269. The Four Fourth Fairy Ring Candidates

269. The Four Fourth Fairy Ring Suitresses

I was playing golf with Aunt Mabel’s niece Camy at the Memorion’s course when she noticed I wasn’t concentrating on the game at all.

“Why is your mind wandering? What is bothering you?”

“It’s that obvious, is it?” I replied. “You’ll never believe what ails me,” I said.

And, when she insisted on knowing, I told her why I couldn’t concentrate.  Aunt Nekutarin heard me speak out and immediately said, “You are thinking of marrying a girl so your friend won’t hurt her? Do you love this girl?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t even think I have anything much in common with her. But she has been through a lot and I don’t want her to be hurt again.”

“But she will be. If you marry a girl you don’t love, sooner or later she will find out and feel hurt. Does she want to marry you or your friend? Or maybe neither?”

“That’s just it. She doesn’t know I am considering marrying her. My friend asked her to marry him, and she said yes, but now he is thinking his mother might find someone better for him. If she does, he will drop the first girl and marry the new one, and the first girl will be hurt and maybe I should propose to her so she won’t feel so bad.”

“Certainly not!” cried Aunt Nekutarin. “One must never propose to someone one doesn’t love. The rejected girl will just have to get used to the idea of being jilted by your shameless friend. We aren’t mortals, so there is no danger of scorned love suicide. If you propose, the girl will end up going through the same heartbreak twice, because sooner or later she will learn that you don’t love her.”

“Does Betabel know Alpin is looking for someone better than she is?” asked Camy, when I told her and Aunt Nekutarin all about how Mrs. Dullahan had asked Aunt Cybela to find Alpin a better bride because she didn’t like this one. And how Alpin wasn’t going to drop Betabel or give her a clue that he might until he had a finer bird in hand.

“Miss Aislene feels Betabel is not very smart and fears she and Alpin will have stupid children.”

“I’m sorry to say Mrs. Dullahan is probably right,” said Aunt Nekutarin. “This Betabel can’t be very smart if she has accepted Alpin’s proposal. And whether he is smart or not, that boy is an authentic idiot.”

“Aunt Cybela says Betabel has to be desperate, but that makes me think that the girl Aunt Cybela wll find for Alpin will probably be someone desperate too. Or worse. Because she could be desperate for very bad reasons. It´s not just one girl Cybela will be proposing, she said she would introduce Alpin to a bevy so he could choose Miss Right.”

“No matter what happens, you can’t marry out of pity, Arley. It’s not the sensible thing to do.”

“You know, Auntie, Arley has made me feel curious. Do you think Mum will mind if we have a peek at the girls Cybela has chosen?”

“Your Mum is at home. You can ask her yourself,” said Aunt Nekutarin, and all three of us left the Memorion’s home and crossed over to Momo San’s house.

Mrs. Momo, or Miss Anatolia, or Miss Tolly, or just plain Tolly, or Annie as her husband likes to call her because he has trouble pronouncing the letter l,  is Belvedere the Mnemosinite’s eldest sister, and therefore Aunt Mabel’s aunt, and  when she heard us out , she  immediately felt curious too.

“This is Arley?” she asked her daughter. “Because if this is Arley, we can consult the fountain. Neither your Uncle Belvedere nor AEternus will mind.”

After swearing me to secrecy, Miss Tolly led me to her backyard, and there, hidden behind some bushes, was a fountin shaped like a basin. She made four garden chairs walk up to it and circle it and instructed us to be seated.

“Let me get time and place right. You say Alpin is to meet the girls Cybela will offer him at the fourth fairy ring this Halloween?” Miss Tolly asked me, and I nodded. She fussed a bit with a spout there was connected to the basin and water began to pour out and fill the basin. “This should be it,” she said.

We peered into the basin and there was Alpin speaking with Aunt Cybela. And from that moment on, we were able to see everything that would happen between them at the Fourth Fairy Ring’s Hallloween party as clearly as if we were present and invisible. 

“I will show you some  marriageable girls and once you see a girl you like, ask her if she would like to go with you to Michael O’Toora’s Halloween party. If she follows you there, this will mean she is interested in you too. Now, the first candidate is Miss Taya Knot. Taya, dear, come over here. There’s someone who would love to meet you.”

 A pretty-faced, delicate  girl dressed in the finest  gossamer approched us. Yes us, because I was there twice. Once as my future self and once as my actual, invisible self. The girl had long, violetish hair, all tied up in knots. And her fingers were busy tying up more knots in it.

“Why, Alpin,  what luck! Isn’t she pretty?” exclaimed Miss Aislene.

“Boy, is she nervous!” exclaimed Alpin, thinking it was nerves that were making Taya tie all those knots.

“No, dear,” explained Aunt Cybela. “I think she’s almost always  doing that. She’s a bit compulsive.”

“It’s like a tic? I´m not tying the knot with this one,” said Alpin. “If she can’t stop tying knots, how will she cook or clean for me? I don’t want hairs in my soup.”

“Some people get over such compulsions when they marry,” said Miss Aislene weakly.

“I’m not running risks!” snapped Alpin at his mother.

And Arabella came up to us and managed to drawTaya away without being too obvious about it.

“Next!” demanded Alpin.

“Look under that oak tree. That there is Miss Yule de Bug.”

“What? What is a yuldibug?” asked Alpin. ”Where is this person from?”

It got worse when he actually saw her.

Miss de Bug had something like a gigantic bedbug on her head. It was probably just a weird hat, I thought. Maybe a Halloween costume.  She was probably nice enough to look at, but it wasn’t easy to get a good look at her, because it was difficult to take one’s eyes from the bug on her head.

“You mentioned you needed a cleaner. Now, Miss de Bug is a sort of cleaner. She is a bug exterminator. The best in the surroundings of Minced Forest. You’ll never see a bug in your house.”

“No way!” said Alpin. “I’m not sticking a girl who is wise in poisons in my house. If things get out of hand, she might exterminate me.”

“I think Alpin is right about this one, Cybela,” said Miss Aislene laying a hand on her son’s shoulder.  “Can’t you do a little better?”

“Well, there near the lemonade stand, surrounded by her beaus, is Miss Aureana Golddigger, a California belle. Shall I ask her to approach us?”

“Why, Alpin!” exclaimed Miss Aislene. “How wonderful!  She looks like Fiona!”

Aureana did sort of resemble Fiona a little. But not enough, for all the aging men around her.

“No,” said Alpin. “She looks like a tough Fiona. Like someone pretending to be what she’s not. I’ll bet she’s tough as nails.”

“Your sister has a lot of character,” insisted Miss Aislene. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

The girl Aureana didn’t wait to be called. As soon as she noticed we were eyeing her, she came up to Alpin and asked, “What can you offer me?”

“Me?” said Alpin. “No, girl. What can you do for me? Can you cook? Can you clean? Are you ready to do anything necessary to make me happy?”

Aureana gave half a turn and walked away on her diamond-studded golden dancing slippers.

“This isn’t going too well, is it?” Alpin snarled at Aunt Cybela.

“I see you are looking for a motherly type,” said Aunt Cybela, undaunted. “Let me introduce you to Angelmouse Belfry.”

Angelmouse Belfry popped up before us, or rather her head did, with open bat’s wings attached to it.  And the most surprised of us was Miss Aislene.

“Why, if it isn’t Batty Belfry!” she cried. “I was thinking it might be your daughter, Batty! Batty and I learned to read together at the Job Hob Library! Didn’t we, Batty? It’s been ages since!”

“Who do you think I am?” Alpin glared at Aunt Cybela crossly. “Attor? You think I want a  winged mummy for a wife? Mummies are not maternal. I have a perfectly good girlfriend, meek, humble, obedient. And I don’t care for cradle snatchers who are insane to boot.”

“Really, Batty,” said Miss Aislene, “You always were a little nuts, but I can’t believe you would be willing to marry someone who could be your son.”

“This kid could be my great great grandson. And I already have been there and done that,” said Miss Angelmouse. “Several times. It’s fun while it lasts.”

Angelmouse laughed and said she was only teasing Alpin and trying to get him to appreciate the true aspirants to his hand a little better. And while she and Miss Aislene chatted away, catching up on what they had been at during all the years they hadn’t seen each other, Aunt Cybela told an Alpin who was as cross as two sticks that she had a very, very special candidate.

“This one has money,” Aunt Cybela assured him. “She won’t ask you for a dime. She’s going to inherit a kingdom, and she has all the servants either of you will ever need.”

“My mum says servants are hired enemies. I want my wife to tend to me with her own little white hands,” said Alpin.

“Now, don’t be spoiled, dear. The more time she will have to do pleasant activities with you if she doesn’t have to do housework.”

“Does she have pink hair, this princess type? I won’t take anyone who doesn’t!”

“She can die her hair if she doesn’t,” nodded Aunt Cybela, “and you would be king consort one day.”

“Alright,” said Alpin. “I don’t mind being king. Let’s see this crown princess.”

And we were introduced to Miss Abstracta Crackmirror, daughter of Katakrakus the First and the Non-expiring, king of the Crackmirror tribes, semi-ogres who lived in a place we had fortunately never heard of before and whose faces were not quite arranged like ours are.  Abstracta’s mouth was in the right place, above her chin,  but her eyebrows were right over it, one on each side, though not close enough to look exactly like a moustache. And though one of her eyes was slightly above her nose, the other was under it, if I remember rightly. Her ears were somewhere on her face, and not on the sides of her head. I can’t say exactly where, because I was afraid to look at her too closely. I didn’t want  to be rude.  

“I’m going to marry a girl who looks like Heather!” screamed Alpin. “Heather, who I love truly and is the best girl I have ever seen! I love Heather!”

And I felt I had to protect Betabel just as I would have protected my sister if she had been foolish enough to let Alpin fool her into being his bride.

“Heather?” exclaimed Aunt Cybela. “Our Heather? Oh, no, dear. Now I say no way,” said Aunt Cybela. “That’s no match for you! We have plans for Heathie.”

And before I could say no way myself, something odd happened.

Quentin Treadfaster, Charlie’s older brother, suddenly popped up in front of Alpin and said Heather was taken. By him.

Now, I don’t know much about the Treadfasters, but it was common knowledge that this Quentin was not the kind of bloke to be lightly messed with. And Charlie, I must admit, was Belinda or Arabella’s perfect cavalier servente. Charlie and Nicky Sweetquill and the Bluebell twins go everywhere together and I never remember who is who’s  proper partner, but what I do have clear is these lads are probably the most attentive and obliging boyfriends to be had. The Bluebell Twins might be a disaster making matches for others, but they had done quite well for themselves, considering how demanding and unbearable these girls could be. If Quentin were like his brother, he might not be a bad choice for Heather, always supposing she was agreeable. So I decided to just watch how this would turn out for the timebeing, instead of turning on him. But still, it surprised me that Quentin should have appeared in a puff of  blue smoke to defend Heather from Alpin. Or did he and Heather have some kind of understanding I was in the dark about?

“So I’m marrying someone else,” said Alpin to Quentin. “What’s that to you? You still want to fight a duel or what?”