Complete Novels of E Nesbit, page 203
The children said they were sorry. Philip added:
‘Do tell us a little about your city. It isn’t a question. We want to know if it’s magic. That isn’t a question either.’
‘I was about to tell you,’ said Mr. Noah, ‘and I will not answer questions. Of course it is magic. Everything in the world is magic, until you understand it.
‘And as to the city. I will just tell you a little of our history. Many thousand years ago all the cities of our country were built by a great and powerful giant, who brought the materials from far and wide. The place was peopled partly by persons of his choice, and partly by a sort of self-acting magic rather difficult to explain. As soon as the cities were built and the inhabitants placed here the life of the city began, and it was, to those who lived it, as though it had always been. The artisans toiled, the musicians played, and the poets sang. The astrologers, finding themselves in a tall tower evidently designed for such a purpose, began to observe the stars and to prophesy.’
‘I know that part,’ said Philip.
‘Very well,’ said the judge. ‘Then you know quite enough. Now I want to ask a little favour of you both. Would you mind escaping?’
‘If we only could,’ Lucy sighed.
‘The strain on my nerves is too much,’ said Mr. Noah feelingly. ‘Escape, my dear children, to please me, a very old man in indifferent health and poor spirits.’
‘But how — —’
‘Oh, you just walk out. You, my boy, can disguise yourself in your dressing-gown which I see has been placed on yonder chair, and I will leave my cloak for you, little girl.’
They both said ‘Thank you,’ and Lucy added: ‘But how?’
‘Through the door,’ said the judge. ‘There is a rule about putting prisoners on their honour not to escape, but there have not been any prisoners for so long that I don’t suppose they put you on honour. No? You can just walk out of the door. There are many charitable persons in the city who will help to conceal you. The front-door key turns easily, and I myself will oil it as I go out. Good-bye — thank you so much for falling in with my little idea. Accept an old man’s blessing. Only don’t tell the gaoler. He would never forgive me.’
He got off his mat, rolled it up and went.
‘Well!’ said Lucy.
‘Well!’ said Philip.
‘I suppose we go?’ he said. But Lucy said, ‘What about the gaoler? Won’t he catch it if we bolt?’
Philip felt this might be true. It was annoying, and as bad as being put on one’s honour.
‘Bother!’ was what he said.
And then the gaoler came in. He looked pale and worried.
‘I am so awfully sorry,’ he began. ‘I thought I should enjoy having you here, but my nerves are all anyhow. The very sound of your voices. I can’t write a line. My brain reels. I wonder whether you’d be good enough to do a little thing for me? Would you mind escaping?’
‘But won’t you get into trouble?’
‘Nothing could be worse than this,’ said the gaoler, with feeling. ‘I had no idea that children’s voices were so penetrating. Go, go. I implore you to escape. Only don’t tell the judge. I am sure he would never forgive me.’
After that, what prisoner would not immediately have escaped?
The two children only waited till the sound of the gaoler’s keys had died away on the stairs, to open their door, run down the many steps and slip out of the prison gate. They walked a little way in silence. There were plenty of people about, but no one seemed to notice them.
‘Which way shall we go?’ Lucy asked. ‘I wish we’d asked him where the Charitables live.’
‘I think,’ Philip began; but Lucy was not destined to know what he thought.
There was a sudden shout, a clattering of horses’ hoofs, and all the faces in the square turned their way.
‘They’ve seen us,’ cried Philip. ‘Run, run, run!’
He himself ran, and he ran toward the gate-house that stood at the top of the ladder stairs by which they had come up, and behind him came the shouting and clatter of hot pursuit. The captain stood in the gateway alone, and just as Philip reached the gate the captain turned into the guard-room and pretended not to see anything. Philip had never run so far or so fast. His breath came in deep sobs; but he reached the ladder and began quickly to go down. It was easier than going up.
And behind him the clatter of hot pursuit.
He was nearly at the bottom when the whole ladder bridge leapt wildly into the air, and he fell from it and rolled in the thick grass of that illimitable prairie.
All about him the air was filled with great sounds, like the noise of the earthquakes that destroy beautiful big palaces, and factories which are big but not beautiful. It was deafening, it was endless, it was unbearable.
Yet he had to bear that, and more. And now he felt a curious swelling sensation in his hands, then in his head — then all over. It was extremely painful. He rolled over in his agony, and saw the foot of an enormous giant quite close to him. The foot had a large, flat, ugly shoe, and seemed to come out of grey, low-hanging, swaying curtains. There was a gigantic column too, black against the grey. The ladder bridge, cast down, lay on the ground not far from him.
Pain and fear overcame Philip, and he ceased to hear or feel or know anything.
When he recovered consciousness he found himself under the table in the drawing-room. The swelling feeling was over, and he did not seem to be more than his proper size.
He could see the flat feet of the nurse and the lower part of her grey skirt, and a rattling and rumbling on the table above told him that she was doing as she had said she would, and destroying his city. He saw also a black column which was the leg of the table. Every now and then the nurse walked away to put back into its proper place something he had used in the building. And once she stood on a chair, and he heard the tinkling of the lustre-drops as she hooked them into their places on the chandelier.
‘If I lie very still,’ said he, ‘perhaps she won’t see me. But I do wonder how I got here. And what a dream to tell Helen about!’
He lay very still. The nurse did not see him. And when she had gone to her breakfast Philip crawled out.
Yes, the city was gone. Not a trace of it. The very tables were back in their proper places.
Philip went back to his proper place, which, of course, was bed.
‘What a splendid dream,’ he said, as he cuddled down between the sheets, ‘and now it’s all over!’
Of course he was quite wrong.
CHAPTER III. LOST
Philip went to sleep, and dreamed that he was at home again and that Helen had come to his bedside to call him, leading a white pony that was to be his very own. It was a pony that looked clever enough for anything, and he was not surprised when it shook hands with him; but when it said, ‘Well, we must be moving,’ and began to try to put on Philip’s shoes and stockings, Philip called out, ‘Here, I say, stop that,’ and awoke to a room full of sunshine, but empty of ponies.
‘Oh, well,’ said Philip, ‘I suppose I’d better get up.’ He looked at his new silver watch, one of Helen’s parting presents, and saw that it marked ten o’clock.
‘I say, you know,’ said he to the watch, ‘you can’t be right.’ And he shook it to encourage it to think over the matter. But the watch still said ‘ten’ quite plainly and unmistakably.
Now the Grange breakfast time was at eight. And Philip was certain he had not been called.
‘This is jolly rum,’ he remarked. ‘It must be the watch. Perhaps it’s stopped.’
But it hadn’t stopped. Therefore it must be two hours past breakfast time. The moment he had thought this he became extremely hungry. He got out of bed as soon as he knew exactly how hungry he was.
There was no one about, so he made his way to the bath-room and spent a happy hour with the hot water and the cold water, and the brown Windsor soap and the shaving soap and the nail brush and the flesh brush and the loofahs and the shower bath and the three sponges. He had not, so far, been able thoroughly to investigate and enjoy all these things. But now there was no one to interfere, and he enjoyed himself to that degree that he quite forgot to wonder why he hadn’t been called. He thought of a piece of poetry that Helen had made for him, about the bath; and when he had done playing he lay on his back in water that was very hot indeed, trying to remember the poetry. The water was very nearly cold by the time he had remembered the poetry. It was called Dreams of a Giant Life, and this was it.
DREAMS OF A GIANT LIFE
What was I once — in ages long ago?
I look back, and I see myself. We grow
So changed through changing years, I hardly see
How that which I look back on could be me?
Glorious and splendid, giant-like I stood
On a white cliff, topped by a darkling wood.
Below me, placid, bright and sparkling, lay
The equal waters of a lovely bay.
White cliffs surrounded it — and calm and fair
It lay asleep, in warm and silent air.
I stood alone — naked and strong, upright
My limbs gleamed in the clear pure golden light.
I saw below me all the water lie
Expecting something, and that thing was I.
I leaned, I plunged, the waves splashed over me.
I lay, a giant in a little sea.
White cliffs all round, wood-crowned, and as I lay
I saw the glories of the dying day;
No wind disturbed my sea; the sunlight was
As though it came through windows of gold glass.
The white cliffs rose above me, and around
The clear sea lay, pure, perfect and profound;
And I was master of the cliffs, the sea,
And the gold light that brightened over me.
Far miles away my giant feet showed plain,
Rising, like rocks out of the quiet main.
On them a lighthouse could be built, to show
Wayfaring ships the way they must not go.
I was the master of that cliff-girt sea.
I splashed my hands, the waves went over me,
And in the dimples of my body lay
Little rock-pools, where small sea-beasts might play.
I found a boat, its deck was perforate;
I launched it, and it dared the storms of fate.
Its woollen sail stood out against the sky,
Supported by a mast of ivory.
Another boat rode proudly to my hand,
Upon its deck a thousand spears did stand;
I launched it, and it sped full fierce and fast
Against the boat that had the ivory mast
And woollen sail and perforated deck.
The two went down in one stupendous wreck!
Beneath the waves I chased with joyous hand
Upon the bed of an imagined sand
The slippery brown sea mouse, that still escaped,
Where the deep cave beneath my knee was shaped.
Caught it at last and caged it into rest
Upon the shallows of my submerged breast.
Then, as I lay, wrapped as in some kind arm
By the sweet world of waters soft and warm,
A great voice cried, from some far unseen shore,
And I was not a giant any more.
‘Come out, come out,’ cried out the voice of power,
‘You’ve been in for a quarter of an hour.
The water’s cold — come, Master Pip — your head
‘S all wet, and it is time you were in bed.’
I rose all dripping from the magic sea
And left the ships that had been slaves to me —
The soap-dish, with its perforated deck,
The nail-brush, that had rushed to loss and wreck,
The flannel sail, the tooth-brush that was mast,
The sleek soap-mouse — I left them all at last.
I went out of that magic sea and cried
Because the time came when I must be dried
And leave the splendour of a giant’s joy
And go to bed — a little well-washed boy.
When he had quite remembered the poetry he had another shower-bath, and then when he had enjoyed the hot rough towels out of the hot cupboard he went back to his room to dress. He now felt how deeply he wanted his breakfast, so he dressed himself with all possible speed, even forgetting to fasten his bootlaces properly. He was in such a hurry that he dropped his collar-stud, and it was as he stooped to pick it up that he remembered his dream. Do you know that was really the first time he had thought of it. The dream — that indeed would be something to think about.
Breakfast was the really important thing. He went down very hungry indeed. ‘I shall ask for my breakfast directly I get down,’ he said. ‘I shall ask the first person I meet.’ And he met no one.
There was no one on the stairs, or in the hall, or in the dining-room, or in the drawing-room. The library and billiard-room were empty of living people, and the door of the nursery was locked. So then Philip made his way into the regions beyond the baize door, where the servants’ quarters were. And there was no one in the kitchen, or in the servants’ hall, or in the butler’s pantry, or in the scullery, or the washhouse, or the larder. In all that big house, and it was much bigger than it looked from the front because of the long wings that ran out on each side of its back — in all that big house there was no one but Philip. He felt certain of this before he ran upstairs and looked in all the bedrooms and in the little picture gallery and the music-room, and then in the servants’ bedrooms and the very attics. There were interesting things in those attics, but Philip only remembered that afterwards. Now he tore down the stairs three at a time. All the room doors were open as he had left them, and somehow those open doors frightened him more than anything else. He ran along the corridors, down more stairs, past more open doors and out through the back kitchen, along the moss-grown walk by the brick wall and so round by the three yew trees and the mounting block to the stable-yard. And there was no one there. Neither coachman nor groom nor stable-boys. And there was no one in the stables, or the coach-house, or the harness-room, or the loft.
Philip felt that he could not go back into the house. Something terrible must have happened. Was it possible that any one could want the Grange servants enough to kidnap them? Philip thought of the nurse and felt that, at least as far as she was concerned, it was not possible. Or perhaps it was magic! A sort of Sleeping-Beauty happening! Only every one had vanished instead of just being put to sleep for a hundred years.
He was alone in the middle of the stable-yard when the thought came to him.
‘Perhaps they’re only made invisible. Perhaps they’re all here and watching me and making fun of me.’
He stood still to think this. It was not a pleasant thought.
Suddenly he straightened his little back, and threw back his head.
‘They shan’t see I’m frightened anyway,’ he told himself. And then he remembered the larder.
‘I haven’t had any breakfast,’ he explained aloud, so as to be plainly heard by any invisible people who might be about. ‘I ought to have my breakfast. If nobody gives it to me I shall take my breakfast.’
He waited for an answer. But none came. It was very quiet in the stable-yard. Only the rattle of a halter ring against a manger, the sound of a hoof on stable stones, the cooing of pigeons and the rustle of straw in the loose-box broke the silence.
‘Very well,’ said Philip. ‘I don’t know what you think I ought to have for breakfast, so I shall take what I think.’
He drew a long breath, trying to draw courage in with it, threw back his shoulders more soldierly than ever, and marched in through the back door and straight to the larder. Then he took what he thought he ought to have for breakfast. This is what he thought:
1 cherry pie,
2 custards in cups,
1 cold sausage,
2 pieces of cold toast,
1 piece of cheese,
2 lemon cheese-cakes,
1 small jam tart (there was only one left),
Butter, 1 pat.
‘What jolly things the servants have to eat,’ he said. ‘I never knew. I thought that nothing but mutton and rice grew here.’
He put all the food on a silver tray and carried it out on to the terrace, which lies between the two wings at the back of the house. Then he went back for milk, but there was none to be seen so he got a white jug full of water. The spoons he couldn’t find, but he found a carving-fork and a fish-slice. Did you ever try to eat cherry pie with a fish-slice?
‘Whatever’s happened,’ said Philip to himself, through the cherry pie, ‘and whatever happens it’s as well to have had your breakfast.’ And he bit a generous inch off the cold sausage which he had speared with the carving-fork.
And now, sitting out in the good sunshine, and growing less and less hungry as he plied fish-slice and carving-fork, his mind went back to his dream, which began to seem more and more real. Suppose it really had happened? It might have; magic things did happen, it seemed. Look how all the people had vanished out of the house — out of the world too, perhaps.
‘Suppose every one’s vanished,’ said Philip. ‘Suppose I’m the only person left in the world who hasn’t vanished. Then everything in the world would belong to me. Then I could have everything that’s in all the toy shops.’ And his mind for a moment dwelt fondly on this beautiful idea.
Then he went on. ‘But suppose I vanished too? Perhaps if I were to vanish I could see the other people who have. I wonder how it’s done.’
He held his breath and tried hard to vanish. Have you ever tried this? It is not at all easy to do. Philip could not do it at all. He held his breath and he tried and he tried, but he only felt fatter and fatter and more and more as though in one more moment he should burst. So he let his breath go.
