The Tapestry Room | Page 4

better from the tapestry room
window," she said to herself. "I wonder what Dudu is doing, poor old
fellow. Oh, how cold he must be! I suppose Grignan is asleep in a hole
in the hedge, and the chickens will be all right any way. I have not seen
Houpet all day."
"Houpet" was Jeanne's favourite of the three chickens. He had come by
his name on account of a wonderful tuft of feathers on the top of his
head, which stuck straight up and then waved down again, something
like a little umbrella. No doubt he was a very rare and wonderful
chicken, and if I were clever about chickens I would be able to tell you
all his remarkable points. But that I cannot do. I can only say he was
the queerest-looking creature that ever pecked about a poultry-yard,
and how it came to pass that Jeanne admired him so, I cannot tell you
either.
"Poor Houpet!" she repeated, as she ran across the tapestry room to the
uncurtained window; "I am sure he must have been very sad without
me all day. He has such a loving heart. The others are nice too, but not

half so loving. And Grignan has no heart at all; I suppose tortoises
never have; only he is very comical, which is nearly as nice. As for
Dudu, I really cannot say, he is so stuck up, as if he knew better than
any one else. Ah, there he is, the old fellow! Well, Dudu," she called
out, as if the raven could have heard her so far off and through the
closely shut window; "well, Dudu, how are you to-day, my dear sir?
How do you like the snow and the cold?"
Dudu calmly continued his promenade up and down the terrace. Jeanne
could clearly distinguish his black shape against the white ground.
"I am going downstairs to see mamma, Dudu," she went on. "I love
mamma very much, but I wish she wasn't my mother at all, but my
sister. I wish she was turned into a little girl to play with me, and that
papa was turned into a little boy. How funny he would look with his
white hair, wouldn't he, Dudu? Oh, you stupid Dudu, why won't you
speak to me? I wish you would come up here; there's a beautiful castle
and garden in the tapestry, where you would have two peacocks to play
with;" for just at that moment the moon, passing from under a cloud,
lighted up one side of the tapestry, which, as Jeanne said, represented a
garden with various curious occupants. And as the wavering brightness
caught the grotesque figures in turn, it really seemed to the little girl as
if they moved. Half pleased, half startled at the fancy, she clapped her
hands.
"Dudu, Dudu," she cried, "the peacocks want you to come; they're
beginning to jump about;" and almost as she said the words a loud
croak from the raven sounded in her ears, and turning round, there, to
her amazement, she saw Dudu standing on the ledge of the window
outside, his bright eyes shining, his black wings flapping, just as if he
would say,
"Let me in, Mademoiselle, let me in. Why do you mock me by calling
me if you won't let me in?"
Completely startled by this time, Jeanne turned and fled.
"He must be a fairy," she said by herself; "I'll never make fun of Dudu

any more--never. He must be a fairy, or how else could he have got up
from the terrace on to the window-sill all in a minute? And I don't think
a raven fairy would be nice at all; he'd be a sort of an imp, I expect. I
wouldn't mind now if Houpet was a fairy, he's so gentle and loving; but
Dudu would be a sort of ogre fairy, he's so black and solemn. Oh dear,
how he startled me! How did he get up there? I'm very glad I don't
sleep in the tapestry room."
But when she got down to the brightly-lighted salon her cheeks were so
pale and her eyes so startled-looking that her mother was quite
concerned, and eagerly asked what was the matter.
"Nothing," said Jeanne at first, after the manner of little girls, and boys
too, when they do not want to be cross-questioned; but after a while she
confessed that she had run into the tapestry room on her way down, and
that the moonlight made the figures look as if they were
moving--and--and--that Dudu came and stood on the window-sill and
croaked at her.
"Dudu stood on the window-sill outside the tapestry room!" repeated
her father; "impossible, my child! Why, Dudu could not by any
conceivable means get up there; you