by Rumer Godden
For Rose Mary because, once upon a time,
I am afraid we treated her as Christabel, Godfrey and
Josie treated Elizabeth before she had the fairy doll.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Nobody knew where she came from.
‘She must have belonged to Mother when Mother was a little girl,’ said Father, but Mother did not remember it.
‘She must have come from Father’s house, with the Christmas decorations,’ said Mother, but Father did not remember it.
As long as the children could remember, at Christmas every year, the fairy doll had been there at the top of the Christmas tree.
She was six inches high and dressed in a white gauze dress with beads that sparkled; she had silver wings, and a narrow silver crown on her dark hair, with a glass dewdrop in front that sparkled too; in one of her hands she had a silver wand, and on her feet were silver shoes – not painted, stitched. ‘Fairies must have sewn those,’ said Mother.
‘Or mice,’ said Christabel, who was the eldest.
Elizabeth, the youngest, was examining the stitches.
‘Fairy mice,’ said Elizabeth.
You may think it is a lucky thing to be the youngest, but for Elizabeth it was not lucky at all; she was told what to do – or what not to do – by her sisters and brother all day long, and she was always being left out or made to stay behind.
‘You can’t come, you’re too young,’ said Christabel.
‘You can’t reach. You’re too small,’ said Godfrey, who was the only boy.
‘You can’t play. You’re too little,’ said Josie. Josie was only two years older than Elizabeth, but she ordered her about most of all.
Christabel was eight, Godfrey was seven, Josie was six, but Elizabeth was only four and she was different from the others: they were thin, she was fat; their legs were long, hers were short; their hair was curly, hers was straight; their eyes were blue, hers were grey and easily filled with tears. They rode bicycles; Christabel’s was green, Godfrey’s was red, Josie’s dark blue. Elizabeth rode the old tricycle; the paint had come off, and its wheels went ‘Wh-ee-ze, wh-ee-ze, wh-ee-ze.’
‘Slowpoke,’ said Christabel, whizzing past.
‘Tortoise,’ said Godfrey.
‘Baby,’ said Josie.
‘Not a slowpoke, tortoise, baby,’ said Elizabeth but they did not hear; they were far away, spinning down the hill. ‘Wh-ee-ze, wh-ee-ze, wh-ee-ze,’ went the tricycle, and Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Cry-baby,’ said Josie, who had come pedalling back, and the tears spilled over. Then that Christmas, Elizabeth saw the fairy doll.
She had seen her before, of course, but, ‘Not really,’ said Elizabeth; not properly, as you shall hear.
Every year there were wonderful things on the Christmas tree: tinsel and icicles of frosted glass that had been Father’s when he was a little boy; witch balls in colours like jewels and a trumpet of golden glass – it had been Father’s as well – and bells that were glass too but coloured silver and red. Have you ever rung a glass bell? Its clapper gives out a ‘ting’ that is like the clearest, smallest, sweetest voice.
There were silvered nuts and little net stockings filled with gold and silver coins. Can you guess what the coins were? They were chocolate. There were transparent boxes of rose petals and violets and mimosa. Can you guess what they were? They were sweets.
There were Christmas crackers and coloured lights and candles.
When the lights were lit, they shone in the dewdrop on the fairy doll’s crown, making a bead of light; it twinkled when anybody walked across the room or touched the tree, and the wand stirred in the fairy doll’s hand. ‘She’s alive!’ said Elizabeth.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Christabel, and she said scornfully, ‘What a little silly you are!’
Thwack. A hard small box of sweets fell off the tree and hit Christabel on the head.
The fairy doll looked straight in front of her, but the wand stirred gently, very gently, in her hand.
In the children’s house, on the landing, was a big chest carved of cedar wood; blankets were stored in it, and spare clothes. The Christmas things were kept there too; the candles had burned down, of course, and the crackers had been snapped and the sweets and nuts eaten up, but after Christmas everything else was packed away; last of all the fairy doll was wrapped in blue tissue paper, put in a cotton-reel box, laid with the rest in the cedar chest, and the lid was shut.
When it was shut, the chest was still useful. Mother sent the children to sit on it when they were naughty.
The next Christmas Elizabeth was five. ‘You can help to dress the tree,’ said Mother and gave her some crackers to tie on. ‘Put them on the bottom branches, and then people can pull them,’ said Mother.
The crackers were doll-size, silver, with silver fringes; they were so pretty that Elizabeth did not want them pulled; she could not bear to think of them tattered and torn, and she hid them in the moss at the bottom of the tree.
‘What are you doing?’ said Godfrey in a terrible voice.
He had been kneeling on the floor with his stamp collection, for which he had a new valuable purple British Guiana stamp. He jumped up and jerked the crackers out.
‘You’re afraid of the bang so you hid them,’ he said.
Elizabeth began to stammer ‘I – I wasn’t – ‘ But he was already jumping round her, singing, ‘Cowardy, cowardy custard.’
‘Cowardy, cowardy custard . . .’
A gust of wind came under the door, it lifted up the new valuable purple British Guiana stamp and blew it into the fire.
The fairy doll looked straight in front of her, but the wand stirred gently, very gently, in her hand.
Elizabeth was often naughty; she did not seem able to help it, and that year she spent a great deal of time sitting on the cedar chest.
As she sat, she would think down through the cedar wood, and the cotton-reel box, and the blue tissue paper, to the fairy doll inside.
Then she did not feel quite as miserable.
The Christmas after that she was six; she was allowed to tie the witch balls and the icicles on the tree but not to touch the trumpet or the bells. ‘But I can help to light the candles, can’t I?’ asked Elizabeth.
Josie had been blowing up a balloon; it was a green balloon she had bought with her own money, and she had blown it to a bubble of emerald. You must have blown up balloons, so that you will know what hard work it is. Now Josie took her lips away for a moment and held the balloon carefully with her finger and thumb.
‘Light the candles!’ she said to Elizabeth. ‘You? You’re far too young.’
Bang went the balloon.
The fairy doll looked straight in front of her, but the wand stirred gently, very gently, in her hand.
Under the tree was a small pale blue bicycle, shining with paint and steel; it had a label that read: ELIZABETH.
‘You lucky girl,’ said Mother.
The old tricycle was given to a children’s home; it would never go ‘wh-ee-ze, wh-ee-ze’ for Elizabeth again. She took the new bicycle and wheeled it carefully onto the road. ‘You lucky girl,’ said everyone who passed.
Elizabeth rang the bell and once or twice she put her foot on the pedal and took it off again. Then she wheeled the bicycle home.
That year Elizabeth was naughtier than ever and seemed able to help it less and less.
She spilled milk on the Sunday newspapers before Father had read them; she broke Mother’s Wedgwood bowl, and by mistake she mixed the paints in Christabel’s new paint box. ‘Careless little idiot,’ said Christa
bel. ‘I told you not to touch.’
When Mother sent Elizabeth to the shop she forgot matches or flour or marmalade, and Godfrey had to go and get them. ‘You’re a perfect duffer,’ said Godfrey, furious. Going to dancing, she dropped the penny for her bus fare, and Josie had to get off the bus with her.
‘I’ll never forgive you. Never,’ said Josie.
It grew worse and worse. Every morning when they were setting off to school, ‘Elizabeth, you haven’t brushed your teeth,’ Christabel would say, and they had to wait while Elizabeth went back. Then they scolded her all the way to school.
At school it was no better. She seemed more silly and stupid every day. She could not say her tables, especially the seven-times; she could not keep up in reading, and when she sewed, the cloth was all over bloodspots from the pricks. The other children laughed at her.
‘Oh Elizabeth, why are you such a stupid child?’ asked Miss Thrupp, the teacher.
Sometimes, that year, Elizabeth got down behind the cedar chest, though it was dusty there, and lay on the floor. ‘I wish it was Christmas,’ she said to the fairy doll inside. Then she would remember something else and say, ‘I wish it never had been Christmas,’ because worst of all, Elizabeth could not learn to ride her bicycle.
Father taught her, and Mother taught her; Christabel never stopped teaching her. ‘Push, pedal; pedal pedal pedal,’ cried Christabel, but Elizabeth’s legs were too short.
‘Watch me,’ said Godfrey, ‘and you won’t wobble.’ But Elizabeth wobbled.
‘Go fast,’ said Josie. ‘Then you won’t fall.’ But Elizabeth fell.
All January, February, March, April, and June she tried to ride the bicycle. In July and August they went to the sea so that she had a little rest; in September, October, November she tried again, but when December came, I am sorry to tell you, Elizabeth still could not ride the bicycle.
‘And you’re seven years old!’ said Christabel.
‘More like seven months!’ said Godfrey.
‘Baby! Baby!’ said Josie.
Great-Grandmother was to come that year for Christmas; none of the children had seen her before because she had been living in Canada. ‘Where’s Canada?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘Be quiet,’ said Christabel.
Great-Grandmother was Mother’s mother’s mother. ‘And very old,’ said Mother.
‘How old?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘Ssh,’ said Godfrey.
There was to be a surprise, the children were to march into the drawing room and sing a carol, and when the carol was ended Great-Grandmother was to be given a basket of roses. But the basket was not a plain basket; it was made, Mother told them, of crystal.
‘What’s crystal?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘Shut up,’ said Josie, but, ‘It’s the very finest glass,’ said Mother.
The roses were not plain roses either; they were Christmas roses, snow-white. Elizabeth had expected them to be scarlet. ‘Isn’t she silly?’ said Josie.
Who was to carry the basket? Who was to give it? ‘I’m the eldest,’ said Christabel. ‘It ought to be me.’
‘I’m the boy,’ said Godfrey. ‘It ought to be me.’
‘I’m Josephine after Great-Grandmother,’ said Josie. ‘It ought to be me.’
‘Who is to give it? Who?’ In the end they asked Mother, and Mother said ‘Elizabeth.’
‘Elizabeth?’
‘Elizabeth?’
‘Elizabeth?’
‘Why?’ They all wanted to know.
‘Because she’s the youngest,’ said Mother.
None of them had heard that as a reason before, and –
‘It’s too heavy for her,’ said Christabel.
‘She’ll drop it,’ said Godfrey.
‘You know what she is,’ said Josie.
‘I’ll be very, very careful,’ said Elizabeth.
How proud she was when Mother gave the handsome, shining basket into her hands outside the drawing-room door! It was so heavy that her arms ached, but she would not have given it up for anything in the world. Her heart beat under her velvet dress, her cheeks were red, as they marched in and stood in a row before Great-Grandmother. ‘Noel, Noel,’ they sang.
Great-Grandmother was sitting in the armchair; she had a white shawl over her knees and a white scarf patterned with silver over her shoulders; to Elizabeth she looked as if she were dressed in white and silver all over; she even had white hair, and in one hand she held a thin stick with a silver top. She had something else, and Elizabeth stopped in the middle of a note; at the end of Great-Grandmother’s nose hung a dewdrop.
*
An older, cleverer child might have thought, Why doesn’t Great-Grandmother blow her nose? But to Elizabeth that trembling, shining drop was beautiful; it caught the shine from the Christmas tree and, if Great-Grandmother moved, it twinkled; it reminded Elizabeth of something, she could not think what – can you? – and she gazed at it. She gazed so hard that she did not hear the carol end.
‘. . . Born is the King of Is-ra-el.’
There was silence.
‘Elizabeth!’ hissed Christabel.
‘Go on,’ whispered Godfrey.
Josie gave Elizabeth a push.
Elizabeth jumped and dropped the basket.
The Christmas roses were scattered on the carpet, and the crystal basket was broken to bits.
Hours afterward – it was really one hour, but to Elizabeth it felt like hours – Mother came upstairs. ‘Great-Grandmother wants to see you,’ she said.
Elizabeth was down behind the chest. The velvet dress was dusty now, but she did not care. She had not come out to have tea nor to see her presents. ‘What’s the use of giving Elizabeth presents?’ she heard Father say. ‘She doesn’t ride the one she has.’
Elizabeth had made herself flatter and flatter behind the cedar chest; now she raised her head. ‘Great-Grandmother wants to see me?’ she asked.
Great-Grandmother looked at Elizabeth, at her face, which was red and swollen with tears, at her hands that had dropped the basket, at her legs that were too short to ride the bicycle, at her dusty dress.
‘H’m,’ said a voice. ‘Something will have to be done.’
It must have been Great-Grandmother’s voice; there was nobody else in the room; but it seemed to come from high up, a long way up, from the top of the tree, for instance; at the same moment there was a swishing sound as of something brushing through branches, wings perhaps, and the fairy doll came flying – it was falling, of course, but it sounded like flying – down from the tree to the carpet. She landed by Great-Grandmother’s stick.
‘Dear me! How fortunate,’ said Great-Grandmother, and now her voice certainly came from her. ‘I was just going to say you needed a good fairy.’
‘Me?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘You,’ said Great-Grandmother. ‘You had better have this one.’
Elizabeth looked at the fairy doll, and the fairy doll looked at Elizabeth; the wand was still stirring with the rush of the fall.
‘What about the others?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘You can leave the others to me,’ said Great Grandmother.
‘What about next Christmas and the tree?’
‘Next Christmas is a long way off,’ said Great-Grandmother. ‘We’ll wait and see.’
Slowly Elizabeth knelt down on the floor and picked up the fairy doll.
Chapter 2
‘How can I take care of her?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘She is to take care of you,’ said Mother, but as you know if you have read any fairy stories, fairies have a way of doing things the wrong way round.
‘Pooh! She’s only an ordinary doll dressed up in fairy clothes,’ said Josie, who was jealous.
‘She’s not ordinary,’ said Elizabeth, and, as you will see, Elizabeth was right.
‘What’s her name?’ asked Josie.
‘She doesn’t need a name. She’s Fairy Doll,’ said Elizabeth, and, ‘How dare I take care of her?’ she as
ked.
Fairy Doll looked straight in front of her, but Elizabeth must have touched the wand; it stirred gently, very gently, in Fairy Doll’s hand.
‘Where will she live?’ asked Josie. ‘She can’t live in the dolls’ house. Fairies don’t live anywhere,’ said Josie scornfully.
‘They must,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Mother says some people think fairies were the first people, so they must have lived somewhere.’ And she went and asked Father, ‘Father, where did the first people live?’
‘In caves, I expect,’ said Father.
‘Elizabeth can’t make a cave,’ said Josie.
Elizabeth had just opened her mouth to say, ‘No,’ when ‘Ting’ went a sound in her head. It was as clear and small as one of the glass Christmas bells.
‘Ting. Bicycle basket,’ it said.
Elizabeth knew what a cave was like; there had been caves at the seaside; there was one in the big wood across the field, and this very Christmas there was a clay model cave, in the Crèche, at school. If she had been a clever child she would have argued, ‘Bicycle basket? Not a bicycle basket?’ but, not being clever, she went to look. She unstrapped the basket from her bicycle and put it on its side.
The ‘ting’ had been right; the bicycle basket, on its side, was exactly the shape of a cave.
The cave in the wood had grass on its top, brambles and bracken and trees and grass. ‘What’s fairy grass?’ asked Elizabeth, and ‘Ting,’ a word rang in her head. The word was ‘moss’.
She knew where moss was; they had gathered some from the wood for the Christmas-tree tub. A week ago Elizabeth would not have gone to the wood alone, but now she had Fairy Doll and she set out through the garden, across the road and fields; soon she was back with her skirt held up full of moss.
She covered the outside of the bicycle basket with the moss like a cosy green thatch; then she stood the basket on a box and made a moss lawn around it. ‘Later on I’ll have beds of tiny real flowers,’ she said.
It is odd how quickly you get used to things; Elizabeth asked, and the ‘ting’ answered; it was a little like a slot machine. ‘What shall I put on the floor?’ she asked.