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Chapter One.
Madam Wren
“No,” said Alix, “that’s not a good plan at all. It’s perfectly stupid. If you’ve no better ideas than that, Rafe, we needn’t talk about it any more.”
Rafe looked and felt very snubbed indeed.
He was ten, she was nine. But she generally took the lead; not always, as I daresay you will see when you hear more about them, but generally. They were a nice little pair, and they were constantly together, at lessons, at play, at everything. This was a convenient arrangement, for they were a good deal younger than the other brothers and sisters of the family, and what Rafe would have been without Alix, or Alix without Rafe, it would be difficult to imagine. But there is not much use in thinking over about might-have-beens, or would-have-beens, unless to make us more thankful for what is. So it is enough to say that as things really were, they were very happy children.
Still they had their troubles, and it was one of these they were discussing this lovely spring morning, when they were sitting under their favourite tree – a magnificent ilex in the garden, at one corner of the great lawn which was one of the beauties of their home.
It was a lovely day, clear and bright and joyous, full of its own delights, and yet almost fuller of the summer ones to come! This is, I suppose, the real secret of the charm of spring-time – the promise and hope it tells of. Everything seemed bursting with good news, the birds most of all perhaps, though the smiling faces of the early flowers, and the tender whispers of the gentle wind through the branches, were not behindhand. But the children’s faces were clouded.
This was their trouble. They could not get any one to tell them any more stories! They had read all their books through, over and over again, and besides, books aren’t quite as nice as “told” stories. At least not when they have to be shared by two. Rafe and Alix had tried several plans – reading aloud did not answer very well, and looking over the pages was worse. They never managed to keep quite together, and then the one who got down to the last line first was sure to fidget or to try in some way to hurry up the other, which was apt to lead to unpleasant results. And besides this, at present there was no question of story-books, for, as I said, the children had read all they possessed really too often.
Hitherto perhaps they had been a little spoilt about having stories told to them. Papa, who was an old soldier, had a good many tales of adventure; mamma had some lovely ones about “when she was a little girl.” And the big brothers and sisters were very kind too, especially if Rafe or Alix, or both, as sometimes was the case, happened to be ill. But their stories were mostly out of books; now and then indeed they would unluckily turn out to be already known to the children, and though they did not altogether object to them on this account – I have noticed that children rather enjoy a book story retold by voice – it was not always so pleasant for Ena or Jean, or Eric when he was at home from college. For Rafe and Alix were so exceedingly particular.
“No,” one of them would say, just when Eric had got to the most thrilling part of a robber story, “the entrance to the inner cave was at the left side of the big one;” or if Jean was describing her heroine’s dress, “It wasn’t green – I’m sure it was blue – blue with tiny rosebuds on,” so that sometimes Jean would reply, “Really, children, if you interrupt so I can’t go on,” or Eric would go off with a grunt and tell them to provide stories for themselves.
This had happened the evening before, and this it was which put the idea into Rafe’s mind which Alix snubbed so.
“Suppose,” he said, “that we make stories for each other – you for me, Alix, and I for you?”
It sounded rather nice, but it did not find favour in her eyes at all.
“I know exactly what they’d be,” she said; “just mixings up of all our other ones. It might do to amuse stranger children with, perhaps – but not for us ourselves. I know all that’s in your head, and you know what’s in mine, far too well. So it would be perfectly stupid.”
And Rafe had no more to say.
It was Easter holidays – Easter was as late as it could be that year – and the weather was so beautiful that it really felt like summer. You would think the children should have been content; but they weren’t. They had no lessons at all to do, and a whole fortnight of nothing you really must do is, in my opinion, a mistake. During the long summer holidays Miss Brander, their governess, always left them something to do, just enough to give a nice fresh taste to the holidaying the rest of their time, and to prevent their feeling the reins quite loose on their necks like runaway ponies. And even without this, in the summer it was different, for they generally went to the seaside or to some hilly place for a month or so, to have a change of air, and away from home in a new place time seldom hangs much on children’s hands.
This Easter it was certainly doing so a good deal. There were other reasons too why the little couple felt rather at a loose end, rather tired of themselves. The big people were all unusually busy, for Ena was going to be married in June; and she and their mother or she and Jean were always going somewhere or other to order things, or to give their opinion about the doing up of the pretty old house, ten miles or so away, which was to be her new home. And though Ena was very kind when she had time, and the new brother-to-be held out grand promises of the visits they were to pay to their sister, and the fun they should have, still, all that seemed a good way off, and in the meantime Rafe and Alix felt rather out of it all. I am not sure but that they were just a little jealous of the new brother. “It’s only a pretence sort of brother,” said Alix one day when her feelings had been ruffled. I am afraid they felt as if he had some how put both their small noses out of joint.
So now you understand why Rafe and Alix were sitting rather disconsolately under the ilex, though the sun was shining brightly enough to melt away all clouds and mists inside as well as outside, any one would have thought.
In spite of Alix’s snub, Rafe looked up again in a minute or two.
“Why don’t you think of a better plan, then, if you don’t like mine?” he said. “It’s always easy to say things won’t do,” (which is exceedingly true!), “but why don’t you find something that will do?”
Alix turned round. She was sitting on the end of the rustic bench, swinging her legs, which was not difficult, as they scarcely reached the ground, and staring up at the thickly-growing branches overhead. But now she looked at Rafe – he felt a little nervous; was she going to take offence at his speech?
No – she had heard what he said, but she was not vexed.
“I know what I wish we could find,” she said. “Do you remember, Rafe, the story of a white lady, up, up in a room at the very top of a castle somewhere, who was always spinning stories? They came out of the hum of her spinning-wheel somehow, and the children could hear them when they sat down on the floor beside her. Oh, if we could find somebody like that!”
“It was fairies,” said Rafe doubtfully. “At least the white lady was a fairy, and there aren’t any really, I suppose.”
“Everybody says so,” Alix replied doubtfully, “but I don’t quite see why there mightn’t be. If there have never been any, what began all the fairy stories? And I know one thing – papa said so himself one day when he was telling some – what’s the word? – it means a sort of a fairy story that’s been told over and over since ever, ever so long ago, ledge —what is it?”
“Legends, you mean,” said her brother. “Yes, I remember papa telling us some very queer ones he had heard in India.”
“And he said there were fairy stories in every country,” Alix went on. “So what I say is there must have been something to make them begin!”
This sounded very convincing to Rafe – Alix certainly had clever ways of putting things.
“Oh!” he said, with a deep sigh. “If we could but find some one old enough to remember the beginnings of them – something like the white lady, you know.”
Both children sat silent for a moment or two, their eyes gazing before them. Suddenly on the short green turf appeared a tiny figure, a wren, so tame that she hopped fearlessly to within a very short distance of the little brother and sister, and then, standing still, seemed to look up at them with her bright eyes, her small head cocked knowingly on one side.
“Rafe,” exclaimed Alix eagerly, though in a low voice.
“Alix,” said Rafe in his turn.
Then they looked at each other, thinking the same thoughts.
“Rafe,” whispered Alix, while the wren still stood there looking at them, “just look at her; she’s not a bird, she’s a fairy – or at least if she’s not a fairy she’s got some message for us from one.”
The wren hopped on a few steps, still looking back at them. The children slipped off the seat and moved softly after her without speaking. On she went, hopping, then fluttering just a little way above the ground, then hopping again, till in this way she had led them right across the wide stretch of lawn to some shrubberies at the far side. Here a small footpath, scarcely visible till you were close to it, led through the bushes to a strip of half-wild garden ground, used as a sort of nursery for young trees, which skirted a lane known by the name of the “Ladywood Path.” And indeed it was little more than a path nowadays, for few passed that way, though the story went that in the old days it had been a good road leading to a house that was no longer in existence.
Over the low wall clambered the children, to find to their delight that the wren was in the lane before them, just a little way ahead. But now she took to flying higher and faster than she had yet done; to keep up with her at all they had to run, and even with this they sometimes lost sight of her altogether for a minute or two. But they kept up bravely – they were too eager and excited to waste breath by speaking. The race lasted for some minutes, till at last, just as Alix was about to give in, Rafe suddenly twitched her arm.
“Stop, Alix,” he panted – truth to tell, the running was harder on him than on his sister, for Rafe was of an easy-going disposition, and not given to violent exercise – “stop, Alix, she’s lighted on the old gateway.”
They both stood still and looked. Yes, there was Madam Wren on the topmost bar of a dilapidated wooden gate, standing between two solid posts at what had once been the entrance to the beautiful garden of an ancient house.
How beautiful neither the children nor any one now living knew, for even the very oldest inhabitants of that part of the country could only dimly remember having been told by their grandparents, or great-grandparents perhaps, how once upon a time Ladywood Hall had been the pride of the neighbourhood.
The wren flapped her wings, then rose upwards and flew off. This time, somehow, the children felt that it was no use trying to follow her.
“She’s gone for good,” said Rafe dolefully; but Alix’s eyes sparkled.
“You are stupid,” she said. “Don’t you see what she’s told us. We’re to look for – for something, or some one, I don’t quite know what, in the Lady’s garden.” For so somehow the grounds of the vanished house had come to be spoken of. “I think it was very dull of us not to have thought of it for ourselves, for it is a very fairy sort of place.”
“If it is that way,” said Rafe, “they must have heard us talking, and sent the wren to tell us.”
“Of course,” said Alix, “that’s just what I mean. Perhaps the wren is one herself.”
“Shall we go on now?” said Rafe. “No” – for just at that moment the clear sound of a bell ringing reached them from the direction of their own home – “for there’s our dinner.” And dinner was an important event in Rafe’s eyes, even when rivalled by a fairy hunt.
“How provoking,” said Alix. “How quickly the morning has gone. We must go in now or they will come hunting us up and find out all about it; and you know, Rafe, if it has anything to do with fairies we must keep it a secret.”
Rafe nodded his head sagely.
“Of course,” he replied. “When do you think we had best come? This afternoon we are going a walk with nurse, and she’d never let us off.”
“No,” said Alix, with a sigh, for a walk with nurse was not a very interesting affair. “But I’ll tell you what, Rafe; if I can get hold of mamma to-night, just even for a minute, I’ll ask her if we mayn’t take something for dinner out with us to-morrow, and not come in till tea-time – the way we sometimes did last summer; for just now it’s really as fine and warm as if it was June. I think she’ll let us.”
“I do hope she will,” said the boy.
Chapter Two.
Tapping
The children were not very fortunate in their nurse. Perhaps this helped to make them feel lonely and dull sometimes, when there scarcely seemed real reason for their being so. She was a good woman, and meant to be kind, and their mother trusted her completely. But she was getting old, and was rather tired of children. She had had such a lot to bring up – the four big brothers and sisters of Rafe and Alix, and before them a large family of their cousins. And I don’t think she was really very fond of children, though she was devoted to tiny babies. She didn’t in the least understand children’s fancifulnesses or many of their little ways, and was far too fond of saying, “Stuff and nonsense, Master Rafe,” or “Miss Alix,” as the case might be.
The walk this afternoon would not have been any livelier than usual, so far as nurse was concerned, but the children were so brimful of their new ideas that they felt quite bright and happy, and after a while even nurse was won over to enter into their talk, or at least to answer their questions pretty cheerfully.
For though of course they had not the least idea of telling her their secret, it was too much on their minds for them not to chatter round about it, so to say.
“Have you ever seen a fairy, nurse?” said Alix; and, rather to her surprise, nurse answered quite seriously:
“No, my dear. Time was, I suppose, as such things were to be seen, but that’s past and gone. People have to work too hard nowadays to give any thought to fairies or fairyland.”
But on the whole this reply was rather encouraging.
“You must have heard of fairies, though,” said Rafe. “Can’t you remember any stories about them?”
Nurse had never been great at story-telling.
“Oh dear no, Master Rafe,” she replied; “I never knew any except the regular old ones, that you’ve got far prettier in your books than I could tell them. Sayings I may have heard, just countryside talk, when I was a child. My old granny, who lived and died in the village here, would have it that, for those that cared to look for them, there were odd sights and sounds in the grounds of the old house down the lane. Beautiful singing her mother had heard there when she was a girl; and once when a cow strayed in there for a night, they said when she came out again she was twice the cow she had been before, and that no milk was ever as good as hers.”
The children looked at each other.
“I wonder they didn’t turn all the cows in there,” said Rafe practically.
“Why didn’t they, nurse?”
“Oh dear me, Master Rafe, that’s more than I can tell. It was but an old tale. You can’t expect much sense in such.”
“Whom did the old house belong to? Who lived there?” said Alix.
“Nobody knows,” said nurse. “It’s too long ago to say. But there’s always been good luck about the place, that’s certain. You’ve seen the flowers there in the summer time. Some of them look as beautiful as if they were in a proper garden; and it’s certain sure there’s no wood near here like it for the nightingales.”
This was very satisfactory so far as it went, but nurse would say no more, doubtless because she had nothing more to say.
“I do believe, Rafe,” said Alix, when they were sitting together after tea, “that the old garden is a sort of entrance to fairyland, and that it’s been waiting for us to find it out.”
Her eyes were shining with eagerness, and Rafe, too, felt very excited.
“I do hope mamma will let us have all to-morrow to ourselves,” he said. “You see, one has to be very careful with fairies, Alix – all the stories agree about that. We must go to work very cautiously, so as not to offend them in any way.”
“You’re always cautious,” said Alix, with a little contempt; “rather too cautious for me. Of course we shall be very polite, and take care not to spoil any of the plants, but we’ll have to be a little venturesome too. And,” she went on, “you may count that they’ve invited us. The wren brought a regular message. I only hope they’re not offended with us for not going to-day.”
“If they’re good kind of fairies,” said Rafe sagely – “and I think they’re sure to be – they wouldn’t have liked us to be disobedient; and you know mamma’s awfully particular about our coming in the moment we hear the bell ring.”
“Yes,” said Alix; “that’s true.”
Mamma’s heart was extra soft that evening, I think. She had seen so little of the children lately that she was feeling rather sorry for them, and all the more ready to agree to any wish of theirs. So they had no difficulty in getting her consent to their picnic plan for to-morrow. And the weather was wonderfully settled, as it sometimes is even in England, though early in the year.
So the next morning saw them set off, carrying a little basket of provisions and a large parasol, full of eagerness and excitement as to what might be before them.
They did not cross the lawn as they had done the day before, for they had a sort of feeling that they did not wish anyone to see them start, or to know exactly which way they went. It added to the pleasant mystery of the expedition. So they went straight out by the front gates, and after following the high road for a quarter of a mile or so, entered a little wood which skirted the grass-grown lane along one side, and from which they made their way out with some scrambling and clambering at only a few yards’ distance from the entrance to the deserted garden where they had last seen the wren.
The sight of the gate-posts reminded Alix of the bird, and she stopped short with some misgiving.
“Rafe,” she said, “do you think perhaps we should have waited for her at the ilex tree? I never thought of it before.”
“Oh no,” said Rafe; “I’m sure it’s all right. We’ve come to the place she led us to. She didn’t need to show us the way twice! Fairies don’t like stupid people.”
“You seem to know a great lot about fairies,” said Alix, who had no idea of being snubbed herself, though she was fond of snubbing other people; “so I think you’d better settle what we’re to do.”
“I expect we’ll find the wren inside the gate,” said Rafe; and they made their way on in silence.
There was no difficulty in getting into the grounds, for though the gate on its rusty hinges would have been far too heavy for the children to move, there was a space between it and the posts where the wood had rotted away, through which it was easy for them to creep. First came Rafe, then the basket, next Alix, and finally the big parasol.
It was a good while since they had been in the Ladywood garden, and when they had got on to their feet again, they stood still for a minute or two looking round them. It was a curious-looking place certainly; the very beauty of it had something strange and dream-like about it.
Here and there the old paths were clearly to be traced. The main approach, or drive, as we should now call it, leading to where the house had been, was still quite distinct, though the house itself was entirely gone – not even any remains of ruins were to be seen, for all the stone and wood of which it had been built had long since been carted away to be used elsewhere.
But the children knew where the old hall had actually stood – a large, square, level plateau, bordered on three sides by a broad terrace, all grass-grown, showing in two or three places where stone steps had once led down to the lower grounds, told its own tale. Along the front of this plateau, supporting it, as it were, there was still a very strongly-built stone wall banked up into the soil. The children walked on slowly till they were near the foot of this wall, and then stood still again. It was about five feet high; they seemed attracted to it, they scarcely knew why – perhaps because it was the only remaining thing actually to show that here had been once a home where people had lived.
“I daresay,” said Alix, looking up, “that the children used to run along the terrace at the top of that wall, and their mammas and nurses would call after them to take care they didn’t fall over. Doesn’t it seem funny, Rafe, to think there have always been children in the world?”
“I daresay the boys jumped down sometimes,” said Rafe. “I’d like to try, but I won’t to-day, for I promised mamma to take care of you, and if I sprained my ankle it would be rather awkward.”
They had forgotten their little quarrel, and for the moment they had forgotten about the wren.
She was nowhere to be seen.
What was to be done?
“If we were only looking for a nice place for our picnic,” said Rafe, “nothing could be better than the shelter of this wall. With it on one side, and the parasol tilted up on the other, it would be as good as a tent.”
“But we’re not only looking for a picnic place,” said Alix impatiently. “The only thing to do is to poke about till we find something, for I’m perfectly certain the wren didn’t bring us here for nothing; and then, you know, there’s even what nurse told us about this garden.”
Alix’s words roused Rafe’s energy again; for he was a trifle lazy, and wouldn’t have been altogether disinclined to sit down comfortably and think about dinner. But once he got a thing in his head, he was not without ideas.
“Let’s follow right along the wall,” he said, “and examine it closely.”
“I don’t know what you expect to find,” said Alix. “It’s just a wall, as straight and plain as can be.”
And so indeed it seemed from where they stood.
“I’ll look all along the ground, in case there might be a ring fixed in a stone somewhere, like in the Arabian Nights. That’s a regular fairy sort of plan,” said Alix.
“Very well,” agreed Rafe; “you can do that, and I’ll keep tapping the wall to see if it sounds hollow anywhere.”
And so they proceeded, Alix carrying the basket now, and Rafe the parasol, as it came in handy for his tapping.
For some moments neither of them spoke. Alix’s eyes were fixed on the ground. Once or twice, where it looked rough and uneven, she stooped to examine it more closely, but nothing came of it, except a little grumbling from Rafe at her stopping the way. To avoid this she ran on a few paces in front of him, so that when, within a few yards of the end of the wall, her brother suddenly stopped short, she wasn’t aware that he had done so till she heard him calling her in a low but eager voice.
“What is it?” she said breathlessly, hurrying back again.
“Alix,” he said, “there’s some one tapping back at us from the other side. Listen.”
“A woodpecker,” said Alix hastily; “or the echo of your tappings.”
She was in such a hurry that she didn’t stop to reflect what silly things she was saying. To tell the truth, she didn’t quite like the idea of Rafe having the honour and glory of the discovery, if such it was.
“A woodpecker,” repeated Rafe. “What nonsense! Do woodpeckers tap inside a wall? And an echo wouldn’t wait till I had finished tapping to begin. It’s just like answering me. Listen again.”
He tapped three times, slowly and distinctly, then stopped. Yes, sure enough there came what seemed indeed like an answer. Three clear, sharp little raps – clearer and sharper, indeed, than those he made with the parasol handle. Alix was now quite convinced.
“It sounds like a little silver hammer,” she said. “Oh, Rafe, suppose we’ve really found something magic!” and her bright eyes danced with eagerness.