Rosella
“Yes, Mother?” And a dark-eyed little girl looked down over the banisters into the hall.
“I want you to get ready quickly and go to the Moat House, and persuade Grandfather to come back with you this afternoon instead of waiting until the evening.”
“But if he invites me to tea with him?”
“Don’t stay, dearie. I want you back before dusk, and it gets dark so soon now; and you must help me to tie the crackers on the Christmas-tree. It’s still sunny, so make haste.”
In a few minutes the child was tripping downstairs, smart and cosy in her red coat, hat, and muff, with all the importance of her nine years.
“Go the shortest way—you know; keep to the path across the moor,” continued her mother, “or you might fall over bits of rock under the snow.”
“Do you know, Mother, I always wonder, when there’s snow, where all the grass is and what’s underneath? All killed by the freeze?”
“Oh no. The snow keeps everything nice and warm,” replied her mother with a kiss.
Davis, the portly butler, advanced and opened the front door.
“Being above the snow doesn’t keep me nice and warm, Mother,” called back Rosella as she ran laughing down the steps into the icy north wind, which blew her dark hair out to its full length and heightened the warm colour in her cheeks.
“Make haste, and you’ll be there in half-an-hour.” Mrs. Silverton returned to her boudoir, and standing at the bow-window followed with loving eyes the graceful little red figure, until at a bend in the road it turned, gaily waved a farewell, and was lost to sight.
When Rosella reached the moor the high wind was against her, blowing her frock between her knees and making her eyes water. “This way will be very difficult and unpleasant,” she thought to herself. “I’d far rather go round by the hill, and then, too, I could see if Grandfather has got the Snow Castle on the top finished and ready for to-morrow—I forgot about that when Mother said to go across the moor. I should so like to see it—I wonder if I might!”
She stood irresolute for a moment, then left the straight path and started running, in order to save time, in the other direction: thus making for the hill which she intended to climb.
The sun became obscured, and what was worse, down from the leaden yellow sky tiny snowflakes began to flutter as though in play, rapidly increasing in size and volume until, as if by magic, Rosella found herself enveloped in a blinding snowstorm that obscured the landscape, and decided her to return home. But returning home was not so easy as turning herself round, and she soon had the growing conviction that no matter which way she turned she was lost, utterly lost: for all that she could see was that she no longer seemed to be dressed in red, but was thickly coated in white.
Twice she tripped over the uneven ground, but she stumbled along hopefully and bravely, and even tried to sing, only the snowflakes got into her mouth and made her shut it up tight.
Rosella had no idea where she was, and she felt very tired. How she wished now she had gone straight forward! There would have been no difficulty about that. By good luck she came close up to a large piece of overhanging rock; she did not remember ever seeing it before, so she was more than ever confused as to the whereabouts of the hill or of anything; but it was good for shelter. She placed her muff in a niche above her head, and sat down to rest awhile and consider what she had best do.
The wind howled around her only partially sheltered retreat, and myriads of snowflakes, drifting in, fell softly about her, creeping closer and closer, covering her boots, lying thickly on her frock, on her shoulders, drifting, too, into her eyes and making them blink, and powdering her hair with white. And she felt too cold to think—too cold to move.
After a while Rosella exclaimed: “This won’t do. I must get up from here. It’s such a dreadfully cold place!” And she determined to try and go on, if only to keep herself warm. So she shook herself, took down her muff, and went forth.
It was snowing as much as ever, but Rosella found that the ground was no longer flat. She was on the hillside, and as she climbed she wondered anxiously how she should know which side to come down, once she was on the top, in order to find the Moat House. Then she smiled as it occurred to her how much she must now look like the tiny, red-hooded, toy figure in the glass paper weight at home which showed itself enveloped in a miniature snowstorm when it was shaken. She plodded on higher and higher.
The weather was clearing when Rosella stood on the summit of the hill, and she was lost in admiration as she gazed at the largest, grandest Snow Castle she could never have imagined. Before it, too, stood a Snow Man splendidly proportioned and set up. To her intense astonishment, as she timidly approached he bowed politely.
Rosella curtsied instinctively, then laughed as she went round to see where he had broken. But he wasn’t broken at all, for he turned too, faced her, and said—
“I need hardly introduce myself, Rosella. I presume you recognise King Frost when you meet him in any guise. You wished to see my Castle—and gave yourself a polite invitation. You are welcome!”
She was so taken aback with the suddenness of all this that she could find no words for reply. So she made another, much lower, curtsey, which she knew to be correct in the presence of Royalty, then she took his proffered arm. And the tall white figure and the little white figure mounted the white steps, went through the massive gateway, and proceeded down a long, narrow passage lighted with a ruddy glow from the high windows, which were glazed with something red, transparent, and glistening. It was much warmer here, and Rosella noticed that the snow had melted from her clothes, and that her companion also appeared to be dressed in red. His white face with its white beard and white hair wore quite a jovial air, and on top of it was set a crown of carved ice that reminded her of their chandelier in the drawing-room.
He did the honours by offering her some snow broth, which she declined. Then she thought she ought to say something, so she remarked, with a touch of family pride—
“I had no idea that Grandfather had built such a fine place as this.”
“I think the credit is entirely mine,” protested her companion with an amused chuckle. “I provide the material, you see, or there would have been no ‘fine place’ at all. See my point?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” she assented, for she knew it wasn’t polite to argue—especially with a royal personage.
“This way!” he exclaimed, and led her down another passage on the right, and halted to push open a swing door of ice a little way, and genially patted her on the cheek—which was kindly meant no doubt, but his touch nipped her with cold so that she shivered.
“I shall be on guard outside. If you want me, call me!” Almost as soon as she heard the words the heavy door swung to behind her, and she found herself alone in a great, white, glistening hall with high arches open to the air. Evidently it was scarcely snowing now, for only little isolated flakes came fluttering in. But in their falling they changed into little shadowy girls and boys in white, who danced playfully around her, and their cold white draperies swept lightly about her face, reminding her of the blinding snowstorm she had passed through. But she only wanted to get away to her grandfather now.
Rosella sheltered her face with her muff and ran the gauntlet of the persistent little snowflakes. In a corner she espied a spiral staircase which seemed to lead up into one of the battlemented towers she had noticed outside, and she imagined it a way of escape, so up she ran. The steps were very slippery, but she got up to the top, where, through a narrow loophole, she saw King Frost down below, standing there just as she first saw him when she thought him only a Snow Man. More anxious than ever to know how to get to her grandfather, she called out—
“Your Majesty!” and repeated loudly the two words over and over again, for he either would not or could not hear her. And what was very curious, there was an echo which called back “Rosella! Rosella!” in the same anxious tone.
Talking was clearly of no use; she must do something. So she tried to squeeze her muff through the aperture in order to drop it on his head and attract his attention—but it would not go through. It stuck there and closed out her view. Try as she would she could not release it; and with a gulp in her throat she realised she would have to leave it. Her hands grew terribly cold without it, and it was too draughty to remain there.
From the landing on which she stood steps led up higher, so she proceeded to explore, and found herself in an octagonal turret chamber. “I suppose it serves me right, and I am lost, and there’s no one to help me!” sighed Rosella.
“Oh yes there is!”
“Whose voice is that?” she asked. She could see no one—but at the same moment a sunbeam pierced through an aperture, pointed straight at what appeared to be a lift behind a slender column, and then faded away. It was a lift, made of ice and snow, as was everything else in the Castle. Rosella entered it and took a seat. The lift at once began gently and slowly to go down, down, first into the foundations of the Castle, and then into the interior of the hill right down under the snow, till it stopped in a Grotto lined with cobwebs and suffused with a mysterious green light. There was a soft, singing sound, as though made by the wind. In front was a frozen lake, and the ice of it was green from the same strange light.
“I must try and find my way to Grandfather,” said Rosella vaguely as she wandered about the Grotto, looking about her for a way out.
Mrs. Silverton kept glancing anxiously at the clock and at the snowstorm. Davis entered. “Madam,” said he, with an usually solemn face, “Mr. Silverton has telephoned again from the Moat House that Miss Rosella hasn’t arrived.”
“Then she must have lost her way!” exclaimed her mother, now thoroughly alarmed. “Though I don’t see how she could, keeping straight across the moor to the Moat House gate at the end of the path. We must set out, Davis, and find her.”
“Difficult this weather, Madam, if our young lady is lost on the moor.”
“Is it still so bad?”
“The storm’s not so thick as it was. I’ll go immediately. There’s no time to be lost, to my thinking, Madam.”
“Yes, we’ll go at once, Davis.”
Mrs. Silverton, pale with anxiety, sent other messengers in various directions, and then started off herself. On the moor she met another search party headed by old Mr. Silverton and his faithful collie dog. And the moor rang with anxious cries of “Rosella! Rosella!” uttered by whitened shadowy figures that looked like phantoms in the falling snow.
“I must try and find my way to Grandfather,” repeated Rosella falteringly, realising that she didn’t know in the least how to proceed. She never had a notion that a Snow Castle was so intricate inside, with a hall, a lift, a grotto, and things; indeed, she had always imagined for no particular reason that it had no inside at all; “but of course,” she now argued, “if it has an outside it must have an inside, or it wouldn’t be an outside.” But it was much more startling when she looked up and found that she was by no means alone: the cobwebs were all inhabited. Inhabited—not by ugly spiders, but by the wee-est little baby-fairies with the wee-est gossamer wings, swaying in their cobweb hammocks in all attitudes, fast asleep, soothed by the lullaby hummed by the wind.
“This must be where they are bred!” cried Rosella, in an ecstasy of admiration and delight.
“This is Fairy Spring’s nursery,” explained a beautiful Sprite, appearing suddenly at her elbow like a little bright sunbeam. “King Frost is the ground landlord, you know, and allows all her young things to sleep here and keep warm.”
“And who are you, please?” inquired the Sprite’s young visitor.
“I am Love of Goodwill, and my father’s name is Christmas.”
“I know you by name quite well, and am so glad to see you. Perhaps you would kindly help me to find my way?”
“If you keep on going to the right, when you see the snowdrops’ mother, there you will find your landmark.”
“Oh, do please tell me more clearly. What did you say? Tell me where I”—but Rosella was again alone in the green grotto with the sleeping baby-fairies in their swaying hammocks, and the soft music of the wind. “Surely there can’t be any grown-up snowdrops at Christmas—it’s too early!—and I shall be losing my way for weeks!” continued Rosella. Nevertheless, she kept on turning to the right through upward passages first of rock, then of sand, in which were embedded deep growing roots, then of soil with its minerals, broken up leaves, and corpses of insects which she didn’t like at all; then through a passage lined with true red soil, where little grubs were lying fast asleep in their nests.
“You ugly grubby little things!” remarked Rosella as she passed them.
“They are only lying low at present. They will be lovely Painted Ladies and visit the court of Fairy Spring,” replied Love of Goodwill, hovering again at her side. “And look! There are the baby snowdrops asleep in their earthy cots. They, too, will awake soon and get up. I helped their mother to get up as she was in such a hurry to see the world. I’m afraid she will have got nipped by King Frost for her impatience. Farewell—I must go and see what is happening.”
Rosella followed the sunbeam—into which the Sprite had vanished—and at once felt the keen air blowing on her face, and knew she was above ground once more. Everything was all white again. She sat down upon a piece of rock to rest, and noticed the sunbeam pointing straight at a little woe-begone snowdrop sticking up out of the snow before her. And to her joy the Snow Man was close by calling “Rosella! Rosella!” in the echo’s anxious tone she had heard before—so he must have wanted her then, badly.
“Yes, your Majesty!” she murmured.
He bent over her kindly. “There, little lady,” he continued, “drink some of this now!” and something cold yet stinging was poured gently down her throat.
“Thank you, your Majesty. I did feel tired and queer, but your snow broth has made me all right.” She said it quite gratefully. Then her eyes opened wide and she cried in amazement—
“Grandfather! Why it’s you! You were the Snow Man all the time! And look! there’s my muff up there that I left in the wall!”
“But for that sticking up we might never have found our little treasure,” replied old Mr. Silverton. He picked her up and, holding her aloft, showed her to her anxious mother, who came hurrying on the scene.
“Don’t shiver so, dearie,” exclaimed Mrs. Silverton, passionately embracing the child, as hot tears dropped on her daughter’s face. “You must be perished with cold, but this nice sunshine which has come out now will do you good.”
“I didn’t feel cold. It was quite nice and warm under the snow as you said, Mother—and so wonderful!”
Davis carried her home in triumph at the head of the procession; and after precautionary remedies had been taken, Rosella sat cosily tucked up in the big arm-chair in front of the huge log fire, thinking over all she had seen. Of course she confessed to her temptation to go astray, and was readily forgiven. Then, as Mr. Silverton insisted he had never in his life been any one else but himself, Rosella gaily recounted her meeting with the Snow Man at his Snow Castle. “And King Frost said, Grandfather,” concluded Rosella, “that the credit of the Castle was his for providing the snow and not yours.”
“Bless my soul!” cried old Mr. Silverton. “And he was right there, because I’ve had nothing to do with any Snow Castle or any Snow Man—there was some talk, but nothing came of it.”
“But I was King Frost’s visitor there, don’t you see,” insisted Rosella, smiling. “So I know that’s only one of your jokes, Grandfather.”
He smiled too and wiped his spectacles.
The next morning Rosella volunteered to fetch her grandfather and introduce him to King Frost. So the two climbed the hill. But no vestige of Snow Castle or Snow Man was there.
“There, you see!” said her grandfather, laughing, as he genially patted her on the cheek. How cold his hand felt! It nipped her with cold, so that she shivered. Yet the weather had changed, and it was more like a sunny day in spring than in midwinter.
She left old Mr. Silverton at his gate, and he assured her with a kiss that he wasn’t a bit disappointed at the wonderful disappearance, but that it was all certainly a very remarkable affair indeed.
Rosella thought so too. Then she turned and walked thoughtfully home.