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[pg 91] 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[pg 92] 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[pg 93] 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[pg 94] 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.”
[pg 95]
“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[pg 96] 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,[pg 98] 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.
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[pg 99] 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.
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.”
[pg 101]
“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[pg 102] 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?”
“why, they’re taking them off to prison!” said an indignant voice from the crowd, and it was repeated by several other voices, equally indignant. “they’re taking them off to prison.”
the lord chancellor held up his hand. “now then, my good people,” he said, “don’t disturb yourselves, i do pray and beg of you. it’s the king’s orders, you know, and you can really hardly call it going to prison. they are going to be his majesty’s guests for a little time in the house of cards. there’s a glorious view[pg 103] from there, and they will get very good food. you see, we’ve just been buying pot-plants to brighten up their apartments for them. here they are. the guards are carrying them. you can see them for yourselves. do please let us get on. the ladies want their tea.”
the lord chancellor seemed to attach great importance to the pot-plants, and they did make some impression on the crowd, because they could all see them, and there was no doubt about them at all. they made way for the lord chancellor to go on for a few steps, followed by his charges.
but teddy wasn’t at all satisfied. “here, wait a minute, mister,” he said. “what are you taking my young mistress to prison for? that’s what i want to know. and, why bless me! here’s wooden, too, and lady grace, and wooden’s mother and aunt. i say, this won’t do at all, you know. are they all going to prison?”
“oh, yes, but only—well, you might almost call it for a little fun,” said the lord chancellor. “it’s more like a first-class hotel than a prison, you know. and—and—well, look at the pot-plants! you can see for yourself!”
“oh, blow the pot-plants!” said teddy; and peggy did not object to the vulgarity of the expression, as he[pg 104] spoke as if he really meant to do something. “what are they going to prison for?”
“three wooden dolls, too!” said mrs. noah. “and one of them was going to be queen, we were all told. it doesn’t seem to me as if the new king was acting quite right, it doesn’t.”
there were murmurs among the crowd. mrs. noah seemed to have hit upon a feeling that they all shared, more or less. “no, it isn’t right.” “there was hardly any sending to prison in queen rosebud’s time.” “they don’t look as if they had done anything wrong either.” “nice kind faces, all of them!” these were a few of the speeches that reached peggy’s ears from among the dolls who were all round her.
the lord chancellor still kept his good-natured expression of face, as if they were all making a great fuss about nothing, but he would put up with it for the sake of pleasing them. “now, look here,” he said in a persuasive voice, “i think there’s a great deal in what you say, and i should be the last one to want to go against you. a more intelligent and intellectual-looking crowd i have seldom set eyes on, and it’s a real pleasure to address you.”
there were murmurs of approval, and one smartly dressed lady doll standing near to peggy, said, “lord[pg 105] norval can be trusted. i know all about him, and i once met him at a garden party.”
“now suppose we come to a compromise,” said the lord chancellor.
there were more murmurs of approval. another lady doll near to peggy asked, “what is a compromise?”
“oh, don’t you know?” said the first lady doll. “it’s ‘if you give way, i’ll pretend to.’”
“what i suggest is this,” said the lord chancellor. “let us all take these ladies to the house of cards—it isn’t really like a prison at all, you know—and when we have made them comfortable there, and got them off our minds, then we’ll talk about what can be done. now that strikes me as eminently fair.”
“yes, that’s a compromise,” said the first lady doll, “and a very good one. but i knew that the lord chancellor could be trusted. a cook i once had had been kitchen maid to a great friend of his wife’s.”
peggy did not think much of the lord chancellor’s compromise, but it seemed to satisfy the crowd, who greeted it with enthusiasm, and immediately made a way through for them, and went along with them. peggy thought that teddy would have seen that if they were once all shut up in prison it would be much[pg 106] more difficult to get them out again than to prevent their going there. but he said no more. with an encouraging wave of the paw he took himself off, followed by mr. and mrs. noah, and was lost to view. peggy felt a little sad, but only for a moment, because she couldn’t help treating the whole business as a sort of game; and everybody knows that whatever dreadful things happen in dolls’ games, everything always comes right in the end.
so on they all went, and by-and-by they came to the house of cards.
