And all this because a toad called Gladys had said no.
CHAPTER 6
Mirella
Ostland is an unexpected place. The south of the island is peaceful. It has a string of pretty towns along the coast and the biggest of these, which is called Waterfield, is the capital. In Waterfield you can find everything you can find in London or Dublin — or even in New York. There are the Houses of Parliament and the law courts and theaters and a zoo — and because the town lies by the sea there is a harbor for big boats and a marina for smaller ones.
If one goes farther north toward the center of the island one comes to rich farmland. Here there are orchards and studs for breeding racehorses and beech woods carpeted with bluebells.
But the very north of the country is different. Completely different. There was an earthquake in Ostland many hundreds of thousands of years ago, and it made a deep cleft across the northern tip of the island which cut it off from the rest of the island. On the far side of the cleft the land is rocky and wild and almost empty. At least it is empty of ordinary people and ordinary houses. But in the folds of the dark hills are caves and castles and tunnels, and the people who live there would not be found in any telephone book. This part of the island is only connected to the rest of the island by a narrow bridge across a ravine which is hundreds of feet deep. But even if the bridge were wider and the ravine less deep, the people from the friendly civilized part of Ostland would not have tried to cross it. One of the first things the children of Ostland heard from their nursemaids and their parents was what would happen to a child foolish enough to try and cross the bridge to the north. Sometimes their legs would be torn off and thrown into the ravine, or their eyes would be pecked out. And if they got across there would be all sorts of delightful people waiting for them, ready to turn them into bluebottles or nail them to trees or pull them down into fiery pits.
Although the citizens of Ostland spoke English, they refused to have a monarchy. They didn’t want to have a king and queen ruling over them and bossing them about.
All the same, there was a palace in Waterfield — a big one which was lived in by a royal family called the Montefinos. They had come to the island many years ago, and nobody minded because a palace is a colorful thing to have and it was good for tourists to have something to photograph. There were also a few castles scattered around the south where dukes and princelings spent their time hunting or gardening or playing whist.
Though the Montefinos did not actually rule over the country, they were very grand. They kept their own sentries and bodyguards and had over a hundred servants. They drove about in carriages with their crest on the door, and they waved graciously to the people with their white-gloved hands. They opened bazaars and had their portraits painted and gave balls and rode Thoroughbred horses in the park with their grooms cantering behind them.
The Montefinos had three daughters. Princess Sidony was the eldest, then came Princess Angeline — and a long way behind them came the youngest, Princess Mirella.
Sidony and Angeline were pretty, obedient girls who liked doing all the things that royal people do, but Mirella did not. She was a misfit from the start. Mirella did not look like a princess. Her eyes were black and her hair was straight and her ears stuck out. Mirella would not ride in a closed carriage and wave to the people; she said driving made her sick. She would not have her portrait painted or go and play with children who were “suitable.”
What Mirella was passionate about was animals. Not just cats and dogs and horses but creatures most people hardly know are there. She had made a sanctuary for wood lice and ground beetles and earwigs in a courtyard garden. She kept a plaster of Paris ant nest under her bed, and when the maids tried to remove it she threw a tantrum which echoed through the palace. Her dog was not a beautiful saluki like the dog that was photographed with Princess Sidony, or a perfectly groomed Afghan like the dog owned by Angeline — it was a stray she had made her bodyguards pick up on the way to the dentist: a rough-coated mongrel with a funny eye. She called it Squinter and her mother shuddered whenever she caught sight of it.
And she had a passion for birds. While she was still in her pram she had looked for hours at the starlings and sparrows and chaffinches that came close. By the time she was seven there was hardly a bird she did not recognize, and when her nursemaid took her down to the harbor, the little girl couldn’t take her eyes off the gulls and terns and gannets wheeling over the water.
“They’re so white,” she said to the nurse.
One of the things that royal families like very much is having weddings, and on the day she was eighteen, Sidony got engaged to Prince Tomas, who lived in a slightly smaller palace along the coast.
He was a very uninteresting young man who lived for his stamp collection, but both families were pleased, and a great wedding was planned to take place in Waterfield Cathedral.
“You’re going to be one of the bridesmaids, dear,” her mother told Mirella.
“Do I have to be?” asked Mirella, which upset her mother because surely all normal little girls want nothing more than to go down the aisle in a pretty dress.
The wedding was incredibly grand. The church was decorated with a thousand pink roses and Sidony wore a cream gown with a nine-foot train. Mirella’s dress was embroidered all over with tiny pink rosebuds.
“You’re going to look so sweet, my darling,” said her mother.
“No, I’m not,” said Mirella. “I’m going to look like an escaped measles rash.”
But everything went off pretty well except the usual things — an usher being sick on the best man’s shoe, a mouse in the trifle…
After that Mirella had two years of peace, during which she set up a freshwater aquarium with nesting sticklebacks and tamed a jackdaw which had fallen down the chimney — and then Angeline got engaged to the only other prince in Ostland: a weedy young man who sucked peppermints all day long because he worried about his breath, and Mirella had to be a bridesmaid once again.
This time the wedding was even grander. The bride carried a huge bouquet of hyacinths, which matched her eyes, and the bridesmaids wore silver dresses covered in glittering sequins.
“Like fish,” said Mirella.
But she was fond of fish and behaved well.
Once again there were a couple of years of peace — and then Mirella’s parents started to worry. Because the supply of princes in Ostland had now run out, so where were they to find a husband for their youngest daughter?
“Of course she’s only a child,” said her mother. “She can’t marry for years, but we’ve got to make sure there’s someone ready for her when the time comes.”
So Mirella’s parents went prince hunting in Europe. After many disappointments they found the Crown Prince of Amora, a small country between Italy and France, and the prince was invited to Waterfield to come and look Mirella over.
The visit was not a success. Prince Umberto arrived a day before he was expected, and instead of finding Mirella in her best dress with her hair curled, he found her in overalls cleaning out her stickleback tank. Her hair was screwed up in two rubber bands, and there was waterweed all down her front.