The Tapestry Room. Mrs. Molesworth

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СКАЧАТЬ hope you will like your room, chéri," said Jeanne, with a tiny tone of patronising. "It is not very far from mine, and mamma says we can keep all our toys and books together in my big cupboard in the passage."

      Hugh looked at Jeanne for a moment without speaking. "What was that name you called me just now, Jeanne?" he asked, after a little pause.

      Jeanne thought for a minute.

      "'Mon cousin,' was it that?" she said. "Oh no, I remember, it was 'chéri.' I cannot say your name—I have tried all these days. I cannot say it better than 'Ee-ou,' which is not pretty."

      She screwed her rosy little mouth into the funniest shape as she tried to manage "Hugh." Hugh could hardly help laughing.

      "Never mind," he said. "I like 'chéri' ever so much better. I like it better than 'mon cousin' or any name, because, do you know," he added, dropping his voice a little, "I remember now, though I had forgotten till you said it—that was the name mamma called me by."

      "Chéri!" repeated Jeanne, stopping half-way up the staircase to throw her arms round Hugh's neck at the greatest risk to the equilibrium of the whole party, including the guinea-pig—"Chéri! I shall always call you so, then. You shall be my Prince Chéri. Don't you love fairy stories, mon cousin?"

      "Awfully," said Hugh, from the bottom of his soul.

      

'ISN'T IT A FUNNY ROOM, CHÉRI?'—p. 25

"I knew you would," said Jeanne triumphantly. "And oh, so do I! Marcelline says, Chéri, that the tapestry room—that's the room you're going to have—is full of fairy stories. I wonder if you'll find out any of them. You must tell me if you do."

      "The tapestry room?" repeated Hugh; "I don't think I ever saw a tapestry room. Oh," he added, as a sudden recollection struck him, "is it like what that queen long ago worked about the battles and all that? I mean all about William the Conqueror."

      "No," said Jeanne, "it's quite different from that work. I've seen that, so I know. It isn't pretty at all. It's just long strips of linen with queer-shaped horses and things worked on. Not at all pretty. And I think the pictures on the walls of your room are pretty. Here it is. Isn't it a funny room, Chéri?"

      She opened the door of the tapestry room as she spoke, for while chattering they had mounted the staircase and made their way along the corridor. Hugh followed his little cousin into the room, and stood gazing round him with curious surprise and pleasure. The walls were well lighted up, for Marcelline had carried a lamp upstairs and set it down on the table, and a bright fire was burning in the wide old-fashioned hearth.

      "Jeanne," said Hugh, after a minute's silence, "Jeanne, it is very funny, but, do you know, I am sure I have seen this room before. I seem to know the pictures on the walls. Oh, how nice they are! I didn't think that was what tapestry meant. Oh, how glad I am this is to be my room—is yours like this too, Jeanne?"

      Jeanne shook her head.

      "Oh no, Chéri," she said. "My room has a nice paper—roses and things like that running up and down. I am very glad my room is not like this. I don't think I should like to see all these funny creatures in the night. You don't know how queer they look in the moonlight. They quite frightened me once."

      Hugh opened his blue eyes very wide.

      "Frightened you?" he said. "I should never be frightened at them. They are so nice and funny. Just look at those peacocks, Jeanne. They are lovely."

      Jeanne still shook her head.

      "I don't think so," she said. "I can't bear those peacocks. But I'm very glad you like them, Chéri."

      "I wish it was moonlight to-night," continued Hugh. "I don't think I should go to sleep at all. I would lie awake watching all the pictures. I dare say they look rather nice in the firelight too, but still not so nice as in the moonlight."

      "No, Monsieur," said Marcelline, who had followed the children into the room. "A moonlight night is the time to see them best. It makes the colours look quite fresh again. Mademoiselle Jeanne has never looked at the tapestry properly by moonlight, or she would like it better."

      "I shouldn't mind with Chéri," said Jeanne. "You must call me some night when it's very pretty, Chéri, and we'll look at it together."

      Marcelline smiled and seemed pleased, which was rather funny. Most nurses would have begun scolding Jeanne for dreaming of such a thing as running about the house in the middle of the night to admire the moonlight on tapestry or on anything else. But then Marcelline certainly was rather a funny person.

      "And the cochon de Barbarie, where is he to sleep, Monsieur?" she said to Hugh.

      Hugh looked rather distressed.

      "I don't know," he said. "At home he slept in his little house on a sort of balcony there was outside my window. But there isn't any balcony here—besides, it's so very cold, and he's quite strange, you know."

      He looked at Marcelline, appealingly.

      "I daresay, while it is so cold, Madame would not mind if we put him in the cupboard in the passage," she said; but Jeanne interrupted her.

      "Oh no," she said. "He would be far better in the chickens' house. It's nice and warm, I know, and his cage can be in one corner. He wouldn't be nearly so lonely, and to-morrow I'll tell Houpet and the others that they must be very kind to him. Houpet always does what I tell him."

      "Who is Houpet?" said Hugh.

      "He's my pet chicken," replied Jeanne. "They're all pets, of course, but he's the most of a pet of all. He lives in the chicken-house with the two other little chickens. O Chéri," she added, glancing round, and seeing that Marcelline had left the room, "do let us run out and peep at Houpet for a minute. We can go through the tonnelle, and the chickens' house is close by."

      She darted off as she spoke, and Hugh, nothing loth, his precious Nibble still in his arms, followed her. They ran down the long corridor, on to which opened both the tapestry room and Jeanne's room at the other end, through a small sort of anteroom, and then—for though they were upstairs, the garden being built in terraces was at this part of the house on a level with the first floor—then straight out into what little Jeanne called "the tonnelle."

      Hugh stood still and gazed about him with delight and astonishment.

      "O Jeanne," he exclaimed, "how pretty it is! oh, how very pretty!"

      Jeanne stopped short in her progress along the tonnelle.

      "What's pretty?" she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Do you mean the garden with the snow?"

      "No, no, that's pretty too, but I mean the trees. Look up, Jeanne, do."

      There was no moonlight, but the light from the windows streamed out to where the children stood, and shone upon the beautiful icicles on the branches above their heads. For the tonnelle was a kind of arbour—a long covered passage made by trees at each side, whose boughs had been trained to meet and interlace overhead. СКАЧАТЬ