The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library)

by Hearn, Michael Patrick

  He knew he was Prince Dolor, because she always addressed him as “my Prince” and “your Royal Highness,” but what a prince was he had not the least idea. He had no idea of anything in the world, except what he found in his books.

  He sat one day surrounded by them, having built them up round him like a little castle wall, He had been reading them half the day, but feeling all the while that to read about things which you never can see is like hearing about a beautiful dinner while you are starving. For almost the first time in his life he grew melancholy; his hands fell on his lap; he sat gazing out of the window slit upon the view outside—the view he had looked at every day of his life, and might look at for endless days more.

  Not a very cheerful view—just the plain and the sky—but he liked it. He used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to the sky or down to the plain, how nice it would be! Perhaps when he died—his nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave the tower till he died—he might be able to do this. Not that he understood much what dying meant, but it must be a change, and any change seemed to him a blessing.

  “And I wish I had somebody to tell me all about it—about that and many other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor white kitten.”

  Here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy’s one friend, the one interest of his life, had been a little white kitten, which the deaf-mute, kindly smiling, once took out of his pocket and gave him—the only living creature Prince Dolor had ever seen.

  For four weeks it was his constant plaything and companion, till one moonlight night it took a fancy for wandering, climbed onto the parapet of the tower, dropped over and disappeared. It was not killed, he hoped, for cats had nine lives; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it pick itself up and scamper away; but he never caught sight of it again.

  “Yes, I wish I had something better than a kitten—a person, a real live person, who would be fond of me and kind to me. Oh, I want somebody—dreadfully, dreadfully!”

  As he spoke, there sounded behind him a slight tap-tap-tap, as of a stick or a cane, and twisting himself round, he saw—what do you think he saw?

  Nothing either frightening or ugly, but still exceedingly curious. A little woman, no bigger than he might himself have been had his legs grown like those of other children; but she was not a child—she was an old woman. Her hair was grey, and her dress was grey, and there was a grey shadow over her wherever she moved. But she had the sweetest smile, the prettiest hands, and when she spoke it was in the softest voice imaginable.

  “My dear little boy”—and dropping her cane, the only bright and rich thing about her, she laid those two tiny hands on his shoulder—“my own little boy, I could not come to you until you had said you wanted me; but now you do want me, here I am.”

  “And you are very welcome, madam,” replied the Prince, trying to speak politely, as princes always did in books; “and I am exceedingly obliged to you. May I ask who you are? Perhaps my mother?” For he knew that little boys usually had a mother, and had occasionally wondered what had become of his own.

  “No,” said the vistor, with a tender, half-smile, putting back the hair from his forehead, and looking right into his eyes—“no, I am not your mother, though she was a dear friend of mine; and you are as like her as ever you can be.”

  “Will you tell her to come and see me, then?”

  “She cannot; but I dare say she knows all about you. And she loves you very much—and so do I; and I want to help you all I can, my poor little boy.”

  “Why do you call me poor?” asked Prince Dolor, in surprise.

  The little old woman glanced down on his legs and feet, which he did not know were different from those of other children, and then at his sweet, bright face, which, though he knew not that either, was exceedingly different from many children’s faces, which are often so fretful, cross, sullen. Looking at him, instead of sighing, she smiled. “I beg your pardon, my Prince,” said she.

  “Yes, I am a prince, and my name is Dolor; will you tell me yours, madam?”

  The little old woman laughed like a chime of silver bells.

  “I have not got a name—or rather, I have so many names that I don’t know which to choose. However, it was I who gave you yours, and you will belong to me all your days. I am your godmother.”

  “Hurrah!” cried the little Prince; “I am glad I belong to you, for I like you very much. Will you come and play with me?”

  So they sat down together and played. By and by they began to talk.

  “Are you very dull here?” asked the little old woman.

  “Not particularly, thank you, godmother. I have plenty to eat and drink, and my lessons to do, and my books to read—lots of books.”

  “And you want nothing?”

  “Nothing. Yes—perhaps—If you please, godmother, could you bring me just one more thing?”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “A little boy to play with.”

  The old woman looked very sad. “Just the thing, alas! which I cannot give you. My child, I cannot alter your lot in any way, but I can help you to bear it.”

  “Thank you. But why do you talk of bearing it? I have nothing to bear.”

  “My poor little man!” said the old woman in the very tenderest tone of her tender voice. “Kiss me!”

  “What is kissing?” asked the wondering child.

  His godmother took him in her arms and embraced him many times. By-and-by he kissed her back again—at first awkwardly and shyly, then with all the strength of his warm little heart.

  “You are better to cuddle than even my white kitten, I think. Promise me that you will never go away.”

  “I must; but I will leave a present behind me—something as good as myself to amuse you—something that will take you wherever you want to go, and show you all that you wish to see.”

  “What is it?”

  “A travelling-cloak.”

  The Prince’s countenance fell. “I don’t want a cloak, for I never go out. Sometimes nurse hoists me onto the roof, and carries me round by the parapet; but that is all. I can’t walk, you know, as she does.”

  “The more reason why you should ride; and besides, this travelling-cloak—”

  “Hush!—she’s coming.”

  There sounded outside the room door a heavy step and a grumpy voice, and a rattle of plates and dishes.

  “It’s my nurse, and she is bringing my dinner; but I don’t want dinner at all—I only want you. Will her coming drive you away, godmother?”

  “Perhaps: but only for a little while. Never mind; all the bolts and bars in the world couldn’t keep me out. I’d fly in at the window, or down through the chimney. Only wish for me, and I come.”

  “Thank you,” said Prince Dolor, but almost in a whisper, for he was very uneasy at what might happen next. His nurse and his godmother—what would they say to one another? how would they look at one another?—two such different faces: one harsh-lined, sullen, cross, and sad; the other sweet and bright and calm as a summer evening before the dark begins.

  When the door was flung open, Prince Dolor shut his eyes, trembling all over. Opening them again, he saw he need fear nothing—his lovely old godmother had melted away just like the rainbow out of the sky, as he had watched it many a time. Nobody but his nurse was in the room.

  “What a muddle your Royal Highness is sitting in,” said she sharply. “Such a heap of untidy books; and what’s this rubbish?” knocking a little bundle that lay beside them.

  “Oh, nothing, nothing—give it me!” cried the Prince, and, darting after it, he hid it under his pinafore, and then pushed it quickly into his pocket. Rubbish as it was, it was left in the place where she sat, and might be something belonging to her—his dear, kind godmother, whom already he loved with all his lonely, tender, passionate heart.

  It was, though he did not know this, his wonderful travelling-cloak.

  IV

  And what of the travelling-cl
oak? What sort of cloak was it, and what good did it do the Prince?

  Stay, and I’ll tell you about it.

  Outside it was the commonest-looking bundle imaginable—shabby and small; and the instant Prince Dolor touched it, it grew smaller still, dwindling down till he could put it in his trousers-pocket, like a handkerchief rolled up into a ball. He did this at once, for fear his nurse should see it, and kept it there all day—all night, too. Till after his next morning’s lessons he had no opportunity of examining his treasure.

  When he did, it seemed no treasure at all; but a mere piece of cloth—circular in form, dark green in colour—that is, if it had any colour at all, being so worn and shabby, though not dirty. It had a split cut to the centre, forming a round hole for the neck—and that was all its shape; the shape, in fact, of those cloaks which in South America are called ponchos—very simple, but most graceful and convenient.

  Prince Dolor had never seen anything like it. In spite of his disappointment, he examined it curiously. He spread it out on the floor, then arranged it on his shoulders. It felt very warm and comfortable; but it was so exceedingly shabby—the only shabby thing that the Prince had ever seen in his life.

  “And what use will it be to me?” said he sadly. “I have no need of outdoor clothes, as I never go out. Why was this given me? I wonder. And what in the world am I to do with it? She must be a rather funny person, this dear godmother of mine.”

  Nevertheless, because she was his godmother, and had given him the cloak, he folded it carefully and put it away, poor and shabby as it was, hiding it in a safe corner of his toy cupboard, which his nurse never meddled with. He did not want her to find it, or to laugh at it or at his godmother—as he felt sure she would, if she knew all.

  There it lay, and by-and-by he forgot all about it. Nay, I am sorry to say that, being but a child, and not seeing her again, he almost forgot his sweet old godmother, or thought of her only as he did of the angels or fairies that he read of in his books, and of her visit as if it had been a mere dream of the night.

  There were times, certainly, when he recalled her: of early mornings, like that morning when she appeared beside him, and late evenings, when the grey twilight reminded him of the colour of her hair and her pretty soft garments; above all, when, waking in the middle of the night, with the stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his little bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside it, looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to have a pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he had ever known.

  But she never came, and gradually she slipped out of his memory—only a boy’s memory, after all; until something happened which made him remember her, and want her as he had never wanted anything before.

  Prince Dolor fell ill. He caught—his nurse could not tell how—a complaint common to the people of Nomansland, called the doldrums, as unpleasant as measles or any other of our complaints; and it made him restless, cross, and disagreeable. Even when a little better, he was too weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgetting his nurse extremely—while, in her intense terror lest he might die, she fidgetted him still more. At last, seeing he really was getting well, she left him to himself—which he was most glad of, in spite of his dullness and dreariness. There he lay, alone, quite alone.

  Now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he longed to get up and do something, or to go somewhere. He would have liked to imitate his white kitten—jump down from the tower and run away, taking the chance of whatever might happen.

  Only one thing, alas! was likely to happen; for the kitten, he remembered, had four active legs, while he—

  “I wonder what my godmother meant when she looked at my legs and sighed so bitterly? I wonder why I can’t walk straight and steady like my nurse—only I wouldn’t like to have her great, noisy, clumping shoes. Still it would be very nice to move about quickly—perhaps to fly, like a bird, like that string of birds I saw the other day skimming across the sky, one after the other.”

  These were the passage-birds—the only living creatures that ever crossed the lonely plain; and he had been much interested in them, wondering whence they came and whither they were going.

  “How nice it must be to be a bird! If legs are no good, why cannot one have wings? People have wings when they die—perhaps. I wish I were dead, that I do. I am so tired, so tired; and nobody cares for me. Nobody ever did care for me, except perhaps my godmother. Godmother, dear, have you quite forsaken me?”

  He stretched himself wearily, gathered himself up, and dropped his head upon his hands; as he did so, he felt somebody kiss him at the back of his neck, and, turning, found that he was resting, not on the sofa-pillows, but on a warm shoulder—that of the little old woman clothed in grey.

  How glad he was to see her! How he looked into her kind eyes and felt her hands, to see if she were all real and alive! Then he put both his arms round her neck, and kissed her as if he would never have done kissing.

  “Stop, stop!” cried she, pretending to be smothered. “I see you have not forgotten my teachings. Kissing is a good thing—in moderation. Only just let me have breath to speak one word.”

  “A dozen!” he said.

  “Well, then, tell me all that has happened to you since I saw you—or rather, since you saw me, which is quite a different thing.”

  “Nothing has happened—nothing ever does happen to me,” answered the Prince dolefully.

  “And are you very dull, my boy?”

  “So dull that I was just thinking whether I could not jump down to the bottom of the tower, like my white kitten.”

  “Don’t do that, not being a white kitten.”

  “I wish I were—I wish I were anything but what I am.”

  “And you can’t make yourself any different, nor can I do it either. You must be content to stay just what you are.”

  The little old woman said this—very firmly, but gently, too—with her arms round his neck and her lips on his forehead. It was the first time the boy had ever heard anyone talk like this, and he looked up in surprise—but not in pain, for her sweet manner softened the hardness of her words.

  “Now, my Prince—for you are a prince, and must behave as such—let us see what we can do; how much I can do for you, or show you how to do for yourself. Where is your travelling-cloak?”

  Prince Dolor blushed extremely. “I—I put it away in the cupboard. I suppose it is there still.”

  “You have never used it; you dislike it?”

  He hesitated, not wishing to be impolite. “Don’t you think it’s—just a little old and shabby for a prince?”

  The old woman laughed—long and loud, though very sweetly.

  “Prince, indeed! Why, if all the princes in the world craved for it, they couldn’t get it, unless I gave it them. Old and shabby! It’s the most valuable thing imaginable! Very few ever have it; but I thought I would give it to you, because—because you are different from other people.”

  “Am I?” said the Prince, and looked first with curiosity, then with a sort of anxiety, into his godmother’s face, which was sad and grave, with slow tears beginning to steal down.

  She touched his poor little legs. “These are not like those of other little boys.”

  “Indeed!—my nurse never told me that.”

  “Very likely not. But it is time you were told; and I tell you, because I love you.”

  “Tell me what, dear godmother?”

  “That you will never be able to walk or run or jump or play—that your life will be quite different from most people’s lives; but it may be a very happy life for all that. Do not be afraid.”

  “I am not afraid,” said the boy. But he turned very pale, and his lips began to quiver, though he did not actually cry—he was too old for that, and, perhaps, too proud.

  Though not wholly comprehending, he began dimly to guess what his godmother meant. He had never seen any real live boys, bu
t he had seen pictures of them running and jumping; which he had admired and tried hard to imitate, but always failed. Now he began to understand why he failed, and that he always should fail—that, in fact, he was not like other little boys; and it was of no use his wishing to do as they did, and play as they played, even if he had had them to play with. His was a separate life, in which he must find out new work and new pleasures for himself.

  The sense of the inevitable, as grown-up people call it—that we cannot have things as we want them to be, but as they are, and that we must learn to bear them and make the best of them—this lesson, which everybody has to learn soon or late—came, alas! sadly soon to the poor boy. He fought against it for a while, and then, quite overcome, turned and sobbed bitterly in his godmother’s arms.

  She comforted him—I do not know how, except that love always comforts. And then she whispered to him, in her sweet, strong, cheerful voice, “Never mind!”

  “No, I don’t think I do mind—that is, I won’t mind,” replied he, catching the courage of her tone and speaking like a man, though he was still such a mere boy.

  “That is right, my Prince!—that is being like a prince. Now we know exactly where we are; let us put our shoulders to the wheel and—”

  “We are in Hopeless Tower” (this was its name, if it had a name), “and there is no wheel to put our shoulders to,” said the child sadly.

  “You little matter-of-fact goose! Well for you that you have a godmother called—”

  “What?” he eagerly asked.

  “Stuff-and-Nonsense.”

  “Stuff-and-Nonsense! What a funny name!”

  “Some people give it me, but they are not my most intimate friends. These call me—never mind what,” added the old woman, with a soft twinkle in her eyes. “So as you know me, and know me well, you may give me any name you please; it doesn’t matter. But I am your godmother, child. I have few godchildren. Those I have love me dearly, and find me the greatest blessing in all the world.”