Garden Princess (17 page)

The next morning, Adela rose early, had breakfast in the kitchen, and was outdoors by sunrise. She had been neglecting her garden since coming home. Now she set to work digging up the beds where she wanted to plant bulbs. She tried hard to focus her mind on the task. She punched holes in the ground with her spade, dropped in the bulbs, and pushed the dirt over them. Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths — she had to keep reminding herself what she had planted where. By midmorning, she felt successful. Her arms and shoulders ached, she was filthy, and she hadn’t thought about Edward for several hours.

She cleaned up and changed her clothes, then hurried off to her lessons with Dr. Sophus. The first hour was geometry constructions. Adela liked using a compass and straightedge; she drew a series of perpendicular bisectors and pictured a garden based on the pattern of intersecting arcs and segments. After geometry came geography, which was interesting because it involved maps, and she could think about where she would go on her plant-collecting expedition. Unfortunately, Dr. Sophus began the lesson with a map showing the kingdom’s coastal communities. Adela couldn’t help but think of Edward. Was she right about his accent? Had he headed home to find his mother? But if so, why had he taken the jewels?

To avoid further speculation, she distracted Dr. Sophus with a question about the islands located several hundred miles off the coast. Was the climate tropical or semitropical? Dr. Sophus put away the first map and pulled out a more detailed map of the islands. He launched into a lecture on their flora and fauna, which was fine until Adela fell into a reverie in which she imagined sailing to the islands with Edward. Stop it! she told herself.

At lunchtime, Adela ate in the nursery with her brother, Henry: cheese sandwiches, apples, and vanilla custard — his favorite foods at present. She entertained him by letting him pretend to be a bear. He growled as he ate his food, shoving it rudely into his mouth, much to the despair of his nanny. The game of bear went on after lunch because Cecile “wanted to discuss something” with the king and was too busy to bother with the usual embroidery lesson. Adela took on the role of a hunter. She chased Henry around the room, up and over the furniture, shooting at him with an imaginary bow and arrow. Henry fell to the ground again and again, roaring back to life each time. At last, laughing and gasping for breath, Adela suggested that he could be an enchanted bear who turned into a prince. “I don’t want to be a prince!” shouted Henry, and let out another roar. Finally, to placate his nanny, Adela read her brother a story about King Ival that put him to sleep. The story wasn’t “The Dog Princess,” but it might as well have been, for almost as soon as Henry grew quiet, Adela’s voice trailed off and her mind returned to thoughts of Edward.
If I had a garden, it would be only dandelions.
Why would he say such a thing if he didn’t care about her? She thought she knew the answer. It was because he was teasing her — that was how beautiful boys like Edward talked to girls, even ones who weren’t pretty.
A weed among the pretty flowers
— that was what Hortensia had called her.

Just before she turned me into a dandelion, thought Adela.

For tea, it was only Cecile, Adela, and Marguerite around the table in the queen’s private sitting room. Her other ladies-in-waiting had been dismissed for the afternoon so that Cecile could share some exciting news.

“I’ve spoken to His Majesty,” said the queen, “and he agrees with me that, in addition to receiving the King Ival Medal, Garth will also get a title and a monetary reward.”

Marguerite gave a squeal and threw her arms around her sister. “Oh, Cecile! Thank you!”

“Don’t let anyone ever accuse me of standing in the way of love,” said Cecile. “I told His Majesty, ‘Garth has gone head over heels for Marguerite, and she feels the same way about him. They are simply dying to get married. But Marguerite
is
your sister-in-law, and it will hardly do to have her marry a servant. There is only one solution to the problem, Adalbert, and that is to raise the boy up in the world.’” Cecile looked triumphant. “He’s to be named an honorary Knight of the Realm, and he’ll receive a bag of gold.”

Sir Garth, brother-in-law to the queen. Life at the palace will never be the same again, thought Adela. She took a sip of her tea, marveling at Cecile’s skills at manipulating the social world. First she had managed to marry the king, beating out princesses, duchesses, and ladies with far greater status than her own. Now she had arranged things so that her sister could marry the son of the head gardener without the least bit of scandal.

“And now for my other bit of news,” said Cecile. “His Majesty’s plans for awarding the King Ival Medal are what gave me the idea. We’re going to have Adela’s grand ball on the same day the medal is awarded —”

Adela opened her mouth to protest, but Cecile held up her hand.

“Now, then, Adela, you must listen to my plan before you say a word. I know you’ll agree that I have your best interests at heart. Your father will award the medals at the ball, which is going to be a masquerade party with a garden theme: the ladies will come dressed as their favorite flowers!”

“What about the men?” asked Marguerite.

“We’ll have them dress as bees and grasshoppers and birds — garden creatures, you know,” said Cecile. “Perhaps even magpies,” she added.

Adela stared, dumbfounded.

“The ball will be a grand celebration of your and Garth’s triumph over Hortensia, Adela,” Cecile continued. “But it will also be a celebration of
you
— and the fact that you are, in your own way, coming into bloom.”

Adela choked on her tea. “Coming into bloom?”

Marguerite, meanwhile, was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “I’m going to go as a daisy! It’s Garth’s favorite flower, and I can just imagine my gown. It will be white with tiny daisies embroidered all over it.” She frowned. “Or maybe the skirt should look like petals.”

Adela shuddered, remembering what she had seen at Hortensia’s garden. Surely her stepmother couldn’t be serious. “Enough!” she said, setting her teacup down firmly. “Cecile, can’t you see how wildly inappropriate this theme is? Hundreds of girls were turned into flowers by a
witch.
I can’t imagine any of them”— Adela avoided looking at Marguerite —“wanting to relive that experience.

“Besides,” she added, trying to compose herself. “I’ve already told you I don’t want to have a grand ball.”

“Yes, dear,” said Cecile. “But that was before you knew you would be receiving the King Ival Medal. Surely you don’t want your guests to come all this way and not treat them to a bit of a celebration?”

“Please, Your Highness!” Marguerite implored.

Adela felt trapped. Was she really the only person who felt that such a ball was in poor taste? Obviously Marguerite felt differently. Maybe it was wrong to let her personal feelings interfere with Marguerite’s happiness.

“All right,” she agreed at last. She sat back in silence, listening to her stepmother and Marguerite chatter away about their various costume ideas. It wasn’t long, however, before their conversation turned to Garth’s good fortune and Marguerite’s happiness and the possibility of having a wedding by the end of summer.

How quickly love had come for Marguerite and Garth! Adela couldn’t help but feel a little envious. What if she knew Edward would be at the ball? Would she, like Marguerite, look forward to surprising him with her costume? Would she actually enjoy dancing with him? Adela, who had never liked dancing in her life, had to admit that she might.

But Edward wouldn’t be there, and it was foolish to imagine that he would. I need to concentrate on other things, Adela told herself. Like gardening and being awarded the King Ival Medal and my plans for the future.

Plans that wouldn’t include anything as silly and distracting as love.

Edward was fighting off a feeling of panic. It had been some days since he had parted ways with the princess, and he was finally nearing his destination. He was going to find his mother. Or find out what had happened to her — whatever her fate might have been.

Ragtown, his old neighborhood, still looked the same as it had thirty years ago: narrow, crooked alleyways all tangled together like strips of dirty cloth. Even the people and the animals were variations on what he remembered: half-wild children shrieking at their games, worn-out parents shouting at them to stop their racket, dogs barking and snapping at his heels.

He was aware of eyes following him as he walked along his street. Not because anyone recognized him; too many years had passed for that. Instead, people were sizing up the stranger who had entered their midst, dressed in worn clothes that were long out of fashion but were still fancier than they were used to seeing in these parts. Edward shifted the bundle he was carrying from one arm to the other. Thirty years ago, there had been men here who would murder him for the jewels he carried; no doubt there were still men like that. There would also be those who would pay him for the jewels, dishonest dealers accustomed to working with thieves.

But that wasn’t his business today. He stopped in front of a narrow three-story building no different from any of the others crowded together like rotten teeth. He glanced up, noting the small window on the top floor. The shutters were thrown open to let in the light — and the cold; few people here could afford the luxury of glass panes.

He knocked on the door.

He waited, then knocked again.

“Looking for Maud, are you?” said a voice behind him.

A bone-thin little girl with a sharp face was standing behind him. She was almost as dirty as the toddler she balanced on her hip.

Maud was the name of his mother’s landlady. “Does she still live here?” he asked.

“Doesn’t like to come out. She’s half blind.” The girl stepped past him and kicked open the door. “Oi! Maud! Someone to see you!” she bellowed. “Just go on in,” she added.

Edward entered and closed the door quietly behind him. The hallway he found himself in was as dingy and depressing as ever, the only light coming from a window with a broken shutter at the top of a rickety flight of stairs. The shutter had been broken long ago; he knew because he had broken it himself, earning a clap on the ear from the landlady. It startled him to see so little changed. Was it possible that his mother might actually still live in the little room on the third floor?

“What do you want?” said a cross voice behind him.

He whirled around. Maud’s body was crippled with age, her face as wrinkled as a mushroom, and her eyes frosted blue from cataracts. The only thing that hadn’t changed was her scowl.

Edward explained that he was looking for a woman, who had lived on the top floor about thirty years before. When he described his mother, Maud’s scowl became a sneer.

“That one! You mean the one that never paid her rent on time. Never
could
pay her rent after that worthless, thieving son of hers ran away and left her.”

The panic was back — a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Do you know what happened to her?” he asked.

Maud gave a snort. “Dead and buried would be my guess. Never did nothing but cough all day and night. But you’d have to ask the doctor that came and took her away.”

“Doctor?” His mother couldn’t afford a doctor.

“One of those charitable types from the hospital.”

The hospital was clear across town, in a much better neighborhood than this one. “Is that where he took her?” asked Edward.

“How should I know?”

“Do you know his name?”

Another snort. “If I ever did know, I’m not likely to think of it after all this time. Who’s asking, anyway?” Maud peered at him, as if she could see inside his mind with her disturbing blind eyes. As if she could see his shame.

He decided to go to the hospital. Maybe there would be a record of her there. Maybe he could even find the doctor who had helped her.

But as he headed away from the filthy streets of Ragtown, Maud’s words rang in his ears:
Dead and buried would be my guess.

He thought of the princess. He had made the right choice, leaving her to search for his mother on his own. Just imagine if she could hear what Maud had said of him:
Worthless, thieving son . . . ran away and left her.

Edward wasn’t sure he could bear having her know the truth about him, though a day did not pass when he didn’t imagine the princess saying that none of it mattered, that he wasn’t the same person he had been thirty years ago.

Perhaps it was even true. The treasures he carried didn’t tempt him in the least. Shouldn’t that mean something?
You’ll be a thief forever,
Hortensia had told him, but shouldn’t it matter that he no longer wanted to steal? Shouldn’t it matter that he had already been punished — and that he wanted to make amends?

After he learned the truth about his mother, he was going to return the jewels in the bundle to their owners — the ones he could find, anyway. There were some pieces that he didn’t recognize. Some of them may have belonged to Hortensia, or, more likely, they belonged to guests who had come to Flower Mountain before he had. He liked to imagine himself bringing these last treasures to the princess. “I’ve returned all the things I could,” he would tell her. And she would say, “Oh, Edward!” as if she could see all the sorrow and regret and goodness inside him. And he would find out that it was possible, after all, for a princess to love a thief.