The Fantastical World of Magical Beasts. Andrew LangЧитать онлайн книгу.
drawing-room – ‘so as to be quiet,’ she said to her mother; and to herself she said, ‘And that’s not the real reason. I hope I shan’t grow up a liar.’
Mother said, ‘Of course, dearie,’ and Anthea started swimming through a sea of x's and y's and z's. Mother was sitting at the mahogany bureau writing letters.
‘Mother dear,’ said Anthea.
‘Yes, love-a-duck,’ said Mother.
‘About cook,’ said Anthea. ‘I know where she is.’
‘Do you, dear?’ said Mother. ‘Well, I wouldn’t take her back after the way she has behaved.’
‘It’s not her fault,’ said Anthea. ‘May I tell you about it from the beginning?’
Mother laid down her pen, and her nice face had a resigned expression. As you know, a resigned expression always makes you want not to tell anybody anything.
‘It’s like this,’ said Anthea, in a hurry: ‘that egg, you know, that came in the carpet; we put it in the fire and it hatched into the Phoenix, and the carpet was a wishing carpet – and—’
‘A very nice game, darling,’ said Mother, taking up her pen. ‘Now do be quiet. I’ve got a lot of letters to write. I’m going to Bournemouth tomorrow with the Lamb – and there’s that bazaar.’
Anthea went back to x y z, and Mother’s pen scratched busily.
‘But, Mother,’ said Anthea, when Mother put down the pen to lick an envelope, ‘the carpet takes us wherever we like – and -’
‘I wish it would take you where you could get a few nice Eastern things for my bazaar,’ said Mother. ‘I promised them, and I’ve no time to go to Liberty’s now.’
‘It shall,’ said Anthea, ‘but, Mother…’
‘Well, dear,’ said Mother, a little impatiently, for she had taken up her pen again.
‘The carpet took us to a place where you couldn’t have whooping-cough, and the Lamb hasn’t whooped since, and we took cook because she was so tiresome, and then she would stay and be queen of the savages. They thought her cap was a crown, and—’
‘Darling one,’ said Mother, ‘you know I love to hear the things you make up – but I am most awfully busy.’
‘But it’s true,’ said Anthea, desperately.
‘You shouldn’t say that, my sweet,’ said Mother, gently. And then Anthea knew it was hopeless.
‘Are you going away for long?’ asked Anthea.
‘I’ve got a cold,’ said Mother, ‘and daddy’s anxious about it, and the Lamb’s cough.’
‘He hasn’t coughed since Saturday,’ the Lamb’s eldest sister interrupted.
‘I wish I could think so,’ Mother replied. ‘And daddy’s got to go to Scotland. I do hope you’ll be good children.’
‘We will, we will,’ said Anthea, fervently. ‘When’s the bazaar?’
‘On Saturday,’ said Mother, ‘at the schools. Oh, don’t talk any more, there’s a treasure! My head’s going round, and I’ve forgotten how to spell whooping-cough.’
Mother and the Lamb went away, and Father went away, and there was a new cook who looked so like a frightened rabbit that no one had the heart to do anything to frighten her any more than seemed natural to her.
The Phoenix begged to be excused. It said it wanted a week’s rest, and asked that it might not be disturbed. And it hid its golden gleaming self, and nobody could find it.
So that when Wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected holiday, and everyone decided to go somewhere on the carpet, the journey had to be undertaken without the Phoenix. They were debarred from any carpet excursions in the evening by a sudden promise to Mother, exacted in the agitation of parting, that they would not be out after six at night, except on Saturday, when they were to go to the bazaar, and were pledged to put on their best clothes, to wash themselves to the uttermost, and to clean their nails – not with scissors, which are scratchy and bad, but with flat-sharpened ends of wooden matches, which do no harm to any one’s nails.
‘Let’s go and see the Lamb,’ said Jane.
But everyone was agreed that if they appeared suddenly in Bournemouth it would frighten Mother out of her wits, if not into a fit. So they sat on the carpet, and thought and thought and thought till they almost began to squint.
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘I know. Please carpet, take us somewhere where we can see the Lamb and Mother and no one can see us.’
‘Except the Lamb,’ said Jane, quickly.
And the next moment they found themselves recovering from the upside-down movement – and there they were sitting on the carpet, and the carpet was laid out over another thick soft carpet of brown pine-needles. There were green pine-trees overhead, and a swift clear little stream was running as fast as ever it could between steep banks – and there, sitting on the pine-needle carpet, was Mother, without her hat; and the sun was shining brightly, although it was November – and there was the Lamb, as jolly as jolly and not whooping at all.
‘The carpet’s deceived us,’ said Robert, gloomily; ‘Mother will see us directly she turns her head.’
But the faithful carpet had not deceived them.
Mother turned her dear head and looked straight at them, and did not see them!
‘We’re invisible,’ Cyril whispered: ‘what awful larks!’
But to the girls it was not larks at all. It was horrible to have Mother looking straight at them, and her face keeping the same, just as though they weren’t there.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Jane. ‘Mother never looked at us like that before. Just as if she didn’t love us – as if we were somebody else’s children, and not very nice ones either – as if she didn’t care whether she saw us or not.’
‘It is horrid,’ said Anthea, almost in tears.
But at this moment the Lamb saw them, and plunged towards the carpet, shrieking, ‘Panty, own Panty – an’ Pussy, an’ Squiggle – an’ Bobs, oh, oh!’
Anthea caught him and kissed him, so did Jane; they could not help it – he looked such a darling, with his blue three-cornered hat all on one side, and his precious face all dirty – quite in the old familiar way.
‘I love you, Panty; I love you – and you, and you, and you,’ cried the Lamb.
It was a delicious moment. Even the boys thumped their baby brother joyously on the back.
Then Anthea glanced at Mother – and Mother’s face was a pale sea-green colour, and she was staring at the Lamb as if she thought he had gone mad. And, indeed, that was exactly what she did think.
‘My Lamb, my precious! Come to Mother,’ she cried, and jumped up and ran to the baby.
She was so quick that the invisible children had to leap back, or she would have felt them; and to feel what you can’t see is the worst sort of ghost-feeling. Mother picked up the Lamb and hurried away from the pine-wood.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Jane, after a miserable silence. ‘It feels just exactly as if Mother didn’t love us.’
But they couldn’t bear to go home till they had seen Mother meet another lady, and knew that she was safe. You cannot leave your mother to go green in the face in a distant pinewood, far from all human aid, and then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened.
When Mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet,