The Wood-Pigeons and Mary

Chapter Four.

“We Shall Meet Again Before Long, Mary.”

It was not easy for either Mary or her aunt to keep up their spirits when the two days were over, and from the drawing-room window they watched their dear Mike driving away.

“To think,” said his mother, almost in a whisper, “to think of the long, long way he is going – and the many, many days and nights that must pass before we see him again, and all the dangers and risks he must pass through – ” but a tiny sob beside her made her stop short.

“Mary, dear,” she exclaimed, “I did not mean to make you cry,” and she kissed the little girl very lovingly.

They were quite alone, as Mary’s uncle, Mike’s father, had gone with him to the port from which Michael’s ship was to sail.

Mary wiped her eyes and kissed her aunt in return.

“I didn’t mean to cry,” she said, “Mike told me to cheer you up, auntie. And I think he is very happy. If I were a boy like him, I’d love to go sailing all over the world and to see all the strange wonderful places he is going to see. I’m sure he likes being a sailor awfully.”

“Yes,” her aunt agreed, “I am sure too that he was right in choosing the life. Most boys have a fancy for it, but with many it goes off, and Michael loves it more and more. And he is growing so strong – you would scarcely believe, Mary, that long ago, before you came to us, he was rather a delicate little boy, not nearly as sturdy as Fritz.”

“I remember hearing that he was very ill, with that fever,” said Mary, “when – ,” but she did not finish the sentence, and her aunt understood why. There had been other children – two dear little daughters were between Michael and Fritz, in that family.

Auntie gave Mary another kiss, and something in Mary’s voice made her look at her.

“Molly, dear,” she said, – she did not often call her by this pet name, but it seemed as if she used it now for Michael’s sake, – “you are looking rather pale, as well as sad. I am afraid town doesn’t suit you as well as the country.”

“It is that I can’t bear – ‘people,’” Mary was going to have said, but it struck her that wood-pigeons were scarcely “people,” and she was thinking of them as well as of Michael, “I can’t bear goings away,” she said.

“Could you not bear to go away yourself – for a little while?” said her aunt, “for a little change?”

Mary shook her head.

“No, auntie, dear,” she said, “I’d rather stay with you.”

“But it is dull for you, dear, and I am afraid I shall not be able to have you with me as much as I would like, while our cousins are here.”

Mary’s face fell.

“I’d forgotten about them,” she said.

The cousins were an elderly lady and gentleman who paid a visit every year to Mary’s uncle and aunt, and expected a good deal of attention.

“Never mind, auntie,” she went on, after a moment’s silence, “I won’t be dull. I’ll play a lot with the little ones.”

“But wait a minute, dear,” said her aunt. “I won’t force it upon you, but it is only right I should tell you of an invitation I have for you – from one of your godmothers – Miss Verity, do you remember her?”

“No,” said Mary, “I don’t remember her, but she always sends me a present on my birthday, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” said her aunt, “she is very kind and very nice every way. See here, dear, this is her letter; I think you can read the writing; it is so clear.”

It was beautiful writing – almost too fine and small, but such perfectly shaped letters that it was as easy to read as printing.

“My dear Charlotte,” it said – “I have always wished to make the acquaintance of my god-daughter, your little niece, Mary. And now that we are such very much nearer neighbours, this could surely be easily arranged. Will you spare her to me for a few weeks? I think I can almost promise you that I could make her happy, even though I have no young companions for her, and the most beautiful part of the year is past – though to my thinking, it is always beautiful here. I can send my maid, Pleasance, whom I daresay you remember, to fetch her, any day next week that would be convenient. I daresay a little holiday would do Mary no harm, and indeed she can go on with any of her lessons you like while with me, as I am very fond of teaching. – Your affectionate old friend, Felicia Verity.”

Mary read the letter slowly and carefully, but still she shook her head as she gave it back to its owner.

“No, auntie, dear,” she repeated, “I’d rather stay here.”

“It seems a pity,” said her aunt, as she slowly folded up the letter. “Levinside is such a pretty place, and Miss Verity’s house has such a pretty name, ‘Dove’s Nest,’ doesn’t that tempt you, Mary?”

Mary looked up quickly, “Dove’s Nest” was very pretty, but another name had caught her attention more sharply, through her memory rather than her fancy.

“Levinside,” she repeated, “Dove’s Nest at Levinside.”

“Yes,” said her aunt, “close to Levin Forest. You have heard of Levin Forest?”

Mary did not reply directly, but her aunt saw that her cheeks grew pink.

“May I see the letter again, please, auntie?” she said, and again her aunt unfolded it and handed it to her.

She did not look at the written part this time. Her eyes were fixed on the prettily engraved address at the top, printed in a rather peculiar shade of green —

“Dove’s Nest, Levinside.”

Then after gazing at it for a moment or two, she handed the sheet back to her aunt.

“Yes, auntie,” she said quietly, “I think I would like to go to my godmother’s.”

Her aunt was pleased, though rather puzzled at the sudden change.

“She is a funny child,” she thought to herself. “It is some fancy about the forest that she has got into her head,” and Mary’s next words made her more sure of this.

“It is quite close to the forest, isn’t it?” the little girl asked rather anxiously.

“Yes,” her aunt replied, “the name ‘Levinside’ almost tells that, and Dove’s Nest is actually on the edge of the forest. I was there once – some years ago, when your uncle and I were in that neighbourhood for a few weeks, we spent a day there with old Miss Verity. She has lived there for a long, long time.”

“I should like to go,” Mary repeated, and there was quite a sparkle in the hazel eyes which had been looking rather sad.

So the letter accepting the invitation was written and posted that very day, and when Mary stood by her window and looked out at the deserted fairy tree, it was with much happier feelings than she had ever hoped to do so again.

“They must be fairies, or any way they must have to do with some,” she thought. “Otherwise how could they have known, as I am sure they did, that my godmother was writing to invite me. Their very last words showed that they did know. Oh, my darling Cooies, how sweet it will be to see you again. ‘We shall meet before long, you will see, Mary.’ I’m only afraid it won’t be a ‘surprise’ to them, for if they could read godmother’s letter they’re sure to know when I’m coming.”

The next few days passed very happily. Mary was very interested in her packing, and not very sorry to find that not many lesson books were to make part of it.

“It will do you no harm to have another holiday – or part-holiday,” said her aunt. “And there are many things besides regular lessons that Miss Verity can teach you, almost better than any one I know. She is wonderfully clever about plants and flowers – and knows a great deal about birds, I believe.”

Mary listened to this with great interest.

“I wonder,” she thought, “if my godmother knows the Cooies. Not my Cooies; they’ve only just gone to live there. But she may know some of their relations and friends.”

“In winter, of course,” her aunt went on, “there are scarcely any flowers and plants in most places, but the best of a forest is that there is always something interesting to a botanist – and in sheltered parts it is wonderful how late and how early one can find pretty ‘wood treasures.’ I believe that is one reason why Miss Verity loves Levinside so.”

“I like flowers and ivy and ferny things,” said Mary, “though I don’t know the names of many. But I love alive things best, aunt. I mean alive like us – birds, and squirrels, and rabbits, and dormice.” Her aunt smiled.

“I am afraid the dormice won’t be very alive just now,” she replied. “That’s to say they will be fast asleep. I have heard that they wake up once or twice in the winter, just to have a good stretch and nibble a few nuts, but I don’t know if it is true. You must ask Miss Verity.”

Mary’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh,” she said, “it would be lovely to see them stretching their dear little brown paws! They’d look like baby when he wakes up and is too sleepy to open his eyes, and is all rosy and hot.”

Altogether she felt very happy and interested about her visit – besides looking forward to seeing the Cooies again.

And when the day came, and Pleasance, Miss Verity’s “old-maid” maid arrived, Mary did not feel at all shy or frightened at setting off with her on the short journey. It would indeed have been difficult to feel shy with Pleasance; she had such a very pleasant, cheerful face that Mary could not help thinking how well her name suited her. She was plainly dressed in grey, almost like a quakeress, with net quillings inside her bonnet, but her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy, and Mary thought that no other kind of dress would suit her as well Auntie seemed very pleased at Mary’s setting off so cheerfully, and kissed her very lovingly, but nurse looked at her almost reproachfully, especially when Twitter set up a sad wail at “Maly’s” going away, in which, after staring at her for a moment or two, before making up his mind, Fritz decided to join.

Mary felt rather unhappy. It does seem sometimes as if one could not please everybody, and after all, she had not asked to go away, and auntie had been glad when she said she would like to go.

“Don’t cry,” darlings, she whispered to the little ones, “Maly will soon come back again, and if only it was summer she would bring you some pretty flowers from the forest.”

Then Fritz stopped crying to whisper something in return, which at first she could not make out, but at last she did. It was “fir-cones” – nurse said there were fir-cones in the “follest.”

At this they all brightened up.

“Of course there are,” said Mary, “and I’ll bring you some to make a nice blaze in the nursery fire.”

“And to play wif,” said Twitter.

“Yes, you may keep some to play with,” Mary replied.

“Don’t make too sure of them, my dears,” said nurse, rather shortly; “Miss Mary will most likely be enjoying herself too much to care to be troubled with gathering fir-cones.”

Mary felt rather hurt, and before she had time to say anything her aunt turned to nurse, and said rather coldly, —

“Nonsense, nurse. You should know Miss Mary too well by this time to think that she would grudge a little trouble to please her cousins.”

Mary felt inclined to hug her aunt, and nurse looked sorry, and glancing at Pleasance, who was standing near the door, she saw by the little smile on the maid’s face that she too, as well as the children’s mother, had understood Mary’s feelings.

“I am sure I shall like her,” she thought to herself. Then she kissed Fritz, and Twitter, and Baby-boy again, and nurse too – which was rather nice of her, I think – and last of all her aunt, who gave her a warm hug.

And in another minute or two Mary was rattling to the station in a four-wheeler, with Pleasance beside her, and her luggage in front. And in another quarter of an hour or so, they were comfortably settled in the railway carriage – off to Levinside, Mary busy wondering to herself if this was the way the Cooies came to the Square gardens, or if they had some other “air-path,” without following the railway line.

She was roused from these reflections by the maid’s voice.

“It is a nice day for the time of year,” Pleasance said. “I hope, Miss Mary, it will be bright weather while you are with us.”

“Yes,” said Mary, rather absently. She was watching the flight of a bird overhead, and wondering if possibly it was one of her friends.

Pleasance thought she might be feeling rather shy and strange, so she went on talking.

“You have never been to Levinside, I think, Miss,” she said. “To my mind there’s no place like it, and no house like ours, though, to be sure, it’s quite small. But there’s not a window in it that you can’t see a bit of the forest from, not one, though at the back, of course, you see it best of all.”

Mary’s attention was fully caught by this time. “How nice,” she exclaimed, “how very nice! I do hope my room is at the back.”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” said the maid, pleased at her tone, “that is just what it is. It has two windows, and from one you could almost touch the trees. The other window is larger and gets the morning sun, so the room is not at all dull or chilly, indeed all our rooms are bright, though just at the edge of the forest.”

“I love forests,” said Mary, “at least I mean trees. I have never seen a real forest, only woods. Are there many birds in Levin Forest?” she went on, half timidly.

“A great many in the spring and summer time,” said Pleasance; “not so many now, of course. But enough to keep it cheery, so to say. And my lady has been very pleased lately at finding that the wood-pigeons have come over more to our part than they used. There’s a new road making across at the opposite side, and Miss Verity thinks perhaps that’s the reason; for though wood-pigeons are trusting sort of creatures, they don’t like being disturbed. And I daresay my lady’s right, for we’ve never heard them cooing like this year. It’s just beautiful.” Mary’s heart beat so fast with pleasure that she could scarcely speak. Could it be her own Cooies’ voices that Pleasance had heard? It was almost too lovely to hope for.

“I love wood-pigeons,” she said.

“Then you and my lady will be the best of friends,” said Pleasance, “for I almost think they are her favourites of all the creatures about.”

Thus beguiling the way with pleasant talk, like the travellers in the Pilgrim’s Progress, the little journey soon came to an end, and long before the autumn afternoon had given any signs of drawing in, the train slackened and pulled up at the small roadside station which was the nearest to Dove’s Nest, though a two-miles’ drive off.

And on the platform stood a lady whom Mary would have guessed to be her godmother, even if Pleasance had not exclaimed, “Here we are, Miss!” as she gathered Mary’s wraps and small luggage together.

Miss Verity had quite white – snow-white – hair. Just at the very first moment, somehow, this gave Mary a little start. She had not expected it, and she was not used to it, as her aunt and those she lived with had always been younger people. And there is something just a very little “uncanny” – till you get used to it – about very white hair and dark bright eyes; it is almost too like a “fairy godmother” to seem quite natural. But these dark eyes, though bright, were very, very sweet and soft too.

“If my godmother is at all a fairy,” thought Mary to herself, “she is a very good, kind one.”

So, though her cheeks had got rather pink with the surprise and a sort of sudden shyness, she held up her face to be kissed without hesitation, and slipped her hand into her godmother’s, feeling a pleasant sort of “sureness” that all that her aunt had told her about Miss Verity was going to come true.

There was a little pony-carriage waiting just outside the station gates, and standing in it was a rather fat piebald pony. The carriage only held two, and for a moment or so Mary wondered how she and her godmother and Pleasance were all to get to Dove’s Nest, as the maid had told her it was two or three miles from the station. But just then, glancing round, she saw that there was also a two-wheeled spring-cart, drawn by another piebald; and Miss Verity noticing Mary’s glances, smiled, as if she were answering an unspoken question.

“Yes,” she said, “they are both my ponies. Their names are Magpie and Jackdaw. Sometimes I drive them together, and then we do go pretty fast, though Magpie does not look as if that often happened, does she?”

Magpie was the fat pony that Mary had first noticed, though Jackdaw certainly was not thin!

“No,” said Mary, “she doesn’t. But she is very pretty,” she went on, feeling – as Magpie just then turned her head as if she was listening – that perhaps it might hurt her to hear herself spoken of as at all lazy; “she is very pretty, and I daresay she is fat because she is good-tempered.”

She looked up in her godmother’s face as she spoke, and again there came the quick smile which seemed to say better than words that Miss Verity understood her thoughts.

“Yes,” she replied, “there is a good deal in that. Magpie is very good-tempered; and poor Jackie is not bad-tempered, only a little bit fiery now and then. Won’t you pat them, Mary? It will be a sort of ‘How-do-you-do?’”

Mary was only too pleased to do so.

“You shall give them each a lump of sugar every morning,” said Miss Verity; and at this the piebalds pricked up their ears.

“I am sure,” thought Mary, “that they understand what godmother says, just as well as the Cooies understand me.”

And in this she was not far wrong.

Chapter Five.

“A Little Bird Told Me.”

It was a pretty drive to Dove’s Nest, even though the summer and early autumn beauty was past, and some of the trees that bordered the road were already bare. But when they had turned a corner of the road they came into clear view of the forest, and then Mary felt perfectly happy.

For a moment or two she did not speak, then she turned to her godmother and said rather shyly – “It’s like some of my fairy stories – the forest, I mean; isn’t it, godmother?”

Miss Verity smiled, and by the look in her eyes Mary saw that she understood.

“Yes,” she said. “I think that is why I like to live close to a forest. It seems full of fairy stories.” Mary gave a little sigh of pleasure. It is very nice to feel that big people know what you mean, even though you cannot say what you are feeling in very clear words. Then she sat silent again, gazing before her and feeling that she was already enjoying herself very much.

Magpie trotted along in her usual placid way; now and then pricking up her ears and switching her tail, though there were no flies about.

“What does she do that for?” asked Mary.

“I think it is just a little sign of friendliness,” said Miss Verity. “We know each other so well, you see – Magpie and I, I mean; we often jog along together like this for hours and hours. And now and then I talk to her a little, and she answers me in her way. So perhaps when she hears my voice talking to you, she thinks it is to her.”

Just then Magpie gave a very big switch Mary laughed.

“Do you know,” she said, “I believe she means to be very polite to me. I think that is why she switches her tail and cocks her ears to-day, and she wants us to know.”

Miss Verity laughed too.

“I daresay you are right,” she said. “And now, Mary,” she went on, “keep your eyes open even wider than usual, for Dove’s Nest comes in sight all of a sudden.”

Mary’s face sparkled with eagerness. She glanced about her from side to side, and at last there came in view a stop in the hedge at the left side, which, as they got quite close, proved to be the entrance to a fairly wide grassy lane; and a little way farther on a white gate was to be seen, or rather the white posts at each side, for the gate itself was hooked back among the green bushes, so as to leave the entrance open.

“Here we are,” said Miss Verity, and as Magpie turned in, her mistress allowed her to go slowly, which the piebald never objected to, even at her own door, so as to let the little guest have a good first sight of the house and garden.

It – the house, I mean – really was rather like a nest. The stone it was built of was a soft browny-grey colour, and the carefully-trained ivy had grown over it so prettily that even the colour of the walls was shaded and in some places hidden by the rich dark green. And as Mary gazed, a funny fancy came into her head that the windows, which were always kept very bright and clean, were like kind twinkling eyes looking out to welcome you. There was a cosy-looking porch, the roof of which was thatched in a queer fancy way; it looked like moss, and made one think still more what a good name Dove’s Nest was for the house.