by M. M. Kaye
“Oh my goodness,” thought the Ordinary Princess frantically, “now Perry will get into hot water too, and I shall be fired all over again.”
But it seemed that the very gorgeous person was not going to fire anyone, for quite suddenly he stopped staring and getting purple, and bowed very low instead.
“Your Majesty must excuse me,” said the very gorgeous person, bowing again, this time even lower than before, “but I was to request Your Majesty’s presence in the Council chamber. One of Your Majesty’s guards informed me that you had been seen coming this way, and though I could not believe ...”
Here the very gorgeous person broke off and gave an apologetic sort of cough, bowed again, and said humbly, “I trust I do not intrude, but the Prime Minister begs to remind you that the matter is urgent.”
And with a shocked look at the Ordinary Princess (who really was looking very like an ordinary kitchen maid!) he bowed himself backward through the door.
“Well!!!” said the Ordinary Princess.
“Of course this would happen!” said Peregrine.
“Well I must say!” said the Ordinary Princess, and without saying it, she rose and started up the stairs in a very stately manner.
Peregrine put out a hand and caught the hem of her skirt.
Since it is almost impossible to continue walking up a staircase in a stately manner while someone is holding onto your dress, the Ordinary Princess stopped and said very haughtily indeed, “Will Your Majesty be so good as to release me.”
“Don’t show off!” said Peregrine. “I can talk just like that too, if I want to. And I was going to tell you. I really was. That’s what I waited for. Only of course that flatfooted fathead of a Court Chamberlain had to go and spoil it all.”
“So you were a real prince—I mean king—all the time,” said the Ordinary Princess.
“Yes,” said the King. “I’m afraid I was.”
“For two pins,” said the Ordinary Princess severely, “I’d give you a good hard slap!”
The King grinned at her cheerfully.
“You can’t slap a king,” he said.
“Oh can’t I!” said the Ordinary Princess, quite as if she could.
Then they both laughed so much that they had to sit down on the stairs again.
“Why did you tell me that your name was Peregrine?” asked the Ordinary Princess.
“Well, you must admit that ‘Algernon’ is pretty awful,” said the King. “Besides, my name is Peregrine. At least, it’s one of them. I’ve got eight altogether. And between you and me,” said the King, “the other six are pretty awful, too!”
“I’ve got seven,” said the Ordinary Princess, “and some of them are simply terrible.”
And at that they laughed so much that they had to hold onto each other to keep from slipping off their step.
“This is dreadful of us,” said the Ordinary Princess, drying her smudged face with the edge of her shabby skirt. “We can’t go on just sitting here and laughing. Someone will catch us. And besides, prime ministers and councils don’t like being kept waiting.”
“Let ‘em wait,” said the King cheerfully.
But the Ordinary Princess got up from her step and dusted her frock.
“You may be a king,” she said, “but kings are men-of-all-work too!”
“I was trying to forget it,” said the King.
“Good night, man-of-all-work,” said the Ordinary Princess.
“Good night, kitchen maid,” said the King.
So the Ordinary Princess ran up to her bed in the attic, and the King went off to the royal Council chamber.
The councillors were yawning and fidgeting, because they had been waiting for quite a long time for the King, and anyway they hated night sessions. It made bedtime so late. But as the Lord Chamberlain had said, the matter under discussion was an urgent one, so when the King arrived, they all stopped yawning and looked rather severe, though their bows were as low and as correct as ever.
“Gentlemen,” said the King, sitting down on the gilded throne at one end of the Council chamber, “you may be seated.”
There was a rustle of robes as the councillors sat down again. “And now,” said the King cheerfully, “what’s the trouble?”
The trouble, it seemed, was the question of the King’s marriage. The Prime Minister had called a Council of State to urge His Majesty to ask for the hand of Her Royal Highness the Princess Persephone of Plumblossomburg, and now, in speeches that lasted fully an hour and a half, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs pointed out the advantages of the match ...
What a good thing it would be for the kingdom to have a queen. What an excellent thing it would be for the country to have such a rich and powerful ally as Plumblossomburg. How greatly it would encourage trade, and how beautiful and gracious and charming and cultivated was the Princess Persephone.
Some of the older councillors frankly dozed, and the King played tic-tac-toe with himself on a bit of blotting paper.
He had tried to interrupt once or twice, but the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs all had good loud voices, and as they were absolutely determined to finish their speeches, he gave it up and went on playing tic-tac-toe and trying not to yawn.
The fact of the matter was that the entire Council had got so used to managing affairs while he was a little boy that they sometimes forgot that he was a little boy no longer and quite capable of thinking for himself. But by now they had all told him what to do and how to do it for so long that everybody had become used to it. So the King continued to play tic-tac-toe, until there was no more room on the blotting paper and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had run out of things to say.
When they had quite finished, the King tore up his piece of blotting paper and stood up.
“Gentlemen,” said the King, “I have listened with the deepest interest to all that you have had to say.” (Which was really far from true, but royalty has to tell this kind of fib sometimes.) “And may I say,” continued the King, “that I am deeply touched by your concern for my welfare.” (Royalty has to talk like this too.) “But,” said the King, suddenly ceasing to be quite so royal, “I’m dashed if I’ll propose to Cousin Persephone.”
“Your Majesty!” gasped the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and all the councillors at once.
“Don’t interrupt me,” said the King. “I have listened to all your speeches, and now you can jolly well listen to one of mine. I am going,” said the King, “to marry Her Serene and Royal Highness the Princess Amethyst of Phantasmorania, with or without your permission. So there!”
“But Your Majesty—”
“I haven’t finished yet,” said the King severely. “I desire an embassy to set out for Phantasmorania immediately, to ask King Hulderbrand for his daughter’s hand in marriage. And the sooner,” said the King, “the better. That’s all I wanted to say.”
With which he bowed politely to the assembled councillors and marched off to bed.
“Phantasmorania!” said the Prime Minister.
“It is an idea,” mused the Chancellor.
“Well, really!” said the learned councillors.
“Whatever will Queen Hedwig say?” groaned the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
“I say,” said the King, reappearing rather suddenly round the door, “I forgot to mention that I think one of you should drop a hint to Her Majesty my aunt that even the most friendly of visits ought to end some time. She and my cousin and all the ragtag and bobtail they brought with them have been here for weeks and weeks,” said the King severely, “and it makes a lot of extra work for the kitchen maids!”
And with that he disappeared round the door again, leaving the Council gasping with dismay.
The Prime Minister was the first to recover.
“You know,” said the Prime Minister, �
��that idea of the King’s about an alliance with Phantasmorania is not a bad one. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. It is every bit as powerful as Plumblossomburg —with whom we are already connected, Queen Hedwig being the King’s aunt. And come to think of it,” said the Prime Minister thoughtfully, “she is undoubtedly a very bossy sort of woman, and if our King married her daughter, she would probably be an almost permanent visitor in the Castle...
“Yes,” decided the Prime Minister, “it is obviously all for the best. Chancellor, kindly see about drawing up a draft for the hint that His Majesty requested, and the rest of you had better start thinking about an embassy to King Hulderbrand.”
The next morning, when the Ordinary Princess woke up, she found a note that had been pushed under her door. It said, “Meet me at the summerhouse by the lily pond as soon as possible. Urgent.
P.“ So as soon as she was dressed, the Ordinary Princess ran downstairs and let herself out through a side door of the castle.
She went round by the kitchen gardens, past the greenhouses and cold frames, and came through a back way into the castle gardens by the royal lily ponds.
It was a cold morning, and there was frost on the castle lawns and a thin, glittering rim of ice round the edge of the lily ponds, and though it was early, someone was earlier still. Inside the summerhouse, someone was whistling, “Lavender’s blue.”
“I thought you were never coming,” said the King. “It’s a dreadfully cold morning, so I’ve brought a warm cloak for you.”
“I came as soon as I could,” said the Ordinary Princess, snuggling gratefully into the cozy folds of the fur-lined velvet cloak.
“Now look here,” said the King, “I haven’t much time, as I’m supposed to be having breakfast with my Aunt Hedwig, and afterward there is so much state business to attend to this morning that this is the only time I could get off. So pay strict attention to what I’m going to say.”
“All right,” said the Ordinary Princess. “I’m listening.”
“Well, first of all,” said the King, “will you marry me?”
“Perry!” gasped the Ordinary Princess.
“Yes or no,” demanded Peregrine.
“Oh Perry!” laughed the Ordinary Princess. “What a way to propose!”
“There isn’t time for a proper one,” said Peregrine. “I have to be with Aunt Hedwig at eight o‘clock sharp, and as this is going to be a particularly annoying day for her, I don’t want to make matters worse by keeping her waiting for her breakfast.”
“But marrying a king is a very serious business, you know,” the Ordinary Princess pointed out. “Don’t you think I ought to have a little time to consider it?”
“No,” said Peregrine. “You told me yourself that you’d like me just as much if I turned out to be a coal heaver—remember?”
“But you didn’t turn out to be a coal heaver, did you!”
“That’s not the point,” said Peregrine. “What I want is a plain yes or no.”
“Then are you sure that you don’t mind freckles and turned-up noses and mouse-colored hair?”
“I love them!” said Peregrine. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” said the Ordinary Princess promptly.
“Darling kitchen maid!” said Peregrine, catching her into his arms and kissing her. “I knew you wouldn’t desert me. Then that’s all right. And now to business. You can’t go on being a kitchen maid, and anyway, you’ve been fired. So you can’t go on staying here.”
“Why ever not?” asked the Ordinary Princess.
“Well, first of all because I’m sending an embassy to ask your father for your hand, all properly, and it would be a bit awkward for everyone if you weren’t there. Secondly, we can’t go letting the populace find out that their future queen was once an assistant kitchen maid at the castle, because populaces are awful snobs, you know, and I don’t think they would ever recover from the shock.”
“I expect you’re right,” agreed the Ordinary Princess forlornly. “I shall have to go back.”
“I’ll come for you as soon as I can,” promised Peregrine.
“But that won’t be for months,” said the Ordinary Princess more forlornly than ever. “You know what ages they take arranging things and fussing over royal weddings.”
“I know,” said Peregrine gloomily, “but I’ll tell the embassy to hurry things up as much as possible. In the meantime I think you had better go off at once to Nurse Marta‘s, and I’ll come there as early as ever I can tomorrow morning, to take you home. We can ride through the forest and no one will ever know.”
“All right,” said the Ordinary Princess. “There’s the quarter-to-eight bell! You’ll have to run. Good-bye, Perry darling, and don’t let your Aunt Hedwig bully you too much.”
She watched the King’s long legs disappearing round the clipped yew hedges and sighed.
“He is a dear!” thought the Ordinary Princess, “and I suppose I’m glad he is a king and everything is going to end happily ever after. But I still think that sometimes I shall be just the littlest bit sorry that I wasn’t a real kitchen maid and he wasn’t a man-of-all-work. It has been such fun,” sighed the Ordinary Princess. And she wrapped the splendid cloak more closely around her and went back to the attic to fetch Mr. Pemberthy and Peter Aurelious, before leaving the castle by the tradesmens’ entrance, to go in search of Nurse Marta.
Very early the next morning, before the sun was up, Peregrine came to Nurse Marta’s sister’s niece’s house to fetch the Ordinary Princess.
Nurse Marta’s sister’s niece had lent her a clean dress and apron and a pair of buckled shoes, and she wrapped herself up in the fur-lined cloak that Peregrine had given her.
“Good-bye,” said the Ordinary Princess, kissing Nurse Marta. “Hurry up and come back soon—and don’t ever breathe a word about all this, will you?”
She tucked Mr. Pemberthy into her apron pocket, and Peter Aurelious perched on her shoulder.
“What’s that?” asked Peregrine as he helped her into the saddle and saw that she was carrying a bundle under one arm.
“It’s Clorinda’s dress and my old cloak, and the cardboard box with my wages in it. I couldn’t bear to part with them,” said the Ordinary Princess.
Mr. Pemberthy scrambled out of her pocket and sat on the back of her saddle, and Nurse Marta waved her handkerchief to them from a window as they rode off down the cobbled streets of Amber to the forest, and away to Phantasmorania.
There is a shortcut through the Forest of Faraway to the city of Phanff in Phantasmorania, and though travelers by the highroads take at least three days to get from one kingdom to another, by riding hard all day through the forest Peregrine and the Ordinary Princess came to the palace of Phanff by moonrise.
They halted their horses at the edge of the trees, and Peregrine helped the Ordinary Princess to dismount. She was a little stiff from so much riding and very cold and depressed.
“I wish I was going back with you,” said the Ordinary Princess, holding very tightly to Peregrine’s hand.
“So do I,” said Peregrine. “But don’t let’s think of that. Let’s think of what fun it’s going to be when I come and fetch you.”
He went with her to the foot of the turret wall where the old twisty stem of the wisteria was just as twisty and knobbly as ever.
“You’ll have to throw me my bundle when I’m up,” said the Ordinary Princess.
“Good-bye, my kitchen maid,” said Peregrine. “Good-bye, my darling Amy. The months will simply fly past, and when the spring comes I will fetch you away.”
“Good-bye, my man-of-all-work,” said the Ordinary Princess. “Oh, Perry darling, you will take care of yourself, won’t you, and don’t let your Aunt Hedwig be horrid to you, and don’t let them make you marry any tiresome Persephones instead of me, and promise you won’t forget me, and I hope that spring comes quickly and I do hope I can remember how to climb this thing!” said the Ordinary Princess all in one breath. Then she
and Mr. Pemberthy climbed up the wisteria to her turret room, and Peter Aurelious flew up after them.
“Catch!” called Peregrine, and he threw up the bundle which was Clorinda’s ragged dress, the old cloak, and the cardboard box with the pfennigs in it.
“Spring will be here in no time,” called Peregrine, and he blew her a kiss. Then he mounted his horse and, leading the one that the Ordinary Princess had ridden, turned away in the moonlight and set off into the forest.
You can imagine the sensation there was the next morning when the missing Princess Amy calmly walked down to breakfast as though she had never been away.
Her royal Mama the Queen thought she was seeing a ghost and nearly fainted, and her royal Papa the King said, “Bless my soul!” so many times that it began to seem as though he would never stop.
But when all the flurry and excitement had died down, they were so pleased to have her back again that they quite forgot to give her the scolding she deserved, in spite of the fact that she looked, if possible, more ordinary than ever.
Certainly she was a good deal thinner. But then she was a little taller too, so that the brocaded gown she had put on did not fit her very well.
“My dearest child!” exclaimed the Queen, throwing up her hands in horror, “whatever have you been doing to yourself? I declare you have more freckles than ever. We must do something about them now,” said the Queen, bustling off to see about ordering extra lemons and more lily lotion.
“Bless my soul!” said the King, for what must have been at least the fiftieth time. “Well you may look like a gipsy, Amy, but I’m exceedingly glad to see you back!”
“Darling Daddy!” said the Ordinary Princess, kissing the top of his bald head. “I’m glad, too. But no shutting me up in towers and hiring dragons, do you hear?”
“No, no, dear. Not if you don’t wish it. Bless my soul!” said the King.
After all the excitement of that first day, they all settled back comfortably into their old lives, and things went on just as before, so that the Ordinary Princess almost began to feel that she had never been away at all and must have dreamed it.
