Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘And now my last friend is dead,’ cried the Princess. But being a very strong princess, she dragged him into the shrubbery out of sight of the palace, and then dragged him into the wood and called aloud on Benevola, Queen of the Fairies, and Benevola came.

  ‘They’ve killed my only friend,’ said the Princess, ‘at least.... Shall I pull out the arrows?’

  ‘If you do,’ said the Fairy, ‘he’ll certainly bleed to death.’

  ‘And he’ll die if they stay in,’ said the Princess.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said the Fairy; ‘let me cut them a little shorter.’ She did, with her fairy pocket-knife. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’ll do what I can, but I’m afraid it’ll be a disappointment to you both. Erinaceus,’ she went on, addressing the unconscious baker’s boy with the stumps of the arrows still sticking in him, ‘I command you, as soon as I have vanished, to assume the form of a hedge-pig. The hedge-pig,’ she exclaimed to the Princess, ‘is the only nice person who can live comfortably with a thousand spikes sticking out of him. Yes, I know there are porcupines, but porcupines are vicious and ill-mannered. Good-bye!’

  And with that she vanished. So did Erinaceus, and the Princess found herself alone among the oleanders; and on the green turf was a small and very prickly brown hedge-pig.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ she said, ‘now I’m all alone again, and the baker’s boy has given his life for mine, and mine isn’t worth having.’

  ‘It’s worth more than all the world,’ said a sharp little voice at her feet.

  ‘Oh, can you talk?’ she said, quite cheered.

  ‘Why not?’ said the hedge-pig sturdily; ‘it’s only the form of the hedge-pig I’ve assumed. I’m Erinaceus inside, all right enough. Pick me up in a corner of your mantle so as not to prick your darling hands.’

  ‘You mustn’t call names, you know,’ said the Princess, ‘even your hedge-pigginess can’t excuse such liberties.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Princess,’ said the hedge-pig, ‘but I can’t help it. Only human beings speak lies; all other creatures tell the truth. Now I’ve got a hedge-pig’s tongue it won’t speak anything but the truth. And the truth is that I love you more than all the world.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Princess thoughtfully, ‘since you’re a hedge-pig I suppose you may love me, and I may love you. Like pet dogs or gold-fish. Dear little hedge-pig, then!’

  ‘Don’t!’ said the hedge-pig, ‘remember I’m the baker’s boy in my mind and soul. My hedge-pigginess is only skin-deep. Pick me up, dearest of Princesses, and let us go to seek our fortunes.’

  ‘I think it’s my parents I ought to seek,’ said the Princess. ‘However...’

  She picked up the hedge-pig in the corner of her mantle and they went away through the wood.

  They slept that night at a wood-cutter’s cottage. The wood-cutter was very kind, and made a nice little box of beech-wood for the hedge-pig to be carried in, and he told the Princess that most of her father’s subjects were still loyal, but that no one could fight for him because they would be fighting for the Princess too, and however much they might wish to do this, Malevola’s curse assured them that it was impossible.

  So the Princess put her hedge-pig in its little box and went on, looking everywhere for her father and mother, and, after more adventures than I have time to tell you, she found them at last, living in quite a poor way in a semi-detached villa at Tooting. They were very glad to see her, but when they heard that she meant to try to get back the kingdom, the King said:

  ‘I shouldn’t bother, my child, I really shouldn’t. We are quite happy here. I have the pension always given to Deposed Monarchs, and your mother is becoming a really economical manager.’

  The Queen blushed with pleasure, and said, ‘Thank you, dear. But if you should succeed in turning that wicked usurper out, Ozyliza, I hope I shall be a better queen than I used to be. I am learning housekeeping at an evening class at the Crown-maker’s Institute.’

  The Princess kissed her parents and went out into the garden to think it over. But the garden was small and quite full of wet washing hung on lines. So she went into the road, but that was full of dust and perambulators. Even the wet washing was better than that, so she went back and sat down on the grass in a white alley of tablecloths and sheets, all marked with a crown in indelible ink. And she took the hedge-pig out of the box. It was rolled up in a ball, but she stroked the little bit of soft forehead that you can always find if you look carefully at a rolled-up hedge-pig, and the hedge-pig uncurled and said:

  ‘I am afraid I was asleep, Princess dear. Did you want me?’

  ‘You’re the only person who knows all about everything,’ said she. ‘I haven’t told father and mother about the arrows. Now what do you advise?’

  Erinaceus was flattered at having his advice asked, but unfortunately he hadn’t any to give.

  ‘It’s your work, Princess,’ he said. ‘I can only promise to do anything a hedge-pig can do. It’s not much. Of course I could die for you, but that’s so useless.’

  ‘Quite,’ said she.

  ‘I wish I were invisible,’ he said dreamily.

  ‘Oh, where are you?’ cried Ozyliza, for the hedge-pig had vanished.

  ‘Here,’ said a sharp little voice. ‘You can’t see me, but I can see everything I want to see. And I can see what to do. I’ll crawl into my box, and you must disguise yourself as an old French governess with the best references and answer the advertisement that the wicked king put yesterday in the “Usurpers Journal.”’

  The Queen helped the Princess to disguise herself, which, of course, the Queen would never have done if she had known about the arrows; and the King gave her some of his pension to buy a ticket with, so she went back quite quickly, by train, to her own kingdom.

  The usurping King at once engaged the French governess to teach his cook to read French cookery books, because the best recipes are in French. Of course he had no idea that there was a princess, the Princess, beneath the governessial disguise. The French lessons were from 6 to 8 in the morning and from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, and all the rest of the time the governess could spend as she liked. She spent it walking about the palace gardens and talking to her invisible hedge-pig. They talked about everything under the sun, and the hedge-pig was the best of company.

  ‘How did you become invisible?’ she asked one day, and it said, ‘I suppose it was Benevola’s doing. Only I think every one gets one wish granted if they only wish hard enough.’

  On the fifty-fifth day the hedge-pig said, ‘Now, Princess dear, I’m going to begin to get you back your kingdom.’

  And next morning the King came down to breakfast in a dreadful rage with his face covered up in bandages.

  ‘This palace is haunted,’ he said. ‘In the middle of the night a dreadful spiked ball was thrown in my face. I lighted a match. There was nothing.’

  The Queen said, ‘Nonsense! You must have been dreaming.’

  But next morning it was her turn to come down with a bandaged face. And the night after, the King had the spiky ball thrown at him again. And then the Queen had it. And then they both had it, so that they couldn’t sleep at all, and had to lie awake with nothing to think of but their wickedness. And every five minutes a very little voice whispered:

  ‘Who stole the kingdom? Who killed the Princess?’ till the King and Queen could have screamed with misery.

  And at last the Queen said, ‘We needn’t have killed the Princess.’

  And the King said, ‘I’ve been thinking that, too.’

  And next day the King said, ‘I don’t know that we ought to have taken this kingdom. We had a really high-class kingdom of our own.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking that too,’ said the Queen.

  By this time their hands and arms and necks and faces and ears were very sore indeed, and they were sick with want of sleep.

  ‘Look here,’ said the King, ‘let’s chuck it. Let’s write to Ozymandias and tell him he can take over his kingdom again. I’ve had
jolly well enough of this.’

  ‘Let’s,’ said the Queen, ‘but we can’t bring the Princess to life again. I do wish we could,’ and she cried a little through her bandages into her egg, for it was breakfast time.

  ‘Do you mean that,’ said a little sharp voice, though there was no one to be seen in the room. The King and Queen clung to each other in terror, upsetting the urn over the toast-rack.

  ‘Do you mean it?’ said the voice again; ‘answer, yes or no.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Queen, ‘I don’t know who you are, but, yes, yes, yes. I can’t think how we could have been so wicked.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said the King.

  ‘Then send for the French governess,’ said the voice.

  ‘Ring the bell, dear,’ said the Queen. ‘I’m sure what it says is right. It is the voice of conscience. I’ve often heard of it, but I never heard it before.’

  The King pulled the richly-jewelled bell-rope and ten magnificent green and gold footmen appeared.

  ‘Please ask Mademoiselle to step this way,’ said the Queen.

  The ten magnificent green and gold footmen found the governess beside the marble basin feeding the gold-fish, and, bowing their ten green backs, they gave the Queen’s message. The governess who, every one agreed, was always most obliging, went at once to the pink satin breakfast-room where the King and Queen were sitting, almost unrecognisable in their bandages.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesties?’ said she curtseying.

  ‘The voice of conscience,’ said the Queen, ‘told us to send for you. Is there any recipe in the French books for bringing shot princesses to life? If so, will you kindly translate it for us?’

  ‘There is one,’ said the Princess thoughtfully, ‘and it is quite simple. Take a king and a queen and the voice of conscience. Place them in a clean pink breakfast-room with eggs, coffee, and toast. Add a full-sized French governess. The king and queen must be thoroughly pricked and bandaged, and the voice of conscience must be very distinct.’

  ‘Is that all?’ asked the Queen.

  ‘That’s all,’ said the governess, ‘except that the king and queen must have two more bandages over their eyes, and keep them on till the voice of conscience has counted fifty-five very slowly.’

  ‘If you would be so kind,’ said the Queen, ‘as to bandage us with our table napkins? Only be careful how you fold them, because our faces are very sore, and the royal monogram is very stiff and hard owing to its being embroidered in seed pearls by special command.’

  ‘I will be very careful,’ said the governess kindly.

  The moment the King and Queen were blindfolded, the ‘voice of conscience’ began, ‘one, two, three,’ and Ozyliza tore off her disguise, and under the fussy black-and-violet-spotted alpaca of the French governess was the simple slim cloth-of-silver dress of the Princess. She stuffed the alpaca up the chimney and the grey wig into the tea-cosy, and had disposed of the mittens in the coffee-pot and the elastic-side boots in the coal-scuttle, just as the voice of conscience said —

  ‘Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five!’ and stopped.

  The King and Queen pulled off the bandages, and there, alive and well, with bright clear eyes and pinky cheeks and a mouth that smiled, was the Princess whom they supposed to have been killed by the thousand arrows of their thousand archers.

  Before they had time to say a word the Princess said:

  ‘Good morning, Your Majesties. I am afraid you have had bad dreams. So have I. Let us all try to forget them. I hope you will stay a little longer in my palace. You are very welcome. I am so sorry you have been hurt.’

  ‘We deserved it,’ said the Queen, ‘and we want to say we have heard the voice of conscience, and do please forgive us.’

  ‘Not another word,’ said the Princess, ‘do let me have some fresh tea made. And some more eggs. These are quite cold. And the urn’s been upset. We’ll have a new breakfast. And I am so sorry your faces are so sore.’

  ‘If you kissed them,’ said the voice which the King and Queen called the voice of conscience, ‘their faces would not be sore any more.’

  ‘May I?’ said Ozyliza, and kissed the King’s ear and the Queen’s nose, all she could get at through the bandages.

  And instantly they were quite well.

  They had a delightful breakfast. Then the King caused the royal household to assemble in the throne-room, and there announced that, as the Princess had come to claim the kingdom, they were returning to their own kingdom by the three-seventeen train on Thursday.

  Every one cheered like mad, and the whole town was decorated and illuminated that evening. Flags flew from every house, and the bells all rang, just as the Princess had expected them to do that day when she came home with the fifty-five camels. All the treasure these had carried was given back to the Princess, and the camels themselves were restored to her, hardly at all the worse for wear.

  The usurping King and Queen were seen off at the station by the Princess, and parted from her with real affection. You see they weren’t completely wicked in their hearts, but they had never had time to think before. And being kept awake at night forced them to think. And the ‘voice of conscience’ gave them something to think about.

  They gave the Princess the receipted bills, with which most of the palace was papered, in return for board and lodging.

  When they were gone a telegram was sent off.

  Ozymandias Rex, Esq., Chatsworth, Delamere Road, Tooting, England.

  Please come home at once. Palace vacant. Tenants have left. — Ozyliza P.

  And they came immediately.

  When they arrived the Princess told them the whole story, and they kissed and praised her, and called her their deliverer and the saviour of her country.

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ she said. ‘It was Erinaceus who did everything, and....’

  ‘But the fairies said,’ interrupted the King, who was never clever at the best of times, ‘that you couldn’t get the kingdom back till you had a thousand spears devoted to you, to you alone.’

  ‘There are a thousand spears in my back,’ said a little sharp voice, ‘and they are all devoted to the Princess and to her alone.’

  ‘Don’t!’ said the King irritably. ‘That voice coming out of nothing makes me jump.’

  ‘I can’t get used to it either,’ said the Queen. ‘We must have a gold cage built for the little animal. But I must say I wish it was visible.’

  ‘So do I,’ said the Princess earnestly. And instantly it was. I suppose the Princess wished it very hard, for there was the hedge-pig with its long spiky body and its little pointed face, its bright eyes, its small round ears, and its sharp, turned-up nose.

  It looked at the Princess but it did not speak.

  ‘Say something now,’ said Queen Eliza. ‘I should like to see a hedge-pig speak.’

  ‘The truth is, if speak I must, I must speak the truth,’ said Erinaceus. ‘The Princess has thrown away her life-wish to make me visible. I wish she had wished instead for something nice for herself.’

  ‘Oh, was that my life-wish?’ cried the Princess. ‘I didn’t know, dear Hedge-pig, I didn’t know. If I’d only known, I would have wished you back into your proper shape.’

  ‘If you had,’ said the hedge-pig, ‘it would have been the shape of a dead man. Remember that I have a thousand spears in my back, and no man can carry those and live.’

  The Princess burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, you can’t go on being a hedge-pig for ever,’ she said, ‘it’s not fair. I can’t bear it. Oh Mamma! Oh Papa! Oh Benevola!’

  And there stood Benevola before them, a little dazzling figure with blue butterfly’s wings and a wreath of moonshine.

  ‘Well?’ she said, ‘well?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said the Princess, still crying. ‘I’ve thrown away my life-wish, and he’s still a hedge-pig. Can’t you do anything!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said the Fairy, ‘but you can. Your kisses are magic kisses. Don’t you remember ho
w you cured the King and Queen of all the wounds the hedge-pig made by rolling itself on to their faces in the night?’

  ‘But she can’t go kissing hedge-pigs,’ said the Queen, ‘it would be most unsuitable. Besides it would hurt her.’

  But the hedge-pig raised its little pointed face, and the Princess took it up in her hands. She had long since learned how to do this without hurting either herself or it. She looked in its little bright eyes.

  ‘I would kiss you on every one of your thousand spears,’ she said, ‘to give you what you wish.’

  ‘Kiss me once,’ it said, ‘where my fur is soft. That is all I wish, and enough to live and die for.’

  She stooped her head and kissed it on its forehead where the fur is soft, just where the prickles begin.

  And instantly she was standing with her hands on a young man’s shoulders and her lips on a young man’s face just where the hair begins and the forehead leaves off. And all round his feet lay a pile of fallen arrows.

  She drew back and looked at him.

  ‘Erinaceus,’ she said, ‘you’re different — from the baker’s boy I mean.’

  ‘When I was an invisible hedge-pig,’ he said, ‘I knew everything. Now I have forgotten all that wisdom save only two things. One is that I am a king’s son. I was stolen away in infancy by an unprincipled baker, and I am really the son of that usurping King whose face I rolled on in the night. It is a painful thing to roll on your father’s face when you are all spiky, but I did it, Princess, for your sake, and for my father’s too. And now I will go to him and tell him all, and ask his forgiveness.’

  ‘You won’t go away?’ said the Princess. ‘Ah! don’t go away. What shall I do without my hedge-pig?’

  Erinaceus stood still, looking very handsome and like a prince.

  ‘What is the other thing that you remember of your hedge-pig wisdom?’ asked the Queen curiously. And Erinaceus answered, not to her but to the Princess: