The Little Lame Prince by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger
THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
By Miss Mulock [Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik]
CONTENTS
THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE THE INVISIBLE PRINCE PRINCE CHERRY THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE THE FROG-PRINCE CLEVER ALICE
THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
CHAPTER I
Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born.
Of course, being a prince, people said this; but it was true besides.When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnestinquiry quite startling in a new born baby. His nose--there was notmuch of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape;his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round and fat,straight-limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody wasexceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King andQueen of Nomansland, who had waited for him during their happy reign often years--now made happier than ever, to themselves and their subjects,by the appearance of a son and heir.
The only person who was not quite happy was the King's brother, theheir presumptive, who would have been king one day had the baby not beenborn. But as his majesty was very kind to him, and even rather sorry forhim--insomuch that at the Queen's request he gave him a dukedom almostas big as a county--the Crown-Prince, as he was called, tried to seempleased also; and let us hope he succeeded.
The Prince's christening was to be a grand affair. According to thecustom of the country, there were chosen for him four-and-twentygod-fathers and godmothers, who each had to give him a name, and promiseto do their utmost for him. When he came of age, he himself had tochoose the name--and the godfather or god-mother--that he liked thebest, for the rest of his days.
Meantime all was rejoicing. Subscriptions were made among the rich togive pleasure to the poor; dinners in town-halls for the workingmen;tea-parties in the streets for their wives; and milk-and-bun feasts forthe children in the schoolrooms. For Nomansland, though I cannot pointit out in any map, or read of it in any history, was, I believe, muchlike our own or many another country.
As for the palace--which was no different from other palaces--it wasclean "turned out of the windows," as people say, with the preparationsgoing on. The only quiet place in it was the room which, though thePrince was six weeks old, his mother the Queen had never quitted. Nobodysaid she was ill, however--it would have been so inconvenient; and asshe said nothing about it herself, but lay pale and placid, giving notrouble to anybody, nobody thought much about her. All the world wasabsorbed in admiring the baby.
The christening-day came at last, and it was as lovely as the Princehimself. All the people in the palace were lovely too--or thoughtthemselves so--in the elegant new clothes which the Queen, who thoughtof everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waitingdown to the poor little kitchen-maid, who looked at herself in her pinkcotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a prettygirl as she.
By six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself inits very best; and then the little Prince was dressed in his best--hismagnificent christening robe; which proceeding his Royal Highness didnot like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. When hehad a little calmed down, they carried him to be looked at by the Queenhis mother, who, though her royal robes had been brought and laid uponthe bed, was, as everybody well knew, quite unable to rise and put themon.
She admired her baby very much; kissed and blessed him, and lay lookingat him, as she did for hours sometimes, when he was placed beside herfast asleep; then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and, saying shehoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice christening,and all the guests would enjoy themselves, turned peacefully over onher bed, saying nothing more to anybody. She was a very uncomplainingperson, the Queen--and her name was Dolorez.
Everything went on exactly as if she had been present. All, even theking himself, had grown used to her absence; for she was not strong,and for years had not joined in any gayeties. She always did her royalduties, but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, orit seemed so. The company arrived: great and notable persons in thisand neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers andgodmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would bemost useful to his royal highness should he ever want friends, which didnot seem likely. What such want could possibly happen to the heir of thepowerful monarch of Nomansland?
They came, walking two and two, with their coronets on theirheads--being dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, or the like;they all kissed the child and pronounced the name each had given him.Then the four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy bysix heralds, one after the other, and afterward written down, to bepreserved in the state records, in readiness for the next time they werewanted, which would be either on his Royal Highness' coronation or hisfuneral.
Soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps,the little Prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christeningrobes, which nearly smothered him.
In truth, though very few knew, the Prince in coming to the chapel hadmet with a slight disaster. His nurse,--not his ordinary one, but thestate nurse-maid,--an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whoseduty it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupiedin arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby withthe other, that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of themarble staircase.
To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute; and theaccident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. Consequentlynobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale, but did notcry, so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong;afterward, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enoughto drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let anything troublesuch a day of felicity.
So, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. Such aprocession t Heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; anda troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers,which they strewed all the way before the nurse and child--finally thefour-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as possible, and sosplendid to look at that they would have quite extinguished their smallgodson--merely a heap of lace and muslin with a baby face inside--had itnot been for a canopy of white satin and ostrich feathers which was heldover him wherever he was carried.
Thus, with the sun shining on them through the painted windows, theystood; the king and his train on one side, the Prince and his attendantson the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.
"It's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest little girl to the nexteldest, as she shook the last rose out of her basket; "and I think theonly thing the Prince wants now is a fairy god-mother."
"Does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice behind; andthere was seen among the group of children somebody,--not a child, yetno bigger than a child,--somebody whom nobody had seen before, and whocertainly had not been invited, for she had no christening clothes on.
She was a little old woman dressed all in gray: gray gown; grayhooded cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemedperpetually changing, like the gray of an evening sky. Her hair wasgray, and her eyes also--even her complexion had a soft gray shadow overit. But there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile wasas sweet and childlike as the Prince's own, which stole over his palelittle face the instant she came near enough to touch him.
"Take care! Don't let the baby fall again."
The grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily.
"Who spoke to me? How did anybody know?--I mean, what business hasanybody
"Nevertheless I must kiss him. I am his god-mother."
"You!" cried the elegant lady nurse.
"You!" repeated all the gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting.
"You!" echoed the heralds and pages--and they began to blow the silvertrumpets in order to stop all further conversation.
The Prince's procession formed itself for returning,--the King and histrain having already moved off toward the palace,--but on the top-moststep of the marble stairs stood, right in front of all, the little oldwoman clothed in gray.
She stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave thelittle Prince three kisses.
"This is intolerable!" cried the young lady nurse, wiping the kissesoff rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "Such an insult to his RoyalHighness! Take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the King shall beinformed immediately."
"The King knows nothing of me, more's the pity," replied the old woman,with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss was more on hisMajesty's side than hers. "My friend in the palace is the King's wife."
"King's have not wives, but queens," said the lady nurse, with acontemptuous air.
"You are right," replied the old woman. "Nevertheless I know her Majestywell, and I love her and her child. And--since you dropped him on themarble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper, which made theyoung lady tremble in spite of her anger)--I choose to take him for myown, and be his godmother, ready to help him whenever he wants me."
"You help him!" cried all the group breaking into shouts of laughter,to which the little old woman paid not the slightest attention. Her softgray eyes were fixed on the Prince, who seemed to answer to the look,smiling again and again in the causeless, aimless fashion that babies dosmile.
"His Majesty must hear of this," said a gentleman-in-waiting.
"His Majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or two," saidthe old woman sadly. And again stretching up to the little Prince, shekissed him on the forehead solemnly.
"Be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. Be PrinceDolor, in memory of your mother Dolorez."
"In memory of!" Everybody started at the ominous phrase, and also at amost terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had committed.In Nomansland, neither the king nor the queen was supposed to have anyChristian name at all. They dropped it on their coronation day, and itnever was mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins whenthey died.
"Old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the eldestlady-in-waiting, much horrified. "How you could know the fact passesmy comprehension. But even if you did know it, how dared you presume tohint that her most gracious Majesty is called Dolorez?"
"WAS called Dolorez," said the old woman, with a tender solemnity.
The first gentleman, called the Gold-stick-in-waiting, raised it tostrike her, and all the rest stretched out their hands to seize her; butthe gray mantle melted from between their fingers like air; and, beforeanybody had time to do anything more, there came a heavy, muffled,startling sound.
The great bell of the palace the bell which was only heard on the deathof some one of the royal family, and for as many times as he or she wasyears old--began to toll. They listened, mute and horror-stricken. Someone counted: one--two--three--four--up to nine-and-twenty--just theQueen's age.
It was, indeed, the Queen. Her Majesty was dead! In the midst of thefestivities she had slipped away out of her new happiness and her oldsufferings, not few nor small. Sending away all her women to see thegrand sight,--at least they said afterward, in excuse, that she had doneso, and it was very like her to do it,--she had turned with her faceto the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distantmountains--the Beautiful Mountains, as they were called--where she wasborn. So gazing, she had quietly died.
When the little Prince was carried back to his mother's room, there wasno mother to kiss him. And, though he did not know it, there would befor him no mother's kiss any more. As for his godmother,--the little oldwoman in gray who called herself so,--whether she melted into air, likeher gown when they touched it, or whether she flew out of the chapelwindow, or slipped through the doorway among the bewildered crowd,nobody knew--nobody ever thought about her.
Only the nurse, the ordinary homely one, coming out of the Prince'snursery in the middle of the night in search of a cordial to quiet hiscontinual moans, saw, sitting in the doorway, something which she wouldhave thought a mere shadow, had she not seen shining out of it two eyes,gray and soft and sweet. She put her hand before her own, screamingloudly. When she took them away the old woman was gone.