These Mortals by Margaret Irwin

Author:Margaret Irwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1952-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

The Friend

Melusine had not waited to hear Sir Diarmid’s last remarks to her. On her moonbeam, she passed along the walls, but was arrested by a curious sound proceeding from the window of the Princess Blanchelys’ room. It was a kind of soft bellowing, muffled but extremely unpleasant. This was not the time to inquire into the habits of ordinary mortals; but Blanchelys, cruel and incomprehensible as she had shown herself, was still a goddess in Melusine’s mind, though, it must be admitted, now seldom there. She could not pass by and leave that goddess bellowing alone in her room.

She found the Princess lying face downwards on her bed, her head so deeply buried in her pillows that it appeared as though she were trying to suffocate herself. Melusine changed into her proper shape and entreated Blanchelys to tell her the reason of her sufferings. In a long groan of pain came the answer: “I am dying. I have drunk poison.”

“Then I will fetch the doctor,” said Melusine.

“No,” shrieked the Princess. “No one must ever know why I have done it.” She sat up on the bed and stared at her, but Melusine, obtusely unaware of the duties and requirements of true friendship, believed her statement and forbore to ask questions. The Princess perceived how difficult it was to make any impression on so dull a creature. “I got it for you,” she said wildly. But her guest was polite and puzzled.

“Thank you. But what did you get and why?”

“The poison,” screamed Blanchelys. “When black hair came in. Now it is I who have paid the price.”

“Of what?”

“Of love.”

But Melusine could not understand how one bought love with poison.

“There are no kisses in the grave,” she said.

“You are so earthy. But a mere Enchanter’s daughter cannot be expected to understand the exquisite agony of my feelings.”

“Does the poison hurt very much?”

“There again! The agony is in my heart, not in my—not because of the poison.”

Melusine picked up the bottle that had fallen by the bed.

“But this,” she said, “is your hairwash.”

“My God, what have I done?”

“You have mixed them up.” She went to the washhand-stand. “Here is the poison bottle, quite full. How fortunate!”

But the Princess was furious, and Melusine’s sympathy only made her worse.

“Was the hairwash very nasty?” she asked.

“I tell you I was dying. I thought I was, so I was; it’s the same thing, the doctors tell you. And I saw myself laid on this bed, ever so calm and peaceful at last, and white flowers all round me and Mamma sobbing and even Sir Oliver was sorry and saw what he had lost. Do you think I don’t mean it? I believe you think I mixed them up on purpose.”

“Indeed I do not. What should you do that for? But if it makes you so unhappy you can still drink the poison.”

“How wicked and heartless you are. You want me to commit suicide. But I can never endure such agony again, not even for Sir Oliver. Yes, I love him.

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