"THAT MEANS GOOD LUCK, I AM SURE."
Pleasance's last words were Miss Verity's first ones.
"It _is_ nice to find you back," she said to Mary, as she drove up, with
a cheery ting-ting from the ponies' bells. "And I hope tea is quite
ready, for I have had rather a cold drive," she added, as she got out.
"Yes, yes, godmother, dear," said Mary, who was standing in the porch.
"I'm sure it is. And I'm so glad I was here just a few minutes before
you."
"I can see you managed to amuse yourself in the forest," said Miss
Verity, when she had taken off her wraps and they were sitting together
in the drawing-room, the tea-table in its "winter place" near the fire.
"You are looking so rosy and bright."
"I did enjoy myself very much indeed," said Mary.
"I thought you would; indeed I knew you would," her godmother said. But
she did not ask any questions, and there was rather a dreamy tone in her
voice and a look in her eyes as she leant back in her chair and gazed
into the fire, which made Mary again think to herself, as she had
thought several times already, that "godmother herself knows something
about the fairy secrets of the forest."
And Mary felt still surer of this when, after a little silence, Miss
Verity said quietly--
"I shall never feel uneasy about you when you are in the forest--even
quite alone--now that I see that you are obedient and thoughtful about
keeping promises, my little Cinderella," and she smiled the pretty smile
that made her face look quite young again.
"But Cinderella _did_ forget," said Mary, laughing; "at least she only
remembered _just_ in time, didn't she?"
"She had no Pleasance to ring a big bell," replied her godmother.
"Still, she did not mean to disobey, and the very moment she found how
late it was, she ran off, even at the risk of offending the prince. I
have always thought that one of the nicest parts of the story. For so
many would have said to themselves, `Oh, I'm sure to be too late, so
I'll just stay on and enjoy myself a little longer.' If I had not
satisfied myself that you are to be trusted, my Mary, I could not let
you stay alone in the forest, though for a good dutiful child there can
be no safer place." Mary felt very pleased. And--was it fancy--just
then a tiny "coo-coo!" seemed to breathe itself across the room from the
side where the window on to the lawn was.
"How brightly the fire is burning!" Miss Verity went on, after a little
pause. "I wonder if there is frost in the air."
"I don't know," said Mary, adding merrily, "but I can tell you,
godmother, these are fir-cones in the fire! Perhaps it is that."
"No doubt of it," said Miss Verity. "I might have guessed it. Did you
bring any in with you?"
"Not to-day, but I brought some, a few at a time, before. And I think
some of the servants have been gathering them. I saw Myrtle with some
in her apron, and I have scented them several times about the house. It
is such a nice smell."
"Yes, and they burn so beautifully. I have never known any fir-cones
like those in our forest, not even in Germany," replied her godmother.
"They're like everything else about here, I think," said Mary.
Miss Verity looked pleased.
"Do look, godmother," Mary added quickly. "There _are_ such funny
pictures in the fire. There, over at your side, do you see? It is like
the edge--what should I call it?--of a ship, and somebody looking up as
if he was watching something. I know what it makes me think of; it is
Michael, I wonder if it is the middle of the night just now where he is,
and if perhaps he is standing at the side of his ship looking up at the
stars?"
"And thinking of home and the dear ones there, and of his little cousin
Mary," added Miss Verity. "Perhaps so, though I think sailors are
generally too busy, or too glad to go to sleep when their busy time is
over, to have much leisure for star-gazing."
"But I am sure Michael is _always_, nearly, thinking of home," said
Mary, with a touch of reproach in her voice. "You don't know,
godmother, how very loving and kind he is."
"I am sure of it," said Miss Verity, quickly. "Do not mistake me, dear.
The brother I loved best of all, long ago, was a sailor, and it is very
rarely that sailors have not loving faithful hearts, I think. Does
Michael know that you are here with me?"
"Oh yes," said Mary. "He knew it before he went away. He was very glad
I was coming. He was sure I would be happy here. You see it is a
little lonely sometimes at auntie's when Michael's away for such a long
time. The little ones are so little."
"Yet here you haven't even little ones," said her godmother, smiling.
"How is it you are not lonely then?"
"I have _you_" said Mary, "and--and the forest, and you let me go about
by myself. And I like the country much better than a town."
"Even in winter?" asked Miss Verity.
Mary hesitated.
"Yes, I think so," she said, "though the shops are _very_ pretty about
Christmas time, and the streets lighted up when it begins to get dark in
the afternoons, do look so nice. But I daresay, godmother, _here_ it is
never dull or gloomy, even in winter. The forest must look lovely with
snow on the branches, and shiny icicles, and I should think it's always
rather dry to walk about there, on the fir needles."
"It is never wet for very long, certainly, in the forest," said her
godmother, "but still we have dull gloomy days, and days when it never
leaves off raining at all, and one is glad to stay at home beside a
bright cheery fire like this."
Mary glanced at the fire again--the picture she had seen in it had
melted or changed by this time, but in another corner she saw what
seemed to her like a sort of arbour, with a bird at the entrance. This
reminded her of the secret of the forest, and she wondered to herself
what it was like inside the white gate on a dull rainy day such as Miss
Verity had been speaking of. Was it _always_ warm and bright there?
Yes, she could not remember if the wood-pigeons had said so, but she
felt sure it must be so.
"Otherwise," she thought, "it would not be even the edge of fairy-land."
Then her mind strayed to other things. She began wondering if she would
soon have a letter from Michael, and if the picture in the fire could
have been a sort of fairy message from him, and she quite started when
her godmother spoke again.
"The next time you are in the forest, Mary dear," she said, "or the
first time you feel at a loss for anything to amuse yourself with, I
should be very glad of more fir-cones. I like to make a provision of
them while they are still perfectly dry and crisp."
"Yes, I am very fond of picking them up," said Mary. "I might have
brought some in already, if I had had a basket with me."
"Pleasance has one or two nice light ones on purpose," said Miss Verity.
"She will show you where she keeps them. If to-morrow is fine again,
like to-day," she went on, "I should like you to go a drive with me. I
think Jackdaw and Magpie were very surprised at my not taking you
to-day: I often fancy they go along with more spirit when there is some
one with me; they like to hear our voices, and little Thomas and I
seldom converse." Little Thomas was the small groom who sat in the back
seat, and he was noted for his silence, an uncommon quality in a boy!
Mary laughed.
"No," she said, "I couldn't fancy you having much conversation with
little Thomas, certainly."
She felt in her heart just a tiny bit disappointed that there was no
likelihood of her going to the forest again the next day. But then her
godmother was so good to her that she knew it would be very wrong and
ungrateful not to be glad to do all she wished. And besides--
"If I wasn't quite good, or at least trying to be so," she said to
herself, "the Cooies wouldn't care for me, or make plans for me or show
me things or anything. I am quite sure they would not."
This was her last waking thought that night, and almost, I think, her
first the next morning.
And when she was dressed, and stood for a moment or two at the casement
window, which she had opened a little to have a breath of the forest
air, there seemed to come an answer to her thought.
"Coo-coo, coo," sounded softly from the direction of the trees, and Mary
just at first hoped that it would be followed by the rustle of little
wings and a morning visit from her two friends. But no, only the sweet
voices again, this time a little farther off, and Mary, who was getting
wonderfully quick at understanding her Cooies' ways, knew that this
meant they were not coming to visit her to-day, but that they were
pleased with what she meant to try to do and feel.
The morning passed pleasantly, and the sky, which had been rather grey
and overcast early in the day, cleared up about noon and promised to be
bright and sunny for the remaining hours.
So Mary felt quite light-hearted when, shortly after luncheon, Miss
Verity sent her to get ready for their drive.
"Wrap yourself up warmly," her godmother said. "It gets chilly in the
afternoon--or stay--I have an idea," and with a smile on her kind face
Miss Verity went upstairs, and Mary heard her talking to Pleasance.
In a few minutes she came back, carrying something over her arm which
looked to Mary as if her Cooies and all their numerous relations had
helped to make it! It was a little cape--made, not of fur, but of tiny
feathers, too soft and small to bristle or break, of every shade of
bluey-grey, and lined with white, still quite clean, though the cape was
evidently old, and the white had grown rather creamy-coloured through
lying by for many years.
"It was mine when I was a little girl like you," said her godmother.
"It was considered my very best, and somehow it never got dirty or
seemed to need cleaning, though some of the shades are very delicate, as
you see. It will be just the thing for you to wear when you drive with
me these chilly afternoons."
Mary eyed the cloak with great interest and approval.
"It is lovely," she said, "and wonderful I don't think you could get one
like it in any shop now, godmother, could you?"
Miss Verity shook her head.
"I doubt if you could," she said. "And I do not even know if it came
from a shop long ago. It was given to my mother for me when I was only
a baby by some friend of _her_ mother's, and it came `from abroad,'
which was all I ever knew about it. But we must be quick, dear; Jackdaw
and Magpie are not fond of waiting at the door."
Nor were they; as Mary ran downstairs she heard their bells tinkling
impatiently. And when she called out cheerfully--
"We're coming, ponies, we're coming," it seemed as if the little
satisfied toss of their heads meant that they were pleased that she was
coming too!
It was a cold day, but dry and crisp, and Mary felt very cosy with the
soft grey cape on the top of her own little scarlet cloth jacket. Miss
Verity drove quickly, though, as she told Mary, they had not so very far
to go.
"But I shall have to stay half-an-hour or so at Crook Edge, the house I
want to call at," she added. "I am going to say good-bye to two girls,
who have lived there for some years with their father. He died last
year, and now they are leaving for good. Blanche, the elder, is going
to be married, and her younger sister, who is scarcely grown-up, is to
live with her. They are very sweet girls."
"Are you very sorry to say good-bye to them?" Mary asked.
Miss Verity hesitated.
"For my own sake, yes. But I am glad for them. It would have been too
quiet a life at Crook Edge. It is an out-of-the-way place, at the side
of the loneliest part of the forest."
"Everywhere about here seems to have to do with the forest, doesn't it?"
said Mary.
"Yes, it never lets itself be forgotten," her godmother replied,
glancing as she spoke at the dark green line a little distance off,
which seemed as it were to follow them as they went, "and we who love it
and almost feel as if we were its children, don't want ever to forget
it."
"No, no, of course not," said Mary eagerly. "I feel like that too,
though I haven't been very long here. I know quite how you mean."
Miss Verity smiled, the very pleased kind of smile that, as Mary had
learnt to know, told of her liking to feel that her little god-daughter
understood and sympathised in feelings that some children would not have
been able to share.
They did not talk much more till they reached Crook Edge, where Miss
Verity's young friends were looking out for them. The elder of the two
girls, whose name was Blanche, was very pretty, almost the prettiest
person, Mary thought, that she had ever seen. She was tall and slight
and very fair; perhaps the black dress she still wore made her seem
taller and slighter and fairer than if she had been in colour, and her
expression was very sweet. She looked so lovingly at her younger
sister, who was also pretty, though not as pretty as Blanche, that Mary
could not help thinking to herself that it must be very nice to have a
kind grown-up sister! And also felt very pleased when both the girls
kissed her as she sprang out of the pony-carriage.
"What a delicious cloak," said Blanche, as she was helping her visitors
to take off some of their wraps in the hall. "It suits your house, Miss
Verity. It is really like a dove's mantle."
"Yes," Miss Verity replied, "it is a rather remarkable cloak, and the
odd thing is that though I have had it nearly all my life, I do not
really know its history, and there is no one who can tell it to me."
"I have never seen a cloak the least like it," said Blanche, stroking
the soft feathers as she spoke. "But then," she went on,
half-laughingly, "it only suits Dove's Nest. Nothing there seems quite
like anywhere else: don't you think so, Mary?"
"Yes," said Mary. "Everything is prettier and funnier than anywhere
else."
"I always envy the name," said Blanche. "_Our_ name is so ugly and
rough--Crook Edge; but it doesn't matter now, as it will so soon be our
home no longer," and she gave just a little sigh.
"Are you sorry to go away?" asked Mary, looking up gently with her
wistful hazel eyes.
"One is always sorry to go away from what has been a home," said
Blanche. "And Milly and I love the forest. By the bye, Miss Verity, we
have had the white dove here again since I saw you,--the large white
dove."
"Have you, my dear?" said Miss Verity, looking interested. "That means
good luck, I feel sure."
"Good luck and good-bye," said Blanche. "Yes, she came and perched on a
tree in the garden, and cooed so sweetly. The gardener says she is too
large for a dove; that she must be some kind of wood-pigeon only."
"Unless," added Milly, "unless, as he says, `she's one as has strayed
from furrin parts.' But I don't think so. She looks quite at home, and
not at all cold or starved. Anyway Blanche and I always call her the
white dove. She _is_ so pretty, and one day we thought we saw something
gleaming on her neck, like a tiny gold chain--that almost seems as if
she was a pet bird, doesn't it?"
"Or a fairy one?" said Miss Verity, smiling.
They had lingered at Crook Edge rather longer than Mary's godmother had
intended, and though the day was still fine, it was beginning to get
dark and the clouds were massing as if rain might be not very far off.
Mary gave a little shiver, and Miss Verity looked a trifle uneasy.
"You are not cold, dear?" she said.
"Oh no," said the little girl, "I don't think I _could_ be, with this
cloak. It was just a sort of feeling, you know, when the night seems to
be coming."
All the same, she said to herself, though Miss Verity whipped up the
ponies and they went along at a good pace:
"I wish we were at home."
And, wonderful to tell, before she had time to wish it again, there they
were! For the next words Mary heard were,--
"Wake up, dear. We are at Dove's Nest."
And when she opened her eyes, there was Miss Verity's face smiling down
on her, as she half-lay, half-sat in her place with her head on her
godmother's shoulder, and Myrtle and Pleasance looking a little
concerned, as "the ladies" had been later of returning than usual, but
rather amused too, and both quite ready to lift "Miss Mary" out and
carry her to the warmth and brightness indoors.
How Miss Verity had managed to drive with her godchild peacefully making
a pillow of her arm is a puzzle I cannot explain.
But as Mary slipped off the feather cloak, feeling as warm as a toast,
she looked at it rather curiously, for she had her own thoughts about
it.
"Shall I keep it in my room, godmother?" she asked. "That is to say, if
you mean to lend it me again."
"You may count it yours as long as you are here," Miss Verity replied.
"I am sure you will take care of it. And--then we shall see."
"Thank you very much," said Mary, adding, "I don't think I should like
to take it away with me. It would get dirty in a town, and that would
make me unhappy. I have one drawer upstairs with nothing in. I should
like to keep it in there."
"Very well, you may, and Pleasance will give you some nice tissue-paper
to cover it with."
Pleasance did not forget to do so. Mary found two or three large sheets
of pale-blue paper lying ready on her bed late that evening, in which
she carefully wrapped the mantle.
Perhaps it was because she did this the last thing before going to
sleep, that she had strange dreams that night, in which the cloak, and
the wood-pigeons, and pretty Blanche and her cousin Michael and her
godmother all seemed to be mixed up together, though in the morning she
could not distinctly remember anything except that the dreams had been
interesting and pleasant.
"I wonder if my Cooies could tell anything about the feather cloak," she
thought, "and oh, I do wonder if the white dove is any relation of
theirs, or if they know her."
And this morning too she jumped out of bed the very moment Pleasance
came to call her, so that she might dress quickly and have a minute or
two to stand at the window before the bell rang, so that if the
wood-pigeons were anywhere near, they could come to talk to her.