Читать книгу The Wood-Pigeons and Mary - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 1

“Mary is crying,” said Mr Coo.

“No!” replied Mrs Coo.

But Mr Coo said again —

“Mary is crying,” and though Mrs Coo repeated —

“No!” she knew by the way he held his head on one side and looked at her, that he was very much in earnest indeed.

I must tell you that when Mrs Coo said ‘no,’ it went off into a soft sound that was almost like ‘coo’; indeed most of her talking, and of Mr Coo’s too, sounded like that, which is the reason, I daresay, that many people would not have understood their conversation. But it would be rather tiresome to write “no,” or other words, with double o’s at the end, so I will leave it to be fancied, which will do just as well. There is a great deal of conversation in the world which careless people don’t understand; a great deal which no one can understand properly, however much they try; but also a great deal that one can get to understand, if one tries, even without the gift which the dear fairy bestowed on the very lucky prince in the long ago story. I forget his name, but I daresay some of you remember it. The gift was the power to understand all that the beasts and birds say.

This very morning the wind has been talking to me a good deal – it was the south wind, and her stories are always very sweet, though sometimes sad, yet I understand a good deal of them.

After this second “No,” Mr and Mrs Coo sat looking at each other for a moment or two, without speaking.

Then said Mr Coo —

“It must be something – serious. For Mary scarcely ever cries.”

“True,” said Mrs Coo, “true.”

But she did not say anything more, only she too held her head on one side and kept her reddy-brown eyes fixed on Mr Coo. They seemed to ask, “What is to be done?” only as she nearly always depended on Mr Coo for settling what was to be done or if anything was to be done, she did not need to say the words.

“Mary scarcely ever cries,” he repeated. “There were large drops, quite large ones on her cheeks.”

“As large as raindrops?” asked Mrs Coo.

“Larger – that is to say as large as large raindrops – the kind that come when it thunders,” said Mr Coo.

“Oh dear,” sighed Mrs Coo, thinking to herself that Mary’s trouble must be a very bad one indeed if her tears were so large. She wanted very much for once, to ask what could be done, but she saw that Mr Coo was considering very deeply, so she did not interrupt his thoughts.

At last he turned to her.

“I heard something,” he said. “Very little, but enough to help me to put two and two together.”

“To make four,” said Mrs Coo quickly. She felt rather proud of her arithmetic, though she did not understand what Mr Coo could mean, as she had never heard the saying before. “Four what, my dear?”

“Four nothing,” was the reply – rather a cross one. “It is an expression. You are not as used to human talk as I am, you see,” he went on more amiably, for it is not the way with the Coo family ever to be cross for more than a moment, and if ever they are, they are sorry immediately. “Never mind about the two and two. What I heard was only a few words, but it has decided me that I must hear more, for,” and here Mr Coo’s tone grew very solemn, “it had to do with us!”

Mrs Coo was so startled that she repeated Mr Coo’s words, which was one of the few things that tried his temper.

“It had to do with us,” she said. “How could that be? We have never done anything that could make Mary cry, especially such very large tears.”

“Yes,” said Mr Coo, “we have done one thing. We have left the Square Gardens.”

“But that was some time ago,” said Mrs Coo, “and she did not cry when very sweetly.”

Mr Coo gave what was for him a little cough – a sort of “h’m.”

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I have never felt perfectly sure that she understood my explanation that day. Still, you are right so far. I have seen her several times since then, and though she was putting her head out of the window as far as she dared, and looking towards our tree, where the nest is already falling to pieces, she was certainly not crying.”

“Perhaps she saw you yourself, and felt sure we had not really left for good?”

“No,” said Mr Coo, “she did not see me the day she put her head so far out of the window. I was watching her, for I was a little afraid she might already be missing us. But she only looked at the tree and seemed quite happy.”

“Is it since then that the nest has fallen to pieces, do you think, Mr Coo?” asked Mrs Coo.

She was rather a clever little wood-pigeon after all, though Mr Coo scarcely thought so.

“Yes,” he replied. “There was a great deal of wind last night and the night before – I fancy the wind blew it down. This morning there is almost nothing to be seen of it.”

“Then that was why Mary was crying,” exclaimed Mrs Coo.

But again Mr Coo shook his head, or at least turned it to the other side, which meant that he did not agree with Mrs Coo.

“That would not explain the words I heard,” he said.

“What were they?”

“She was crying,” Mr Coo replied, “crying and leaning against the window, and the window was open, and I heard her say, ‘He doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t believe me. It’s too bad of the Cooies – ’ she calls us the Cooies, you know, my dear.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Coo, nodding her head gently, “I know.”

“It’s too bad of the Cooies,” she said again, Mr Coo went on. ”‘I believe they’re not Cooies at all, but very unkind, tricky fairies.’ She said that– she really did.”

“Dear, dear, it’s very sad, very sad indeed,” said Mrs Coo, and her voice was exceedingly low and mournful. “Mary to think that of us. Something must be done, Mr Coo, something must be done.”

“Of course it must,” he agreed. “I must go back then this very afternoon and try to see her and find out all about the trouble.”

“Shall I come too?” asked Mrs Coo.

“Certainly, if you like,” said Mr Coo.

In his heart, he was very pleased to have her company, but he was not very fond of allowing that he was not quite able to manage everything by himself.

“Certainly, if you like,” he repeated, “but just as you choose.”

“Then I think I will come,” she said. “For one thing, Mary will be pleased to see both of us together, I feel sure, and perhaps it may be easier to catch her eyes if we are both there. We can fly about a little just in front of her window as we used to do, and call out to each other. But I hope she will not be crying – at least not such very large tears. It would be almost too much for my feelings,” and she gave a deep sigh – a real sigh, though it sounded like a very soft and melancholy “coo.”

So, rather late that afternoon, the two wood-pigeons set off. It was a pretty long fly to the square where Mary lived, but they thought it better not to go earlier, for as it was now autumn and the days were beginning to get shorter, they knew that the children went out for their second walk soon after their dinner, so as to come in before it got chilly.

And very often just about the time they planned to reach the Square gardens, they had seen Mary at her own window, where she used to stand looking out, after taking off her hat and jacket, and while waiting to be called to tea.

Mary loved the window of her room. It looked out to the back of the house, for the gardens I am speaking of were not those in the middle of the square in front, but much prettier ones, stretching along between one side of Mary’s Square, and one side of another Square, whose houses also looked out on them from the back. Mary knew every tree and bush that grew near her house. She used to watch them all the year round, and could tell exactly about what time the leaves began to fade and drop off, and about when the pretty new spring ones first showed, growing a little greener and brighter every day till the trees had all their summer clothes on again. She got to know when the spring was in a lazy mood, and when the autumn was in too great a hurry to come, so that her uncle used sometimes to call her his little “weather prophet.” And if she had been clever at drawing, which I am afraid she was not particularly, she could have sketched the shapes and branches of her favourite trees from memory; so well did she know how they looked when quite bare, and how they looked when in full dress, and how the steady old evergreen ones, who never vary much, hold themselves.

Her ‘favouritest’ tree was one that kept its leaves longer, and strange to say, got its new ones earlier, than any of the others. I cannot tell you what kind of tree it was. I am not sure if Mary herself knew its name. She called it in her own mind the “fairy tree,” but she did not tell any one this, as she would have been afraid of being laughed at.

But her great reason for liking this tree best of any, you can perhaps already guess.

It was – or had been – the home of the dear wood-pigeons – the Cooies!

Ah – the “had been” makes a great difference. It was their home no longer.

Was that then what Mary was crying about the day Mr Coo saw her and felt so distressed about her?

No, not exactly that.

She had not quite understood Mr Coo’s long speech, in which he told her they were going to flit for good. She had only thought he was singing a “cooie” song to her extra sweetly, because they were going away for a day or two, as she had known them do before – for a little change, she supposed, now that the young Cooies were all hatched and fledged and able to look after themselves – “grown-up and out in the world.” Next year no doubt there would be eggs in the nest again to hatch and take care of – eggs and then fledglings – a weary business it must be, Mary thought, though happily Mrs Coo did not seem to think so, nor Mr Coo either, as he sat on a branch talking to her while she stayed so patiently and contentedly in the nest, and their soft voices sounded sweetly through the spring air, in at Mary’s window, where she never forgot to stand morning and evening to nod and smile to her little friends, and even to talk sometimes when Mr Coo hopped up to a still nearer bough.

No, it was not exactly about the Cooies having gone that Mary was crying so piteously that day. She still thought they would come back again before long, though certainly they had never been away for so many days together as this time, which made her begin to feel rather less sure of their returning, and when she came in from her walk that afternoon and stood at the window looking out, a sad fear stole over her that perhaps they would never come back again at all.

Suddenly a faint sound made her start. She had just begun saying to herself again the same words which Mr Coo had overheard, and which had so hurt his feelings as well as Mrs Coo’s.

“It’s too bad of the Cooies, too bad. I really don’t believe – ” when the little sound reached her ears, and looking up quickly, she saw that the window was slightly open at the top, and again she heard a soft, very soft “coo.”

It only took her a moment to push up the lower sash as high as it would go. Luckily there were bars across, so she could not lean far out; only her forehead and eyes and the top of her curly head got through, but even this gave her a clearer view of the fairy tree and the boughs, lower down than her window, from which Mr Coo had so often “talked” to her, while keeping at the same time his eye on Mrs Coo patiently seated on the nest farther in among the branches, and ready to do any little errand that might be wanted.

The nest, alas, was no longer there; only bits of it, at leasts were left Mary knew so exactly where it had been that she could distinguish the fragments, but no one looking for it for the first time could have seen anything at all. But – something better than the nest met Mary’s delighted eyes. Two little well-known figures were there – on the very end of one of the boughs, so as the better to catch her eye, and now there was no doubt in her mind as to the sound she had heard – her own dear wood-pigeons were back again, and looking to see her at the window!

She was so pleased that she almost screamed!

“Oh, Cooies, Cooies,” she cried, “you’ve come back. But why did you go away for so long? You don’t know how unhappy I’ve been. I wish you’d come up here on to the window-sill and let me tell you all about it.”

There came another “coo,” rather louder and clearer than usual, and then a flutter and movement, a spreading of little wings, and —

“I do believe,” said Mary to herself, “I do believe they’ve heard me and understood what I say.”

She spoke more than half in fun; she did not really think it could be true; all the same a sort of tremble of wonder and delight went through her, as she saw her little friends slowly rising upwards and heard the soft swish of their wings as they flew towards – yes actually towards her!

Was she dreaming?

She rubbed her eyes, as people always do when they are not quite sure if they are awake, or as they think they do when they are really asleep, but the rubbing made no difference. She was not dreaming. She was standing at her own window, it was still broad daylight, and everything was quite natural and real, and the same as usual except that the pair of wood-pigeons were flying towards her and in another moment had perched on her window-sill!

“They are fairies,” Mary decided, “that is it.”

“But not unkind, tricky fairies, I hope,” said a gentle soft voice, and a queer little shiver went through Mary. Fairies or not, a fairy gift had come to her. She could understand what the Cooies said!

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she exclaimed, half frightened and half wild with delight. “You must be fairies, for I can talk to you and know what you say.”

There was a sound like a murmur of laughter, and then the little voice again. It was Mrs Coo’s this time, but Mary had not yet learnt to distinguish between the two, though she soon came to do so.

“No, dear,” it said, “not more fairies than all we wood-creatures are, if only you human beings would take the trouble to get to know us. But some do – some few – and you are one of those it has come to easily, to understand us. We have always understood you. And now you must tell us all about what has been the matter.”

“And why you were crying so,” put in Mr Coo, who did not at all intend to be left out, especially as it was he who had made the discovery of Mary’s woe. “Such big tears too,” added Mrs Coo.

“It wasn’t only because we had gone away, was it?” asked Mr Coo.

“No,” replied Mary, finding herself, rather to her surprise, already getting used to the wonderful power that had come to her, “no, it wasn’t only that, because, you see, I thought you would soon come back again, as you have sometimes flown off for a day or two, you know. No, it wasn’t only that. It was that he wouldn’t believe me, and I care for him far the most of all my cousins. I mean Michael.”

“Michael,” repeated Mr Coo, “is he the fat little red-haired boy in sailor suits? His hair is something the colour of yours, Mary.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” said Mary, rather huffily. “That Michael! Of course not. That’s Fritz – stupid little thing. Michael isn’t fat. He’s tall and has proper dark hair, and he’s very, very brave. Fancy taking Fritz for Michael!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr Coo, but though his tone was very polite it was rather stiff. “How were we to know, seeing we are not nasty tricky fairies, about your relations, unless you explain them?” Mary felt herself growing red.

“I didn’t say nasty tricky fairies,” she replied very meekly. “I think I said ‘unkind,’ but I didn’t mean you to hear, and it was only just when I was vexed. But I’m sure now that you are very kind, and I am so glad you have come back again that I wouldn’t for anything be rude.”

“All right,” said Mr Coo, “I am sure you did not intend to hurt our feelings. We couldn’t care for you if you were that sort of little girl. But please be so good as to tell us about Michael, for time is getting on.”

“Yes,” Mary agreed, “they will soon be calling me to tea. Well – it was this way. You know that I’ve known you – that we’ve known each other, though not so well as now.”

“No, till now it has just been a polite acquaintance, so to say. Good-morning and good-evening, and so on – on your part at least, Mary,” interrupted Mr Coo. But Mrs Coo gave him a tiny poke with one of her feet – and Mary went on —

“Now that we can talk to each other it seems quite different, of course. All the same I have watched you ever since I came to live in this house – but somehow I’ve never spoken about you to any one. I didn’t want all the children to come bothering to my window, you see, and the nurseries all look to the front; I wanted to keep you to myself. But when Michael came home – he’s a sailor already, that’s why he’s so very brave – I thought I’d tell him about you – I wanted to tell somebody, you see, and – ”

A bell sounded – a voice at the door —

“Miss Mary, my dear.”