Once on a Time Part 27

She repeated the lines in a voice so melting, yet withal so dignified, that the very chairs might have been expected to get up and walk out.

Udo imitated her as well as he could.

At about the time when Wiggs was just falling asleep, he repeated it in his fiftieth different voice.

"I'm sorry," said Hyacinth; "perhaps it isn't so good as Father thought it was."

"There's just one chance," said Udo. "It's possible it may have to be said on an empty stomach. I'll try it to-morrow before breakfast."

Upstairs Wiggs was dreaming of the dancing that she had given up for ever.

And what Belvane was doing I really don't know.

CHAPTER XV

THERE IS A LOVER WAITING FOR HYACINTH

So the next morning before breakfast Wiggs went up on to the castle walls and wished. She looked over the meadows, and across the peaceful stream that wandered through them, to the forest where she had met her fairy, and she gave a little sigh. "Good-bye, dancing,"

she said; and then she held the ring up and went on bravely, "Please I was a very good girl all yesterday, and I wish that Prince Udo may be well again."

For a full minute there was silence. Then from the direction of Udo's room below there came these remarkable words:

"_Take the beastly stuff away, and bring me a beefsteak and a flagon of sack!_"

Between smiles and tears Wiggs murmured, "He _sounds_ all right. I _am_ g--glad."

And then she could bear it no longer. She hurried down and out of the Palace--away, away from Udo and the Princess and the Countess and all their talk, to the cool friendly forest, there to be alone and to think over all that she had lost.

It was very quiet in the forest. At the foot of her own favourite tree, a veteran of many hundred summers who stood sentinel over an open glade that dipped to a gurgling brook and climbed gently away from it, she sat down. On the soft green yonder she might have danced, an enchanted place, and now--never, never, never. . . .

How long had she sat there? It must have been a long time--because the forest had been so quiet, and now it was so full of sound. The trees were murmuring something to her, and the birds were singing it, and the brook was trying to tell it too, but it would keep chuckling over the very idea so that you could hardly hear what it was saying, and there were rustlings in the gra.s.s--"Get up, get up," everything was calling to her; "dance, dance."

She got up, a little frightened. Everything seemed so strangely beautiful. She had never felt it like this before. Yes, she would dance. She must say, "Thank you," for all this somehow; perhaps they would excuse her if it was not very well expressed.

"This will just be for 'Thank you'" she said as she got up. "I shall never dance again."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _And then she danced_]

And then she danced. . . .

_Where are you, Hyacinth? There is a lover waiting for you somewhere, my dear._

It is the first of Spring. The blackbird opens his yellow beak, and whistles cool and clear. There is blue magic in the morning; the sky, deep-blue above, melts into white where it meets the hills. The wind waits for you up yonder--will you go to meet it? Ah, stay here! The hedges have put on their green coats for you; misty green are the tall elms from which the rooks are chattering. Along the clean white road, between the primrose banks, he comes. Will you be round this corner?----or the next? He is looking for you, Hyacinth.

(She rested, breathless, and then danced again.)

It is summer afternoon. All the village is at rest save one.

"Cuck-oo!" comes from the deep dark trees; "Cuck-oo!" he calls again, and flies away to send back the answer. The fields, all green and gold, sleep undisturbed by the full river which creeps along them.

The air is heavy with the scent of may. Where are you, Hyacinth? Is not this the trysting-place? I have waited for you so long! . . .

She stopped, and the watcher in the bushes moved silently away, his mind aflame with fancies.

Wiggs went back to the Palace to tell everybody that she could dance.

"Shall we tell her how it happened?" said Udo jauntily. "I just recited a couple of lines--poetry, you know--backwards, and--well, here I am!"

"O----oh!" said Wiggs.

CHAPTER XVI

BELVANE ENJOYS HERSELF

The entrance of an attendant into his room that morning to bring him his early bran-mash had awakened Udo. As soon as she was gone he jumped up, shook the straw from himself, and said in a very pa.s.sion of longing,

_Bo, boll, bill, bole._ _Wo, woll, will, wole._

He felt it was his last chance. Exhausted by his effort, he fell back on the straw and dropped asleep again. It was nearly an hour later that he became properly awake.

Into his feelings I shall not enter at any length; I leave that to Roger Scurvilegs. Between ourselves Roger is a bit of a sn.o.b. The degradation to a Prince of Araby to be turned into an animal so ludicrous, the delight of a Prince of Araby at regaining his own form, it is this that he chiefly dwells upon. Really, I think you or I would have been equally delighted. I am sure we can guess how Udo felt about it.

He strutted about the room, he gazed at himself in every gla.s.s, he held out his hand to an imaginary Hyacinth with "Ah, dear Princess, and how are we this morning?" Never had he felt so handsome and so sure of himself. It was in the middle of one of his pirouettings, that he caught sight of the unfortunate bran-mash, and uttered the remarkable words which I have already recorded.

The actual meeting with Hyacinth was even better than he had expected.

Hardly able to believe that it was true, she seized his hands impulsively and cried:

"Oh, Prince Udo! oh, my dear, I _am_ so glad!"

Udo twirled his moustache and felt a very gay dog indeed.

At breakfast (where Udo did himself extremely well) they discussed plans. The first thing was to summon the Countess into their presence. An attendant was sent to fetch her.

"If you would like me to conduct the interview," said Udo, "I've no doubt that----"

"I think I shall be all right now that you are with me. I shan't feel so afraid of her now."

The attendant came in again.

"Her ladys.h.i.+p is not yet down, your Royal Highness."

"Tell her that I wish to see her directly she _is_ down," said the Princess.

The attendant withdrew.