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(titlepage)
BY
Daffodil's father and mother were very kind to her. When she grew
old enough to learn, they used to take a great deal of pains to teach her
everything good for a little girl to know, and they explained all so
carefully and so pleasantly that she liked some of her lessons, and
especially her history, more than any stories, except stories about fairies
and mermaids and such people. But they did not teach her to play; because
they did not know how themselves; for
they were grave very wise people; and, as they did not like her to go with other children, there was nobody to teach her that. Their house stood by a river and behind it there was a wood: a road through the wood led to a good-sized town, but there were no houses very near. No one lived in the house with Daffodil and her father and mother but an old woman called Keziah, who generally sat by the kitchen fire warming her wrinkled hands and saying she was worked to death. So Daffodil could not easily have found children to play with often. But sometimes she would hear people say to her father and mother "Do let your child come to the town and have a game of romps with my boys and girls:" and they said too "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." But, when she asked her father why she might never have the game of romps, he told her he wanted to see his little girl grow up thoughtful and good and that some children were not thoughtful and good, and, as he could not tell which were so, he was forced to keep her from them all. And she remembered that, once, when two little boys who lived in a farmhouse a long way on the other side of the wood were brought to see Keziah, who was their great-aunt, instead of being thoughtful and good they had jeered at her for not knowing how to play, and had dragged her about so rudely, calling it fun, that she was quite frightened; so she thought "If that is how it is when one plays with other children, my fairies and river people are much nicer companions for me." And, as she found that learning one thing was generally only a way of finding out that there was another thing to be learned,
so that she suspected there was more to be learned than she could manage even in ten whole years, she did not feel afraid of growing too clever even by a quarter. And as, besides, she was not a boy and she never did anything you could call work, there must, she considered, be some mistake about that reason for her going to the town for a game of romps.
Daffodil had not really any fairies or river people to play with her at
this time. But, when Keziah had got herself well warmed and was in a good
humour, she would talk to the little girl in a very interesting way about
the elf world and its various tribes. Keziah was a well-informed
woman and knew a great deal about the laws and customs of all these, and
Daffodil was never weary of listening to her accounts of them.
Daffodil's father and mother always said that Keziah had not
trustworthy authority for her statements; and they themselves, after much
study and research, had come to the conclusion that the elf world with all
belonging to it was nothing but nonsense, or imagination, which, as you may
have heard, is the same thing. But that came from their being
philosophers--persons of whom all the elfin peoples stand in so much
dread that they take every possible means of concealing from them all
traces of their existence. This is because they believe that, if the
philosophers were to catch them, they would put them through a competitive
examination: just as we believe that no ogre can resist the
temptation of munching and crunching any boy or girl he may be able to
seize.
Daffodil was fond of telling fairy tales as well as of hearing them. But
there was a difficulty about
finding any one to whom to tell them. Keziah would not listen to them at all, because they were not true fact stories, but only what came into Daffodil's head, and she said an old woman like her could not waste her poor bit of hearing upon make-believes. However, Daffodil had a very large grave black dog and a fat grave white cat to keep her company, and, as they were not so particular as Keziah, she sometimes told them her stories. But the cat used to go to sleep over them, and if they were very long the dog would whine and fidget, and Daffodil was afraid he must feel as she once did when she was taken to a lecture on astronomy in which all the words were too hard for her to make out and she was not allowed to go to sleep like the cat. On the whole the best way for enjoying her make-believes, as Keziah called them, was to sit looking into the river or up at the sailing clouds and let it seem as if it were the river or the clouds that showed her the stories and she had nothing to do with making them up.
Now, though Daffodil did not know it, this is the sure way to get into
the good graces of the elfin people and make them willing to admit you to
their acquaintance. But it is not always a safe plan, for they may thus get
power over you before you are aware, and, as they are some good and some
bad, as men and women are, that is running too much risk. And, if Daffodil
had been a child who thought unholy and unkind thoughts, certainly more
harm would have come of it than did come. What happened was that the river
people took a liking to her and that, while she was sitting near the river,
letting the
stories come to her, they would be singing to her a kind of sleepy song--a song with no words to it and no tune, and yet it was a song; and she would hear it without even knowing that she heard, but it drew her heart more and more to the river people. In a little while after they began doing this she quite left off looking at the clouds, and she used to lie down on the grass with her face leaning over the bank so that she could see into the water, and keep trying to fancy what the river people's bowers were like; and sometimes she would half close her eyes so that she saw the reflections and the green shadows of the trees, not clear and distinct as they really were, but in an uncertain way, that she might think them bowers underneath the water; and the more she did this the sweeter and the sleepier the song came to her, and the more her heart was drawn to the river people. The river people did this without any plan: it was only their way of showing approbation, and they did not design to entice her to them. Indeed the possibility of such a thing was not generally believed among them. There were traditions of mortals having been attracted down to their abodes, but there was no authoritative historic evidence of any such occurrence. Moreover many of the river people disputed the existence of human beings, saying they were only the fantastic creations of the brain. Of course those who sang to Daffodil knew better than that. But the river people do not leave home much, and some of Daffodil's friends' tribe who lived in the middle of the wood far from all houses had never had an opportunity of seeing a human being. And, among river peoples and other fairies, there are some
so constituted that they are not aware of the presence of human beings, even when close by them. The number of those who are destitute of the faculty by which fairies and mortals are capable of perceiving each other increases so fast that in a thousand years or so this faculty will be as rare in the elf world as it has already become in ours. And, although Daffodil's river friends did possess the faculty, they, from the reasons I have pointed out, were without any information as to the modes of communication between fairies and human kind and the influence they themselves were exerting.
It was in the summer the river people began to sing to Daffodil, and, by
the time the leaves were turning amber and red on their boughs, she had
grown to think there could be no happiness out of heaven so great and
delightful as there must be under the water with them. By and by the leaves
grew brown and shrivelled and lay on the ground in dank heaps and blew
about uncomfortably, and the sky was all one dull lead-coloured
cloud and came so low that it seemed as if the world had grown smaller
since the summer. The song of the river people had quite left off, but
Daffodil still used to sit looking into the water, thinking about the
pleasant regions below. It seemed dreary round her, and now she began to
find it dull to have no one to go about with in her play-hours but
the grave dog and the grave cat. But it was not for the company of other
children she longed; it was for the river maidens to dance and sing with
her and teach her to float through the waters. She asked her father and
mother whether they would object to her
making friends with the river people, if she should see any, and they smiled, and gave her leave to do so. She might play with all the fairies she met, they said, only they must decidedly object to her forming any acquaintance with Will-o'-the-wisp, whom she had once seen beckoning to her with his lamp. Daffodil agreed quite cheerfully to that for she knew Will-o'-the-wisp was an injudicious sort of person who would be sure to lead her into scrapes.
Now that she had her parents' leave, she looked about eagerly for
some way of beginning the acquaintance. Sometimes she would call softly
into the water "River people, dear river people, I want so much to
know you, and my father and mother have given me leave. Won't you
come up and talk to me?" And sometimes she would throw an apple or a
very pretty pebble into the water, and say "This is Daffodil's
present to the river people, with her love." And she hunted several
days for a four-leaved shamrock, because Keziah had told her you can
do a great many fairy spells, if you have one, and she thought she should
be able to make a spell that would persuade one of the river people to come
to her. But, when she had found a four-leaved shamrock, Keziah could
not remember what was the way to use it, and so all her pains were thrown
away.
One day she chanced to find a funny little thing growing out of the
stump of a felled tree--a tiny scarlet cup with a sort of saucer of
crimson petals: it seemed neither quite a flower nor quite a fungus.
When she picked it, it made a little noise like a mouse squeaking a long
way off, and very much
surprised, she took it to Keziah. "It is so odd," she said, "that I can't help thinking it must have something to do with the fairies."
Keziah peered at it with her old purblind eyes, and pinched it, and
smelt it over and over again, for it had no smell at all. "Aye,
aye," she said at last, "it's what I thought. Now, if you
did but know what day of the year and month and week it was when that tree
was felled, you'd be in luck, child; for you'd only have to
jump into the river from off that tree-stump the same day of the
year and month and week, and water couldn't drown you, but
you'd get down among the river people you talk so much about, and
have power over them so that they'd be forced to let you come back
whenever you liked."
When she had said this, she was going to throw the elf-cup into
the fire, for she thought it was of no use, as they did not know the day
the tree was felled. But Daffodil cried out "Oh don't,
please," in a great hurry, for she was sure she could
find out. Her father had a book in which he wrote down every day what had
happened, and she took it that such an important happening as a tree being
cut down must be written in the book. She ran at once to ask.
"What can you want to know that for?" her father said, quite
astonished. And her mother took off her spectacles, so that she might be
able to look at her better, and gazed inquiringly.
"Because, if I knew that, there is a way I could get to know the
river people at once, if you and mother will give me leave," said
Daffodil, almost breathless with eagerness.
"Oh, very well," said her father, "that is important,
and I will look at once, so that no time may be lost." He got his
book and, after he had searched a long time, he said "My little
day-dreamer, that tree was felled on Monday, the first of December,
the year you were born."
"Why! that makes it come right to-day!" screamed
Daffodil, in an ecstasy of joy, "This is a Monday, and it is the
first of December!" And she ran off in such haste that she forgot to
say "thank you" to her father for the trouble he had taken for
her.
Presently her father, who had gone on looking through the book, said to
her mother "I have told our little woman the wrong day of the week, I
see. The first of December was a Tuesday the year that tree was felled.
Luckily not much harm can come of that mistake."
"Monday will do just as well till you see her again," said
her mother. "She will be as happy over her calculations as if she had
got the right day to count from."
Of course neither of them had the least notion that there was anything
about jumping into the water in the plan for knowing the river people
Daffodil was going to try. And, as they did not believe that there were
river people at all, they did not think the day of the week would make any
difference to her chance of forming an acquaintance with them.
When it was dinner time, lo and behold, there was no Daffodil to be
found! You may imagine what a calling and searching there was. But, call
and search as they would, there was no trace of the child. Only, the white cat was crying on the top of the stump where Daffodil had found the elf-cup, and beside her on the river bank was the big black dog with his hair wet, giving a little whine every now and then, but never moving, and all the while staring hard at the water, as if he were expecting to see something that he knew was in it. And, when Keziah saw that, she knew Daffodil must have jumped into the river to find the river people, and she told the father and mother, to comfort them. Then they understood why the dog was so wet and still kept watching. It was easy to see that he had jumped in to catch Daffodil, and that he had not succeeded.
I will not tell you what weeping and lamenting there was for Daffodil.
Keziah, of course, had not been much disturbed at first, as she thought
Daffodil had ascertained the right date and would come back by bedtime; but
she soon learned the mistake that had been made. She tried to keep up a
hope that the poor child must have reached the river people safely with her
elf-cup, in spite of the day of the week being wrong, and that some
time she might get leave to come back; but the father and the mother were
certain she was drowned. You may imagine how unhappy they were.
And you may imagine too what care they took of the good dog who tried to
get their dear daughter back from the river for them. The cat too was made
much of for the good feeling she had shown. But what they found difficult
was to forgive Keziah, for they looked on what she had told Daffodil about
the elf-cup as
the cause of Daffodil's death. However, when they saw how grieved she was--so grieved that she even left off grumbling--they agreed that they must be gentle to her and never reproach her. Keziah, on her side, seeing how heavily their carelessness, as she considered it, had been punished, scarcely ever found fault with them for, first, making the mistake, and, next, not hurrying with all their might to correct it. But she was very angry, once, when a pedlar to whom she was talking about the sorrowful story took their part about that piece of carelessness and said the mistake was not of consequence. "Not of consequence!" cried Keziah. "The drowning of the best behaved little girl in the world not of consequence!!!" and she opened the kitchen door wide, with a bang, and made him walk out so fast that she had to throw his pack, and all the things he had taken from it to show her, out into the snow after him.
In a few seconds--only it seemed much longer to her--she felt
firm footing. But she did not consider that much was gained by that; for
what was the use of standing in that horrible mud, which would most likely
stifle her presently? So she stamped about to see if she could get farther
down: for getting up through the mud was quite hopeless.
And, all at once, something gave way with a loud crash and clatter, and
down she fell, head over heels, too fast to leave her time to know she was
falling till it was over. The next thing was that she was lying on a soft
wet floor of some sort of moss or grass, with the fragments of the roof and
ceiling from where she had broken through lying about her,
pell-mell.
She picked herself up, and jumped about to see if she was hurt anywhere;
which she was very much pleased to find she was not. Then she observed how
terribly dirty her clothes and her hands had got, and she felt sure her
face must be as bad. She could hardly help crying at this disaster, for she
heard sounds of running about and calling which seemed getting nearer, and
she was sure the river people had heard the noise of her fall and would
come upon her in a moment. Probably they would excuse her having broken
their ceiling, as she could not know it was there when she stamped on it,
but how could they be expected to be glad to see a visitor in so
unpresentable a condition--all over greasy black mud? And the worst
was that some of it was dripping from her and soiling the beautiful green
floor.
She was in a large room, as large as a church, only not so high for its
length as we think suitable for great buildings. Its walls were built in a
curve, so that you could not say where they left off and the ceiling began;
it was just as if the room had been made out of the hollowed half of an
enormous ball. And its doorways, of which there were too many to count just
then, were semicircular too. All over the walls there grew, where we put
papering, a delicate covering that looked like chickweed spotted in various
patterns with forget-me-nots around white or yellow
water-lilies. Towards the top of the ball began long waving grasses
and water-plants, getting longer and closer together the higher up
they were, till they knotted themselves in tangles overhead and their long
leaves hung
gracefully downwards--but there was a sad gap where Daffodil had tumbled through. The drooping leaves were bright with sparkling drops of water that kept trickling down on to the floor; and the chickweed and lilies and forget-me-nots were all glistening with wet. Right round the room was a canal of clear greenish water, exactly like the phosphorescent sea that shows such a wonderful gold-green light when the oars dip into it on dark nights: and it was this canal which lighted the room. It was bordered with lilies and forget-me-nots in a pattern something like the wall patterns, but there were rich red flowers mixed among them. The whole of the room was carpeted with the soft wet moss on which Daffodil had fallen. It was an odd sort of floor, for it seemed to have water under it and it shook at every step she took, so that she was afraid it would give way beneath her: but it was quite secure, and was very nice for people who did not mind wet feet. There were about the room chairs and tables and couches, which all seemed made of the same kind of material as the floor, and which had growing upon them patterns in flowers or in differently tinted leaves and mosses: and, in the centre of the room, just under the greatest drip from the leaves in the ceiling, there were raised steps, with seats on each step but the lowest, and on the highest step of all two larger seats which seemed meant for thrones. It was a most magnificent apartment, and Daffodil was shocked at having so damaged it by her manner of entering it.
She had not much time to reflect upon that, however. On every side there
was a pattering and
scuffling and slopping sound of steps, and nearer and nearer came a noise like shouting and coughing and sneezing all in one: people seemed to be calling to each other in this extraordinary fashion. There were no doors to the doorways, and Daffodil saw through three entrances at once a rush of strange-looking creatures with such bright large eyes that, in her alarm, she seemed to see nothing but eyes. For a moment it crossed her mind that they would not be able to get at her, because of the canal: but then she remembered that they would not have built a room into which you could only get through the roof, and she gave herself up for lost.
But, to her amazement, as soon as they caught sight of her, they stopped
short in the archways, huddling together as if they were in a terrible
fright, and some of them turned right round and began pushing at the others
in order to break through them and run away: so there was a great
hubbub and confusion. And presently they had all scuffled away, and she
could hear them making a noise as if they were discussing what they must
do. Every now and then one or two would come and peep at her stealthily
from the archways; and she noticed that they seemed a little bolder each
time, so she felt sure that they would soon decide on facing her again.
However, she began to feel less frightened, for she had become certain
that these creatures, though they were very much larger than any frogs she
had ever seen or heard of, and walked, or rather waddled, upright, and wore
bright-coloured garments on their bodies, were nothing but great
green and yellow frogs.
"Frogs are not beasts of prey," she said to herself, "and have not sharp claws and teeth: they cannot do me much harm. And they do not look ill-tempered, either: if I can only make them understand that my coming through their roof was an unexpected accident, perhaps they will excuse it."
So the next time one of the frogs peeped at her she smiled and nodded to
him, and pointed to the hole in the ceiling and to the fragments on the
ground, and tried to make him understand by signs how sorry she was. The
frog stared at her, and, after a little, he seemed to get some notion of
what she meant, for he nodded to her and made signs as if he meant to ask
if she had fallen through, and then called out something to her. But what
it was Daffodil could not make out, for it seemed to her like
"Chrchrkkerkeckkeckghrchr." He said it twice and seemed to
expect an answer, and so Daffodil replied, as politely as she could,
"I am sorry I do not understand Froggais, Sir." She thought
that would the the proper name to call his language, because,
as Français is the name of the
language they speak in France. Froggais seemed the same sort of word for
the language they speak in Frogland.
The frog looked, and shook his head, then ran away. Presently more frogs
came and questioned in signs, and Daffodil answered in signs: then
they spoke, and Daffodil answered as she had to the first frog. Then they
went away and others came, and it all had to be done over again. And then
others came, and others, until Daffodil grew tired. But she thought it
would be rude to show it, and she went on answering them in the same
fashion.
At last she heard advancing from several sides at once a sort of
flop-flop, slop-slop, which she knew must be the sound of
frog feet walking together in a measured quick time. And presently, and all
at the same moment--such was the beautiful precision into which the
frog army was drilled-there appeared at each entrance the head of a
column of soldiers. The soldiers were dressed in short yellow tunics
spotted with orange, with broad belts of plaited rushes from which hung
swords made of fish-bones of a glittering whiteness. They wore also
short leggings, which Daffodil thought looked quite like crimson
bell-flowers, fringed at the edge. And it is no wonder that they
looked so, for that is just what they were, though she did not know it
then. Their arms and feet were bare like those of the other frogs she had
just seen, but, while the other frogs were bare-headed, these wore
helmets plaited to match their belts, with a brown tuft on the top. Their
helmets seemed rather uncomfortable head-dresses for them, as they
were always tumbling over their eyes and noses, and Daffodil wondered that
they did not take them off and throw them away, for she did not know that
the best military authorities have always decided that a soldier should
have at least one part of his uniform exceedingly inconvenient. They had
rush straps across their chests, in which were secured fish-bone
weapons pointed like lances at one end and, at the other, club-shape
with a small stone in a socket of the bone: these rested on their
shoulders. They had nothing in their hands as they marched, and they kept
them crossed on their breasts. The frog
recruits always find it very difficult to learn to do this; because the frogs who are not soldiers are accustomed to use their arms (which we call their forelegs) to balance themselves as they walk. The recruits keep tumbling down when they first try to do without this assistance, and it takes several years for them to acquire the art of moving steadily on their hindlegs when their forelegs are folded over the breast. But the regiment sent against Daffodil was composed of veteran soldiers, and their gait was quite erect and even, unless they tried to go very fast.
The reason they had been so long in coming was not, however, only that
they could not go very fast. It is not the custom for them ever to wear the
same uniform twice, and, as they had not expected to be called out on
active service that day, their tunics were not ready. Some too suspicious
frogs afterwards accused them of cowardice for not confronting the invader
more speedily; but that was not fair. The yellow tunics were not made of a
common flower and could not be found in a moment for a whole regiment.
Daffodil had plenty of time to observe her assailants, for they had many
military movements to execute before they could close upon her properly.
First the word of command was given for the columns to halt in the
entrances; then they fell in and fell out and formed into triangles and
circles a great many times; and then each column arranged itself into a
sort of curl twisted round and round. Then the word was given and the outer
frog of each curl plunged into the canal, all in the same half-
second, then the second outer frog of each curl, and so they went on, the curls unwinding by degrees, until every flog had crossed the canal. And they did this so beautifully that the tenths and twentieths and fiftieths and hundredths and so on of each curl crossed precisely at the same moment, up to the very last of all. The outer flog of each curl had now become the innermost of the curl newly formed, each frog, as he crossed, turning the proper way to keep the curve perfect. Then they all fell in and fell out and marched and halted all about the border of the canal until all the curls had joined together. And then they went on wheeling round and round till at last there was one great curl with Daffodil inside the head of it.
This manoeuvre having been so successfully accomplished, the
Officer in Command, who was the innermost frog of the curl, advanced
resolutely and summoned Daffodil to surrender. He was not so tall as most
of his regiment, so that he did not quite reach to her shoulder, but he was
very fat and broad and looked extremely dignified; so Daffodil made him the
most respectful curtsey she could. As she did not understand what he said,
she did not make any remark in reply, but the Officer in Command accepted
her curtsey as a token of submission. He turned to his men and made a short
speech. "Brave soldiers," he said, "we have conquered.
All honour to your dauntless hearts: I am proud of you."
"And we of you, and we of you," shouted the soldiers, taking
advantage of a slight pause in the speech.
"Hush, my brave soldiers," said the Officer in Command,
"you interrupt. I forgive you; it is the truthful fervour of your
honest minds that forces you to speak; but no more. I resume. We have
conquered, brave soldiers. The enemy surrenders. We will be merciful, as
becomes soldiers and frogs."
Then all the frog soldiers hurrahed and waved their swords, and there
was such a din that Daffodil was quite terrified, thinking they were going
to rush upon her at once and make an end of her.
When quiet was restored, six soldiers advanced and stood round her,
pointing their lances at her to warn her not to resist. Two others secured
her hands behind her back with their belts. Then twenty picked frogs were
told off to remain with her as a guard, and the Officer in Command directed
the Officer Next in Command to march the troops back to their barracks. He
decided to go home himself to write his report to the King; but first he
sent his Aide-de-camp to tell Their Majesties everything that
had happened.
The King was asleep when the messenger came, but the Queen, on hearing
the narrative, felt so curious to see the prisoner, that, when she was
assured it was quite safe, she resolved to go herself to the Great Throne
Hall, the room into which Daffodil had tumbled. The Officer in Command,
after giving precise instructions to the guard about the necessary
precautions in case of any attempt of the enemy at a surprise, was just
leaving the Hall, muttering to himself the first paragraph of the report,
when he saw Her Majesty enter, with her Royal Mantle all crooked from the
haste with which
she had put it on, with only her third best crown that she kept for indoors wear when she did not expect to see any visitors, and attended by not more than a dozen Lords and Ladies in Waiting. So great had been her Royal haste. He flopped hurriedly to the door to receive her. And the Queen, in the most gracious manner, said to him "Brave as ever, Sir Ghxrrschcroxbog. Accept our Royal thanks, His Majesty's and mine."
But the Officer in Command looked terribly disappointed, for he had
expected to be promised a peerage. However, he made the best of it and
replied, with a tremendously low bow, that no reward that could have been
given him would have been worth those words from Her Majesty.
"I should think so, indeed," said the Queen. "And now,
have the prisoner brought forward."
So the Officer in Command flopped backwards to the end of the Hall where
Daffodil was being kept in custody, and, at his order, the twenty guards
marched her up to the Queen, and then fell back respectfully.
Daffodil, perceiving by the crown, though it was rather a shabby one,
that she was in the presence of Royalty, was so impressed that she managed
to make a yet lower curtsey than she had made to the Officer in Command; at
which the Queen was pleased, for she had never seen curtseying before and
she thought it looked extremely loyal. The frogs' way of bowing and
curtseying to Royalty is to hop three times round It. They hop twice round
a superior below Royal rank, or to a distant acquaintance, and once round a
familiar acquaintance.
The Queen spoke to Daffodil, but Daffodil could
only say "If you please, I am sorry, but I don't know Froggais." Now the Queen had been instructed by the Regius Professor of Everything and was the most learned woman in Croäxaxica, which is the native name for Frogland. She desired one of the soldiers to turn the prisoner slowly round several times that she might view the creature thoroughly. Then she leant her head on her hand and remained in deep thought for ten minutes, while, for fear of disturbing her reflections, the Lords and Ladies in Waiting and the Officer in Command and the soldiers stood as mute and motionless as statues, trying not to breathe.
"The thing is a human being," said the Queen, at last.
"Get me the Treatise on the Modes of Articulation, Pronunciations,
and Dialects of the Inferior Races, with Glossary and Directions for
Imitating the various Pronunciations."
An attendant rushed off obediently, and soon returned with the book. It
was not quite like one of our books. Its leaves, which were of two
different tints, white and yellow alternately, were thick and
waxy-looking, and were rounded off instead of having straight lines
and corners like ours. They were, in fact, the petals of large flowers of
the water-lily kind which are especially cultivated for writing and
printing on. The printing is done by pointed implements with which the
letters are pricked in. These implements are long and sharp, so that many
leaves at a time can be pricked through by them. Only one side of a leaf is
used: the lines are arranged rather far apart and care is taken in
the binding that the pricks on one leaf shall not lie upon the pricks on
the next leaf but shall be just over the
smooth part between the lines, so that the yellow leaves shall show through the pricked lines of white leaves and the white leaves through the pricked lines of yellow leaves. Sometimes green leaves are used instead of yellow; but the yellow are considered the best and cost the most, so, of course, the Queen had yellow. The binding of Croäxaxican books is sometimes very elaborate. This one, which had been presented to the Queen by its author, the Regius Professor of Everything, had for cover the petals of a crimson lily of the same nature as that of which its leaves were made, but much thicker: the cover was adorned with a mosaic pattern in small white, blue, and gold-coloured petals. And, as the book had just been taken out of the water, it glistened all over. The Croäxaxican bookshelves are cut in the ground like drains, and are always kept full of water. The books are arranged in them side by side, as we place ours, only that they do not stand upright: it is as if we laid our bookshelves on the ground instead of setting them up against the walls. Care is taken to arrange the books according to their sizes and to keep them level, and they make a very handsome floor. Of course no furniture is stood on them. And the Croäxaxicans do not tread upon them, but hop gently over from step to step of the moss partitions between them. These partition-strips of moss are made wide enough for a frog to stand on them and get out a book comfortably. In the Royal Library they are so wide that there is room on them for seats and couches and writing-tables, which is a very pleasant and convenient arrangement.
The Queen took her book and turned to the part "On the Dialect of
Human Beings." And first, as there was a short introduction
describing the appearance of human beings, she compared Daffodil with the
description. "An odd-looking tangled tuft of coloured rushes
growing on the head--very long in the female," she said.
"Quite so. This is a female. Look at the tangled rushes. I suppose
they were green in the summer."
"Fleshy red mouths which do not reach across the face, but,
stopping short as it were half way, give them a ridiculous
appearance," she read again. "Just so. Look how absurd it
is: her mouth stops short just under that knob over the nostrils. And
the knob--yes the book says human beings all have that strange
excrescence."
All the attendants said "Your Majesty is evidently right, as
usual. This is a human being." And they whispered to each other in
very loud whispers "Is it not wonderful? She knows everything! She
knows more even than the Regius Professor of Everything!" Every one
was in such a hurry to whisper it first that they were all whispering at
once, so that there was a rustling sound like the surge among the rushes on
a windy day.
But the Queen said "Hush!" for she wanted to read over the
rules of pronunciation, which she had a little forgotten, although she had
once read some of them some years before. She read them for twenty minutes,
in the midst of a profound silence. Then she said to Daffodil
"Ghxoogh Ghxar Ghxooghxxxxh?"
That puzzled Daffodil very much, and she could only reply by making a
curtsey and shaking her
head hard. So the Queen read her book for thirty minutes more, and then she said "Ghxoogh Ghar Ghxooghxxxh?" And Daffodil curtseyed, and shook her head harder.
Then the Queen read her book for three-quarters of an hour. And
at the end of that time she looked up, and said exactly the same as she had
before.
Daffodil was luckier this time. She made out that the Queen was saying
"Who are you?" So with a deeper curtsey than ever, for she saw
that the Queen approved of her curtseys, she answered "If you please
I am Daffodil. And my breaking the roof was not my fault I do assure you,
please Your Majesty. When I was in the mud I could not help kicking to try
to get out, and I would not have broken your beautiful ceiling on any
account if I had known it was there."
The Queen looked bewildered. "Ghxxayitxhxxagainxgh" she
said, and Daffodil understood that she was to repeat her speech. So she
said the very same words as before, and tried to pronounce them very
distinctly. And the Queen put her hand behind her right ear and leant
forward listening attentively.
"Ghxxayitxghxxxagainxgh" she replied when Daffodil had
finished. And Daffodil said it again very slowly and
carefully.
This time the Queen did not tell her to repeat it. But she remained
silent for ten minutes looking very puzzled. Then she put her paws to her
ears and said to her attendants "Oh! it goes through my head! I
cannot endure this poor creature's discordant noise any longer. It is
too painful!"
And all the attendants and the Officer in Command and the twenty
soldiers put their hands to their ears. And the attendants and the Officer
in Command all said "It is too painful, too painful." The
soldiers all shook their heads slowly: it was not allowable for them
to speak.
"There is only one thing to be done," said the Queen.
"It must be confined in the State Prison for two or three days, and
the Regius Professor of Everything must be sent to it. Let me
see--this is Monday: I order that it shall talk reasonably by
Thursday. Then we will have a Drawing-room, and it will be a treat
for you all to hear me examine it."
"What a delightful plan! How profound! How judicious! How
diplomatic!" they all said. And Daffodil was marched off at once to
the State Prison.
lilies growing on the ceiling, and, in the centre of them, a tuft of water-plants with long leaves which dripped down water. The furniture was of the same kind as that in the Throne Hall but less decorated. On the whole, this was much such a room as you would find for the principal reception room in the house of a Croäxaxican gentleman of easy but not extensive fortune.
A sleeping closet opened out of this room. It was of the same shape, but
barely long enough for Daffodil to lie down in, and even a Croäxaxican
could not have stood upright in it. It had no water to light it, and was
nearly all taken up by a moss and water bed on which lay a counterpane of
bog cotton plaited together and, for ornament, dotted at the joins with the
little brown tufts of bulrushes. Daffodil looked disconsolately at this
bedroom: it seemed to her a dismal kind of sleeping place, though it
was just as the most luxurious Croäxaxicans had their own. The sole
difference between it and the Royal Bedroom itself was that the Royal
Counterpane was trimmed every day with fresh
forget-me-nots.
A thing which disturbed her greatly was that there was no
wash-handstand. And really it was very unpleasant to have such muddy
hands. She looked wistfully at the water in her sitting-room:
she was afraid she should get into trouble if she took the liberty of
puddling it with her dirty hands, but there seemed no other resource and
she felt tempted to try. At last she dabbled one hand in it: in doing
so she made a little splashing sound, and, in a moment, a sentry, of whose
vicinity she
had not been aware, came marching up to the doorway.
To prevent escapes, there was only one entrance to this apartment, and,
out of consideration for the prisoners, the corridor leading to it was made
to curve away from it, so that the sentry could be placed in such a way as
to guard the room without going into it. But a splash is the same sort of
signal among the Croäxaxicans as ringing a bell is for us, and, as
they have no objection to taking a bath before spectators, it was customary
for the sentry, when he had come to answer a splash, to remain in the
doorway, if he found the prisoner in the water, in case he should be
wanted. For, of course, while the splashing of a bath was going on, the
sentry had no way of knowing if he was wanted unless he remained in
sight.
The sentry did not look at all put out by seeing Daffodil dabbling her
muddy hand in the canal, and, when she put her other hand in and looked
inquiringly, he nodded. Then, when he saw that she only washed her hands
and did not get in, he came forward and pointed to the water and made
signs, so that at last she understood that she might take a bath if she
liked. She was glad of that, you may be sure, and, going into her bedroom,
she began to undress. But, when she put out her head, she saw that the
sentry intended to remain in the doorway. So she put her pinafore on again,
and, thinking it was the only way to get clean and that she was so wet
already and everything round her so damp and dripping that sousing her
clothes could not matter, she plunged, just as she was, into the water. She
was a little startled when she found that it was deep enough to come up to her neck, but she quickly got over her first alarm and splashed and floundered so long that she got her hands the very next thing to clean. The sentry looked on, very much surprised that she did not swim about quietly as he would have done, instead of making all these antics, but he did not interfere, though she was spoiling the water sadly.
When she got out at last, he went to the canal, and, removing some sods
and stones at one end, let all the water run out; then, going into the
bedroom, he moved some sods and stones there, so that a gush of water burst
out and, filling the bedroom, overflowed into the canal and made it just as
it had been before Daffodil's bath. The counterpane was soaked
through, of course, and the moss bed still wetter than she found it, but
the sentry did not know that she would not think them all the better, as a
Croäxaxican would have done.
Daffodil was sorry to have given her keeper so much trouble, and tried
to apologise to him. But he good-humouredly hopped once round her
and withdrew to his post in the corridor.
In a few minutes he came back, escorting the Regius Professor of
Everything, who had just arrived. Two frogs in the Royal Livery of green
and orange followed, carrying each a pile of books on a tray of plaited
rushes. These they carefully placed under the drip from the ceiling, and,
after hopping twice round the Professor and turning up their noses at
Daffodil, they withdrew in a lofty manner. The sentry, on a sign from the
Professor, withdrew to his
post, after making a military obeisance which the Professor returned by a slight but kindly hop.
The Regius Professor of Everything was a short thin frog of a pensive
and melancholy expression of countenance. He was by nature cheerful, but
laughing is not professorial and therefore he had always to be remarkably
serious, and the habit of drawing down the corners of his mouth, to avoid
smiling, had finally stiffened them in a downwards curve, so that no
Professor of any country has ever surpassed him in a sad and ponderous
aspect. He was dressed in brown spotted with black, and he wore spectacles
with handsome broad rims of interwoven fish-bones, which made his
eyes look extra round and staring. Among the Croäxaxicans round and
staring eyes are considered a sign of intellect. A low forehead is another
sign of intellect, and the Professor's was so low that his friends
said he had none at all.
The Professor drew a seat close to Daffodil's, and sat, with his
hands on his knees, staring into her face till she felt quite
uncomfortable. Then he said "Xspeakgh."
Daffodil, much pleased that she could understand him, began "If
you please, sir, I am so sorry I broke the roof. It was quite by
accident."
"Xstopgh," said the Professor. He cleared his
throat--which alarmed Daffodil no little, for she imagined that he was
choking or scolding or both--he wetted his spectacles on the moss, and
began. "I have not authority to enter with you into questions of
State. Her Majesty has commissioned me to tutor you into such approximation
to the
correct mellifluous and harmonious pronunciation to which we favoured children of nature, the inimitable Croäxaxicans, are habituated, as may enable her Royal Ears to tolerate your answers to her Majestic inquiries. Let us commence our studies."
Only, although he believed that he was speaking exactly as Daffodil
spoke, he could not help before and after every word a little sound of the
Croäxaxican throat letters--which we can most nearly express in
writing by repeated Gh's, Xh's and X's--and Daffodil
could hardly understand him.
"Let us commence our studies," resumed the Professor, after
having again solemnly wetted his spectacles. "And first I will,
continuing to condescend to your own uncouth and, to me, degrading mode of
pronunciation, extemporise to you a preliminary lecture on the origin of
language."
But, just then, in came two servants who began laying the cloth for a
meal. The tablecloth was made of the finest bog cotton plaited into
patterns; and Daffodil particularly admired the plates and dishes, which
were of a mosaic work of shell and mother-of-pearl, and the
drinking-cups, which were a single white or blue shell. But she was
surprised at seeing no forks, only knives, cut from the same large kind of
fish-bone as the soldiers' swords, and
mother-of-pearl spoons, or rather ladles, very wide in the
bowls and short in the handles. The Croäxaxicans do not use forks but
put their food into their mouths by means of these spoons, which are made
of a shape and size to fit them.
The servants were quick with their work, and the first course was soon
on the table. The Regius
Professor of Everything offered Daffodil his arm, and they took their places opposite each other. Daffodil was hungry; she had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and that was a long time ago now; and she could not help feeling disappointed to see nothing but water-cresses before her. However, she was glad to help herself to a few, when one of the servants handed them. But the Professor immediately ordered her plate to be taken away, and told her she must on no account taste one leaf of watercress at that time. Water-cresses, he said, excited the brain, and what would presently be necessary for her was quiet persistent and passive attention. From him, as teacher, he said, energy and effort would be required, and the water-cresses were suitable, and even desirable, for him: as a proof of his wish to spend himself to the utmost in the lesson he was about to give her, he would eat them to the last stalk. And he did. Daffodil watched the process, which was a very long one, thinking him rather tiresome not to let her eat too, and she did not believe that the water-crosses would have excited her brain at all too much, but she consoled herself with the thought that something she would be allowed to eat would come presently: and, besides, he apologised so very politely and in such grand words that she could not but feel flattered at his behaviour.
The next course consisted of a large eel at one end of the table and, at
the other, some dace sliced up and mixed with chopped weeds. These weeds
were of a sort which is thought a great dainty, as it will only grow in mud
of a particular soil; and the Professor was much pleased to see what a
recherché
dinner was being given him and his pupil. "But unfortunately," said he "I must, with the acutest commiseration, refuse to sanction your indulging in the luxuries before us. These dishes are of a rich and over-nutritious quality and temporarily dull the mind. I, whose mind nothing can dull, and who have, moreover, partaken freely of water-cresses, may safely, nay advantageously, consume these, for you, too treacherous dainties. I shall be assisted by their nutritive forces to go through the enormous mental labour I shall presently have to commence on your behalf. You--it grieves me, it depresses me, to say it--you must forbear."
Daffodil felt inclined to tell him the right way would have been for her
to eat both of the water-cresses and of the fish, and then one would
have made up for the other for her as well as for him: but Keziah had
often told her it was rude to argue. And then, as the eel and the dace and
the weeds were all raw, they were not much loss to her. The
Croäxaxicans cannot bear even the thought of fire, so of course
boiling and roasting and frying are out of the question.
Next came the soup--it being the Croäxaxican fashion to serve
the soup in the middle of the meal, in consequence of a King of
Croäxaxica a few thousand years ago having once, during a hunting
expedition, unexpectedly entered a nobleman's dining-hall
while the family were sitting at dinner, just as the second course was
being removed, and asked to be helped to soup.
"One half-quarter of a half-spoonful of this
delicious soup, for a taste," said the Professor ladling
out a few drops into a plate for Daffodil. "Not more; alas! not more. I fear I am too venturesome in allowing you this; but it goes to my heart to restrict you, and I permit this one excess. This soup, the most exquisite existing, excepting indeed its one paragon, that flavoured with mud from the roots of the water-parsley and the juice of pounded snails, is endowed with the property of calming the sentiments. I, indeed, need all there is in this soup-tureen, and even more, to partly allay the passionate devotion I feel for the tedious duty awaiting me; but your sentiment of gratitude to Her Majesty and to me--the sentiment which will inspire you to intelligent attention even when for a moment or two the delight of my lesson may perchance cease to fascinate you, on account of some difficulty to your limited faculties,--that sentiment should have no allaying. But the comparatively limited quantity I have allowed you can be neutralised by this." And, suddenly, reaching across the table, he popped into her mouth a tiny dried fly, a little smaller than a pin's head, which he had taken out of his pocket.
Daffodil was grateful for his consideration for her, but yet she had a
feeling that she could have done without both fly and drops of soup. For
the soup, which looked like green-pea pottage of rather a deep
colour, was ditch-water with a strong flavour of
water-parsley; and she thought the taste for it must be an acquired
one, as she heard her father and mother say about some stuff called
caviare which they had once given her to
taste, and, which she had not enjoyed.
The next course was of bright blue craw-fish and
cockles. These, the Professor said, were irritating to the nerves, unless counteracted by composing food, like the eel and dace he had recently consumed. So he had to eat them too without allowing her to share them with him.
The next course was minnows and stickle-backs. These, the
Professor said, were dangerously enlivening, and rendered it difficult to
fix the attention. He nearly cleared both dishes himself; but he explained
that his attention was always so fixed that nothing could unfix it.
For dessert there were, besides some pulpy berries of a rare kind which
the Croäxaxicans cultivate in green ooze, choice sea-weeds
brought from distant beds in a tunnel which had anciently communicated with
the seashore. They are a very notable and expensive luxury, and the
servants were directed to say that they were sent by order of the Queen
herself. The Professor was more sympathising than ever when he had to
forbid his pupil's taking any of these. They were, it appeared the
most terrible things in the world for making people sleepy. But, as his
love of study had made him acquire the habit of never going to sleep at
all, he did not feel afraid of them, and he ate them all up. The berries,
he told her, had a weakening effect on the memory: but he had come to
know all about everything the moment he thought upon it, even if he had
never heard of it before, so memory was of no consequence to him, and he
ate all the berries too.
Daffodil felt surprised and very thankful to be allowed at last a sip of
what she took for water. But the water, being in fact a Croäxaxican
wine,
was strongly impregnated with an aroma of distilled chickweed, and was not palatable to her.
When they had done dinner, the Professor offered her his arm to the
adjacent canal. But she thanked him politely and, pointing to her wet
clothes, explained that she had already had a bath. The Professor looked at
her in great astonishment, for he could not see that was any reason for not
taking another, and it is the custom among well-bred
Croäxaxicans always to swim gently round and round three or four times
after dinner. However, he did not press her, but quietly glided in.
Daffodil admired the smooth easy manner in which he swam round without
ruffling the water. She was surprised to see that his clothes, which she
had expected to be quite spoiled, were fresher when he came out than when
he went in.
The dessert things were removed, and master and pupil began their
labour. The Professor of Everything ordered a large bowl of mussels to be
brought. He informed Daffodil that these were to assist her in acquiring
the Croäxaxican manner of speech-since, besides their
well-known property of clearing the brain, they had the property of
clearing the throat, thus making it able to exhale Ghchrrghxxxrr in a loud
and dignified harmony. So he popped a mussel into her mouth to begin with
and swallowed two himself, which was not, he pointed out, because
his throat needed any clearing, for, if it had a fault, it was
always being too clear, but in order to prevent a bad effect on it from the
harsh and unnatural sounds of the human pronunciation he must condescend to
employ in the preliminary stages of her
education. He then proceeded to deliver his celebrated treatise on the origin and use of speech.
Daffodil did not understand much of the treatise, but she listened hard.
And at length it became easy for her to know what the words he was saying
were, though they were so much like the seven syllable part of her
spelling-book that she could not often understand more than two at a
time.
At the end of an hour the Professor took out his watch. It was the first
of its kind Daffodil had seen and she could not help leaning forward to
peep at it. A Croäxaxican watch has no hands: the figures are
made of small flower-buds, which open each at the hour it marks, and
wither each at its fixed time before the next hour's
flower-buds open. The watch-case is made of the pink lining
of shells: it is filled with a fine golden sand into which the
flowers are set after it has been well damped. The flowers have to be
renewed every twelve hours. The wealthiest Croäxaxicans keep two
watches in regular use, so that their servants can always have one ready
when the other has run out its hours. The Professor used two, and a servant
came every twelve hours to bring him the fresh one and take the other to
put in new flowers.
The Professor looked at his watch, popped one mussel into
Daffodil's mouth and two into his own, took one swim round, and then
sat down and resumed his discourse. He did this regularly at the end of
each hour. Daffodil did not much relish the mussels, but, when she found
that her lesson lasted to Thursday morning, she thought it a lucky thing
for her that she had them to keep her from getting quite exhausted.
Learning Croäxaxican was not so difficult as she had expected. She
had mistaken it for a foreign language, but the Regius Professor of
Everything explained that it was only a question of pronunciation and
accent. It is not to be supposed, he told her, that things would be so
mismanaged that creatures having the same boundaries of latitude and
longitude should have different words for the same meaning. That would be
too irrational. "What really is the case," said he, "is
that the inferior animals, such as horses, birds, crickets, cows, human
beings, and flies, have imitated the great Croäxaxican language in all
respects excepting its pronunciation and accent--in which they find a
difficulty because of the peculiar constructions of their throats, which
are none of them like ours. It is so long," he continued,
"since the Croäxaxicans settled in this kingdom and entirely
abandoned their dry and useless territory above water, that all you
creatures, debarred from access to us, have had time to forget a good deal
of what you had learned before we left you to shift for
yourselves."
Then he went on to set forth all about pronunciation. And Daffodil
thought it highly interesting, because she saw how, by listening
intelligently to the conversation of any species of animals, so as to find
out how they pronounced and accentuated, she should be able to understand
and use their manner of speech.
But, though it was highly interesting, the poor child got woefully
sleepy when she had been hearing all this information for half a day and a
whole night. The Professor good-naturedly put pieces of rush
across her eyes to keep them open, or she would certainly have dozed off. And no one can tell what would have happened to her, and to the Professor, if she had not learned Croäxaxican by the appointed time.
When Daffodil perfectly understood the Professor of Everything's
rules about pronunciation and accent, he made her recite his treatise on
the origin and use of speech, after him, in the Croäxaxican tongue,
over and over again for twelve hours, until, if it had not been for her
having got so hoarse that she could not speak at all, she was able to
converse with great fluency. The next thing was to accustom her ears to the
sound of the language, so that she might readily understand what was said
to her: and, with that object, the Professor decided to talk,
himself, till Thursday morning. Daffodil was to prove her attention by
saying the Ohs and Ahs in the right places.
The Professor ate three mussels to prepare himself, and then began the
history of his own life, which, he said, would make the lesson more
attractive to her than any other subject would do. It was very kind of him,
Daffodil thought, but still she found it hard work to attend so carefully
as was necessary, and sometimes she put the Ohs and Ahs in the wrong
places. For the story of the Regius Professor of Everything's life
was very long, and it did not appear that anything had ever happened to
him. She was glad she had the rushes in her eyes, for it would have been
shocking if she had been so rude as to fall asleep when the Professor was
being so obliging as to relate his own history, and yet she verily believed
she should have been in risk of doing so but for those useful rushes.
When the Professor left off speaking it was Thursday morning and the
Queen's commands were obeyed. Daffodil could talk reasonably:
that is to say she could talk Croäxaxican.
But Her Majesty only replied "Of course it can: I ordered
that it should." And she did not offer him breakfast, as he had
counted upon her doing. So he returned to his home in discontent, and spent
the rest of the day in eating mussels and communing with philosophy. His
servants used to say that communing with philosophy looked to them just
like going to sleep. But the Regius Professor of Everything, as I have said
before, never went to sleep.
Daffodil, as soon as she was alone, began a comfortable yawn. But she
had the disappointment of being interrupted in it. The Officer in Command
entered, followed by four other officers of high rank. He advanced towards
her, and informed her courteously that he had come to conduct her to the
Royal Palace. He could give her exactly two minutes and a quarter to
prepare in. And he asked her to do him the honour to inform him if she was
a gentle-
man or a lady, so that he might know whether to send a valet or a lady's-maid to assist her.
"You are very kind," said Daffodil. "But I am only a
little girl; and I can manage quite nicely by myself." For she
thought a frog lady's-maid would not be much help to her.
Washing made her feel fresher; but she was still so sleepy that she
could not venture to take the rushes out of her eyes, and she felt afraid
that, if they did not give her water-cresses to excite her brain,
she would soon be altogether stupefied.
She was trying to smooth her hair when, precisely at the two minutes and
a quarter, the officers came back, followed by a guard of forty soldiers.
They looked surprised at her occupation, and the Officer in Command begged
that she would not pull out those yellow rushes before she had been
presented to Her Majesty, who would expect to see her in the same condition
as when she was consigned to his keeping. "I have no doubt," he
said encouragingly, "that Her Majesty will graciously permit you to
get rid of the encumbrance, after she has inspected it."
"Pull out my hair !" exclaimed Daffodil, aghast. "Why
I should not think of such a thing." But there was no time for
explanations, and she was marched off.
She was conducted through several corridors and galleries, crossed here
and there by trenches full of water through which she had to wade, as she
could not swim like the soldiers. At last she arrived at the anteroom where
she was to wait till Their Majesties should be pleased to order her to be
brought before them. The rushes in her eyes kept her from falling
downright asleep, but she was all the while growing more and more bewildered, till at last it seemed to her as if all this were a dream and she found herself every now and then saying nonsensical things, as if she were talking in her sleep.
Just as she had taken the Officer in Command for Keziah and was saying
to him "Oh dear, you have made a mistake and put me to bed in the
washing-tub," the order came for him to bring in the prisoner.
The guard formed round her again, the officers marched together ahead, and
she was led from the waiting-room into a long arched gallery which
opened right into the Great Throne Hall. The canal of the Great Throne Hall
was too deep for her to wade, but she was now too stupefied to feel
frightened. It was more and more like a dream, and she made no resistance
when two soldiers drew her in with them. It was lucky for her that, as a
matter of form, they supported her, for else she would have gone under.
The soldiers continued to support her on each side--for that was
the proper way of bringing a prisoner into the Royal Presence--and
next she found herself standing in front of the Throne. She saw, in a hazy
kind of way, that all the seats on the steps were filled by frogs, and that
there were two frogs in bright robes and with shining crowns on their heads
sitting on the two topmost seats. She had just sense enough left to
understand that she was before Their Majesties, and to make her court
curtsey to them.
The King thought her so strange-looking a creature that he burst
out laughing; and, as that was an unusual exertion for him, it sent him to
sleep
at once. But the Queen, although this was a State occasion and all the Court were assembled, condescended to speak to her with her own Royal lips.
"What are you, and on what mission have you come to our
Kingdom?" she said.
But Daffodil was half dreaming and she somehow got a dazed notion that
the Queen was Keziah dressed up; so she said to her "Oh what a dear
funny stupid old thing you look!" And she said it in good
Croäxaxican, for, after her long lesson, that came the most naturally
to her.
You may imagine what consternation there was! Some of the Maids of
Honour shrieked, and the Noblemen drew their swords to defend their Queen.
The Princess Royal almost fainted with horror and alarm.
The Queen was so indignant that she shook the King till he woke up
shaken out of breath. But she was always courageous, and Daffodil looked
quite quiet and harmless, and the Officer in Command, directly his prisoner
gave that terrible answer, had taken precautions by ordering the whole of
the guard to advance and make ready for attack. So, with a stately and
fearless air, Her Majesty said "Miserable creature, if your life had
not been already forfeited by your High Treason against our ceiling, it
would become forfeit now. What room can there be for mercy
when----"
But here Daffodil, who had now got it into her head that Her Majesty was
the big black dog barking, interrupted her with "Do be quiet,
there's a good fellow. Don't make a noise."
"I order you to instant death," cried the Queen, hopping
with rage.
"Lie down and hold your tongue, there's a good fellow"
said Daffodil.
"Do you hear? Instant death. Being swallowed by the
State Boa Constrictor is the punishment for treason, and he is sure to be
very hungry by now," cried the Queen, with added fury.
"You are to die at once."
Daffodil looked at her reprovingly, and, holding up a forefinger, said
solemnly "If you go on barking and growling and making such a horrid
noise, I shall have to punish you. Lie down directly." And she
clapped her hands and stamped her foot, for that was how she could always
make her dog lie down and be quiet.
There was a panic! The soldiers, thinking that she was
going to attack their Queen, all ran away, and the Officer in Command and
the four other officers ran as fast as they could after them, shouting
"Quick: guards, quick! Help us to summon the regiment!"
All the Maids of Honour went into hysterics. The Noblemen hid behind the
Maids of Honour and held their breaths. The Princesses, who were usually
quarrelling, threw themselves into each other's arms and said
"Let us all make it up and die together." The Crown Prince
crept under his father's throne, and the Queen crept under her own.
The second Prince turned as pale as pale could be, but he folded his arms
and leaned back in his seat, quoting some poetry of his own about meeting
death in the arms of danger, strong and sprightly, brisk and brightly, with
an unchanged noble hue, while all the world for fear a startled yellow
grew: only he trembled so that he could not say it very distinctly.
The King was the only person who did not seem discomposed. The shrieks of the Maids of Honour disturbed him from a nap, and he looked round saying "What's this all about?" but, when he perceived what a turmoil there was, he stretched himself and leaned back in his chair again. "This is too much for me," he said. And then he made this speech: "Noble Croäxaxicans, Lords and Ladies, my loyal and deserving subjects, things seem going wrong, but Her Majesty, my wife, who is absent somewhere or other now on business of the State, knows my mind on the subject and will put them all right presently when she comes back." And with these words he went to sleep.
Daffodil, meanwhile, having no longer the two soldiers to keep her up,
as they had run off among their comrades, had dropped down on the ground,
with her head resting on the lowest step of the throne. She thought she was
in bed, and she was trying hard to go to sleep, but the rushes in her eyes
prevented her and she was too drowsy to take them out.
When the tumult had subsided and nothing was heard of Daffodil, the
Queen took courage to peep out from under her throne, and, to her great
surprise, saw the cause of all the alarm lying motionless. At first she
thought it was a trick to entice her within reach, but, when nearly half an
hour had passed and Daffodil still did not stir, she felt reassured, and,
coming out from under her throne, took her seat on it with great
dignity.
"The creature had some sense of duty, after all," she said.
"I ordered it to die at once, and it has
done so. Probably it did not understand that my order implied an intention of having it put to death by the proper person. I shall now have it rewarded for its obedience by a magnificent State Funeral. Somebody pick up the body."
But they were all afraid to go near it, and at last the Queen herself
came down the steps and, very cautiously, stood beside the half torpid
child.
"It seems to breathe," she said. "And yet it is
certainly dead. Look at the way it lies: could any live thing lie so?
Some of you lie down and try the experiment."
All the Maids of Honour and half the courtiers lay down and tried to
arrange their limbs like Daffodil's. But none of them could do
it.
"Yes, it is quite dead," said the Queen. "No doubt it
is the nature of such creatures to breathe after they are dead." Then
she put out her hand and touched Daffodil's cheek. The scream with
which she started back terrified the Court.
"It is hot! Burning hot!" cried Her Majesty. "Oh! oh!
How it has hurt me! Get me a doctor, this moment."
"Good gracious! Is it alive?" shrieked all the Maids of
Honour.
"Don't expose your ignorance," replied Her Majesty
sharply. "Do you think anything could be in that fiery state and
live? No doubt these creatures smoulder away after death. In fact we had
better have some buckets of water thrown over it at once to prevent it
getting on fire."
Daffodil heard all this and felt too heavy to say anything. It seemed to
her that she was continuing
her dream. If she had spoken, it would have been to say that she did not feel hot at all, but very chilly. People of different countries have different views on some things: the cheek which seemed to the Croäxaxican Queen to be at burning heat would have been called as cold as a frog by any of us.
However, the Croäxaxicans thought she would be in smoke and ashes
presently, and so, at the moment on which the Head Royal Physician came
hurrying in at one entrance, forty attendants with buckets of water pushed
each other in through another entrance.
The Head Royal Physician gasped out eagerly "How is Her Majesty?
Is she still alive?" But Her Majesty, who had forgotten the pain of
her hand, said severely "What do you mean by intruding upon Us in
this unseemly manner and getting in the way of the buckets?" Then she
ordered the attendants to make haste and throw the water upon the creature,
one after the other as fast as they could.
Daffodil was disturbed by this shower-bath. She was so wet
already that nothing could make her wetter, but she felt the shock
unpleasantly. She lifted her head and, looking slowly round, said "Oh
dear: How it is raining! Give me an umbrella." You may fancy
the general terror when they heard this from the creature they had all
believed to be dead. But, the shower-bath being over, Daffodil put
her head on the step again and went on trying to go to sleep.
"It does not seem a dangerous creature, after all" said the
Queen.
"It sleeps, a shape of doubt and mysterie.
Not frog nor
fish: whatever can it be?"
said the second Prince, Prince Brekekex, who had to talk in verse because he was a poet.
"A human being," replied the Queen. "I explained all
about it. I suppose you were making a poem about it, instead of
attending."
"Yes," said Prince Brekekex,
"Blame me not, I thought a poet's
thought;
In that, great Queen, you have guessed very
well:
And now, on this strange creature hither
brought,
I gaze in awe, and ask "Is it
unwell?"
"How clever you are, my dear boy!" said the Queen, in
delight. "It's just what I have been thinking all along without
knowing I was."
And the courtiers and the Maids of Honour all said it was just what they
had been thinking without knowing they were, and that it showed what a
great poet Prince Brekekex was that he should say in verse the very thing
they should have said themselves in prose, if they had thought of it in
time.
"Cure the creature at once," said the Queen to the Head
Royal Physician.
The Head Royal Physician did not much like it, but he was obliged to go
close to Daffodil and he had to feel her pulse, which made him start and
cry out worse than the Queen had done. Then he told the Queen that the
creature was in a feverish and excitable state and required sleep, and that
it must at once take a composing draught to put it to sleep if possible.
There was no time to lose, he said.
So messengers were sent in hot haste to bring what was wanted; and, when
they had returned the Head Royal Physician set to work to compound the
draught himself, so that it might be sure to be
rightly mixed. Some of the attendants were ordered to carry the patient to a couch, and the Queen herself again descended from her throne and stood near her to see the result of the draught being given.
Nobody would undertake to administer it, so the poor Head Royal
Physician, trembling all over, had to do it himself. Luckily for him,
Daffodil opened her mouth in a great yawn: he seized the moment and
in went the draught. Daffodil spluttered and coughed--it was only a
mussel-shell full, but it went the wrong way and half choked her.
She was still too sleepy to understand what was going on, but she sat up
and rubbed her eyes. The rushes that held her eyelids open gave way at
that, and, the moment they were out, she dropped back on her couch in a
dead sleep.
There was a shout of admiration from the whole Court. Never was such a
Head Royal Physician! The Queen knighted him on the spot. Prince Brekekex
promised to write a poem about him. The King said "I shall never fear
now not getting my proper quantity of sleep: I shall only have to
send for my Head Royal Physician, if I should ever be in a difficulty about
it." It was years since His Majesty had made so long a speech to a
subject. The Crown Prince, who, feeling the solemnity of his greatness, did
not converse, broke his habit so far as to say distinctly "Hear,
Hear!" when the King had left off. The Head Royal Physician swelled
with joy. He looked nearly twice the size he had been when he gave the
draught. But he thought best to hide his feelings. "I do not deserve
so much praise," he said meekly. "If there were any one in the
king-
dom who knew so much medical science as I do, I daresay he would have been able to do it nearly as well."
"True worth is always modest, we are told
By them of
new and them of old,"
said Prince Brekekex. And the Head Royal Physician only wished that the
Regius Professor of Everything had been there to witness the honour he was
receiving and to hear what Prince Brekekex had said. "It would lessen
his conceit somewhat," he thought. For the Head Royal Physician and
the Regius Professor of Everything, while each sincerely revering the other
as the second greatest sage the world could boast, and even each avowing
that the other excelled him in some special branches of science of a
technical nature or of limited importance, were each a little afraid that
the other thought too much of himself.
The Queen began to think so well of Daffodil that she was half inclined
to have her removed on her couch to a private room of the palace:
but, on the Head Royal Physician's saying that he could not answer
for the consequences if any accident were to startle the patient awake
before it had slept off its inclination to frenzy, Her Majesty ordered that
the creature should be left to sleep out its sleep where it was. Thereupon,
as the business was over, she broke up the Court. A herald in orange
proclaimed through a crimson flower-trumpet that Their Majesties
were about to depart. The Lord Chamberlain respectfully and vigorously
shook up the King, who, leaning on the Lord Chamberlain's arm,
descended, with a deliberate and lofty bearing for
which he was celebrated, from the throne where he had been left sitting alone while the Queen and all the Court had gathered around Daffodil's couch. Then a procession formed, the Royal Band struck up the Royal March of the Croäxaxicans, and Their Majesties, the Princes, the Princesses, the Maids of Honour, the courtiers, the officers, the guards and the attendants went off in order. Daffodil was left with her forty soldiers to keep watch over her. The Head Royal Physician marched away in his due place in the procession, holding his head so high that it could hardly be seen at all in front, but he came back squeezed small, for the Queen had reprimanded him sharply for leaving his patient. He placed himself in a big arm-chair at the head of the couch, and there he had to sit till Daffodil should wake of her own accord, for Their Majesties had it proclaimed that whoever should, by any means, intentional or accidental, and for any motive, good or bad, hasten the awakening of the human being, should be imprisoned for life with hard labour and only one newspaper a week.
But the Head Royal Physician, to whom she spoke, made no reply, for he
did not understand her. He offered her a plate of mussels, for which he had
sent one of the soldiers as soon as he saw her begin to open her eyes.
The sight of the mussels aroused her memory at once. "No, thank
you," said she, in good Croäxaxican. "No mussels: I
feel quite as clever as I want to be this morning. But, if you could give
me some tea and toast for breakfast. I am so
hungry."
Nobody there had ever heard of tea and toast. But, after some
consultation, a soldier was sent with
a message to the Head Royal Cook, and presently returned with water-cresses and minnows, which he offered to her. She thought this a strange sort of breakfast; however, she saw she had no chance of anything more like what she had at home and she made a good meal of water-cresses and the plateful of mussels, which the Head Royal Physician forced her to eat and which, in her hunger, she found she enjoyed. The minnows she declined, as politely as she could: "They are very fine and very fresh, I am sure," she said. "But I am not used to them quite so under-done." For she thought it would be rude to call them raw.
She felt revived by her breakfast, and was now quite able to accompany
the Head Royal Physician to her former quarters in the Royal State Prison.
The soldiers, of course, formed an escort as before.
As the Head Royal Physician was kind in manner, she took courage to ask
him if she might be allowed to wash and dress. "And if somebody would
be so kind as to lend me some clothes while these are washed!" she
added imploringly.
"While these are buried, you mean," said the Head Royal
Physician.
"They will wash," she replied.
"What can you mean?" said the Head Royal
Physician."Wash clothes! And such soiled clothes as these! The
servants will bury them in the proper bog for that purpose."
"But I have no others," pleaded Daffodil.
"Whether you have others or no, these will be buried," said
the Head Royal Physician, with a wave of his hand to settle the question.
"We inimitable
Croäxaxicans are more particular about cleanliness than the foreign and less advanced races of the world, and for us to allow clothes nearly a fortnight old to go about on any one! Faugh! Unheard of! Besides, as your medical adviser, I could not allow it. But never mind," he added good-naturedly, seeing that she was distressed. "If you want clothes, I will tell the Queen, to whom I must now report my complete cure of you, and no doubt Her Majesty will allow you some. If she does not, you could find some on the first highway: plenty of them in Croäxaxica. Now then, in for your bath, and off I go."
He had pushed her into the canal as he spoke, and he was out of the room
before she had recovered breath.
The bath proved very refreshing, but her clothes became but little the
cleaner for it. She was still trying to rub out the stains the river mud
had made on her frock, when the Lieutenant of the State Prison entered the
room, followed by a company of soldiers. He greeted her with much courtesy,
and even hopped round to her--only once indeed, but he would not have
done more even to a frog, unless of the highest rank. On her part, as she
had learnt the rules of behaviour from the Regius Professor of Everything,
she hopped twice round to him, and did it twice over to show deference to
so high a functionary of the state.
"Creature." said the Lieutenant of the State Prison, who did
not know what else to call her, "you are to leave the prison
forthwith: whether to return or not I am unable to say. You will be
under the escort of this troop of armed and determined grenadiers.
I warn you to make no attempt at escape: it would be punished as High Treason."
"And I should not know where to escape to" said
Daffodil.
"Precisely so," said the Lieutenant of the State Prison.
"It is vain for the boldest to think to escape from the inimitable
Croäxaxicans: though human, you have intelligence. Go then,
creature, and be obedient. I wish you good fortune."
Thereupon the soldiers surrounded her, and she was blindfolded and
marched off.
After about ten minutes' progress, sometimes on moss and sometimes
on mud and weeds and sometimes through canals, the soldiers halted. The
prisoner's eyes were unbound, and she found herself under an
archway,--or, rather, in a tunnel. It was everywhere lined with short
close-grown grass, and was lighted, not very brightly, by a runlet
on each side. The frog in command of the guard was a little way ahead in
conversation with two frogs in the Royal Livery who seemed to be watchmen,
and who stood on the right and left of what looked like a dark cave.
Presently she was marched into this cave and left alone with the watchmen,
who were loudly uttering a "Ghchhxhxxsrrrrrrrrrrr" which seemed
to be a call. Then they were still, and she heard, the measured flopping of
the departing soldiers as they got more and more distant. She was in the
dark and could only listen; it was of no use trying to see. Next she heard
a faint sound of water, and then a louder, and, all at once, a stream,
rushing into its channel beside her, filled the place with light. Then she
saw it was not a cave, but a very long
low corridor. At the far end stood a figure in bright clothes--pink and blue with a white apron. This was a maid-servant whom the watchmen had summoned by their call, and who, after turning on the lighting water, was waiting for Daffodil.
"Is this the new arrival we're to find clothes for?"
said the maid-servant, when the watchmen came up to her with
Daffodil. "Well it is an object!"
"It has to be made as pretty as you, Miss," said one of the
watchmen: and the maid-servant tittered, and both the watchmen
grinned at the joke.
"I don't like the charge of it," said the servant,
eyeing Daffodil askance, when she had recovered her gravity.
"It can't escape," one of the watchmen replied.
"We are to stay here; and the guard is at the outer courtyard
entrance, if it could get past us."
"I daresay," said the servant: "but how about my
escaping, if it turns on me?" And she looked uneasily at
Daffodil's teeth and nails.
"Don't be afraid," said Daffodil. "I will not
give you any trouble."
The servant was so startled at being addressed in good Croäxaxican
by the strange being she had thought a sort of deaf and dumb savage that
she gave a loud scream.
"Don't be frightened, Miss," said one of the watchmen.
"They tell me it's only a foreign sort of frog. And you see how
naturally it's learned to talk already."
"I am a Human Being," said Daffodil, drawing herself up.
"Ah! poor thing! That's it--a human being"
said the good-natured watchman. "It can't help it: it's nature. And the Regius Professor of Everything will soon make it just like one of us."
"Well, come along then, human being," said the servant.
"And mind you don't go anywhere without my leave."
The corridor through which Daffodil had come opened only into another
corridor crossing it at right angles. Along this second corridor she now
followed the servant, almost in the dark, for some minutes. Then there was
a wide canal to cross, and a low entrance to grope through, and she was in
what seemed to be a large nursery garden--a nursery garden not only
floored, but walled and roofed, with lines of large oblong
flower-beds cut out in the moss, filled each with one kind of
flower. This was the Queen's Royal Wardrobe room, and the oblong
flower-beds were in fact wardrobe-shelves, arranged, like the
Croäxaxican bookshelves, with strips of moss between them. The clothes
in Croäxaxican wardrobes are placed on the floor or on the walls or on
the ceiling, according to whether their manner of growth is upright,
climbing, or drooping. The ceiling is always pitched very low, so that the
clothes growing there may be within reach.
"What enormous flowers!" said Daffodil. "How
do you get them to grow to such a size?"
"What a silly question!" said the maid. "What use
would they be to us if they were too small?"
Daffodil observed that the rows between which they were passing were of
the same sort of flowers as the servant's skirt. "Is this where
you got your pretty frock?" she inquired.
"It's where the Royal Dresspickers picked it this
morning," said the servant. "All these shelves we're
among now are for the clothes of the Royal Wardrobe-maids to grow
in: where we've come is for the Royal Cook-maids:
and those shelves there to the right, that you can see if you peep between
the stalks of these jackets, are for the Royal Housemaids: and these
common things we are just coming to are for the Royal
Scullery-maids. But where yours are to come from, I can't
imagine. The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary won't surely match you with
Royal Scullery-maids."
They were just entering the shelves for the scullery-maids.
"I should not mind," replied Daffodil; "I think these are
prettier than the other clothes."
"What! these common blue and lilac things! Well! You
are a judge! And just feel how thin they are compared to what
we superior classes wear."
"Are they very common?" asked Daffodil. "I never saw
any like them. They look as if they were big hare-bells made out of
the clouds at the end of sunset."
"They're not to say common," was the answer. "We
of the Royalty don't any of us wear common things, and there are not
many of this sort outside the Royal Wardrobe: but the Royal
Scullery-maids don't count high compared with the other orders
of Royal Servants, and of course their clothes count according."
"And you think these are what I shall have to wear?" said
Daffodil.
"You!" the servant exclaimed in a tone which did not sound
complimentary. "That I don't. I
don't suppose it would be thought of to put upon the Royal Scullery-maids that way. Didn't I tell you so just now?"
"We will not talk about it any more," said Daffodil gravely.
She meant her manner to be a reproof; for certainly the frog was not
polite. But the frog servant-maid, instead of feeling corrected,
burst out laughing. It was the first laugh Daffodil had heard in
Croäxaxican, and it startled her so that she turned first white and
then red. For a moment she thought the frog was cracking to pieces and this
was the noise of the explosion.
"My!" said the servant when she could speak. "The
Regius Professor of Everything has taught you to be somebody!
I suppose you think yourself quite a frog!"
Daffodil replied only by a dignified silence, at which her companion
laughed still louder than before.
They went on through rows of flowers which seemed to Daffodil
interminable. At last she said "Is there much more of this
garden?"
"Garden!" was the astonished reply. "You can't
see the garden from here."
"I mean the garden we are in" said Daffodil.
"I never! Hasn't the Regius Professor of Everything taught
you what's a garden and what's a wardrobe? This is a wardrobe.
Wardrobe--wardrobe; you see--for clothes." And she repeated
several times, very loud, "Wardrobe," "Clothes,"
pointing all round, so that Daffodil might understand.
"What is the difference, then, between a wardrobe and a
garden?" inquired Daffodil.
The frog went off into another fit of laughter. "Well, you
are fun!" she said, when it was over. "Difference
between a wardrobe and a garden! Why, one's a garden and the
other's a wardrobe. Can't you understand?"
"Not yet," said Daffodil.
"Dear! dear! what a deal of explaining you take! There's no
difference between them--at least it's all difference:
one's one and the other's the other."
"Yes," said Daffodil "that is how it is where I come
from, too. But what is a garden?"
"What should it be but a garden? A place where people go to do
nothing and look at the patterns."
"Are the flowers in your gardens as big as these?"
"Flowers! You don't suppose gardeners allow flowers in a
garden?"
"Do they have only leaves, then?"
"Leaves? Flowers and leaves in a garden! That would be fine
untidiness. What do you suppose gardeners are for, if they don't
scrape away everything that tries to grow?"
"Your gardens must be different from ours," was all Daffodil
could say.
"I should think that very likely," said the
frog pointedly. Then, seeing that Daffodil showed no enjoyment of her joke,
she checked as well as she could the laughter it had excited in herself,
and said "Come don't be downcast: I won't laugh at
you any more; and of course it can't be expected that human beings
should have gardens, or anything
else, as good as ours. It's no blame to you; why, there's nothing in the world to match us. Don't you know we're called the inimitable Croäxaxicans?"
"Who call you so?" Daffodil asked, a little tartly.
"We shouldn't be called so if it weren't true and
known to everybody," was the answer. "But, come, I don't
believe you've ever seen a real garden: would you like a peep
at the Queen's Royal Private one?"
"That I should," said Daffodil, whose curiosity was
excited.
The wardrobe-maid, turning into a shelf on the right hand, led
the way in and out among rows of clothes till they came to some canals and
corridors much like those by which they had entered. These led them to a
corridor so low that Daffodil had to stoop, to avoid touching the top with
her head. It was quite dark.
"I can't see here," said Daffodil, hesitating about
going on.
"How should you? Do they see in the dark in your
country?"
"But we put lights in our dark passages."
"Then how do you manage to keep them dark?"
"They are not dark passages when the lights are lit: that is
true," said Daffodil, thinking she saw the point.
"I don't mean whether you call them light or call them
dark: but, if you put light into the passages to the garden, where do
you get the darkness to pass out of?"
"I don't think I quite understand you," said
Daffodil.
"I never thought you did," said the frog, with a giggle.
"Look here, I'll explain. Darkness is darkness and light is
light: you know that much?"
"Yes."
"And, when people want darkness, they don't go and light a
place full of light: now, do they?"
"No," said Daffodil. "Nobody would do that."
"Well then, now you know that, you understand why nobody would
think of lighting the entrance to a garden."
"I don't quite," said Daffodil, as she continued to
grope along the passage, keeping close behind her guide.
But, all at once, the corridor turned a corner: the light burst on
her eyes as she stood in front of what seemed a blaze of colours. Then she
understood that the Croäxaxicans pass to their gardens through a dark
passage in order that they may come suddenly on the broad open space with
its flashing canals, and thus see the many-hued patterns in a
brilliancy beyond the reality, from the contrast with the dusk out of which
they have come upon them.
The garden seemed to Daffodil an immense hall walled, paved, and ceiled,
with patterns of every shape and colour in mosaic of some rough material.
On the floor the patterns were bordered and traced out by runlets and
canals, some but an inch wide, some a yard or two, and by geometrically
shaped pools. A large waterfall plunged from the roof into a round lake in
the centre of the central pattern, and, along the walls, at regular
intervals, were smaller waterfalls descending into pools framed in
variegated
curves and zigzags. Here and there, beside the more important patterns, and in the spray of the waterfalls, were placed rustic seats constructed of shells and fish-bone lattice.
"Oh! what lovely water!" exclaimed Daffodil. "It looks
like green fire."
"It's the best; and there's plenty of it,"
replied the frog-servant. "But there's nothing so
particular about that: anybody has that in their garden. But did you
ever see such lots of patterns and such lots of colours? They
take money to get them. And look at the blue earth: the dye's a
secret, and you won't see that in anybody's garden
but ours. It's only Royalty may use it."
"Is that blue stuff earth?" asked Daffodil, surprised, as
she looked at the blue vandykes to which her attention had been called.
"Of course it's earth. It's all earth here but the
water and the seats. Don't the gardeners in your country use earth
for the garden beds?"
"Yes, but they don't dye it. They put flowers into it for
the patterns."
"The juices of flowers, you mean--to colour it. That's
how our gardeners do, too."
"No, they don't colour the earth; they leave it brown and
they plant--"
"Never mind; they'll learn some day," interrupted the
frog, who did not care to listen to Daffodil's explanation of so
uncivilised a system of gardening. "But let me hear what you think of
the garden. Did you ever see such lovely bright colours?"
"They are not so bright as some of the flowers in the
wardrobe," said Daffodil.
"That's nothing. The flowers grow that way: this is
all artificial."
At that moment there advanced into the garden, from an entrance just
opposite to where Daffodil and her guide were standing, two frogs smaller
than any Croäxaxicans Daffodil had yet seen, followed by two
full-grown frogs holding huge round green leaves over the little
ones' heads, for parasols. Other frogs, apparently nurse-maids
and pages, were coming on behind these, but Daffodil had no time to observe
the procession, for the Royal Wardrobe-maid, exclaiming "Good
gracious! the Royal Nursemaids!" dragged her into the passage and
scrambled back with her to the Royal Wardrobe as fast as they could get
along.
"What is the matter?" asked Daffodil, when they stopped to
take breath, safe among the shelves again.
"Those were the youngest Royal Princesses," replied the
servant.
"But why had we to run away from them?"
"It isn't so much them; it's the Royal Nursemaids,
nasty jealous tell-tales! But they hadn't time to get their
eyes undazzled before we were out of sight."
"Were we trespassing, then?"
"Don't pretend you didn't know" said the frog,
snappishly. "You'll only give me a very low opinion of you. You
can't make me believe you've had the Queen's leave to go
into her Royal Private Garden whenever you choose."
"I must ask you," said Daffodil, "to be so kind as not
again to take me anywhere where I am a trespasser. I am not used to go into
people's premises in an underhand way."
"Then it's to be supposed you don't call breaking in
through their Royal Throne Hall ceiling, and calling all their army out to
keep you quiet, going into people's premises in an underhand
way," retorted the frog.
"That was an accident."
"Well, all I know is you're a trespasser wherever you go in
Croäxaxica: so perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me
where I am to take you." And the frog sat down, as if to
wait for Daffodil's instructions.
"This is not right of you," said Daffodil. "You must
take me where you have been told."
The frog, being vexed at her own imprudence at going into the garden
against orders and uneasy lest harm should come of it, naturally was glad
to be put into a pet. So she jumped up and began to scold satisfactorily.
"Not right, indeed!" exclaimed she. "Who are you to talk
to me? And what is it to you where I was told to take you."
"Not anything," Daffodil replied quietly. "But I think
we ought to go on."
The frog drew herself up to her full height. "Do you know who you
are speaking to?"
"Not quite clearly," Daffodil made answer. "I should
like to know, if you do not mind telling me."
"I don't mind telling you, now you ask respectfully,"
said the frog, mollified by the politeness of the inquiry. "I am a
Royal Under Wardrobe-maid."
"And you have charge of these beautiful flowers?" said
Daffodil.
"Well, not exactly charge. You see there are the Upper Royal
Wardrobe-maids, and the Royal Lady's-
maids, and the Royal Dresspickers, and the Royal Dressmakers. But it's all the same: we're all in the Plenipotentiary Department, and that's the highest there is."
"Shall you ever get higher than Under Wardrobe-maid?"
asked Daffodil sympathisingly.
But the question jarred on the Under Royal Wardrobe-maid's
sensitiveness: it seemed as if Daffodil thought lightly of her
present rank. "Higher!" she cried with a toss of her head,
"I think I'm too high as it is to be gossiping with a human
being. Do come on. The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary will be
tired of waiting for us," and, taking Daffodil's hand, she
rushed off, hopping and bounding, at such a rate that Daffodil, although a
swift runner, was dragged on at a speed far beyond all former experience of
her own powers, and which she felt she could not keep up for long. Dashing
and splashing on through shelves of flowers that seemed to whirl away as
she passed, she ran, as if for her life, until her guide stopped and let go
her hand and, after almost losing her balance by the jerk, she found
herself in the presence of the highest personage in the country after the
Royal Family, the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
Seated amid them, on a dais under a canopy of marsh marigolds with broad
green leaves, the great disposer of Croäxaxican comfort and grace was
leaning back, her paws folded on her lap, in an attitude of internal
contemplation. The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary of Croäxaxica was a
person of such remarkable gifts that, until the dawning fame of Prince
Brekekex startled the delighted nation, she
was recognised as the first and far peerless genius in the world. This did not interfere with the just renown of the Regius Professor of Everything and the Head Royal Physician, nor did it disturb their satisfaction with themselves and her: they were not geniuses and did not desire to be considered anything of the sort; for genius, they felt, is a matter of chance, and their wisdom was the result of perfected study. Nor did the growing feeling in Croäxaxica that the poet Prince was perhaps the first genius in the world put the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary really in the position of only second; for she could not make poems and he could not make dresses, so that there was no rivalry between them in their gifts and she remained undisputably paramount in hers.
But, in spite of this dazzling celebrity, and in spite of her exalted
position and authority, her manner was characterised by a modesty which,
from its contrast, kept all in mind of her greatness, and her apparel by a
simplicity which marked her out as the one person in Croäxaxica not in
bondage to the Plenipotentiary Department. To the frequent compliments she
received on this modesty and simplicity, she would reply, with a gentle
smile, "Why praise me for what my nature cannot help? Perhaps I have
a little genius--at least the foolish world seems to fancy
so--and humility is always the mark of true genius. I can't help
being humble, so I have nothing to boast of for being so." She would
also explain that the plainness and ease of her dress must not be ascribed
to her humility alone, but to the high necessities of art.
"Inspiration must be
free from the trammels of self," she would say: "how could I plan costumes if I had to contemplate their physical inconveniences as about to affect myself? and how could I concentrate my thoughts if I had, like those who profit by the exercise of my constraining art, to keep my attention fixed on accommodating my movements to the requirements of my clothes and my body to their outline?" She habitually wore a tunic of some light bell-flower, left to hang round her tall and stately figure in its natural shape, sleeveless, the armholes being merely edged by a daisy frill, and unaccompanied by the fashionable leg-flounces of one flower, or row of flower petals, beneath another, beginning so narrow that the top flounce had to be arranged for by the leg being compressed to the size by a bandage of untearable sedge and so wide in the lowest flounces that the wearer could not place her feet less than a yard apart for fear of crushing the flowers--a garment her own latest invention and without which no noble lady but herself would have had the courage to show herself. But her crimson boots were surmounted by anklets of pearls gleaming out upon the yellow of her beautifully marked skin, and she wore on her forehead a jewel in some lights like a ruby and in some like a topaz, of priceless value, and on her wrists bracelets made of buds of the rarest toadstools. To-day her tunic was a pale pink heather-bell with a crimson edge, and Daffodil, as she stood before her, waiting for her attention, gazed with admiration on the smooth texture and delicate tint of the gigantic flower.
"Pre-eminent Madam," said the Head Secretary
Spinster of the Plenipotentiary Department, "Number Seventy Seven And A Half, Under Royal Wardrobe-maid has at length returned."
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary roused herself from her reverie.
"Seventy Seven And A Half," she said in reproving accents,
"you have been a long while. The Queen has sent to know the reason we
have not finished, and we have not even been able to begin."
"I did my best; I did my very best, Pre-eminent Madam.
I'm ready to drop with running: Pre-eminent Madam can
see how out of breath I am. It was the human being. It would go here, and
it wouldn't go there, and it contradicted, and it sat down, and it
scolded, and it disrespected me; and it's a wonder I ever got here at
all."
"That is serious," said the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
"The Queen understood it had been perfectly tamed. It will have to be
taught by severe measures, poor thing. Go to your place, Seventy Seven And
A Half: your excuse is sufficient."
As she turned from the Under Royal Wardrobe-maid she perceived
Daffodil, and was startled into a little croak of surprise followed by a
pause of speechless amazement. "Is this the being Her
Majesty desires us to dress!" she gasped, rather than said. And every
frog of her staff made gestures of despair or contempt, and croaked in
sympathy.
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary had but the day before returned from a
month's retirement in a secluded wardrobe of her own to which she
withdrew at times, with only one trusted attendant, to
give herself up undisturbed to her inspirations and carry out new inventions; consequently she had not been present at either of Daffodil's appearances in the Great Throne Hall. "What can this wear?" she said mournfully, "I had planned--but no matter what I planned. It was described to me as but an ill-contrived frog in form: but look at it! it is all in and out and round about. And its complexion! like a trout's flesh. And that ball on a peg for a head!--like a button mushroom. What can it wear?"
As these remarks were divided from each other
by minutes of reflection and by sighs of discouragement, Daffodil had time
to think for herself. "Pre-eminent Madam," she
said--first however making one of her successful curtseys, "if
you will give me leave to choose for myself in the wardrobe, I think I can
contrive a set of clothes that I can wear."
"And so you shall," cried the Plenipotentiary, much
relieved. "And to me," she continued, addressing the assembled
staff, "and to me this shall be an opportunity of investigation and,
who knows, perhaps of improvement. Who knows but what from the
unsophisticated choice of this simple savage I may gain some needed
lesson."
"No! No! NO!!!" burst from the staff in
chorus.
"You are wrong, my friends;" said the Plenipotentiary.
"I have still much to learn, that..." but here the staff broke
in with "NO!!!!!!" in a deprecating shout.
"So very much to learn," resumed the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary, "that even this poor creature may teach me somewhat.
Ah, my friends, genius
--if I may venture to hope there is genius in my weak brain and faltering hand--genius is known by being ever a learner, and the more it is the more it knows that it isn't."
Murmurs of admiration went through the rows of frogs. The
Plenipotentiary waited till they had died away, and then called on the Head
Royal Dresspicker to attend her and bring half a dozen of her assistants,
and, with no larger suite, she walked off into the Royal Wardrobe with
Daffodil by her side.
Daffodil had been told to turn which way she pleased and guide the
party. The first thing she did was to hurry to a group of white
water-lilies and take hold of the largest. A shriek burst forth from
the Plenipotentiary and her attendants and was echoed from the saloon by
the frogs within, who had sprung to the waterfall window to see what was
the matter. Daffodil gave up her intention of breaking the lily off its
stalk, and waited. The Plenipotentiary herself explained to her the cause
of the consternation. The water-lilies were sacred to Royalty in the
most special manner. Excepting the Queen, who wore one on the anniversary
of her wedding day, and only then, none might be clad in them but a Royal
Princess, or the bride of a Royal Prince, at her marriage. These splendid
flowers, with petal on petal of a radiant white that seemed to hold
sunlight in them, were difficult to bring to perfection, and the few they
were looking on were, the Plenipotentiary said, all that existed, for it
would be the highest treason for a subject to possess one. No marriage in
the Royal Family could be duly
solemnised unless the bride wore this lily dress. When one was to be used, the Queen herself selected which it should be, and it might only be picked in her presence and by the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary herself, assisted by the Head Royal Dresspicker in right of her office. "And one of those you actually almost gathered!!!" the Plenipotentiary concluded, in a tone thrilled with horror.
"Don't you think it will be the best way for me to be taken
to a part of the wardrobe where there are not such very particular
flowers?" suggested Daffodil.
"It will certainly be more prudent to turn back from here; because
the clothes growing here are what the Queen herself wears, though they are
not all forbidden to subjects."
"May I go where your dress was picked?"
There was a movement of indignation among the attendants at the
impertinence of this request. But the Plenipotentiary, after she had
recovered from the shock of the surprise, saw that Daffodil was not
conscious of presumption, and she felt amused. "My own shelves are
close at hand, to the left," was all she replied.
All the shelves in the part of the Plenipotentiary's enclosure in
which she kept her dresses were filled chiefly with flowers of bell shapes.
Daffodil recognised among them the beautiful pink heath of which the tunic
she so greatly admired was made, and she was tempted to make her choice of
that: but she felt that it would not be pleasant to the
Plenipotentiary, who, as she had perceived, was deliberately unlike every
one else, to have somebody
wearing a fellow tunic to the one she had on. She stopped before a crowded stalk of wild bluebells and asked if she might take the longest she could find for her dress.
"Not badly chosen," said the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
"I wear those frequently. It has an instinct much like taste,"
she remarked to the attendants.
"But your Pre-eminence will not allow it to degrade one of
your own costumes?" said the Head Royal Dresspicker.
"Why not?" answered the Plenipotentiary, unpretendingly.
"The poor thing may be worthier of good clothes than I, for all we
know. I would not be arrogant. And perhaps, after all, some might say,
judging as so many do beyond my merit, that what I please to
wear no other use, however base, can degrade. The phosphorescence of
genius, if it lights even a sullied pool, makes that pool
resplendent."
So Daffodil was allowed a bluebell tunic.
Croäxaxicans do not use under-clothing, and Daffodil caused
considerable surprise by asking for some: but she was shown some
white harebells from which she chose another tunic to wear inside her
bluebell. She was offered flowers for the fashionable leggings and for
sleeves of the same style, or for puff sleeves, pouch sleeves, bell
sleeves, butterfly sleeves, all of which were in favour with the leaders of
high society; but she noticed the Plenipotentiary's own avoidance of
embellishments, and resolved to make her her model. Only, after the
dressmakers had prepared her tunics in the
workroom and had put into her bluebell some frilling of a peculiar pale kind of daisy she had selected, and when the Head Royal Lady's-maid and six of her staff had assisted her to dress, she found it would be much to her comfort if her tunics could be gathered in at the waist, instead of standing out all round her in a wide stiff bell, and she asked to be allowed a sash. The Head Lady's-maid was shocked, and so, of course, were her subordinates. "A sash with a bell-flower tunic!" gasped the Head Royal Lady's-maid, and said no more.
But the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, who had herself accompanied Daffodil
to the dressing-room, said quietly, "Let it have its
way," and led her back to the wardrobe, attended as before by the
dresspickers, to choose what she wished.
Daffodil quickly found some broad flexible leaves which seemed to be of
the kind known as gardener's garters, only softer, as well as larger.
In the dressing-room, when she was putting on this sash, she took
from the soiled frock she had taken off a pin that had fastened to it the
strange flower which had been the cause of her visit to Croäxaxica.
The flower had disappeared, having vanished the moment she entered
Croäxaxica, but there was the pin where it had been.
"Pre-eminent Madam," said the Head Royal
Lady's-maid, "do you see what it is going to
do?"
The Plenipotentiary, who had been looking another way, did not know that
Daffodil had taken an article from her soiled clothes to wear again--a
thing too unexpected to seem possible. What struck her at once was the
extraordinary size and clumsi-
ness of the strange implement. "Take its weapon from it, take its weapon from it," she screamed. "It is going to run it into its body and kill itself, and what will the Queen say?"
"I am only pinning my sash," said Daffodil. But she dropped
the pin in the confusion the Plenipotentiary's agitation had caused
her, and it was sought for in vain.
"I should have liked to put the thing into the Royal Public
Museum," said the Plenipotentiary, regretfully. "And now it is
buried for ever under the carpet."
Daffodil thought perhaps she might find another in the clothes she had
cast off, and began to hunt for one. "Another!" exclaimed the
Plenipotentiary. "Are you so daring that it should be likely you were
carrying two of those implements upon you?" And I fear
she and the attendants scarcely believed Daffodil's account of her
nation's manners with regard to pins.
No other pin was found for the museum. Daffodil's sash was
fastened by the lady's-maids with stitches of the minute and
almost invisible fish-bones which the wealthier Croäxaxicans
use for the purposes for which we have needles and thread and pins. Those
who have to consult economy use instead of fish-bones delicate
prickles from the stalks of a plant which grows wild in profusion along the
highway and byway canals.
Daffodil could not help feeling a little mournful as, when her toilet
was completed, she heard the order that all the things she had taken off
were to be removed by the under wardrobe-maids and given
to the Royal Clothes-Buriers to be put underground. She particularly regretted her stockings. And, although she found her new shoes of pale yellow foxglove very soft and easy, she thought that, if she should ever be again where there was hard ground to tread on, her leather ones that were going to be sunk under the mud and weeds in the Royal Clothes-Bin, would be more serviceable. But she felt herself so much more comfortable in her new attire, which did not cling and drip with its wettings as her own had done, and she was so well pleased with her pretty bluebell frock, that she soon recovered from her vexation.
She had some time to rest before the critical event of her audience with
the Queen, for by when the Plenipotentiary was able to send word that the
human being was in a state to wait upon Her Majesty, Her Majesty was at
lunch, and sent word that she would inspect the creature in the
evening.
This was the pleasantest day Daffodil had had yet since her arrival in
Croäxaxica. She walked among the wonderful flowers of the wardrobe,
and the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary herself, who seemed to take an interest
in her, took her into the palace gardens, and then into the Royal Larder
Ground, which to Daffodil seemed more like a garden than the real gardens,
and showed her the water-cress pools and the minnow pools. And she
found much pleasure in watching the work of the Plenipotentiary staff, and
after a while, when the frogs found that her questions showed intelligence,
they took good-humored notice of her, and explained what they were
doing. And at last the Head Royal Dress-
maker amused herself by teaching her how to join a seam, in which the pupil succeeded so well, for a first attempt, that there were cries of astonishment and the piece of work was carried to the Plenipotentiary, who gave orders that it should be put aside to be shown the Queen that evening. The frogs tried, too, to teach her to join in their choruses as they sat at their work: but in this she was less successful, not being able to catch the tune, and sometimes putting the other singers out of time, which they did not like.
Still it was all very pleasant, and Daffodil began to think she might
not be so unsuited to Croäxaxican life as she had feared.
She got something to eat, too, which she liked better than minnows. The
Plenipotentiary chose to see her take her food, and, noticing that of what
was set before her she ate nothing but water-cresses, she asked her
if she could name anything else that would tempt her appetite.
"I think I have learnt to get on with mussels," said
Daffodil. "I managed them best of all the things I have had, except
water-cresses."
"You have a dainty palate, I see," said the Plenipotentiary,
laughing. "But you shall have your mussels, and anything else you
like."
"Then, please, Pre-eminent Madam," said Daffodil,
"let me have some button mushrooms instead."
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary staggered as if she had been shot. The
solemn frogs in Royal Livery who were waiting at table each dropped what he
was holding. Amid the smashing sound of glass and china, the
Plenipotentiary and her startled followers gasped out
"Mushrooms!"
"Where can it have heard of mushrooms?" said the
Plenipotentiary.
"You said my head was like one," said Daffodil; "so I
supposed they grew in this country."
"They do, they do," sighed the Plenipotentiary. "We
don't object to that, for it is impossible to help it. They grow
everywhere in millions--a hundred kinds. As a feature in the landscape
we don't object to them: but the lower classes eat
them!"
"They are poisonous kinds, I suppose," said Daffodil.
"What a pity!"
"No, they are far from being poisonous: they are
exceptionally wholesome and nutritious. But there are millions of millions
of them."
"But one of the Royal Dressmakers told me those little toadstools
of your bracelets are real ones," Daffodil remarked.
"To be sure they are. Do you think the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary
of Croäxaxica would wear imitation jewellery? But what has that to do
with mushrooms?"
"I was only thinking that toadstools are much commoner than
mushrooms."
Daffodil's argument was answered by peals of laughter all
round.
"You do not know what you are talking about, poor thing,"
said the Plenipotentiary, when she could speak. "There is no relation
between the choice treasure, the toadstool, and the homeliest of edibles,
the mushroom. And the toadstool is as rare as it is precious: there
never was but one toad in Croäxaxica, and he only sat upon one stool.
The original toadstool has long since perished, but others have sprung
from it. To preserve their worth never more than one bud a day is allowed to live. If there should be a second on the same day it is destroyed, even if it is of a choicer colour. Look at these of mine-'Matchless as their talented wearer's soul,' Prince Brekekex acutely, though too flatteringly, says: you will not find two of precisely the same tint any more than you could find me repeating my humble masterpieces."
Daffodil praised the toadstools, but she returned to the subject of
mushrooms. Might she have some, though they were so common? She was not a
high personage, but only a little girl: and then she was so hungry
and, if the mushrooms were so wholesome and nutritious, they would do her
so much good. "They are the creature's natural food, I will let
her follow her instincts," said the Plenipotentiary, and sent for
mushrooms. And, when they came, several sorts in different dishes that she
might choose, Daffodil found that some tasted like chicken, and some like
roast mutton, and some like what she was accustomed to in mushrooms, and
some like mashed potato. And she thought to herself that she need not
starve among the inimitable Croäxaxicans, for, even if mushrooms were
too vulgar to be served to her at meals, she could gather some every day
from among the millions the Plenipotentiary had told her of.
Naturally as, well clothed, well fed, and at rest from lessons and
anxieties, she recovered full possession of her thoughts, she began to
wonder how she was to get back to her parents. They would not be anxious
about her at present, she reflected, as
they would think she was among the river people, whom they had given her leave to visit if ever she had an opportunity; but they would not approve of a long absence. And she would be unhappy if she could not return to them as soon as she had seen a little more of the foreign country she had accidentally reached. She did not perceive that there was a way out, but, as she reasoned, a few days ago she had not yet perceived that there was a way in, so that was no reason for uneasiness. Thus, with composed mind, she turned to nearer matters and awaited the summons of the Queen.
his loyalty to his ambition, he characterised them as Orgies of condescension. But it proved that the impressiveness of the Queen and the Royal Family on the minds of the Croäxaxicans was augmented, rather than lessened, by the reports of these unostentatious festivities, in which, without the protection of guards, excepting one simple policeman behind each Royal seat, they stooped as near as they could to the level of the subjects around them, and inspired them with the greater awe by their affable attempts.
It had struck the Queen all at once that she had not given a Sociable
Evening for an unusually long time, and that the interview she meant to
grant the human being would be an excellent occasion for one. She had,
thereupon, sent orders to suitable guests to have the honour of enjoying
themselves in her presence that evening, and, when Daffodil, at the
appointed moment by the clock, was led by the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary
into the splendidly decorated room which was known as the Queen's
Royal Sociability Drawing-room, a hundred frogs of those most
distinguished in Croäxaxica for rank, wealth, fashion, beauty,
dancing, singing, genius, learning, leaping, swimming and architecture,
were sitting and standing in orderly rows, gazing at the Queen, the Crown
Prince, Prince Brekekex, and the four of the Royal Princesses who were old
enough to be allowed to appear. The King was not present: he never
came to any but State entertainments.
The Royal Family were seated together at the upper and broadest end of
the apartment--which was of the shape of an egg with its small end
elongated and narrowed almost into a point. Behind the Royal
Family, their Lords and Ladies in Waiting were ranged along the curve of the wall--apparently standing, but in fact it was so managed by the shape and height of their seats that they should have the advantage of sitting while they looked as if they were bolt upright on their feet. This arrangement was the result of the kindly thoughtfulness of the Queen herself, in consequence of the Lords and Ladies in Waiting having been perpetually fainting away while she required them to stand so many hours as her Sociable Evenings usually lasted. She had regrets that she could not provide them with chairs; but power has its limits and that, she felt, was impossible even to the Queen of the inimitable Croäxaxicans: for, if Lords and Ladies in Waiting quietly sat down and looked comfortable, how could they be in waiting more than the guests? At last it flashed upon her one evening, when thirteen Lords and two Ladies had been carried out in swoons, that, if somebody could make some sort of contrivance to enable these distinguished attendants to be seated without betraying it by their attitude, a stop might be put to their fainting. So she ordered all the upholsterers in the kingdom to meet in council and carry out her invention. This matter of the seats won the Queen great applause, because, as all the Croäxaxican newspapers pointed out, it showed that, though she was a Queen, she felt a sympathy for her sex, and all the Ladies in Waiting ought to be ready to give their lives for such a mistress. The Ladies in Waiting gave her a magnificent diadem of snail-shells in memory of her goodness, and the Lords in Waiting came to the presentation of it and unanimously delivered a speech
in which they heaped praises on her for her Royal and tender consideration for their colleagues in office, the Ladies in Waiting. The Queen was so pleased that she had ever since been looking for something to do for her sex again.
I have digressed to relate this celebrated episode in the history of
Croäxaxica. I must return to what met Daffodil's eyes. Of what
met her ears there is nothing to describe, for it happened that the
conversation just then was between the two youngest Princesses, and they
were whispering. The Royal Family, then, were seated in mere
arm-chairs placed in a semicircle. The Queen herself sat
unpretentiously in the middle chair, without dais or canopy. She had, as
her custom was on Sociable Evenings, sent away her sceptre as soon as she
had taken her seat, and she wore her crown a little on one side--an
assumed mark of carelessness which was understood to express the
informality of the occasion. She was lying back in a pensive and easy
posture, and might have been thought asleep, if she had not been languidly
stroking a pet oyster on her lap. The room was ablaze with fountains and
canals of a dozen different tints variegating the light, and the whole of
the walls and ceiling sparkled with luminous drops.
"The light is like fairyland," whispered Daffodil.
"Hush!" the Plenipotentiary whispered back.
"Don't say fairy. The Queen is practical and she gets angry at
any visionary talk."
"I'll take care," Daffodil returned. "But
don't you feel as if fairies had made these
lights?"
"Croäxaxicans do not approve of fairies; because
there are none," said the Plenipotentiary, severely. "And hush! for we're getting within hearing. Now, mind what I told you: don't open your lips unless the Queen wants you to say something."
When the Plenipotentiary had arrived at the seat reserved for her,
which, in right of her being the highest subject in the kingdom, was
straight opposite the Queen and a little nearer her than any one
else's, she stood by it silently, as was the proper etiquette,
waiting till the Queen should perceive her. She was puzzled what to do with
her charge--for whom there was no precedent--so she took the plan
she had so successfully devised for dressing her, and let her manage for
herself. And Daffodil, therefore, to the amazement of the assembly, was
beheld quietly standing side by side with the first frog of the
Croäxaxican aristocracy, as if she were her equal and entitled to a
like recognition from Royalty.
After a minute or so the Queen looked at the Plenipotentiary, and
nodded. Then the Plenipotentiary, folding her hands on her breast, sank
gently into her seat. Daffodil, having no seat to sink into, was perplexed
for a moment; but, recovering her presence of mind, she imitated the
Plenipotentiary's action by setting herself on the floor at her
feet.
"Ah, what was it you were saying, my dear boy?" said the
Queen presently, breaking the silence. "My dancing, was
it?"
"I wasn't saying a word," replied the Crown Prince,
whom she had addressed.
"My dancing," murmured the Queen. "Ah, well! perhaps I
could dance once. But Royalty has scant time for practising
its steps."
"Oh Mother, prance, entrance, elegance, enhance by chance the
glance of dance," exclaimed Prince Brekekex emphatically.
It had been arranged that the Crown Prince should suggest the
Queen's dancing, and that Prince Brekekex should urge it in a burst
of poetry. But the Crown Prince had forgotten what the Queen had told him
to do and had missed her signal. And Prince Brekekex had not had time
enough given for him to complete a poem. The Queen had only told him about
it a little while before the party began, and moreover she had said it
would be after her reception of the new creature: so, although he had
been preparing his speech in his mind ever since the Sociable Evening
began, he had only been able to get ready the rhymes. Called on in a hurry,
he was equal to the occasion, and poured forth the rhymes in an eloquent
flow. Their effect was electrical. "Dance," said everybody.
"Glance. Entrance us! Oh! if Her Majesty would but do it! Prance,
prance! The very word! Oh! let Her Majesty enhance her elegance, and
dance!"
The Queen smiled, and arose. And she danced. Words cannot describe that
dancing. With grave composure she sprang and shuffled and hopped and
pirouetted. She made twenty steps in an inch, she made strides of thrice
her height. Nobody could dance like the Queen of Croäxaxica.
The frogs were carried away with enthusiasm. Their applause, at first
soft sighs and spasms of delight, grew louder and stronger into jubilant
shouts; then they clapped their hands and feet together, and at last some
of them even began to dance, themselves.
But the Queen, who had all the while retained the air of thoughtful dignity habitual to her and who was not in the least excited by the approbation and flattering uproar, as soon as she saw that the limits of decorum were being passed, gave one bound into her chair from ten feet off and said, in a clear quiet voice, "I am glad you like that step, Brekekex; it was impromptu." And, conversation being thus re-established, there was an instant hush.
"You have a little anecdote to tell me, I think," said the
Queen to the Crown Prince, after a pause.
The Crown Prince was in his heart uneasy about being at the Sociable
Evenings at all. He thought that, as a future King, he could not isolate
himself too early, and he was only induced to be present, and to take some
part in the conversation, by his necessary obedience to Her Majesty and his
strong desire to be popular. So it was in a curt and surly tone that he
answered "I heard that the Regius Professor of Everything heard two
soldiers talking, and one boasted that he had an oyster which was the
biggest and tamest in Croäxaxica, and the other said 'I suppose
he likes his master.'" He could not help bursting into a laugh
as he ended, although he tried hard not to do so; and his laugh was echoed
and re-echoed in louder and louder bursts throughout the assembly.
But the Regius Professor of Everything, who was one of the guests, took
advantage of the noise to keep saying to his neighbours "That
wasn't the point: what the other frog said to the soldier was
'I suppose he is like his master.' And you know
big soldiers ought not to be tame." However, every one
was too busy laughing to listen to him.
After the enjoyment of the Crown Prince's anecdote had subsided,
there was a long interval of conversation again. The Queen made a remark
every ten minutes or so, usually to a member of her Royal Family, and the
person addressed answered it in the affirmative. The Crown Prince seemed
asleep, but he was only imitating his Royal Father's demeanour;
Prince Brekekex seemed asleep, but he was preparing answers, as he had to
speak in verse; the Princesses tittered together and seemed
amused--all but the youngest one and she did really keep falling
asleep. She was always betraying the accident by a gurgling in her nose,
and then one of her sisters would sedately give her a secret pinch which
immediately revived her.
At last the Queen, arousing herself from a rather long caressing of her
oyster, observed "We have had quite a long conversation this
time: I am sure it must have lasted over three hours."
"I am sure it must," assented the Head Royal Physician; for
it was to him the Queen had looked; "Five hours, I should
say."
"Sir!" exclaimed Her Majesty.
The Head Royal Physician saw that he had somehow not said what Her
Majesty meant. He was forced to have a cough, and, when the cough had once
begun, it set up an irritation in his windpipe and he was half choked
before he could stop. That gave him time for reflection, and he resumed his
sentence thus: "Five hours, for the impressions it will leave
on my enriched mind; two hours, in point of brevity and absence of
fatigue."
"A graceful flattery," said the Queen, with a smile.
"But you, inestimably talented friend, must not learn to play the compliment-maker: we look to you for grave sincerity. The time, by my watch, was three hours, one minute." Then, turning, still with an affable sprightliness, to an enormously fat frog who had volunteered, somewhat against etiquette, the observation "True! Most true!" to the last speech of the Head Royal Physician, she said "I know that the ears of the first musician of the world are pining for sweet sounds."
The frog to whom she spoke was renowned throughout Croäxaxica, not
only as the greatest of musical composers, but as unequalled as an
instrumentalist--his instrument being, of course, the big drum. And,
although his voice had somewhat lost its youthful volume, his singing was
still remarkable. He was an accomplished courtier and much in favour with
the Queen, who was fond of performing to him on his own instrument, on
which she had considerable skill. He hesitated at present, for he did not
wish to say his ears were pining for anything but what they had been
hearing, and yet he must wish for the Queen's music. But he saw his
way. He threw his arms in the air, gazed upwards with emotion, and
ejaculated "Oh, soul of music! Oh, Her Majesty on the
drum!"
"The Princesses shall grant your request and sing for you,"
said the Queen. "And this evening it shall be no new fashionable
bravura such as they generally use for my guests' delight, but they
are going to sing our old immortal national song. My guests can tell
Croäxaxica that they have heard the words known to the humblest of our
subjects upon the lips of the children of Royalty."
The guests were all really pleased at this, for they were very fond of
the national song, and they thought it would enliven the evening. They at
once assumed their most expectant and ecstatic expressions of countenance.
Two drums were brought; the small one was for Prince Brekekex, the big one
was placed before the Queen. Then, with the amount of difficulty and
conference usual when an amateur performance is about to take place, the
Princesses got themselves into line. The Queen executed a brilliant prelude
with hardly any mistakes; then Prince Brekekex joined in and the Princesses
knew it was time for them all to begin. Properly they ought to have started
very loud, but, as their voices were not powerful, and as the first verse
of the Croäxaxican national song is always made louder and louder at
each word until it ends with the loudest possible shout, it was necessary
for them to begin in a tone whose moderation startled the audience far more
than thrice the noise could have done, and which, therefore, was highly
effective. This was what they sang, accompanied by the vigorous thunder of
the Queen and the delicate tappings of Prince Brekekex,
"Oh Strong! Oh Great!
Oh
Brave! Oh
Bright!
Croäxaxicans!!!
How
proud our state!
How well we
fight!
Croäxaxicans!!!!
All the world
kneels down and wonders;
All the world obeys our
thunders;
Everything we do is right.
Who can
contradict the warlike plans
Of us Inimitable
Croäxaxicans?!!!!!"
This was the first verse; and its patriotic storm whirled the
hearers' hearts into wild enthusiasm. The second verse of this truly
national song is always sung with peculiar gentleness, the tones becoming
softer and tenderer at every line, in order the better to impress on the
listener the beneficent mildness of the Croäxaxicans in their peaceful
capacity. I say the listener, but, of course, when this song was sung it
was rare in the extreme that there should be a listener, as everybody
would, as a general rule, be singing it. On this occasion, from the rank of
the singers, the audience had the unusual advantage of hearing their
national song instead of joining in the performance; The Princesses
executed the gradual lowering of their voices really very well--in
fact so well that the Queen's accompaniment drowned their voices
completely in the last three lines, causing them to look as if they were
opening and shutting their mouths for no particular purpose. But I will
give the verse in its entirety, as they did in fact sing it, though they
did not happen to be heard.
"Oh Good! Oh True!
Oh Wise!
Oh Sweet!
Croäxaxicans!
What
things we do!
What praise we
meet!
Croäxaxicans!!!
All the world was
born to note us:
We, born chief, yet still promote
us:
Nought with us can ere compete.
Who
can emulate the peaceful plans
Of us Inimitable
Croäxaxicans?!!!!!!!"
It is customary when this second verse has died off in an affectionate
lingering sound like a long kiss,
for all present to undertake a vociferous shout of "Croäxaxicans! Croäxaxicans! Inimitable, Inimitable, Croäxaxicans!" in chorus for about an hour, and the Queen's guests entertained hopes that they were to refresh themselves in this accustomed manner. But Her Majesty, who saw the danger that their enthusiasm might carry them into this excess, with great promptitude threw down her drumsticks while the Princesses still had their mouths open for the last word, and called out "Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, produce the human being."
Daffodil was produced. The Queen had known very well she was there, but
the fact was her dressing had been so successful that Her Majesty, on
seeing her had resolved in her own mind that she was of sufficient
importance to have an impression made upon her, and therefore, instead of
proceeding to hold the investigation concerning her when, at the time
appointed, she arrived for the purpose, had set about first dazzling her
with the brilliancy of the entertainment and Her own Royal accomplishments.
Thus Her Majesty had become too tired for the searching inquiry into all
Daffodil's history, origin, laws, manners, customs, intentions,
education, and general opinions, which she had meant to pursue to the
admiration of her guests and attendants. She contented herself with
obtaining the information that Daffodil was really a human being, as her
acuteness had already surmised, and that she had accidentally entered
Croäxaxica while in search of another country. "That is
satisfactory enough," said she, interrupting Daffodil's story.
"But, now you are here,
what can I do with you? It is impossible to let you stay here unofficially. Everybody in this Court is understood to be in our Royal Service. What can you do to serve us?"
Daffodil could not think of anything.
"Can you make jokes?" said the Queen.
Daffodil had never tried much, but she supposed anybody could do that
that tried hard enough.
"Not at all," replied the Queen. "I
couldn't. I should not think of degrading myself by being able to
make a joke. We don't make jokes in Croäxaxica. But in very
ancient times Royal Persons had people of an odd and deformed appearance to
make jokes for them: and I think I will revive the office for
you."
"I shouldn't like the appointment at all, your
Majesty," said Daffodil.
"Never mind," replied the Queen: "I will waive
your liking it. The question is can you make jokes?"
"Not unless I were to try," answered Daffodil.
"Well, it is of no consequence," said the Queen. "I
could not be troubled with listening to jokes. So that is settled. You are
hereby appointed My Majesty's Private Royal Jester. Your mark of
office will be a band of green and orange grass round the left arm, with a
heart of carved fish-bone lettered H.M.P.R.J. for clasp."
The Plenipotentiary here asked to be allowed to show Daffodil's
first attempt at needlework. The Queen was greatly struck by it. "Let
her," said she, "be entrusted with the making of my third best
pocket-handkerchiefs. They shall be henceforth called jokes; and
thus she will make jokes and fill
her new post appropriately." And, being now tired and sleepy, she gave a nod to the room for good-night, and hurried off so suddenly that the Lords and Ladies in Waiting could not get off their seats in time to overtake her. The fact was she was seized by a fit of yawning, and, as she had an unusually small mouth--the one defect in what would have otherwise been a strikingly perfect countenance--the operation of yawning was difficult and unbecoming to her, and she did not choose to be seen in it.
At once, on Her Majesty's departure, the Princes and Princesses
nodded as she had done and rushed after her. The policemen behind the Royal
Chairs advanced in a line and said to the assembly "Move on, this
meeting has become illegal," and everybody hurried off as fast as
possible.
"Her Majesty's Private Royal Jester, where do you pass the
night?" said the Plenipotentiary.
"Oh, I'm sure I don't know," said Daffodil
distractedly. "What's the use of making such an appointment as
that and not giving me so much as a bed to sleep in? Can't I be with
the third best pocket-handkerchiefs?"
"A good idea," replied the kindly great lady--relieved,
for she had been thinking her duty would be to leave Daffodil to the
policemen to take in charge. "Your duties to the Royal
Pocket-handkerchiefs put you on my staff and allow me to lodge you
near them. Come with me."
And thus Daffodil obtained a rank at the Court of Croäxaxica, and,
as the Queen approved of the arrangement of the Plenipotentiary, a home in
the apartments of the Royal Wardrobe.
For some months, she continued, as Her Majesty's Private Royal
Jester, in charge of the third best pocket-handkerchiefs: and,
being thus admitted to the work-rooms of the Plenipotentiary
Department, she amused herself with learning all the methods of the
Plenipotentiary Art, and soon became a very fair dressmaker. She was a
favourite with all the members of the staff of every grade, and all took
pleasure in answering her questions and teaching her. Her ignorance and her
quickness at learning alike inspired them with interest in her attempts,
and their sense of superiority to her as one of an inferior
race prevented the possibility of any little grudges and jealousies against her, such as the indulgence with which she was treated might have called forth if any one could have regarded her as a rival.
The same inferiority which rendered her position among the members of
the Plenipotentiary staff so agreeable gave her an extraordinary footing of
intimacy with the Royal Family. Looking on her as of the lower animals,
they made no scruple of treating her as one of themselves. She was
encouraged to question and reply, she was allowed to sit in their presence,
and even to move about the room. Notice was taken of her likes and
dislikes; and her sayings were quoted with delighted recognition of their
intelligence. Such a state of things could not have existed if it had not
been felt that Daffodil, in any breach of etiquette she was allowed, could
be no more guilty of presumption than a pet oyster or beetle. Lowliness has
its privileges.
Very early in her career at the Croäxaxican Court, Daffodil had an
opportunity of using her position as a favourite to do a kind action. One
morning Under Royal Wardrobe-maid Number Seventy Seven And A Half
came to her with her face swelled to twice the width of her body by her
having cried so much. "Oh you darling wonderful creature," she
said, "Oh, my dear Her Majesty's Private Royal Jester, I know
you can save me: do try."
"What is it, Seventy Seven And A Half?" said Daffodil.
"I will help you, if I can, and if it is not anything wrong you want
me to do."
"I'm oh so sorry I put the blame on you about
our being late that day" said Seventy Seven And A Half. "It was a shame."
"It was," said Daffodil. "You were very mean to do
that."
At that poor Seventy Seven And A Half began to sob and wail so
desperately that it sounded as if variations were being played on the
bagpipes. It was a long while before Daffodil could get her composed enough
to tell her trouble intelligibly.
At last the matter became plain. When the Royal Nurse-maids with
their Royal Charges had come into the garden while Daffodil and Seventy
Seven And A Half were there, they had not, as Seventy Seven And A Half had
hoped, been still too much dazzled to perceive her; but they had not seen
Daffodil, because she had been standing in such a position that the spray
of a waterfall intervened between them and her, so as to conceal her from
their view. The nurse-maids had taken an opportunity of telling the
Queen of the trespasser they had seen, and, on inquiry being made as to
which of the Under Royal Wardrobe-maids had been absent from her
post at the time the offence was committed, it was ascertained that every
one of them had witnesses to her having been in her right place except
Seventy Seven And A Half; and, although she had been on her important duty
of fetching Daffodil, which might have accounted for her, it was remembered
that her absence had been surprisingly long, and also that she had declared
the delay due to the unmanageable conduct of the human being, while every
one else had found the human being remarkably tractable after the Regius
Professor of Everything had educated it. Over-
whelmed by this evidence, Seventy Seven And A Half confessed her guilt. As the best excuse she could make, she pleaded that she had gone to the garden for the human being's sake, out of an idea that she was to do all she could to please it. But this excuse only made things look blacker for her, as the Royal Nurse-maids affirmed that the human being had not been with her in the garden, and, when the two little Royal Highnesses were asked about it, they both said, as well as they could manage to explain themselves in their infantine language, that a servant was looking at the garden but that there was not any funny beast with her. Moreover poor Seventy Seven And A Half had once before been caught trespassing in the Queen's Royal Private Garden. Her Majesty resolved now to punish her with a severity which should deter all others from committing a like fault. As to the question about Daffodil, Her Majesty had refused to have Daffodil's evidence asked for, considering that it would be undignified to seek confirmation of the opinions of Their Royal Highnesses from a creature who seemed scarcely a frog. She did not know, she had said severely, what excuse it would have been to Seventy Seven And A Half if she could have proved that Her Majesty's Royal Private Jester also deserved punishment; certainly her false accusation of a creature whom her Queen looked upon as her own private property, and who, moreover, held a special post in the Royal Service entitling it to a place at Court, was an offence which enhanced her guilt and must remove all possibility of leniency in dealing with it.
Daffodil sat pondering, after she had heard the
story of Seventy Seven And A Half's disgrace and danger. "Oh! Oh!" sobbed her suppliant, wringing her paws, "I know you're thinking about me saying mischief about you the other day. I didn't mean to harm you. It was only for fear of my getting punished. And, if they had sent you to prison or whipped you or anything, you see, you being a stranger, it wouldn't have mattered so much to you as my being fined my wages would have to me."
"I am not thinking anything about that," said Daffodil.
"I have told you my opinion about that. But I hope you won't
suffer for showing me the garden, though you oughtn't to have done
it. And they mustn't punish you for saying what is not true, when it
is true. I will go at once to the Queen and tell her so."
"And, if you can save me, you may count on me for anything in the
world I can do for you, even if it was something troublesome," said
Seventy Seven And A Half, fervently. "And I'll never forget it
all my days. But, oh dear and oh dear! what shall we do if the Queen
won't forgive me any the more for your telling her that? I
couldn't live to be called Seventy Eight, after having been up to
Seventy Seven And A Half." And at this she went into a fit of
hysterics.
Daffodil soothed her as well as she could, and urged her to keep quiet
that they might not waste time. "If I do not go at once," she
said; "the orders for carrying out the sentence may be given before I
can try to obtain your pardon or a mitigation of the punishment. But you
should tell me what the punish-
ment is. Are they going to give you to the State Boa Constrictor?"
"No," replied Seventy Seven And A Half, as well as she could
speak through her crying. "That's only for the very upperest
High Treasoners, that have to be paid a compliment to. But it's
almost as bad: I'm to be made Seventy Eight!!!!!"
"And what is there besides?" inquired Daffodil.
"Besides!" ejaculated the frog. "Do you think there
would be a besides to that?"
"It is not quite such a bad thing as I expected to hear,"
said Daffodil.
"To be Seventy Eight!" gasped the unfortunate Under Royal
Wardrobe-maid.
"But you were Seventy Eight not long ago-before you were
promoted in your turn. And you did not mind it then, I daresay."
Even in her present distress, Seventy Seven And A Half could not help
showing some resentment at this. "I may have been only
Seventy Eight some time ago," she said, "though it was scarcely
kind of you to remind me of it--we can't all begin at the top of
the tree when it is the rule that we can only begin at the bottom. But you
may as well remember, yourself, that a few days ago you weren't Her
Majesty's Private Royal Jester. That's no reason that it
wouldn't be an awful punishment for you if you were to have to come
down from being it."
"Well," said Daffodil, "although I don't quite
feel as you do about the punishment, I can feel that you are very unhappy,
and I shall keep my promise. I will try very hard to have you
forgiven."
Daffodil did try very hard: and she succeeded. At first she had
difficulty in getting the Queen to listen to her about the matter at
all--the reason for which was that the Queen did not want to know that
Daffodil had been in the garden with Seventy Seven And A Half--both
because things were already settled on the understanding that this had not
been the case and because she did not wish to have to punish Daffodil as
Seventy Seven And A Half's accomplice and thought the best way not to
have to do so was to continue ignorant of the fact. But Daffodil was so
pertinacious that the Queen could not go on not noticing her statement;
and, then, Daffodil made so much of the excuse of Seventy Seven And A
Half's good-nature in showing her the garden, and begged so
earnestly that she might not be made the cause of so severe an injury to a
person whose fault had been on her account, that Her Majesty at last
consented to recall her sentence. Her Majesty, however, still considered
that some punishment must be inflicted on the guilty Under Royal
Wardrobe-maid: "And," said she, "how can I
punish her and let My Majesty's Private Royal Jester, who profited in
her offence and bore a part in it, go unharmed?"
Daffodil saw her opportunity. "If you punish a person for going
trespassing with me," said she, "you cannot help putting me
into disgrace too: and if I am in disgrace you will have to take away
my post at Court."
"There would be an awkwardness, to be sure," replied the
Queen in a tone of reflection. "But, as I wish you to retain the
appointment, I should grant
your petition for forgiveness, on the ground of your ignorance of the rules."
"But I should not ask one bit for forgiveness," said
Daffodil. "And I should tell everybody so, to make sure they
knew."
"Then I should degrade you," said the Queen, severely.
"That is just what I said," returned Daffodil.
At last, after much thought, Her Majesty saw her way out of the dilemma.
She was not cruel, and had no desire to punish the offender, except for the
sake of example; so she declared it her final decision that Seventy Seven
And A Half had not committed any offence, because it had been her duty to
keep with Daffodil wherever Daffodil went, and that Daffodil had not
committed any offence, because, Seventy Seven And A Half having been duly
appointed her guide, she had been bound to follow that guide, but that any
person who should imitate the conduct of either of them in accompanying the
other into the Queen's Royal Private Garden without special privilege
to do so should receive, not only his or her own punishment, but also the
punishment that Seventy Seven And A Half and Daffodil would have had if
they had been punished. That put it all right.
To this episode of the sentence of Seventy Seven And A Half and her
pardon at Daffodil's intercession was owing the commencement of a
friendship between Daffodil and Prince Brekekex, which, in spite of the
disparity between them, may be called confidential. The Prince, whose
poetic soul was always looking about for themes for his lyre, was
much pleased with Daffodil's conduct: she had shown, he said,
magnanimity and heroism worthy of one of the inimitable Croäxaxicans
themselves, and he perceived a contrast between her savage and ignoble
origin and her generous act which he thought he could point out in a poem
of a few thousand lines for which he happened at that moment to be in want
of a subject. Accordingly he set to work with great energy, and before the
week was over he had almost completed his immortal poem "Greatness In
The Base," which every Croäxaxican child learns by heart and
every grown-up person is always quoting. But, though he had almost
got to the end, there was a rhyme needed which he could not find to his
satisfaction, and for want of it he could not wind up his magnificent
concluding burst. The poem, after relating the final decision of the Queen,
proceeds thus--
"Such was the great Queen's mercy, such her
mind;
Thus she made wrong be right, and front behind:
And
all the agonies and shuddering throes
Of Seventy Seven And A Half
found close:
And, Lo! A Croäxaxican by birth
Helped
by the lowest creature of the earth!
Thus can a fortnight's air
of our great land
Make virtue in a savage heart expand,
Thus
swell a soul and breathe a froggish sense
And fill an
odd-shaped mouth with eloquence.
And thus, moreover, I will
gladly add
Joy fit for frogs the simple savage had;
For, to
conclude, at which the world will stare,
Her Majesty was pleased to,
then and there,
Pat with her own great hand the human
being
And--"
But here he was brought to a stop. He tried "Looked at her with a
kind seeing"--"Praised her
nobly for her noble pleaing"--"Bade her no more know fear and think of fleeing"--"Smiled on her by way of queenly feeing"--"Saw her, grateful, modestly sink kneeing"--"Tittered unto her with a soft te-heeing"--but none of these lines, and no variation he could make upon them, seemed what he wanted. He went to the Royal Library and turned over every page of book after book, in hopes of meeting with another rhyme that would fit in more acceptably. While he was thus employed Daffodil happened to come into the room. "Come here, Her Majesty's Royal Private Jester," called the despairing Prince; "Come and see if the poet can strike a spark from even you." And, when she had, wonderingly, taken the seat beside him to which he pointed, he read her the lines we have given as far as "And--"
"Don't you think the poem would be nicer if it did not call
me a savage?" said Daffodil.
"That is not the question," replied Prince Brekekex:
"that part is done. What I want to know is what your poets use as a
rhyme to 'human being.' They must constantly be wanting one, as
they are human beings themselves."
Daffodil did not remember any poem in which the expression was rhymed
to. But, when the Prince had read her his experiments, she said
"Couldn't you say something about the Queen's
decreeing something?"
"Delightful!" said Prince Brekekex.
"Decreeing! It exactly conveys my idea. In fact it is
the very word I had in my head and could not find there. But what can I say
she decreed?"
Daffodil thought it would answer to mention the Queen's final
decision in the case as what she had decreed, but the Prince showed her
that would never do, by reading her four hundred lines in which he had
already repeated the Queen's decision. "I must get Her Majesty
to decree something on purpose for me to put in," said he. "Is
there anything you would like?"
"Nothing in particular, thank you," said Daffodil, whose
wants were all supplied without her asking, and who accompanied the Royal
Family wherever she pleased, so that she had nothing to desire. The Prince
tried hard to get her to think of something, or to think of something
himself, for her to have decreed her as a reward: but it was of no
use. The only possibilities seemed promotion or jewellery, and she did not
like either.
At last an idea struck her: "Why not let it be that the
decree was that you should make the poem?"
It was the very thing. Off rushed Prince Brekekex to get the Queen to
say she decreed it, and in a few minutes he returned to his poem. He ended
it thus--
"And one day soon she spoke a speech
decreeing
Prince Brekekex himself the tale should tell,
To have
the world for ever know it well."
"And to think that it is you that have been able to give a hint
that has helped me to this climax!" he exclaimed to Daffodil as he
threw down his pen.
From that time he frequently consulted her when he could not find a
rhyme. And, as she had a quick ear and a good memory, it proved that, when
once
her attention had been turned in this direction, she developed a remarkable faculty for finding words of the necessary sounds and spellings.
But not only Prince Brekekex found Daffodil his most congenial
companion, the Crown Prince, to every one's surprise, was eager for
her society and absolutely loquacious in conversation with her. The real
fact was that the Crown Prince, while, from a sense of his importance to
the world and the responsibilities of his future position, he felt it his
business to be silent, and while he made it his aim in life to acquire the
impressive repose of his Royal Father's deportment, yet enjoyed the
use of speech as much as most people, and, although he had by practice
become able rigidly to maintain his rule of only conversing with his
equals, or nearly his equals, the other members of the Royal Family, it was
a great relief to him to meet with a creature so much of no rank at all
that he could talk to her with no more derogation than if she had been his
oyster and who yet could understand and reply with the intelligence, as it
were, of a natural frog.
There was one strange thing about Daffodil's present life; and
that was that she did not feel the longing for her parents and her home
which she would have expected if she had been kept completely from them but
a week, or sent to live where she could only come to see them once a day.
The reason for her calmness over the separation lay in the climate of
Croäxaxica. It has the peculiar property of making it
difficult--indeed well-nigh impossible--to bear in mind
any place but Croäxaxica and any other people than its inhabitants.
Daffodil
did not lose her memory of her parents, nor yet of Keziah, nor even altogether of her dog and her cat: but it was because, when she perceived, soon after she entered upon her career in Croäxaxica, how strangely far all her home above water seemed to have grown and how seldom she thought about those she loved best, she set herself a sort of task of remembering at a fixed time every day. But she only succeeded in remembering, and that not very vividly: she could not feel her affection awake, although she was somehow quite sure it was in her as much as ever, only gone to sleep: and, in spite of trying with all her might, she could not make herself unhappy. And, every time, the moment she left off determining to remember and fixing her whole mind on the effort, she had forgotten altogether.
It was no doubt a good thing for her that she was prevented from useless
fretting; but when she did remember she used to feel vexed to think that
she generally forgot.
All Croäxaxica broke into loyal joviality. The canals swarmed with
excited citizens huzzaing, leaping, diving, and exchanging news. The
national
song was heard everywhere from a thousand voices, morning, noon, and night. The popularity of the Crown Prince, which had not been remarkable hitherto, became all of a sudden unbounded, and the Crown Princess that was to be was universally declared to be, though unassuming as to beauty and other showy attractions, gifted with graces peculiar to herself which made her the most incomparable Princess in the world.
The event was all the more joyful that there had been great risk of the
Crown Prince never being able to marry at all. For, while the treaty was
being begun, the Princess, through the inexcusable carelessness of her
attendants, had got lost. It was several days before it was discovered that
she had gone out unperceived and found her way to her future
mother-in-law's Royal Wardrobe, where seeing some Royal
Clothes-Buriers carrying a heaped-up basket, she had followed
them, from curiosity, and had got thrown into the clothes-bog with
the dirty clothes, by mistake. Being of a docile temper, she had remained
where she was put; and, as she showed no more than the tip of her nose
above the surface of the bog, she was not observed. It was only when, a few
mornings later, a clothes-burier wished to make a hole just where
she was and accidentally shovelled her out, that any trace of her was
found. By that time the search after her had been given up in despair and
she was being bewailed as a lost hope of the world. Had she indeed
disappeared irrecoverably, there would have been no one left whom the Crown
Prince could marry. By a fatality which surprised and alarmed the
Croäxaxicans, the Royal Matrimonial
Family of Grachidichika had become well-nigh extinct. Their Matrimonial Majesties Regnant had only this one child, Grachidichika only this one spinster of Royal and Matrimonial rank.
The Kingdom of Grachidichika, it must be understood, was no rival to
Croäxaxica: in fact it only existed for the convenience of that
country. It was of no great size, being in a corner of the Croäxaxican
Sovereign's back garden, from which it was separated by a wide canal
encircling it completely, and by, within that, a lofty wall of earth and
moss which shut out all view of the kingdom it bounded. This Matrimonial
Estate had been created several centuries before,--none but the Regius
Professor of Everything knew under what circumstances. Finding Daffodil a
tractable listener, the Professor was often willing to give her the
advantage of his erudition. And, on the origin of the kingdom of
Grachidichika, this is what he told her:
The Inimitable Croäxaxicans had not in the earliest ages been an
underground people. They had inhabited territories beside the river above,
and had carried on intercourse with the other nations of frogs. Although,
as the Professor's researches led him to believe, the
Croäxaxicans of that period had not attained that magnificent physical
development which now characterised them, they were larger and stronger
than the kindred races, and they were, he need hardly say, their superiors
in intelligence and enterprise. These circumstances early gave them a moral
superiority over the surrounding nations which resulted in their becoming
the rulers and proprietors of the other nations' domains, and
thus the whole of that part of the world was in a state of peace and good government. But several fierce and multitudinous nations of frogs occupying the regions of an adjacent lake, not only refused to perceive the natural supremacy of the Croäxaxicans, but were arrogant enough to attempt a rivalry with them. After many disputes and many reconciliations, a great war broke out--a war such as the world had never known before, nor since. History, said the Regius Professor of Everything, had omitted to record the events of the war, feeling certain that no one would stand in need of the information, for that the Croäxaxicans had passed from victory to victory was such a fact as every one would be sure to know intuitively. But, on the successful termination of the war, the inimitable Croäxaxicans had yielded to their feelings of resentment and contempt, and had inflicted a final humiliation on their opponents by withdrawing themselves from their sight and retiring to a proud seclusion underground. At first they had kept open some ways of communication with the surface, but afterwards they must, for what reasons the Professor could not guess, have ordered their conquered foes to block up every passage; and those inferior frogs, bringing earth and stones from a neighbouring hill till they had taken it nearly all away, succeeded in carrying out the wishes of the inimitable Croäxaxicans and confining them below. The Croäxaxicans, indeed, afterwards, made a small issue to the surface at a great distance and near the mouth of the river, leading a tunnel along to the aperture. And it was in this way that they originally obtained the fish and seaweeds, and also the oysters
and other domestic animals, which had been acclimatised and now were native to their country. But, shortly after they had completed the colossal labour of this secret tunnel and egress, they had, for motives which history did not reveal, compelled their enemies to undergo the labour of throwing a hill into that opening also. The tunnel remained, extending far beyond inhabited Croäxaxica for many miles towards the sea, and some sea-water oozing through the rock near its former opening made a useful supply; but the closing of the communication with the upper regions for which it had been originally devised was complete for ever.
"How very cruel and unforgiving of those frogs, shutting up that
only way out!" exclaimed Daffodil, full of sympathy.
The Professor was puzzled at this mode of putting it. He had to think
over the remark for some time. At last a light seemed to break on him.
"Ah, I see," he said. "You mean the Croäxaxicans of
that day were cruel in the course they took to punish their enemies by
shutting our whole nation for ever out of their reach. Well,
perhaps--perhaps: but you must remember they had had great
provocation. And you see we have let you come in."
He went on to tell her how, after the Croäxaxicans had become thus
exclusive, they perceived a serious difficulty in their new international
policy: there was nobody for the heir to the throne to marry. Of
course none but the daughter of a reigning king could be his wife; and
there was now no means of making a contract with any such princess. For a
time it looked as if the Royal Dynasty of Croäxaxica
must come to an end for want of wives and husbands for the Royal Sons and Daughters. But the statesman genius of the inimitable Croäxaxicans was not to be baffled by any difficulty: Grachidichika was the expedient. On the plot of ground in the back garden to which that name was given were erected a palace, a set of barracks, a parliament house, a flagstaff, and all that is necessary for a monarch's capital. The parliament house, indeed, was, by a mistake of the architect, a little too small, as it had barely room for the Speaker and one member, whereas there was to have been a Sergeant at Arms as well: but the palace was big enough for a large family, and the flagstaff was so tall that it would have been seen from outside the wall if there had not been made a hollow for it to stand in. Thus this little domain, too small to have any live inhabitants except the Royal Family and their servants, the Speaker, and the Army, and therefore unable ever to threaten the independence of Croäxaxica, was able to rear a Royal race of marriageable persons. By a solemn decree, it was called the Matrimonial Estate and Independent Kingdom of Grachidichika: and, to make certain, its Sovereign was not to be styled merely King, but King Regnant. The title by which he was to be addressed was "Your Matrimonial Majesty," and his children were to be "Their Matrimonial Royal Highnesses."
There was some difficulty about getting a king, because of the
confinement, to which all the Croäxaxicans with Royal Blood in their
veins to whom the appointment could be offered objected: but at last
the privy council hit on a capital plan.
The Croäxaxicans had taken a prisoner during the war and, unwilling to part with so honourable a memorial, they had brought him with them. It fortunately proved that he had begun life as a foundling and nobody could tell what his ancestors might not have been; it was, therefore, quite in order to pass an edict making them direct descendants of the first king of their country, whatever it might have been, and, that having been settled, the prisoner was, in right of his Royal Descent, naturally the proper person to succeed to the vacant crown of Grachidichika. A Royal Princess was given him in marriage; and, as fast as his daughters and sons were born, they were betrothed to sons and daughters of the reigning King of Croäxaxica. From that time the children of the Sovereigns were always married to each other as far as they would go.
"And what is done if there are any left over?" inquired
Daffodil.
"In the case of their Matrimonial Royal Highnesses, the
Grachidichikan Princesses and Princes," replied the Professor,
"if there are any more of them than sons and daughters of a King of
Croäxaxica can marry, they have simply failed to accomplish their
destiny and they are accordingly deposed from their exalted position and
cease to be members of their family. As impostors and vagabonds without
recognised means of subsistence, they are imprisoned for life in a
workhouse specially built for them, where, however, they are provided with
such simple requisites of food and clothing as become their humble sphere.
With the Royal Scions of Croäxaxica, the position is, of course, quite
dissimilar; and, there-
fore, it has been decreed that, in the event of the Matrimonial Royalty not providing spouses in sufficient number, younger children of Croäxaxica may marry near descendants of former kings, and, even, in extreme scarcity, that two high officials should be eligible for their hands. One is the Prime Minister, the oth--"
"Prime Minister!" broke in. Daffodil, in surprise.
"This is the first I have heard of him."
The Professor was trembling from head to foot. "How could I let
such an expression slip from my tongue!" he gasped, throwing his arms
up into the air.
"But where is he?" asked Daffodil.
"In the State Boa Constrictor," replied the Professor,
solemnly.
Daffodil looked shocked and sorry. "What was his crime?" she
whispered.
"He conspired to make his appointment quarterly instead of
weekly," said the Professor in the same subdued tone. "But
hush! hush! To name him is Treason. One of my official duties is to go
through the histories of our country and strike out every reference to any
holder of that office."
"That must make the histories a little confused," said
Daffodil. "But, to be sure, the Prime Ministers always seem rather
confused as it is, and the histories will be much more amusing without
them."
She had to swear secrecy: the Professor was dreadfully uneasy lest
his having spoken of the swallowed Prime Minister should be known and
suspicions against his loyalty aroused. And, for weeks after, he never let
a day pass without con-
triving to meet Daffodil at least once and murmur to her "You will be sure not to tell that I said Prime Minister." This made her take a dislike to political discussions, and, consequently, she learned less of the Croäxaxican constitution and system of government than an intelligent traveller should have done.
But to return to the Crown Prince's wedding. As the viands used by
the Croäxaxicans, and the flower garments they wear, are of a nature
making a delicate freshness desirable, the preparation of the banquet and
the festival attire were only begun on the very morning. At daybreak
thousands of cooks, thousands of dresspickers, thousands of odd hands to
get in the way and help, set to work. Soon, while the stir in the Royal
Larder-beds and Kitchens grew wilder, and the Royal
Dining-room was in an uproar with waiters telling each other where
to put the dishes, the whole Plenipotentiary Department was undoing the
blunders of exactly one million of hired hands, and shrieking with rapture
at the magnificent costumes that, as fast as they were completed, were
carried to pass in review order before the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
There was no delay to plan anything, either dish or dress, for every item
of every sort was unalterably fixed by a law which gave the details of the
wedding of the first Crown Prince who married after the Croäxaxicans
had banished the frogs above ground by forming their present kingdom. And,
of course, all the provisions for the prescribed dishes had been collected
and were swimming, or growing, ready for the moment's turn, and the
flowers had
been reared to size and shape and chosen and marked for picking. Otherwise, in a hurry, some innovation might have occurred and the results would have been serious to the Croäxaxican Constitution.
Yet, in spite of all the forethought that had been exercised, it was
discovered on the wedding morning that there were two serious difficulties.
One was Her Matrimonial Royal Highness's bridal dress; the other was
Daffodil. The jealously treasured Royal Wedding Water-lily, the
wearing of which by the bride is so vital a part of the Royal Marriage
Ceremony, is the largest flower grown in Croäxaxica. Her Matrimonial
Royal Highness was the smallest frog that had been born in the country for
fifty generations. It had therefore been an anxious task to bring a dress
to perfection and yet keep it sufficiently undersized to do for her. Only
one of the plants treated for the purpose had developed a flower in the
required proportions; it had not been possible to carry out the usual
custom of growing three dresses for the Queen's selection for the
bride. And, lo, when the hour for the solemn gathering had come and the
Queen took hold of the lily, it had become dangerously full-blown in
the night, and three petals dropped off. What could be done? Three petals
from among the smallest of another lily might be tacked on with almost
invisible fish-bones, but it was to be expected that other petals
would drop if the dress were worn, and could the Princess go in procession
in that tattered condition? And perhaps all the petals would drop off and
leave her in no dress at all, and then the marriage would
be illegal. It was proposed to put off the event till another lily or two of a suitable size could be reared, but the Crown Prince declared he would not wait so many months for the chance of their blooming to fit; and the ambassador of Grachidichika shook his head diplomatically and said, if Her Matrimonial Royal Highness was to be sent home unmarried, it would be his duty to protect the dignity of Grachidichika by withdrawing indignantly--which, being an arrangement not contemplated in any former time, would have been very inconvenient, for there was no room in Grachidichika for the ambassador, who naturally was expected to live in the country to which he was ambassador, and where, besides, he was hereditary Lord Mayor of his native street. There was nothing for it but to put the poor little Princess into a lily of the usual size--in which she ran the risk of being smothered, as it would keep getting up over her face, and which was always twisting round her feet and tumbling her down.
As to Daffodil, on her account the marriage came again near
postponement. Only a little before the wedding procession was to start, the
Crown Prince chanced to ask what her place in it was to be. He was told
that, there never having been such a person at a Royal Wedding before, the
Master of the Ceremonies had not been able to find any rule for what to do
with her, so she had had to be left out. "Let her carry my
Princess's pocket-handkerchief," said the Crown Prince.
"The precedence due to it will mark her place." It was pointed
out to him that her office only connected her with
third best pocket-handkerchiefs and that to carry out this proposal would give rise to report against the new Crown Princess's wedding pocket-handkerchief. "Then let her accompany one of the Queen's third best pocket-handkerchiefs," said the Crown Prince. But that could not be, for a third best pocket-handkerchief, even though a Royal one, was considered not greatly more worthy to appear on such an occasion than Daffodil herself. Moreover the Master of the Ceremonies, and at last the Queen herself and all the Royal Family--except the King, who only shut his eyes venerably, and Prince Brekekex, who took his brother's part--urged him to consider the impropriety of giving a mere joke like Daffodil a place in a procession in which many serious Court officials and servants and a whole host of Nobility longed in vain for admission. But the Crown Prince could be obstinate when he chose. "The creature is a pet of mine," he said, "and that is high standing enough. She shall carry my pocket-handkerchief: that is, naturally, a third best one compared with what the Royal Ladies will use, so that being assigned to it will be in accordance with her proper service." And, as the Queen still refused to consent to Daffodil's taking part in so distinguished a procession, he absolutely refused to be married at all. The ambassador of Grachidichika was sent for. He began shaking his head; but, before he had finished and got ready to speak; the Queen exclaimed "Say no more, my dear ambassador. You have prevailed. For the sake of continuing confidence between your Royal and Matrimonial master and our inimitably Royal Selves, I yield to
your entreaties. Let My Majesty's Royal Jester attend the Crown Prince's wedding pocket-handkerchief."
And thus it came about that Daffodil surprised the Croäxaxicans by
her appearance in the wedding train of the future King of
Croäxaxica.
And now a peculiar manifestation took place in the dress and bearing of
the Croäxaxican young ladies of distinction. Daffodil's
unlikeness to those around her had made her a prominent figure in the
procession; surprise at the honour conferred on her, too, had made her the
theme of much conversation, and wherever she went attention was attracted
to her. By degrees gentlemen of credit for cultivated
taste got to saying that they could detect a sort of savage charm in her hideousness, and the ladies took to thinking whether there was not something romantic in looking so odd. And when rumours went about that the Crown Prince had said she was delightfully ridiculous, and when Prince Brekekex had called her in a couplet "Loathsome sweet, renown'dly queer, A quaint, abnormal, frightful, dear," there was a sudden conviction that to be picturesque and original a froggess must imitate Daffodil. Headpieces of dried-up rushes or grasses were invented to represent hair; throats were stretched up and dresses cut with a deep curve to suggest the effect of a neck; gestures and gait were copied--so far that is as possibilities and the limits of grace and decorum allowed--and the more enterprising of the Croäxaxican beauties even adopted Daffodil's costume of the untrimmed tunic with the eccentricity of the girding in at the waist. The froggesses were, of course, far from wishing to acquire a real resemblance to their model: they felt that the piquancy of their imitation lay very much in the fact that they never could be like her enough not to remind everybody who saw them that they were decidedly different and had all the perfections of froggesses. A few froggesses, exaggerating the fashion, as foolish people sometimes will, took to pinching in their mouths in order to reduce them a little nearer to the size of hers, but even they would have greatly resented being mistaken for her.
As to Daffodil, some annoyance mingled at first with her surprise at
beholding bevies of distant likenesses of herself. She was not without
vanity, and
though she behaved herself respectfully to her hosts, she cherished in her secret mind a notion that human beings were, after all, of a higher order than other people and that the differences between her and these foreigners were points in her favour. Therefore she felt almost as if the froggesses were taking a liberty in adopting her appearance, and she could not for a while get rid of a sensation that the copies of her were unflattering. And, when she got used to the prevailing fashion, it was mortifying to perceive that the more a froggess contrived to look like her the more absurd the froggess looked, and the plainer. "I never quite believed it before, when you all said I was so ugly," she remarked despondingly to the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, who always admitted her freely to her presence: "I thought it was only because you did not understand our faces: but now I begin to think I must have grown different from what I was at home, without noticing it. I must really be something strange, for everybody that grows at all like me loses every bit of good looks and turns into a figure of fun. I must be getting dreadful."
"On the contrary," replied the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary
encouragingly: "You are growing much more like us."
"Oh!" exclaimed Daffodil.
"What is it?" said the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, in kindly
anxiety. "Have you hurt yourself?"
"No; Pre-eminent Madam; it was--it was something that
startled me," said Daffodil, turning very red at nearly having had
the rudeness to show her Pre-eminence that she did not think it nice
to be like a
Croäxaxican. "But do you think it is really that I am growing like frogs? Don't you think perhaps it is that there is so much dressing up on my pattern?"
"It may be so, indeed," said the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
"Yes, it may be so. You are modest. And you are wise not to overrate
the improvement in yourself. But this fashion must not make a lasting stamp
on Croäxaxican costume. I have indulged it--nay encouraged and
guided it--but I cannot allow this cultivation of ugliness to be
permanent. The imitation is getting near its climax: for a while
after it has reached the climax I shall rest in calm; but then, suddenly,
when all eyes have grown accustomed to monstrosity and will feel its
absence a shock, I shall burst upon them with a contrast--a return to
the boldest and broadest frog type. The prerogative of genius is to
metamorphose. In a year's time not a froggess at Court but shall be
squashing her head flat and stretching her mouth and trying to look as if
she had a tadpole tail growing on her: I have designed some very good
artificial tails in my brain already. When the reaction comes it will be
easier to see how far your development has gone. But I do think you are
growing less peculiar."
"Your Pre-eminence is more used to my looks," said
Daffodil. "Don't you think it may be that?" she added
rather anxiously.
Her Pre-eminence smiled. "There is a sort of sight,"
she said, "that never gets used to anything. It sees everything
differently each time it looks, and can never be mistaken. That sight is
the sight of
genius. I am lowly, little-lettered, merely spontaneous; were it not for the enthusiasm of a partial world I might be obscure; yet I have somewhat of that sight. You may trust my judgment, for I am destitute of the faculty: I have only inspiration. And my judgment tells me that, although you can never hope to pass for a native Croäxaxican, you are beginning to be about to cease to look unnatural."
After that Daffodil used to look at herself very often in the clear
shallow looking-pools with black floors, and with bright waters
placed to throw the right light on them, which abound in the houses of the
Croäxaxicans--who are very fond of enjoying the sight of
themselves. But, with all her examination, she could not detect any signs
of her growing more like a frog than she was before she came to
Croäxaxica.
In some things, however, she now possessed a considerable resemblance to
those among whom she was living: and of that she was very glad. She
had acquired their accomplishments--not to perfection, indeed, but
still enough to share their higher pleasures and to take part in them
creditably. She could join advantageously in a chorus; she could play on
the splash-splash--an instrument made of a huge bowl full of
water, performed on by means of slaps on the water with a
seed-bladder in size and appearance something like an ostrich egg a
little magnified; and she could even blow the croak-tube--but
it was better she should do that singly, as she was rather variable in her
execution, and that caused surprises to other players in a concerted piece.
It
takes most people the best hours of ten years to attain so much musical proficiency, and Daffodil's rapid arrival at it was a source of wonder and amusement to her protectors. She could act in hoppades--a kind of silent dramatic representation in a peculiar measured quick step, in which fashionable Croäxaxicans are fond of displaying their vivacity of mind: and, although her appearance confined her to inferior comic parts, the accurate manner in which she remembered what she ought to do often caused regret in hoppade managers' minds that her faculty could not be transferred to some beautiful froggess who might play heroine.
But, while the speed with which she shot up to her competence in these
higher arts startled the Croäxaxicans, her clumsiness in acquiring the
matter-of-course art of swimming confirmed them in their
opinion of her possessing an inferior intelligence to that which gave their
race its supremacy. Her flounderings and her sinkings, her feeble successes
in accomplishing two or three strokes, her relapses into failure, her
jerking action and kicking up of her feet, seemed to reveal an impassable
gulf between them and her--the difference between the frog and the
oyster, between reason and instinct. "It will never swim," they
said. "Nature has put that outside its comprehension." But she
did learn to swim, getting quite self-possessed in the exercise by
her twelfth lesson, and, by frequent practice, she became expert enough to
beat the Head Royal Physician, who was a very deliberate frog, in a
race.
She got on much more quickly with dancing; but, then, she never reached
anything like so nearly
to the Croäxaxican ideal as she managed to do in swimming. The Queen amused herself by teaching her. Daffodil easily mastered the Slow-and-Low hops and the Short Jumps and the Strides; and Her Majesty began with these in her lessons, as is the usual course of instruction. But, when it came to the High-and-Fly Hops and the Long Jumps and the Bounds-Rebounded and, almost more impossible, the various Dozen-in-an-Inch steps, she made such desperate efforts all to no purpose, and had so many slips and tumbles, that the Queen would laugh herself dumb from hoarseness. Nevertheless, one or two persons who were allowed to see the lessons, and especially the Crown Prince and Prince Brekekex and the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, said there was an individuality in Daffodil's dancing, in the steps in which she did not tumble down, that did the Queen great credit. And the Queen herself did not disdain to practise a glide her pupil employed for getting over distances she could not bound, and to display her rendering of it at a Sociable Evening. The movement was much admired for its novelty, and became celebrated under the name of the Royal Raucacöaxine Slipping Step, after the name of the Majestic inventress.
That Sociable Evening had another noticeable feature besides Her
Majesty's new step. There were present a big gentleman and a little
lady who sat one on each side of the Queen and who were, from time to time,
addressed by her, in a very loud voice, as Duke and Duchess Unknown. And
all the high Court dignitaries who had the right of being greeted by Her
Majesty and the Royal Family turned after-
"Hail to the strangers, guests in our land,
Where is
their own we can't understand:
He's
Duke Unknown, his Duchess is she,
And now we're
as wise as 'tis needful to be."
At the moment that the lotus buds of the great clock in the ceiling
opened for twelve o'clock, the gentleman and lady rose and bowed to
the Queen. She gave them her hand to kiss, and said politely
"Good-bye, my dear Duke and Duchess Unknown. I do not expect
ever to see you again. I wish you a pleasant journey." On this they
withdrew, and the Queen remarked "Let us resume our
conversation," but, after a few minutes' pause, back came the
big gentleman and the little lady, with coronets and mantles on, and the
Queen jumped up and kissed them and called out "What! my dear Crown
Prince and Crown Princess! Just arrived from Grachidichika! How lucky it is
you are in time for our Sociable Evening." And the Royal Family and
the Court dignitaries welcomed the Crown Prince and Princess just returned
from Grachidichika. And the company, rising and bowing and curtseying, with
the Regius Professor of Everything for spokesman, took the liberty of
entreating that the Princesses would sing the national song in felicitation
of this auspicious event.
It is a matter of indispensable form that, at the end of the six weeks
of the marriage festivities, the Royal Bride and Bridegroom--unless it
is the Sovereign of Croäxaxica himself who is the
bridegroom--shall set out in state for Grachidichika, there to perform
a honeymoon of nine weeks' duration. But sometimes, when the Royal
Matrimonial Family had been numerous, there had not been accommodation for
a visitor to the kingdom and it had had to be connived at that the
newly-married pair, after a grand public reception, should slip out
of Grachidichika by the back gate and return to Croäxaxica to live
there in a sort of secrecy. As the Croäxaxican Princes and Princesses
very much disapproved of being cooped up in Grachidichika, this exceptional
manner of staying there gradually became the rule, and the Royal Princely
Bridal Pairs always returned to Croäxaxica immediately after their
reception at the court of Grachidichika, concealing their identity by
assumed names. The Crown Prince's nine weeks' honeymoon had
expired the night before the Queen's Sociable Evening;
twenty-four hours were counted for the journey from Grachidichika
for, although that country was in the back garden not ten minutes'
walk from the room where the Sociable Evening was held, it would not have
been deferential to it to treat a journey from it as a trifling
matter: and thus it was that the departure of the Duke and Duchess
Unknown and the return of the Prince and Princess took place at midnight in
the course of a Sociable Evening.
It was now necessary that there should be a series of festivities in
honour of this return. The
entertainments were less ceremonious, but not less brilliant, than those belonging to the wedding period. And they were more varied. Hoppades and swimming tournaments were in favour, and there were picnics and reviews and garden parties and public state promenades. One day there was a great gathering of all the Royal Household Officers and Servants in the Queen's Royal Private Garden, and they were all allowed to wind round the dais on which the Royal Family were seated, so that each of them might see the bride. It took a good many hours, although everybody, as directed, bounded by at a flying pace--so many hours that there had to be a great temporary structure with sleeping rooms and a refreshment room for the members of the Royal Family to go to when they chose. And the Crown Princess would spend most of the day there, eating all sorts of things which had been too expensive to have at home in her father's palace; but, whenever she was not in her place on the dais, her coronet and mantle were put on her chair to represent her and prevent disappointment. After the filing round was over, the Queen made some promotions, and presented decorations in her own name and the King's, and the Crown Prince presented decorations in the name of his father-in-law. There had been a great deal of promoting and giving orders at the time of the marriage, but that was for the Great Nobility and the holders of high offices in the kingdom: the titles and the badges now were of the kind called Merit and Civility Distinctions, and they were conferred on superintending officials and specially approved subordinates in the departments in the personal service
of Royalty. The Head Royal Dressmaker received an order of the first grade--she had the second grade already; the Head Royal Dresspicker and the Head Secretary Spinster received the order of the second grade; the Second Secretary Spinster got the order of the third grade; and badges of honour, of importance proportioned to each recipient's position or favour, were allotted to other members of the Plenipotentiary Department. Then suitable distinctions were bestowed among the chiefs of the strictly household bodies--among which the Royal Cookery Service, of course, held a special rank and precedence. The Queen's arm began to ache long before the decoration giving was done, and the Crown Prince got tired too; so they went away. But Prince Brekekex and the Princesses, his sisters, went on with it for them; and the Princesses, who did not often get a chance of taking the chief parts in public, did their work slowly to make it last longer, and looked, for their ages, quite like Queens.
Daffodil was highly pleased at the shower of honours that had fallen on
the department in which she was enrolled, and felt happy in witnessing the
pride and delight of the fortunate ones as they pranced about imposingly,
wearing their decorations. She little thought that she herself had been
very near to receiving the recognition of a badge. All the Royal Family
wished it--including the Crown Princess, who had taken a great liking
to her, running to her whenever she saw her--the Queen herself had
been the first to think of it; and it was with regret that they all came to
the conclusion that the Lord Chamberlain was right in pointing out
that there would be a want of reverence to those honours from Royalty in conferring them on one in her comparatively humble position, unless on the ground of some exceptional and remarkable act of signal merit. "To have made me wish her to have it is signal merit," the Queen had replied when the Lord Chamberlain made this suggestion: but, on thinking it over by herself, she decided that she did not care quite enough about Daffodil's having a badge for the merit to be signal on this occasion. Accordingly the badge in question was given Seventy Seven And A Half in mistake for Seven And A Half, who had been recommended for devotion in sitting forty-eight hours holding the water-lily bud for the bride's dress, so that it might not open too soon, and going without food all the time in order that her hands might be cold enough to chill it and keep it back.
Another day there was a "Popular Demonstration" in the great
gardens of the palace. Everybody, of whatever rank, was admitted, providing
he or she carried a flag. A space was railed off for the Royal Family and
those with them to promenade in, and all the people waved their flags over
their heads till the whole place looked like a kaleidoscope in a hurry.
But what delighted Daffodil more than any other of the grand shows and
entertainments was the Water-work Display: she had never seen
anything so dazzling and so fantastic as that. At one moment there were
thousands of jets of every hue flashing and mingling in the air; at another
a single stream of transparent gold or silver or of some beautiful tint
would glide and widen high overhead
till the whole vault glowed with light, and then, sometimes gathering together again, sometimes separating into many, would descend at last in a thousand snaky coils, or in a radiant sea of foam. Then again a soft cloud of spray would spread over everything, and in the middle of it a fountain would spring up and flash its coloured light, which the spray reflected in softened tones and mingled with rainbows; then the fountain would die down, and another of a different colour would rise suddenly in its place. A simpler sort of water-works was used frequently between the grander spectacles--these were networks and scrolls and intricate patterns traced, now on the ground, now on the ceiling, by numbers of thread-like rills. Once the expanse of the vault overhead, almost as far as could be seen, was studded with tiny pools: "Oh! it is like great stars in the sky!" exclaimed Daffodil. But no one could tell what she meant, for there is no sky in Croäxaxica: all is roofed in. They have let the word sky slip out of their language, and they do not know any stars except two triangle-shaped leaves fastened across each other.
No great exercise of her gifts had been possible during the wedding and
the entertainments belonging to it. For the wedding itself, every costume
in its turn, and every fringe or loop of every costume, was settled by
immutable rule; and, the dresses to be worn by the Royal Family and their
Lords and Ladies in Waiting and the great officers of state at the balls
and banquets and concerts in honour of the Wedding, being also prescribed,
it would have been improper for the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary to introduce
any creation of importance at such a season. But the period of rejoicings
after the honeymoon was especially the time for new fashions, caprices,
startling effects. It was the time, then, for her to arise and eclipse all
former triumphs of the
art of dress with a new masterpiece. The Court, the world, looked to her for this--and she could not do it! Invention failed her: nothing would come.
No one suspected what was amiss: people saw her lost in reverie
and they supposed she was working out great designs in her mind; they found
her moody and cross and they felt sure she was wearing herself out by
carrying on too many inspirations at once. When she once or twice said
petulantly "I have thought of nothing--absolutely
nothing," they only smiled and expected some great thing all the
more. All this confidence in her, and all this applauding expectation,
distressed her worse, and seemed too to make it still more impossible for
her to command her genius and devise anything. She withdrew for days to her
isolated studio-house: nothing came of her communings with
solitude but trifles, or variations on well-known past or present
modes, She came back again to mingle with the gadding throng and excite her
mind by the pomp and stir and hurry of the giddy hour; but she was left
weary and emotionless, less than ever able to strike out a great idea.
This was a sorrow she could not trust to closest friend or faithfullest
servant. But no one had ever thought it worth while to keep up appearances
to Daffodil, who, on her part, made the incaution harmless by never talking
about what she saw were private matters--and now the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary found a solace in pouring her laments into the simple ears
of her favourite. "This," she said, "is the curse of
genius, not to be able to find itself when it wants itself. Look at me!
What a fate!
The power is in me--I know! I feel it!--but it won't come out. It has never come out. All my life I have felt the lack of strange occasions, magnificent needs--those calls to genius from without: they never came till now, and now there is something wrong somehow and I feel as if it had been somebody else that had my genius all ready to be called."
"Never mind it now, it will be just as you want it at some other
opportunity," said Daffodil sympathisingly.
"Another opportunity!" repeated the Plenipotentiary, sadly,
"Can I hope for one like this? No, I never had an opportunity before
for exerting my full power; I never shall have one again." And she
wrung her hands and sobbed piteously. "Oh," she exclaimed
through her tears, "What can be done? One
high-day after another passed with all its clothes, and my idea not
produced!"
"I really don't think it matters so very much,"
Daffodil put in, in a consolatory tone, "they all seem to be enjoying
themselves nicely in the sort of clothes they had before."
"Ah!" said the Plenipotentiary bitterly, "Yes, they
are enjoying themselves. It is ever thus. Genius pines, and toils, and
bleeds, apart, and a ruthless world waits not for the treasures it would
give it, but goes on never missing them and--enjoys itself!"
"I am sure they would be sorry, if they knew how vexed you
are," said Daffodil.
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary laughed hysterically, "They shall
not know," she said. "Let me
wear the reveller's mask of smiles as hitherto, and be one among them. Only a simple creature like you shall know how I am all the while toiling and suffering and spending myself for them."
"But, dear Pre-eminent Madam, why should you go on doing
anything of the kind?" urged Daffodil. "If they don't
want the things, why should you put yourself to so much inconvenience to
let them have them?"
"Why! Can you ask why? Think of the loss to the Universe if it is
robbed of my idea! Understand, if your faculties permit you: I am
nothing--a mere ordinary mortal, with perhaps rather an extra share of
intelligence--but I am the responsible distributor of my genius. I may
not keep for myself, hidden in unknown depths, some priceless jewel which
should be a nation's joy."
But more high-days went by and still Croässaquagha had not
been able to get the jewel out of the unknown depths. People began to
wonder what could be the cause of her inaction, and the Queen, who had been
surprisingly patient, was heard to remark that the treason of a Prime
Minister had been wanting to do too much, but that the first signs of
disaffection in a Dressmaker Plenipotentiary might possibly be doing too
little. The great event of all was now near at hand--an evening State
Reception called "The Soirée of Honour"--and the
unhappy Plenipotentiary begged permission to withdraw once more to the
seclusion of her private retreat to complete the bringing out of her great
idea. The Queen became in a good humour with her again on hearing of a
great idea, but she remarked that she hoped
that she would also bring out a good many middling-sized and small ideas in her intervals of leisure from the great one.
Alas! No idea of any size at all to speak of would let itself be brought
out any more than before. The Plenipotentiary sat all day long, and often
all night long too, lost in despondency. "Oh! why, why, was I born
different from other people?" she would exclaim when Daffodil came to
see how she was getting on, "Why was I not made to enjoy this simple
happy life of doing nothing at all? Why was I given this fatal gift of
genius? And, since I was given it, why won't it be in
working order when it's wanted?"
"It does seem a pity," was all Daffodil could reply. She did
her best to console and encourage her patroness, and was constant in her
visits, but she could find no useful service to render in such a calamity
as this.
Daffodil, meanwhile, had a perplexity of her own, which, though of a
trivial nature, threatened to be more than embarrassing. She had been as
tall as the tallest frog in Croäxaxica when she arrived, and she was
growing; consequently she needed for her tunics the longest bell flowers in
ordinary cultivation,--to say the least of it. She had now a small
wardrobe compartment of her own assigned to her, and the Plenipotentiary
had given orders that care should be taken to keep it supplied with flowers
of extra growth; but the pressure upon all the servants of the department
in this stirring time caused a neglect of minor duties like this, and, as
the great demand made the finest flowers less plentiful, those
trans-
planted into her wardrobe, taken, as they were, haphazard from what the dresspickers did not claim for higher use, were puny things, ill adapted to her stature. And, moreover, less and less pains being bestowed on the general cultivation of the shelves in the Royal Wardrobe establishment as the amount of attention required to keep up a sufficient stock of the choicest specimens increased, the flowers not marked for special cultivation were being so ill looked after that they began what, if their cultivation had not been energetically resumed a little later, would have been a return to the size of their original kindred, from which many hundred years of skilful rearing had brought them. Thus, while Daffodil was growing longer fast, her tunics were growing shorter faster. The dwindling became such as to cause her grave apprehensions: several times she had been on the point of laying the matter before the Plenipotentiary, but it seemed too great an intrusion while she had so much on her mind.
But one day--the day that was to culminate in the
"Soirée of Honour"--when she got up in the morning
and went to her wardrobe for a dress, there were but two tunic flowers
blown--two bright blue campanulas, one dark and the other
forget-me-not colour--and these two were alarmingly
small.
"They look as if they had been grown for the Crown
Princess," said she to herself. "And only two for all
to-day, when there are four different sorts of festivals to dress
for, besides the Soirée, where I am to hold the Crown Prince's
pocket-handkerchief again. Well, I can't help it: I must
make the dark one do for everything all day, and the light one must be
kept for the Soirée." But, when she had put on the dark flower, she found she could not possibly let herself be seen in it: it did not reach quite to her knees. She took it off and tossed it away in a pet. "It is too provoking! Now I must take the light one, and I shall have to wear it all limp and fading at the Soirée, and with tatters in it too very likely, after all it will go through in the day." And she put on the light flower. But, no; she could not go about in that either; it was but little longer than the other.
Now this really was extremely awkward. For she could not go about to try
and obtain another dress, cutting the figure she would in either of these
short-skirted garments; she must remain where she was till somebody
came to look for her. And, as there was so much going on that day, she
might not be missed till the time for holding the Crown Prince's
pocket-handkerchief had come. Nay, very likely she might not be
looked for even then. And there was not a single bud to blow next day.
"Anyhow, I suppose somebody will come before I am starved to
death," she said resignedly, and sat down in her light blue kilt to
wait.
But presently she thought of a better way than that. "They will
nearly crack themselves with laughing at my queer costume," said she;
"but being laughed at is less disagreeable than staying here
wondering if any one will come to help me." And she picked up the
dark campanula from where she had thrown it, took off the one she had on,
and set to work. With a sharp dressmaking knife of fishbone she cut off the
upper half of the shorter cam-
panula, leaving a sort of deep flounce which she proceeded to stitch round the bottom of the other flower. In doing this, as she had no experience in cutting, she got her dress longer than she intended, and, moreover, at the back, from an accidental unevenness in the piece she had stitched on, it drooped in a train. Croäxaxican needlework cannot be unpicked--there is no taking out the stitches or needles, as they are called indifferently, without making rents in the flower material--so she could not alter what she had done, she would only have made even that dress unwearable. But it did not matter very seriously; her intention was to go at once to the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary by the private ways, where she would perhaps meet no one at all, and to beg her to have her provided with a long length tunic.
The few people who saw Daffodil pass out--servants at
work--scarcely looked at her, and thought she was carrying a bundle,
for she had thrown her train over her arm. Putting her train out of her way
in this manner shortened the front of her skirt, too, or else she would not
so easily have escaped attracting attention. She hurried as fast as she
could, for she did not like the notion of becoming a laughing-stock.
It was not pleasant to have to appear thus before her Pre-eminence;
but from her there would be no rough jeers, and, if she did have a good
laugh at the spectacle, Daffodil felt that it would be so satisfactory to
see her roused out of her despondency that she should scarcely mind it.
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary was alone. Daffodil, who was allowed
unceremonious access
like a child or a pet oyster, found her seated in a dejected attitude, gazing dreamily at a plot of marigolds. She said in a weary tone "One could put frills of these on an iris-petal mantle. But what is there new in frills?"
"Well, no; they're not very new," said Daffodil.
"Most people have got them, I'm afraid."
"Everybody," sighed the Plenipotentiary, continuing to gaze
at the marigolds.
"I shall be actually glad if she laughs at me," thought
Daffodil; "she does want rousing." Presently, finding the
Plenipotentiary did not look up, she said "Please look at me,
Pre-eminent Madam. Just see what an object I am." She was
standing with her train spread out on the ground, and the points of her
light blue upper skirt had all curled up, because of the stitches in them,
and stood in a bristling sort of way above the dark skirt joined on.
The Plenipotentiary looked at her. She seemed struck dumb. So amazed a
face Daffodil had never seen in her life; "I know I look rather
strange," she said deprecatingly.
The Plenipotentiary replied "Hail, mighty artist, let me kiss thy
feet."
It was Daffodil's turn to be surprised now, for the
Plenipotentiary had evidently made her remarkable observation in a serious
spirit. For a moment she feared that Her Pre-eminence must be going
mad; but she remembered that madness is unknown in Croäxaxica. She
waited for explanation; and the Plenipotentiary sat and stared at her.
"Is it possible?" murmured the Plenipotentiary. "Has
this simple, half-savage creature been inspired
with the immortal idea I have failed to reach?" Then, rising, and approaching Daffodil, she said solemnly, "Tell me on your highest faith, oh, Her Majesty's Royal Private Jester, was this conception yours?--yours alone?"
"I thought by myself of stitching one tunic on to another, because
each of them was much too short separate," answered Daffodil.
"Come to the Queen," said the Plenipotentiary, and, taking
her by the hand, she led her off in breathless haste, without a word more
all the way.
The Queen was paying a visit to the youngest Royal Princesses in their
nursery. When she was told that her Pre-eminence the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary desired an interview and appeared in urgent haste, she felt
sure it was about the great idea. "I hope nothing has gone wrong to
prevent her giving it me for this evening," said she, and ordered
that the Plenipotentiary should be shown into the Royal Nursery
immediately.
In rushed the Plenipotentiary, without the least pause for ceremony,
leading Daffodil. "Behold" she said, and turned Daffodil slowly
round and round for exhibition.
The Queen was so struck with what she beheld that she never thought of
being indignant at her subject's omission of the proper signs of
respect. "My dear Plenipotentiary," she cried in enthusiasm,
"this is an idea!"
"It is a revelation," replied the Plenipotentiary.
"So much as that?" said the Queen inquiringly.
"Does not Your Majesty perceive the combinations that may be made
upon this marvellous type?
How the dark tunic might be uppermost instead of the light? How the colours might be different altogether? There could be a frill round the upper tunic; or round the lower--or even round both! Oh! the vista for the future, of fancy upon fancy springing from this commencement, is infinite! INFINITE!!!" And the Plenipotentiary broke into sobs of ecstasy.
"Why does it go down over the ground that way at the back?"
asked the Queen.
"It's a train, Your Majesty," said Daffodil;
"but it was a mistake."
"I don't want a mistake," said the Queen.
"Mistake!" ejaculated the Plenipotentiary, clasping her
hands, "The inspired creature is unconscious or mocks us. It is the
crowning perfection. It is beyond words. Observe, Your Majesty, the
dignity, the superb grace of the arrangement. Oh! you will look thrice
yourself in this wondrous appendage."
"Well," said the Queen, "I will admit that your great
idea has been worth your keeping me waiting for it all this
while."
"Royal Madam," the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary answered, in a
voice thrilled with emotion, "I have to tell you that, not I, but one
with a mightier genius than mine, a genius such as the world has not known
till now, has found the idea I was looking for. Not mine this immortal
creation; it is Daffodil's!"
"But what did she put it on for?" said Her Majesty, who,
during this speech, had been looking discontentedly at Daffodil. "It
is very improper and impertinent that she should be wearing my
new style of dress first; even if she did invent it. You have never done such a thing yourself."
The matter was explained, and the Queen, though still a little
displeased, sent for the largest tunic procurable, for Daffodil to put on
at once in exchange for the dress which was to be the model for that in
which Her Majesty would enrapture her court that evening. Her Majesty,
moreover, expressed her approbation of what Daffodil had done in inventing
so striking a dress, and promised that, if the effect of it were successful
at the Soirée of Honour, she should have some high
reward--perhaps even a merit distinction order of the first grade, her
achievement being so extraordinary.
That evening, when Her Majesty waggled in her long skirt and train
through a lane of her most distinguished subjects, the astonishment was so
great that you could have heard a needle drop while people drew in their
breaths. Then, ascending the raised platform on which the thrones were
prepared, instead of at once taking her seat beside the King, who, having
entered separately with his suite, was already calmly reposing in his
place, she walked up and down the platform two or three times and turned
about, as she did so, that the train might be the better displayed. The
whole room was carried away by irrepressible enthusiasm, and burst into
loud and long applause. The King himself stared, and said
"Splendid!" twice.
"Thanks, my friends," said the Queen, when the transports
had somewhat calmed and she had taken her seat, "I accept your
appreciation. But there is one whom you must congratulate with me. Let
her Pre-eminence the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary advance."
The Plenipotentiary had, in right of her high office, a seat on the
platform almost beside the youngest Royal Princess. She came forward at the
summons and knelt before the Queen.
"Dressmaker Plenipotentiary," said the Queen, "accept,
as a mark of my approbation, this jewelled fillet. It shall henceforth be,
in addition to your jewelled star of office, the token of your exalted
post." And she fastened the fillet round the Plenipotentiary's
head.
The Plenipotentiary rose, and reverently made the hops of homage. Then,
before there was time for the Queen to give the assembly the smile which,
under the circumstances, would have authorised them to express their
feelings in murmurs of satisfaction, she said, in a loud slow voice that
all might hear, "Never, Your Majesty, can I forget your condescension
of this evening, never can I forget this stupendous recognition of genius
in my poor person. From my heart I thank you; genius thanks you through my
lowly voice."
She stopped, the Queen looked at the audience, and a buzz of applause
greeted her words. Then she resumed,--still more loud and distinct,
"And now I have a duty to perform--a duty to the world. To me it
shall owe the possession of its greatest artist, now left in inglorious
obscurity to be lost to it. My Sovereigns, my Princes, Croäxaxicans,
not to me was the immense idea you beheld this evening vouchsafed,
but--yes, hear it--to MY
SUPERIOR." Thereupon, springing to where Daffodil was kneeling
behind the Crown Prince's chair, holding his pocket-handkerchief, she dragged her forward and knelt to her.
"Oh, please, don't," said Daffodil.
"See," said the Plenipotentiary, rising; "I have knelt
to her. Let it be told of me to future ages that I knew her and knelt to
her."
"It certainly is a remarkable proceeding," said
the Queen, much puzzled.
The Plenipotentiary addressed Daffodil: "Inspired
imaginer," she said, "teacher for all artists for ever, to thee
I surrender my office. Be to Croäxaxica what I have been--and
More." She took the fillet from her head and transferred it to
Daffodil's.
"I would much rather not--" began Daffodil. But at that
moment the King roused himself and, his glance falling on the Queen's
dress, he murmured "The very thing!" and everybody said
"Hush-sh-sh" to Daffodil for interrupting his
Majesty. And, as it was understood that His Majesty expressed approbation
of the arrangement proposed by the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, the matter
was looked on as settled. Not even the Queen would have contested a
ratification so authoritatively given.
The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary led Daffodil to the Queen, pushed her on
her knees, and, kneeling beside her, removed the fillet just placed on her
own head, and laid it on the Queen's lap. "Royal Madam,"
said she, "I implore you, accepting my resignation of my post in
favour of one greater than myself, to set the honoured token of office on
her head with your own perfuming hands. The star of office, which I cannot
get off without tearing my dress, she shall possess
to-morrow."
"To be sure," said the Queen. "But it seems rather
odd. She is not a Croäxaxican."
"All geniuses are our fellow-countrymen," replied the
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary. "Whoever has genius is a
Croäxaxican."
"Well," said the Queen, "it's all right, I
suppose. Only I had quite made up my mind to give her the merit distinction
order of the first grade on the very next opportunity; and I have no doubt
she would have been quite contented." And she began to put the fillet
on Daffodil, but, stopping suddenly: "Wait a moment," she
said; "things must be properly settled. If she is Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary, what will you be?"
"Nothing," said the Plenipotentiary.
"That will do very well," said the Queen. "But what
title can you have? It will not be possible for a person who has been
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary to be without a title."
"Ex-Pre-eminence will suffice," was the
reply.
"Her Ex-Pre-eminence, the Nothing," mused the
Queen. "That hardly seems enough. Remember you have been the first
person in our kingdom, next to the Royal Family: it is due to us that
you should preserve fitting dignity. No, you must be Her Grandeur the
Private Under-Princess. You deserve some reward for your services,
and for all this trouble you have taken to get a better Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary. Rise, Private Under-Princess and Her
Grandeur."
The new Private Under-Princess rose, overcome with gratitude. The
Queen tied the fillet on Daffodil's head and said "We appoint
you Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary of this realm, with all the authority and precedence of the office, the titles of Pre-eminence and Pre-eminent Madam, and the right of the jewelled fillet and the jewelled star," and Daffodil rose also. The Under-Princess led her to the seat which had been her own, and pushed her into it--she had to push her, for Daffodil was reluctant to take so exalted a position, and, above all, to leave the Private Under-Princess without a seat, in consequence. But the Private Under-Princess insisted on standing behind her chair, while the ceremonies of the evening progressed. Every one, even the Royal Princes and Princesses had to be ceremonially presented to the King and Queen. The new Private Under-Princess waited for her turn, which came next after Daffodil's, and then quietly went out of the room, leaving Daffodil in her chair of state--the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary of Croäxaxica!
There came a splash at her door, and she called "Come
in."
"Pre-eminent Madam," said the Head of the Upper Royal
Wardrobe-maids, who had the privilege of calling the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary every morning and receiving her first orders for the day,
"the Head Royal Dresspicker and the Head Royal Dressmaker request
audiences of Your Pre-eminence before you rise, as Your
Pre-eminence did not give them orders last night for the first
morning dresses of the
Royal Ladies, nor for your own. The Head Royal Lady's-maid is in attendance with her staff to know if you have instructions to give before she goes with them to the Royal Apartments. The Head Secretary Spinster requests your commands as to the hour at which she shall wait on you to submit for your corrections the lists and descriptions of the dresses of the Royal Family and the Court at yesterday's entertainments."
"Oh dear! Can I possibly do all that?" sighed Daffodil.
She managed pretty well, however. Great part of the business, she found,
was mere matter of form, for the persons to whom she had to give orders had
been in the habit of suggesting to her predecessor what she should desire
them to do, and much which seemed to require express arrangement for the
day was really a matter of routine. For instance the Head Royal Dresspicker
helped her out with "Your Pre-eminence will perhaps wish
foxgloves used this morning--it is the second Thursday of the
month," and the Head Royal Dressmaker with "I presume I shall
be carrying out Pre-eminent Madam's wishes by making the
pouch-sleeve the fashion for the day--it's the twentieth
in turn." The Royal Lady's-maids she dismissed to their
duties with the complimentary remark that she was sure they thoroughly knew
them and would perform them beautifully. She rejoiced the Head Royal
Secretary Spinster by conferring on her the extraordinary honour of an
invitation to breakfast: and, after breakfast, she requested her to
read the reports aloud, but, finding that process would take two or three
hours, she re-
quested her to leave off, turned over every page conscientiously, and wrote at the foot of the last, "I have looked at all this set of reports and I think the handwriting very good.
(Signed) DAFFODIL, THE DRESSMAKER PLENIPOTENTIARY."
"It turned out easier than I thought it would," she said to
herself; "but I don't much believe I shall get fond of
it."
It felt strange to take the grand seat under the canopy of marsh
marigolds where the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary sat amid her subordinates.
And, when she had got over her first shyness, she discovered that it was
very dull to sit alone and silent in that vice-regal state. By way
of something to do she called the Head Royal Dressmaker to her and began to
discuss the rotation of sleeves, which the Head Royal Dressmaker had
suggested might be a little transposed with advantage: but, just as
she was beginning to get interested, an urgent summons came from the
Queen.
"It would be unreasonable," said the Queen, "to urge
your Pre-eminence to have another great inspiration so soon after
yesterday's, but I think, as this is your first day in office, you
might signalise it by some nice invention that would make everybody admire
me at the Court Promenade to-day. It mustn't be the same as
last night, and it must be different from everything else."
"I will go to the wardrobe and manage some new sort of
contrivance," answered Daffodil promptly.
"That's a dear!" said Her Majesty. "You quite
deserve your promotion. I am glad I did it--though it was rather unusual. But, unusual or not, the world has learnt that I always reward true merit: and you certainly are an extraordinary sample of it"
"I feel extraordinary," said Daffodil; "but I suppose
I shall get used to it."
She selected in the Queen's wardrobe a red flower and a purple, of
different kinds, with which she arranged a dress something like a fuchsia.
The fuchsia is not known in Croäxaxica, nor is any flower of that
form, so this combination of hers would, she knew, be as novel to the
Croäxaxicans as her first. And in fact it produced scarcely less
enthusiasm. The Queen was radiant with triumph as she paraded in it.
"I see I have made a judicious choice in your appointment," she
said to Daffodil. "Go on as you are doing and you will repay my
confidence."
Daffodil did go on as she was doing. She did not, indeed, devise a new
costume every day--that would have become difficult and was not
desirable. Her great ideas were to be for great occasions, or when some
event was needed in times of monotony. But her ingenuity was always ready
at need, and her success was each time overwhelming. She became one of the
boasts of Croäxaxica.
Meanwhile Croässaquagha, the Private Under-Princess, once
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, was living in unassuming retirement. Out of
deference and loyalty, she appeared occasionally at Court; but she withdrew
from all other participation in the splendours of society, and declared
herself unsuited to etiquette. She did not encourage interruptions of
callers; she
wanted to live with her soul, she said, and to make the acquaintance of her own deepest mind; and besides she did not feel qualified to understand ordinary people.
She was not entirely solitary, however. Prince Brekekex, Daffodil, the
Regius Professor of Everything, and the Head Royal Physician, were
frequently guests in the home which she smilingly called her hermitage,
where, amid all the luxuries and refinements known to the
Croäxaxicans, but with an absence of state and formalities which, she
said, was to her at once novel and natural, like sea-water to an
oyster bred without a taste of it, they conversed on the equal footing of
friends. Daffodil was, moreover, a welcome visitor at any hour, no matter
how uncustomary, that she could find to slip away from her responsibilities
and the Court. The two were so confidential that they sometimes when alone
together called each other Daffodil and Croässaquagha, instead of by
their strict titles.
Croässaquagha took a lively interest in Daffodil's inventions
and devices, but she could not be persuaded to continue her own artistic
career. "No," she would say, "I will no longer drag down
my art to outward manifestations. The noblest creation, the most subtle
completed work, is but a mockery of the far surpassing idea within us. And
why should I drudge for results? The world has you, peerless Daffodil, to
give it those. Your genius, stronger than mine, can submit to the trammels
of execution and not be hampered; but mine feels the chain and faints. Let
me leave the frail exquisite spirit to its limitless freedom."
"But you must want something to do," said Daffodil.
"I watch these natural artists make themselves into
clothes," said Croässaquagha, pointing to the flowers growing in
the shelves. The two friends were sitting in the
Under-Princess's wardrobe.
"They are lovely," said Daffodil. "But still you
can't look at them the whole day every day, can you?"
"Surely," replied the Under-Princess, "why not?
It is a high employment. I learn much from them."
"Then you are thinking of doing something in your art
after all," said Daffodil.
"Oh dear, no. My Art is Me and I am my Art: why should I
do anything? I feel myself becoming greater; and that is all
that is necessary."
"Well, I suppose it is," Daffodil answered musingly.
"If people have nothing they can do except what is not
very useful, and they dislike doing that, doing nothing seems to be all
that it's necessary for them to do. But I should call it dreadfully
tiring work."
The Private Under-Princess, however, did not show any signs of
getting tired, as time went on: she looked the picture of content,
and was every day more conscious of becoming greater.
Daffodil's own intervals of independent leisure were not very
numerous. The duties of her office required much of her time, for, even
when there was nothing for her to do but to sit under her canopy, she could
not be somewhere else while she was doing it. And she was in continual
request among the members of the Royal Family. She was a favourite with
them all, and, though they had now to treat her with the
condescending respect due to her lofty station, they could not lose the habit of intimacy with her they had formed. They wanted her help, they wanted her society. Then, the second Princess, the Princess Guachapeara, developed a taste for art, and became Daffodil's pupil. And Prince Brekekex wanted her more than ever about his rhymes, for he was writing a tragedy in what are called decimalets, and had to make every ten lines rhyme together.
Moreover, this proved a year of great events in Croäxaxica, and not
very many weeks would pass without a demand on the energy and talents of
the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary. There was the beginning to learn to read of
the youngest Princess but one; then the coming of age of the Princess
Guachapeara; the opening of a new main canal; the betrothal of the Princess
Royal to the new-born son of the Duke of Happypool, a distant cousin
of her Royal parents; most important of all, the birth of the Crown
Prince's future heir.
This last event gave Daffodil an opportunity, of which she had long been
desirous, of visiting the kingdom of Grachidichika. When the time came at
which it was necessary for the Crown Prince and Princess to make a
ceremonial visit to their Matrimonial Majesties, to introduce to them the
baby Prince, their grandchild, the Crown Princess requested her to go as
the Lady in Attendance, and she, although it was usual to offer this honour
to ladies of a rank secondary to hers, was glad to consent. It was with the
pleasure of an inquiring traveller setting out under favourable auspices
that she found herself starting in the procession about to swim, as
if on a journey, to the back garden and Grachidichika. The route the procession took led them through almost all the principal canals of the town; then, by a more direct circuit, they reached the frontier, and, following round the whole ring of the boundary canal, arrived at the sole entrance to this isolated country, the low tunnel pierced through its massive earthen wall, or, rather, mound.
It seemed to Daffodil, as, after issuing from the tunnel, they passed
along to the palace by a short but broad canal and then went turning about
among corridors and house canals, that she was still in Croäxaxica
after all. The Great Throne Hall, too, seemed as if it were a bit of the
Croäxaxican palace; it was but little smaller than the
Croäxaxican throne hall and was very much like it--only somewhat
in need of doing up. It looked over large for the assemblage waiting in
it--although that was more numerous than she had expected. Everybody
in Grachidichika, in fact, was there: there could have been no Court
there at all if this had not been done. Titles and high offices are borne
for State occasions by most of the Grachidichikan inhabitants: these
become invalid in ordinary moments, and the holders of them are then
footmen or maids or whatever their vocation may be, and do not wear their
robes of State. The Guard of Honour consisted of the whole Army: but
twelve seemed few to Daffodil, who had become accustomed to the hosts of
the inimitable Croäxaxicans.
The Matrimonial King Regnant was sitting on the back of his throne with
his feet on its arms, dandling a doll and croaking to it--which seemed
to Daffodil rather odd, and in marked contrast to the reverend calm of the Croäxaxican Monarch, of which his subjects were so proud. He winked at her, too. He was a shrivelled puny thing, looking top-heavy in his crown, and altogether Daffodil did not think much of him for a king. The Queen was a homely visaged person, of robust frame but looking very old. Her cheeks were rough with wrinkles, her hands were knobbed and hard like those of one who has done a great deal of rough work. She sat slouchingly, and with her legs crossed anyhow, but her bearing otherwise was not without dignity, and she had a good business-like countenance, and looked as if nothing on earth would ever put it into her head to sit on the back of her throne unless the throne could happen to have no seat.
The State reception was short--because the baby cried. This was
caused by the King Regnant's insisting on having it instead of his
doll, which he handed in exchange to the Crown Princess. He was quite
willing to return it, however, when he found the noise it made. He took
back his doll with delight, and, as the visitors were departing in the
solemn dignity with which they had entered, called back his daughter to
inform her that that was the person he had selected to be his next
wife.
"Ah, my dear," she said, when Daffodil expressed this
surprise, "I don't let myself be quite shut out of life.
I can't go and come, but there are those that do.
There's the Ambassador, now: he sees and hears a good deal of
all sorts. You see he's a great man when he's ambassadoring,
and then he gets among the great people; and at other times he belongs to
the middling folk and gets among them. And then there are the
servants."
"But I thought they might not go out of Grachidichika."
"And you thought right. But mayn't and don't are not
one word. I happen to know--to tell you a secret--that one of the
footmen has a sweetheart in Croäxaxica--in the very Royal
Wardrobe-Seventy Seven And A Half--and it's wonderful
what
that man picks up in information. It isn't so very often wrong either. But," she interrupted herself, "I am forgetting the wardrobe is under your own authority. You won't let what I have said harm the girl?"
"I will be kind to her," said Daffodil. "She's
not a bad girl at heart."
Her Matrimonial Majesty went on "There's the Royal
Matrimonial Cook and Housemaid, too, she has a married sister in
Croäxaxica whose daughters are all in service, and I'm certain
she must contrive too to get away there often or she couldn't tell me
all she does. If I were to ask her she'd say
'No'--and so would the footman--so of course I look
upon it in that light."
"What should you have to do, your Matrimonial Majesty, if you
looked on it in the other light?" inquired Daffodil with some
curiosity.
The Queen's eyes twinkled shrewdly, "I should have to
prevent their going," she said.
"I could get my dear Crown Prince to order some one to order some
people to keep watching and find out," said the Crown Princess.
"If I don't forget, I will."
"Don't trouble about it, pet," replied her mother, and
the Crown Princess went on drinking her meadow-sweet water. She was
very fond of conversation, but she liked other people to do the
talking.
"Yes," said the Queen Chachareraroncaxa, resuming her topic,
"Yes, yes; I hear plenty--Plenty of all sorts--Things
sometimes that are perfectly scandals so that I forbid their being
mentioned to any
one else for fear of mischief. I always have set my face against gossip; but knowing something of other people's doings gives an interest; and I do hear a good deal--I'm able to say that much to my credit. The worst is I've nobody to tell things to now Ranacuajha has married and gone--not that she ever took much interest."
"You must miss her," said Daffodil.
"I should think I did! But it's her father who is the worst
off without her. She used to play with him. He got his doll instead of her,
when he first took to it."
"I didn't like him to-day," said Ranacuajha.
"My Crown Prince's father sits quite still."
"Don't come here to criticise your father's ways,
Crown Princess Ranacuajha," said the Queen, displeased.
Daffodil intervened. "Is His Majesty always so--so
playful?"
"He has been all his life much the same as now," replied the
Queen, "and so was his father, and they say his grandfather
wasn't very much different. There seems to be something that keeps
the frogs of this Royal family of Grachidichika young--too young
almost. It doesn't seem to tell so much on the frogesses--what
there have been of them in the last generations. It's the dulness of
the country, I believe."
"It does not seem to have made you childish," remarked
Daffodil.
"Ah, I'm a Croäxaxican. And I have to work too hard to
remember that I'm dull."
"Work too hard, Your Majesty!" Daffodil repeated.
"You think that strange for a Queen. But, where there's a
big house and next to no servants and little money, there's plenty to
do. We shouldn't have the means for State on high occasions if we
spent on being waited on and done for properly every day. The fact is, my
dear, the revenue of this kingdom has been this long while too small to
keep it up. I brought a nice little fortune when I married, but it got used
up in building new roofs to the barracks when the old ones fell in, and in
things like that. I have to slave to make both ends meet, I can tell
you."
"It seems hard to be shut up in such a little country, and not
have at least some comfort to make up for it," said Daffodil
sympathisingly.
"I thought it hard once, I believe; but I have forgotten all that
long ago. I'm not sure if I don't like it--the cooking at
any rate--it has saved me from moping, I fancy. I did mope a good deal
the first year or two, before I began putting my hand to everything to get
the servants on. Well, it's all the same: if I do have to do
work your Queen would turn up her nose at, I'm a Queen as well as
she. And I'm of higher birth, too. I am the great granddaughter of
the second son of a King of Croäxaxica, and she is only the
granddaughter of a third son of a King of Croäxaxica."
"But doesn't that make her a king's great
granddaughter, and you a king's great great granddaughter? It makes
her be the one of the highest birth, surely," said Daffodil.
"What nonsense!" cried the Queen Chachareraroncaxa.
"Don't you see that descent counts from the
founder of the family. If the founder of my family was a King's second son and the founder of hers was only a King's third son, there is the fact, and it can't be argued away."
"I wonder how she came to be able to marry the King--Crown
Prince I suppose he was then,--without being the daughter of a
King," Daffodil remarked in a pondering tone.
"In exactly the same way that I came to be able to marry my one.
Neither of our husbands was Crown Prince at the time; each of them had an
elder brother. My King's brother died of nothing
particular--just of not having sense enough to keep alive--and
her King's brother died of poisoning himself accidentally with some
weeds. It was quite unexpected."
"I suppose it would be," said Daffodil, as Queen
Chachareraroncaxa paused for her to make a remark.
"Well, well," Her Matrimonial Majesty resumed,
"Raucacoäxine is a good soul, but she was always a bit jealous
of me. And she didn't like it when I married. You see we were both
eligible. And she had the best marriage-portion, so she made sure
she was to become the Princess that would soon become Crown Princess that
would soon become Queen of Grachidichika. But my King--he was Royal
and Matrimonial Prince Grenoulcrawk then--was let see us both, and she
trod on him when she was hopping to the Queen his mother, not knowing he
had taken it into his head to creep on the ground behind her to pinch her
foot, for a joke, and he got a spite at her and couldn't be made go
near her again. He's not easy to thwart, he screams so. I don't
believe
Raucacoäxine will ever quite forgive me in her secret heart for his choosing me."
Daffodil thought it only right to try to remove this impression
concerning the Queen of Croäxaxica's feelings from the Queen of
Grachidichika's mind. But she soon saw that it was a sort of
consolation to the poor battered Queen in her monotonous life to reflect
that she was to some extent an object of jealousy.
"Well, well," said the Queen, "I don't wonder.
It was all but marrying a downright Crown Prince, and I wasn't a
King's daughter! It was a wonderful distinction. And then there was
my beating her so much in handsomeness. You've heard of me as a
beauty, of course."
"They have not talked to me much about Grachidichika yet,"
said Daffodil apologetically.
"Grachidichika, no: there's nothing to set them
talking about poor Grachidichika. But I and my loveliness were
Croäxaxican: Croäxaxica talks
about ME."
The old lady as she spoke had more of the superb Croäxaxican
bearing and tone than Daffodil had yet discovered in her. But, before
Daffodil could think of anything to say without either telling an untruth
or paining her by the intelligence that Croäxaxica had lost all
thought of her as if she had long ceased to exist, she resumed her
confidential manner, and went on. "Well, well, beauty or anything
else doesn't make much difference where my life rubs on.
Raucacoäxine has had the best luck in the long run, though I
am above her in personal standing through being a Queen long
before she was even a Crown Princess."
"Queens of Croäxaxica are greater than Queens of
Grachidichika," said the Crown Princess, "and I am going to be
one of them!"
"Yes, darling, that you will. And you'll have a daughter
Queen of Grachidichika, too, I hope," said the Queen tenderly.
Turning again to Daffodil she went on "One Queen is as great as
another. Croäxaxica takes precedence of us, but it is because the
kingdom was founded a little the first--mere seniority, not rank.
It's quite proper that they should teach the Crown Princess to set
store by her future position; but you ought to understand these matters
clearly, or you might seem ignorant."
"I should be sorry for that," replied Daffodil.
After they had done their meadow-sweet water, the Queen showed
Daffodil the Kingdom. It might have been a pretty Croäxaxican
country-seat if it had been in better order. One thing Daffodil
thought really attractive, and that was the Royal Wardrobe. The plants,
seemingly left to grow their own way, had a natural freedom, and were
mingled with a haphazard grace, that delighted her, and the vivid and
delicate colouring of their blooms surpassed anything in Croäxaxica.
They were of all sizes, some very small, but some larger than she had ever
seen. The Queen smiled at her admiring exclamations. "Most people
think this a sad scene of neglect," she said. "It was the most
splendid thing of the kind in the world once. There was a Matrimonial
Queen, long ago, when the country was prosperous, who spent an enormous
private fortune on it and got such flowers produced as never were known
elsewhere. But it has long been past hope
to keep it up. There is a little wardrobe the house-servants manage tolerably carefully, cultivated for use, and this large Ancient Royal Wardrobe goes on growing like a wild-clothes thicket. But there's something in the soil and in the colour-water lighting the place that suits some flowers in an extraordinary way--no one knows now how the soil and the water were prepared, so flowers like some of these can't be grown elsewhere, cultivate how they may."
Out of doors they came to the barracks. "They are for a
hundred," said the Queen ruefully. "A hundred is the proper
number for our army. But we've hard enough trouble to find pay for
the twelve, and you see we have to pay soldiers and the servants and
anybody we employ to live in the kingdom four-fifths more than they
could get in Croäxaxica, or they wouldn't come."
In the House of Parliament somebody was sitting. "It is the
Speaker," said Her Matrimonial Majesty. Daffodil expressed surprise
at his being there at a time when, as she had been told, Parliament was in
vacation.
"Why, the fact is," was the reply, "we have nowhere
else to put him. But he is quite safe." She led the way to the door
and let Daffodil squeeze herself in. "You can sit down on the chair
for Members of Parliament," she said.
Daffodil sat down and gazed at the Speaker, who seemed to take no notice
of anything.
"Why. He is only a stuffed Speaker!" she presently
exclaimed.
"Of course he is, my dear," answered the Queen from the
doorway. "And isn't it fortunate for us
and the country that he is? It would be quite impossible to find his salary if he were a live one, and then Parliament would have to be abolished. They did away with Parliament in Croäxaxica several generations ago, because the members quarrelled so about their turn to recite their speeches; but there has never been any trouble with it in this Kingdom, because there is only room for one of the Members at a time and they take their turns in alphabetical order, each on a day to himself and as many hours as he likes--or only the minimum three minutes--just as he pleases. The Speakers were the difficulty in ancient times: they used to get discontented, and there were instances of their running away and living in concealment out of the country, when their resignations were not accepted: but when this one died they stuffed him, and that has secured the institution down to these days."
"It must be a great comfort to him to be only stuffed and not to
hear all those speeches," said Daffodil.
They had now been nearly everywhere in the domain, and it was time for
Daffodil to join the Crown Princess and go with her to Croäxaxica. The
Queen took her by a short cut through a long range of grounds cut into
chequers, half a foot square, by runnels of brackish looking water. What
grew on the chequers was a long drooping stuff, looking something between
grass and sea-weed; it curled over into the water and lay floating
in it.
"Do you know what this is?" asked Chachareraroncaxa, with a
rather melancholy smile, as they went along.
"Stuff people drink quantities of," Daffodil replied;
"but I don't like it, it is so ditchy and so sweet."
"It's guggle-ooze" said the Queen. "And
these weeds that help to make it are the guggle-gigs you must often
have seen, dried, at dessert and when people are going to sing and want to
roughen their voices. The earth they grow in is a wonderful tonic. These
are the revenue of Grachidichika--a splendid revenue once. They used
to grow only in this country. Their price was very great, and the demand
for them such that every bit of ground suitable for them was employed, even
to the floor of the House of Commons."
"I have seen weeds and water like this in
Croäxaxica--often" said Daffodil.
"Yes; and there lies the ruin of the Grachidichikan treasury. My
King's grandfather was coaxed by the Regius Professor of Everything
to trust him with the secret of growing these. The Professor tried the
experiment in a plant-pot and succeeded: he was watched by one
of his servants, who sold the knowledge to somebody, who began growing the
things for sale, and then somebody watched him--and so the secret went
on spreading till anybody can learn it and the things are grown and sold
all over Croäxaxica. We sell less and less every year. And, if every
inch of the kingdom could be turned to guggle-ooze grounds and all
the produce were to find customers, there wouldn't be a quarter of
the ancient income, at the price that's got now."
Daffodil's sympathy at the calamity which had overtaken the Royal
and Matrimonial House was hearty, and her condolences gave Queen
Chacharera-
roncaxa much satisfaction. "I'll tell you something, my dear," she said by way of reward. "I know you can be trusted--I've heard that of you from more than one. Come here." She led her to a tiny plot of ground with two chequers like those they had just left: but the weeds were bright scarlet and the water bluish-violet. "Taste them," she said.
Reluctantly Daffodil sipped some of the water out of the palm of her
hand, and nibbled a bit of weed. "They taste very strong of
themselves," she said.
"That they do! I could get the old price for them--and more
too--and more than the old demand--if I only had a fortune to
begin with. It's only to bring a canal from the Ancient Royal
Wardrobe's reservoir of lighting-water and mix it with what
they grow in--and that reservoir is bottomless, so there is no fear of
it's not being enough. We should have to make the workmen fill the
canal from the brack-water reservoir, and to say nothing about using
the other one, or else they would find out the secret in Croäxaxica
and make a tunnel to get at the lighting-water. But those two
reservoirs are not far apart, and there are three labourer-servants
I could trust--we could manage a secret conduit. But, there! It would
cost more to get the canal cut than we shall ever have."
"But how did the lighting-water get to these plants?"
inquired Daffodil.
"Only by my carrying it secretly;" said Her Majesty.
"I thought perhaps something might be found by some accident some day
to improve our guggle-gigs and give Grachidichika the market
again. So I have tried one thing and another, by chance, for thirty years. Nothing came of it, except sometimes killing the guggle-gigs--but, as they had so lost value and we've always more than we can sell, that didn't matter. And it gave an interest. But at last this mixture has turned out right. I never should have thought lighting-water could be good for anything to grow in. But you see."
"I wish I could think of some way for you to get the canal,"
said Daffodil.
"There is no way. It is the old story; to get wealth you must be
wealthy."
As they walked on Daffodil asked the Queen whether it had taken her long
to get used to Grachidichika.
"No," she replied, "it's a sort of place you
soon get used to. You get dull at first, and then very soon you come not to
care much about anything nor to miss anything. You don't seem to want
a change; it doesn't seem to matter." Then she began to talk of
her girlish days at home. But Daffodil was so busy thinking that she only
half heard, and presently she interrupted her with "If I were you I
would tell some rich person the secret, so that he might be willing to buy
Grachidichika; and I would abdicate and sell it."
But Queen Chachareraroncaxa did not know the meaning of the word
"abdicate," and Daffodil had to explain. She had scarcely begun
when there was a strange interruption. They had now come to the palace
entrance, and, as they turned the corridor, something came flying at the
Queen's head and
hurled her to the ground. As Daffodil rushed to her, the King sprang forward, chuckling, caught up the chair which had been his missile, and ran away.
The Queen lay stunned for a minute. But, while Daffodil, supporting her
head, was calling for help, she raised herself, quite revived and
apparently unhurt. "I am used to it," she said. "You
needn't mind. He will do it. Anybody he is fond of he
plays tricks upon, and, as, of course, he is the fondest of me, I get the
hardest bangs."
"He should be whipped!" exclaimed Daffodil indignantly. She
had been afraid the Queen was killed or dangerously hurt, and had not
recovered her composure.
"Of whom are you speaking, your Pre-eminence?" said
the Queen impressively. And Daffodil thought it best to subside into a
respectful silence.
"His Matrimonial Majesty, the King Regnant of Grachidichika, my
husband, is of a lively temperament," said Chachareraroncaxa with
marked dignity.
"He is, Your Matrimonial Majesty" replied Daffodil.
They proceeded in silence to the Royal Private Drawing-room,
where the Crown Princess was waiting, after a game of romps with her
father. But the Queen relaxed when Daffodil took leave, and dismissed her
cordially. She even gave her a kiss. "You are a chatty creature just
like me," she said. "and you have quite cheered me up with your
prattle.--I wish you might often come and see me. But you must come
next time the Crown Princess can properly pay me a visit. I am afraid that
won't be till her next child is to be presented to us."
"Why can't we both come soon?" said Daffodil.
"It is impossible. The relations between the two countries would
get altered if communication were allowed to be easy. And even the Crown
Princess herself would be liable to attainder of high treason if she came
here, except on the lawful State occasions. It's a long time to
wait: but perhaps it's as well it makes something to took
forward to."
Daffodil went at once on her return to Croäxaxica to the Private
Under-Princess. The Private Under-Princess was allowed, as
Ex-Dressmaker Plenipotentiary the privilege of selecting one or two
special attendants from the Royal Wardrobe staff, and Daffodil wished her
to ask for Seventy Seven And A Half. It might be mischievous to have a
gossip in the immediate service of the Royal Family, and it was clearly
Daffodil's duty to remove her, but she thought it probable that
Croässaquagha would feel indifferent about an attendant's
reporting propensities, and that thus she might dispose of Seventy Seven
And A Half, not only without injury to her, but to her advancement. The
Under Royal Wardrobe-maid would retain her place on the list and her
right to rise in her turn, on promotions occurring higher up on the list,
and would continue to draw her salary from the State, while her new
position would confer on her special rank and privileges. It proved, as
Daffodil expected, that the Private Under-Princess saw no difficulty
in acceding to her request.
"Of course we must reprove her about the gossiping, and try and
cure her of it," said Daffodil. "Only, I would rather wait a
little, so that she may not perceive where I got my information. I
don't
want to bring the Queen of Grachidichika into the matter."
"Why try to cure her?" replied Croässaquagha. "If
she is with me, let her gossip. True greatness likes to be gossiped about.
It has not to fear the loss of its brilliancy by being looked at in all its
phases. When, as I venture to hope is the case in my humble instance,
greatness consists in one's Self, not merely in rank or achievements,
the more that is known about one's Self the better."
"Still, it won't be right of her to gossip about you,"
said Daffodil.
"You shall tell her not," said Croässaquagha.
"That will make you have done what you think right: and she
will gossip about me all the more, for she will fancy my life has
secrets."
As Daffodil lay in bed that night, she thought sorrowingly over what
seemed to her the dreary imprisonment of the Queen of Grachidichika in her
wailed-in dead-alive little kingdom. She formed a plan for
inventing some remarkable costume for the Crown Princess's baby and
getting the occasion pronounced one on which he ought to be presented again
to their Matrimonial Majesties of Grachidichika, so that Queen
Chachareraroncaxa might have more promptly than she expected the pleasure
of the visit to which she was looking forward. She little thought that
Chachareraroncaxa was just then breathing her last. The blow she received
on the head, when the King threw the chair at her, had caused fatal injury,
and that night, before it was well understood that she was ill, the Queen
of Grachidichika was no more.
"This just suits," said the Crown Prince: "I
wanted to talk with you both without listeners. We must make haste. Now the
King of Grachidichika has not the Queen to attend to him, he is breaking
fast. And he frets so after her that it does him harm. I have just seen the
Head Royal Physician, and he says the throne will be vacant within three
months."
"So he told me yesterday on his return from Grachidichika,"
replied the Queen. "But why should we make haste? We don't want
the throne vacant. And what could we do, if we did?"
"Is Brekekex to be the next king?"
"Of course," said the Queen. "It will be terribly dull
for him, but it can't be helped."
"I'd much rather not," said Prince Brekekex.
"I'd rather he weren't, myself," said the Crown
Prince. "I like him here for company. And I thought of making him
Prime Minister when I become King."
"Prime Minister!" gasped the Queen.
"Why, Majestic Mother, I must restore the office,
when it comes to my time," said the Crown Prince. "It's
all very well for my father, but you must remember that my wife, though she
is perfection in her own quiet way, has not got your masculine energy, and
I should have to do all the governing, myself. If a king is to have the
trouble of governing, I don't see what use there is in being a king
at all."
"That is true," said the Queen with an approving smile.
"I know I can always trust your penetrating insight and foresight, my
dear son. It did not occur to me, when I arranged that your father should
abolish Prime Ministers for ever, that no other king of Croäxaxica
would have a wife exactly like me. Under the circumstances I do not blame
your project."
"But I should not like to be Prime Minister," said Prince
Brekekex. "I had much rather be King of Grachidichika than that.
I tell you that;
I tell you
flat;
I will not work,
Thought I
will shirk.
Work mars one's calm, thought makes one's
verses sinister:
How can a Poet stoop to be Prime
Minister?"
"Brekekex's high-souled argument is
irresistible," said the Queen. "And, besides, he
must take the throne when it comes to him, because, even if it
were Constitutional to let somebody that was not of the immediate Royal
Family become of a higher rank than the King and Queen of
Croäxaxica's sons and daughters, there is nobody to inherit
instead but the Duke of Happypool. As there is at present only that one
husband to be had for all your sisters, it is all very well to have
betrothed Happypool's baby to the Princess Royal for when it grows
up; but the Duke has always been troublesome and insubordinate. You
remember that at one time he was absolutely under sentence of being
swallowed for his encouragement of the Prime Minister, only the Royal
Family would have had to go into mourning, as he is a kinsman, and it would
have been so awkward for the Royal Family to be in mourning for a traitor,
so he was pardoned. He really cannot be trusted to be King of
Grachidichika. If he were sulky about anything, he would be capable of
illegally marrying his children to anybody, to stop our
supplies."
"Take one of my sisters," said Brekekex.
"The female mind has so divine a grace,
Whatever male
minds find too dull and base
Is just what our sweet sisters should
desire,
And in its joyful practice never tire."
"You don't always put such good sense as that in your
verses," observed the Crown Prince.
This made Prince Brekekex angry. "You show your ignorance,"
he said. "Good sense has nothing to do with my verses: it
isn't good sense but high truths you should talk about to a
poet."
"Never mind," interposed Her Majesty. "Your brother
only meant to express appreciation of your true and noble view of our
tender feminine sphere. But, as to your proposal; I don't see how it
could be carried out. The treaty which founded the State Matrimonial
provided for a King Regnant, not a Queen. And a reigning Queen would be
such a strange anomaly. There can never have been one in the world. I
really could not consent to such an indelicate arrangement."
"Nor I," said the Crown Prince.
So Prince Brekekex had to agree to devote himself for the welfare of the
two Kingdoms and become King of Grachidichika. But two great concessions
were made to him. It was agreed that, considering his close relationship to
the King of Croäxaxica, he might be allowed a window-hole in
the wall of his Kingdom, with a transparent fountain glazing, through which
to peep into Croäxaxica. This window, it was to be provided by a
solemn treaty, would be built up on the accession of Brekekex's
successor. And Brekekex was, by a secret clause in the treaty, to be
empowered to pay unrecognised visits to the neighbour Kingdom.
About the latter clause there at first seemed to be difficulty past
getting over, for the rule by which except on the Extraordinary (and now,
from the poverty of Grachidichika, impossible) Event of a Royal State
Visit, the Sovereigns and their wives could not be seen in each
other's country, even if they hid themselves by fancy names, had
never been broken, and to disregard it might seriously disturb the
relations between the two countries. But Prince
Brekekex bethought him of a plan which removed all diplomatic inconvenience: he proposed that he should come to Croäxaxica, not merely incognito as the Royal Princely Bridal Pairs did during the period assigned to their visit to Grachidichika, but in disguise. In ancient times Croäxaxica had possessed wandering troubadours, who sang and recited their own verses for hours together and thus were welcome everywhere and treated as honoured guests even in the Royal Palace: it was several hundred years since the last of these had died, but they were still mentioned in story books, so that all educated Croäxaxicans had heard of them. As a troubadour then, under the name of Kekebrex the Croaker, Prince Brekekex--or rather King Brekekex, as he would be then--would unassumingly share the delights of his parents' court and enrapture his native land with the poems achieved in the calm solitudes of his own Kingdom. Nobody must be allowed to recognise him, and it must be customary frequently to speak in his presence of King Brekekex of Grachidichika and to refer to that monarch as far distant in his own capital. If, at any time when he had gone into Croäxaxica, his Queen particularly wanted to speak to him about anything or to know if he was coming back to dinner, she was to be permitted to send a servant who must have the title of Secret Messenger, and he, on his side, might on like emergencies send into Grachidichika a personal follower of his own who must have the title of Trusty Henchman. But the sending of these messengers was to be refrained from as much as possible.
By the time all this was arranged, Brekekex had
become cheerful. "I shall be every inch a king," he said,
"and yet twice as many inches a poet! King Brekekex the greatest
poet--Kekebrex the Croaker, the renowned Matrimonial King Regnant!
They'll call me the Poet-King. That'll be
it--Brekekex the Great, the Poet-King! Oh! oh! oh!" and
he hopped about singing
"Poet King Brekekex! King poet
Brekekex!
What a mind
multiplex!
Hullabaloo!
Kekebrex King and
troubadour too!!!"
"Your remarks are very true and practical," said the Crown
Prince, after waiting some time for his brother to leave off; "but,
as you have now made them several times, I do not conceive that you need
state them over again for reconsideration. Now we have settled about you,
we have to make arrangements for providing a Queen of
Grachidichika."
"I don't see that we are called on to do that," said
the Queen. "You are well aware that a King of Grachidichika can marry
no one but a daughter of the then reigning King of Croäxaxica.
Properly it should be the Princess Royal--and, of course, if
necessary, we could change the betrothal and let it be Guachapeara who
waits for Happypool's baby instead of Zumbarzabulixine--but I
don't think it would be quite fair to any of your sisters to marry
her now when King Grenoulcrawk has such a short time to live. It would only
be a few weeks before she had to go into the Workhouse for Failures from
Grachidichika, as a Queen widow who leaves no children for marriage with
Croäxaxica. If Grenoulcrawk presses us for a wife, we have only to
take
a sufficient time over the negotiations and they will drag on till it is too late for him."
"I was not thinking of the present king," replied the Crown
Prince. "I learn he is satisfied with his doll as the new Queen,
calling her Zumbarzabulixine, as if she were our Princess Royal. That
removes diplomatic complications in that quarter. It is Brekekex whose
Queen it will be difficult to provide."
The Queen looked displeased. "I do not imagine that my son, Prince
Brekekex, will find aught but ecstasy and gratitude wherever his choice may
fall. Difficulty is a strange word for the marriage of a son of the King
and Queen of Croäxaxica."
"Quite so," said the Crown Prince. "The parents of
anybody Brekekex chose would be overjoyed, and so would she. So far there
is no difficulty whatever. The only inconvenience is that, when he is a
king, there will be no one for him to choose. There is not one being in
existence--nor even any parents of her in existence--to make him
a wife when he is king."
"Then I won't be king," said Prince Brekekex.
"Grachidichika can't be undertaken with no one to take the
trouble off one's hands. Besides I should like a wife.
One needs a well-trained angel by one's side
The
two halves of one's ills to bear with pride,
To laugh at all
one's jokes, shake at one's rages,
Praise, serve, admire
one, and save servants' wages."
"Good sense again," muttered the Crown Prince. But before
Prince Brekekex could resent the com-
ment the Queen struck in. "Oh my far-seeing perfect statesman of a son!" exclaimed she to the Crown Prince, "How did you make this discovery? It had escaped myself. You are right--only too right: Brekekex cannot marry any one of the only persons eligible for wives of the King of Grachidichika--no, nor even all of them together. They are all his sisters. Poor dear fellow, what will he do in Grachidichika, an unprotected master of a house?"
Prince Brekekex wept. He could not speak.
"Just so," said the Crown Prince. "And besides, if he
never marries, the Royal Matrimonial supply will be stopped for years and
years. It won't do. He must marry while he is still a junior prince
of Croäxaxica. That will give him a wider choice."
"Too wide," sighed Prince Brekekex.
"True," said the Queen, "She is very
wide. And I don't think she will do even as well as waiting till
somebody gets married and somebody gets born and grows up."
"He will be king long before all that can happen," the Crown
Prince replied.
"Ah I forgot. But the Duke of Happypool's aunt Grufrana is
so old, and her enormous fatness makes her so helpless."
"And she is so cross, and so greedy, and so stupid, and so
altogether disgusting!" protested Brekekex, rousing from his
despondency to more and more decision as he spoke.
"And she is so lazy, and so extravagant," added the Queen.
"She would never do for Grachidichika."
"And she is deaf, and almost blind," said Prince
Brekekex. "She would not know one song of mine from another."
"There is another important point, too," said the
Queen: "her husband is alive, although he has been bedridden
ten years."
"There is force in all these arguments," said the Crown
Prince in a thoughtful tone.
"And besides," said Brekekex, "I won't marry
her."
"It's awkward not," said the Queen, "as there is
no one else suitable. But I really don't see how you can."
"I won't," replied the Prince resolutely. "And,
when I am determined, I am determined."
Upon this it became evident to all three that nothing could be done.
Brekekex must go wifeless.
Day after day the discussion was resumed, and nothing fresh to say could
be found. "Something may turn up, if we keep talking over the
matter," said the Queen hopefully; and Brekekex found solace in
writing poems on his melancholy plight; but the Crown Prince shook his head
and asked what would become of Croäxaxica if the Royal Matrimonial
Family of Grachidichika was to be an old bachelor. The Regius Professor of
Everything was taken into consultation, and shook his head too.
One day, as they were discoursing on the question for the sixth time
since the morning, and the ninety-ninth time since the beginning of
the discussions, the Crown Prince grew desperate. "There is one way
out of it," said he. "Happypool must be King of
Grachidichika."
"He shan't," said the Queen.
"He can't," said Prince Brekekex. "How can I be
a troubadour, if he has my throne?"
"Our own Royal Family may become extinct if, in the present state
of affairs, we have a King of the Matrimonial State who can never get
married," said the Crown Prince.
"What does the Professor say?" they all asked eagerly.
"I consider it a terrible crisis," replied the Regius
Professor of Everything.
"There!" exclaimed each of the three triumphantly.
The Professor's decision, however, although so satisfactory to
each debater, did not remain final. The Queen and the Crown Prince
continued to differ as to the arrangement to be made, and Brekekex, leaving
the argument to them, wept over the loss of his crown, or the loneliness of
his livelong bachelorhood, according to which alternative was being brought
forward.
All at once, Her Majesty sprang into the air and turned a summersault.
"I have an idea," she explained when she came down.
Brekekex clasped his hands. "I am saved!" he cried.
"Oh, sublest mind that ever yet uncurled
Its coils of
diplomation to the world!"
Those lines came from his poem "Greatness in the Base,"
where he described the Queen's cleverness about Daffodil and Seventy
Seven And A Half.
"Stop!" said the Queen, who was just going to speak.
"Those admirable lines have suggested an addition to my idea. Let me
reflect."
The plan Her Majesty presently revealed was intended to gain time.
"It strikes me," she said, "that the Duke of Happypool
may have another baby some day, and it may be a girl. Now, if we could
manage that Brekekex should not be King before it was born, he could marry
it, and, when he became King soon after, he could take it to Grachidichika
to be brought up. Well, Grenoulcrawk might perhaps be kept alive a little
longer, if he had a wife to take the very greatest possible care of
him--and, of course, she would do that, whoever she was, because she
would have to be removed from the list of the Matrimonial Royal Family and
sent to the Workhouse as soon as she let him die. We must get him married
at once."
"Magnificent!" burst from the lips of the Regius Professor.
But the two Princes looked disappointed.
"Bringing up that baby will be trying," said Brekekex, in a
pondering tone. "And it will be so many years before it can do any
government."
"It must inevitably take the baby some time to grow to be the
mother of a Matrimonial Family," said the Crown Prince. "And,
then, if Brekekex is to reserve the baby that you mean to have born before
King Grenoulcrawk dies, and if Happypool does not have another daughter,
there will be no wife ready for my eldest son when he is old enough to have
one."
"Oh, that is sure to come right," said the Queen.
"And, if not, he will only have to wait a few years for a cousin. She
will be a much fitter match for a future King of Croäxaxica, as she
will be daughter of a King. And, you know, he would be able to marry
her at any time, even if he had become Crown Prince, or even King."
"Well," said the Crown Prince, somewhat sombrely, "it
sounds conclusive, though somehow I don't like it. I suppose we had
better consider it settled. It's rather hard on
Zumbarzabulixine."
"Wait a minute," replied the Queen. "Here is the
beauty of my plan. We'll get King Grenoulcrawk to abdicate for three
days in favour of Brekekex: he will, in the three days, as only a
Junior Prince as he used to be, be able to marry somebody that is not our
Princess Royal--nor even a Royal Princess at all. After he is married,
Brekekex can abdicate in his favour at once, so that there should be
nothing unfair to poor Grenoulcrawk."
All declared that part of the plan admirable. "And, now,"
said the Queen, elated by their praises, "listen to what our
poet's quotation has put into my head: the point is to find a
wife for Grenoulcrawk--even counting him as a Younger Prince, I did
not see who there could be he might legally marry--I thought we might
have to decree somebody Royal for him, just for the time--it
wouldn't matter so much for him, you know, if we could do it. But it
has flashed upon me that there is one person not of Royal Kin who can be a
wife for a Younger Prince of Croäxaxica, so of course she can be for a
Grachidichikan Prince. Brekekex's lines have made me think of the
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary. I believe it was enacted long ago that, when
there was no other wife for a younger Prince of Croäxaxica, the
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary should be eligible."
"Splendid!" exclaimed her hearers. "What talent!
What memory of the laws! What a power of combination!"
"And I think," said the Queen, "we can take the
opportunity to make Guachapeara Dressmaker Plenipotentiary. She is getting
on so fast that she is sure to acquire more genius than anybody has yet
had, if we give her the opportunity of displaying it. And there have been
precedents for a Younger Royal Princess holding the office."
And thus the matter was settled. The conference broke up, having agreed
that the Queen should take steps at once for the temporary abdication of
King Grenoulcrawk and his marriage with Daffodil.
"Quite so," said the Queen, fondly stroking her
daughter's cheek.
"The greatest of living artists, mustn't she be?"
continued the delighted young princess.
"It is her privilege to be so--and in fact her duty,"
replied Her Majesty. "And, my dear Guachapeara, I hope, young as you
are, that you will remember duty. Of course I shall see that you have some
one to take all trouble off your hands; but I shall expect you to have
genius like the other great artists, your predecessors--or in fact
rather more. It is only to make up your mind that you will."
"Oh yes," said Princess Guachapeara," I promise you
that that shall be all right," and, clapping her hands in glee, she
exclaimed "Only think! it was but yesterday that that horrid Lady
Grufrana and the Duke of Happypool were agreeing it was ridiculous for me
to be taking lessons from the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary--'I was
a born bungler like you'--and now they'll see that,
instead of being a bungler like you, I have been able to be actually a
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary when I am but just of age. There never can have
been a Dressmaker Plenipotentiary only just of age before. As to Daffodil,
one can see by her size that she must have come of age twenty years ago and
gone on growing ever since."
But, while Guachapeara was running on thus triumphantly, the Queen was
leaning back faint and gasping. "Oh! What is the
matter!" cried Guachapeara, when, pausing and looking for an answer,
she observed her mother's condition. But the Queen was unable to
speak.
In a fright, the Princess splashed water over the sufferer, and then,
screaming for help the while, set
to shaking her vigorously. Under this treatment, the Queen recovered herself. "Hush! hush!" she said, as soon as she could command a voice, "Call no one. What has passed must never be revealed. A BUNGLER LIKE ME!!! Guachapeara, the awful words must be forgotten. There is only one expiation possible for the crime of Happypool and his aunt--the Boa Constrictor. And, if I allow this expiation to Happypool, your sister Zumbarzabulixine cannot marry his son, and Brekekex cannot marry his daughter when she gets born, and there won't ever again be a husband or a wife in the world for one of all the Royal Family. But, remember, the crime of such words is unforgivable--forgiveness itself would be a crime. Therefore I am not aware of them: you are not aware of them: nobody is aware of them: in fact they never were spoken. Who repeated them to you?"
"I overheard them myself," answered the Princess. "It
was at the Lord Chamberlain's pond party. They thought no one was
near them; but I happened to have swum under a floating sofa to fasten my
head-rushes, and they came and sat on it."
"Then bear in mind not to have heard them," said the
Queen.
"I will make a point of forgetting," said Guachapeara,
obediently.
"And mind," urged the Queen, to add yet more weight to her
injunction, "if you let this fearful secret pass your lips, you will
not be a Dressmaker Plenipotentiary. Everything depends on our arranging so
that a wife can be born for Brekekex, and, if you stop her having a father,
there is an end of it all."
It may well be imagined that, in spite of her Majesty's anxiety
not to have to deal with the Duke of Happypool as a traitor, she was more
than ever convinced of his disqualifications for the throne of
Grachidichika, and that, even if the heir-apparent whose position
had to be made sure had not been her own son, she would have been resolute
in any measure that would prevent a necessity for his being set aside in
favour of so evil-minded a rival.
The naive joy of Guachapeara confirmed her also in her choice of a wife
for King Grenoulcrawk. It was only by this promotion of Daffodil that the
post of Dressmaker Plenipotentiary could well be at her disposal. And,
moreover, the obstacles in the way, if she were to try to select any other
bride, were serious, for, except her own daughters and Lady Grufrana, who
was married, there was no existing person besides Daffodil whom the law
recognised as able to contract marriage with a member of either of the
Reigning Houses.
The ambassador of Grachidichika, summoned to Queen
Raucacoäxine's presence, listened in bewilderment and kept
agreeing to everything. But, when at last he made out what was proposed, he
expressed unlimited acquiescence in a scheme so admirably adapted to
promote every one's interests, and only suggested that, although the
marriage was to be that of a Grachidichikan Junior Prince and not of a King
of Grachidichika, his fee for ambassadorial attendance on the occasion
ought to be what it would if the King could have remained King during the
marriage days. To this Her Majesty graciously consented. The marriage, of
course, was to be celebrated on the
simpler scale prescribed for that of a Younger Prince, and not as that of a Sovereign, and also, on the excuses of King Grenoulcrawk's being in mourning for his Queen and of his infirm health and of the bride's not being of Royal Kin, it was to be of the shortest and simplest kind allowable for a Junior Prince in an emergency, so as only to take three days and not to require the attendance of an official embassy from Croäxaxica. Thus the alternate abdications of Grenoulcrawk and Brekekex--which were an awkward part of the transactions--would be over before anything about them was known in Croäxaxica, and would scarcely be heard of, and the peculiar circumstances of the marriage would not be forced on public attention. The ambassador felt sure of King Grenoulcrawk's co-operation, if the matter was put before him in an encouraging light, and undertook to get him through the proceedings in a sufficiently satisfactory manner.
So far all had gone in the smoothest possible way; but now the poor
Queen was destined to meet with contradiction and grumbling on every side.
There was the King, to begin with: instead of simply approving her
project and giving her instructions to do whatever she liked about it, he,
in a wholly unprecedented way, insisted on considering the subject, and
demurred. There might have been Sovereigns who abdicated, either among the
Croäxaxicans themselves or among the neighbouring nations in the
almost pre-historic of the inimitable Croäxaxicans' times
dwelling above ground--at any rate such an event was admitted by
abstruse writers as an abstract possibility in the scheme of
government--but there
was no known instance of anything of the sort. The King did not at all like introducing the notion in a practical shape. "Reflect," he said portentously: "if a King abdicates, a King will have abdicated." It was only by the most pertinacious entreaties and preventing his going to sleep that Raucacoäxine convinced him of the desirability of his consenting. And, even after his consent had been won, his dissatisfaction was testified for many hours by voluminous snores--a sure sign of sulkiness in that usually sedate monarch.
Then the Crown Prince gave way to second thoughts, and became full of
doubt and discontent. It had occurred to him that, even if the Duke of
Happypool had another daughter besides the one that was to be born for
Brekekex, his eldest son, if he happened to have become Crown Prince by the
time he was old enough to take a wife, could not marry her unless her
father were King of Grachidichika. At this the Queen went into a violent
passion, and even threatened to have him charged with treason and
conspiracy. The Crown Prince, though he admitted that it was hard on his
brother to suggest his being passed over to let the Duke of Happypool have
the crown of Grachidichika, protested that he had a right to speak of such
a thing in the interests of the Croäxaxican dynasty; and, as he did
not know what good reason his mother had to be infuriated at the very name
of Happypool, he could not understand how he had so greatly provoked her by
what he had been saying, and he considered himself aggrieved. He withdrew
in dudgeon, and would not appear at court.
The next trouble was with Prince Brekekex. He too had been thinking over
the scheme and had discovered that he did not like it. He thought it very
hard on Daffodil that she was to be married in a way which would make her
very soon a prisoner in the Workhouse for Failures, and very hard on
himself that he was to be thus permanently deprived of her services as his
purveyor of rhymes. And he urged these views so eloquently that the Queen
burst into tears and, declaring that her own son, for whose sake she was
undergoing so much labour and vexation, was accusing her of cruelty,
ordered him to his own apartments under arrest.
Next the Regius Professor of Everything came with an anxious face. After
reflection and research, he had arrived at the conclusion that it was
doubtful whether a Dressmaker Plenipotentiary was legally eligible as a
wife for any Grachidichikan Prince. The enlargement of the list of persons
with whom junior members of the Royal Family could incur marriage if
persons of equally royal birth were not available had been made for the
Croäxaxican Family only, it having been always held that the destiny
of members of the Royal Matrimonial Family of Grachidichika was to provide
the Royal Family of Croäxaxica with wives and husbands, and no other
provision than their Workhouse having been thought necessary for those of
them who failed to fulfil their destiny. Her Majesty was highly displeased
at the Professor's statement, which she looked on as disrespectful to
the Royal house of Croäxaxica. "If a person is equal by law to
marrying a member of our Royal House, I should think she must be legal
enough for Grachidichika!" she exclaimed indignantly. The Professor, alarmed, began trying to explain that he had meant to explain that it was because of the inferiority of the Grachidichikan dynasty to the Croäxaxican that the obstacle he mentioned existed, but his nervousness confused him, and he only made the Queen more dissatisfied with the irreverent conceptions she understood him to be expressing. And she ended by banishing him from the court and capital, with the assurance that, if he ventured to repeat such sentiments to any one whatever, the State Boa Constrictor should end his treasonable discourses.
The Head Royal Physician annoyed her almost as much. He came, by the
Crown Prince's direction, to communicate his opinion on the
possibility of King Grenoulcrawk's living long enough for her plan
for a wife for Prince Brekekex to be carried out. Nothing but a miracle, he
said, could keep the decrepit and enfeebled monarch alive long enough for
the baby to be born and married to Prince Brekekex before his throne became
vacant. "Sir," said the Queen--superb rebuke in her voice
and mien--"the interests at stake are those of two Kingdoms and
My son. If a miracle is necessary, there will be a miracle." The Head
Royal Physician felt very uneasy at having anything more to say after that,
but he was still more afraid of not warning her Majesty of a danger to her
plans which it might afterwards ruin him to have concealed from her. He
told her that King Grenoulcrawk, unable to understand the meaning of his
temporary abdication, had been so unpleasantly agitated on the
ambassador's mentioning it to him, that he had had a fit, and that there was much reason to fear that his bewilderment and the excitement and fatigue of the marriage solemnities might throw him into a sudden and fatal illness. On this Her Majesty gave vent to an indignation which wavered in its cause between distrust of the Head Royal Physician's veracity in his statements about King Grenoulcrawk's condition and disgust at his incompetence and blundering in not having his Royal Patient in fitting health at so important a crisis. She ordered him off at once to Grachidichika, there to remain by the King night and day. In consequence of which when, that night, she found herself suffering from a headache caused by all these annoyances, there was no Head Royal Physician available in her need.
And, as if all this opposition was not enough to bear, the Queen was
still further oppressed by the lamentations of her daughters over their
loss of Daffodil. The Princesses of all ages, and even including
Guachapeara who had so much to gain by Daffodil's departure, were
full of the many ways in which they should miss her, and they could not
reconcile themselves to her being, first by her exaltation to Queendom in
Grachidichika, with its necessary isolation, and then by her inevitable
degradation to namelessness in the Workhouse for Failures, wholly removed
from their reach. They had, indeed, no adverse arguments with which to
tease the Queen: as the Princess Royal said, they could not be so
selfish as to wish to see Daffodil prevented from receiving the
extraordinary promotion intended for her and they did not grudge her the
boon--nay they declared
her quite worthy of it, surprising as the rise of her fortunes seemed--but they could not help harping on their own grievances in the matter of her loss. The Queen, who herself shared some of these feelings and looked on it as vexatious that she could not both make Daffodil King Grenoulcrawk's Queen and caretaker and keep her to be useful in Croäxaxica, was so fretted by these lamentations that she had to avoid her daughters' company.
In all these troubles her Majesty's spirits were somewhat kept up
by the amusement and pleasure with which she thought of the surprise she
was going to give the unconscious Queen-elect. She would not let
Daffodil know anything about what was going on until all, even to the
details of the wedding and the date and ceremonies for Daffodil's own
coronation and for the recrowning of Grenoulcrawk after his abdication was
over, had been agreed by both sides and all the treaties and contracts were
finally signed. The negotiations were not allowed to take more than a day
or two--time being so valuable--and therefore it was not very
difficult to keep them a secret, even from the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary.
As soon as all was irrevocably settled, the Queen sent for the bride and,
chuckling to herself over the shock of startled delight she would
experience at the sudden news, told her the story of her greatness. But
what was her amazement when Daffodil, instead of going out of her senses
with elation at the incredible honour bestowed upon her, flatly refused to
be the King of Grachidichika's wife. "I don't mind
Grachidichika much, and I don't see that the Workhouse would be
inconvenient for a person that hasn't been brought up to Croäxaxican luxuries," said Daffodil, when Her Majesty spoke against what she supposed to be her objections, "but I would rather not marry that King: though, as it is such a great honour, it was very kind of you to think of it for me."
The Queen had no time for arguing, so she at once explained the
important considerations, as to Prince Brekekex's succession to the
throne of Grachidichika and the matrimonial question, which necessitated
Daffodil's marriage to King Grenoulcrawk, supposing that such a
statement would at once end all objection. But, to her horror, Daffodil,
after pausing to reflect, replied with a counter proposal that the law
should be altered and that Prince Brekekex should be made able to marry
anybody he and his parents liked, instead of having to wait for somebody to
be born on purpose. And, perceiving the Queen's speechless
consternation at such a suggestion, the misguided child endeavoured to
justify the policy of it by the argument that perhaps the requisite baby
might never come at all, or might die before it grew up.
Perhaps the Queen might have borne Daffodil's conduct with more
patience if she had not already been so grievously tried by the
others: as it was, she was in no mood for controversy. "Be
silent," she cried, "and answer this moment. Do you
hear?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," replied Daffodil, submissively,
"only I do not know what to answer to."
"That is final," said the Queen. And she left the room.
Daffodil, in some anxiety, but sure that, at all
events, she could not be compelled to marry King Grenoulcrawk in spite of herself, and hoping the Queen meant to renounce her project, returned to her own apartment. It was getting on towards evening and, as it happened that there was no special engagement to tie her, she had been intending to go and dine with the Private Under-Princess. But she considered that she should feel embarrassed in keeping from her friend the critical position in which she found herself; and she did not think it would be prudent to reveal it. She feared, moreover, that, if she had to be in disgrace for refusing to yield to the Queen's wish, Croässaquagha might, were she to be with her at this critical moment, be entangled in her misfortune. So she remained at home by herself, feeling very lonely. She was not afraid, but she felt that she should have been less as if she were going to be afraid if she had had somebody to whom she could talk about it.
All the evening she kept expecting some message from the Queen, or that
something would happen, or somebody come. But the hours went on and no
notice was taken of her. "I should have liked to know whether I am to
be in disgrace or not," she said to herself, at last; "but it
is too late now for there to be any chance of the Queen's sending for
me tonight. I had better go to bed. And I shall know all about it
to-morrow. I daresay it will all come right, like the other things
that have happened to me here."
But in the middle of the night a sound at the entrance to her sleeping
place awoke her, and she beheld the Officer in Command, with six soldiers
ranged behind him. "Hush!" said the Officer in
Command, in a great whisper which sounded like the sea on the shingles in a storm. "Hush-sh-sh! be careful not to wake any one. Get up, and come to prison."
Daffodil objected; but the Officer in Command showed her his warrant
from the Queen, and explained to her that he should have to carry her away
by force if she did not obey. "And we must be very quiet," said
he; "for the Queen does not want any one to know."
"Oh, as to that," replied Daffodil, "if the Queen
chooses to be so disobliging as to have me waked out of my sleep and sent
to prison without consulting me, I don't see why I should oblige her
by making no disturbance. Besides," she added, with the dignity of a
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, "I require the assistance of some of my
attendants."
"Any one Your Majest--I mean Your Pre-eminence
disturbs and makes aware of your being a prisoner will have to go to prison
too, and, to insure silence, for life," said the Officer in Command.
He spoke with decision, but with a deference which was reassuring, though
she did not like the slip by which he had nearly called her Your Majesty.
It looked as if he might be expecting her to become Queen of Grachidichika,
in spite of her being sent to prison. But she was determined nothing that
could be done to her should frighten her into consenting to that. As to
going to prison, however, she saw it was best to yield with a good grace;
so she told the Officer in Command she would get up at once and would give
him no trouble.
"You will tell me what is going to be done with
me, won't you?" said the prisoner, as she accepted the arm of the Officer in Command and passed into the corridor which led from her apartments.
"We cannot talk till I have Your Maj-- I mean Your
Pre-eminence in safety," was all the answer.
The Lieutenant of the State Prison was waiting to receive her. He hopped
round three times, but did not speak. Daffodil wished to return his
salutation with equal courtesy to his own; but, when she began the third
round, he stopped her by a deprecating gesture and another series of hops,
exclaiming "Nay, Your Maje-- Pre-eminence, I cannot
presume to accept so much condescension."
When she had been escorted to her former rooms in the prison, the
Officer in Command with respectful hops, took leave of her, adding
significantly "It will not be for long. I am to be Your Majes--
Your--Your--your escort on the occasion."
"Oh, do stay a moment," cried Daffodil. "You know you
were to tell me what is going to be done with me now I am here."
"A Croäxaxican soldier is bound not to reveal his
Sovereign's secrets," replied the Officer in Command.
"But, on this occasion, military honour does not forbid my revealing
the exact truth. I know nothing on the subject."
"But do stop a moment," she said urgently. "Tell me,
at any rate, why you keep almost calling me Your Majesty."
"The respectful zeal of my tongue causes it to be tempted to the
slip of giving you your rightful title too soon," he replied;
"that is all, Your M-- Preeminence."
"But it is not my rightful title. It never will be."
"It will be, the day after to-morrow," said the
Officer in Command. With these words he withdrew before she could stop him
again.
"The day after to-morrow?" said she to the Lieutenant
of the State Prison. "What does he mean?"
"That is the time fixed for your marriage, Your M--
Pre-eminent Madam," answered the Lieutenant.
"What foolish nonsense!" exclaimed Daffodil. "The idea
of fixing my marriage day when I have not the slightest intention of being
married! How can the Queen be so ridiculous?"
"Permit me to remark, with the fearless loyalty of an inimitable
Croäxaxican, that my Queen is not ridiculous," said
the Lieutenant of the State Prison, with asperity. "And I must remind
you that your intention cannot make the slightest difference to your
marriage."
"It can prevent my marriage," said Daffodil doggedly.
"I ask Your Maj-- Your present Pre-eminence's
pardon," said the Lieutenant, with some difficulty checking a smile
of amusement at her fancied independence: "that is exactly what
it can not."
"I will resist for ever!" she replied energetically.
"That could make no practical difference," was the quiet
answer. "And it would be a pity for it would start you badly in your
relation to the Sovereigns of Croäxaxica, as well as, perhaps, to your
husband, King Grenoulcrawk. But I am transgressing; I was forbidden to
discourse with Your Majest-- Royal Bridality."
"Well, you had better let Her Majesty know my
determination," said Daffodil, trying to keep up the appearance of a
confidence that was beginning to desert her.
But the Lieutenant of the State Prison only replied by an irrepressible
smile and the ceremonial hops preparatory to his departure.
"Don't go hopping at me as if I were a Queen, I tell
you," she called out to him snappishly.
The Lieutenant of the State Prison stopped his hopping so suddenly that
he almost lost his balance. "I obey Your Majesty," he said with
courtly deference, and departed with an obedient celerity which made
Daffodil ashamed of her rudeness. And there was something about this prompt
breaking of his salutation, even more than in the salutation itself, that
struck into her heart the unwelcome conviction that she was stamped
irrevocably Queen Consort of Grachidichika.
how long it would take to turn into a butterfly, and her father was nodding his head and saying "It will depend on yourself." A plashing in the water awoke her just then--it was the guard at the door of her apartment being relieved, and she knew the day was beginning. But she felt pleased at having remembered in her sleep, and she was soothed: she lay still and tried to begin the dream again, and, though she did not succeed in that, she had a good refreshing sleep.
It was long past her usual hour of rising when she awoke again, but her
sleep had done her so much good that it was not lost time. Her dream too,
which in a different sort of climate might have started in her mind a train
of too vivid memories and longings, in dispiriting contrast with the
realities of her present position, remained with her as a quieting
pleasure, like a sweet tune lately listened to that keeps coming into
one's ears. And it left her an odd encouragement: the
observation "It will depend on yourself," did not seem
particularly practical and convincing, on reflection, as an account of the
prospects of the caterpillar in the dream, and, alas! was but little
applicable to her own prospects awake, of which the alarming point was that
they were not to be allowed to depend in the least on herself;
and yet she found it coming over and over again into her mind and raising
her spirits surprisingly. She found herself singing it and whispering it,
as if it were a charm to bring better luck.
"I wonder why I keep repeating that," she said to herself,
at last. "It's just what isn't true; for it all depends
on the Queen. However, I must try
something, if it is only to keep from crying again as I did last night."
The only thing she could think of was a supplicating letter to the
Queen, and she knew there was little hope from that. But she asked the
gaoler who took away her breakfast to carry a message requesting an
interview with the Lieutenant of the State Prison, and, when that officer
came, deferential as last night, she prevailed upon him to allow her
writing material and to consent to request the Queen's permission to
have the missive delivered to her. He did not yield to the wishes of his
prisoner without hesitation; but she urged that his refusing her would be
deciding on a matter concerning which the Queen had not expressed her
intention, and the argument prevailed.
She gave much thought to the composition of her letter, in order to
avoid saying anything which could hurt the Queen's feelings or seem
disloyal or irreverent to anybody or anything. Remembering the conversation
of the poor Queen of Grachidichika, it now struck her that she ought to
have been more tender in her refusal of a suitor once a loss for Queen
Raucacoäxine herself--who could not, therefore, but be sensitive
about a disparaging rejection of him and his Crown. She recognised, too,
her indiscreetness in taking upon herself, on the spur of the moment, to
propose changes in the legislation of the Kingdom, and then her rashness
and offence against decorum in thrusting upon the Queen her volunteer
arguments against Her cherished scheme for Her son's marriage. What
she now urged was her own unsuitability to be the wife of a person
whose habits she did not understand, and to take the management of his household affairs and kingdom. She ventured, however, to plead, with all the pathos she could, the unhappiness she should feel in a union for which she was so ill adapted, and to implore Her Majesty to spare her. And she humbly suggested that, if it was considered that her being put in charge of the King of Grachidichika could prolong his life and serve Croäxaxica and that Royal House from which she had received so many favours, she should be allowed to be merely his governess or his nurse.
An hour or so after this appeal had been despatched, Daffodil was
joyfully surprised by the announcement that Her Grandeur the Private
Under-Princess was asking to see her, and had the Queen's
permission. Of course she readily consented to receive her visitor.
Croässaquagha, it proved, had not come merely by the Queen's
permission, but by Her desire, although she was not to be considered as
bearing any message from Her Majesty, who could on no account so far
condescend to an offender who had not yet made unlimited submission.
"I am bound to the strictest secrecy," said
Croässaquagha. "Nobody else has been allowed to know what has
become of you. There was a great commotion when you were missed, but the
Queen had it given out that she knew all about it and that it would be seen
in a few days that you had gone to a wonderful advancement, and that, of
course, has set curiosity at rest. But she was so much pleased with your
letter that she sent for me privately and confided your address to me that
I might come to you about it."
"What is her answer?" asked Daffodil, eagerly.
"She does not make any answer at all. She cannot take any notice
of you. But I may tell you what I know. She does not think badly of you,
now she sees that it is timidity caused by a sense of your drawbacks from
natural inferiority that has unsettled your mind and led you to the excess
of hesitating about your obedience in the matter. But she expects absolute
compliance, and, as to your being governess or nurse instead of Queen, you
cannot possibly do what would be derogatory to the dignity of the office of
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary of Croäxaxica, and the King of
Grachidichika cannot be put under the superintendence of any one less than
his Queen. Besides, the Head Royal Physician and the Ambassador have been
hard at work bringing him to want to marry you, and he would get into an
alarming state if he did not have his own way now he is bent on it. So you
will be married to-morrow."
Daffodil protested; but the Private Under-Princess explained to
her that she had no escape: she would be taken to Grachidichika still
a prisoner, secretly, at four in the morning, and the first and, as to law,
sole essential, marriage ceremony would begin at once. If necessary to keep
her quiet, she would be manacled, and even gagged; but that would only be
for peace's sake, as no opposition she made would have the slightest
effect in delaying the marriage, or in making it invalid. In order to get
it through quickly, not only was each of the nine days'
solemnisations due for a Prince's marriage to be condensed and
expedited so as to make it only the five minutes' length usual on the
last day of the nine, but as, by an arrange-
ment for which there were one or two precedents in the history of Grachidichika, the wedding days could be measured in an exceptional manner, instead of by the usual number of hours, the days to elapse during the marriage were to be each but of fifteen minutes--giving just comfortable time for the procession from and to the Royal Palace, and the marriage service, each day. The marriage celebrations, including King Grenoulcrawk's abdication at the commencement and Brekekex's abdication at the end, would be completed before most people had finished getting up.
"Then there is no escape!" exclaimed Daffodil,
bursting into tears.
But presently, while her friend was trying to soothe her by telling her
of the coronation, which would take place a week after the marriage,
publicly, and with parade enough to make up for the hurry and privacy of
the marriage, a thought struck her which seemed at least to give promise of
delay. "They'll be forced to let me wait," she said,
cheering up. "There isn't a white water-lily in flower,
and not a bud that can come out big enough for me to get into, whatever is
done to bring it on."
But Croässaquagha destroyed the hope as soon as it was spoken.
"That does not affect your wedding. The white lily has nothing to do
with Grachidichikan alliances. And, as you are not of the Croäxaxican
Royal House, not only it is not necessary for the legality of your marriage
to a member of the Grachidichikan House, but you are not allowed to assume
it. White flowers of any other sort are proper for your bridal dress; and
the Queen has selected
some splendid campanulas. to be ready for you tomorrow."
"Is it all so settled as that?" gasped Daffodil, her dismay
now complete. That this preparation should have been made impressed her
with the feeling that she was indeed a bride.
"All is settled past undoing," replied Croässaquagha.
"And now cheer up, dear. Let us plan your dress for your
Soirée Of Honour after your coronation."
Daffodil preferred the consolation of complaining of her fate. The only
bit of brightness about her prospect was, she declared, that the horrid old
idiot who was to be her husband would be sure very soon to throw a chair at
her head and kill her, as he did poor Chachareraroncaxa, and she should be
out of it all. But Croässaquagha insisted against this discontented
view. She dwelt on the sublimity of being a Queen, on the undisturbed
opportunities the Queen of Grachidichika could have for living with Art and
her soul, on the wonderful wardrobe reported to possess such treasures even
in its uncultured state, and of which Daffodil herself had given her a
description that made her feel that an artist's genius could feed on
its fantastic combinations hour after hour and day after day.
"Precautions could be taken," she said, "against the
King, your husband's, getting at anything very heavy to throw in his
fun. And, besides, he is growing weaker so fast that he soon will not be
apt to try anything fatiguing. And surely your soaring spirit cannot set a
little hurt or annoyance from your husband against the ecstasies of pride
as a Queen and composure as an artist which await you in
Grachidichika."
Daffodil sprang to her feet. "I have thought of something. Do you
really mean that you think it would be nice to be Queen of Grachidichika,
Croässaquagha?"
"Can you doubt it? To inferior natures the sacred solitude of
Grachidichika might seem a little tedious, even amid the inspiring
consciousness of one's own Royalty, but to my rapt mind there would
be, not solitude, but a countless crowd; for the solitude would have my
genius for its populace. Surely you too must feel that, for the
untrammelled essence of the artist's soul, there can be no higher
destiny than to be Queen of Grachidichika."
"I daresay you are right," said Daffodil: "and
so, since you would like it so much, why shouldn't you become Queen
of Grachidichika?"
"Daffodil! What! Have you indeed divined my secret
yearning--or rather regret--for an impossibility? But it could
never be. I am not even legally eligible."
"Why not," replied Daffodil, "if I am?"
"The Dressmaker Plenipotentiary is allowed in cases where there is
no one of Royal blood possible for a wife, but she is the lowest admissible
candidate. And I am not Dressmaker Plenipotentiary."
"But you have been; and that ought to do," returned
Daffodil. "And, besides," she added thoughtfully "I
don't see that they are keeping so very strictly to the rules. There
are the six Princesses being left out."
"You must be very particular, if you call it breaking the rules
not to insist on his marrying his six sisters," said
Croässaquagha.
"Oh, I see," said Daffodil, enlightened. "You mean
Prince Brekekex. Would you like to marry him?"
"Who wouldn't?" said Croässaquagha, laughing.
"Why, you look as thoughtful as if you were putting the question in
earnest. Of course I should like to marry Prince Brekekex, if it were
possible: and so would you."
"He is much nicer than that King Grenoulcrawk, certainly,"
said Daffodil. "A hundred times nicer, for anybody he quite suited.
But I am afraid it was only Grenoulcrawk that I thought we could manage
with for you to be Queen of Grachidichika."
"But that too is impossible," said Croässaquagha,
mournfully.
"I don't think the Queen is so very particular about him, if
she can only get the rules to seem to be kept," argued
Daffodil; "or else she would not be taking me for him and having all
that abdicating to fit me in. She could easily make out that your position
was the same for him as if you were still Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary--or she could make out something from your having the
title of Princess--"
"Under-Princess," interpolated
Croässaquagha.
"Well, he is a very under sort of King," said Daffodil.
"I don't know about that," said the Private
Under-Princess, rather scandalised at Daffodil's irreverence.
"He is King Regnant of the Matrimonial State of Grachidichika; and
his wife will be the greatest Queen in the world next to Queen
Raucacoäxine."
"Well, anyhow the Queen could easily find some
way of getting rid of your tiny bit of ineligibility, as it is so very tiny. Why, she could let you abdicate the Private and the Under for the wedding, or he could abdicate himself into a Private Under Prince for the occasion."
"I believe you are right as to the legal possibilities,"
said Croässaquagha, thoughtfully.
"And don't you think that the Queen would rather it were you
than I, when she saw it could be? You see I am a foreigner and don't
understand the ways, and you would make such a much better Queen of
Grachidichika. And then she can't really like making me marry bound
and gagged."
"Yes, she would prefer it, I think, in itself," said
Croässaquagha; "but her heart is set now on Guachapeara becoming
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary."
"That's easy," Daffodil replied cheerfully.
"I'll resign at once."
"You cannot. I resigned for you; you cannot for
Guachapeara."
"Why not? I'd resign for anybody the Queen liked."
"Even if you are willing to make such a sacrifice of your position
and your fame," replied the Under-Princess, "the Queen
could not permit it. It would be a scandal. I am the only Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary who ever vacated the office, except by death--natural
death, or in the Boa Constrictor's mouth for treason, as has happened
thrice in the history of Croäxaxica. Your unprecedented style of
genius--a genius that can bear the clog of having to execute its
conceptions for the vulgar eye to perceive--was fit reason for my
unprecedented course.
But it would be ridiculous for you to imitate my example for Guachapeara, and it would make her ridiculous--and the thing that no inimitable Croäxaxican can be allowed to be is to be ridiculous."
"Then I will resign in your favour. That will make you eligible
for the marriage without any more trouble. Then, as soon as you are
married, the office will be vacant and Princess Guachapeara can have
it."
"It is impossible. You don't even yet understand the
immutability with which the reverence of ages surrounds your office. How
can you resign it for me who have already surrendered it to you on the
ground of your better fitness for it? No: as long as you exist,
neither I nor Guachapeara can be Dressmaker Plenipotentiary--unless,
of course, your elevation to the throne of Grachidichika removes
you."
"I seem terribly in the way," said Daffodil. "And I am
in my own way worst of all."
"I told you you could not alter anything," said
Croässaquagha. "You had much better not fidget about it any
more. Fate has decreed you a high and soul-inspiring destiny:
accept it, for you are worthy of it."
"I feel quite sure the Queen and Guachapeara herself
wouldn't think it made her ridiculous," said Daffodil returning
to her theme after her momentary despair. "And I could have some name
given me that would allow me to do all the inventing for her quietly and
keep her from making blunders."
Croässaquagha gazed at her with surprise and admiration. "All
obstacles disappear before your commanding intellect, your invincible will.
Yes,
this mighty scheme can be carried out, and I may be Queen of Grachidichika. But let me think. For one thing, can I consent to supplant yourself on the throne?"
"I shall be so much obliged to you, if you will," said
Daffodil.
Croässaquagha sat for a few minutes absorbed in thought. Then she
gave a sudden "Oh!"
"What is it?" cried Daffodil. "Have you hurt
yourself?"
"The Workhouse!" said Croässaquagha. "We were
forgetting the Workhouse."
"No we weren't" said Daffodil. "We talked about
that at the beginning, and I told you that wasn't the part I
minded."
"You did, you did. But in our picturings of the joys of the Queen
of Grachidichika, even as the wife of Grenoulcrawk and not Brekekex, I had
forgotten that the Workhouse for Failures awaited Grenoulcrawk's
wife, and that soon."
"I should say the Workhouse was the best part of it."
"I know you do, strange being. The coarse fare, the mushrooms and
the unflavoured water, you make your chosen diet in a palace. You dispense
with our luxuries; you--you even like work."
"I like some of the work you say they do in the Workhouse for
Failures," Daffodil said. "I should like to make the coloured
waters, and I should not mind plaiting lattice-work. I don't
think I should like teasing bog cotton, nor yet making mud--but
anything would seem better than being with that Grenoulcrawk for a
husband."
"I must believe you, though I cannot understand you "replied
the Private Under-Princess. "For you, then, the workhouse has
no terrors. But for me, born in splendours, nursed in luxury, revered,
beloved, admired, for me to endure the privations and drudgery of the
poverty-stricken receptacle for failures, for
me, ME, to be classed as a
failure--" she paused horror-struck, then, clasping her
hands, she exclaimed. "Daffodil, for pity's sake do not give
the Queen a hint even of the scheme you have entertained. She would jump at
the notion. Nothing could save me."
"Couldn't I say you wouldn't have the King at all if
you were to have to go to the Workhouse after, and that the Queen must
consider herself bound in honour not to act upon my plan at all unless she
would accept the condition and get you abdicated, or something, out of that
rule?" was Daffodil's next suggestion.
But Croässaquagha felt no confidence in the Queen's
considering herself bound by any such stipulation, and was in a great
fright. "If she once gets a glimmering of your plan, she will insist
on it, whatever becomes of me. It would suit her so capitally; because you
could be kept to do all Guachapeara's inventing for her and make her
famous."
"I must think of something else," sighed Daffodil, wearily.
She would not give the answer Croässaquagha was to ask for the Queen
as to her behaviour on the morrow. "I won't say what I'll
do, till I have had a good while to think by myself," she declared
resolutely. "And, if that answer does make
the Queen more angry, I can't help it. She cannot possibly punish me worse than by marrying me the way she is going to do."
She consented, however, to send a respectful message to the effect that
she would be prepared to state her intention later, if Her Majesty required
her to do so.
"And I do hope your answer will be that you will go
and be married quietly," said the Private Under-Princess, as
she took leave, "You see it does not in the least depend upon you
whether you are married or not, but it does depend upon you whether it will
be done comfortably for you or not."
The words sounded disagreeably true. Daffodil thought for hours, and at
the end they only seemed truer. She resolved to go quietly.
In the evening, a muffled figure entered unannounced. It was the Queen.
"Dressmaker Plenipotentiary," she said in solemn tones,
"I myself, your Queen, give you a latest opportunity of a return to
loyalty and obedience. You are to be married to-morrow. Do you go to
Grachidichika willingly and thankfully, or do I send you there in
shackles?"
"I can't go willingly and thankfully, please Your
Majesty," replied Daffodil, "because I do so very much hate it.
But, if you won't be merciful and let me off, I will go without
resistance."
"And smilingly?" asked the Queen, still with some severity
in her tone, though evidently beginning to be appeased.
"I will smile, since your Majesty desires it" said
Daffodil.
"You are a darling!" said the Queen, and she gave her a
kiss.
"I would rather Your Majesty did not do that," said
Daffodil; "because I should certainly thwart your wish in this matter
if I could."
"You can't," said the Queen. "And all I want of
you is that you shan't make any tiresome fuss. You
promise?"
"Yes" said Daffodil. "Since it is of no use to make a
fuss, I won't make one."
"Then I still say you are a darling," said the Queen, highly
pleased, and she kissed her again. She was now in such good humour that she
sat down and entered into conversation, describing pathetically all the
troubles she had had while bringing about this marriage. Matters were now
all comfortably settled. The Regius Professor of Everything, in terrible
grief at having forfeited the Queen's favour, had shut himself up
with all his books and with a stack of water-cresses and a ton of
mussels to sharpen his wits, determined not to stir out until he had
discovered something to assist her in her policy. The result was that he
went, after only three days, to the Crown Prince, able to point out to him
that, if the Duke of Happypool were to be made King of Grachidichika, his
daughter, as daughter of a reigning King, would not be able to marry the
Crown Prince's eldest son, if the Crown Prince was still Crown Prince
when his eldest son was ready for a wife--which was more likely than
the opposite contingency, as King Logaplop gave, happily, every promise of
living into a hale old age. The Crown Prince, impressed by this important
aspect of
the case, and glad to have an opportunity of ending the coolness between himself and his mother, went to her and communicated the Professor's statement, expressing himself willing to withdraw every suggestion of the Duke of Happypool's being made King Grenoulcrawk's successor, under existing circumstances, and wholly convinced of the wisdom of Her Majesty's scheme. The Queen had received her son's return to her councils with joy, and the Regius Professor of Everything gained a higher place in her favour than ever. The Head Royal Physician also had thoroughly atoned for his error: the zeal and skill with which he had calmed King Grenoulcrawk's feverish fractiousness and assisted the ambassador to make him, not only content to marry Daffodil, but fretting for her arrival, had earned Her Majesty's highest satisfaction. The Princesses had been won to forget their dislike to the loss of their favourite companion and helper by its being decided that, as the bridegroom, though he had to be unkinged for just the time of the wedding, was really a King, it would not be unseemly that they should add lustre to the bride's position by being of her wedding party. They had left off crying, and were impatient for the eventful morning. Prince Brekekex alone remained uncheerful. He approved, indeed, of the Queen's scheme, as the only practical way to meet so many difficulties; but he was grieved at Daffodil's unwillingness. In spite of its being very disagreeable to him to contemplate her permanent absence in Grachidichika and the Workhouse, he would have taken things pleasantly, like everybody else, if the bride had felt the natural pleasure of her position,
but, now it appeared as if her reluctance were so much in earnest that she must be forced to her wedding like a criminal to execution, he seemed so full of hesitation and compunction that it was feared that, if she persevered in her obstinacy, he might give trouble at the last moment and even have to have his signature put to the abdicating document by force.
"But now," said the Queen, "all will go delightfully,
and I shall not have the vexation of forcing anybody to do anything they
object to. You are really a darling, and I am quite sorry to part with you.
If there were any other way of managing things, I would not do it even
now."
Daffodil thought of that plan about Croässaquagha which she knew
would please the Queen so well, and bit her lip hard not to cry. But,
although she could not free herself from her hated fate by the only means
which seemed sure of success, she made one more attempt by a fervent
supplication to the Queen to let her off the marriage. She moved the Queen
to tears. "I am really very sorry for you," said Her Majesty
tenderly; "since you feel your leaving our Court with this sincerity,
I wish I had any other person who could fill your place. But you see what
unspeakably important interests depend on your becoming Queen of
Grachidichika. There, now, go to bed early, and get up to-morrow a
happy fond smiling bride, as you promised."
"Your Majesty, I only promised to smile," said Daffodil.
"Quite so," said the Queen graciously. "I am very much
pleased with you. Good-night, your Matri-
monial Majesty." And off she went, in the height of affability.
Daffodil took Queen Raucacoäxine's advice and went to bed
early; she remembered. that she was to leave the prison at four, and she
wished to be as fresh in mind and body as possible. "Whatever is to
happen to me," she thought, "I had better keep myself able to
do the best I can."
She was awakened next morning still earlier than she had expected. The
Queen had ordered that she should secretly be conducted to the Palace. Her
Majesty received her herself. "Isn't this nice for you?"
she said to her. "I didn't like your starting from the
prison--and there might be a talk about it if it got known--and,
now you are in the proper frame of mind for a bride, you can be dressed in
my own room, and start from the Palace with the Royal Party."
"I had rather go this way than bound and gagged," replied
Daffodil brightly. And she set about her wedding toilette with alacrity,
and thanked the Head Royal Dresspicker and the Head Royal Dressmaker for
the pains they must have taken to prepare such a pretty and
well-sized bridal costume. The Queen presented her with a
magnificent tiara of toadstools, and there were bracelets and necklaces as
wedding presents from every member of the Royal Family and from the Private
Under-Princess, whose great wealth had enabled her to send jewels
which the Queen herself could scarcely match, and from the Regius Professor
and the Head Royal Physician. Daffodil felt pleased at so much
kindness.
As the procession, with as much quiet and secrecy as its stateliness
allowed, started for Grachidichika, Daffodil could not but observe that she
was still closely guarded and that, although everything was done to conceal
the fact under the semblance of a reverent attendance upon her, a close
watch over her was kept. However, as she had not dreamed for a moment of
breaking her word, she felt no disappointment at these indications of the
impossibility of her escape. She had the honour of being escorted by the
Crown Prince, and with him she chatted so agreeably that he was moved to
exclaim "I am really so sorry we are to lose you. Our Court will be
quite dull without you."
Prince Brekekex, escorting the Crown Princess, noted the bride's
demeanour, and brightened with her brightness. "It is so nice to find
you so pleased," he took an opportunity of saying to her as they
stopped without the Kingdom of Grachidichika, at the tunnel's mouth,
to wait for King Grenoulcrawk, who was to sign his abdication there.
"I shouldn't have liked to do my part this morning, if you had
been vexed at the marriage still: but it's all quite enjoyable
now."
"And, as you would have to be made to do your part by force, if
you refused, I would rather you did it comfortably," said
Daffodil.
"It's the best plan," said Prince Brekekex, "and
I am glad you think so. You remember my lines
The valiant heart will never once obey,
For, when it
must, 'That's what I will'
'twill say,
Thus always can be having its own
way."
"That's just it," answered the bride of King
Grenoulcrawk.
As she spoke, King Grenoulcrawk's head appeared peeping out of the
tunnel, then disappeared with a jerk, as if he had been pulled back. Next
moment the whole of him was seen, with his arms leaning on the Ambassador
and the Head Royal Physician, who seemed much more anxious to continue
their support than he to accept it--the fact being that they were
afraid of his bouncing into the canal, now they had brought him so
temptingly near that opportunity for playing them a trick.
"Pray make haste, Prince Brekekex," cried the Head Royal
Physician, there being no time for ceremony; and Brekekex sprang, at one
leap, over the heads of the bride and her Royal Bridesmaids, to the edge of
the landing-place. There the King poked into his hand a deed, which
Brekekex signed, and which the King was, with some difficulty, got to make
a show of signing by just touching the letters of his name. "I signed
it last night for you," he kept declaring, "and it can't
have worn out so soon." However, he did what was wanted, and again
poked the document into Brekekex's hand. Brekekex, thereupon, jumped
out of the water, and, the moment he was ashore, on a whisper from the
Ambassador, snatched off Grenoulcrawk's crown and put it on his own
head, dragged the sceptre from under Grenoulcrawk's arm, took the
ball which the Head Royal Physician had twitched out of
Grenoulcrawk's pocket ready for him, and ran off into Grachidichika
before the dethroned monarch could make an effort to stop him.
It is doubtful whether Grenoulcrawk understood the process he had gone
through, but at any rate his feeble faculties were unable to comprehend the
propriety of somebody else using his crown, sceptre, and ball, and (and of
this he thought still more) preceding him in the procession. But, while he
was stamping and scolding, the Head Royal Physician, with great presence of
mind, exclaimed, as if something unexpected had happened at that moment,
"Hullo! Here's the bride! What an extraordinary creature!
Isn't she lovelily funny?" And, the bridegroom's
attention being thus diverted from his grievance, matters became pleasant
again.
The wedding party now landed solemnly, and Daffodil was led to her
bridegroom, who received her with enthusiastic delight, turning
summersaults and cutting capers in her honour until he was out of breath
and could barely totter. As soon as he was able to lead the procession, it
started for the palace whence the ceremonial march to the wedding was to
begin. Etiquette did not allow of his conducting his bride on the way to
his Palace; the appearance, hand in hand, of the Royal Bridal Pair, which
is a marked portion of the wedding formalities, would have been premature
at present, and the Crown Princess of Croäxaxica, the highest lady
present, was the proper person for him to escort. The bride followed with
the Crown Prince, surrounded by the Royal Princesses who had condescended
to be her bridesmaids. Grenoulcrawk, though he submitted to this
arrangement, was so eager to have the wedding begin and to be able to walk
with the wife whom he declared "just made for
him, she suited him so well," that, as soon as he recovered from his previous exertions, he first tried walking backwards to see her as they followed him, and then, finding that inconvenient, set off running to get to the Palace as fast as possible, pulling his daughter along with him, and compelling the whole company to break out of their dignified pace and scamper along not to lose sight of him.
When they arrived in the Great Throne Hall, they found Brekekex seated
on the throne in state, as King of Grachidichika, with nobody with him but
the Speaker of the House of Commons, who had been put there to attend on
the new monarch. Only two of the most trusted of the inhabitants had been
allowed to know what was going on, and they had to be at the cathedral,
ready to receive the Patriarch of Croäxaxica, who had come with the
wedding party, and to act as beadles. There was no permanent Cathedral in
Grachidichika, the Royal chapel adjoining the Great Throne Room being more
than large enough to accommodate all the inhabitants of the Kingdom, but,
for high ceremonials, it was customary to raise in the grounds a temporary
building called Cathedral, Hall, or Court, as the occasion required, in
order to give space for a procession, and, though the haste and the secrecy
of the present event made it impossible to have a construction of the
customary size and dignity, it was indispensable to have something to
represent the marriage Cathedral, as the bridal procession to it was in
itself part of the marriage ceremony. The assembling of the wedding party
in the Great Throne Hall was a matter of necessary etiquette, but it was
not intended
to lose any time in the customary compliments and marshallings. The wisdom of curtailing this part of the proceedings was the more apparent that Grenoulcrawk manifested considerable perturbation at the sight of the occupier of his throne. In great haste the bride's arm was placed in the bridegroom's by the Crown Prince, and the pair were run and pushed up to the front of the throne to make their reverences to the King of Grachidichika.
"I greet my dear Royal Kinsfolk and subjects now ratifying their
marriage contract. Come back to me presently husband and wife," said
Brekekex, in the formula prescribed for such occasions. If he had been
going to the wedding he would have had to say "I will greet
you presently husband and wife," instead of "Come
back to me." It had been decided, however, that, although he
did not like losing the wedding, he had better remain on the throne, so as
to establish distinctly the fact that he, not Grenoulcrawk, had been King
of Grachidichika during the marriage of Grenoulcrawk and the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary of Croäxaxica.
The word "wife" was still on Brekekex's lips, when
Daffodil found herself again hustled and dragged forward on
Grenoulcrawk's arm. Grenoulcrawk, himself, showed a momentary wish to
resist. "He's in my throne," he grumbled. "And
he's got my crown and things," but a "Hold your bride
fast, Your Majesty, for fear she should run away," from the Head
Royal Physician, in a loud whisper of pretended alarm, distracted his
attention satisfactorily while the pair were being got out of the Throne
Room. The rest of the party followed as rapidly as their necessary
salutations to the King on the throne allowed--and such very diminished salutations had never been known before. Brekekex, though he knew that the irreverence was accidental, and though he was scarcely really a King, was not able to help feeling a little annoyed. But a consolatory thought struck him. "I shall make them all salute me with the full State honours, very slowly, after the marriage, before I abdicate," said he to the Speaker when he found himself again alone with that solemn representative of the Grachidichikan nation.
Grenoulcrawk became sedate and cheerful as the procession advanced from
the Palace. He walked looking at Daffodil, and seemed to find enjoyment in
her company. He began conversation, telling her he had not understood why
it wasn't the Princess Royal of Croäxaxica that was insisting on
marrying him, instead of only her, but that he now saw she had been quite
right to insist, as he was very much pleased with her and quite agreed with
his State advisers that it would not have been proper that any one but
himself should have her, since there was not, he understood, any other such
a frog as herself in the world. And he went so far as to stroke her face
and call her his fine big doll.
"If you do that again, I'll slap you," cried
Daffodil.
"That will be fun," answered her bridegroom. "But we
mustn't begin to have a game of romps yet; because we must keep quiet
till they have done getting us married. But come along, we'll go
quicker, and then all the fuss will be over sooner and we can do what we
like by ourselves. Hooray!" and he began to prance along double
quick.
Daffodil felt her heart sink at this exhilaration in her bridegroom. She
had had leisure in the last two or three minutes, in spite of his chatter,
to feel that the marriage ceremony had really begun, and she knew that a
minute or two more must bring her to the spot for its irrevocable
completion. Although several repetitions of the wedding forms were
indispensable for decorum, the first celebration would be final in its
binding effect, so that she was even now in the crisis of her fate. In all
probability, thought she, they would find it necessary to hurry and hustle
Grenoulcrawk through the ritual in the Cathedral, and she would find
herself married before she could make out what was passing. She wanted all
her composure now. And she especially wanted her bridegroom to be in the
cheery quiet from which her threat had aroused him. With a horrible anxiety
in her mind lest she should be too late in getting him calm enough for the
attention she required, she set to work to bring him back to a more placid
enjoyment of his position. He relaxed his pace, the idea of romping left
him, and he began to chat sedately again. The rude little edifice, half
cellar, half wigwam, which was to be their marriage Cathedral stood a dozen
paces in front of them. There was no time to be lost.
"Do look at my funny nose-knob," said Daffodil.
Grenoulcrawk gazed at the protuberance, he stopped to gaze better, and
turned to face her. On the moment, she moved to go on, and trod with all
her might on his feet!
With a loud howl, the injured bridegroom sprang over the ground, ten
feet at a time, and plunged into
the nearest guggle-ooze beds. In vain was he pursued, in vain was he even overtaken, go near the bride he would not. His agitation whenever he was brought near her became so tremendous that the Head Royal Physician, although in agonies of apprehension lest Queen Raucacoäxine should misapprehend his motives, was forced to inform the Crown Prince that, if the attempt to reconcile the enraged and terrified bridegroom was persisted in, his life would be the price, as he had already had three fits, besides wearing himself faint with screaming. And, whenever Grenoulcrawk was not faint or in a fit, he was using his skill in throwing all sorts of heavy things at the wedding party, more especially at the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince agreed that they must go as fast as they could, taking the unlucky bride with them.
In the hurry to leave Grachidichika, Brekekex was almost forgotten.
Daffodil remembered him when she caught sight of Grenoulcrawk running slily
to the Palace with the Patriarch's seat from the Cathedral on his
head. Pointing him out with a cry of warning to those around her, she ran
to the Palace, and, as the rest, though quicker runners than she, were
slower in perceiving the need for haste, she reached the Throne Hall first.
Just as she was telling Brekekex why he must come away at once,
Grenoulcrawk rushed in, shouting "Now I'll have my throne and
crown and things," and was about to hurl his missile. But, suddenly,
seeing Daffodil, he gave a shriek of alarm, and fled. Brekekex, on his
side, lost no time, before shouting "I abdicate, I abdicate."
He dashed the crown, the
sceptre, and the ball on the floor, and, rushing to the Speaker, threw into his lap the deed of abdication he had signed, ready for the proper moment, to pass the time while he was sitting on the throne with nothing to do. Then, hand in hand with Daffodil, whom he felt to be a sure protector against King Grenoulcrawk, he ran to the road out of Grachidichika, and met the contingent of the discomfited wedding party who had had the courage and energy to come to seek him--chiefly consisting of his youngest sisters, whose childish rashness experience had not yet controlled.
"We must hasten to inform Her Majesty of the surprising change of
mind of the King of Grachidichika," said the Crown Prince, with
resentful dignity. And thereupon he took to his heels, and, everybody
following his example, the wedding party speedily arrived in
Croäxaxica.
But, to the general surprise, Her Majesty, though terribly disappointed
at the rupture of the marriage on which so much depended and which she had
planned so carefully in every detail that it had seemed impossible anything
could hinder it, showed no indignation at all--excepting
indeed against King Grenoulcrawk, whose perfidy in refusing to fulfil his
engagement would, she said, be properly punished by an armed invasion of
his territory, if it were not that his deposition was undesirable while
Prince Brekekex was unmarried. She even showed displeasure when blame was
thrown on Daffodil: she did not see, she said, that treading on a
person who got himself under your feet was an offence
against the law of nations, or against decorum, or even against natural grace and elegance. In fact it was evident that it would be just a lady of the highest refinement and dignity who would tumble over Grenoulcrawk. All her hearers, except Daffodil, were considerably perplexed by this view of the case; but they thought it consolatory. And it may well be imagined that Daffodil was greatly relieved by Her Majesty's favourable expressions.
But, unhappily, Her Majesty's leniency towards the culprit could
not remove the serious political consequences of the act. Who was now to
take wifely charge of King Grenoulcrawk and prolong his life by her
guidance, obedience, amusingness, scoldings, so that he might not fulfil
his apparent destiny and follow his former Queen before Brekekex's
intended wife had got born? Attempts were made to bring the injured monarch
to think with equanimity of continuing the marriage ceremony which had been
so woefully disturbed: but, as Queen Raucacoäxine had too surely
foreboded to her counsellors, while directing them to try all endeavours
imaginable to prevail upon him, all endeavours failed. The results were
even harmful: King Grenoulcrawk had been all the better in health and
serenity for the excitement he had undergone; instead of injuring him, as
had naturally been apprehended, it seemed to have acted as a stimulating
tonic to his mental and bodily faculties, and he became better than he had
been since he had begun to miss his wife. But the alarm raised in his mind
by the proposal of bringing him again in contact with the being who had
crushed his toes, and the fatigue of under-
going so many arguments and persuasions, soon exhausted and enfeebled him, and he would do nothing but weep and moan over his lost Chachareraroncaxa, his dear old Queen that wouldn't have let them bring him any wretch to tread on him.
It was evident that all thought of making Daffodil Grenoulcrawk's
Queen must be abandoned, and that he must be reassured on that head as soon
as possible. The resolution was fortunately taken in time, and the
sufferer, when he became really convinced that he was to see Daffodil no
more, began to revive. And now the desperate idea of sacrificing the
Princess Royal of Croäxaxica to the Workhouse for Failures began to
press on the Queen's mind. She even went so far as to have the
suggestion of this alliance made to Grenoulcrawk. But Grenoulcrawk, who had
had his doll given back to him and who, in her society, was recovering
somewhat of his natural gaiety, felt the shock of a proposal for yet
another marriage so severely that he collapsed and was with difficulty
recovered. The Head Royal Physician had no choice but to tell Queen
Raucacoäxine that any further effort to prolong the King of
Grachidichika's life by providing him with a consort would make an
end of him. The Head Royal Physician had fortunately so thoroughly
satisfied Raucacoäxine by his recent services that she felt no anger
against him at this grievous communication, and merely listened with the
calm of despair.
The King of Croäxaxica, himself, was aroused by the state of
affairs. He said "If Brekekex can't get married before King
Grenoulcrawk requires a
successor, we shall have to let Happypool be King of Grachidichika."
"Never!" exclaimed Queen Raucacoäxine, clasping her
hands.
One night the Private Under-Princess requested an interview with
the Queen, alone. She looked grave and embarrassed. "Your
Majesty," she faltered, "my beloved and venerated Queen, I have
something to break to you--something terrible."
"Go on," said the Queen, gasping but courageous.
"I am distressed that it is my voice that has to tell you a harsh
and irrepressible truth," Croässaquagha said apologetically.
"But loyalty forbids my keeping anything disagreeable from Your
Majesty. And, lowly though I be, I love the Royal Family. And the soul of
genius abhors keeping a secret."
"You are quite right, my dear Private
Under-Princess," replied the Queen; "secrets kept from
me are disagreeable. Go on, reveal the worst."
"Your Majesty, my attendant, Seventy Seven And A Half, one of our
Under Royal Wardrobe-maids, is a great gossip."
"That is terrible," said the Queen. "But I can bear
it."
"But Your Majesty--"
"Never mind the particulars," interrupted the Queen.
"My head and heart are weary already with particulars. This
Grachidichikan difficulty is interminable. I trust your general statement
on the subject: the only question is how to deal with the offender. I
am informed that there arc two vacancies on the Grachidichikan Household
staff: why should we not recommend her for one?"
"But, Your Majesty," said the Private Under-Princess,
"That is not all. It is something quite different I have to
say."
"Then why did you say that?" said the Queen.
"Your Majesty knows," said Croässaquagha, going on with
her story, "how little likely my mind is to seek tittle-tattle
for its food. I do not permit Seventy Seven And A Half to break my repose
with the results of her widespread researches into domestic events. But
this morning she touched on a subject which aroused my attention, and, as a
duty to my Sovereigns and country, I invited information. I learned that,
although betrothed to an attendant of the King of Grachidichika, she has
lately, for want of his society, permitted the attentions of a servant of
the Duke of Happypool."
"She shall be dismissed at once, without a character," said
the Queen. "What business has an Under Royal Wardrobe-maid to
keep company with a person of that disgusting kind?"
"Of course I reproved her, Your Majesty. But--"
"Oh don't tell me any more about the unworthy
creature," broke in the Queen. "Write me out an order to the
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary to dismiss her, and I'll sign it at
once."
"But, Your Majesty, I have not come to the secret," said the
Private Under-Princess.
"If you know any worse of her, she must be fit for hanging,"
said the Queen.
"The companion of her holiday hours," resumed the Private
Under-Princess, "is the oldest and most confidential servant
of the Happypool family--one
who looks on the Duke as a son and would sacrifice anything to the advancement of his interests, which he feels to be his own. Of course he is trusted with every secret of the house, great or small, and Seventy Seven And A Half may be relied on for having accurate information."
"Ah!" said the Queen "I won't dismiss her.
It'll serve Happypool right to have all his private affairs gossiped
about, and I am not bound to dismiss a valuable servant to protect him from
a little annoyance."
Croässaquagha continued, "Struck by what she said, I at once
gave her leave to go to meadow-sweet this afternoon at the
Duke's with her admirer--an entertainment not unfamiliar to
her--and to bring him to supper in my house--an entertainment, I
have reason to believe, not unfamiliar to him. The result is that I have
just learned from Seventy Seven And A Half the treachery I come to reveal.
Madam, that baby you meant to be born--the wife for Prince
Brekekex--something has happened to her. Her existence had been nipped
before you had begun to intend her to exist."
She paused: but the Queen was speechless with curiosity and
surprise.
The narrator continued "At the time of the death of Queen
Chachareraroncaxa, Madam, the Duke of Happypool perceived, like yourself,
the difficulties in the way of Prince Brekekex's succession. He
resolved that, if he should have a daughter, he would hide her away till
King Grenoulcrawk died and thus keep himself a good chance of being called
to the throne, from Prince Brekekex's
not being able to get a wife in time. So when she was born--"
"What!" exclaimed Raucacoäxine "born! The baby I
was thinking of really born already!"
"The day before yesterday," said the Private
Under-Princess.
"And I thought we should have months to wait!" cried the
Queen in a transport of joy. And she rushed into the adjacent room in which
she had left her two sons, her two eldest daughters, the Professor of
Everything, and the Head Royal Physician, who had all of them, according to
the present melancholy custom, been talking over everything with her when
the Private Under-Princess arrived.
"Triumph! Victory! Success!" shouted Her Majesty.
"Hear, hear the news. Happypool's second child was born the day
before yesterday in a mystery. Brekekex's wife is at hand
already!"
The acclamations with which this communication was received were
perfectly riotous. Only, Brekekex added regretfully, "I wish she
could have been born a little more grown up. A baby seems a difficult sort
of wife to manage."
"Never mind. It will grow up nicely by and by in
Grachidichika," said the Queen encouragingly. "The thing is to
marry it at once and be safe, whatever happens to Grenoulcrawk. But I think
we must only have quite a quiet wedding now. And then we can have some
grand celebration in a few years' time when she is older."
They discussed these wedding arrangements for a while, and then Her
Majesty, whose good humour at the unexpected possession of a bride at once
for
Prince Brekekex had kept resentment at its father's intention of hiding it out of her mind, bethought herself of mentioning the treachery which he had intended. "There is nothing for it, however," she said, "but to seem not to understand anything but that he wanted to give us a pleasant surprise; for the only other alternative would be to punish his treason by the Boa Constrictor, and then Brekekex could not marry the baby after all, and Zumbarzabulixine would have to give up her husband that is growing up for her, and none could be born for Guachapeara and the others."
Meanwhile the Private Under-Princess had been left alone in the
room in which she had had an interview with the Queen. She waited for some
time expecting that Her Majesty would return to her, or that she should be
called. At last, finding that she was forgotten, and feeling the necessity
of putting Her Majesty in possession of all the facts before any course of
action was irrevocably decided, she appeared, unsummoned, among the
rejoicing party. "Forgive my intrusion, Your Majesty," she
said. "But my story is not done."
"Good gracious!" said the Queen. "Well, do get on with
it. You had got to the Duke of Happypool's daughter being born the
day before yesterday."
"I had, Your Majesty. And here comes the fatal part of the
narrative. When she was born, it turned out that she was a son."
One mighty groan arose simultaneously and filled the air with a roar. It
was some time before any of Croässaquagha's hearers could
speak.
"The infant traitor shall pay for his crime with his life,"
said the Queen, at last.
"Why, no, that won't do," said the Crown Prince.
"We shall want him for a husband."
"Yes, to be sure he will be of some use," said the Queen,
brightening up a little. "Appalling as this catastrophe is, there is
comfort in that."
"My story has to be concluded," said the Private
Under-Princess, "May I go on?"
"For goodness sake, go on and come to the end," replied Her
Majesty.
"She has ceased to live," said the Private
Under-Princess. "Whether because she found she was a son
instead of the daughter required by Your Majesty, Prince Brekekex,
Croäxaxica, and Grachidichika, or whether from constitutional
moroseness, she did nothing but cry. The nurse imprudently gave her mussels
to quiet her; they disagreed with her, and, in fact, choked her."
"But, if it was not a daughter after all, why has Happypool gone
on making a secret of it?" asked the Queen. "Brekekex
couldn't have it for his wife if it was a boy and died."
"He thinks, as he might incur suspicion for the concealment that
has been practised, that, the child being dead, he may as well keep the
whole matter secret still," answered Croässaquagha. "And
also he is desirous of your continuing to lose time in waiting for his
daughter for Prince Brekekex."
"My bride is dead,
My throne has
fled,
I'll go to bed." said poor Brekekex
ruefully. Verse soothed his feelings.
"Stop," said the Queen. "Nobody can go to bed now. We
must devise something to baffle that atrocious
conspirator."
But nobody could devise anything to get Brekekex a wife, which was the
great point. They were at last about to break up their midnight council in
despair, when Croässaquagha said timidly, but with resolution,
"Let it be allowed to my insignificance to give vent to a daring
proposal which has been in my mind."
"Pray do," said everybody, with enthusiasm.
"Your Majesty, illustrious Princes and Princesses, and Regius
Professor of Everything, and Royal Head Physician," said the Private
Under-Princess, "My weak mind has been inspired with the
scheme that can make Prince Brekekex's future crown secure and give
him a Queen to take with him to Grachidichika when he gets it. But, ere I
speak, let me hear from the Head Royal Physician whether I have understood
him rightly that King Grenoulcrawk cannot live till another baby is born
for Prince Brekekex in place of the one who has gone wrong."
"I can only repeat what I have already had the honour of
regretfully stating to Her Majesty so many times this evening," said
the Head Royal Physician. "It is wholly impossible."
"Then, hear me, all," said Croässaquagha, and became
silent. Everybody felt sure she was going to say something, but could not
think what it could be.
"Let Prince Brekekex marry Daffodil, the Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary of Croäxaxica."
There was a pause. The proposal was so sudden
that all needed time to recover from the shock. Then "He can't." "He can." "It is within the law." "Such a thing was never heard of!" "Too bold a step." "Not a bad idea," went buzzing about backwards and forwards.
"Shall I retire?" asked Croässaquagha, who thought she
might be an intruder on the council.
"No; stay and help us to consult," answered the Queen.
"Your suggestion is altogether so remarkable that one does not know
what to make of it all at once. Has any one anything to say?"
"It's a come-down for Brekekex, in his
position," said the Crown Prince. "But, as Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary, she seems to be legally eligible, when one comes to think
of it. And, then, she's ready at once. It's queer; but we might
do it."
"It's queer," said Prince Brekekex. "But
I've been making up my mind that I should like it. She and I are very
congenial."
"It is queer," said the Princess Royal.
"But she is stylish-looking and striking in her way, though
she is so unfortunately plain. And, if Brekekex likes it and there is no
other marriage he can make, I don't see why he
shouldn't do it."
"It isn't so very very queer, when you come to
think of it," said the Princess Guachapeara. "A Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary is somebody. As, at the very best, Brekekex could only have
a Happypool wife, not a Royal Princess, I don't see why Daffodil
shouldn't be counted good enough, now he can get no one
else."
"Technically speaking, she is eligible, there being no one
else," said the Regius Professor of Everything.
"There are points in favour of this sole candidate's being
chosen as a future Queen for Prince Brekekex, as well as points against
it," said the Head Royal Physician.
"Well," said Her Majesty, "you all argue powerfully in
favour of this unequal marriage for Brekekex, and I don't like to
stand against such earnest persuasion. Still, aren't we rather
straining the law to let her in? It can only have been for such a very
junior Prince that it was intended that a person with no Royal
Blood,--even so high a person as a Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary--should be eligible."
"That is true, Your Majesty," said the Regius Professor of
Everything, not discerning that the Queen was willing to have her objection
removed. "It was for the tenth son of the eighth son of a reigning
King that the law was made, and there has been no second instance of a
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary not of Royal Blood being admitted into the Royal
Family, by Marriage."
"Perhaps you have found second instances of Happypools being
allowed to manage to become Kings for want of wives for the proper
Prince," replied Her Majesty witheringly.
The Professor resumed his speech. "But, if I may express my belief
of the view which will be taken of this matter by the nation, the world,
and the writers of Croäxaxican history, the present circumstances
render the proposed bride, not merely eligible, but exceptionally eligible
for promotion to be the consort of His Royal Highness. She is in fact
indispensable."
On this the Queen began to see so many diffi-
culties and grave objections that to decide in favour of the marriage seemed growing impossible. It was Croässaquagha who brought back the discussion to firm ground. "One argument has been overlooked by every one," she remarked. "The marriage of the present Dressmaker Plenipotentiary to Prince Brekekex, even if it were not held sufficient warrant for her resigning her office now, would require her doing so ere long when she became Queen of Grachidichika."
"It will be quite proper for her to resign now, on her
marriage," said the Queen eagerly. "An excellent notion! And
she can invent all the dresses without any one knowing and do lots of
things in secret instead of Guachapeara, until Guachapeara has got quite
used to having great ideas."
"That would be nice for her!" exclaimed
Guachapeara enthusiastically.
"I shan't let her always be doing Guachapeara's work,
however," said Prince Brekekex. "I shall want her to help me,
you know."
"But you must not be selfish and stand in the way of your
sister's getting a genius" remonstrated the Queen.
"That's true," replied Brekekex. "And I
don't mind some sacrifice for a good purpose.
The frog whose
soul preserves heroic mood
Will ne'er refuse to let his wife do
good."
"And she will have more time a great deal to help you than she has
now, for she won't be sitting in the Plenipotentiary Chair of State,
nor giving audiences to any one. She will only get ready ideas for
Guachapeara privately at odd moments," said the Queen. "And,
now that's settled," she continued,
addressing everybody in general, "the next thing we ought to decide before we go to bed is whether the marriage must be a compressed one or whether we can have it at full length."
"That seems to depend altogether on King Grenoulcrawk," said
the Crown Prince. "What does the Head Royal Physician say?"
"I think the full nine days' wedding without compression of
days feasible in King Grenoulcrawk's present state," replied
the Head Royal Physician. "He is likely to go on as he is for some
weeks if nothing disturbs him again, although the least chance may end him
suddenly. Unless an unexpected emergency arrives, the nine days will be
able each to have its full length and every ceremony due to the exalted
bridegroom. But, for fear of an unexpected emergency, I would urge that the
wedding, however long it lasts, should begin at the earliest possible
moment."
"And that depends only on the white water-lilies,"
said Her Majesty. "So we shall not be forced to lose much
time."
"There are some capital buds just in a state to be made
suit," Guachapeara observed, with the authority of her technical
instruction. "But the full-blown flowers are past use just
now. I am afraid it must take a week before there can be a
wedding dress."
Guachapeara's verdict on the dress-growing possibilities
might reasonably be considered final, so it was at once decided that Prince
Brekekex and Daffodil should be married that day week. This left but scant
time for the preparations for an event of such great public importance; but
every moment of
delay was fraught with the danger of Brekekex's becoming King before his marriage. The Lord Chamberlain was sent for, late as it was; the King, who had long gone to bed, was waked up to give his consent--which he did with surprising alacrity, saying before he fell asleep again "It's the only way, and I was wondering Raucacoäxine didn't think of it"--and, the King's consent having warranted immediate action, the Lord Chamberlain received instructions to start the rejoicings on the Prince's betrothal at once. Heralds were to be sent out at earliest day, with music and flags, to announce all over Croäxaxica the happy news and invite all loyal citizens to be overjoyed and to show it. There were to be waterworks in the evening, and there was to be a Court Ball--only, the Lord Chamberlain was to see that all the guests invited to the Court Ball were made to understand that they were not to come. There was not time to prepare for such an entertainment, if people came to it; and so it could only take place in that manner. There were not to be other festivities for the wedding: but, to make up to Prince Brekekex for that, and on the ground of his being heir-apparent to the throne of Grachidichika, the marriage festivities--and the honeymoon festivities too, if, which seemed impossible, King Grenoulcrawk should live long enough for those to take place in Croäxaxica--were to be on almost the same scale as those for a Crown Prince of Croäxaxica.
But Brekekex, who had at first joined with even more glee than the
others in the discussion on the coming season of splendours and stately
revels, had
grown silent as the talk went on, and became pale and thoughtful. It was only when the Queen, in high good humour, cried "Come, come, we have settled everything and talked enough, and now we must really break up and go to bed and dream about the fine time coming," that he roused from his absorbed musing. "It can't be, it can't," he cried. "I strive in vain. I cannot marry the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary."
"What do you mean? Not marry after all this! And when the Lord
Chamberlain has gone, and, no doubt, has given the necessary orders for
to-morrow! Don't be so ridiculous," said the Queen
angrily. "We have no time for nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense. It's woeful, fatal earnest,"
said Brekekex ruefully. "Do listen. Do you think I can possibly marry
without making the offer in one of the most beautiful love poems that was
ever written? Could I, now, without ignominy?"
"Certainly not," said the Queen: "but what
difficulty is there in that? You must sit up to-night and write it.
It's a pity to lose your sleep, but it can't be
helped."
"But I can't make the poem and leave her out of it,"
said Brekekex.
"Of course not: put her in. As we accept her for your wife
it is only decent to waive her inferiority and treat her exactly as you
would a bride of Royal Blood. Put her into the poem."
"But there isn't a rhyme for Dressmaker Plenipotentiary! And
it won't go into blank verse!" said, or rather groaned, Prince
Brekekex, in his despair.
"This is fearful!" cried Queen Raucacoäxine. "Are
all our plans to be overthrown! Is Happypool to be king!" She wrung
her hands. Everybody gasped, groaned, or said "Good
gracious!"
Presently the Queen recovered herself. She rose with dignity, and
addressed Prince Brekekex. "Go from my presence, unworthy son,"
she said. And Prince Brekekex fled.
But, while the Queen, the Crown Prince, the Princesses Zumbarzabulixine
and Guachapeara, the Private Under-Princess, the Regius Professor of
Everything, and the Head Royal Physician, were still gloomily repining over
the sudden collapse of the marriage scheme, Prince Brekekex reappeared
radiant. "I have done it!" he cried, "I have done it! My
marriage is sure, and my genius is proved greater than ever! Hullaboloo!
Kekebrex King and troubadour too!"
"Well, but what have you done?" asked everybody eagerly.
"Listen to how I shall bring her in," said Brekekex.
"It will be at the end of the poem: just listen!" and he
recited--
"If Kekebrex, first of troubadours,
Has
stolen, 'mong many, that heart of yours,
Which
is a way his poetry has,
It shall be paid you by great King
Brekekex,
Who, ere that, Rex, must
marry.
To-day, still a Prince, I address you
as
My Dressmaker
Plen-ipoten-tiary."
The rapture with which this successful effort was received may be
imagined. "Ah," said Brekekex,
when the applause had subsided, "you are kind to praise me so. But I cannot but own that I do feel I have indeed achieved something. No other poet who ever lived could have made her come into the poem. The rest of it will be easy you know--about her loving me and my being a poet and a King: but to have got her into rhyme!"
"How did so splendid a thought flash upon you?" asked
Croässaquagha admiringly.
"Ah!" said he "It isn't always one knows the
very moment of one's inspirations; but I do this time. I went to
consult her herself, without letting her know what it was for. I made the
servants that waked her up merely tell her I begged to see her on important
and urgent business, and, when she came down, I just asked her how she
thought one could get Dressmaker Plenipotentiary into a poem, if one ever
happened to want to do it. She thought it was for my tragedy in decimalets,
and said I needn't have a Dressmaker Plenipotentiary in it, as the
rhyme was impossible. I argued the point with her, and then she said,
'Cut it up into syllables, and rhyme to any of them that suit.'
She said 'Poison the Dressmaker Plen-:' that was
the specimen she gave of what she meant. And all at once, on nothing but
that trifling hint, I felt what I was going to do, and I wished her
good-night as fast as possible that I might get by myself to work
out my conception."
"That is how genius seizes on some insignificant circumstance and,
starting from it, springs to its distant goal," said
Croässaquagha.
"Isn't it?" said Brekekex sympathisingly.
All obstacles having now been removed, the little council could separate
rejoicing in the prospect of a speedy and final settlement of the
Grachidichikan question. And, next morning, while Daffodil, all unconscious
of the purpose for which her assistance had been given, was still quietly
sleeping, the heralds had begun to inform Croäxaxica of her
betrothal.
about the matter, merely taking pains to look supernaturally grave at any one who began to give her a more exalted title than her own: by which demeanour she hoped to have it understood that it was not allowable to profess any knowledge of what had passed.
She felt tired, from having been routed up in the night to discuss
rhymes with Brekekex, and, as there was nothing particular to call for her
presence at the Plenipotentiary Department, she resolved not to occupy her
Chair of State that morning. She would take a book to a favourite corner in
her wardrobe and have a holiday hour or two to herself. So she was soon
absorbed in the adventures of some youthful inimitable Croäxaxicans
who distinguished themselves at school in various customary ways, good and
bad. She was in delightful suspense about the results of two heroes having
played truant to pick guggle-gigs and having got the naughtiest and
most agreeable of their sisters to slip away from her governess and come
too, when the letter from Prince Brekekex was brought her. It amused her
very much. "I did not know that they sent Valentines here,"
said she to herself. "And this is really a very good one: it
seems to me better than his serious poetry. And what a trick to play me!
waking me up in the night on urgent business, and the business was to make
me show him how to write a Valentine to myself! It's an April fool
and a Valentine all in one." And, after a good laugh, she went on
with the adventures of the truants.
She had not read far, when she was informed that the Princess
Guachapeara had come to see her, and
Guachapeara, instead of remaining in the Plenipotentiary's Grand Reception Saloon, entered the wardrobe by herself, as Daffodil was about to hasten from it to go to her.
"This is not strict etiquette," said Guachapeara,
laughingly. "I oughtn't to come to you: but I have come,
you see."
"It is not the first time, however, that you have been in my
wardrobe, though it is the first time you have run in this way," said
Daffodil in like tone. She thought her visitor had referred only to the
unceremonious entrance into her private retreat, and never dreamed that the
etiquette broken was that which required that she, as a Royal
Prince's New-Betrothed, should receive no visitors until the
Queen herself had honoured her by a visit of ceremony--a visit which
the Betrothed must immediately return.
"The Queen herself wished me to come, for fear you should not
understand all about this evening. You know about the
waterworks?"
"I had not heard of them, Your Royal Highness," answered
Daffodil. "I suppose Her Majesty does not want any remarkable
novelty. I don't feel sure I could manage anything all at once just
now; but I can try."
"Oh, never mind. Of course there isn't time; everything is
in such a hurry. The Queen says you are to mind and put on, besides your
fillet of office and your star, the diadem she gave you and all the other
jewellery. The dress you are to wear will be brought you: it's
one of the occasions when everything every one wears is fixed, so you can
leave it all to the officials in your department. There's a ball
too: but no one is to go to it."
"Then what is the use of having a ball?" asked Daffodil,
surprised.
"Only for etiquette," replied Guachapeara. "By the
way, have you had Brekekex's letter? What did you think when you got
it?"
"Yes, I've had it," said Daffodil. "It's
capital."
"You mustn't let it turn your head," said the lively
Guachapeara.
"I can understand a joke," was Daffodil's laughing
reply.
"I am staying too long," said the Princess. "Now, be
sure you quite understand. The Queen has so much to think of that you
won't hear anything of her at all all day, not till just before the
waterworks. And you must be ready. You'll come to the Palace, and
then we go out to the waterworks, all of us together."
"I don't understand," said Daffodil. "Did you
say Her Majesty will want me at the Palace?"
"Just in time to go to the waterworks with the Royal Party:
yes."
"I will be sure to be in time," said Daffodil, still not
aware that her appearance was to be in any other capacity than that in
which she had so frequently attended the Royal Party in public.
"I haven't a doubt you will," said the Princess.
"Good-bye till then," and away she flopped, humming,
"My Dressmaker
Pleni-poten-iary."
As soon as Princess Guachapeara had left her, Daffodil went to consult
her officers as to what
preparations it might be the duty of the department to make for the attendance of the Royal Family and the Court at the evening's display. But the Head Secretary Spinster informed her, as Guachapeara had done, that this was an occasion on which what every one should wear was prescribed.
"What is the occasion?" asked Daffodil.
The Head Secretary Spinster looked puzzled. at the inquiry. "The
waterworks, I mean, Pre-eminent Madam," she replied.
"The ball, for which otherwise we should have been expected to
introduce something special, is merely nominal, as you are
aware."
Daffodil soon went back to her book. She found it so interesting that
she was still reading it at dinner time, and later she allowed herself,
before she laid it aside, to be reminded several times that she would have
little time to dress. When she at last entered her dressing-room she
found, instead of the simple costume which had never before been considered
inappropriate for her on the highest occasion, a bodice consisting of a
rainbow-coloured flower something like a sweet pea with its
butterfly petals sticking out like wings, a skirt made of an enormously
wide and many-leaved peony, and leggings and shoulder frills of an
immense quantity of the down of a plant with pale blue seeds, the seeds
making on the soft down frills a heading which looked like turquoise
beads.
"I can't wear these things," said Daffodil,
"Though the frilling is certainly lovely, and I wish I had known of
there being that sort before. Just run quickly and get me a
heather-bell. Any colour; I haven't left time for
choice."
"Your Pre-eminence cannot possibly wear anything else this
evening. And oh, dear Pre-eminent Madam, do allow us to
make haste. The Queen may summon you at any moment," pleaded her
attendants, in extreme anxiety.
"But I can put on my usual sort of dress in half the time,"
said Daffodil.
"Oh, do please let us dress you," was the
urgent reply. "Consider, Your Roy-- Pre-eminence, it is
we that will be blamed, and perhaps dismissed or degraded, if you are in
something wrong, or if you are ready too late."
"Well," said Daffodil regretfully, "if it is my
business to wear these things to-night, I don't want to get
you into trouble by not doing it. And we'll make haste."
There was need for haste. At that moment a servant rushed breathless
into the room to say the Queen was actually entering the outer corridor.
"The Queen come for me herself!" exclaimed Daffodil.
"She would be sure to do that," answered the Head
Attendant: but there was no time for talking and explaining.
Daffodil's toilet was made at racing speed--not a moment to stop
and take breath! Her maids held and handed what was wanted, and got the
things on her with such precision and speed that what had seemed impossible
was done and, although she could not receive Her Majesty at the outer
entrance, as she should have done, she was got into the Grand Reception
Room just in time to meet her at its portal. Daffodil presented a
magnificent and courtly appearance in her brilliant costume, in spite of
her peony skirt being shorter than had been
desired for her--a deficiency which was the result of there having been no time for the Royal Dress-growers to develop a peony adapted to her special requirements. She wore, behind her jewelled fillet of office, the superb tiara the Queen had given her for her marriage with King Grenoulcrawk: she wore too, Croässaquagha's necklace and all the other splendid ornaments which had been her wedding presents. No one could have worn such jewels without appearing beautiful and aristocratic, and all who saw Daffodil in her costly raiment and rich and rare adornments that evening had to admit that, however wanting in regularity and symmetry her features and form might be, she had striking attractiveness and looked born to be the wife of a Croäxaxican Prince.
To Daffodil's amazement, she found that Her Majesty was escorted
by the Crown Prince and attended by her whole State Suite.
"There," said Her Majesty, "now I've come.
It's most unfortunate that we have no time for doing things properly.
But still we do them, and that is the great thing. I have come. Now I am
going back, and of course you and your suite must come at once to return my
visit. Oh, by the way, I'll kiss you and you may kiss me. There,
that's done. Come as fast as you can, because it's quite time
for the waterworks to be going on," and she twirled round, and
scurried off on the Crown Prince's arm. He had no time to say
anything.
Daffodil did as she was told, and, joining her Suite of Honour, whom she
found already waiting for her in her ante-chamber, hastened to the
Palace, arriving a couple of minutes after Her Majesty's return.
"That will do, as we are so short of time" said the Queen,
the moment Daffodil entered her presence. "You have come. Now we must
hurry to the great gardens for the waterworks: our entry will lose
its imposing effect if people get too tired of waiting. Of
course, you can only walk in your proper place behind the Royal Princesses.
The King, himself, will be present, and, of course, will walk with
me: that leaves the Crown Prince for the Crown Princess, and Prince
Brekekex must, of course, escort the Princess Royal." She turned to
get the King, who was in an arm-chair behind her, and then led off
the procession.
On being marshalled to the seat assigned to her on the Royal Platform,
Daffodil perceived that the arrangement of places was not as she had found
customary. At such public spectacles she had hitherto seen the Crown Prince
next to the throne of the Queen, the Crown Princess to that of the King,
next to her Prince Brekekex, and next to the Crown Prince the Princess
Royal; the other Princesses being ranged at each side according to the
precedence of their ages, and Daffodil's own station as Dressmaker
Plenipotentiary being next to the youngest Royal Princess, with her chair
on a lower level. This time, the King had the Crown Princess beside him as
usual, but it was Prince Brekekex who sat by the Queen. The Crown Prince
was beside his wife, next to him came the Princess Royal, then the Princess
Guachapeara and every one of the Royal Princesses, and there was no room
left on that side for Daffodil. A chair was vacant beside Prince Brekekex,
a chair like his and on the same
level, and to this the Lord Chamberlain escorted her.
"I don't sit by the Princess Boghowla, to-night
then," she remarked, half questioningly.
"No, Your Pre-eminence," said the Lord Chamberlain
with a broad, though courtly, grin.
"It looks as if I were promoted to being a Royal Princess
myself," she said, smiling at her little joke, as she was about to
ascend to her chair on the topmost row.
"Your Pre-eminence will observe that all the Royal
Princesses are on the other side, which obviates that appearance,"
replied the Lord Chamberlain, as he handed her up.
Daffodil was just sitting down when the King and Queen rose arm in arm,
the Crown Prince and Princess, also arm in arm, and all the Princesses
rising with them. Brekekex, perceiving Daffodil's momentary
inattention, put his arm through hers and jerked her to her feet with a
promptitude for which she was grateful, as she felt that the offence of
sitting while the Royal Family had risen to greet the inimitable
Croäxaxican public would have been one of grievous discourtesy and
disloyalty.
The King, having made his appearance in public, had done all that he
felt could be required of him, and he had no sooner risen and smiled at his
subjects than he began to go, followed by his sons, who, however, returned
and resumed their seats long before the roars of applause that had answered
the greeting of the Royal Family were over sufficiently for the singing of
the national song to begin.
It was not till the piano part of the national song
had at length arrived that there was possibility of any one making an audible remark to his neighbour--so tumultuous had been the din of loyalty. Then Prince Brekekex turned to Daffodil and asked "Did you get my poem?"
"Yes," said she with cheerful promptitude. "I was
quite delighted. It's one of the best Valentines I ever
saw."
"I thought you would admire it," said Prince Brekekex, much
gratified. But he added on afterthoughts, a little reproachfully,
"What I was going to ask was, don't you think it deserved an
answer?"
"It didn't strike me that you would want it answered,"
she said. "We don't often answer Valentines in my
country: we're not always supposed to know who sends
them--even when there is a name put in them, it is sometimes somebody
else's, you see. And I don't know if I can answer
in verse. However I'll try, if Your Royal Highness wishes."
"I think it will be nicer if you do," replied Brekekex.
"We can publish the correspondence, you know, if it is in poetry.
I'll help you. But what did you mean about somebody else putting in
my name? I put it in myself, and yours too."
"Yes, I saw that," she answered. And a burst of the song
after the soft bit stopped conversation effectually.
At the next opportunity of being heard, Brekekex, who had been thinking
over it, asked her "What is a Valentine?"
"In my country letters in verse of the kind you wrote, are called
that," she said. "But they are only sent on Valentine
day."
"What a very inconvenient arrangement," said Prince
Brekekex. "But no doubt for a member of the Royal Family a Valentine
day is made on purpose, if he is in need of it."
The shooting up into the air of a thousand golden jets stopped
Daffodil's answer on her lips. The waterworks had begun.
One beautiful and fantastic combination of shining water followed
another in rapid succession. Daffodil was quite carried away with her
delight. She could scarcely wait, according to etiquette, for the Queen to
lead the applause, and she and Prince Brekekex clapped their hands with a
vigour which won them enthusiastic popularity.
The spectacle was coming near its conclusion--as was made evident
by the display of more striking devices, each excelling its predecessor in
splendour--when, in the midst of a network of quivering pools of every
imaginable colour, there appeared LONG LIVE PRINCE BREKEKEX,THE
FUTURE KING OF GRACHIDICHIKA, at which everybody, and especially
Brekekex and Daffodil, applauded louder than ever. When it seemed time for
this waterwork to fade out or change into another, it remained steady and
some silver streams stole gently underneath the letters and presently
formed themselves into AND HIS BRIDE.
"The baby has been born!" exclaimed Daffodil. For she
thought it would be odd to have such an inscription in honour of a person
who did not exist.
"Yes. And I am glad things have turned out as they have,"
said Prince Brekekex. But Daffodil was not in the least aware he was paying
her a compliment, and gave all her attention to applauding.
The next display was formed of outlines of flowers of every imaginable
tint. There was an empty space in the middle, and in that there slowly
shaped itself, traced in silver and green waters, a water-lily amid
its leaves; and then there sprang up above the water-lily
HAIL TO THE DRESSMAKER PLENIPOTENTIARY.
At this Daffodil was startled and alarmed. "Oh dear!" she
said. "Is some promotion going to happen to me? I know there's
something horrid coming."
"No, no," said Brekekex, hurriedly. "Nothing of the
sort. But make haste and applaud to thank the people. I'll help
you."
This display went out so suddenly that the people who were cheering were
left with their mouths open in their surprise. And then there burst out, in
dazzling light, streams that went darting and flashing about and all at
once zigzagged themselves into a border inclosing the following
inscription--
IN GRACHIDICHIKA BY AND BYLONG LIVE KING BREKEKEX AND QUEEN
DAFFODIL
Daffodil sprang to her feet. "No! no! no! It's a mistake! A
mistake!" she shouted and screamed. But the cheering drowned her
words and she was supposed to be, like Prince Brekekex, vociferating her
satisfaction.
She had tried again, however, when the applause wore a little faint.
This time some one heard her, and sprang to whisper in her ear "Hush,
for your life's sake! If there is a mistake, say nothing in
public." It was Croässaquagha, who had been sitting behind her,
and of whose arrival after the waterworks had begun she had not been
aware.
"Won't it be too late afterwards?" said Daffodil. But
Croässaquagha had resumed her seat.
Daffodil had but little time to reflect; already the combination of
names which had alarmed her was paling out. In a moment a shining
sea-green flood swept over the whole, and from that there rose
rainbow-coloured and flame-coloured serpents which wreathed
themselves into
LONG LIVE THE CROWN PRINCE AND PRINCESS
and then into LONG LIVE one member of the Royal Family after another,
winding up with
LONG LIVE OUR UNPARALLELED KING AND QUEEN.THE INIMITABLE
CROÄXAXICANS SALUTEKING LOGAPLOP AND QUEEN RAUCACOÄXINE,
which was the signal for everybody to sing the Croäxaxican national
song again. What reflection was possible, however, showed that
Croässaquagha's warning was well timed and wise. Now that
matters had gone so far as Daffodil had unwittingly allowed them to do, her
creating a public disturbance could not but make them worse.
It had been arranged that, in order to enable Prince Brekekex to lead
out his affianced bride in the sight of the people, and yet to prevent the
impropriety of Daffodil's seeming to take precedence of the Royal Princesses, Prince Brekekex should leave before the Royal party took its departure in official order. He therefore rose at the cessation of the National song, and, whispering to Daffodil "We are to go now, with our own suites," offered her his arm.
"I will come now, not to make a confusion," said Daffodil.
"But I would rather not take your arm, if you please."
"Very well," said Brekekex. "I like the other way
best, myself, and we have our choice," and he took her hand before
she saw what the other way meant, and turned briskly round to make his
salutation to the Queen, drawing her with him. Thus hand in hand they made
their obeisance, amid deafening shouts from the people, and then their
attendants surrounded them and they withdrew together--still hand in
hand for all that the observers knew, although Daffodil had dragged herself
away, to which Brekekex made no objection, as they could not conveniently
descend from the lofty platform linked together.
Directly they had got away from the assemblage, Daffodil began "I
don't understand what has been going on, but I am afraid I am in some
scrape, and I hope Your Royal Highness will be kind enough to help me out
of it."
"Certainly, my dear," replied Brekekex with affectionate
promptitude. "I'm your natural protector now. And you may call
me Brekekex when we are conversing in an unceremonious manner."
"Will you tell me what the meaning of my name
being in the waterworks is?" she asked, eager to get to the matter in her mind.
"Stop a minute," said Brekekex. "I must think of a
rhyme. Oh, this'll do.
I perceive your
pardonable pride,
With your name so blazoned far and
wide,
But, whatever honours may befall,
I
consider you deserve them all,
Being bride to
Brekekex
And likewise to Kekebrex."
"Nothing of the kind," said Daffodil. "I am not your
bride. I can scarcely believe you mean it in earnest, but if you
do--"
"Fear not, I'll keep the word I speak,
And marry
you this or next week,"
interrupted Brekekex.
"Do listen to me," she said anxiously. "I hear the
shou ting for the Queen's coming away, and I want to tell you before
I speak to her that it would be quite nonsense for you to talk in earnest
about marrying me. You see, I am a human being and I couldn't think
of marrying a frog, even if I were grown up."
"I have waived all consideration of your race," said
Brekekex.
"Forget what your unworth may be,
My choice has
made you fit for me."
Daffodil heard the steps of the Royal procession approaching.
"Well," she said hurriedly, "There's no time to
argue. I won't marry you--and if you have any
kindness in your nature you'll help me not--and if you
don't I'll never find another rhyme for you!" and she
rushed on to get to the Palace by herself.
Brekekex stood in stupefaction, his attendants, much surprised by his sudden halt, of which they could not divine the cause, standing similarly motionless behind him, while Daffodil's swiftly followed her.
"What has happened?" asked Her Majesty, coming up before her
son had recovered himself enough to stir.
"I can't imagine," answered Prince Brekekex in a
pensive tone, and, mechanically, he fell into his regulation place in the
procession.
Arrived in her own drawing-room, the Queen said briskly to
Brekekex "We were to have found you and your betrothed bride waiting
for us at the supper table. Lead her there at once. I am hungry and I wish
to be able to go there without more loss of time."
On this Daffodil advanced. She had had two or three minutes to think
over what she must say, and was ready. "May it please Your Majesty,
there is some misunderstanding about my being his Royal Highness's
betrothed bride. I never knew that it was thought possible to confer that
dignity on a foreigner like me, and I really could not undertake the
position."
"Very proper humility," said the Queen approvingly.
"And I am pleased with your gratitude. But, as I want my supper, you
needn't do it any more. Now go off quickly with the
Prince."
"Your Majesty has not understood me," said Daffodil firmly.
"I cannot marry Prince Brekekex."
"What!!!" cried the Queen. Amazement and consternation was
on every countenance. There was silence.
"You. Despise. His. Royal. Highness. Of. Croäxaxica. Prince.
Brekekex. My. Son!!!!!!!!" said the Queen, with a full stop after
each word, so emphatic was her utterance.
"Your Majesty, I think him, besides his being a great Royal
Prince, one of the very cleverest and nicest people that there possibly can
ever have been in Croäxaxica," said Daffodil. "But I am
not a Croäxaxican, and I couldn't ever change myself enough to
get on with a Croäxaxican husband."
"If we tolerate your imperfections, it suffices," said the
Queen.
"And I am not old enough to marry anybody," pleaded
Daffodil. "I don't know exactly how old I am now, because I
haven't been able to make out when my birthdays would have been, but
I was ten when I came and I can't have been here more than two years,
at any rate."
"You are arguing for arguing's sake," said the Queen
very severely. "At ten years old you were grown up like everybody
else, and there won't be much difference in you till you are a
hundred. What can it matter how old you are?"
"But, even if I were old enough according to the ways in my
country, I couldn't possibly get married so. My father and mother
haven't given me leave."
"How can they, when it is quite impossible for you ever to get
near them again?" cried Her Majesty pettishly. "Pray do not go
on with such preposterous objections."
"But if I can't get to them, I ought not to do what I know
they would disapprove," Daffodil replied.
"On reflection," said the Queen "I think your
hesitation as to acting without your mother's commands--and of
your father's with hers--though amusing under the circumstances,
very creditable to you," and she gave a glance at the Crown Prince,
who sometimes wanted his own way. "But," she continued,
"you may set your mind at rest. All you have to do is to attend to me
as if I were your mother. And there can be no doubt that your parents would
be overjoyed at the incredible honour proposed for you."
"Prince Brekekex," said Daffodil, "help me. I know you
are not so mean as to want a person to have to marry you when she
can't and won't."
"It wasn't I that thought of it," said Brekekex,
ruefully. "And you know very well we can't help it now. Why are
you so disagreeable to me when I'm so kind to you,--going to
marry you, even? I don't think, after that, you ought to turn round
in a pet and say you won't find any more rhymes."
"Do not argue, Brekekex," said the Queen: "it is
supper time."
She rose majestically and, advancing to Daffodil, took her hand.
"You stand abashed before the immensity of your good fortune and
scarcely dare receive it," she said. "It is well. But you have
now shown humility enough: more would be disobedience. I accept you
as my daughter-in-law. Aspire to be as nearly worthy of me as
your unfortunate birth out of Croäxaxica permits. Wear your future
crown with diligence. Go to the supper-room as fast as you
can."
But Daffodil remained fixed in her resolve.
Respectfully yet firmly she looked the Queen in the face and renewed her protest. "May it please Your Majesty, I am not going to marry."
Queen Raucacoäxine could be implacable in necessary punishment when
despotism and duty required it, but she was not cruel in her inclination.
And she had a liking for Daffodil. She turned pale with emotion. Addressing
the culprit in a subdued and solemn voice, she said "I cannot believe
you mistress of yourself in speaking so absurdly. You seem to have had some
silly lover's quarrel with Brekekex about rhymes. To-morrow
you will have forgotten it and will look with horror on your rashness of
to-night. As I wish to spare you, I decide that nothing that has
happened in the last half-hour has happened. But, lest you should
not be aware of the full extent of the danger you have been incurring, know
that, if you were to act treasonably in this matter, nothing could save you
from death. The betrothal has been announced in the most public manner
possible; the King, himself, has made his appearance to sanction it, just
as if you had been of a Royal House; the nation has concurred; Prince
Brekekex has been harmonious with you in public, and has appeared to share
your own enthusiastically shown satisfaction. If you could
contemplate drawing back, it would be an outrage to Croäxaxica and the
Royal Family which it would be a danger to the whole world not to punish.
And it would make Prince Brekekex ridiculous to have a person going about
who had jilted him. Prince Brekekex cannot be made ridiculous."
"No: that would never do," said Prince Brekekex.
The Queen resumed "It would also make Princess Guachapeara
ridiculous if the office of Dressmaker Plenipotentiary were not to become
vacant for her after it has become a matter of general news and
congratulation that she is to have it. Princess Guachapeara cannot be made
ridiculous."
"No: that could not be permitted to be possible," said
Princess Guachapeara.
"Now you quite see how it is," continued the Queen.
"Your marriage to the Prince, derogatory as it is to him, as you so
keenly feel, was agreed on for reasons of public expediency and is
absolutely necessary for this country and for the allied country of
Grachidichika. Your resistance would, under any circumstances, have been
treasonable: after the solemn acts of this evening it would
be--I don't know what it would be!"
"No, indeed!" groaned, sighed, or gasped, everybody, as the
Queen paused struck dumb by the force of her idea. Daffodil gazed
helplessly around her.
"Now you understand," said the Queen. "And, as I
should be very much annoyed by your being put to death, you must be careful
for the future not to show any of these spoiled child's whims. Go to
supper."
"Does Your Majesty mean that I should be put to death just for not
wanting to be married?" Daffodil asked, trying to be firm, but with a
faltering voice.
The Queen replied very gravely, "A person intended for
Grenoulcrawk, King of Grachidichika, could have been saved from her
disobedience and married to him no matter how. No such mercy
could be extended to a person exhibiting an impertinent hesitation to marry the son of the King and Queen of Croäxaxica: the nation, the world, will be spectators of the wedding, or eager hearers of all its details. However much I might wish to indulge your caprices, I could not permit you to appear at the ceremonies in handcuffs and a gag, nor to disturb the proceedings by being married against your will. You must not indulge any hope of that."
"May I go home and think?" asked Daffodil.
"There is nothing for you to think about," said the Queen,
getting somewhat out of temper when she found that her clemency and her
eloquence had not yet completely won Daffodil's submission.
"Nothing of any sort for you to think about. However, you can
go: we don't want you with us spoiling the betrothal supper
with your tiresome ways." And, turning to the Crown Prince, she said
"Lead me in to supper. We can go in proper order now the difficulty
about the bride is got over."
As the Royal Party began to move, Brekekex escorting the Princess Royal,
Daffodil rushed forward and threw herself on her knees before the Queen.
"Oh, do, do, do let me off marrying" she
implored.
But the Queen pushed her away. "Brekekex or the Boa
Constrictor!" she cried in a wrathful voice, and bounded on. All the
others bounded after her, not venturing a word or a look, and Daffodil, yet
kneeling, was left alone.
Croässaquagha told Daffodil that she would now have, as her
companions and guardian attendants, according to the etiquette for a
Prince's betrothed bride, three ancient females of rank, of whom one
must be blind, one deaf, and one discreet.
"What shall I do with them?" said Daffodil,
aghast. "I can never manage to keep talking to them all
day."
"You will be talking to Prince Brekekex," said
Croässaquagha. "And, even when he is not with you,
you need not talk to them unless you like. But they must always be with you when you receive any visit, and when you go out."
"Then I shall be nothing but a prisoner!" sighed Daffodil.
She had seen no possibility of escaping from her marriage by flight, but
still she did not like to feel that, if there had been a possibility, the
constant presence of these unwelcome companions would have barred her from
it.
"Oh no," said Croässaquagha "no one would think
of calling you a prisoner. You need not be afraid of that. Only, as it is
not etiquette for you to be seen at all in public at present, you cannot go
outside the enclosure of your own apartments and the Royal Wardrobe and
Plenipotentiary premises. But how can that harm you for a week?"
"I don't see that it can," said Daffodil in a doleful
voice; "since there is nowhere I could run away to, at any
rate."
Croässaquagha could by no means understand her friend's
repinings, so she found herself forced not quite to believe them. She went
away laughing a little to herself over the sudden change of feeling
Daffodil would experience if she could be taken at her word and excused
from the marriage. "She is Fortune's spoilt child," she
thought: "and she needs to fret a little at her best luck, to
be satisfied."
The old ladies arrived, solemn and ceremonious, and entered upon their
term of service to the betrothed bride. Soon after them came Prince
Brekekex to spend a few hours in complimentary conversation, according to
the established rule for engaged persons in Croäxaxica. The three
Ancient Females
of Rank--The Royal Superintendents Of His Highness's And Her Future Highness's Courtship, as their title was on this occasion--should, according to the rule decreed when the office was created in bygone years, have always been in a triangle exactly seven paces from the betrothed bride's right foot, wherever she might be, while these conversations were going on; but this had been found so difficult to perform quite exactly that, after a few hundred years, an addition to the rule was made and it was provided that wherever any one of the Royal Superintendents of Courtship was should be Counted seven paces from the bride's right foot, and in process of time it had become customary for them, by way of politeness, to keep far enough distant for even the two that were not the deaf one to be unable to hear what was said. For this Daffodil felt thankful, as it enabled her, during the long interviews she had to have with Prince Brekekex every day, to use all her arguments and persuasions against his marrying her when it would make her miserable. The difficulty in her expostulations was that she had all the while, in order that the Royal Superintendents Of Courtship might not suspect what she was saying, to keep up a cheerful manner very different from her talk.
At first it seemed as if it would be impossible ever to make Brekekex
understand that she could be anything but the happiest and proudest bride
in the world, if their marriage took place. He could not believe her
reluctance was for her own sake; he thought it was for his, because she was
so much beneath him in rank and stamped by the peculiarity of her
appearance as not of the inimitable Croäxaxi-
can race. And sometimes he thought it was assumed in order to tease him or to make him think more of her--and that notion used to make her angry. When, at last, he did begin to perceive that, strange as it was, she really preferred not to marry him, she still did not seem to have gained much: for, though he said he was sorry to be the cause of any annoyance to her, he could see no possibility of altering the arrangement--there was no one else for him to marry. Once, when she was very unhappy, she got him so far as to express a wish that he could give up the crown of Grachidichika and be only the troubadour Kekebrex who had sacrificed a throne for his lady-love's freedom: but he added an explanation of his being entirely unable to do so, as, if he committed such an act of High Treason as to refuse to carry out the marriage after all that had taken place, he should run as much danger as she herself if she were to disobey.
The Queen, the Crown Prince and Princess, the Royal Princesses, and all
the great State functionaries, paid Daffodil formal visits. Sometimes she
was on the point of breaking into entreaties or protests, but Prince
Brekekex, as well as Croässaquagha, had so urged upon her the
impossibility which the Queen herself had pointed out to her of her
escaping the doom for traitors, if she displayed her opposition in any way
which could lead to its being noised about, that, for her life's
sake, she accepted in silence the references to her approaching marriage
made in the ceremonial visits, although she felt that her apparent consent
now would make her defence still more difficult if she had to go to trial
for resistance at last.
So all went on smoothly. Even Croässaquagha thought her unwillingness quite passed away; for the state and formality with which the betrothed bride had now to be approached made private confidences impossible. Prince Brekekex, the only person who knew how hard it was to keep Daffodil from the danger of remonstrances, was careful not to tell what could harm her.
But the wedding did not take place on the appointed day. And many days
passed and still there had to be postponement. Something was amiss with the
bridal lilies: each bud that at night was ready to open out, white
and radiant, for a Royal Bride's wearing the next morning, was next
morning still closed and was limp and withered and yellow, so that it could
by no means be used. No care could avail: the lilies were never left
unwatched a moment; every art, every precaution, was used; but always the
same extraordinary disappointment ensued.
At last the Head Royal Physician formed a theory which offered hope. Her
Pre-eminence, the Dressmaker Plenipotentiary, was, he said, in the
habit of herself every evening inspecting the wedding lilies, as was the
duty of her office and, under the circumstances, her natural desire:
now, gentle and caressing as her touch might be, it struck him that the
feverish fire, which the profundity and wide range of his medical studies
enabled him to diagnosticate as permanent in her, must be prejudicial to
the sensitive and cold nature of so delicate a flower. He would advise that
Her future Royal Highness should not again handle one of the buds about to
open.
The Queen, much impressed by this opinion, conveyed it herself to
Daffodil. "The Princess Guachapeara, your future
sister-in-law, and shortly to be Dressmaker Plenipotentiary,
shall test the flowers for Your Pre-eminence and future Royal
Highness," she said. "And Your Pre-eminence and future
Royal Highness will stand beside her as she does it, so that you can be
held to perform that function of your office by her hands."
"But, Your Majesty," said Daffodil, snatching at what seemed
to her a chance of escaping from both the marriage and the Boa Constrictor,
"If I must not even touch the. flower, how can I possibly wear it and
get married?"
This view of the case fell like a thunderbolt on the hearers. A
simultaneous groan arose, and the Queen's expression of countenance
was such that the one of the Ancient Females Of Rank who was deaf could not
refrain from exclaiming "Extraordinary! Quite unheard of!"
although properly she ought to have waited for the Queen to speak
first.
"It is too true!" gasped the Queen. "Unhappy unhappy
girl, were you born to be disappointed! First King Grenoulcrawk, and now a
greater bridegroom, both escape you in the very moment of your triumph! And
oh Grachidichika! Oh My Brekekex!" And she wept aloud.
But in this agitating crisis, while almost everybody was either weeping
or rushing about to show a desire to do something to relieve Her
Majesty's anxiety, the Regius Professor of Everything, who was that
day one of those who had the honour of attending Her Majesty in her visit,
remained quiet,
and thought. He had felt a little jealousy at the good fortune of the Head Royal Physician in offering such valuable advice, and now it flashed on him as an inspiration that he might be able to find some great expedient too. He had to think unusually fast; but by concentrating his mind he managed it. The confusion subsided after some minutes, and Her Majesty, having regained her self-possession, concluded the interview with the customary formalities. But, instead of saying as usual "Good morning, my daughter-in-law that will be soon," she said "Good morning, my daughter-in-law that was to will be soon and that I don't know what we are to do with."
Just then the Regius Professor had got his mind quite clear. He came
forward in haste. "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, I have something to
say."
"Then go somewhere and say it," replied Her Majesty, who
felt too much disturbed for conversation.
The Professor lingered, and, when Her Majesty had passed on, said
hurriedly to Daffodil "Do not be uneasy. I must wait to tell Her
Majesty another time, but I have found out how you can manage. You must be
cased in wet mud, and the wet mud must be covered thickly with the green
leaves of the water-lilies, and then the lily can be put on you
without your scorching it by contact."
"What is that?" said the Queen catching some of the words,
and turning back.
The Professor was only too glad to set forth his plan at once. Its
feasibility was evident, and the Queen was overjoyed. Daffodil did
endeavour to show objections to it, but she could bring none
stronger than the bulky figure she should present and her own dislike to mud, and those could have no weight.
"Some people are never contented," said the Queen; and that
was all the notice she took of Daffodil's observations. Speaking in a
loud clear voice, that those around might hear, she said "Regius
Professor of Everything, you have deserved well. Your penetration and
sagacity have removed a grave State difficulty. I have conferred on the
Head Royal Physician, in reward for the service he has rendered in this
matter, the right of wearing at the wedding a white star to be called the
Star of the Royal Water Lily. I confer on you the like high
reward."
Without waiting for the delighted Professor to conclude the
out-pouring of his gratitude, she said to Daffodil "Good
morning my daughter-in-law that will be soon," and
hastened away to tell the Princess Guachapeara to prepare to act that
evening as Daffodil's proxy in testing any lily bud that promised
speedy unclosing.
It was a terrible blow to Daffodil to be forbidden to touch the lilies.
She knew that the warmth of her hand had done them no harm, but, for all
that, the Head Royal Physician's advice was likely to provide her
with a wedding dress. She had every evening dexterously inserted some of
her tiny needles into the poor flowers' delicate stems. The pricks
were so fine that no trace of them was observable, but the needles were
lodged within and the lilies were not able to bear this treatment and
perished away in a few hours. Now, the lilies would live.
"It will depend on yourself," the words her father had said
to her in her dream in the prison, again began repeating themselves in her
head; although, by this time, she could only half remember her dream about
her home above the river when she tried. "It is all very well for
something to keep saying 'It will depend on yourself,'"
said she; "but the only thing that seems to depend on myself now is
whether I will be given to the State Boa Constrictor or not. And decidedly
I will. I will not marry a frog."
The expression aloud and in an emphatic manner of her indignant resolve
somehow consoled her, and she began to entertain a more hopeful and
contriving spirit. Prince Brekekex arrived just as she had devised a
stratagem.
Brekekex was radiant with satisfaction. His face looked orange with its
glow. "Isn't it nice?" said he, "I think we are
quite sure to be married to-morrow, this time. Guachapeara says she
feels confident she can make at least one lily be fit by the morning.
And oh my sweet Ex-Pleni's pride,
Dressed as
Brekekex's bride,
And with his own self at her side!
Ex-Pleni does, don't you think, in the poetry, though it
isn't quite accurate. It comes in like a pet name, you see. I
can't make the whole of Ex-Dressmaker Plenipotentiary fit
in."
"Would you save my life, if you could?" replied
Daffodil.
"Certainly," he said with decision. "I shall always
make a point of it."
"I thought you would be generous enough for what I want,"
said Daffodil fervently.
Brekekex was much gratified. "It comes of my being a poet,"
he said with modest deprecation. "Poets have high-strung
souls, you know. If it weren't for that, I daresay I shouldn't
be more generous than other people--I mean than people that
aren't any more generous than I should be if I weren't
generous."
"Then, now I will trust my life to you," said Daffodil.
"Quite so," said Prince Brekekex, approvingly. He thought
she was talking of their marriage. "But," added he as an
afterthought, "don't you think, now you want to make love, we
ought to say the things in poetry?"
She had been paying only half attention to what he said, for her mind
was dwelling on what she was going to say. She felt it would be of no use
to beat about the bush; she would speak out and take her risk. She told him
how she had served the lilies.
Brekekex listened first in bewilderment and then in consternation:
the bare possibility of such a crime had never entered Croäxaxican
mind. "Terrible!" he gasped, when she had done speaking, and
"Terrible! Terrible!" he slowly gasped a dozen times, while she
anxiously waited for him to have thought of something further to say.
"Are you ready for me to tell you what I want you to do, Your
Royal Highness?" said she at last.
"It is not necessary," he answered, recovering himself,
"I see your drift. If I were to tell what
you have told me, you would be put to death: you ask me to save your life by not telling. I will do it. I will save your life."
"Unfortunately there is more than that," said Daffodil. And
she proceeded to unfold a scheme which would have set Prince Brekekex
turning summersaults with amazement and terror, if she had not spoken in
such a matter-of-course way that he felt as if surprise must
be unreasonable. Daffodil's notion was that he should claim that, if
she was officially regarded as betrothed to him, he and not Guachapeara was
her due representative, and especially as it was in the capacity of
wedding-clothes for his wife that the lilies were to be inspected,
so that he had a direct personal interest in the matter. Brekekex readily
accepted that view of the case.
"To be sure," said he. "You are quite right,
My
reasoner bright
And politician recondite, Guachapeara
can't be Dressmaker Plenipotentiary till you are not. And you
can't be not till you are married above it, or out of existence. So
she has no status as to your wedding-dress. And, as to her taking my
position as your representative, I cannot allow anybody to take any of my
positions. Obviously I am your appropriate representative in
everything."
Daffodil's notion was, moreover, that, if Brekekex represented
her, he should, like her, run needles into the lilies. She would show him
how upon other flowers, and he had better practise it for an hour or so
now, in order to do it deftly and unperceived
when the time of inspection came that evening. To his remonstrances as to the deed itself, she opposed the merit of its saving her life. To his protests that he could not be expected to destroy what was indispensable to his marriage, she replied by convincing assurances that she would resist the marriage if there were fifty wedding lilies ready for her.
"I promise you I will never marry you," she said. "And
you know I never break my promise."
"Never mind: I can manage that for you," said Brekekex
encouragingly. "The person a person makes a promise to always has the
power to release a person from the promise: and I will release
you."
"But I promised it to somebody, or something, besides
you."
"That won't matter. Whoever it is is sure to release you if
Prince Brekekex desires it."
"But I don't know who it is. It's somebody or
something, that keeps saying inside my bead 'It depends on
yourself.' Whoever it is seems a long way off. I don't know
where."
"That is perplexing," said Brekekex thoughtfully. "I
am afraid, then, you won't be able to get yourself released by
to-morrow." After that it took but little more persuasion to
get him to undertake to prevent the blooming of the fatal
wedding-dress; for he had a tender heart and did not want Daffodil
to perish.
Daffodil herself, however, presently began to hesitate. "I do not
know if I ought to let you do it, after all," she said. "I
believe I ought to take my
own risk and put none on you. I was forgetting that harm might come of it to you."
"Dreadful harm, if you delay being ready to marry me too
long," said Prince Brekekex. "It's a fearful risk for me.
Of course, if you went to the State Boa Constrictor it would be all right
at once: the Private Under-Princess could be created
Dressmaker Plenipotentiary again the moment you were let down to him, and
be eligible. But, as long as you exist I can't get married unless
it's to you. And Grenoulcrawk may die at any moment.
Oh
Brekekex! Oh threatened wight!
What doom may fall on thee
to-night!
Thy noble brow robbed of its
crown
For want of Daffodil's
wedding-gown!"
"Dear! dear!" said Daffodil. "It does seem very hard
on you and Croässaquagha. I wish I could be got out of the way
pleasantly for everybody. But I can't be expected to like being
swallowed by a boa constrictor, even now you have shown me the use there
would be in it. I am really very sorry for you about it, though. But the
risk I was feeling afraid about for you wasn't about what you say,
but about what might happen to you if you got found out."
"That depends on whether the Queen would forgive me, and whether
the offence could be hushed up from all the world," answered Prince
Brekekex. "I don't think she would forgive me till it was much
too late--not till after my execution."
"Then, don't touch the lilies. Pray don't," said
Daffodil earnestly.
"But I am not in the least afraid of being found
out. No one would dream of such a thing being done, even if they saw I was doing it," said Brekekex. "Of course I would not be so foolish as to undertake it if I were not sure of that."
Daffodil's plan was carried out. The lilies went on withering,
although her hand no longer touched them. There was much marvel, and a
suspicion arose that there was something supernatural at work--a
suspicion which was the more noised abroad that the Croäxaxicans do
not believe in anything supernatural. What added to the appearance of some
extraordinary interposition in the fate of the lilies on which the marriage
of the Heir Apparent to the Grachidichikan throne depended, was the
convenient continuance in life of King Grenoulcrawk. There was no moment at
which he might not be just about to give the last faint gasp, but yet he
continued to breathe on. The Head Royal Physician was very proud of
him: but this time the Head Royal Physician overrated his science.
What was really keeping the old King strong enough to be alive was, not the
potency of the Head Royal Physician's medicines, but that of Queen
Chachareraroncaxa's scarlet guggle-gigs. Some of these had
accidentally been served to the King among the usual kind of
guggle-gigs and he had relished them so much that he would eat
nothing else, and would drink nothing but the ooze in which they grew. The
plants had lost much of their scarlet hue and the richness it betokened,
now that the waterings with the impregnating lighting water had ceased, but
they still retained some of the value they owed to it, and the ooze still
had some mixture
of the former fluid. Such as they were, and scanty as was their quantity, and still scantier as was the wasting invalid's power of using them, the new guggle-gigs with which the late Queen would fain have enriched his kingdom had in them a strengthening virtue which was now protracting his life in so unexpected and opportune a manner.
Meanwhile the Court of Croäxaxica--nay the whole nation, for
ere long the crisis was publicly understood--the whole nation, except
Prince Brekekex--passed, with the promise and the blighting of the
lilies, from sanguine joy every evening to despair every morning. The
general conclusion, however, was that, as Grenoulcrawk had so surprisingly
lived on, he would go on renewing the surprise until the mysterious malady
of the lilies had been overcome: for it could not be supposed that
destiny intended to frustrate so indispensable an arrangement for the
fortunes of a Prince of Croäxaxica as was now in question.
As to poor Brekekex, he went on ruefully with his task. He spent part of
every day in trying to make Daffodil see that the time had come for her to
let her wedding-dress flower be unhurt and wear it next morning.
"You'll put our marriage off too long, and then, when
you've lost the crown, you'll be sorry," he used to warn
her tragically. And once or twice he went so far as to declare that he
would not use the needles any longer. But he felt too much afraid she
really would resist the marriage if she were thwarted in her fancy for
delay, or whatever the fancy might be that stood in the way of her glad
acceptance: he always did use the needles
again, though declaring it was for the last time; for he did not like to risk the alternative of her being put to death for High Treason and contumacy. His was indeed a melancholy position. Yet he grew daily more confident of a happy issue to his period of anxiety. The protraction of King Grenoulcrawk's life struck him also as so manifestly designed for his benefit that it must needs continue as long as he required it. In spite of Daffodil's present unaccountable vagary, he could feel no doubt of the secret joy of her heart at the prospect of being his wife and Queen of the second state in the world; and she was showing him a daily increasing affection which assured him that it could not be long now before the constraint she had been putting on herself must break down and she would be at his feet rejoicing.
"If it were not for the anxiety about King Grenoulcrawk," he
said to Daffodil, "I should not disapprove of time being given you to
grow to your new position. You are developing in intellect and heart; you
evidently appreciate me more every day."
"It is quite true that I do appreciate you more every day,"
she replied: "you are so good to me."
Quoth Prince Brekekex
"Oh what a happiness
fallen to you,
A King for your husband! And liking him
too!
Wait and you'll
see
How pleased you will
be.
Monarch and poet, and marrying you!
But, you know, wait is only poetical for make
haste."
"I am murdered," groaned Brekekex.
"Where? Oh where?" cried Daffodil, vainly looking for signs
of a wound. "Oh, Head Royal Physician, do come and do
something."
Thus summoned, the Head Royal Physician roused himself from his grief
and advanced with slow and thoughtful steps, pondering over what could be
the matter with the unfortunate Prince.
"It is his foot," said Daffodil. "Oh look what has run
into it!" and she drew out the thing of
which she spoke. The Head Royal Physician took it from her, as she held it out, and examined it intently. Meanwhile Brekekex lay not daring to move lest he should have been seriously hurt.
"I am afraid he must be in pain," said Daffodil.
"Shall I bathe his foot and put wet moss round it? I think it would
take away a bad prick."
"Do nothing," said the Head Royal Physician imperatively.
"Pre-eminent Madam, the case is too serious for temporising
measures. My skill is unparalleled, you will say; shall I tell you the
simple secret of that unparalleled skill? It lies in this--I
never act in ignorance. Ignorance is to be acquainted with the
effect but not with the cause: I deal with the cause, I wrest its
secret from it; I know. You have the history of my scientific
supremacy."
"Would you like to look at his foot?" said Daffodil.
"I may find it desirable to do so eventually," said the Head
Royal Physician, in a gravely dignified manner which he intended to convey
to her a little rebuke. It seemed to him that she was trying to hurry him,
and, although her present exalted position made it impossible to resent
anything she was pleased to do or say, he thought it would have been more
appropriate if she had kept her mind in a more deferential attitude towards
science as represented by him--more especially as even her approaching
connection with Royalty could not wholly do away with the distinction
between a merely human brain and that of any frog, let alone the most
scientifically medical of frogs.
After he had stared fixedly for some time, the
Princess Guachapeara interrupted him. "We have been forgetting to send to Her Majesty," she said. "Someone must go to her at once. How can it be broken to her?"
"Let me save him first, Your Royal Highness. The shock to her will
be so much less under those circumstances," was the anxious reply;
for the Head Royal Physician was not at ease when having to exercise his
art under Her Majesty's peremptory supervision. He made haste.
"The cause," said he, "the cause. It is here in my
hand. I hold it. And it is--it
is--it--is--it--is--it--Drat the thing, what
in the world is it?"
The amazing and sudden explosion with which the Head Royal Physician
concluded his opinion startled his hearers out of what little possession of
their faculties the awful accident to the Prince had left them. Brekekex
himself, still lying rigid on the ground, lest moving should hurt him
anywhere, gave an appalling shriek as he heard his fate in the medical
verdict: Guachapeara wrung her hands, and screamed in echo to her
brother. Sobs were sobbing, and groans were groaning, and doleful v