Mavis of Green Hill Part 7

NEW YORK CITY July 19th

Enchanted Princess:

Your letters travel so long a route to reach me that I tremble lest sometime they should grow weary and stop off permanently, on the way. Will you not send them direct to the Yale Club? I am in and out of town all week, and will always go there for my mail.

I, of course, shall have to stick to the White Mountain itinerary. But your word is law.

I was very glad to hear about the King and the Lady-in-Waiting and the Castle. Yet it is yourself I want a pen-sketch of. On second thoughts, perhaps, unconsciously, you are making it for me.

I live--but no, it would never do to tell you! I shall have to move in order to provide a poet with a less prosaic setting. I am desolate in having no Sarah to antic.i.p.ate my wants; and--no Father. However, tucked away, where no one can steal her from me, I possess a Mother! A mother with tiny hands and feet, and the prettiest red hair in the world. This is too bewildering a shade for a Mother's hair to flaunt! She has added charm to beauty by acquiring somewhere merry blue eyes, with an Irish twinkle in them. And a kindly angel has set these jewels deftly in the sweetest face. You would love her, I know, and I am generously willing to share her with you if in return I may claim a bit of your Father. Between us we could manage to own a perfectly good pair of parents, couldn't we?

But for the sake of my peace of mind, will you translate, interpret, or explain "Peter" to me?

Do tell me about your visitors! Do they come to see you--I beg your pardon! I mean, do gallant knights ever gallop up to the drawbridge on coal-black chargers, and blow l.u.s.tily on a silver trumpet, at the postern gate--whatever that is!--for admission?

And does a certain lady ever graciously bid her varlets give them entrance? Tell me this, and what you read, and what you think. And if you will whisper to me, just how many years have left you lovelier than the year before, I will confess to you that I am Way-Past-Thirty!

Yours, RICHARD WARREN

THE CASTLE July 26th

Dear Merlin:

He was an aged wizard, you know.

Your letter has been here for several days, but I have not been very well. Now I'm all-better, and the answer goes to you.

First of all, you may indeed have a small interest in Father.

This is how much you tempt me with your description of your Mother. Will you give her my love? Mother must be a very precious person. Mine I can hardly remember. But I know she was sweet and good and beautiful. It doesn't seem possible that anyone's mother could be anything else. My Mother was very young when she died, and although the lack of her is sometimes very hard to bear, I am grateful always that her eyes closed on the sight of me, st.u.r.dy, laughing, sound! Not as I am now, a bit of human wreckage. I wonder if she knows? There are moments before dawn when I seem to feel her lean over me, and her tears are on my face. But I know that G.o.d is merciful, and because of this I think the Dear Dead may not see us. Else, how were it Heaven?

Is it very hard to be Way-Past-Thirty? I am twenty-three--a great old age, if one stops to consider it.

Of course I have "Gentlemen Guests"! I am not too old for that!

There's Father, every day; and occasionally Sammy Simpson. Then there is Peter, who lives next door. He would be flattered at your interest. Peter is seven, and the proud possessor of a place where teeth once were. I regret to state that he employs this aperture for an immortal, if not conventional purpose. "It is quite easy," he once earnestly confided to me, "once you get the nick of it!" Peter, his mother, and his baby sister, are away on a visit, and I miss my little friend.

I suppose my doctor comes under the category of Male Visitor. He is sixty, very crusty, but human and dear. There's another Medical Person, too. But he doesn't count.

Good-by for a little, Merlin, Yours, THE PRINCESS

NEW YORK CITY July 29th

Your Royal Delightfulness:

I am so sorry you've not been well. I can't bear to think that you should suffer pain. What plucky creatures women are! I wonder that they are created from the same clay as great, blundering, hulks of masculinity!

When my letter remained so long unanswered, I began to fear that it had never experienced the joy of coming to you. I began to worry lest I had offended and alienated you. Indeed, Princess, I began to think all manner of dreadful things! This must never happen again, for I am sure I have a brand-new crop of grey hair!

Mind now!

Your visiting list is interesting. Sammy Simpson I approve, if only for the euphony of his name. Peter, and your grouchy physician, have charm. But who is the doctor who 'does not count'? I am always suspicious of a man when a girl says so venomous a thing about him! Do tell me! Doctors are all very well, in their way, and sometimes I think we songsters try to doctor, too, just a bit. It is of course not healing of broken bones, of wounds and fevers, that we try to bring the world, but of broken hearts, and the wounds of every day, of fevers of too much earth and restlessness. I do not suppose we can hope to cure, but perhaps we can provide, occasionally, a draught which drugs for a little into Forgetfulness.

No, Princess, I do not think that the Dead can see us. At least, not with the eyes of earth. But they watch over us, perhaps, with a clearer sight than we may know, and see beyond today and beyond the flesh, and are content, knowing with G.o.d that all things work toward eventual Good.

Now that we have brought the family into it, please remember me admiringly to your father.

Yours, RICHARD WARREN

THE CASTLE July 31st

Dear Minstrel Man:

Please, do you love _Alice_? I have been spending such a pleasant hour with her. Peter, returned from his travels, arrived this morning with my breakfast tray, and your letter. After we had exhausted the raptures of welcome, and Peter, his enunciation somewhat impaired by toast, had told me all there is to know about 'Auntie Perkins,' 'Uncle Perkins,' and the 'Fat Boarder,'

he demanded a 'story.' So, as my own inventive faculties seem a little out of repair,--I took him with me, a willing captive, to the Rabbit Hole, and beyond. Yes, I am sure you love _Alice_, Poet. No Poet could be entirely grown-up. I wish you could see my new edition of the House where she lives. It is charming, and came to me from our Fairy-G.o.dfather-Postman.

Last night I saw a shooting star. I suppose it was heralding August, the month of these flying flames. As a child I always thought that the Angels were shoeing the horses which drew the chariot of the sun, and that these were stray sparks from the Heavenly Anvil. I do not know that I was so very wrong, after all! Everything beautiful must be a spark of the Plan which is being forged in that Divine Smithy.

Do you wish on shooting stars? I do! Always the same wish. All my life, I've played at just such silly games. Perhaps we all of us do in different ways. A thousand years ago, when a certain great poet was a child, did ever he refrain from stepping on cracks, as he went whistling to school? If one is careful, you know, and reaches one's destination in triumph, it may mean much. A new hair-ribbon, absolution for a tiny sin, rice pudding for supper.

But perhaps you were never naughty. I am sure you didn't wear hair-ribbons, and--but this is hard to believe--possibly you don't like rice pudding! You couldn't resist Sarah's, I am sure!

I--I wish on hay wagons. I adore odd numbers. Particularly do I revel in thirteen. At the same time, my defiance ends there. I cannot spill salt without a shudder, and first stars and baby moons are burdened with my desires. I am sure that every wish would come true, and the veriest pebble turn an infallible talisman in my hand, if only I believed enough.

There's a sunset behaving riotously outside. I am sure that it appears much more sedate in New York!

Whimsically yours, H.R.H. ME

P.S. I forgot to answer your questions about the Other Doctor. He is thirty-two, rather tall, and most particularly exasperating.

M.

NEW YORK CITY August 4th

Dear Princess:

If Denton may send you books, so may I. In this mail three friends of mine go to you: _A Romance of the Nursery_, _Paul and Fiametta_, and Grahame's _Golden Age_. Please be kind to them. I rather think you must be like Fiametta,--a slim, brown child, with oval face, and curious, parti-colored hair dark as the oak-settle in the hall--that the sunshine burnished into brightness.

I dreamed of you last night, an adventurous dream. Some day I will write you about it. Not now!

With the books I am sending you a talisman. I hope it will bring you all you wish. Of course, I do not know, but I have told it to try. There is a secret hidden at its heart. But I do not believe that you can find it out all by yourself. That would take a Poet!

Now write me, and tell me how egotistical I am! But remember, after all, I am nothing more or less than Mere Man.

I hope you will care for your added charm, for the books, and a little for

Your friend, RICHARD WARREN

NEW YORK CITY August 7th