Elizabeth Goudge The Little White Horse

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patchwork quilt, a carved chest and a shelf for books. Upon the further side of the room was another
archway, with no door this time. Maria would have liked to linger here a while, and see what books
Robin had on his shelf, but he wouldn't let her.
"Come straight to Mother and get dry," he commanded, and led the way to the second archway.
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Maria followed him and found herself on a very narrow flight of steps, leading downward into
Loveday Minette's bedroom.
"Robin!" she cried in delight and astonishment. "Robin! Is Loveday Minette your mother?"
"Of course," said Robin matter-of-factly.
"And I thought Loveday must have a fairy husband," said Maria, "because of these narrow steps.
But it's you she must have been talking about when she said he.""
"My father wasn't a fairy," said Robin. "He was a mortal man, a lawyer. He wasn't a valley man. He
and my mother lived in the market town right away on the other side of Paradise Hill. He died when
I was only four years old and then my mother came back to live in the Moonacre Valley. Because,
you see, she had lived in this valley before she married and people who have once lived here can
never be happy anywhere else."
They had reached Loveday's bedroom now and he called down the stairs to the room below,
"Mother, are you there? Maria is here, and she's very wet."
"Coming," called Loveday's silvery voice, and in a moment she was with them, trim and lovely and
looking ridiculously young to be Robin's mother.
"Go downstairs, Robin," she said, "and put on the dry clothes that are airing for you in front of the
fire."
Robin obeyed, and Loveday and Maria were left alone in Loveday's bedroom.
"Take off your wet things at once, Maria," Loveday commanded in bustling motherly tones. "I have
a dress that will fit you exactly. It has never been worn. It is not shabby like that old riding habit of
mine that you wear."
Maria, in the middle of taking off her wet green dress, stopped and peeped through its folds at
Loveday on her knees before the oak chest, rummaging in its depths for the dress that had never
been worn.
"Now I know," she said. "You come to the manor house in the mornings, don't you, Loveday, while
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I am still asleep, and lay out my clothes for me? And my prayer book is yours. And you made those
lovely things for my dear Miss Heliotrope. Oh, Loveday, what makes you so good to me?"
"The night you arrived," said Loveday, "I opened the big door under the stone archway and let you
in. You didn't see me but I saw you, and I loved you as though you were my own daughter."
"And the moment I saw you," said Maria, "I loved you as thought you were my mother. Oh,
Loveday, why don't you wake me up and kiss me when you come to my room in the early
mornings?"
"I will, now," said Loveday. "You see, I came secretly. I wanted no one to know that I came. Sir
Benjamin and Marmaduke Scarlet cannot bear a woman about the place. Until you arrived it was
their boast that no female had ever set foot in the manor house for twenty years. You must not tell
them that I come, Maria."
"I won't tell," Maria promised. "But, Loveday, who lets you in?"
"Zachariah the cat," said Loveday.
"Oh," said Maria, and pulled off her green dress and her wet shoes and stockings and stood before
Loveday with her shapely small white feet peeping out from beneath her white muslin petticoat.
Loveday rose from her knees and came towards Maria with something white and shimmering in her
arms. She put it over her head and pulled it down around her, and Maria saw that it was an exquisite
dress of moony white satin. It was the loveliest dress she had ever seen and she gasped with delight
as Loveday hooked it up. It was a perfect fit.
"It is a wedding dress," said Loveday. "But I never wore it."
"But why not?" asked the puzzled Maria. "Fancy having a lovely dress like this and then not
wearing it at your
wedding after all."
"The man I was going to marry when I made this dress was not the man I did marry," explained
Loveday. "I was betrothed to a rich gentleman once, and I made this dress for my wedding with
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him. Then we quarreled and I did not marry him after all. I married a poor gentleman, in a dress of
sprigged muslin that was more suited to my bridegroom's lot in life. You look charming, my
darling. Look at yourself in the glass."
Maria went towards the old mirror of polished silver, not frightened this time because Loveday was
standing just behind her, looking over her shoulder and laughing, and she saw their two happy faces
side by side. That moony radiance that was the gift of the glass to the faces it mirrored gave them a
sisterly likeness that rejoiced their hearts.
"Don't we look alike?" cried Maria. "I'm plain and you are beautiful, but yet in this glass we look
alike."
"We are alike," said Loveday. "But don't make my mistakes, Maria, whatever you do."
"What were your mistakes?" asked Maria. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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