The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit [nice books to read txt] 📗

was such a garden out of a picture or a fairy-tale. They passed quite close by the deer, who only raised their pretty heads to look, and did not seem startled at all. And after a long stretch of turf they passed under the heaped-up heavy masses of lime-trees and came into a rose-garden, bordered with thick, close-cut yew hedges, and lying red and pink and green and white in the sun, like a giant’s many-coloured, highly-scented pocket-handkerchief.

“I know we shall meet a gardener in a minute, and he’ll ask what we re doing here. And then what will you say?” Kathleen asked with her nose in a rose.

“I shall say we have lost our way, and it will be quite true,” said Gerald.

But they did not meet a gardener or anybody else, and the feeling of magic got thicker and thicker, till they were almost afraid of the sound of their feet in the great silent place. Beyond the rose garden was a yew hedge with an arch cut in it, and it was the beginning of a maze like the one in Hampton Court.

“Now,” said Gerald, “you mark my words. In the middle of this maze we shall find the secret enchantment. Draw your swords, my merry men all, and hark forward tallyho in the utmost silence. Which they did. It was very hot in the maze, between the close yew hedges, and the way to the maze’s heart was hidden well. Again and again they found themselves at the black yew arch that opened on the rose garden, and they were all glad that they had brought large, clean pocket-handkerchiefs with them. It was when they found themselves there for the fourth time that Jimmy suddenly cried, “Oh, I wish ‘ and then stopped short very suddenly. “Oh!” he added in quite a different voice, “where’s the dinner?” And then in a stricken silence they all remembered that the basket with the dinner had been left at the entrance of the cave. Their thoughts dwelt fondly on the slices of cold mutton, the six tomatoes, the bread and butter, the screwed-up paper of salt, the apple turnovers, and the little thick glass that one drank the ginger-beer out of.

“Let’s go back,” said Jimmy, “now this minute, and get our things and have our dinner.”

“Let’s have one more try at the maze. I hate giving things up,” said Gerald.

“I am so hungry!” said Jimmy.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” asked Gerald bitterly.

“I wasn’t before.”

“Then you can’t be now. You don’t get hungry all in a minute. What’s that?”

That was a gleam of red that lay at the foot of the yew-hedge a thin little line, that you would hardly have noticed unless you had been staring in a fixed and angry way at the roots of the hedge.

It was a thread of cotton. Gerald picked it up. One end of it was tied to a thimble with holes in it, and the other—

“There is no other end,” said Gerald, with firm triumph. “It’s a clew that’s what it is. What price cold mutton now? I’ve always felt something magic would happen some day, and now it has.”

“I expect the gardener put it there,” said Jimmy.

“With a Princess’s silver thimble on it? Look! there’s a crown on the thimble.”

There was.

“Come,” said Gerald in low, urgent tones, “if you are adventurers be adventurers; and anyhow, I expect someone has gone along the road and bagged the mutton hours ago.”

He walked forward, winding the red thread round his fingers as he went. And it was a clew, and it led them right into the middle of the maze. And in the very middle of the maze they came upon the wonder.

The red clew led them up two stone steps to a round grass plot. There was a sun-dial in the middle, and all round against the yew hedge a low, wide marble seat. The red clew ran straight across the grass and by the sun-dial, and ended in a small brown hand with jewelled rings on every finger. The hand was, naturally, attached to an arm, and that had many bracelets on it, sparkling with red and blue and green stones. The arm wore a sleeve of pink and gold brocaded silk, faded a little here and there but still extremely imposing, and the sleeve was part of a dress, which was worn by a lady who lay on the stone seat asleep in the sun. The rosy gold dress fell open over an embroidered petticoat of a soft green colour. There was old yellow lace the colour of scalded cream, and a thin white veil spangled with silver stars covered the face.

“It’s the enchanted Princess,” said Gerald, now really impressed. “I told you so.”

“It’s the Sleeping Beauty,” said Kathleen. “It is look how old-fashioned her clothes are, like the pictures of Marie Antoinette’s ladies in the history book. She has slept for a hundred years. Oh, Gerald, you’re the eldest; you must be the Prince, and we never knew it.”

“She isn’t really a Princess,” said Jimmy. But the others laughed at him, partly because his saying things like that was enough to spoil any game, and partly because they really were not at all sure that it was not a Princess who lay there as still as the sunshine. Every stage of the adventure the cave, the wonderful gardens, the maze, the clew, had deepened the feeling of magic, till now Kathleen and Gerald were almost completely bewitched.

“Lift the veil up,” Jerry, said Kathleen in a whisper, “if she isn’t beautiful we shall know she can’t be the Princess.

“Lift it yourself,” said Gerald.

“I expect you’re forbidden to touch the figures,” said Jimmy.

“It’s not wax, silly,” said his brother.

“No,” said his sister, “wax wouldn’t be much good in this sun. And, besides, you can see her breathing. It’s the Princess right enough.” She very gently lifted the edge of the veil and turned it back. The Princess’s face was small and white between long plaits of black hair. Her nose was straight and her brows finely traced. There were a few freckles on cheekbones and nose.

“No wonder,” whispered Kathleen, “sleeping all these years in all this sun! Her mouth was not a rosebud. But all the same “Isn’t she lovely!” Kathleen murmured. “Not so dusty,” Gerald was understood to reply. “Now, Jerry,” said Kathleen firmly, “you’re the eldest.”

“Of course I am,” said Gerald uneasily.

“Well, you’ve got to wake the Princess.”

“She’s not a Princess,” said Jimmy, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers; “she’s only a little girl dressed up.”

“But she’s in long dresses,” urged Kathleen.

“Yes, but look what a little way down her frock her feet come. She wouldn’t be any taller than Jerry if she was to stand up.”

“Now then,” urged Kathleen. “Jerry, don’t be silly. You’ve got to do it.”

“Do what?” asked Gerald, kicking his left boot with his right.

“Why, kiss her awake, of course.”

“Not me!” was Gerald’s unhesitating rejoinder.

“Well, someone’s got to.”

“She’d go for me as likely as not the minute she woke up,” said Gerald anxiously.

“I’d do it like a shot,” said Kathleen, “but I don’t suppose it ud make any difference me kissing her.”

She did it; and it didn’t. The Princess still lay in deep slumber.

“Then you must, Jimmy. I dare say you’ll do. Jump back quickly before she can hit you.”

“She won’t hit him, he’s such a little chap,” said Gerald.

“Little yourself!” said Jimmy. “I don’t mind kissing her. I’m not a coward, like Some People. Only if I do, I’m going to be the dauntless leader for the rest of the day.”

“No, look here hold on!” cried Gerald, “perhaps I’d better ” But, in the meantime, Jimmy had planted a loud, cheerful-sounding kiss on the Princess’s pale cheek, and now the three stood breathless, awaiting the result.

And the result was that the Princess opened large, dark eyes, stretched out her arms, yawned a little, covering her mouth with a small brown hand, and said, quite plainly and distinctly, and without any room at all for mistake:

“Then the hundred years are over? How the yew hedges have grown! Which of you is my Prince that aroused me from my deep sleep of so many long years?”

“I did,” said Jimmy fearlessly, for she did not look as though she were going to slap anyone.

“My noble preserver!” said the Princess, and held out her hand. Jimmy shook it vigorously.

“But I say,” said he, “you aren’t really a Princess, are you?”

“Of course I am,” she answered; “who else could I be? Look at my crown!” She pulled aside the spangled veil, and showed beneath it a coronet of what even Jimmy could not help seeing to be diamonds.

“But ” said Jimmy.

“Why,” she said, opening her eyes very wide, “you must have known about my being here, or you’d never have come. How did you get past the dragons?”

Gerald ignored the question. “I say,” he said, “do you really believe in magic, and all that?”

“I ought to,” she said, “if anybody does. Look, here’s the place where I pricked my finger with the spindle.” She showed a little scar on her wrist.

“Then this really is an enchanted castle?”

“Of course it is,” said the Princess. “How stupid you are!” She stood up, and her pink brocaded dress lay in bright waves about her feet.

“I said her dress would be too long,” said Jimmy.

“It was the right length when I went to sleep,” said the Princess; “it must have grown in the hundred years.”

“I don’t believe you’re a Princess at all,” said Jimmy; “at least “

“Don’t bother about believing it, if you don’t like,” said the Princess. “It doesn’t so much matter what you believe as what I am. She turned to the others.

“Let’s go back to the castle,” she said, “and I’ll show you all my lovely jewels and things. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Yes, said Gerald with very plain hesitation. “But “

“But what?” The Princess’s tone was impatient.

“But we’re most awfully hungry.” “Oh, so am I!” cried the Princess.

“We’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast.”

“And it’s three now,” said the Princess, looking at the sun-dial. “Why, you’ve had nothing to eat for hours and hours and hours. But think of me! I haven’t had anything to eat for a hundred years.” Come along to the castle.

“The mice will have eaten everything,” said Jimmy sadly. He saw now that she really was a Princess.

“Not they,” cried the Princess joyously. “You forget everything’s enchanted here. Time simply stood still for a hundred years. Come along, and one of you must carry my train, or I shan’t be able to move now it’s grown such a frightful length.”

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 grownups, 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