Jack and Jill Revisited (The Uncrowning of Prince Jack)
© 1992 Lorne Laliberte
When I wakened, and found myself at the bottom of the hill, I turned upon my fiancee and struck him square upon the head. "Fool!" I called him, and wondered how on Earth I could free us from this new predicament. Which, of course, was most entirely his fault.
We'd been on a walk, and suddenly he'd pulled at my arm and started to run. At first, when he headed for the bushes, I fancied that he was feeling romantic, but then I saw old Brimbsley walking near the trees, laden with buckets and bending with the burden. It would have been fair for my Prince to pommel the aged servant and tell him to hurry up with his work, but Jack has no sense of proper behavior for one of his station, and he actually started helping Brimbsley along.
"Whoa, Brimbsley," said Jack, and as I stood watching in revulsion he added, "where are you going, friend?" I fumed; he stubbornly refused to use the proper `thou,' and instead was speaking like a Common.
The old man straightened his back as best he could and smiled. "Your-mother-the-Queen sent me for fresh water, my lord. For her bath."
"She would!" Jack said, and his tone lacked respect for speaking of the Queen, I thought. "You wait here, Brimbsley, and rest in the shade. I'll fetch you some water!"
I stared, which wasn't at all proper, but the situation seemed to heed such unmaidenly behavior. "Jack! You promised!"
He already had the buckets in his hands, and was moving away. "No, Jillian. I said I'd let my servants perform their duties; I never said I would stop helping them."
Even that was an improvement, I knew, from forbidding them doing their chores at all. But it wasn't enough. "You know you're not allowed to do such labor."
"Who's to stop me? A prince should be able to do as he wishes," Jack said, without turning to look at me. "Are you coming?"
I hiked up my gown and ran after my troubling husband-to-be. "What if someone should see us?" I asked.
"Who?" Jack said, and this time he did turn to see me. "Jillian, there's no one around." And he kissed me, smiled, and started off again.
He was a very unusual Prince, not at all like his sophisticated mother, Her Majesty herself. The Queen had told me, in one of our intimate discussions of her son, that the late King had acted the same way until she straightened him out. It was that way with many Kings, she'd said; they wore the mark of royalty on their heads since they were boys, but acted like brutes until they were married. It was the very reason there were Queens in the world. I look forward to becoming Queen, but it won't be easy to straighten out my Jack, I thought, as I followed beside him and listened to him whistle.
"What are you whistling?" I asked, for I have taken countless lessons in music but had never heard that tune.
"One of the servants was singing it," said Jack, and laughed. "It's very funny:
To fight in the gut'er, me sorry friends,
Needs-me a space in the street,
But t' romp with you, me lovely lass,
I'll meet you 'tween the sheets,
And teach you how t' -"
"Jack!" I said, and he winked and whistled the rest of the line.
I followed him up a small rise and soon we came to a covered well. Jack hooked one bucket to the rope and set the other down, but he put it so close to my foot that when I moved I kicked it and it went rolling away. Jack scrambled for it, but it started down the far, steep side of the hill and picked up speed. And with all his male stupidity Jack ran down after it, tripped and landed at the bottom with a crash.
My poor Jack! I rushed to get a better look at him, and when he sat up and smiled I knew he wasn't hurt. But then I spotted his mark of royalty lying shattered on the ground, and that's when I fainted.
* * *
"Oh, Jack!" I said, and watched as he picked up the pieces of his beautiful golden crown. "What will we ever tell the Queen?"
He dropped the pieces into his pockets. "We'll visit the goldsmith before supper," he said, and rubbed his head and smiled. "We'd better fetch that water before Her-Majesty-my-mother has poor old Brimbsley strung."
Still in shock, I stared as my Prince retrieved the bucket and climbed back up to the top of the hill. My beautiful fall gown was muddied and torn, and we'd have to visit the dressmaker's shop as well, but at the thought of my love and I sneaking about the castle grounds I found myself, somehow, grinning. What would the Queen say if she knew what I was thinking? I started crawling up the hill, and for once I didn't mind at all that it was an entirely unladylike thing to do.