Which was why Westley’s death hit her the way it did.
He had written to her just before he sailed for America. The Queen’s Pride was his ship, and he loved her. (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love you. Like that.)
Then there were no letters, but that was natural; he was at sea. Then she heard. She came home from delivering the milk and her parents were wooden. “Off the Carolina coast,” her father whispered.
Her mother whispered, “Without warning. At night.”
“What?” from Buttercup.
“Pirates,” said her father.
Buttercup thought she’d better sit down.
Quiet in the room.
“He’s been taken prisoner then?” Buttercup managed.
Her mother made a “no.”
“It was Roberts,” her father said. “The Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“Oh,” Buttercup said. “The one who never leaves survivors.”
“Yes,” her father said.
Quiet in the room.
Suddenly Buttercup was talking very fast: “Was he stabbed?…Did he drown?…Did they cut his throat asleep?…Did they wake him, do you suppose?…Perhaps they whipped him dead…” She stood up then. “I’m getting silly, forgive me.” She shook her head. “As if the way they got him mattered. Excuse me, please.” With that she hurried to her room.
She stayed there many days. At first her parents tried to lure her, but she would not have it. They took to leaving food outside her room, and she took bits and shreds, enough to stay alive. There was never noise inside, no wailing, no bitter sounds.
And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. “I can care for myself, please,” and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.
In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering.
She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn’t seem to care.
“You’re all right?” her mother asked.
Buttercup sipped her cocoa. “Fine,” she said.
“You’re sure?” her father wondered.
“Yes,” Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. “But I must never love again.”
She never did.
Two
The Groom
This is my first major excision. Chapter One, The Bride, is almost in its entirety about the bride. Chapter Two, The Groom, only picks up Prince Humperdinck in the last few pages.
This chapter is where my son Jason stopped reading, and there is simply no way of blaming him. For what Morgenstern has done is open this chapter with sixty-six pages of Florinese history. More accurately, it is the history of the Florinese crown.
Dreary? Not to be believed.
Why would a master of narrative stop his narrative dead before it has much chance to begin generating? No known answer. All I can guess is that for Morgenstern, the real narrative was not Buttercup and the remarkable things she endures, but, rather, the history of the monarchy and other such stuff. When this version comes out, I expect every Florinese scholar alive to slaughter me. (Columbia University has not only the leading Florinese experts in America, but also direct ties to the New York Times Book Review. I can’t help that, and I only hope they understand my intentions here are in no way meant to be destructive of Morgenstern’s vision.)