A Pearl Among Princes Read online

  I move fast toward him until the tip of my dirt-covered spade nearly grazes his fat dimpled chin. “Then I suggest you never desire me, sir.”

  “Gracepearl!” The sound of Nuff’s call pierces the air. “Gracepearl! Where are you?” Nuff’s voice grows closer, rising up from the berry patches. “Come! Quickly!”

  I run toward Nuff, thinking briefly that I should take the baskets along, Father will be needing them, but they are heavy and would weigh me down. I’ll return for them in a moment when hopefully the egg boy will be gone.

  There are streams of tears running down Nuff’s cheeks, her brown eyes brimming with some sad story like cups of tea waiting to be poured.

  “Oh, Gracepearl, I’m sorry,” Nuff sobs, clutching me tightly to her chest.

  I pull away so I can see her face. “What, Nuff, what?”

  Nuff’s mouth contorts. She sobs and gulps and sobs again. “It’s your father. Good Cook. It’s his heart.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Hospital

  It’s raining, it’s pouring.

  The old man is snoring.

  He went to bed

  Where he bumped his head,

  And he didn’t get up till morning.

  Thorns scratch and sting my legs as I race through the raspberry bushes. Later I’ll tend to the cuts, this moment all that matters is Father. My heart throbbing, mind screaming, I run. Hold on, Father, I’m coming.

  Reaching the dining hall, I storm into the kitchen. Father’s workers look toward me with mournful glances.

  “They’ve taken him to hospital,” Nora Baker shouts, her fat freckled arms sunk deep in dough. “Wher’ve ya been, ya goosey girl? Go!”

  Nora’s words cut me even though I know she doesn’t mean to be cruel. Father always says it’s just Nora’s hard way, like bread left too long in the oven.

  I tear across the field and up the road to the hospital, a dreary grim building I’ve not been to since I pulled the top off a double-decker pot and boiling steam burned my neck. A good salve took the pain away, but not the memory. I am no fan of cooking pots.

  Heart pounding, body sweating, I reach the entrance and push open the heavy wooden door, nearly knocking down Captain Jessie Tru, on the other side.

  “Oh, sorry, sir,” I say, catching my breath.

  “Grace,” he says, bowing forward in a sweetly chivalrous manner. Rising up he looks in my eyes, his face soft with emotion as if he knows me, and yet we’ve never met. How does he know my name?

  No time for small talk. “Are you okay, sir? Here, sit for a moment.” I motion him toward a bench.

  “Yer like a gale force, you are,” he says with a laugh that deepens the wrinkles on his wind-battered face. He coughs a deep garrulous cough.

  “Are you sick, Captain Jessie?” I say. “You’ve only just arrived and . . .”

  “Bit of a toe fungus is all,” he says, raising his left boot. “Nature of the job. Some days ya just can’t get dry at sea.”

  I nod as if I understand and then, assured he’s all right, I set off to find my father.

  There is no one at the front desk. I start down the hall, ducking my head in first one, then another, then a third room. “Father!” I race to his bedside.

  His eyes are closed but his thick chest moves up and down as he snores.

  “Thank heavens.” I wrap my arms about him and let the sobs come.

  A nurse comes into the room. “Shhhh,” she admonishes, finger stamping her tight pinched lips. She motions for me to join her in the hallway.

  There is a wool blanket at the base of Father’s bed. I pull it up over him to keep him warm. “Be right back,” I whisper, kissing his cheek.

  Out in the hall I say, “I’m Cook’s daughter, Grace- pearl.”

  “Yes,” says the nurse coldly.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “A heart attack,” she says, sallow-faced and bird thin as if she hasn’t had a good meal in years.

  “How can that be? He was fine this morning.”

  “I am not the doctor, miss. You may speak with Dr. Jeffers when he makes his evening rounds, but I would say it has something to do with your father’s . . . fondness for food.” She shakes her head disapprovingly. “He’s got more blubber than the whales that used to fuel every lamp on Mira—”

  “How dare you speak of my father like that!” My face flushes hot. “What is your name? I’ll have you reported . . .”

  “Nurse Hartling,” she says with a sniff, adjusting her starched white cap. “And my apologies, miss, but you would do well to put your father on a diet.”

  I resist the urge to slap this brazen bird. I take a breath and let it out slowly, the temper-taming trick Father taught me. “Will he be all right, Nurse?”

  “That’s for Doctor to judge,” Nurse Hartling says, checking her watch, “but he’s been resting with ease for some two to three hours now, with no further round of pain, and that is generally a good sign.”

  Dear Father has been lying in this hospital bed for three hours while I was sparring with fool Humpty in the garden? My throat clenches. I gulp back tears. “May I stay with him?”

  “It’s best you let him sleep,” the pinch-nosed nurse says. “He should not move or try to speak or be troubled by any . . . emotional outbursts from visitors. The longer he rests, the better he will be.”

  “Very well, then. I thank you, Nurse Hartling, for the fine care I know you will bestow upon my father.” That’s another good lesson I learned from Father, a bit of honey can sweeten the bitterest tea.

  I pause at the doorway. I touch my fingers to my lips and blow a kiss to my father, speaking silent words of love I am certain he can hear.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mackree, My Heart

  The man in the wilderness asked of me

  How many strawberries grew in the sea

  I answered him as I thought good

  As many as red herrings grow in the wood.

  Although duty calls me to retrieve the baskets from the gardens and take my post in the kitchen, my heart leads me elsewhere.

  I walk briskly past the stone-cold chapel with its ornately carved doors, incense, and stained-glass windows—that place never held much joy for me—then up the hill to the forest and a certain well-worn path.

  Into the woods I step. It is cool and quiet here. Closing my eyes, I take a long deep breath of my favorite scent, that comforting nurturing spicy aroma. Pine.

  Hmmmm. A memory. It was late November, I was six or seven. Mother and I had filled a burlap sack full of pine needles. Back at the cottage, first checking that Father was still away, Mother helped me cut two rectangles from a piece of red velvet cloth. She turned the pieces so that the lining faced outward and then she showed me how to make a row of stitches an inch in from the edge, down one of the long sides of the rectangle, across one of the short ends, then up the other long side. I was sewing!

  We turned the material inside out again and then filled the hollow space with pine needles, stuff-stuff-stuffing them down into the corners until I had a plump pillow in my hands. Next, Mother showed me a more difficult, prettier stitch for closing up the opening, then helped me sew “Merry Christmas” in thick green thread against the red.

  Oh, how delighted Father was that holiday morning, so proud of my artistry. “The best gifts are the ones you make,” he said.

  And all these years later, even though it is a seasonal item that might just as well be tossed into the holiday box with the candles, bells, and decorations, that little red pillow rests atop Father’s own sleeping pillow and it still smells of pine—the ever-growing, ever-green tree. I think of the branches of the Royal Order. Why is there no House of Pine? I must ask Father about that.

  Deeper into the forest I walk, the path less trodden now. I stop by an oak tree and stoop to pick up an acorn, smiling at the tiny brown face with the pointed cap. Another memory comes. Mother and I had finished a forest picnic and I began collecting acorns in our empty basket.
Mother found two sharp-edged stones and we etched eyes, a nose, and a smile onto each acorn’s face. We gathered wildflowers on our way home. Later, we crushed goldenrod to make yellow, cornflowers for blue, poppies for red, and then we painted the acorn people’s caps. I set them on the windowsill to dry.

  Father roared with laughter when he saw them. “What a nutty little family,” he said. After dinner, Father took out his fiddle and he played a jig, and Mother and I danced. After a bit, Father set the fiddle down and joined us circling about the room, so happy, the three of us. Whee!

  Now Mother is gone. Please, not Father too. Please, God, don’t let Father die. Oh, Mother, how I wish you were here.

  I pass the kettle pond where Mackree and I first held hands. Mackree, my heart. My chest clenches at the thought of him. I walk between two birch trees, by the brambleberries, part the thicket of heavy branches that swing back like doors behind me, and now, at last, I am here. My secret sanctuary. My place of peace. And though I have no memory of having ever been here with my mother, I feel her in the soft pale-green moss, in the grace of the filigreed fern, in the giggling of the leaves, in the sunlight dappling down through spaces in the pine green canopy to gently warm my face.

  “Mother,” I cry as I drop to my knees. “Please say Father will live. Please, Mother, talk to me.”

  Only silence.

  I wipe my face on my skirt, blow my nose on my sleeve. I lie back on the soft moss carpet and stare up at the leafy dome. Worried thoughts and garbled notions muddle my mind. I try to send them off like waves from the shore so I can hear Mother’s reply. I am certain she will answer me.

  I close my eyes.

  Soon I see the faces. People, young and old. Their troubled eyes search mine “What can I do?” I ask. Now I see myself standing on the beach. I am stepping onto a boat. A voice calls out. It sounds like “Pearl.” But the wind is strong. I cannot tell who it is. The boat rocks. I sit quickly so I won’t fall. A wave slaps high and sprays my face . . .

  “Pearl.” The voice calls out to me again.

  A boy’s voice. I know that voice. Someone shakes my arm. I open my eyes.

  “Mackree!” His name escapes with a squeal of glee. How wonderful. Can this be true or is this still the dream?

  “Pearl,” he says. “Are you okay?” His rich brown hair hangs so long now it nearly covers his eyes. I brush away the bangs so I can peer into those deep dark violet pools. My heart fills to near bursting with joy. Mackree, pronounced “muh-kree.” Mother said that in an old language mo chroi meant my heart. Mackree, my heart, indeed.

  Mackree flinches as though my touch burns his forehead. He shakes his hair till it covers his eyes again. He turns from me.

  “Just checkin’ you were all right,” he says. “I heard about Cook.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I’m so glad you came. But how did you find me?” I sit up. “I didn’t know anyone knew of this place.”

  Mackree looks quickly at me and then away. “I know all about you, Pearl.”

  I smile. Pearl. Mackree’s the only one who calls me just Pearl. I stand and brush the moss and pine needles from my skirt. Joy rises within me. “I’m so glad you’re here. How are you? What have you been up to these—”

  “If you’re okay,” he says curtly, “I’m off.”

  “No, Mackree. Wait. Stay awhile, please?”

  He walks away.

  “Stop, please! I know you still care for me.”

  “And that is why I must go,” he says in barely a whisper.

  “Mackree, why?” A sob escapes.

  He reels around angrily. “Your heart calls you from Miramore, Pearl. You have said it yourself many times of late. All your strange dreams . . . things I can’t fathom. I wonder too about the world beyond the water, but I cannot leave. No princesses coming to Miramore who might be taken with me.”

  I laugh. “Oh, you are wrong,” I say. “You are the handsomest boy on the island.”

  “I have a duty to my family, Pearl, and to the Order.”

  “But what of me?” I say.

  Our eyes lock. My heart pounds

  “I would do anything for you, Pearl. I would give you the world. But the world you want is not mine to give. Only a prince can take you there.”

  “But—”

  “We’re done, Pearl. Leave me be. Find a prince this summer and go quickly. I grow my hair long so I won’t see.”

  Mackree parts the pine branches and is gone.

  “Wait, Mackree, wait!” I shout, running after him.

  But Mackree was always faster than me. When I reach the clearing, he is gone.

  I look up at the sky. The sun hangs low. It must be near dinnertime. Oh no, the vegetables. In Father’s absence, Nora will command the kitchen. Even though she knows Cook’s in the hospital, she’ll still be expecting the vegetables.

  I race up the hill to the garden. Out of breath, panting, I reach the place where I left the baskets. The potatoes are there, but what of the tomatoes? I look up and down the vegetable rows. Finally I spot the basket, there at the far edge of the garden, where the land drops off quickly into cliffs.

  I reach the basket. It’s empty. I look down over the cliff.

  There are the tomatoes, splattered bloody red over the pale sea-burnished rocks. Gulls are swooping down, picking at the feast, trying to beat the tide, which will wash it all away.

  Sir Humbert, it had to have been. “What an evil creature you are,” I shout.

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

  The rhyme taunts loudly in my brain as I race to the kitchen with the potatoes.

  All the king’s horses

  And all the king’s men

  Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

  Or the tomatoes, for that matter.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Welcome Banquet

  Sing a song of sixpence,

  A pocket full of rye,

  Four and twenty blackbirds,

  Baked in a pie;

  When the pie was opened,

  The birds began to sing;

  Wasn’t that a dainty dish

  To set before a king?

  After bearing Nora’s tongue-lashing for being late and tomato-less, I set to peeling a mound of potatoes. When I go to get my cloak at the end of the day, I see one of the other kitchen workers, “Tattlebug” as I call her, as she is forever listening in to conversations and spreading gossip like a flea among dung heaps. She’s standing at the hallway window looking out, giggling. She has my spyglass! Just then Nora calls me urgently and I go to answer her. When I return, Tattlebug is gone, my spyglass back in the pocket of my cloak. So Nell Tinker’s a gossip and now a snitch too.

  After work I hurry home to dress for the banquet. I wash up and put on the emerald green dress Father says matches my eyes. I slip the oyster shell necklace around my neck and weave a green satin ribbon through my hair.

  There. I smile at myself in my mother’s gem-rounded looking glass. Tonight I will be wearing an apron, a kitchen servant, yes, but I may also woo a prince. Surely Father’s service bondage could be lifted now that he is ill. If I become a princess, I will see that he enjoys a life of comfort. He’ll never have to cook again, and neither will I, for that matter. Oatmeal is my best dish, but practice, practice as I’ve tried, it still comes out all sticky clumps, despite the extra sugar lumps.

  Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

  Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old . . .

  That rhyme always makes me smile.

  Spell me that in four letters.

  I will: T-H-A-T

  Before I leave, I step into Father’s empty room. There, on the table by his bed, is the giant purple-rimmed clamshell I gave him as a birthday gift one year when I was little. “A bowl for the ashes from your pipe,” I suggested. He hugged me as if I’d given him a crate full of gold. And now, even though Father stopped smoking right after Mother died and never took it up
again, just like the pine pillow, Father keeps this gift still. Now the clamshell is a candy dish, always filled with something sweet.

  Passing the wooden bookcase by the hearth, I notice one spine jutting out from the rest. It’s the book of history Mother schooled me with. When we read about kings and queens who waged war against one another for power or land, knights with crosses emblazoned on their shields, fighting in the “name of God,” I would get angry and ask Mother how that could be true. I didn’t think God cared about who owned what. Surely God cared more about the peasants lining the roadways, hands outstretched, begging for pity coins or crusts of bread, bowing and curtsying respectfully as royal coaches rumbled by. “That’s right, darling,” Mother would say to me. “You are learning well.”

  I flip through the old book, noting the ripped-out pages, always a curiosity to me. Here’s the section where the branches of the Royal Order are called . . . Oak, Ash, Elm, and so forth . . . the page ripped after the name of the twelfth, then onward random words etched out, leaving holes like rats had nibbled for dinner, more pages gone here and there, and then the last chapter torn out completely. When I would ask Mother about the missing pieces she would wave it off lightly. “It’s of no concern to you, dear daughter. Some history is better off forgotten.”

  As I walk to the royal dining hall, I think about the PITs. How dashing Sir Richard, the soldier prince, smiled at me on the beach. And ponytailed Sir Peter, the pirate prince, how his dark eyes locked with mine. Both beautiful outside, but what of within? Will their inside colors be five-star too? Honesty, integrity, compassion . . .

  Mother said I will have a “choice.” Possibly a choice between two princes? I giggle. Gracepearl, you gallop ahead of yourself.

  Outside the royal hall the heady aroma of food sweeps over me like a sea squall, and as I enter the kitchen the most delicious wave nearly topples me down. I think to save a plate to bring to Father later, but I have a notion that the goat-cheese-stuffed baked chicken, potato soufflé, brandied mushrooms, and such will not be on Cook’s hospital diet tonight. I think of pencil-nosed Nurse Hartling and hope she’s treating Father kindly.