The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library) (21 page)

Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Black-stick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery.

“Get out of the way, pray,” says Gruffanuff, haughtily. “I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other people’s affairs?”

“Are you determined to make this poor young man unhappy?” says Blackstick.

“To marry him, yes! What business is it of yours? Pray, madam, don’t say ‘you’ to a queen,” cries Gruffanuff.

“You won’t take the money he offered you?”

“No.”

“You won’t let him off his bargain, though you know you cheated him when you made him sign the paper?”

“Impudence! Policemen, remove this woman!” cries Gruffanuff. And the policemen were rushing forward, but with a wave of her wand the Fairy struck them all like so many statues in their places.

“You won’t take anything in exchange for your bond, Mrs. Gruffanuff?” cries the Fairy, with awful severity. “I speak for the last time.”

“No!” shrieks Gruffanuff, stamping with her foot. “I’ll have my husband, my husband, my husband!”

“Y
ou Shall Have Your Husband
!” the Fairy Blackstick cried; and advancing a step, laid her hand upon the nose of the
KNOCKER
.

As she touched it, the brass nose seemed to elongate, the open mouth opened still wider, and uttered a roar which made everybody start. The eyes rolled wildly; the arms and legs uncurled themselves, writhed about, and seemed to lengthen with each twist; the knocker expanded into a figure in yellow livery, six feet high; the screws by which it was fixed to the door unloosed themselves, and J
ENKINS
G
RUFFANUFF
once more trod the threshold off which he had been lifted more than twenty years ago!

“Master’s not at home,” says Jenkins, just in his old voice; and Mrs. Jenkins, giving a dreadful
youp
, fell down in a fit, in which nobody minded her.

For everybody was shouting, “Huzzay! huzzay!” “Hip, hip, hurray!” “Long live the King and Queen!” “Were such things ever seen?” “No, never, never, never!” “The Fairy Blackstick for ever!”

The bells were ringing double peals, the guns roaring and banging most prodigiously.

Bulbo was embracing everybody; the Lord Chancellor was flinging up his wig and shouting like a madman; Hedzoff had got the Archbishop round the waist, and they were dancing a jig for joy; and as for Giglio, I leave you to imagine what
he
was doing, and if he kissed Rosalba once, twice—twenty thousand times, I’m sure I don’t think he was wrong.

So Gruffanuff opened the hall-door with a low bow, just as he had been accustomed to do, and they all went in and signed the book, and then they went to church and were married, and the Fairy Blackstick sailed away on her cane, and was never more heard of in Paflagonia.

1855

 
The Magic Fish-Bone

T
here was once a King, and he had a Queen, and he was the manliest of his sex, and she was the loveliest of hers. The King was, in his private profession, Under Government. The Queen’s father had been a medical man out of town.

They had nineteen children, and were always having more. Seventeen of these children took care of the baby, and Alicia, the eldest, took care of them all. Their ages varied from seven years to seven months.

Let us now resume our story.

One day the King was going to the Office, when he stopped at the fishmonger’s to buy a pound and a half of salmon not too near the tail, which the Queen (who was a careful housekeeper) had requested him to send home. Mr. Pickles, the fishmonger, said, “Certainly, sir, is there any other article, good-morning.”

The King went on towards the Office in a melancholy mood, for Quarter-Day was such a long way off, and several of the dear children were growing out of their clothes. He had not proceeded far, when Mr. Pickles’s errand-boy came running after him, and said, “Sir, you didn’t notice the old lady in our shop.”

“What old lady?” inquired the King. “I saw none.”

Now, the King had not seen any old lady, because this old lady had been invisible to him, though visible to Mr. Pickles’s boy. Probably because he messed and splashed the water about to that degree, and flopped the pairs of soles down in that violent manner, that, if she had not been visible to him, he would have spoilt her clothes.

Just then the old lady came trotting up. She was dressed in shot-silk of the richest quality, smelling of dried lavender.

“King Watkins the First, I believe?” said the old lady.

“Watkins,” replied the King, “is my name.”

“Papa, if I am not mistaken, of the beautiful Princess Alicia?” said the old lady.

“And of eighteen other darlings,” replied the King.

“Listen. You are going to the Office,” said the old lady.

It instantly flashed upon the King that she must be a Fairy, or how could she know that?

“You are right,” said the old lady, answering his thoughts, “I am the Good Fairy Grandmarina. Attend. When you return home to dinner, politely invite the Princess Alicia to have some of the salmon you bought just now.”

“It may disagree with her,” said the King.

The old lady became so very angry at this absurd idea, that the King was quite alarmed, and humbly begged her pardon.

“We hear a great deal too much about this thing disagreeing and that thing disagreeing,” said the old lady, with the greatest contempt it was possible to express. “Don’t be greedy. I think you want it all yourself.”

The King hung his head under this reproof, and said he wouldn’t talk about things disagreeing, any more.

“Be good then,” said the Fairy Grandmarina, “and don’t! When the beautiful Princess Alicia consents to partake of the salmon—as I think she will—you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. Tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present from me.”

“Is that all?” asked the King.

“Don’t be impatient, sir,” returned the Fairy Grandmarina, scolding him severely. “Don’t catch people short, before they have done speaking. Just the way with you grown-up persons. You are always doing it.”

The King again hung his head, and said he wouldn’t do so any more.

“Be good then,” said the Fairy Grandmarina, “and don’t! Tell the Princess Alicia, with my love, that the fish-bone is a magic present which can only be used once; but that it will bring her, that once, whatever she wishes for,
PROVIDED SHE WISHES FOR IT AT THE RIGHT TIME
. That is the message. Take care of it.”

The King was beginning, “Might I ask the reason—?” when the Fairy became absolutely furious.

“
Will
you be good, sir?” she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the ground. “The reason for this, and the reason for that, indeed! You are always wanting the reason. No reason. There! Hoity toity me! I am sick of your grown-up reasons.”

The King was extremely frightened by the old lady’s flying into such a passion, and said he was very sorry to have offended her, and he wouldn’t ask for reasons any more.

“Be good then,” said the old lady, “and don’t!”

With those words, Grandmarina vanished, and the King went on and on and on, till he came to the Office. There he wrote and wrote and wrote, till it was time to go home again. Then he politely invited the Princess Alicia, as the Fairy had directed him, to partake of the salmon. And when she had enjoyed it very much, he saw the fish-bone on her plate, as the Fairy had told him he would, and he delivered the Fairy’s message, and the Princess Alicia took care to dry the bone, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shone like mother-of-pearl.

And so when the Queen was going to get up in the morning, she said, “O dear me, dear me, my head, my head!” And then she fainted away.

The Princess Alicia, who happened to be looking in at the chamber door, asking about breakfast, was very much alarmed when she saw her royal mamma in this state, and she rang the bell for Peggy—which was the name of the Lord Chamberlain. But remembering where the smelling-bottle was, she climbed on a chair and got it, and after that she climbed on another chair by the bedside and held the smelling bottle to the Queen’s nose, and after that she jumped down and got some water, and after that she jumped up again and wetted the Queen’s forehead, and, in short, when the Lord Chamberlain came in, that dear old woman said to the little Princess, “What a Trot you are! I couldn’t have done it better myself!”

But that was not the worst of the good Queen’s illness. O no! She was very ill indeed, for a long time. The Princess Alicia kept the seventeen young Princes and Princesses quiet, and dressed and undressed and danced the baby, and made the kettle boil, and heated the soup, and swept the hearth, and poured out the medicine, and nursed the Queen, and did all that ever she could, and was as busy busy busy, as busy could be. For there were not many servants at that Palace, for three reasons: because the King was short of money, because a rise in his office never seemed to come, and because Quarter-Day was so far off that it looked almost as far off and as little as one of the stars.

But on the morning when the Queen fainted away, where was the magic fish-bone? Why, there it was in the Princess Alicia’s pocket. She had almost taken it out to bring the Queen to life again, when she put it back, and looked for the smelling-bottle.

After the Queen had come out of her swoon that morning, and was dozing, the Princess Alicia hurried up stairs to tell a most particular secret to a most particularly confidential friend of hers, who was a Duchess. People did suppose her to be a doll, but she was really a Duchess, though nobody knew it except the Princess.

This most particular secret was the secret about the magic fish-bone, the
history of which was well known to the Duchess, because the Princess told her everything. The Princess kneeled down by the bed on which the Duchess was lying, full dressed and wide-awake, and whispered the secret to her. The Duchess smiled and nodded. People might have supposed that she never smiled and nodded, but she often did, though nobody knew it except the Princess.

Then the Princess Alicia hurried down stairs again, to keep watch in the Queen’s room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen’s room; but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look, wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As often as she noticed this, she ran up stairs, whispered the secret to the Duchess over again, and said to the Duchess besides, “They think we children never have a reason or a meaning!” And the Duchess, though the most fashionable Duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye.

“Alicia,” said the King, one evening when she wished him good-night.

“Yes, papa.”

“What is become of the magic fish-bone?”

“In my pocket, papa.”

“I thought you had lost it?”