The Wood-Pigeons and Mary

“Never mind how we know,” said Mr Coo. “To begin with, we are ‘little birds’ – ”

“Not so very little,” Mary interrupted.

” – And,” Mr Coo continued, without noticing what Mary said, “everybody knows that little birds hear more than any one else. Besides, we are such near neighbours.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Mary, “that was what I wanted so much to ask you. Do you live in that dark place in the forest? I mean do you roost there?”

Both the wood-pigeons put their heads on one side and looked at her – “rather funnily,” Mary thought to herself, afterwards.

“We roost close to your garden,” said Mr Coo. “What you call the dark place in the forest is not what you think it.”

Mary listened eagerly.

“Do tell me about it,” she said.

“There is not time just now,” Mrs Coo replied. “Besides – ” and she glanced at Mr Coo.

“We hope to do much better than tell you about it,” he said. “We mean to show it to you – that is what we want to settle about. You must meet us in the forest as soon as you go out this afternoon.”

“Yes,” said Mary. She was beginning to find out that the best way with the Cooies was to agree with their plans and never to argue with them. For sooner or later, somehow or other, they carried out what they settled, and as she was by no means sure that they were not half or three-quarters “fairies,” she did not mind giving in to them, little birds though they were.

So “yes,” she said, “I have got leave to go into the forest immediately after luncheon, and if you will tell me where to meet you – ”

“You need do nothing but walk straight on through the gate from this garden,” said Mr Coo. “We shall manage all the rest. It is not going to rain, you need not be afraid,” he added, seeing that Mary was glancing up rather anxiously at the sky.

“I’m so glad,” she replied, with a sigh of relief, and just then the breakfast-bell rang.

“Good-bye, dear Cooies, good-bye till this afternoon,” she exclaimed as she ran off, and the soft coo-coo sounded in her ears on her way downstairs.

“Dear me,” said Myrtle to Pleasance, as they met on the landing, “just hearken to those wood-pigeons. They might be living in the house. I never, no never, have known them come about so, as just lately. They seem as if they knew Miss Mary was here, and were particular friends of hers,” and the old servant laughed at her own joke.

The morning passed as usual. Mary did her best to give her attention to her lessons, which as a rule she found no difficulty in doing, for her godmother’s pleasant teaching was so interesting and often indeed so amusing that it did not seem like lessons at all. But this morning her head was running so much on what her Cooies had said and promised, that more than once Miss Verity had to ask her what she was thinking about.

“Is it your afternoon in the forest that you are dreaming of?” said her godmother. “Are you intending to explore it and make wonderful discoveries?”

Mary grew rather pink.

“Godmother,” she replied, “you have such a way of guessing what I am thinking about! I never knew any one like you for that.”

Miss Verity smiled.

“You need not mind,” she said. “I have not forgotten about my own dreams and fancies when I was a little girl like you. Perhaps they were not altogether dreams and fancies, after all. However that may have been, they did me no harm, and I don’t think yours will do you any harm either.”

“Were some of them about the forest?” asked Mary, rather shyly.

Miss Verity nodded.

“Yes,” she replied, “I think they nearly all had to do with the forest. You know – or perhaps you don’t know – that this was my own old home, long, long ago, when I was a very little girl. Then, when I was nearly grown-up, we left it, and I did not see it again for many years. But it always seemed ‘home’ to me, and you can imagine my delight when I heard it was again to be sold and I was able to buy it for my very own. And I hope to end my days here, at the edge of the dear forest I love so well.”

Mary listened with great interest. She thought to herself that she would soon get to feel just as her godmother did about Dove’s Nest.

“Especially,” she added in her own mind, “as the forest is the Cooies’ home.”

“Now, let me hear you go over that page of French again,” said Miss Verity. “You will enjoy your afternoon all the more if you have done your best this morning.”

As she said this, a low “coo-coo” caught Mary’s ear. It was soft and faint – perhaps it came from some little distance – perhaps it was very low on purpose, so that no one but herself should hear it. But she knew whose voice it was; she knew too what the Cooies’ advice would be, so, though it called for some effort on her part, she determined to leave off thinking of anything but the matter in hand, and gave her full attention to her French reading. And by the end of her lesson time she felt well rewarded when her godmother told her she had done “very well indeed.”

The day had grown steadily brighter. When luncheon was over, Miss Verity went upstairs almost immediately to put on her out-door things, and Mary waited in the porch to watch for the ponies coming round and to see her godmother start.

Jackdaw and Magpie seemed very bright and eager to be off, and they looked so pretty that for a moment or two Mary half regretted that she had asked to be left behind. But just as she was thinking this, she heard again the voice from the trees, “coo-coo,” and she looked up with a smile.

“Oh my dear Cooies,” she said, “you are getting too clever! I believe you know what I am thinking even – but you need not remind me of our plans, and you needn’t be afraid that I really want to go a drive instead of staying with you.”

Then she heard her godmother coming downstairs, and as Miss Verity got into the pony-carriage she nodded brightly to Mary.

“Good-bye, dear,” she said. “Be sure you enjoy yourself, but don’t forget to run home when you hear the bell for the second time.”

Mary nodded. “I won’t forget,” she said.

Then the ponies tossed their heads, as if to say good-bye, and started off briskly, their bells tinkling clearly at first, then more and more faintly as they trotted away, till at last they were not to be heard at all.

Mary gave herself a little shake. She had been standing listening in a half dreamy way. Now she ran across the lawn and through the wicket-gate and into the wood as quickly as she could go. But once she was well among the trees she walked more slowly; somehow she never felt inclined to run very fast in the forest or to talk loudly. There was something soft and soothing in the air, in the gentle rustle high up among the branches and the uncertain light, a feeling of “mystery,” to put it shortly.

“I wonder,” said the little girl to herself, “I wonder if it all looked just as it does now when godmother was like me and strolled about the paths. I wonder if it will look just the same when I get to be quite old, as old as dear godmother is now. I wonder if it will look the same – let me see – a hundred years from now.”

“It will not take a hundred years for you to be an old woman,” said a voice close to her ear.

Mary gave a little start. Then, glancing up, she saw the two wood-pigeons perched on a low-growing branch just where she was passing. They had not been there a moment or two before, she was certain, and she felt a little vexed with them – with Mr Coo, at least, for she now knew their voices well enough to distinguish that it was he who had spoken to her – for startling her.

“Of course it won’t,” she replied rather crossly. “I am not so silly as all that. I shall be quite old in fifty years, or less than that I wasn’t thinking of godmother’s age when I wondered about a hundred years from now, nor about myself either, and if you please, Cooies, when you guess what I am thinking in my own mind, please guess the whole, and not odd bits.”

“All right,” said Mr Coo.

“No,” said Mary, “I think it’s all wrong when you get into that teasing way.”

“He doesn’t mean it, my dear,” said Mrs Coo, who was always a peacemaker, “but perhaps you are tired to-day. Would you rather not – ”

“Oh,” interrupted Mary, “if you are going to say would I rather not go to see that secret part of the forest, please don’t say it. Of course I’m not tired or anything. I’ve just been longing to come.”

“Well then,” said Mr Coo, “listen, Mary, and I will tell you exactly what to do. Walk straight on till you come to the place where you stood still with your godmother yesterday and looked at the dark part among the trees. Then glance about you on the left, and after a little you will perceive lying on the ground a small grey feather. Note well the spot where it lies, then pick it up and fasten it on to your cap in the front.”

“My cap,” exclaimed Mary, putting up her hand to her head, “my hat, you mean – oh no, by the bye, I have my little fur cap on. How quickly you notice everything, dear Cooie! I remember thinking that my cap would be more comfortable for getting in and out among the bushes.”

The Cooies did not answer, but Mary felt sure that both their heads were well on one side, which she had found out for them meant a kind of smile, and when she glanced at them she saw that it was so.

“Well then,” she went on, “I beg your pardon for interrupting you – after I have stuck the grey feather in my cap?”

“Walk on seven paces from the exact spot – right foot one – left foot two —exactly seven, you understand. Then stand still and you will see a very small opening in the brushwood and bushes, by this time very thick and close, you know. It will seem almost too small an opening for you to push into, but don’t be afraid. You shall neither scratch your face nor tear your clothes, I promise you. The only thing you may dislike will be that for a little way it may be very dark – darker the farther you go, till – ”