'But I don't see what we're to _do_' said the Queen for the twentieth
time.
'Whatever we do will end in misfortune,' said the King gloomily; 'you'll
see it will.'
They were sitting in the honeysuckle arbour talking things over, while
the nurse walked up and down the terrace with the new baby in her arms.
'Yes, dear,' said the poor Queen; 'I've not the slightest doubt I
shall.'
Misfortune comes in many ways, and you can't always know beforehand that
a certain way is the way misfortune will come by: but there are things
misfortune comes after as surely as night comes after day. For instance,
if you let all the water boil away, the kettle will have a hole burnt in
it. If you leave the bath taps running and the waste-pipe closed, the
stairs of your house will, sooner or later, resemble Niagara. If you
leave your purse at home, you won't have it with you when you want to
pay your tram-fare. And if you throw lighted wax matches at your muslin
curtains, your parent will most likely have to pay five pounds to the
fire engines for coming round and blowing the fire out with a wet hose.
Also if you are a king and do not invite the wicked fairy to your
christening parties, she will come all the same. And if you do ask the
wicked fairy, she will come, and in either case it will be the worse for
the new princess. So what is a poor monarch to do? Of course there is
one way out of the difficulty, and that is not to have a christening
party at all. But this offends all the good fairies, and then where are
you?
All these reflections had presented themselves to the minds of King
Ozymandias and his Queen, and neither of them could deny that they were
in a most awkward situation. They were 'talking it over' for the
hundredth time on the palace terrace where the pomegranates and
oleanders grew in green tubs and the marble balustrade is overgrown with
roses, red and white and pink and yellow. On the lower terrace the royal
nurse was walking up and down with the baby princess that all the fuss
was about. The Queen's eyes followed the baby admiringly.
'The darling!' she said. 'Oh, Ozymandias, don't you sometimes wish we'd
been poor people?'
'Never!' said the King decidedly.
'Well, I do,' said the Queen; 'then we could have had just you and me
and your sister at the christening, and no fear of--oh! I've thought of
something.'
The King's patient expression showed that he did not think it likely
that she would have thought of anything useful; but at the first five
words his expression changed. You would have said that he pricked up his
ears, if kings had ears that could be pricked up. What she said was--
'Let's have a secret christening.'
'How?' asked the King.
The Queen was gazing in the direction of the baby with what is called a
'far away look' in her eyes.
'Wait a minute,' she said slowly. 'I see it all--yes--we'll have the
party in the cellars--you know they're splendid.'
'My great-grandfather had them built by Lancashire men, yes,'
interrupted the King.
[Illustration: On the lower terrace the royal nurse was walking up and
down with the baby princess that all the fuss was about.]
'We'll send out the invitations to look like bills. The baker's boy can
take them. He's a very nice boy. He made baby laugh yesterday when I was
explaining to him about the Standard Bread. We'll just put "1 loaf 3. A
remittance at your earliest convenience will oblige." That'll mean that
1 person is invited for 3 o'clock, and on the back we'll write where and
why in invisible ink. Lemon juice, you know. And the baker's boy shall
be told to ask to see the people--just as they do when they _really_
mean earliest convenience--and then he shall just whisper: "Deadly
secret. Lemon juice. Hold it to the fire," and come away. Oh, dearest,
do say you approve!'
The King laid down his pipe, set his crown straight, and kissed the
Queen with great and serious earnestness.
'You are a wonder,' he said. 'It is the very thing. But the baker's boy
is very small. Can we trust him?'
'He is nine,' said the Queen, 'and I have sometimes thought that he must
be a prince in disguise. He is so very intelligent.'
The Queen's plan was carried out. The cellars, which were really
extraordinarily fine, were secretly decorated by the King's confidential
man and the Queen's confidential maid and a few of _their_ confidential
friends whom they knew they could really trust. You would never have
thought they were cellars when the decorations were finished. The walls
were hung with white satin and white velvet, with wreaths of white
roses, and the stone floors were covered with freshly cut turf with
white daisies, brisk and neat, growing in it.
The invitations were duly delivered by the baker's boy. On them was
written in plain blue ink,
'The Royal Bakeries
1 loaf 3d.
An early remittance will oblige.'
And when the people held the letter to the fire, as they were
whisperingly instructed to do by the baker's boy, they read in a faint
brown writing:--
'King Ozymandias and Queen Eliza invite you to the christening of their
daughter Princess Ozyliza at three on Wednesday in the Palace cellars.
'_P.S._--We are obliged to be very secret and careful because of wicked
fairies, so please come disguised as a tradesman with a bill, calling
for the last time before it leaves your hands.'
You will understand by this that the King and Queen were not as well off
as they could wish; so that tradesmen calling at the palace with that
sort of message was the last thing likely to excite remark. But as most
of the King's subjects were not very well off either, this was merely a
bond between the King and his people. They could sympathise with each
other, and understand each other's troubles in a way impossible to most
kings and most nations.
You can imagine the excitement in the families of the people who were
invited to the christening party, and the interest they felt in their
costumes. The Lord Chief Justice disguised himself as a shoemaker; he
still had his old blue brief-bag by him, and a brief-bag and a boot-bag
are very much alike. The Commander-in-Chief dressed as a dog's meat man
and wheeled a barrow. The Prime Minister appeared as a tailor; this
required no change of dress and only a slight change of expression. And
the other courtiers all disguised themselves perfectly. So did the good
fairies, who had, of course, been invited first of all. Benevola, Queen
of the Good Fairies, disguised herself as a moonbeam, which can go into
any palace and no questions asked. Serena, the next in command, dressed
as a butterfly, and all the other fairies had disguises equally pretty
and tasteful.
The Queen looked most kind and beautiful, the King very handsome and
manly, and all the guests agreed that the new princess was the most
beautiful baby they had ever seen in all their born days.
Everybody brought the most charming christening presents concealed
beneath their disguises. The fairies gave the usual gifts, beauty,
grace, intelligence, charm, and so on.
Everything seemed to be going better than well. But of course you know
it wasn't. The Lord High Admiral had not been able to get a cook's dress
large enough completely to cover his uniform; a bit of an epaulette had
peeped out, and the wicked fairy, Malevola, had spotted it as he went
past her to the palace back door, near which she had been sitting
disguised as a dog without a collar hiding from the police, and enjoying
what she took to be the trouble the royal household were having with
their tradesmen.
Malevola almost jumped out of her dog-skin when she saw the glitter of
that epaulette.
'Hullo?' she said, and sniffed quite like a dog. 'I must look into
this,' said she, and disguising herself as a toad, she crept unseen into
the pipe by which the copper emptied itself into the palace moat--for of
course there was a copper in one of the palace cellars as there always
is in cellars in the North Country.
Now this copper had been a great trial to the decorators. If there is
anything you don't like about your house, you can either try to conceal
it or 'make a feature of it.' And as concealment of the copper was
impossible, it was decided to 'make it a feature' by covering it with
green moss and planting a tree in it, a little apple tree all in bloom.
It had been very much admired.
Malevola, hastily altering her disguise to that of a mole, dug her way
through the earth that the copper was full of, got to the top and put
out a sharp nose just as Benevola was saying in that soft voice which
Malevola always thought so affected,--
'The Princess shall love and be loved all her life long.'
'So she shall,' said the wicked fairy, assuming her own shape amid the
screams of the audience. 'Be quiet, you silly cuckoo,' she said to the
Lord Chamberlain, whose screams were specially piercing, 'or I'll give
_you_ a christening present too.'
Instantly there was a dreadful silence. Only Queen Eliza, who had caught
up the baby at Malevola's first word, said feebly,--
'Oh, _don't_, dear Malevola.'
And the King said, 'It isn't exactly a party, don't you know. Quite
informal. Just a few friends dropped in, eh, what?'
'So I perceive,' said Malevola, laughing that dreadful laugh of hers
which makes other people feel as though they would never be able to
laugh any more. 'Well, I've dropped in too. Let's have a look at the
child.'
The poor Queen dared not refuse. She tottered forward with the baby in
her arms.
'Humph!' said Malevola, 'your precious daughter will have beauty and
grace and all the rest of the tuppenny halfpenny rubbish those
niminy-piminy minxes have given her. But she will be turned out of her
kingdom. She will have to face her enemies without a single human being
to stand by her, and she shall never come to her own again until she
finds----' Malevola hesitated. She could not think of anything
sufficiently unlikely--'until she finds,' she repeated----
'A thousand spears to follow her to battle,' said a new voice, 'a
thousand spears devoted to her and to her alone.'
A very young fairy fluttered down from the little apple tree where she
had been hiding among the pink and white blossom.
'I am very young, I know,' she said apologetically, 'and I've only just
finished my last course of Fairy History. So I know that if a fairy
stops more than half a second in a curse she can't go on, and some one
else may finish it for her. That is so, Your Majesty, isn't it?' she
said, appealing to Benevola. And the Queen of the Fairies said Yes, that
was the law, only it was such an old one most people had forgotten it.
'You think yourself very clever,' said Malevola, 'but as a matter of
fact you're simply silly. That's the very thing I've provided against.
She _can't_ have any one to stand by her in battle, so she'll lose her
kingdom and every one will be killed, and I shall come to the funeral.
It will be enormous,' she added rubbing her hands at the joyous thought.
'If you've quite finished,' said the King politely, 'and if you're sure
you won't take any refreshment, may I wish you a very good afternoon?'
He held the door open himself, and Malevola went out chuckling. The
whole of the party then burst into tears.
'Never mind,' said the King at last, wiping his eyes with the tails of
his ermine. 'It's a long way off and perhaps it won't happen after all.'
* * * * *
But of course it did.
The King did what he could to prepare his daughter for the fight in
which she was to stand alone against her enemies. He had her taught
fencing and riding and shooting, both with the cross bow and the long
bow, as well as with pistols, rifles, and artillery. She learned to dive
and to swim, to run and to jump, to box and to wrestle, so that she grew
up as strong and healthy as any young man, and could, indeed, have got
the best of a fight with any prince of her own age. But the few princes
who called at the palace did not come to fight the Princess, and when
they heard that the Princess had no dowry except the gifts of the
fairies, and also what Malevola's gift had been, they all said they had
just looked in as they were passing and that they must be going now,
thank you. And went.
And then the dreadful thing happened. The tradesmen, who had for years
been calling for the last time before, etc., really decided to place the
matter in other hands. They called in a neighbouring king who marched
his army into Ozymandias's country, conquered the army--the soldiers'
wages hadn't been paid for years--turned out the King and Queen, paid
the tradesmen's bills, had most of the palace walls papered with the
receipts, and set up housekeeping there himself.
Now when this happened the Princess was away on a visit to her aunt, the
Empress of Oricalchia, half the world away, and there is no regular post
between the two countries, so that when she came home, travelling with
a train of fifty-four camels, which is rather slow work, and arrived at
her own kingdom, she expected to find all the flags flying and the bells
ringing and the streets decked in roses to welcome her home.
Instead of which nothing of the kind. The streets were all as dull as
dull, the shops were closed because it was early-closing day, and she
did not see a single person she knew.
She left the fifty-four camels laden with the presents her aunt had
given her outside the gates, and rode alone on her own pet camel to the
palace, wondering whether perhaps her father had not received the letter
she had sent on ahead by carrier pigeon the day before.
And when she got to the palace and got off her camel and went in, there
was a strange king on her father's throne and a strange queen sat in her
mother's place at his side.
'Where's my father?' said the Princess, bold as brass, standing on the
steps of the throne. 'And what are you doing there?'
'I might ask you that,' said the King. 'Who are you, anyway?'
'I am the Princess Ozyliza,' said she.
'Oh, I've heard of you,' said the King. 'You've been expected for some
time. Your father's been evicted, so now you know. No, I can't give you
his address.'
Just then some one came and whispered to the Queen that fifty-four
camels laden with silks and velvets and monkeys and parakeets and the
richest treasures of Oricalchia were outside the city gate. She put two
and two together, and whispered to the King, who nodded and said:
'I wish to make a new law.'
Every one fell flat on his face. The law is so much respected in that
country.
'No one called Ozyliza is allowed to own property in this kingdom,' said
the King. 'Turn out that stranger.'
So the Princess was turned out of her father's palace, and went out and
cried in the palace gardens where she had been so happy when she was
little.
And the baker's boy, who was now the baker's young man, came by with the
standard bread and saw some one crying among the oleanders, and went to
say, 'Cheer up!' to whoever it was. And it was the Princess. He knew her
at once.
'Oh, Princess,' he said, 'cheer up! Nothing is ever so bad as it seems.'
'Oh, Baker's Boy,' said she, for she knew him too, 'how can I cheer up?
I am turned out of my kingdom. I haven't got my father's address, and I
have to face my enemies without a single human being to stand by me.'
[Illustration: Instantly a flight of winged arrows crossed the garden.]
'That's not true, at any rate,' said the baker's boy, whose name was
Erinaceus, 'you've got me. If you'll let me be your squire, I'll follow
you round the world and help you to fight your enemies.'
'You won't be let,' said the Princess sadly, 'but I thank you very much
all the same.'
She dried her eyes and stood up.
'I must go,' she said, 'and I've nowhere to go to.'
Now as soon as the Princess had been turned out of the palace, the Queen
said, 'You'd much better have beheaded her for treason.' And the King
said, 'I'll tell the archers to pick her off as she leaves the grounds.'
So when she stood up, out there among the oleanders, some one on the
terrace cried, 'There she is!' and instantly a flight of winged arrows
crossed the garden. At the cry Erinaceus flung himself in front of her,
clasping her in his arms and turning his back to the arrows. The Royal
Archers were a thousand strong and all excellent shots. Erinaceus felt a
thousand arrows sticking into his back.
'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.'