by Edith Nesbit
‘How long am I to stay here, pussy-nurse?’
And the Cat always said in nurse’s voice:
‘Till you’re grown up, my dear.’
And the years went by, and each year found the Princess more good, and clever, and beautiful. And at last she was quite grown up.
‘Now,’ said the Cat briskly, ‘we must get to work. There’s a Prince in a kingdom a long way off, and he’s the only person who can get you off this island.’
‘Does he know?’ asked Everilda.
‘He knows about you, but he doesn’t know that he’s the person to find you, and he doesn’t know where you are. So now every night I must fly away and whisper about you in his ear. He’ll think it’s dreams, but he believes in dreams; and he’ll come in a grand ship with masts of gold and sails of silk, and carry my Pretty away and make a Queen of her.’
‘Shall I like that, pussy-nurse, do you think?’ asked the Princess.
And the Cat replied:
‘Yes, very much indeed. But you wouldn’t like it if it were any other King than this one, so it’s just as well that it’s quite impossible for it to be any other.’
‘How will he come?’ asked the Princess.
‘Don’t I tell you? In a ship, of course,’ said the Cat.
‘Aren’t the rocks dangerous?’ asked the Princess.
‘Oh, very,’ the Cat answered.
‘Oh,’ said the Princess, and grew silent and thoughtful.
That night the Cat got out its rolled-up wings, and unrolled them, and brushed them, and fitted them on; then she lighted a large lamp and set it in the window that looked out on the Perilous Sea.
‘That’s the beacon to guide the King to you,’ she said.
‘Won’t it guide other ships here?’ asked the Princess, ‘with perhaps the wrong Kings on board — the ones I shouldn’t like being Queen with?’
‘Very likely,’ said the Cat; ‘but it doesn’t matter: they’d only be wrecked. Serve them right, coming after Princesses that don’t want them.’
‘Oh,’ said Everilda.
The Cat spread her wings, and after one or two trial flights round the tower, she spread them very wide indeed, and flew away across the black Perilous Sea, towards a little half moon that was standing on its head to show sailors that there would be foul weather.
The Princess leaned her elbows on the window-sill and looked out over the sea. Down below in the garden she could hear the kind moles digging industriously, and the good little mice weeding and raking with their sharp teeth and their fine needly claws. And far away against the low-hanging moon she saw the sails and masts of a ship.
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I can’t! It’s sure not to be his ship. It mustn’t be wrecked.’
And she turned the lamp out. And then she cried a little, because perhaps after all it might be his ship, and he would pass by and never know.
Next night the Cat went out on another flying excursion, leaving the lamp lighted. And again the Princess could not bear to go to bed leaving a lamp burning that might lure honest Kings and brave mariners to shipwreck, so she put out the lamp and cried a little. And this happened for many, many, many nights.
When the Cat swept the room of a morning she used to wonder where all the pearls came from that she found lying all about the floor. But it was a magic place, and one soon ceased to wonder much about anything. She never guessed that the pearls were the tears the Princess shed when she had put out the lamp, and seen ship after ship that perhaps carried her own King go sailing safely and ignorantly by, no one on board guessing that on that rock was a pretty, dear Princess waiting to be rescued — the Princess, the only Princess that that King would be happy and glad to have for his Queen.
And the years went on and on. Every night the Cat lighted the lamp and flew away to whisper dreams into the ears of the only King who could rescue the Princess, and every night the Princess put out the lamp and cried in the dark. And every morning the Cat swept up a dustpan full of pearls that were Everilda’s tears. And again and again the King would fit out a vessel and sail the seas, and look in vain for the bright light that he had dreamed should guide him to his Princess.
The Cat was a good deal vexed; she could not understand how any King could be so stupid. She always stayed out all night. She used to go and see her friends after she had done whispering dreams to the King, and only got home in time to light the fire for breakfast, so she never knew how the Princess put out the lamp every night, and cried in the dark.
The years went by and went by, and the Princess grew old and gray, for she had never had the heart to leave the lamp alight, for fear that some poor mariners who were not her King should be drawn by the lamp to those cruel rocks and wrecked on them, for of course it wouldn’t and couldn’t be the poor mariners’ fault that they didn’t happen to be the one and only King who could land safely on the Forlorn Island.
And when the Princess was quite old, and the tear pearls that had been swept up by the Cat filled seven big chests in the back-kitchen, the Princess fell ill.
‘I think I am going to die,’ she said to the Cat, ‘and I am not really at all sorry except for you. I think you’ll miss me. Tell me now — it’s almost all over — who are you, really?’
‘I give it up,’ said the Cat as usual. ‘Ask another.’
But the Princess asked nothing more. She lay on her bed in her white gown and waited for death, for she was very tired of being alive. Only she said:
‘Put out that lamp in the window; it hurts my eyes.’
For even then she thought of the poor men whose ships might be wrecked just because they didn’t happen to be the one and only King with whom she could be happy.
So the Cat took the lamp away, but she did not put it out; she set it in the window of the parlour, and its light shone out over the black waters of the Perilous Sea.
And that very night the one and only King — who in all these years had never ceased to follow the leading of the dreams the Cat whispered in his ear — came in the black darkness sailing over the Perilous Sea. And in the black darkness he saw at last the bright white light that his dreams had promised, and he knew that where the light was his Princess was, and his heart leaped up, and he bade the helmsmen steer for the light.
And for the light they steered. And because he was the only possible King to mate that Princess, the helmsman found the only possible passage among the rocks, and the ship anchored safely in a little quiet creek, and the King landed and went up to the door of the tower and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’ said the Cat.
‘Me,’ said the King, just as you or I might have done.
‘You’re late,’ said the Cat. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost your chance.’
‘I took the first chance I got,’ said the King. ‘Let me in, and let me see her.’
He had been so busy all these years trying to find the bright white light of his dreams that he had not noticed that his hair had gone gray long ago.
So the Cat let him in, and led him up the winding stair to the room where the Princess, very quiet, lay on her white bed waiting for death to come, for she was very tired.
The old King stumbled across the bar of moonlight on the floor, flung down a clanking wallet, and knelt by the bed in the deep shadow, saying:
‘Oh, my dear own Princess, I have come at last.’
‘Is it really you?’ she said, and gave him her hands in the shadow. I hoped it was Death’s foot-step I heard coming up the winding stair.’
‘Oh, did you hope for death,’ he cried, ‘while I was coming to you?’
‘You were long in coming,’ said she, ‘and I was very tired.’
‘My beautiful dear Princess,’ he said, ‘you shall rest in my arms till you are not tired any more.’
‘My beautiful King,’ she said, ‘I am not tired any more now.’
And then the Cat came in with the lamp, and they looked in each other’s eyes.
Instead of the beautiful Princess of
his dreams the King saw a white, withered woman whose piteous eyes met his in a look of longing love. The Princess saw a bent, white-haired man, but love was in his eyes.
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind.’
They both spoke together. And both thought they spoke the truth. But the truth was that both were horribly disappointed.
‘Yet, all the same,’ said the King to himself, ‘old and withered as she is, she is more to me than the youngest and loveliest of all other Princesses.’
‘I don’t care if he is gray,’ said the Princess to herself; ‘whatever he is, he’s the only possible one.’
‘Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!’ said the Cat. ‘Why on earth didn’t you come before?’
‘I came as soon as I could,’ said the King.
The Cat, walking about the room in an agitated way, kicked against the wallet the King had dropped.
‘What’s this,’ she said crossly, rubbing her toes, for the wallet was hard, and she had hurt herself more than a little.
‘Oh, that,’ said the King—’that’s just the steel bolts and hammers and things that my resolves to find the Princess turned into when I failed and never did find her. I never could bear to throw them away; I had a sort of feeling that they might be good for something, since they hurt me so much when they came to me. I thought perhaps I could batter down the doors of the Princess’s tower with them.’
‘They’re good for something better than that,’ said the Cat joyously.
She went away, and the two heard her hammering away below. Presently she staggered in with a great basket of white powder, and emptied it on the floor; then she went away for more.
The King helped her with the next basketful, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, for there were seven of them, and the heap of white powder stood up in the room as high as the King’s middle.
‘That’s powder of pearls,’ said the Cat proudly. ‘Now, tell me, have you been a good King?’
‘I have tried to be,’ said the white-haired King ‘I was a workhouse boy, and then I was apprenticed to a magician, who taught me how to make people happy. There was a revolution just at the time when I was put into the workhouse, and they had a Republic. And I worked my way up till they made me President.’
‘What became of the King in that revolution?’
‘There wasn’t a King, only a Regent. They had him taught a trade, and he worked for his living. It was the worst punishment they could invent for him. There was a Princess, too, but she was hidden by a magician. I saw her once when she was trying to run away. She asked me to run too — to her nurse — —’
Here his eyes met the Princess’s.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that was you, was it?’
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘then that was you!’
And they looked long and lovingly in each other’s faded eyes.
‘Hurry up,’ said the Cat impatiently; ‘you were made President. And then — —’
‘Oh, why, then,’ said the King, ‘they thought it wouldn’t be any more dangerous or expensive to have a King than a President, and prettier at State shows — ermine, crown, and sceptre, and all that — prettier than frock-coat and spats. So I agreed.’
‘And do your people love you?’ the Cat asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said the King simply; ‘I love them — —’
As he spoke there came a flutter and flicker of many thousand wings at the closed casement. The Cat threw the window wide, and in swarmed a countless crowd of white pigeons.
‘These are the blessings of your people,’ said the Cat.
The wings fluttered and flickered and fanned the heap of pearl dust on the floor till it burst into flame, and the flame rose up high and white and clear.
‘Quick!’ cried the Cat, ‘walk through it. Lead her through.’
The old King gave his hand to his poor faded love, and raised her from her couch, and together they passed through the clear fire made of her patience and self-sacrifice, his high resolve, and the blessings of his people. And they came out of that fire on the other side.
‘Oh, love, how beautiful you are!’ cried the King.
‘Oh, my King, your face is the face of all my dreams!’ cried the Princess.
And they put their arms round each other and cried for joy, because now they were both young and beautiful again.
The Cat cried for sympathy.
‘And now we shall live happy ever after,’ said the Princess, putting her other arm round the Cat. ‘Dear pussy-nurse, do tell me, now it’s all over, who you really are.’
‘I give it up. Ask another,’ said the Cat.
But as she spoke she went herself through the fire, and on the other side came out — not one person, but eleven. She was, in fact, the Professor, the nurse, the palace butler, footman, housemaid, parlourmaid, between-maid, boots, scullion, boy in buttons, as well as the rescued cat — all rolled into one!
‘But we only used one part of ourselves at a time,’ they all said with one voice, ‘and I hope we were useful.’
‘You were a darling,’ said the Princess—’darlings, I mean. But who turned you all into exactly the pussy-nurse I wanted?’
‘Oh, that was the Magician,’ said all the voices in unison; ‘he was your fairy-godfather, you know.’
‘What has become of him?’ asked the Princess, clinging to her lover’s arm.
‘He’s been asleep all this time. It was the condition, the only way he got leave to work the good magic for all of us,’ said the many voices that were one.
‘Let’s go and wake him,’ said the King.
So they all went. And when they woke the Magician, who was sleeping quietly in his own private room in the palace where the Princess had once lived, he sneezed seven times for pure joy, and then called for Welsh rabbit and baked Spanish onions for supper.
‘For after all these years of starvation,’ he said, ‘I do really think I may for once take a liberty with my digestion.’
So he had the supper he wanted; but the King and the Princess had roses and lilies and wedding-cake, because they were married that very evening.
And when you have passed through exactly the sort of fire those two had passed through, you can never be old, or ugly, or unhappy again, so those two are happy, and beautiful, and young to this very hour.
THE WHITE HORSE
‘Please, father,’ Diggory said, ‘I want to go out and seek my fortune.’
‘Seek your grandmother,’ said his father, but not unkindly. He was smoking a pipe outside his cottage door, and he had a red-spotted handkerchief over his head because of the flies. There were flies then, just the same as there are now, though it was a hundred years ago by the church clock.
‘I wasn’t thinking of my grandmother,’ said Diggory; ‘I was thinking of my Uncle Diggory. He was the third son of a woodcutter, just like I am, and he saw right enough that that’s the sort that has to go out and seek its fortune. And I’m getting on, father; I shall be twenty before you know where you are.’
‘You’ll have to be twenty and more before I agree not to know where you are,’ said his father. ‘Your Uncle Diggory did well for himself, sure enough, and many a turkey and chine he’s sent us at Christmas-time; but he started a-horseback, he did. He got the horse from his Uncle Diggory, and he was a rover too. Now, if you went, you’d have to go on Shank’s mare, and them that go a-foot comes back a-foot.’
‘Will you let me go, then, if I can get a horse?’ said Diggory coaxingly. ‘Do say yes, dad, and then I won’t say another word about it till I’ve got the horse.’
‘Drat the lad — yes, then!’ shouted the father.
Diggory jumped up from the porch seat.
‘Then farewell home and hey for the road,’ cried he, ‘for I’ve got the horse, dad. My Uncle Diggory sent it to me this very day, and it’s tied up behind the lodge; white it is, and a red saddle and bridle fit for a King.’
The woodcutter gr
umbled, but he was a woodcutter of honour, and having said ‘Yes,’ he had to stick to yes.
So Diggory rode off on the white horse with the scarlet saddle, and all the village turned out to see him go. He had on his best white smock, and he had never felt so fine in all his days.
So he rode away. When he came to the round mound windmill he stopped, for there was Joyce taking in the clean clothes from the hedge, because it was Monday evening.
He told her where he was going.
‘You might take me with you,’ she said. ‘I’m not so very heavy but what we could both ride on that great big horse of yours.’ And she held up a face as sweet as a bunch of flowers.
But Diggory said, ‘No, my dear. Why, you little silly, girls can’t go to seek their fortunes. You’d only be in my way! Wish me luck, child.’
So he rode on, and she folded up the linen all crooked, and damped it down with her tears, so that it was quite ready for ironing.
Diggory rode on, and on, and on. He rode through dewy evening, and through the cool black night, and right into the fresh-scented pinky pearly dawning. And when it was real live wide-awake morning, Diggory felt very thin and empty inside his smock, and he remembered that he had had nothing to eat since dinner-time yesterday, and then it was pork and greens.
He rode on, and he rode on, and by-and-by he came to a red brick wall, very strong and stout, with big buttresses and a stone coping. His horse (whom he had christened Invicta, and perhaps if he had known as much Latin as you do he would have called him something different) was a very high horse indeed, and by standing up in his stirrups Diggory could see over the wall. And he saw that on the other side was an orchard full of trees full of apples, red, and yellow, and green. He reined Invicta in close under the wall and said, ‘Woa, there! stand still, will ‘e?’ And he stood up on the broad saddle and made a jump and caught at the stone coping of the wall, and next moment he had hung by his hands and dropped into the orchard. And it was a very long drop indeed. For he had quite made up his mind to take some of the apples. First, because he was hungry, and, secondly, because boys will take apples — in stories that is, of course; really, they would never think of such a thing.
