Straw into Gold

by Hilary McKay

  Things Were Different in Those Days

  or

  The Twelve Dancing Princesses

  By the time that Violet was nine years old, there were only three people left at home in the palace. These were Violet, and her mother, and her grandfather, the Old King. However, there were also the lodgers who came and went, bothering Violet, exhausting the Queen, and causing great grumbles from the Old King whenever he happened to notice them. This was not often, because the Old King was ancient. He sat for whole days and nights in his shadowy corner of the kitchen, muttering, dozing, and banging with his stick.

  “In his own world,” said Violet’s mother, the Queen.

  Sometimes, though, he would say things to show he was partly in their world too. For instance, when there was trouble with a lodger not paying his bill, or stealing the candlesticks, or announcing that he was vegetarian when it was sausages and bacon for supper—then the Old King would rouse from his dozing and become very noisy.

  “Off with their noddles! Off with their noddles!” he would shout. “It saved a great deal of trouble in my day!”

  “But what,” demanded Violet, when she was old enough to pay attention to her grandfather’s remarks, “is a noddle?”

  “Nothing, nothing, take no notice,” said her mother, irritably scrambling eggs for vegetarians. “Stop sucking that honey spoon! DON’T put it back in the pot! Dry those plates if you want to help!”

  Violet, who never wanted to help, retreated back to her grandfather’s corner.

  “Yer noddle,” he said, jabbing at her with his stick, “is yer head!”

  “What!” exclaimed Violet. “You didn’t really!”

  “I did an’ all,” said the Old King. “I offed many a noddle in the good old days!”

  “Violet, stop encouraging him!” snapped the Queen, scraping black bits off the toast while the eggs turned leathery and the sausages began to smoke. “Things were different in those days! Oh, WHERE is the butter?”

  “I gave it to the cat,” said Violet.

  “Violet!”

  “It was licking it anyway. It had got it all hairy.”

  “I don’t know why I bother,” moaned her mother, piling her terrible cooking onto a battered golden tray.

  “Why do you bother?” asked Violet.

  “I’m saving up,” said her mother.

  “What for?”

  “It’s about time you learned to do something useful. Get the door for me, do, and take those shoes off the table. I was giving them a polish, but there’s no time now. You might give them a rub if the cat’s left any butter. Otherwise I’ll do them with marge when I get back.”

  The cat, however, had not left any butter, and Violet skipped off quickly while her mother was out of the kitchen, not wanting to be about when the washing up began. Violet did not care for washing up, nor cooking breakfasts or polishing shoes.

  She spent her days in other ways.

  Prancing along the dusty empty corridors in ancient satin dresses.

  Twirling with her arms outstretched in front of misty mirrors.

  Searching in the garden for long-lost buried treasure. Drawing with charcoal on old palace portraits, spectacles on the gentlemen and moustaches on the ladies.

  Climbing about on the roof tiles, attempting to catch pigeons.

  Roasting slices of apple over candle flames.

  Making perfume from squashed rose petals in empty honey pots. This was something Violet could never get quite right. Her perfume always smelled wonderful for one day, peculiar for two days, and then dreadful ever after, as well as turning green. When it reached the green-and-dreadful stage, Violet said, “Witch’s soup,” and poured it into the moat.

  When Violet wasn’t doing any of these things, she either hung around the kitchen, saying she was bored, or else she went exploring in the ancient palace. She peered through the keyholes of long-locked doors, and she hunted through musty cupboards that had been closed for years.

  The most interesting thing Violet saw through the keyholes was a room with twelve beds.

  “Hmm,” said her mother when Violet described this discovery. “Take your grandfather this cup of tea and mop his chin after!”

  The most interesting thing Violet found in the cupboards was twelve music boxes.

  Twelve music boxes, and they all played different tunes. Violet found if she wound them quickly, she could set them all going at once. Then “Oranges and Lemons” mixed with “Ring a Ring o’ Roses,” and “Cherry Ripe” with “The Muffin Man,” and “Over the Hills and Far Away” with “Jack Be Nimble”—and all the other tunes (“Hey Diddle Diddle,” “Green Grow the Rushes, O,” “Scottish Bluebells,” “Goosey Goosey Gander,” “Little Bo Peep,” and “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”) jangled together too, so it sounded like a room full of mad, plinking, silvery starlings.

  Violet played this winding-up game for a long time before looking at the boxes themselves. When she did, she saw that each one was carved with a letter on the lid:

  A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L

  Violet traced the letters with her forefinger. It came away gray with dust.

  Then, with some difficulty, Violet piled up all twelve music boxes in her arms and staggered with them to the kitchen. There she laid them out on the kitchen table and wound them up to play. Her mother was upstairs, making beds and sweeping, but the Old King, her grandfather, was nod, nod, nodding in his chair. The sound of the boxes woke him, or half woke him. When the last tune had wound down into silence, he suddenly spoke:

  “Anastasia, Bella, Cordelia, Della,

  Eglantine,

  Florentine,

  Geraldine,

  Harriet, Imogen, Jessica,

  Kate . . .”

  Violet stared at him in astonishment. “And last of all, Grandfather?” she prompted.

  “Anastasia, Bella, Cordelia, Della,

  Eglantine,

  Florentine,

  Geraldine,

  Harriet, Imogen, Jessica,

  Kate—and last of all?”

  “Lilian,” murmured her grandfather. “Last of all, Lilian, long, long ago, when I offed with their princes’ noddles!”

  “You offed with their princes’ noddles?” repeated Violet.

  “Aye,” said her grandfather, sleepily.

  “Tell me more!” ordered Violet. “Tell me more, you awful old man!” And she joggled his elbow, and shook his chair, but it did no good. He ignored her completely and wound down into silence, like one of the music boxes. Nothing could wake him; not cold water dripped down his neck, nor toast crusts scorched under his nose. Violet was forced to wait until her mother staggered in with a huge pile of ironing before she could learn any more.

  “There!” said her mother with a sigh, dumping the ironing on the dresser and collapsing onto a stool. “Ten sheets, ten pillowcases, five counterpanes. All to be ironed by bedtime.”

  “Don’t do it!” said Violet.

  “I have to do it. Lodgers like it.”

  “Why do they like it?”

  “Makes them looked washed.”

  “They are washed, aren’t they?”

  “Now and then,” said the Queen. “Take your grubby hands off; you’ll make them even worse. Whatever is all that clutter on the table?”

  “Come and see!” said Violet.

  So her mother heaved herself up from her stool and went over to the table and then, “Oh!” she said. “Oh!”

  “Music boxes,” said Violet.

  Her mother nodded and picked up the one with the A on the lid, and wound it up. The tune was “Green Grow the Rushes, O,” and when it got to the sad end, One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so, a tear rolled down her cheek, a real tear, the first tear Violet had ever seen her cry.

  It had an astonishing effect on Violet. It made her rush to her mother and hug her tight and say, “You’re not all alone! You’ve got me!”

  “Course I have,” said her mother. “Takes me back, that�
��s all.” And she wound the music box with the L on the lid and it played “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,” and from the old rocking chair in the shadowy corner an ancient voice, a cracked, wicked, wheezy, old, old voice joined in the song.

  “An’ pretty maids all in a row!” sang the Old King, Violet’s grandfather. “Twelve!”

  “Twelve,” repeated Violet.

  “Twelve Princesses! Twelve Dancing Princesses! Well, eleven and our Annie!”

  Suddenly Violet understood, and recited:

  “Anastasia, Bella, Cordelia, Della,

  Eglantine,

  Florentine,

  Geraldine,

  Harriet, Imogen, Jessica,

  Kate—and last of all, Lilian . . .

  They were the Twelve

  Dancing Princesses!”

  “It’s true, they were,” said her mother.

  “And you were one of them?”

  “I was.”

  “And they were your sisters? And these were their music boxes?”

  “You were bound to know sometime.”

  “And you were the first!” Violet continued, looking at her mother. “Anastasia!”

  “They called me Plain Annie,” said her mother.

  “Did they?”

  “Well, I was plain. Compared.”

  “How could you have been, when you are beautiful now?”

  Her mother looked at her red, worn, lumpy-with-washing hands, and then tucked a strand of wispy hair behind her ear and said, “Oh Violet! How you remind me of our little Lil!”

  “You mean Lilian? Last-of-all Lilian?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was she pretty?”

  “No prettier than you.”

  “Was she clever?”

  “She might have been.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I must get on with this ironing.”

  “Why must you get on with the ironing?”

  “Because I’m saving up!” said her mother.

  Violet fiddled with the music boxes for some time more. Then she got under the table and tried to make the cat dance, rolled herself in the hearthrug, unrolled again, wrote VIOLET in the dust on the dresser, and got in the way of the iron.

  “I’m bored,” she said.

  “That’s because you don’t know anything useful.”

  “What’s useful?”

  “All sorts. Things you learn in books, numbers and figures and the names of the stars. They’re useful. If you could build a bridge, that’s useful. If you could draw a map, that’s useful.”

  “Girls can’t do things like that!” objected Violet.

  “They could, if they learned.”

  “Could you?”

  “I never learned. Take a comb to your grandfather’s whiskers, Violet; they’ve got all draggley again.”

  “No thank you. They’ve got bits in! Do you know what he told me about the princesses?”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That he offed with their princes’ noddles!”

  “Ah.”

  “Did he really? Is it true? What happened to them all after that?”

  “You’ve got to remember, things were different in those days,” said her mother, spitting on the iron to see if it was hot. “You’ve got to remember that, if I tell you!”

  “I will, I will!”

  “And . . .” Violet’s mother paused.

  “Yes, yes?” said Violet impatiently.

  “There was a lot more magic about.”

  “Was there?”

  “Folk took it for granted,” said her mother. “Foolish, I call it. Anyway, there was us twelve princesses and our mother dead after Lilian was born and our father with his ways . . .”

  “Off with their noddles,” murmured Violet’s grandfather from his corner. “Them were the good old days.”

  Violet’s mother looked across at him thoughtfully.

  “He’s dribbling on the cat again,” she said. “Fetch it off his lap, Violet!”

  “The cat doesn’t mind,” said Violet.

  “I mind,” said her mother, and put down her iron and shooed the cat away. “Well, there was us twelve girls, and me expected to keep charge. And that wasn’t easy, especially come night.”

  “Why come night?”

  “They liked dancing,” said Violet’s mother. “They liked dancing and prancing and twirls and curls and curtsying and silk and lace.”

  “What else?” asked Violet.

  “Gems and jewels and sparkly things. Perfumes and powders and rouges and ribbons. Waltzes, polkas, and polonaises. And princes for partners. And most of all, they liked satin dancing shoes.”

  “Well, didn’t you too?” asked Violet.

  “I did,” admitted her mother. “Though I was the plain one.”

  “Satin dancing shoes!” murmured Violet, looking down at her own shabby boots.

  “They wore out them shoes!” growled the Old King suddenly. “Twelve pair a night! Twelve pair a night in rags and holes and I didn’t LIKE it!”

  “Your grandfather and those dancing shoes!” said Violet’s mother. “He fussed and he grumbled and he said, ‘How’d you girls wear out twelve pair of them shoes?’ Because, you see, Violet, we weren’t allowed out after nightfall. It was straight off to bed and the door locked behind us.”

  “I found your bedroom!” said Violet. “I saw through the keyhole! Twelve beds in one room and no space to dance! So how DID you wear out your shoes?”

  “Ah,” said her mother, “that’s what he wanted to know. And he set about to find out. He put out an announcement: any prince who could discover how the princesses wore their satin shoes to rags and holes could choose his princess and take over the rule of the kingdom! ‘Because I’ve had enough of it,’ said he. Three nights each he gave for the task. Three nights for each prince to find out.”

  “And if they couldn’t?” asked Violet.

  “Then off with their noddles!” wheezed her grandfather from his corner. “With my little noddle-offer!”

  “Grandfather!” exclaimed Violet. “You never had a noddle-offer! Did you? Did you?”

  “I did an’ all,” said her grandfather happily.

  “Where is it now?”

  “Never you mind!” snapped her mother. “Never you mind where it is now. A nasty thing like that!”

  “Well then, what about the princes?” demanded Violet. “Did lots of princes come?”

  “Of course they did,” said her mother. “There was no shortage of princes. If ever there were pretty maids all in a row, it was my eleven sisters! The princes came, and one by one they were put to bed in our room, with scented sheets and white down pillows, with honey cakes to eat and hot spiced wine to drink. And their eyes would close and next thing they knew it would be bright morning and twelve more pairs of dancing shoes in rags and holes!”

  “And what did Grandfather do then?”

  “Oh, he went shouting about the castle about the cost of satin shoes and the uselessness of princes, and the first prince would be gone, then the second, then the third . . .”

  Violet’s mother paused her ironing and sighed. “Well . . . ,” she said, and sighed again.

  “Off with their noddles?” whispered Violet.

  Her mother nodded.

  “AWFUL Grandfather!”

  “I told you, things were different in those days, but even so, such a to-do, the first time it happened! That was Bella’s prince.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Oh yes! She cried all day until bedtime.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then on with her dancing shoes!”

  “Not truly!”

  “They did do things different in those days,” her mother reminded her. “And there was a lot more magic about. Not that you should ever rely on magic, Violet! Common sense and hard work are what I’ve always banked on.”

  “And lodgers,” said Violet.

  “That’s because I’m saving up. Don’t sit on
those ironed sheets and don’t eat jam with your fingers!”

  Violet wiped her fingers on a pillowcase and asked, “What happened after Bella’s prince had his noddle noddled off?”

  “Cordelia’s tried next. Then Della’s. Eglantine, Florentine, Geraldine (they were triplets), their princes came next.”

  “All noddled off?” asked Violet, wide-eyed.

  Her mother nodded. “And after them, Harriet’s and Imogen’s and Jessica’s and Kate’s, and last of all Lilian’s.”

  “Did Lilian go dancing the day her prince’s noddle was noddled off?”

  “She couldn’t wait!”

  “Well!” said Violet. “I think that’s awful! All those poor princes and wicked old Grandfather! Why do we still keep him?”

  “You can’t go getting rid of people just like that!”

  “He did!”

  “Yes, but things were different in those days.”

  There was a pause then, and a hot scorching smell, while another sheet was ironed. Violet frowned in thought, trying to understand.

  “Did you have a prince?” she asked at last. “What about Father? When did he come into the story?”

  “Too many questions,” said her mother. “First I have to tell you about the soldier.”

  “What soldier?”

  “Back from the wars.”

  “What wars?”

  “And traveling the country, looking for work.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “Any sort of work because he hadn’t any money.”

  “Don’t soldiers get paid?”

  “If they do, they spend it. They can’t hold on to money. It’s not in their natures . . .” Violet’s mother held a pillowcase, worn thin as tissue paper, up to the light. “It’ll drop to bits if I wash it,” she said.

  “Throw it away and buy another!”

  “I can’t. I’m saving up.”

  “Anyway,” said Violet, interrupting the ironing once more. “You haven’t finished the story at all! What about the soldier?”