“We want to have a good long time with Becky, you see,” said Maisie; “and we shan’t be in any one’s way.”
When they arrived, therefore, at the door in the long grey wall which skirted the Manor Farm garden, they felt sure they were the very first guests, and walked slowly towards the house, expecting to meet Becky at every turn; for after a whole week at the farm, she surely ought to be running about as if there were nothing the matter with her!
But there was no Becky, nor any one else to be seen in the garden. The flowers and the bees had it all to themselves, and were blooming and buzzing away as happily as possible, with no one to notice them. After the rain, all the blossoms looked as bright and fresh as though they had just put on new clothes to do honour to Mrs Solace’s party; and, indeed, they always seemed to enjoy their lives, and to bloom more abundantly here than anywhere else.
Aunt Katharine was proud of her garden, and took a great deal of pains to make her flowers do well; but with all her best efforts, they did not flourish like these, and yet there was so little trouble taken about them. They grew very much how they would and where they would. When they got too thick, they were weeded out; and when one sort died, it was renewed in exactly the same place year after year. Some which were left entirely to their own way, like the snapdragons, seemed to thrive best of all. These thrust themselves into the crevices of the old wall, waved in triumph along the top of it, and had sown themselves industriously at the sides of the garden paths, reaching out their velvety, glowing mouths from the most unexpected places, for the dusty-legged humble bees to dive into.
Certainly the bees had a fine time of it in the Manor garden, and plenty of sweetness to choose from, amongst the herbs, roses, and pinks which were mixed up together with the vegetables. These were separated by a wall from the lawn and flower-garden, and when the farmhouse came in view, the children saw that they were not the first visitors after all, for there were figures moving about under the deep veranda, and soon they were able to make out Becky sitting in a big wicker-chair with a cushion at her back.
“And she’s got on my pink sun-bonnet that Aunt Katharine sent her,” said Maisie.
All the way along they had been talking of Becky, and felt that they had a great deal to ask her about her journey, and what she thought of the Manor Farm; but now that they were here, and had shaken hands with her, a sudden silence fell on them all. Somehow Becky in her new surroundings struck them as a sort of stranger, and they stood round her, looking shyly at each other, without finding anything to say. This did not suit Philippa.
“Come and show me where the strawberry beds are,” she said to Dennis, and when they had run away together, Maisie drew up a chair and sat down by Becky’s side.
“How do you like being here?” she asked.
Becky had a faint tinge of colour in her face now, like a China rose washed in the rain; her dark eyes looked brighter, and when she smiled, something that would soon be a dimple showed in her cheek.