The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK ®: 26 Classic Novels and Stories. E. Nesbit
soon found a bush whose fruit was buns, and a jam-tart tree grew near it. You have no idea how nice jam tarts can taste till you have gathered them yourself, fresh and sticky, from the tree. They are as sticky as horse-chestnut buds, and much nicer to eat.
As he went towards the boat-house he grew happier and happier, recognising, one after the other, all the places he and Helen had planned and marked on the map. He passed by the marble and gold house with King’s Palace painted on the door. He longed to explore it: but the thought of Lucy drove him on. As he went down a narrow leafy woodland path towards the boat-house, he passed the door of the dear little thatched cottage (labelled Queen’s Palace) which was the house Helen had insisted that she liked best for her very own.
“How pretty it is; I wish Helen was here,” he said; “she helped to make it. I should never have thought of it without her. She ought to be here,” he said. With that he felt very lonely, all of a sudden, and very sad. And as he went on, wondering whether in all this magic world there might not somehow be some magic strong enough to bring Helen there to see the island that was their very own, and to give her consent to his bringing Lucy to it, he turned a corner in the woodland path, and walked straight into the arms of—Helen.
CHAPTER IX
ON THE “LIGHTNING LOOSE”
“But how did you get here?” said Philip in Helen’s arms on the island.
“I just walked out at the other side of a dream,” she said; “how could I not come, when the door was open and you wanted me so?”
And Philip just said, “Oh, Helen!” He could not find any other words, but Helen understood. She always did.
“Come,” she said, “shall we go to your Palace or mine? I want my supper, and we’ll have our own little blue-and-white tea-set. Yes, I know you’ve had your supper, but it’ll be fun getting mine, and perhaps you’ll be hungry again before we’ve got it.”
They went to the thatched cottage that was Helen’s palace, because Philip had had almost as much of large buildings as he wanted for a little while. The cottage had a wide chimney and an open hearth; and they sat on the hearth and made toast, and Philip almost forgot that he had ever had any adventures and that the toast was being made on a hearth whose blue wood-smoke curled up among the enchanting tree-tops of a magic island.
And before they went to bed he had told her all about everything.
“Oh, I am so glad you came!” he said over and over again; “it is so easy to tell you here, with all the magic going on. I don’t think I ever could have told you at the Grange with the servants all about, and the—I mean Mr. Graham, and all the things as not magic as they could possibly be. Oh, Helen! where is Mr. Graham; won’t he hate your coming away from him?”
“He’s gone through a dream door too,” she said, “to see Lucy. Only he doesn’t know he’s really gone. He’ll think it’s a dream, and he’ll tell me about it when we both wake up.”
“When did you go to sleep?” said Philip.
“At Brussels. That telegram hasn’t come yet.”
“I don’t understand about time,” said Philip firmly, “and I never shall. I say, Helen, I was just looking for the Lightning Loose, to go off in her on a voyage of discovery and find Lucy.”
“I don’t think you need,” she said; “I met a parrot on the island just before I met you and it was saying poetry to itself.”
“It would be,” said Philip, “if it was alive. I’m glad it is alive, though. What was it saying?”
“It was something like this,” she said, putting a log of wood on the fire:
“Philip and Helen
Have the island to dwell in,
Hooray.
They said of the island,
“It’s your land and my land!”
Hooray. Hooray. Hooray.
“And till the ark
Comes out of the dark
There those two may stay
For a happy while, and
Enjoy their island
Until the Giving Day.
Hooray.
“And then they will hear the giving voice,
They will hear and obey,
And when people come
Who need a home,
They’ll give the island away.
Hooray.
“The island with flower
And fruit and bower,
Forest and river and bay,
Their very own island
They’ll sigh and smile and
They’ll give their island away.”
“What nonsense!” said Philip, “I never will.”
“All right, my Pipkin,” said Helen cheerfully; “I only told you just to show that you’re expected to stay here. ‘Philip and Helen have the island to dwell in.’ And now, what about bed?”
They spent a whole week on the island. It was exactly all that they could wish an island to be; because, of course, they had made it themselves, and of course they knew exactly what they wanted. I can’t describe that week. I only know that Philip will never forget it. Just think of all the things you could do on a magic island if you were there with your dearest dear, and you’ll know how Philip spent his time.
He enjoyed every minute of every hour of every day, and, best thing of all, that week made him understand, as nothing else could have done, that Helen still belonged to him, and that her marriage to Mr. Graham had not made her any the less Philip’s very own Helen.
And then came a day when Philip, swinging in a magnolia tree, looked out to sea and cried out, “A sail! a sail! Oh, Helen, here’s the ark! Now it’s all over. Let’s have Lucy to stay with us, and send the other people away,” he added, sliding down the tree-trunk with his face very serious.
“But we can’t, dear,” Helen reminded him. “The island’s ours, you know; and as long as it’s ours no one else can land on it. We made it like that, you know.”
“Then they can’t land?”
“No,” said Helen.
“Can’t we change the rule and let them land?”
“No,” said Helen.
“Oh, it is a pity,” Philip said; “because the island is the place for islanders, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Helen, “and there’s no fear of the sea here; you remember we made it like that when we made the island?”
“Yes,” said Philip. “Oh, Helen, I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t,” said Helen.
“Ah, but I do want to, too.”
“Then do,” said she.
“But don’t you see, when you want to and don’t want to at the same time, what are you to do? There are so many things to think of.”
“When it’s like that, there’s one thing you mustn’t think of,” she said.
“What?” Philip asked.
“Yourself,” she said softly.
There was a silence, and then Philip suddenly hugged his sister and she hugged him.
“I’ll give it to them,” he said; “it’s no use. I know I ought to. I shall