Charming stopped short.
"You see me?" he cried furiously.
"Of course I do! Really, you mustn"t expect to come into a house without anything on your feet and not be a little noticeable. Even in a crowd I should have picked you out."
"That miserable dwarf," said Charming savagely, "swore solemnly to me that beneath this cloak I was invisible to the eyes of my enemies!"
"But then we aren"t enemies," smiled the Giant sweetly. "I like you immensely. There"s something about you--directly you came in.... I think it must be love at first sight."
"So _that"s_ how he tricked me!"
"Oh no, it wasn"t really like that. The fact is you are invisible _beneath_ that cloak, only--you"ll excuse my pointing it out--there are such funny bits of you that aren"t beneath the cloak. You"ve no idea how odd you look; just a head and two legs, and a couple of arms....
Waists," he murmured to himself, "are not being worn this year."
But Charming had had enough of talk. Griping his sword firmly, he threw aside his useless cloak, dashed forward, and with a beautiful lunge p.r.i.c.ked his enemy in the ankle.
"Victory!" he cried, waving his magic sword above his head. "Thus is Beauty"s brother delivered!"
The Giant stared at him for a full minute. Then he put his hands to his sides and fell back shaking in his chair.
"Her brother!" he roared. "Well, of all the--Her _brother!_" He rolled on the floor in a paroxysm of mirth. "Her brother! Oh you--You"ll kill me! Her b-b-b-b-brother! Her b-b-b-b--her b-b-b--her b-b----"
The world suddenly seemed very cold to Charming. He turned the ring on his finger.
"Well?" said the Dwarf.
"I want," said Charming curtly, "to be back at home, riding through the streets on my cream palfrey, amidst the cheers of the populace.... At once."
An hour later Princess Beauty and Prince Udo, who was not her brother, gazed into each other"s eyes; and Beauty"s last illusion went.
"You"ve altered," she said slowly.
"Yes, I"m not really much like a tortoise," said Udo humorously.
"I meant since seven years ago. You"re much stouter than I thought."
"Time hasn"t exactly stood still with you, you know, Beauty."
"Yet you saw me every day, and went on loving me."
"Well,--er----" He shuffled his feet and looked away.
"_Didn"t_ you?"
"Well, you see--of course I wanted to get back, you see--and as long as you--I mean if we--if you thought we were in love with each other, then, of course, you were ready to help me. And so----"
"You"re quite old and bald. I can"t think why I didn"t notice it before."
"Well, you wouldn"t when I was a tortoise," said Udo pleasantly. "As tortoises go I was really quite a youngster. Besides, anyhow one never notices baldness in a tortoise."
"I think," said Beauty, weighing her words carefully, "I think you"ve gone off a good deal in looks the last day or two."
Charming was home in time for dinner, and the next morning he was more popular than ever outside his family as he rode through the streets of the city. But Blunderbus lay dead in his Castle. You and I know that he was killed by the magic sword; yet somehow a strange legend grew up around his death. And ever afterwards in that country, when one man told his neighbour a more than ordinarily humorous anecdote, the latter would cry, in between the gusts of merriment, "Don"t! You"ll make me die of laughter!" And then he would pull himself together, and add with a sigh, "Like Blunderbus."
XXI. THE SEASIDE NOVELETTE
[MAY BE READ ON THE PIER]
NO. XCVIII.--A SIMPLE ENGLISH GIRL
CHAPTER I
PRIMROSE FARM
Primrose Farm stood slumbering in the sunlight of an early summer morn.
Save for the gentle breeze which played in the tops of the two tall elms all Nature seemed at rest. Chanticleer had ceased his song; the pigs were asleep; in the barn the cow lay thinking. A deep peace brooded over the rural scene, the peace of centuries. Terrible to think that in a few short hours ... but perhaps it won"t. The truth is I have not quite decided whether to have the murder in this story or in No. XCIX.--The Severed Thumb. We shall see.
As her alarum clock (a birthday present) struck five, Gwendolen French sprang out of bed and plunged her face into the clump of nettles which grew outside her lattice window. For some minutes she stood there, breathing in the incense of the day; then dressing quickly she went down into the great oak-beamed kitchen to prepare breakfast for her father and the pigs. As she went about her simple duties she sang softly to herself, a song of love and knightly deeds. Little did she think that a lover, even at that moment, stood outside her door.
"Heigh-ho!" sighed Gwendolen, and she poured the bran-mash into a bowl and took it up to her father"s room.
For eighteen years Gwendolen French had been the daughter of John French of Primrose Farm. Endowed by Nature with a beauty that is seldom seen outside this sort of story, she was yet as modest and as good a girl as was to be found in the county. Many a fine lady would have given all her Parisian diamonds for the peach-like complexion which bloomed on the fair face of Gwendolen. But the gifts of Nature are not to be bought and sold.
There was a sudden knock at the door.
"Come in," cried Gwendolen in surprise. Unless it was the cow, it was an entirely unexpected visitor.
A tall and handsome young man entered, striking his head violently against a beam as he stepped into the low-ceilinged kitchen.
"Good morning," he said, repressing the remark which came more readily to his lips. "Pray forgive this intrusion. The fact is I have lost my way, and I wondered whether you would be kind enough to inform me as to my whereabouts."
Gwendolen curtsied.
"This is Primrose Farm, Sir," she said.
"I fear," he replied with a smile, "it has been my misfortune never to have heard so charming a name before. I am Lord Beltravers of Beltravers Castle, Beltravers. Having returned last night from India I came out for an early stroll this morning, and I fear that I have wandered out of my direction."
"Why," cried Gwendolen, "your lordship is miles from Beltravers Castle.
How tired and hungry you must be." She removed a lettuce from the kitchen-chair, dusted it, and offered it to him. (That is to say, the chair.) "Let me get you some milk," she added. Picking up a pail she went out to inspect the cow.
"Gad," said Lord Beltravers, as soon as he was alone. He paced rapidly up and down the tiled kitchen. "Deuce take it," he added recklessly, "she"s a lovely girl." The Beltraverses were noted in two continents for their hard swearing.