So things went on for several months, well into the second year of the youth's residence in the palace, until at last matters seemed coming to a crisis. For the second time, Concaterina had indulged him with a kiss, which he could hardly with politeness refrain from returning, and the lovely Amabilia actually began the same game.
She secured him for a five o'clock tea, and whilst sitting by his side on the sofa, and talking in her usually affectionate manner, she suddenly laid her fair head upon his shoulder for an instant, and the next moment as suddenly raising it, exclaimed in an energetic and emphatic tone: "Dear Zac!" and imprinted at the same instant a warm and loving kiss upon his young lips.
Poor Zac was terribly perplexed, but more in thought than in action, for of course he could do no less than promptly return the compliment just paid him by the princess. But when she took his hand in hers, pressed it warmly, and regarded him with loving eyes, with her face still closer to his than any face but Belinda's should have been, he felt that this was really carrying things too far, and that he must somehow or other put an end to it. How he would have done so it is impossible to say, inasmuch as the princess, evidently of a different opinion, appeared desirous of prolonging the situation, and his difficulty in preventing her from doing so would probably have been considerable.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, as the taste of my readers may lead them to determine – the door suddenly flew open, and the princess had barely time to spring to the other end of the sofa when the portly figure of Lord Pompous entered the apartment. As Lord Chamberlain, Old Pompous had the general right of entry everywhere, although he rarely ventured to approach the sitting-room of the princesses without special invitation, and probably would not have done so upon the present occasion had he not been sent directly by the king. I do not think that Amabilia ever quite forgave the old man for his unwelcome intrusion; but he really was not to blame in the matter. King Fridolin had got into a difficulty about some curtains which he had recently ordered for his study, and which, when they came home, he fancied were of colours which did not match; those destined for one window being of a different hue to those which belonged to another. Having referred the matter to Lord Pompous, that worthy ventured to be of an opinion contrary to that of his sovereign, and held that the curtains matched perfectly. Upon this Fridolin first threw a footstool at the head of his lord chamberlain – on dodging which he tumbled over the waste-paper basket into the coal-scuttle, and spoiled a new white waistcoat – and then directed him, since he was such a blind old fool as to be unable to tell one colour from another, to go immediately to Amabilia's room and ask her to come there and decide the knotty point. Accordingly, the submissive Pompous hurried off to obey the orders of the king, and arrived at the particularly opportune or inopportune moment which I have described.
As far as Zac was concerned, the intrusion appeared to him to be little less than providential. The princess could do nothing else than obey, and as it would not have been etiquette for her either to have invited him to accompany her, or told him to await her return, she had no alternative but to dismiss him from the apartment. This she did with a loving look, which certainly could not be misunderstood by its object, and could hardly have escaped the observation of any bystander less blind and stupid than Lord Pompous.
The princess then sought the presence of her father, and Zac, having deeply cogitated upon the whole matter, after his return to his own room, made up his mind that, unless he was to run away – a proceeding which would be difficult, uncomfortable, ruinous to his future interests, and very disagreeable to others beside himself – the only alternative he had was to open his whole heart to Belinda upon the very first opportunity.
Having quite resolved upon this he felt somewhat more happy, for that which had really troubled him most was the apprehension that the young princess might discover something of the truth, and not knowing from himself how matters really stood, might imbibe some false impression concerning the matter, and blame him for having employed unnecessary and unjustifiable concealment in a business so intimately concerning her interests and future happiness. He had not long to wait for the opportunity he desired. At their very next interview he was able to open his heart to Belinda upon the subject, and to tell her all the awkwardness of his position as regarded the king, herself, and her two sisters.
At first the poor child wept bitterly, and was quite unable either to control or to conceal her feelings. She had never expected, for she had never received, great kindness from her elder sisters, but she had thought herself quite safe from molestation with regard to her future husband. Amabilia and Concaterina had so scoffed at the idea of the pig-race when the project was first started, they had laughed so heartily at the ridiculous notion of the hand of a king's daughter being given as the reward of a successful jockey, and they had tossed their heads so high at the idea of a common farmer's son being received and accepted as the future husband of their sister, that it had never entered the poor child's head that there was the slightest chance of either of them ever desiring to obtain his affection. Yet such was the case. She was attacked upon the very side upon which she had felt herself most secure, and her surprise was only equalled by her distress. One consolation, however, she certainly had, than which none could well be greater. The fidelity of Zac was a comfort which was beyond all price, as it was also beyond all praise. When she was fully assured of this – and indeed she was too young and too honest to have ever doubted it – she felt almost glad that the occasion to prove it had arisen. In warm but simple language she expressed at once her gratitude and her affection for the youth, who, on his part, declared his firm adherence to the troth he had plighted, and in homely words vowed that he would never be false to his Belinda.
But this mutual interchange of confidence and regard rendered the present position of affairs by no means less dangerous and uncomfortable. Zac offered to go to the king if Belinda desired it, but to this there was a double objection. In the first place, Fridolin would probably be slow to believe anything to the disadvantage of his favourite daughters, and an appeal to him, certain to lead to an entire denial on the part of the princesses, would not improbably recoil upon the heads of both Belinda and her promised husband. Then, in the second place, Zac had a strong and conscientious objection to betraying a lady's secret, and had only done so in the present case because Belinda was his affianced wife, and he felt himself bound in honour to tell her how matters stood between her sisters and himself.
They decided, therefore, that they certainly would not say anything to the king upon the subject. There was no one else to whom they could appeal, for Amabilia and Concaterina were omnipotent in the palace, and it would have been hopeless to speak to old Pompous or any of the courtiers. All that Belinda could think of was to tell her old foster-mother, who was allowed to see her twice a month, and who was so utterly devoted to her, that if the worst came to the worst, and the poor child had to leave the palace, she knew she could find a refuge in that humble cottage as long as the old woman was allowed to live there. So, after much difficulty, she obtained Zac's permission to confide to her the whole matter, and to ask her counsel regarding it.
The youth left his betrothed with a heavy heart, but rejoiced withal at the thought that, at all events, she knew the truth, and would place in him the trust which he so well deserved.
The cottage of Belinda's foster-mother was not far from the palace, and close to a forest of considerable size, between which and the river which flowed through the fertile plain upon one side of it, were the king's pastures upon which grazed his numerous flocks and herds. As has been already stated, the good old foster-mother was the wife of one of the shepherds whose duty it was to tend the king's flocks. He was now somewhat advanced in years, and so was his wife; but they were a hale and hearty couple, and still performed their duties with diligence and fidelity. According to her resolution, Belinda confided to her foster-mother at the very next interview the whole circumstances of her painful position. The worthy woman was much disturbed at hearing this news. No one was better informed than she was of the state of affairs at the palace. She knew that the word of either Amabilia or Concaterina was law, whilst her nursling had no influence whatever. If, then, the two sisters could agree between themselves as to which of them should appropriate Zac, there seemed but small hope that Belinda would be permitted to retain her lover. True, he might have a word to say upon the subject himself, and would possibly – nay, probably, according to Belinda – be firm and true, but how far that would avail against the will of those with whom he would have to deal, was a very doubtful matter. So when she had heard her child's story, the old woman comforted and petted her at first by condoling with her on the badness of the prospect before her, and the impossibility of its ever being any better. Having thus made both her nursling and herself as miserable as she could, and having cried together a good deal more than the urgency of the case required, they began to think whether anything else could be done, and for some time no thought entered either head of which any use could be made. This interview took place in the palace, and the good old woman said that she never could think in such a grand place as that, but that if Belinda could manage to come and see her one of those days at her own cottage, they would be able to talk the matter over quietly together, and perhaps something might turn up. To this Belinda consented, and the old woman took her departure.
For the next few days things went on much the same, the two elder princesses doing all in their power to attract the affection of Zac, and the honest lad striving to avoid them as much as he possibly could do without actual incivility. One day, however, things really came to a crisis. Zac had finished his work earlier than usual, and went into the palace garden to enjoy the fresh air. He took a book with him, and finding a pleasant seat in a little summer-house, which had been built near a natural waterfall which formed one of the beauties of the place, he sat himself thereupon, and began to read.
It was a lovely spot, and the moment was one which occasionally comes to everybody in the warm summer-time, when the sound of falling water, the rays of the sun just piercing through a thick leafy screen, the low singing of the birds and the humming of the insects, all induce a kind of dreamy happiness which gradually steals over the spirit, and not seldom ends in the forgetfulness of sleep. So it was with Zac. He read a page or two with avidity – for his book was interesting – then another page or two rather less eagerly, then more slowly and lazily still; then he ceased to turn over the pages at all, and finally the book slipped from his hands to his knees, and from his knees to the ground, his eyes closed, and he fell into a sweet, dreamless sleep.
Now, as luck would have it, the lovely Concaterina had observed the youth saunter into the garden, as she was watering the mignonette which grew in a box placed upon her window-sill. The opportunity for a tête-à-tête seemed too good to be lost, and she therefore shortly afterwards descended in pursuit of him, having previously made sure that her beloved elder sister was practising music in their joint sitting-room. The princess did not find the boy directly, as she fancied he had gone further into the shrubberies than was really the case, so that by the time she came upon him in the summer-house he was stretched at full length upon the seat and sleeping as I have described.
She gazed upon him for some few seconds in a transport of maidenly affection – so young and so handsome did he seem in her eyes, with his head leaning upon one of his arms which he had carelessly thrown behind it as he sank to sleep. Should she awaken him? and how? She did not take long to decide. In that country there was a proverbial saying – and I believe it is not confined to that country – that if a gentleman finds a lady asleep he has a right to take a kiss by way of legitimate booty. Concaterina had no idea that such a privilege could be properly or fairly confined to one sex, and she therefore leaned gently over the slumbering Zac, and without more ado kissed him tenderly on the cheek.
The boy started from his sleep, and blushed deeply at having been thus awakened and saluted. He stammered forth some apologies for having been found as he was, but these were soon stopped by Concaterina, who addressed him in the most affectionate terms, and, sitting down by his side, asked him whether he quite hated her.
To this the youth could make but one reply, namely, that it was not for him to hate his king's daughter, and that even were she not so, she and her sister had been too kind to him to make it possible for him to entertain any such feeling towards either of them.
At the mention of her sister the fair one pouted prettily, and continued to talk to him in terms of endearment.
"Dearest Zac," she said, "if you do not hate me cannot you love me a little? I am so fond of you– so very fond."
Zac did not know how to answer.
"I do love you," at length he said, "as the Princess Belinda's sister, and therefore one who will some day be my sister too!"
"Ah!" sighed Concaterina, "but I want more than that, you dear boy. Belinda, indeed! you are much too good for her, poor ill-favoured, child! How happy we could be together, Zac. You don't think me ugly, do you?"
Zac certainly did not, and therefore could not say so, but when the princess went on in the same way, and tried to persuade him to let her usurp the place in his affections which belonged to Belinda, he could only reply that he knew she could not really mean it, and begged her not to play tricks upon him in that manner.
"Ah, Zac," she returned, "they are no tricks; I never before saw anyone whom I could really love, and I do love you, Zac, so very much!" and as she spoke she passed her arm again round the perplexed boy's neck in a loving manner.
What step she would next have taken I am unable to say, for at that moment who should enter the summer-house but the Princess Amabilia.
"Pretty conduct this, indeed!" she cried, when she saw the position of affairs. "Concaterina! I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, teasing that poor boy with your affection when you know he wants none of it!"
The younger sister had by this time withdrawn the offending arm and turned sharply upon the intruder.
"How tiresome you are, Amabilia," she said pettishly; "always interfering. Zac and I understand each other quite well, and don't want you here at all. Do go away!"
"Hoity-toity!" rejoined the other. "I go away, forsooth, that would be very reasonable, when we both know that dear Zac loves me fifty times better than he does you. Impudence!"
At this Concaterina fired up.
"He does no such thing!" she cried angrily; "he and I are now nearly of an age, and if you were a real good sister you would be glad to see how fond he is of me, instead of trying to take him away, you spiteful thing."
Amabilia replied with equal warmth, and poor Zac's position became one of extreme discomfort, both princesses claiming him as their own, when he in reality neither belonged nor wished to belong to either.
Presently, however, they brought their animated discussion to a close by appealing to Zac himself. Amabilia ingenuously declared that as she was eldest she ought to have the first choice, and that since matters had come to this pass, she would not be ashamed of telling Zac to his face that she loved him dearly, and was prepared to accept him for her husband. To this she added that in most courts such a hint as she had given would be considered equivalent to a command, and that she was thankful to say and feel that, as in their case there was love on both sides, a command would be quite superfluous.
Concaterina then put in her claim. She said that in matters of love it was not a question of being eldest or youngest, the heart must follow its own promptings. She loved Zac – oh, so dearly! and she felt that he returned her love, only diffidence forbade him to confess it. But if he would be hers, she was certain her sister would soon find another mate, and that the king, her father, would make no objection. Thus accosted by two young and beautiful princesses, poor Zac would have had a most difficult task to decide between them, had it not been that the path of duty lay straight before him, and he had all along resolved to follow it.
"Dear ladies!" he said, addressing them both, and bowing respectfully to one and the other, "I thought you were but playing with me, and I would fain hope so still. If not – what reply can I make to you? I love you both – each has been so kind to me since I first entered the palace, that I should be worse than a brute if I did not love you both. But I came here as the promised husband of your sister Belinda. My troth is plighted to her. She believes in and trusts me. How can I break my word and her heart? Dear princesses, you are so beautiful that you can command love whenever and wherever you wish it. It is not so with poor Belinda. She has but me, and I have vowed to be faithful to her!"
Whilst Zac was speaking thus, his eyes fired with animation, and his face beaming with excitement, the princesses thought they had never seen him look so handsome. But when his words showed them that their efforts to wean his heart from their younger sister had been unsuccessful, rage gradually took possession of their souls.
"You despise our love!" they both cried out at once. "You, a mere peasant boy, who was only taken into the palace out of charity, you dare to say that you despise our beauty and ourselves, and take up with that little lump of deformity, Belinda! How can you be such a fool?"
Poor Zac protested that he was far from despising either of them, and admired their beauty greatly, as indeed anyone with eyes must do. This, however, was far from satisfying the enraged damsels. They insisted upon it that the youth had encouraged them both, and the only dispute between them now was as to which of them had been worse treated by him. They told him, moreover, that his pretended fidelity to Belinda should not bring happiness either to him or her. They would plague her life out, for the matter of that. Ugly little toad! why should she have a husband at all? And as for him – he should be punished handsomely for this, and that, too, perhaps, sooner than he thought.
They then left the summer-house, and, I am sorry to say, allowed their anger to carry them far beyond what could in any way be justified. They agreed to go to their father that very afternoon, and tell him that Zac had been very impertinent to both of them, and that Amabilia had surprized him trying to kiss Concaterina against her will in the summer-house. This they accordingly did, and the effects were much what they had expected.
The king flew into a violent passion, threw both his boots with an unerring aim at the head of Lord Pompous, and vowed that the world must certainly be coming to an end. When the courtiers had all agreed to this as a novel but most reasonable remark, he called them a parcel of fools for thinking such a thing at all probable, and ordered Zac to be immediately arrested. When told of what he was accused, the poor boy was almost beside himself with grief. He was sorry enough for the trouble he was in, and for that which might fall upon Belinda in consequence; but he was still more sorry for the cruel conduct of the two princesses, whom he had really liked, and who had behaved so heartlessly to him for only doing his duty. Even now, however, he behaved like a true gentleman.
When Fridolin asked him what he had to allege in his defence, he bowed low before the king, and said "Nothing." When asked if he then confessed himself guilty, he replied:
"May it please your majesty, I should feel guilty if I allowed myself to deny any statement made by the noble princesses, your majesty's royal daughters."
This speech would have touched many hearts, but Fridolin was in too great a passion at that moment to be touched by anything, and he gave orders that Zac should immediately be thrown into a deep dungeon, fed upon bread and water, and confined there until it should be settled whether he should be beheaded or banished, which were the only two punishments which occurred to the king just then. Accordingly, the poor boy was roughly dragged away from the royal presence, taken down a great many stone steps, until he arrived at the dungeon door, and then thrust through it, and left to think over all that had happened.
The Princess Belinda, meanwhile, was quite ignorant of the whole affair until the next morning, when her two sisters visited her in her apartment. They came, as may be supposed, in no very friendly state of mind, and told their story in a manner which would have greatly distressed Belinda, if she had not had the most perfect reliance upon Zac. They pretended to condole with her on the circumstance of his having repeatedly made love to both of them, playing one off against the other, and striving to induce them to persuade the king to let him marry one of them instead of her. They said that they had refrained from telling her this before, for fear of wounding her feelings, but that now they were obliged to do so. Then they told their concocted story about the summer-house, and related all that had subsequently occurred. Poor Belinda shed bitter tears, but showed her disbelief in their story so plainly, that they presently changed their tone, asked who and what she was, forsooth, that a husband should be provided for her – telling her that she should never have him after all, that they would take care he was kept in the dungeon until he came to his senses, and making all kinds of other unpleasant observations, which made the poor child very unhappy. So as soon as her sisters had left her, she determined to go down to her foster-mother's cottage, and seek consolation from her.
Off she set, and walked down to the forest, crying all the way, until she got to the cottage. There, to her dismay, she found the door locked, for the good woman had gone to carry her husband's dinner out to him on the plain, and had locked up the house until her return. Belinda did not know what to do, for as she was not very strong, she felt somewhat tired with her walk, and not equal to walking back again without rest. So she sat down in the trellised arbour by the cottage door, and presently fell fast asleep. As she slept, she dreamed a curious dream. She thought that her mother came and looked upon her. Of course, Belinda could not remember her mother, for the very good reason that she had died very shortly after the child was born. Still, somehow or other, she knew it was her mother, very bright and beautiful, and with such a loving look upon her face as only mothers have when they gaze upon their children. When her mother had looked down upon her for a little while, she stooped down and spoke, in a soft, sweet, gentle tone of voice.
"My little one," she said, "do not despair and be down-hearted: all will yet be well with you. You have had much trouble in the past, but your happiness in the future will be all the brighter by the contrast. If you want help, you are near it now, for Canetto, the Prince of the Forest Mannikins, is my cousin, and you are in his country."
Belinda started up wide-awake, just as her mother seemed to have finished speaking. The words were still ringing in her ears, and she looked round and rubbed her eyes in great amazement. There was nothing to be seen. A soft breeze from the south gently stirred the leaves of the honeysuckle and sweetbriar which enfolded the little arbour in their fragrant embrace. The doves were gently cooing in the fir-trees, and far, far away she heard the distant bleating of the sheep on the plain, but there was no mortal being near her. The loving mother, then, had been but the unreal vision of a dream, and the encouraging words had been no more than a passing thought or fancy of her own, mysteriously clothed for a moment with sound. Yet they seemed so vivid – so true. So certain was she that she had actually heard them, that almost insensibly she found herself repeating them aloud.
"Canetto, the Prince of the Forest Mannikins," she exclaimed, and the next moment started with affright at the effect which her own words had produced.
"Who calls Canetto?" said a voice; and at the same instant she perceived a figure standing a few yards off from the entrance to the arbour. It was the figure of a little old man, about three feet high, dressed in a dark green coat, with a velveteen waistcoat and white corduroys. In his hand he held a hunting-whip, with which he carelessly flicked off the heads of the daisies as he stood. Upon his head was a species of wide-awake, as far as Belinda could judge; at least it was of that kind of shape, and seemed to be made of some light material suited to the heat of the weather. But the most remarkable thing about the old gentleman was the marvellous mixture of intelligence and good-humour which appeared upon his countenance. His eyes sparkled with a kind of light, which told you at the first glance that he was not a man to be easily hum-bugged, whilst the smile which seemed constantly hovering upon his mouth betokened a fund of humour and kind-heartedness which was very reassuring to the young princess.
"Who calls Canetto?" he said again, in a kind voice.
The maiden knew that common politeness, as well as her own interest, required a prompt reply.
"Sir," she said, "I am Belinda, King Fridolin's youngest daughter, and my mother was your cousin, I think, and I am very unhappy, and I don't know what to do, and I dreamed that my mother came and told me to ask you to help me; and oh! pray don't be angry with me, for I do not want to do any harm to anybody, only if I may be a little happier!"
While Belinda spoke the little man kept on flicking his hunting-whip and smiling benignly all the time.
"A little happier, my lambkin?" he said as soon as she had finished. "To be sure you shall. Why not? Your mother my cousin? That she was indeed, poor darling! Not only my cousin was she, but we used to be the best of friends before she married King Fridolin, after which I saw little of her, and knew nothing of her great trouble until it was too late to help her."
At these words the princess quite forgot her own sorrow for the moment, in the intense desire she had to know the history of the mother of whom neither her father nor her sisters ever spoke.
"Oh, sir," she cried in an agitated voice, "please tell me about my dear mother. I have so longed to know all about her, and I never shall know unless somebody tells me, for she died when I was quite little, and no one in the palace ever speaks of her to me."
A tinge of melancholy replaced the smile upon the little man's face as he replied to Belinda's question.
"Your mother," said he, "was neither more nor less than an angel, which is more than I can say for your royal father; although, after all, his faults are rather those of his education than any which arise from his natural disposition, which is far from bad. But it is difficult for kings, who have the world at their feet and always get their own way, to be all that one could wish them. Your mother was as near perfection, in body as well as mind, as any human being can attain. Why she married your father I could never understand, except it was because she chose to do so. There were others," (here the small gentleman drew himself up to his full height, placed his right hand upon his heart, and heaved a deep sigh), "there were others who loved her as well and might have made her happier. But Fridolin carried her off, and for a time they were happy. When your elder sisters were born he was contented, although he had wished for a prince, but he could not object to children of such rare beauty. Then came the trouble.
"The fairy Nuisancenika had, and has, wondrous power over the Plain country – by which I don't mean the country of 'plain' people, though she is 'plain' enough in all conscience, but the flat country, wherever there are no woods and hills. Well, this disagreeable woman was always jealous of your mother's beauty, because she herself possessed none, and was the more angry with her because, I think, she always had a fancy to be queen herself. Still, she dared not injure a queen who had carefully avoided doing anything which might give her reasonable cause of offence. True, she did what she could to poison your father's mind and make him dislike his wife; but, save for an unfortunate accident, I think she would have failed altogether. The poor queen dropped her writing-case upon one occasion, and the wicked fairy, finding it, secured some of her private note paper and envelopes with her own particular cipher thereupon. Of these she made use by writing, in exact imitation of your mother's handwriting, some very disagreeable things about the king, which she took good care should fall into his hands. This caused unpleasantness between the hitherto happy couple, and Nuisancenika made it her business to manage that it should not pass away. Then, most unhappily, in driving out one day in her pony-carriage, your poor mother had the bad luck to drive over one of the fairy's favourite adders, which was fast asleep on a grass ride where it had no earthly business to be, and had no right whatever to complain of being killed. But the wicked mistress was furious beyond measure; and as the event occurred when the queen was in the plain country, driving, I believe, to fetch her husband news how the lambing was going on, this circumstance somehow or other gave the fairy power over her which she cruelly used. Had I only known of it in time, the whole misfortune might have been prevented, but I chanced to be away on a visit, and when I returned, your mother was dead and the mischief done. I heard of it too late, and the wretch Nuisancenika had taken such precautions by her enchantments during my absence that, although my power is greater than hers, I could do nothing at all in the matter; nor could I have even disclosed to you the truth, as I have now done, unless you had, of your own free will, come into my country and asked me the question outright."