This tale is told in the balconies of Belgrave Square and among the
towers of Pont Street; men sing it at evening in the Brompton Road.
Little upon her eighteenth birthday thought Miss Cubbidge, of Number
12A Prince of Wales' Square, that before another year had gone its way
she would lose the sight of that unshapely oblong that was so long her
home. And, had you told her further that within that year all trace of
that so-called square, and of the day when her father was elected by a
thumping majority to share in the guidance of the destinies of the
empire, should utterly fade from her memory, she would merely have
said in that affected voice of hers, "Go to!"
There was nothing about it in the daily Press, the policy of her
father's party had no provision for it, there was no hint of it in
conversation at evening parties to which Miss Cubbidge went: there was
nothing to warn her at all that a loathsome dragon with golden scales
that rattled as he went should have come up clean out of the prime of
romance and gone by night (so far as we know) through Hammersmith, and
come to Ardle Mansions, and then had turned to his left, which of
course brought him to Miss Cubbidge's father's house.
There sat Miss Cubbidge at evening on her balcony quite alone, waiting
for her father to be made a baronet. She was wearing walking-boots and
a hat and a low-necked evening dress; for a painter was but just now
painting her portrait and neither she nor the painter saw anything odd
in the strange combination. She did not notice the roar of the
dragon's golden scales, nor distinguish above the manifold lights of
London the small, red glare of his eyes. He suddenly lifted his head,
a blaze of gold, over the balcony; he did not appear a yellow dragon
then, for his glistening scales reflected the beauty that London puts
upon her only at evening and night. She screamed, but to no knight,
nor knew what knight to call on, nor guessed where were the dragons'
overthrowers of far, romantic days, nor what mightier game they
chased, or what wars they waged; perchance they were busy even then
arming for Armageddon.
Out of the balcony of her father's house in Prince of Wales' Square,
the painted dark-green balcony that grew blacker every year, the
dragon lifted Miss Cubbidge and spread his rattling wings, and London
fell away like an old fashion. And England fell away, and the smoke of
its factories, and the round material world that goes humming round
the sun vexed and pursued by time, until there appeared the eternal
and ancient lands of Romance lying low by mystical seas.
You had not pictured Miss Cubbidge stroking the golden head of one of
the dragons of song with one hand idly, while with the other she
sometimes played with pearls brought up from lonely places of the sea.
They filled huge haliotis shells with pearls and laid them there
beside her, they brought her emeralds which she set to flash among the
tresses of her long black hair, they brought her threaded sapphires
for her cloak: all this the princes of fable did and the elves and the
gnomes of myth. And partly she still lived, and partly she was one
with long-ago and with those sacred tales that nurses tell, when all
their children are good, and evening has come, and the fire is burning
well, and the soft pat-pat of the snowflakes on the pane is like the
furtive tread of fearful things in old, enchanted woods. If at first
she missed those dainty novelties among which she was reared, the old,
sufficient song of the mystical sea singing of faery lore at first
soothed and at last consoled her. Even, she forgot those
advertisements of pills that are so dear to England; even, she forgot
political cant and the things that one discusses and the things that
one does not, and had perforce to content herself with seeing sailing
by huge golden-laden galleons with treasure for Madrid, and the merry
skull-and-cross-bones of the pirateers, and the tiny nautilus setting
out to sea, and ships of heroes trafficking in romance or of princes
seeking for enchanted isles.
It was not by chains that the dragon kept her there, but by one of the
spells of old. To one to whom the facilities of the daily Press had
for so long been accorded spells would have palled--you would have
said--and galleons after a time and all things out-of-date. After a
time. But whether the centuries passed her or whether the years or
whether no time at all, she did not know. If anything indicated the
passing of time it was the rhythm of elfin horns blowing upon the
heights. If the centuries went by her the spell that bound her gave
her also perennial youth, and kept alight for ever the lantern by her
side, and saved from decay the marble palace facing the mystical sea.
And if no time went by her there at all, her single moment on those
marvellous coasts was turned as it were to a crystal reflecting a
thousand scenes. If it was all a dream, it was a dream that knew no
morning and no fading away. The tide roamed on and whispered of mastery
and of myth, while near that captive lady, asleep in his marble tank
the golden dragon dreamed: and a little way out from the coast all
that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the
sea. He never dreamed of any rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed,
it was twilight; but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell
and starlight glistened on the dripping, golden scales.
There he and his captive either defeated Time or never encountered him
at all; while, in the world we know, raged Roncesvalles or battles yet
to be--I know not to what part of the shore of Romance he bore her.
Perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fable loves to
tell, but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea: and kings
ruled, and Demons ruled, and kings came again, and many cities
returned to their native dust, and still she abided there, and still
her marble palace passed not away nor the power that there was in the
dragon's spell.
And only once did there ever come to her a message from the world that
of old she knew. It came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea; it
was from an old school-friend that she had had in Putney, merely a
note, no more, in a little, neat, round hand: it said, "It is not
Proper for you to be there alone."