Part 42

'It's the curse, dearest,' he explained, 'I couldn't tell any one but you. The fact is Malevola wasn't asked to my christening so she doomed me to be ... well, she said "moderately good-looking all the week, and too ugly for words on Sundays." So you see! You will be married on a week-day, won't you?'

'But I can't,' said the Princess, 'because I've got a curse too--only I'm ugly all the week and pretty on Sundays.'

'How extremely tiresome,' said the Prince, 'but can't you be cured?'

'Oh yes,' said the Princess, and told him how. 'And you,' she asked, 'is yours quite incurable?'

'Not at all,' he answered, 'I've only got to stay under water for five minutes and the spell will be broken. But you see, beloved, the difficulty is that I can't do it. I've practised regularly, from a boy, in the sea, and in the swimming bath, and even in my wash-hand basin--hours at a time I've practised--but I never can keep under more than two minutes.'

'Oh dear,' said the Princess, 'this is dreadful.'

'It is rather trying,' the Prince answered.

'You're sure you like me,' she asked suddenly, 'now you know that I'm only pretty once a week?'

'I'd die for you,' said he.

'Then I'll tell you what. Send all your courtiers away, and take a situation as under-gardener here--I know we want one. And then every night I'll climb down the jasmine and we'll go out together and seek our fortune. I'm sure we shall find it.'

And they did go out. The very next night, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. And they did not find their fortunes, but they got fonder and fonder of each other. They could not see each other's faces, but they held hands as they went along through the dark.

And on the seventh night, as they passed by a house that showed chinks of light through its shutters, they heard a bell being rung outside for supper, a bell with a very loud and beautiful voice. But instead of saying--

'Supper's ready,' as any one would have expected, the bell was saying--

Ding dong dell! I could tell Where you ought to go To break the spell.

Then some one left off ringing the bell, so of course it couldn't say any more. So the two went on. A little way down the road a cow-bell tinkled behind the wet hedge of the lane. And it said--not, 'Here I am, quite safe,' as a cow-bell should, but--

Ding dong dell All will be well If you...

Then the cow stopped walking and began to eat, so the bell couldn't say any more. The Prince and Princess went on, and you will not be surprised to hear that they heard the voices of five more bells that night. The next was a school-bell. The schoolmaster's little boy thought it would be fun to ring it very late at night--but his father came and caught him before the bell could say any more than--

Ding a dong dell You can break up the spell By taking...

So that was no good.

Then there were the three bells that were the sign over the door of an inn where people were happily dancing to a fiddle, because there was a wedding. These bells said:

We are the Merry three Bells, bells, bells. You are two To undo Spells, spells, spells...

Then the wind who was swinging the bells suddenly thought of an appointment he had made with a pine forest, to get up an entertaining imitation of sea-waves for the benefit of the forest nymphs who had never been to the seaside, and he went off--so, of course, the bells couldn't ring any more, and the Prince and Princess went on down the dark road.

There was a cottage and the Princess pulled her veil closely over her face, for yellow light streamed from its open door--and it was a Wednesday.

Inside a little boy was sitting on the floor--quite a little boy--he ought to have been in bed long before, and I don't know why he wasn't. And he was ringing a little tinkling bell that had dropped off a sleigh.

And this little bell said:

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know, and I'll tell, tell, tell. Find the Enchanter of the Ringing Well, He will show you how to break the spell, spell, spell. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know....

And so on, over and over, again and again, because the little boy was quite contented to go on shaking his sleigh-bell for ever and ever.

'So now we know,' said the Prince, 'isn't that glorious?'