Oswald Bastable and Others

by E. Nesbit

  THE PRINCESS AND THE CAT

  The day when everything began to happen to the Princess began just likeall her ordinary days. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, andthe Princess jumped out of bed and ran into the nursery to let the miceout of the traps in the nursery cupboard. The traps were set every nightwith a little bit of cheese in each, and every morning nurse found thatnot a single trap had caught a single mouse. This was because thePrincess always let them go. No one knew this except the Princess and,of course, the mice themselves. And the mice never forgot it.

  Then came bath and breakfast, and then the Princess ran to the openwindow and threw out the crumbs to the birds that flew down flutteringand chirping into the marble terrace. Before lessons began she had anhour for playing in the garden. But she never began to play till she hadbeen round to see if any rabbits or moles were caught in the traps thepalace gardeners set. The gardeners were lazy, and seldom got to workbefore half-past eight, so she always had plenty of time for this.

  Then came lessons with dear old Professor Ouatidontnoisuntwuthnoing, andthen more play, and dinner, and needlework, and play again.

  And now it was teatime.

  'Eat up your bread-and-butter, your Highness,' said nurse, 'and then youshall have some nice plummy cake.'

  'I don't feel plum-cakey at all to-day, somehow,' said the Princess. 'Ifeel just exactly as if something was going to happen.'

  'Something's always happening,' said nurse.

  'Ah! but I mean something horrid,' said the Princess. 'I expect uncle'sgoing to make some nasty new law about me. Last time it was: "ThePrincess is only to wear a white frock on the first Sunday in themonth." He said it was economy, but I know it was only spite.'

  'You mustn't say that, dear,' said nurse. 'You know your rosy and blueyfrocks are just as pretty as the white;' but in her heart she agreedwith the Princess Everilda.

  The Princess's father and mother had died when she was quite little,and her uncle was Regent. Now, you will have noticed that there issomething about uncles which makes it impossible for them to be good infairy stories. So of course this uncle was bad, as bad as he could be,and everyone hated him.

  In fact, though it was now, as I have said, everybody's teatime, nobodywas making any tea: instead they were making a revolution. And just asthe Princess was looking at the half-moon-shaped hole left by her firstbite into her first piece of bread-and-butter, the good Professor burstinto the nursery with his great gray wig all on one side, crying out ina very loud and very choky voice:

  'The revolution! It's come at last. I _knew_ the people would neverstand that last tax on soap.'

  'The Princess!' said nurse, turning very pale.

  'Yes, I know,' said the Professor. 'There's a boat on the canal, bluesails with gold letters "P.P."--Pupil of the Professor. It's waiting.You go down there at once. I'll take the Princess out down the backstairs.'

  He caught the Princess by her pink bread-and-buttery hand, and draggedher away.

  'Hurry, my dear,' he panted; 'it's as much as your life is worth todelay a minute.'

  But he himself delayed quite three minutes, and that was one minute toolong. He had just run into the palace library for the manuscript of hislife's work, 'Everything Easily Explained,' when the revolutionary crowdburst in, shouting 'Liberty and Soap!' and caught him. They did not seethe Princess Everilda, because he had just time, when he heard themcoming, to throw a red and green crochet antimacassar over her, and tohide her behind an armchair.

  'When they've taken me away, go down the back stairs, and try to findthe boat,' he whispered, just before they came and took him away.

  And then Everilda was left alone. When everything was quiet, she said toherself: 'Now, you mustn't cry; you must do as you're told.' And shewent down the palace back-stairs, and out through the palace kitcheninto the street.

  She had never set foot in the streets before, but she had been driventhrough them in a coach with four white horses, and she knew the way tothe canal.

  The canal boat with the blue sails was waiting, and she would have gotto it safely enough, but she heard a rattling sound, and when shelooked she saw two boys tying an old rusty kettle to a cat's tail.

  'You horrid boys!' she said; 'let poor pussy alone.'

  'Not us,' said the boys.

  Everilda instantly slapped them both, and they were so surprised thatthey let the cat go. It scuttled and scurried off, and so did thePrincess. The boys threw stones after her and also after the cat, butfortunately they were both very bad shots and nobody was hit.

  Even then the Princess would have got safely away, but she saw a boysitting on a doorstep crying. So she stopped to ask what was the matter.

  'I'm hungry,' said the boy, 'and father and mother are dead, and myuncle beat me, so I'm running away----'

  'Oh,' said the Princess, 'so am I. What fun! And I've got a horriduncle, too. You come with me, and we'll find my nurse. _She's_ runningaway, too. Make haste, or it'll be too late.'

  But when they got to the corner, it _was_ too late.

  The revolutionary crowd caught them; they shouted 'Liberty and Soap!'and they sent the boy to the workhouse, and they put the Princess inprison; and a good many of them wanted to cut off her pretty little headthen and there, because they thought she would be sure to grow up horridlike her uncle the Regent.

  But all the people who had ever been inside the palace said what a nicelittle girl the Princess really was, and wouldn't hear of cutting offher darling head. So at last it was decided to get rid of her byenchantment, and the Head Magician to the Provisional RevolutionaryGovernment was sent for.

  'Certainly, citizens,' he said, 'I'll put her in a tower on the ForlornIsland, in the middle of the Perilous Sea--a nice strong tower, withonly one way out.'

  'That's one too many. There's not to be any way out,' said the people.

  'Well, there's a way out of everything, you know,' said the Magiciantimidly--he was trembling for his own head--'but it's fifty thousandmillions to one against her ever finding it.'

  So they had to be content with that, and they fetched Everilda out ofher prison; and the Magician took her hand and called his carriage,which was an invention of his own--half dragon, and half motor-car, andhalf flying-machine--so that it was a carriage and a half, and came whenit was called, tame as any pet dog.

  He lifted Everilda in, and said 'Gee up!' to his patent carriage, andthe intelligent creature geed up right into the air and flew away. ThePrincess shut her eyes tight, and tried not to scream. She succeeded.

  When the Magician's carriage got to the place where it knew it ought tostop, it did stop, and tumbled Everilda out on to a hard floor, and wentback to its master, who patted it, and gave it a good feed of oil, andfire, and water, and petroleum spirit.

  The Princess opened her eyes as the sound of the rattling dragon wingsdied away. She was alone--quite alone. 'I won't stay here,' saidEverilda; 'I'll run away again.'

  She ran to the edge of the tower and looked down. The tower was in themiddle of a garden, and the garden was in the middle of a wood, and thewood was in the middle of a field, and after the field there was nothingmore at all except steep cliffs and the great rolling, raging waves ofthe Perilous Sea.

  'There's no way to run away by,' she said; and then she remembered thateven if she ran away, there was now nowhere to run to, because thepeople had taken her palace away from her, and the palace was the onlyhome she had ever had--and where her nurse was goodness only knew.

  'So I suppose I've got to live here till someone fetches me,' she said,and stopped crying, like a brave King's daughter as she was.

  'I'll explore,' said Everilda all alone; 'that will be fun.' She said itbravely, and really it was more fun than she expected. The tower hadonly one room on each floor. The top floor was Everilda's bedroom; sheknew that by her gold-backed brushes and things with 'E. P.' on themthat lay on the toilet-table. The next floor was a sitting-room, and thenext a dining-room, and the last of all was a kitchen, with r
ows ofbright pots and pans, and everything that a cook can possibly want.

  'Now I can play at cooking,' said the Princess. 'I've always wanted todo that. If only there was something to cook!'

  She looked in the cupboards, and there were lots of canisters and jars,with rice, and flour, and beans, and peas, and lentils, and macaroni,and currants, and raisins, and candied peel, and sugar, and sago, andcinnamon. She ate a whole lump of candied citron, and enjoyed it verymuch.

  'I shan't starve, anyway,' she said. 'But oh! of course, I shall sooneat up all these things, and then----'

  In her agitation she dropped the jar; it did not break, but all thecandied peel rolled away into corners and under tables. Yet when shepicked the jar up it was as full as ever.

  'Oh, hooray!' cried Everilda, who had once heard a sentry use that lowexpression; 'of course it's a magic tower, and everything is magic init. The jars will always be full.'

  The fire was laid, so she lighted it and boiled some rice, but it stuckto the pot and got burned. You know how nasty burned rice is? and themacaroni she tried to cook would not get soft. So she went out into thegarden, and had a very much nicer dinner than she could ever havecooked. Instead of meat she had apples, and instead of vegetables shehad plums, and she had peaches instead of pudding.

  There were rows and rows of beautiful books in the sitting-room, and sheread a little, and wrote a long letter to nurse, in case anyone evercame who knew nurse's address and would post it for her. And then shehad a nectarine-and-mulberry tea.

  By this time the sun was sinking all red and splendid beyond the darkwaters of the Perilous Sea, and Everilda sat down on the window seat towatch it.

  I shall not tell you whether she cried at all then. Perhaps you wouldhave cried just a little if you had been in her place.

  'Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!' she said, sniffing slightly. (Perhaps shehad a cold.) 'There's nobody to tuck me up in bed--nobody at all.'

  And just as she said it something fat and furry flew between her and thesunset. It hovered clumsily a moment, and then swooped in at the window.

  'Oh!' cried the Princess, very much frightened indeed.

  'Don't you know me?' said the stout furry creature, folding its wings.'I'm the cat you saved from the indignity of a rusty kettle inconnection with my honourable tail.'

  'But that cat hadn't got wings,' said Everilda, 'and you're much biggerthan it, and it couldn't talk.'

  'How do you know it couldn't talk,' said the Cat; 'did you ask it?'

  'No,' said the Princess.

  'Well, then!' said the Cat 'And as for wings, I needn't wear them ifyou'd rather I didn't.'

  The Cat took off her wings, rolled them neatly up, like your fatherrolls his umbrella, tied them round with a piece of string, and put themin the left-hand corner drawer in the bureau.

  'That's better,' said Everilda.

  'And as for size,' said the Cat, 'if I stayed ordinary cat-size Ishouldn't be any use to you. And I've come to be cook, companion,housemaid, nurse, professor, and everything else, so----'

  'Oh, don't,' said the Princess--'_don't_ get any bigger.'

  For while she was speaking the Cat had been growing steadily, and shewas now about the size of a large leopard.

  'Certainly not,' said the Cat obligingly; 'I'll stop at once.'

  'I suppose,' said the Princess timidly, 'that you're magic?'

  'Of course,' said the Cat; 'everything is, here. Don't you be afraid ofme, now! Come along, my pet, time for bed.'

  Everilda umped, for the voice was the voice of her nurse; but it wasalso the voice of the Cat.

  'Oh!' cried the Princess, throwing her arms round the cat's large furryneck, 'I'm not afraid of _any_ thing when you speak like that.'

  So, after all, she had someone to tuck her up in bed. The Cat did itwith large, soft, furry, clever paws, and in two minutes Everilda wasfast asleep.

  And now began the long, lonely, but all the same quite happy time whichthe Princess and the Cat spent together on the Forlorn Island.

  Everilda had lessons with the Cat--and then it was the Professor's voicethat the Cat spoke with; and the two did the neat little housework ofthe tower together--and then the Cat's voice was like the voices of thepalace housemaids. And they did the cooking and then the Cat's voice wasthe cook's voice. And they played games together--and then the voice ofthe Cat was like the voices of all sorts of merry children. It wasimpossible to be dull with a companion who changed so often.

  'But who are you _really_?' the Princess used to ask.

  And the Cat always answered:

  'I give it up! Ask another!' as if the Princess had been playing atriddles.

  'How is it our garden is always so tidy and full of nice fruit andvegetables?' the Princess asked once, when they had been on the islandabout a year.

  'Oh,' said the Cat, 'didn't you know? The moles you used to let out ofthe traps do the digging, and the birds you used to feed bring the seedsin their little beaks, and the mice you used to save from the palacemouse-traps do the weeding and raking with their sharp little teeth, andtheir fine, neat, needly claws.'

  'But how did they get here?' asked the Princess.

  'The usual way--swimming and flying,' said the Cat.

  'But aren't the mice afraid of _you_?'

  'Of me?' The great Cat drew herself up to her full height. 'Anyone wouldthink, to hear you, that I was a _common_ cat.' And she was really crossfor nearly an hour.

  That was the only approach to a quarrel that the two ever had.

  Sometimes, at first, the Princess used to say:

  '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, andclever, 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 akingdom a long way off, and he's the only person who can get you offthis island.'

  'Does he know?' asked Everilda.

  'He knows about _you_, but he doesn't know that he's the person to findyou, and he doesn't know where you are. So now every night I must flyaway and whisper about you in his ear. He'll think it's dreams, but hebelieves in dreams; and he'll come in a grand ship with masts of goldand 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 otherKing than this one, so it's just as well that it's quite impossible forit 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, andbrushed them, and fitted them on; then she lighted a large lamp and setit 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 perhapsthe 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 bewrecked. Serve them right, coming after Princesses that don't wantthem.'

  'Oh,' said Everilda.

  The Cat spread her wings, and after one or two trial flights round thetower, she spread them very wide indeed, and flew away across the blackPerilous Sea, towards a little half moon that was standing on its headto show sailors that there would be foul weather.

  The Princess leaned her elbows on the window-sill and looked out overthe sea. Down below in the garden she could hear the kind moles diggingindustriously, and the good little mice weeding and raking with theirsharp teeth and their fine
needly claws. And far away against thelow-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'tbe wrecked.'

  And she turned the lamp out. And then she cried a little, becauseperhaps after all it might be _his_ ship, and he would pass by and neverknow.

  Next night the Cat went out on another flying excursion, leaving thelamp lighted. And again the Princess could not bear to go to bed leavinga lamp burning that might lure honest Kings and brave mariners toshipwreck, so she put out the lamp and cried a little. And this happenedfor many, many, many nights.

  When the Cat swept the room of a morning she used to wonder where allthe pearls came from that she found lying all about the floor. But itwas a magic place, and one soon ceased to wonder much about anything.She never guessed that the pearls were the tears the Princess shed whenshe had put out the lamp, and seen ship after ship that perhaps carriedher own King go sailing safely and ignorantly by, no one on boardguessing that on that rock was a pretty, dear Princess waiting to berescued--_the_ Princess, the only Princess that that King would be happyand glad to have for his Queen.

  And the years went on and on. Every night the Cat lighted the lamp andflew away to whisper dreams into the ears of the only King who couldrescue the Princess, and every night the Princess put out the lamp andcried in the dark. And every morning the Cat swept up a dustpan full ofpearls that were Everilda's tears. And again and again the King wouldfit out a vessel and sail the seas, and look in vain for the brightlight that he had dreamed should guide him to his Princess.

  The Cat was a good deal vexed; she could not understand how any Kingcould be so stupid. She always stayed out all night. She used to go andsee her friends after she had done whispering dreams to the King, andonly got home in time to light the fire for breakfast, so she never knewhow 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, forshe had never had the heart to leave the lamp alight, for fear that somepoor mariners who were not her King should be drawn by the lamp to thosecruel rocks and wrecked on them, for of course it wouldn't and couldn'tbe the poor mariners' fault that they didn't happen to be the one andonly King who could land safely on the Forlorn Island.

  And when the Princess was quite old, and the tear pearls that had beenswept up by the Cat filled seven big chests in the back-kitchen, thePrincess fell ill.

  'I think I am going to die,' she said to the Cat, 'and I am not reallyat all sorry except for you. I think you'll miss me. Tell me now--it'salmost 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 whitegown and waited for death, for she was very tired of being alive. Onlyshe 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 wreckedjust because they didn't happen to be the one and only King with whomshe could be happy.

  So the Cat took the lamp away, but she did not put it out; she set it inthe window of the parlour, and its light shone out over the black watersof the Perilous Sea.

  And that very night the one and only King--who in all these years hadnever ceased to follow the leading of the dreams the Cat whispered inhis ear--came in the black darkness sailing over the Perilous Sea. Andin the black darkness he saw at last the bright white light that hisdreams had promised, and he knew that where the light was his Princesswas, and his heart leaped up, and he bade the helmsmen steer for thelight.

  And for the light they steered. And because he was the only possibleKing to mate that Princess, the helmsman found the only possible passageamong 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 mesee her.'

  He had been so busy all these years trying to find the bright whitelight of his dreams that he had not noticed that his hair had gone graylong ago.

  So the Cat let him in, and led him up the winding stair to the roomwhere the Princess, very quiet, lay on her white bed waiting for deathto come, for she was very tired.

  The old King stumbled across the bar of moonlight on the floor, flungdown 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. Ihoped 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 tillyou 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'seyes.

  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. ThePrincess 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 thetruth was that both were horribly disappointed.

  'Yet, all the same,' said the King to himself, 'old and withered as sheis, she is more to me than the youngest and loveliest of all otherPrincesses.'

  'I don't care if he _is_ gray,' said the Princess to herself; 'whateverhe is, he's the only possible one.'

  'Here's a pretty kettle of fish!' said the Cat. 'Why on earth didn't youcome before?'

  'I came as soon as I could,' said the King.

  The Cat, walking about the room in an agitated way, kicked against thewallet the King had dropped.

  'What's this,' she said crossly, rubbing her toes, for the wallet washard, and she had hurt herself more than a little.

  'Oh, that,' said the King--'that's just the steel bolts and hammers andthings that my resolves to find the Princess turned into when I failedand never did find her. I never could bear to throw them away; I had asort of feeling that they might be good for something, since they hurtme so much when they came to me. I thought perhaps I could batter downthe 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 shestaggered in with a great basket of white powder, and emptied it on thefloor; 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'smiddle.

  'That's powder of pearls,' said the Cat proudly. 'Now, tell me, have youbeen a good King?'

  'I have tried to be,' said the white-haired King 'I was a workhouseboy, and then I was apprenticed to a magician, who taught me how to makepeople happy. There was a revolution just at the time when I was putinto the workhouse, and they had a Republic. And I worked my way up tillthey 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 heworked for his living. It was the worst punishment they could invent forhim. There was a Princess, too, but she was hidden by a magician. I sawher once when she was trying to run away. She asked me to run too--toher 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. Andthen----'

  'Oh, why, then,' said the King, 'they thought it wouldn't be any moredangerous or expensive to have a King than a President, and prettier atState shows--ermine, crown, and sceptre, and all that--prettier thanfrock-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 atthe closed casement. The Cat threw the window wide, and in swarmed acountless 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 onthe floor till it burst into flame, and the flame rose up high and whiteand 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 fromher couch, and together they passed through the clear fire made of herpatience and self-sacrifice, his high resolve, and the blessings of hispeople. 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 thePrincess.

  And they put their arms round each other and cried for joy, because nowthey were both young and beautiful again.

  The Cat cried for sympathy.

  'And now we shall live happy ever after,' said the Princess, putting herother arm round the Cat. 'Dear pussy-nurse, do tell me, now it's allover, 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 otherside came out--not one person, but eleven. She was, in fact, theProfessor, the nurse, the palace butler, footman, housemaid,parlourmaid, between-maid, boots, scullion, boy in buttons, as well asthe rescued cat--all rolled into one!

  'But we only used one part of ourselves at a time,' they all said withone voice, 'and I hope we were useful.'

  'You were a darling,' said the Princess--'darlings, I mean. But whoturned you all into exactly the pussy-nurse I wanted?'

  'Oh, that was the Magician,' said all the voices in unison; 'he was yourfairy-godfather, you know.'

  'What has become of him?' asked the Princess, clinging to her lover'sarm.

  'He's been asleep all this time. It was the condition, the only way hegot leave to work the good magic for all of us,' said the many voicesthat were one.

  'Let's go and wake him,' said the King.

  So they all went. And when they woke the Magician, who was sleepingquietly in his own private room in the palace where the Princess hadonce lived, he sneezed seven times for pure joy, and then called forWelsh rabbit and baked Spanish onions for supper.

  'For after all these years of starvation,' he said, 'I do really think Imay for once take a liberty with my digestion.'

  So he had the supper he wanted; but the King and the Princess had rosesand lilies and wedding-cake, because they were married that veryevening.

  And when you have passed through exactly the sort of fire those two hadpassed through, you can never be old, or ugly, or unhappy again, sothose two are happy, and beautiful, and young to this very hour.