"Oh!" said one child, clapping her hand to her mouth in alarm.
"You had much better not," said another kindly.
"She could turn you into butter," said a third.
"Which might melt," observed the fourth.
"Or a pudding."
"Which might get eaten."
"Or a drawing of yourself on white paper."
"Which someone might set fire to, you know, without meaning to."
But Venetia insisted upon their taking her to Mrs Mabb's house straight away, which at length they agreed to do.
Billy Little was an ancient farm labourer of uncertain temper who lived in a tumbledown cottage in Shilling-lane. He was at war with all the children of Kissingland and all the children of Kissingland were at war with him. His garden was at the back of the cottage and Venetia and Hebe, Marjory, Joan and Nan were obliged to bend low to creep past his uncurtained window.
Someone was standing on the window-sill. She wore a brightly coloured gown, and had a cross expression upon her face.
"There you are, at last!" said Venetia. She straightened herself and addressed this lady in the following words: "Now, madam! If I might trouble you to answer one or two questions…"
"Where are you going?" hissed Hebe, Marjory, Joan or Nan and took hold of Venetia by her gown and pulled her down again.
"Oh! Do you not see?" said Venetia. "Mrs Mabb is just above us, on the window-sill."
"That is not Mrs Mabb!" whispered Hebe, Marjory, Joan or Nan. "That is only Billy Little's Betsy-jug, with his Toby-jug beside it."
Venetia popped her head back up, and this time she observed the china lady's china husband. The couple were indeed jugs for they had large handles sticking out of their backs.
"Oh! very well," said Venetia, crossly.
"But," she thought to herself, "I have half a mind to push her off the window-sill anyway – for it is my opinion that, where Mrs Mabb is concerned, you never can tell."
Beyond the heap of cabbage leaves and other dark, decaying matter, the path led past a sad-looking pond and up a steep bank. At the top of the bank was a smooth expanse of bright green grass, at one end of which a dozen or so tall stones and slates were piled together. It was possible they were intended for a bee-hive, but it was equally possible that they were simply left over from some ancient wall. Tall flowers grew behind them – meadowsweet, cow parsley and buttercups – so that it was the easiest thing in the world to fancy one was looking at a tower or castle-keep on the edge of an ancient wood.
"Now this is odd," said Venetia, "for I have seen this place before. I know I have."
"There she is!" cried one of the children.
Venetia looked round and thought she saw a quivering in the air. "A moth," she thought. She approached and the shadow of her gown fell across the stones. A dark, damp chill hung about them, which the sunlight had no power to dissipate. She stretched out her hands to break apart Mrs Mabb's house, but upon the instant a pale-green something – or a pale-green someone – flew out of a gap in the stones and sprang up into the sunlight – and then another, and another – and more, and more, until the air seemed crowded with people, and there was a strange glitter all around, which Venetia associated with the sight of sunlight glinting on a thousand swords. So rapid was the manner in which they darted about that it was entirely impossible to hold any of them in one's gaze for more than a moment, but it seemed to Venetia that they rushed upon her like soldiers who had planned an ambush.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh! You wicked creatures! You wicked, wicked creatures!"; and she snatched them out of the sparkling air and crushed them in her hands. Then it seemed to Venetia that they were dancing, and that the steps of their dance were the most complicated ever invented and had been devised on purpose to make her mad; so she took great pleasure in knocking them to the ground and treading upon their pale green clothes. But, though she was certain that some were killed and dozens of others were sent away injured, there never appeared to be any diminution in their number. Gradually the strength of her own passion began to exhaust her; she was sure she must sink to the ground. At that moment she looked up and saw, just beyond the battle's fray, the pale, heart-shaped face of a little girl and Venetia heard her say in a puzzled tone, "'Tis only butterflies, Miss Moore."
Butterflies? she thought.
"It was only butterflies, my love," said Fanny, smoothing Venetia 's cheek.
She was in her own room, laid upon her own bed.
"A cloud of pale-green butterflies," said Fanny. "Hebe, Marjory, Joan and Nan said that you were crying out at them and beating them down with your fists and tearing them apart with your fingers until you fell down in a faint." Fanny sighed. "But I dare say you remember nothing about it."
"Oh! But I remember perfectly well!" said Venetia. "Hebe, Marjory, Joan and Nan took me to Mrs Mabb's house, which as you may know is at the bottom of Billy Little's garden, and Captain Fox was inside it – or at least so I suppose – and had Mrs Mabb not sent the butterflies to prevent me, I would have fetched him out, and…"
"Oh, Venetia!" cried Fanny in exasperation.
Venetia opened her hand and found several fragments of a pale-green colour, like torn paper yet not half the thickness of paper and of no weight whatsoever: the broken remains of two or three butterflies.
"Now I have you, Mrs Mabb," she whispered.
She took a scrap of paper and folded the broken butterflies up inside it. Upon the outside she wrote, "For Mrs Mabb".
It was not difficult for Venetia to prevail upon Mr Hawkins (who loved her dearly and who was particularly anxious about her at this period) to deliver the folded paper to Mr Grout.
Next morning Venetia waited hopefully for the return of Captain Fox. When he did not appear she determined to go in search of him again – which both Fanny and Mr Hawkins seemed to have expected, for Fanny had hidden Venetia 's dancing slippers in an empty rabbit-hutch in the garden and Mr Hawkins had fetched them out again half an hour later. Mr Hawkins had placed them upon Venetia's bed, where Venetia found them at three o'clock, together with a page torn from Mr Hawkins's memorandum book upon which was drawn a map of Kissingland and the surrounding woods – and deep within those woods, the house of Mrs Mabb.
Downstairs in the kitchen Mr Hawkins was blacking Fanny's boots and – what was very strange – doing it very ill, so that Fanny was obliged to stand over him and scold him about it. She never heard Venetia slip out of the front door and run down the lane.
The map shewed Mrs Mabb's house to be much deeper in the woods than Venetia had ever gone before. She had walked for an hour or so – and was still some way off from Mrs Mabb's house – when she came to a wide glade surrounded by great oaks, beeches, elders and other sweet English trees. At the furthest end of this glade a cloud of insects rose up suddenly against the sunlit wood and a man appeared. But whether he had stepped out of the wood or out of the cloud of insects would have been impossible to say. His hair had the appearance of being a sort of reddish-brown, and he wore the blue coat and white britches of
General --'s regiment.
" Venetia!" he cried the moment he saw her. "But I thought you had gone to Manchester!"
"And so I did, my dear, dear Captain Fox," said she, running towards him in great delight, "and am now returned."