"There"s a ring right enough," he owned. And then the ring slipped from the hand of Mr. U. W. Ugli and skidded along the floor.
Gerald pounced on it like a greyhound on a hare. He thrust the dull circlet on his finger and cried out aloud in that crowded place:
"I wish Jimmy and I were inside that door behind the statue of Flora."
It was the only safe place he could think of.
The lights and sounds and scents of the restaurant died away as a wax-drop dies in fire a rain-drop in water. I don"t know, and Gerald never knew, what happened in that restaurant. There was nothing about it in the papers, though Gerald looked anxiously for "Extraordinary Disappearance of well-known City Man." What the door-mat-headed boy did or thought I don"t know either. No more does Gerald. But he would like to know, whereas I don"t care tuppence. The world went on all right, anyhow, whatever he thought or did. The lights and the sounds and the scents of Pym"s died out. In place of the light there was darkness; in place of the sounds there was silence; and in place of the scent of beef, pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots, beer, and tobacco there was the musty, damp scent of a place underground that has been long shut up.
Gerald felt sick and giddy, and there was something at the back of his mind that he knew would make him feel sicker and giddier as soon as he should have the sense to remember what it was.
Meantime it was important to think of proper words to soothe the City man that had once been Jimmy to keep him quiet till Time, like a spring uncoiling, should bring the reversal of the spell make all things as they were and as they ought to be. But he fought in vain for words. There were none. Nor were they needed. For through the deep darkness came a voice and it was not the voice of that City man who had been Jimmy, but the voice of that very Jimmy who was Gerald"s little brother, and who had wished that unlucky wish for riches that could only be answered by changing all that was Jimmy, young and poor, to all that Jimmy, rich and old, would have been. Another voice said: "Jerry, Jerry! Are you awake? I"ve had such a rum dream."
And then there was a moment when nothing was said or done.
Gerald felt through the thick darkness, and the thick silence, and the thick scent of old earth shut up, and he got hold of Jimmy"s hand.
"It"s all right, Jimmy, old chap," he said; "it"s not a dream now. It"s that beastly ring again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at all out of your dream."
"Wish us where?" Jimmy held on to the hand in a way that in the daylight of life he would have been the first to call babyish.
"Inside the pa.s.sage behind the Flora statue," said Gerald, adding, "it"s all right, really."
"Oh, I dare say it"s all right," Jimmy answered through the dark, with an irritation not strong enough to make him loosen his hold of his brother"s hand. "But how are we going to get out?"
Then Gerald knew what it was that was waiting to make him feel more giddy than the lightning flight from Cheapside to Yalding Towers had been able to make him. But he said stoutly:
"I"ll wish us out, of course." Though all the time he knew that the ring would not undo its given wishes.
It didn"t.
Gerald wished. He handed the ring carefully to Jimmy, through the thick darkness. And Jimmy wished.
And there they still were, in that black pa.s.sage behind Flora, that had led in the case of one Ugly-Wugly at least to "a good hotel".
And the stone door was shut. And they did not know even which way to turn to it.
"If I only had some matches!" said Gerald.
"Why didn"t you leave me in the dream?" Jimmy almost whimpered. "It was light there, and I was just going to have salmon and cuc.u.mber."
"I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, "was just going to have steak and fried potatoes."
The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy scent were all they had now.
"I always wondered what it would be like," said Jimmy in low, even tones, "to be buried alive. And now I know! Oh! his voice suddenly rose to a shriek, "it isn"t true, it isn"t! It"s a dream that"s what it is!"
There was a pause while you could have counted ten. Then "Yes,"
said Gerald bravely, through the scent and the silence and the darkness, "it"s just a dream, Jimmy, old chap. We"ll just hold on, and call out now and then just for the lark of the thing. But it"s really only a dream, of course."
Of course, said Jimmy in the silence and the darkness and the scent of old earth.
There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as gla.s.s, strong as iron, that hangs for ever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets, and the like, almost anything may happen.
Thus it is not surprising that Mabel and Kathleen, conscientiously conducting one of the dullest dolls tea-parties at which either had ever a.s.sisted, should suddenly, and both at once, have felt a strange, unreasonable, but quite irresistible desire to return instantly to the Temple of Flora even at the cost of leaving the dolls tea-service in an unwashed state, and only half the raisins eaten. They went as one has to go when the magic impulse drives one against their better judgement, against their wills almost.
And the nearer they came to the Temple of Flora, in the golden hush of the afternoon, the more certain each was that they could not possibly have done otherwise.
And this explains exactly how it was that when Gerald and Jimmy, holding hands in the darkness of the pa.s.sage, uttered their first concerted yell, "just for the lark of the thing", that yell was instantly answered from outside.
A crack of light showed in that part of the pa.s.sage where they had least expected the door to be. The stone door itself swung slowly open, and they were out of it, in the Temple of Flora, blinking in the good daylight, an unresisting prey to Kathleen"s embraces and the questionings of Mabel.
"And you left that Ugly-Wugly loose in London," Mabel pointed out; "you might have wished it to be with you, too."
"It"s all right where it is," said Gerald. "I couldn"t think of everything. And besides, no, thank you! Now we"ll go home and seal up the ring in an envelope."
"I haven"t done anything with the ring yet," said Kathleen.
"I shouldn"t think you"d want to when you see the sort of things it does with you," said Gerald.
"It wouldn"t do things like that if I was wishing with it," Kathleen protested,
"Look here," said Mabel, "let"s just put it back in the treasure-room and have done with it. I oughtn"t ever to have taken it away, really.
It"s a sort of stealing. It"s quite as bad, really, as Eliza borrowing it to astonish her gentleman friend with."
"I don"t mind putting it back if you like," said Gerald, "only if any of us do think of a sensible wish you"ll let us have it out again, of course?"
"Of course, of course," Mabel agreed.
So they trooped up to the castle, and Mabel once more worked the spring that let down the panelling and showed the jewels, and the ring was put back among the odd dull ornaments that Mabel had once said were magic.
"How innocent it looks!" said Gerald. "You wouldn"t think there was any magic about it. It"s just like an old silly ring. I wonder if what Mabel said about the other things is true! Suppose we try."
"Don"t!" said Kathleen. "I think magic things are spiteful. They just enjoy getting you into tight places."
"I"d like to try," said Mabel, "only well, everything"s been rather upsetting, and I"ve forgotten what I said anything was."
So had the others. Perhaps that was why, when Gerald said that a bronze buckle laid on the foot would have the effect of seven-league boots, it didn"t; when Jimmy, a little of the City man he had been clinging to him still, said that the steel collar would ensure your always having money in your pockets, his own remained empty; and when Mabel and Kathleen invented qualities of the most delightful nature for various rings and chains and brooches, nothing at all happened.
"It"s only the ring that"s magic," said Mabel at last; "and, I say!" she added, in quite a different voice.
"What?"
"Suppose even the ring isn"t!"
"But we know it is."
"I don"t," said Mabel. "I believe it"s not today at all. I believe it"s the other day we"ve just dreamed all these things. It"s the day I made up that nonsense about the ring."
"No, it isn"t," said Gerald; "you were in your Princess-clothes then.
"What Princess-clothes?" said Mabel, opening her dark eyes very wide.