The Ordinary Princess Read online

  Then all the people cheered and flung their hats into the air, and a thousand white doves were released from the windows of the palace. The doves flew out into the sunshine and circled and cooed above the tall turrets and battlements before winging their way into the Forest of Faraway. While inside the throne room the guests passed in procession by the cradle, each in turn presenting a christening gift to the seventh princess.

  The presents mounted up in a huge pile until they almost reached the ceiling, but the gifts that the fairies gave took up no room at all, for the sort of presents they give do not need to be packed in boxes.

  They gave the seventh princess Charm and Wit and Grace and Courage, and a great many other things like that, and the Queen could not help looking extremely pleased with herself and saying in a rather loud whisper to the King, “You see it has all turned out a great success in spite of all your fussing. I told you so.”

  But the King only sniffed. “I wouldn’t speak too soon,” he said pessimistically. “There’s still a lot of time for something nasty to happen.”

  And just then, something did.

  The last and most important of the fairy god-mothers had arrived late because of a traffic jam on the road to the palace. Her name was Crustacea, and she was the fairy-in-charge-of-water, which means that she was the head fairy of all the seas, pools, ponds, lakes and rivers.

  She was very old and rather deaf, and her temper was always inclined to be a little uncertain when she was on dry land. But for all that, she was a very powerful and important lady, and all the guests made way for her as she hobbled up to the cradle.

  The Queen bowed most graciously to her, and the King muttered something about being pleased to see her, while the old fairy peered at them over the top of her horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “I wish,” said the old fairy crossly, “that people who give large parties would take the trouble to see that the traffic is properly controlled. Your police appear to be quite useless. Would you believe it, I was held up in a crush of carriages for over half an hour? Me! At my age!! I cannot endure dust and I am almost as dry as a bone!”

  And indeed her long seaweedy robe was hardly damp, instead of nice and seawatery as she liked it.

  The Queen was full of apologies and sent out at once for a bowl of salt water from the royal fish ponds.

  Old Crustacea poured some of it over herself and drank the rest and said she felt better. The water trickled down her seaweedy robe and made messy pools on the polished floor, but nobody liked to mention it.

  “And now,” said old Crustacea, “let’s have a look at this brat of yours.”

  She hobbled up to the cradle and peered down at the seventh princess.

  The seventh princess had been snoozing, but now she opened one blue eye, and then the other, and she smiled at the old fairy.

  Old Crustacea put out a long bony finger and touched the seventh princess’s pink cheek. Then she looked at the King and Queen and the resplendent guests and the six little sister princesses, each more beautiful than the last, and finally she looked at the huge pile of glittering presents and the list that the Lord High Chamberlain had made of the gifts bestowed by the other fairies.

  “Hmm!” said the Fairy Crustacea. “Wit, Charm, Courage, Health, Wisdom, Grace ... Good gracious, poor child! Well, thank goodness my magic is stronger than anyone else’s.”

  She raised her twisty coral stick and waved it three times over the cradle of the seventh princess. “My child,” said the Fairy Crustacea, “I am going to give you something that will probably bring you more happiness than all these fal-lals and fripperies put together. You shall be Ordinary!”

  And nodding her head briskly the Fairy Crustacea turned away and hobbled rapidly out of the throne room, leaning on her twisty coral stick and leaving a faint smell of seaweed and a damp track on the polished floor behind her.

  For quite a minute after she had gone there was a stunned silence in the red and gold throne room of the palace. It was broken by the King.

  “I told you so!” said the King triumphantly. “Rash,” said the King. “I knew it was rash. Didn’t I say that something like this was bound to happen?”

  Words cannot describe the scene that followed. The Queen wept, and the King went on saying, “Rash,” and “I told you so,” until the Prime Minister felt like resigning on the spot. Everybody talked at once, words like “Impossible!” “Horrors!” and “Disgraceful!” flew in all directions, and the noise became so great that you could hardly have heard yourself think.

  It was then that the seventh princess proceeded to show how quickly the Fairy Crustacea’s gift had worked.

  She screwed up her apple-blossom face into something that resembled a small squashed tomato, and, opening her mouth as wide as possible, she screamed and screamed—as any ordinary baby would have done after a tiring day and with all that noise going on.

  Everybody stopped talking at once and rushed forward to the cradle. But the seventh princess just kept right on screaming. She didn’t like all these strangers, she was tired and bored and hungry, and she didn’t care who knew it.

  “Yaaaaaaa! Oooooooo! Gwwowow!” screamed the seventh princess, doubling up her small pink fists and turning quite purple in the face.

  The Queen fainted away and had to be revived with smelling salts. The King said, “I told you it was rash,” for the seventeenth time, and the Prime Minister resigned on the spot, while the Lord High Chamberlain sent half a dozen gentlemen-in-waiting hurrying after the Fairy Crustacea to beg her please to come back and change her mind.

  But alas! By the time the panting messengers reached the gates, the Fairy Crustacea had gone.

  So that was that.

  The christening party broke up in confusion and the guests said good-bye, and how sorry they were, but perhaps it wouldn’t turn out to be so bad after all, one must look on the bright side, mustn’t one, and all the other gifts were very beautiful and—er—gratifying, so perhaps ...

  The last coach of the last guest rumbled out of the palace yard, and the footmen and pages and servingmen began to clear away the remnants of the feast. They took the leftover cakes and pastries and the broken bits of marzipan trees, sugar-candy castles, and ships and dragons home to their friends and relations, while the Queen took to her bed in a state of nervous prostration and the Prime Minister took to his with a headache.

  But as for Her Serene and Royal Highness the Princess Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne of Phantasmorania, she was taken back to her royal nursery still screaming as determinedly as ever.

  PART II

  Rosemary’s Green

  Amy

  Long sunny years drifted by in the kingdom of Phantasmorania. And with every passing year the old Fairy Crustacea’s gift became more and more noticeable, as the seventh princess became more and more ordinary.

  No one ever called her by her grand name now. From the townsfolk in the city down to the smallest page at the palace, she was always known simply as “the Ordinary Princess,” while even her own family never called her Amethyst. They called her Amy. And what could be more ordinary than that?

  After the day of her christening, she had begun to change from a beautiful baby princess into just an ordinary baby. Her soft golden curls stopped curling and became darker, and her blue eyes turned a gray ish-brown neither-here-nor-there color. And as she grew older, her little nose turned up and her hair hung down straighter and straighter, and not all the curlpapers in the world could make it look as a proper princess’s should.

  Her six lovely sisters, with their rose-petal complexions, their straight, white little noses, rippling golden hair and perfect deportment, were a delight to see. But Amy—! Oh dear, how ordinary she was!

  Her Mama the Queen who was a very determined woman, would not give up hope that something could be done to correct the distressing ordinariness of her youngest daughter. She hired dancing masters from Spain to teach her elegance and deportment and hairdressers
and beauty experts from France to improve her hair and complexion. But all to no avail.

  Even the court magician was no use. His card, which he always carried with him, had printed in one corner, ALL KINDS OF CHARMS ON APPLICATION. VANISHING DONE. But none of his charms made any difference to the ordinariness of the Ordinary Princess, and in spite of his best efforts, not one single freckle ever vanished off the Princess Amy’s little snub nose.

  She grew up as gawky as possible, with a distressing habit of standing with her feet apart and her hands behind her back, and hair of a color that not even a court poet could describe as anything but just plain mouse. But though she proved every day how strong the old Fairy Crustacea’s magic had been, her other christening gifts were not entirely wasted.

  True, the splendid jewels and brocades of the kings and princes and barons were quite out of place on her homely little person, but the fairy gifts had been very useful, for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world. Not that it ever worried the Ordinary Princess.

  She was sometimes sorry that she was such a disappointment to her royal Mama the Queen. “But after all,” said the Ordinary Princess, “Mama has six perfectly scrumptious daughters, so I don’t think that one not-so-goodish one ought to matter very much.”

  There were also times when (being a very ordinary sort of person) she felt a little envious of her sisters’ beauty. “But oh! what a lot of fun they miss by not being me,” said the Princess Amy as she leaned her elbows on the windowsill of her room and looked out over the forest. “They have to keep their complexions white and play the harp and embroider tapestry, and the only game they ever play is throwing each other a golden ball. But I do such exciting things!” said the Ordinary Princess. And she smiled a little secret smile to herself as she leaned far out of the window to sniff the breeze from the forest.

  Her room was in one of the turrets on the palace wall, a big round room with tall pointed windows on three sides of it, so that from one window she could see the sunrise and from another the sunset. It was the same room in which she had lain as a baby in her golden cradle and blinked at the painted ceiling. Amethyst-colored tapestry still covered the walls, and outside the window grew a great wisteria hung with pale purple blossoms. The wisteria had a strong twisty gray stem that climbed and clung to the old weather-beaten stones of the turret, and the Ordinary Princess smiled again as she leaned out and touched that rough knobbly stem with her little brown hand.

  She shared a particular secret with the old wisteria that nobody in the palace ever suspected—not even Nurse Marta.

  Since the time when she was three years old she had always longed to escape from the palace gardens and play in the forest—the great, beautiful, mysterious Forest of Faraway that swept right up to the very walls of the palace. From her window she could watch the rabbits frolicking among the ferns and moss, and the shy deer picking their way through the leafy aisles between the tree trunks.

  Then one summer evening, when she had been put to bed while it was still light outside, she had a great idea—a wonderful idea. It was so wonderful that she could not wait to carry it out, and the very next minute she was climbing out of her turret window and down the twisty curves of the old wisteria and had run off into the forest to play.

  Since that first time, when she was little more than six years old, she had done it many, many times. The old wisteria became a ladder into her secret world, and almost every day, rain or shine, she would scramble down the turret wall and be off into the forest, leaving her crown behind and tucking up her trailing dresses, and making believe that she was a peasant girl or a woodcutter’s daughter, living alone in the greenwood.

  The Forest of Faraway is surely the most beautiful place in the world. Between the great tree trunks the ground is carpeted with deep emerald moss, all starry with flowers. Countless wild birds build their nests there, and on moonlit nights in spring it is full of the song of many nightingales. No fierce animals ever roam there but only the dappled deer, the frolicsome rabbits, and little gentle woodland creatures. And sometimes in the spring you would think that the sky must have fallen into the forest, for thousands upon thousands of bluebells spread their sapphire carpets through the glades.

  When March winds blow coldly over the city, inside the forest it is warm and still; and on hot summer days the forest glades are cool and green. Even on wintry or wet days it seemed beautiful to the Ordinary Princess, so while her six beautiful sisters played with their golden ball in the palace gardens, she played with the rabbits and the deer in the forest.

  The six proper princesses never went out of doors without pages to carry silken canopies over their heads, for fear the sunshine might spoil their complexions. But the Ordinary Princess pushed her crown under the royal nightdress case and never wore a hat, and her nose got frecklier and frecklier in spite of all the Queen’s lily lotions and lemon juice.

  The six lovely princesses had ladies-in-waiting and pages standing around when they played ball, to pick it up when they dropped it. But the Ordinary Princess learned to climb trees like a squirrel and to swim like an otter in the deep forest pools. She had a lovely time!

  Nobody could ever understand why she grew so brown or why her brocaded gowns were always getting torn and her embroidered shoes so stained and scratched. But then no one ever worried much about her anyway, and whenever anyone remembered to ask where she was, the answer was nearly always “Somewhere about.” For to tell the truth, they were really all quite glad that she should keep out of the way, as such a very ordinary child was a disgrace to any royal family.

  So it is not surprising that the courtiers sometimes forgot that there was a seventh princess at all.

  One by one the six beautiful sisters grew up and married handsome and gallant princes. And six years running the Ordinary Princess followed one of her sisters down the long, dim aisle of the great cathedral of Phanff and helped to carry the bride’s train and threw rice and rose petals after the glass coach as the bride and her groom drove away from the palace.

  The sixth year she had to carry the train all by herself, for all the other sisters were married, so there was only herself to follow the Princess Pearl up the aisle when Pearl married the Crown Prince of Crystalvia.

  The bride’s train was of silver tissue embroidered with pearls, and as it was ten yards long, the Ordinary Princess found it exceedingly heavy and very difficult to manage.

  It was a hot day and the cathedral was rather stuffy—what with the huge crowd of wedding guests, the clouds of incense from the swinging silver censers, the thousands of lighted candles and the heavy scent of lilies and white roses. The Princess Pearl looked lovelier than ever, and the Crown Prince of Crystalvia very handsome and gallant; though privately the Ordinary Princess thought him rather stiff. “He may be very good looking,” she thought, “but I’m quite sure that he has never giggled one good giggle in his life!”

  Her own bridesmaid’s dress was of amethyst satin embroidered with silver and sewn with a great many pearls in honor of her sister. The silver embroidery scratched her neck and arms and her crown was rather tight as well as being too heavy, and altogether she was very glad when the ceremony was over, the last slice of wedding cake had been cut and the last handful of rose petals had been thrown after the bride and bridegroom’s crystal coach.

  “Well, that’s that!” said the Ordinary Princess, tossing her crown onto her bed and wriggling out of her amethyst satin bridesmaid’s dress.

  She fetched an apple from the top shelf of her book shelf where she kept a hidden store of them, and perched herself on the windowsill of her room in her petticoat. The evening sun was making the treetops of the forest all dusty gold, and there was a great twittering among the birds.

  “I suppose next year it will be my turn to get married,” thought the Ordinary Princess. “Oh dear!
I’m sure I shan’t like it a bit. No more fun. No more forest. Having to wear best dresses every day. Crowns and court curtseys and state banquets and things like that. No climbing trees, and a very handsome husband with no sense of humor!”

  The Ordinary Princess sighed gloomily and threw her apple core at some rabbits.

  “Your Highness!” cried Nurse Marta in a shocked voice, bustling into the room with a great rustling of her starched skirts. “Sitting at the window in your petticoat! Whatever will you be doing next? Suppose someone were to see you!” She hustled the Ordinary Princess away, drew the curtains, and lit all the lamps.

  “But Marta, it’s still daylight,” said the Ordinary Princess wistfully, “and there’s such a lovely sunset.”

  “What has that got to do with it? ” asked Nurse Marta. “It’s past seven o‘clock and that is quite time to draw the curtains.” And she scolded the Ordinary Princess for leaving her beautiful bridesmaid’s frock on the floor—“Your Highness! Your Highness!” said the old nurse, throwing up her hands in horror, “when will you learn to behave like a princess?”

  Then she called the ladies-in-waiting and the maids, and they all chattered and laughed together like a flock of starlings as they brushed the Princess Amy’s hair and poured scented water into her marble bathtub.

  “Now there is only one princess,” said her ladies-in-waiting. “Soon there will be suitors coming for Your Highness, and next year there will be another wedding.” But the Ordinary Princess only yawned. She wished they would not talk so much, for it had been a very long and tiring day, and she had a headache. Besides, she was not very interested in weddings: she had been a bridesmaid at six of them, and by now it all seemed a little dull.

  But very soon it began to look as though there was not going to be a seventh wedding after all.