"Yes, I'll go," he said firmly. "But--but shan't Archie come too?"
The noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and with a pleasing sense of terror the two boys went to the drawing-room door and opened it.
"But it's quite dark," said Archie. "Oh, mummy, what is happening?"
"I can't think. I only know one person who makes a noise the least like that."
"Oh, is it Abracadabra?" asked Archie excitedly, finding that his scepticism of the day before had vanished like smoke. It had occurred to him that Abracadabra was his mother, but here was his mother telling them stories.
"Well, the only time I ever heard her sneeze it was just like that," said Lady Davidstow. Archie came running back, shrieking with laughter.
"And what does she do when she blows her nose?" he asked.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a piercing trumpet-blast sounded, and his mother got up.
"She did it then," she whispered. "What had we better do? Shall we go into the hall? She would like us to be there to meet her, perhaps, if she's coming."
She went to the door, followed by the children, and they all looked out into the black hall. The wood-fire in the hearth there had died
down to a mere smoulder of red, which sent its illumination hardly farther than the stone fender-curb.
"But there's something there," said Lady Davidstow in an awe-struck whisper. "There's something sitting in the chair." "Oh, mummy," said Archie, coming close to her. "I don't think I like it."
"I'm sure there's nothing to be frightened at, Archie," said she. "Which of us shall go and see what it is?"
There was no volunteer for this hazardous job, for now, with eyes more accustomed to the faint light, they could all see that it was
not Something there, but Somebody. The outlines of a head, of a body, of legs all clothed in black, could be seen, and Somebody sat
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there perfectly still...
Then all of a sudden the gong and the bell and the trumpet broke out into a clamour fit to wake the dead, the great chandelier in the hall flared into light, and the black figure sprang up, throwing its darkness behind it, and there, glittering with silks and gems and gold and the flowers of fairyland, stood Abracadabra. She had on a huge poke-bonnet which cast a shadow over her face, and left it terrifyingly vague. Her bonnet was trimmed with sunflowers and lilies of the valley, and round the edge of it went a row of diamonds which were quite as big as the drops in a glass chandelier. Another necklace of the same brilliance went round her throat and rested on a crimson satin bodice covered with gold. From her shoulders sprang spangled wings, and from below her skirt, with its garlands of roses, were silver shoes with diamond buckles. In her hand she carried a blue wand hung with bells, and by her side was a clothes-basket (such was its shape) made of gold.
She stamped her foot with rage.
"Here's a nice welcome, Lady Davidstow," she said in a thin, cracked voice. "I sneezed to show I was coming, and, when I got through the keyhole, I found the hall dark, and no one to receive me. How dare you?"
Lady Davidstow advanced with faltering steps and fell on her knees. "Oh, your majesty, forgive me," she said.
"Why should I forgive you?" squeaked the infuriated fairy. "Why shouldn't I take you away in my basket and put you in the Tower of
Toads?"
Archie gasped. He would have given much for a touch of yesterday's scepticism, but he couldn't find an atom of it. The thought of
his mother being whisked off to the Tower of Toads was insupportable. "Oh, please don't," he said.
"And who is that?" asked Abracadabra.
Archie almost wished he hadn't spoken, and took hold of Jeannie on one side and Harry on the other. "It's me; it's Archie," he said.
"And you don't want me to take your ridiculous mother away?" she asked. "No, please don't," said Archie.
"Very well, as it's your birthday, I won't. Instead I'll make her extra lady-in-waiting on my peacock-staircase, and mistress of my tortoiseshell robes."
"Oh, mummy, that will be lovely for you," said Archie, remembering that his mother was something of the kind to somebody already.
Then there came the giving of presents, with the surprises that occurred during such processes. Archie was told to advance and put
his hand in the left far corner of the golden basket, and, as he prepared to do so, Abracadabra sneezed so loudly that he fled back to the bottom stair of the staircase where they had been all commanded to sit. There was a tennis racquet for Harry, but the lights all went out when he had just reached the clothes-basket, and Abracadabra blew her nose so preposterously that his ear sang with
it afterwards. There was a great parcel for Lady Davidstow, as big as a football, which was found to contain, when all the paper was stripped off, nothing more than a single acid drop, in order to teach the mistress of the tortoiseshell robes better manners when her mistress came to pay a visit, and Blessington, summoned from the nursery, was presented with a new cap. But the bulk of the gifts,
as was proper, was for Archie, a clock-work train, and a pen that needed no dipping, and a fishing-rod, and a second suit of sailor-clothes. And then the light went out again, and Abracadabra began sneezing and blowing her nose with such deafening violence that the screen which stood just behind her rocked with the concussion, and the children, at the suggestion of the mistress of the
tortoiseshell robes, groped their way back into the drawing-room with their presents, and shut the door till Abracadabra was better. And when, from the cessation of these awful noises, they conjectured she might be better, and ventured out into the hall again, that audience-chamber was just as usual, and Archie's father came out of his room, looking vexed, and asking what that beastly noise was about. But when he heard it was Abracadabra, who had gone away again, he was greatly upset and said that it wasn't a beastly noise at
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all, but the loveliest music he had ever heard.
Then came bed-time, and Archie, still excited, said his prayers with a special impromptu clause for Abracadabra, and another for the thrush, which he suddenly remembered again, and then lay staring at the fire with his hands clasped round his knees, as his custom was. Certainly Abracadabra had been wonderfully real to-day, and certainly she was not his mother. Then he recollected that Marjorie had not appeared at all, and wondered if Marjorie perhaps was Abracadabra, or if the thrush was Abracadabra, of Cyrus... And his hands relaxed their hold on his knees, and when Blessington came in he did not know that she kissed him and tucked the bedclothes up under his chin.
CHAPTER III
Archie did not often come into contact with Miss Schwarz, his sisters' governess; she was not a person to be lightly encountered. Sometimes, if Blessington was busy, he and Jeannie went out for their walk with his eldest sister and Miss Schwarz, and on these occasions Miss Schwarz and Marjorie would talk together in an unknown guttural tongue, very ugly to hear, which Archie vaguely understood was German, and the sort of thing that everybody spoke in the country to which Miss Schwarz went for her holiday at Midsummer and Christmas. That uncouth jargon, full of such noises as you made when you cleared your throat, was quite unintelligible, and it seemed odd that Marjorie should converse in it when she could speak ordinary English; but it somehow seemed to suit Miss Schwarz, who had a sallow face, prominent teeth, and cold grey eyes. Otherwise he did not often meet her, for she led an odd secret existence in his sisters' school-room, breakfasting and having lunch downstairs in the dining-room, but eating her evening meal all by herself in the school-room. She had a black, unrustling dress for the day, and a black rustling dress for the evening, and a necklace of onyx beads which she used to finger with her dry thin hands, which reminded Archie of the claws of a bird. His mother had told him that, after Christmas, he would do his lessons with Miss Schwarz, and this prospect rather terrified him. He supposed that Miss Schwarz would probably teach him