Chapter 9

'Such an unusual arrangement,' said the King, 'would involve very awkward explanations, and I can't think of any except the true ones, which would be quite impossible to give. You see, we should want a first-class prince, and no really high-toned Highness would take a wife on those terms.'

'It's a thoroughly comfortable kingdom,' said the Queen doubtfully. 'The young man would be handsomely provided for for life.'

'I couldn't marry Belinda to a time-server or a place-worshipper,' said the King decidedly.

Meanwhile the Princess had taken the matter into her own hands. She had fallen in love.

You know, of course, that a handsome book is sent out every year to all the kings who have daughters to marry. It is rather like the illustrated catalogues of Liberty's or Peter Robinson's, only instead of illustrations showing furniture or ladies' cloaks and dresses, the pictures are all of princes who are of an age to be married, and are looking out for suitable wives. The book is called the 'Royal Match Catalogue Illustrated,'--and besides the pictures of the princes it has little printed bits about their incomes, accomplishments, prospects, and tempers, and relations.

Now the Princess saw this book--which is never shown to princesses, but only to their parents--it was carelessly left lying on the round table in the parlour. She looked all through it, and she hated each prince more than the one before till she came to the very end, and on the last page of all, screwed away in a corner, was the picture of a prince who was quite as good-looking as a prince has any call to be.

'I like _you_,' said Belinda softly. Then she read the little bit of print underneath.

_Prince Bellamant, aged twenty-four. Wants Princess who doesn't object to a christening curse. Nature of curse only revealed in the strictest confidence. Good tempered. Comfortably off. Quiet habits. No relations._

'Poor dear,' said the Princess. 'I wonder what the curse is! I'm sure _I_ shouldn't mind!'

The blue dusk of evening was deepening in the garden outside. The Princess rang for the lamp and went to draw the curtain. There was a rustle and a faint high squeak--and something black flopped on to the floor and fluttered there.

'Oh--it's a bat,' cried the Princess, as the lamp came in. 'I don't like bats.'

'Let me fetch a dust-pan and brush and sweep the nasty thing away,' said the parlourmaid.

'No, no,' said Belinda, 'it's hurt, poor dear,' and though she hated bats she picked it up. It was horribly cold to touch, one wing dragged loosely. 'You can go, Jane,' said the Princess to the parlourmaid.

Then she got a big velvet-covered box that had had chocolate in it, and put some cotton wool in it and said to the Bat--

'You poor dear, is that comfortable?' and the Bat said:

'Quite, thanks.'

'Good gracious,' said the Princess jumping. 'I didn't know bats could talk.'

'Every one can talk,' said the Bat, 'but not every one can hear other people talking. You have a fine ear as well as a fine heart.'

'Will your wing ever get well?' asked the Princess.

'I hope so,' said the Bat. 'But let's talk about you. Do you know why you wear a veil every day except Sundays?'

'Doesn't everybody?' asked Belinda.

'Only here in the palace,' said the Bat, 'that's on your account.'

'But why?' asked the Princess.

'Look in the glass and you'll know.'

'But it's wicked to look in the glass except on Sundays--and besides they're all put away,' said the Princess.

'If I were you,' said the Bat, 'I should go up into the attic where the youngest kitchenmaid sleeps. Feel between the thatch and the wall just above her pillow, and you'll find a little round looking-glass. But come back here before you look at it.'

The Princess did exactly what the Bat told her to do, and when she had come back into the parlour and shut the door she looked in the little round glass that the youngest kitchen-maid's sweetheart had given her. And when she saw her ugly, ugly, ugly face--for you must remember she had been growing uglier every day since she was born--she screamed and then she said:

'That's not me, it's a horrid picture.'

'It _is_ you, though,' said the Bat firmly but kindly; 'and now you see why you wear a veil all the week--and only look in the glass on Sunday.'

'But why,' asked the Princess in tears, 'why don't I look like that in the Sunday looking-glasses?'

'Because you aren't like that on Sundays,' the Bat replied. 'Come,' it went on, 'stop crying. I didn't tell you the dread secret of your ugliness just to make you cry--but because I know the way for you to be as pretty all the week as you are on Sundays, and since you've been so kind to me I'll tell you. Sit down close beside me, it fatigues me to speak loud.'

The Princess did, and listened through her veil and her tears, while the Bat told her all that I began this story by telling you.

'My great-great-great-great-grandfather heard the tale years ago,' he said, 'up in the dark, dusty, beautiful, comfortable, cobwebby belfry, and I have heard scraps of it myself when the evil Bell-people were quarrelling, or talking in their sleep, lazy things!'

'It's very good of you to tell me all this,' said Belinda, 'but what am I to do?'

'You must find the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't made to ring.'

'If I were a prince,' said the Princess, 'I could go out and seek my fortune.'

'Princesses have fortunes as well as princes,' said the Bat.

'But father and mother would never let me go and look for mine.'

'Think!' said the Bat, 'perhaps you'll find a way.'

So Belinda thought and thought. And at last she got the book that had the portraits of eligible princes in it, and she wrote to the prince who had the christening curse--and this is what she said:

'Princess Belinda of Carrillon-land is not afraid of christening curses. If Prince Bellamant would like to marry her he had better apply to her Royal Father in the usual way.

'_P.S._--I have seen your portrait.'

When the Prince got this letter he was very pleased, and wrote at once for Princess Belinda's likeness. Of course they sent him a picture of her Sunday face, which was the most beautiful face in the world. As soon as he saw it he knew that this was not only the most beautiful face in the world, but the dearest, so he wrote to her father by the next post--applying for her hand in the usual way and enclosing the most respectable references. The King told the Princess.

'Come,' said he, 'what do you say to this young man?'

And the Princess, of course, said, 'Yes, please.'

So the wedding-day was fixed for the first Sunday in June.

But when the Prince arrived with all his glorious following of courtiers and men-at-arms, with two pink peacocks and a crown-case full of diamonds for his bride, he absolutely refused to be married on a Sunday. Nor would he give any reason for his refusal. And then the King lost his temper and broke off the match, and the Prince went away.

But he did not go very far. That night he bribed a page-boy to show him which was the Princess's room, and he climbed up by the jasmine through the dark rose-scented night, and tapped at the window.

'Who's dhere?' said the Princess inside in the dark.

'Me,' said the Prince in the dark outside.

'Thed id wasnd't true?' said the Princess. 'They toad be you'd ridded away.'

'What a cold you've got, my Princess,' said the Prince hanging on by the jasmine boughs.

'It's not a cold,' sniffed the Princess.

'Then ... oh you dear ... were you crying because you thought I'd gone?' he said.

'I suppose so,' said she.

He said, 'You dear!' again, and kissed her hands.

'_Why_ wouldn't you be married on a Sunday?' she asked.

'It's the curse, dearest,' he explained, 'I couldn't tell any one but you. The fact is Malevola wasn't asked to my christening so she doomed me to be ... well, she said "moderately good-looking all the week, and too ugly for words on Sundays." So you see! You _will_ be married on a week-day, won't you?'

'But I can't,' said the Princess, 'because I've got a curse too--only I'm ugly all the week and pretty on Sundays.'

'How extremely tiresome,' said the Prince, 'but can't you be cured?'

'Oh yes,' said the Princess, and told him how. 'And you,' she asked, 'is yours quite incurable?'

'Not at all,' he answered, 'I've only got to stay under water for five minutes and the spell will be broken. But you see, beloved, the difficulty is that I can't do it. I've practised regularly, from a boy, in the sea, and in the swimming bath, and even in my wash-hand basin--hours at a time I've practised--but I never can keep under more than two minutes.'

'Oh dear,' said the Princess, 'this is dreadful.'

'It is rather trying,' the Prince answered.

'You're sure you like me,' she asked suddenly, 'now you know that I'm only pretty once a week?'

'I'd die for you,' said he.

'Then I'll tell you what. Send all your courtiers away, and take a situation as under-gardener here--I know we want one. And then every night I'll climb down the jasmine and we'll go out together and seek our fortune. I'm sure we shall find it.'

And they did go out. The very next night, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. And they did not find their fortunes, but they got fonder and fonder of each other. They could not see each other's faces, but they held hands as they went along through the dark.

And on the seventh night, as they passed by a house that showed chinks of light through its shutters, they heard a bell being rung outside for supper, a bell with a very loud and beautiful voice. But instead of saying--

'Supper's ready,' as any one would have expected, the bell was saying--

Ding dong dell! _I_ could tell Where you ought to go To break the spell.

Then some one left off ringing the bell, so of course it couldn't say any more. So the two went on. A little way down the road a cow-bell tinkled behind the wet hedge of the lane. And it said--not, 'Here I am, quite safe,' as a cow-bell should, but--

Ding dong dell All will be well If you...

Then the cow stopped walking and began to eat, so the bell couldn't say any more. The Prince and Princess went on, and you will not be surprised to hear that they heard the voices of five more bells that night. The next was a school-bell. The schoolmaster's little boy thought it would be fun to ring it very late at night--but his father came and caught him before the bell could say any more than--

Ding a dong dell You can break up the spell By taking...

So that was no good.

Then there were the three bells that were the sign over the door of an inn where people were happily dancing to a fiddle, because there was a wedding. These bells said:

We are the Merry three Bells, bells, bells. You are two To undo Spells, spells, spells...

Then the wind who was swinging the bells suddenly thought of an appointment he had made with a pine forest, to get up an entertaining imitation of sea-waves for the benefit of the forest nymphs who had never been to the seaside, and he went off--so, of course, the bells couldn't ring any more, and the Prince and Princess went on down the dark road.

There was a cottage and the Princess pulled her veil closely over her face, for yellow light streamed from its open door--and it was a Wednesday.

Inside a little boy was sitting on the floor--quite a little boy--he ought to have been in bed long before, and I don't know why he wasn't. And he was ringing a little tinkling bell that had dropped off a sleigh.

And this little bell said:

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know, and I'll tell, tell, tell. Find the Enchanter of the Ringing Well, He will show you how to break the spell, spell, spell. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know....

And so on, over and over, again and again, because the little boy was quite contented to go on shaking his sleigh-bell for ever and ever.

'So now we know,' said the Prince, 'isn't that glorious?'

'Yes, very, but where's the Enchanter of the Ringing Well?' said the Princess doubtfully.

'Oh, I've got _his_ address in my pocket-book,' said the Prince. 'He's my god-father. He was one of the references I gave your father.'

So the next night the Prince brought a horse to the garden, and he and the Princess mounted, and rode, and rode, and rode, and in the grey dawn they came to Wonderwood, and in the very middle of that the Magician's Palace stands.

The Princess did not like to call on a perfect stranger so very early in the morning, so they decided to wait a little and look about them.

The castle was very beautiful, decorated with a conventional design of bells and bell ropes, carved in white stone.

Luxuriant plants of American bell-vine covered the drawbridge and portcullis. On a green lawn in front of the castle was a well, with a curious bell-shaped covering suspended over it. The lovers leaned over the mossy fern-grown wall of the well, and, looking down, they could see that the narrowness of the well only lasted for a few feet, and below that it spread into a cavern where water lay in a big pool.

'What cheer?' said a pleasant voice behind them. It was the Enchanter, an early riser, like Darwin was, and all other great scientific men.

They told him what cheer.

'But,' Prince Bellamant ended, 'it's really no use. I can't keep under water more than two minutes however much I try. And my precious Belinda's not likely to find any silly old bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and was never made to ring.'

'Ho, ho,' laughed the Enchanter with the soft full laughter of old age. 'You've come to the right shop. Who told you?'

'The bells,' said Belinda.

'Ah, yes.' The old man frowned kindly upon them. 'You must be very fond of each other?'

'We are,' said the two together.

'Yes,' the Enchanter answered, 'because only true lovers can hear the true speech of the bells, and then only when they're together. Well, there's the bell!'

He pointed to the covering of the well, went forward, and touched some lever or spring. The covering swung out from above the well, and hung over the grass grey with the dew of dawn.

'_That?_' said Bellamant.

'That,' said his god-father. 'It doesn't ring, and it can't ring, and it never will ring, and it was never made to ring. Get into it.'

'Eh?' said Bellamant forgetting his manners.

The old man took a hand of each and led them under the bell.

They looked up. It had windows of thick glass, and high seats about four feet from its edge, running all round inside.

'Take your seats,' said the Enchanter.

Bellamant lifted his Princess to the bench and leaped up beside her.

'Now,' said the old man, 'sit still, hold each other's hands, and for your lives don't move.'

He went away, and next moment they felt the bell swing in the air. It swung round till once more it was over the well, and then it went down, down, down.

'I'm not afraid, with you,' said Belinda, because she was, dreadfully.

Down went the bell. The glass windows leaped into light, looking through them the two could see blurred glories of lamps in the side of the cave, magic lamps, or perhaps merely electric, which, curiously enough have ceased to seem magic to us nowadays. Then with a plop the lower edge of the bell met the water, the water rose inside it, a little, then not any more. And the bell went down, down, and above their heads the green water lapped against the windows of the bell.

'You're under water--if we stay five minutes,' Belinda whispered.

'Yes, dear,' said Bellamant, and pulled out his ruby-studded chronometer.

'It's five minutes for you, but oh!' cried Belinda, 'it's _now_ for me. For I've found the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't made to ring. Oh Bellamant dearest, it's Thursday. _Have_ I got my Sunday face?'

She tore away her veil, and his eyes, fixed upon her face, could not leave it.

'Oh dream of all the world's delight,' he murmured, 'how beautiful you are.'

Neither spoke again till a sudden little shock told them that the bell was moving up again.

'Nonsense,' said Bellamant, 'it's not five minutes.'

But when they looked at the ruby-studded chronometer, it was nearly three-quarters of an hour. But then, of course, the well was enchanted!

'Magic? Nonsense,' said the old man when they hung about him with thanks and pretty words. 'It's only a diving-bell. My own invention.'

* * * * *

So they went home and were married, and the Princess did not wear a veil at the wedding. She said she had had enough veils to last her time.

* * * * *

And a year and a day after that a little daughter was born to them.

'Now sweetheart,' said King Bellamant--he was king now because the old king and queen had retired from the business, and were keeping pigs and hens in the country as they had always planned to do--'dear sweetheart and life's love, I am going to ring the bells with my own hands, to show how glad I am for you, and for the child, and for our good life together.'

So he went out. It was very dark, because the baby princess had chosen to be born at midnight.

The King went out to the belfry, that stood in the great, bare, quiet, moonlit square, and he opened the door. The furry-pussy bell-ropes, like huge caterpillars, hung on the first loft. The King began to climb the curly-wurly stone stair. And as he went up he heard a noise, the strangest noises, stamping and rustling and deep breathings.

He stood still in the ringers' loft where the pussy-furry caterpillary bell-robes hung, and from the belfry above he heard the noise of strong fighting, and mixed with it the sound of voices angry and desperate, but with a noble note that thrilled the soul of the hearer like the sound of the trumpet in battle. And the voices cried:

Down, down--away, away, When good has come ill may not stay, Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!

And the words broke and joined again, like water when it flows against the piers of a bridge. 'Down, down----.' 'Ill may not stay----.' 'Good has come----.' 'Away, away----.' And the joining came like the sound of the river that flows free again.

Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!

And then, as King Bellamant stood there, thrilled and yet, as it were, turned to stone, by the magic of this conflict that raged above him, there came a sweeping rush down the belfry ladder. The lantern he carried showed him a rout of little, dark, evil people, clothed in dust and cobwebs, that scurried down the wooden steps gnashing their teeth and growling in the bitterness of a deserved defeat. They passed and there was silence. Then the King flew from rope to rope pulling lustily, and from above, the bells answered in their own clear beautiful voices--because the good Bell-folk had driven out the usurpers and had come to their own again.

Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell! A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell! Sound, bell! Sound! Swell! Ring for joy and wish her well! May her life tell No tale of ill-spell! Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!

* * * * *

'But I don't see,' said King Bellamant, when he had told Queen Belinda all about it, 'how it was that I came to hear them. The Enchanter of the Ringing Well said that only lovers could hear what the bells had to say, and then only when they were together.'

'You silly dear boy,' said Queen Belinda, cuddling the baby princess close under her chin, 'we _are_ lovers, aren't we? And you don't suppose I wasn't with you when you went to ring the bells for our baby--my heart and soul anyway--all of me that matters!'

'Yes,' said the King, 'of course you were. That accounts!'

VIII

JUSTNOWLAND

'Auntie! No, no, no! I will be good. Oh, I will!' The little weak voice came from the other side of the locked attic door.

'You should have thought of that before,' said the strong, sharp voice outside.

'I didn't mean to be naughty. I didn't, truly.'

'It's not what you mean, miss, it's what you do. I'll teach you not to mean, my lady.'

The bitter irony of the last words dried the child's tears. 'Very well, then,' she screamed, 'I won't be good; I won't try to be good. I thought you'd like your nasty old garden weeded. I only did it to please you. How was I to know it was turnips? It looked just like weeds.' Then came a pause, then another shriek. 'Oh, Auntie, don't! Oh, let me out--let me out!'

'I'll not let you out till I've broken your spirit, my girl; you may rely on that.'

The sharp voice stopped abruptly on a high note; determined feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs--fainter, fainter; a door slammed below with a dreadful definiteness, and Elsie was left alone, to wonder how soon her spirit would break--for at no less a price, it appeared, could freedom be bought.

The outlook seemed hopeless. The martyrs and heroines, with whom Elsie usually identified herself, _their_ spirit had never been broken; not chains nor the rack nor the fiery stake itself had even weakened them. Imprisonment in an attic would to them have been luxury compared with the boiling oil and the smoking faggots and all the intimate cruelties of mysterious instruments of steel and leather, in cold dungeons, lit only by the dull flare of torches and the bright, watchful eyes of inquisitors.

A month in the house of 'Auntie' self-styled, and really only an unrelated Mrs. Staines, paid to take care of the child, had held but one interest--Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It was a horrible book--the thick oleographs, their guarding sheets of tissue paper sticking to the prints like bandages to a wound.... Elsie knew all about wounds: she had had one herself. Only a scalded hand, it is true, but a wound is a wound, all the world over. It was a book that made you afraid to go to bed; but it was a book you could not help reading. And now it seemed as though it might at last help, and not merely sicken and terrify. But the help was frail, and broke almost instantly on the thought--'_They_ were brave because they were good: how can I be brave when there's nothing to be brave about except me not knowing the difference between turnips and weeds?'

She sank down, a huddled black bunch on the bare attic floor, and called wildly to some one who could not answer her. Her frock was black because the one who always used to answer could not answer any more. And her father was in India, where you cannot answer, or even hear, your little girl, however much she cries in England.

'I won't cry,' said Elsie, sobbing as violently as ever. 'I can be brave, even if I'm not a saint but only a turnip-mistaker. I'll be a Bastille prisoner, and tame a mouse!' She dried her eyes, though the bosom of the black frock still heaved like the sea after a storm, and looked about for a mouse to tame. One could not begin too soon. But unfortunately there seemed to be no mouse at liberty just then. There were mouse-holes right enough, all round the wainscot, and in the broad, time-worn boards of the old floor. But never a mouse.

'Mouse, mouse!' Elsie called softly. 'Mousie, mousie, come and be tamed!'

Not a mouse replied.

The attic was perfectly empty and dreadfully clean. The other attic, Elsie knew, had lots of interesting things in it--old furniture and saddles, and sacks of seed potatoes,--but in this attic nothing. Not so much as a bit of string on the floor that one could make knots in, or twist round one's finger till it made the red ridges that are so interesting to look at afterwards; not even a piece of paper in the draughty, cold fireplace that one could make paper boats of, or prick letters in with a pin or the tag of one's shoe-laces.