Peterkin

by Mrs. Molesworth

CHAPTER VI

MARGARET

There's an old proverb that mamma has often quoted to us, for she's awfully keen on our all being 'plucky,' and, on the whole, I think we are—

'Fortune favours the brave.'

I have sometimes thought it would suit Peterkin to turn it into 'Fortune favours the determined.' Not that he's not 'plucky,' but there's nothing like him for sticking to a thing, once he has got it into his head. And certainly fortune favoured him at the time I am writing about. Nothing could have suited us better than the parrot's screeching out to us 'naughty boy, naughty boy.'

I suppose he had been taught to say it to errand-boys and boys like that who mocked at him. But we did not want to set up a row, so I replied gently—

'No, no, Polly, good boys. Polly shall have his dinner soon.'

'Good Polly, good Polly,' he repeated with satisfaction.

And then—what do you think happened? The door-window of the drawing-room of the next house, the house, was pushed open a little bit, and out peeped a child's head, a small head with smooth short dark hair, but a little girl's head. We could tell that at once by the way it was combed, or brushed, even if we had not seen, as we did, a white muslin pinafore, with lace ruffly things that only a girl would wear. My heart really began to beat quite loudly, as if I'd been running fast—we had been so excited about her, you see, and afterwards Pete told me his did too.

The only pity was, that she was up on the drawing-room floor. We could have seen her so much better downstairs. But we had scarcely time to feel disappointed.

When she saw us, and saw, I suppose, that we were not errand-boys or street-boys, she came out a little farther. I felt sure by her manner that she was alone in the room. She looked down at us, looked us well over for a moment or two, and then she said—

'Are you talking to the parrot?'

She did not call out or speak loudly at all, but her voice was very clear.

'Yes,' Peterkin replied. As he had started the whole business I thought it fair to let him speak before me. 'Yes, but he called out to us first. He called us "naughty boys."'

'I heard him,' said the little girl, 'and I thought perhaps you were naughty boys, teasing him, you know, and I was going to call to you to run away. But—' and she glanced at us again. I could see that she wanted to go on talking, but she did not quite know how to set about it.

So I thought I might help things on a bit.

'Thank you,' I said, taking off my cap. 'My little brother is very interested in the parrot. He seems so clever.'

At another time Pete would have been very offended at my calling him 'little,' but just now he was too eager to mind, or even, I daresay, to notice.

'So he is,' said the little girl. 'I could tell you lots about him, but it's rather tiresome talking down to you from up here. Wait a minute,' she added, 'and I'll come down to the dining-room. I may go downstairs now, and nurse is out, and I'm very dull.'

We were so pleased that we scarcely dared look at each other, for fear that somehow it should go wrong after all. We did glance along the terrace, but nobody was coming. If only her nurse would stay out for ten minutes longer, or even less.

We stood there, almost holding our breath. But it was not really—it could not have been—more than half a minute, before the dark head and white pinafore appeared again, this time, of course, on the ground floor; the window there was a little bit open already, to air the room perhaps.

We would have liked to go close up to the small balcony where she stood, but we dared not, for fear of the nurse coming. And the garden was very tiny, we were only two or three yards from the little girl, even outside on the pavement.

She looked at us first, looked us well over, before she began to speak again. Then she said—

'Have you been to see the parrot already?'

'Oh yes,' said Peterkin, in his very politest tone, 'oh yes, thank you.' I did not quite see why he said 'thank you.' I suppose he meant it in return for her coming downstairs. 'I've been here two, no, three times, and Giles,' he gave a sort of nod towards me, 'has been here two.'

'Is your name Giles?' she asked me. She had a funny, little, rather condescending manner of speaking to us, but I didn't mind it somehow.

'Yes,' I replied, 'and his,' and I touched Pete, 'is "Peterkin."'

'They are queer names; don't you think so? At least,' she added quickly, as if she was afraid she had said something rude, 'they are very uncommon. "Giles" and "Perkin."'

'Not "Perkin,"' I said, "Peterkin."'

'Oh, I thought it was like a man in my history,' she said, 'Perkin War—something.'

'No,' said Peterkin, 'it isn't in history, but it's in poetry. About a battle. I've got it in a book.'

'I should like to see it,' she said. 'There's lots of my name in history. My name is Margaret. There are queens and princesses called Margaret.'

Pete opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but shut it up again. I know what he had been on the point of saying,—'Are you a princess?' 'a shut-up princess?' he would have added very likely, but I suppose he was sensible enough to see that if she had been 'shut-up,' in the way he had been fancying to himself, she would scarcely have been able to come downstairs and talk to us as she was doing. And she was not dressed like the princesses in his stories, who had always gold crowns on and long shiny trains. Still, though she had only a pinafore on, I could see that it was rather a grand one, lots of lace about it, like one of Elf's very best, and though her hair was short and her face small and pale, there was something about her—the way she stood and the way she spoke—which was different from many little girls of her age.

Peterkin took advantage very cleverly of what she had said about his name.

'I'll bring you my poetry-book, if you like,' he said. 'It's a quite old one. I think it belonged to grandmamma, and she's as old as—as old as—' he seemed at a loss to find anything to compare poor grandmamma to, till suddenly a bright idea struck him—'nearly as old as Mrs. Wylie, I should think,' he finished up.

'Oh,' said Margaret, 'do you know Mrs. Wylie? I've never seen her, but I think I've heard her talk. Her house is next door to the parrot's.'

'Yes,' said I, 'but I wonder you've never seen her. She often goes out.'

'But—' began the little girl again, 'I've been—oh, I do believe that's my dinner clattering in the kitchen, and nurse will be coming in, and I've never told you about the parrot. I've lots to tell you. Will you come again? Not to-morrow, but on Wednesday nurse is going out to the dressmaker's. I heard her settling it. Please come on Wednesday, just like this.'

'We could come a little earlier, perhaps,' I said.

Margaret nodded.

'Yes, do,' she replied, 'and I'll be on the look-out for you. I shall think of lots of things to say. I want to tell you about the parrot, and—about lots of things,' she repeated. 'Good-bye.'

We tugged at our caps, echoing 'good-bye,' and then we walked on towards the farther-off end of the terrace, and when we got there we turned and walked back again. And then we saw that we had not left the front of Margaret's house any too soon, for a short, rather stout little woman was coming along, evidently in a hurry. She just glanced at us as she passed us, but I don't think she noticed us particularly.

'That's her nurse, I'm sure,' said Peterkin, in a low voice. 'I don't think she looks unkind.'

'No, only rather fussy, I should say,' I replied.

We had scarcely spoken to each other before, since bidding Margaret good-bye. Pete had been thinking deeply, and I was waiting to hear what he had to say.

'I wonder,' he went on, after a moment or two's silence,—'I wonder how much she knows?'

'Why?' I exclaimed. 'What do you think there is to know?'

'It's all very misterous, still,' he answered solemnly. 'She—the little girl—said she had lots to tell us about the parrot and other things. And she didn't want her nurse to see us talking to her. And she said she could come downstairs now, but, I'm sure, they don't let her go out. She wouldn't be so dull if they did.'

'Who's "they"?' I asked.

'I don't quite know,' he replied, shaking his head. 'Some kind of fairies. P'raps it's bad ones, or p'raps it's good ones. No, it can't be bad ones, for then they wouldn't have planned the parrot telling us about her, so that we could help her to get free. The parrot is a sort of messenger from the good fairies, I believe.'

He looked up, his eyes very bright and blue, as they always were when he thought he had made a discovery, or was on the way to one. And I, half in earnest, half in fun, like I'd been about it all the time, let my own fancy go on with his.

'Perhaps,' I said. 'We shall find out on Wednesday, I suppose, when we talk more to Margaret. We needn't call her the invisible princess any more.'

'No, but she is a princess sort of little girl, isn't she?' he said, 'though her hair isn't as pretty as Blanche's and Elf's, and her face is very little.'

'She's all right,' I said.

And then we had to hurry and leave off talking, for we had been walking more slowly than we knew, and just then some big clock struck the quarter.

I think, perhaps, I had better explain here, that none of us—neither Margaret, nor Peterkin, nor I—thought we were doing anything the least wrong in keeping our making acquaintance a secret. What Margaret thought about it, so far as she did think of that part of it, you will understand as I go on; and Pete and I had our minds so filled with his fairies that we simply didn't think of anything else.

It was growing more and more interesting, for Margaret had something very jolly about her, though she wasn't exactly pretty.

I can't remember if it did come into my mind, a very little, perhaps, that we should tell somebody—mamma, perhaps, or Clement—about our visits to Rock Terrace even then. But if it did, I think I put it out again, by knowing that Margaret meant it to be a secret, and that, till we saw her again, and heard what she was going to tell us, it would not be fair to mention anything about it.

We were both very glad that Wednesday was only the day after to-morrow. It would have been a great nuisance to have had to wait a whole week, perhaps. And we were very anxious when Wednesday morning came, to see what sort of weather it was, for on Tuesday it rained. Not very badly, but enough for nurse to tell Peterkin that it was too showery for him to come to meet me, and it would not have been much good if he had, as we couldn't have spoken to Margaret.

Nor could we have strolled up and down the terrace or stood looking at the parrot, even if he'd been out on the terrace, which he wouldn't have been on at all on a bad day—if it was rainy. It would have been sure to make some of the people in the houses wonder at us; just what we didn't want.

But Wednesday was fine, luckily, and this time I got off from school to the minute without any one or anything stopping me.

I ran most of the way to the corner of Lindsay Square, all the same; and I was not too early either, for before I got there I saw Master Peterkin's sturdy figure steering along towards me, not far off. And when he got up to me I saw that he had a small brown-paper parcel under his arm, neatly tied up with red string.

He was awfully pleased to see me so early, for his round face was grinning all over, and as a rule it was rather solemn.

'What's that you've got there?' I asked.

He looked surprised at my not knowing.

'Why, of course, the poetry-book,' he said. 'I promised it her, and I've marked the poetry about "Peterkin." It's the Battle of Blen—Blen-hime—mamma said, when I learnt it, that that's the right way to say it; but Miss Tucker' ('Miss Tucker' was Blanche's and the little ones' governess) 'called it Blennem, and I always have to think when I say it. I wish they didn't call him "little Peterkin," though,' he went on, 'it sounds so babyish.'

'I don't see that it matters, as it isn't about you yourself,' I said. 'I'd forgotten all about it; I think it's rather sharp of you to have remembered.'

'I couldn't never forget anything I'd promised her,' said Pete, and you might really have thought by his tone that he believed he was the prince going to visit the Sleeping Beauty—after she'd come awake, I suppose.

We did not need to hurry; we were actually rather too early, so we went on talking.

'How about the flowers we meant to get for her?' I said suddenly.

'I didn't forget about them,' he answered, 'but we didn't promise them, and I thought it would be better to ask her first. She might like chocolates best, you know.'

'All right,' I said, and I thought perhaps it was better to ask her first. You see, if she didn't want her nurse to know about our coming to see her it would have been tiresome, as, of course, Margaret could not have told a story.

There she was, peeping out of the downstairs window already when we got there. And when she saw us she came farther out, a little bit on to the balcony. It was a sunny day for winter, and besides, she had a red shawl on, so she could not very well have caught cold. It was a very pretty shawl, with goldy marks or patterns on it. It was like one grandmamma had been sent a present of from India, and afterwards Margaret told me hers had come from India too. And it suited her, somehow, even though she was only a thin, pale little girl.

She smiled when she saw us, though she did not speak till we were near enough to hear what she said without her calling out. And when we stopped in front of her house, she said—

'I think you might come inside the garden. We could talk better.'

So we did, first glancing up at the next-door balcony, to see if the parrot was there.

Yes, he was, but not as far out as usual, and there was a cloth, or something, half-down round his cage, to keep him warmer, I suppose.

He was quite silent, but Margaret nodded her head up towards him.

'He told me you were coming,' she cried, 'though it wasn't in a very polite way. He croaked out—"Naughty boys! naughty boys!"'

We all three laughed a little.

'And now,' Margaret went on, 'I daresay he won't talk at all, all the time you are here.'

'But will he understand what we say?' asked Peterkin, rather anxiously.

Margaret shook her head.

PETE HELD OUT HIS BROWN-PAPER PARCEL. 'THIS IS THE POETRY-BOOK,' HE SAID.—p. 97.

'I really don't know,' she replied. 'We had better talk in rather low voices. I don't think,' she went on, almost in a whisper, 'that he is fairy enough to hear if we speak very softly.'

Peterkin gave a sort of spring of delight.

'Oh!' he exclaimed, 'I am so glad you think he is fairyish, too.'

'Of course I do,' said she; 'that's partly what I wanted to tell you.'

We came closer to the window. Margaret looked at us again in her examining way, without speaking, for a minute, and before she said anything, Pete held out his brown-paper parcel.

'This is the poetry-book,' he said, 'and I've put a mark in the place where it's about my name.'

He pulled off his cap as he handed the packet to her, and stood with his curly wig looking almost red in the sunlight, though it was not very bright.

'Put it on again,' said Margaret, in her little queer way, meaning his cap. 'And thank you very much, Perkin, for remembering to bring it. I think I should like to call you "Perkin," if you don't mind. I like to have names of my own for some people, and I really thought yours was Perkin.'

I wished to myself she would have a name of her own for me, but I suppose she thought I was too big.

'I think you are very nice boys,' she went on, 'not "naughty" ones at all; and if you will promise not to tell any one what I am going to tell you, I will explain all I can. I mean you mustn't tell any one till I give you leave, and as it's only about my own affairs, of course you can promise.'

Of course we did promise.

'Listen, then,' said Margaret, glancing up first of all at the parrot, and drawing back a little into the inside of the room. 'You can hear what I say, even though I don't speak very loudly, can't you?'

'Oh yes! quite well,' we replied.

'Well, then, listen,' she repeated. 'I have no brothers or sisters, and Dads and Mummy are in India. I lived there till about three years ago, and then they came here and left me with my grandfather. That's how people always have to do who live in India.'

'Didn't you mind awfully?' I said. 'Your father and mother leaving you, I mean?'

'Of course I minded,' she replied. 'But I had always known it would have to be. And they will come home again for good some day; perhaps before very long. And I have always been quite happy till lately. Gran is very good to me, and I'm used to being a good deal alone, you see, except for big people. I've always had lots of story books, and not very many lessons. So, after a bit, it didn't seem so very different from India. Only now it's quite different. It's like being shut up in a tower, and it's very queer altogether, and I believe she's a sort of a witch,' and Margaret nodded her head mysteriously.

'Who?' we asked eagerly.

'The person I'm living with—Miss Bogle—isn't her name witchy?' and she smiled a little. 'No, no, not nurse,' for I had begun to say the word. 'She is only rather a goose. No, this house belongs to Miss Bogle, and she's quite old—oh, as old as old! And she's got rheumatism, so she very seldom goes up and down stairs. And nurse does just exactly what Miss Bogle tells her. It was this way. Gran had to go away—a good way, though not so far as India, and he is always dreadfully afraid of anything happening to me, I suppose. So he sent me here with nurse, and he told me I would be very happy. He knew Miss Bogle long ago—I think she had a school for little boys once; perhaps that was before she got to be a witch. But I've been dreadfully unhappy, and I don't know what's going to happen to me if I go on like this much longer.'

She stopped, out of breath almost.

'Do you think she's going to enchanter you?' asked Peterkin, in a whisper. 'Do you think she wasn't asked to your christening, or anything like that?'

Margaret shook her head again.

'Something like that, I suppose,' she replied. 'She looks at me through her spectacles so queerly, you can't think. You see, I was ill at Gran's before I came here: not very badly, though he fussed a good deal about it. And he thought the sea-air would do me good. But I've often had colds, and I never was treated like this before—never. For ever so long, she,' and Margaret nodded towards somewhere unknown, 'wouldn't let me come downstairs at all. And then I cried—sometimes I roared, and luckily the parrot heard, and began to talk about it in his way. And you see it's through him that you got to know about me, so I'm sure he's on the other side, and knows she's a witch, but——'

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