FullReads

‘Of course!’ said Andy.

‘Did he tell you about finding a lost child and the fairy with it?’

‘Yes,’ said Andy; ‘I told him all about that.’

‘And the fairy was just going to take the child away when Andy found it, and when the fairy saw Andy she flew away.’

‘Yes,’ I said; ‘that’s what Andy told me.’

‘And what did you say the fairy was like, Andy?’ asked Mrs Head, fixing her eyes on his face.

‘Like. It was like one of them angels you see in Bible pictures, Mrs Head,’ said Andy promptly, sitting bolt upright, and keeping his big innocent grey eyes fixed on hers lest she might think he was telling lies. ‘It was just like the angel in that Christ-in-the-stable picture we had at home on the station–the right-hand one in blue.’

She smiled. You couldn’t call it an idiotic smile, nor the foolish smile you see sometimes in melancholy mad people. It was more of a happy childish smile.

‘I was so foolish at first, and gave poor Walter and the doctors a lot of trouble,’ she said. ‘Of course it never struck me, until afterwards, that the fairies had taken the children.’

She pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands to her forehead, and sat so for a while; then she roused herself again–

‘But what am I thinking about? I haven’t started to tell you about the children at all yet. Auntie! bring the children’s portraits, will you, please? You’ll find them on my dressing-table.’

The old woman seemed to hesitate.

‘Go on, Auntie, and do what I ask you,’ said Mrs Head. ‘Don’t be foolish. You know I’m all right now.’

‘You mustn’t take any notice of Auntie, Mr Ellis,’ she said with a smile, while the old woman’s back was turned. ‘Poor old body, she’s a bit crotchety at times, as old women are. She doesn’t like me to get talking about the children. She’s got an idea that if I do I’ll start talking nonsense, as I used to do the first year after the children were lost. I was very foolish then, wasn’t I, Walter?’

‘You were, Maggie,’ said the Boss. ‘But that’s all past. You mustn’t think of that time any more.’

‘You see,’ said Mrs Head, in explanation to me, ‘at first nothing would drive it out of my head that the children had wandered about until they perished of hunger and thirst in the Bush. As if the Bush Fairies would let them do that.’

‘You were very foolish, Maggie,’ said the Boss; ‘but don’t think about that.’

The old woman brought the portraits, a little boy and a little girl: they must have been very pretty children.

‘You see,’ said Mrs Head, taking the portraits eagerly, and giving them to me one by one, ‘we had these taken in Sydney some years before the children were lost; they were much younger then. Wally’s is not a good portrait; he was teething then, and very thin. That’s him standing on the chair. Isn’t the pose good? See, he’s got one hand and one little foot forward, and an eager look in his eyes. The portrait is very dark, and you’ve got to look close to see the foot. He wants a toy rabbit that the photographer is tossing up to make him laugh. In the next portrait he’s sitting on the chair–he’s just settled himself to enjoy the fun. But see how happy little Maggie looks! You can see my arm where I was holding her in the chair. She was six months old then, and little Wally had just turned two.’

She put the portraits up on the mantel-shelf.

‘Let me see; Wally (that’s little Walter, you know)–Wally was five and little Maggie three and a half when we lost them. Weren’t they, Walter?’

‘Yes, Maggie,’ said the Boss.

‘You were away, Walter, when it happened.’

‘Yes, Maggie,’ said the Boss–cheerfully, it seemed to me–‘I was away.’

‘And we couldn’t find you, Walter. You see,’ she said to me, ‘Walter–Mr Head–was away in Sydney on business, and we couldn’t find his address. It was a beautiful morning, though rather warm, and just after the break-up of the drought. The grass was knee-high all over the run. It was a lonely place; there wasn’t much bush cleared round the homestead, just a hundred yards or so, and the great awful scrubs ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles–fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break; didn’t they, Walter?’