Puck laughed. “ ‘Tis spelled s-i-d-h-e, sparrow, and ‘tis an old, old word for the Good Neighbors.”
The “Good Neighbors,” as they both knew, were another name for the fairy folk. So this must be some sort of animal out of those strange lands where the fairies still walked.
“ ‘Tis said,” Puck continued, rubbing the side of his nose with one finger thoughtfully, “That they can become maidens when they choose. I’ve never seen it, but—‘tis said.”
They watched the deer in silence as she lowered her head to the grass again. “Why is she here?” Sarah whispered at last.
Puck shrugged. “Ask the wind why it blows where it will,” was his enigmatic reply. “She is here because she chooses to be, and she will go because she has decided to. Perhaps your making your games in a round place, and your playing of the play made the spot into a fairy ring. And perhaps it is that you should be wary of the hard man who rode through the hedge the other day.”
Neither of them had any doubt who he was talking about, nor did Puck’s abrupt change of subject give either of them a moment’s pause. The incident was still fresh in Nan’s mind. And besides, there hadn’t exactly been a lot of men riding through the doors in the hedges around the girls.
“I don’t like ‘im,” Nan said flatly. “There’s summat cold about him.”
“And there you put your finger on it, my pretty London sparrow,” Puck responded, with a nod. “Cold. Cold he is, cold out of season, cold at the heart, and there’s an end to it. A man that cannot feel, be he mortal or fey, is a man who may do anything.”
The Sidhe-deer raised its head again and looked at them. Was it nodding?
“But what if he could change and feel again?” Sarah asked quickly. “I feel sorry for him. I think he is very lonely. What if he could thaw?”
Puck shrugged. “I warn about what is, not maunder about what could be. I do not meddle in the affairs of mortals, except as the affairs of mortals affect what I have charge over. May be he can, and may be he can’t and it matters not at all. But his cold, his ice—now that matters, and cold and ice are death and I will not have death in the season of life.” He nodded at the deer. “It may be she is here because of it. The Sidhe-deer will not abide death out of season either.”
Sarah set her chin in the expression that Mem’sab called “mulish.”
“I think there is good in him,” she said.
Puck shrugged again. “ ‘Tis not mine to say nor mine to do anything about,” he replied. “That’s the affairs of mortals.”
Sarah said nothing aloud, but Nan could almost hear her thoughts—then I will.
She sighed, but not loudly. If Sarah had made up her mind to do something, then it would be up to Nan to guard her in it.
Not that she was likely to get into too much trouble. The man was only a toff, maybe one with a bit of magic about him, but he wasn’t bad evil, he was only the sort that would meddle because he thought he had a right and he thought he was stronger than anything he meddled in. So up to the point where he fell into the hole he hadn’t seen, he was safe enough.
“Well,” she said aloud. “If we’re gonna meddle, we best do it afore he gets himself into somethin’ worse nor he is, an’ brings it home.”
Puck gave her a wry little bow. “And there’s wisdom; to know when to run and when to hold fast, and when to stand by your friend.”
But his smile in the moonlight was warm with approval, and when the Sidhe-deer moved on like a drift of mist, glimmering a moment among the trees and then gone, he took them off on a strange, wild walk in the night. He showed them an owl’s nest in a barn, with four round faces peering at them out of it, and he spoke to the mother owl when she came with a mouse, so that she allowed them to stay and watch her feed the hungriest. It made Nan giggle to watch, as the mouse tail hung out of the owlet’s beak, and it gulped and gulped and the tail slowly disappeared. She would have thought that Sarah would have been revolted, but Sarah found it just as funny.
He also took them to a fox den, and let them play with the cubs while mother watched benignly, though he warned them after, when he was taking them home, that they must never try such things when he was not about. “I have the speech with the wild things,” he said. “And they know me. They will abide much from me that they will never tolerate elsewise.”
“Well, of course!” Sarah replied, matter-of-factly.
It was a good thing he was along; he showed them a better way of scrambling up to their window. “I mind me,” he said reminiscently, peering in through the open casement, “when there was a bright-eyed lass a living here had a farmer’s lad all head-tumbled and heart-sore, because he thought she’d set her cap on the steward’s son. But when the banns were posted, it was the farmer lad who won the day. Of course,” he said, with a wink, “it might be that I had a hand in that.”
“With the little purple flower?” Sarah replied archly, referring back to the Shakespeare play.
“Now that would be telling, and I never tell.”
And he was gone in an instant, and they got back into their nightdresses and crawled into bed to fall asleep the moment they got under the covers.
And in the morning, they might have thought it was all a dream—except that when Sarah stuck her hand into the pocket of her pinafore, she pulled out, much to her surprise, an owl feather.
15
THE strange Spirit had rattled David as nothing else had in many, many years. He longed for someone to discuss the incident with, but Cordelia was in London, and he did not think there were any other Masters living near this place.
Which left only Isabelle. After all, she was no expert on these things. He didn’t even know if she could see the Elementals and nature spirits.
But on the other hand, there was only one name for that terror that had overcome him. Panic—named for the Great God Pan…
Surely, that had not been—surely not. It had worn the guise of a mere boy, not the Great Goat-footed One. Why would the Sylvan Faun do such a thing?
For that matter, what would he be doing in England? This was not his place, he belonged in Greece!
And yet, David had seen with his own eyes lesser Fauns in England, little boyish earth spirits that haunted the gardens of Earth Masters. They had come, so why not Pan?
But why should it be so?
Perhaps Isabelle was no Elemental Master, but she did know of the Elementals, and other such creatures, too. Perhaps she had even seen this one herself…
A dozen times David made up his mind to ride over to talk to Isabelle, and a dozen times found an excuse not to, until the day after his encounter when he was very nearly run to earth by a lady determined to have him for her daughter, to the point where he seized on any reason to go riding alone again.
“My dear woman,” he said insincerely, “I would be charmed to speak with you, but I have an appointment to pay a call at Highleigh Court.”
Mrs.Venhill stared at him. “A call?” she repeated. “I was not aware that you had any acquaintances in this part of the county.” Her mouth tightened. She knew exactly what he was doing. But he had no intention of giving her a way to disprove his statement.
“I do not,” he said calmly. “But an acquaintance of mine, a Mrs.Isabelle Harton, is a guest there. I have not seen her in many years, and she was quite eager to renew her acquaintance with me.”
That last was the only lie; the rest was absolute truth, and carried the lie like froth on the top of a wave. And since he did not mention a Mister Harton, this would, he hoped, lead her to think that Isabelle’s husband was no more, and she was a young, lonely, and presumably attractive widow.
And in a case such as this, an acquaintance out of one’s youth was going to trump just about any cards a matchmaking mama could lay out. She was beaten, and she knew it. She retired gracefully from the battle lines, murmuring, “Ah! Well, of course you must go, it would be insufferably rude if you did not!”