WHEN you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the
dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for
instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat
but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and
magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy
to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always
telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people,
only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will
believe their stories, and so they don't tell them to any one except me.
And they tell me, because they know that I can believe anything.
When Jimmy had awakened the Sleeping Princess, and she had invited the
three children to go with her to her palace and get something to eat,
they all knew quite surely that they had come into a place of magic
happenings. And they walked in a slow procession along the grass towards
the castle. The Princess went first, and Kathleen carried her shining
train; then came Jimmy, and Gerald came last. They were all quite sure
that they had walked right into the middle of a fairy tale, and they
were the more ready to believe it because they were so tired and hungry.
They were, in fact, so hungry and tired that they hardly noticed where
they were going, or observed the beauties of the formal gardens through
which the pink-silk Princess was leading them. They were in a sort of
dream, from which they only partially awakened to find themselves in a
big hall, with suits of armour and old flags round the walls, the skins
of beasts on the floor, and heavy oak tables and benches ranged along
it.
The Princess entered, slow and stately, but once inside she twitched her
sheeny train out of Jimmy's hand and turned to the three.
"You just wait here a minute," she said, "and mind you don't talk while
I'm away. This castle is crammed with magic, and I don't know what will
happen if you talk." And with that, picking up the thick goldy-pink
folds under her arms, she ran out, as Jimmy said afterwards, "most
unprincesslike," showing as she ran black stockings and black strap
shoes.
Jimmy wanted very much to say that he didn't believe anything would
happen, only he was afraid something would happen if he did, so he
merely made a face and put out his tongue. The others pretended not to
see this, which was much more crushing than anything they could have
said. So they sat in silence, and Gerald ground the heel of his boot
upon the marble floor. Then the Princess came back, very slowly and
kicking her long skirts in front of her at every step. She could not
hold them up now because of the tray she carried.
It was not a silver tray, as you might have expected, but an oblong tin
one. She set it down noisily on the end of the long table and breathed a
sigh of relief.
"Oh! it _was_ heavy," she said. I don't know what fairy feast the
children's fancy had been busy with. Anyhow, this was nothing like it.
The heavy tray held a loaf of bread, a lump of cheese, and a brown jug
of water. The rest of its heaviness was just plates and mugs and knives.
"Come along," said the Princess hospitably. "I couldn't find anything
but bread and cheese--but it doesn't matter, because everything's magic
here, and unless you have some dreadful secret fault the bread and
cheese will turn into anything you like. What _would_ you like?" she
asked Kathleen.
"Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesitation.
The pinky Princess cut a slice of bread and laid it on a dish. "There
you are," she said, "roast chicken. Shall I carve it, or will you?"
"You, please," said Kathleen, and received a piece of dry bread on a
plate.
"Green peas?" asked the Princess, cut a piece of cheese and laid it
beside the bread.
Kathleen began to eat the bread, cutting it up with knife and fork as
you would eat chicken. It was no use owning that she didn't see any
chicken and peas, or anything but cheese and dry bread, because that
would be owning that she had some dreadful secret fault.
"If I have, it _is_ a secret, even from me," she told herself.
The others asked for roast beef and cabbage--and got it, she supposed,
though to her it only looked like dry bread and Dutch cheese.
"I _do_ wonder what my dreadful secret fault is," she thought, as the
Princess remarked that, as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast
peacock. "This one," she added, lifting a second mouthful of dry bread
on her fork, "is quite delicious."
"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy suddenly.
"What's a game?" asked the Princess, frowning.
"Pretending it's beef--the bread and cheese, I mean."
"A game? But it _is_ beef. Look at it," said the Princess, opening her
eyes very wide.
"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly. "I was only joking."
[Illustration: "IT'S A GAME, ISN'T IT?" ASKED JIMMY.]
Bread and cheese is not perhaps so good as roast beef or chicken or
peacock (I'm not sure about the peacock. I never tasted peacock, did
you?); but bread and cheese is, at any rate, very much better than
nothing when you have gone on having nothing since breakfast
(gooseberries and gingerbeer hardly count) and it is long past your
proper dinner-time. Every one ate and drank and felt much better.
"Now," said the Princess, brushing the breadcrumbs off her green silk
lap, "if you're sure you won't have any more meat you can come and see
my treasures. Sure you won't take the least bit more chicken? No? Then
follow me."
She got up and they followed her down the long hall to the end where the
great stone stairs ran up at each side and joined in a broad flight
leading to the gallery above. Under the stairs was a hanging of
tapestry.
"Beneath this arras," said the Princess, "is the door leading to my
private apartments." She held the tapestry up with both hands, for it
was heavy, and showed a little door that had been hidden by it.
"The key," she said, "hangs above."
And so it did, on a large rusty nail.
"Put it in," said the Princess, "and turn it."
Gerald did so, and the great key creaked and grated in the lock.
"Now push," she said; "push hard, all of you."
They pushed hard, all of them. The door gave way, and they fell over
each other into the dark space beyond.
The Princess dropped the curtain and came after them, closing the door
behind her.
"Look out!" she said; "look out! there are two steps down."
"Thank you," said Gerald, rubbing his knee at the bottom of the steps.
"We found that out for ourselves."
"I'm sorry," said the Princess, "but you can't have hurt yourselves
much. Go straight on. There aren't any more steps."
They went straight on--in the dark.
"When you come to the door just turn the handle and go in. Then stand
still till I find the matches. I know where they are."
"Did they have matches a hundred years ago?" asked Jimmy.
"I meant the tinder-box," said the Princess quickly. "We always called
it the matches. Don't you? Here, let me go first."
She did, and when they had reached the door she was waiting for them
with a candle in her hand. She thrust it on Gerald.
"Hold it steady," she said, and undid the shutters of a long window, so
that first a yellow streak and then a blazing great oblong of light
flashed at them and the room was full of sunshine.
"It makes the candle look quite silly," said Jimmy.
"So it does," said the Princess, and blew out the candle. Then she took
the key from the outside of the door, put it in the inside key-hole, and
turned it.
[Illustration: SHE WAS WAITING FOR THEM WITH A CANDLE IN HER HAND.]
The room they were in was small and high. Its domed ceiling was of deep
blue with gold stars painted on it. The walls were of wood, panelled
and carved, and there was no furniture in it whatever.
"This," said the Princess, "is my treasure chamber."
"But where," asked Kathleen politely, "_are_ the treasures?"
"Don't you see them?" asked the Princess.
"No, we don't," said Jimmy bluntly. "You don't come that
bread-and-cheese game with me--not twice over, you don't!"
"If you _really_ don't see them," said the Princess, "I suppose I shall
have to say the charm. Shut your eyes, please. And give me your word of
honour you won't look till I tell you, and that you'll never tell any
one what you've seen."
Their words of honour were something that the children would rather not
have given just then, but they gave them all the same, and shut their
eyes tight.
"Wiggadil yougadoo begadee leegadeeve nowgadow?" said the Princess
rapidly; and they heard the swish of her silk train moving across the
room. Then there was a creaking, rustling noise.
"She's locking us in!" cried Jimmy.
"Your word of honour," gasped Gerald.
"Oh, do be quick!" moaned Kathleen.
"You may look," said the voice of the Princess. And they looked. The
room was not the same room, yet--yes, the starry-vaulted blue ceiling
was there, and below it half a dozen feet of the dark panelling, but
below that the walls of the room blazed and sparkled with white and blue
and red and green and gold and silver. Shelves ran round the room, and
on them were gold cups and silver dishes, and platters and goblets set
with gems, ornaments of gold and silver, tiaras of diamonds, necklaces
of rubies, strings of emeralds and pearls, all set out in unimaginable
splendour against a background of faded blue velvet. It was like the
Crown jewels that you see when your kind uncle takes you to the Tower,
only there seemed to be far more jewels than you or any one else has
ever seen together at the Tower or anywhere else.
The three children remained breathless, open-mouthed, staring at the
sparkling splendours all about them, while the Princess stood, her arm
stretched out in a gesture of command, and a proud smile on her lips.
"My word!" said Gerald, in a low whisper. But no one spoke out loud.
They waited as if spellbound for the Princess to speak.
She spoke.
"What price bread-and-cheese games now?" she asked triumphantly. "Can I
do magic, or can't I?"
"You can; oh, you can!" said Kathleen.
"May we--may we _touch_?" asked Gerald.
"All that is mine is yours," said the Princess, with a generous wave of
her brown hand, and added quickly, "Only, of course, you mustn't take
anything away with you."
"We're not thieves!" said Jimmy. The others were already busy turning
over the wonderful things on the blue velvet shelves.
"Perhaps not," said the Princess, "but you're a very unbelieving little
boy. You think I can't see inside you, but I can. _I_ know what you've
been thinking."
"What?" asked Jimmy.
"Oh, you know well enough," said the Princess. "You're thinking about
the bread and cheese that I changed into beef, and about your secret
fault. I say, let's all dress up and you be princes and princesses too."
"To crown our hero," said Gerald, lifting a gold crown with a cross on
the top, "was the work of a moment." He put the crown on his head, and
added a collar of SS and a zone of sparkling emeralds, which would not
quite meet round his middle. He turned from fixing it by an ingenious
adaptation of his belt to find the others already decked with diadems,
necklaces, and rings.
"How splendid you look!" said the Princess, "and how I wish your clothes
were prettier. What ugly clothes people wear nowadays! A hundred years
ago----"
Kathleen stood quite still with a diamond bracelet raised in her hand.
"I say," she said. "The King and Queen?"
"_What_ King and Queen?" asked the Princess.
"Your father and mother, your sorrowing parents," said Kathleen.
"They'll have waked up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you, after a
hundred years, you know?"
"Oh--ah--yes," said the Princess slowly. "I embraced my rejoicing
parents when I got the bread and cheese. They're having their dinner.
They won't expect me yet. Here," she added, hastily putting a ruby
bracelet on Kathleen's arm, "see how splendid that is!"
Kathleen would have been quite content to go on all day trying on
different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed
mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys were
soon weary of this amusement.
"Look here," said Gerald, "if you're sure your father and mother won't
want you, let's go out and have a jolly good game of something. You
could play besieged castles awfully well in that maze--unless you can do
any more magic tricks."
"You forget," said the Princess, "I'm grown up. I don't play games. And
I don't like to do too much magic at a time, it's so tiring. Besides,
it'll take us ever so long to put all these things back in their proper
places."
It did. The children would have laid the jewels just anywhere; but the
Princess showed them that every necklace, or ring, or bracelet had its
own home on the velvet--a slight hollowing in the shelf beneath, so that
each stone fitted into its own little nest.
[Illustration: KATHLEEN LOOKING AT HERSELF IN THE LITTLE SILVER-FRAMED
MIRROR.]
As Kathleen was fitting the last shining ornament into its proper place,
she saw that part of the shelf near it held, not bright jewels, but
rings and brooches and chains, as well as queer things that she did not
know the names of, and all were of dull metal and odd shapes.
"What's all this rubbish?" she asked.
"Rubbish, indeed!" said the Princess. "Why those are _all_ magic things!
This bracelet--any one who wears it has got to speak the truth. This
chain makes you as strong as ten men; if you wear this spur your horse
will go a mile a minute; or if you're walking it's the same as
seven-league boots."
"What does this brooch do?" asked Kathleen, reaching out her hand. The
Princess caught her by the wrist.
"You mustn't touch," she said; "if any one but me touches them all the
magic goes out at once and never comes back. That brooch will give you
any wish you like."
"And this ring?" Jimmy pointed.
"Oh, that makes you invisible."
"What's this?" asked Gerald, showing a curious buckle.
"Oh, that undoes the effect of all the other charms."
"Do you mean _really_?" Jimmy asked. "You're not just kidding?"
"Kidding indeed!" repeated the Princess scornfully. "I should have
thought I'd shown you enough magic to prevent you speaking to a Princess
like _that_!"
"I say," said Gerald, visibly excited. "You might show us how some of
the things act. Couldn't you give us each a wish?"
The Princess did not at once answer. And the minds of the three played
with granted wishes--brilliant yet thoroughly reasonable--the kind of
wish that never seems to occur to people in fairy tales when they
suddenly get a chance to have their three wishes granted.
"No," said the Princess suddenly, "no; I can't give wishes to _you_, it
only gives me wishes. But I'll let you see the ring make _me_ invisible.
Only you must shut your eyes while I do it."
They shut them.
"Count fifty," said the Princess, "and then you may look. And then you
must shut them again, and count fifty, and I'll reappear."
Gerald counted, aloud. Through the counting one could hear a creaking,
rustling sound.
"Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!" said Gerald, and they
opened their eyes.
They were alone in the room. The jewels had vanished and so had the
Princess.
"She's gone out by the door, of course," said Jimmy, but the door was
locked.
"That _is_ magic," said Kathleen breathlessly.
"Maskelyne and Devant can do _that_ trick," said Jimmy. "And I want my
tea."
"Your tea!" Gerald's tone was full of contempt. "The lovely Princess,"
he went on, "reappeared as soon as our hero had finished counting fifty.
One, two, three, four----"
Gerald and Kathleen had both closed their eyes. But somehow Jimmy
hadn't. He didn't mean to cheat, he just forgot. And as Gerald's count
reached twenty he saw a panel under the window open slowly.
"Her," he said to himself. "I _knew_ it was a trick!" and at once shut
his eyes, like an honourable little boy.
On the word "fifty" six eyes opened. And the panel was closed and there
was no Princess.
"She hasn't pulled it off this time," said Gerald.
"Perhaps you'd better count again," said Kathleen.
"I believe there's a cupboard under the window," said Jimmy, "and she's
hidden in it. Secret panel, you know."
"You looked! that's cheating," said the voice of the Princess so close
to his ear that he quite jumped.
"I didn't cheat."
"Where on earth---- What ever----" said all three together. For still
there was no Princess to be seen.
"Come back visible, Princess dear," said Kathleen. "Shall we shut our
eyes and count again?"
"Don't be silly!" said the voice of the Princess, and it sounded very
cross.
"We're _not_ silly," said Jimmy, and his voice was cross too. "Why can't
you come back and have done with it? You know you're only hiding."
"Don't!" said Kathleen gently. "She _is_ invisible, you know."
"So should I be if I got into the cupboard," said Jimmy.
"Oh yes," said the sneering tone of the Princess, "you think yourselves
very clever, I dare say. But _I_ don't mind. We'll play that you _can't_
see me, if you like."
"Well, but we _can't_," said Gerald. "It's no use getting in a wax. If
you're hiding, as Jimmy says, you'd better come out. If you've really
turned invisible, you'd better make yourself visible again."
"Do you really mean," asked a voice quite changed, but still the
Princess's, "that you _can't_ see me?"
"Can't you _see_ we can't?" asked Jimmy rather unreasonably.
The sun was blazing in at the window; the eight-sided room was very hot,
and every one was getting cross.
"You can't _see_ me?" There was the sound of a sob in the voice of the
invisible Princess.
"_No_, I tell you," said Jimmy, "and I want my tea--and----"
What he was saying was broken off short, as one might break a stick of
sealing wax. And then in the golden afternoon a really quite horrid
thing happened: Jimmy suddenly leaned backwards, then forwards, his eyes
opened wide and his mouth too. Backward and forward he went, very
quickly and abruptly, then stood still.
"Oh, he's in a fit! Oh, Jimmy, dear Jimmy!" cried Kathleen, hurrying to
him. "What is it, dear, what is it?"
"It's _not_ a fit," gasped Jimmy angrily. "She shook me."
[Illustration: BACKWARD AND FORWARD HE WENT.]
"Yes," said the voice of the Princess, "and I'll shake him again if he
keeps on saying he can't see me."
"You'd better shake _me_," said Gerald angrily. "I'm nearer your own
size."
And instantly she did. But not for long. The moment Gerald felt hands on
his shoulders he put up his own and caught those other hands by the
wrists. And there he was, holding wrists that he couldn't see. It was a
dreadful sensation. An invisible kick made him wince, but he held tight
to the wrists.
"Cathy," he cried, "come and hold her legs; she's kicking me."
"Where?" cried Kathleen, anxious to help. "I don't _see_ any legs."
"This is her hands I've got," cried Gerald. "She _is_ invisible right
enough. Get hold of this hand, and then you can feel your way down to
her legs."
Kathleen did so. I wish I could make you understand how very, very
uncomfortable and frightening it is to feel, in broad daylight, hands
and arms that you can't see.
"I _won't_ have you hold my legs," said the invisible Princess,
struggling violently.
"What are you so cross about?" Gerald was quite calm. "You said you'd be
invisible, and you _are_."
"I'm not."
"You are really. Look in the glass."
"I'm not; I can't be."
"Look in the glass," Gerald repeated, quite unmoved.
"Let go, then," she said.
Gerald did, and the moment he had done so he found it impossible to
believe that he really had been holding invisible hands.
"You're just pretending not to see me," said the Princess anxiously,
"aren't you? Do say you are. You've had your joke with me. Don't keep it
up. I don't like it."
"On our sacred word of honour," said Gerald, "you're still invisible."
There was a silence. Then, "Come," said the Princess. "I'll let you out,
and you can go. I'm tired of playing with you."
They followed her voice to the door, and through it, and along the
little passage into the hall. No one said anything. Every one felt very
uncomfortable.
"Let's get out of this," whispered Jimmy as they got to the end of the
hall.
But the voice of the Princess said: "Come out this way; it's quicker. I
think you're perfectly hateful. I'm sorry I ever played with you. Mother
always told me not to play with strange children."
A door abruptly opened, though no hand was seen to touch it. "Come
through, can't you!" said the voice of the Princess.
It was a little ante-room, with long, narrow mirrors between its long,
narrow windows.
"Goodbye," said Gerald. "Thanks for giving us such a jolly time. Let's
part friends," he added, holding out his hand.
An unseen hand was slowly put in his, which closed on it, vice-like.
"Now," he said, "you've jolly well _got_ to look in the glass and own
that we're not liars."
He led the invisible Princess to one of the mirrors, and held her in
front of it by the shoulders.
"Now," he said, "you just look for yourself."
There was a silence, and then a cry of despair rang through the room.
"Oh--oh--oh! I _am_ invisible. Whatever shall I do?"
"Take the ring off," said Kathleen, suddenly practical.
Another silence.
"I _can't_!" cried the Princess. "It won't come off. But it can't be the
ring; rings don't make you invisible."
"You said this one did," said Kathleen, "and it has."
"But it _can't_," said the Princess. "I was only playing at magic. I
just hid in the secret cupboard--it was only a game. Oh, whatever
_shall_ I do?"
"A game?" said Gerald slowly; "but you _can_ do magic--the invisible
jewels, and you made them come visible."
"Oh, it's only a secret spring and the panelling slides up. Oh, what am
I to do?"
Kathleen moved towards the voice and gropingly got her arms round a
pink-silk waist that she couldn't see. Invisible arms clasped her, a hot
invisible cheek was laid against hers, and warm invisible tears lay wet
between the two faces.
"Don't cry, dear," said Kathleen; "let me go and tell the King and
Queen."
"The----?"
"Your royal father and mother."
"Oh, _don't_ mock me!" said the poor Princess. "You _know_ that was only
a game, too, like----"
"Like the bread and cheese," said Jimmy triumphantly. "I knew _that_
was!"
"But your dress and being asleep in the maze, and----"
"Oh, I dressed up for fun, because every one's away at the fair, and I
put the clue just to make it all more real. I was playing at Fair
Rosamond first, and then I heard you talking in the maze, and I thought
what fun; and now I'm invisible, and I shall never come right again,
never--I know I shan't! It serves me right for lying, but I didn't
really think you'd believe it--not more than half, that is," she added
hastily, trying to be truthful.
"But if you're not the Princess, who _are_ you?" asked Kathleen, still
embracing the unseen.
"I'm--my aunt lives here," said the invisible Princess. "She may be home
any time. Oh, what shall I do?"
"Perhaps she knows some charm----"
"Oh, nonsense!" said the voice sharply; "she doesn't believe in charms.
She _would_ be so vexed. Oh, I daren't let her see me like this!" she
added wildly. "And all of you here, too. She'd be so dreadfully cross."
The beautiful magic castle that the children had believed in now felt
as though it were tumbling about their ears. All that was left was the
invisibleness of the Princess. But that, you will own, was a good deal.
"I just said it," moaned the voice, "and it came true. I wish I'd never
played at magic--I wish I'd never played at anything at all."
"Oh, don't say that," Gerald said kindly. "Let's go out into the garden,
near the lake, where it's cool, and we'll hold a solemn council. You'll
like that, won't you?"
"Oh!" cried Kathleen suddenly, "the buckle; that makes magic come
undone!"
"It doesn't _really_," murmured the voice that seemed to speak without
lips. "I only just _said_ that."
"You only 'just said' about the ring," said Gerald. "Anyhow, let's try."
"Not _you_--_me_," said the voice. "You go down to the Temple of Flora,
by the lake. I'll go back to the jewel-room by myself. Aunt might see
you."
"She won't see _you_," said Jimmy.
"Don't rub it in," said Gerald. "Where _is_ the Temple of Flora?"
"That's the way," the voice said; "down those steps and along the
winding path through the shrubbery. You can't miss it. It's white
marble, with a statue goddess inside."
The three children went down to the white marble Temple of Flora that
stood close against the side of the little hill, and sat down in its
shadowy inside. It had arches all round except against the hill behind
the statue, and it was cool and restful.
They had not been there five minutes before the feet of a runner sounded
loud on the gravel. A shadow, very black and distinct, fell on the white
marble floor.
"Your shadow's not invisible anyhow," said Jimmy.
"Oh, bother my shadow!" the voice of the Princess replied. "We left the
key inside the door, and it's shut itself with the wind, and it's a
spring lock!"
There was a heartfelt pause.
Then Gerald said, in his most business-like manner:
"Sit down, Princess, and we'll have a thorough good palaver about it."
"I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, "if we was to wake up and find it was
dreams."
"No such luck," said the voice.
"Well," said Gerald, "first of all, what's your name, and if you're not
a Princess, who are you?"
"I'm--I'm," said a voice broken with sobs, "I'm
the--housekeeper's--niece--at--the--castle--and my name's Mabel Prowse."
"That's exactly what I thought," said Jimmy, without a shadow of truth,
because how could he? The others were silent. It was a moment full of
agitation and confused ideas.
"Well, anyhow," said Gerald, "you belong here."
[Illustration: "YOUR SHADOW'S NOT INVISIBLE, ANYHOW," SAID JIMMY.]
"Yes," said the voice, and it came from the floor, as though its owner
had flung herself down in the madness of despair. "Oh yes, I belong here
right enough, but what's the use of belonging anywhere if you're
invisible?"