seated on the wall, like humpty-dumpty, gerald gasped, for two excellent reasons. firstly, he was a trifle breathed with the arduous climb, and, secondly, the sight of the girl whom he believed to be miss bird amazed him out of all common-sense. she stood under the wall, arrayed in a plain white dress, without frills or trimmings or ornaments, and looked more like a vestal of rome than a young lady of the twentieth century. and to add to haskins' astonishment she did not appear to be the least startled, or even surprised.
"so you have come at last?" she said softly, and the voice had in it the same melody that gerald had noted when the phonograph delivered its fantastical message.
"charity! miss bird!" he could hardly get his tongue to move.
the girl looked puzzled. "my name is mavis durham," she said simply.
haskins knew that he was awake, for he had grazed his knee while climbing and the pain assured him of material existence. otherwise, he would certainly have believed that the whole thing was a delicious dream. but on looking downward more intently he saw that, although the image of charity in physical appearance, this girl who declared herself to be mavis durham had a more spiritual look on her face. her eyes were turquoise-blue like the dancer's: she possessed the same wonderful hair, the color of ripe corn, about which miss bird's admirers raved, and her features were cast in the same classic mold; but she had a mystical, etherial, evanescent look about her, which hinted at more spirituality than was apparent in charity's pronouncedly material charms. it might have been the dying light of the evening, or the exalted state of mind consequent on emotion, that raised gerald to a high plane, but the girl looked as though she would vanish like a wreath of mist under the influence of the newly risen sun.
the resemblance between mavis and charity was certainly marvelous, and haskins could not account for the similarity; but after a long and searching look he became certain that the girls were two different flesh and blood human beings, and not one, as he had momentarily supposed. on acquiring this assurance in his innermost being the young man drew a breath of relief, since charity was more or less engaged to tod, and he did not wish to poach on tod's preserves. the question of the resemblance he determined swiftly to leave to a later date for answer, and meanwhile surrendered himself entirely to the incredible romance of the adventure. surely no more poetic happening had taken place since king cophetua had gone a-wooing his beggar maid.
but by the time his reflections had reached this point the princess of fairyland--for that she certainly was--betrayed excitement and uneasiness, waving her hands to intimate that he should hide behind the ruddy leaves of a copper beech, which over topped the wall and leaned against it. "bellaria will catch you," called up mavis softly, "and then i'll never see you again. get behind the beech. i'll return soon."
she sped lightly away, while haskins, still trying to assure himself that he was not dreaming, shuffled along the wall until he gained the covert of the spreading branches. here he was safe from any espial, and while mavis was absent he gently parted the leaves to view her enchanted palace, whither she had called him. a phonograph and fairyland! it was an odd mixture of poetry and science. a page with a silken-bound parchment; a dragon-chariot to waft a mortal prince to a spellbound queen; these were natural in the circumstances. but to be summoned by a phonograph! why, it linked the age of motor cars with that of king arthur.
haskins saw below him a moderately sized quadrangle, smoothly turfed in the center and bordered with beds of flowers stretching to moldering walls. to the right, and straight in front--somewhat after the shape of the letter "l"--were two ranges of a gray stone mansion clothed--as was the wall--with thickly growing ivy. there were two stories, and the architecture was tudor, picturesque, and graceful. along the lower story of the front wing were elaborate oriel windows, filled in with lattice-work and, as gerald shrewdly suspected, with stained glass. an archway pierced this wing, and apparently led to another part of the grounds. the range of buildings on the right was less elaborate, as the windows above and below were square and modern in their looks. to the left were ruinous stables, and outhouses more or less tumbledown, and, of course, the fourth side of the quadrangle was closed in by the wall upon which the young man was seated. what with the gray wall, the beautifully shaped oriels, the peaked roofs of mellow red tiles, and the mantle of greenery which overspread all, the place looked like a picture from the christmas number of the graphic.
yet if the house was neglected, the garden and lawn certainly were not. the turf was as smooth as a billiard-table, and the beds of flowers were carefully tended, as he could see from the absence of weeds and the efflorescence of blossoms. these were chiefly those of humble cottage flowers. tall hollyhocks, golden snapdragon, sweet-william, pansies, marigolds, ragged robin, and musk carnations: all these grew in artistic profusion and confusion, making the quadrangle a world of beauty and color and perfume. in the center of the lawn rose an antique sundial, supported by three battered female figures, and over all this dreamy, old-world haven of rest arched the shadowy sky, blending night and day in vapory blue and rosy flushings. haskins felt that a new planet had "swam into his ken"--all that he had dreamed of, as too fair for earth, was here transmuted from the ideal into the real. "i must certainly be in dreamland," thought the young man, "or in paradise, or in prospero's enchanted island, or in the vale of avilion, where it doth neither rain nor snow."
but his poetic musings were cut short by a rustle among the coppery leaves of the beech. he looked down from his wall and saw a vision of loveliness rising from the foliage like undine from the well. "i went to see what bellaria was doing," explained mavis breathlessly, and perched on a sloping bough, so near to the wall that the young man could have embraced her without difficulty. he felt very much inclined to do so, for he was rapidly falling fathoms deep in love. but a feeling of respect for the unprotected girl restrained him, and he listened spellbound to the music of her voice. "bellaria was cooking the supper, you know," went on the girl prosaically, "so there is no chance of her coming to call me for half-an-hour."
"and what then?" asked gerald soberly.
"you must go away. bellaria would be very angry if she knew that my fairy prince had come."
"am i the fairy prince?" asked haskins softly.
mavis raised her brows with a trill of heavenly laughter. "of course you are, since you came over the wall. i have been watching here for months to see you arrive. you would not have come had you not got my message."
"no," acknowledged haskins sensibly; "that is very certain. no one would look for a fairy princess in this tangle of woods. but," he hesitated and smiled, "you are not sleeping."
"yes, i am! not with my eyes closed, of course; but i am sleeping through life. all my days i have lived in this dull old place, and my guardian will not let me go out and see the world."
"who is your guardian?" asked gerald, and received a shock.
"major rebb!"
"good lord! major rebb! huh!" so this was the elderly relative whom the man had come to see. haskins congratulated himself that he had not questioned the major. had he done so there would have been a speedy end to romance. the word "elderly" had apparently been used by rebb to conceal the existence of this lovely girl from too inquiring youth. no young man would search for anything elderly. haskins felt like saul--as though he had gone to seek his father's asses and had found a kingdom.
"do you know my guardian?" asked mavis, quickly noting his surprise.
"well, yes! i have met him in london."
"oh, london! london!" the girl clapped her hands in a childish way. "how i wish to see london. my guardian says that he will take me there some day, and then--oh, and then, and then, and then----"
"what then?"
"i shall live. just fancy," she continued, swinging on the bough. "i am twenty years of age, and i have lived shut up here with bellaria ever since i can remember. my guardian comes and sees me sometimes, and give me all kinds of presents. he is always very kind, but he will not let me leave the pixy's house. i'm not shut up, of course," she added, contradicting herself, "the grounds are very large. there's a big garden of fruit and flowers beyond that archway, and a park of trees with undergrowth just like a fairy wood. i have heaps and heaps to do, looking after my flowers, and embroidering, and cooking, and playing games, and listening to bellaria's stories. i am quite happy--and now," she leaned forward until her face nearly touched that of gerald, "i am happier than ever, because you are here."
"are you?" inquired haskins, stupidly and thickly. he did not dare to move, or to follow his impulse, lest he should alarm her. she was as trusting as a tame bird, but a chance word or a too eloquent look might teach her that fear existed.
"yes, of course i am. how silly you are. in bellaria's stories the prince always comes to the princess, in the end. mine would not come, so i sent that message. and now----" she stretched a hand to caress his face: "oh my prince! my prince!"
"i may not be your prince after all," said gerald weakly. he certainly felt unworthy of being so.
"but you are--you are!" cried mavis, with conviction, "you would not have found my message otherwise. i flung it from one of the windows into the pool below. and you picked it up, so i know that you are my prince. and then," she added, naively, "you are so very handsome."
haskins was pretty well hardened to admiration, since he knew more about women than was good for him. all the same the outspoken speech made him blush. "who is bellaria?" he asked abruptly, changing a too embarrassing subject.
"my nurse, who has looked after me all my life. i call her the ogress, and my guardian the ogre. not but what they are both very kind. i have all i want, save liberty."
"and why cannot you get that?"
"it is not the custom of the country."
haskins looked puzzled. "what do you mean, mavis?"
she raised her clear truthful eyes. "why, you know, don't you? major rebb told me that all girls were brought up in seclusion until they reached the age of twenty-one, and then they were taken out to see the world. i wish ten months were past," sighed imprisoned beauty, "for then i shall be one and twenty, and able to leave the pixy's house. bellaria says that i won't like the world; but i shall, i shall, i shall."
it was both cunning and clever of major rebb to suggest such a reason for her seclusion to the girl herself, as it prevented her feeling that she was being detained against her will. but she was apparently unaware that he ascribed a more terrible reason to the world beyond the gates, and that she was looked upon as a homicidal maniac. of course this was wholly and entirely absurd. no one with such steady eyes, and who spoke so artlessly, could be tainted in that way. she was limited from sheer ignorance, and innocent beyond belief of evil: a child of nature, as unsophisticated as undine herself. gerald doubted if she would know the meaning of the word "murder!"
"what is bellaria's other name?" he asked, after a pause.
"dondi--bellaria dondi, who came from florence, in italy," said miss durham easily. "she is ugly, and old, and very cross; but i love her all the same, for she loves me and means well. and, oh! she tells such lovely, lovely stories, and can repeat poetry by dante and ariosto and leopardi, for ever so long. i can repeat poetry also," she added hastily, with the complacency of a child. "i know lots of homer, and of shakespeare, and of keats, and----"
"stop! stop!" interrupted gerald hastily. "how can you when--according to your message--you are unable to read?"
"oh! schaibar taught me."
"schaibar?"
mavis nodded with bright eyes. "you know--the peri banou's brother in 'the arabian nights.' his real name is arnold--mr. arnold: but i call him schaibar because he is a dwarf, with a long beard and a short temper. he used to recite poetry, and i learned to recite also. but schaibar has gone away," she said, with a falling cadence. "months ago he went to australia, and promised to write, but he did not."
"you could not read what he wrote, mavis?"
"i could hear it! schaibar should send me a record, in the same way as i sent you my message. but he has not done so, and yet he was so fond of me. i cannot understand it!" and mavis sighed.
"from your mention of australia, it seems that you know geography also."
"oh yes, of course i do! schaibar drew the maps, and told me where cities, and mountains, and lakes, and rivers were. i carry it all in my head."
"and you cannot read or write?" asked gerald, with a passing recollection of "the golden butterfly" heroine.
"no; the ogre said that my brain was not strong enough to learn!"
"the ogre!" said haskins, forgetting.
"my guardian--major rebb. he says that lots and lots of girls never learn to read or write."
"liar!" thought haskins: but he suppressed the opprobrious name, and merely remarked anxiously: "but you don't feel your brain weak?"
"oh no! oh no! i could learn anything, i think. i have never had a day's illness in my life."
"do you ever feel dizzy?"
"no! why should i?"
"do you ever get into a rage and want to strike bellaria?"
mavis laughed wonderingly. "i should be foolish to do that! poor bellaria doesn't mean to be cross, and, if she cannot keep her temper, i must. i wouldn't strike her or anyone, even if i were in a rage. do you strike people when you are angry?"
gerald coughed. he had a vivid recollection of schoolfights, and of horsewhipping a scandal-monger, much later in life. "it is necessary sometimes, mavis," he remarked: "the world is not inhabited entirely by agreeable people."
"oh, i know that!" she said quickly, "the old gardener, matthew, who came to help me from leegarth, is very disagreeable, and he seems to be a little afraid of me. i don't know why, and i am very sorry. i want everyone to love me."
"doesn't major rebb?"
"yes! in a way. but he is cold. he never kisses me. if you like a person don't you kiss her?"
"if she's a very nice person i do," said haskins, bubbling over with laughter, "now you----" his eyes completed the sentence.
"you love me?"
"yes, mavis!" he answered unhesitatingly. gerald scorned a lie.
"then of course----" she bent forward, and, in spite of gerald's virtuous resolutions, their lips would have met, but that a deep contralto voice boomed from the quadrangle calling on mavis angrily.
"oh!" the girl flung back her head, "there is bellaria calling me to supper. i must go or she may find you. but come again, and i'll kiss you--you---- oh! what is your name?"
"gerald!" he replied softly.
"prince gerald!" she said, smiling, and slipped down the tree rapidly, as bellaria called again. haskins, parting the leaves, saw her cross the lawn, and enter the house in the company of a tall, lean woman. but it was too dark to see bellaria's looks at that distance.
the adventurer slipped from the wall, and descended to "mother carey's peace pool," as he named the place. paddling to the opposite side, he found a sloping bank and dragged his canoe into the undergrowth. then, in the rosy twilight, he scrambled through the bushes to find some path or road leading to denleigh.
