'I think _I_ ought to have been the queen!' said Ethelinda to herself.
'Well, now,' said the boy, 'I'll tell you something. This maid of honour
of yours doesn't like you (don't say she does, now; I'm telling this,
and I know). You watch her carefully. Can't you see a sort of look in
her face as if she didn't think much of you?'
'How clever he is,' thought Ethelinda; 'he knows exactly how I feel!'
'Do you really think it's that, Archie?' said Winifred; 'it's just what
I was afraid of before you came in.'
'That's it. Look out for a kind of glare in her eye when I pay you any
attention. (How does Your Majesty do? Well, I hope.) There, didn't you
see it? Well, that's jealousy, that is. She hates you like anything!'
'I'm sure she doesn't, then,' protested Winifred.
'Oh, well, if you know better than I do, you can finish it for yourself.
I'm going.'
'No, no; do stay. I like it. I'll be good after this!'
'Don't you interrupt again, then. Now the real truth is that she'd like
to be queen instead of you; she's ambitious, you know--that's what's the
matter with her. And so she's got it into her head that if you were only
out of the way, I should ask _her_ to be the next queen!'
Winifred could not say a word, she was so overcome by the idea of her
doll's unkindness; and Archie took Ethelinda by the waist and brought
her near her royal mistress as he said: 'Now you'll see how artful she
is; she's coming to ask you if she may go out. Listen. "Please, Your
Gracious Majesty, may I go out for a little while?"'
'This is even better than if I spoke myself,' Ethelinda thought; 'he can
talk for me, and I do believe I'm going to be quite wicked presently.'
'Am I to speak to her, Archie?' Winifred asked, feeling a little
nervous.
'Of course you are. Go on; don't be silly; give her leave.'
'Certainly, Ethelinda, if you wish it,' replied Winifred, with a happy
recollection of her mother's manner on somewhat similar occasions, 'but
I should like you to be in to prayers.'
'A maid of honour isn't the same as a _housemaid_, you know,' said
Archie; 'but never mind--she's off. _You_ don't see where she goes, of
course.'
'Yes I do,' said Winifred.
'Ah, but not in the game; nobody does. She goes to the
apothecary's--here's the apothecary.' And he caught hold of the jester,
who thought helplessly, '_I'm_ being brought into it now; I wish he'd
let me alone--I don't like it!' 'Well, so she says, "Oh, if you please,
Mr. Apothecary, I want some arsenic to kill the royal blackbeetles with;
not much--a pound or two will be plenty." So he takes down a jar (here
Archie got up and fetched a big bottle of citrate of magnesia from a
cupboard), 'and he weighs it out, and wraps it up, and gives it to her.
And he says, "You'll mind and be very careful with it, my lady. The dose
is one pinch in a teaspoonful of treacle to each blackbeetle, the last
thing at night; but it oughtn't to be left about in places." And so Lady
Ethelinda takes it home and hides it.'
'I've bought some poison now,' thought Ethelinda, immensely delighted,
'I _am_ a wicked doll! How convenient it is to have it all done for one
like this! I do hope he's going to make me give Winifred some of that
stuff, to get her out of the way, and have the romance all to our two
selves.'
'Now you and I,' Archie continued, 'haven't the least idea of all this.
But one day, the Court jester ('I was an apothecary just now,' thought
the jester; 'it's really very confusing!')--the Court jester comes up,
looking very grave, and sneaks of her. The reason of that is that he's
angry with her because she never will have anything to do with him, and
he says that he's seen her folding up a powder in paper and writing on
it, and he thought I ought to be told about it.' ('This is awful,'
thought the jester. 'What will Ethelinda think of me for telling tales?
and what has come to Ethelinda? It's all that miserable
Sausage-Glutton's doing--and I can't help myself!')
'Well, I'm very much surprised of course,' said Archie; '_any_ king
would be--but I wait, and one day, when she has gone out for a holiday,
the jester and I go to her desk and break it open.'
'Oh, Archie,' objected the poor little Queen in despair, 'isn't that
rather _mean_ of you?'
'Now look here, Winnie, I can't have this sort of thing every minute.
For a gentleman, it might be rather mean, perhaps, but then I'm a king,
and I've got a right to do it, and it's all for your sake, too--so you
can't say anything. Besides, it's the jester does it; I only look on.
Well, and by-and-by,' said Archie, as he scribbled something laboriously
on a piece of paper, 'by-and-by he finds _this_!'
And with imposing gravity he handed Winifred a folded paper, on which
she read with real terror and grief the alarming words--'_Poisin for the
Queen_!'
'There, what do you think of that?' he asked triumphantly; 'looks bad,
doesn't it?'
'Perhaps,' suggested the Queen feebly, 'perhaps it was only in fun?'
'Fun--there's not much fun about her! Now the guard' (here he used the
bewildered jester once more) 'arrests her. Do you want to ask the
prisoner any questions?--you can if you like.'
'You--you didn't mean to poison me really, did you, Ethelinda dear?'
said Winifred, who was taking it all very seriously, as she took most
things. 'Archie, do make her say something!'
'Why can't you answer when the Queen asks you a question, eh?' demanded
Archie. 'No, she won't say a word; she'll only grin at you; you see
she's quite hardened. There's only one thing that would make her
confess,' he added cautiously, aware that he was on rather delicate
ground, 'and that's the torture. I could make a beautiful rack, Winnie,
if you didn't mind?'
'Whatever she's done,' said the Queen, firmly, 'I'm not going to have
her tortured! And I believe she's sorry inside and wants me to forgive
her!'
'Then why doesn't she say so?' said Archie. 'No, no, Winnie. Look here,
this is a serious thing, you know; it won't do to pass it over; it's
high treason, and she'll have to be tried.'
'But I don't want her tried,' said Winifred.
'Oh, very well then; I had better go downstairs again and read. The best
part was all coming, but if you don't care, I'm sure _I_ don't!'
'Little idiot!' thought Ethelinda angrily, 'she'll spoil the whole
thing; every heroine has to be tried!'
But Winnie gave in, as she usually did, to Archie. 'Well, then, she
shall be tried if you really think she ought to be, Archie; it won't
hurt her though, will it?'
'Of course it won't; it's all right. Now for the trial: here's the
court, and here's a place for the judge' (he built it all up with books
and bricks as he spoke); 'here's the dock--stick Lady What's-her-name
inside--that's it. We must do without a jury, but I suppose we _ought_
to have a judge; oh, this fellow will do for judge!'
And he seized the jester and raised him to the Bench at once. The jester
was more puzzled than ever. 'Now I'm a _judge_,' he thought, 'I shall
have to try her; but I'm glad of it--I'll let her off!'
But unluckily he very soon found that he had no voice at all in the
matter, except what Archie chose to lend him.
'Oh, but Archie,' said Winifred, who was determined to defeat the ends
of justice if she possibly could, 'can a jester be a judge?'
'Why not?' said Archie; 'judges make jokes sometimes--I've heard papa
say so, and he's a barrister, and ought to know.'
'But this one doesn't make real jokes!' persisted Winifred.
'Who asked him to? Judges are not obliged to make jokes, Winnie. I
believe you are trying to get her off, but I'm going to see justice
done, I tell you. So now then, Lady Ethelinda, you are charged with high
treason and trying to poison Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Winifred
Gladys Robertson, by putting arsenic in Her Majesty's tea. Guilty or not
guilty! Speak up!'
'_Not_ guilty!' put in Winifred quickly, thinking that would settle the
whole trial comfortably. 'There, Archie, you can't say she didn't speak
_that_ time!'
'Now, you have done it!' Archie said triumphantly. 'If she'd confessed,
we might have shown mercy. Now we shall have to prove it, and if we do
I'm sorry for her, that's all!'
'If she says "Guilty, and she won't do it again!"' suggested Winifred.
'It's too late for that now,' said Archie, who was not going to have his
trial cut short in that way: 'no, we must prove it.'
'But how are you going to prove it?'
'You wait. I've been in court once or twice with papa, and seen him
prove all sorts of things. First, we must have in the fellow who sold
the poison--the apothecary, you know. Oh, I say, though, I forgot
that--he's the judge; that won't do!'
'Then you can't prove it after all--I'm so glad!' cried the Queen, with
her eyes sparkling.
'One would think you rather liked being poisoned,' said Archie, in an
offended tone.
'I like magnesia, and it isn't poison, really--it's medicine.'
'It isn't magnesia now; it's arsenic; and she shan't get off like this.
I'll call the apothecary's young man, he'll prove it (this brick is the
apothecary's young man). There, he says it's all right; she did it right
enough. Now for the sentence! (put a penwiper on the judge's head, will
you, Winnie; it's solemner).'
'What's a sentence?' asked Winifred, much disturbed at these ill-omened
arrangements.
'You'll see; this is the judge talking now: "Lady Ethelinda, you've been
found guilty of very bad conduct; you've put arsenic in your beloved
Queen's tea!"'
'Why, I haven't _had_ tea yet!' protested the Sovereign.
"Her Majesty is respectfully ordered not to interrupt the judge when
he's summing up; it puts him out. Well, as I was saying, Lady Ethelinda,
I'm sorry to tell you that we shall have to cut your head off!"'
'What have I done?' thought the jester; 'she'll think I'm in earnest;
she'll never forgive me!'
But Ethelinda was perfectly delighted, for not one of her heroines had
ever been in such a romantic position as this. 'And of course,' she
thought, 'it will all come right in the end; it always does.'
Winifred, however, was terrified by the sternness of the court:
'Archie,' she cried, 'she mustn't have her head cut off.'
'It will be all right, Winnie, if you will only leave it to me and not
interfere. You promised not to interrupt, and yet you will keep on doing
it!'
Archie's head was full of executions just then, for he had been reading
'The Tower of London;' he had been artfully leading up to an execution
from the very first, and he meant to have his own way.
But first he amused himself by working upon Winifred's feelings, which
was a bad habit of his on these occasions. To do him justice, he did not
know how keenly she felt things, and how soon she forgot it was only
pretence; it flattered him to see how easily he could make Winifred cry
about nothing, and he never guessed what real pain he was giving her.
'Winnie,' he began very dolefully, 'she's in prison now, languishing in
her prison cell, and do you know, I rather think her heart's beginning
to soften a little: she wants you to come and see her. You won't refuse
her last request, Winnie, will you?'
'As if I could!' cried Winifred, full of the tenderest compassion.
'Very well then; this is the last meeting. "My dear kind mistress" (it's
Ethelinda speaking to you now), "that I once loved so dearly in the
happy days when I was innocent and good, I couldn't die till I had asked
you to forgive me. Let your poor wicked maid-of-honour kiss your hand
just once more as she used to do; tell her you forgive her about that
arsenic." Now then, Winnie!'
'I--I _can't_, Archie!' sobbed Winifred, quite melted by this pathetic
appeal.
'If you don't, she'll think you're angry still, and won't forgive her,'
said Archie. 'Just you listen; this is her now: "Won't you say one
little word, Your Majesty; you might as well. When I'm gone and
mouldering away in my felon's grave it will be too late then, and you'll
be sorry. It's the last thing I shall ever ask you!"'
'Oh, Ethelinda, darling, _don't_!' implored her Queen; 'don't go on
talking in that dreadful way; I can't bear it. Archie, I _must_ forgive
her now!'
'Oh yes, forgive her,' he said with approval; 'queens shouldn't sulk or
bear malice.'
'It's all right,' said Winifred briskly, as she dried her eyes; 'she's
quite good again. Now let's play at something not quite so horrid!'
'When we've done with this, we will; but it isn't half over yet; there's
all the execution to come. It's the fatal day now, the dismal scaffold
is erected' (here he made a rough platform and a neat little block with
the books), 'the sheriff is mounting guard over it' (and Archie propped
up the unfortunate jester against a workbox so that he overlooked the
scaffold); 'the trembling criminal is brought out amidst the groans of
the populace (groan, Winnie, can't you?)'
'I shan't groan,' said Winnie, rebelliously; 'I'm a queen, not a
populace. Archie, you won't really cut off her head, will you?'
'Don't be a little duffer,' said he; 'the end is to be a surprise, so I
can't tell you what it is till it comes. You've heard of pardons
arriving just in time, haven't you? Very well then. Only I don't say one
will arrive here, you know, I only say, wait!'
'And now,' he went on, 'I'm not the King any longer, I'm the headsman;
and--and I say, Winnie, perhaps you'd better hide your face now; a queen
wouldn't look on at the execution, really; at least a _nice_ queen
wouldn't!'
So Winifred hid her face in her hands obediently, very glad to be spared
even the pretence of an execution, and earnestly wishing Archie was near
the end of this uncomfortable game.
But Archie was just beginning to enjoy himself: 'The wretched woman,' he
announced with immense unction, 'is led tottering to the block, and then
the headsman, very respectfully, cuts off some of her beautiful golden
hair, so that it shouldn't get in his way.'
At this point I am sorry to say that Archie, in the wish to have
everything as real as possible, actually did snip off a good part of
Ethelinda's flossy curls. Luckily for him, his cousin was too
conscientious and unsuspecting to peep through her fingers, and never
imagined that the scissors she heard were really cutting anything--she
even kept her eyes shut while Archie hunted about the room for
something, which he found out at last, and which was a sword in a red
tin scabbard.
Till then Archie was not quite sure what he really meant to do; at
first he had fancied that it would be enough for him just to touch
Ethelinda lightly with the sword, but now (whether the idea had been put
in his head by the Sausage Glutton, or whether it had been there
somewhere all the time) he began to think how easily the sharp blade
would cleave Ethelinda's soft wax neck, and how he could hold up the
severed head by the hair, just like the executioner in the pictures, and
say solemnly, 'This is the head of a traitress!'
He knew of course that it would get him into terrible trouble, and he
ought to have known that it would be mean and cowardly of him to take
advantage of his poor little cousin's trust in him to deceive her.
But he did not stop to think of that; the temptation was too strong for
him; he had gone so far in cutting off her hair that he might just as
well cut off her head too.
So that presently Ethelinda found herself lying helpless, with her hands
tied behind her, and her close-cropped head placed on a thick book,
while Archie stood over her with a cruel gleam in his eyes, and
flourished a flashing sword.
'I ought to be masked though,' he said suddenly, 'or I might be
recognised--executioners had to be masked. I'll tie a handkerchief over
my eyes and that will have to do.'
And when he had done this, he began to measure the distance with his
eye, and to make some trial cuts to be quite sure of his aim, for he
meant to get the utmost possible enjoyment out of it.
Ethelinda began to be terribly frightened. Being a heroine was not
nearly so pleasant as she had expected. It had cost her most of her
beautiful hair already: was it going to cost her her head as well?
Too late, she began to see how foolish she had been, and that even
make-believe tea-parties were better than this. She longed to be held
safe in tender-hearted little Winifred's arms.
But Winifred's eyes were shut tight, and would not be opened till--till
all was over. Ethelinda could not move, could not cry out to her, she
was quite helpless, and all the time the wicked old man on the clock
went on steadily swallowing sausage after sausage, as if he had nothing
at all to do with it!
The jester was even more alarmed for Ethelinda than she was herself; he
was quite certain that Winifred was being wickedly deceived, and that
the pardon so cunningly suggested would never come.
In another minute this dainty little lady, with the sweet blue eyes and
disdainful smile, would be gone from him for ever; and there was no hope
for her,--none!
And the bitterest thing about it was, that, although he was a great deal
confused, as he very well might be, as to how it had all come about, he
knew that in some way, he himself had taken part (or rather several
parts) in bringing her to this shameful end, and the poor jester,
innocent as he was, fancied that her big eyes had a calm scorn and
reproach in them as she looked up at him sideways from the block.
'What shall I do without her?' he thought; 'how can I bear it. Ah, I
ought to be lying there--not she. I wish I could take her place!'
All this time Archie had been lingering--he lingered so long that
Winifred lost all patience. 'Do make haste, Archie,' she said, with a
little shudder that shook the table. 'I can't bear it much longer; I
shall _have_ to open my eyes!'
'It was only the mask got in my way,' he said. 'Now I'm ready. One, two,
_three_!'
And then there was a whistling swishing sound, followed by a heavy thud,
and a flop.
After that Archie very prudently made for the door. 'I--I couldn't help
it, really, Winnie,' he stammered, as she put her hands down with relief
and looked about, rather dazzled at first by the sudden light. 'I'll
save up and buy you another twice as pretty. And you know you said
Ethelinda didn't seem to care about you!'
'Stop, Archie, what do you mean? Did you think you'd cut her head off
really!'
'Haven't I?' said Archie, stupidly. 'I cut _something's_ head off; I saw
it go!'
'Then you did mean it! And, oh, it's the jester! I wouldn't have minded
it so much, if you hadn't meant it for Ethelinda! And, Archie, you
cruel, bad boy--you've cut--cut all her beautiful hair off, and I sat
here and let you! She's not pretty at all now--it's a shame, it _is_ a
shame!'
Ethelinda had had a wonderful escape, and this is how it had happened:
The jester had been so anxious about Ethelinda that he had forgotten all
about the fairy, and how she had granted him his very next wish; but
she, being a fairy, had to remember it. If he had only thought of it, it
would have been just as easy to wish Ethelinda safe without any harm
coming to himself, but he had wished 'to take her place,' and the fairy,
whether she liked it or not, was obliged to keep her promise.
So the little shake which Winifred had given the table was enough to
make Ethelinda roll quietly over the edge of the platform, and the
jester, who never was very firm on his legs, fall forward on his face
the next moment, exactly where she had lain--and either the fairy or the
handkerchief over his face prevented Archie from finding out the
exchange in time.
Archie tried to defend himself: 'I think she looks better with her hair
cut short,' he said; 'lots of girls wear it like that. And, don't you
see, Winnie, this has been a plot got up by the jester; Ethelinda was
innocent all the time, and he's just nicely caught in his own trap....
That--that's the _surprise_!'
'I don't believe you one bit!' said Winifred. 'You had no business to
cut even my jester's head off, but you meant to do much worse! I won't
play with you any more, and I shan't forgive you till the very day you
go back to school!'
'But, Winnie,' protested Archie, looking rather sheepish and ashamed of
himself.
'Go away directly,' said Winnie, stamping her foot; 'I don't want to
listen; leave me alone!'
So Archie went, not sorry, now, that an accident had kept him from doing
his worst, and feeling tolerably certain that he would be able to make
his cousin relent long before the time she had fixed, while Winifred,
left to herself again, was so absorbed in sobbing over Ethelinda's sad
disfigurement, that she quite forgot to pick up the split halves of the
jester's head which were lying on the nursery floor.
* * * * *
That night Ethelinda had the chest of drawers all to herself, and the
old Sausage Glutton grinned savagely at her from the mantelpiece, for he
was disappointed at the way in which his plans had turned out.
'Good evening,' he began, with one of his nastiest sneers. 'And how are
you after your little romance, eh? Master Archie very nearly had your
pretty little empty head off--but of course I couldn't allow that. I
hope you enjoyed yourself?'
'I did at first,' said Ethelinda; 'I got frightened afterwards, when I
thought it wasn't going to end at all nicely. But did you notice how
very wickedly that dreadful jester behaved to me--it will be a warning
to me against associating with such persons in future, and I assure you
that there was something about him that made me shudder from the very
first! I have heard terrible things about the dolls in the Lowther
Arcade, and what can you expect at such prices? Well, he's rewarded for
his crimes, and that's a comfort to think of--but it has all upset me
very much indeed, and I don't want any more romance--it does shorten the
hair so!'
The Dutch fairy doll heard her and was very angry, for she knew of
course why the jester had come to a tragic ending.
'Shall I tell her now, and make her ashamed and sorry--would she believe
me? would she care? Perhaps not, but I must speak out some time--only I
had better wait till the clock has stopped. I can't bear her to talk
about that poor jester in this way.'
But it really did not matter to the jester, who could hear or feel
nothing any more--for they had thrown him into the dustbin, where,
unless the dustcart has called since, he is lying still.
_AN UNDERGRADUATE'S AUNT._
[Illustration: F]
Francis Flushington belonged to a small college, and by becoming a
member conferred upon it one of the few distinctions it could boast--the
possession of the very bashfulest man in the whole university.
But his college did not treat him with any excess of adulation on that
account, and, probably from a prudent fear of rubbing the bloom off his
modesty, allowed him to blush unseen--which was indeed the condition in
which he preferred to blush.
He felt himself distressed in the presence of his fellow men, by a
dearth of ideas and a difficulty in knowing which way to look, that made
him happiest when he had fastened his outer door, and secured himself
from all possibility of intrusion--although this was almost an
unnecessary precaution on his part, for nobody ever thought of coming to
see Flushington.
In appearance he was a man of middle height, with a long neck and a
large head, which gave him the air of being shorter than he really was;
he had little weak eyes which were always blinking, a nose and mouth of
no particular shape, and hair of no definite colour, which he wore
long--not because he thought it becoming, but because he hated having to
talk to his hairdresser.
He had a timid deprecating manner, due to the consciousness that he was
an uninteresting anomaly, and he certainly was as impervious to the
ordinary influences of his surroundings as any modern under-graduate
could well be.
Flushington had never particularly wanted to be sent to Cambridge, and
when he was there he did not enjoy it, and had not the faintest hope of
distinguishing himself in anything; he lived a colourless, aimless sort
of life in his little sloping rooms under the roof where he read every
morning from nine till two with a superstitious regularity, even when
his books failed to convey any ideas whatever to his brain, which was
not a remarkably powerful organ.