Part 6
“Your teeth don’t taste,” I objected scientifically.
Delia opened her eyes. “Why, they do too!” she cried.
I considered. I had always had great respect for the strange chorus of my teeth, and I was perfectly ready to regard them as having independent powers.
“Oh, not when you eat tipsy-toes like that,” said Delia, scornfully. “Lemme show you....” She leaned for my cooky, her own being gone. I ran shamelessly down the path toward the swing, and by the time the swing was reached I had frankly abandoned serial bites.
I sat on the grass, giving Delia the swing as a peace-offering. She took it, as a matter of course, and did not scruple to press her advantage.
“Don’t you want to swing me?” she said.
I particularly disliked being asked in that way to do things. Grown-ups were always doing it, and what could be more absurd: “Don’t you want to pick up your things now?” “Don’t you want to let auntie have that chair?” “Don’t you want to take this over to Mrs. Rodman?” The form of the query always struck me as quite shameless. I truthfully shook my head.
“I’m company,” Delia intimated.
“When you’re over to my house, I have to let you swing because you’re company,” I said speculatively, “and when I’m over to your house, I have to let you swing because it’s your swing.”
“I don’t care about being company,” said Delia, loftily, and started home.
“I’ll swing you. I was only fooling!” I said, scrambling up.
It worked--as Delia knew it would and always did work. All the same, as I pushed Delia, with my eyes on the blue-check gingham strap buttoned across the back of her apron, I reflected on the truth and its parallels: How, when Delia came to see me, I had to “pick up” the playthings and set in order store or ship or den or cave or county fair or whatnot because Delia had to go home early; and when I was over to Delia’s, I had to help put things away because they were hers and she had got them out.
Low-swing, high-swing, now-I’m-going-to-run-under-swing--I gave them all to Delia and sank on the grass to watch the old cat die. As it died, Delia suddenly twisted the rope and then dropped back and lay across the board and loosed her hands. I never dared “let go,” as we said, but Delia did and lay whirling, her hair falling out like a sun’s rays, and her eyes shut.
I watched her, fascinated. If she opened her eyes, I knew how the picket fence would swim for her, no longer a line but a circle. Then I remembered what I had seen in the tree when I was twisting, and I looked back....
There she was! Quite as I had fleetingly seen her, with lacy skirts and vague, sweeping sleeves and bending line of shoulder, my Lady of the Tree was there again. I looked at her breathlessly, unsurprised at the gracious movement of her, so skilfully concealed by the disguises of the wind. Oh, was she there all the time, or only in apple-blossom time? Would she be there not only in white Spring but in green Summer and yellow Fall--why, perhaps all those times came only because she changed her gown. Perhaps night came only because she put on something dusky, made of veils. Maybe the stars that I had thought looked to be caught in the branches were the jewels in her hair. And the wind might be her voice! I listened with all my might. What if she should tell me her name ... and know my name!...
“Seventeen un-twists,” announced Delia. “Did you ever get that many out of such a little stingy swing as you gave me?”
I did not question the desirability of telling Delia. The four Eversley girls had been barbarians (so I thought). Delia I had known always. To be sure, she had sometimes failed me, but these times were not real. My eyes were on the tree, and Delia came curiously toward me.
“Bird?” she whispered.
I shook my head and beckoned her. Still looking at my lady, I drew Delia down beside me, brought her head close to mine.
“Look,” I said, “her skirt is all branches--and her face is turned the other way. See her?”
Delia looked faithfully. She scanned the tree long and impartially.
“See her? See her?” I insisted, under the impression that I was defining her. “It’s a lady,” I breathed it finally.
“Oh,” said Delia, “you mean that side of the tree is the shape of one. Yes, it is--kind of. I’m going home. We got chocolate layer cake for supper. Good-bye. Last tag.”
I turned to Delia for a second. When she went, I looked back for my lady--but she had gone. Only--now I did not try to bring her back. Neither did I doubt her, even then. But there came back a certain loneliness that I had felt before, only never so much as now. Why was it that the others could not see?
I lay face downward in the grass under the tree. There were other things like this lady that I had been conscious of, which nobody else seemed to care about. Sometimes I had tried to tell. More often I had instinctively kept still. Now slowly I thought that I understood: I was different. Different from the whole world. Did I not remember how, when I walked on the street, groups of children would sometimes whisper: “There she is--there she is!” Or, “Here she comes!” I had thought, poor child, that this would be because my hair was long, like little Eva’s in the only play that most of us had seen. But now I thought I knew what they had known and I had not known: That I was different.
I dropped my face in the crook of my arm and cried--silently, because to cry aloud seemed always to have about it a kind of nakedness; but I cried sorely, pantingly, with aching throat, and tried to think it out.
What was this difference? I had heard them say in the house that my head was large, my hair too long to let me be healthy; and the four Eversleys always wanted me to shut my eyes so that I should look dead. But it was something other than these. Maybe--I shall never forget the grip of that fear--maybe I was not human. Maybe I was Adopted. I had no clear idea what Adopted meant, but my impression was that it meant not to have been born at all. That was it. I was like the apple-blossoms that would never be apples. I was just a Pretend little girl, a kind of secret one, somebody who could never, never be the same as the rest.
I turned from that deep afternoon and ran for the wood-pile where I had a hiding-place. Down the path I met Mother and clung to her.
“Mother, Mother!” I sobbed. “Am I adopted?”
“No, dear,” she said seriously. “You are mine. What is it?”
“Promise me I’m not!” I begged.
“I promise,” she said. “Who has been talking to you? You little lamb, come in the house,” she added. “You’re tired out, playing.”
I went with her. But the moment had entered me. I was not like the rest. I said it over, and every time it hurt. There is no more passionate believer in democracy than a child.
Across the street Delia was sitting on the gate-post, ostentatiously eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know--this was why they laughed so.... But I remember how, most of all, I hoped that Mary Elizabeth did not know--yet.
From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about it.
VII
THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA
That night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each other--I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each would have wished to be the other--how hard we would have wished that. But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.
Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would have told that Little Me.
* * * * *
Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen there was born a little daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to the christening of his daughter twelve mortals--a thing never before countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are always very particular about their ceremonies being _just_ so.
It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out the following list:--
A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a man who was also a father; and a day labourer.
“Do you think that will do _at all_?” the fairy king asked the fairy queen, tossing over the list.
“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath--a fairy’s breath--and added: “I do wonder a little, though, just _why_ the day labourer.”
“My dear,” said the king, “some day you will understand that, and many other things as well.”
The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapestries as splendid as vistas curtaining the distance. And the music was like the music of All-night, all done at once.
To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as something else--for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings prettily painted. One represented a Rose, and she could hardly be distinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light, whom nobody could recognize. One was a White Moth and one was a Thistle-down, and there were several fantastic toilettes, such as a great Tulle Bow, a Paper Doll, and an Hour-glass. As for the Human Beings present, they all came masked as themselves, as usual; and their names I cannot give you, though sometimes I see someone with dreaming eyes whom I think may possibly have been one of those twelve--for of course it must have made a difference in their looks ever afterward. It was a very brilliant assemblage indeed, and everyone was most intangible and elusive, which are fairy terms for well-behaved.
While the guests were waiting for the fairy baby princess to be brought in, they idled about, with that delightful going-to-be-ice-cream feeling which you have at any party in some form or another, only you must _never_ say so, and they exchanged the usual pleasant nothing-at-alls. It is curious how very like human nothings fairy nothings are.
For example:--
“There is a great deal of night about,” said the Butterfly Fairy with a little shiver. “If I were a truly butterfly, I should never be able to find my way home.”
“And there is such a fad for thunder-and-lightning this season,” added the Paper Doll Fairy, agreeably.
“Do you remember,” asked the White Moth Fairy, “the night that we all dressed as white moths and went to meet the moon? We flew until we were all in the moonlight, and then we knew that we had met her. I wonder why more people do not meet the moon-rise?”
“That reminds me,” said the Thistle-down Fairy, “of the day we all made up as snowflakes and went to find the Spring. Don’t you know how she surprised us, in the hollow of the lowland? And what a good talk we had? I wonder why more people do not go to meet the Spring?”
“A charming idea!” cried the Rose Fairy to the Light Fairy, and the Light Fairy shone softly upon her, precisely like an answer.
Then somebody observed that the wind that night was a pure soprano, and the guests amused themselves comparing wind-notes; how on some nights the wind is deep bass, like a man’s voice, raging through the world; and sometimes it is tenor, sweet, and singing only serenades; and sometimes it is all contralto and like a lullaby; and sometimes, but not often, it is like harp music played on the trees.
Suddenly the whole dark lifted, like a garment; and moonlight flooded the Vasty Hall. And as if they had filtered down the air with the light, the fairy christening party entered--not as we enter a room, by thresholds and steps, but the way that a thought comes in your head and you don’t know how it got there.
The christening party wore robes of colours that lie deep between the colours and may hardly be named. And, in a secret ceremony, such as attends the blooming of flowers, the fairy baby was christened Romancia. Then the fairies brought her many offerings; and these having been received and admired, a great hush fell on the whole assembly, for now the twelve Human Beings came forward with their gifts. And everyone, except, indeed, the princess herself, was wild with curiosity to see what they had brought.
No one left a card with any gift, but when the fairy king came to look them over afterward, he felt certain who had brought each one. The gifts were these: A little embroidered gown which should make everyone love the princess while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself; a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.
When these things had been graciously accepted by the king, there was a stir in the company, and sweeping into its midst came another Human Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back, for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities, and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time it had the meaning only of those who never look at the stars, or walk in gardens, or think about others rather than themselves, or listen to hear what it is right for them to do. This kind of Human Being is one who not often has any good gift to give to anyone, and this the fairies knew.
The Vasty Hall became very quiet to see what she had brought, for no one understood what she could possibly have to bestow upon a baby. And without asking leave of the king or the queen, she bent over the child and clasped on her wrist the tiniest bracelet that was ever made in the world, and she snapped its lock as fast as the lock on a fetter, and held up the tiniest key that ever was wrought.
“The princess,” she cried, “shall seem _different from everyone else_. She shall seem like nobody who is or ever has been. As long as she wears her bracelet, this shall be true; and that she may never lose it, I shall hold her bracelet’s key. Hail to this little princess child, who shall seem like nobody in the world!”
Now, no one present was quite certain what this might mean, but the lady’s robe was so beautifully embroidered and sparkling, and her voice was such a thing of loops and curves, that nearly everyone accepted the gift as something fine after all, and the queen gave her her hand to kiss. But the king, who was a very wise fairy, said nothing at all, and merely bowed and eyed the bracelet, in deep thought.
His meditation was interrupted by a most awkward incident. In the excitement of the bestowal of gifts by the Human Beings, and in the confusion of the entrance of the thirteenth and uninvited Human Being, one of them all had been forgotten and had got himself shuffled well at the back of everyone. And now he came pressing forward in great embarrassment, to bring his gift. It was the day labourer, and several of the Human Beings drew hastily back as he approached the dais. But everyone fell still farther back in consternation when it was seen what he had brought. For on the delicate cobweb coverlet of the little princess’s bed, he cast a spadeful of earth.
“It’s all I’ve got,” the man said, “or I’d brought a better.”
The earth all but covered the little bed of the princess, and it was necessary to lift her from it, which the fairy queen did with her own hands, flashing a reproachful glance at her husband, the king. But when the party had trooped away for the dancing,--with the orchestra playing the way a Summer night would sound if it were to steep itself in music, so that it could only be heard and not seen,--then the king came quietly back to the christening chamber and ordered the spadeful of earth to be gathered up and put in a certain part of the palace garden.
And so (the Human Beings having gone home at once and forgotten that they had been present), when the music lessened to silence and the fairies stole from note to note and at last drifted away as invisibly as the hours leave a dial, they passed, in the palace garden, a great corner of the rich black earth which the day labourer had brought to the princess. And it was ready for seed sowing.
The Princess Romancia grew with the days and the years, and from the first it was easily to be seen that certainly she seemed different from everyone in the world. As a baby she began talking in her cradle without having been taught--not very plainly, to be sure, or so that anybody in particular excepting the fairy queen understood her--but still she talked. As a little girl she seemed always to be listening to things as if she understood them as well as she did people, or better. When she grew older, nobody knew quite how she differed, but everybody agreed that she seemed different. And this the princess knew better than anybody, and most of the time it made her hurt all over.
When the fairies played at thistle-down ball, the princess often played too, but she never felt really like one of them all. She felt that they were obliged to have her play with them because she was the princess, and not because they wanted her. When they played at hide-and-go-seek in a flower bed, somehow the others always hid together in the big flowers, and the princess hid alone in a tulip or a poppy. And whenever they whispered among themselves, she always fancied that they were whispering of her. She imagined herself often looked at with a smile or a shrug; she began to believe that she was not wanted but only endured because she was the princess, and she was certain that no one liked her for herself alone, because she was somehow so different. Little by little she grew silent, and refused to join in the games, and sat apart alone. Presently she began to give blunt answers and to take exception and even to disagree. And, of course, little by little the court began secretly to dislike her, and to cease to try to understand her, and they told one another that she was hopelessly different and that that was all that there was to be said about her.
But in spite of all this, the Princess Romancia was very beautiful, and the fame of her beauty went over the whole of fairyland. When enough years had gone by, fairy princes from this and that dominion began to come to the king’s palace to see her. But though they all admired the princess’s great beauty, many were of course repelled by her sharp answers and her constant suspicions.
But at last the news of the princess’s beauty and strangeness reached the farthest border of fairyland and came to the ears of the young Prince Hesperus. Now Prince Hesperus, who was the darling of his father’s court and beloved of everybody, was tired of everybody. “Every fairy is like every other fairy,” he was often heard saying wearily. “I do wish I could find somebody with a few new ways. One would think fairies were all cut from one pattern!” Therefore, when word came to him of the strange and beautiful Princess Romancia, who was believed to be different from everyone else in the world, you can imagine with what haste he made ready and set out for her father’s place.
Prince Hesperus arrived at the palace at twilight, when the king’s garden was wrapped in that shadow light which no one can step through, _if he looks_, without feeling somewhat like a fairy himself and glad to be one. He sent his servants on ahead, folded his wings, and proceeded on foot through the silent gardens. And in a little arbour made of fallen petals, renewed each day, he came on the Princess Romancia, asleep. He, of course, did not recognize her, but never, since for him the world began, had the prince seen anyone so beautiful.
His step roused her and she sprang to her feet. And as soon as he looked at her, Prince Hesperus found himself wanting to tell her of what he had just been thinking, and before he knew it he was doing so.
“I have just been thinking,” he said, “what a delightful pet a leaf-shadow would make, if one could catch it and tame it. I wonder if one could do it? Think how it would dance for one, all day long.”
The Princess Romancia stared a little.
“But when the sun went down,” she was surprised into saying, “the shadow would be dead.”
“Not at all,” the prince replied, “it would only be asleep. And it would never have to be fed, and it could live in one’s palace.”
“I would like such a pet,” said the princess, thoughtfully.
“If I may walk with you,” said the prince, “we will talk more about it.”
They walked together toward the palace and talked more about it, so that the Princess Romancia quite forgot to be more different than she was, and the prince forgot all about everything save his companion. And he saw about her all the gifts of tenderness and vision and magic, of sea secrets and sea spells, of music and colours and knowledge and charming notions which the Human Beings had brought her at her birth, though these hardly ever were visible _because_ the princess seemed so different from everybody else. And when, as they drew near the palace, their servants came hastening to escort them, the two looked at each other in the greatest surprise to find that they were prince and princess. For all other things had seemed so much more important.