"PINK" RHYMES WITH "THINK"
Udo awoke, slightly refreshed, and decided to take a firm line with
the Countess at once. He had no difficulty about finding his way down
to her. The Palace seemed to be full of servants, all apparently busy
about something which brought them for a moment in sight of the newly
arrived Prince, and then whisked them off, hand to mouth and shoulders
shaking. By one of these, with more control over her countenance than
the others, an annoyed Udo was led into Belvane's garden.
She was walking up and down the flagged walk between her lavender
hedges, and as he came in she stopped and rested her elbows on her
sundial, and looked mockingly at him, waiting for him to speak.
"Between the showers I mark the hours," said the sundial (on the
suggestion of Belvane one wet afternoon), but for the moment the
Countess was in the way.
"Ah, here we are," said Udo in rather a nasty voice.
"Here we are," said Belvane sweetly. "All of us."
Suddenly she began to laugh.
"Oh, Prince Udo," she said, "you'll be the death of me. Count me as
one more of your victims."
It is easy to be angry with any one who will laugh at you all the
time, but difficult to be effective; particularly when--but we need
not dwell upon Udo's handicap again.
"I don't see anything to laugh at," he said stiffly. "To intelligent
people the outside appearance is not everything."
"But it can be very funny, can't it?" said Belvane coaxingly. "I
wished for something humorous to happen to you, but I never
thought----"
"Ah," said Udo, "now we've got it."
He spoke with an air of a clever cross-examiner who has skilfully
extracted an admission from a reluctant witness. This sort of tone
goes best with one of those keen legal faces; perhaps that is why
Belvane laughed again.
"You practically confess that you did it," went on Udo magnificently.
"Did what?"
"Turned me into a--a----"
"A rabbit?" said Belvane innocently.
A foolish observation like this always pained Udo.
"What makes you think I'm a rabbit?" he asked.
"I don't mind what you are, but you'll never dare show yourself in the
country like this."
"Be careful, woman; don't drive me too far. Beware lest you rouse the
lion in me."
"Where?" asked Belvane, with a child-like air.
With a gesture full of dignity and good breeding Udo called attention
to his tail.
"That," said the Countess, "is not the part of the lion that I'm
afraid of."
For the moment Udo was nonplussed, but he soon recovered himself.
"Even supposing--just for the sake of argument--that I am a rabbit, I
still have something up my sleeve; I'll come and eat your young
carnations."
Belvane adored her garden, but she was sustained by the thought that
it was only July just now. She pointed this out to him.
"It needn't necessarily be carnations," he warned her.
"I don't want to put my opinion against one who has (forgive me)
inside knowledge on the subject, but I think I have nothing in my
garden at this moment that would agree with a rabbit."
"I don't mind if it _doesn't_ agree with me," said Udo heroically.
This was more serious. Her dear garden in which she composed, ruined
by the mastications--machinations--what was the word?--of an enemy!
The thought was unbearable.
"You aren't a rabbit," she said hastily; "you aren't really a rabbit.
Because--because you don't _woffle_ your nose properly."
"I could," said Udo simply. "I'm just keeping it back, that's all."
"Show me how," cried Belvane, clasping her hands eagerly together.
It was not what he had come into the garden for, and it accorded ill
with the dignity of the Royal House of Araby, but somehow one got led
on by this wicked woman.
"Like this," said Udo.
The Countess looked at him critically with her head on one side.
"No," she said, "that's quite wrong."
"Naturally I'm a little out of practice."
"I'm sorry," said Belvane. "I'm afraid I can't pass you."
Udo couldn't think what had happened to the conversation. With a
great effort he extracted himself from it.
"Enough of this, Countess," he said sternly. "I have your admission
that it was you who put this enchantment on me."
"It was I. I wasn't going to have you here interfering with my
plans."
"Your plans to rob the Princess."
Belvane felt that it was useless to explain the principles of
largesse-throwing to Udo. There will always be men like Udo and Roger
Scurvilegs who take these narrow matter-of-fact views. One merely
wastes time in arguing with them.
"My plans," she repeated.
"Very well. I shall go straight to the Princess, and she will unmask
you before the people."
Belvane smiled happily. One does not often get such a chance.
"And who," she asked sweetly, "will unmask your Royal Highness before
the people, so that they may see the true Prince Udo underneath?"
"What do you mean?" said Udo, though he was beginning to guess.
"That noble handsome countenance which is so justly the pride of
Araby--how shall we show that to the people? They'll form such a
mistaken idea of it if they all see you like this, won't they?"
Udo was quite sure now that he understood. Hyacinth had understood at
the very beginning.
[Illustration: _He forgot his manners, and made a jump towards her_]
[Illustration: _She glided gracefully behind the sundial in a pretty
affectation of alarm_]
"You mean that if the Princess Hyacinth falls in with your plans, you
will restore me to my proper form, but that otherwise you will leave
me like this?"
"One's actions are very much misunderstood," sighed Belvane. "I've no
doubt that that is how it will appear to future historians."
(To Roger, certainly.)
It was too much for Udo. He forgot his manners and made a jump
towards her. She glided gracefully behind the sundial in a pretty
affectation of alarm . . . and the next moment Udo decided that the
contest between them was not to be settled by such rough-and-tumble
methods as these. The fact that his tail had caught in something
helped him to decide.
Belvane was up to him in an instant.
"There, there!" she said soothingly, "Let _me_ undo it for your Royal
Highness." She talked pleasantly as she worked at it. "Every little
accident teaches us something. Now if you'd been a rabbit this
wouldn't have happened."
"No, I'm not even a rabbit," said Udo sadly. "I'm just nothing."
Belvane stood up and made him a deep curtsey.
"You are his Royal Highness Prince Udo of Araby. Your Royal
Highness's straw is prepared. When will your Royal Highness be
pleased to retire?"
It was a little unkind, I think. I should not record it of her were
not Roger so insistent.
"Now," said Udo, and lolloped sadly off. It was his one really
dignified moment in Euralia.
On his way to his apartment he met Wiggs.
"Wiggs," he said solemnly, "if ever you can do anything to annoy that
woman, such as making her an apple-pie bed, or _anything_ like that, I
wish you'd do it."
Whereupon he retired for the night. Into the mysteries of his toilet
we had perhaps better not inquire.
* * * * *
As the chronicler of these simple happenings many years ago, it is my
duty to be impartial. "These are the facts," I should say, "and it is
for your nobilities to judge of them. Thus and thus my characters
have acted; how say you, my lords and ladies?"
I confess that this attitude is beyond me; I have a fondness for all
my people, and I would not have you misunderstand any of them. But
with regard to one of them there is no need for me to say anything in
her defence. About her at any rate we agree.
I mean Wiggs. We take the same view as Hyacinth: she was the best
little girl in Euralia. It will come then as a shock to you (as it
did to me on the morning after I had staggered home with Roger's
seventeen volumes) to learn that on her day Wiggs could be as bad as
anybody. I mean really bad. To tear your frock, to read books which
you ought to be dusting, these are accidents which may happen to
anybody. Far otherwise was Wiggs's fall.
She adopted, in fact, the infamous suggestion of Prince Udo. Three
nights later, with malice aforethought and to the comfort of the
King's enemies and the prejudice of the safety of the realm, she made
an apple-pie bed for the Countess.
It was the most perfect apple-pie bed ever made. Cox himself could
not have improved upon it; Newton has seen nothing like it. It took
Wiggs a whole morning; and the results, though private (that is the
worst of an apple-pie bed), were beyond expectation. After wrestling
for half an hour the Countess spent the night in a garden hammock,
composing a bitter Ode to Melancholy.
Of course Wiggs caught it in the morning; the Countess suspected what
she could not prove. Wiggs, now in for a thoroughly bad week,
realised that it was her turn again. What should she do?
An inspiration came to her. She had been really bad the day before;
it was a pity to waste such perfect badness as that. Why not have the
one bad wish to which the ring entitled her?
She drew the ring out from its hiding-place round her neck.
"I wish," she said, holding it up, "I wish that the Countess
Belvane----" she stopped to think of something that would really annoy
her--"I wish that the Countess shall never be able to write another
rhyme again."
She held her breath, expecting a thunderclap or some other outward
token of the sudden death of Belvane's muse. Instead she was struck by
the extraordinary silence of the place. She had a horrid feeling that
everybody else was dead, and realising all at once that she was a very
wicked little girl, she ran up to her room and gave herself up to
tears.
MAY YOU, DEAR SIR OR MADAM, REPENT AS QUICKLY!
However, this is not a moral work. An hour later Wiggs came into
Belvane's garden, eager to discover in what way her inability to rhyme
would manifest itself. It seemed that she had chosen the exact
moment.
In the throes of composition Belvane had quite forgotten the apple-pie
bed, so absorbing is our profession. She welcomed Wiggs eagerly, and
taking her hand led her towards the roses.
"I have just been talking to my dear roses," she said. "Listen:
_Whene'er I take my walks about,_
_I like to see the roses out;_
_I like them yellow, white, and pink,_
_But crimson are the best, I think._
_The butterfly----_"
But we shall never know about the butterfly. It may be that Wiggs has
lost us here a thought on lepidoptera which the world can ill spare;
for she interrupted breathlessly.
"When did you write that?"
"I was just making it up when you came in, dear child. These thoughts
often come to me as I walk up and down my beautiful garden. '_The
butterfly----_'"
But Wiggs had let go her hand and was running back to the Palace. She
wanted to be alone to think this out.
What had happened? That it was truly a magic ring, as the fairy had
told her, she had no doubt; that her wish was a bad one, that she had
been bad enough to earn it, she was equally certain. What then had
happened? There was only one answer to her question. The bad wish
had been granted to someone else.
To whom? She had lent the ring to nobody. True, she had told the
Princess all about it, but----
Suddenly she remembered. The Countess had had it in her hands for a
moment. Yes, and she had sent her out of the room, and--
So many thoughts crowded into Wiggs's mind at this moment that she
felt she must share them with somebody. She ran off to find the
Princess.