“Never mind about always,” replied the old woman. “A very, very long time? Yes, longer than you could understand, even if I explained it! Long before the old house was pulled down? Yes, indeed, long before the old house was ever thought of! I’m the caretaker here nowadays, you see.”
“The caretaker!” Rafe repeated; “but there’s no house to take care of.”
“There’s a great deal to take care of nevertheless,” she replied. “Think of all the creatures up in the garden, the birds and the butterflies, not to speak of the flowers and the blossom. Ah, yes! we caretakers have a busy time of it, I can tell you, little as you might think it. And the stories – why, if I had nothing else to do, the looking after them would keep me busy. They take a deal of tidying. You’d scarcely believe the state they come home in sometimes when they’ve been out for a ramble – all torn and jagged and draggle-tailed, or else, what’s worse, dressed up in such vulgar new clothes that their own mother, and I’m as good as their mother, would scarcely know them again. No, no,” and she shook her head, “I’ve no patience with such ways.”
Alix looked delighted. She quite understood the old woman.
“How nicely you say it,” she exclaimed. “It’s like something papa told us the other day about legends; don’t you remember, Rafe?”
Rafe’s slower wits were still rather perplexed, but he took things comfortably. Somehow he no longer remembered any more questions to ask. The old woman’s bright eyes as she looked at him gave him a pleasant, contented feeling.
“Have you got a story quite ready for us?” asked Alix.
“One, two, three, four,” said the old woman, counting her stitches. “I’m setting it on, my dear; it’ll be ready directly. But what have you got in your basket? It’s your dinner, isn’t it? You must be getting hungry. Wouldn’t you like to eat something while the story’s getting ready?”
“Are you going to knit the story?” said Alix, looking very surprised.
“Oh dear no!” said the old woman, smiling. “It’s only a way I have. The knitting keeps it straight, otherwise it might fly off once I’ve let it out. Now open your basket and let’s see what you’ve got for your dinner. There, set it on the table, and you may reach down plates and jugs for yourselves.”
“It’s nothing much,” said Alix, “just some sandwiches and two hard-boiled eggs and some slices of cake.”
“Very good things in their way,” said the old woman, as Alix unpacked the little parcels and laid them on the plates which Rafe handed her from the dresser. “And if you look into my larder you’ll find some fruit, maybe, which won’t go badly for dessert. What should you say to strawberries and cream?”
She nodded towards one corner of the kitchen where there was a little door which the children had not before noticed, so very neatly was it fitted into the wall.
The opening of it was another surprise; the “larder” was quite different from the room inside. It was a little arbour, so covered over with greenery that you could not see through the leaves to the outside, though the sunshine managed to creep in here and there, and the twittering of the birds was clearly heard.
On a stone slab stood a curiously-shaped basket filled with – oh! such lovely strawberries! and beside it a bowl of tempting yellow cream; these were the only eatables to be seen in the larder.
“Strawberries!” exclaimed Rafe; “just fancy, Alix, and it’s only April.”
“But we’re in Fairyland, you stupid boy,” said Alix; “or at least somewhere very near it.”
“Quick, children,” came the old woman’s voice from the kitchen. “You bring the strawberries, Alix, and Rafe the cream. There’ll be no time for stories if you dawdle!”
This made them hurry back, and soon they were seated at the table, with all the nice things neatly before them. They were not greedy children fortunately, for, as everybody knows, fairy-folk hold few things in greater horror than greediness; and they were orderly children too. They packed up their basket neatly again when they had finished, and Alix asked if they should wash up the plates that had been lent to them, which seemed to please their old friend, for she smiled as she replied that it wasn’t necessary.
“My china is of a different kind from any you’ve ever seen,” she said. “Whiff, plates,” she added; and then, to the children’s amusement, there was a slight rattle, and all the crockery was up in its place again, shining as clean and bright as before it had been used.
There was now no doubt at all that they were really in Fairyland.
Chapter Four.
The Story of the Three Wishes
“And now for a story,” said Alix joyfully. “May we sit close beside you, Mrs – oh dear! Mayn’t we call you something?”
“Anything you like,” replied the old woman, smiling.
“I know,” cried Alix; “Mrs Caretaker – will that do? It’s rather a nice name when you come to think of it.”
“Yes,” agreed their old friend; “and it should be everybody’s name, more or less, if everybody did their duty. There’s no one without something to take care of.”
“No,” said Rafe thoughtfully; “I suppose not.”
“Draw the two little stools close beside me – one at the right, one at the left; and if you like, you may lean your heads on my knee, you’ll hear none the worse.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Alix; “it’s like the children and the white lady. Do you know about the white lady?” she went on, starting up suddenly.
Mrs Caretaker nodded. “Oh yes,” she said; “she’s a relation of mine. But we mustn’t chatter any more if you’re to have a story.”
And the children sat quite silent. Click, click, went the knitting-needles.
The Story of the Three Wishes.
That was the name of the first of Mrs Caretaker’s stories.
Once upon a time there lived two sisters in a cottage on the edge of a forest. It was rather a lonely place in some ways, though there was an old town not more than a mile off, where there were plenty of friendly people. But it was lonely in this way, that but seldom any of the townsfolk passed near the cottage, or cared to come to see the sisters, even though they were good and pretty girls, much esteemed by all who knew them.
For the forest had a bad name. Nobody seemed to know exactly why, or what the bad name meant, but there it was. Even in the bright long summer days the children of the town would walk twice as far on the other side to gather posies of the pretty wood-flowers in a little copse, not to be compared with the forest for beauty, rather than venture within its shade. And the young men and maidens of a summer evening, though occasionally they might come to its outskirts in their strolls, were never tempted to do more than stand for a moment or two glancing along its leafy glades. Only the sisters, Arminel and Chloe, had sometimes entered the forest, though but for a little way, and not without some fear and trembling.
But they had no misgiving as to living in its near neighbourhood. Custom does a great deal, and here in the cottage by the forest-side they had spent all their lives. And the grandmother, who had taken care of them since they had been left orphans in their babyhood, told them there was no need for fear so long as they loved each other and did their duty. All the same, she never denied that the great forest was an uncanny place.
This was the story of it, so far as any one knew. Long, long ago, when many things in the world were different from what they are now, a race of giants, powerful and strong, were the owners of the forest, and so long as they were just and kindly to their weaker neighbours, all went well. But after a while they grew proud and tyrannical, and did some very cruel things. Then their power was taken from them, and they became, as a