Her Majesty's Gardener

Chapter 5: Desperado

A bird woke him up. Not because it was loud, but because Grim couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what type of bird it was. When you’re a gardener you get to know your birds. Some are your friends, eating the insects that are trying to eat your work. Others would just as soon strip your strawberries bare and leave you for dead. Grim wasn’t sure whether the bird outside his window was friend or foe, but it was going to drive him crazy until he knew what it was.

“I need to buy a book about the birds of Britain,” he thought to himself, and then he said it out loud because a sentence with that many Bs really needs to be said out loud.

He looked at the clock: 7:32am. Grim had slept most of the way from the airport. When they arrived at the estate, he woke up just long enough to stagger out of the Land Rover, give his Aunt Barbara a hug, and drag his bags upstairs to his room. He’d laid down on the bed to rest for just a few minutes, but he’d never gotten back up.

He got up now, put on in a fresh pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt, splashed some water on his face, and headed downstairs. About halfway down the stairs he stopped dead in his tracks. The air was thick with the smell of breakfast. That wasn’t something Grim was used to. When no one in your house cooks, breakfast doesn’t have a distinct smell. You don’t wake up to the heady aroma of Lucky Charms wafting through the house. The subtle fragrance of Honey Nut Cheerios doesn’t fill your nostrils. He and his brothers couldn’t even be bothered to make toast in the morning, so breakfast just wasn’t an olfactory experience.

But the smell reminded Grim of his Mom. His Mom had cooked breakfasts. Big breakfasts on Saturday morning. Eggs, bacon, blueberry muffins, pancakes…the works. A wave of nostalgia washed over him. He was thousands of miles away, and yet the smell of breakfast made him feel more at home than he felt when he was actually there.

He made his way to the kitchen and found his Aunt Barbara poking at some vaguely disturbing cylindrical meat products frying in a pan.

“So, you’re finally awake, are you?” she said with a smile.

Grim loved to hear his Aunt Barbara speak. Over the last 40 years, she’d gained about half of a British accent. Her speech was a strange combination of crisp, American consonants and rounded, British vowels. Rs were a toss-up. Half the time they were a soft British R; the other half they were growled in the best of western American traditions. This linguistic schizophrenia had fascinated Grim when he was younger. When he was 8 years old he used to walk around the house affecting a British accent, pretending that he’d been living in London for so long that he’d gone native.

“Good morning,” Grim said. “I’m sorry I crashed last night.”

“Well, having been on that flight a few times, I know exactly how you feel. It always takes me two days to recover when I fly back from The States.”

“Breakfast smells great,” Grim said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Sit down and eat. Your uncle had to meet some men who are doing some work at the West Gate, so it will just be you and me this morning. He should be back by eleven o’clock.”

Grim sat down and dished up some scrambled eggs and a few strips of bacon. Aunt Barbara brought the pan over from the stove and plopped a couple of huge sausages on his plate.

He looked at them for a second and the only thing he could say was, “Wow.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a mock-serious tone. “Haven’t you ever seen a proper sausage before? You won’t find any of those tiny sausage links you have in America over here. We take our sausages very seriously in the U.K.”

Since a sausage that size no longer qualified as a finger food, Grim picked up his knife and fork and got to work, but after just a few bites he could almost feel the cholesterol being slathered onto his artery walls. He paused for a moment to let the saturated fats pass.

“So, Aunt Barbara, I understand Princess Victoria is going to be here for the summer.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Is…is that a good thing?” he asked with a little trepidation.

“Oh, it’s certainly not a bad thing,” she assured him. “But I don’t think she’s very pleased to be here.”

“Uncle Richard mentioned that she was supposed to spend the summer in France.”

“And Monaco, too, but they had to change those plans at the last minutes. She arrived three days ago and the staff say she’s been in a foul mood.”

“I may need some royalty lessons, then,” Grim said. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to act around a princess. I mean, what am I supposed to do if I see her? Do I need to bow or anything…or do I just ignore her and pretend she’s not there?”

“Actually, she’ll be the one to ignore you, but don’t take it personally. She has grown up being surrounded by staff at all times so to her we’re just part of the landscape. When you see her, you don’t bow, per se. You do what’s called a ‘neck bow.’ Nothing big, mind you. Just a slight tip of the head.”

“Like this?” Grim asked, nodding his head forward.

She chuckled. “That looks more like you’ve fallen asleep. Try making it a little smaller. Yes, that’s it!”

“And what do I call her? ‘Your Majesty?’”

“No, ‘Her Majesty’ is her grandmother, the Queen. When you first address her, you should call her ‘Your Royal Highness.’ Then, depending on how formal the occasion is, you can usually call her ‘Ma’am’ for the rest of the conversation.”

“Well, unless she’s going to be hanging out by the compost pile this summer, I don’t see us having a lot of ‘conversations,’ formal or otherwise.”

“Well, if you do, don’t worry about it too much,” she said in a reassuring tone. “You’ll do just fine.”

With some effort, Grim finished the rest of his breakfast. He hoped that the quantity of food that morning was in celebration of his arrival. If every meal was going to be like that, he was going to have to spend half summer’s salary on cholesterol medication.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head down and take a look around the stables,” he said as he took his dishes to the sink. “Do you have any sugar cubes I could borrow?”

“Of course, dear. They’re right there in the sugar bowl. Take as many as you like.”

“Thanks,” Grim said, shoving a small handful in his pocket. “I’ll be back by eleven.”

Grim headed out the kitchen door and stepped down onto the gravel driveway. Shielding his eyes from the morning sun, he looked across the expanse of lawn at Wickham Castle which lay about 100 yards to the east. He’d glimpsed it the night before, but he had been so exhausted that it had barely registered. Apparently, his lack of sleep hadn’t the issue. This morning, even with the early sun bathing it in a warm glow, it still barely registered.

It was easily the least impressive castle Grim had ever seen. (Not that he’d ever seen one in real life before.) The non-ornamental portion of the castle was only two stories high and had all the visual interest of a gray brick. But perched atop the drab, rectangular base were a series of ridiculously elaborate spires that were completely out of proportion with the rest of the structure. They made the castle look like a short, stocky king trying to compensate for his lack of stature by wearing a tall, spiky crown. Or a very plain woman trying to look more exotic by fashioning herself some sort of French High Gothic beehive hairdo out of ice cream cones and razor wire.

The gardens weren’t helping, either. The only greenery surrounding the castle consisted of a few sparse ornamental shrubs and hedges that had been sculpted into sharp, geometric shapes. Everything about the place seemed angular, severe, and generally out of whack.

The morning air was cool and damp. It hadn’t rained, but a heavy dew covered the lawn and dampened Grim’s boots as he made his way across the freshly mown expanse of grass that separated the house from the stables. They were housed in a large barn-like structure with a tall stone foundation that supported the timber-frame walls and a tall, arching roof. There were small windows lining the north and south walls and attached to the back of the barn was a small paddock and, beyond that, a large pasture with a small stream running through the middle of it.

Grim grabbed the large, rusty handle on the front door, swung it open, and peered into the dim interior. It smelled of fresh horse and stale dust. He looked on either side of the door and found an ancient light switch which he flicked on. Three weak flood lights came on overhead, casting a dim glow on the fresh bales of straw that had been stacked just inside the door.

“Psssh, Psssh, Psssh…” Grim said softly and an equine head popped out of the next-to-the-last stall on the right.

“Hello there,” Grim said, as he made his way to the other end of the stables. “How are you this morning? You must be the new resident they told me about.”

He pulled two sugar cubes out of his pocket and held them out. “Psssh, Psssh, Psssh,” he said again as the horse nuzzled his palm and snarfed up the cubes.

“You’re a handsome devil, aren’t you?” Grim said, rubbing the horses muzzle. The thoroughbred was a dark chestnut color, with a dark brown mane and tail, and had the conformation and bearing that come from impeccable genetics and a life of being very well cared for.

“How would you like to take care of the grass in the pasture for me?” Grim asked. “I’d rather not have to mow it this summer.”

He slipped the halter off the hook that hung outside the stall, slipped it over the horse’s head, and lead him out the back door and across the paddock to the pasture’s gate. As Grim unhooked the lead strap the horse nuzzled his hand again, looking for more of the sweet stuff.

“What? It’s gonna cost me? OK, OK, two more in return for services rendered.”

He gave the beast two more sugar cubes and a pat on the rump to send him out into the pasture.

“Go! Mow!” he commanded.

Grim walked back to the stables and took a quick look around. The layout and daily routine of horse stables is pretty much the same the world over, so it didn’t take him long to find everything he needed. He grabbed a manure fork from the tool rack on the wall and started mucking out the stall, separating the clean, dry straw from the dirty straw and manure, which he shoveled into a wheelbarrow and set aside as the start of a compost pile.

He went back to the bails of straw that had been stacked just inside the front door and re-stacked them, one by one, against the side wall. Then he broke open one of the bales, took a section back to the stall, and spread it across the floor, replacing the straw he’d removed. He refilled the water pail and topped off the feed bucket. Then, with the stall taken care of, Grim turned his attention to the rest of the stables.

It was obvious that they hadn’t been inhabited for quite some time. A layer of dust from the clay floor covered everything and, more than anything, the place needed a good airing out. He threw open the front door and then, one by one, opened all of the side windows letting sunlight and the morning breeze into a space that probably hadn’t seen either in quite a while.

He grabbed a broom and swept out the empty stalls and wiped down the rails with some old rags he found in a back cabinet. While he worked, he started humming country-western tunes. In general, Grim wasn’t a big fan of the genre, but it seemed appropriate somehow working around horses. Unfortunately, his repertoire of country-western songs was pretty limited and leaned toward the classics (Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, etc) he’d picked up from the elderly women whose lawns he had mowed in St. Albans, but he knew enough to make it through the morning.

By mid-morning, he was a mess. He had straw in his hair, his clothes were covered in dust, his face was smudged, and his boots still had remnants of manure on them, but he was in a great mood. He’d made his way, musically, through the 60s and 70s and somewhere along the way he’d made the transition from quiet humming to full-on singing. In fact, at that very moment, as he was making one last pass with the broom, he was belting out a fantastic cover of The Eagle’s “Desperado” and had just reached the final verse. He’d started softly so the big crescendo on the final line would have the appropriate weight.

“Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate.
It may be raining, but there’s a rainbow above you,
You better let somebody love you…”

Then he stopped sweeping, took a deep breath, threw his head back, and belted out the background vocals in full falsetto:

“Let somebody loooove yoooooooooooooooooooooo…”

The last note slid down the scale as if it had been pushed off a cliff. Grim froze (his lips still forming the “oooo”) as he stared across the aisle at the girl who was leaning against the rails of the stall opposite him. It took approximately 2.7 seconds for his brain to go from:

“How embarrassing! Someone caught me singing.”

…to:

“Ouch! A girl caught me singing.”

…to:

“Oh, no! A pretty girl caught me singing.”

…to:

“Oh, crap! I think it’s the princess that caught me singing.”

It took him a while to recognize her because the image of Princess Victoria that Grim carried in his head was from a photograph he’d seen almost a year earlier. In it, her hair had been dark and had been in a short, blunt cut. Her skin had been quite pale, she had been glaring at the photographer with eyes that were almost black, and her lips looked as if they’d just let go of an expletive. In short, she’d looked like a surly goth flapper.

This was in stark contrast to the girl who stood before him now with light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, a ruddy complexion, eyes that were a dark, dark blue, and lips that were turned up in a wry grin. She was obviously pleased that she’d caught him in the middle of his impromptu karaoke routine.

He would have been fine if she hadn’t been so attractive. He would have merely apologized for the distraction and gotten back to work. But any time Grim was around a cute girl, he was transformed from a confident, intelligent, capable young man into a blithering idiot. He became so concerned about not making a fool out of himself that he almost invariably did. Even now, his mind was racing without producing a single coherent thought.

“Oh…uh…I’m sorry, ma’am…” he stammered.

Wait, we wasn’t supposed to call her that. At least, not yet.

“I mean, Your Majesty…”

No, wait, that wasn’t it either.

“I mean, Your Highness…”

Back up.

“Royal Highness. I…I didn’t see you come in.”

Shoot! He forgot the neck bow. Was it too late to do the neck bow? Had he missed the neck bow window?

“I was just…um…I was…just…”

He stopped, looked down at the ground, let out a sigh, and a smile spread across his face. There are times in your life when you find yourself so far off track, when you’ve blown it so badly, that there is absolutely no hope of recovery. This was one of those times. He looked like crap, he smelled like crap (literally), and he must have sounded like a complete idiot . But rather than being mortified, he was strangely relieved. He didn’t have to worry about making a fool of himself anymore because he’d already done it.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. If you don’t mind, I’ll go back to sweeping. Just ignore me.”

“Is that possible?” she asked, raising one eyebrow ever so slightly.

“Sure,” Grim replied with a grin. “Girls have been ignoring me for years.”

Self-deprecation was almost an automatic reflex for Grim, so it came out of his mouth before he could really think. It suddenly occurred to him that he was being much too “familiar,” but she smiled; almost laughed.

“You’re American.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes, ma’am,” Grim replied, leaning against his broom. “I’m Grim.”

She looked puzzled. “Grim?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s my name. Grim Magnusson. It’s Icelandic.”

“Where are you from?” she asked, looking even more confused.

“Idaho, ma’am.”

“An Icelandic American from Idaho?”

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of exotic, doesn’t it?” he smiled. “I’m Mr. Chapman’s great nephew. I’m just here for the summer helping him out.”

“I’m Victoria,” she said. “I’m just here for the summer being bored to tears.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Grim said, taking advantage of the opportunity to finally throw in a neck bow. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make your stay less boring.”

“The singing was a good start,” she said. “Can I expect that every morning?”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

“Then I’ll remember to avoid you on Tuesdays.”

“You may want to give Break Dancing Fridays a wide berth, too.”

She looked at Grim for a second and kind of scrunched up her nose. Then, as if suddenly remembering why she was there, she looked around and asked, “Where’s Dauntless?”

“Dauntless?”

“My horse,” she explained.

“Oh, he’s mowing the pasture for me. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“Yes,” she said, and then added, “please,” as if it wasn’t a word she said very often.

Grim grabbed the lead strap off the hook, went out the back door, and crossed the paddock to the gate leading to the pasture, the princess following close behind.

“Psssh, Psssh, Psssh,” he said, loud enough for Dauntless to hear. Dauntless, who had been grazing on the far side of the pasture, pricked up his ears and trotted over.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What?”

“That sound…”

“Pishing,” Grim answered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pishing,” he emphasized. “That’s the sound I was making.” He made the sound again. “Birdwatchers use it to lure birds out of hiding, but it works on other animals, too. Some people think it was the sound St. Francis of Assisi used to attract animals.”

She looked at him sideways. “Are you having me on?”

“No, I promise,” Grim replied. “Try it.”

“No,” she stated flatly.

“Oh, come on…” he encouraged.

“No!”

“Come on…”

“Pish off!”

He laughed. “Hey! Can royalty say things like that?”

“I can do whatever I please,” she replied with mock indignation.

Dauntless came right up to Grim and stood there expectantly. Grim pulled two more sugar cubes out of his pocket and gave them to Dauntless.

“Good boy,” he said, as if he was talking to a dog.

“Are you sure it was the ‘pishing’ that brought the animals to him, or did St. Francis resort to sugar cubes, too?”

“I think he used Milk Duds,” Grim replied, but then he realized she probably didn’t know the reference. “Milk Duds are an American candy…they’re chocolate and caramel and…um,” he trailed off. If you have to explain a joke…

Grim attached the lead strap to the halter and handed it to the princess.

“Do you need any help with the saddle?” he asked.

“No,” she said, and then added the, “Thank you. I can manage.”

“Then I’ll get back to my sweeping, if you don’t mind. You won’t even notice me.”

Grim followed Dauntless and the princess back into the stables and grabbed his broom. While he finished up he kept stealing glances at the princess as she went about saddling her horse. She moved easily and quickly with no wasted motion. He was a little embarrassed about his offer of assistance since she obviously knew what she was doing.

When she was done, she mounted Dauntless and rode down the aisle to the front door where she stopped and turned around in her saddle.

“So, will I see you later?” she asked.

“I’ll be here all summer.”

“Good,” she said with a smile, and rode out into the late morning sun.

“‘Good,’” he repeated to himself, leaning against the broom. Then he took a deep breath, let it out, and picked up where he’d left off, sweeping and singing…but softly, this time.

“You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late…”

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2004 at 12:09 AM MDT

« Prev