by E. Nesbit
VII
BELINDA AND BELLAMANT; OR THE BELLS OF CARRILLON-LAND
There is a certain country where a king is never allowed to reign whilea queen can be found. They like queens much better than kings in thatcountry. I can't think why. If some one has tried to teach you a littlehistory, you will perhaps think that this is the Salic law. But itisn't. In the biggest city of that odd country there is a greatbell-tower (higher than the clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament,where they put M.P.'s who forget their manners). This bell-tower hadseven bells in it, very sweet-toned splendid bells, made expressly toring on the joyful occasions when a princess was born who would be queensome day. And the great tower was built expressly for the bells to ringin. So you see what a lot they thought of queens in that country. Now inall the bells there are bell-people--it is their voices that you hearwhen the bells ring. All that about its being the clapper of the bell ismere nonsense, and would hardly deceive a child. I don't know why peoplesay such things. Most Bell-people are very energetic busy folk, who lovethe sound of their own voices, and hate being idle, and when nearly twohundred years had gone by, and no princesses had been born, they gottired of living in bells that were never rung. So they slipped out ofthe belfry one fine frosty night, and left the big beautiful bellsempty, and went off to find other homes. One of them went to live in adinner-bell, and one in a school-bell, and the rest all foundhomes--they did not mind where--just anywhere, in fact, where they couldfind any Bell-person kind enough to give them board and lodging. Andevery one was surprised at the increased loudness in the voices of thesehospitable bells. For, of course, the Bell-people from the belfry didtheir best to help in the housework as polite guests should, and alwaysadded their voices to those of their hosts on all occasions whenbell-talk was called for. And the seven big beautiful bells in thebelfry were left hollow and dark and quite empty, except for theclappers who did not care about the comforts of a home.
Now of course a good house does not remain empty long, especially whenthere is no rent to pay, and in a very short time the seven bells allhad tenants, and they were all the kind of folk that no respectableBell-people would care to be acquainted with.
They had been turned out of other bells--cracked bells and broken bells,the bells of horses that had been lost in snowstorms or of ships thathad gone down at sea. They hated work, and they were a glum, silent,disagreeable people, but as far as they could be pleased about anythingthey were pleased to live in bells that were never rung, in houses wherethere was nothing to do. They sat hunched up under the black domes oftheir houses, dressed in darkness and cobwebs, and their only pleasurewas idleness, their only feasts the thick dusty silence that lies heavyin all belfries where the bells never ring. They hardly ever spoke evento each other, and in the whispers that good Bell-people talk in amongthemselves, and that no one can hear but the bat whose ear for music isvery fine and who has himself a particularly high voice, and when theydid speak they quarrelled.
And when at last the bells _were_ rung for the birth of a Princess thewicked Bell-people were furious. Of course they had to _ring_--a bellcan't help that when the rope is pulled--but their voices were so uglythat people were quite shocked.
'What poor taste our ancestors must have had,' they said, 'to thinkthese were good bells!'
(You remember the bells had not rung for nearly two hundred years.)
'Dear me,' said the King to the Queen, 'what odd ideas people had in theold days. I always understood that these bells had beautiful voices.'
'They're quite hideous,' said the Queen. And so they were. Now thatnight the lazy Bell-folk came down out of the belfry full of angeragainst the Princess whose birth had disturbed their idleness. There isno anger like that of a lazy person who is made to work against hiswill.
And they crept out of the dark domes of their houses and came down intheir dust dresses and cobweb cloaks, and crept up to the palace whereevery one had gone to bed long before, and stood round themother-of-pearl cradle where the baby princess lay asleep. And theyreached their seven dark right hands out across the white satincoverlet, and the oldest and hoarsest and laziest said:
'She shall grow uglier every day, except Sundays, and every Sunday sheshall be seven times prettier than the Sunday before.'
'Why not uglier every day, and a double dose on Sunday?' asked theyoungest and spitefullest of the wicked Bell-people.
'Because there's no rule without an exception,' said the eldest andhoarsest and laziest, 'and she'll feel it all the more if she's prettyonce a week. And,' he added, 'this shall go on till she finds a bellthat doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't madeto ring.'
'Why not for ever?' asked the young and spiteful.
'Nothing goes on for ever,' said the eldest Bell-person, 'not evenill-luck. And we have to leave her a way out. It doesn't matter. She'llnever know what it is. Let alone finding it.'
Then they went back to the belfry and rearranged as well as they couldthe comfortable web-and-owls' nest furniture of their houses which hadall been shaken up and disarranged by that absurd ringing of bells atthe birth of a Princess that nobody could really be pleased about.
When the Princess was two weeks old the King said to the Queen:
'My love--the Princess is not so handsome as I thought she was.'
'Nonsense, Henry,' said the Queen, 'the light's not good, that's all.'
Next day--it was Sunday--the King pulled back the lace curtains of thecradle and said:
'The light's good enough now--and you see she's----'
He stopped.
'It _must_ have been the light,' he said, 'she looks all right to-day.'
'Of course she does, a precious,' said the Queen.
But on Monday morning His Majesty was quite sure really that thePrincess was rather plain, for a Princess. And when Sunday came, and thePrincess had on her best robe and the cap with the little white ribbonsin the frill, he rubbed his nose and said there was no doubt dress didmake a great deal of difference. For the Princess was now as pretty as anew daisy.
The Princess was several years old before her mother could be got to seethat it really was better for the child to wear plain clothes and a veilon week days. On Sundays, of course she could wear her best frock and aclean crown just like anybody else.
Of course nobody ever told the Princess how ugly she was. She wore aveil on week-days, and so did every one else in the palace, and she wasnever allowed to look in the glass except on Sundays, so that she had noidea that she was not as pretty all the week as she was on the first dayof it. She grew up therefore quite contented. But the parents were indespair.
'Because,' said King Henry, 'it's high time she was married. We ought tochoose a king to rule the realm--I have always looked forward to hermarrying at twenty-one--and to our retiring on a modest competence tosome nice little place in the country where we could have a few pigs.'
'And a cow,' said the Queen, wiping her eyes.
'And a pony and trap,' said the King.
'And hens,' said the Queen, 'yes. And now it can never, never be. Lookat the child! I just ask you! Look at her!'
'_No_,' said the King firmly, 'I haven't done that since she was ten,except on Sundays.'
'Couldn't we get a prince to agree to a "Sundays only" marriage--not lethim see her during the week?'
'Such an unusual arrangement,' said the King, 'would involve veryawkward explanations, and I can't think of any except the true ones,which would be quite impossible to give. You see, we should want afirst-class prince, and no really high-toned Highness would take a wifeon those terms.'
'It's a thoroughly comfortable kingdom,' said the Queen doubtfully. 'Theyoung man would be handsomely provided for for life.'
'I couldn't marry Belinda to a time-server or a place-worshipper,' saidthe King decidedly.
Meanwhile the Princess had taken the matter into her own hands. She hadfallen in love.
You know, of course, that a handsome book is sent out every year to allthe kin
gs who have daughters to marry. It is rather like the illustratedcatalogues of Liberty's or Peter Robinson's, only instead ofillustrations showing furniture or ladies' cloaks and dresses, thepictures are all of princes who are of an age to be married, and arelooking out for suitable wives. The book is called the 'Royal MatchCatalogue Illustrated,'--and besides the pictures of the princes it haslittle printed bits about their incomes, accomplishments, prospects, andtempers, and relations.
Now the Princess saw this book--which is never shown to princesses, butonly to their parents--it was carelessly left lying on the round tablein the parlour. She looked all through it, and she hated each princemore than the one before till she came to the very end, and on the lastpage of all, screwed away in a corner, was the picture of a prince whowas quite as good-looking as a prince has any call to be.
'I like _you_,' said Belinda softly. Then she read the little bit ofprint underneath.
_Prince Bellamant, aged twenty-four. Wants Princess who doesn't objectto a christening curse. Nature of curse only revealed in the strictestconfidence. Good tempered. Comfortably off. Quiet habits. No relations._
'Poor dear,' said the Princess. 'I wonder what the curse is! I'm sure_I_ shouldn't mind!'
The blue dusk of evening was deepening in the garden outside. ThePrincess rang for the lamp and went to draw the curtain. There was arustle and a faint high squeak--and something black flopped on to thefloor and fluttered there.
'Oh--it's a bat,' cried the Princess, as the lamp came in. 'I don't likebats.'
'Let me fetch a dust-pan and brush and sweep the nasty thing away,' saidthe parlourmaid.
'No, no,' said Belinda, 'it's hurt, poor dear,' and though she hatedbats she picked it up. It was horribly cold to touch, one wing draggedloosely. 'You can go, Jane,' said the Princess to the parlourmaid.
Then she got a big velvet-covered box that had had chocolate in it, andput some cotton wool in it and said to the Bat--
'You poor dear, is that comfortable?' and the Bat said:
'Quite, thanks.'
'Good gracious,' said the Princess jumping. 'I didn't know bats couldtalk.'
'Every one can talk,' said the Bat, 'but not every one can hear otherpeople talking. You have a fine ear as well as a fine heart.'
'Will your wing ever get well?' asked the Princess.
'I hope so,' said the Bat. 'But let's talk about you. Do you know why youwear a veil every day except Sundays?'
'Doesn't everybody?' asked Belinda.
'Only here in the palace,' said the Bat, 'that's on your account.'
'But why?' asked the Princess.
'Look in the glass and you'll know.'
'But it's wicked to look in the glass except on Sundays--and besidesthey're all put away,' said the Princess.
'If I were you,' said the Bat, 'I should go up into the attic where theyoungest kitchenmaid sleeps. Feel between the thatch and the wall justabove her pillow, and you'll find a little round looking-glass. But comeback here before you look at it.'
The Princess did exactly what the Bat told her to do, and when she hadcome back into the parlour and shut the door she looked in the littleround glass that the youngest kitchen-maid's sweetheart had given her.And when she saw her ugly, ugly, ugly face--for you must remember shehad been growing uglier every day since she was born--she screamed andthen she said:
'That's not me, it's a horrid picture.'
'It _is_ you, though,' said the Bat firmly but kindly; 'and now you seewhy you wear a veil all the week--and only look in the glass on Sunday.'
'But why,' asked the Princess in tears, 'why don't I look like that inthe Sunday looking-glasses?'
'Because you aren't like that on Sundays,' the Bat replied. 'Come,' itwent on, 'stop crying. I didn't tell you the dread secret of yourugliness just to make you cry--but because I know the way for you to beas pretty all the week as you are on Sundays, and since you've been sokind to me I'll tell you. Sit down close beside me, it fatigues me tospeak loud.'
The Princess did, and listened through her veil and her tears, while theBat told her all that I began this story by telling you.
'My great-great-great-great-grandfather heard the tale years ago,' hesaid, 'up in the dark, dusty, beautiful, comfortable, cobwebby belfry,and I have heard scraps of it myself when the evil Bell-people werequarrelling, or talking in their sleep, lazy things!'
'It's very good of you to tell me all this,' said Belinda, 'but what amI to do?'
'You must find the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and neverwill ring, and wasn't made to ring.'
'If I were a prince,' said the Princess, 'I could go out and seek myfortune.'
'Princesses have fortunes as well as princes,' said the Bat.
'But father and mother would never let me go and look for mine.'
'Think!' said the Bat, 'perhaps you'll find a way.'
So Belinda thought and thought. And at last she got the book that hadthe portraits of eligible princes in it, and she wrote to the prince whohad the christening curse--and this is what she said:
'Princess Belinda of Carrillon-land is not afraid of christening curses. If Prince Bellamant would like to marry her he had better apply to her Royal Father in the usual way.
'_P.S._--I have seen your portrait.'
When the Prince got this letter he was very pleased, and wrote at oncefor Princess Belinda's likeness. Of course they sent him a picture ofher Sunday face, which was the most beautiful face in the world. As soonas he saw it he knew that this was not only the most beautiful face inthe world, but the dearest, so he wrote to her father by the nextpost--applying for her hand in the usual way and enclosing the mostrespectable references. The King told the Princess.
'Come,' said he, 'what do you say to this young man?'
And the Princess, of course, said, 'Yes, please.'
So the wedding-day was fixed for the first Sunday in June.
But when the Prince arrived with all his glorious following of courtiersand men-at-arms, with two pink peacocks and a crown-case full ofdiamonds for his bride, he absolutely refused to be married on a Sunday.Nor would he give any reason for his refusal. And then the King lost histemper and broke off the match, and the Prince went away.
But he did not go very far. That night he bribed a page-boy to show himwhich was the Princess's room, and he climbed up by the jasmine throughthe dark rose-scented night, and tapped at the window.
'Who's dhere?' said the Princess inside in the dark.
'Me,' said the Prince in the dark outside.
'Thed id wasnd't true?' said the Princess. 'They toad be you'd riddedaway.'
'What a cold you've got, my Princess,' said the Prince hanging on by thejasmine boughs.
'It's not a cold,' sniffed the Princess.
'Then ... oh you dear ... were you crying because you thought I'd gone?'he said.
'I suppose so,' said she.
He said, 'You dear!' again, and kissed her hands.
'_Why_ wouldn't you be married on a Sunday?' she asked.
'It's the curse, dearest,' he explained, 'I couldn't tell any one butyou. The fact is Malevola wasn't asked to my christening so she doomedme to be ... well, she said "moderately good-looking all the week, andtoo ugly for words on Sundays." So you see! You _will_ be married on aweek-day, won't you?'
'But I can't,' said the Princess, 'because I've got a curse too--onlyI'm ugly all the week and pretty on Sundays.'
'How extremely tiresome,' said the Prince, 'but can't you be cured?'
'Oh yes,' said the Princess, and told him how. 'And you,' she asked, 'isyours quite incurable?'
'Not at all,' he answered, 'I've only got to stay under water for fiveminutes and the spell will be broken. But you see, beloved, thedifficulty is that I can't do it. I've practised regularly, from a boy,in the sea, and in the swimming bath, and even in my wash-handbasin--hours at a time I've practised--but I never can keep under morethan two minutes.'
'Oh dear,' said the Princess, 'this is dreadf
ul.'
'It is rather trying,' the Prince answered.
'You're sure you like me,' she asked suddenly, 'now you know that I'monly pretty once a week?'
'I'd die for you,' said he.
'Then I'll tell you what. Send all your courtiers away, and take asituation as under-gardener here--I know we want one. And then everynight I'll climb down the jasmine and we'll go out together and seek ourfortune. I'm sure we shall find it.'
And they did go out. The very next night, and the next, and the next,and the next, and the next, and the next. And they did not find theirfortunes, but they got fonder and fonder of each other. They could notsee each other's faces, but they held hands as they went along throughthe dark.
And on the seventh night, as they passed by a house that showed chinksof light through its shutters, they heard a bell being rung outside forsupper, a bell with a very loud and beautiful voice. But instead ofsaying--
'Supper's ready,' as any one would have expected, the bell was saying--
Ding dong dell! _I_ could tell Where you ought to go To break the spell.
Then some one left off ringing the bell, so of course it couldn't sayany more. So the two went on. A little way down the road a cow-belltinkled behind the wet hedge of the lane. And it said--not, 'Here I am,quite safe,' as a cow-bell should, but--
Ding dong dell All will be well If you...
Then the cow stopped walking and began to eat, so the bell couldn't sayany more. The Prince and Princess went on, and you will not be surprisedto hear that they heard the voices of five more bells that night. Thenext was a school-bell. The schoolmaster's little boy thought it wouldbe fun to ring it very late at night--but his father came and caught himbefore the bell could say any more than--
Ding a dong dell You can break up the spell By taking...
So that was no good.
Then there were the three bells that were the sign over the door of aninn where people were happily dancing to a fiddle, because there was awedding. These bells said:
We are the Merry three Bells, bells, bells. You are two To undo Spells, spells, spells...
Then the wind who was swinging the bells suddenly thought of anappointment he had made with a pine forest, to get up an entertainingimitation of sea-waves for the benefit of the forest nymphs who hadnever been to the seaside, and he went off--so, of course, the bellscouldn't ring any more, and the Prince and Princess went on down thedark road.
There was a cottage and the Princess pulled her veil closely over herface, for yellow light streamed from its open door--and it was aWednesday.
Inside a little boy was sitting on the floor--quite a little boy--heought to have been in bed long before, and I don't know why he wasn't.And he was ringing a little tinkling bell that had dropped off a sleigh.
And this little bell said:
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know, and I'll tell, tell, tell. Find the Enchanter of the Ringing Well, He will show you how to break the spell, spell, spell. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know....
And so on, over and over, again and again, because the little boy wasquite contented to go on shaking his sleigh-bell for ever and ever.
'So now we know,' said the Prince, 'isn't that glorious?'
'Yes, very, but where's the Enchanter of the Ringing Well?' said thePrincess doubtfully.
'Oh, I've got _his_ address in my pocket-book,' said the Prince. 'He'smy god-father. He was one of the references I gave your father.'
So the next night the Prince brought a horse to the garden, and he andthe Princess mounted, and rode, and rode, and rode, and in the grey dawnthey came to Wonderwood, and in the very middle of that the Magician'sPalace stands.
The Princess did not like to call on a perfect stranger so very early inthe morning, so they decided to wait a little and look about them.
The castle was very beautiful, decorated with a conventional design ofbells and bell ropes, carved in white stone.
Luxuriant plants of American bell-vine covered the drawbridge andportcullis. On a green lawn in front of the castle was a well, with acurious bell-shaped covering suspended over it. The lovers leaned overthe mossy fern-grown wall of the well, and, looking down, they could seethat the narrowness of the well only lasted for a few feet, and belowthat it spread into a cavern where water lay in a big pool.
'What cheer?' said a pleasant voice behind them. It was the Enchanter,an early riser, like Darwin was, and all other great scientific men.
They told him what cheer.
'But,' Prince Bellamant ended, 'it's really no use. I can't keep underwater more than two minutes however much I try. And my preciousBelinda's not likely to find any silly old bell that doesn't ring, andcan't ring, and never will ring, and was never made to ring.'
'Ho, ho,' laughed the Enchanter with the soft full laughter of old age.'You've come to the right shop. Who told you?'
'The bells,' said Belinda.
'Ah, yes.' The old man frowned kindly upon them. 'You must be very fondof each other?'
'We are,' said the two together.
'Yes,' the Enchanter answered, 'because only true lovers can hear thetrue speech of the bells, and then only when they're together. Well,there's the bell!'
He pointed to the covering of the well, went forward, and touched somelever or spring. The covering swung out from above the well, and hungover the grass grey with the dew of dawn.
'_That?_' said Bellamant.
'That,' said his god-father. 'It doesn't ring, and it can't ring, and itnever will ring, and it was never made to ring. Get into it.'
'Eh?' said Bellamant forgetting his manners.
The old man took a hand of each and led them under the bell.
They looked up. It had windows of thick glass, and high seats aboutfour feet from its edge, running all round inside.
'Take your seats,' said the Enchanter.
Bellamant lifted his Princess to the bench and leaped up beside her.
'Now,' said the old man, 'sit still, hold each other's hands, and foryour lives don't move.'
He went away, and next moment they felt the bell swing in the air. Itswung round till once more it was over the well, and then it went down,down, down.
'I'm not afraid, with you,' said Belinda, because she was, dreadfully.
Down went the bell. The glass windows leaped into light, looking throughthem the two could see blurred glories of lamps in the side of the cave,magic lamps, or perhaps merely electric, which, curiously enough haveceased to seem magic to us nowadays. Then with a plop the lower edge ofthe bell met the water, the water rose inside it, a little, then not anymore. And the bell went down, down, and above their heads the greenwater lapped against the windows of the bell.
'You're under water--if we stay five minutes,' Belinda whispered.
'Yes, dear,' said Bellamant, and pulled out his ruby-studdedchronometer.
'It's five minutes for you, but oh!' cried Belinda, 'it's _now_ for me.For I've found the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and neverwill ring, and wasn't made to ring. Oh Bellamant dearest, it's Thursday._Have_ I got my Sunday face?'
She tore away her veil, and his eyes, fixed upon her face, could notleave it.
'Oh dream of all the world's delight,' he murmured, 'how beautiful youare.'
Neither spoke again till a sudden little shock told them that the bellwas moving up again.
'Nonsense,' said Bellamant, 'it's not five minutes.'
But when they looked at the ruby-studded chronometer, it was nearlythree-quarters of an hour. But then, of course, the well was enchanted!
'Magic? Nonsense,' said the old man when they hung about him with thanksand pretty words. 'It's only a diving-bell. My own invention.'
* * * * *
So they went home and were married, and the Princess did not wear a veilat the wedding. She said she had had enoug
h veils to last her time.
* * * * *
And a year and a day after that a little daughter was born to them.
'Now sweetheart,' said King Bellamant--he was king now because the oldking and queen had retired from the business, and were keeping pigs andhens in the country as they had always planned to do--'dear sweetheartand life's love, I am going to ring the bells with my own hands, to showhow glad I am for you, and for the child, and for our good lifetogether.'
So he went out. It was very dark, because the baby princess had chosento be born at midnight.
The King went out to the belfry, that stood in the great, bare, quiet,moonlit square, and he opened the door. The furry-pussy bell-ropes, likehuge caterpillars, hung on the first loft. The King began to climb thecurly-wurly stone stair. And as he went up he heard a noise, thestrangest noises, stamping and rustling and deep breathings.
He stood still in the ringers' loft where the pussy-furry caterpillarybell-robes hung, and from the belfry above he heard the noise of strongfighting, and mixed with it the sound of voices angry and desperate, butwith a noble note that thrilled the soul of the hearer like the sound ofthe trumpet in battle. And the voices cried:
Down, down--away, away, When good has come ill may not stay, Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!
And the words broke and joined again, like water when it flows againstthe piers of a bridge. 'Down, down----.' 'Ill may not stay----.' 'Goodhas come----.' 'Away, away----.' And the joining came like the sound ofthe river that flows free again.
Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!
And then, as King Bellamant stood there, thrilled and yet, as it were,turned to stone, by the magic of this conflict that raged above him,there came a sweeping rush down the belfry ladder. The lantern hecarried showed him a rout of little, dark, evil people, clothed in dustand cobwebs, that scurried down the wooden steps gnashing their teethand growling in the bitterness of a deserved defeat. They passed andthere was silence. Then the King flew from rope to rope pulling lustily,and from above, the bells answered in their own clear beautifulvoices--because the good Bell-folk had driven out the usurpers and hadcome to their own again.
Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell! A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell! Sound, bell! Sound! Swell! Ring for joy and wish her well! May her life tell No tale of ill-spell! Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!
* * * * *
'But I don't see,' said King Bellamant, when he had told Queen Belindaall about it, 'how it was that I came to hear them. The Enchanter of theRinging Well said that only lovers could hear what the bells had to say,and then only when they were together.'
'You silly dear boy,' said Queen Belinda, cuddling the baby princessclose under her chin, 'we _are_ lovers, aren't we? And you don't supposeI wasn't with you when you went to ring the bells for our baby--my heartand soul anyway--all of me that matters!'
'Yes,' said the King, 'of course you were. That accounts!'