Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 17
‘There you go,’ said the irrepressible cook. ‘That’s it, send for the police, ye oppressors of the poor. Ugh!’
And she began a fresh volley of abuse. She seemed as if she would never lose her breath. But after a few minutes — it seemed ages to the unfortunate King — the page returned; and although he did not enter very quietly, yet the cook was making such a noise that she did not hear him, and the page, who seemed to enter entirely into the spirit of the thing, dropped the sack quietly over her head, and stopped her flow of language.
‘Now, take her outside and put her out at the back door, and mind and shut the door securely after her,’ remarked the King, with a sigh of relief.
Six of the pages immediately caught hold of her and dragged her out, and the other six were about to follow to see the sport when the King stopped them.
‘Can any one of you cook at all?’ he said.
One of the pages stood out and professed to be able to do a little in that way.
‘Well, then,’ said the King decidedly, ‘all six of you go to the kitchen and see what you can find there; and mind you, if I don’t have a breakfast in five minutes, I’ll — well, I’ll see about it.’
When the pages had gone, he turned to the Princess and said:
‘That’s what I always have to put up with. Only the other day the man who cleans the library windows flung his towel in my face and refused to work any more for me, and all because I told him that his coat wasn’t in the fashion.’
‘But wasn’t that rather an unwise proceeding, papa?’ asked Ernalie, dubiously.
‘Do you think so?’ asked the King.
‘If I said that the cut of your dress was rather outlandish — and it is, by the bye — you wouldn’t fling something at me, would you?’
‘No; but then I’m your dutiful daughter, you see.’
‘Well, but he ought to be my dutiful son, for I’m the father of my country.’
‘Well, but then, you see, sons are not always dutiful — daughters always are.’
‘Or they ought to be,’ said his Majesty.
‘It’s the same thing, isn’t it?’
‘Do you think so?’ said the King, in a tone that showed he doubted it.
Just at this moment the pages entered, bringing the breakfast; and they sat down to it.
I needn’t say it was much better than the first one, although I don’t remember exactly what it consisted of; however, they did good justice to it, for Ernalie was rather hungry.
Just as they had finished, the King threw down his knife and fork and looked as if he had just remembered something dreadful.
‘What is the matter, papa?’ asked the Princess in alarm.
And the King burst out:
‘There, now! I knew I’d forgotten something!’ he said. ‘Run out, all six of you,’ he went on, addressing the pages, ‘and set the joy-bells pealing, and send messengers throughout the land. Quick!’
But when they had gone, he calmed down and said:
‘Now, Ernalie, tell me where you’ve been.’
So she began and told it all through, and the King listened quietly till she had finished. Then he said:
‘Ah! You’ve had some wonderful adventures, and you’ve come back safe out of them — only, I should very much like to see this wonderful feather.’
So the Princess showed him the feather in her hat, which she had laid on a chair; the King looked at it very carefully, and then he said:
‘H’m. Looks a very ordinary feather. How does it work? I should like to see.’
‘You won’t see much,’ said the Princess with a smile, as she put it on and vanished.
The King looked astonished.
‘Why, where are you?’ he said.
‘I’m just where I was before, papa,’ answered the Princess.
‘But I don’t believe it,’ the King said, and he looked under the table.
‘You’ve hidden yourself behind something — or some other trick.’
He was rather too startled to think of what his words meant exactly.
‘You are a sceptical old papa for any one to have to do with; but I’ll soon prove it to you.’
And she walked quietly behind his chair, and blew in his ear, which was a rather rude thing to do, on the whole.
‘Perhaps that will blow the disbelief out of your head,’ she said, laughing to see how her unfortunate father shook his head in surprise.
‘Oh yes,’ he replied, ‘I’m quite convinced, and I don’t need any more; and I’d much rather see what you’re up to, so just take the feather off, there’s a good girl.’
And the Princess did as she was told, and the King said:
‘Ah! there you are. Don’t put it on again; I’ve had quite enough of it. Now I can understand how it was that you did it all. But I can’t understand why you didn’t let the young man save himself. You might just as well have lent him the feather, and let him go and get drowned.’
‘But I didn’t want him to get drowned,’ said the Princess.
‘Why not?’ said the King.
‘Because his father and mother took me in, and saved me from Wopole, and it wouldn’t have been a great return for their kindness to let their only son be killed, and besides I—’ But her Royal Highness stopped.
‘You what?’ said her father.
‘I mean he—’ and she stopped again.
‘Oh, it’s him this time, is it? What’s the matter with you?’ he said in astonishment. ‘You don’t mean to say that you’re in love with one another? Now I call that too bad. Here have I promised you to three dukes, and you’ve gone and fallen in love with a Prince. Now I shall have no end of a nuisance with them.’
‘I won’t marry them, at any rate,’ said Ernalie energetically.
‘I don’t want you to marry them — one’s quite enough at a time.’
‘But I won’t marry one of them, and I’m the principal person concerned.
And the Princess began to cry, and that of course softened the heart of her father.
‘There, there,’ he said, as if he were soothing a baby. ‘Don’t cry; you shall marry the Prince, if you can get him — only it’s rather awkward for me. I can’t tell the dukes that you’re engaged to a Prince that can’t be got at. I’m afraid the only thing to do will be to have all their heads cut off. That’ll keep them quiet, at any rate. If I were you I’d send this young man a letter to tell him where you are.’
‘But I’m afraid it wouldn’t reach him,’ said the Princess.
‘Then I don’t see what’s to be done,’ said the King perplexedly.
‘However, I shall give a grand ball to-morrow, and if I were you I should go and have a dress made at once. Send for the Court dressmaker, and tell her that if the dress isn’t ready by then you’ll turn her out of her place; and then when you’ve done that go into the library, and take a book and read. I’ve got a whole lot of work to do this morning; but I shall have finished by one, and then I shall have the day to myself.’
‘But can’t I stay with you while you work? I will be very quiet.’
But the King shook his head.
‘No — there’s a good girl. I’ve got a whole lot of people to give audience to, and they’ll take up such a lot of time congratulating you that I shall not get a stroke of work done.’
So the Princess went and was measured for her ball-dress, and then into the library, and looked about for a book.
Most of them looked very dry and uninteresting, so the Princess took one at a venture.
It was called The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer.
‘Chaucer,’ said the Princess to herself, ‘I’ve heard of him. I’ll just take it on to the terrace and read it in the arbour. It’s better than sitting in this stuffy old library.’
So she opened one of the windows that led on to the steps of the terrace, and taking the book with her, stepped out of the room.
On the terrace a peacock was airing itself with some pea-hens, and when it saw the Princess it raised its great fan - like tail to display itself to greater advantage, then it quivered all over until the feathers of its tail rattled one against the other, and the hens looked admiringly at him, and then sideways at one another, nodding their heads and clucking, as if to say:
‘Ha! what a fine fellow our master is, and what a splendid tail he’s got. Much better than that poor human being’s yellow stuff, which only moves when the wind blows it.’ And then they looked contemptuously at the Princess’s golden hair, and clucked to each other again, and followed the peacock, which was strutting away to another part of the terrace.
So the Princess went and looked for the swans; but they were busily engaged right over at the other side of the lake, turning bottom upwards in a very undignified manner, and they refused to come for any amount of calling.
As there was nothing else to do, she went and sat down in a shady nook in the white marble wall, and began to look at her book.
‘I shall skip the “Introduction” and the “Prologue” — that’s always dry. Yes, let’s see, this will do—”The Knightes Tale.” It hasn’t got any apostrophe to “Knightes.” That’s bad grammar, I’m sure. However, I’ll go on.’
So she settled herself in a comfortable position with the book on her lap, and began again:
‘Whilom as olde stories tellen us A certeyn duk highte Theseus.’
Here she stopped.
‘This man may be a good poet, but he spells awfully badly. Fancy “certain” spelt with an “e-y-n,” and “duke” without an “e.” It sounds like “duck.” And then, what was the “height of Theseus”? I can’t understand it at all.’
However, she read on, skipping pages here and there, for it was almost impossible for her to understand it. Now it happened that as she turned the pages over listlessly — for she was thinking of something else — her eye happened to fall on the name of ‘Dian.’
‘Why, that must be Diana! only they’ve forgotten the “a.” I’ll look a little farther and see what it says about her.’
So she ran her eye down the page, and sure enough she came upon the name.
‘Why, it’s spelt with a “y” now,’ she said. ‘Chaucer evidently doesn’t know his own mind in the matter of spelling. I’ll write to him, and ask him about it. Now, let’s see what it says. Why, it appears to be a prayer, or an invocation, or something.’
So she read:
‘O chaste goddes of the woodes greene
To whence bothe heven and erthe are seene
Queen of the regne of Pluto dark and lowe
Goddes of maydens that myn hert has knowe
Ful many a yeer ye woot what I desire
As keep me fro the vengeans of thilk yre
That Actæon aboughte trewely...’
Just at this point she heard the rattling of chariot wheels, and Diana appeared to her.
‘Well, what do you want now?’ she said.
‘I don’t want anything in particular,’ said Ernalie in astonishment.
‘Then why did you go on praying to me like that?’
‘I wasn’t praying, I was reading.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me. It was a very funny prayer. Whoever was it by? He must have been a stupid man.’
‘He was the father of English poetry,’ the Princess said reproachfully.
‘I should have thought he was a great-great-grandfather when he wrote that.’
‘Why?’ said the Princess in astonishment.
‘It seems uncommonly like the writing of a man in his second childhood. However, that does not matter. About the feather now. What can I do in exchange for it? I will give you anything you want.’
The Princess looked at the Goddess.
‘Why do you want the feather so much?’ she asked. ‘Are you not invisible enough already?’
The Goddess looked at her sneeringly:
‘I am invisible to dull mortals; but we gods can see each other well enough, invisible or not. If I had this feather, though, it would be different, and I should be able to laugh at Venus and that set.’
‘Then I’m sure I won’t give it you, for as Venus is the Goddess of Beauty she might make me ugly, and that would not be nice for me.’
Diana laughed.
‘You evidently don’t consider yourself bad-looking,’ she said; and she was just going on to say something else when an enormous wolf, without a muzzle too, appeared coming round the side of the Palace.
‘There’s Mars,’ said Diana.
‘I don’t see him. I only see a horrible wolf, and—’
But the Goddess interrupted her.
‘Why, you stupid, that’s Mars’s wolf, and where it is Mars is sure to be, or he isn’t far off.’
‘But what does he want here?’ asked Ernalie.
‘He’s going to escort me to Jupiter’s ball, and he’ll be awfully impatient. However, he can wait. Now think, is there nothing?’
The Princess reflected a moment.
‘If I give it to you,’ she said, ‘you must do several things for it, and those quickly.’
The Goddess nodded.
‘First, you must make a road across the mountains into the country beyond.’
‘That is easy enough,’ said the Goddess.
‘Then you must kill the dragon.’
‘He died last week of sheer starvation. So that’s done. Next.’
‘You must bring Treblo here.’
‘Do you mean that he’s to marry you? That’s too bad, considering that you know I detest marriages. However, it can’t be helped. Is that all? Because if there’s much more you had better write it down.’
‘There’s nothing more, except that it must all be done by half-past six to-morrow evening.’
‘Oh! is that all? You shall have it all done before then,’ said the Goddess, very much relieved that the tasks that were to be done had been set.
‘Then, if you’re here to-morrow evening I’ll give it to you.’
Just then Mars appeared round the corner, looking very bad-tempered.
‘If you are coming at all, you’d better come at once.’
So Diana said:
‘Very well, to-morrow evening I shall be here.’
And she drove her chariot towards the God of War, and when he had got in they turned the corner of the house and disappeared.
Just then the King came into the garden from the library window.
‘What have you been doing?’ he asked her. ‘I’ve been watching you for some minutes from the window, and you’ve been going on in the most extraordinary manner, talking and laughing, just as if you had been speaking to some one.’
The Princess brushed back her hair from her face.
‘Oh! I didn’t know you could see me,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing — only a little surprise I’ve been preparing for you.’
‘Indeed, you surprise me,’ the King said.
‘Ah, well! if I do that so easily perhaps I shall do it often,’ she said.
‘What have you been doing all the morning?’ the King asked.
‘All the morning?’ said the Princess in astonishment. ‘It’s not late, is it?’
The King pulled out his watch and looked at it.
‘It’s half-past five by my watch; but I don’t think that’s quite right — in fact it stopped three days ago. Ah! I thought so — there’s the dinner-gong.
You needn’t wash your hands, or you’ll be late.’
So they went in together, and the rest of the day passed off quietly, except that every now and then one of the enthusiastic nobles insisted on coming in and welcoming the Princess, although the King had given strict orders that no one should be admitted, as he wanted to be alone for the day. In spite of this, every now and then an elderly duchess would rush into the royal presence, and offer her congratulations.
At last, just as they hoped that the last of them had come and gone, the door opened, and an elderly man — he would have been offended at being called old — rushed in and clasped the Princess in his arms.
‘My adored Duchess—’ he was just beginning.
But the Princess boxed his ears suddenly, and he let go.
‘What on earth does this mean?’ she said, turning to the King. ‘First I am inundated with duchesses until I’m quite tired of the name, and then this old fright rushes in and calls me his duchess, when I’m not a duchess at all. What does he mean, papa?’
The King looked rather embarrassed.
‘It’s one of them,’ he said meaningly.
‘Oh! it’s one of them, is it?’ she said. ‘Well, sir’ — turning to the Duke—’what do you mean by forcing your way here against the royal orders?’
‘I thought,’ said the Duke, looking rather foolish, ‘that as you are going to—’
‘But I’m not,’ said Ernalie suddenly, ‘after such rudeness. You may go, and don’t come back again.’
And the Duke went.
‘That’s got rid of one of them, at any rate,’ the King said, with a sigh of relief.
‘I’ll do my best to get rid of them all,’ said the Princess.
‘How?’ the King began. Then he stopped. ‘Wait a moment. I have an idea,’ he went on.
‘Indeed, you surprise me,’ said the Princess.
But the King did not notice her impertinent remark. He went to a drawer, and took out a large piece of paper, and wrote on it as large as he could:
‘NOTICE.
‘During the next twenty-four hours, any one found kissing, embracing, congratulating, or suing for the hand of the Princess — or King — will be submerged three times in the Palace draw-well.
‘(Signed) CARET, etc. etc.’
‘That ought to do it,’ said the King, surveying his handiwork approvingly.
Just then the door opened, and two more old gentlemen — each wearing a ducal coronet — tottered in as fast as they could.
‘My dear Princess,’
‘My darling wife,’ they duetted in feeble tones, showing as much joy as their faces were capable of, which made them look about as pleasant as a pair of Japanese masks.
‘Allow me to congratulate you,’
‘Allow me to offer my congratulations,’ they went on.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ said the King. ‘Look here!’ And he showed them the notice.
