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The gorse was sparkling with spiders' webs of all shapes and varieties. There had been a heavy dew the night before, and the leaves were still damp and glistening. The damp earth gave off a leaf-mould odour, rather reminiscent of graveyards, and there were pale fungi growing on the sides of the trees.
They walked casually, halting now and then to inspect some particularly interesting object Robin had found—a scarlet spray of berries, an enormous acorn still wearing its beige cup-hat, a patch of bright emerald moss making a fairy cushion under a great beech tree.
Emma had brought paper and pencils so that they could all do some sketching. Donna drew a holly bush, all huge berries and thin angular leaves. Robin drew a beech with huge snaky roots. Tracy did a far more careful, more realistic sketch of a woodland glade, .with a squirrel thrown in for good measure, drawn from memory rather than sight.
Tracy, of course, was scathing on the subject of Donna's holly and Robin's tree. 'They don't look like that,' she commented. 'You can't draw for toffee!'
A squabble developed, naturally, which was only settled by Emma, hurriedly intervening to suggest that they stop drawing and have a little race down to the wide path to the cart track which ran through the fields and ended at the back of the inn.
'We always go that way,' complained Tracy. 'Let's go the other way.'
'Yes,' the others agreed, 'let's!'
Emma, to keep the peace, agreed, and they walked another way along narrow, hedged lanes, stopping to talk to some sheep over a gate. The sheep stared back, mild-eyed, incurious, their long narrow faces blank.
'Silly old sheep,' Robin said, disgusted.
'They're terribly stupid, poor things,' Tracy agreed.
'Baa baa,' Donna said happily, undeterred by the lack of response.
'Oh, come on,' said Tracy, kicking a flat white stone along the road. Robin and she raced off, playing a game of football with the stone, leaving Emma and Donna to bring up the rear.
Children were very tiring, Emma thought wearily. They needed such unflagging attention! She held Donna's hand tightly and fitted her own long stride to Donna's cheerful trot.
She had done so little of her own work since coming down here. She really must get something of this Hardy stuff done! She had intended to work in the evenings, but somehow she was always so tired after a day with the children.
The lane ended suddenly, at a mysterious gate, shaped like a horseshoe, made of green-painted wood and set in a red-brick wall.
'I never saw that before,' said Tracy dubiously. 'I wonder where we are?'
'We've come the wrong way, I'm afraid,' Emma said, suddenly suspecting that this was the wall surrounding Queen's Daumaury. 'We'd better go back.'
'It's the gate to a magic land,' said Robin dreamily, staring up at the gleaming brass door knob which served as a handle. 'Oh, let's go inside, Emma.'
'Certainly not. It's private,' Emma said, uneasy and alarmed.
Tracy stared at her. 'Come on,' she said sharply, turning away. Had she, too, guessed where the mysterious gate led?
Robin stood, obstinate and entranced, staring upwards. Tracy grabbed his arm, then froze, as there was a grating sound and the green gate began to move inwards. The three children stood, staring, as the gate opened, as if expecting to see a fairy, or a wizard in weird robes, framed in the doorway.
Emma knew, with fatalistic dismay, whom they would see. Fate ha
d led them here, at this moment of time, just as their grandfather, leaning on a gold-mounted cane, came stepping through the green gate and stopped, thunderous, to stare at them in disbelief.
CHAPTER EIGHT
After a long silence he spoke in a thready voice. 'What does this mean?' He looked at Emma as he spoke, expecting her to reply, and his eyes were angry. Frail though he was he exuded power and certainty of command. Emma was shaken by his appearance, by his presence.
Before she could speak, however, Tracy had spoken, her voice clear and scornful.
'We're just going. We came here by mistake. We didn't know you lived here or we wouldn't have come!'
'Tracy!' Emma spoke sharply, shocked by the child's bluntness. She looked at Mr Daumaury. 'I'm sorry, that was very rude of her.'
He was staring down at Tracy, his brows together. 'You have a sharp tongue, miss.'
Tracy stared back at him, mulishly silent.
