There was once a King who had an only daughter, the pride of his heart.
She was sweet, she was good, she was beautiful, and the King would have
said that she was perfection itself, but for one thing. She never
laughed. Nothing seemed to amuse her.
Her father, the King, was often amused. The court fool had only to open
his mouth, and His Majesty was leaning back in his throne roaring with
laughter. Nobody was so quick as His Majesty to see the point of a good
story or a clever riddle. But the Princess would listen gravely, and
then say “Fancy!” or “Did he really?” or “Well, what happened next?”
when the end of the joke had been reached. “My darling,” the King would
say, wiping away the tears of laughter which had come into his eyes,
“don’t you understand? It’s a _joke_!” And the Princess would answer,
“Yes, I see it’s a joke, Father, but why do you make that noise about
it?”
For Her Royal Highness always said that she saw a joke as well as
anybody. What made her different from the King was that when His Majesty
saw a joke he had to make a loud roaring noise, whereas when _she_ saw
one, she didn’t want to make any noise at all. Did that matter very
much?
“My darling,” said the King, “it isn’t a question of _wanting_ to. If
you have a sense of humour, you _have_ to laugh.”
“_I_ don’t,” said the Princess.
[Illustration: Color illustration featuring a split scene: the upper
panel shows a person reclining on a throne while a jester looks up from
below, and the lower panel shows a woman wearing a patterned, flowing
gown and headdress standing near a curtain, with a jester standing
nearby.]
“I know,” sighed the King; “you don’t.”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a cloaked, hunched figure
with a long nose and glasses, holding their hands out forward.]
And this made him very miserable. Nothing is so pleasant as to tell a
funny story to somebody whom you love, to watch the smile coming on her
face, and to hear her sudden laughter, and then to linger with her, your
laughter catching new life from hers, in happy enjoyment of the joke.
And this pleasure the King did not have.
He did his best. He read straight through to her, from beginning to end,
that amusing book _One Thousand Merrie Jestes collected from Manye
Sources_, pausing for a moment at the end of each story so that her
laughter should not run over on to the next story. But she never laughed
once. He then read it through again; still she did not laugh. He gave
her to read for herself, _Diverting Tales from Divers Lands_, and
watched her face anxiously. She did not smile. Nothing that he could say
or do, nothing that the court fool could say or do, changed the gravity
of her face. She was sweet, she was good, she was beautiful—but she
could not laugh.
A time came when the King could not bear it any longer, and he felt that
somehow or other the young Princess must be moved to laughter. In his
difficulty he consulted his Chancellor, than whom there was supposed to
be no wiser man in His Majesty’s kingdom. Now the Chancellor had a son,
the young Count Hoppo, a fellow of no great learning, nor beauty, nor
bravery—a fellow, indeed, of no personal attraction whatsoever, but a
young man esteemed in his family as a jester. The Chancellor therefore
spoke as follows:
“I would suggest Your Majesty, that it be announced to Your Majesty’s
faithful people that he who is first able to move Her Royal Highness to
laughter be rewarded by the hand of Her Royal Highness and half your
Majesty’s kingdom.”
“What do you say, my love?” said the King to his daughter.
“As you please,” said the Princess. “I shall not laugh, for it seems
that I have no wish to laugh, nor do I greatly desire to marry. But as
you please.”
The King turned to his Chancellor.
“Let it be so announced,” he commanded. “At noon henceforward, for the
space of one half-hour, those with humorous riddles or merry jests to
tell shall have audience before the whole court, and he who first moves
Her Royal Highness to laughter shall be rewarded by her hand in
marriage.”
“_And_ half the kingdom?” said the Chancellor anxiously.
“Is that usual?” asked the King.
“Entirely, Your Majesty.”
“Very well. So be it. To-morrow at noon we shall await the competitors.”
At noon, then, all those with good stories to tell, or merry riddles to
propound, attended at the Palace, and foremost amongst them was the
young Count Hoppo. So one by one they put their riddles or told their
stories, and Her Royal Highness listened to them.
[Illustration: “_Why does a dragon cross the road?_”]
“Tell me, Your Royal Highness,” said Count Hoppo, “why does a dragon
cross the road?”
The King, who knew this one, began to chuckle to himself.
“I suppose,” said the Princess, “that he crosses the road in order to
get to the other side.”
“Y-yes,” said Hoppo, a little annoyed. “Yes, exactly.”
“Well?” said the Princess.
“That’s all,” said Hoppo crossly.
“Was it funny?” she said, turning to the King.
“My dear,” said her father, “you missed the point of the joke. The point
of the joke was that if _you_ said—I mean, what he _expected_ you to
say—then _he_ would have said—only you didn’t.”
“But why else _should_ a dragon cross the road?”
“Quite so,” said the King quickly. “Next competitor.”
Another young man stepped forward and enquired of Her Royal Highness why
a silver bowl was like a wasp’s nest.
“It isn’t,” said the Princess. She turned to the King. “Is it, father?”
“It’s a riddle, dear,” explained His Majesty, and he murmured to
himself, “Why is a silver bowl like a wasp’s nest—like a wasp’s nest.”
“I still think it isn’t,” said the Princess.
“Well?” said the King to the questioner. “Why _is_ a silver bowl like a
wasp’s nest?”
“Because there’s a ‘B’ in ‘BOTH,’ Your Majesty.”
His Majesty roared with laughter.
“Not in a _wasp’s_ nest,” said the Princess, “surely!”
The King explained that the _letter_ “B” was in the _word_ “BOTH.”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a figure in medieval or
Renaissance attire, wearing a feathered hat, patterned tunic, and
holding a long sword horizontally across their body.]
“Then why drag in the wasps’ nest?”
The King explained that that was the joke.
“I see,” said the Princess, but she did not laugh.
Then a third young man came forward, and this was the Count Rollo. Tall
and handsome he was, and of a pleasant smiling countenance, so that the
Princess thought to herself: “If only _he_ would win, and not that
horrid Count Hoppo.” Count Rollo, it seemed, desired to know the
difference between a fly and a bird.
“A fly and a bird,” murmured the King to himself, “a fly and a bird, a
fly and a bird, a fly and a bird.”
The Princess hastened to tell him.
“A bird,” she said, “has feathers on its wings, but a fly has not. A
bird lays eggs, and a fly—no, that’s wrong, because flies do lay eggs.
But a fly hasn’t got a beak. And it doesn’t build a nest. Oh, and it’s
much smaller than a bird.”
“All this is true!” smiled Rollo, “but there is another difference, Your
Royal Highness.”
“Well?” said the King.
“A bird can fly, Your Majesty, but a fly cannot bird.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” went the King. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha!”
“Cannot _what_?” asked the Princess.
“Cannot bird, Your Royal Highness.”
“But what _is_ ‘birding’?”
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a fly with its hands
raised to its head in a distressed or dramatic pose.]
“That is what the poor fly never knew, Your Royal Highness, and often
wondered. It seems so unfair, does it not, that if a bird can fly
whenever it likes, the fly can never bird, however much it wants to.”
“It does seem rather unfair,” said the Princess, nodding to him in a
friendly way.
But she did not laugh.
So, in their turn, all the young men of the country put their riddles
and told their stories, not only on that day, but on many other days.
And, one by one, they grew tired of trying to make laugh a Princess who
could not laugh, and they came no more to the court at the hour of noon.
But Count Hoppo and Count Rollo came always, for that Hoppo wished
mightily for the half of His Majesty’s kingdom, and Rollo loved and was
loved by the Princess. So in the end they two stood there alone.
Now this was to be the last trial between them, wherefore each had spent
the night in anxious preparation for the morrow, Rollo wondering which
of the few stories he had left untold would be most likely to amuse the
Princess, and Hoppo bethinking him of a plan whereby at the same time he
might win the Princess and discomfort his rival.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a large procession of
figures in historical attire walking up a grand stairway toward the
arched entrance of a palace.]
On the morrow, then, before the whole court Count Hoppo and Count Rollo
made final trial for the hand of the Princess. And the Princess looked
at them as they stood there before her, and wished with all her heart
that it might be Count Rollo who should make her laugh. So Count Rollo
came forward to tell her his story.
“There was,” he said, “a stranger who came into a far country, and he
desired to know the way to the King’s palace, for he had a present to
lay before the King. So he stopped one whom he met on the road, and said
to him: ‘Pray, sir, do you know the way to the King’s palace?’ Whereupon
the man, wishing to be thought humorous, replied, ‘Yes, I do,’ and
walked on. But a moment later, fearing lest his joke should be mistaken
for rudeness, he hurried after the stranger, and said, ‘I beg your
pardon, sir, but do you wish to know the way to the palace?’ ‘No,’ said
the stranger, ‘I don’t,’ and left him there.”
To the King this seemed such a delightfully silly joke that it was some
minutes before he could recover his gravity, but the Princess could only
look sadly and wistfully at Count Rollo.
“Well, well,” said the King, “you shall have one more turn later. Now it
is for Count Hoppo to try.”
Now Count Hoppo was minded to try a trick with which he had often amused
the members of his own family. For it had long been a habit of his, when
some unwelcome guest was arriving at his father’s door, to prepare a
butter-slide in the hall, so that, treading unwarily upon it, the
visitor should slip, and his feet should fly into the air, and he should
fall heavily to the ground, to the great enjoyment of those of the
family who were looking on. So for this occasion he had prepared a most
amusing butter-slide a few paces from where he and Count Rollo stood,
and had warned his father, the Chancellor, to take care that no members
of the court trod upon it before the trial began. So now he stepped
forward, feeling well assured that in one and the same moment he would
win the hand of the Princess and put to shame and laughter the hated
Count Rollo.
[Illustration: _He had prepared a most amusing butter-slide._]
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a person tumbling or
falling head over heels through the air.]
“I propose,” he said, “to show Your Royal Highness a small humorous joke
of a practical nature, which cannot fail to move Your Royal Highness to
loud and hearty laughter. Perhaps, before I begin, the Count Rollo would
oblige me by moving a little farther away, so as to give me more room
for my joke.” He turned to Rollo. “If you would be so good as to
withdraw a few paces towards the window——”
He indicated with a careless gesture the necessary direction, and bowed
to Rollo. Rollo bowed to him in reply; bowed gracefully to the King and
still more gracefully to the Princess. Then, still bowing with the
utmost ease and elegance, he retired a few paces backwards and stepped
gracefully upon the butter-slide. There was a loud crash.
“Oh!” gasped the Princess. “Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Oh-he-he-he-he-he!” It was as if somebody had suddenly pressed a button
inside her. Her laughter pealed round the palace walls. She laughed up
and up and up and up, and she laughed down and down and down and down.
She trilled and gurgled and choked, and choked and gurgled and trilled.
It seemed that there was no end to her laughter.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a princess wearing a
long, flowing gown and a patterned cap, holding her hands up near her
mouth with a surprised or joyful expression.]
The King too was laughing, the Chancellor was laughing, Count Hoppo was
laughing. Save for one man the whole court was laughing.
Count Rollo did not laugh. Feeling ashamed and miserable and angry, he
picked himself up and gave the Princess one reproachful look.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” gasped the Princess. “I didn’t mean to laugh, I don’t
know why I did laugh, I don’t want to laugh, I——” And then she trilled
and gurgled and choked, and choked and gurgled and trilled all over
again.
As soon as quiet was restored, the Chancellor stepped forward.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “on behalf of the young Count Hoppo I claim the
promised reward.”
“Count Hoppo?” said the King in surprise. “But it was just an accident,
was it not?”
“Not so, Your Majesty,” replied Hoppo proudly. And he explained how,
with great cleverness, he had prepared the butter-slide, and how, with
great cunning, he had arranged for Count Rollo to step upon it. And all
the court said “Well, well, well!” and “Fancy that now!” And the King
frowned and considered the matter.
“Ah, well, in that case,” said His Majesty, “you may fairly claim to
have succeeded in moving Her Royal Highness to laughter.” He turned to
Count Rollo. “You agree that that is so, Count Rollo?”
Rollo looked at the Princess, and she looked back at him, and their eyes
spoke to each other. As plainly as if she were speaking her eyes cried
to him, “Save me from this Count Hoppo!” And Rollo smiled back at her,
and gave a little nod, as if he would say, “It will be all right.” For
an idea had come to him.
So he turned like one in thought, and walked a few paces off. Then,
turning again to the King, he said:
“Your Majesty, since I have seen Her Royal Highness day by day, these
many days, I have dared to love her. If Your Majesty says now that she
is to be wedded to the Count Hoppo, it will be better that I should not
look upon her again. But I venture to make this last request of her. I
ask her to come down from her throne and say farewell to me here, not as
Princess to subject, but as maid to man.”
And he went down on one knee and waited for her.
“I will come,” said the Princess softly.
So she came to him; and, as she drew near, she stepped suddenly upon the
butter-slide, and her feet shot into the air, and she fell heavily upon
the floor.
There was a cry of anger from the Princess, followed by a cry of horror
from all the court. A dozen hands helped her to her feet, and supported
her again to the side of her father, the King, who comforted her with
royal words.
“But this is passing strange!” said Rollo loudly. “How comes it that Her
Royal Highness does not laugh? Was it not a funny jest?”
The King looked at him with sudden suspicion.
[Illustration: Black and white illustration of a princess wearing a
long, flowing dress and a patterned cap, standing with one hand raised
to her chest and looking upward.]
“What does this mean?” said the King sternly. “This talk of saying
farewell, was it just a plot to make Her Royal Highness fall?”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” said Rollo pleasantly. “I hoped that Count
Hoppo’s delightful jest would amuse us all again.” He turned to the
Princess. “Was Your Royal Highness not amused?”
“We were not amused,” said Her Royal Highness coldly.
“Certainly not,” said the King with dignity.
“But Your Royal Highness was amused before,” said Rollo gently.
“That was altogether different,” said the King.
Then Count Rollo smiled at them all. “In that case, Your Majesty, it was
not Count Hoppo’s butter-slide which made Her Royal Highness laugh, but
my extremely humorous way of kicking my feet in the air and falling to
the ground.”
Then it was the turn of the Princess to smile, as she saw what Rollo
would be at.
[Illustration: _Dropped twenty feet below, splash! into the royal fish
pond!_]
“Why, yes,” said the King in surprise. “That had not occurred to me, but
indeed it would seem to be so. What do you say, my dear?”
“Of course it is, father!” said the Princess quickly. “It was Count
Rollo who made me laugh, not Count Hoppo.”
But now Count Hoppo, seeing how things were going against him, cried out
suddenly:
“It _was_ me, Your Majesty, it _was_ me! If _I_ had fallen down, _I_
would have made the Princess laugh, just as loudly as Count Rollo did!
I’ll make her laugh now! Watch me!” And with these words, he ran across
the butter-slide so swiftly that his feet leapt in the air, and he shot
heavily through the window and dropped twenty feet below, _splash!_ into
the royal fishpond!
“How vulgar!” said the Princess, with her nose in the air.
So young Count Rollo married the Princess, and they lived and loved and
laughed happily together for more years than I can remember. But what
happened to Count Hoppo when they had dragged him out of the fishpond, I
never heard; nor, indeed, does it matter very much.
“WISH TO GOODNESS!” _By LAURENCE HOUSMAN_
In spite of his name, Mr. Peter Comely was a very ordinary-looking
person; and but for one initial circumstance his life had not contained
any event worth recording. The initial circumstance took place upon the
day of his birth: though the son of poor but honest parents, he managed
by accident to get a fairy-godmother.
This is how it came about. His mother, having previously had eleven
daughters, in pairs or in triplets, remarked at the moment when she was
most expecting him: “Well, I hope to gracious goodness that this time
they’ll bring a boy.”
Now it so happened that the fairy Gracious Goodness was passing by at
the time—out of employment and looking for something to do; and hearing
her name thus invoked, she stopped and gave the matter her attention.
Peter Comely was born a boy, and without accompaniments, as his mother
had desired; and the fairy, having seen him into the world, in order
that she might know him again when necessary, made a neat finish of the
matter by appearing before the eyes of his astonished parents, to whom
she announced her name and calling. Then, having bestowed upon the child
a birthday gift suitable to his station in life, she vanished into thin
air, and seemed thenceforth to have washed her fairy hands of him.
The gift she left to him, though to his parents it seemed humdrum and
useless, to Peter himself was quite satisfactory. She gave him
contentment; and so through life contented he remained though poor, and
therefore—in spite of the efforts of his parents to sow in him the seeds
of a criminal ambition—honest, meek, unassuming, and to most people
rather uninteresting.
As he grew up, having few wants, he had also few ideas; and though upon
each of his birthdays, unknown to his parents, his fairy-godmother paid
him a private visit to ask whether he wanted for anything, his answer
always was that he wanted nothing; nor did he even trouble to tell
anybody of the fairy’s visits, or give a thought himself to the
brilliant bargains he might have got out of life from the offers made to
him.
So when he came to man’s estate, though he might have had anything for
the asking, he turned to and worked for a weaver’s wage, as his father
had occasionally done before him, and lived as all other poor men have
to do—with only this unfortunate difference, that he remained quite
contented with his lot; and though he worked well, and was worth much
more than his master paid him, he never asked for a rise; which, while
it mattered little to him, was bad for his master.
That, however, is only by the way; but I don’t want any of my readers to
think that contentment is everything, or good under all circumstances.
Disturbance is sometimes far better: water, in a kettle that doesn’t
boil over, makes bad tea.
Now one day—one of his birthdays—a certain young person of the village,
who had a sharp eye for the main chance, happened to look in and see him
over his loom, talking to a beautiful lady with wings; and all of a
sudden it came to her that a certain queer story she had heard told by
his disreputable parents, and had never believed, was true after all;
and that poor simple Peter Comely really had a fairy-godmother. It
seemed also—and this made the discovery more valuable—that the fairy
still took an interest in him.
Instantly she made up her mind to marry him; and Peter, though he would
have been quite content to remain a bachelor, was equally content when,
by the various ways available to that end, the young woman managed to
become first “_his_ young woman,” as the saying goes, and then his wife.
Having got him, Mrs. Comely lost no time in tackling him on the subject
of his fairy birthright. Peter was quite simple and open about it; and
his wife discovered that, having been given a contented nature from his
birth, he had made no further use of it in spite of the opportunities
which the fairy’s repeated visits afforded him.
“I wish to goodness you’d told me sooner!” was her complaining remark,
when she found that it was only on his birthday that the fairy visited
him. For now there was nearly a year to run; and with the knowledge that
her married circumstances could so easily have been altered for the
better, had only the right remedy been applied at the start, Mrs. Comely
became deeply discontented with her surroundings, with Peter’s wages as
a weaver, and with Peter himself as a man. In fact, there was nothing
now that pleased her; and what pleased her least of all was her
husband’s contentment with things as they were.
The consequence was she was always in a bad temper; and, as is the way
with people when they are far from a state of goodness themselves, “Wish
to goodness!” became the daily expression of her impatience against one
who took everything so patiently. But nothing she could do—though she
tried her best—ever made him discontented.
[Illustration: Color illustration featuring a long-haired woman in a red
gown holding a thin wand, standing in an indoor workshop with a seated
person in a blue tunic working near spools of thread and a loom.]
Behind her back, friends—who saw what sort of a wife he had become
saddled with—would come to condole. “Your wife’s a bit of a handful,
isn’t she?” one would say. And “Oh, aye!” Peter would answer; “a nice
handful she is, for sure—or would be, if you tried to hold her. But let
her go her own way, it’s no odds to me.”
“Hard to please, isn’t she? I’ve been told so.”
“I’ve never seen anything please her yet,” said Peter, smiling, “except
to tell me what a fool she thinks me! And put it that way, you might say
that I do manage always to please her. Well, if that suits her, it suits
me all right; gives her something to talk about, and me something to
listen to that I can understand. For I’m not clever, you know, and if
I’d any doubt about it myself, I’ve got her word for it.”
“Peter, you are too easy,” said his friend. “You’ve got your senses like
all the rest of us. The mistake you make is to think too little of
yourself. The fact is your wife has got a bad temper.”
“Oh yes,” said Peter, “her temper’s bad, I know. But it’s beautifully
bad; it suits her.”
And just then Mrs. Peter put her head in at the door, and cried: “Wish
to goodness, you wouldn’t have lazy giddygaddies coming in talking and
wasting your time all day, when you ought to be at work. Goodness
gracious! I might as well have married a turnstile, the way you let folk
in for the asking, as ought to be stopped if they don’t know any better
themselves, coming in work-time.”
Before she had finished her commentary, Peter’s friend had slunk away,
having had enough of it.
But Peter only said: “We were talking about you, my dear.”
“And what were you saying about me, I’d like to know?”
“I was saying that whatever you did suited you.”
“Did? Suited me? Like what?”
“Well, for instance—losing your temper.”
“If I ever lost my temper with a fool like you, there’d be no finding it
again.”
“No, my dear; but you never do. When you are with me you are always _in_
a temper.”
“And reason enough, too!”
“Yes, my dear; I’ve never denied it.”
“Better not. If you did there’d be trouble.”
“Yes, my dear; and I don’t like giving trouble, you see.”
“_Giving_, indeed!” she cried; “it’s _I_ have to pay for it!” and off
she flounced. Try as she would, she could never get at him. Peter always
remained amiable and contented, and also—which is what tried her
most—slightly amused. Whatever she did to make him do otherwise, Peter
always appreciated her qualities at their full worth. Once, losing all
patience with him, she gave him quite a hard knock over the head with a
rolling-pin.
Peter looked at her with admiration.
“Now I should never have thought you could hit me as hard as that,” he
said—“a little woman like you. I wonder if I could hit you as hard?”
“You’d better not try!” she retorted.
“No, my dear: _you_ mightn’t like it,” explained Peter, smiling, as he
put court sticking-plaster on his forehead, tied a piece of string round
it to keep it in place, and stuck it with sealing-wax for a neat finish.
Mrs. Comely was beaten, and knew it. “I don’t know what’s the matter
with him!” she would say to herself sometimes. “It’s not human; it’s not
reasonable. It’s that fairy of his has gone and got into his blood, and
made him into something that’s more like a ball of wool or a piece of
putty than a man. And I wish to goodness his birthday would come round
quick, so that I could put things right for us!”
Poor woman! during that time of waiting she was sadly tried. But at last
his birthday did come round again.
Mrs. Comely was full of expectation and hope. She was almost nice to him
on the morning of the day, feeling her cares so nearly at an end; for,
of course, now, being his wife and upon the spot, she meant to do the
wishing, and had instructed him accordingly. When the fairy came he was
to be sure to call for her before doing anything.
But it so happened that Peter, being short of yarn for his weaving, had
to go out and buy more.
Mrs. Comely let him go, for she could not bear to see him not working;
but she called after him to be quick home again, being afraid that the
fairy might come while he was out.
Unfortunately he met the fairy before he had got back from his errand.
Just as he was coming through the wood, she slid down the tree on which
she had been waiting for him, and standing before him, radiant with
gracious goodness, cried: “Many happy returns of the day, Peter. Is
there anything you want?”
Peter stood considering: “No,” he said, “there’s nothing I want for
myself; but my wife wants me to be quick home again.”
And scarcely had he said it, when home he was, and the fairy—having done
her duty by him—nowhere to be seen for the whole of another year.
[Illustration: “... _My wife wants me to be quick home again_,”]
[Illustration: _and scarcely had he said it, when home he was._]
“Gracious goodness! you have been quick!” cried his wife, as he came in.
“I’ll say that for you.”
“Yes, I have rather,” said Peter, as he moved off to his work. Then he
bethought him, and stopped to explain. “You see, it happened like this:
while I was out I met godmother. She said, Did I want anything? I said
_I_ didn’t, but you wanted me quick home again. So here I am. Very kind
of her, wasn’t it?”
What Mrs. Comely said then, cannot be set down upon the printed page.
And what she continued to say, for a whole year whenever she thought of
it, was so similar that the only thing one can do in decency is to leave
it at that, and let the year go by unrecorded till it bring us to the
morning of Peter’s next birthday.
Peter was in bed with a cold, an extremely bad cold—the sort of cold
that is called double pneumonia, which, though it sounds like the name
of a flower, is really something much more ugly and dangerous and hard
to get rid of. And only the night before, the Doctor had come and told
Mrs. Comely that he was very much afraid Peter was going to die.
Mrs. Comely was much put out by the news. “Can’t you make him live just
for another day, Doctor?” she enquired complainingly; and the Doctor
said he would do his best.
“You see, he hasn’t made his will,” said Mrs. Comely by way of
explanation, not wishing to let more be known about her actual
expectations than was necessary.
To Peter, also, she said much the same thing. “I do really think,” she
exclaimed, “after all I’ve had to put up with, marrying you, and only
finding out after what a fool you are, that you might at least do that
for me—keep alive till your godmother has come to make it more worth
while to me than it’s ever been yet.”
[Illustration: _The Doctor thought he would die...._]
“What exactly is it you want this time?” enquired Peter. “You’d better
let me know so that I don’t make any mistake.”
“Well, I want you to keep alive,” she replied; “you do that, and I’ll
see to the rest.”
And having him there in bed, and she being herself on the spot to answer
the door, she made sure that this time at all events the situation was
fool-proof, and that all would be right.
But things did not happen quite as she had expected, she not being
accustomed to the ways of fairies, who can, if they like, be quite
independent of such gradual methods of approach as front-doors with
door-mats, and door-bells with some one to answer them; a fairy who
really knows her job is right in the middle of things before you know
that she is there at all.
And so, when Mrs. Comely went down to make some beef-tea for her
husband, the fairy arrived, this time not down a tree but down the
chimney; and very sorry to find him so ill, wished Peter much happier
returns of the day than could be said of the present one. “And what,”
she then enquired, “can I do for you?”
Peter said he didn’t know that there was anything she could do for him.
He had got double pneumonia, and had got it so well that the Doctor—so
his wife told him—thought he would die of it.
“And I don’t know,” he added, “whether she wants me not to die of it.
All she has said she does want is that I may live for another day.”
“You shall live for another day,” said the fairy, “and for many another
day too. Here’s life to you! Take your own time, and get well! A year
hence I will come again and see how you are doing.”
Scarcely had the fairy departed when Mrs. Comely returned with the
beef-tea. Her husband, though with the fairy’s word for it he might now
be said to be on the mend, showed so little sign of a change for the
better that she would not have noticed it, had he not himself told her.
“You have got your wish, my dear,” he said. “I am not going to die
to-day. She has just been and promised that I shan’t—that I am going to
get well.”
Mrs. Peter was so amazed and so angry to think that she had again missed
meeting the fairy through her husband’s stupidity, that with a flounce
and a bounce she upset the soup over him.
“Well, that’s an easy way of taking it, isn’t it?” he remarked, as he
watched it slide over the bed-clothes in a large shifting pattern of
brownish yellow. “I suppose if you leave it it’ll soak in all right.”
“It’s my belief,” snapped his wife, ignoring the discomfort she had
caused him, “that you haven’t got a fairy godmother at all, and that
what I saw was only a young woman out of the circus, and one no better
than she should be—with wings stuck on for her to act with; and that
you’ve been deceiving me all this time!”
“Very well, my dear,” replied Peter, “believe what you like to believe,
if it makes you happier. But you’ll have to believe your eyes presently,
when you see me get well. Only yesterday, you told me, the Doctor said I
was dying.”
“Doctors make mistakes,” she retorted. “I almost wish you were going to
die!”
“Now what a pity,” said Peter, “that I didn’t know that sooner, and then
I might have asked for it. But what you told me, you know, my dear, was
just the contrary. You wanted me to live, you said.”
“Only a day!” said his wife. “And now I’ve got to have another year of
you, and then perhaps find out that it’s all a lie, and that
fairy-godmother of yours just straw and moonshine, like all the rest of
you. Goodness gracious! I wish I’d never married you!”
She had now got it so fixed in her head that he had only been deceiving
her, that she said the same thing several times—most days, in
fact—during the year. And especially she would say it whenever he was in
a state not of doing anything that she could find fault with, but just
being himself. It was his quiet, contented character which most
infuriated her. For, as she said to herself when she considered him in
this sure setting which Heaven had bestowed on him: “There’s no getting
at him! He’s so made you’ve just got to lump it or leave it.”
So when for the third time his birthday came round, and Mrs. Comely,
waking as the alarm-clock went off, sat up in bed and looked at him
still peacefully sleeping, in spite of the racket which her friend the
alarm-clock was making—so like herself in its way, yet only doing its
duty—as she sat up and looked at him lying there undisturbed by the
noise, all her stored-up resentment against him broke out once more,
and, “Goodness gracious!” she cried, “I wish I weren’t married to him!”
Now it so happened that on this particular birthday Goodness Gracious
had come early, having a good many other things in the day that she
wanted to do. So there she was already in the room when the alarm-clock
sounded, sitting on the foot of the bed where Mrs. Comely’s hot-water
bottle had not yet got cold, and Peter’s feet, which had no hot-water
bottle to comfort them, were sticking out from under the coverlet.
So sitting there, unnoticed as yet by Mrs. Comely, who was too much
occupied looking at her husband and hating him, she gave a sharp pinch
to one of Peter’s toes which made him wake up.
“Yes, yes, my dear!” said Peter, thinking it was his wife giving him his
birthday greeting. “The same to you, and more of them!”
“Peter,” said the fairy—and Mrs. Peter, starting up, stared at her in
sudden hope and astonishment—“Peter, your wife says she wishes she
wasn’t married to you. Do you wish it too?”
“I’ve no wish in the matter for myself,” said Peter. “It’s not for me to
decide. But if she wishes it, then I do.”
“Then you shall have your wish, both of you,” said the fairy, while Mrs.
Comely, seeing too late the mistake she had made, started screaming and
protesting that that was not the thing she wished most, or first, or
indeed at all, if the fairy would only wait and let her think a minute.
But fairies don’t wait, or only when it suits them in order to drive
home a moral. And here the fairy was going to drive home a moral simply
by not waiting—having it already up her sleeve, as you shall now hear.
“Very well, Mrs. Comely,” she said; “then as you wish it you shall not
be married to him any longer. And as there are only three ways in which
that can possibly be brought about I now give you your choice of them.
Either he must die, or you must die, or you must have been married to
somebody else before you married him, somebody about whom you may have
entirely forgotten.”
“I never was married to anybody else!” exclaimed Mrs. Peter, fastening
upon the last alternative with great indignation. “Of what wickedness
are you accusing me?”
“Of none,” said the Fairy; “as I say, you may have entirely forgotten
it.”
But this did not appease Mrs. Peter. “I’m not likely to forget a thing
like that,” she protested. “I’m no fool like him; and if you think so,
you’re the same, and nothing to choose between you! Goodness gracious!
if you haven’t more sense than that, and you a fairy, I wish I’d never
set waking eyes on you!”
“Have your wish!” said the fairy. “You never have.” And so saying, she
vanished.
Mrs. Peter rubbed her eyes. It was hard to believe, but it was true. The
meeting with the fairy had been a dream. And now she was gone—or the
dream had gone—and there was nothing to be done for another year.
Mrs. Comely turned in bewilderment to her husband. “I’ve been having a
dream,” she said.
“Have you, my dear?” replied Peter cautiously. “I hope it has done you
good. What was it about?”
“It was about that fairy of yours. I don’t believe in her. She’s only a
dream. I had my suspicions about it before; and now I know.”
“Very well then, my dear, we must do without,” said Peter. “It’s much
easier to be contented with life if you don’t expect anything. Your
believing that I had a fairy-godmother who could do things for me has
made you discontented. Now you’ll feel better.”
Mrs. Peter would not admit it; but as a matter of fact it did. Having
nothing miraculous to look forward to in her married life, she became
resigned to it; and for a year was just an ordinary wife as other
people’s wives are, only complaining of Peter twice as often as she had
cause, which was not often, he being such a very easily contented and
accommodating character.
And on Peter’s next birthday, having no curiosity or expectation left
about the fairy, whom she no longer believed in, she left Peter, without
instructions, to see the fairy alone. And alone he was when the fairy
called on him.
“Well, Peter,” said the fairy, “is there anything you want this time?”
“Not that _I_ want,” said Peter; “but last year you gave my wife a
disappointment. She doesn’t believe in you any more, she thinks you are
only a dream. She’s been very good hiding it; but I can’t help thinking
she feels it.”
“Well, what do you want for her?” enquired the fairy.
“If it isn’t too much to ask,” said Peter, “and if it isn’t too much
trouble, can’t you make her contented like you’ve made me?”
“Of course I can,” said the fairy. “Why didn’t you ask that before.”
Peter thought awhile.
“She didn’t want it,” he said. “She’d got other ideas. Now that she’s
got none left, I can think for her.”
“Very well,” said Goodness Gracious, “then from this moment your wife
shall be as contented as you are.”
And just then, from outside came Mrs. Peter’s voice calling to him, as
she mopped the kitchen floor.
“Goodness gracious, Peter, who’s that you’re talking to?”
The question embarrassed him. He felt it was so much better to let
sleeping dogs lie.
“Never you mind!” he said roguishly.
“Oh, all right!” replied his wife, and went on with her mopping.
“There!” said the fairy.
“Goodness Gracious!” cried Peter. “_You’ve done it!_”