Majesty,” he said. “I am empowered by this lady to make a suggestion
to you. Would it be the same to your Majesty if you were to marry the
lady’s aunt instead of her? She has the advantage of being wood, and
of possessing considerable personal attractions. Wooden’s Aunt, kindly
step forward, and display those attractions to his Majesty.”
Wooden’s aunt stepped forward, dropped a curtsy to the King, and
smirked.
The King’s face darkened, and he was about to speak, when Rose, who was
still standing by the throne on the daïs, interrupted. “Your Majesty,”
she said, “this woman is not at all suitable for the purpose that has
been suggested. She lives in the same part of the country over there
as I used to, and I know all about her. She is quite a common woman--I
believe she was once a sort of stewardess on a ship--and, if I may
so express myself, it is like her impudence to think of marrying your
Majesty.”
Wooden’s aunt bridled. “And who are you, I should like to know,” she
burst out, “to call me common? Common yourself! I dare say you think
yourself very grand now, talking to a Majesty, but I’ve seen you
dressed in dirty pink flannelette, and held head-downwards by one foot,
over there. So there now, Miss Superior! Common, indeed! _I_’ll learn
you!”
From these two speeches, Peggy understood that when dolls in Toyland
talked about the world of real people they called it “over there.”
“Peace, woman!” ordered the King in an angry voice. “How dare you make
a brawl in my royal palace?”
Wooden’s aunt was affected by the majesty of his demeanour, which
was certainly that of a King, though not perhaps of a good king. She
shrank back, and Selim went on: “I have no idea of marrying this woman,
Norval, and I wonder at your suggesting such a thing. But before we
talk about that I should like to know how it comes about that a wax
doll is brought into my presence, when I have given orders that all
Waxes are to be imprisoned. And I should also like to know who this
human child is, and how _she_ comes here. It looks to me very much like
prying.”
King Selim had very bushy eyebrows, and he bent them with a terrific
frown upon Peggy and Lady Grace, as he spoke.
Lady Grace shrank back, evidently frightened by Selim’s anger. But
Peggy wasn’t frightened at all. She knew somehow that she had nothing
to fear from a chess king, however angrily he might look at her. She
even thought that she might be able to do something to save Lady Grace,
if the King tried to punish her for being wax. But at present she
thought she had better keep quiet, and see what happened.
The Lord Chancellor did not seem to be frightened of the new King
either. He said, in a chatty sort of way, “Now those are both very
interesting questions, your Majesty, and I shall be delighted to
discuss them with you. Then there’s the question of your marriage to be
decided, and several other little matters, which will give us quite an
agreeable discussion, if we take them one by one. What I say is, let’s
have an Audience.”
The King stepped back on to the daïs and whispered to Rose, who
shrugged her shoulders and looked disagreeable, but did not seem to be
able to object to the proposal.
“Very well,” said the King, seating himself on his throne. “We’ll have
an Audience.”
The Lord Chancellor seemed pleased at the idea of an Audience. “Bring
in the Woolsack,” he said to the royal servant dolls, who were standing
round the daïs; and two of them went out, and came back with a large
sack of wool, which they placed in the middle of the Hall. The Lord
Chancellor took his seat on it, facing the throne, but it was so soft
that he fell back into it, and it covered him up so completely that
only two little thin legs could be seen sticking into the air. But
the two royal servants quickly rescued him, and sat him in the middle
of the sack, which bulged up all round him. He laughed in a very
good-humoured way at his mishap, and said, “Now the rest of you take
your seats, please, and then we’ll begin.”
All the company sat down on the ivory chairs on either side of the
Hall, except Rose, who still stood at the right of the King on his
throne.
“Now we must have everything quite in order,” said the Lord Chancellor
cheerfully. “I don’t know who the lady is standing by his Majesty. I’ve
nothing to say against her whatever. In fact, I’m sure she will be of
great assistance to us in our important deliberations. But I should
like her to take her place with the rest, please.”
“I am advising his Majesty on behalf of the Composition dolls,” said
Rose hastily. “It is his Majesty’s wish that I should keep by him.
Please get on with the Audience, and don’t fuss.”
“Oh, if it’s his Majesty’s wish, I’ve nothing more to say,” said the
Lord Chancellor genially. “I only thought you would be more comfortable
sitting down. Now the first thing to be done is to announce what steps
have been taken by your Majesty for the welfare of the Kingdom of
Toyland. Let’s have it all, please, from the time you received the last
wishes of our dear lamented Queen Rosebud.”
The King frowned. “I don’t want to have to go into all that again,” he
said. “I want my questions answered.”
“All in good time, your Majesty,” said the Lord Chancellor. “But let’s
have your statement first, please.”
Peggy quite expected that the King would refuse, and might even do
something to the Lord Chancellor for giving him an order in that sort
of way. But it seemed as if it was difficult for a doll to refuse to
obey any order, if it was given with enough firmness. At any rate, the
King obeyed this one, although he frowned and looked very disagreeable
about it.
“Well, if you must have it,” he said, “when the late lamented Queen
Rosebud was nearing her end she told me that she wished me to reign
over Toyland in her place.”
“Will you kindly make a note of this?” said the Lord Chancellor to his
secretary, who was standing beside him. “Take it all down in shorthand;
then we shall know where we are. Go on, please, your Majesty.”
“That’s all,” said the King. “Queen Rosebud said I was to reign, and
I’m reigning.”
“Did his Majesty say it was raining?” asked the secretary.
“No, no,” said the Lord Chancellor testily. “The King said _he_ was
reigning--with a ‘g.’ Keep your ears open, please. Well, that’s all in
order, then. Now what about the imprisonment of all wax dolls, your
Majesty? Let’s have that explained, please.”
The King frowned again. “Have I got to explain everything I do, when
I’m already King?” he asked.
“Yes, please, your Majesty,” said the Lord Chancellor firmly.
“Well, then,” said the King, “I was given reason to believe that there
would be a revolution among the Waxes, when it was known that a wooden
King was to succeed a wax Queen, and I took steps to prevent it, that’s
all.”
[Illustration]
“Who gave your Majesty reason to believe such a thing?” asked the
Lord Chancellor. “I am China myself, but I have always lived on good
terms with Waxes and Woodens alike--Compositions and Rags, too, for
the matter of that--and I believe I may say the same of most of the
inhabitants of this happy country. I see no reason to believe that
there would have been a revolution of any sort, when it was given out
that Queen Rosebud had nominated you as her successor.”
“Did you say that she abominated her professor?” asked the secretary.
“You talk so very fast.”
The King broke in before the Lord Chancellor could reply. “Are you
giving me a lecture?” he asked angrily.
“Yes,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Will your Majesty kindly answer my
question?”
“No, I won’t,” said the King. “It is enough to say that I gave orders
that if there was any trouble among the dolls landing from over there,
a gun was to be fired. The gun _was_ fired, and I ordered the Waxes to
be locked up at once.”
“The gun was fired by mistake,” said Wooden’s mother sensibly. “I saw
the soldier’s ears boxed for firing it with my own eyes.”
“Did she say she fired it with her own eyes?” asked the secretary. “She
does mumble so.”
“Mistake or no mistake,” said the King, “the gun was fired, and the
Waxes were locked up. And now we’ve finished all that, I should like
to know what this lady is doing here, when she ought to be in prison.”
He frowned terrifically at Lady Grace, who was sitting between Peggy
and Wooden. Peggy took hold of her hand. Although Lady Grace was grown
up, and she was only a little girl, she felt that she must protect her.
For after all she was her own dearly loved doll, and Peggy was not
going to have her bullied by a chess king, if she could help it.
It was Wooden who answered, in her calm, kind voice. “Lady Grace was a
favourite lady-in-waiting of dear Queen Rosebud,” she said. “I think it
would be a great pity to send her to prison, and I hope you won’t do
it, your Majesty.”
King Selim’s face grew softer as Wooden spoke. Her voice was evidently
music in his ears. Perhaps he would have given way at once, but before
he could say anything, Rose, who was still standing by the side of the
throne, spoke. “It isn’t safe to leave any wax dolls free to go about,”
she said. “They will only stir up trouble. Compositions are quite as
good as Waxes, and anything that Waxes could do, such as acting as
ladies-in-waiting to royalty, Compositions can do.”
“_You_’re not even Composition,” broke in Wooden’s aunt, who had been
glowering at Rose all along, and seemed to have forgotten her own
fright. “You’re Composition down to the neck, and your hands and feet
and the rest of you is stuffed rag. Yes, _stuffed rag_! So there,
Sawdust!”
The Lord Chancellor held up his hand. “That is a very serious
accusation to bring against a lady,” he said. “I understood the lady to
claim that she was Composition. Do you mean to accuse her of telling a
lie, madam?”
“I’ve seen her held upside down by the leg,” said Wooden’s aunt.
“Composition below, sawdust above. Deny it if you can.”
Rose did not deny it. She looked as if she were going to, but her eyes
rested on Peggy, and she knew that Peggy knew all the truth about her.
She burst into angry tears. “It is most offensive to be addressed in
that way by a vulgar creature like that,” she said. “Before gentlemen,
too! She hasn’t got any legs at all, herself, over there. Nor a nose
either. She’s a regular figure of fun.”
The King put out his hand to soothe her. “The first law I shall make,”
he said, “will be that no doll in my dominions shall ever refer to the
deficiencies of another doll over there, under pain of imprisonment.
I feel very strongly on the subject. That is why I object to human
children being brought over here to pry, and perhaps to tell tales. I
shall make a law forbidding that, too.”
“I think it would be a pity to do away with the good feeling that
exists between us and human children,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“Allowing one of them occasionally to visit us here is the only return
we can make for special kindness. I shouldn’t make that law if I were
you, your Majesty.”
“When I was at the head of my Pieces over there,” said the King, “there
was a horrible child who used to put my head in her mouth. She had at
the time only one tooth, but I bear the marks of that tooth upon me to
this day.”
Directly he had spoken, a sudden memory came back to Peggy. A year or
so before, her father had wanted to play a game of chess with a friend.
The chess-men had been brought out, but it had been found that the
white king was missing. Then it had come out that Peggy had had him to
play with when she had been a baby, and he had not been seen since. Of
course she had been too young to remember playing with him, but she
felt almost certain that King Selim was the very same piece, especially
as he was exactly the same in pattern as the black king, who still
remained.
“Why, I do believe you’re our white chess king!” she cried out. “Father
_will_ be glad that you are found again.”
[Illustration]
VII
THEY ALL GO TO PRISON
It would be impossible to describe the consternation that Peggy’s
remark caused in the Hall of Audience. King Selim grew purple in the
face with passion, and cried out in a terrible voice, “Arrest this
Human instantly, and take her off to prison. She has spoken the truth,
and it shall be her own undoing.”
Some royal guards stepped forward to do his bidding, and there was a
great commotion among the other dolls in the Hall.
But before the soldiers could reach Peggy, the Lord Chancellor made
his voice heard above the hubbub. “Half a moment! Half a moment! Half
a moment!” he kept on calling out, louder and louder, and quicker and
quicker, until the words sounded like “Ar-mo! Ar-mo!” The soldiers
paused, and the noise died down, until he could make himself heard.
“It is rather a serious thing to arrest a Human, your Majesty,” he
said. “I don’t think it has ever been done before, and it may make a
deal of trouble. We ought to be careful how we go.”
The King was still almost beside himself with rage. “Do you think I am
going to let my enemy go, now I have got her in my power at last?” he
cried. “Yes, that’s the odious child who made these scars.”
Since his face had become so red, a lot of little white marks had come
out all over it. They were the marks of Peggy’s dear little first
tooth, and she couldn’t help laughing as she looked at them, which made
the King angrier still.
“How dare you laugh?” he cried passionately. “I’ll send you to prison,
and keep you on bread and water and mustard. I’ll execute you. I’ll
have your ears boxed three times a day, an hour before meals and half
an hour after. If my mouth was big enough I’d bite _your_ head, and
see how _you_ liked it. Arrest her instantly and take that wax doll
with her as well, and the woman who dared to think she was going to
marry me. Do it at once, and don’t you dare to cross my royal will any
longer, Norval, or I’ll have you arrested, too.”
As the King had given way when the Lord Chancellor spoke firmly, so the
Lord Chancellor now gave way when the King spoke firmly. He shrugged
his shoulders, and said, “Well, I think you are making a mistake, your
Majesty, but if you say it is to be done, of course it must be done.”
Wooden rose from her seat as the officials prepared to carry out the
King’s orders. “If they are to go to prison,” she said, “I shall go,
too, and so will mother. Then we can all keep each other company. I
expect they will take us to the House of Cards, dear,” she said in a
lower voice to Peggy. “It is very nice there, and there is a lovely
view.”
Now it might have been thought that King Selim would have hesitated
before letting Wooden go off to prison, considering he had just told
her that he intended to marry her in half an hour. But he was so beside
himself with rage that he hardly knew what he was doing or saying.
“Take the whole lot of them off,” he ordered, “and don’t let me see
their ugly faces again.” Then he gathered up his robes and stalked off
the daïs and out of the Hall, by a door at the back, which he banged
after him.
The royal guards now approached the five prisoners, but did not take
hold of them or put handcuffs on them, or anything of that sort. For
the Lord Chancellor said to them, “Go easy, now! It’s only a little
flash in the pan, ladies. The King is rather irritable by nature, and
I don’t think his lunch has agreed with him. But he will think better
of this by-and-by, and you will all be let out again.”
“Not if I know it,” said a haughty, scornful voice.
It was Rose, who still stood on the daïs, and was looking at them with
a cruel joy, which she made no effort to disguise.
Her contemptuous gaze fell upon each of them in turn, but when she came
to Peggy it turned into one of absolute ferocity. She stretched out her
forefinger, and pointed at her. “Base human,” she addressed her. “I
never thought to get you into my power, but now I have you you will rue
the day when you came across the path of Rose, who never forgets and
never forgives.”
“Tut! tut!” said the Lord Chancellor. “These are hard words, madam, and
quite out of order.”
“Silence!” cried Rose, in a terrible voice, and flashing a terrible
look at him from her dark and flaming eyes. And the Lord Chancellor
shrugged his shoulders again, and kept silence, until she had finished
her oration.
“Was it not enough,” she said, “that I should be born into the world
over there as the property of a human child whom I despised and hated,
but I must be treated by her with the grossest indignity?”
Peggy thought this was a little too much. She was not in the least
frightened of Rose, nor of the King, nor of all the palace guards put
together, and thought it would be rather amusing to go to a dolls’
prison, and see what it was like. But she was not going to be stormed
at and told stories about by Rose.
“Why did you hate me?” she asked. “I was always kind to you, and I
would have loved you if you had let me.”
Rose laughed her scornful laugh. “As if I wanted _your_ love!” she
exclaimed. “Or the love of any human child! I hate the whole tribe of
them, and wish I could have them _all_ over here, and tell them what I
thought of them.”
“Oh, this is quite out of order, quite out of order,” said the Lord
Chancellor fussily. “I wish you would finish what you have to say,
madam, and let us get on with our work. You are keeping us all waiting.”
Rose took no notice of him, but went on. “You exchanged me,” she said,
“for a battered wreck of a wooden doll, without a vestige of beauty
such as mine, or indeed of any sort.”
“Who are you talking about, Miss Imperence?” said Wooden’s aunt,
suddenly breaking in. “This young lady exchanged you for my niece, who
is going to be Queen when she comes out of prison. You’d better be a
bit more careful of what you say; that’s my advice to _you_. And don’t
forget that what we can’t see of you is stuffed with sawdust.”
“Yes, I should leave off, if I were you,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“You are not being polite, you know, and it is quite true what the lady
says. It is the future Queen of Toyland that you seem to have been
exchanged for, and his Majesty won’t like it if you call her names.”
Rose laughed her scornful laugh again. “_She_ will never be Queen of
Toyland,” she said. “I’ll see to that.” And with a toss of her head and
a swish of her skirts she swept out of the Hall, by the door through
which the King had already disappeared.
The Lord Chancellor completely recovered his good humour the moment
she was gone. “What a very talkative lady!” he said, with a laugh.
“However, we needn’t worry our heads about her. We’ve got plenty to
occupy ourselves about, haven’t we?”
It really seemed as if they had. It is not every day that five ladies
are taken off to prison, not knowing when they will be let out again;
and the experience would naturally make them think. But the four dolls
did not seem to be much cast down by the prospect, and Wooden kept on
assuring Peggy that the House of Cards was a very nice prison, and
there was a magnificent view from the upper stories.
The Lord Chancellor proposed that they should walk to the prison, so
that Peggy might see some of the life of Dolltown before she was shut
up. “I should have liked to take you about myself,” he said politely,
“and to show you some hospitality during your visit. It’s a pity you
didn’t come when Queen Rosebud was alive. However, we must make the
best of things, mustn’t we? I’ll see that you’re comfortable, and
have plenty of pot-plants. We might buy a few as we go along. I like
pot-plants.”
They set out. The Lord Chancellor gave the palace guards instructions
to walk behind. “The people will think they are just a guard of
honour,” he explained kindly. “If they were to put handcuffs on you,
it would be different. But I have always been one for making things
comfortable all around. Live and let live is my motto.”
He walked between Peggy and Wooden as they went through the streets,
and turned out to be a pleasant, chatty old gentleman, with a
well-stored mind, and a fund of varied information. He told Peggy a
good deal that interested her about the conditions of life in Dolltown,
and she found it difficult to believe that she was really being taken
to prison, and quite enjoyed her walk.
[Illustration: He walked between Peggy and Wooden]
The streets were gay, and crowded with dolls of all sorts except
those made of wax. A good deal of interest was aroused by the little
procession, with the six palace guards bringing up the rear. Gradually
a crowd of dolls gathered and walked with them, so that the streets
became rather full, and the dolls who were driving the toy hansom cabs,
and the toy motors, and the toy carts, had some difficulty in making
their way along.
The Lord Chancellor seemed to enjoy the attention that was being drawn
to them, but also to be a little anxious about being recognized. He
called his secretary to him, and said, “You might just tell some of the
people that the elderly gentleman in the velvet gown, with a learned
and amiable expression of face, is the Lord Chancellor. Then they
will hand it on to the others. We will go into this shop and buy some
pot-plants.”
They went into a flower-shop, full of toy flowers in very bright red
pots, and the Lord Chancellor made a handsome purchase, and paid for
it with toy money, which Peggy thought most fascinating. She wished
she had brought some of hers with her, for she had had a lot given to
her for a Christmas present, and would have been quite rich with it
in Toyland. The pots were given to the guards to carry, and they said
good-bye to the nice pleasant woman doll who kept the shop, and set out
again.
[Illustration]
While they had been in the shop, the Lord Chancellor’s secretary had
been telling everybody who they were, and also that they were all on
their way to prison. He had not been told to say this, but he was
rather stupid. The only reason why he was kept on was that he was so
willing. But this time he had been a little too willing, for a lot of
the doll people were inclined to be angry at so much sending to prison,
and some of them thought that the Lord Chancellor could have stopped it
if he had liked.
So when they all came out of the shop, there were not quite so many
smiles for them as before, and there were even a few boos and hisses as
they continued on their way.
The Lord Chancellor looked surprised and pained. “Now I did think that
when they were told who I was they would be pleased,” he said. “I
must say that I do like people to like me, and it makes me positively
miserable if they don’t. What can I have done? There isn’t a smut on my
nose, or anything like that, is there?”
“No,” said Wooden. “There is only a small pimple that people might
mistake for a smut if they were a little short-sighted.”
“Ah, then I expect that is it,” said the Lord Chancellor. “That pimple
has been growing lately, and I always feared that it would bring me
trouble.”
Peggy now began to be a little frightened, for the crowd of dolls was
pressing more closely round them, and the hisses and the booing were
beginning to get louder. Many of the dolls looked angry, too, and she
found that it was one thing to laugh at a single chess king being
angry, and quite another to have several hundred dolls as large as life
jostling round her in a crowd.
You see, an angry doll is not what you are accustomed to, and you are
always apt to be a little frightened at something that is quite strange.
But just as it was beginning to be difficult to move forward, because
of the crowd, Peggy suddenly caught sight of something that took her
mind off what was happening. This was the shiny black hat and yellow
robe of Mr. Noah on the edge of the crowd, and not only that, but
the brown coat and merry face of her own old Teddy. She had been so
occupied with all the curious and interesting things that had been
happening since she had come off the ark that she had had no time to
think about Teddy, or to wonder what he was doing. But evidently he
had made great friends with Mr. and Mrs. Noah, and was going about with
them.
Well, Teddy was peering between the heads of the people to see what
was happening, and directly he caught sight of Peggy he pushed his way
through the crowd, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Noah. All of them were tall
and strong, and although there were some complaints from the dolls they
elbowed aside, such as, “Now then, where do you think you are going?”
and “Mind who you’re shoving, can’t you?” the three of them quickly got
through.
“Now then, Mr. Man,” said Teddy to the Lord Chancellor, “where are you
taking my young mistress off to?”