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We made a sort of pretence of strolling past her house at first, but we found we didn't need to. She beckoned to us at once, and just at that moment the parrot, who was out in his balcony, most luckily -- or cleverly, Peterkin always declares he did it on purpose -- screeched out in quite a good-humoured tone -- |
'Good morning! good morning! Pretty Poll! Fine day, boys! Good morning!' |
'Good morning, Poll,' we called out as we ran across the tiny plot of garden to Margaret. |
'I'm so glad you've come,' she said, 'but you mustn't stop a minute. I've been out in a bath-chair this morning -- I've just come in; and now I'm to go every day. It's horrid, and it's all nonsense, when I can walk and run quite well. It's all that old witch. I'm going again to-morrow and Wednesday; but I'm going to ma... |
'All right,' we replied. 'On Wednesday -- day after to-morrow, if it's fine, of course.' |
'Yes,' she said; 'though I'll try to go, even if it's not very fine, and you must try to come. I know now why nurse has to go to London. It's to see her sister, who's in an hospital, and Wednesday's the only day, and she's a dressmaker -- that's why I thought nurse had to go to a dressmaker's. I'm going on making up my... |
'A frog,' said Peterkin. He had enchanted frogs on the brain just then, I believe. |
'No,' said Margaret, 'that wouldn't be so bad, for I'd be able to jump about, and there's nothing I love as much as jumping about, especially in water,' and her eyes sparkled with a sort of mischief which I had seen in them once or twice before. 'No, it would be something much horrider -- a dormouse, perhaps. I should ... |
'You shan't be changed into a dormouse or -- or anything,' said Peterkin, with a burst of indignation. |
'Thank you, Perkins,' Margaret replied; 'but please go now and remember -- Wednesday.' |
We ran off, and though we thought we had only been a minute or two at Rock Terrace, after all we were not home much too early. |
'We must be careful on Wednesday,' I said. 'I'm afraid my watch is rather slow.' |
'Dinner isn't always quite so pumptual on Wednesdays,' said Pete, 'with its being a half-holiday, you know.' |
It turned out right enough on Wednesday. |
Considering what a little girl she was then -- only eight and a bit -- Margaret was very clever with her plans and settlings, as we have often told her since. I daresay it was with her having lived so much alone, and read so many story-books, and made up stories for herself too, as she often did, though we didn't know ... |
We had no difficulty in finding her bath-chair, and the man took it quite naturally that she should have some friends, and, of course, made no objection to our walking beside her and talking to her. He was a very nice kind sort of a man, though he scarcely ever spoke. Perhaps he had children of his own, and was glad fo... |
It was a very fine day -- a sort of November summer, and when you were in the full sunshine it really felt quite hot. There were bath-chairs standing still, for the people in them to enjoy the warmth and to stare out at the sea. |
Margaret did not want to stare at it, and no more did we. But it was more comfortable to talk with the chair standing still; for though to look at one going it seems to crawl along like a snail, I can tell you to keep up with it you have to step out pretty fast, faster than Peterkin could manage without a bit of runnin... |
So we were very glad to pull up for a few minutes, though we had already got through a good deal of business, as I will tell you. |
Margaret had made up her mind to run away! Fancy that -- a little girl of eight! |
Pete and I were awfully startled when she burst out with it. She could stand Miss Bogle and the dreadful dulness and loneliness of Rock Terrace no longer, she declared, not to speak of what might happen to her in the way of being turned into a kitten or a mouse or something, if the witch got really too spiteful. |
'And where will you go to?' we asked. |
'Home,' she said, 'at least to my nursey's, and that is close to home.' |
We were so puzzled at this that we could scarcely speak. |
'To your nurse's!' we said at last. |
'Yes, to my own nurse -- my old nurse!' said Margaret, quite surprised that we didn't understand. And then she explained what she thought she had told us. |
'That stupid thing who is my nurse now,' she said, 'isn't my real nurse. I mean she has only been with me since I came here. She belongs to Miss Bogle -- I mean Miss Bogle got her. My own darling nursey had to leave me. She stayed and stayed because of that bad cold I got, you know, but as soon as I was better she had ... |
Peterkin was nearly crying by this time. But I knew I must be very sensible. It all seemed so very serious. |
'But what will your grandfather say when he knows you've run away?' I asked, while Peterkin stood listening, with his mouth wide open. |
'He'd be very glad to know where I was, I should say,' Margaret replied. 'My own nursey will write to him, and I will myself. It'll be a good deal better than if I stayed to be turned into something he'd never know was me. Then, what would Dads and Mummy say to him for having lost me?' |
'The parrot'd tell, p'raps,' said Pete. |
'As if anybody would believe him!' exclaimed Margaret, 'except people who understand about fairies and witches and things like that, that you two and I know about.' |
She was giving me credit for more believing in 'things like that' than I was feeling just then, to tell the truth. But what I did feel rather disagreeably sure of, was this queer little girl's determination. She sometimes spoke as if she was twenty. Putting it all together, I had a sort of instinct that it was best not... |
'Why should Miss Bogle want to turn you into anything?' |
'Because witches are like that,' said Peterkin, answering for his princess. |
'And because she hates the bother of having me,' added Margaret. 'She has written to Gran that I am very troublesome -- nurse told me so; nurse can't hold her tongue -- and I daresay I am,' she added truly. 'And so, if I seemed to be lost, she'd say it wasn't her fault. And as I suppose I'd never be found, there'd be a... |
'You couldn't but be found now,' said Peterkin, 'as, you see, we'd know.' |
'If she didn't turn you into something too,' said Margaret, with the sparkle of mischief in her eyes again. |
Pete looked rather startled at this new idea. |
'The best thing to do is for me to go away to a safe place while I'm still myself,' she added. |
'But have you got the exact address? Do you know what station to go to, and all that sort of thing?' I asked. 'And have you got money enough?' |
'Plenty,' she said, nodding her head; 'plenty for all I've planned. Of course I know the station -- it's the same as for my own home, and nursey lives in the village where the railway comes. Much nearer than our house, which is two miles off. And I know nursey will have me, even if she had to sleep on the floor herself... |
'It isn't that,' I said; 'it's -- it's the whole thing. Supposing you got lost after all, it would be -- -- ' |
'No, no! I won't get lost,' she said, speaking again in her very grown-up voice. 'And remember, you're on your word of honour as gentlemen! -- gentlemen!' she repeated, 'not to tell any one without my leave. If you do, I'll just run away by myself, and very likely get lost or stolen, or something. And how would you fee... |
'We are not going to break our promise,' I said. 'You needn't be afraid.' |
'I'm not,' she said, and her face grew rather red. 'I always keep my word, and I expect any one I trust to keep theirs.' |
And though she was such a little girl, not much older than Elvira, whom we often called a 'baby,' I felt sure she would 'keep hers.' It certainly wouldn't mend matters to risk her starting off by herself, as I believe she would have done if we had failed her. |
It has taken longer to write down all our talking than the talking itself did, even though it was a little interrupted by the bath-chair man every now and then taking a turn up and down, 'just to keep Missy moving a bit,' he said. |
Margaret's plans were already so very clear in her head that she had no difficulty in getting us to understand them thoroughly, and I don't think I need go on about what she said, and what we said. I will tell what we fixed to do, and what we did do. |
Next Wednesday -- a full week on -- was the day she had settled for her escape from Rock Terrace. It was a long time to wait, but it was the day her nurse was pretty sure -- really quite sure, Margaret thought -- to go to London again, for she had said so. She went by a morning train, and did not come back till after d... |
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