The Ordinary Princess Page 5

  “Friendly visit my foot!” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, whose name was Ethelinda. She was sitting on the steps of the kitchen yard in the sun, helping the Ordinary Princess to shell peas.

  “You mark my words,” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid darkly, “it’s that there Persephone!”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Ordinary Princess. “And who is Persephone?”

  “The Princess Persephone, that’s who! Queen Hedwig’s daughter. You see, it’s this way,” explained Ethelinda, only too willing to stop shelling peas and gossip instead. “Queen Hedwig, who’s coming to visit here, is the King’s aunt. And her daughter, that there Persephone who is the King’s cousin, is coming with her. Now you mark my words,” repeated Ethelinda impressively, “she’s bringing that girl of hers along in ‘opes, as you might say.”

  “In what?” asked the Ordinary Princess, puzzled.

  “H-o-p-e-s, ‘opes,” said the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, who tended to forget her aitches when excited. “She’d not ’arf like to see her daughter Queen of Ambergeldar.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the Ordinary Princess. “That kind of hopes. I know those!”

  “That’s it,” said Ethelinda, absentmindedly eating raw peas. “It’s policy. Or that’s what I think they call it. Something like that.” She smiled rather condescendingly at the Ordinary Princess and added, “Of course you wouldn’t understand. Not having been long in royal circles, as you might say. But let me tell you, dear, the Fuss there is over princes and kings and princesses and such-like getting married you wouldn’t ‘ardly believe.”

  The Ordinary Princess only just stopped herself from saying, “Oh, wouldn’t I!” She got as far as “Oh” and stopped there.

  “Fuss ain’t the word for it,” continued the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, her mouth full of peas. “Why, the princesses that have come here on ‘friendly visits’ would fill this here yard twice over and still leave some outside. It’s them councillors if you ask me,” said Ethelinda wisely. “They’re always at him to get married. Badgering, I calls it. Plain badgering. That Prime Minister is always inviting princesses to stay at the castle. Gives us a lot of extra work it does. But he hasn’t fallen in love with any of ’em yet!—the King, I mean.”

  The thirteenth assistant kitchen maid gazed across the kitchen yard and sighed sentimentally. “I suppose he will one day,” she said sadly. “Not that no one would be good enough for ‘im. Coo!” sighed the thirteenth assistant kitchen maid, “don’t I just wish I was a princess!”

  On the first night of Queen Hedwig’s visit there was to be a magnificent ball in her honor, and the Ordinary Princess and all the other castle servants were hard at work before the sun rose that day.

  The Queen was bringing with her a retinue of more than a hundred knights and courtiers and ladies-in-waiting with their servants, pages, and men-at-arms. Every room in the castle was full, while the overflow camped in tents of damask in the castle gardens, so that the lawns looked like a gaily colored fairground.

  The Ordinary Princess had managed to escape from the kitchen for a few minutes when no one was looking, and from a corner of the castle battlements she had seen the royal visitors ride in procession through the great gateway. Soldiers presented arms, drums rattled, cannon boomed, and banners and pennants fluttered in the breeze.

  Queen Hedwig rode on a white horse with glittering trappings, and four knights in armor held a golden canopy over her head. The Ordinary Princess thought she looked very proud and bossy and disagreeable.

  Behind her, carried in a jeweled chair, came the Princess Persephone. She was as beautiful as the evening star, but she bowed and smiled in a rather bored sort of way—like a mechanical doll, thought the Ordinary Princess—while the people cheered and threw rose petals into her lap.

  The Ordinary Princess would have liked to wait and see some more, but she was afraid to stay longer in case one of the cooks should notice that she had gone. So she slipped away and went back to the very sticky and tiresome job of stoning cherries.

  That night, when the big yellow moon rose over the treetops and shone down upon Amber Castle, nobody noticed it at all. For the castle and its gardens and park, and all the city, was illuminated in honor of Queen Hedwig’s visit, and there was such a blaze of light that the moonlight seemed faint and wan.

  In the state rooms of the castle thousands upon thousands of sweet-scented wax candles glowed from golden candlesticks, or glittered from chandeliers, while out in the gardens hundreds of gaily colored lanterns swayed among the branches of the trees and hung like strings of jewels along the clipped yew hedges. It really was the most entrancing sight. But lovelier and more splendid than the colored lights or the glittering crystal chandeliers were the noble guests in their wonderful satins and brocades, all stitched with gold and silver thread and winking with jewels, as they walked to and fro in the lantern-lit garden.

  The Ordinary Princess hung out of her attic window at an extremely dangerous angle and admired it all very much.

  She had really only stolen up for a few minutes to bring some almonds for Mr. Pemberthy and a handful of cake crumbs for Peter Aurelious. But the sound of music and the buzz of voices from the garden below had brought her to the window, and there she had lingered, quite entranced by the lovely sight.

  Not that she had much use for state balls as a general rule, having already danced at too many, dressed up in stiff and scratchy gold-encrusted gowns and wearing her heavy for-very-best-occasions crown. But tonight she thought it would have been fun to wander in that lantern-decked garden or to dance to the fiddles across the shining ballroom floor. For high as her attic was, she could hear the music plainly, and the musicians were playing a tune that she knew well:“Lavender’s blue,” played the fiddles,

  “Rosemary’s green,

  ”When you are King

  “I shall be Queen.”

  The Ordinary Princess sighed and ran back to the kitchens, where she got a good scolding from the second assistant cook for being away so long. And after that she found no further opportunities to creep away and watch the revels.

  The music and the dancing lasted until long after midnight, and the moon was sinking behind the chimneys and gabled roofs of the town by the time the last minuet had been played and the wheels of the last coach had rumbled out of the castle yard.

  One by one the footmen and the servingmen, the cooks, the scullions and the scullery maids drifted off to bed.

  The kitchen maids went last of all, and the Ordinary Princess found herself alone with the dying embers of the fire on the big kitchen hearth.

  She had stayed behind the others to see if there were any nuts left over from the dessert that had been served at the banquet. (Mr. Pemberthy was extremely fond of nuts!)

  She searched among the piles of half-empty dishes that were stacked on the scullery tables, but there did not seem to be any nuts. “I know,” thought the Ordinary Princess, “I’ll go up to the banquet hall. There won’t be anyone there now, and I’m sure they won’t have cleared everything away—that will be done in the early morning.”

  She ran down the long stone passage and up the back staircase that led from the royal kitchens to the state apartments. The castle was very quiet, deserted and still, and the Ordinary Princess went on tiptoe. The candles had all burned out, and only the low moonlight came in through the tall windows.

  She crossed the marble hall where the servingmen had waited between courses, and pushed open the big double doors of the banquet hall. The doors were made of cedar wood, all carved and gilded, and they were so heavy that the Ordinary Princess had to push her hardest to open them.

  The banquet hall had not been cleared. The long tables were still littered with golden dishes half full of sweets, nuts, and candied fruit, empty wine glasses, and tired roses in crystal bowls.

  On one of the tables the candles were still burning. And on the edge of the table, swinging his legs and licking strawbe
rry ice cream out of a silver ladle, sat a young man who could only be one of the senior royal pages.

  He was a nice-looking young man in a wine-colored velvet doublet and with rather tousled hair. The Ordinary Princess stopped just inside the door.

  “Hello,” said the nice young man.

  “Hello,” said the Ordinary Princess.

  They looked at each other in the candlelight, and the nice young man smiled.

  It was a nice smile that made his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and the Ordinary Princess smiled back.

  She had a rather nice smile herself, and it wrinkled her freckled nose.

  “Were you looking for something?” inquired the young man.

  “Nuts,” said the Ordinary Princess. “For Mr. Pemberthy,” she explained.

  The young man looked puzzled. “Mr. Pemberthy?”

  “He’s only a squirrel,” said the Ordinary Princess, “but he’s a particular friend of mine, and he is extremely fond of nuts.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the nice young man, quite as if he did.

  “I thought there might be some left over, so I came up to look,” explained the Ordinary Princess. “But I didn’t expect to find anyone here.”

  “If it comes to that, neither did I,” said the nice young man. “But as we’re both here, why not have some ice cream? I can recommend it.” And he pushed away some of the dishes and made room for her on the table.

  “It does look good,” said the Ordinary Princess, “but do you think we ought to?”

  “Certainly!” said the nice young man. “Who’s afraid! Will you have strawberry, vanilla, raspberry, or chocolate?”

  “Strawberry, please,” said the Ordinary Princess, perching herself on the table beside him.

  “There aren’t any clean plates left,” said the nice young man, handing her a frozen spoonful, “so you’ll have to lick. But, personally, I always think it tastes better that way, only one is never allowed to do it.”

  “Perhaps that’s why,” said the Ordinary Princess wisely. “Doing things you aren’t supposed to do always seems more fun than doing things you are.”

  “It sounds a bit mixed,” said the young man, “but I’m sure you’re right. And now please tell me about Mr. Pemberthy.”

  So the Ordinary Princess told him how, before she came to be a kitchen maid in the castle, she had lived in the forest and made friends with Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious and how tame they had become. So tame that when she decided to become a kitchen maid so that she could buy a new dress, they had come with her to the castle.

  “And when I have saved a hundred pfennigs,” said the Ordinary Princess, “we shall all go back and live in the forest again.”

  “Why a hundred?” asked the nice young man.

  “Well, Ethelinda says that’s what a new dress will cost. It sounds an awful lot, doesn’t it?” said the Ordinary Princess wistfully.

  “It depends on the dress,” said the nice young man, taking some more ice cream. “How long do you think it will take you to save it?”

  “Quite a long time, I’m afraid,” said the Ordinary Princess sadly. “You see I only get two pfennigs a week. But I’ve got twelve already,” she added, cheering up a little.

  “Good work,” said the nice young man approvingly. “Have some more ice cream.”

  “Now you tell me about yourself,” said the Ordinary Princess after an ice-creamy interval. “What do you do?”

  “Oh, I work here,” said the young man.

  “What sort of work?” asked the Ordinary Princess.

  “Anything I’m told to do,” said the young man. “I suppose you’d call me a man-of-all-work.”

  “I thought at first that you were a page,” said the Ordinary Princess.

  “No such luck. They have a much better time than I do. Two hours off every day, and an afternoon a week,” said the young man gloomily.

  “Don’t you ever get an afternoon off?” inquired the Ordinary Princess sympathetically.

  “Hardly ever,” replied the man-of-all-work more gloomily than ever.

  “Then you ought to insist on it!” said the Ordinary Princess indignantly. “I think it’s a shame. Even assistant kitchen maids get half a day off every other week, you know.”

  “What do you do on your half day off?” asked the young man interestedly.

  “We go to the forest. Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious and me—I mean I. One of the cooks lets me take any old scraps of bread and cake that are left over, and we have a picnic. We have a lovely time.”

  She finished the last bit of ice cream in her spoon and yawned sleepily. “I ought to be going to bed,” she said.

  “Don’t go,” begged the nice young man. “It’s early yet. Tell me something more about yourself. Did you always live in the forest?”

  “Not always,” said the Ordinary Princess, “and it’s not early. Unless you mean it’s early morning, which is quite true. Good night,” she said, and she got off the table and made him a rather sleepy curtsey.

  “Good night,” said the nice young man, smiling his nice young smile.

  The Ordinary Princess was halfway up the second flight of stairs to her attic when someone called, “Hey!” in a rather loud whisper.

  She turned round, and there was the nice young man again. He must have run after her, because his hair was untidier than ever, and he seemed to be a little out of breath.

  “Hi!” said the nice young man. “What about Mr. Pemberthy?” and he held out a handful of walnuts.

  “Oh dear,” said the Ordinary Princess. “I’d forgotten all about those. Thank you so much.”

  The nice young man had brought enough to fill both pockets of her apron and to keep Mr. Pemberthy in luxury for several days.

  “I say,” said the nice young man, getting rather pink, “when did you say your next half day off was?”

  “I didn‘t,” said the Ordinary Princess. “But it’s Thursday.”

  “Then may I ... could I come too?” asked the nice young man, getting pinker than ever. “To the picnic, I mean. I’d very much like to meet Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious.”

  “But do you think they’d let you off?” said the Ordinary Princess.

  “Well I’d try—that is, if you’ll let me come.” “We shall be delighted,” said the Ordinary Princess primly. “Only you’d better not come to the kitchen,” she added, “because sometimes I’m late, if it’s a very busy day. If you can get the afternoon off, I’ll meet you by the three silver birch trees at the edge of the forest. You’d better bring your own cake,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t get very much.”

  “I’ll bring all the cake,” said the nice young man.

  The castle clock struck three.

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed the Ordinary Princess. “It’s nearly morning and I have to be up by half-past five! Good night, man-of-all-work.”

  “Good night, kitchen maid!”

  The Ordinary Princess yawned very sleepily indeed and went off to bed.

  PART IV

  I Shall Be Queen

  “The Birches”

  The Ordinary Princess was feeding the last of the cake crumbs to Peter Aurelious and watching the man-of-all-work making a necklace out of acorn cups strung on a grass stem.

  The evening sunlight was throwing long shafts of gold between the mossy tree trunks of the forest, and all around them birds were singing in the green thickets.

  “This has been quite the nicest day of my life,” thought the Ordinary Princess. And she thought, too, that the nice young man was easily the nicest person she had ever met. “It’s because he is an ordinary sort of person—like me,” she decided.

  And indeed a more ordinary person than the man-of-all-work you could not wish to see. His velvet doublet was stained with moss and rather tom where he had caught it on a branch while climbing an oak tree to pick acorns. His hair was very ruffled and full of bits of bark, and he had a smudge on his nose. As he strung the acorn cups on the grass stem,
he whistled softly to himself ...“Lavender’s blue,

  ”Rosemary’s green,

  “When I am King

  ”You shall be Queen.“

  “There!” he said, finishing the necklace and dropping it into the Ordinary Princess’s lap. “Be careful of it or it will break.”

  “It’s simply lovely,” said the Ordinary Princess, “and I shall keep it for ever and ever!”

  “I don’t expect it will last that long,” laughed the man-of-all-work. He lay back against the green moss and the twisty tree roots and gazed up happily at the crisscrossy pattern of branches over his head.

  They had had a beautiful afternoon. The Ordinary Princess had managed to get away early from the castle, and as soon as she came within sight of the three silver birches on the edge of the forest, she saw that the nice young man was already there, waiting for her. He told her that he had been able to get the afternoon off without too much trouble, and he had brought a basket full of cakes, sandwiches, and apples.

  He made friends at once with Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious, and after hiding the basket under a wild rose bush at the foot of an old oak tree, they had all gone off into the forest to explore. Later they had climbed trees and played at ninepins with fir cones and crabapples. The young man had also shown the Ordinary Princess how to lie flat on the bank of a stream with her arm in the water and flip the little silvery, slippery trout out from under the stones and onto the grass.

  Together they had caught five, and though they had thrown them all back at once, they had both got very wet, moss-stained, and excited and had enjoyed themselves enormously.

  Mr. Pemberthy had visited his friends among the treetops, and Peter Aurelious had hopped and pecked and flown around among the bushes.

  When teatime came round, they picnicked under the biggest oak tree they could find and laughed and talked together as if they had known each other for always.