Magda hardly comprehended the full meaning of this
speech. Still she gathered that her father had
left her—though not quite in the same way
as petite maman had done—and that
henceforth this autocratic old lady with the hawk’s
eyes and quick, darting movements was to be the arbiter
of her fate. She also divined, beneath Lady Arabella’s
prickly exterior, a humanness and ability to understand
which had been totally lacking in Sieur Hugh.
She proceeded to put it to the test.
“Will you let me dance?” she asked.
“Tchah!” snorted the old woman. “So
the Wielitzska blood is coming out after all!”
She turned to Virginia. “Can she dance?”
she demanded abruptly.
“Mais oui, madame!” cried Virginie, clasping
her hands ecstatically. “Like a veritable
angel!”
“I shouldn’t have thought it,” commented
her ladyship drily.
Her shrewd eyes swept the child’s tense little
face with its long, Eastern eyes and the mouth that
showed so vividly scarlet against its unchildish pallor.
“Less like an angel than anything, I should
imagine,” muttered the old woman to herself
with a wicked little grin. Then aloud: “Show
me what you can do, then, child.”
“Very well.” Magda paused, reflecting.
Then she ran forward and laid her hand lightly on
Lady Arabella’s knee. “Look!
This is the story of a Fairy who came to earth and
lost her way in the woods. She met one of the
Mortals, and he loved her so much that he wouldn’t
show her the way back to Fairyland. So”—abruptly—“she
died.”
Lady Arabella watched the child dance in astonished
silence. Technique, of course, was lacking, but
the interpretation, the telling of the story, was
amazing. It was all there—the Fairy’s
first wonder and delight in finding herself in the
woods, then her realisation that she was lost and
her frantic efforts to find the way back to Fairyland.
Followed her meeting with the Mortal and supplication
to him to guide her, and finally the Fairy’s
despair and death. Magda’s slight little
figure sank to the ground, drooping slowly like a storm-bent
snowdrop, and lay still.
Lady Arabella sat up with a jerk.
“Good gracious! The child’s a born
dancer! Lydia Tchinova must see her. She’ll
have to train. Poor Hugh!” She chuckled
enjoyably. “This will be the last straw!
He’ll be compelled to invent a new penance.”
THE FLOWERING
“You’re very trying, Magda. Everyone
is talking about you, and I’m tired of trying
to explain you to people.”
Lady Arabella paused in her knitting and spoke petulantly,
but a secret gleam of admiration in her sharp old
eyes as they rested upon her god-daughter belied the
irritation of her tones.
Magda leaned back negligently against the big black
velvet cushions in her chair and lit a cigarette.
