The Little White Horse Page 17

  ‘Looking back, I really don’t know how we could,’ said Loveday, ‘but at the time those geraniums seemed the most important thing in the world. That’s the way with quarrels, Maria, especially Merryweather quarrels. They begin over some quite little thing, like pink geraniums, and then the little thing seems to grow and grow until it fills the whole world.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Maria.

  ‘When I arrived at Moonacre,’ said Loveday, ‘I was a very unhappy little girl. I had loved my parents, and they were dead, and I had loved my Cornish home, and it was gone from me. The only things I had to remind me of my parents and my home were my pink geraniums. I have no words to tell you, Maria, how I adored those pink geraniums. I was given the little tower room for my own as soon as I arrived, and I filled it with geraniums; and then as the geraniums multiplied I stood them in pots all up the tower stairs . . . And then it was that the trouble began . . . For Lady Letitia had two intense dislikes, geraniums and the colour pink — especially salmon-pink. There wasn’t a geranium in the manor-house garden or a scrap of pink inside the house. It was she who furnished the manor-house parlour and worked those chair-seats, and you’ll remember that the roses are red and yellow, but not pink.’

  ‘I know,’ said Maria. ‘One of the things I like about the parlour is its pinklessness, for I’m like Lady Letitia, Loveday, I don’t like pink either.’

  ‘What?’ cried Loveday. ‘You ride there beside me, Maria, and dare to tell me that you don’t like pink?’ And Loveday drew herself up, and her eyes flashed cold fire and she seemed to be freezing all over. She looked like a woman who had received some mortal insult; and Maria thought she was being so ridiculous that she too drew herself up, and her eyes flashed, and her mouth opened to make some snappy remark. But before she had time to make it there was a low growl from Wrolf and a warning whinny from Periwinkle, and instead of snapping she laughed.

  ‘Don’t let’s quarrel,’ she said. ‘You like pink and I don’t, and we’ll agree to differ.’

  Loveday quietened down and smiled. ‘That’s what Lady Letitia and I somehow could not do,’ she said. ‘We quarrelled ceaselessly. She would not let so much as one geranium overflow from my tower into the house, and she would not let me wear so much as a bit of pink ribbon in my hair. And I was terribly bitter, because to me an insult to my geraniums was an insult to my parents. I was very unhappy. I think I should have died of my unhappiness had it not been for my governess, old Elspeth, who was a cross-grained old thing but who always took my part, and for the great kindness of Sir Benjamin. When I was a child of ten he was a splendid young man of twenty-five, and, as I said, he was kind to me and I loved him: even though he shared his mother’s dislike for pink geraniums. For he was not like his mother, always talking about the things he disliked; he just kept his mouth shut and did not mention them. He was always giving me things to make up for his mother’s strictness. He was a skilled carpenter in his young days, and it was he who made for me all the pretty furniture that is in your room now. And he taught me to play chess. We were always playing chess together. I cannot tell you how much I loved him, Maria. And he loved me, too . . . Though he loved his mother more.’

  ‘That must have made you very jealous of his mother,’ said Maria.

  ‘Yes, it did,’ said Loveday. ‘I was a horrid girl in those days, Maria; jealous and proud and passionate in a cold sort of way that was quite different from Lady Letitia’s hot anger, and that annoyed her very much. Yet Sir Benjamin loved me, and when I grew up he asked me to marry him, and I said yes.’

  ‘Was Lady Letitia upset?’ asked Maria.

  ‘Very upset,’ said Loveday. ‘But she was a just woman. Sir Benjamin was over thirty by that time, and she realized he had every right to marry me if he wanted to. So she made the best of it. But she disliked me very much indeed and she was very unhappy because of our betrothal, and I think her unhappiness must have weakened her because that winter she caught a cold and died of it before any of us had time to turn round. And Sir Benjamin was heartbroken, because he had adored his mother. I did my best to comfort him, and he seemed to love me more than ever, and we arranged to get married in the spring, and he and I and Elspeth set to work to get the house all shining and polished and ready for the wedding. And I worked hard at my embroidery. I had already made Sir Benjamin a beautiful waistcoat, a pale-blue one embroidered in yellow and crimson because those are the sun colours that he likes; and now I started on another for our wedding. And I made my own trousseau dresses and my wedding dress . . . And then, Maria, one spring evening just before our wedding day, I did a very stupid thing.’

  ‘I can guess exactly what you did,’ said Maria. ‘By that time the tower was so overflowing with pink geraniums that there was scarcely an inch of space where you could put another pot, and so one day when Sir Benjamin was out riding you brought them all down and filled the house with them.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I did,’ said Loveday. ‘Especially I filled the parlour with them, for Old Parson was coming to supper and I wanted to make it look as jolly as I could. And I put on one of my trousseau dresses — a pink one. And I decorated the supper table with pink flowers. And then Old Parson arrived. And then, rather late, because he had been delayed out riding, Sir Benjamin arrived, and saw what I had done.’

  ‘What did he say?’ demanded Maria.

  ‘He didn’t say anything then,’ said Loveday, ‘because Old Parson was there. He played the courteous host all the evening, but I could see that he was very angry. And I think Old Parson saw it too, because to make things easier after supper he asked me to play and sing to them, and I sang a song that had been written by some Merryweather centuries ago and that Sir Benjamin liked because the girl in the song reminded him of me.’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Maria to herself. ‘I know that song.’

  ‘But he didn’t seem to like it that night,’ said Loveday, ‘and when Old Parson had gone he told me exactly what he thought of me. He has the Merryweather temper, you know, even though he is so sunny and genial, and when he was a young man he could behave like a roaring lion. And he raged and stormed that night until his anger nearly lifted the roof off. He said that I had insulted the memory of his saintly mother and that I was not worthy to follow in her footsteps. And he said other things that made me very angry, so that I said hard things too. Among other things I said that his mother had not been a saint at all, but a very wicked woman to be so severe with a little girl as she had been with me over my love of pink. And no saint hates geraniums, I said. Saints love all the flowers that God has made, especially the salmon-pink geraniums of Cornwall, because God never made lovelier flowers than those . . . And at that Sir Benjamin picked up all the pots of geraniums within reach and flung them out of the window into the rose-garden.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ demanded Maria.

  ‘I went up to my tower and I took off the silk dress I had on and put on a walking dress. And I wrote a little note to old Elspeth, my governess, saying that I was going away for ever but that I would be quite safe and she wasn’t to worry, and I slipped it under her bedroom door. And then, when it was quite dark and the house was quiet, I took a big workbag that I had and I crept out of the house and into the rose-garden, and I gathered up out of the wreckage of their smashed pots all the geranium plants that I could manage to find in the darkness and filled my bag with them, and then I walked through the park and out through the tunnel and the big door and up the road that leads out of the valley. I walked all night, and when the dawn came I found myself out in a world that I did not know at all; and it seemed like a foreign country to me, and I felt very strange and forlorn in it. But I did not weaken or turn back. I followed the road to the market-town and knocked at the door of the first nice-looking house I came to, and asked if they would take me as a maidservant. And they did. And the son of the house, a young lawyer, fell in love with me on sight, and I married him as soon as it could possibly be arranged, because he was kind and I like
d him, and in my pride and anger I wanted to put it beyond Sir Benjamin’s power to get me back again.’

  ‘Did he try to get you back again?’ asked Maria.

  ‘Yes, he did. He and Old Parson and Elspeth did not rest until they had discovered where I was, and Sir Benjamin sent Old Parson to tell me that he would forgive me and take me back again. But he did not come himself . . . I expect he was still too hurt and proud and angry . . . And he did not send any apology for throwing my geraniums out of the window. And so I was angrier than ever, and sent back a message by Old Parson asking to have all my clothes sent to me, and saying that I was going to marry my lawyer as soon as I could and live in the town, and never set foot in the valley ever again.’

  ‘But you did,’ said Maria.

  ‘Yes, I had to. I loved it too much to keep away and, country-bred girl that I was, I hated the town. When Elspeth was installed as porteress I used to visit her at the gatehouse, and when she died, and my husband died too, I collected all my belongings, including all my pink geraniums, and went secretly to live there, as I told you . . . Like the first Moon Princess.’

  ‘Why!’ gasped Maria. ‘Did she live there?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Loveday. ‘When Robin and I went to live at the gatehouse, no one had used the little cave-room that is now Robin’s. It was full of earth and stones and rubbish that had fallen in through the hole that is now the window. Robin and I cleared away the rubbish and found the little door into the hillside with the horse-shoe knocker on it, and we found also, right underneath the rubbish, the silver mirror with the galloping horse over it that now hangs in my room. Who could it have belonged to if not to her? I believe she lived there all her life after she left the manor, with her little white horse put out to pasture on the slopes of Paradise Hill.’

  ‘I expect she did,’ said Maria. ‘Loveday, the legend says she took her string of pearls away with her when she left the manor-house. Did you find them too?’

  ‘No,’ said Loveday. ‘I’ve looked often, but I’ve never found them. The great ruby ring that the Moon Princess gave Sir Wrolf is safe, and Sir Benjamin wears it sometimes; but the pearls seem quite lost. It’s a pity, because you would have looked lovely in them on your wedding day.’

  ‘To think, Loveday,’ said Maria, ‘that you have lived at the gatehouse all these years and never even tried to make it up with Sir Benjamin!’

  ‘Why should I?’ said Loveday in a cold hard voice. ‘He has never tried to make it up with me.’

  ‘But he did! He sent Old Parson to you at the lawyer’s house.’

  ‘That wasn’t a proper make-up,’ said Loveday. ‘For he never said he was sorry for losing his temper, and he never apologized for throwing my pink geraniums out of the window. And all the other pink geraniums, the ones he didn’t throw out of the window, he must have burned, because I’ve never heard of a pink geranium being seen either in the manor-house or the garden.’

  Maria said nothing, but she suddenly remembered that mysterious room over the tunnel that led from the stable-yard to the kitchen garden, and the pink geraniums she had seen in its window. She resolved there and then to look into the matter of those pink geraniums at the first opportunity. But just now the business in hand was this matter of giving Paradise Hill back to God, and they had reached the broken gate leading to the village.

  ‘I’ve not time now, Mother Minette, to tell you how dreadfully silly I think you and Sir Benjamin have been,’ she said severely, ‘but I’ll tell you later. I suppose we’d better leave the animals at the lych-gate while we go inside the church?’

  ‘No, we’ll take them inside,’ said Loveday. ‘Old Parson does not mind animals inside the church. He says that dogs and cats and horses are much the best-behaved of God’s children, much better behaved, as a general rule, than men and women, and he never can see why they should be kept out of God’s house.’

  ‘Nor can I see either,’ said Maria.

  They rode along the village street, which still seemed asleep at this early hour, though the stream that flowed down from Paradise Hill was tinkling merrily beneath the little bridges before each garden gate, and through the lychgate and up through the churchyard. At the porch Loveday and Maria dismounted and walked into the church hand in hand, with Wrolf and Periwinkle, Zachariah and Serena, following behind two by two, Wiggins bringing up the rear waving his tail like a banner in the air.

  3

  The church was full of sunshine, children, and music. Old Parson was standing at the chancel steps with his fiddle tucked under his chin, playing one of the loveliest tunes that Maria had ever heard, and sitting all round him on the steps were all the children of Silverydew, in their bright clothes like flowers, singing as the birds sing in the dawn, with all their power and joy.

  Old Parson did not stop playing as Loveday Minette, Maria, Wrolf, Periwinkle, Zachariah, Serena, and Wiggins joined the group of singing children, but he called out to them: ‘Take your places and pick up the words and the tune of this new song as quickly as you can.’

  Loveday and Maria sat down on the steps with Wiggins and Serena on their laps, and Wrolf and Periwinkle standing patiently and reverently beside them, and set themselves to the learning of this new song . . . But Zachariah leaped over the top of the door that led into the Merryweather pew, and sat himself down inside upon the cushions as though he were all the Pharaohs who had ever lived combined into one magnificent purring personage.

  The words of the new song that Old Parson had written for this historic occasion were easy to pick up, and Loveday and Maria were soon singing them as lustily as any child present.

  SPRING SONG

  Praised be our Lord for our brother the sun,

  Most comely is he, and bright.

  Praised be our Lord for our sister the moon,

  With her pure and lovely light.

  Praised be our Lord for the sparkling bright stars

  Encircling the dome of night.

  Praised be our Lord for the wind and the rain,

  For clouds, for dew and the air;

  For the rainbow set in the sky above

  Most precious and kind and fair.

  For all these things tell the love of our Lord,

  The love that is everywhere.

  Praised be our Lord for our mother the earth,

  Most gracious is she, and good,

  With her gifts of flowers and nuts and fruit,

  Of grass and corn and wood,

  For she it is who upholds us in life

  And gives us our daily food.

  Praised be our Lord for the turn of the year,

  For new-born life upspringing;

  For buds and for blossoms, for lambs and babes,

  For thrush and blackbird singing.

  May praise, like the lark, leap up from our hearts,

  To Heaven’s gate upwinging.

  ‘That will do, I think,’ said Old Parson, when everyone was singing to his satisfaction. ‘Maria, will you please go to the Merryweather Chantry, and see whether Robin has finished the task that I set him there.’

  Maria put down Serena, who was in her lap, and hurried to the chantry. Robin was seated cross-legged on the floor, his back against Sir Wrolf’s tomb. Sir Wrolf’s great cross-handled sword was laid across his knees and he was scrubbing it vigorously with emery paper. When he saw Maria he looked up and grinned. ‘I can’t make the steel come really clean and bright,’ he said, ‘it’s too old. But it’s better than it was. We’re to take it with us, Old Parson says.’

  Maria dimpled with pleasure. That was a good idea of Old Parson’s! Sir Wrolf himself couldn’t come with them to restore the property that he had stolen, but at least they could take his sword!

  Robin got up and dusted himself, put the emery paper neatly away with his scrubbing-brush and pail in the corner of the chantry, and he and Maria together carried the sword to Old Parson. When they got back to the chancel steps again Old Parson had put away his violin and hitched up his cas
socks, and Loveday Minette was lifting the statue of the Lady and the Child down from its niche, and the children were taking the Bell from its place by the pulpit.

  ‘Are we taking them?’ asked Maria.

  ‘Of course,’ said Old Parson, ‘they are monastery property, and we are going to restore them to where they belong.’

  Some of the children were a bit tearful. ‘We shall miss the Lady dreadfully,’ they lamented.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Old Parson. ‘You can take your gifts to her on Paradise Hill just as well as here. From this day on we shall be going there often to praise God. Now come along, all of you. We are going there in procession this very moment. I will go first and the rest of you, animals and children, will follow me two by two, singing that song of praise that I have just taught you, at the tops of your voices. You can take it in turns to carry the Lady and the Bell.’

  ‘We shall look like the animals going into the ark,’ said Maria.

  ‘We could not look like anything better,’ said Old Parson. ‘Come along, now. Robin, give me the sword.’

  Robin gave him the great cross-handled sword and, holding it aloft like a processional cross, Old Parson went striding down the aisle with it and out into the sunshine, singing at the top of his voice. And close behind him, side by side, went Wrolf and Periwinkle, and behind them went Maria and Robin, with Wiggins and Zachariah making a pair behind them, and then came Loveday Minette leading little Peterkin Pepper, followed by Prudence Honeybun and all the other children, carrying the Lady and the Bell, lustily singing the song Old Parson had taught them.

  By the time they reached the steep lane the sun was high in the sky and it was the most glorious spring morning ever seen. As they climbed upwards, still singing, though rather breathlessly now, the children picked the ferns and periwinkles and primroses and made them into great bunches. And all about them the birds were singing too, carolling so loudly that the noise they made nearly drowned the children’s singing. When they came out from the lane on to Paradise Hill the sun seemed to blaze more gloriously than ever, and, climbing the hill, they all felt very happy, making their way in and out between the sheep and the frisking lambs, over the bright green grass and purple violets, past the blossoming thorn-tree, up and up to where the beech-trees reared their silver and green against the blue sky. When they were nearly at the summit Old Parson made them stop and get their breath back, and then, singing once again, they made their way beneath the branches of the beech-trees and through the doorway in the broken wall and into the paved court beyond.