MISS CUBBIDGE AND THE DRAGON OF
ROMANCE
This tale is told in the balconies of Belgrave Square and among the
towers of Pont Street; men sing it at evening in the Brompton Road.
Little upon her eighteenth birthday thought Miss Cubbidge, of
Number 12A Prince of Wales' Square, that before another year had gone
its way she would lose the sight of that unshapely oblong that was so
long her home. And, had you told her further that within that year all
trace of that so-called square, and of the day when her father was
elected by a thumping majority to share in the guidance of the
destinies of the empire, should utterly fade from her memory, she would
merely have said in that affected voice of hers, "Go to!"
There was nothing about it in the daily Press, the policy of her
father's party had no provision for it, there was no hint of it in
conversation at evening parties to which Miss Cubbidge went: there was
nothing to warn her at all that a loathsome dragon with golden scales
that rattled as he went would have come up clean out of the prime of
romance and gone by night (so far as we know) through Hammersmith, and
come to Ardle Mansion, and then had turned to his left, which of course
brought him to Miss Cubbidge's father's house.
There sat Miss Cubbidge at evening on her balcony quite alone,
waiting for her father to be made a baronet. She was wearing
walking-boots and a hat and a low-necked evening dress; for a painter
was but just now painting her portrait and neither she nor the painter
saw anything odd in the strange combination. She did not notice the
roar of the dragon's golden scales, nor distinguish above the manifold
lights of London the small, red glare of his eyes. He suddenly lifted
his head, a blaze of gold, over the balcony; he did not appear a yellow
dragon then, for his glistening scales reflected the beauty that London
puts upon her only at evening and night. She screamed, but to no
knight, nor knew what knight to call on, nor guessed where were the
dragons' overthrowers of far, romantic days, nor what mightier game
they chased, or what wars they waged; perchance they were busy even
then arming for Armageddon.
Out of the balcony of her father's house in Prince of Wales'
Square, the painted dark-green balcony that grew blacker every year,
the dragon lifted Miss Cubbidge and spread his rattling wings, and
London fell away like an old fashion. And England fell away, and the
smoke of its factories, and the round material world that goes humming
round the sun vexed and pursued by time, until there appeared the
eternal and ancient lands of Romance lying low by mystical seas.
You had not pictured Miss Cubbidge stroking the golden head of one
of the dragons of song with one hand idly, while with the other she
sometime played with pearls brought up from lonely places of the sea.
They filled huge haliotis shells with pearls and laid them there beside
her, they brought her emeralds which she set to flash among the tresses
of her long black hair, they brought her threaded sapphires for her
cloak: all this the princes of fable did and the elves and the gnomes
of myth. And partly she still lived, and partly she was one with
long-ago and with those sacred tales that nurses tell, when all their
children are good, and evening has come, and the fire is burning well,
and the soft pat-pat of the snowflakes on the pane is like the furtive
tread of fearful things in old, enchanted woods. If at first she missed
those dainty novelties among which she was reared, the old, sufficient
song of the mystical sea singing of faery lore at first soothed and at
last consoled her. Even, she forgot those advertisements of pills that
are so dear to England; even, she forgot political cant and the things
that one discusses and the things that one does not, and had perforce
to contend herself with seeing sailing by huge golden-laden galleons
with treasure for Madrid, and the merry skull-and-crossbones of the
pirateers, and the tiny nautilus setting out to sea, and ships of
heroes trafficking in romance or of princes seeking for enchanted
isles.
It was not by chains that the dragon kept her there, but by one of
the spells of old. To one to whom the facilities of the daily Press had
for so long been accorded spells would have palled--you would have
said--and galleons after a time and all things out-of-date. After a
time. But whether the centuries passed her or whether the years or
whether no time at all, she did not know. If any thing indicated the
passing of time it was the rhythm of elfin horns blowing upon the
heights. If the centuries went by her the spell that bound her gave her
also perennial youth, and kept alight for ever the lantern by her side,
and saved from decay the marble palace facing the mystical sea. And if
no time went by her there at all, her single moment on those marvellous
coasts was turned as it were to a crystal reflecting a thousand scenes.
If it was all a dream, it was a dream that knew no morning and no
fading away. The tide roamed on and whispered of master and of myth,
while near that captive lady, asleep in his marble tank the golden
dragon dreamed: and a little way out from the coast all that the dragon
dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the sea. He never
dreamed of any rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed, it was twilight;
but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell and starlight
glistened on the dripping, golden scales.
There he and his captive either defeated Time or never encountered
him at all; while, in the world we know, raged Roncesvalles or battles
yet to be--I know not to what part of the shore of Romance he bore her.
Perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fable loves to tell,
but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea: and kings ruled,
and Demons ruled, and kings came again, and many cities returned to
their native dust, and still she abided there, and still her marble
palace passed not away nor the power that there was in the dragon's
spell.
And only once did there ever come to her a message from the world
that of old she knew. It came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea;
it was from an old school-friend that she had had in Putney, merely a
note, no more, in a little, neat, round hand: it said, "It is not
Proper for you to be there alone."