The only difficulty about my part was to find a name for it. I might
have taken the name of the man who wrote the book--it is Alphonse
Karr,--just as Arthur was going to be called John Parkinson. But I am
a girl, so it seemed silly to take a man's name. And I wanted some
kind of title, too, like King's Apothecary and Herbarist, or Weeding
Woman, and Alphonse Karr does not seem to have had any by-name of that
sort.
I had put Adela's bonnet on my head to carry it safely, and was still
sitting thinking, when the others burst into the library.
Arthur was first, waving a sheet of paper; but when Adela saw the
bonnet, she caught hold of his arm and pushed forward.
"Oh, it's sweet! Mary, dear, you're an angel. You couldn't be better
if you were a real milliner and lived in Paris. I'm sure you
couldn't."
"Mary," said Arthur, "remove that bonnet, which by no means becomes
you, and let Adela take it into a corner and gibber over it to
herself. I want you to hear this."
"You generally do want the platform," I said, laughing. "Adela, I am
very glad you like it. To-morrow, if I can find a bit of pink
tissue-paper, I think I could gum on little pleats round the edge of
the strings as a finish."
I did not mind how gaudily I dressed the part of Weeding Woman now.
"You are good. Mary. It will make it simply perfect; and, kilts don't
you think? Not box pleats?"
Arthur groaned.
"You shall have which you like, dear. Now, Arthur, what is it?"
Arthur shook out his paper, gave it a flap with the back of his hand,
as you do with letters when you are acting, and said--"It's to Mother,
and when she gets it, she'll be a good deal astonished, I fancy."
When I had heard the letter, I thought so, too.
"TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTIE--
"_My dear Mother_,--This is to tell you that we have made you
Queen of the Blue Robe, and that your son Christopher is a dwarf,
and we think you'll both be very much pleased when you hear it.
He can do as he likes about having a hump back. When you come
home we shall give faire flowers into your Highnesse hands--that
is if you'll do what I'm going to ask you, for nobody can grow
flowers out of nothing. I want you to write to John--write
straight to him, don't put it in your letter to Father--and tell
him that you have given us leave to have some of the seedlings
out of the frames, and that he's to dig us up a good big clump of
daffodils out of the shrubbery--and we'll divide them fairly, for
Harry is the Honestest Root-gatherer that ever came over to us.
We have turned the whole of our gardens into a _Paradisi in sole
Paradisus terrestris_, if you can construe that; but we must have
something to make a start. He's got no end of bedding things
over--that are doing nothing in the Kitchen Garden and might just
as well be in our Earthly Paradise. And please tell him to keep
us a tiny pinch of seed at the bottom of every paper when he is
sowing the annuals. A little goes a long way, particularly of
poppies. And you might give him a hint to let us have a
flower-pot or two now and then (I'm sure he takes ours if he
finds any of our dead window plants lying about), and that he
needn't be so mighty mean about the good earth in the potting
shed, or the labels either, they're dirt cheap. Mind you write
straight. If only you let John know that the gardens don't
entirely belong to him, you'll see that what's spare from the big
garden would more than set us going; and it shall further
encourage him to accomplish the remainder, who in praying that
your Highnesse may enjoy the heavenly Paradise after the many
years fruition of this earthly,
"Submitteth to be, Your Maiestie's, in all humble devotion,
JOHN PARKINSON,
"King's Apothecary and Herbalist.
"P. S.--It was Mary's idea."
"My _dear_ Arthur!" said I.
"Well, I know it's not very well mixed," said Arthur. "Not half so
well as I intended at first. I meant to write it all in the Parkinson
style. But then, I thought, if I put the part about John in queer
language and old spelling, she mightn't understand what we want. But
every word of the end comes out of the Dedication; I copied it the
other day, and I think she'll find it a puzzlewig when she comes to
it."
After which Arthur folded his paper and put it into an envelope which
he licked copiously, and closed the letter with a great deal of
display. But then his industry coming to an abrupt end, as it often
did, he tossed it to me saying, "You can address it, Mary;" so I
enclosed it in my own letter to thank Mother for the book, and I fancy
she did write to our gardener, for he gave us a good lot of things,
and was much more good-natured than usual.
After Arthur had tossed his letter to me, he clasped his hands over
his head and walked up and down thinking. I thought he was calculating
what he should be able to get out of John, for when you are planning
about a garden, you seem to have to do so much calculating. Suddenly
he stopped in front of me and threw down his arms. "Mary," he said,
"if Mother were at home, she _would_ despise us for selfishness,
wouldn't she just?"
"I don't think it's selfish to want spare things for our gardens, if
she gives us leave," said I.
"I'm not thinking of that," said Arthur; "and you're not selfish, you
never are; but she would despise me, and Adela, and Harry, because
we've taken your game, and got our parts, and you've made that
preposterous bonnet for Adela to be the Weeding Woman in----much
she'll weed!----"
"I _shall_ weed," said Adela.
"Oh, yes! You'll weed,--Groundsel!--and leave Mary to get up the docks
and dandelions, and clear away the heap. But, never mind. Here we've
taken Mary's game, and she hasn't even got a part."
"Yes," said I, "I have; I have got a capital part. I have only to
think of a name."
"How shall you be dressed?" asked Adela.
"I don't know yet," said I. "I have only just thought of the part."
"Are you sure it's a good-enough one?" asked Harry, with a grave and
remorseful air; "because, if not, you must take Francis le Vean. Girls
are called Frances sometimes."
I explained, and I read aloud the bit that had struck my fancy.
Arthur got restless half-way through, and took out the Book of
Paradise. His letter was on his mind. But Adela was truly delighted.
"Oh, Mary," she said, "it is lovely. And it just suits you. It suits
you much better than being a Queen."
"Much better," said I.
"You'll be exactly the reverse of me," said Harry. "When I'm digging
up, you'll be putting in."
"Mary," said Arthur, from the corner where he was sitting with the
Book of Paradise in his lap, "what have you put a mark in the place
about honeysuckle for?"
"Oh, only because I was just reading there when James brought the
letters."
"John Parkinson can't have been quite so nice a man as Alphonse Karr,"
said Adela; "not so unselfish. He took care of the Queen's Gardens,
but he didn't think of making the lanes and hedges nice for poor
wayfarers."
I was in the rocking-chair, and I rocked harder to shake up something
that was coming into my head. Then I remembered.
"Yes, Adela, he did--a little. He wouldn't root up the honeysuckle out
of the hedges (and I suppose he wouldn't let his root-gatherers grub
it up, either); he didn't put it in the Queen's Gardens, but left it
wild outside----"
"To serve their senses that travel by it, or have no garden,"
interrupted Arthur, reading from the book, "and, oh, Mary! that
reminds me--_travel_--_travellers_. I've got a name for your part just
coming into my head. But it dodges out again like a wire worm through
a three pronged fork. _Travel_--_traveler_--_travelers_--what's the
common name for the--oh, dear! the what's his name that scrambles
about in the hedges. A flower--you know?"
"Deadly Nightshade?" said Harry.
"Deadly fiddlestick!----"
"Bryony?" I suggested.
"Oh, no; it begins with C."
"Clematis?" said Adela.
"Clematis. Right you are, Adela. And the common name for Clematis is
Traveller's Joy. And that's the name for you, Mary, because you're
going to serve their senses that travel by hedges and ditches and
perhaps have no garden."
"Traveller's Joy," said Harry. "Hooray!"
"Hooray!" said Adela, and she waved the Weeding Woman's bonnet.
It was a charming name, but it was too good for me, and I said so.
Arthur jumped on the rockers, and rocked me to stop my talking. When I
was far back, he took the point of my chin in his two hands and lifted
up my cheeks to be kissed, saying in his very kindest way, "It's not a
bit too good for you--it's you all over."
Then he jumped off as suddenly as he had jumped on, and as I went back
with a bounce he cried, "Oh, Mary! give me back that letter. I must
put another postscript and another puzzlewig. P.P.S.--Excellent
Majesty: Mary will still be our Little Mother on all common occasions,
as you wished, but in the Earthly Paradise we call her Traveller's
Joy."