Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘Let me marry the dear Princess, and we’ll go out and seek our fortune. I’ve got to kill that Magician, and I’ll do it too, or my name’s not Septimus Septimusson. But it may take years and years, and I can’t be away from the Princess all that time, because she won’t eat unless I feed her. You see the difficulty, Sire?’

  The King saw it. And that very day Sep was married to the Princess in her green gown with the red roses on it, and they set out together.

  The wind went with them, and the wind, or something else, seemed to say to Sep, ‘Go home, take your wife home to your mother.’

  So he did. He crossed the land and he crossed the sea, and he went up the red-brick path to his father’s cottage, and he peeped in at the door and said:

  ‘Father, mother, here’s my wife.’

  They were so pleased to see him — for they had thought him dead, that they didn’t notice the Princess at first, and when they did notice her they wondered at her beautiful face and her beautiful gown — but it wasn’t till they had all settled down to supper — boiled rabbit it was — and they noticed Sep feeding his wife as one feeds a baby that they saw that she was blind.

  And then all the story had to be told.

  ‘Well, well,’ said the fisherman, ‘you and your wife bide here with us. I daresay I’ll catch that old sinner in my nets one of these fine days.’ But he never did. And Sep and his wife lived with the old people. And they were happy after a fashion — but of an evening Sep used to wander and wonder, and wonder and wander by the sea-shore, wondering as he wandered whether he wouldn’t ever have the luck to catch that fish.

  And one evening as he wandered wondering he heard a little, sharp, thin voice say:

  ‘Sep. I’ve got it.’

  ‘What?’ asked Sep, forgetting his manners.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ said a big mussel on a rock close by him, ‘the magic stone that the Magician does his enchantments with. He dropped it out of his mouth and I shut my shells on it — and now he’s sweeping up and down the sea like a mad fish, looking for it — for he knows he can never change into anything else unless he gets it back. Here, take the nasty thing, it’s making me feel quite ill.’

  It opened its shells wide, and Sep saw a pearl. He reached out his hand and took it.

  ‘That’s better,’ said the mussel, washing its shells out with salt water.

  ‘Can I do magic with it?’ Sep eagerly asked.

  ‘No,’ said the mussel sadly, ‘it’s of no use to any one but the owner. Now, if I were you, I’d get into a boat, and if your friend the wind will help us, I believe we really can do the trick.’

  ‘I’m at your service, of course,’ said the wind, getting up instantly.

  The mussel whispered to the wind, who rushed off at once; and Sep launched his boat.

  ‘Now,’ said the mussel, ‘you get into the very middle of the sea — or as near as you can guess it. The wind will warn all the other fishes.’ As he spoke he disappeared in the dark waters.

  Sep got the boat into the middle of the sea — as near as he could guess it — and waited.

  After a long time he saw something swirling about in a sort of whirlpool about a hundred yards from his boat, but when he tried to move the boat towards it her bows ran on to something hard.

  ‘Keep still, keep still, keep still,’ cried thousands and thousands of sharp, thin, little voices. ‘You’ll kill us if you move.’

  Then he looked over the boat side, and saw that the hard something was nothing but thousands and thousands of mussels all jammed close together, and through the clear water more and more were coming and piling themselves together. Almost at once his boat was slowly lifted — the top of the mussel heap showed through the water, and there he was, high and dry on a mussel reef.

  And in all that part of the sea the water was disappearing, and as far as the eye could reach stretched a great plain of purple and gray — the shells of countless mussels.

  Only at one spot there was still a splashing.

  Then a mussel opened its shell and spoke.

  ‘We’ve got him,’ it said. ‘We’ve piled our selves up till we’ve filled this part of the sea. The wind warned all the good fishes — and we’ve got the old traitor in a little pool over there. Get out and walk over our backs — we’ll all lie sideways so as not to hurt you. You must catch the fish — but whatever you do don’t kill it till we give the word.’

  Sep promised, and he got out and walked over the mussels to the pool, and when he saw the wicked soul of the Magician looking out through the round eyes of a big finny fish he remembered all that his Princess had suffered, and he longed to draw his sword and kill the wicked thing then and there.

  But he remembered his promise. He threw a net about it, and dragged it back to the boat.

  The mussels dispersed and let the boat down again into the water — and he rowed home, towing the evil fish in the net by a line.

  He beached the boat, and looked along the shore. The shore looked a very odd colour. And well it might, for every bit of the sand was covered with purple-gray mussels. They had all come up out of the sea — leaving just one little bit of real yellow sand for him to beach the boat on.

  ‘Now,’ said millions of sharp thin little voices, ‘Kill him, kill him!’

  Sep drew his sword and waded into the shallow surf and killed the evil fish with one strong stroke.

  Then such a shout went up all along the shore as that shore had never heard; and all along the shore where the mussels had been, stood men in armour and men in smock-frocks and men in leather aprons and huntsmen’s coats and women and children — a whole nation of people. Close by the boat stood a King and Queen with crowns upon their heads.

  ‘Thank you, Sep,’ said the King, ‘you’ve saved us all. I am the King Mussel, doomed to be a mussel so long as that wretch lived. You have set us all free. And look!’

  Down the path from the shore came running his own Princess, who hung round his neck crying his name and looking at him with the most beautiful eyes in the world.

  ‘Come,’ said the Mussel King, ‘we have no son. You shall be our son and reign after us.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sep, ‘but this is my father,’ and he presented the old fisherman to His Majesty.

  ‘Then let him come with us,’ said the King royally, ‘he can help me reign, or fish in the palace lake, whichever he prefers.’

  ‘Thankee,’ said Sep’s father, ‘I’ll come and fish.’

  ‘Your mother too,’ said the Mussel Queen, kissing Sep’s mother.

  ‘Ah,’ said Sep’s mother, ‘you’re a lady, every inch. I’ll go to the world’s end with you.’

  So they all went back by way of the foreign country where Sep had found his Princess, and they called on the old lord. He had lost his hump, and they easily persuaded him to come with them.

  ‘You can help me reign if you like, or we have a nice book or two in the palace library,’ said the Mussel King.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the old lord, ‘I’ll come and be your librarian if I may. Reigning isn’t at all in my line.’

  Then they went on to Sep’s father-in-law, and when he saw how happy they all were together he said:

  ‘Bless my beard but I’ve half a mind to come with you.’

  ‘Come along,’ said the Mussel King, ‘you shall help me reign if you like ... or....’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said the other King very quickly, ‘I’ve had enough of reigning. My kingdom can buy a President and be a republic if it likes. I’m going to catch butterflies.’

  And so he does, most happily, up to this very minute.

  And Sep and his dear Princess are as happy as they deserve to be. Some people say we are all as happy as we deserve to be — but I am not sure.

  THE WHITE CAT

  The White Cat lived at the back of a shelf at the darkest end of the inside attic which was nearly dark all over. It had lived there for years, because one of its white china ears was chipped, so that it was n
o longer a possible ornament for the spare bedroom.

  Tavy found it at the climax of a wicked and glorious afternoon. He had been left alone. The servants were the only other people in the house. He had promised to be good. He had meant to be good. And he had not been. He had done everything you can think of. He had walked into the duck pond, and not a stitch of his clothes but had had to be changed. He had climbed on a hay rick and fallen off it, and had not broken his neck, which, as cook told him, he richly deserved to do. He had found a mouse in the trap and put it in the kitchen tea-pot, so that when cook went to make tea it jumped out at her, and affected her to screams followed by tears. Tavy was sorry for this, of course, and said so like a man. He had only, he explained, meant to give her a little start. In the confusion that followed the mouse, he had eaten all the black-currant jam that was put out for kitchen tea, and for this too, he apologised handsomely as soon as it was pointed out to him. He had broken a pane of the greenhouse with a stone and.... But why pursue the painful theme? The last thing he had done was to explore the attic, where he was never allowed to go, and to knock down the White Cat from its shelf.

  The sound of its fall brought the servants. The cat was not broken — only its other ear was chipped. Tavy was put to bed. But he got out as soon as the servants had gone downstairs, crept up to the attic, secured the Cat, and washed it in the bath. So that when mother came back from London, Tavy, dancing impatiently at the head of the stairs, in a very wet night-gown, flung himself upon her and cried, ‘I’ve been awfully naughty, and I’m frightfully sorry, and please may I have the White Cat for my very own?’

  He was much sorrier than he had expected to be when he saw that mother was too tired even to want to know, as she generally did, exactly how naughty he had been. She only kissed him, and said:

  ‘I am sorry you’ve been naughty, my darling. Go back to bed now. Good-night.’

  Tavy was ashamed to say anything more about the China Cat, so he went back to bed. But he took the Cat with him, and talked to it and kissed it, and went to sleep with its smooth shiny shoulder against his cheek.

  In the days that followed, he was extravagantly good. Being good seemed as easy as being bad usually was. This may have been because mother seemed so tired and ill; and gentlemen in black coats and high hats came to see mother, and after they had gone she used to cry. (These things going on in a house sometimes make people good; sometimes they act just the other way.) Or it may have been because he had the China Cat to talk to. Anyhow, whichever way it was, at the end of the week mother said:

  ‘Tavy, you’ve been a dear good boy, and a great comfort to me. You must have tried very hard to be good.’

  It was difficult to say, ‘No, I haven’t, at least not since the first day,’ but Tavy got it said, and was hugged for his pains.

  ‘You wanted,’ said mother, ‘the China Cat. Well, you may have it.’

  ‘For my very own?’

  ‘For your very own. But you must be very careful not to break it. And you mustn’t give it away. It goes with the house. Your Aunt Jane made me promise to keep it in the family. It’s very, very old. Don’t take it out of doors for fear of accidents.’

  ‘I love the White Cat, mother,’ said Tavy. ‘I love it better’n all my toys.’

  Then mother told Tavy several things, and that night when he went to bed Tavy repeated them all faithfully to the China Cat, who was about six inches high and looked very intelligent.

  ‘So you see,’ he ended, ‘the wicked lawyer’s taken nearly all mother’s money, and we’ve got to leave our own lovely big White House, and go and live in a horrid little house with another house glued on to its side. And mother does hate it so.’

  ‘I don’t wonder,’ said the China Cat very distinctly.

  ‘What!’ said Tavy, half-way into his night-shirt.

  ‘I said, I don’t wonder, Octavius,’ said the China Cat, and rose from her sitting position, stretched her china legs and waved her white china tail.

  ‘You can speak?’ said Tavy.

  ‘Can’t you see I can? — hear I mean?’ said the Cat. ‘I belong to you now, so I can speak to you. I couldn’t before. It wouldn’t have been manners.’

  Tavy, his night-shirt round his neck, sat down on the edge of the bed with his mouth open.

  ‘Come, don’t look so silly,’ said the Cat, taking a walk along the high wooden mantelpiece, ‘any one would think you didn’t like me to talk to you.’

  ‘I love you to,’ said Tavy recovering himself a little.

  ‘Well then,’ said the Cat.

  ‘May I touch you?’ Tavy asked timidly.

  ‘Of course! I belong to you. Look out!’ The China Cat gathered herself together and jumped. Tavy caught her.

  It was quite a shock to find when one stroked her that the China Cat, though alive, was still china, hard, cold, and smooth to the touch, and yet perfectly brisk and absolutely bendable as any flesh and blood cat.

  ‘Dear, dear white pussy,’ said Tavy, ‘I do love you.’

  ‘And I love you,’ purred the Cat, ‘otherwise I should never have lowered myself to begin a conversation.’

  ‘I wish you were a real cat,’ said Tavy.

  ‘I am,’ said the Cat. ‘Now how shall we amuse ourselves? I suppose you don’t care for sport — mousing, I mean?’

  ‘I never tried,’ said Tavy, ‘and I think I rather wouldn’t.’

  ‘Very well then, Octavius,’ said the Cat. ‘I’ll take you to the White Cat’s Castle. Get into bed. Bed makes a good travelling carriage, especially when you haven’t any other. Shut your eyes.’

  Tavy did as he was told. Shut his eyes, but could not keep them shut. He opened them a tiny, tiny chink, and sprang up. He was not in bed. He was on a couch of soft beast-skin, and the couch stood in a splendid hall, whose walls were of gold and ivory. By him stood the White Cat, no longer china, but real live cat — and fur — as cats should be.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘The journey didn’t take long, did it? Now we’ll have that splendid supper, out of the fairy tale, with the invisible hands waiting on us.’

  She clapped her paws — paws now as soft as white velvet — and a table-cloth floated into the room; then knives and forks and spoons and glasses, the table was laid, the dishes drifted in, and they began to eat. There happened to be every single thing Tavy liked best to eat. After supper there was music and singing, and Tavy, having kissed a white, soft, furry forehead, went to bed in a gold four-poster with a counterpane of butterflies’ wings. He awoke at home. On the mantelpiece sat the White Cat, looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth. And all her furriness had gone with her voice. She was silent — and china.

  Tavy spoke to her. But she would not answer. Nor did she speak all day. Only at night when he was getting into bed she suddenly mewed, stretched, and said:

  ‘Make haste, there’s a play acted to-night at my castle.’

  Tavy made haste, and was rewarded by another glorious evening in the castle of the White Cat.

  And so the weeks went on. Days full of an ordinary little boy’s joys and sorrows, goodnesses and badnesses. Nights spent by a little Prince in the Magic Castle of the White Cat.

  Then came the day when Tavy’s mother spoke to him, and he, very scared and serious, told the China Cat what she had said.

  ‘I knew this would happen,’ said the Cat. ‘It always does. So you’re to leave your house next week. Well, there’s only one way out of the difficulty. Draw your sword, Tavy, and cut off my head and tail.’

  ‘And then will you turn into a Princess, and shall I have to marry you?’ Tavy asked with horror.

  ‘No, dear — no,’ said the Cat reassuringly. ‘I sha’n’t turn into anything. But you and mother will turn into happy people. I shall just not be any more — for you.’

  ‘Then I won’t do it,’ said Tavy.

  ‘But you must. Come, draw your sword, like a brave fairy Prince, and cut off my head.’

  The sword hung above
his bed, with the helmet and breast-plate Uncle James had given him last Christmas.

  ‘I’m not a fairy Prince,’ said the child. ‘I’m Tavy — and I love you.’

  ‘You love your mother better,’ said the Cat. ‘Come cut my head off. The story always ends like that. You love mother best. It’s for her sake.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tavy was trying to think it out. ‘Yes, I love mother best. But I love you. And I won’t cut off your head, — no, not even for mother.’

  ‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘I must do what I can!’

  She stood up, waving her white china tail, and before Tavy could stop her she had leapt, not, as before, into his arms, but on to the wide hearthstone.

  It was all over — the China Cat lay broken inside the high brass fender. The sound of the smash brought mother running.

  ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘Oh, Tavy — the China Cat!’

  ‘She would do it,’ sobbed Tavy. ‘She wanted me to cut off her head’n I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, dear,’ said mother sadly. ‘That only makes it worse. Pick up the pieces.’

  ‘There’s only two pieces,’ said Tavy. ‘Couldn’t you stick her together again?’

  ‘Why,’ said mother, holding the pieces close to the candle. ‘She’s been broken before. And mended.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Tavy, still sobbing. ‘Oh, my dear White Cat, oh, oh, oh!’ The last ‘oh’ was a howl of anguish.

  ‘Come, crying won’t mend her,’ said mother. ‘Look, there’s another piece of her, close to the shovel.’

  Tavy stooped.

  ‘That’s not a piece of cat,’ he said, and picked it up.

  It was a pale parchment label, tied to a key. Mother held it to the candle and read: ‘Key of the lock behind the knot in the mantelpiece panel in the white parlour.’

  ‘Tavy! I wonder! But ... where did it come from?’

  ‘Out of my White Cat, I s’pose,’ said Tavy, his tears stopping. ‘Are you going to see what’s in the mantelpiece panel, mother? Are you? Oh, do let me come and see too!’

  ‘You don’t deserve,’ mother began, and ended,—’Well, put your dressing-gown on then.’