CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH THE HEROINE MAKES THE FIRST USE OF HER LATCHKEY

It was about this time that Philomène first began to remark a change in her father. He was not at any time a man of many words, but he now became unusually silent even for him. He was not unkind to his little girl, but he saw less of her, and gave her only half his attention when she spoke to him. She suffered acutely from his altered manner, but was far too loyal to confide her trouble to either of her fairy friends, let alone to Nurse or Miss Mills. Once when writing to her godmother, who was abroad at the time, she put at the end of the letter; “_P.S._—I wish I had a mother.” But she had no very clear idea as to how a mother would have mended matters, and Isolde in her answer did not refer to the postscript.

It was in these days, when her father called her “little Miss Muffet” less often than formerly, that Philomène grew doubly glad of the key in the savings-box and of the bird-cage in the schoolroom. Master Mustardseed was somewhat of a gossip, and told her many stories about the children to whom the fairy queen stands sponsor, for Titania is very fond of children, though she has none of her own. Then he would tell her all that he had seen in the course of his flight through the air astride of a shooting-star; he would sing to her, till she knew it by heart, the serenade piped by a bulrush who was fast fading for love of an ivory white moth that used to settle on a reed close by, but never came to him. Master Mustardseed had been asleep at the time, curled up inside a yellow waterlily on a pond, having asked a friendly frog to sway the stalk of the lily gently to and fro, so as to produce a drowsy rocking motion. The bulrush’s love-song, however, had waked him up, and having a good musical memory he had learnt it then and there.

The recent wet weather had altogether prevented Philomène from going into the garden, so that May with its lilac was gone, and June with its roses had come, before she had her first opportunity of letting herself into Sweet William’s house by means of her own latchkey. On entering she saw that the room was empty but for the tom-tit, who was trying, it must be confessed without much success, to reduce it to order. The catkin tapestry had to be taken down, shaken, beaten, and rehung; the tree-stump cupboard had been emptied, and its contents littered the mushroom table, while the tom-tit complained that the things had been so closely packed inside it, that it was far easier to take them out than to make them fit in again after they had been dusted.

“I wish he would have a sparrow in by the day,” wailed the tom-tit; “it’s more than I can manage single-handed.” So Philomène comforted and helped him as best she could, and by the time Sweet William returned, the room was as neat as a new pin, and a great deal bonnier. It was after the tom-tit had got leave to fly away, that Philomène asked if there had been any news of the grasshopper lately.

“Nothing much,” replied Sweet William; “he is still trying to reach the sun in high hops, and his friend the dial has given him up as a bad job. Well, and has Master Mustardseed been making himself agreeable? Are you any less bored than you used to be? Is the schoolroom quite as commonplace as you were pleased at one time to imagine?”

Philomène blushed. “I am afraid you must have thought me discontented,” she said, humbly; “but indeed I am not at all bored any longer. How should I be, with Master Mustardseed to tell me stories whenever we are alone together? And, oh, you can’t think what lovely stories they are! He began with one about a poor apprentice who was taught his trade by the fairies’ own cobbler, and in the end he married a princess.”

“Dear me! how enthusiastic we are, to be sure,” remarked Sweet William, with his head in the air; “you talk as though there were nobody who could tell stories but Master Mustardseed, which is very far from being the case.”

“Oh, I know you could tell beautiful stories too, if you tried,” said Philomène hastily, “and indeed I wish you would, for there is nothing I should like better.”

“Very well,” said Sweet William, “but I’m afraid my story hasn’t a princess in it, only a goose-girl who married a troll.”

“Is it a true story?” asked Philomène.

“I daresay it’s true enough as far as it goes,” replied Sweet William, and Philomène wondered how far it went.

“And where did the troll live?” she asked again.

“He lived at home,” retorted Sweet William; “and really you must not ask so many questions; it quite puts me off.”