Part 16 (1/2)

She did look so pretty; she was all in white, and she had a rose--one of the lovely roses I had been admiring as we ran--fastened to the front of her dress.

”Mamma, mamma,” I exclaimed, as I hugged her, ”oh, mamma, I am so happy to be with you. Is this your garden, mamma, and may we stay with you always now? Wasn't it good of the lions to bring us? I have been so unhappy, mamma--somebody said you would get ill far away. But n.o.body could get ill here. Oh, mamma, you will let us stay always.”

She did not speak, but looking at Haddie I saw a change in his face.

”Geraldine,” he said, ”I told you we couldn't stay long. The lions would be scolded if we did, and you know you must say your French poetry.”

And then there came over me the most agonising feeling of disappointment and misery. All the pent-up wretchedness of the last weeks at school woke up and overwhelmed me like waves of dark water. It is as impossible for me to put this into words as it was for me to describe my exquisite happiness, for no words ever succeed in expressing the intense and extraordinary sensations of some dreams. And of course, as you will have found out by this time, the strange adventures I have been relating were those of a dream, though I still, after all the years that have pa.s.sed since then, remember them so vividly.

It was the fatal words ”French poetry” that seemed to awake me--to bring back my terrible unhappiness, exaggerated by the fact of my dreaming.

”French poetry,” I gasped, ”oh, Haddie, how can you remind me of it?”

Haddie suddenly turned away, and I saw the face of one of the lions looking over his shoulder, with, strange to say, a white frilled cap surrounding it.

”You must try to drink this, my dear,” said the lion, if the lion it was, for as I stared at him the brown face changed into a rather ruddy one--a round good-humoured face, with pleasant eyes and smile, reminding me of mamma's old nurse who had once come to see us.

I stared still more, and sat up a little, for, wonderful to relate, I was no longer in the lovely garden, no longer even in the show-room leaning against the lion: I was in bed in a strange room which I had never seen before. And leaning over me was the owner of the frilled cap, holding a gla.s.s in her hand.

”Try to drink this, my dearie,” she said again, and then I knew it was not the lion but this stranger who had already spoken to me.

I felt very tired, and I sank back again upon the pillow. What did it all mean? Where was I? Where had I been? I asked myself this in a vague sleepy sort of way, but I was too tired to say it aloud, and before I could make up my mind to try I fell asleep again.

The room seemed lighter the next time I opened my eyes. It was in fact nearly the middle of the day, and a fine day--as clear as it ever was in Great Mexington. I felt much better and less tired now, almost quite well, except for a slight pain in my throat which told me I must have caught cold, as my colds generally began in my throat.

”I wonder if it was with riding so far in the night,” I first said to myself, with a confused remembrance of my wonderful dream. ”I didn't feel at all cold on the lion's back, and in the garden it was lovelily warm.”

Then, as my waking senses quite returned, I started. It had been only a dream--oh dear, oh dear! But still, _something_ had happened--I was certainly not in my little bed in the corner of the room I shared with Emma and Harriet Smith at Green Bank. When had my dream begun, or was I still dreaming?

I raised myself a little, very softly, for now I began to remember the good-humoured face in the frilled cap, and I thought to myself that unless its owner were a dream too, perhaps she was still in the room, and I wanted to look about me first on my own account.

What there was to see was very pleasant and very real. I felt quite sure I was not dreaming now, wherever I was. It was a large old-fas.h.i.+oned room, with red curtains at the two windows and handsome dark wood furniture. There was a fire burning cheerfully in the grate and the windows looked very clean, even though there was a prospect of chimney-tops to be seen out of the one nearest to me, which told me I was still in a town. And then I began to distinguish sounds outside, though here in this room it was so still. There were lots of wheels pa.s.sing, some going quickly, some lumbering along with heavy slowness--it was much noisier than at Miss Ledbury's or at my own old home. Here I seemed to be in the very heart of a town. I began to recall the events of the day before more clearly. Yes, up to the time I remembered leaning against the carved lion in Mr. Cranston's show-room all had been real, I felt certain. I recollected with a little s.h.i.+ver the scene in the drawing-room at Green Bank, and how they had all refused to believe I was speaking the truth when I declared that the French poetry had entirely gone out of my head. And then there was the making up my mind that I could bear school no longer, and the secretly leaving the house, and at last losing my way in the streets.

I had meant to go to Mrs. Selwood's, or at least to get her address and write to her--but where was I now?--what should I do?

My head grew dizzy again with trying to think, and a faint miserable feeling came over me and I burst into tears.

I did not cry loudly. But there was some one watching in the room who would have heard even a fainter sound than that of my sobs--some one sitting behind my bed-curtains whom I had not seen, who came forward now and leant over me, saying, in words and voice which seemed curiously familiar to me,

”Geraldine, my poor little girl.”

CHAPTER XI.

KIND FRIENDS.

It was Miss Fenmore. I knew her again at once. And she called me ”my poor little girl”--the very words she had used when she said good-bye to me and looked so sorry before she went away for the Easter holidays, never to come back, though she did not then know it, to Green Bank.

”You remember me, dear?” she said, in the sweet tones I had loved to hear. ”Don't speak if you feel too ill or if it tires you. But don't feel frightened or unhappy, though you are in a strange place--everything will be right.”