"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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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----"
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT PLAN
AT that moment the clock--a clock somewhere near--struck. Margaret started, and listened,--"One, two, three." She looked pleased.
"It"s only a quarter to one," she said. "Half-an-hour still to my dinner. What time do you need to get home by?"
"A quarter-past will do for us," I said.
"Oh, then it"s all right," she replied. "But I must be quick. I want to know all that the parrot told you."