Malvina of Brittany | Page 5

but to have bided her time. The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be
remembered, were not fairies pure and simple. Under certain conditions
they were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must
have exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with
eligible male mortals. Prince Gerbot may not have been altogether
blameless. Young men in those sadly unenlightened days may not, in
their dealings with ladies, white or otherwise, have always been the
soul of discretion and propriety. One would like to think the best of her.
But even the best is indefensible. On the day appointed for the wedding
she seems to have surpassed herself. Into what particular shape or form
she altered the wretched Prince Gerbot; or into what shape or form she
persuaded him that he had been altered, it really, so far as the moral
responsibility of Malvina is concerned, seems to be immaterial; the
chronicle does not state: evidently something too indelicate for a
self-respecting chronicler to even hint at. As, judging from other
passages in the book, squeamishness does not seem to have been the
author's literary failing, the sensitive reader can feel only grateful for
the omission. It would have been altogether too harrowing.
It had, of course, from Malvina's point of view, the desired effect. The

Princess Berchta appears to have given one look and then to have fallen
fainting into the arms of her attendants. The marriage was postponed
indefinitely, and Malvina, one sadly suspects, chortled. Her triumph
was short-lived.
Unfortunately for her, King Heremon had always been a patron of the
arts and science of his period. Among his friends were to be reckoned
magicians, genii, the Nine Korrigans or Fays of Brittany-- all sorts of
parties capable of exerting influence, and, as events proved, only too
willing. Ambassadors waited upon Queen Harbundia; and Harbundia,
even had she wished, as on many previous occasions, to stand by her
favourite, had no alternative. The fairy Malvina was called upon to
return to Prince Gerbot his proper body and all therein contained.
She flatly refused. A self-willed, obstinate fairy, suffering from swelled
head. And then there was that personal note. Merely that he should
marry the Princess Berchta! She would see King Heremon, and
Anniamus, in his silly old wizard's robe, and the Fays of Brittany, and
all the rest of them--! A really nice White Lady may not have cared to
finish the sentence, even to herself. One imagines the flash of the fairy
eye, the stamp of the fairy foot. What could they do to her, any of them,
with all their clacking of tongues and their wagging of heads? She, an
immortal fairy! She would change Prince Gerbot back at a time of her
own choosing. Let them attend to their own tricks and leave her to
mind hers. One pictures long walks and talks between the distracted
Harbundia and her refractory favourite--appeals to reason, to sentiment:
"For my sake." "Don't you see?" "After all, dear, and even if he did."
It seems to have ended by Harbundia losing all patience. One thing
there was she could do that Malvina seems either not to have known of
or not to have anticipated. A solemn meeting of the White Ladies was
convened for the night of the midsummer moon. The place of meeting
is described by the ancient chroniclers with more than their usual
exactitude. It was on the land that the magician Kalyb had, ages ago,
raised up above all Brittany to form the grave of King Taramis. The
"Sea of the Seven Islands" lay to the north. One guesses it to be the
ridge formed by the Arree Mountains. "The Lady of the Fountain"
appears to have been present, suggesting the deep green pool from
which the river D'Argent takes its source. Roughly speaking, one would
place it halfway between the modern towns of Morlaix and Callac.

Pedestrians, even of the present day, speak of the still loneliness of that
high plateau, treeless, houseless, with no sign of human hand there but
that high, towering monolith round which the shrill winds moan
incessantly. There, possibly on some broken fragment of those great
grey stones, Queen Harbundia sat in judgment. And the judgment
was--and from it there was no appeal- -that the fairy Malvina should be
cast out from among the community of the White Ladies of Brittany.
Over the face of the earth she should wander, alone and unforgiven.
Solemnly from the book of the roll-call of the White Ladies the name
of Malvina was struck out for ever.
The blow must have fallen upon Malvina as heavily as it was
unexpected. Without a word, without one backward look, she seems to
have departed. One pictures the white, frozen face, the wide-open,
unseeing eyes, the