“They might see you from the house.”
“Not if I’m careful.”
“You never are careful,” said Peter wisely.
“But baccy’s all I’ve got.”
“You’ve got me. I’ll come as often as I can.”
As he was going, Uncle Waffles hesitated and called him back. “Could you manage to let me see Jehane and Glory? Couldn’t you coax ‘em into the garden? I’m longing for a sight of them. They’d never know I was watching.—It’s an odd Christmas I’m going to have.”
Peter had no idea that the time had flown so fast. As he passed up the garden, the sun was swinging above the house-tops like a smoky lantern. He could see the mold beneath the bushes, glistening and frosty, chapped and broken into little hollows and cracks. In one of the top bedrooms a light sprang up; it was Riska’s—she must be examining her stocking.
He had hoped to creep into the house undetected, but at the door he was met by Cookie.
“So that’s it, is h’it? There’s no tellin’ wot you’ll be h’up to next. I was just goin’ ter count the forks. I thought as we’d ‘ad beargulars. Awright Grice, it’s the young master been h’out for a h’early mornin’s h’airing.” He ran past her, but she caught him. “Lor’, yer cold, boy. Come and warm yerself. If you h’ate meat three times a day the same h’as I do yer wouldn’t get blue like that.”
Cookie’s one claim to distinction, which she invariably introduced into conversation, was that she was a great meat-eater. It made her different from other people and, having no beauty with which to attract, afforded her a topic with which to draw attention to herself.