108. An Archangel Called Ivan by Barbara Cartland Page B

asleep, each of them holding in their arms one of their favourite dolls.
    Johnnie, however, was in his pyjamas, but seated at the window sketching the trees below in the garden and drawing the moon above them, which was only just to be seen faintly in the sky.
    Arliva looked over his shoulder.
    “You draw very well,” she said. “Somehow I did not think of you as an artist.”
    “I want to draw and I want to paint pictures like the ones in the Gallery,” he replied. “Do you think I will ever be able to do that?”
    “Of course you will. I must find a real artist to teach you properly and show you how to use your paints effectively.”
    “I don’t have any,” Johnnie told her. “I asked the last Governess if I could have some and she said that it was a waste of money for me to try to paint when the house was full of pictures by great artists.”
    “She must have been a very stupid woman,” Arliva replied angrily. “Tomorrow we will buy you paints and everything that you need and somehow I will find an artist who will come and help you.”
    “It sounds great fun,” Johnnie enthused. “Do you think Grandpapa would stop me?”
    “No, of course not. Your grandfather wants you to be clever and that means we may well discover all sorts of marvellous things you can do that no one else has achieved before. You could be a great artist in the future and the twins could be singers, dancers or musicians of some sort.”
    She paused before she asked,
    “How are we to know unless we explore ourselves and find out what we can do that is different from other people?”
    Johnnie laughed.
    “I would like to explore myself, but I am not quite sure how to go about it.”
    “I can teach you that at any rate. Tomorrow we are going shopping and I want you to make a list of everything we need to buy and what it will cost. It is something I hate doing for myself and it would be a great help if you could do it for me.”
    She thought as she spoke that it was a strange way of teaching arithmetic, but surely a more useful way than merely adding up columns of figures which meant nothing.
    The children became excited at being taken to the town.
    “We have never been there before,” they told her, “and it will be new and thrilling to go into the shops and buy what we want.”
    “With limitations,” Arliva warned, “because if the bill is too large your grandfather might send me away as being too spendthrift.”
    “We want you to stay with us,” the twins cried each slipping their hands into hers.
    Johnnie was facing them in the carriage and now he said,
    “I know what I want and that is a new bathing suit and the biggest box of paints we can find.”
    “That should be easy,” Arliva answered. “Now I have something to tell you that I think you will find very intriguing.”
    All six eyes turned to her.
    Then she said,
    “You know the beautiful fairy wood which we go through each morning, well, I think it would be very selfish of us to keep it to ourselves. So I am going to make it a fairy wood for all the children who live near here.”
    She paused for a moment before she went on,
    “They will be able to come and see the fairies who will be in the trees and in the grass and we will have very special ones in the middle of the wood and you must help me make it look quite unlike any wood you have ever seen before, because it belongs to the fairies.”
    They stared at Arliva as she continued,
    “If we ask sixpence from people to come into the wood, we can then give the money to the children’s home or to a school either in the village or in one of the towns.”
    There was silence for a moment.
    Then Johnnie asked,
    “Would people really want to come and see our wood?”
    “I am quite sure they will,” Arliva replied. “After all where have you heard of a fairy wood before? I have never heard of one, not where you can see fairies dancing in the trees and hiding in the bushes.”
    “Oh, please let’s do it. Please!