She nodded.“Thank you for saving Russet.”She skipped off down an almost invisible pathway and disappeared from view.
Marcus slowly made his way back through the tangled forest.What an odd, interesting little girl.Normally he wouldn’t associate with children of that age, but there was no-one else here for him to talk to, only adults, and they usually did all the talking.He was supposed to just listen and learn and be trained in the correct behavior of the heir to Alverleigh.
But while Papa’s attention was wholly on his latest explosive reunion with Mama—which everyone except Papa knew wouldn’t last—Marcus was left to his own devices.
Could this grubby little girl truly be Lord Blaxland’s legitimate daughter?Running wild in the forest, day and night, with a dirty face, and dressed in rags?If he’d been the credulous type, he might even have thought her a fairy.But he wasn’t.He’d ask one of the servants about her, Cook, probably.Cook and her family had lived here forever, and she knew everything about everyone.
#
“OH YES, MASTER MARCUS, there is a little girl.”Cook’s floury hands kneaded the dough briskly as she worked.The kitchen was his favorite place in the house, and though he wasn’t supposed to go there, Cook always welcomed him, and always gave him something tasty to eat, often jam tarts, which she knew were his favorite.
She continued, “But that Lord Blaxland, he takes no interest in the poor little mite.Left alone in that big old house year after year, she is, with naught but an old woman to tend to her—her ma’s old nanny, I believe, and her with nowhere else to go, poor old soul.And a bare skeleton staff to keep that big house running—though most of the rooms are closed off, I hear.A disgrace it is.”
She rolled the dough out and started cutting out shapes with a metal cutter.“Mind you, the whole estate is going to rack and ruin—everybody knows it.Every penny it earns goes straight to some London gambling hell.The master doesn’t care.And I’m told his heir is a chip off the old block, which doesn’t bode well for the people dependent on the estate.Now, if you come back in half an hour, Master Marcus, these jam tarts will be ready.”
That evening, at moonrise, Marcus slipped out of the house, several jam tarts in his pocket, and headed for the forest.He found her waiting.“Would you like a jam tart?”he offered.She didn’t hesitate.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said, munching on a tart.It was chilly out and Marcus had put on a coat, but Tessa was in the same ill-fitting cotton dress.There were goosebumps on her skinny little arms.
“Here, you must be cold, take my coat,” he said, but she laughed him off.
“I’m not a bit cold.Anyway, moving keeps me warm.Now come on, the badgers will be coming out soon.Walk quietly.”
She took his hand in her grubby little paw and led him through a wild maze of pathways, barely lit by the moonlight.She practically skipped along; he found himself stumbling in the dim light and almost tripping on the undergrowth.He was stunned.She must know this forest like the back of her hand.
Eventually she slowed, signaling to him to stay quiet.She lay down and wriggled forward on the ground and patted the earth beside her.Marcus joined her.
Through a gap in the undergrowth he could see a grassy mound with a hole dug into it.They watched for a time, but nothing happened.Marcus started feeling restless, but the patient watchfulness of the little girl beside him shamed him into staying still and silent.
Then she nudged him, and he saw a black and white striped muzzle poking out of the hole, sniffing cautiously around.A badger emerged and was followed a few moments later by three small cubs.They foraged around, snuffling in piles of leaves and digging in the earth, and occasionally wrestling and tumbling around—and again, they were just like puppies.
Eventually they wandered off and disappeared from sight.
Tessa turned to him, her grubby little face alight with pleasure.“Aren’t they wonderful?Aren’t you glad you came?”She scrambled to her feet, beaming.
Marcus had quite enjoyed it.He wasn’t sure badgers were wonderful at all but he did, however, like her enthusiasm.“How do you know about all this?”He gestured around him.
“Oh, I just watch, and when I want to know more I find a book.We have a very large library, though Papa has sold off the more valuable ones.I hid my favorite ones though, so he couldn’t sell them.”
“Do you come out here every night?”
She shook her head, setting her elf-locks dancing.“No.Sometimes I stay home and read—NannyJune taught me to read and write.And I try to draw the animals”—she laughed—“but I’m not very good at that.But there’s always plenty to do so I’m never bored.”
Marcus was frequently bored.
Then in the abrupt change of subject he was getting used to she went on, “I’m going to learn to ride soon.Phillips—he’s our groom—told me he’s going to borrow a horse for me.He’s going to teach me.He taught my mama to ride when she was my age.Well, I’m off now.G’night.”
She skipped away and vanished into the darkness, leaving Marcus to make his way home, stumbling in the faint, filtered moonlight, and feeling large and clumsy compared with the small, quicksilver fairy-child.
#
FROM TIME TO TIME OVERthe next few years Tessa met up with the boy from Alverleigh.He was nice, for a boy.He didn’t say much, but he listened to what she had to say.He also brought her little treats—jam tarts and meat pies, sandwiches and biscuits that they shared, like a picnic.
In return, she shared with him some of the treasures of the forest: a perfect fairy-ring of fragile, frilly, parasol-shaped toadstools; a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter, a gossamer spider’s web strung with glittering crystals in the morning sunshine; the wonder of a delicate fern frond slowly unfurling, the otters that frolicked in the stream.
She liked that he didn’t mock her for loving the forest and the wild animals that lived there.And most importantly, he never broke her trust in him.
Each year she took him to visit their vixen, still alive and running on three legs, the fourth one dangling, too damaged to heal.And each year there was a new litter of kits.She knew now that Marcus wouldn’t tell on her, or on the animals, even though some of them were regarded by the famers around as pests to be eradicated.As far as she was concerned, they were all God’s creatures and had the right to live there.
