," hesitated the Teacup, in tears.
And just then they saw one of the Gunki rushing off down the road asfast as his feet could carry him.
The Plynck drew a sobbing breath of relief. "Don't cry, dear--standstill," she said, finding time at last to feel sorry for Sara. "We'llsoon have it out now, when Schlorge gets here."
Sara stood as still as she could, for the tickling. "What is it?" sheventured to ask, tremulously.
"It's a Zizz, dear," said the Plynck, soothingly. "He flew into yourdimple and got stuck in the sugar left there from your last smile. Youshould have wiped it off," she added, very gently. "Standing so closeto the pool has made it sticky, and now the poor little Zizz--"
"I meant to take off my dimples entirely," said Sara, her lipbeginning to tremble again.
"Never mind, dear," said the Plynck. "It will be all right now. I seeSchlorge coming with his forceps."
And sure enough, in a moment Schlorge came panting up, with hisforceps in his hair, as usual. Very deftly he extricated the poorlittle Zizz, and held it out for Sara to see, still buzzing its wingsas furiously as it could, with so much syrup on them.
The Teacup fluttered down, and they all looked at it with mingledsympathy and curiosity. The mixture seemed to agree with it, too, forthe familiar faint, pale-blue "zizzing" sound began to come from itswings.
"Poor little thing!" said the Echo of the Plynck. "Why will theypersist in doing it? Flying right into the syrup like that!"
"It's on account of the bitterness of their tails," explained Schlorgeabsently, without looking up from his work.
"Oh, yes," said Sara, though she didn't quite understand. "Will itever be able to fly again?"
"Well," answered Schlorge, "I'm afraid you'll have to dry it." Helooked about him. "Where's the stump?"
He found it presently, and led Sara to its mossy base; then he gentlypressed one of her shoe-buttons, and she was lifted upon it in safety.
"Now," he explained, "you got it all sticky with your smile, and you'llhave to frown on it to dry it. I know it's hard to do, here, but if youkeep your mind on it, you can. I'll hold the Zizz's wings out, and itwon't take long. Think of something very unpleasant--something you camehere to escape. Come, what shall it be?"
"Fractions," said Sara.
"All right," said Schlorge. "Now think hard. And frown."
So Sara sucked in the corners of her mouth to keep from smiling, andtried hard to feel very cross indeed. But, as you will imagine, it wasnot easy to do in that place. As you have already guessed, the placeinto which Sara went when she shut the ivory doors was a sort ofgarden, but not an ordinary one. To be sure, it had the pool, and thefountain in the middle, and the moon-dial, like most gardens, and theGugollaph-tree where the Plynck sat, and a good many prose-bushesbesides the one with the hemmed doorknob where the Snimmy lived withhis wife. But not many gardens have such charming little openings inthe flowery hedges that shut them in, through which little paths runout as if they were escaping through sheer mischief, and on purpose tolead you on. And not many are placed, as this one seemed to be, in themiddle of a sort of amphitheatre, with distant mountains rising likewalls about it, golden and pansy-colored, a million miles away. Thespace that
lay between the hedge and the mountain-walls seemed to befilled with sunrises and sunsets, like the Grand Canyon. I said, allaround; but, really, the walls of the amphitheatre didn't quite meet.On one side, over the hedge, Sara could see a marble balcony, withbox-trees in vases on the balustrades; and beyond and beneath it therewas Nothing--Nothing-at-All. Sometimes, as Sara afterward learned, thesun came to that place to set; but usually it was too lonesome, and heset nearer the Garden.
You may well imagine that it was not easy for Sara to look cross insuch a strange, delicious place. But she knew she owed it to the poorlittle Zizz, so she tried with all her might to think only offractions and asparagus. (Her mother had an obstinate conviction thatthat, too, was good for children.)
They were all so interested in listening to the deepening blueness ofthe sound the Zizz made that they kept quite still. Suddenly Schlorgethought of something.
"Where's the Snimmy?" he asked, sharply.
"He's gone with his wife to bathe the Snoodle," answered the Echo ofthe Plynck. "They have to bathe it every three days, you know, incastor oil. That's what keeps it white. And there isn't any here."
"Thank goodness!" thought Sara, who had nearly jumped off the stump atthe sound of those baleful syllables. It would be good to think of,anyhow, she decided; and as she thought of it, the wings of the Zizzbegan to dry so fast that they fairly sang. And suddenly it zizzedright out of Schlorge's forceps and went buzzing straight off to theflowery hedge.
"Well!" said Schlorge, with much satisfaction, "that's over." Then, asSara's face twinkled into smiles, he added, excitedly, "Bless mybellows! She's still got on her dimples! Won't you learn, Sara? CourseI didn't notice 'em while you frowned. Come, now--"
"And it's time for the Snimmy to be back," interrupted the Teacup, whohad fluttered down and perched on the edge of the moon-dial to seewhat time it was. "They said they'd only be gone two hours."
"Then there's no time to lose," said Schlorge. He pressed Sara'sshoe-button decidedly and she floated softly down upon the blue plush,like a milk-weed seed in the fall. And then Schlorge deftly took offher dimples--it felt very funny to have them removed with theforceps--and put them in the dimple-holder where they belonged. Then,drawing a deep breath, he rubbed his hands and smiled at her, saying,"What's the next thing you'd like to do?"
Sara saw that, though he was still rather bashful, Schlorge had takena great fancy to her. It pleased her very much; he was such a usefuland accommodating person. While she was trying to decide which one ofseveral places she would ask him to show to her, the Plynck remarked,gently,
"Avrillia's at home."
Avrillia--that was it! Sara clapped her hands again, and this time noharm was done; for her cheek-dimples were safe in the dimple-holder,and her hand-dimples were on the outside, so that the clapping onlyjarred them a little. It was funny, she thought, that Schlorge scornedto work on hand-dimples, and even the Snimmy scarcely noticed them.But it didn't worry her. Avrillia--that was it. She had come this timeespecially to see Avrillia.
"Do you know where she lives?" she asked Schlorge.
"Avrillia? I should say so. Everybody knows Avrillia. At least Iknow her to speak to. As to what goes on inside of her, I can't say.She's queer. She writes poetry, you know."
"But she's nice?" asked Sara anxiously.
"Oh, she's pleasant-spoken," said Schlorge, "and pretty. Some like her,and some don't. The Plynck, here," he spoke respectfully, thoughdissentingly, "thinks the sun rises and sets in her. For myself, Ilike folks of a more sensible turn."
"Even fairies?" asked Sara, half inclined to protest.
For the first time Schlorge was almost rude to her. "Well, do you takeme for a human? And I can do something besides write poetry onrose-leaves." He replaced the forceps in his hair with obviousprofessional pride--and, of course, when he put them in in that way,they stayed.
But Sara echoed delightedly, "On rose-leaves?"
"Well, go and see her, then," said Schlorge, ungraciously. Then,relenting a little, "Come on, I'll take you--if you're stuck onverse-writing females."
He took Sara by the hand, and of course his hand was kinder than hisvoice. To Sara's joy they struck into the curliest of the little paths,which slipped suddenly through a half-hidden arch in the hawthornhedge, and then skipped confidingly right up to Avrillia's door.Avrillia's house was right on the Verge, but the Verge was quite wideat this point, and very lovely. It was more like a beach than anythingelse; and the sands, of course, like those of most beaches, were ofgold; but instead of being bare, like most beaches, it was sprinkledquite thickly with lovely clumps of fog-bushes, which were of adifferent color every hour of the day and every day of the year; andthe shells had stems and leaves, and were prettier even than mostshells. And Avrillia's house had sails, instead of curtains. Still, itwas not a boat, because it had star-vines climbing all over theterrace (the flowers were of all colors, except square, and onlyopened in the evening) and it had the marble balcony, with thebox-trees in urns. For, without knowing it, it was Avrillia's balconythat Sara had seen from the stump.
"Well, there's Pirlaps," said Schlorge, lifting his shoe politely andturning back toward the Dimplesmithy. "He'll tell you where to findAvrillia."
Sara was left looking at a middle-aged fairy-gentleman with a littlepointed beard, who was sitting on a sort of stool or box before aneasel, hard at work. He had on white tennis-flannels, and an odd butbecoming sort of cap. Usually Sara was very shy of strangers; but thisgentleman looked so pleasant that she had almost made up her mind tospeak to him when she saw Schlorge running wildly back up the path."Where's a stump?" he panted. "I forgot--where's a stump?"
He spoke so loudly that the gentleman in tennis-flannels heard him andlooked around. "Oh, it's you, Schlorge," he said. "Why, there isn'tany stump here, you know--but you may use my step, if you like."
He had lovely manners, even with a plain dimplesmith like Schlorge;and he rose as he spoke, with his palette in his hand, and made apleasant gesture to indicate that Schlorge was quite welcome to it.But Schlorge looked at it doubtfully; and, indeed, Sara saw that itwas of chocolate, and rather soft where the gentleman had been sittingon it. "I don't want to soil my soul," mumbled Schlorge, standing onone foot and looking down at the sole of the other, very much agitatedand embarrassed.
"That's true," said the gentleman politely; "I never stand on it." Atthat Sara could not help showing that she noticed the large black spotleft by the chocolate on the seat of his trousers. He saw her look atit, and spoke to her kindly.
"That's all right, little girl," he said. "Avrillia will have mechange them in a minute."
Then he noticed Schlorge's dreadful impatience for something to standon, and rang a little bell in his left ear.
Immediately a small servant, also of chocolate, came tumbling out ofthe house. He was the most attractive-looking person you can imagine.His eyes and teeth were exactly like the filling in a chocolate cream,and how his eyes rolled and his teeth twinkled! But it was the insideof his mouth that fascinated Sara most. It was of the lovely, violentred of certain jelly-beans she had known, and she caught the mosttantalizing, cavernous glimpses whenever he grinned.
"Yassuh," said his master, "go at once and get a piece of plain whitesatin for Mr. Schlorge to stand on. You'll find a bolt in thetool-box."
Yassuh scrambled off down the path. (He was very bow-legged, becausehis mother had allowed him to go out in the sun too much, when he wasa baby, and, being of chocolate, his legs had softened into thatshape.) Almost immediately he came rolling back with the white satin,which he spread on the box.
All this time Schlorge had been in an agony of impatience. Almoststepping on Yassuh in his eagerness, he jumped upon the box, and,arranging his hands as before, shouted loudly, "Pirlaps, this is Sara,a little girl! Sara, this is Pirlaps, Avrillia's step-husband!" Thenhe sprang down and went running down the path again, shoutingexcitedly, "See you again, Sara! See you again!"
"Well, Sara," said the pleasant fairy-gentl
eman, taking her hand, "howare you? Did you come to see Avrillia?"
"Yes, sir," said Sara, looking up at him from under her lashes andthinking she had never see a shaving-person, except her own father, sodelightful.
"I think you'll find her on her balcony," said Pirlaps, kindly. "Ijust heard a poem drop over the Verge. Here, Yassuh," he said, "takethis little girl to your mistress."
Sara followed Yassuh along the path of silver gravel that led aroundthe house, and then up a little outside staircase of marble to thebalcony; and there, on the third step from the top, she paused.
Has any mortal but Sara ever seen Avrillia? Certainly there never wasanother fairy so wan and wild and beautiful. When Sara caught sight ofher she was leaning over the marble balustrade, looking down intoNothing, and one hand was still stretched out as if it had just letsomething fall. She seemed to be still watching its descent. Her body,as she leaned, was like a reed, and her hair was pale-gold and cloudy.But all that was nothing beside Avrillia's eyes.
For she turned around after a while and saw Sara, and smiled at herwithout surprise, though she looked absent-minded and wistful.
"It didn't stick," she said.
"What didn't?" asked Sara. Her words may not sound very polite; but ifyou could have heard the awe and wonder in her little voice you wouldhave pardoned her.
"The poem," said Avrillia. What was it her voice was like?Sheep-bells? Sheep-bells, that was it. Sheep-bells across an Englishdown--at twilight! Sara had never seen more than three sheep in herlife; and those three didn't wear bells; and she had never heard of adown. And yet, Avrillia's voice sounded to Sara exactly as I havesaid.
Moreover, it drew Sara softly to her side. Her dress smelled likeisthagaria; and it was very soft to touch. For Sara touched it asconfidingly as she would her own mother's.
At that Avrillia seemed to remember her. Sara saw at once thatAvrillia never remembered anybody very long at a time. She was kind,and her smile was entrancingly sweet; but her mind always seemed to beon something else. Probably on her poetry, Sara decided.
Now, however, she remembered Sara, and asked, "Would you like to lookover?"
"What's down there?" Sara could not help asking.
"Nothing. Would you like to see it?"
Sara drew nearer the balustrade, full of awe, and uncertain whethershe wished to look or not. But presently curiosity got the better ofher, and she leaned over the balustrade and looked down into Nothing.It was very gray.
"Do you throw your poems down there?" she asked of Avrillia, ininexpressible wonder.
"Of course," said Avrillia. "I write them on rose-leaves, you know--"
"Oh, yes!" breathed Sara. She still thought she had never heard ofanything that sounded lovelier than poems written on rose-leaves.
"Petals, I mean, of course," continued Avrillia, "all colors, butespecially blue. And then I drop them over, and some day one of themmay stick on the bottom--"
"But there isn't any bottom," said Sara, lifting eyes like blackpansies for wonder.
"No, there's no real bottom," conceded Avrillia, patiently, "butthere's an imaginary bottom. One might stick on that, you know. Andthen, with that to build to, if I drop them in very fast, I may beable to fill it up--"
"But there aren't any sides to it, either!" objected Sara, even morewonderingly.
Avrillia betrayed a faint exasperation (it showed a little around theedges, like a green petticoat under a black dress). "Oh, these literalpeople!" she said, half to herself. Then she continued, still morepatiently, "Isn't it just as easy to imagine sides as a bottom? Well,as I was saying, if I write them fast enough to fill it up--I mean ifone should stick, of course--somebody a hundred years from now maycome along and notice one of my poems; and then I shall be Immortal."And at that a lovely smile crossed Avrillia's face.
Sara stood a long time, thinking. She couldn't help loving Avrillia,although she knew that Avrillia was not nearly so fond of her as thePlynck, or Schlorge, or even the Teacup. Yet she would have lovedAvrillia, even if she had not been kind to her at all.
Now she attracted her attention again by timidly touching her dress.
"It--it seems a waste," she murmured. I think probably she wasthinking of the rose-petals rather than of the poems. All those lovely"rose-leaves"! And she had never seen even one blue one. But Avrilliawas thinking of the poems.
"That's the regular way to do about Poetry," she said, with a prettylittle air of authority. "First, you write it, and then you drop itover the Verge into Nothing. But it must be very good--otherwise, itisn't worth while to spend your time on it." But just then thethermometer went off.
Yes, the thermometer. Well, perhaps you do set the alarm-clock; butAvrillia was a poetess, and a fairy besides, and she set thealarm-thermometer. It sounded very pleasant to Sara, like soda-waterrunning through a straw on a hot afternoon; but Avrillia seemed tofind it rather nerve-racking.
"There it goes," was all she said, however. Sara noticed that hervoice and manner were extremely quiet and controlled; but she had asuspicion that it was because her eyes were so very wild. Oh, yes,they were beautiful, but wild--wilder even than the Plynck's. TheTeacup, however, had quite tame eyes; it must be confessed that, whenSara saw the effect of the thermometer upon Avrillia she wished forthe Teacup, a little.
But Avrillia merely called Yassuh in her sweet, controlled voice, and,when he appeared, said to him quietly,
"Go tell your master it's time for him to change his trousers andshave."
When Yassuh was gone she turned to Sara again--rather as oneentertains a visitor when one really wants to be doing somethingelse--and said, politely, "I suppose you know he's my step-husband.That makes it rather troublesome."
Sara, remembering Pirlaps and his white trousers, looked so eager andso uncomprehending that Avrillia evidently felt called upon to explainfurther.
"It makes it necessary for him to sit on the step constantly, you see.And it's of chocolate. That's unfortunate, too, but it can't behelped. It's all right in winter, of course, but in summer it's agreat deal of trouble. When we were first married he used to wearblack trousers in summer; but I soon put a stop to that. I have himtrained now so that he always wears white ones, and I set thethermometer and remind him to change them every two hours. That's mypart of the bargain. He has forty-seven pairs. And, every time hechanges them, he has to shave. That's part of the agreement, too."
"Why," began Sara, "I thought he had--"
"To be sure he has," said Avrillia, looking a little amused. "It growsso fast, you see."
Sara turned this over in her mind for several moments. Then herthoughts returned to the step. She simply couldn't help makingsuggestions to Avrillia. She seemed, for all her little haughtypolitenesses, so helpless.
"You might put something over it--" she began.
"I have suggested that," said Avrillia, "but he would not consent toit. He says it would be circumnavigating Nature. Of course, when it'snecessary to offer it to guests--"
But just at that moment Pirlaps himself came out of the house, wearinga fresh, immaculate pair of trousers. His little pointed beard wasgone; but Sara thought she could see it already coming back. Yassuhcame along behind him, carrying the step.
"You see, marriage is very civilizing, Sara," he said, in his gay,kind way. "I wouldn't do this for anybody but Avrillia. How's thepoetry, Avrillia?"
"Doing nicely, thank you," said Avrillia, pleasantly. "How's thepainting?"
"Flourishing," said Pirlaps, cheerfully. "How are the children?"
"I haven't seen them this week," said Avrillia. "I vanished them lastRoseday."
Pirlaps' face fell a little--perhaps an inch, altogether. But Saracried out, clapping her hands again with impunity (try doing it thatway, sometime--it's great fun),
"Oh, are there children?"
"Yes," said Avrillia.
"How many?"
"Oh, about seventy," said Avrillia, a little languidly.
"May--may I see them?" asked Sara.
Sara, somehow, felt herself to have been politely dismissed; and shesoon found herself walking beside Pirlaps down the little marblestairs. She slipped her hand into his as she would into her ownfather's, and, looking up into his face, said, enthusiastically, "Oh,isn't she lovely?"
Pirlaps seemed very much pleased, and looked down upon her more kindlythan ever. "You like Avrillia?" he said. "That's good. It isn'teverybody that appreciates Avrillia."
He stopped before a lilac-colored fog-bush and put his step downbefore his easel. Sara did not dare remonstrate, but she cast anagonized look first at the step and then at his lovely white trousers.
"Is--is that what is meant by step-relations?" was all she could say.
"Why, yes," said Pirlaps, sitting firmly down on the chocolate. "Areyou interested in relations?" he asked eagerly, after he had adjustedhis easel. "Because, if you are, we'll go to see mine, some day. Ihave a lot."
The Garden of the Plynck Page 2