Mrs. Molesworth - Tell Me a Story

“No,” said Louisa sadly; “my papa sometimes calls me his pet, and sometimes he calls me ‘old woman,’ but he never says I am his queen. I suppose I am not pretty enough.”

“I don’t know,” said Frances, consideringly, “I don’t think you’re ugly exactly. Perhaps if you asked your papa to get you a Princess’s dress – ”

“He wouldn’t,” said Louisa decidedly, “I know he wouldn’t. It would not be the least use asking him. Tell me more about yours – what is it like, and does it make you feel like a real princess when you have it on?”

“I suppose it makes me look like one,” replied Frances complacently, “and as for feeling, why one can always fancy, you know.”

“Fancying isn’t enough,” said Louisa. “I know I should dreadfully like to be a princess or a queen. It is the first thing I would ask a fairy. Perhaps you don’t wish it so much because every one pets you so, and thinks you so pretty. Has your dress got silver and gold on it?”

“O yes, at least it has silver – silver spots,” began Frances eagerly, but just then her mamma turned to tell her that they must go. “The little people have made friends very quickly after all, you see,” she said to Louisa’s mamma. “Some day you must really bring Louisa to see Frances – it has been such an old promise.”

“It is not often I can leave home for a whole day,” said Louisa’s mamma; “and then, dear, you must remember not having a carriage makes a difference.”

Louisa’s cheeks grew red. She felt very vexed with her mamma for telling Mrs Gordon they had no carriage, but of course she did not venture to say anything, so no one noticed her. She was not sorry when Mrs Gordon and Frances said good-bye and went away.

That same evening, a little before bed-time, Louisa happened to be again in the drawing-room alone with her mother.

“Louisa,” said her mother, who was sewing at the table, “you did not leave my workbox as neat as usual this morning. I suppose it was because you were interrupted by Frances Gordon. Come here, dear, and take the box and put it on a chair near the fire and arrange it rightly. Here is a whole collection of reels rolling about. Put them all in their places.”

Louisa did as she was told, but without speaking. Indeed she had been very silent all day, but her mother had been occupied with other things and had not noticed her particularly. Louisa quietly put the reels into their places, giving the most comfortable corners to her favourites as usual, and huddling some of the others together rather unceremoniously. Then she sat down on the hearth-rug, and began to think of what Frances Gordon had said to her, and to wish all sorts of not very wise things. She felt herself at last growing drowsy, so she leant her little round head on the chair beside her, and was almost asleep, when she heard her mother say, “Louisa, my dear, you are getting sleepy, you must really go to bed.”

“Yes, mamma,” she said, or intended to say, but the words sounded faint and dreamlike, and before they were fully pronounced she was fairly asleep!

She remembered nothing more for what seemed a very long time – then to her surprise she found herself already undressed and in her own little bed! “Nurse must have carried me upstairs and undressed me,” she thought, and she opened her eyes very wide to see if it was still the middle of the night. No, surely it could not be; the room was quite light, yet where was the light coming from? It was not coming in at the window – there was no window to be seen; the curtains were drawn across, and no tiny chink even was visible; there was no lamp or candle in the room, – the light was simply there, but where it came from Louisa could not discover. She got tired of wondering about it at last, and was composing herself to sleep again, when suddenly a small but very clear voice called her by name. “Louisa, Louisa,” it said. She did not feel at all frightened. She half raised herself in bed and exclaimed, “Who is speaking to me? what do you want?”

“Louisa, Louisa,” the voice repeated, “would you like to be a queen?”

“Very much indeed, thank you,” Louisa replied promptly.

“Then rub your eyes and look about you,” said the voice.

Louisa rubbed her eyes and looked about her to some purpose, for what do you think she saw? All the white counterpane of her little bed was covered with tiny figures, of various sizes, from one inch to three or four in height. They were hopping, and dancing, and twirling themselves about in every imaginable way, like nothing anybody ever saw before, or since, or ever will again.

“Fairies!” thought Louisa at once, and without any feeling of overwhelming surprise, for, like most children, she had always been hoping, and indeed half expecting, that some day an adventure of this kind would fall to her share.

“Yes, fairies,” said the same voice as before, which seemed to hear her thoughts as distinctly as if she had spoken them; “but what kind of fairies? Look at us again, Louisa.”

Louisa opened her eyes wider and stared harder. There were all kinds of fairies, gentlemen and ladies, little and big; but as she looked she saw that every one of them, without exception, wore a curious sort of round stiff jacket, more like a little barrel than anything else. It gave them a queer high-shouldered look, very like the little figures of Noah and his family in toy arks; but as Louisa was staring at them the mystery was explained. A big, rather clumsy-looking gentleman fairy, stopped for a moment in his gymnastics, and Louisa read on the ledge round his shoulders the familiar words “Clarke and Company’s best six-cord, extra quality, Number 12.”

“I know,” she cried, clapping her hands; “you’re mamma’s reels!”

At these words a sensation ran through the company; they all stood stock-still, and Louisa began to feel a little afraid.

“She says,” exclaimed the voice, “she says we’re her mamma’s reels !”

There fell a dead silence; Louisa expected to be sentenced to undergo capital punishment on the spot. “It’s too bad,” she said to herself, “it’s too bad; they asked me to guess who they were.”

“She says,” continued the voice, “she says ‘it’s too bad.’ What is too bad? My friends, let the deputation stand forward.”

Instantly about a dozen fairies separated themselves from the others and advanced, slowly marching two and two up the counterpane, till having made their way across the various hills and valleys formed by Louisa’s little figure under the bedclothes, they drew up just in front of her nose. Foremost of the deputation she recognised, the one clad in pink satin, the other in glistening white, her two favourites the Princesses Blanche and Rose.

“Beautiful Louisa,” said the deputation, all speaking at once, “we have come to ask you to be our queen.”

“Thank you,” said Louisa, not knowing what else to say.

“She consents!” exclaimed the deputation, “let the royal chariot appear.”

Thereupon there suddenly started up in the middle of the bed, as large as life, but no larger, her mamma’s big workbox! The fairies all clambered on to it with a rush, and hung upon it in every direction, like bees on a hive, or firemen on a fire-engine; and no sooner were they all mounted than the workbox slowly glided along till it was close to Louisa’s face.

“Will your majesty please to get in?” said one of the fairies, “Clarke’s Number 12, extra quality,” I think it was.

“How can I?” said Louisa piteously, “how can I? I’m far too big. How can I get into a workbox?”

“Please to rub your eyes and try,” said the big fairy, “right foot foremost, if you please.”