by Edith Nesbit
‘Look here, Char, how funny!’ said Caroline. ‘It looks awfully old. Written on vellum or something, and the seal’s uncle’s coat of arms.’
‘Let’s take it to uncle,’ Charlotte suggested. ‘Why, what’s up?’
Caroline was holding the letter out to her in a hand that shook.
‘Look!’ she said, and her voice shook too. ‘Look! the thing’s our names on it.’
It had. On the square parchment face were the three names written in a strange yet readable handwriting, in ink that was faded as with the slow fading of many many years.
To
Caroline,
Charlotte, and Charles.
‘You open it, Caro,’ said Charlotte; and Charles, who had come across from his favourite mandarin, said, ‘Yes, Caro; you open it.’
It seemed a pity to break the green seals, and they were glad that the plaited silk slipped off easily when the letter was folded a little. But the second green seal had to be broken. The parchment, crackling in Caroline’s uncertain hands, was unfolded, and within was writing — lines in that same strange but clear hand, that same dim, faded ink.
At eight of the clock, lean on this marble table and gaze in the mirror and you shall see and speak with me. But look only in the mirror, uttering no word, and wear the pink verbena stuck behind your ears and the roses on your hearts. — Your kinswoman,
Eleanour.
‘Then I didn’t spoil it,’ Charles spoke first; ‘not even for myself. Because it’s addressed to me the same as to you.’
‘Yes.’ said Caroline; ‘you’d better be between us two, though, Charles, and you must not look round.’
‘As if I should think of doing such a thing,’ said Charles indignantly.
* * * * *
At five minutes to eight that evening the three C.’s stood in front of the console table with pink verbena behind their ears and red roses over their hearts. Mrs. Wilmington had ‘done’ the vases in the dining-room that very morning, and curiously enough, roses and pink verbena were the flowers she had chosen.
‘It must be a strong magic to have made her do that,’ said Charlotte; ‘secrecy and family reunion.’
The room was not dark, of course, at that time in the evening, but then it was not quite light either.
The three C.’s, Charles occupying a guarded position in the middle, stood quite still and waited.
And presently, quite surely and certainly, with no nonsense about it, they saw in the looking-glass the door open that led to the Uncle’s secret staircase. And through it, in trailing velvet, came a lady — the lady of the picture. Her ruff, her coif, her darkly flashing jewels, her softly flashing eyes, — the children knew them well. Had they not seen them every day for weeks, framed in the old carved frame in the dining-room.
I am sorry to say that Charles at once tried to look round, but his sisters’ arms round his neck restrained him.
The lady glided to a spot from which she could look straight into the mirror and into the children’s eyes.
‘I am here,’ she said, in what Charlotte said afterwards was a starry voice. ‘Do not move or speak. I have come to you because you have believed in the old and beautiful things. You sought for my books and found them; also you have tried to use the magic spells to help the poor and needy, and to reconcile them who are at strife. Therefore you see what you desired to see, and when the flowering time is here, you shall have your heart’s desire. Do not speak or move lest you break the spell. I will sing to you. And when the last note dies away, close your eyes and count very slowly twenty-seven — the number of the years on earth of your kinswoman Eleanour.’
The beautiful presence moved along the room to the harp, that too was in the field of vision bounded by the tarnished gold of the mirror’s frame. She seated herself on a chair of faded needlework and drew the golden harp towards her. Then she sang softly in the starry voice that was hers in speaking. The song was in a language that none of them knew (Charles said afterwards that it was Latin), but it was not like any Latin the girls had ever heard. And the music was starry too. And the meaning of the song seemed to be love and parting and hope and noble dreams and the desire of great and good things; a song that made one very happy and yet made one feel as though one must cry. Softer and softer the voice grew, softer and softer the gentle, resonant tones of the harp. The song ended.
‘Now,’ said the lady, ‘farewell!’
The children closed their eyes, Caroline put her hand over Charles’s to ‘make sure,’ and so moved was he by the singing and the beautiful mystery of the whole adventure, that he hardly wriggled at all. There was a soft rustling sound behind them. Very slowly they all counted from one to twenty-seven. Caroline’s hand was clasping Charlotte’s, and at the end of the count a long pressure, returned, told each that the other had finished her counting.
They opened their eyes, turned round. The drawing-room was empty. It seemed impossible. Yet it was true.
‘It’s all over,’ said Charles.
‘But we’ve seen Her,’ said Caroline.
‘We’ve heard Her,’ said Charlotte.
‘Yes,’ said Charles, ‘I intend to be perfectly good every minute, as long as I live. I wish Rupert had been here. He would never have done anything wrong again either, like he did when—’
‘It’s very wrong,’ Charlotte interrupted, ‘to remember things other people have done wrong. Come on, let’s go back to the diningroom. It’s lonely here without Her.’
They went back to the dining-room and sat talking the great mystery over, almost in whispers, till it was time to go to bed.
‘And to-morrow we’re to go out,’ were Charlotte’s last words. ‘And the F. of H. D. ought to be flowering. It’s just seven weeks since we sowed it.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Caroline; ‘don’t talk as if you were the only one who remembered it. I say, if you had to say what your heart’s desire would be, what would it?’
‘To see Her again,’ said Charlotte, ‘and hear her starry voice.’
Next morning there was a discussion about the curtain the moment the three entered the dining-room. Ought they, or ought they not to remove the curtain. The girls were for leaving it, and putting up fresh garlands every day as long as they stayed in the Manor House.
But Charles, who had faithfully put fresh flowers, not always garlanded, it is true, but always flowers, every day during the measle interval, had had enough of it, and said so.
‘And she’s had enough of it too,’ he said; ‘it was to make her come and she came. She won’t come again if you go on garlanding for ever.’
The Uncle, for a wonder, breakfasted with them. Charles appealed to him.
‘We saw her; she did come, her real self,’ he said; ‘yesterday. So the charm’s worked, and we oughtn’t to go on garlanding, ought we?’
‘You really saw her?’ the Uncle asked. And was told many things.
‘Then,’ he said, when he had listened to it all, ‘I think we might draw back the curtain. The magic has been wrought, and now all should be restored to its old state.’
‘I told you so,’ said Charles.
‘Shall I take down the curtain?’ said the Uncle. And the three C.’s said ‘Yes!’
He pulled at the green folds, and the curtain and drooping soft flowers of yesterday fell in a mingled heap on the floor. And from the frame, now disclosed, the lady’s lips almost smiled on them as her beautiful eyes gazed down on them with a new meaning.
‘But she’ll never speak to us again,’ said Caroline, almost in tears.
‘Or sing to us,’ said Charlotte, not very steadily.
‘Or tell us to count twenty-seven slowly,’ said Charles, sniffing a very little.
‘But it’s something, isn’t it,’ said the Uncle, ‘to have seen her, even if only for once?’
* * * * *
You will understand that anything Mrs. Wilmington might say was powerless to break the charm of so wonderful an adventure. Hollow tales sh
e told of the portrait’s having been borrowed for a show of pictures of celebrities who had lived in the neighbourhood, and of the picture being brought back very late the night before, after the servants had gone to bed; also of a gentleman who told her that Mr. Alphabet sent his love; also of a lady, a great actress from London, who had taken part in the Pageant which was one of the features of Lord Andore’s coming-of-age party—’a very nice lady she was, too, dressed up to look the part of the picture, and put down as Dame Eleanour in the programme, which I can show you printed in silver on satin paper.’
‘I daresay it’s true what the Wilmington says,’ said Caroline when they were alone, ‘but it doesn’t make any difference. Our Lady wasn’t dressed up to look the part. She was the picture. Perhaps our heart’s desire will turn out to be seeing her again. Let’s go and see if the seed has flowered.’
It had. In that plot of the terraced garden which the old gardener had marked with the pencilled slip-label, seven tall straight stems had shot up, perfect and even in each leaf and stalk, as every plant was which grew in that wonderful soil. And each stem bore one only flower, white and star-shaped, and with a strange sweet scent.
‘I wish Rupert were here,’ said Charlotte.
‘We ought to wait for Rupert.’
And as she spoke, there was Rupert, coming to them through the flowers of the lower garden.
‘So they’ve flowered,’ he said, without any other greeting.
‘Yes, and now we’re going to eat them and get our heart’s desire. Oh, Rupert, I do wish you believed in it all.’
‘Perhaps I do,’ said Rupert. ‘The decent way old Macpherson has behaved while I’ve been there makes you ready to believe in anything ‘Then let’s eat them,’ said Caroline; ‘one each, and the other three we’ll divide as well as we can.’
Each plucked a white starry blossom. The stalks snapped off clean and fresh like primrose stalks. Then the four put each a hand on the stalk of the fifth flower and broke it between them. And so with the sixth and the seventh. Caroline divided the three flowers with extreme care and accuracy and handed its share to each child. Then, standing in a ring in the sunny garden, the four ate the white flowers. The taste of them was pleasant but strange, something like pineapple and something like flower-artichokes (which have the most mysterious taste in the world) — something like spice and something like the fruit you eat in dreams.
And as they finished eating they heard a foot on the steps of the terrace and turned, and it was the Uncle, coming towards them with pale-coloured papers in one hand and a bunch of waxy white flowers in the other.
Fond as all were of Uncle Charles, no one could feel that the moment was fortunately chosen, and I am sorry to say that Charles voiced to some extent the general feeling when he said almost audibly, ‘Oh, bother!’
The Uncle came towards them smiling kindly.
‘I have come,’ he said, ‘to make a presentation to you.’ He gave to each a white flower. ‘I have again consulted that entrancing volume of yours, The Language of Flowers, and it tells me that this is the appropriate flower to convey the sentiments with which I approach you.’ Every one said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And Caroline added, ‘But what does it mean, Uncle?’
‘What? Has your book taught you so little?’ he asked.
‘You see,’ Caroline kindly explained, ‘I don’t even know what the name of the flower is, but it’s most awfully kind of you, uncle, all the same.’
‘Oh, the name of the flower?’ said the Uncle. ‘It’s stephanotis.’
‘But that means, “Will you accompany me to the East?”’ said Caroline.
‘Well,’ said the Uncle, ‘and will you?’
‘To the East?’
‘Yes,’ said the Uncle; ‘let us sit down on the steps and talk over the idea.’
They sat down and the Uncle explained. ‘Your finding those books,’ he said, ‘has so completely revolutionised my ideas of magic that I cannot complete my book. I must throw it into the melting-pot, rewrite it entirely. And to do that I need more knowledge than I have. And I intend to travel, to examine the magic of other lands. The first country I shall visit is India, and it occurred to me that you might like to go with me and visit your parents. I have been corresponding with them by cable,’ he added, waving the pale-coloured papers, ‘and your parents are delighted with the idea of the family reunion (pink verbena). We start, if the idea smiles to you, next week.’
‘Oh, uncle!’ was all that any one could find to say, till Charlotte added, ‘But what about Rupert?’
‘Rupert is to go too,’ said the Uncle, ‘as far as Suez, where his father will meet him.’
‘Is father coming home, then?’ Rupert asked breathlessly.
‘For a year’s leave,’ said the Uncle. ‘But you haven’t any of you answered the stephanotis question yet, Will you accompany me to the East?’
Caroline ran to a flower-bed and came back with some leaves and flowers which she thrust into the Uncle’s hand.
‘Small white bell - flower, wood sorrel, aquilegia,’ she said; ‘they mean perfect joy; we love you beyond measure; and Yes. Yes! Yes!’
As they turned to go to the house they saw the seven stems on which the white starry flowers had grown, and suddenly and surely each child saw that the Uncle, when he brought them the bunch of pale papers in one hand and the bunch of stephanotis in the other, was really bringing to each child its Heart’s Desire.
THE END
WET MAGIC
T. Werner Laurie of London published E. Nesbit’s standalone fantasy, Wet Magic, in 1913, with illustrations by H. R. Millar. On vacation to the seashore, four siblings accidentally summon a real mermaid and after rescuing her from a circus and returning her to the sea, they discover a magical world underwater. Although seemingly befriended by the Mer-people, who take them to their kingdom, the children soon find trouble. A series of unfortunate events provoke an all-out war between the mermaids and other sea creatures. The children must make some terrifying choices and decisions.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. SABRINA FAIR
CHAPTER II. THE CAPTIVE
CHAPTER III. THE RESCUE
CHAPTER IV. GRATITUDE
CHAPTER V. CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER VI. THE MERMAIDS HOME
CHAPTER VII. THE SKIES ARE FALLING
CHAPTER VIII. THE WATER-WAR.
CHAPTER IX. THE BOOK PEOPLE
CHAPTER X. THE UNDER FOLK
CHAPTER XI. THE PEACEMAKER
CHAPTER XII. THE END
TO
DR E. N. DA C. ANDRADE
FROM
E. NESBIT
CHAPTER I. SABRINA FAIR
THAT going to the seaside was the very beginning of everything, — only it seemed as though it were going to be a beginning without an end, like the roads on the Sussex downs which look like roads and then look like paths, and then turn into sheep-tracks, and then are just grass and furze bushes and tottergrass and harebells and rabbits and chalk.
The children had been counting the days to The Day. Bernard indeed had made a Calendar on a piece of cardboard that had once been the bottom of the box in which his new white sand-shoes came home. He marked the divisions of the weeks quite neatly in red ink, and the days were numbered in blue ink, and every day he crossed off one of those numbers with a piece of green chalk he happened to have left out of a penny box. Mavis had washed and ironed all the dolls’ clothes at least a fortnight before The Day. This was thoughtful and far-sighted of her, of course, but it was a little trying to Kathleen, who was much younger and who would have preferred to go on playing with her dolls in their dirtier and more familiar state.
“Well, if you do,” said Mavis, a little hot and cross from the ironing-board, “I’ll never wash anything for you again, not even your face.”
Kathleen somehow felt as if she could bear that.
“But mayn’t I have just one of the dolls” was, however, all she said,-”just the teeniest, weeniest
one ? Let me have Lord Edward. His head’s half gone as it is, and I could dress him in a clean hanky and pretend it was kilts.”
Mavis could not object to this, because, of course, whatever else she washed she didn’t wash hankies. So Lord Edward had his pale kilts, and the other dolls were put away in a row in Mavis’s corner drawer. It was after that that Mavis and Francis bad long secret consultations, — and when the younger ones asked questions they were told, “It’s secrets. You’ll know in good time.” This, of course, excited everyone very much indeed — and it was rather a come-down when the good time came, and the secret proved to be nothing more interesting than a large empty aquarium which the two elders had clubbed their money together to buy, for eight-and-ninepence in the Old Kent Road. They staggered up the front garden path with it, very hot and tired.
“But what are you going to do with it?” Kathleen asked, as they all stood round the nursery table looking at it.
“Fill it with sea-water,” Francis explained, “to put sea-anemones in.”
“Oh yes,” said Kathleen with enthusiasm,—”and the crabs and starfish and prawns and the yellow periwinkles — and all the common objects of the seashore.”
“ We’ll stand it in the window,” Mavis added “it’ll make the lodgings look so distinguished.”
“And then perhaps some great scientific gentleman, like Darwin or Faraday, will see it as he goes by, and it will be such a joyous surprise to him to come face to face with our jelly-fish; he’ll offer to teach Francis all about science for nothing — I see,” said Kathleen hopefully.
“But how will you get it to the seaside?” Bernard asked, leaning his bands on the schoolroom table and breathing heavily into the aquarium, so that its shining sides became dim and misty. “ It’s much too big to go in the boxes, you know.”