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

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 clue⁠—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 clue, 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 clue led them up two stone steps to a round grass plot. There was a sundial in the middle, and all round against the yew hedge a low, wide marble seat. The red clue ran straight across the grass and by the sundial, 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 clue, 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