The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit (smart ebook reader .txt) 📕

on the grey moonlit grass with the quiet of the night all about them. The great park was still as a painted picture; only the splash of the fountains and the far-off whistle of the Western express broke the silence, which, at the same time, then deepened.

“What cheer, little sister!” said a voice behind them a golden voice. They turned quick, startled heads, as birds, surprised, might turn. There in the moonlight stood Phoebus, dripping still from the lake, and smiling at them, very gentle, very friendly.

“Oh, it’s you!” said Kathleen.

“None other,” said Phoebus cheerfully. “Who is your friend, the earth-child?”

“This is Mabel,” said Kathleen.

Mabel got up and bowed, hesitated, and held out a hand.

“I am your slave, little lady,” said Phoebus, enclosing it in marble fingers. “But I fail to understand how you can see us, and why you do not fear.”

Mabel held up the hand that wore the ring.

“Quite sufficient explanation,” said Phoebus; “but since you have that, why retain your mottled earthy appearance? Become a statue, and swim with us in the lake.”

“I can’t swim,” said Mabel evasively.

“Nor yet me,” said Kathleen.

“You can,” said Phoebus. “All statues that come to life are proficient in all athletic exercises. And you, child of the dark eyes and hair like night, wish yourself a statue and join our revels.”

“I’d rather not, if you will excuse me,” said Mabel cautiously. “You see … this ring … you wish for things, and you never know how long they’re going to last. It would be jolly and all that to be a statue now, but in the morning I should wish I hadn’t.”

“Earth-folk often do, they say,” mused Phoebus. “But, child, you seem ignorant of the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and the ring will exactly perform. If you give no limit of time, strange enchantments woven by Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will creep in and spoil the spell. Say thus: “I wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of living marble, even as my child friend, and that after that time I may be as before Mabel of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair.”

“Oh, yes, do, it would be so jolly!” cried Kathleen. “Do, Mabel! And if we’re both statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus?”

“In the world of living marble fear is not,” said Phoebus. “Are we not brothers, we and the dinosaurus brethren alike wrought of stone and life?”

“And could I swim if I did?”

“Swim, and float, and dive and with the ladies of Olympus spread the nightly feast, eat of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen to the song that is undying, and catch the laughter of immortal lips.”

“A feast!” said Kathleen. “Oh, Mabel, do! You would if you were as hungry as I am.”

“But it won’t be real food,” urged Mabel.

“It will be real to you, as to us,” said Phoebus; “there is no other realness even in your many-coloured world.”

Still Mabel hesitated. Then she looked at Kathleen’s legs and suddenly said: “Very well, I will. But first I’ll take off my shoes and stockings. Marble boots look simply awful especially the laces. And a marble stocking that’s coming down and mine do!”

She had pulled off shoes and stockings and pinafore. “Mabel has the sense of beauty,” said Phoebus approvingly. “Speak the spell, child, and I will lead you to the ladies of Olympus.”

Mabel, trembling a little, spoke it, and there were two little live statues in the moonlit glade. Tall Phoebus took a hand of each.

“Come run!” he cried. And they ran.

“Oh it is jolly!” Mabel panted. “Look at my white feet in the grass! I thought it would feel stiff to be a statue, but it doesn’t.”

“There is no stiffness about the immortals,” laughed the Sun-god. “For tonight you are one of us.”

And with that they ran down the slope to the lake.

“Jump!” he cried, and they jumped, and the water splashed up round three white, gleaming shapes.

“Oh! I can swim!” breathed Kathleen.

“So can I,” said Mabel.

“Of course you can,” said Phoebus. “Now three times round the lake, and then make for the island.”

Side by side the three swam, Phoebus swimming gently to keep pace with the children. Their marble clothes did not seem to interfere at all with their swimming, as your clothes would if you suddenly jumped into the basin of the Trafalgar Square fountains and tried to swim there. And they swam most beautifully, with that perfect ease and absence of effort or tiredness which you must have noticed about your own swimming in dreams. And it was the most lovely place to swim in; the water-lilies, whose long, snaky stalks are so inconvenient to ordinary swimmers, did not in the least interfere with the movements of marble arms and legs. The moon was high in the clear sky-dome. The weeping willows, cypresses, temples, terraces, banks of trees and shrubs, and the wonderful old house, all added to the romantic charm of the scene.

“This is the nicest thing the ring has brought us yet,” said Mabel, through a languid but perfect side-stroke.

“I thought you’d enjoy it,” said Phoebus kindly; “now once more round, and then the island.”

They landed on the island amid a fringe of rushes, yarrow, willow-herb, loose-strife, and a few late, scented, powdery, creamy heads of meadow-sweet. The island was bigger than it looked from the bank, and it seemed covered with trees and shrubs. But when, Phoebus leading the way, they went into the shadow of these, they perceived that beyond the trees lay a light, much nearer to them than the other side of the island could possibly be. And almost at once they were through the belt of trees, and could see where the light came from. The trees they had just passed among made a dark circle round a big cleared space, standing up thick and dark, like a crowd round a football field, as Kathleen remarked.

First came a wide, smooth ring of lawn, then marble steps going down to a round pool, where there were no water-lilies, only gold and silver fish that darted here and there like flashes of quicksilver and dark flames. And the enclosed space of water and marble and grass was lighted with a clear, white, radiant light, seven times stronger than the whitest moonlight, and in the still waters of the pool seven moons lay reflected. One could see that they were only reflections by the way their shape broke and changed as the gold and silver fish rippled the water with moving fin and tail that steered.

The girls looked up at the sky, almost expecting to see seven moons there. But no, the old moon shone alone, as she had always shone on them.

“There are seven moons,” said Mabel blankly, and pointed, which is not manners.

“Of course,” said Phoebus kindly; “everything in our world is seven times as much so as in yours.”

“But there aren’t seven of you,” said Mabel.

“No, but I am seven times as much,” said the Sun-god. “You see, there’s numbers, and there’s quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see that, I’m sure.”

“Not quite,” said Kathleen.

“Explanations always weary me,” Phoebus interrupted. “Shall we join the ladies?”

On the further side of the pool was a large group, so white that it seemed to make a great white hole in the trees. Some twenty or thirty figures there were in the group all statues and all alive. Some were dipping their white feet among the gold and silver fish, and sending ripples across the faces of the seven moons. Some were pelting each other with roses roses so sweet that the girls could smell them even across the pool. Others were holding hands and dancing in a ring, and two were sitting on the steps playing cat’s-cradle which is a very ancient game indeed with a thread of white marble.

As the newcomers advanced a shout of greeting and gay laughter went up. “Late again, Phoebus!” someone called out. And another: “Did one of your horses cast a shoe?” And yet another called out something about laurels.

“I bring two guests,” said Phoebus, and instantly the statues crowded round, stroking the girls hair, patting their cheeks, and calling them the prettiest love-names.

“Are the wreaths ready, Hebe?” the tallest and most splendid of the ladies called out. “Make two more!”

And almost directly Hebe came down the steps, her round arms hung thick with rose-wreaths. There was one for each marble head.

Everyone now looked seven times more beautiful than before, which, in the case of the gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The children remembered how at the raspberry vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that gods and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals.

Hebe herself arranged the roses on the girls heads and Aphrodite Urania, the dearest lady in the world, with a voice like mother’s at those moments when you love her most, took them by the hands and said: “Come, we must get the feast ready. Eros Psyche Hebe Ganymede all you young people can arrange the fruit.”

“I don’t see any fruit,” said Kathleen, as four slender forms disengaged themselves from the white crowd and came towards them.

“You will though,” said Eros, a really nice boy, as the girls instantly agreed; “you’ve only got to pick it.”

“Like this,” said Psyche, lifting her marble arms to a willow branch. She reached out her hand to the children it held a ripe pomegranate.

“I see,” said Mabel. “You just ” She laid her fingers to the willow branch and the firm softness of a big peach was within them.

“Yes, just that,” laughed Psyche, who was a darling, as any one could see.

After this Hebe gathered a few silver baskets from a convenient alder, and the four picked fruit industriously. Meanwhile the elder statues were busy plucking golden goblets and jugs and dishes from the branches of ash-trees and young oaks and filling them with everything nice to eat and drink that anyone could possibly want, and these were spread on the steps. It was a celestial picnic. Then everyone sat or lay down and the feast began. And oh! the taste of the food served on those dishes, the sweet wonder of the drink that melted from those gold cups on the white lips of the company! And the fruit there is no fruit like it grown on earth, just as there is no laughter like the laughter of those lips, no songs like the songs that stirred the silence of that night of wonder.

“Oh!” cried Kathleen, and through her fingers the juice of her third peach fell like tears on the marble steps. “I do wish the boys were here!”

“I do wonder what they’re doing,” said Mabel.

“At this moment,” said Hermes, who had just made a wide ring of flight, as a pigeon does, and come back into the circle “at this moment they are wandering desolately near the home of the dinosaurus, having escaped from their home by a window, in search of you. They fear that you have perished, and they would weep if they did not know that tears do not become a man, however youthful.”

Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs of ambrosia from her marble lap.

“Thank you all very much, she said. “It was very kind of you to have us, and we’ve enjoyed ourselves very much, but I think we ought to go now, please.

“If it is anxiety about your brothers,” said Phoebus obligingly, “it is the easiest thing in the world for them to join you. Lend me your ring a moment.”

He took it from Kathleen’s half-reluctant hand, dipped it in