keys down, their room would not be locked, and she would hardly be a
prisoner. But she did not say anything, as she thought that if the door
was left unlocked she might take Wooden or Lady Grace, or both of them,
up to see the Queen.
The dolls were interested in what she told them, but they were now
quite used to the idea of Queen Rosebud being alive, and showed less
excitement at her news than Peggy had expected. While she had been
away, they seemed to have been talking about the failure of the plan
concocted by Teddy and Colonel Jim, and to have agreed that Teddy had
not behaved well in telling Colonel Jim that Mr. Emma would say, “With
pleasure,” when he asked him if he could go up to the top story. For
Mr. Emma had said quite the opposite.
“I always knew Teddy was flighty,” said Wooden, “but I did not think
that he would go so far as to tell a story.”
“So many people seem to be telling them now,” said Lady Grace sadly.
“It is very dreadful.”
“But Teddy didn’t tell a story,” said Peggy. “He only thought that Mr.
Emma would say that, and told Colonel Jim so.”
Wooden’s aunt, who was already very busy with her tea, slapped her
knee, and said, with a mouth full of bread and butter, “There now!
Didn’t I say the very same thing? I was the only one as stuck up for
Teddy. I said he wouldn’t tell a lie, because I knowed he wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t say what Peggy says he told Colonel Jim,” said Wooden’s
mother. “Are you sure he said that, dear?”
“Yes,” said Peggy stoutly. “That is what he must have said.”
“Well, I am sure I am very glad to hear it,” said Wooden, with a sigh
of relief. “I know _you_ wouldn’t tell a story, dear, and if you say
that is what Teddy said, of course he said it. I am _very_ glad he
didn’t tell a story, as I shouldn’t like to think ill of him. I suppose
you couldn’t tell us what Rose really said, could you? I have never
liked her, but you did exchange her for me over there, and I have
always felt sorry for her, because the exchange was such a good thing
for me. I should like not to think badly of her, if I could.”
“Rose has told nothing but stories,” said Peggy decisively. “She is
really wicked, and when Queen Rosebud comes to the throne again I hope
she will do something to her. I am very glad I did exchange her for
you, dear Wooden, especially now I know what she is really like.”
“Perhaps if she had stayed with you she might not have been so wicked,”
said Wooden; and Peggy thought this was a great compliment from a doll,
because in some ways they are better than human beings. Of course
they have not so many temptations to be naughty, but I am not sure
that they don’t resist the temptations that they do have better than
a good many humans. Rose was quite an exception, and as for Selim, he
wasn’t a proper doll at all, and had spent his active life in being so
harried about a chess board, with hectoring Queens, and heavy Castles,
and sliding Bishops, and hopping Knights, and perky little Pawns always
giving him check, and he not able to move more than one square at a
time, that perhaps it was no wonder that he would do anything to get
into a position in which he could really act like a King. However, I
am far from excusing his abominable behaviour at this particular time,
and think that Peggy was quite right in hoping that he would come to be
soundly punished for it.
When they had nearly finished their tea, footsteps and voices were
heard coming up the stairs, and to their surprise the Lord Chancellor
came into the room, followed by Mr. Emma.
The Lord Chancellor looked annoyed, and Mr. Emma looked frightened.
Peggy guessed at once that this was because the Lord Chancellor had
found out about Mr. Emma giving her his keys.
[Illustration]
She was right. As they came into the room, the Lord Chancellor said, “I
dare say the young lady did want to see your baby. Nobody knows better
than I do, from long experience of the law, that young ladies like to
see babies, and you have nothing to teach me about that. But you had
no right whatever to lend her your keys, and allow her to go in and out
of this room as she pleases.”
When he had said this he changed his expression of face completely, and
smiled at Peggy and the four dolls. “Well, ladies,” he said, “I am glad
to see you all looking so well, and I expect you are glad to see me
looking well. I should say now that none of you have been in the least
inconvenienced by your visit to this handsome building.”
He said this as if he were inviting them to agree with him, and added,
“Why, for part of the time you haven’t even had the door locked, which
must have taken away the idea of a prison from your minds altogether.”
Peggy thought this was rather cool, considering they had just heard
him scolding Mr. Emma for letting them have the door unlocked. While
the Lord Chancellor had been speaking, Mr. Emma had been making signs
to her in a pathetic imploring sort of way, pointing up to the ceiling
and at her and himself and the Lord Chancellor and the tea-tray on the
table, and making words at her with his mouth, none of which she could
understand. But suddenly she understood by his signs what he wanted to
convey to her. He was begging her not to tell the Lord Chancellor that
she had carried the tray up to the top story. So she nodded her head
and put her finger on her mouth to assure him that she would keep his
secret, for she did not want to get him into further trouble. He seemed
a little soothed by this, but still very dejected, as he stood with his
head on one side behind the Lord Chancellor.
“If I had not made it a rule of life never to take tea twice on the
same day,” said the Lord Chancellor, “I should feel inclined to ask you
for a cup. I assure you that this is better tea than I drank at my own
house half an hour ago. Really, I feel inclined to wish that I could be
sent to the House of Cards myself, for a short time. I doubt if there
is a more comfortable place in the whole of Dolltown. Now, confess,
ladies. Haven’t you found it so?”
“We have nothing to complain of in our treatment,” said Wooden, in a
polite and simple but yet dignified way. “But nobody likes to be in
prison, and I would rather go without my tea altogether than have it
and be shut up.”
The Lord Chancellor seemed delighted with this speech. “Now, it is a
most extraordinary thing,” he said, “that you should express those
sentiments. I was half afraid, when I came in, that you would be
so delighted with your present situation that you would not want to
exchange it for another. In fact, I thought you might even refuse to do
so. I am very glad indeed that I was mistaken. For I have come to tell
you that his most gracious Majesty, moved by one or two things that
I have said to him, has instructed me to release you and Peggy. Now,
don’t tell me--_please_ don’t tell me--that you would rather stay where
you are.”
“No, I shall not,” said Wooden. “I am very glad to be let out of
prison. I ought never to have been sent here. None of us ought. Are my
mother and aunt and Lady Grace still to be kept here?”
“If she and Peggy go, _I_ go,” said Wooden’s aunt. “That’s flat.”
“You will go by-and-by,” said the Lord Chancellor in a soothing voice.
“Leave it to me, and I will arrange it all. But I’m afraid you three
others will have to stay here a little longer. Lady Grace is Wax, you
see, and the order for releasing Waxes has not yet been given. But it
will be. You needn’t have the slightest doubt about that. Just have
patience for a little; that’s all.”
“Well, I ain’t Wax,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’m Wood, and proud of it.
What’s the matter with me being let out?”
“Well,” said the Lord Chancellor, “the fact is that the King is still
rather annoyed with you for thinking of such a thing as him marrying
you.”
“I don’t think of it no more,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I don’t want to
marry the old heathen image. You tell him that, Mr. Lawyer, with
Wooden’s aunt’s comps.”
“Certainly, I will,” said the Lord Chancellor, with a polite bow. “It
may make all the difference; there’s no telling.”
“Am I to stay in prison?” asked Wooden’s mother. “If so, I think it is
very unfair. I’ve done nothing.”
“I hinted as much to his Majesty,” said the Lord Chancellor, “but
he said two out at a time was enough. So I shouldn’t worry about it
if I were you. You’ll be let out all in good time, and you are so
comfortable here that it hardly makes any difference whether it’s
sooner or later.”
“You keep on saying that like a Poll-parrot,” said Wooden’s aunt. “I’ve
no patience with you. You go back and tell your master that if I ain’t
let out of this in an hour’s time I’ll yell the place down. So there
now!”
“I will be sure to convey your message, madam,” said the Lord
Chancellor, as politely as before. “Now, I think we might make a start,
eh?” He turned towards Emma, and his face became severe once more. “As
for you, sir,” he said, “I shall have you dismissed from your post. You
have given your keys to a prisoner. That is the most serious offence
you could have committed.”
Poor Mr. Emma threw himself on his knees and held up his hands in
supplication. “Oh, don’t dismiss me, your Honour,” he cried, “I’ve got
a wife and a dear little baby, and you wouldn’t want them to starve,
now would you? You’ve got a kind face; and a kind heart goes with it--I
know it do. Don’t turn me off; please don’t.”
The Lord Chancellor’s face became softer. “It is quite true that I have
a kind face,” he said. “Many people have remarked the same thing before
now, and some of them have even gone so far as to say that for my age
it is a handsome face. Of course that was only said in compliment, I
know; I don’t wish to make too much of it; but it does show that there
is something in my face that strikes people, and I don’t wonder that it
has struck you. Well, now, about dismissing you from your post--if I
_could_ find a way out of it----!”
He looked at Peggy, as if he expected her to help him, but for the
moment she couldn’t think of anything.
“Of course you have committed a serious fault,” he said to Mr. Emma,
who had risen from his knees and was waiting to hear what was to be
done to him, with a mournful expression on his face. “Prisoners are
entrusted to you, and you are right in treating them as well as you
can. But you have treated this young lady as if she weren’t a prisoner
at all.”
“But I am not a prisoner,” said Peggy. “You have said yourself that I
am not.”
The Lord Chancellor’s face lightened. “Now, why didn’t I think of
that?” he said. “It makes all the difference. Mr. Emma, you have
committed no fault whatever. In fact, by carrying out his Majesty’s
wishes at the earliest possible moment, you have shown yourself a
zealous servant of the Crown, and I shall have much pleasure in
recommending you for a rise in wages.”
So that matter was settled in the most satisfactory fashion, and Peggy
was pleased to see Mr. Emma cheer up and look proud of himself, as if
he had done something particularly clever.
She and Wooden said good-bye to the others, who did not seem so
disappointed at still being kept in prison as might have been expected.
There are many advantages in being a doll, and one of them is that they
have such a lot of time before them that they are a good deal more
patient than we are when things are not going well for them. They know
that the bad time will end, and are content to wait till it does. Peggy
managed to whisper to Lady Grace that she would do all she could to
set things right and get the Queen out of prison. Then, of course, she
would come out, too, and be restored to her post as lady-in-waiting.
Wooden’s aunt was still eating and drinking in great enjoyment, and
Wooden’s mother, after kissing them farewell, said that she should have
a little nap, and when she woke up perhaps she would be let out.
[Illustration]
XII
PEGGY STAYS IN A REAL DOLLS’ HOUSE
Peggy had only stayed a very short time in prison, and had been so much
interested in all that had happened there that she had hardly been able
to think of herself in prison at all, but she was none the less pleased
to be in the open street and free to go anywhere. They were going first
of all to Wooden’s house, which was in the chief residential quarter of
Dolltown, near the royal palace.
The news of the imprisonment of a human child, and of four dolls, two
at least of whom were highly respected, must have spread; for as they
walked along everybody seemed to recognize them, and they were followed
by an ever increasing crowd of dolls, who seemed to be greatly excited
by their reappearance. The Lord Chancellor was in a high state of
delight at the attention they were receiving. If he had a fault, it
was a slight but excusable vanity. By his own labours he had raised
himself to his present proud position, and thought it only natural that
everybody who saw him should be extremely interested in him. He was
generally accompanied by his secretary when he walked about the streets
of Dolltown, so that if he happened to go unrecognized the secretary
could tell the people who he was. But this time he had left him behind,
to write out the notes he had taken in the Hall of Audience, and walked
alone with Peggy and Wooden.
He certainly received a great deal of attention, and was at first very
pleased with it, as I have said. But by-and-by he became a good deal
less pleased.
For the crowd was not so good-tempered as it had been when they had
all walked to prison together. Most of the dolls that composed it made
a lot of fuss over Peggy and Wooden, whom they were pleased to see
let out of prison, but they did not seem at all pleased to see the
Lord Chancellor, and he had to listen to some unpleasant remarks about
himself for his share in what had happened.
These remarks caused him a good deal of pain, and, when he understood
that he was not sharing in the popularity that Peggy and Wooden
enjoyed, he began to explain to everybody who would listen to him that
he had been against sending anybody to prison from the first, and that
it was entirely owing to him that Peggy and Wooden had been let out.
But nobody did listen to him very carefully, and one rather rude Dutch
doll actually said to him, “Oh, dry up, you silly old fool, and don’t
talk so much.” This distressed him very much. He had never in his life
been called a silly old fool before, and the phrase rankled. He did not
try to excuse himself any more, but kept on repeating “silly old fool”
under his breath, so as to see if it was really as bad as it sounded.
Wooden’s house was situated in a handsome terrace, which had a gate and
a little wooden lodge at each end of it, to keep the houses private.
This was a good thing, for the crowd had to stay outside the gates.
It was nice to have them so enthusiastic, but they might have made
themselves a nuisance if they had swarmed about the house itself, and
looked in at the windows, and dirtied the front door steps.
Wooden had told Peggy what a nice house she had, and was pleased to be
able to show it to her. It was a handsome, rather old-fashioned, wooden
dolls’ house of three stories and six rooms, with a staircase running
up the middle. It was nicely furnished, too, with beautifully-made
dolls’ furniture and ornaments. Any little girl would have been
overjoyed at having such a dolls’ house given to her to play with. To
Peggy it was even more delightful than if she had had it as a toy,
because it was of a size that made it possible for her to use it as a
real house. Instead of putting her hand inside the rooms with great
care, so as not to disturb the arrangements, she could go into all the
rooms herself and use the things in them.
[Illustration: It was a handsome house of three stories]
I know that it is not customary in stories to talk about the rooms and
furniture of a house before your characters have entered it; but in
this case it is all right, because the front of the house stood open,
and Peggy saw nearly everything inside it before they went in.
The rooms were a good deal larger than those in most dolls’ houses. I
mean not only larger because the house had grown up, so to speak, but
because they would hold more dolls and more furniture. In a dolls’
house it is sometimes awkward to have a doll or a piece of furniture
that takes up nearly the whole of a room, and even in good ones it does
not often happen that the rooms are big enough to accommodate many
dolls, or more than a few pieces of furniture. But there was quite a
lot of furniture in the rooms of Wooden’s house, and although they were
all square, and of the same size, which gave them a certain lack of
variety, they would comfortably hold quite a large number of dolls.
On the ground floor were a kitchen and a dining-room, on the first
floor a drawing-room and the best bedroom, and on the top floor a
servants’ room and a spare room. Wooden pointed them out as they walked
up the terrace, and said that as long as Peggy stayed with her she
should give her the best bedroom, because it had the best furniture in
it, and use the spare room for herself.
It was just like Wooden to offer to do this, but Peggy said no, she
wouldn’t hear of it. She could not see the furniture of the spare room
from where they were, as it was too high up, but she was sure it was
good enough for her.
It may seem a little odd that Wooden should have spoken as if they were
going to stay in Toyland, if not for ever, at least for some time.
For Peggy had understood that the dolls who were still played with
by children only went to Toyland when it was night--“over there,” as
they would have said. But it did not seem odd to her, and in fact she
never thought about it. Once in Toyland, the dolls who inhabited that
pleasant country behaved as if they always lived there. It seemed to
come from the air of the place; and that explains why Peggy never once
thought of going home again as long as she was there, any more than
Wooden or any of the other dolls did.
The weather was fine and warm, which would have made it nice to have
the front of the house open, although a little wanting in privacy. But
Wooden said, “I should like you to go in through the front door, dear.
It is a beautiful door, and it seems a pity not to use it. So I think I
will have the front of the house shut.”
Two wooden servant dolls, a cook and a housemaid, dressed one in a
blue, the other in a black frock, with snowy white caps and aprons,
had been standing in front of the kitchen looking out for them. Wooden
told them to shut the front of the house, and they came out and did so,
pushing it back quite easily. For they were good servants and devoted
to their mistress, and kept the hinges well oiled.
When the front of the house was shut it looked very handsome indeed.
The door that Wooden was so proud of was inside a fine porch, and had
a brass knocker on it. All the windows had little panes of glass, kept
beautifully clean, and white curtains looped up inside them. And each
of them had a neat iron railing in front of it to hold flowers. It was
like a real house, and yet it was like a dolls’ house, too, which made
it all the more fascinating.
They went up two steps under the porch, and Wooden knocked with the
knocker, to show that it was a real knocker. The doll housemaid opened
the door, and they went in. For the first time in her life, naturally,
Peggy was inside a real dolls’ house, with the front shut and even the
door shut. Hitherto she had only been able to see what it was like by
peeping in through the windows; for of course you know that a dolls’
house can never be quite the same with its front open. It takes away
from the make-believe. She felt frightfully pleased; and it really was
nice, and not a bit like a real house, although everything in it was of
an ordinary real size.
The Lord Chancellor had come in with them. He had told Wooden that he
had had a lot of running about and should like to rest a little. But,
of course, what he really wanted was to get away from the crowd, and go
home later on when it should have dispersed. But Wooden said that it
was an honour to entertain him in her own house, which pleased him, and
by the time they had got inside he had recovered some of his spirits,
and seemed ready to be as talkative as ever.
[Illustration]
Wooden led the way up to the drawing-room, which had a carpet of a
very large pattern and a wall paper with enormous roses on it. The
furniture was beautifully made, but Peggy felt that she was really
sitting on a dolls’ sofa and not on an ordinary one, although it was
comfortable, and of an ordinary size. Nothing was quite the same. The
mirrors had tin frames, the books on the tables were evidently toy
books, with thick leaves and bindings that did not keep quite flat;
and there were some packs of cards and some dominoes on another table
looking exactly like those very tiny ones which you can buy in shops,
but are so small that you do not want to play with them more than once.
They had hardly sat down, Peggy and Wooden on the sofa and the Lord
Chancellor on a large chair, before the doll housemaid opened the door
and announced a visitor, by the name of Mrs. Winifred.
Mrs. Winifred was a mature-looking Dutch doll. Most of the wooden dolls
in Toyland were of Dutch extraction, even Wooden herself, just like
many of the old families of New York, but they were no more Dutch than
the New Yorkers are. She came forward and kissed Wooden, and said she
was very glad she had come out of prison, and she felt that she must
come round at once and tell her so.
Mrs. Winifred had hardly been accommodated with a seat before Mrs.
Hilda was announced, and when Mrs. Hilda had said the same as Mrs.
Winifred, Captain and Mrs. Louisa were announced. Captain Louisa was
an officer in a regiment of wooden soldiers, and wore his uniform. His
wife and Mrs. Hilda were wooden dolls like Mrs. Winifred. These were
followed by Mr. and Mrs. Joyce, Mr. and Mrs. Ida, Mrs. Mollie, Mrs.
Jane, and one or two more, all of the best wooden families of Dolltown,
and it was evidently a source of great pride to Wooden that they
should show such a nice feeling towards her.
She introduced them all to Peggy, and those who did not know him to the
Lord Chancellor. There were so many of them that it was like a sort of
party. The dolls sat rather stiffly in their chairs, and there were
other little points about them, such as their knees showing rather
prominently through their skirts and trousers, which made it seem like
a dolls’ party, and as if they were all playing at something. This
pleased Peggy. She felt as if she had set them all down herself on
their chairs and on the sofas, exactly where she wanted them to be, as
she did sometimes with her smaller dolls in her dolls’ house at home,
and pretended that they were talking politely to each other.
[Illustration]
XIII
THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER
The late imprisonment of Peggy and Wooden, and especially of Wooden,
naturally formed the chief subject of conversation.
“I must say,” said Mrs. Winifred, “that I was surprised to hear that
_you_ had been sent to prison, Mrs. Wooden. We had all heard that such
a _very_ different lot had been prepared for you.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hilda. “What we heard was that you were to be made
Queen and live in the palace.”
“And we were very _glad_ to hear it,” said Mrs. Joyce, a thin,
rather vinegary-looking doll, whom Peggy did not very much take
to. “We knew that if _you_ were made Queen there would be no more
high-and-mightiness at the palace, and you wouldn’t give yourself airs
with _us_.”
“It would be the beginning of a new era,” said Mr. Joyce, who was a
members of the Dolls’ Parliament. “The Woodens would be no longer
oppressed by the Waxes, and peace and contentment would reign, where
before there had been strife and inequality.”
“I’m not sure,” said the Lord Chancellor, “that I quite agree with that
observation. As Woods, all this extremely intelligent and entertaining
company is naturally pleased at having a Wooden King to reign over
Toyland. But under our late lamented Queen Rosebud, as far as my memory
carries me back, there was no oppression. And personally I boast
intimate friends amongst dolls of all varieties, from Wax to Rag.”
“What I think,” said Mrs. Mollie, a severe-looking doll with a long
upper lip, “is that we were a good deal better off under Queen Rosebud
than we are likely to be under King Selim. I don’t hold with these
foreigners.”
The other dolls seemed to be rather taken aback by this plainness of
speech, and the Lord Chancellor said, “Tut, tut! You mustn’t say things
like that, my dear lady. It isn’t respectful to the Crown.”