There was once a Prince whose father failed in business and lost
everything he had in the world--crown, kingdom, money, jewels, and
friends. This was because he was so fond of machinery that he was always
making working models of things he invented, and so had no time to
attend to the duties that Kings are engaged for. So he lost his
situation. There is a King in French history who was fond of machinery,
particularly clock-work, and he lost everything too, even his head. The
King in this story kept his head, however, and when he wasn't allowed to
make laws any more, he was quite contented to go on making machines. And
as his machines were a great deal better than his laws had ever been, he
soon got a nice little business together, and was able to buy a house in
another kingdom, and settle down comfortably with his wife and son. The
house was one of those delightful villas called after Queen Anne (the
one whose death is still so often mentioned and so justly deplored),
with stained glass to the front-door, and coloured tiles on the
front-garden path, and gables where there was never need of gables, and
nice geraniums and calceolarias in the front-garden, and pretty red
brick on the front of the house. The back of the house was yellow brick,
because that did not show so much.
Here the King and the Queen and the Prince lived very pleasantly. The
Queen snipped the dead geraniums off with a pair of gold scissors, and
did fancy-work for bazaars. The Prince went to the Red-Coat School, and
the King worked up his business. In due time the Prince was apprenticed
to his father's trade; and a very industrious apprentice he was, and
never had anything to do with the idle apprentices who play pitch and
toss on tombstones, as you see in Mr. Hogarth's picture.
When the Prince was twenty-one his mother called him to her. She put
down the blotting-book she was embroidering for the School Bazaar in
tasteful pattern of stocks and nasturtiums, and said:
'My dear son, you have had the usual coming-of-age presents--silver
cigar-case and match-box; a handsome set of brushes, with your initials
on the back; a Gladstone bag, also richly initialled; the complete works
of Dickens and Thackeray; a Swan fountain-pen mounted in gold; and the
heartfelt blessing of your father and mother. But there is still one
more present for you.'
'You are too good, mamma,' said the Prince, fingering the
nasturtium-coloured silks.
'Don't fidget,' said the Queen, 'and listen to me. When you were a baby
a fairy, who was your godmother, gave you a most valuable present--a
Charmed Life. As long as you keep it safely, nothing can harm you.'
'How delightful!' said the Prince. 'Why, mamma, you might have let me go
to sea when I wanted to. It would have been quite safe.'
'Yes, my dear,' said the Queen, 'but it's best to be careful. I have
taken care of your life all these years, but now you are old enough to
take care of it for yourself. Let me advise you to keep it in a safe
place. You should never carry valuables about on your person.'
And then she handed the Charmed Life over to him, and he took it and
kissed her, and thanked her for the pretty present, and went away and
hid it. He took a brick out of the wall of the villa, and hid his Life
behind it. The bricks in the walls of these Queen Anne villas generally
come out quite easily.
Now, the father of the Prince had been King of Bohemia, so, of course,
the Prince was called Florizel, which is their family name; but when the
King went into business he went in as Rex Bloomsbury, and his great
patent Lightning Lift Company called itself R. Bloomsbury and Co., so
that the Prince was known as F. Bloomsbury, which was as near as the
King dared go to 'Florizel, Prince of Bohemia.' His mother, I am sorry
to say, called him Florrie till he was quite grown up.
Now, the King of the country where Florizel lived was a very go-ahead
sort of man, and as soon as he heard that there were such things as
lifts--which was not for a long time, because no one ever lets a King
know anything if it can be helped--he ordered one of the very, very best
for his palace. Next day a card was brought in by one of the palace
footmen. It had on it: 'Mr. F. Bloomsbury, R. Bloomsbury and Co.'
'Show him in,' said the King.
'Good-morning, sire,' said Florizel, bowing with that perfect grace
which is proper to Princes.
'Good-morning, young man,' said the King. 'About this lift, now.'
'Yes, sire. May I ask how much your Majesty is prepared to----'
'Oh, never mind price,' said the King; 'it all comes out of the taxes.'
'I should think, then, that Class A ... our special Argentinella
design--white satin cushions, woodwork overlaid with ivory and inset
with pearls, opals, and silver.'
'Gold,' said the King shortly.
'Not with pearls and ivory,' said Florizel firmly. He had excellent
taste. 'The gold pattern--we call it the Anriradia--is inlaid with
sapphires, emeralds, and black diamonds.'
'I'll have the gold pattern,' said the King; 'but you might run up a
little special lift for the Princess's apartments. I dare say she'd like
that Argentinella pattern--"Simple and girlish," I see it says in your
circular.'
So Florizel booked the order, and the gold and sapphire and emerald lift
was made and fixed, and all the Court was so delighted that it spent
its whole time in going up and down in the lift, and there had to be new
blue satin cushions within a week.
Then the Prince superintended the fixing of the Princess's lift--the
Argentinella design--and the Princess Candida herself came to look on at
the works; and she and Florizel met, and their eyes met, and their hands
met, because his caught hers, and dragged her back just in time to save
her from being crushed by a heavy steel bar that was being lowered into
its place.
'Why, you've saved my life,' said the Princess.
But Florizel could say nothing. His heart was beating too fast, and it
seemed to be beating in his throat, and not in its proper place behind
his waistcoat.
'Who are you?' said the Princess.
'I'm an engineer,' said the Prince.
'Oh dear!' said the Princess, 'I thought you were a Prince. I'm sure you
look more like a Prince than any Prince _I've_ ever seen.'
'I wish I was a Prince,' said Florizel; 'but I never wished it till
three minutes ago.'
The Princess smiled, and then she frowned, and then she went away.
Florizel went straight back to the office, where his father, Mr. Rex
Bloomsbury, was busy at his knee-hole writing-table.
He spent the morning at the office, and the afternoon in the workshop.
'Father,' he said, 'I don't know what ever will become of me. I wish I
was a Prince!'
The King and Queen of Bohemia had never let their son know that he was a
Prince; for what is the use of being a Prince if there's never going to
be a kingdom for you?
Now, the King, who was called R. Bloomsbury, Esq., looked at his son
over his spectacles and said:
'Why?'
'Because I've been and gone and fallen head over ears in love with the
Princess Candida.'
The father rubbed his nose thoughtfully with his fountain pen.
'Humph!' he said; 'you've fixed your choice high.'
'Choice!' cried the Prince distractedly. 'There wasn't much choice about
it. She just looked at me, and there I was, don't you know? I didn't
_want_ to fall in love like this. Oh, father, it hurts most awfully!
What ever shall I do?'
After a long pause, full of thought, his father replied:
'Bear it, I suppose.'
'But I _can't_ bear it--at least, not unless I can see her every day.
Nothing else in the world matters in the least.'
'Dear me!' said his father.
'Couldn't I disguise myself as a Prince, and try to make her like me a
little?'
'The disguise you suggest is quite beyond our means at present.'
'Then I'll disguise myself as a lift attendant,' said Florizel.
And what is more, he did it. His father did not interfere. He believed
in letting young people manage their own love affairs.
So that when the lift was finished, and the Princess and her ladies
crowded round to make the first ascent in it, there was Florizel dressed
in white satin knee-breeches, and coat with mother-o'-pearl buttons. He
had silver buckles to his shoes, and a tiny opal breast-pin on the
lappet of his coat, where the white flower goes at weddings.
When the Princess saw him she said:
'Now, none of you girls are to go in the lift at all, mind! It's _my_
lift. You can use the other one, or go up the mother-of-pearl staircase,
as usual.'
Then she stepped into the lift, and the silver doors clicked, and the
lift went up, just carrying her and him.
She had put on a white silky gown, to match the new lift, and she, too,
had silver buckles on her shoes, and a string of pearls round her
throat, and a silver chain set with opals in her dark hair; and she had
a bunch of jasmine flowers at her neck. As the lift went out of sight
the youngest lady-in-waiting whispered:
'What a pretty pair! Why, they're made for each other! What a pity he's
a lift-man! He looks exactly like a Prince.'
'Hold your tongue, silly!' said the eldest lady-in-waiting, and slapped
her.
The Princess went up and down in the lift all the morning, and when at
last she had to step out of it because the palace luncheon-bell had rung
three times, and the roast peacock was getting cold, the eldest
lady-in-waiting noticed that the Lift-man had a jasmine flower fastened
to his coat with a little opal pin.
The eldest lady-in-waiting kept a sharp eye on the Princess, but after
that first day the Princess only seemed to go up and down in the lift
when it was really necessary, and then she always took the youngest
lady-in-waiting with her; so that though the Lift-man always had a
flower in his buttonhole, there was no reason to suppose it had not been
given him by his mother.
'I suppose I'm a silly, suspicious little thing,' said the eldest
lady-in-waiting. 'Of course, it was the lift that amused her, just at
first. How _could_ a Princess be interested in a lift-man?'
Now, when people are in love, and want to be quite certain that they are
loved in return, they will take any risks to find out what they want to
know. But as soon as they are _quite sure_ they begin to be careful.
And after those seventy-five ups and downs in the lift, on the first
day, the Princess no longer had any doubt that she was beloved by the
Lift-man. Not that he had said a word about it, but she was a clever
Princess, and she had seen how he picked up the jasmine flower she let
fell, and kissed it when she pretended she wasn't looking, and he
pretended he didn't know she was. Of course, she had been in love with
him ever since they met, and their eyes met, and their hands. She told
herself it was because he had saved her life, but that wasn't the real
reason at all.
So, being quite sure, she began to be careful.
'Since he really loves me he'll find a way to tell me so, right out.
It's his part, not mine, to make everything possible,' she said.
As for Florizel, he was quite happy. He saw her every day, and every day
when he took his place in his lift there was a fresh jasmine flower
lying on the satin cushion. And he pinned it into his buttonhole and
wore it there all day, and thought of his lady, and of how that first
wonderful day she had dropped a jasmine flower, and how he had picked it
up when she pretended she was not looking, and he was pretending that he
did not know she was. But all the same he wanted to know exactly how
that jasmine flower came there every day, and whose hand brought it. It
might be the youngest lady-in-waiting, but Florizel didn't think so.
So he went to the palace one morning bright and early, much earlier than
usual, and there was no jasmine flower. Then he hid behind one of the
white velvet window-curtains of the corridor and waited. And, presently,
who should come stealing along on the tips of her pink toes--so as to
make no noise at all--but the Princess herself, fresh as the morning in
a white muslin frock with a silver ribbon round her darling waist, and
a bunch of jasmine at her neck. She took one of the jasmine flowers and
kissed it and laid it on the white satin seat of the lift, and when she
stepped back there was the Lift-man.
'Oh!' said Candida, and blushed like a child that is caught in mischief.
'Oh!' said Florizel, and he picked up the jasmine and kissed it many
times.
'Why do you do that?' said the Princess.
'Because you did,' said the Prince. 'I saw you. Do you want to go on
pretending any more?'
The Princess did not know what to say, so she said nothing.
Florizel came and stood quite close to her.
'I used to wish I was a Prince,' he said, 'but I don't now. I'd rather
be an engineer. If I'd been a Prince I should never have seen you.'
'I don't want you to be a bit different,' said the Princess. And she
stooped to smell the jasmine in his buttonhole.
'So we're betrothed,' said Florizel.
'Are we?' said Candida.
'Aren't we?' he said.
'Well, yes, I suppose we are,' said she.
'Very well, then,' said Florizel, and he kissed the Princess.
'You're sure you don't mind marrying an engineer?' he said, when she had
kissed him back.
'Of course not,' said the Princess.
'Then I'll buy the ring,' said he, and kissed her again.
Then she gave him the rest of the jasmine, with a kiss for each star,
and he gave her a little keepsake in return, and they parted.
'My heart is yours,' said Florizel, 'and my life is in your hands.'
'My life is yours,' said she, 'and my heart is in your heart.'
Now, I am sorry to say that somebody had been listening all the time
behind another curtain, and when the Princess had gone to her breakfast
and the Lift-man had gone down in his lift, this somebody came out and
said, 'Aha!'
It was a wicked, ugly, disagreeable, snub-nosed page-boy, who would have
liked to marry the Princess himself. He had really no chance, and never
could have had, because his father was only a rich brewer. But he felt
himself to be much superior to a lift-man. And he was the kind of boy
who always sneaks if he has half a chance. So he went and told the King
that he had seen the Princess kissing the Lift-man in the morning all
bright and early.
The King said he was a lying hound, and put him in prison at once for
mentioning such a thing--which served him right.
Then the King thought it best to find out for himself whether the
snub-nosed page-boy had spoken the truth.
So he watched in the morning all bright and early, and he saw the
Princess come stealing along on the tips of her little pink toes, and
the lift (Argentinella design) came up, and the Lift-man in it. And the
Princess gave him kissed jasmine to put in his buttonhole.
So the King jumped out on them and startled them dreadfully. And
Florizel was locked up in prison, and the Princess was locked up in her
room with only the eldest lady-in-waiting to keep her company. And the
Princess cried all day and all night. And she managed to hide the
keepsake the Prince had given her. She hid it in a little book of
verses. And the eldest lady saw her do it. Florizel was condemned to be
executed for having wanted to marry someone so much above him in
station. But when the axe fell on his neck the axe flew to pieces, and
the neck was not hurt at all. So they sent for another axe and tried
again. And again the axe splintered and flew. And when they picked up
the bits of the axe they had all turned to leaves of poetry books.
So they put off the execution till next day.
The gaoler told the snub-nosed page all about it when he took him his
dinner of green water and mouldering crusts.
'Couldn't do the trick!' said the gaoler. 'Two axes broke off short and
the bits turned to rubbish. The executioner says the rascal has a
Charmed Life.'
'Of course he has,' said the ugly page, sniffing at the crusts with his
snub-nose. 'I know all about that, but I shan't tell unless the King
gives me a free pardon and something fit to eat. Roast pork and onion
stuffing, I think. And you can tell him so.'
So the gaoler told the King. And the King gave the snub-nosed page the
pardon and the pork, and then the page said:
'He has a Charmed Life. I heard him tell the Princess so. And what is
more, he gave it to her to keep. And she said she'd hide it in a safe
place!'
Then the King told the eldest lady-in-waiting to watch, and she did
watch, and saw the Princess take Florizel's Charmed Life and hide it in
a bunch of jasmine. So she took the jasmine and gave it to the King, and
he burnt it. But the Princess had not left the Life in the jasmine.
Then they tried to hang Florizel, because, of course, he had an ordinary
life as well as a charmed one, and the King wished him to be without any
life at all.
Thousands of people crowded to see the presumptuous Lift-man hanged, and
the execution lasted the whole morning, and seven brand new ropes were
wasted one after the other, and they all left off being ropes and turned
into long wreaths of jasmine, which broke into bits rather than hang
such a handsome Lift-man.
The King was furious. But he was not too furious to see that the
Princess must have taken the Charmed Life out from the jasmine flowers,
and put it somewhere else, when the eldest lady was not looking.
And it turned out afterwards that the Princess had held Florizel's life
in her hand all the time the execution was going on. The eldest
lady-in-waiting was clever, but she was not so clever as the Princess.
The next morning the eldest lady brought the Princess's silver mirror to
the King.
'The Charmed Life is in that, your Majesty,' she said. 'I saw the
Princess put it in.'
And so she had, but she had not seen the Princess take it out again
almost directly afterwards.
The King smashed the looking-glass, and gave orders that poor Florizel
was to be drowned in the palace fishpond.
So they tied big stones to his hands and feet and threw him in. And the
stones changed to corks and held him up, and he swam to land, and when
they arrested him as he landed they found that on each of the corks
there was a beautiful painting of Candida's face, as she saw it every
morning in her mirror.
Now, the King and Queen of Bohemia, Florizel's father and mother, had
gone to Margate for a fortnight's holiday.
'We will have a thorough holiday,' said the King; 'we will forget the
world, and not even look at a newspaper.'
But on the third day they both got tired of forgetting the world, and
each of them secretly bought a newspaper and read it on the beach, and
each rushed back and met the other on the steps of the boarding-house
where they were staying. And the Queen began to cry, and the King took
her in his arms on the doorstep, to the horror of the other boarders,
who were looking out of the windows at them; and then they rushed off to
the railway station, leaving behind them their luggage and the
astonished boarders, and took a special train to town. Because the King
had read in his newspaper, and the Queen in hers, that the Lift-man was
being executed every morning from nine to twelve; and though, so far,
none of the executions had ended fatally, yet at any moment the Prince's
Charmed Life might be taken, and then there would be an end of the daily
executions--a very terrible end.
Arrived at the capital, the poor Queen of Bohemia got into a hansom with
the King, and they were driven to the palace. The palace-yard was
crowded.
'What is the matter?' the King of Bohemia asked.
'It's that Lift-man,' said a bystander, with spectacles and a straw hat;
'he has as many lives as a cat. They tried boiling oil this morning, and
the oil turned into white-rose leaves, and the fire under it turned to
a white-rose bush. And now the King has sent for Princess Candida, and
is going to have it out with her. The whole thing has been most
exciting.'
'I should think so,' said the Lift-man's father.
'Of course,' said the bystander in spectacles, 'everyone who has read
any history knows that Lift-men don't have charmed lives. But our King
never would learn history, so he doesn't see that of course the Lift-man
is a Prince disguised. The question is, Will he find out in time? I
can't think why the Lift-man doesn't own his Princishness, and have done
with it.'
'Perhaps he doesn't know it himself,' said the King of Bohemia.
He gave his arm to his wife, and they managed to squeeze through to the
great council hall, where the King of that country sat on his gold
throne, surrounded by lords-in-waiting, judges in wigs, and other people
in other things.
Florizel was there loaded with chains, and standing in a very noble
attitude at one corner of the throne steps. At the other stood the
Princess, looking across at her lover with her dear gray eyes.
'Now,' said the King, 'I am tired of diplomacy and tact, and the eldest
lady-in-waiting is less of a Sherlock Holmes than I thought her, so let
us be straightforward and honest. Have you got a Charmed Life?'
'I haven't exactly got it,' said Florizel. 'My life is not my own now.'
'Did he give it to you?' the King asked his daughter.
'I cannot tell a lie, father,' said the Princess, just as though her
name had been George Washington instead of Candida; 'he did give it to
me.'
'What have you done with it?'
'I have hidden it in different places. I have saved it; he saved mine
once.'
'Where is it?' asked her father, 'as you so justly observe you cannot
tell a lie.'
'If I tell you,' said the Princess, 'will you give your Royal word that
the execution you have ordered for this morning shall be really the
last? You can destroy the object that I have hidden his Charmed Life in,
and then you can destroy him. But you must promise me not to ask me to
hide his Life in any new place, because I am tired of hide-and-seek.'
All the judges and lords-in-waiting and people felt really sorry for
the Princess, for they thought all these executions had turned her
brain.
'I give you my Royal word,' said the King upon his throne. 'I won't ask
you to hide his Life any more. Indeed, I was against the practice from
the first. Now, where have you hidden his Life?'
'In my heart,' said the Princess, brave and clear, so that everyone
heard her in the big hall. 'You can't take his Life without taking mine,
and if you take mine you may as well take his, for he won't care to go
on living without me.'
She sprang across the throne steps to Florizel, and his fetters jangled
as she threw her arms round him.
'Dear me!' said the King, rubbing his nose with his sceptre; 'this is
very awkward.'
The Princess laughed happily.
'Oh, my clever Princess,' whispered Florizel; 'you're as clever as
you're dear, and as dear as you're beautiful.'
There was a silence.
'Well, really,' said the King, 'I don't quite see----'
The father and mother of Florizel had wriggled and wormed their way
through the crowd to a front place, and now the father spoke.
'Your Majesty, allow me. Perhaps I can assist your decision.'
'Oh, all right,' said the King upon his throne; 'go ahead. I'm struck
all of a heap.'
'You see before you,' said the King of Bohemia, 'one known to the world
of science and of business as R. Bloomsbury, inventor and patenter of
many mechanical novelties--among others the Patent Lightning Lift--now
formed into a company of which I am the chairman. The young
Lift-man--whose fetters are most clumsily designed, if you will pardon
my saying so--is my son.'
'Of course he's somebody's son,' said the King upon his throne.
'Well, he happens to be mine, and I gather that you do not think him a
good enough match for your daughter.'
'Without wishing to hurt your feelings----' began Candida's father.
'Exactly. Well, know, O King on your throne, and everyone else, that
this young Lift-man is no other than Florizel, Prince of Bohemia. I am
the King of Bohemia, and this is my Queen.'
As he spoke he took his crown out of his pocket and put it on. His wife
took off her bonnet and got her crown out of her reticule and put that
on, and Florizel's crown was handed to the Princess, who fitted it on
for him, because his hands were awkward with chains.
'Your most convincing explanation alters everything,' said the King upon
his throne, and he came down to meet the visitors. 'Bless you, my
children! Strike off his chains, can't you? I hope there's no
ill-feeling, Florizel,' he added, turning to the Prince; 'you see, an
engineer is only an engineer, whereas a Prince is a Prince, be he never
so disinherited. Will half an hour from now suit you for the wedding?'
So they were married, and they still live very happily. They will live
as long as is good for them, and when Candida dies Florizel will die
too, because she still carries his Life in her heart.