Princess of the Midnight Ball

by Jessica Day George

  Rose looked at him in shock. Did he not know who she was? True, the Westfalian court was rather informal, but princesses did not shake hands with gardeners in any country she had heard of. Then it occurred to her that he must be the new gardener, Master Orm’s nephew.

  “Oh!” She stood but didn’t take his hand. “I’m Princess Rose,” she explained, smiling stiffly. She knew what would happen next: he would turn red, and then start stammering, and then back away. And whenever she passed him in the future, the awkward dance would be repeated.

  He did turn red, but just a little, and his tan hid most of it. But instead of stammering and backing away, he gave her a bow and simply said, “A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. Please forgive me for not recognizing you.”

  Now Rose was the one stammering. “Quite—quite all right. No harm done … Galen.”

  “Do you need help getting back to the palace, Your Highness? The weather is quite chill, and you took a good dunking there.”

  “Um, no, thank you.” She dragged her shawl out of the fountain and gathered the heavy, dripping mass together as best she could. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

  He nodded courteously. “I’d better finish raking, then,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He was still looking at her.

  “Yes?” Now she was even more flustered and confused.

  “If I have your leave to go, Your Highness …?”

  “What? Oh! Of course.” She nodded her head and then, feeling foolish, made her escape. “Good-bye!” She walked quickly down the path that led to the palace.

  After he was out of sight, she slowed down a little. The princesses did not require people to ask permission to leave; it was more the king’s prerogative.

  “But where did he learn such nice manners?” she wondered aloud.

  “What did you say, Rose?” Lily came around a hedge and stared at her. “Why are you all wet?”

  “I’m not all wet,” Rose said irritably. “I’m partly wet. I fell in the fountain. The swan fountain. A gardener had to fish me out and… what are you doing?”

  Lily was holding a basket full of handkerchiefs. Rose looked around and realized that they were at the entrance to the hedge maze. A chill breeze came rushing around them, rattling the autumn-dry hedge and making her shiver.

  “Oh, it’s the younger set.” That was how the three youngest sisters—Orchid, Pansy, and Petunia—were referred to by the others. Rose, Lily, and Jonquil were the “older set,” and the six in the middle were “in-betweeners.” “They wanted to play Hansel and Gretel, so I’m leaving a trail of handkerchiefs for them. Except the handkerchiefs keep blowing away.”

  “We wanted to use white rocks,” Orchid chimed in, popping around the corner and startling Rose. “But Lily said that Master Orm would be angry if we rearranged his rocks. Do you think that he would? And aren’t they Papa’s rocks anyhow?”

  “They wanted to use the pebbles from the main path,” Lily explained. “I was mostly worried that the rocks would chip the blades of the grass clippers, when they trim the lawn next.”

  “A good idea,” Rose said, and then sneezed. “Oh dear, I’d best get inside.”

  “Why are you all wet?” Orchid blinked up at her owlishly.

  “I’m not all wet,” Rose said again. “I put my arm in a fountain.”

  “And your head and your other arm and your shawl,” Orchid pointed out. “Which fountain was it? Was the water very cold?”

  “The swan fountain, and yes it was,” Rose answered her. “Now why don’t we all go inside? It’s too chilly to play out here.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Orchid rolled her eyes.

  Rose didn’t bother to reply. Being called “Mother” on top of being cold, and wet, and upset about well, everything, had set her temper on the boil. She stamped off to the palace with her dripping shawl hanging from her arms. She passed Lilac and the twins, Poppy and Daisy, on her way to the room she shared with Lily and Jonquil. All three opened their mouths to say something but closed them again when they got a good look at Rose’s face.

  Rose stalked into her room and slammed the door.

  Jonquil was brushing her hair in front of the big looking glass above their dressing table. “Can I borrow your blue shawl? Violet and Iris say that the new under-gardener is handsome and I want to go see for myself.”

  Rose threw her sopping shawl at Jonquil and climbed into bed, wet clothes and all.

  Ill

  By the time the dinner gong struck, Rose was running a temperature. She lay in her bed, miserable, and coughed into a handkerchief. Lily had seen Rose’s wet hair and gown sticking out of the covers, summoned a maid, and forcibly gotten her older sister dried off and into a nightgown. Rose barely noticed.

  The shoemaker had brought new dancing slippers, since he knew all their sizes by heart, but she hadn’t tried hers on or even looked at them. The poor man was anxious to please—the princesses were his best customers, after all—so Lily assured him on Rose’s behalf that the workmanship was once more unsurpassed.

  Jonquil, having readily forgiven her older sister for the wet shawl incident, described the slippers to Rose in detail and then picked out a yellow gown for her to wear to supper. “This will match perfectly,” she said, holding up the gown where Rose could see it.

  Rose hardly bothered to glance at it. Then she sneezed three times in quick succession and pulled the covers over her head.

  “I wish I were dead,” she moaned.

  Petunia came twirling into the room. “Are you sick?” She danced up to Rose’s bedside and peered at her. “You look sick. I’m not sick. I’m never sick.” She twirled away.

  Lily came over and felt Rose’s forehead. “I’ll send for Dr. Kelling,” she said in a worried voice. “You’re burning up.”

  “I can’t be sick,” Rose said, struggling to get free of the covers. “I can’t.” But she couldn’t even move the heavy comforter off her legs, and fell back against the pillows with a groan. “I wish I were dead,” she said again.

  Lily sent a message for the royal physician, and Jonquil put Rose’s new dancing slippers and the yellow gown away. Her brow was furrowed with anxiety, as was Lily’s. They stood on either side of their eldest sister’s bed, exchanging looks and restlessly adjusting the covers.

  The other girls were gathered in the doorway that connected Rose, Jonquil, and Lily’s room to the room shared by Hyacinth, Violet, and the twins. Petunia kept breaking free of Daisy’s restraining hands to dance around Rose’s bed and sing for her. Hyacinth was praying, and Poppy said something under her breath that made Iris gasp.

  “What’s all this?” Dr. Kelling arrived and looked around at the gathered sisters in bemusement. “Is this supposed to help?” A wave of his hand took in the dancing Petunia, the hovering older set, and the noise coming from Hyacinth and Poppy. “Is this a sickroom or a zoo? All of you, out!” He made a shooing gesture at the sisters. “Oh, and Poppy? Mind your language!”

  Daisy gathered up the younger set, while Poppy took Hyacinth by the arm with surprising gentleness and led her away. Jonquil and Lily refused to go, however, standing adamantly by Rose’s bed.

  “Very well,” Dr. Kelling grunted. He had been the royal physician for over twenty years and had delivered all twelve of the princesses. “What happened?” As he said this, he took Rose’s pulse, then felt her forehead and looked in her mouth.

  “She fell into a fountain in the garden,” Lily answered, since Rose was busy saying “ah” for the doctor.

  “It’s much too cold to go swimming, don’t you know that?” Dr. Kelling joked. “Looks like you’ve caught a nasty chill, liebchen. Ague, to be certain. We can only pray that it does not turn to pneumonia.”

  “I believe that Hyacinth is already doing that,” Jonquil said, smiling weakly. Through the closed door, they could still hear their sister’s murmured prayers, occasionally punctuated by Poppy’s shouts for quiet.

  “You are not to leave this bed w
ithout my permission,” Dr. Kelling said with a wry smile for Jonquil’s jest. “I shall have a bowl of fresh oranges brought to you from the hothouse. You will eat three a day for the next week at least. Also, I’ll give the kitchen orders for some warming broths, and a soothing tea for the cough.”

  “But the dancing,” Rose said, and was racked with a coughing fit that lasted several minutes. When it was over, she didn’t even have the strength to keep her eyes open, but lay on the pillow and merely listened as Dr. Kelling told her that under no circumstances was she to leave her bed, let alone dance.

  “Lily can sit beside your father and play hostess this evening,” Dr. Kelling said kindly, patting Rose’s white hand where it lay on the coverlet. “And for the next several nights. But don’t worry, I’m sure that she will give you back your place as soon as you are well.”

  “Of course I will,” Lily said. But she didn’t even pretend to be cheerful.

  “I’m sure that, in light of your illness, your father will cancel the dancing this evening,” Dr. Kelling said, “if it will distress you to know that your sisters are making merry while you lie ill in bed.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Kelling,” Rose murmured. “I’ll sleep now.”

  “Good girl.” He stroked her damp hair. “I’ll tell your father the news and send the orders to the kitchens.” Then he leveled his gaze at Jonquil and Lily. “You may want to sleep elsewhere, to prevent yourselves from catching Rose’s chill. And try to bar the little ones from the sickroom as well. If all twelve of you fall ill, it will qualify as an epidemic.”

  Lily and Jonquil smiled dutifully at the joke, and Lily saw him to the door of the room. “Thank you, Dr. Kelling,” she said. As soon as she had closed the door behind him, she ran back to Rose’s bed and looked down at her sister with anxiety written large on her face. “Rose? Are you still awake?”

  “Yes,” Rose said, and coughed some more. “Fool gardener, leaping out of the shrubbery and frightening people.”

  “Rose,” Lily said urgently. “What are we to do? About the ball?”

  Dr. Kelling had misunderstood Rose when she asked about the dancing. She was not worried about the state dinner, or the dancing that usually followed. She was worried about what came after: the Midnight Ball. King Gregor had no control over that. It would not be canceled due to illness. Death alone could free a soul from the Midnight Ball, as the girls knew all too well.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Rose said, and a tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and ran down to wet her pillow. “If I don’t go, he’ll be so angry.” She rolled onto her side and pulled the blankets over her head again.

  The other eleven princesses dressed for dinner and sat at the long table with their father and the three visiting ambassadors. The girls were nervous and gloomy all night, and King Gregor did indeed cancel the dancing that evening. The sisters kissed their father good night at nine and went upstairs to Rose. Lily helped her sit up and drink a cup of chamomile tea, made with herbs that grew in their own garden. Jonquil peeled two oranges and fed them to Rose one segment at a time.

  And then, at eleven o’clock, Lily and Jonquil helped Rose out of bed. They washed her face and applied rouge to her pale cheeks and lips. They combed her long golden-brown hair and put it up in an elegant knot atop her head, adorning it with a tiara of pearls and garnets. Then they helped her into the yellow dress and the new dancing slippers.

  The eldest princess could barely walk. She was near delirious with fever and racked by coughing spells that left her breathless and teary-eyed. Lily and Jonquil had to support her all the way to the Midnight Ball.

  When Maria, their chief maid, came to wake the three eldest princesses the next morning, she found Rose’s yellow ball gown on the floor beside her bed, and Queen Maude’s pearl-and-garnet jewelry set lying on the bedside table. Rose was insensible with fever, raving about trees of silver and boats of gold crossing a lake of shadows. The maid thought that Rose had, in her delirium, attempted to dress for dinner. Maria woke the other girls and got Rose to drink some cool water while they waited for Dr. Kelling to arrive.

  “I don’t understand it,” Maria clucked, tenderly washing Rose’s face with cool water. “It’s astounding enough that she managed to get that gown out of the wardrobe, sick as she is. But how did she wear out a new pair of slippers?”

  “I don’t know,” Lily said innocently, kicking her own worn-out slippers under the bed.

  Then Jonquil coughed.

  Plan

  As the princesses succumbed to Rose’s illness one by one, King Gregor became desperate. He was a good-hearted man, for all his blustering and arm waving, and it pained him deeply to see his girls suffer. Worse still, Dr. Kelling feared that Rose’s illness was turning to pneumonia, and that brought back grief-ripe memories of Queen Maude’s last illness.

  To add insult to injury, the mystery of the worn-out dancing slippers continued. Every third morning when the king visited his daughters’ rooms, it was to find them sicker than ever and with their dancing slippers lying at their bedside, worn to pieces. Gregor accused their maids of stealing his daughters’ shoes at night to meet their gentlemen friends, and even fired two of them before the housekeeper could point out that none of the servants could wear the younger girls’ shoes.

  King Gregor begged and pleaded with his daughters to tell him what was going on, but they refused to answer, standing there coughing piteously and looking hollow eyed. He had hoped to marry one or two of them off to their new allies in Spania and La Belge, perhaps even to smooth things over with Analousia through marriage. But now all the girls were sick (and unattractively so, with red noses and hacking coughs), and the rumors of the constantly worn-out slippers had caught the attention of the city’s gossips.

  It was Kelling who brought him that unwelcome piece of news. The shoemaker or one of the servants must have talked, because the town was awash with stories about the princesses’ nighttime activities. It was being said that they were ill from dancing with the fairy folk. Some even said the girls had caught some strange fairy ailment that could be cured only by dancing even harder than before, or by drinking goat’s milk under a blue moon, or other foolishness. Others spitefully whispered that it was God’s punishment on King Gregor for the war or for wasting so much money and labor on that fool garden.

  The king put his head in his hands. “What am I to do, Wilhelm?” he moaned.

  Dr. Kelling put his physician’s bag on the king’s desk and sat in one of the large leather chairs opposite. His father had been the prime minister during the reign of Gregor’s father, and the two had been boys together. They had served in the army side by side, been married the same year, and been widowed within a month of each other.

  Feeling nearly as exhausted as his daughters, Gregor leaned back in his tall leather chair. It was like watching his Maude fade away all over again. He promised her he’d take good care of their girls, but she hadn’t seemed to believe him. Her eyes had been filled with such despair toward the end. And last night, visiting with Rose, he’d seen the same look. And why? If they could only show him the root of the trouble, he would seek it out and destroy it. But there was only silence and tears and hopelessness.

  “Wilhelm, I …” The king’s voice trailed away. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. When war with Analousia had been inevitable, he had made the decision that had seemed best, and they had triumphed in the end. But how to triumph when you didn’t know what battle you were fighting?

  Dr. Kelling leaned forward. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, Gregor,” he said. “It does no good to ask them; they cannot or will not tell. Now, I’m not one to indulge in talk of fairies and the like, you know that. But it seems to me that something is very wrong here. Something beyond youthful high spirits and a love of dancing.” He snorted. “Which doesn’t seem to be there, by the way. Poor little Pansy, when she was delirious with fever, kept sobbing that she wanted to stop dancing. God alone knows why they keep it u
p. Now, Maude was a good woman, but you and I both know that she brought some fanciful ideas over from Breton, along with her love of roses.”

  “What are you saying?” King Gregor shook his head, confused. “You think Maude had something to do with this?”

  “No-o, but …” Dr. Kelling scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know, Gregor. Perhaps I’m just tired.” He sighed heavily. “But Rose grows weaker by the day. I know you’ve tried separating the girls at night, but have you had them guarded, or followed, to see where they go?”

  King Gregor’s shoulders slumped. “I want to trust my girls. I feel like their jailer as it is, locking them in at night. Has it come to that?”

  “It has, if we are to make Rose well again,” Dr. Kelling said gently. “Tonight’s the third night since their last … disappearance or what-have-you. Separate rooms, and windows and doors firmly latched. Guards in the hallway.”

  In silence they finished off a decanter of brandy and smoked a number of fine cigars. In the end, King Gregor sighed, stubbed out his last cigar, and nodded.

  “Very well. The ambassadors have moved to their manors in the town now. That frees up all the bedrooms on the third floor. You’ll stay tonight in case the girls need you?” the king asked.

  “Of course.”

  Gardener

  Galen sat on a large rock and knitted a pair of socks. Well, just one sock. He had already made the other the evening before, and was hoping to have this one done before the next day. The socks he had brought back from the war were so worn they had disintegrated when his aunt washed them, and he had spent the past few weeks trying to replace them.

  Good-hearted Tante Liesel had offered to knit his new socks, but Galen had politely refused. The truth was, knitting was the only skill he had learned during the war that he enjoyed. There was something soothing about watching stitch after stitch pass across the needles, something meditative about the process. It also gave him a sense of pride to create something, as opposed to the destruction of shooting other men.