Chapter VI: Una Asks a Question

That afternoon, as soon as dinner was over and Marie had settled herself for her afternoon nap, Una slipped through the gap in the fence--how well she knew it now!--and started off by herself to try and find again the door into Fairyland.

On she ran, until she came to a place where three paths met, and was uncertain which to take.

A yellow butterfly, dancing gaily along one of the paths, decided her, and Una followed it gleefully.

"Perhaps it's a fairy sent to meet me," she thought.

At last she came to the stump of a tree where Marie had rested, and from there she soon found her way to the old wall in which was the secret door.

It took her longer to find the door than the little girl had expected. The ivy grew so thickly over the wall that she had to walk quite a long way--pushing aside the branches and peering between the leaves--before she found the little door once more.

Then she pulled away the twisted branches of the ivy which had grown across the door, and turned the handle timidly.

For a moment she thought the door was locked; then she heard a queer sort of grating sound and something fell on the other side of the wall. Una pulled once more, and the door opened slowly towards her.

What the little girl saw on the other side of the wall was so lovely that she gave a gasp of delight, and then stood, quite still, looking through the small doorway.

As far as she could see was a long bower of lovely pink and white flowers. Hundreds of bees hummed amongst the blossoms; but to Una the buzzing sounded like hundreds of tiny voices, and she thought she heard the fairies talking.

"Fairies! Fairies!" she called softly. But no one answered, and very soon the little girl stepped through the doorway and walked down the apple-blossom path, looking from side to side to see if there were any fairies hiding near.

On she went, until the pink and white bower turned into a wide walk with masses of gay May flowers on either side, and this in turn ended in a big square garden with stone walks and bright flower-beds, and a fountain sparkling in the midst.

In the stone basin of the fountain were pretty gold and silver fish.

"Fairy fishes!" Una thought, for she had never seen goldfish before, and she was still bending over the basin when she heard a tap, tap, tap on the stone pathway, and, turning quickly, saw a very small, very old lady coming towards her.

"A fairy godmother," thought Una. "I didn't know they lived in Fairyland."

Then she went to meet the old lady, giving a quaint little curtsey and waiting for her to speak.

"Well, little girl," said the old lady kindly, "and who are you?"

"I'm Una," said the child gravely.

Then she gave a sudden jump in the air.

"Oh, fairy-godmother, how kind of you--there's my puppy dog!" she cried, as a fat retriever puppy gambolled down the path and flung itself playfully upon her.

The old lady looked amused.

"A fairy godmother, am I?" she said, smiling. "What can I do for you, then?"

"Oh, such a lot of things!" said Una. Then a surprised look came into her face: "Why, here's an old gentleman!" she said. "I didn't know there were fairy godfathers too. Do you live in Fairyland together?"

The old lady laughed outright.

"Dear child, do you think this is Fairyland?" she asked.

"_Isn't it_ Fairyland?" said Una. "Oh, dear, I thought it must be when I came through the little door."

"The little door?" said the old lady. "Where is that?"

"The door in the wall," said Una. "I found it yesterday when I was in the wood, and I thought it was one of the doors to Fairyland."

"Ah! the little door at the end of the apple walk," said the old lady "I had almost forgotten it, it is so long since it has been used--and I thought it was locked, too," she added, half to herself. "Edward," she said, raising her voice a little as she spoke to the old gentleman, "here is a little girl who has found her way into our garden thinking it was Fairyland."

"And a very nice kind of Fairyland too," said the old gentleman, "especially when this kind of little fairy comes to visit us," and he held out his hand to Una kindly.

"You are the little girl from the Grange, are you not?" asked the old lady; then, remembering some rather queer tales she had heard of the new people at the Grange, she asked no more questions, but said that tea would soon be ready, and invited Una to stay and have it with them.

After all it was almost as nice as being in Fairyland, Una thought, as they sat under a large cherry tree covered with snowy blossoms, and drank tea out of the thinnest of china cups, each one shaped like a different flower, with a beetle or a bird or a butterfly for the handle. The clearest of honeycomb was on the table, which the old gentleman had sent for especially for Una; and the black puppy sat at her side all tea-time, opening his wet, black mouth for tastes of bread and butter, and rubbing his head against her knee if she forgot to give him any.

When tea was over Una looked at the sun.

"Oh, dear," she said, "the sun is getting quite low, and Marie will think I am lost."

"Dear, dear! We ought to have thought of that," said the old lady. "Will not your father be anxious also?"

"Papa is away from home for a few days," said Una.

Then she made a little curtsey.

"May I go now, please?" she asked; and the old lady walked with her as far as the little door.

"Come another afternoon to Fairyland," she said, as she stooped to kiss the little girl.

Una promised readily, and only remembered when she was half way through the wood that her father did not like her to visit at strange houses.

"I'll tell him where I've been directly he comes home to-morrow," she thought.

But when she pushed her way through the bushes in the Grange garden she saw her father coming quickly across the lawn towards her, with a short, stout gentleman beside him.

"My little girl, where have you been?" he said. "Marie came to me in great distress just now and told me that Mademoiselle Una was lost, and we have been looking for you everywhere."

"Father, dear father, don't be angry, please," said Una coaxingly; "but I've been to tea this afternoon with a dear old lady and gentleman, and they live in the loveliest garden in the world--at least I think it must be. And they want me to come again; and I do want to go very much, please, father. So don't say 'no,' as you do when I want to go to tea with Norah and Dan. Please, _please_, father, say 'yes.'"

Monsieur Gen hesitated and glanced towards his friend. But the little stout gentleman was frowning, and Una thought what a disagreeable man he was, and wished that he had not come home with her father, when they might have had such a nice evening together, just he and she alone.

"It is not wise to let the child go anywhere she likes among strangers. You know what children's tongues are like, and how easily stories get afloat," the stranger said in French.

But Una understood French as well as she understood English, and she felt very angry with the stranger for trying to persuade her father not to let her go and see the dear old lady and gentleman again.

"No, dear. You must learn to stay quietly here in the garden," said her father; and Una said no more then, but walked slowly across the lawn into the house and upstairs to the nursery, where she was scolded by old Marie for having run away by herself that afternoon.

And it was not until some hours later--after she had watched the strange gentleman driving away to the station--that she ran downstairs to the library and asked the question which had been puzzling her little brain for the last few weeks.

"Father," she said, "I want to know _why_ I mayn't go and see other little boys and girls, and go to church, and go to see the people in the cottages, as Norah and Tom and Ruth do."