If this explanation of mine ever reaches my neighbours' eyes, I humbly hope they will have the humanity either to take away or tone down that tablet. They cannot conceive what I suffer, when curious visitors insist, as they do every day, in spelling out the words from our windows, and asking me countless questions about them!
Sometimes I meet the Curries about the village, and, as they pass me with averted heads, I feel myself growing crimson. Travers is almost always with Lilian now. He has given her a dog—a fox-terrier—and they take ostentatiously elaborate precautions to keep it out of my garden.
I should like to assure them here that they need not be under any alarm. I have shot one dog.
f course he may have been really a fairy prince, and I should be sorry to contradict any one who chose to say so. For he was only about three inches high, he had rose-pink cheeks and bright yellow curling locks, he wore a doublet and hose which fitted him perfectly, and a little cap and feather, all of delicately contrasted shades of blue—and this does seem a fair description of a fairy prince.
But then he was painted—very cleverly—but still only painted, on a slab of prepared sugar, and his back was a plain white blank; while the regular fairies all have more than one side to them, and I am obliged to say that I never before happened to come across a real fairy prince who was nothing but paint and sugar.
For all that he may, as I said before, have been a fairy prince, and whether he was or not does not matter in the least—for he at any rate quite believed he was one.
As yet there had been very little romance or enchantment in his life, which, as far as he could remember, had all been spent in a long shop, full of sweet and subtle scents, where the walls were lined with looking-glass and fitted with shelves on which stood rows of glass jars, containing pastilles and jujubes of every colour, shape, and flavour in the world—a shop where, in summer, a strange machine for making cooling drinks gurgled and sputtered all day long, and in winter, the large plate-glass windows were filled with boxes made of painted silk from Paris, so charmingly expensive and useless that rich people bought them eagerly to give to one another.
The prince generally lay on one of the counters between two beds of sugar roses and violets in a glass case, on either side of which stood a figure of highly coloured plaster.
One was a major of some unknown regiment; he had an immense head, with goggling eyes and a very red complexion, and this head would unscrew so that he could be filled with comfits, which, though it hurt him fearfully every time this was done, he was proud of, because it always astonished people.
The other figure was an old brown gipsy woman in a red cloak and a striped petticoat, with a head which, although it wouldn't take off, was always nodding and grinning mysteriously from morning to night.
It was to her that the prince (for we shall have to call him 'the prince,' as I don't know his other name —if he ever had one) owed all his notions of Fairyland and his high birth.
'You let the old gipsy alone for knowing a prince when she sees one,' she would say, nodding at him with encouragement. 'They've kept you out of your rights all this time; but wait a while, and see if one of these clumsy giants that are always bustling in and out doesn't help you; you'll be restored to your kingdom, never fear!'
But the major used to get angry at her prophecies: 'It's all nonsense,' he used to say, 'the boy's no more a prince than I am, and he'll never be noticed by anybody, unless he learns to unscrew his head and hold comfits—like a soldier and a gentleman!'
However, the prince believed the gipsy, and every morning, as the shutters were taken down, and grey mist, brilliant sunshine, or brown fog stole into the close shop, he wondered whether the day had come which would see his restoration to his kingdom.
And at last the day really came; some one who had been buying sugar violets and roses noticed the prince in the middle of them and bought him too, to his immense delight. 'What did the old gipsy tell you, eh?' said the old woman, wagging her head wisely; 'you see, it has all come true!'
Even the major was convinced now, for, before the prince had been packed up, he whispered to him that if at any time he wanted a commander-in-chief, why, he knew where to send for him. 'Yes, I will remember,' said the prince; 'and you,' he added to the gipsy, 'you shall be my prime minister!'—for he was so ignorant of politics that he actually thought an old woman could be prime minister.
And then, before he could finish saying good-bye and hearing their congratulations, he was covered with several wrappers of white paper and plunged into complete darkness, which he did not mind at all, he was so happy.
After that he remembered no more until he was unwrapped and placed upright on the top of a dazzling white dome which stood in the very centre of a long plain, where a host of the strangest forms were scattered about in bewildering confusion.
On each side of him tall twisted trunks of sparkling glass and silver sprang high into the air, and from their tops the cool green branches swayed gently down, while round their bases velvet-petalled flowers bloomed in a bed of soft moss.
Farther away, an exquisite temple, made of a sort of delicate gold-coloured crystal, rose out of the crowd of gorgeous things that surrounded it, and this crowd, as the prince's eyes became accustomed to the splendour, gradually separated itself into various forms of loveliness.
He saw high curiously moulded masses of transparent amber, within which ruby and emerald gems glowed dimly; mounds of rose-flushed snow, and blocks of creamy marble; and in the space between these were huge platforms of silver and porcelain, on which were piled heaps of treasures that he knew must be priceless, though he could not guess what they were all used for.
But amidst all these were certain grim shapes; some seemed to be the carcases of fearful beasts, whose heads had all been struck off, but who had evidently shown such courage in death that they had earned the respect of the brave hunters who had vanquished them—for rosettes had been pinned on their rough breasts, and their stiffened limbs were bound together by bright-hued ribbons.
Then there was one monstrous head of some brute larger still, which could not have been quite killed even then, for its tawny eyes were still glaring with fury—the prince could easily have stood upright between its grinning jaws if he had wanted to do so; but he had no intention of doing any such thing, for though he was quite as brave as most fairy princes he was not foolhardy.
And there were big enchanted castles with no doors nor windows in them, and inhabited by restless monsters—dragons most likely—who had thrust their scaly black claws through the roofs.
Perhaps he was a little frightened by some of the ugliest shapes at first, but he soon grew used to them, and had no room for any other feelings than pride and joy. For this was Fairyland at last, stranger and more beautiful than anything he could have dreamed of—he had come into his kingdom!
He was going to live in that lacework palace; those dragons would come fawning out of their lairs presently, and do homage to him; these formidable dead creatures had been slain to do him honour; and he was the rightful owner of all these treasures of gold, and silk, and gems.
He must not forget, he thought, that he owed it all to the good-natured giants who had brought him here: no, when they came in—as of course they would—to pay their respects, he would thank them graciously and reward them liberally out of his new wealth.
There was a silver giraffe, stiff and old-fashioned, under a palm-tree hard by, which must have guessed from the prince's proud gay smile that he was deceiving himself and had no idea of his real position.
But the giraffe did not make any attempt to warn him, either because it had seen so many things all round it consumed in its day that the selfish fear that it too would be cut up and handed round some evening kept it preoccupied and silent, or else because, being only electro-plated and hollow inside, it had no feelings of any kind.
By-and-by the doors opened, and delicious bursts of music floated into the room, mingled with scraps of conversation and ripples of fresh laughter; servants came noiselessly in and increased the glare of a kind of sun that hung above the plain, and a host of smaller lights suddenly started up and shone softly through shades of silk and paper.
The music stopped, the laughter and voices grew louder and came nearer, there was the sound of approaching feet—and then a whole army of mortals surrounded the prince's kingdom.
They were a far smaller and finer race than the giants he had seen hitherto, with pretty fresh complexions, and wearing, some of them, soft shimmering dresses that he thought only fairies ever wore. After a little confusion, they ranged themselves in one long line completely round the plain; the taller beings glided softly about behind, and the prince prepared himself to receive their congratulations with proper dignity and modesty.
But these giants certainly had very odd ways of showing their loyalty, for they saluted him with a clinking and clattering so deafening that they would have drowned the noise of a million gnomes forging fairy armour, while every now and then came a loud report, after which a golden sparkling cascade fell creaming and bubbling from somewhere above into the crystal reservoirs prepared for it.
It was all very gratifying, no doubt—and yet, though they all pretended to be honouring him, no one seemed to pay him any more particular attention; he thought perhaps they might be feeling abashed in his presence, and that he must manage to reassure them.
But while he was thinking how he could best do this, he began to be aware that along the whole of that glittering plain things were being done without his permission which were scandalous and insulting—he saw the grisly carcases cut swiftly into pieces with flashing blades, or torn limb from limb deliberately; all the dragons were attacked and overpowered, and hauled out unresisting from their strongholds; even the fierce head was gashed hideously behind the ears!
He tried to speak and ask them what they meant by such audacity, but he could not make them hear as he could the major and the old gipsy; so he was obliged to look on while one by one the trophies dedicated to his glory were changed to shapeless heaps of ruin.
And, unless he was mistaken, the greater part of them were actually disappearing from sight altogether! It seemed impossible, for where could they all go to? and yet nothing now remained of the huge carcases but a meagre framework of bone, hanging together by shreds of skin; the strong castles were roofless walls with gaping breaches in them; and could it be that the more attractive objects were beginning to melt away in the same mysterious manner? Was it enchantment, or how—how on earth did they manage to do it?
He was no happier when he found out—for though, of course, to us eating is quite an ordinary everyday affair, only think what a shock the first sight of it must have been to a delicate fairy prince, whose mouth was simply a cherry-coloured curve, and not made to open on any terms!
He saw all the treasures he had looked upon as his very own being lifted to a long line of mouths of all sizes and shapes; the mouths opened to various widths, and—the treasures vanished, he could not tell how or where.
The mellow amber tottered and quivered for a while and was gone; even the solid creamy marble was hacked in pieces and absorbed; nothing, however beautiful or fantastic, escaped instant annihilation between those terrible bars of scarlet and flashing ivory.
Could this be Fairyland, this plain where all things beautiful were doomed—or had they brought him back to his kingdom only to make this cruel fun of him, and destroy his riches one by one before his eyes?
But before he could find any answers to these sad questions he chanced to look straight in front of him, and there he saw a face which made his little sugar heart almost melt within him, with a curious feeling, half pleasure, half pain, that was quite new to him.
It was a girl's face, of course, and the prince had not looked at her very long before he forgot all about his kingdom.
He was relieved to see that she at least was too generous to join in the work of destruction that was going on all around her—indeed, she seemed to dislike it as much as he did himself, for only a little of the tinted snow passed her soft lips.
Now and then she laughed a little silvery laugh, and shook out her rippling gold-brown hair at something the being next to her said—a great boy-mortal, with a red face, bold eyes, and grasping brown hands, which were fatal to everything within their range.
How the prince did hate that boy!—he found to his joy that he could understand what they said, and began to listen jealously to their conversation.
'I say,' the boy (whose name, it seemed, was Bertie) was saying, as he received a plateful of floating fragments of the lacework palace, 'you aren't eating anything, Mabel. Don't you care about suppers? I do.'
'I'm not hungry,' she said, evidently feeling this a distinction; 'I've been out so much this fortnight.'
'How jolly!' he observed, 'I only wish I had. But I say,' he added confidentially, 'won't they make you take a grey powder soon? They would me.'
'I'm never made to take anything at all nasty,' she said—and the prince was indignant that any one should have dared to think otherwise.
'I suppose,' continued the boy, 'you didn't manage to get any of that cake the conjurer made in Uncle John's hat, did you?'
'No, indeed,' she said, and made a little face; 'I don't think I should like cake that came out of anybody's hat!'
'It was very decent cake,' he said; 'I got a lot of it. I was afraid it might spoil my appetite for supper—but it hasn't.'
'What a very greedy boy you are, Bertie,' she remarked; 'I suppose you could eat anything?'
'At home I think I could, pretty nearly,' he said, with a proud confidence, 'but not at old Tokoe's, I can't. Tokoe's is where I go to school, you know. I can't stand the resurrection-pie on Saturdays—all the week they save up the bones and rags and things, and when it comes up——'
'I don't want to hear,' she interrupted; 'you talk about nothing but horrid things to eat, and it isn't a bit interesting.'
Bertie allowed himself a brief interval for refreshment unalloyed by conversation, after which he began again: 'Mabel, if they have dancing after supper, dance with me.'
'Are you sure you know how to dance?' she inquired rather fastidiously.
'Oh, I can get through all right,' he replied. 'I've learnt. It's not harder than drilling. I can dance the Highland Schottische and the Swedish dance, any-way.'
'Any one can dance those. I don't call that dancing,' she said.
'Well, but try me once, Mabel; say you will,' said he.
'I don't believe they will have dancing,' she said; 'there are so many very young children here and they get in the way so. But I hope there won't be any more games—games are stupid.'
'Only to girls,' said Bertie; 'girls never care about any fun.'
'Not your kind of fun,' she said, a little vaguely. 'I don't mind hide-and-seek in a nice old house with long passages and dark corners and secret panels—and ghosts even—that's jolly; but I don't care much about running round and round a row of silly chairs, trying to sit down when the music stops and keep other people out—I call it rude.'
'You didn't seem to think it so rude just now,' he retorted; 'you were laughing quite as much as any one; and I saw you push young Bobby Meekin off the last chair of all, and sit on it yourself, anyhow.'
'Bertie, you didn't,' she cried, flushing angrily.
'I did though.'
'But I tell you I didn't!
'And I say you did!'
'If you will go on saying I did, when I'm quite sure I never did anything of the sort,' she said, 'please don't speak to me again; I shan't answer if you do. And I think you're a particularly ill-bred boy—not polite, like my brothers.'
'Your brothers are every bit as rude as I am. If they aren't, they're milksops—I should be sorry to be a milksop.'
'My brothers are not milksops—they could fight you!' she cried, with a little defiant ring in her voice that the prince thought perfectly charming.
'As if a girl knew anything about fighting,' said Bertie; 'why, I could fight your brothers all stuck in a row!'
'That you couldn't,' from Mabel, and 'I could then, so now!' from Bertie, until at last Mabel refused to answer any more of Bertie's taunts, as they grew decidedly offensive; and, finding that she took refuge in disdainful silence, he consumed tart after tart with gloomy determination.
And then all at once, Mabel, having nothing to do, chanced to look across to the white dome on which the prince was standing, and she opened her beautiful grey eyes with a pleased surprise as she saw him.
All this time the prince had been falling deeper and deeper in love with her; at first he had felt almost certain that she was a princess and his destined bride; he was rather small for her, certainly, though he did not know how very much smaller he was; but Fairyland, he had always been told, was full of resources—he could easily be filled out to her size, or, better still, she might be brought down to his.
But he had begun to give up these wild fancies already, and even to fear that she would go away without having once noticed him; and now she was looking at him as if she found him pleasant to look at, as if she would like to know him.
At last, evidently after some struggle, she turned to the offending Bertie, and spoke his name softly; but Bertie could not give up the luxury of sulking with her all at once, and so he looked another way.
'Is it Pax, Bertie?' she asked. (She had not had brothers for nothing.)
'No, it isn't,' said Bertie.
'Oh, you want to sulk? I thought only girls sulked,' she said; 'but it doesn't matter, I only wanted to tell you something.'
His curiosity was too much for his dignity. 'Well—what?' he asked, gruffly enough.
'Only,' she said, 'that I've been thinking over things, and I dare say you could fight my brothers—only not all together and I'm not sure that Charlie wouldn't beat you.'
'Charlie! I could settle him in five minutes,' muttered Bertie, only half appeased.
'Oh, not in five, Bertie,' cried Mabel, 'ten, perhaps; but you'd never want to, would you, when he's my brother? And now,' she added, 'we're friends again, aren't we, Bertie?'
He was a cynic in his way—'I see,' he said, 'you want something out of me; you should have thought of that before you quarrelled, you know!'
Mabel contracted her eyebrows and bit her lip for a moment, then she said meekly—
'I know I should, Bertie; but I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind doing this for me. I can ask the boy on my other side—he's a stupid-looking boy, and I don't care about knowing him—still, if you won't do it——'
'Oh, well, I don't mind,' he said, softened at once. 'What is it you want?'
'Bertie,' she whispered breathlessly, 'you'll be quite a nice boy if you'll only get me that dear little sugar prince off the cake there; you can reach him better than I can, and—and I don't quite like to—only, be quick, or some one else will get him first.'
And in another second the enraptured prince found himself lying on her plate!
'Isn't he lovely?' she cried.
'Not bad,' said Bertie; 'give us a bit—I got him for you, you know.'
'Give you a bit!' she cried, with the keenest horror and disgust. 'Bertie! you don't really think I wanted him to—to eat.'
'Oh, the paint doesn't matter,' he said; 'I've eaten lots of them.'
'You really are too horrid,' she said; 'all you think about is eating things. I can't bear greedy boys. I won't have anything to do with you any more; after this we'll be perfect strangers.'
He stared helplessly at her; he had made friends and done all she asked of him, and, just because he begged for a share in the spoil, she had treated him like this! It was too bad of her—it served him right for bothering about a girl.
He would have told her what he thought about it, only just then there was a general rising. The prince was carried tenderly upstairs, entrusted with many cautions to a trim maid, and laid to rest wrapped in a soft lace handkerchief upon a dressing-table, to dream of the new life in store for him to the accompaniment of faintly heard music and laughter from below.
He had given up all his old ideas of recovering his kingdom and marrying a princess—very likely he might not be a fairy prince after all, and he felt now that he did not very much care if he wasn't.
He was going to be Mabel's for evermore, and that was worth all Fairyland to him. How bewitching her anger had been when Bertie suspected her of wanting the prince for her own eating. (The prince had already found out that eating meant the way in which these ruthless mortals made everything beautiful pass away between their sharp teeth.)
She had pitied and protected him; might she not some day come to love him? If he had only known what a little sugar fool he was making of himself, I think he would certainly have dissolved into syrup for very shame.
Mabel came up to fetch him at last; they had fastened something white and fleecy round her head and shoulders, and her face was flushed and her eyes seemed a darker grey as she took him out of the handkerchief, with a cry of delight at finding him quite safe, and hurried downstairs with him.
While she was waiting in the hall for her carriage, the prince heard the last of Bertie; he came up to her and whispered spitefully, 'Well, you've kept your word, you've not looked at me since supper, all because I thought you meant to eat that sugar thing off the cake! Now I just tell you this—you needn't pretend you don't like sweets—I wouldn't give much for that figure's lasting a week, now!'
She only glanced at him with calm disdain, and passed on under the awning to her carriage, where her brothers were waiting for her, and Bertie was left with a recollection that would make his first fortnight under old Tokoe's roof even bitterer than usual to him.
What a deliciously dreamy drive home that was for the prince; he lay couched on Mabel's soft palm, thinking how cool and satiny it was, and how different from the hot coarse hands which had touched him hitherto.
She said nothing to her brothers, who were curled up, grey indistinct forms, opposite; she sat quietly at the side of the servant who had come to fetch them, and now and then in the faint light the prince could see her smiling with half-shut sleepy eyes at some pleasant recollection.
If that drive could only have gone on for ever! but it came to an end soon, very soon.
A little later his tired little protectress placed him where she could see him when first she awoke the next day, and all that night the prince stood on guard upon the high mantelpiece in the night nursery, thinking of the kiss, half-childish and half-playful, she had given him just before she left him at his post.
The next morning Mabel woke up tired, and, if it must be confessed, a little cross; but the prince thought she looked lovelier than even on the night before, in her plain dark dress and fresh white pinafore and crossbands.
She took him down with her to breakfast, and stationed him near her plate—and then he made a discovery.
She, too, could make the solid things around her vanish in the very way of which he thought she disapproved so strongly!
It was done, as she seemed to do everything, very daintily and prettily—but still the things did disappear, somehow, and it was a shock.
She called the attention of her governess—who was a pale lady, with a very prominent forehead and round spectacles—to the prince's good looks, and the governess admitted that he was pretty, but cautioned Mabel not to eat him, as these highly-coloured confections invariably contained deleterious matter, and were therefore unwholesome.
'Oh,' said Mabel, defending her favourite with great animation, 'but not this one, Miss Pringle. Because I heard Mrs. Goodchild tell somebody last night that she was always so careful to get only sweets painted with "pure vegetable colours," she called it. But that wouldn't matter—for of course I shall never want to eat this little man!'
'Oh, of course not,' said the governess, with a smile that struck the prince as being unpleasant—though he did not know exactly why, and he was glad to forget it in watching the play of Mabel's pretty restless fingers on the table-cloth.
By-and-by the nurse came in, carrying something which he had never seen anything at all like before, and which frightened him very much. It was called as he soon found, a 'Baby,' and it goggled round it with glassy, meaningless eyes, and clucked fearfully somewhere deep down in its throat, while it stretched out feeble little wrinkled hands, exactly like yellow starfish.
'There, there, then!' said the nurse (which seems to be the right thing to say to a baby). 'See, Miss Mabel, he's asking for that to play with.'
Now that happened to be the sugar prince.
Mabel seemed completely in the power of this monster, for she dared not refuse it anything; she crossed almost timidly to it now, and laid the prince in one of its starfish, only entreating that nurse would not allow it to put him in its mouth.
But the baby did not try to do this; its vacant countenance only creased into an idiotic grin, as it began to take a great deal of notice of him; and its way of taking notice was to shake the prince violently up and down, till he was quite giddy.
After doing this several times, it ducked him quite suddenly down, head-foremost, into the nearest cup of tea.
The poor prince felt as if he were all softening and crumbling away into nothing, but it was only some of the paint coming off; and before he could be ducked a second time, Mabel, with a cry of dismay, rescued him from the indignant baby, which howled in a dreadful manner.
She dried him tenderly on her handkerchief, and then, as she saw the result, suddenly began to weep inconsolably herself. 'Oh, see what Baby's done!' she gasped between her sobs; 'all his lovely complexion ruined, spoilt ... I wish somebody would just spoil Baby's face for him, and see how he likes it.... If he isn't slapped at once—I'll never love him again!'
But nobody slapped the baby—it was soothed; and, besides, all the slaps hand could bestow would not bring back the prince's lost beauty.
His face was all the colours of the rainbow now; the yellow of his curls had run into his forehead, his brown eyes were smudged across his nose, and his cherry lips smeared upon his cheeks, while all the blue of his doublet had spread up to his chin.
He knew from what they were all saying that this had happened to him, but he did not mind it much, except at first; he had never been vain of his beauty, and it was delightful to hear Mabel's little tender laments over his misfortune; so long as she cared for him as he was—what did anything else matter?
In the schoolroom that morning he leaned against her writing-desk, and watched her turning fat books lazily over and inking her fair little hands, until she shut them all up with an impatient bang and yawned.
Why was it that at that precise moment the prince began to feel uncomfortable?
'Is it near dinner-time, Miss Pringle?' she asked. 'I'm so awfully hungry!'
The governess's watch showed an hour more to wait.
'I wonder if Comfitt would give me some cake if I ran down and asked her!' said Mabel next.
The governess thought Mabel had much better wait patiently till dinner-time without spoiling her appetite.
'Oh, very well,' said Mabel; 'what a bore it is to be hungry too soon, isn't it?'
Then she took the faded prince up and looked at him mournfully. 'What a shame of Baby!' she said; 'I wanted to keep him always to look at—but I don't see how I can very well now, do you, Miss Pringle? Do they make these things only for ornament, should you think?'
'I think it is time you finished that exercise,' was all the governess replied.
'Oh, I've almost done it,' said Mabel, 'and I want just to ask this question (it comes under "general information," you know)—aren't vegetable colours "dilly-whatever-it-is" colours I mean—harmless? And Dr. Harley said vegetables were so very good for me. I wonder if I might just taste him.'
Here the prince's dream ended: he saw it all at last—how she had petted and praised him only while he was pleasant to look at; and now that was over—he was nothing more to her than something to eat.
Presently he was lifted gently between her slim finger and thumb to her lips, and touched caressingly by something red and moist and warm behind them. It was not unpleasant exactly, so far, but he knew that worse was coming, and longed for her to make haste and get it over.
'Vanilla!' reported Mabel, 'that must be all right, Miss Pringle. Cook flavours corn-flour with it!'
Miss Pringle shrugged her sharp shoulders: 'You must use your own judgment, my dear,' was all she said.
And then—I am sorry to have to tell what happened next, but this is a true story and I must go on—then the prince saw Mabel's grey eyes looking at him from under their long lashes with interest for the last time, he saw two gleaming pearly rows closing upon him, he felt a sharp pang, of grief as well as pain, as they crunched him up into small pieces, and he slowly melted away and there was an end of him.
There is a beautiful moral belonging to this story, but it is of no use to print it here, because it only applies to sugar princes—until Mabel is quite grown up.
was ten years since Agamemnon, the mighty Argive monarch, had left his kingdom (somewhat suddenly, and after a stormy interview with the Queen, as those said who had the best opportunities of knowing), with the avowed intention of going to assist at the siege of Troy.
He had never written once since, but so many reports of his personal daring and his terrible wounds had reached the palace that Clytemnestra would often observe, with a touch of annoyance, that, if not actually dead by that time, he must be nearly as full of holes as a fishing-net.
So that she was scarcely surprised when they broke the intelligence to her one day that he really had gone at last, having fallen, fighting desperately, against the most fearful odds, upon the Trojan plain; and when, a little later, she formally announced to her faithful subjects her betrothal to Ægisthus, her youngest and favourite courtier, they were not surprised in their turn.
They told one another, with ribald facetiousness, that they had rather expected something of the kind.
They were celebrating their Queen's betrothal day with the wildest enthusiasm, for they were a simple affectionate people, and foresaw an impetus to local trade. It had been but a dull time for Argos during those weary ten years, and the city had become well-nigh deserted, as, one by one, all her bravest and her best had left her, to seek, as they poetically put it, 'a soldier's tomb.'
Several married men, in whom no such patriotic enthusiasm had ever been previously suspected, found out that their country required their services, left their wives and their little ones, and started for the field of battle. There were many pushing Argive tradesmen, too, who abandoned their business and sought—not ostentatiously, but with the self-effacement of true heroism—the seat of war upon which their sovereign had been sitting so long; while the real extent of their devotion was seldom appreciated until long after their departure, when it was generally discovered that, in their eagerness, they had left their affairs in the greatest confusion.
And very soon almost the only young men left were mild, unwarlike youths, who were respectable and wore spectacles, while the rest of the male population was composed of equal parts of prattling infants and doddering octogenarians.
This was a melancholy state of things—but then the absent ones wrote such capital letters home, containing such graphic descriptions of camp life and the fiercer excitements of night attacks and forlorn hopes, that the recipients ought to have been amply consoled.
They were not; they only remarked that it seemed rather odd that the writers should so persistently forget to give their addresses, and that it was a singular circumstance that while each letter purported to come direct from the Grecian lines, every envelope somehow bore a different postmark. And often would the older married women (and their mothers too) wish with infinite pathos that they could only just get the missing ones home and talk to them a little—that was all!
But all anxiety was forgotten in the celebration of the betrothal, for the Argives were determined to do the thing really well. So in the principal streets they had erected triumphal arches, typifying the chief local manufactures, which were (as it is scarcely necessary to inform the scholar) soda-water and cane-bottomed chairs; and from these arches chairs and bottles were constantly dropping, like a gentle dew, upon the happy crowd which passed beneath. All the public fountains spouted a cheap dinner sherry like water—'very like water,' said some disaffected persons; householders were graciously invited to exhibit flags and illuminations at their own expense, and in the market-place a fowl was being roasted whole for the populace.
All was gaiety, therefore, at sunset, when the citizens assembled in groups about the square in front of the palace, prepared to cheer the royal pair with enthusiasm when they deigned to show themselves upon the balcony.
The well-meaning old gentlemen who formed the Chorus (for in those days every house of any position in society maintained a chorus, and even shabby-genteel families kept a semi-chorus in buttons) were twittering in a corner, prepared to come forth by-and-by with the ill-timed allusions, melancholy and depressing forebodings, and unnecessary advice, which were all that was expected of them, and the Mayor and Corporation were fussing about distractedly with a brass band and the inevitable address.
All at once there was a stir in the crowd, and the eyes of everyone were strained towards a tall and swaying scaffold on the royal house-top, where a small black figure, outlined sharply against the saffron sky, could be seen gesticulating wildly?
'Look at the watchman!' they whispered excitedly; 'what can be the matter with him?'
Now before Agamemnon left he had had fires laid upon all the mountain tops in a straight line between Argos and Troy, arranging to light the pile at the Troy end of the chain when it should become necessary to let them know at home that they might expect him back shortly.
The watchman had been put up on a scaffold to look out for the beacon, and had been there for years day and night, without being once allowed to quit his post—even on his birthday. It was expected that Clytemnestra would have let him come down for good when she was informed of Agamemnon's death on such excellent authority, but she would not hear of such a thing. She knew people would think it very foolish and sentimental of her, she said, but to take the watchman down would seem so like giving up all hope! So she kept him up, a proof of her conjugal devotion which touched everyone—except perhaps the watchman himself.
Clytemnestra and Ægisthus, who had happened to come out while all this excitement was at its height, found themselves absolutely ignored. 'Not a single cap off—not one solitary hurray,' cried the Queen with majestic anger. 'What have you been doing to make yourself so unpopular with my loyal Argives?' she demanded suspiciously.
'I don't think it's anything to do with me, really,' protested Ægisthus, feebly. 'They're only looking the other way just now, and—can't you see why?' he added suddenly, 'they've lit the beacon on the top of Arachnæus!'
Clytemnestra looked, and started violently, as on the mountain-top in question a red tongue of flame shot up through the gathering dusk: 'What does it mean?' she whispered, clutching him convulsively by the arm.
'Well,' said Ægisthus, 'it looks to me, do you know, rather as if your late lamented husband has changed his mind about dying, and is on his way to your arms.'
'Then he is not dead!' exclaimed Clytemnestra. 'He is coming home. I shall look upon that face, hear that voice, press that hand once again! How excessively annoying!'
'Confounded nuisance!' he agreed heartily, but his irritation sounded slightly overdone, somehow. 'Well, it's all over with the betrothal after this; don't you think it would be as well to get all the arches, and fireworks, and things out of the way? We shan't want them now, you know.'
'Why not?' said the Queen; 'they will all do for him; he won't know. Ye gods!' she cried, stretching out her arms with a tragic groan. 'Must I, too, do for him?'
'Any way,' said Ægisthus, with an attempted ease, 'you won't want me any longer, and so, if you will kindly excuse me, I—I think I'll retire to some quiet spot whither I can drag myself with my broken heart and bleed to death, like a wounded deer, don't you know!'
'You can do all that just as well here,' she replied. 'I wish you to stay. Who knows what may happen?'—she added, with a sinister smile, 'We may be happy yet!'
Clytemnestra's sinister smiles always made Ægisthus feel exactly as if something was disagreeing with him—so he stayed.
By this time the populace had also realised the turn affairs had taken, but they very sensibly determined that it was their plain duty to persevere with the merriment. They were, as has been mentioned before, a simple and affectionate people, and fond of their king; so, as his return would be even more beneficial to trade than the betrothal, they rejoiced on, and there was nothing in the least strained or hollow in their revelry.
And presently there was a fresh stir in the crowd, and then a rumbling of wheels as the covered chariot from the station rolled, amidst faint cheering, up to the palace gates, and was saluted by the one aged sentinel who stood on guard.
'It is Agamemnon,' gasped the Queen; 'he has come already—he must not find me unprepared. I will go within.'
She had just time to retire hastily, followed by Ægisthus, before a short stout man in faded regimentals and a cocked hat with a moulting plume descended from the vehicle.
The Chorus, finding it left to them to do the honours, advanced in a row, singing the ode of welcome, which they had had in rehearsal ever since the first year of the war.
'O King,' they chanted in their cracked old trebles, 'offspring of Atreus, and sacker of Troy!'
'Will you kindly count the boxes?' interrupted the monarch, who hated sentiment; 'there should be four—a tin cocked-hat box, two camel-hair trunks, and a carpet bag.'
But a Greek chorus was not easily suppressed, and they broke out again all together, 'Nay, but with bursting hearts would we bid thee thrice hail!'
'Once is ample, thank you,' said the King, with regal politeness; 'and I should be really distressed if any of you were to burst on my account. Has anybody such a thing as half a drachma about him?'
He heard no more of the ode, and the Mayor thought it advisable to roll up his address and take his Corporation home.
Agamemnon had succeeded in borrowing the drachma, and had just turned his back to pay the driver as Clytemnestra glided down the broad steps to the court-yard, and, striking an attitude, addressed nobody in particular in tones of rapturous joy.
'O happy day!' she cried very loudly, 'on which my hero husband returns to me after a long absence, quite unexpectedly. Henceforth shall his helmet rust upon the hat-stand, and his spear repose innocuous amongst the umbrellas, and his breastplate shall he replace by a chest-protector; for a shield he shall have a sunshade, and instead of his sword he shall carry a spud. But now let me, as an exceptionally faithful wife, greet him before ye all with——Agamemnon, will you have the goodness to tell me who that young person is in the chariot?' was her abrupt and somewhat lame conclusion.
'Oh, there you are, eh?' said Agamemnon, turning round and presenting a forefinger. 'How de do, my love; how de do?' ('I shan't give you another obol!' he said to the driver, who seemed still unsatisfied.) 'So, you're quite well, eh?' he resumed to his wife; 'plenty to say for yourself as usual. Gad, I feel as if I hadn't been away a week—till I look at you.... Well, we can't expect to be always young, can we? So you want to know my little friend here? Allow me to present her to you. One moment.'
And bustling up to the chariot, he assisted from it a maiden with a pale face, great, wild, roving eyes, and hair of tawny gold, and led her back to his wife.
'The Princess Cassandra of Troy—my wife, Queen Clytemnestra. They tell me this young lady can prophesy very prettily, my dear,' he remarked.
Clytemnestra bowed coldly, and said she was sure it would be vastly amusing. Did the Princess intend giving any public entertainments?
'She is our visitor,' Agamemnon put in warningly; while Cassandra smiled satirically, and said nothing at all.
Clytemnestra hoped she might be able to induce her to stay longer, a week was such a very short time.
'She has kindly consented to stay on a little longer, my love,' said Agamemnon—'all her life,' in fact.'
The Queen was charmed to hear it; it was so very nice and kind of her, particularly as strangers were apt to find the neighbourhood an unhealthy one.
And as Ægisthus joined them just then, she presented him to the King, with the remark that he had been the most faithful and devoted of courtiers during the whole period of the King's absence; to which Agamemnon replied, with the slightest of scowls, that he was delighted to make the acquaintance of Mr. Ægisthus; and after that no one seemed to know exactly what to say for a minute or two.
At last Ægisthus hazarded a supposition that the royal warrior had found it warm over at Troy.
'It varied, sir,' said the monarch, uncomfortably; 'the climate varied. I used to get very warm fighting sometimes.'
Ægisthus agreed that a battle must be hot work, and Clytemnestra suddenly exclaimed that her husband was wearing the very same dear shabby old uniform he had on when he went away.
'The very same,' said Agamemnon, smiling. 'I wore it all through the campaign. Your true warrior is no dandy!'
'We were given to understand you were wounded,' remarked Ægisthus.
'Oh,' said the King, 'yes; I was considerably wounded—all over the chest and arms. But what cared I?'
'Exactly,' said Ægisthus; 'and, curiously enough, the weapons don't seem to have pierced your coat at all. I observe there are no patches.'
'No,' the King replied; 'so you noticed that, eh? Well, the reason of that is that those fellows out there have a peculiar sort of way of cutting and slashing, so as to——'
And he explained this by some elaborate illustrations with his sheathed sword, until Ægisthus said that he thought he understood how it was done.
But Clytemnestra suddenly, with a kitten-like girlishness that sat but ill upon her, pounced playfully upon the weapon. 'I want to see it drawn,' she cried; 'I want to look upon the keen flashing blade which has penetrated the inmost recesses of so many of our country's foes. Oh, it won't come out,' she added, as she attempted to pull it out of the scabbard; 'do make it come out!'
The King tried, but the blade stuck half way, and what was visible of it seemed thickly coated with rust; but Agamemnon said it was gore, and his orderly must have forgotten to clean his accoutrements after the fall of Troy. He added that it was the effect of the sea air.
'Troy really has fallen then?' asked Ægisthus. 'I suppose you stayed to see the thing out?'
'I did, sir,' answered the monarch proudly; 'I sacked the most fashionable quarters myself. I expect my booty will be forwarded—shortly. Didn't you know Troy was taken?' he asked suspiciously. 'Couldn't you see the beacon I lighted just before I started?'
The courtier murmured that it was wonderful to find so long and tedious a journey accomplished in such capital time.
'What do you mean by that? How do you know how long it took?' demanded Agamemnon.
'Don't you see?' said Clytemnestra. 'Why, you say you had the fire lighted at Ida when you started; then, of course, they would see it directly over at Lemnos, and light theirs; and then at Athos, and then——'
'You are not a time-table, my love,' interrupted the monarch, coldly. 'I won't trouble you for all these details. Come to the point.'
'The point is,' she explained sweetly, 'that we have only just seen the beacon flame arrive here at Arachnæus, after leaping from height to height across lake and plain; so that you, my dearest, must have made the distance with almost equal celerity!'
'I came with the beacon,' said Agamemnon, coughing; 'perhaps that disposes of the difficulty?'
'Perhaps,' said the Queen; 'I mean quite. And now,' she continued, after a rapid exchange of glances with Ægisthus, 'you will come indoors, and have a nice cup of coffee and a warm bath before you do anything else, won't you?'
He almost thought he would, he said; fighting for ten long years without intermission was a dusty, tiring occupation, and he was accordingly about to enter, when his eye fell on the awnings and flags and the red stair carpet, which had been prepared for the betrothal festivities, and he frowned.
'Now, my dear, this sort of thing is all very well, no doubt; but I don't care about it. I'm a plain, honest ruler of men, and I hate flummery and flattery—particularly when it all comes out of my pocket! Why, you've laid down the drugget from the Throne-Room over all this gravel. Take it up directly; I decline to walk over it. Do you hear? This wasteful extravagance is positively sinful. Take it up!'
Clytemnestra assured him earnestly that they had had no intention of annoying him with it—which was literally true; and suggested meekly that for the King to stay out in the court-yard until all the decorations were removed might be a tedious and even a ridiculous proceeding. 'If,' she added, 'he was merely unwilling to spoil the drugget, he might easily remove his boots, which were extremely muddy—for a monarch's.'
'Well, well, my dear, be it so,' said the King; 'I did not intend to chide you. It is only that I have grown so accustomed to the frugal, hardy life of a camp, that I have imbibed a soldier's contempt for luxury.'
And, removing his boots, he followed the Queen into the Palace, as she led the way with a baleful expression upon her dark and inscrutable face.
As the pair passed up the steps and between the lofty pillars, the hounds howled from the royal kennels at the back of the Palace, and—a stranger portent still—a meteor shot suddenly through the growing gloom and burst in a rain of coloured stars above the house-top, while, shortly after, a staff fell from above upon the head of one of the Chorus—and was shivered to fragments!
Ægisthus had strolled away under the colonnade, and Cassandra was left alone with the Chorus. She stood apart, mystic, moody, and impenetrable, letting down her flowing back hair.
'You prophesy, do you not?' said the kind old men at length, wishing to make her feel at home; 'might we beg you to favour us with a prediction—just a little one?'
Cassandra made excuses at first, as was proper; she had a cold, and was feeling the effects of the journey. She was really not inspired just then, she protested, and besides, she had not touched a tripod for ages.
But, upon being pressed, she gave way at last, after declaring with a little giggle that she was perfectly certain nobody would believe a single word she said.
'I see before me,' she began, in a weird, sepulchral tone which she found it impossible to keep up for many sentences, 'a proud and stately pile—but enter not. See ye yon ghoul among the chimney-pots, yon amphisbœna in the back garden? And the scent of gore pervades it!'
'It is no happy home that is thus described!' the Chorus threw in profesionally.
'But the Finger of Fate is slowly unwound, and the Hand of Destiny steps in to pace the marble halls with heavy tramp. And know, old men, that the Inevitable is not wholly unconnected with the Probable!'
At this even their politeness could not restrain a gesture of incredulity, but she heeded it not, and continued:
'Who is this that I see next—this regal warrior bounding over the blazing battlements in brazen panoply?'
('That must be Agamemnon,' cried the Chorus; 'the despatches mentioned him bounding like that. Wonderful!')
'I see him,' she resumed, 'pale and prostrate—a prey to the pangs within him, scanning the billows from his storm-tossed ship. Now he has reached his native city. Hark! how they greet him! And, behold, a stately matron meets him with a honeyed smile, inviting him to enter. He yields. And then——'
Here Cassandra stopped, with the remark that that was all—as there were limits even to the marvellous faculty of second-sight.
The Chorus were not unimpressed, for they had never seen a prediction and its literal fulfilment in quite such close conjunction before, and their own attempts always came wrong; but although they were agreed that the prophecy was charming as far as it went, they began to feel slightly afraid of the prophetess, and were secretly relieved when Ægisthus happened to come up shortly afterwards with an offer to show her such places of interest as Argos boasted.
But they were great authorities upon all points of etiquette and morality, and they all remarked (when she had gone) that she displayed an unbecoming readiness in accepting the escort of a courtier who had not been formally introduced to her. 'That may be the custom in Troy,' they said, wagging their beards, 'but if she means to behave like that here—well!'
And now the last gleam of the sunset had faded, and the stars straggled out in the pale green sky, whilst the Chorus walked up and down to keep warm, for the evening was growing chilly.
Suddenly a loud cry broke the silence—a scream as of a strong man in mortal agony! It struck all of them that the voice was uncommonly like Agamemnon's, but none liked to say so, and they only observed with a forced composure that really the cats were becoming quite a nuisance.
The cry came again, louder this time, and more distinct; it seemed to come from the direction of the royal bath-room. 'Hi, here, somebody—help! They've turned on the hot water, and I can't turn it off again!'
After this there could be no possible doubt that there was something the matter far more serious than cats. Agamemnon, the king of men, was apparently in difficulties, and it was only too probable that this was Clytemnestra's fell work.
They all ran about and fell over one another in the general flurry and confusion, and then as they recovered their presence of mind they began to consult upon the best course to pursue under the circumstances. Some were of opinion that it would not be a quite unpardonable breach of court etiquette if they were to rush into the bath-room and pull the royal sufferer out; others, more cautious, asked for precedents in a case of such delicacy, and they almost quarrelled, until the wisest of them all reminded his fellows that, at all events, it was too late to interfere then, as the monarch must certainly be hard-boiled by that time—which relieved them from all responsibility in the happiest manner.
At this point the Queen appeared at the head of the marble steps, down which she glided cautiously and came towards them, evidently in a condition of suppressed excitement.
'What a beautiful evening!' said the Chorus in unison, for they considered it better taste not to appear to have noticed anything at all unusual.
'Agamemnon is with his ancestors,' she replied in a fierce whisper; 'I sewed up the sleeves of his bathing-gown and I drugged his coffee, and then from afar I turned on the hot water. And he is boiled, and it serves him right, and I'm glad of it—so now! But tell me, ye aged ones,' she added with one of her quick transitions, 'have I done well?'
Now the Chorus were distinctly disgusted at her want of tact and reserve, and would have greatly preferred not to be admitted into confidences of so purely domestic a description, but they were not the men to flinch from their duty.
'In our opinion, O Queen,' they replied coldly, 'the deed was a hasty one, and accomplished without sufficient consideration.'
'Ha!' she exclaimed angrily, 'so ye would rate me like a girl! Am I not your sovereign mistress? Guard, seize these insolents!'
And the superannuated old sentinel left his box and tottered up to seize as many of them as he could lay hold of at once, telling the remainder to consider themselves under arrest, which they did directly.
'Summon the populace,' Clytemnestra next commanded, and the Argives left the fireworks obediently and assembled before the steps.
'Citizens! Argives!' she cried in a loud clear voice, 'I am sure you will all be very sorry and disappointed to hear that your beloved sovereign, so lately restored to us' (here she broke down with the naturalness of a great artist)—'that our beloved sovereign is—by a most deplorable and unaccountable lack of precaution——'
'Alive!' interrupted a voice from behind the Queen, and someone pushed aside the hangings before the door of the Palace, and began to descend the steps. It was Agamemnon himself.
Clytemnestra shrieked as she turned slowly, and confronted him in silence for some moments; the situation was intensely dramatic, and the Argives, a simple and affectionate people, fully appreciated this, and never once regretted the fireworks they had abandoned.
The Queen was the first to speak: 'So,' she said, pale and panting, 'you—you've—had your bath?'
'Well—no,' said Agamemnon mildly; 'I happened to observe that someone had thoughtfully sewn up the armholes of my dressing-gown, and that the coffee had a particularly nasty smell in it, and so, somehow, I thought I would rather wait. And then the boiling water came rushing in, and I saw there had been a little mistake somewhere. So it occurred to me that I too would dissemble and see what came of it, and I shouted for help. I think I see it all now.'
And then he took a higher moral tone; his manner was no longer cynical; he was not angry even—only deeply wounded, and there was something fine and striking in the stern sadness of his brow.
'So this,' he said, 'was to have been my fate? I was to return, a war-worn warrior, to the hearth and home from which I had been absent so long—so long—to be ruthlessly parboiled the very moment after my arrival, by the partner of my throne! Was this kind—was this wifely, Clytemnestra?'
'That comes so well from you, does it not?' she retorted.
'Why—why—what do you mean?' he stammered.
'You know very well what I mean,' she said. 'Bah! why play the hypocrite with me?'
'Is it possible,' he cried, 'that you can suspect me of not having been near Troy all this time— tell me, Clytemnestra—is this monstrous thing possible'
'Quite,' she replied; 'I know you haven't!'
'What—when I tell you that there is a poet, a fellow called Homer or something, who has got a sort of reputation already by putting the campaign into verses, rather long, but quite readable (you must order them); well, there's a lot about me in them.'
'Did Homer see you there?'
'Now that's a most ridiculous question,' he protested, with a feeling that she was coming round, and that he should convince her directly; 'the poet's blind, Clytemnestra, quite blind. But I will not argue—you must be content with a warrior's assurance.'
She laughed. 'I'm afraid,' she said, 'that even a warrior's assurance will find it difficult to account satisfactorily for this—and this—and these!' And as she spoke, she handed him a variety of articles: a folding hat, a guide to Corinth, a conversation manual, several unused tourist tickets, one or two theatre programmes, a green veil, some supper bills, a correct card for the Olympian races, with the names of probable starters, and three little jointed wooden dolls.
Agamemnon took them all helplessly; all his virtuous indignation had evaporated, and he looked very red and foolish as he said with a kind of nervous laugh, 'You've been looking in my pockets!'
'I have,' she said, 'and now what have you to say for yourself? I don't believe there is any such place as Troy.'
'There is indeed,' he pleaded; 'I can show it to you on the map!'
'Well,' she said, 'if there is, you never went near it!'
'Send those people away,' he said, 'and I will tell you all!'
And when they had gone, he confessed everything, explaining that he really had meant to go to Troy at first, and how, as he got nearer, he found himself less and less inclined for fighting—until at last he determined to travel about and see life instead, and, as he expressed it, 'pick up a little character.'
'Well,' said Clytemnestra, 'I will have no little characters in my palace, Agamemnon.'
But he protested that she had not understood him. 'And if I have erred, my love,' he suggested humbly, 'excuse me, but I cannot help thinking that the means devised for my correction were unnecessarily severe!'
'They were nothing of the sort,' she said; 'you deserved it all—and worse!'
Upon this Agamemnon made haste to assure her that she had shown a very proper spirit, and he respected her the more for it. 'And now,' he put it to her, 'why not let bygones be bygones?' But Clytemnestra's reply was that she would be quite willing to permit this when they were bygones, which, at present, she added, they were very far from being.
The King was in despair, until beneficent nature came to his assistance; a faint chirrup was heard from a neighbouring bush, a circumstance which he turned to admirable account.
'You hear it?' he asked tenderly, 'the dulcet strain? Know ye the note? Ah, Clytemnestra, 'tis the owl—the blithe and tuneful owl! Owls sang on our bridal night—can you hear their melody now and be unmoved? No, I did but wrong ye ... a tear trembles on that eyelash, a smile flickers upon that lip! I am pardoned. Clytemnestra—wife, embrace me ... we both have much to forgive!'
This speech (which was not unlike some he had heard in thrilling dramas at the 'Hæmabronteion,' Corinth, where the prophetess Cassandra had been greatly admired in her impersonations of persecuted and distracted heroines) touched Clytemnestra's heart, in which, hard as it was, there was a strain of sentiment—and she fell sobbing into her husband's arms.
And so all was forgotten and forgiven in the most satisfactory manner, the Chorus (who had been considering themselves arrested until the intellectual strain had proved almost too much for them) were released, while it was found on inquiry that both Ægisthus and Cassandra were missing, and no trace of either of them was ever found again; but it was generally understood that, with a delicate unselfishness, they had been unwilling to remain where their presence would lead to inevitable complications.
And from that night—until the fatal day, some six short weeks afterwards, when each, by an unfortunate oversight, partook of a mixture which had been carefully prepared for the other—there was not a happier royal couple in all Argos than Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.