ONE Beneath a hot blue summer sky, the bells of the great cathedral pealed joyfully over the city. The crowds roared their delight. The glass coach moved through the streets, pulled by proud white horses and attended by gold-braided footmen. From behind the polished crystal windows, the teenage princess-to-be peered excitedly out. She could scarcely believe the number of people who had come to see her, all jostling on the pavement, madly waving flags and shouting her name. Never had she felt so loved. Or so beautiful. Her professionally done makeup was perfect, a light touch because of her youth but enough to enhance her loveliness for the TV cameras, the audience watching across the world. Her thick blond hair gleamed, held in place by a diamond tiara. Her cream silk dress was so huge it almost filled the carriage; her father, sitting beside her, was nearly hidden behind its folds. "Bigger!" she had laughingly told the designer when he had asked how large and long the train should be. "Let's make it the biggest one anyone's ever seen!" She had said the same to the florist. More roses! More lilies! More orange blossoms! Why hold back, on this glorious day? She felt extravagantly, deliriously happy, and she wanted everything, from the pearls in her ears to the lace rosettes on her shoes, to express it. "Darling, I'm so proud of you!" Her father, eyes brimming with tears, reached for her hand, on which the great engagement ring glittered. The wedding band itself, made from a special nugget of gold, was with her soon-to-be-husband, the prince. Who, even now, was ascending the red carpet up the cathedral steps, passing under the pillared portico, handsome in his uniform, his decorations glinting in the sunshine, his sword hanging by his side. The thought made her almost weak with joy. All her dreams had come true. She was a beautiful princess who was marrying a handsome prince. But far more importantly, she was in love, and beloved herself. She had given her heart to her husband, and he had given his to her. Their marriage would last forever; they would have lots of children and be happy ever after. He would never leave her, never let her down. She had suffered much, but from now on, everything was going to be perfect. "Well?" Diana was staring at me from the opposite seat in the train carriage, her thirteen-year-old face bright with expectation. "Sandy, don't you think that's the most romantic ending ever?" I looked up from the paperback she had passed me. It was called Bride to the King and was evidently much read. The picture on the cover was of a blond woman in a big white dress embracing a dark-haired man in uniform. He wore a blue sash and a sword by his side. "Definitely," I agreed. "Absolutely the best!" I knew I could take her word for it. I was quite new to the romantic fiction genre, but Diana had read literally hundreds. Her favorite writer was Barbara Cartland. Her novels were all dashing heroes with jutting jaws, and beautiful heroines with heaving bosoms. Love was their constant theme. Head-spinning, heart-racing, eternal Love. It was the most important thing of all, and Diana and I both loved the idea of it. You fell in Love, it overwhelmed you, and once you were in it, everything was perfect. It sounded to me like a particularly delicious bath, deep and warm with lots of bubbles. "Shall I tell you something incredible, Sandy?" Diana asked. I nodded eagerly. "My daddy's got a new friend. She's called Lady Raine Dartmouth." That was, I concurred, an extraordinary name. "That's not the amazing thing!" Diana leaned toward me, her blue eyes huge and excited. "Her mother is actually Barbara Cartland!" Astonished as I was, I was also aware that this sort of thing seemed typical of Diana's family. From what I had heard from other people, and Diana herself, the Spencers were unbelievably dramatic and exotic. And, as I was now going home with her for the holidays, I would meet them all. I had met Diana at school, although we had not been friends initially. We came from very different backgrounds. I was an orphan; my parents had died in a car crash when I was a baby. Aunt Mary had brought me up. She was my father's older sister, an austere spinster of modest means. She was undemonstrative but believed in the proper education of girls. Undaunted by the fact that she lacked the money for good schools, she scoured the Daily Telegraph for scholarship opportunities. Of these, my current school was the latest. And, I hoped, the last, although Aunt Mary's quest to find the best school for the least outlay was something of a mania with her. But I was fed up with moving and wanted somewhere I could settle down, sit exams and go on to university. After which, Aunt Mary assured me, the world and all its opportunities would open up. The school occupied a large, pale house at the end of a long, tree-lined drive. Sweeping green parkland stretched to either side. With its imposing portico and castellated stable yard, it looked glamorous and impressive. On the day I was dropped off, the families saying farewell on the drive looked glamorous and impressive too. Beside each was a shiny new trunk painted with at least four initials. New hats, bags, tuck boxes and sports equipment were piled round it. Not far away was the shiny family car. Aunt Mary did not have a car; we had come on the train. Transporting my own battered secondhand trunk, sporting just the two initials, had required help that was not always willingly given. My blazer too was secondhand, while my skirt, handmade by Aunt Mary to save money, was not of the regulation cut. My shoes, meanwhile, looked like barges, bought two sizes too large so I could "grow into them" and forcing a clumping, graceless walk. I looked around me, wondering who I would be friends with, if anyone. Socially, I did not aspire to much. To pass muster and blend in would be enough. My new peers looked much the usual mixture. There were the confident and beautiful ones, the bouncy and sporty ones, and the plain ones, among whom I-small, plump and heavily bespectacled-would be one of the plainest. Also conspicuous were the girls who had never been to boarding school before but who had read Enid Blyton and begged their parents to send them. They were easy to identify-wide-eyed, looking excitedly about as they tried to spot real-life equivalents of the heroines of St. Clare's and Malory Towers. I felt rather sorry for them. They would be shattered to discover that the world of midnight feasts and classroom tricks did not exist. Nothing about a real boarding school was anything like Enid Blyton novels. In Enid Blyton, girls were celebrated for their individuality. In real life, conformity was everything. In Enid Blyton, rich girls with titles were taken down a peg or two. In real life, they were worshipped. As a poor girl in a succession of wealthy schools, I had more reason to know that than most. I felt a brief, hopeless stir of loneliness, anticipating the games where I would be the last picked for teams, the dancing lessons where I wouldn't have a partner. Then I took a deep, sinew-stiffening breath. I was lucky to be here, and it was a means to what would ultimately be a glorious end. Aunt Mary had done her best for me, and it was my duty to get on with it. My aunt said a final hurried goodbye and shut the door, and the taxi set off. Amid the lavish hugs and kisses of everyone else, I walked toward the school and the future. The dormitory was, as usual, long rows of beds facing one another. One unexpected touch was the portrait of Prince Charles at the entrance. He wore a crown of futuristic design, which looked comical with his big ears and hangdog expression. A small plaque beneath explained the photograph had been presented to the school by one of the governors. There was the usual panicked scramble to bag beds next to hastily made friends. Over the years I had learned that the best way to hide not being in demand myself was to bag one of the beds by the wall. I made my way toward it, passing on my way a bed covered in small, furry animals. There must, I reckoned, have been about twenty, of differing sizes, colors and species, all carefully arranged and staring up with expectant glassy eyes. I met their gaze with concern. As I literally couldn't afford to put a foot wrong, Aunt Mary had obtained the school's catalog of regulations. She had taken me carefully through strictures ranging from not running in corridors to the number of toys allowed on one's bed. Two, as it happened. Whoever this menagerie belonged to was going to be in trouble when, as we had been warned would happen any minute, Matron came to inspect the dormitory. I looked over at the gaggle of girls chattering and shrieking as they unpacked night cases, shook out pajamas, flung slippers about and spanked each other with hairbrushes. I didn't feel one of them, but I didn't want to see any of them publicly humiliated either. Matrons, in my experience, were invariably sadists. That it was someone's first night away from home would not move them to pity in the least. I started to gather up the animals and hastily shove them under the bed. "What are you doing?" demanded someone behind me. I turned and found myself looking at a tall and beautiful girl. She had very red lips, thick golden hair and big, glassy blue eyes. Her skin had a pale glow, with a rich rose tint high on her cheeks. There was something glossy and luxuriant about her. I thought of a dewdrop in the center of a flower, or thick cream in a glass jug. "Hiding your toys," I said. "You're only supposed to have two, and you'll catch it if Matron comes in." She said nothing, but I glanced around as I walked away and saw her hurriedly concealing the remainder of her collection. The bed nearest the wall was, as usual, the last to be picked. I put down my night case next to it and began to unpack. The girl in the adjacent bed, who introduced herself as Catherine, had evidently been watching the cuddly toy exchange. "You know her father's a viscount, don't you?" she whispered. "Lord Althorp. She's the Honorable Diana Spencer." I wasn't surprised. Both her cut-glass voice and her glossy looks had suggested one of the elect. I was less sure about the "honorable"; she hadn't even said thank you. Matron appeared in the dormitory doorway. "Stand by your beds!" she bellowed. There was a collective gasp, some suppressed squeals and a general scattering of girls. She marched along, huge black brogues crunching heavily on the lino, inspecting the beds with the zeal of a field marshal. Her small eyes with their metallic glint switched meanly about. We stood ramrod straight, hardly daring to breathe. Stopping by one bed, Matron swooped triumphantly on several framed photographs lovingly arranged on the cabinet. "You're allowed two. No more," she snarled at the evidently dismayed owner. "These are confiscated." "But . . . they're my family." The girl's lip trembled. The huge black brogues were already crunching pitilessly away. I slid a glance at the Honorable Diana Spencer. That could have been you, I thought. You and your toys. But she was looking somewhere else entirely. Scarcely had the door slammed behind Matron than another of the elect, whom I had heard the others call Celia, sauntered from her bed in the room's starry center to my humble spot by the wall. "Name?" she barked at me. I felt a familiar sinking feeling. Surely it couldn't be starting already? Usually I had a couple of days' grace before I was picked on. Fear had dried my throat. I swallowed hard. "Alexandra. But my friends call me Sandy." "I'll call you Alexandra, then," Celia said, to snorts all round. "From up north, are we?" Over the years, I had tried to disguise my accent. But it never entirely disappeared. The English language, anyway, conspired against northerners. It was dotted with traps, words that we pronounced with a short "a" and everyone else with a long one. My own name was a case in point. Alexarndra was the aspirational way to say it, but I had never had the confidence. "So where are you from, Alexandra?" I hesitated. Our town was almost a byword for jokes about the north. And while I was dreading naming it, I hated myself more for being ashamed. "Huddersfield," I said, rather more loudly than I had intended. Celia's face went blank, as if she was unable to believe her luck, and then she burst into incredulous laughter. "'Uddersfield! Eeh, everyone. Come an' meet Alexandra from 'Uddersfield." I kept my head high and forced my lips not to tremble. I clenched my hands to stop them from shaking but could do nothing about the watery feeling in my knees. "I've never been to 'Uddersfield." Celia snorted. She was stalking around me, like a ringmaster might circle a strange animal. The rest of the dormitory was gathering, and the sniggering had increased in volume. "What's it like? Can you get your udders feeled?" "Very funny," I said in an attempt at sarcasm. "I haven't heard that one before." But I could feel tears pricking behind my eyes. I bent my head so that my hair would fall over my red, humiliated face. Don't cry, I told myself. Don't let them win. But they had won already. I knew Celia's type all too well. She was the worst sort of bully, and my life from now on would be a living hell. I felt a tug on my blazer sleeve. Celia had homed in on my uniform. "This blazer is ancient. The badge is completely the wrong color. And why are you wearing that skirt? It shouldn't have pleats." I said nothing. Holding back the sobs with all my might, I prayed for Matron to return. Anything to distract my tormentors. And, as if in answer to my prayer, a stir now went through the group. I felt the energy change. "Stop bullying her," said a light, clear voice. I raised my head slightly and peered through the strands of my hair. It was her. The viscount's daughter. The blond girl with the toys. The Honorable Diana Spencer. "We're just having a joke." Celia's smile was one of angry unease. "Where's your sense of humor?" Excerpted from The Princess by Wendy Holden All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
