Читать книгу Sir Isumbras at the Ford - D. K. Broster - Страница 15

The coach ride to Rochester, the night's stay there, and the journey on to Canterbury through the fine April weather had been all delight to Anne-Hilarion. And now he was being helped down at the gate of the dearest little garden, surrounding the dearest little house, and walking, with his hand in Elspeth's, up a cobbled path between wallflowers and forget-me-nots to a little green-painted door with shining handle, under a portico with fluted pillars. This door opened, and inside, in a small panelled entrance hall that was also a room, stood a veritable fairy godmother of an old lady, leaning, as a fairy godmother should, on a black and silver stick with a crooked handle. She had, moreover, black lace mittens on her hands, a cap of fine lace on her silver hair, and, under the cap, just such a face as a fairy godmother might have, even to the delicately-cut hooked nose and bright blue eyes.

"Welcome, welcome, my child," said she in French, stooping—but not much, for she was little herself—and kissing the boy. A faint, delicious scent came out of her grey silk dress. "I hope you are not tired, my dear? And this is your attendant. What is your name, if you please?—no, I know it; Mrs. Saunders, is it not?"

The dragon curtsied—Elspeth's curtsy, which could express many things, but seldom what a curtsy is supposed to indicate.

"Doubtless you have some baggage," said Mme. de Chaulnes—if this were she. "Ask the driver to set it down by the gate, and presently we will find some passer-by to bring it in, for we are only women here. Now, my child—Anne, that is your name, is it not?—here is my sister-in-law, Mademoiselle Angèle de Chaulnes, waiting to make your acquaintance."

Anne then perceived that it was a second fairy godmother who had opened the door to them. She too was small and exquisitely dressed, in lavender silk, but she held no stick, seemed younger than the other (but for all that, to a child's eye, phenomenally aged), and had a face which, lacking Mme. de Chaulnes' fine aquiline features, was, to Anne's mind, more 'comfortable.'

"The little darling!" she murmured as she kissed him. "And what have you there—a goldfish?" For all the time Anne-Hilarion was carefully holding his glass bowl by the string.

After that, Elspeth having arranged about the baggage, they went upstairs into a spotless little bedroom smelling of lavender.

"I am very sorry," said the elder of the old ladies, addressing herself to Elspeth, "that there is not a bed for you in the house. You see, our establishment is very small. But we have arranged for you to sleep at a house a few minutes away, where there is a good woman who will make you very comfortable. You can put the little boy to bed before retiring there, and, of course, come and dress him in the morning, if he requires it."

Elspeth looked mutinous, and her mouth took on a line which Anne-Hilarion knew very well.

"A'm thinkin', Mem," she replied, "it wad be best for me tae hae a wee bit bed in here."

Mme. de Chaulnes shook her head. "I am afraid," she said, with equal pleasantness and firmness, "that that arrangement would not suit us at all." And there was nothing for it but acquiescence.

"See, here is a good place to put your goldfish," said Mlle. Angèle meanwhile to Anne-Hilarion. "And then, when she has washed your face and hands for you, mon chéri, your nurse will bring you downstairs, and you shall have something to eat, for I am sure you must be hungry after your journey."