“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 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?”
“He came long after the last of the princes, although not before the last of the dancing. He would never have come, but he met an old woman on the road. An old woman, bent under a burden of firewood and kindling. He offered to carry it and she let him. And when the wood was set down at the old woman’s house she thanked him and asked him his plans.
“ ‘I’m out to seek my fortune,’ said he.
“ ‘There’s a fortune at the palace,’ the old woman said, ‘for anyone that can solve a mystery.’ Then she told him the tale of the twelve dancing princesses and the shoes worn to rags and holes by morning, and the King offering a princess and the rule of the country to anyone who could tell him how it happened. And the soldier said, ‘That’ll do me!’
“ ‘Well,’ said the old woman, ‘you helped me, and now I’ll help you. So listen! When you reach the palace and you’re shut in for the night, in the princesses’ bedroom . . . if they let you try . . . if you dare . . .’
“ ‘They’ll let me,’ said the soldier. ‘I’ve a way with words. And of course I dare. What have I got to lose?’
“ ‘Your noddle,’ said the old woman.
“ ‘It’ll not come to that,’ said the soldier.
“ ‘Not if you do as I tell you,’ said the old woman. ‘Now remember this! Eat nothing, drink nothing, and wear the gift I give you!’
“And then the old woman took from a chest a thin, gray cloak and she gave it to the soldier because he’d carried the firewood home.”
“And that night did the soldier get locked in the room with you and the other princesses?” asked Violet.
“He did.”
“And did you give him honey cakes, like each time before?”
“We did, but we found out afterward that he hid them all under his hat.”
“But you gave him hot spiced wine?”
“We did, but we found out afterward that he poured it away into his boots.”
“And then what?”
“And then he lay back on his white down pillows and closed his eyes. Solid as a tree trunk and snoring like a porker and he never moved nor blinked, even when we poked him. Fast asleep, we thought. So then . . .”
“What? What?”
“Off with our nightgowns, and on with the silks and taffetas! Velvet and damask and lace like foam! Buttoned gloves, coral beads, pearl rings, diamond bracelets! Perfumes, powders, gilt tiaras and satin dancing shoes!”
“We piled onto the middle bed, all of us in a heap . . . and then, Whoosh!”
“Whoosh?”
“Down through the floor it sank . . .”
“The bed sank?”
Her mother nodded.
“And in a moment, less than a moment, we had reached the avenues of silver trees and golden trees and diamond trees that led down to the lakeside.”
“All that was under the bed?”
“It was. A whole glittering kingdom!”
“Every night?”
“That’s right. There was a lot more magic about in those days, don’t forget!”
“And nobody knew about it all except you?”
“Nobody knew about it but me and my sisters. Not till that night.”
“Oh!” said Violet. “I’d forgotten the soldier!”
“I hadn’t!” said her mother. “Not then. Not ever. Anyway . . .”
“Whoosh! went the bed,” prompted Violet, “and down you all went to the avenues of silver and gold and diamond trees!”
“Yes, and we set off, just as we did every night, under the silver trees, and Lilian said suddenly, ‘What was that?’
“ ‘I heard a leaf plucked,’ said Lilian. ‘Right behind me!’
“Lilian was always a girl to jump at shadows, and there was nothing behind her—we looked. So on we went, hurrying. And under the golden trees Lilian started again, ‘What was that?’
“ ‘What was what?’ we asked her.
“ ‘I heard a flower picked,’ she said. ‘Right behind me!’
“But there was nothing and we told her so, and we left the golden trees behind us, and there was the diamond avenue leading down to the water, every leaf and branch shining, and Lilian stopped and spun around.
“ ‘I heard a twig snapped!’ said she. ‘Right behind me!’
“Well, we hadn’t heard it, but to please her we looked along the avenues and among the trees and we couldn’t see anything but sparkles and shadows.
“ ‘Someone is following us, I’m sure they are!’ said Lilian, clutching my hand.
“It was just then that I heard a swish, like a cloak might swish, and I thought perhaps she was right. But still there was no one to be seen and the others were hurrying down to the lakeside, and so we hurried too. We could see the boats by then.”
“What boats?” asked Violet.
“The twelve little boats like seashells that waited by the lakeside to carry us over the water.”
“To the castle in the middle where the dancing was. Even from the lakeside you could hear the violins and trumpets and the flutes and drums. And there were rockets whizzing up and reflecting on the water and a warm smell of spices and perfumes and lilies, but that wasn’t why my sisters started running.”
“Why did they, then?”
“Because in each of those boats, except the one at the end, sat a prince!”
“Not the noddled-off princes?” exclaimed Violet.
“The very same! With not a hair harmed. Waving and smiling and nodding their heads, and waiting to row them across to the palace, just as they did every night!”
“Oh, how wonderful!” said Violet.
“I told you,” said her mother, smiling over the ironing, “there was a lot more magic in those days!”
“But . . . ,” began Violet. “But . . . ,” she said, hastily choosing from a hundred questions. “But Mother, who rowed you?”
“I rowed myself,” said her mother. “But Violet, my boat weighed extra heavy that night!”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“And when you reached the island, did you dance all night?”
“And then you went home?”
“That’s right.”
“How?”
“Same way as we got there.”
“And the soldier?” asked Violet. “What happened to the soldier?”
“He was fast asleep when we got back! Fast asleep and snoring, with his cloak hanging over the end of his bed, all wet about the hem.”
“All wet about the hem?”
“As if it had trailed in water.”
“Had it?”
“Ah!”
“And was Grandfather angry in the morning?”
“Raging. But still we went again the next night.”
“Leaving the soldier snoring, just like before?”
“Just like before.”
“And Lilian?” wondered Violet.
“Yes, Lilian! She heard footsteps under the trees, she said.”
“But nobody was there?”
“Weren’t they? The princes were there. And that night, when I climbed into my boat, a voice said, ‘Leave the oars and close your eyes!’ And we shot across the water to the castle!”