Виктория Холт - The Mask of the Enchantress

"All right then. Leave it for a bit. Only I'd like her to ride and she would love it."

It was all very mysterious. I knew that Miss Anabel wanted to give me a pony for Christmas and Aunt Amelia would not allow it.

I was so angry. I should have wished for a pony. That would have been sensible. I had just been silly and wished for what was not possible.

Miss Anabel went away, but I knew she would come again soon, although I heard Aunt Amelia telling her not to come too often. It looked bad.

I asked Anthony Felton to let me have another ride on his pony, but he refused. "Why should I?" he asked.

"Because I nearly had one," I answered.

"What do you mean? How could you nearly have one?"

"I nearly had one," I insisted.

I imagined riding out past the Felton paddock on a pony which was far handsomer than Anthony Felton's and I was so angry and frustrated that I hated Anthony and Aunt Amelia. I couldn't tell Aunt Amelia this but I could tell Anthony and I did.

"You're a witch and a bastard," he said, "and it's a terrible thing to be both."

Matty Grey no longer sat outside her cottage. It was too cold.

"That wind cutting right across the green blows itself into my bones," she said. "It's bad for me screws." Her screws were her rheumatism, and in the winter they were so bad that she could not stray from the fire. "The old screws is getting me today," she used to say. "No joke, they ain't. Still, Tom'll make me a nice fire, and what's nicer than a good wood fire? And when there's a kettle singing on the hob ... well, you couldn't get nearer the angels in heaven, I say."

I made a habit of going into Matty's cottage when I came home from school. It could not be for long because Aunt Amelia must not know of these visits. She would not have approved. We were "better class" than Matty. It was rather complicated, for although we were not on the level of the doctor and the parson, who themselves were not quite up to the rank of squire, we were some way above Matty.

Matty would get me to cut a slice of bread from the big cottage loaf. "The bottom half, ducks." And I would put it on a long toasting fork which Tom's uncle had made at the forge, and hold it before the fire until it was a golden brown.

"A good strong cup of tea and a nice thick slice of good brown toast; your own fireside and the wind whistling outside and you shut away from it all. ... I don't reckon there could be better than that."

I didn't agree with Matty. There could be an enchanted forest, a cloth spread on the grass; there could be chicken wishbones and two beautiful people who were different from anyone I knew. There could be an enchanted castle seen through the trees and a horse on which to gallop.

"What you thinking about, young Suewellyn?" asked Matty.

"It depends," I said, "on you. Perhaps some people wouldn't want toast and strong tea. They might like picnics in forests."

"Now that's what I mean to say. It's what you fancy, eh? Well, this is my fancy. Now you tell me yours."

And before I realized it I was telling her. She listened. "And you saw that forest, did you? And you saw this castle? And you was took there, was you? I know, it was by the lady who comes."

"Matty," I said excitedly, "did you know that if you break a wishbone and get the bigger half you can have three wishes?"

"Oh yes, that's an old trick, that is. When we was little now and then we'd have a bird ... a regular treat that was. There'd be the plucking and the stuffing ... and when it was done a regular fight between us little 'uns for the wishbone."

"Did you ever wish? Did your wishes come true?"

She was silent for a while and then she said: "Yes. I reckon I had a good life. Yes, I reckon my wishes come true."

"Do you think mine will?"

"Yes, I reckon so. One of these days it'll all come right for you. She's a mighty pretty lady what comes to see you."

"She's beautiful," I said. "And he ..."

"Who's he, dearie?"

I thought: I'm talking to much. I mustn't ... even to Matty. I had a fear that if I talked I would discover that it had not really happened and that I had only dreamed it.

"Oh, nothing," I said.

"You're burning the toast. Never mind. Scrape that black off in the sink."

I scraped the burned part from the broad and buttered it. I made and poured out the tea. Then I sat for a while watching the pictures in the fire. I saw the wood there glowing red and blue and yellow. And there was the castle.

Then suddenly the ashes fell into the grate and the picture collapsed. I knew it was time I went. Aunt Amelia would be missing me and asking questions.

Christmas was almost upon us. The children went into the woods to gather holly and ivy to decorate the schoolroom. Miss Brent set up a postbox in the hall of her house and we would slip in our cards to our friends. The day before Christmas Eve when school broke up Miss Brent would act as postman, open the paper-covered postbox, take out the cards and, sitting at her desk, call out our names, when we would go up and collect those which were addressed to us.

We were all very excited about it. We made our own cards in the classroom and there was much whispering and giggling as we painted on scraps of paper and with great secrecy folded them and wrote on the names of those for whom the offering was intended and slipped them into the box.

On the afternoon there would be a concert. Miss Brent would play the piano and we would all sing together and those among us who had good voices would sing solos; and others would recite.

It was a great day for us all and we looked forward to it for weeks before Christmas.

More exciting to me was Miss Anabel's visit. She came the day before the school party. She had brought parcels for me which had written on them "To be opened on Christmas Day." But I was always more excited by Miss Anabel herself than what she brought.

"In the spring," she said, "we'll have another picnic."

I was delighted. "In the same place," I cried. "Will there be chicken bones?"

"Yes," she promised. "Then you can have more wishes."

"I might not get the bigger piece of bone."

"I should think you would," she said with a smile.

"Miss Anabel, will he ... will Joel be there?"

"I think he might be," she said. "You liked him, did you, Suewellyn?" she asked.

I hesitated. Like was not exactly a word one could apply to gods.

She was alarmed. "He didn't ... frighten you?"

Again I was silent and she went on: "Do you want to see him again?"

"Oh yes," I cried fervently, and she seemed satisfied.

I was sad when the fly came to take her to the station; but not so sad as usual because, although the spring was a long way ahead, it would come in time and then I had the glorious prospect of the forest before me.

Uncle William had finished the Christmas crib he had made in his woodshed and it was now in the church with a model of the Christ child lying in it. Three of the boys from school were going to be the three wise men. The vicar's son was one, because I supposed it was natural that the vicar should want him to be; Anthony Felton was another because he was the squire's grandson and his family gave liberally to the church and allowed all the garden parties and sales of work to be held on their lawns or, when it was wet, in the great hall; and Tom was the other because he had a beautiful voice. To hear that angelic voice proceeding from that rather untidy boy was like a miracle. I was glad for Tom. It was an honor. Matty was delighted about it. "His father had a voice. So did my granddaddy," she told me. "It runs in families."

Tom had stuck an enormous sprig of holly over The Sailor's Return in Matty's room, which gave it a jaunty air. I had often studied The Sailor's Return because it was the sort of picture I should not have expected Matty to have. There was something gloomy about it. It was a print and there was no color for one thing. The sailor stood at the door of the cottage with a bundle on his shoulder. His wife was staring blankly before her as though she were facing some major disaster instead of the return of a loved one. Matty had talked about the picture with tears in her eyes. It was strange that one who could laugh about the trials of real life should shed tears over the imaginary ones of someone in a picture.