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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 st.u.r.dy 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 Blen_nem_, 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."