“And now, dearie,” said the nurse, “you’d like to see the Princess, wouldn’t you? Take care you don’t hurt yourself with her. She’s rather sharp.”
Matilda did not understand this then. Afterwards she did.
THE PRINCESS WAS LIKE A YARD AND A HALF OF WHITE TAPE.
The nurse took her through many marble corridors and up and down many marble steps, and at last they came to a garden full of white roses, and in the middle of it, on a green satin-covered eiderdown, as big as a feather bed, sat the Princess in a white gown.
She got up when Matilda came towards her, and it was like seeing a yard and a half of white tape stand up on one end and bow—a yard and a half of broad white tape, of course; but what is considered broad for tape is very narrow indeed for princesses.
“How are you?” said Matilda, who had been taught manners.
“Very slim indeed, thank you,” said the Princess. And she was. Her face was so white and thin that it looked as though it were made of an oyster-shell. Her hands were thin and white, and her fingers reminded Matilda of fish-bones. Her hair and eyes were black, and Matilda thought she might have been pretty if she had been fatter. When she shook hands with Matilda her bony fingers hurt quite hard.
The Princess seemed pleased to see her visitor, and invited her to sit with Her Highness on the satin cushion.
“I have to be very careful or I should break,” said she; “that’s why the cushion is so soft, and I can’t play many games for fear of accidents. Do you know any sitting-down games?”
The only thing Matilda could think of was Cat’s-cradle, so they played that with the Princess’s green hair-ribbon. Her fish-bony fingers were much cleverer than Matilda’s little fat, pink paws.
Matilda looked about her between the games and admired everything very much, and asked questions, of course. There was a very large bird chained to a perch in the middle of a very large cage. Indeed the cage was so big that it took up all one side of the rose-garden. The bird had a yellow crest like a cockatoo and a very large bill like a toucan. (If you do not know what a toucan is you do not deserve ever to go to the Zoological Gardens again.)
“What is that bird?” asked Matilda.
“Oh,” said the Princess, “that’s my pet Cockatoucan; he’s very valuable. If he were to die or be stolen the Green Land would wither up and grow like New Cross or Islington.”
“How horrible!” said Matilda.
“I’ve never been to those places, of course,” said the Princess, shuddering, “but I hope I know my geography.”
“All of it?” asked Matilda.
“Even the exports and imports,” said the Princess. “Goodbye, I’m so thin I have to rest a good deal or I should wear myself out. Nurse, take her away.”
So nurse took her away to a wonderful room, where she amused herself till tea-time with all the kind of toys that you see and want in the shop when some one is buying you a box of bricks or a puzzle map—the kind of toys you never get because they are so expensive.
Matilda had tea with the King. He was full of true politeness and treated Matilda exactly as though she had been grown up—so that she was extremely happy and behaved beautifully.
The King told her all his troubles.
“You see,” he began, “what a pretty place my Green Land was once. It has points even now. But things aren’t what they used to be. It’s that bird, that Cockatoucan. We daren’t kill it or give it away. And every time it laughs something changes. Look at my Prime Minister. He was a six-foot man. And look at him now. I could lift him with one hand. And then your poor maid. It’s all that bad bird.”
“Why does it laugh?” asked Matilda.
“I can’t think,” said the King; “I can’t see anything to laugh at.”
“Can’t you give it lessons, or something nasty to make it miserable?”
“I have, I do, I assure you, my dear child. The lessons that bird has to swallow would choke a Professor.”
“Does it eat anything else besides lessons?”
“Christmas pudding. But there—what’s the use of talking—that bird would laugh if it were fed on dog-biscuits.”
His Majesty sighed and passed the buttered toast.
“You can’t possibly,” he went on, “have any idea of the kind of things that happen. That bird laughed one day at a Cabinet Council, and all my ministers turned into little boys in yellow socks. And we can’t get any laws made till they come right again. It’s not their fault, and I must keep their situations open for them, of course, poor things.”
“Of course,” said Matilda.
“There was a Dragon, now,” said the King. “When he came I offered the Princess’s hand and half my kingdom to any one who would kill him. It’s an offer that is always made, you know.”
“Yes,” said Matilda.
“Well, a really respectable young Prince came along, and every one turned out to see him fight the Dragon. As much as ninepence each was paid for the front seats, I assure you. The trumpet sounded and the Dragon came hurrying up. A trumpet is like a dinner-bell to a Dragon, you know. And the Prince drew his bright sword and we all shouted, and then that wretched bird laughed and the Dragon turned into a pussy-cat, and the Prince killed it before he could stop himself. The populace was furious.”
“What happened then?” asked Matilda.
“Well, I did what I could. I said, ‘You shall marry the Princess just the same.’ So I brought the Prince home, and when we got there the Cockatoucan had just been laughing again, and the Princess had turned into a very old German governess. The Prince went home in a great hurry and an awful temper. The Princess was all right in a day or two. These are trying times, my dear.”
“I am so sorry for you,” said Matilda, going on with the preserved ginger.
“Well you may be,” said the miserable Monarch; “but if I were to try to tell you all that that bird has brought on my poor kingdom I should keep you up till long past your proper bedtime.”
“I don’t mind,” said Matilda kindly. “Do tell me some more.”
“Why,” the King went on, growing now more agitated, “why, at one titter from that revolting bird the long row of ancestors on my Palace wall grew red-faced and vulgar; they began to drop their H’s and to assert that their name was Smith from Clapham Junction.”
“How dreadful!”
“And once,” said the King in a whimper, “it laughed so loudly that two Sundays came together and next Thursday got lost, and went prowling away and hid itself on the other side of Christmas.”
“And now,” he said suddenly, “it’s bedtime.”
“Must I go?” asked Matilda.
“Yes please,” said the King. “I tell all strangers this tragic story because I always feel that perhaps some stranger might be clever enough to help me. You seem a very nice little girl. Do you think you are clever?”
It is very nice even to be asked if you are clever. Your Aunt Willoughby knows well enough that you are not. But kings do say nice things. Matilda was very pleased.
“I don’t think I am clever,” she was saying quite honestly, when suddenly the sound of a hoarse laugh rang through the banqueting hall. Matilda put her hands to her head.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, “I