There were no porters, of course, and anyhow it is better to carry these things oneself when one can. I slung them about me, and walked down the passage way between the brick walls. Looking back I saw the opening towards the road and the backs of the villas with lace curtains and little greenhouses. However, the next time I looked back there was something inherently more probable, the stone hall with carvings of snakes that stirred all round the windows, and very horrid shadows going across them inside, the Fourth Hall of course. However, it was improbable that They would look out yet. I took out my notebook and from now on made careful notes of the way.
A boy came out of a side passage, whistling, with a spotted dog trotting after him. We began to talk; he was obviously the third son, in fact he told me his name was Jack, and when he offered to help me with my things I was delighted. And I’ve still no idea how he managed to steal the whistle for the birds. I stayed that night in the House in the Wood and I counted my things carefully when I came to leave it. Then I found the gold chains for lions were missing. They said I should have left them with the management and disclaimed all responsibility, and pointed out the notice which, of course, I ought to have seen. None of the other things were obviously valuable except the tarn-helm which lived in the locked hat-box and the wishing ring which I kept firmly on my finger even when I was washing my hands.
It was my fault about the magic mirror; I shouldn’t have let the girl in the train handle it, but she was so friendly—we’d shared a packet of chocolate and she’d shown me all her magic things (at least she said they were)—and conceivably it was only an accident when she dropped it. And I ought to have kept a sharp eye on the five children instead of making them paper boats; they got the comb for throwing behind when pursued. The putty parcel dropped out of its string. I ought to have tied it up better that morning. As for the magic carpet I still don’t know whether it was sheer carelessness on my part, or not. Everyone said it was. The same with the bridle. No, I just don’t know still.
On the other hand I was getting near the Tower. I was gradually beginning to recognise the people of the Other Side; there was a sort of oddness about them, a feeling that one didn’t want to touch them, though if, finally, one did brush against one or even shake hands—for it was no use declaring war!—they actually felt quite all right. The man on the horse seemed perfectly real; he dismounted and walked with me and offered to take my things on his saddle, but I said no. “You’re right to say that,” he said, “I’m Hoggi. I’m going to rescue Swanhild who was carried off by the trolls. But I’ve had bad luck too and been delayed.” He seemed unhappy, and so young, and he had such jolly armour! He pointed me out my Tower, but the first time I came to the wrong side, so of course there was nothing to be done. However, I saw the room at the top with very narrow windows widening out as slot windows do, into rounds at the top and bottom. It was fairly obvious that if one were pursued one would have to crawl through those rounds, fix one’s rope ladder to the iron bar out-side before one was more than half way through, and then swarm out onto it. Not very nice. It was to be hoped the ladder was long enough. Hoggi showed me the key-holes half way up and then he explained that one was to take a snapdragon flower and push it in; the flower would fit exactly onto the knob inside and allow one to turn it—he picked a snapdragon from the wall to show me. I said: “It’s too small,” but he showed me how to hold it up in front of my eye and then it was exactly the right size.
We camped together that night, Hoggi and I, and made a fire and sat up late over it, talking. The end of it was I lent him things to replace his own which had got lost in the same sort of accidents as mine. I lent him sword and axe to kill the giants who were keeping Swanhild and making her catch the lice out of their long hair every evening. I was to have them back in an hour, he hoped, when he came riding by with Swanhild on his way back to the King and Queen, her father and mother. He mounted and trotted off, waving to me. Suddenly he said: “They make me do it!” I did not realise for some time what this meant, not till I had waited half a day. Presumably Hoggi was really a prisoner himself, and I hope he will get rescued some time soon. But it was a bad business for me.
I had to go back some way so as to get to the other side of the Tower, and I was terribly worried about all these things I had lost. The only thing I had gained was a certain amount of experience, and particularly the knowledge that the way to deal with the Debateable Land is to take everything that occurs to one, however irrational and pointless, and deal with it rationally. One then gets it onto one’s own side and away from the fairies. Whenever I had neglected that (for instance at the inn where I had lost the bridle in the cupboard in the wall) things had gone wrong. On the other hand, by paying attention to it I had accumulated a number of small objects, shells and envelopes and handkerchiefs (including the red one which I had stolen in the shop when it occurred to me to do so, and which I had walked off with quite easily), as well as the sixpence which I had seen the woman in front of me drop, and which I had deliberately kept for myself, and so on. I did not know what good they would ever do me except to appear normal when one was in the dark Tower or wherever it might be, but still something might come of them. They took up rather a lot of room, so that I still had to carry more things than I liked, and spent most of my time looking after them.
It suddenly occurred to me to wish I could get them insured, and then I felt the unmistakable prick that meant the magic ring had for once woken up and started functioning. I took a step on and walked up the steps out of King’s Bench Walk. Of course, I thought I must consult Dick about this. When I got to Chambers he was very busy and neither very surprised (but of course I could not tell how long, by Middle Earth time, I had been away) nor very pleased to see me! I put my things down in his room—not for anyone would I have left them out of sight. The gloves for handling red-hot iron were on the table. I sat in the comer while Dick hunted through papers and various people came in and out, solicitors’ clerks, I supposed. It suddenly occurred to me that solicitors’ clerks very seldom have six fingers on each hand and these with a slight web between, nor are the irises of their eyes this curious reddish colour. And as this went through my mind one of them picked up the gloves and put them in his pocket, and went out. I jumped up and said “He’s got my gloves!” But Dick said “Nonsense!” And after all it obviously was nonsense by Middle Earth standards that a solicitor’s clerk should pick up the gloves of a barrister’s wife and walk off with them. I said I had been losing my things and wanted them insured; he said I was insured already and asked what it was—jewellery? I said no, I began to explain, but when I began on the Debateable Land he said he must just finish these papers first. The wishing ring pricked me again and I had just time to pick up my things before I found myself sitting beside a road in the Debateable Land and one of these very nasty large birds they have there, about three times as high as oneself, was stepping along towards me. Of course no one minds about the birds, for they are the thinnest possible things, scarcely paper thickness, but even if one pokes a stick through them they look at one unpleasantly. It went by. It seemed to me very awkward if I was going to re-visit Middle Earth in this patchy way, taking so much of the Other Side with me. I was very doubtful whether I had really been there, whether what I had seen had actually been Dick himself and either the Inner Temple or Middle Earth!
Things went on like this, and, as I got nearer the right side of the Tower, that wretched ring began to take me back to Middle Earth whether I really wanted to go there or not. Simply thinking about it seemed to do the trick, and I could hardly help doing that sometimes, especially in the evenings or just waking up in the mornings. Then I used to find myself at home, in the nursery say, in the middle of a game with the children. But after the first few times I began to be rather suspicious of this. The nursery itself. Used the cuckoo out of the cuckoo clock always to have just that expression? Or was I imagining it? And—it wasn’t for nothing, surely, that Lois had suggested a dressing-up game and,
before I could stop her, picked up and put on my cloak of invisibility—and disappeared. At any rate to me. Avrion and Nurse seemed perfectly able to see her still. At first I had been terribly upset, but then—hadn’t she, in disappearing, burst into that high thin giggling that by now I had come to associate with the fairies? Had I, for that matter, any real reason for supposing that it had been actually Lois at all?
And was this really Avrion who had, with that much too innocent look, suddenly eaten the magic apple? After all, if it had been him wouldn’t the apple certainly have had some effect? I strongly suspected that the children were really the Other Side, so cleverly disguised that I couldn’t tell, and that Nurse was also an imitation, as paper-thin as the birds. I made up my mind that the wishing ring had been got at by the Other Side and that the sooner I got rid of it the better.
One day I noticed that Valentine—or more probably the Other-Side-disguised-as-Valentine—had a blue-beaded cracker ring. I collected my remaining parcels and picked her up—it was extraordinarily difficult to believe it wasn’t really her when it felt so like her. I cajoled her cracker ring out of her and put it on, and half took off my own wishing ring, and as I did that I caught my imitation baby watching me in a dreadful and entirely adult way. With the cracker ring firm on my finger and the other slipping off I wished myself back. As I melted off into the Debateable Land again, I felt the soft imitation baby hands pulling and pinching mine, and then I was through, having successfully got rid of the wishing ring and having instead the blue-beaded cracker ring which might ultimately be some use. I also found that the wishing ring, perhaps influenced by the cracker ring or perhaps realising that I had seen through it and mastered it, had put me down in the rose-tangle, only a hundred yards from the right side of the Tower.
It was extremely uncomfortable getting out of the rose-tangle. I didn’t dare put on the seven league boots, as, although they would have taken me out of the tangle, they would also have taken me past the Tower, even if I’d only tiptoed in them. I got a good deal scratched, and it was annoying to see the white rabbits sitting in their burrows under the great briar stocks, laughing at me. And then, I was at the Tower.
There were plenty of snapdragons to fit into the key-holes, supposing I could trust Hoggi to have told me the truth about that, but could I? At any rate I picked some and put them in my pocket. The question now was, whether the Guardians were about, looking on at me mockingly from crafty, eyeholed lairs, if, as seemed likely, the white rabbits had warned them. Well, there was no use thinking too much about that. I went up the steps and blew the horn, which made a most disconcertingly loud and unmusical noise, calculated to wake anybody. It would have been nice, at this point, to have had the traditional cloak of invisibility; however, it wasn’t any good wishing for that now.
I fitted the snapdragons onto the knobs, very doubtfully. However, they did turn—and the whole thing might simply be a trap! I stepped inside, shut the door after me and listened. So far nothing , only the narrow uncarpeted stone steps going up and round a corner, and from below the somber ticking of a clock. I went up. The staircase made four turns and came to a landing. Opposite me was one of Them sitting at a desk disguised as an aged and frowsty female caretaker in a shawl with a bunch of tickets and a pile of small illustrated guide-books. “Pay here, please,” she said, and smiled in the kind of way which might easily have turned very unpleasant indeed: They thought they’d got me nicely. Well, I knew it would be no good attempting to pay with Middle Earth currency, but I had the dropped fairy sixpence still, and handed it over with my sweetest smile back. She couldn’t do anything but take it. “An illustrated guide-book?” she said, “or some nice post-cards of the torture chamber?” No thanks,” I said, lightly—I wasn’t going to let her know this was my only valid coin—“I always buy my guide-books on the way back.” And I walked past her up the next bend of the stair.
On the next landing, which was obviously the important one, there was the usual choice of doors. I couldn’t see anything through the key-holes and I was rather afraid that if I hung about the two suits of armour against the opposite wall might begin to walk in my direction. At that moment a mouse came out of the corner and hesitated in the middle of the floor. I had a corn ear in my pocket, collected some time ago and unused. I rubbed off a grain and dropped it and stood quite still. The mouse flickered nearer, picked up the grain and ran under one of the doors. Inside there was a squeal and a girl’s voice: “Oh Princess—!” I opened the door and walked in.
It was in its way rather a beautiful room, with a hunting tapestry on all four walls—though I never very much like tapestry, for one can’t be sure what there mayn’t be behind it. There were oak chests and benches and a large oak table with heavy iron candle-sticks at each end and a strip of needlework all along it, at which the Princess and her ladies were working. It would now have been quite simple to rescue the Princess, only, at the moment, presumably, when I had opened the door, the Princess and her ladies, making five in all, had turned into dolls and were all staring at me out of china eyes from the far side of the table. Again it would have been quite simple to rescue them all in a bundle if only they had been reasonable sized dolls, but they weren’t; they were very slightly under life-size. So it was imperative to discover which was the Princess. They were all dressed more or less alike in long brocade dresses and little jewelled caps, and each of them had a pendant of precious stones—if they were precious—hung round her neck on a fine golden chain. Three had long flaxen hair and two had long raven-dark hair. You might think that the one in the middle was sure to be the Princess; but then, the one furthest on the right had a golden needle, and the one next the middle on the left was sitting on a slightly more elaborate chair. On the other hand, the one furthest to the left had a footstool, while the remaining one had hair a good two inches longer than the others.
I tried speaking to them, but it had no effect. I tried sprinkling them with drops of Water of Life. As the drops touched, each doll gave a wriggle and grin, but then went waxen again. It was all most difficult. Then I heard a rustling at the door; I had barred it, of course, but that was no obstacle to the snake which began wriggling through the key-hole. However, I hit the snake on the head with one of the iron candlesticks; that made a nasty mess, but I was only thankful that the candlesticks had actually turned out solid—at any rate solid in regard to the snake. They might so easily have been cardboard!
The real test for princesses is, of course, the rumpled roseleaf, but I had none with me; besides it was inapplicable to the dolls. It then occurred to me that the fault might be in my own method of vision. Unfortunately I had lost the magic spectacles—I always do manage to lose my spectacles, there’s nothing odd about that. The only thing to do was to put on the tarn-helm and hope for the best. It would certainly turn me into someone else, presumably with a different kind of vision and perhaps a better one for distinguishing princesses. I took it out of the hat-box and put it on. It was heavy and rather large for me; I suppose it had originally been made to fit young Germans with great mops of shaggy curls, like Siegfried. I also found it a little difficult to breathe in at first, but the moment I looked at those dolls I became quite certain which one I wanted: the left-hand of all. So I picked her up.
It is very curious being someone else, even when one knows one is, as one does when wearing the tarn-helm. All sorts of things are slightly different, to which one is normally so accustomed that one doesn’t notice them in oneself. For instance the rhythm of breathing, and the whole muscular tone of the body, not only in movement, but even in rest—including the muscles of the face and body wall—is altered. And if, for instance, one picks something up, the business of gripping and lifting and balancing—although one is doing it as simply and automatically as ever—is a complete surprise. I had no idea of who I was, but I threw the heavy princess-doll over one shoulder (normally I should have tucked her under my arm) and walked out of the room.
As I passed the old imitati
on caretaker again, I picked up one of the catalogues saying cheerfully “Thanks,” and not paying. Then off down the stairs again. Going quickly round a corner I very nearly ran into two of the Other Side waiting quite quietly with a cage for me to walk into. There was nothing for it, then, but to jump out of the window, which was at least fifteen feet from the ground. Ordinarily I shouldn’t have landed without a sprained ankle at best, but this other person I had become was fortunately much more athletic than I am and landed without any damage except for breaking the bottle of Lethe water. The stuff inside it smelt disgusting and I noticed that the grass which it splashed withered and turned black under my eyes.
It was obvious that the Other Side would be after me, so I put on the seven league boots (the ordinary shoes of swiftness had never been much use since being cleaned with fairy shoe-polish) and set off for Warning Crag, the most obvious landmark in the Debateable Land. It is not so easy as you would suppose, walking with seven league boots, as one can’t see where one’s next step will take one—very likely into a ditch or a bramble bush; it is quite hopeless to try to run in them and really one has to deliberate over every step. I knew, naturally, that the dragon’s nest was somewhere near Warning Crag, but the creature was usually asleep and I hoped to get by safely. However, as luck would have it, my seven league boots landed me right on the dragon’s tail and the wretched thing woke up and began snorting fire at me. I hadn’t got the Lethe water for it, but I threw it the stolen hand-kerchief, telling it to blow its nose, and it was so surprised that it stopped long enough for me to take another step on and out of its nasty, smelly nest.
After this it was all fairly plain sailing. Once I did miss my way rather badly, and several times I had to evade the Other Side by one stratagem or another. I never let go of the doll-princess, though I found her a great nuisance and became less and less ceremonious in the way I handled her. I kept on the tarn-helm the whole time and stayed as the person I had become, which gave me great physical advantages; I never discovered who the other person was, though often I found myself remembering things and people which are no part of my own memories. There are moments when I think she must have been a gym or games mistress at some school; some of the visual memories which I had were certainly not English, but might have been, say, American.
The Fourth Pig Page 15
