Day 25 - The Duke's Diary

Dear Diary,

What a day! What a night! And again, what a day! He did it again. The king never seems to realize the time it takes to accomplish his commands. As usual, he got a bee in his crown and decided something needed to be done about it right now. It's the prince again. His nibs is never satisfied with what the poor boy does. And yesterday morning he decided the prince must marry and must marry right away.

Image by Jane's Jubilee, via Flickr

I shall never understand why he is so hard on the prince. First he gives the boy anything he asks for, and even some things he hadn't asked for.  Then he tells the boy he must not settle for less than the best, and since the king's past actions have brought the boy fine tastes indeed, that set him off on a search for the best in everything: the best clothes, the best music, the best food, the best education, and he set out to become the best musician, the best sportsman, the best cook. No wonder he hasn't had time to look for a suitable companion.

Then his nibs gets it into his head the the prince is spending too much time on all these "hobbies" as he calls them. He says the boy is frittering away his time, wasting his energy when what he should be doing is settling down and starting a family.

So yesterday morning, the king tells me he will wait no longer. The prince must marry and if that means he, the king, must bring every eligible girl in the kingdom for the prince to choose from, well, then, that is what he - and by this, of couse he means me - will do.

"Arrange a ball for tonight, and invite every eligible girl from the kingdom to meet the prince," he says to me, with a flourish of his arm as if there were a wand attached that would make it so.

Does he think I'm clairvoyant and have the invitations sitting in a closet? Oh nooooo, I have to get them printed, the envelopes addressed, and then dragoon all the courtiers into getting them delivered to every home in the land. What a lot of favors I am going to have to pay back for getting that lot to help! Still, the really clever ones realized that a handful of invitations itself was an opportunity to hand out some favors of their own. Not every eligible young lady has a ball gown in the closet for such an event, so a more timely delivered invitation could give one young thing an advantage over a rival as the number of seamstresses in the land is limited.

Getting the ballroom ready was the least of my troubles, of course, as we have had plenty of practice keeping it spotless for just such last minute events. The kitchen staff also always come through to produce just enough nibbles to give the impression of sumptuousness, especially since it was clear that none of the ladies were likely to indulge as it might risk spoiling their make up or whatever finery they could put together at such short notice.

Image by disneyandy, via Flickr

The ballroom was quite a sight last evening. Every eligible girl in the kingdom must have been there, although some who were eligible no longer were young. Yet each one was presented to both the king and the prince. The prince truly was a prince, greeting each hopeful girl graciously, keeping each one's hopes high. But then, with about a quarter of the eligibles still in line, the prince bolted across the room and took the arm of a young lady who hadn't yet been presented, and he kept her away from the king for the rest of the evening.

I convinced those still in line to gather in an adjoining room where I promised them the prince would return to meet them shortly for a more private introduction. I could see their eyes light up as they considered the advantage of such an introduction, and all at once the race was on. While they pushed and shoved one another to get through the door, I rounded up one of the palace footman who is about the same height, build, and coloring as the prince, and I got him into one of the prince's uniforms to be his stand-in.

Tho eligibles still in the main ballroom were content, if that word could ever be appropriate, to eye one another jealously, speculating on who were their most serious rivals. As the last of the ladies in the adjoining room rejoined the others in the main ballroom, just after midnight, the prince reappeared, alone, thus unwittingly ensuring my charade with the footman succeeded. As the crowd thinned and the eligibles left, the prince told his father that he had found the woman he wished to marry, sending the old man to blissful dreams. But to me, the prince announced that he didn't know who she was or where she lived, turning my dreams into nightmares. All he had was one of her shoes which had fallen off as she ran away to her carriage.

Image by Loren Javier, via Flickr

This morning, when the king asked the prince about the girl, he was furious, of course, and demanded that I find the girl - or any girl - whose foot fit into the shoe. The first girl whose foot fit into the shoe would marry the prince.

This time there was nothing I could task the courtiers with doing. There weren't hundred of invitations to be delivered, but rather a single shoe to be tried on by hundreds of eligibles. How I wished the shoe were of a less unique design! There was no way for me to avoid handling this task myself. I kept going with the hope that the shoe was a common size. The king didn't demand that I find the girl. He only demanded that I find a girl.

And I did find her. The girl. If only I had the courage to tell her, to warn her, of what a life she is getting herself into. Oh, the prince - he's fine. But she won't be marrying just the prince; she'll be joined to the whole family - the prince, the king, the courtiers, all of us. She doesn't know the half of that old saying, if the shoe fits, wear it.