the house of cards was a noble structure, and one which interested peggy extremely. she had once built one herself, up to five stories, and had nearly finished the sixth before it tumbled down. but the house of cards in dolltown was of no less than thirteen stories, and towered high above all the other buildings. each story was as high as the shops round the market-place, and not even the post-office, which was an imposing edifice of terra-cotta bricks, reached higher than its second story. it was built up of gigantic cards, just as peggy had built hers with ordinary sized ones, but it seemed quite strong, and as if it would last for ever. there were windows and doors in the cards, and the ones that were laid flat at each story formed platforms and balconies, on which you could go out to look about you.
just as the lord chancellor was ushering them in to the house of cards, a lead life guardsman from the palace rode up on his black horse and handed him a[pg 108] note. “now i am rather sorry for that,” he said, when he had read it. “i had intended to shut you all up in the top story, for the sake of the view. but the king doesn’t wish that. you are to be imprisoned on the first floor. those are his very words. well, you will be able to see the life of the market-place, which is very entertaining. as a distinguished doll once said, ‘there is no cloud without its silver lining.’ you couldn’t do that so conveniently from the top story. perhaps the king thought of that. there is a good deal of thoughtfulness in his nature, though he is apt to be a little irritable after meals.”
“it’s like his nastiness not to let us see the view,” said wooden’s aunt. “i wouldn’t marry him now, not if he was to go down on his bended knees, i wouldn’t.”
peggy would have liked to go up to the top of the house of cards, but it turned out very well for them all that they were not shut up there, as will presently appear.
the cards of which the house was built were so enormous that each story had two floors of several rooms. they were taken upstairs by a policeman doll, and found themselves in a spacious apartment furnished with quite nice dolls’ furniture, and not like a prison at all. the lord chancellor rubbed his hands[pg 109] as he looked round him, and said, “well, this isn’t so bad, is it? with the pot-plants it will look quite home-like, and i should think, when you are set free, you will hardly like to leave it. you can go out on this balcony, see? we might go out now, and look at the people. i’m sure they will be pleased to see us all, especially me. the people have a great love for me, and it is very gratifying. i often think about it when i am alone, and it sometimes brings tears to my eyes.”
they went out on the balcony, and looked down at the crowd of dolls in the market-place. there were all sorts there except wax. peggy looked to see if she could see teddy or the noahs among them. there were several teddy bears, and one or two noahs in the crowd, but although she might not have recognized the noahs of the royal ark, peggy would have known her own teddy anywhere. she was sure that he was not in the crowd, and wondered what had become of him.
the crowd of dolls cheered when they appeared on the balcony. the lord chancellor put himself in front, and bowed repeatedly, but the dolls seemed to be cheering wooden more than him. this was probably because they had been told that she was to be[pg 110] their queen, and because any doll who knew her would have told their friends how nice and good she was. so the news would have spread, and wooden would have become popular. at any rate the dolls kept on calling out, “wooden! wooden! speech! speech!”
the platform was too high above the market-place to make it convenient for anybody to make a speech from it, even if they had wished to. wooden did not wish to, not being accustomed to public speaking, but her aunt offered to dance a highland fling, which her late husband had taught her. this offer was refused, and wooden’s mother told her to behave herself, and remember where she was.
“now, i must leave you,” said the lord chancellor. “good-bye, ladies, and a very pleasant imprisonment to you!”
he shook hands affably with all of them, and bowed himself out. he seemed already to have forgotten the compromise he had come to with the people, and they seemed to have forgotten it, too; for peggy watched him go off, followed by the palace guards, and bowing to right and left. the dolls in the market-place cheered heartily, but none of them stopped him to say anything, and he disappeared round the corner.
“dolls seem to have very short memories,” said[pg 111] peggy to herself. she could not help feeling a little unhappy at being shut up in a prison, though it was only a dolls’ prison, and quite different from the stone cells she had read about. she did think that her own teddy might have done something more to help them. she knew now that he was rather flighty, but surely he need not have gone off like that, and have left his mistress and her friends to be locked up, without trying to do anything to rescue them! she supposed he was amusing himself with his new friends, mr. and mrs. noah, and had forgotten all about her.
but she did teddy an injustice there, as you will soon see.
the policeman doll came up to see if they wanted anything directly the lord chancellor had gone, and brought his wife with him. he was a large, amiable-looking doll, and his wife was nice too. she was dressed as a swiss peasant, and when she saw peggy she said, “bonjour, mademoiselle! comment ça va t’il?”
now peggy knew a good deal of french already, because her father and mother took her to etretat every summer for the holidays. so she said at once, “merci, madame, ça va bien. et vous?”
the policeman doll’s wife was delighted to hear her[pg 112] own language spoken, and asked peggy if she might kiss her. the policeman doll beamed affectionately at them, and said, “isn’t that clever now? i never could pick up her lingo.”
they said they would like some tea as soon as possible, and apricot jam with it. the policeman doll’s wife, whose name was mrs. emma, said that she would bring it up as soon as she had bathed her baby.
[pg 113]
“oh, have you got a long-clothes baby?” asked peggy, clasping her two hands together.
mrs. emma said that she had, and peggy begged her to let her go down and bathe it for her.
the policeman doll said he didn’t think he could allow that without orders, but mrs. emma persuaded him, and he said that as the outer door of the house was locked, perhaps it wouldn’t much matter after all; only she wasn’t to tell anybody. peggy would have promised almost anything for the sake of bathing a real live baby doll, and promised this readily enough. so she left the four dolls, promising to come back soon, and went downstairs with mr. and mrs. emma.
they lived in the basement, where they had a large and well furnished kitchen, spotlessly clean. in one corner of it was a pretty bassinette covered with muslin and ribbons, and inside it was the sweetest little baby doll, beautifully dressed in a hand-made robe of cambric and lace. everything was so pretty and dainty that it might have belonged to a princess, and mrs. emma told peggy that she took a great pride in having everything very nice for her baby.
peggy lost her heart to the baby doll at once. she would have loved it even if it had been just like other[pg 115] dolls, but when it smiled at her, and put out its little pudgy hands, and gurgled happily, she could almost have eaten it, it was so fascinating.
mrs. emma put on her a large bath apron, and got out a white enamelled toy bath, with a gold rim round it, and a cake of pink soap, and filled the bath with hot water. and then peggy lifted the baby doll carefully out of the cot and undressed it and put it into the bath, first putting her own hand in the water to see that it was not too hot.
it was lovely, bathing that beautiful fat laughing baby doll. mrs. emma stood over the bath smiling at them both, but she soon saw that peggy knew exactly what to do and how to do it, so she went away to her work in another part of the kitchen.
peggy was so busy with the baby doll, and so wrapped up in it, that she did not pay much attention to what mr. and mrs. emma were talking about. but she heard some of the things they said, and, although she did not pay much attention to them at the time, as i have said, they turned out to be important afterwards, as you will see.
when peggy had bathed the baby doll, and dressed it and put it back into its cot, she was taken upstairs again. she found the woodens and lady grace on[pg 116] the balcony, where something interesting was just about to happen.
a teddy bear had made its appearance in the market-place with an enormous pole, and just as peggy went out on to the balcony he was balancing it on his head. then he balanced it on different parts of his body, as he knelt or lay or stooped on the ground. the crowd of dolls who still filled the market-place was absolutely delighted with his performance, and when he shouted out that he would climb up to the top of the pole and balance himself on his head, if somebody would hold it for him, all the gentlemen dolls in the market-place wanted to have the honour of holding the pole for him.
but the teddy bear said he must choose who should hold the pole himself, and chose out of the crowd four tall wooden dolls with shiny black hats and different coloured robes. then he looked up at peggy and the four dolls standing on the balcony of the house of cards, and waved his paw and made a low bow, and told his four assistants to hold up the pole near the house, so that the ladies could see. the crowd of dolls was pleased at this, for they were sorry for the prisoners, and wanted them to have all the amusement that they could get.
[pg 117]
well, of course you have already understood that the teddy bear who was so clever at his acrobatic feats was peggy’s own old teddy, who had not forgotten her at all, but had evidently chosen this means of getting at them. and the four tall wooden dolls who were helping him were mr. noah of the royal ark, and his three sons, shem, ham, and japhet. it was rather clever of teddy to have chosen them out of the crowd, as if he hadn’t known them before. but teddy was clever, in spite of his flightiness, and faithful, too, as peggy was very glad to see. she had recognized him at once, but the crowd had not. one teddy bear is very much like another, unless he happens to be your own, and there were several of them in the crowd itself, as i have already said.
teddy climbed carefully up to the top of the pole, and when he got there he stood on one foot and waved his paws about, and then changed to the other foot, and kissed his paw to the crowd, and to peggy and the dolls on the balcony. peggy was afraid that he might tumble, and almost forgot to listen for anything that he might say when he got near to them. but he seemed quite at home on his pole, and as he turned towards them and kissed his paw, he said in a mysterious voice, “one of you go to the other side.”
[pg 118]
that was all he said, and the crowd down below could not have known that he was saying anything at all, he did it so cleverly. he was just on a level with the balcony, and could easily have jumped on to it if he had wanted to. peggy had thought that perhaps he had meant to do that, so as to be with them, because he could not have got there in any other way. but he was too clever for that, for if he had stepped on to the balcony, all the dolls who had been watching him would have known at once that they had been deceived. and besides, he would only have been locked up with peggy and the four dolls, and could have done nothing more to help them.
when teddy had said, “one of you go to the other side,” he turned round again, and then stood on his head on the top of the pole, as he had promised to do. the crowd of dolls was wild with delight, and none of them suspected that he had given a message to the prisoners.
“what does he mean? what are we to go to the other side for?” asked wooden.
“i expect there is somebody there,” said lady grace. “shall i go?”
“no, i’ll go,” said wooden’s aunt, who had largely recovered her spirits during teddy’s performance, and[pg 119] had danced a few steps of a highland fling on her own account, while he was posturing on the pole.
“i think peggy had better go,” said wooden’s mother. “she has a slightly better head than any of us, because she is human.”
“oh, yes, let peggy go,” said all the others at once. so peggy went round the balcony to the other side of the house, feeling proud at the trust reposed in her, but a little alarmed also at what should happen. but she hid that from the dolls, and walked with a firm and confident step.
there was as big a space in the market-place on the other side of the house of cards as in the one in which teddy was performing, but it was absolutely empty. every doll was watching teddy, and even the shops were deserted, as all the doll shopkeepers had gone round to the other side. a thief might have taken anything he liked from the shops, and nobody would have seen him. but dolls are never thieves, so it was quite safe.
perhaps i ought not to have said that that side of the market-place was absolutely empty. it looked so to peggy when she got there, but when she looked over the edge of the platform she saw a solitary doll figure standing below her, looking up. it was rather a disappointment[pg 120] to her, for it was a gentleman doll wrapped up in a long black cloak, and he had his arms full of pot-plants, like the ones the lord chancellor had bought to brighten up their rooms. peggy thought they had quite enough pot-plants to go on with, and, if the gentleman doll only wanted to sell them some more, it was hardly worth teddy’s cleverness to get all the people round on the other side, so that he might do so without being observed.
and that was apparently all that the gentleman doll did want, for directly he saw peggy looking over the platform at him he called up to her, “kind lady, buy a few pot-plants from a poor man. i’ve got some lovely ones here.”
“no, thank you,” said peggy. “we have plenty. besides, i haven’t got any money; at least, not here.”
“i don’t want any money for them,” said the gentleman doll. “let me come up and show you my lovely pot-plants.”
now there was something in his voice that peggy seemed to recognize. she thought she had heard it before, but she couldn’t remember where or when. however, she began to understand that the pot-plants were only an excuse for the gentleman doll to get into[pg 121] the house of cards, and that if he did so he might have something interesting to say.
“i should be glad if you could come up,” she said. “but the doors are locked, and i don’t suppose they will let you.”
“yes, they will, if you say the word ‘pot-plants,’” said the gentleman doll. “say that somebody has come from the palace with some pot-plants for you. go quickly, before anybody comes.”
peggy went back, and told wooden and the others what had happened. “i don’t know who it was,” she said, “but i couldn’t help thinking that i had heard his voice before.”
“was it the lord chancellor?” asked wooden’s mother. “perhaps this is his compromise.”
“i don’t think so,” said peggy. “but hadn’t we better ask for him to be let in?”
teddy had finished his performance, and was climbing down the pole. it was time to do something, for soon the crowd of dolls would disperse, and some would go round to the other side of the house.
“yes, dear, we had better do that,” said wooden. “it is a very good idea. perhaps you had better go yourself, if you don’t mind, as it was you who heard what he said.”
[pg 122]
peggy would have been quite willing to go down, but the door of their room was locked. so after a little more discussion they rang the bell, and presently mr. emma came up to see what they wanted.
the dolls seemed to expect peggy to speak, so she said, “there is a man outside who wants to come up and see us.”
mr. emma beamed affectionately upon her. “bless your dear little heart!” he said. “i’d do anything to please you, but i can’t let anybody up to see you without orders. it would be as much as my place is worth.”
“he has come from the palace with some pot-plants,” said peggy.
mr. emma’s face underwent a complete change. “come with what?” he asked.
“with some pot-plants.”
“oh, well then, i’ll let him up at once,” said mr. emma. “oh, certainly.”
he went out quickly, but did not forget to lock the door behind him.
just as he had locked it, and they thought he was on his way downstairs, he unlocked it again, and put his head into the room. “what did you say the man had come with?” he asked.
[pg 123]
“with some pot-plants,” said peggy again.
“ah, that’s the word,” he said. “i wasn’t quite certain i’d got it right.”
then he locked the door behind him again, and they heard his feet going heavily downstairs.
in a few minutes he came back again, unlocked the door, and came into the room with the gentleman doll, who was wrapped in his long cloak, and carried his pots in his arms.
“i’ll leave the gentleman with you for a bit,” said mr. emma, “as i’m just in the middle of my tea.”
he went out and locked the door behind him once more. the gentleman doll, who had put the pots down on the floor, stood up and threw off his cloak, and revealed the stalwart form and handsome features of colonel jim, of the lifeguards.
