They were growing “quite to be trusted,” nurse told their mother, and it scarcely seemed needful for them to go regular walks now, which nurse was very glad of, as it left her free to get on nicely with all the needlework, in which—next to a baby, and there had been no new baby since Alix—her heart delighted.
So the discovery of the pleasures of the deserted manor suited everybody.
But after a while, the children began to think it was time to have another story, and to wonder if their old friend had forgotten them, or possibly gone away. There was no use hunting any more for the hidden door; they had hurt their fingers and tired themselves to no purpose in doing so already. And at last they came to the conclusion that if Mrs Caretaker didn’t want them to find it, it was no use trying, and that if she did, she would soon find ways and means of fetching them.
“Unless, of course,” said Alix, “she has gone. Perhaps she’s like the birds, you know—only turned the other way. I mean perhaps she goes off in the summer, once she’s started everything, and all the plants and things are growing beautifully now, in their wild way. You see she’s not like a regular trim gardener—she doesn’t want them to grow all properly like you can see anywhere.”
“Still she must take great care of them somehow,” said Rafe thoughtfully, “for you know people often notice how few weeds there are about Ladywood, and in full summer the wild flowers are quite wonderful. And the birds—it’s always here the nightingales are heard the best.”
Alix looked up. They were sitting in their favourite place, at the foot of some very tall trees.
“If we’d had any sense,” she said, “we might almost have seen for ourselves long ago that there was something fairy about the place, even before the wren led us here.”
The mention of the wren made her remember something she had noticed.
“Rafe,” she went on, “do you know I’ve seen a little robin hopping about us the last day or two, and chirping in a talking sort of way. I forgot to tell you. I wonder if he has anything to say to us, for you know there were two birds that wanted to tell us stories.”
“Per—” began Rafe in his slow fashion.