Enchanted Castle and Five Children and It (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Edith Nesbit

  Kathleen had her wish: she was a statue

  “Jimmy,” he said, in tones perfectly ordinary and matter of fact, “Kathleen’s gone and said that ring was a wishing-ring. And so it was, of course. I see now what she was up to, running like that. And then the young duffer went and wished she was a statue.”

  “And she is?” asked Jimmy, below.

  “Come up and have a look,” said Gerald. And Jimmy came, partly with a pull from Gerald and partly with a jump of his own.

  “She’s a statue, right enough,” he said, in awestruck tones. “Isn’t it awful!”

  “Not at all,” said Gerald firmly. “Come on—let’s go and tell Mabel.”

  To Mabel, therefore, who had discreetly remained with her long length screened by rhododendrons, the two boys returned and broke the news. They broke it as one breaks a bottle with a pistol-shot.

  “Oh, my goodness!” said Mabel, and writhed through her long length so that the leaves and fern tumbled off in little showers, and she felt the sun suddenly hot on the backs of her legs. “What next? Oh, my goodness!”

  “She’ll come all right,” said Gerald, with outward calm.

  “Yes; but what about me?” Mabel urged. “I haven’t got the ring. And my time will be up before hers is. Couldn’t you get it back? Can’t you get it off her hand? I’d put it back on her hand the very minute I was my right size again—faithfully I would.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to blub about,” said Jimmy, answering the sniffs that had served her in this speech for commas and full-stops; “not for you, anyway.”

  “Ah! you don’t know,” said Mabel; “you don’t know what it is to be as long as I am. Do—do try and get the ring. After all, it is my ring more than any of the rest of yours, anyhow, because I did find it, and I did say it was magic.”

  The sense of justice always present in the breast of Gerald awoke to this appeal.

  “I expect the ring’s turned to stone—her boots have, and all her clothes. But I’ll go and see. Only if I can‘t, I can’t, and it’s no use your making a silly fuss.”

  The first match lighted inside the dinosaurus showed the ring dark on the white hand of the Statuesque Kathleen.

  The fingers were stretched straight out. Gerald took hold of the ring, and, to his surprise, it slipped easily off the cold, smooth marble finger.

  “I say, Cathy, old girl, I am sorry,” he said, and gave the marble hand a squeeze. Then it came to him that perhaps she could hear him. So he told the statue exactly what he and the others meant to do. This helped to clear up his ideas as to what he and the others did mean to do. So that when, after thumping the statue hearteningly on its marble back, he returned to the rhododendrons, he was able to give his orders with the clear precision of a born leader, as he later said. And since the others had, neither of them, thought of any plan, his plan was accepted, as the plans of born leaders are apt to be.

  “Here’s your precious ring,” he said to Mabel. “Now you’re not frightened of anything, are you?”

  “No,” said Mabel, in surprise. “I’d forgotten that. Look here, I’ll stay here or farther up in the wood if you’ll leave me all the coats, so that I sha’n’t be cold in the night. Then I shall be here when Kathleen comes out of the stone again.”

  “Yes,” said Gerald, “that was exactly the born leader’s idea.” “You two go home and tell Mademoiselle that Kathleen’s staying at the Towers. She is.”

  “Yes,” said Jimmy, “she certainly is.”

  “The magic goes in seven-hour lots,” said Gerald; “your invisibility was twenty-one hours, mine fourteen, Eliza’s seven. When it was a wishing-ring it began with seven. But there’s no knowing what number it will be really. So there’s no knowing which of you will come right first. Anyhow, we’ll sneak out by the cistern window and come down the trellis, after we’ve said good night to Mademoiselle, and come and have a look at you before we go to bed. I think you’d better come close up to the dinosaurus and we’ll leaf you over before we go. ”

  Mabel crawled into cover of the taller trees, and there stood up looking as slender as a poplar and as unreal as the wrong answer to a sum in long division. It was to her an easy matter to crouch beneath the dinosaurus, to put her head up through the opening, and thus to behold the white form of Kathleen.

  “It’s all right, dear,” she told the stone image; “I shall be quite close to you. You call me as soon as you feel you’re coming right again.”

  The statue remained motionless, as statues usually do, and Mabel withdrew her head, lay down, was covered up, and left. The boys went home. It was the only reasonable thing to do. It would never have done for Mademoiselle to become anxious and set the police on their track. Everyone felt that. The shock of discovering the missing Kathleen, not only in a dinosaurus’s stomach, but, further, in a stone statue of herself, might well have unhinged the mind of any constable, to say nothing of the mind of Mademoiselle, which, being foreign, would necessarily be a mind more light and easy to upset. While as for Mabel—

  “Well, to look at her as she is now,” said Gerald, “why, it would send any one off their chumper except us.”

  “We’re different,” said Jimmy; “our chumps have had to jolly well get used to things. It would take a lot to upset us now.”

  “Poor old Cathy! all the same,” said Gerald.

  “Yes, of course,” said Jimmy.

  The sun had died away behind the black trees and the moon was rising. Mabel, her preposterous length covered with coats, waistcoats, and trousers laid along it, slept peacefully in the chill of the evening. Inside the dinosaurus Kathleen, alive in her marble, slept too. She had heard Gerald’s words—had seen the lighted matches. She was Kathleen just the same as ever only she was Kathleen in a case of marble that would not let her move. It would not have let her cry, even if she wanted to. But she had not wanted to cry. Inside, the marble was not cold or hard. It seemed, somehow, to be softly lined with warmth and pleasantness and safety. Her back did not ache with stooping. Her limbs were not stiff with the hours that they had stayed moveless. Everything was well—better than well. One had only to wait quietly and quite comfortably and one would come out of this stone case, and once more be the Kathleen one had always been used to being. So she waited happily and calmly, and presently waiting changed to not waiting—to not anything; and, close held in the soft inwardness of the marble, she slept as peacefully and calmly as though she had been lying in her own bed.

  Mabel lay down, was covered up, and left

  She was awakened by the fact that she was not lying in her own bed—was not, indeed, lying at all—by the fact that she was standing and that her feet had pins and needles in them. Her arms, too, held out in that odd way, were stiff and tired. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and remembered. She had been a statue, a statue inside the stone dinosaurus.

  “Now I’m alive again,” was her instant conclusion, “and I’ll get out of it.”

  She sat down, put her feet through the hole that showed faintly grey in the stone beast’s underside, and as she did so a long, slow lurch threw her sideways on the stone where she sat. The dinosaurus was moving!

  “Oh!” said Kathleen inside it, “how dreadful! It must be moonlight, and it’s come alive, like Gerald said.”

  It was indeed moving. She could see through the hole the changing surface of grass and bracken and moss as it waddled heavily along. She dared not drop through the hole while it moved, for fear it should crush her to death with its gigantic feet. And with that thought came another: where was Mabel? Somewhere—somewhere near? Suppose one of the great feet planted itself on some part of Mabel’s inconvenient length? Mabel being the size she was now it would be quite difficult not to step on some part or other of her, if she should happen to be in one’s way—quite difficult, however much one tried. And the dinosaurus would not try: Why should it? Kathleen hung in an agony over the round opening. The huge beast swung from side to side. It was going faster; it was no good, she dared not ju
mp out. Anyhow, they must be quite away from Mabel by now. Faster and faster went the dinosaurus. The floor of its stomach sloped. They were going downhill. Twigs cracked and broke as it pushed through a belt of evergreen oaks; gravel crunched, ground beneath its stony feet. Then stone met stone. There was a pause. A splash! They were close to water—the lake where by moonlight Hermes fluttered and Januses and the dinosaurus swam together. Kathleen dropped swiftly through the hole on to the flat marble that edged the basin, rushed sideways, and stood panting in the shadow of a statue’s pedestal. Not a moment too soon, for even as she crouched the monster lizard slipped heavily into the water, drowning a thousand smooth, shining lily pads, and swam away towards the central island.

  “Be still, little lady. I leap!” The voice came from the pedestal, and next moment Phoebus had jumped from the pedestal in his little temple, clearing the steps, and landing a couple of yards away.

  “You are new,” said Phoebus over his graceful shoulder. “I should not have forgotten you if once I had seen you.”

  The monster lizard slipped heavily into the water

  “I am,” said Kathleen, “quite, quite new. And I didn’t know you could talk.”

  “Why not?” Phoebus laughed. “You can talk.”

  “But I’m alive.”

  “Am not I?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so,” said Kathleen, distracted, but not afraid; “only I thought you had to have the ring on before one could even

  see you move.

  Phoebus seemed to understand her, which was rather to his credit, for she had certainly not expressed herself with clearness.

  “Ah! that’s for mortals,” he said. “We can hear and see each other in the few moments when life is ours. That is a part of the beautiful enchantment.”

  “But I am a mortal,” said Kathleen.

  “You are as modest as you are charming,” said Phoebus Apollo absently; “the white water calls me! I go,” and the next moment rings of liquid silver spread across the lake, widening and widening, from the spot where the white joined hands of the Sun-god had struck the water as he dived.

  Kathleen turned and went up the hill towards the rhododendron bushes. She must find Mabel, and they must go home at once. If only Mabel was of a size that one could conveniently take home with one! Most likely, at this hour of enchantments, she was. Kathleen, heartened by the thought, hurried on. She passed through the rhododendron bushes, remembered the pointed painted paper face that had looked out from the glossy leaves, expected to be frightened—and wasn’t. She found Mabel easily enough, and much more easily than she would have done had Mabel been as she wished to find her. For quite a long way off in the moonlight, she could see that long and worm-like form, extended to its full twelve feet—and covered with coats and trousers and waist-coats. Mabel looked like a drain-pipe that has been covered in sacks in frosty weather. Kathleen touched her long cheek gently, and she woke.

  “What’s up?” she said sleepily.

  “It’s only me,” Kathleen explained.

  “How cold your hands are!” said Mabel.

  “Wake up,” said Kathleen, “and let’s talk.”

  “Can’t we go home now? I’m awfully tired, and it’s so long since tea-time.”

  “You’re too long to go home yet,” said Kathleen sadly, and then Mabel remembered.

  She lay with closed eyes—then suddenly she stirred and cried out:

  “Oh! Cathy, I feel so funny—like one of those horn snakes when you make it go short to get it into its box. I am—yes—I know I am—”

  She was; and Kathleen, watching her, agreed that it was exactly like the shortening of a horn spiral snake between the closing hands of a child. Mabel’s distant feet drew near—Mabel’s long, lean arms grew shorter—Mabel’s face was no longer half a yard long.

  “What is it?” she asked, beginning to tremble

  “You’re coming right—you are! Oh, I am so glad!” cried Kathleen.

  “I know I am,” said Mabel; and as she said it she became once more Mabel, not only in herself which, of course, she had been all the time, but in her outward appearance.

  “You are all right. Oh, hooray! hooray! I am so glad!” said Kathleen kindly; “and now we’ll go home at once, dear.”

  “Go home?” said Mabel, slowly sitting up and staring at Kathleen with her big dark eyes. “Go home—like that?”

  “Like what?” Kathleen asked impatiently.

  “Why, you,” was Mabel’s odd reply.

  “I’m all right,” said Kathleen. “Come on.”

  “Do you mean to say you don’t know?” said Mabel. “Look at yourself—your hands—your dress—everything.”

  Kathleen looked at her hands. They were of marble whiteness. Her dress, too—her shoes, her stockings, even the ends of her hair. She was white as new-fallen snow.

  “What is it?” she asked, beginning to tremble. “What am I all this horrid colour for?”

  “Don’t you see? Oh, Cathy, don’t you see? You’ve not come right. You’re a statue still.”

  “I’m not—I’m alive—I’m talking to you.”

  “I know you are, darling,” said Mabel, soothing her as one soothes a fractious child. “That’s because it’s moonlight.”

  “But you can see I’m alive.”

  “Of course I can. I’ve got the ring.”

  “But I’m all right; I know I am.”

  “Don’t you see,” said Mabel gently, taking her white marble hand, “you’re not all right? It’s moonlight, and you’re a statue, and you’ve just come alive with all the other statues. And when the moon goes down you’ll just be a statue again. That’s the difficulty, dear, about our going home again. You’re just a statue still, only you’ve come alive with the other marble things. Where’s the dinosaurus?”

  “In his bath,” said Kathleen, “and so are all the other stone beasts.”

  “Well,” said Mabel, trying to look on the bright side of things, “then we’ve got one thing, at any rate, to be thankful for!”

  CHAPTER X

  If,” said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her marble, ”if I am really a statue come alive, I wonder you’re not afraid of me.” “I’ve got the ring,” said Mabel with decision. ”Cheer up, dear! you will soon be better. Try not to think about it.”

  She spoke as you speak to a child that has cut its finger, or fallen down on the garden path, and rises up with grazed knees to which gravel sticks intimately.

  “I know,” Kathleen absently answered.

  “And I’ve been thinking,” said Mabel brightly, “we might find out a lot about this magic place, if the other statues aren’t too proud to talk to us.”

  “They aren’t,” Kathleen assured her; “at least, Phoebus wasn’t. He was most awfully polite and nice.”

  “Where is he?” Mabel asked.

  “In the lake—he was,” said Kathleen.

  “Then let’s go down there,” said Mabel. “Oh, Cathy! it is jolly being your own proper thickness again.” She jumped up, and the withered ferns and branches that had covered her long length and had been gathered closely upon her as she shrank to her proper size fell as forest leaves do when sudden storms tear them. But the white Kathleen did not move.

  The two sat 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?”