The Wood-Pigeons and Mary

“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.

Chapter Ten.

“You Cannot Have Read Many Fairy Stories.”

But no, she stood there, opening the window a little, though it was decidedly cold, in vain. There was no sign or sound of her friends, and Mary felt disappointed and rather cross when the bell rang, and she had to hasten downstairs without even the pretty greeting, she loved so well, reaching her from the neighbouring trees.

“They are really rather unkind,” she thought. “I do believe they know everything, or at least most things about me. I am sure they know I want to see them this morning. I daresay I shall hear nothing more of them – ever – or perhaps they’ll come, but after I am gone; very likely the white dove will come back to Crook Edge after Blanche and Milly are gone. I don’t believe birds have got any hearts, whether they’re half fairies or not.”

“Mary,” said Miss Verity, who noticed Mary’s moods more than the little girl knew, “will you gather some fir-cones for me this afternoon? I shall not be going a drive, as the ponies need shoeing, and besides that, I have some long letters to write. So you can amuse yourself in the forest if you like.” Somehow Mary’s spirits rose when she heard this; for though feeling, as she was, rather offended with the wood-pigeons, it made her, all the same, hopeful that she might come across them.

And as soon as possible after her early dinner she set off, carrying the basket that Pleasance had given her to fill with fir-cones.

“I think I must look like a rather big Red-Riding-Hood,” she thought, as she passed through the wicket between Dove’s Nest and the forest; “though my basket is empty and hers was full, and I am hoping to meet the Cooies and not fearing to meet a wolf! And though my coat is red like hers, it is a jacket and not a cloak.”

But she walked a good way without meeting anything, and again she began to feel rather cross with her little friends.