Tiger Lilly and the Princess

by Graeme Ingham

CHAPTER 5

  Princess Serena was smiling. This time, though, it was not what she called her painted-on smile, the one she had been taught to use for as long as she could remember; a smile that pretended she was happy no matter how miserable, sick or bored she felt. The smile she had been taught to use at all official meetings.

  She had arrived at the circus only minutes before but was – as she knew she would be - deep into the boredom of yet another welcoming committee. Boring, boring, boring! Once, at such a meeting and desperate for something to think about, she tried to count the number of times she had to use her painted-on smile in a single month. Hopeless! Too many to count. Her not liking people didn’t help too much either, but how could you like people when all they did was stare at you as if you were some kind of rare pot plant? As if there was nothing in the whole world you could possibly enjoy more than listening to their windbag speechifyings, everyone saying just how wonderful you were and how delighted they were to have you with them. Meaning not a word. Sometimes children her own age were brought to the Grand Palace especially to play with her, but they were not one bit better than their parents. Well how could they be when they had been told to make sure that she won at all the games, came first at all the races, told to say yes when they were absolutely bursting to say no. Not a chance. Told to be nice to her no matter what, and all because she was a princess. No other reason.

  And so, because she was a princess, here she was with yet another dreary meeting to go through. Sometimes, at such a meeting, she would try to pass the time by half closing her eyes – half-closed eyes made it look as though you were concentrating on their stupid speeches - ­and pretend the councillors were all characters from what she called her Silly Turnip book. It wasn’t a real book, course it wasn’t, just a book she kept in the library of her imagination. Right now Councillor Warblegus, the Mayor of Yeltsin was deep into his Welcome-to-Yeltsin speech, puffing and blowing and throwing his arms up, down and sideways faster than a paddle steamer in a storm. Mr Willy Windmill would be his Silly Turnip name – what else! Next in line and bursting at the seams to deliver his own speech sat the Deputy Mayor, a narrow little man wearing a flat hat and sharp, pointy shoes: Mr Drawing Pin, of course! Next in line came Miss Clara Clothes Peg, the Council Secretary, followed by Mr Harry Horse Face, the Town Treasurer; Mrs Hay Stack; Mr Barge Feet and, in the row behind, Mrs Clara Carrot of the bottle red hair and . . . . Oh, it was no use! How could she concentrate on Turnip names when there were so many other things to think about? She could feel her heart beating. Why oh why did her father have to be so stubborn? Pig headed more the word. Not only that, but he was also not being the least bit fair. Simply wasn’t!

  She knew - how could she not know after all those mind-numbing history lessons? – that Mandredela was a country with traditions and customs like no other. One of her tutors – stayed less than a month, she did – said Mandredela was different from all other countries because it was surrounded on all sides by the Madre Mountains which meant it had been cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds and hundreds of years and it had made them …. ‘different!’

  ‘Take, for instance, all the silly nonsense you go through whenever a man has a mind to get married in this country,’ her tutor had exclaimed. ‘The first thing the poor creature has to do is to present the lady with what you Mandredelans call a Betrothal Locket which - would you believe! – she keeps for a day or two or three or more before it finally occurs to her end his misery with an answer. Now this is the thing! If the locket contains a lock of her hair, it means she has decided to accept his proposal of marriage. If, on the other hand, he opens the wretched thing and finds it empty, then it’s a great big thanks but no thanks. What you might call the Big Heave-Ho and Goodbye! Honest, have you ever heard the like!

  ‘Tradition? More like crazy, you ask me,’ she added in a way that told she had made up her mind to leave Mandredela as soon as she could. ‘As for the lockets themselves? More like cart wheels,’ she also said. ‘Well, the size of the things! Not for me, I must say. No, give me a ring, a necklace, earrings - anything but one of those thumping great things you like to make such a song and dance about. Big, ugly things, you ask me.’

  Princess Serena wasn’t listening, was busy thinking about her mother and wondering what their lives would have been like if she had hadn’t gone into the Madre Mountains. If she hadn’t gone skiing that day Always that if! And why, she asked herself, did she find herself thinking more and more about her mother this last while – maybe because she was growing older. Yes, maybe because she would soon be nine.

  Then, one morning she was in her room and playing her favourite game of pretending she was with her mother and having a lovely time planning their day, when she suddenly realised she had nothing of her mother’s. Bits and pieces, yes, but nothing to hold close, to press to her cheek. Oh, there were all kinds of pieces in the Royal Collection that she could have, but they were ceremonial, stagey things that she somehow knew her mother would have turned up her nose at; would have worn only when she had to. What she really wanted was something that had been personal to her mother, something her mother had cared for, had liked to have close - a photograph perhaps, a favourite doll, a letter, . .. something, anything that had been important to her. Something to touch.

  Then strangely, for it was only a day or two later, her father had shown her her mother’s locket. ‘Our betrothal locket,’ he explained. He said it in such a casual matter of fact, sort of way and he even allowed her to hold it for a minute. A plain, ordinary thing was Serena’s first thought as she handed it back. Not a thumping cartwheel of a thing her tutor had described, but nonetheless a plain, ordinary piece and yet afterwards - and it was almost immediately afterwards - something was said that changed everything. A slip of the tongue, nothing more, and by Tina of all people. Tina, the first-floor maid who would surely have died a death if she could have heard the words Serena said to her Governess that morning. Heard the Princess say: Miss Penny, you are not Mandredelan, and maybe you won’t be able to help, but there’s no one else I can talk to.

  ‘The thing is that one of my maids – Tina the one with sticky-up hair who talks a thousand words a minute - was busy chatting on about her sister’s wedding when she said something she didn’t mean to say. Straight off, I knew she didn’t mean to say what she said, that it just sort of blurted out, but anyways, she was gossiping on non-stop about her sister’s betrothal locket when she suddenly said how she remembered my mother and the trouble her locket had caused. That is what she said. Her exact words. The trouble my mother’s locket had caused. Especially, she said, to my Grandpapa and my Grandmamma. To the King and Queen.

  ‘Soon as she said it, she turned a fiery red, said she should never have said what she said and wished she could take it back. Swallow her tongue. Of course, I told her not to be so stupid, that it was far too late to swallow anything, but she refused to say another word; kept saying she would get in trouble. I tried to make her, pointed out that she was already in trouble and threatened her with every awful thing I could think of, but she started to cry, so I gave up. She cries soon as look anyway, and I have known for ages that something must have happened with my mother and her betrothal locket, but no one will tell me what it was. Not that I expect them to. People don’t talk to princesses like they talk to each other . . . least, not to me they don’t and sometimes it makes me hate being a princess. So please, Miss Penny, tell me about my mother. Please! About her locket and the trouble it caused.’

  ‘Have you spoken to your father?’

  ‘Course I have, a zillion times. Talk to a brick wall.’

  ‘Did she say anything else, this maid?’

  ‘Only that the rest of the world thinks we Mandredelans are crazy in the head. Said they call us Mad Dredelans because of the way we like to cling to old ways, to things long gone. Especially when it comes to lockets, she said. And that is when she said what she said about my mother.’

  ‘What
about your history lessons? Modern history, the last few years? No mention there?’

  ‘Oh, please Miss Penny, don’t mention history. I hate history.! The Battle of the Two Lockets, 1259; Queen Bernadine’s Refusal, 1562 . I could go on forever! A whole two hours every day and boring to make you go numb inside. Also, it happens to be double useless far as I can see! Nothing about my mother, though. Well, how could there be? History is all about stuffy things that happened long before she was born.’

  ‘Yes, maybe so, but she did change things, your mother.’ Miss Penny studied the Princess for a long moment before she reached a finger to lift her chin , to look into her eyes ‘Tell you what,’ she said,. ‘I have a whole load of things to do right now, but how about if I come to your room this evening; tell you all I know about your mother? For the moment, though, let me say, Serena, that I think your mother was wonderful. I just loved her.

  ‘Loved her! You knew my mother! I didn’t know that! You never said!’

  ‘We were best friends. At what is called a finishing school. In England.’