Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  So they put off the execution till next day.

  The gaoler told the snub-nosed page all about it when he took him his dinner of green water and mouldering crusts.

  ‘Couldn’t do the trick!’ said the gaoler. ‘Two axes broke off short and the bits turned to rubbish. The executioner says the rascal has a Charmed Life.’

  ‘Of course he has,’ said the ugly page, sniffing at the crusts with his snub-nose. ‘I know all about that, but I shan’t tell unless the King gives me a free pardon and something fit to eat. Roast pork and onion stuffing, I think. And you can tell him so.’

  So the gaoler told the King. And the King gave the snub-nosed page the pardon and the pork, and then the page said:

  ‘He has a Charmed Life. I heard him tell the Princess so. And what is more, he gave it to her to keep. And she said she’d hide it in a safe place!’

  Then the King told the eldest lady-in-waiting to watch, and she did watch, and saw the Princess take Florizel’s Charmed Life and hide it in a bunch of jasmine. So she took the jasmine and gave it to the King, and he burnt it. But the Princess had not left the Life in the jasmine.

  Then they tried to hang Florizel, because, of course, he had an ordinary life as well as a charmed one, and the King wished him to be without any life at all.

  Thousands of people crowded to see the presumptuous Lift-man hanged, and the execution lasted the whole morning, and seven brand new ropes were wasted one after the other, and they all left off being ropes and turned into long wreaths of jasmine, which broke into bits rather than hang such a handsome Lift-man.

  The King was furious. But he was not too furious to see that the Princess must have taken the Charmed Life out from the jasmine flowers, and put it somewhere else, when the eldest lady was not looking.

  And it turned out afterwards that the Princess had held Florizel’s life in her hand all the time the execution was going on. The eldest lady-in-waiting was clever, but she was not so clever as the Princess.

  The next morning the eldest lady brought the Princess’s silver mirror to the King.

  ‘The Charmed Life is in that, your Majesty,’ she said. ‘I saw the Princess put it in.’

  And so she had, but she had not seen the Princess take it out again almost directly afterwards.

  The King smashed the looking-glass, and gave orders that poor Florizel was to be drowned in the palace fishpond.

  So they tied big stones to his hands and feet and threw him in. And the stones changed to corks and held him up, and he swam to land, and when they arrested him as he landed they found that on each of the corks there was a beautiful painting of Candida’s face, as she saw it every morning in her mirror.

  Now, the King and Queen of Bohemia, Florizel’s father and mother, had gone to Margate for a fortnight’s holiday.

  ‘We will have a thorough holiday,’ said the King; ‘we will forget the world, and not even look at a newspaper.’

  But on the third day they both got tired of forgetting the world, and each of them secretly bought a newspaper and read it on the beach, and each rushed back and met the other on the steps of the boarding-house where they were staying. And the Queen began to cry, and the King took her in his arms on the doorstep, to the horror of the other boarders, who were looking out of the windows at them; and then they rushed off to the railway station, leaving behind them their luggage and the astonished boarders, and took a special train to town. Because the King had read in his newspaper, and the Queen in hers, that the Lift-man was being executed every morning from nine to twelve; and though, so far, none of the executions had ended fatally, yet at any moment the Prince’s Charmed Life might be taken, and then there would be an end of the daily executions — a very terrible end.

  Arrived at the capital, the poor Queen of Bohemia got into a hansom with the King, and they were driven to the palace. The palace-yard was crowded.

  ‘What is the matter?’ the King of Bohemia asked.

  ‘It’s that Lift-man,’ said a bystander, with spectacles and a straw hat; ‘he has as many lives as a cat. They tried boiling oil this morning, and the oil turned into white-rose leaves, and the fire under it turned to a white-rose bush. And now the King has sent for Princess Candida, and is going to have it out with her. The whole thing has been most exciting.’

  ‘I should think so,’ said the Lift-man’s father.

  ‘Of course,’ said the bystander in spectacles, ‘everyone who has read any history knows that Lift-men don’t have charmed lives. But our King never would learn history, so he doesn’t see that of course the Lift-man is a Prince disguised. The question is, Will he find out in time? I can’t think why the Lift-man doesn’t own his Princishness, and have done with it.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t know it himself,’ said the King of Bohemia.

  He gave his arm to his wife, and they managed to squeeze through to the great council hall, where the King of that country sat on his gold throne, surrounded by lords-in-waiting, judges in wigs, and other people in other things.

  Florizel was there loaded with chains, and standing in a very noble attitude at one corner of the throne steps. At the other stood the Princess, looking across at her lover with her dear gray eyes.

  ‘Now,’ said the King, ‘I am tired of diplomacy and tact, and the eldest lady-in-waiting is less of a Sherlock Holmes than I thought her, so let us be straightforward and honest. Have you got a Charmed Life?’

  ‘I haven’t exactly got it,’ said Florizel. ‘My life is not my own now.’

  ‘Did he give it to you?’ the King asked his daughter.

  ‘I cannot tell a lie, father,’ said the Princess, just as though her name had been George Washington instead of Candida; ‘he did give it to me.’

  ‘What have you done with it?’

  ‘I have hidden it in different places. I have saved it; he saved mine once.’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked her father, ‘as you so justly observe you cannot tell a lie.’

  ‘If I tell you,’ said the Princess, ‘will you give your Royal word that the execution you have ordered for this morning shall be really the last? You can destroy the object that I have hidden his Charmed Life in, and then you can destroy him. But you must promise me not to ask me to hide his Life in any new place, because I am tired of hide-and-seek.’

  All the judges and lords-in-waiting and people felt really sorry for the Princess, for they thought all these executions had turned her brain.

  ‘I give you my Royal word,’ said the King upon his throne. ‘I won’t ask you to hide his Life any more. Indeed, I was against the practice from the first. Now, where have you hidden his Life?’

  ‘In my heart,’ said the Princess, brave and clear, so that everyone heard her in the big hall. ‘You can’t take his Life without taking mine, and if you take mine you may as well take his, for he won’t care to go on living without me.’

  She sprang across the throne steps to Florizel, and his fetters jangled as she threw her arms round him.

  ‘Dear me!’ said the King, rubbing his nose with his sceptre; ‘this is very awkward.’

  The Princess laughed happily.

  ‘Oh, my clever Princess,’ whispered Florizel; ‘you’re as clever as you’re dear, and as dear as you’re beautiful.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well, really,’ said the King, ‘I don’t quite see — —’

  The father and mother of Florizel had wriggled and wormed their way through the crowd to a front place, and now the father spoke.

  ‘Your Majesty, allow me. Perhaps I can assist your decision.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said the King upon his throne; ‘go ahead. I’m struck all of a heap.’

  ‘You see before you,’ said the King of Bohemia, ‘one known to the world of science and of business as R. Bloomsbury, inventor and patenter of many mechanical novelties — among others the Patent Lightning Lift — now formed into a company of which I am the chairman. The young Lift-man — whose fetters are most clumsily d
esigned, if you will pardon my saying so — is my son.’

  ‘Of course he’s somebody’s son,’ said the King upon his throne.

  ‘Well, he happens to be mine, and I gather that you do not think him a good enough match for your daughter.’

  ‘Without wishing to hurt your feelings — —’ began Candida’s father.

  ‘Exactly. Well, know, O King on your throne, and everyone else, that this young Lift-man is no other than Florizel, Prince of Bohemia. I am the King of Bohemia, and this is my Queen.’

  As he spoke he took his crown out of his pocket and put it on. His wife took off her bonnet and got her crown out of her reticule and put that on, and Florizel’s crown was handed to the Princess, who fitted it on for him, because his hands were awkward with chains.

  ‘Your most convincing explanation alters everything,’ said the King upon his throne, and he came down to meet the visitors. ‘Bless you, my children! Strike off his chains, can’t you? I hope there’s no ill-feeling, Florizel,’ he added, turning to the Prince; ‘you see, an engineer is only an engineer, whereas a Prince is a Prince, be he never so disinherited. Will half an hour from now suit you for the wedding?’

  So they were married, and they still live very happily. They will live as long as is good for them, and when Candida dies Florizel will die too, because she still carries his Life in her heart.

  BILLY THE KING

  ‘Now, William,’ said Billy King’s great-uncle, ‘you are old enough to earn your own living, so I shall find you a nice situation in an office, and you will not return to school.’

  The blood of Billy King ran cold in his veins. He looked out over the brown wire blinds into Claremont Square, Pentonville, which was where his uncle lived, and the tears came into his eyes; for, though his uncle thought he was old enough to earn his own living, he was still young enough to hate the idea of having to earn it in an office, where he would never do anything, or make anything, or see anything, but only add up dull figures from year’s end to year’s end.

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Billy to himself. ‘I’ll run away and get a situation on my own — something interesting. I wonder if I could learn how to be a pirate captain or a highwayman?’

  And next morning Billy got up very early, before anyone was about, and ran away.

  He ran till he was out of breath and then he walked, and he walked till he was out of patience, and then he ran again, and between walking and running he came at last plump up to the door of a shop. And over the shop there were big painted letters saying, ‘Registry office for all sorts of persons out of employment.’

  ‘I’m out of employment, anyway,’ said he. The window of the shop had big green-baize-shutter sort of things in them, with white cards fastened on to them with drawing-pins, and on the cards were written the kind of persons out of employment the registry office had got places for. And in the very first one he read there was his own name — King!

  ‘I’ve come to the right shop,’ said Billy, and he read the card through. ‘Good general King wanted. Must be used to the business.’

  ‘That’s not me, I’m afraid,’ thought Billy, ‘because whatever a general King’s business is I can’t be used to it till I’ve tried it.’

  The next was: ‘Good steady King wanted. Must be quick, willing, and up to his work.’

  ‘I’m willing enough,’ said Billy, ‘and I’m quick enough — at any rate, at fives or footer — but I don’t know what a steady King’s work is.’ So he looked at another card.

  ‘Wanted, respectable King to take entire charge of Parliament, and to assist in Cabinet Councils and Reform of the Army, to open Bazaars and Schools of Art, and make himself generally useful.’

  Billy shook his head.

  ‘I think that must be a very hard place,’ said he.

  The next was: ‘Competent Queen wanted; economical and good manager.’

  ‘Whatever else I am I’m not a Queen,’ said Billy, and he was just turning sadly away, when he saw a little card stuck away in the right-hand top corner of the baize field.

  ‘Hard-working King wanted; no objection to one who has not been out before.’

  ‘I can but try,’ said Billy, and he opened the door of the registry office and walked in.

  Inside there were several desks. At the first desk a lion with a pen behind its ear was dictating to a unicorn, who was writing in a series of Blue-books with his horn. Billy noticed that the horn had been sharpened to a nice point, like a lead pencil when the drawing-master does it for you as a favour.

  ‘I think you want a King?’ said Billy timidly.

  ‘No, we don’t,’ said the lion, and it turned on him so quickly that Billy was sorry he had spoken. ‘The situation is filled, young man, and we’re thoroughly suited.’

  Billy was turning away, much dispirited, when the unicorn said: ‘Try some of the others.’

  So he went on to the next desk, where a frog sat sadly. But it only wanted Presidents; and at the next desk an eagle told him that only Emperors were wanted, and those very seldom. It was not till he got to the very end of the long room that Billy found a desk where a fat pig in spectacles sat reading a cookery-book.

  ‘Do you want a King?’ said Billy. ‘I’ve not been out before.’

  ‘Then you’re the King for us,’ said the pig, shutting the cookery-book with a bang. ‘Hard-working, I suppose, as the notice says?’

  ‘I think I should be,’ said Billy, adding, honestly, ‘especially if I liked the work.’

  The pig gave him a square of silver parchment and said, ‘That’s the address.’

  On the parchment was written:

  ‘Kingdom of Plurimiregia. Billy King, Respectable Monarch. Not been out before.’

  ‘You’d better go by post,’ said the pig. ‘The five o’clock post will do.’

  ‘But why — but how — where is it?’ asked Billy.

  ‘I don’t know where it is,’ said the pig, ‘but the Post-Office knows everything. As to how — why, you just tie a label round your neck and post yourself in the nearest letter-box. As to why, that’s a silly question, really, your Majesty. Don’t you know the Post-Office always takes charge of the Royal males?’

  Billy was just putting the address carefully away in what would have been his watch-pocket if he had had any relation in the world except a great-uncle, when the swing door opened gently and a little girl came in. She looked at the lion and unicorn and the other busy beasts behind their desks, and she did not seem to like the look of them. She looked up the long room and she saw Billy, and she came straight up to him and said:

  ‘Please I want a situation as Queen. It says in the window previous experience not required.’

  She was a very shabby little girl, with a clean, round, rosy face, and she looked as little like a Queen with previous experience as anybody could possibly have done.

  ‘I’m not the registry office, my good kid,’ said Billy.

  And the pig said, ‘Try the next desk.’

  Behind the next desk sat a lizard, but it was so large it was more like an alligator, only with a less unpleasant expression about the mouth.

  ‘Speak to him,’ said the pig, as the lizard leaned forward on his front paws like a draper’s assistant when he says, ‘What’s the next article?’

  ‘I don’t like to,’ said the little girl.

  ‘Nonsense, you little duffer!’ said Billy kindly; ‘he won’t eat you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said the little girl very earnestly.

  Then Billy said, ‘Look here, I’m a King, and so I’ve got a situation. Are you a Queen?’

  ‘My name’s Eliza Macqueen,’ said the little girl. ‘I suppose that’s near enough.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Billy to the lizard, ‘will she do?’

  ‘Perfectly, I should say,’ replied the lizard, with a smile that did not become him very well. ‘Here is the address.’ He gave it to her; it read:

  ‘Kingdom of Allexanassa. Queen, not been out before; will
ing, obliging, and anxious to learn.’

  ‘Your kingdoms,’ he added, ‘are next door to each other.’

  ‘So we shall see each other often,’ said Billy. ‘Cheer up! We might travel together, perhaps.’

  ‘No,’ said the pig; ‘Queens go by railway. A Queen has to begin to get used to her train as soon as she can. Now, run along, do. My friend here will see her off.’

  ‘You’re sure they won’t eat me?’ said Eliza — and Billy was certain they wouldn’t, though he didn’t know why. So he said, ‘Good-bye. I hope you’ll get on in your new place,’ and off he went to buy a penny luggage label at the expensive stationer’s three doors down the street on the right-hand side. And when he had addressed the label and tied it round his neck, he posted himself honourably at the General Post-Office. The rest of the letters in the box made a fairly comfortable bed, and Billy fell asleep. When he awoke he was being delivered by the early morning postman at the Houses of Parliament in the capital of Plurimiregia, and the Houses of Parliament were just being opened for the day. The air of Plurimiregia was clear and blue, very different from the air of Claremont Square, Pentonville. The hills and woods round the town looked soft and green, from the hill in the middle of the town where the Parliament Houses stood. The town itself was small and very pretty, like one of the towns in old illuminated books, and it had a great wall all round it, and orange trees growing on the wall. Billy wondered whether it was forbidden to pick the oranges.

  When Parliament was opened by the footman whose business it was, Billy said:

  ‘Please, I’ve come about the place — —’

  ‘The King’s or the cook’s?’ asked the footman.

  Billy was rather angry.

  ‘Now, do I look like a cook?’ he said.

  ‘The question is, do you look like a King?’ said the footman.

  ‘If I get the place you will be sorry for this,’ said Billy.

  ‘If you get the place you won’t keep it long’ said the footman. ‘It’s not worth while being disagreeable; there’s not time to do it properly in. Come along in.’