The Little White Horse (7 page)

Maria dismounted and ran eagerly to the well. Luxuriant ferns grew inside the wall, right down to the water-level, for a roof of weather-worn tiles supported on stone pillars made it all cool and dark inside. The shadowed water was so inky black that when Maria leaned over and looked down she could see herself reflected with a startling brilliance. It was ice-cold, too, as though the water welled up from unimaginable depths.

‘Is it very deep?’ she whispered with awe to Sir Benjamin, as he too dismounted and tossed his reins to Digweed, who had appeared to take Atlas and Periwinkle to their breakfast.

‘No one knows how deep it is,’ he answered. ‘The water has never been known to fail, even in the longest drought, and in the height of summer it is as cold as it is in January. On the hottest day we can always keep our milk and butter cool. Push aside the ferns, my dear, and see what is behind them.’

Maria did so, and saw that just above the water-level stones had been removed from the wall to make little cupboards, and in them stood bowls of cream and milk and pats of butter folded in scalded muslin. She cried out in delight at the sight of these dark hidden shelves behind the ferns, and thought to herself what wonderful hiding-places they would make for other things besides butter and milk. If she had been a Merryweather lady living here in the days of wars and tumults she would, she thought, have hidden her jewels here.

The stable-yard was bordered to the west by the house, and here another flight of stone steps led up to the back
door, with another mounting-block at its foot, and doors to right and left that Sir Benjamin told Maria led to the storerooms and Digweed’s room.

To the south, the stable-yard was bordered by the wall with the archway leading to the garden, to the north by the stables, and to the east by harness-rooms and coach-houses. A tunnel led through the buildings to the east and, looking through it, Maria saw the kitchen garden beyond. She had never explored a place like this before, and when Sir Benjamin took her into them, she was enchanted by the great coach-houses, where the shabby old carriage that had brought them from the station stood beside Sir Benjamin’s gig and a little old pony carriage almost falling to pieces with age. She liked the horse-boxes too, the mangers full of sweet-smelling hay, the harness-room, and the great hay-loft above the stables on the north side. Sir Benjamin showed her how to take off Periwinkle’s bridle and saddle and how to put them on again, so that she should not be dependent on Digweed, and he introduced her to the other occupants of the stables, the two fat carriage horses, Darby and Joan, Speedwell, the cream-coloured mare that drew the gig, and his great black hunter Hercules, old too, but still possessed of enormous strength and power; as any horse must needs be, to support the weight of Sir Benjamin.

‘Who used to ride and drive Periwinkle?’ asked Maria suddenly. The pony carriage had obviously not been used for years, but it must have been got for somebody, and Periwinkle had seemed quite used to having a lady on her back.

‘Eh?’ ejaculated Sir Benjamin, as though he hadn’t heard her, though he was not in the least hard of hearing, and then, abruptly: ‘Ah, look at those doves in the sunlight, my dear! Did you ever see such a pretty sight?’

And, looking up at those white wings, gleaming like pure snow in the clear silver light of the West Country, Maria thought that, no, she had never seen anything more
lovely; unless it had been those seagulls flying inland in the early morning.

‘Just time to take a look at the kitchen garden before we go in to dinner,’ said Sir Benjamin, and led the way through the archway.

The kitchen garden was an enchanted place too. It was surrounded by old stone walls, those to north and east the battlemented walls, and against them grew fruit trees, plums and peaches, nectarines and apricots. A mulberry-tree, so old that its branches had had to be fastened up with chains, stood in the centre of the garden, with a bench beneath it, and all about it were the neat vegetable patches, with strawberry beds and raspberry canes, currant and gooseberry bushes, and beds of herbs, and between them all were narrow paved paths, hedged with box. There were rather a lot of weeds, but Sir Benjamin explained apologetically that he had no regular gardener. Digweed worked in the garden when he could, and so did Sir Benjamin himself, and so did the shepherd boy, but there was no one regular.

‘The shepherd boy?’ thought Maria. ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’ And suddenly she felt unreasonably excited because there was a shepherd boy. A door in the east wall led into an orchard, and Sir Benjamin unlocked it, so that Maria might peep through and see the gnarled old apple-trees covered with silver lichen, pear-trees and cherry-trees and medlars. In the tawny grass beneath the trees there were already a few drifts of snowdrops, and presently, Sir Benjamin told her, when she stood among the trees and looked up, she would scarcely be able to see the blue sky for the canopy of pink and white blossom over her head.

Walking back through the kitchen garden towards the stable-yard again, Maria noticed a water-butt to the left of the tunnel and a little latticed window over it, and in the window were pots of beautiful geraniums, extra-large ones of deep salmon pink. In what window did they stand? The coach-houses to right and left of the
tunnel had reached to the roof. There had been no lofts over them. Was there a little room over the tunnel? She would have asked Sir Benjamin, but at this moment he pulled out his great turnip watch and gave an exclamation of surprise.

‘God bless my soul!’ he cried. ‘Time has flown. Scarcely time to change for dinner.’

The rest of the day passed quietly. Miss Heliotrope and Maria dined with Sir Benjamin, and afterwards they sat in the parlour, and Maria played and sang to her guardian, while Miss Heliotrope dozed in the winged armchair. And then Digweed brought in the tea-things, and Maria made tea for them all. And then Sir Benjamin went away on business of his own, and Miss Heliotrope and Maria read aloud and embroidered. And then it was time for supper. And then it was time for bed.

It was not until she was in bed, and just dozing off, that it suddenly occurred to Maria that she had not seen the kitchen. Nor Zachariah the cat, who doubtless lived there.

‘In the morning,’ she said to herself. ‘In the morning, quite early before breakfast, I’ll go straight away and see the kitchen . . . And Zachariah.’

B
UT
it so happened that the next morning she overslept herself and was awakened by the sound of the knocker on her little front door. Running to open it, she found Miss Heliotrope outside.

‘Maria,’ said Miss Heliotrope with some sternness, ‘it is the Lord’s Day. You will not put on your riding-habit this morning. You will put on your best lavender gown. I have already ascertained from Sir Benjamin that — as I expected — it is his habit to attend divine service upon a Sunday morning. We shall attend it with him.’

‘Oh,’ said Maria. And then added tentatively, ‘Perhaps I shall be able to go riding in the afternoon?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Heliotrope. ‘Tearing about on horseback on the Lord’s Day would be most unseemly. Now make haste, Maria, the aroma of sausage is already strong in the house.’

Maria quickly washed herself in the warm water that, as before, had been put ready for her, dressed herself beside the fire that the mysterious good person had lit for her while she slept, and then looked about her for the lavender gown.

But she did not have to look far. Upon the top of the chest, where she had found the habit yesterday, it was lying neatly folded, together with her best Sunday pelisse, and bonnet and muff of purple velvet, all trimmed with white swansdown, and her purple silk mittens. And beside the pile of clothes was a big black prayer-book fastened with a gold clasp, and on top of the prayer-book was
a bunch of purple violets with the dew still upon them.

Maria unfastened the gold clasp and peeped inside the prayer-book. It was evidently an old book, because the fly-leaf was yellowed with age. On it was written in delicate handwriting, L. M., and then the family motto. Maria smiled, and then blinked, because again she felt rather as though she wanted to cry. ‘I’ll say my prayers very nicely, L. M.,’ she promised. ‘I’ll say my prayers as well as I can out of your book.’ Then she slipped her Sunday gown over her head and fastened the bunch of violets in the front of it.

Sir Benjamin, already dressed for church, was a sight to behold at breakfast. He wore the beautiful satin waistcoat embroidered with roses and carnations, the great ruby ring and the cravat of Honiton lace that he had worn to welcome her on the evening of her arrival, and his huge white cauliflower wig had evidently had a wash and a fresh dusting of powder the night before, for it was whiter than ever. But instead of riding-coat and breeches he wore a coat of mulberry velvet, and mulberry breeches fastened at the knee with silken tassels, and black shoes with silver buckles.

The coat and breeches were shiny at the seams, and so much too tight for him that when he seated himself at the breakfast table it had to be very slowly and with ominous creakings, and the shoes were very rubbed at the toes. But there was not a speck of dust upon the velvet, and the polish upon the shoes and buckles was so bright as to be dazzling. As for Sir Benjamin’s face, it had been shaved and then scrubbed to such an extent that it was absolutely scarlet, with a shine upon it that almost equalled that upon his shoes.

‘Cleanliness,’ chuckled Sir Benjamin, noting his great niece’s delighted smile as her eyes rested upon him,’ ‘comes next to godliness, eh, Maria? That’s always been the opinion of Merry weathers, anyway.’

Digweed drove them to church in the carriage, open today to the sweet air. It had evidently been given a
Sunday scrub-up, for the floor was still wet when Miss Heliotrope, Sir Benjamin and Maria climbed into it and seated themselves in a solemn row upon the back seat, Miss Heliotrope in the middle and Sir Benjamin and Maria protectingly upon either side of her.

They looked perhaps a trifle odd sitting there in a row, a little pressed for space because of Miss Heliotrope’s hoop and Sir Benjamin’s bulk. Miss Heliotrope also of course had an umbrella and her reticule, and they all had large black prayer-books.

But laden though they were with one thing and another in the way of impedimenta, they were entirely eclipsed by Digweed, who had upon the box beside him the very largest musical instrument Maria had ever seen in her life . . . It was twice the size of Digweed.

‘A double bass,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘He plays it in church. He’s the chief man in the choir, you know. He’s a good musician, Digweed. Grand.’

Digweed smiled, clucked to Darby and Joan, and they were off, watched from the top of the steps by Wrolf and Wiggins standing side by side in a very stately manner. Wiggins looked very tiny beside Wrolf, and Maria felt a little nervous.

‘Wrolf — won’t — eat — Wiggins, will he?’ she whispered falteringly to Sir Benjamin.

‘No! No! No!’ her guardian assured her hastily. ‘Wrolf took possession of you yesterday morning. Don’t you remember? Not only you yourself; all that is yours is now under his particular protection. Even though not personally attracted by Wiggins, he would die rather than let harm come to a hair of his head.’

The park was very lovely this morning under the bright silvery sunshine. The promise of spring was a magic in the air that surrounded each flower and tree and scampering lamb with a sort of halo of wonder, as though it were the first flower or tree or lamb that had ever been created. Each glade looked as though it must lead straight into Paradise, and when they stopped a minute,
because Darby had a stone in his hoof, they could hear the carolling of the birds like the music of heaven . . .

But though she looked this way and that Maria did not catch a glimpse of the little white horse . . . And then she forgot about him, looking out eagerly for the tunnel through the rock by which they had entered the park on their arrival. But the road forked, they swerved away to the right and she did not see it.

‘Don’t we drive through the tunnel?’ she asked Sir Benjamin.

‘No, my dear,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember the map? Moonacre and the village lie together in a cup in the hills. That tunnel pierces right through the hillside into the outer world. Silverydew is not in the outer world, it’s in our world.’

And it was so. They drove only a little farther and the road ended at an old broken gate propped open by a stone, and they drove through into the village street.

‘What a lovely village!’ cried Maria. ‘Oh, Sir, it’s the loveliest village that ever was!’

‘It’s your village,’ said Sir Benjamin.

‘And the people are smiling at me!’ cried Maria. ‘Sir, the people are smiling at me as though they knew me!’

‘They are your people,’ said Sir Benjamin, lifting his absurd great hat in acknowledgement of the smiles and curtsies and touching of foreheads that made their journey along the village street seem almost like a royal progress. ‘That’s right, Maria. Smile and kiss your hand. They have waited for many a long year to have another Princess at Moonacre.’

Maria was right to cry out in delight at the sight of Silverydew and its people. There was not such another village, and there were not such people, in the whole of the West Country. The whitewashed cob cottages were thatched with golden straw and set in neat gardens bright with spring flowers. A stream ran down one side of the village street, and each cottage had its own little stone bridge, that spanned the stream before each garden gate.
Behind the cottages were orchards, where the thickening buds were crowded together on the trees.

The cottages all looked prosperous and well cared for, and besides the flowers the gardens had beehives in them and fruit bushes and herb-beds. And the people looked as happy and prosperous as their homes. The children were sturdy as little ponies, healthy and happy, their mothers and fathers strong-looking and serene, the old people as rosy-cheeked and smiling as the children. And their clothes were bright as their gardens, the dresses sprigged with flowers, the bonnets tied with bright ribbons; the colours of the men’s well-worn Sunday coats, bottle-green, hyacinth or plum-colour, rather beautified than dimmed by age.