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

“We are very sorry indeed,” said Gerald. “It took us longer to get home than we expected. I do hope you haven’t been anxious. I have been thinking about you most of the way home.”

“Go, then,” said the French lady, smiling; “you shall have them in the same time⁠—the tea and the supper.”

Which they did.

“How could you say you were thinking about her all the time?” said a voice just by Gerald’s ear, when Mademoiselle had left them alone with the bread and butter and milk and baked apples. “It was just as much a lie as me being adopted by a motor lady.”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Gerald, through bread and butter. “I was thinking about whether she’d be in a wax or not. So there!”

There were only three plates, but Jimmy let Mabel have his, and shared with Kathleen. It was rather horrid to see the bread and butter waving about in the air, and bite after bite disappearing from it apparently by no human agency; and the spoon rising with apple in it and returning to the plate empty. Even the tip of the spoon disappeared as long as it was in Mabel’s unseen mouth; so that at times it looked as though its bowl had been broken off.

Everyone was very hungry, and more bread and butter had to be fetched. Cook grumbled when the plate was filled for the third time.

“I tell you what,” said Jimmy; “I did want my tea.”

“I tell you what,” said Gerald; “it’ll be jolly difficult to give Mabel any breakfast. Mademoiselle will be here then. She’d have a fit if she saw bits of forks with bacon on them vanishing, and then the forks coming back out of vanishment, and the bacon lost forever.”

“We shall have to buy things to eat and feed our poor captive in secret,” said Kathleen.

“Our money won’t last long,” said Jimmy, in gloom. “Have you got any money?”

He turned to where a mug of milk was suspended in the air without visible means of support.

“I’ve not got much money,” was the reply from near the milk, “but I’ve got heaps of ideas.”

“We must talk about everything in the morning,” said Kathleen. “We must just say good night to Mademoiselle, and then you shall sleep in my bed, Mabel. I’ll lend you one of my nightgowns.”

“I’ll get my own tomorrow,” said Mabel cheerfully.

“You’ll go back to get things?”

“Why not? Nobody can see me. I think I begin to see all sorts of amusing things coming along. It’s not half bad being invisible.”

It was extremely odd, Kathleen thought, to see the Princess’s clothes coming out of nothing. First the gauzy veil appeared hanging in the air. Then the sparkling coronet suddenly showed on the top of the chest of drawers. Then a sleeve of the pinky gown showed, then another, and then the whole gown lay on the floor in a glistening ring as the unseen legs of Mabel stepped out of it. For each article of clothing became visible as Mabel took it off. The nightgown, lifted from the bed, disappeared a bit at a time.

“Get into bed,” said Kathleen, rather nervously.

The bed creaked and a hollow appeared in the pillow. Kathleen put out the gas and got into bed; all this magic had been rather upsetting, and she was just the least bit frightened, but in the dark she found it was not so bad. Mabel’s arms went round her neck the moment she got into bed, and the two little girls kissed in the kind darkness, where the visible and the invisible could meet on equal terms.

“Good night,” said Mabel. “You’re a darling, Cathy; you’ve been most awfully good to me, and I shan’t forget it. I didn’t like to say so before the boys, because I know boys think you’re a muff if you’re grateful. But I am. Good night.”

Kathleen lay awake for some time. She was just getting sleepy when she remembered that the maid who would call them in the morning would see those wonderful Princess clothes.

“I’ll have to get up and hide them,” she said. “What a bother!”

And as she lay thinking what a bother it was she happened to fall asleep, and when she woke again it was bright morning, and Eliza was standing in front of the chair where Mabel’s clothes lay, gazing at the pink Princess-frock that lay on the top of her heap and saying, “Law!”

“Oh, don’t touch, please!” Kathleen leaped out of bed as Eliza was reaching out her hand.

“Where on earth did you get hold of that?”

“We’re going to use it for acting,” said Kathleen, on the desperate inspiration of the moment. “It’s lent me for that.”

“You might show me, miss,” suggested Eliza.

“Oh, please not!” said Kathleen, standing in front of the chair in her nightgown. “You shall see us act when we are dressed up. There! And you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Not if you’re a good little girl,” said Eliza. “But you be sure to let me see when you do dress up. But where⁠—”

Here a bell rang and Eliza had to go, for it was the postman, and she particularly wanted to see him.

“And now,” said Kathleen, pulling on her first stocking, “we shall have to do the acting. Everything seems very difficult.”

“Acting isn’t,” said Mabel; and an unsupported stocking waved in the air and quickly vanished. “I shall love it.”

“You forget,” said Kathleen gently, “invisible actresses can’t take part in plays unless they’re magic ones.”

“Oh,” cried a voice from under a petticoat that hung in the air, “I’ve got such an idea!”

“Tell it us after breakfast,” said Kathleen, as the water in the basin began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. “And oh! I do wish you hadn’t written such whoppers to your aunt. I’m sure we oughtn’t to tell lies for anything.”

“What’s the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?” came from among the splashes.

“I don’t know,” said Kathleen,