Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower - Tamsyn Muir Page 0,23

got very uncomfortable.

“It shouldn’t have worked,” she said. “That was a one-in-a-million chance. I suppose you were quite brave pulling at the ladder like that.”

But Floralinda just kept repeating,

“You saved me, Cobweb, dear. I should have made you a boy; you were quite as wonderful as a prince.”

And the look in her blue eyes was not altogether a look that any princess had ever had before. It was more the look of a man who lives all alone on an island, and who has just seen a boat being rowed towards him; or, worse, the look of someone who stands in the street and gives you a religious tract. But Cobweb, for all her smartness, did not really know about Looks.

Floralinda was really very biddable after that, possibly from the shock. She was not even ill after her knees started working again. It took quite a lot of doing getting the ladder back on the pegs, and there were a few near misses which might well have meant that they would have had to make their new home on flight thirty-six. But they got it back on after all, and less than fifteen minutes later they were sitting up in front of the warm fire again, with flight forty’s everlasting smell of oranges and coal; and there Floralinda did nothing more aggravating, even to Cobweb’s mind, than sit in a blanket by the fire and take little sips of milk. Even as the sky turned to dusk and Cobweb said things like—

“The moon will soon be up, you know”, all Floralinda did was say a bit vacantly, “How nice!” or, “Really!” in the way people do when they are not listening to you at all.

In fact, Cobweb was altogether relieved when the sunset made the room all orange and gold, and Floralinda grew pensive, as she so often did at sunsets, and said—

“I do wish you wouldn’t leave me, Cobweb.”

“I’m sure I’ll think about you often,” said Cobweb, who hoped entirely otherwise.

“It’s horrible to be thought of,” said Princess Floralinda wearily. “If one does nothing but think of someone, it takes up all the time you could use to do something about them. I wish nobody thought of me, but did a lot for me instead. It’s just like someone else going to the sea-side when you’re not, and sending a card back saying they’re thinking of you; it’s worse than if they weren’t thinking of you at all, and now you have a horrid card that you have to be grateful for. And I have decided that I don’t like being grateful—at—all.”

There was nothing to say on either side after this extraordinary speech.

Floralinda drank her milk and it all filled up back into the flask, and she huddled on the bed as the sun set and the moon began to rise. Cobweb had finished wrapping her heaps of material into little packets by then, and had tied them all together with embroidery floss, and was proud of the effect; when she looked back at Floralinda, Floralinda looked very glum, and Cobweb in turn looked beautiful and irritated.

“I suppose this is goodbye,” said Cobweb.

“I suppose this is,” said Floralinda.

“I’ve resolved to whisper your name into a foxglove first thing I do, rather than make it a middle-man,” said Cobweb, as though it were a great concession. “That means that it’s nearly a sure thing that a daisy will get told; they might even remember up to two of your names. That’s a risk on my part, you know.”

“I’m very grateful, I’m sure,” said Floralinda, falteringly.

“I’m sure it’s also been charming to be a girl, and to learn how you people live,” continued Cobweb, paying no heed, “so perhaps I shall even keep on being one, on alternate Sundays,—until I forget to, that is.”

The room had grown quite dark, except for the coals burning forever in the hearth. The full moon floated up from behind the trees like a great white balloon, very clear and crisp against the sky. It was really a very pretty sight, and Floralinda had the best view of it you could ever possibly have. The evening star twinkled in that navy blue like a very nice-quality diamond, and Cobweb waited before the window looking so beautiful and eager that you couldn’t get a prettier thing to look at in a children’s story-book colour plate. She nearly danced as the full moon rose, so excited was she; and she was so pleased that she was very nearly