The Princess

TH E PRINCESS

When the Princess, the beautiful Princess Helena, reached the age of eighteen, in accordance with the custom of the land, her parents, the King and Queen, invited a suitor to make a proposal of marriage. It happened like this: the suitor waited outside the door of the throne room; two guards knocked on the tall, finely carved doors, then opened them to allow the suitor to enter. He bowed from the waist and, walking at a solemn pace along the plush carpet, approached the three thrones occupied by the King, the Queen and, between them, the Princess. Standing before their royal highnesses, he bowed again, even more deeply this time, then knelt, head down low.

‘Arise,’ commanded the King, ‘and give us good reason why her Majesty the Queen and I should bestow the hand of our only child, the Princess Helena, upon you.’
He stood up and cleared his throat.
               ‘Very well,’ he began.  ‘The princess’s hair reflected in the light of the sun is like the gold of ripe wheat that ripples in August. It …’
                ‘That’s enough!’ broke in the Princess to the surprise of everyone. ‘Quite, quite enough!’
The King was a little taken aback by the swiftness of her response but he trusted his daughter.
                ‘Leave us,’ he said to the Prince, dismissing him with a flick of the hand. The Prince bowed and walked backwards out of the room, his head so low it was not possible to see if his face was reddened by the shame of his rapid rejection.

It was also the custom of the land that any further proposal of marriage could only be made on the anniversary of the Princess’s birth. So it was a year later to the day when on her nineteenth birthday, a second suitor walked along the carpet, bowed and was allowed to address their royal highnesses.
                ‘The Princess’s lips,’ he began, ‘are more richly red, more soft and appealing than the most delicate of roses that grow in the finest gardens of the world. O, to be allowed to kiss those …’
                ‘That’s enough,’ interrupted the Princess. ‘Quite, quite enough.’

And so to her twentieth birthday. Another suitor whose first words, ‘The blue of the sky on a clear day in July could never match the Princess’s eyes which…’ were his only words.
                ‘Enough, quite, quite enough!’

It was only after this third proposal that the Queen raised a criticism.
                ‘All these fine young men,’ she began when mother and daughter were alone together, ‘so handsome and so well connected. Why? ‘

                ‘I will marry,’ she replied with a cold calmness, ‘when I find the right man and not before.’

The Queen turned on her, ‘We cannot always have what we want. Is your father the perfect husband? I was not so particular, not so full of myself.’

The King entered the room. ‘Helena,’ he began, ‘Most ladies of noble birth are married at your age. We in the royal family are obliged to marry and produce and heir. It is for the good of our people.’ And then in a steelier tone. ‘You must make a choice. I insist. There is nothing more to be said.’

She had lost none of her determination. Alone in her room she made a pledge to herself: ‘I will marry when I find a man who loves me for myself, not for my hair, not for my lips, for my eyes or for any other feature, but solely and purely for myself.’ That night the Princess took off her silk gown and petticoats, cut off her long hair, changed into servant’s clothes and left the palace dressed as a man.

The next day in her disguise she managed to avoid the many servants of the king who had been sent out to search for her. In the evening she found lodgings in a house far from the palace and where her pursuers were least likely to go. As she lay on her bed wide awake, she could hear every sound made in the room next to hers. A man’s voice was expressing undying love for a woman. The woman did not reply but the sounds of her sighing and the rattle of the bed were answer enough. Well, thought the Princess, there is no doubting what it is that he loves in her. The next morning she spent wandering among the city folk. Everyone was in a state of excitement looking forward to a wedding due to take place that very afternoon. The groom’s father was a nobleman who had squandered the family fortune. The bride’s father was the richest man in the kingdom bar the King himself. ‘Well,’ said a woman she overheard, ‘a blind man on a galloping horse on a dark night could see what he finds so attractive in her.’ The Princess was confirmed in her determination. She would not fall into the trap which caught so many women. She would marry only a man who loved her for herself.

That evening she went to the theatre. There were acrobats, jugglers, singers, dancers, magicians in the show. Last on stage was a comedian. His routine was barely funny at all but he had some successful moments which came when he uttered his catchphrase. Every tale he told ended with the same punchline. ‘And I said to her, “Do you fancy another one?” and she said “Enough, that’s quite, quite enough!”’ It brought the house down with uproarious laughter that never diminished no matter how many times he said it. ‘My words, my very words,’ said the Princess to herself and buried her head in her hands.

The Princess slunk out of the theatre and into a nearby tavern. Some men were sitting round a table. The barman was pouring a drink into a long glass. ‘Say when’, he said. The liquid gurgled in. The customer put his hand to the glass. ‘That’s enough, quite, quite enough.’ All the men burst into long hearty chuckles. In fact, everywhere she went the next day, in shops, among crowds, in the public square, her words were being uttered by all and sundry to their great amusement. She knew it now: she had become a laughing stock. The ‘hoity-toity princess’ they called her up and down the city. It was worse than she realised. Her words caused hilarity in playgrounds and boardrooms, in football crowds and congregations.

Utterly humiliated and afraid of being found by her father’s servants who were everywhere searching and asking questions, she left the city, hoping that she and her story would be less well known in the towns and villages of the countryside. Running out of money she found a job in a palace that was nearly as grand as that of her parents and owned by a reclusive prince. She slaved away in the kitchens, in the laundry room, in the gardens and after months of hard work became butler to the Prince himself.

The Prince lived a solitary life. He had no friends and except for occasional short journeys spent most of his time alone in his room singing sad songs to the accompaniment of his own fingers on the lute. The theme of his songs was love, failed love, lost love, unrequited love. The songs were so mournfully beautiful that members of his staff would linger near his room in order to hear them a little longer. The Princess Helena, her hair still short and in her butler’s uniform, visited him several times each day, in fact, as many times as she could find excuses to go into his rooms. They would talk easily together: he would tell of all his visits to ladies of the land whom he had courted and of all his failures in love. When he asked about her (or ‘him’ as he thought) she would make up accounts of her past, her parents, her life. But, because they weren’t true and invented on the spur of the moment, one would not tally with another.  ‘I like your stories because they make no sense. Yesterday your father was a lawyer: today he is an ambassador!’ And he would smile, even laugh.  The two spent more and more time together much to the displeasure of many of the long-serving members of the Prince’s staff. But others said, ‘This new butler has done the world of good to the Prince. I have never seen him look so happy in years.’

The time came for the Prince to leave on another of his journeys. Before he left he asked her about herself even more insistently than before, about who she was, her parents, her thoughts. She made a stumbling response. ‘There is more to you than meets the eye,’ were his last words before he slapped her heartily on the back, climbed on his horse and rode away.

The very next day she was dismissed from her position. The steward found her in the Prince’s changing room, trying on his hat, his jackets, his coats. She had no defence. She left instantly.

What was she to do? No money left, a disguise that would surely be found out sooner or later. It was almost a year since she had left her home in that other palace. There was nothing for it but to return to her parents, the King and the Queen. She made the journey with a heavy heart. Her mother welcomed her warmly. Her father, aware that the mockery of his daughter had reflected badly on himself, was unforgiving. ‘In two days it is your birthday. This time you must accept the proposal of marriage, whoever the suitor.’ She was caught. What could she do but obey?

At noon on her birthday the King, the Queen and the Princess were seated on their respective thrones. The suitor was waiting on the other side of the tall door. Two knocks. He entered, bowed, walked purposefully along the carpet, bowed again more deeply.
                ‘Arise, sir,’ began the King, ‘and give us good reason why Her Majesty the Queen and I should bestow on you the hand of our only daughter, the Princess Helena?’
There was silence, an embarrassingly long silence as the suitor stared at the Princess,.
                ‘Speak, sir, what do you have to say?’
Another pause, then, ‘Nothing,’ his eyes wide with utter astonishment, fixed on the Princess. He could not believe what he was seeing.
                ‘Do you dally with a king and queen? Do you treat a princess with contempt? If you have nothing to say, then …’
                ‘Enough, father, quite, quite enough,’ the Princess broke in. ‘I accept him with all my heart. I gladly take him as my husband.’ She rushed from her throne to embrace him.

I’ll omit all the explaining that had to be gone through to acquaint the King and Queen with the rest of the story. Within a week the wedding, the most sumptuous and merry occasion in living memory, took place. After the service and before celebrations the newly married Prince picked up his lute, tuned it, strummed a few chords. It was not another sad lament. Now, as he looked into the eyes of the Princess Helena, the palace echoed to the sound of a melody brimming with joy and happiness.

But had she found a man who loved her only for herself? Well, only time will tell.