Part 8

It may seem a little odd that Wooden should have spoken as if they were going to stay in Toyland, if not for ever, at least for some time. For Peggy had understood that the dolls who were still played with by children only went to Toyland when it was night--“over there,” as they would have said. But it did not seem odd to her, and in fact she never thought about it. Once in Toyland, the dolls who inhabited that pleasant country behaved as if they always lived there. It seemed to come from the air of the place; and that explains why Peggy never once thought of going home again as long as she was there, any more than Wooden or any of the other dolls did.

The weather was fine and warm, which would have made it nice to have the front of the house open, although a little wanting in privacy. But Wooden said, “I should like you to go in through the front door, dear. It is a beautiful door, and it seems a pity not to use it. So I think I will have the front of the house shut.”

Two wooden servant dolls, a cook and a housemaid, dressed one in a blue, the other in a black frock, with snowy white caps and aprons, had been standing in front of the kitchen looking out for them. Wooden told them to shut the front of the house, and they came out and did so, pushing it back quite easily. For they were good servants and devoted to their mistress, and kept the hinges well oiled.

When the front of the house was shut it looked very handsome indeed. The door that Wooden was so proud of was inside a fine porch, and had a brass knocker on it. All the windows had little panes of glass, kept beautifully clean, and white curtains looped up inside them. And each of them had a neat iron railing in front of it to hold flowers. It was like a real house, and yet it was like a dolls’ house, too, which made it all the more fascinating.

They went up two steps under the porch, and Wooden knocked with the knocker, to show that it was a real knocker. The doll housemaid opened the door, and they went in. For the first time in her life, naturally, Peggy was inside a real dolls’ house, with the front shut and even the door shut. Hitherto she had only been able to see what it was like by peeping in through the windows; for of course you know that a dolls’ house can never be quite the same with its front open. It takes away from the make-believe. She felt frightfully pleased; and it really was nice, and not a bit like a real house, although everything in it was of an ordinary real size.

The Lord Chancellor had come in with them. He had told Wooden that he had had a lot of running about and should like to rest a little. But, of course, what he really wanted was to get away from the crowd, and go home later on when it should have dispersed. But Wooden said that it was an honour to entertain him in her own house, which pleased him, and by the time they had got inside he had recovered some of his spirits, and seemed ready to be as talkative as ever.

Wooden led the way up to the drawing-room, which had a carpet of a very large pattern and a wall paper with enormous roses on it. The furniture was beautifully made, but Peggy felt that she was really sitting on a dolls’ sofa and not on an ordinary one, although it was comfortable, and of an ordinary size. Nothing was quite the same. The mirrors had tin frames, the books on the tables were evidently toy books, with thick leaves and bindings that did not keep quite flat; and there were some packs of cards and some dominoes on another table looking exactly like those very tiny ones which you can buy in shops, but are so small that you do not want to play with them more than once.

They had hardly sat down, Peggy and Wooden on the sofa and the Lord Chancellor on a large chair, before the doll housemaid opened the door and announced a visitor, by the name of Mrs. Winifred.

Mrs. Winifred was a mature-looking Dutch doll. Most of the wooden dolls in Toyland were of Dutch extraction, even Wooden herself, just like many of the old families of New York, but they were no more Dutch than the New Yorkers are. She came forward and kissed Wooden, and said she was very glad she had come out of prison, and she felt that she must come round at once and tell her so.

Mrs. Winifred had hardly been accommodated with a seat before Mrs. Hilda was announced, and when Mrs. Hilda had said the same as Mrs. Winifred, Captain and Mrs. Louisa were announced. Captain Louisa was an officer in a regiment of wooden soldiers, and wore his uniform. His wife and Mrs. Hilda were wooden dolls like Mrs. Winifred. These were followed by Mr. and Mrs. Joyce, Mr. and Mrs. Ida, Mrs. Mollie, Mrs. Jane, and one or two more, all of the best wooden families of Dolltown, and it was evidently a source of great pride to Wooden that they should show such a nice feeling towards her.

She introduced them all to Peggy, and those who did not know him to the Lord Chancellor. There were so many of them that it was like a sort of party. The dolls sat rather stiffly in their chairs, and there were other little points about them, such as their knees showing rather prominently through their skirts and trousers, which made it seem like a dolls’ party, and as if they were all playing at something. This pleased Peggy. She felt as if she had set them all down herself on their chairs and on the sofas, exactly where she wanted them to be, as she did sometimes with her smaller dolls in her dolls’ house at home, and pretended that they were talking politely to each other.

XIII

THE DOLLS TALK IT ALL OVER

The late imprisonment of Peggy and Wooden, and especially of Wooden, naturally formed the chief subject of conversation.

“I must say,” said Mrs. Winifred, “that I was surprised to hear that _you_ had been sent to prison, Mrs. Wooden. We had all heard that such a _very_ different lot had been prepared for you.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Hilda. “What we heard was that you were to be made Queen and live in the palace.”

“And we were very _glad_ to hear it,” said Mrs. Joyce, a thin, rather vinegary-looking doll, whom Peggy did not very much take to. “We knew that if _you_ were made Queen there would be no more high-and-mightiness at the palace, and you wouldn’t give yourself airs with _us_.”

“It would be the beginning of a new era,” said Mr. Joyce, who was a members of the Dolls’ Parliament. “The Woodens would be no longer oppressed by the Waxes, and peace and contentment would reign, where before there had been strife and inequality.”

“I’m not sure,” said the Lord Chancellor, “that I quite agree with that observation. As Woods, all this extremely intelligent and entertaining company is naturally pleased at having a Wooden King to reign over Toyland. But under our late lamented Queen Rosebud, as far as my memory carries me back, there was no oppression. And personally I boast intimate friends amongst dolls of all varieties, from Wax to Rag.”

“What I think,” said Mrs. Mollie, a severe-looking doll with a long upper lip, “is that we were a good deal better off under Queen Rosebud than we are likely to be under King Selim. I don’t hold with these foreigners.”

The other dolls seemed to be rather taken aback by this plainness of speech, and the Lord Chancellor said, “Tut, tut! You mustn’t say things like that, my dear lady. It isn’t respectful to the Crown.”

“But it’s what a good many of us are feeling,” said Mrs. Winifred. “At first it was very nice to feel we were considered as good as the Waxes. In this company there’s no harm in saying that Waxes do give themselves airs, and it isn’t nice to feel you are considered common, when you know you are nothing of the sort, but quite the opposite.”

“But _all_ Waxes don’t give themselves airs,” said Wooden, speaking for the first time. “There’s Lady Grace, now. Both of us live with this dear little girl when we’re over there, and we are real friends, and there’s never a word awry between us. And it’s the same here.”

“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Ida, a young-looking doll who was dressed more fashionably than the rest, “that I have always got on as well as possible with the Waxes. In fact, most of my friends were Wax before they were all sent to prison.”

“I should think you must feel a bit lonely, then,” said Mrs. Jane. “I’ve always associated with Woods myself, and prefer their company.”

“The best company in Toyland,” said Mrs. Winifred, “is to be found amongst the higher classes of Woods. Still, I’m against this sending to prison of all Waxes, whether they give themselves airs or not.”

“It isn’t so much the shutting up of Waxes that I object to,” said Mrs. Louisa. “It’s the shutting up of Woods. How did it come about, Wooden, that instead of marrying the King you were sent to prison?”

Captain Louisa cleared his throat behind his hand. “Manners, my dear, manners!” he whispered to his wife.

“We don’t want to go into all that,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Perhaps a slight mistake was made; but it has now been put right, chiefly owing to representations made to his Majesty by myself.”

“It hasn’t been put right, and we do want to talk about it,” said Mrs. Mollie. “There are two Wooden dolls still locked up in the House of Cards, to say nothing of a Wax one. What were they locked up for, and when are they going to be let out?”

She addressed her question directly to the Lord Chancellor, and there seemed to be a general opinion amongst the other dolls that it was right to ask it, and that it wanted an answer.

The Lord Chancellor gave one. He gave it at great length, but there was not much in it. It seemed that all they had to do was to trust to him, and everything would come right in the end.

“That doesn’t satisfy _me_,” said Mrs. Mollie, when he had quite finished. “And it isn’t only Woods either that have been sent to prison, and are being kept there for nothing at all. What about this human child? What was _she_ sent to prison for? I’m against sending human children to prison when they are allowed to come over and visit us. It’s likely to make bad feeling over there.”

There were murmurs of approval at this, and all the dolls looked sympathetically at Peggy, who felt rather shy.

“You are quite right, Mrs. Mollie,” said Captain Louisa. “And I may tell you in strict confidence that the army feels with you about it. It is the best army to be found anywhere. Leads and Woods alike are devoted to their duty, and quite ready for a war, if a war is forced on us. But we don’t want a war with the people over there. We should win, of course, in the long run, but it would leave bad blood behind it, and while it was going on our women and children wouldn’t be safe.”

“It’s a prospect I don’t like at all,” said Mrs. Winifred. “I have received nothing but kindness from Humans, myself, and I believe the same may be said by most of us here. I say that Peggy ought not to have been locked up, and I hope she will remember that I said that when she goes back. Mrs. Winifred, 4 Prospect Place, Dolltown, are my name and address, and over there I may be found at any time at Top Drawer, Day Nursery Chest, 43 Hamilton Square, London, S.W.”

All the other dolls hastened to give Peggy their names and addresses, except Mr. Joyce, who said, “My peace-loving sentiments are well known, and nobody over there is likely to make any mistake about them. I agree with the opinion of this assembly to this extent: I believe that a Wood King is the best kind of King we could have for Toyland, but I’m not at all sure that King Selim is the right doll in the right place, or that this reign is likely to be an improvement on the last. Wax or no Wax, Queen Rosebud would never have made the mistakes in foreign policy that have already been made in this reign. If we are not very careful, this young lady, and others who may come over to visit us, will carry back a report that may bring serious trouble. King Selim ought to be told that.”

“For my part, I’ve no patience with King Selim,” said Mrs. Mollie. “I heartily wish Queen Rosebud wasn’t dead.”

“But Queen Rosebud _isn’t_ dead,” said Wooden. “She is locked up in the House of Cards. Peggy took her tea up to her this very afternoon.”

She spoke in a tone of surprise, as if everybody ought to know that Queen Rosebud was alive. Peggy had been wondering whether it would be a good thing to tell the dolls what she had discovered, and now that Wooden had let it out, she was rather glad. She didn’t much like keeping such a secret to herself, and, of course, a doll is hardly capable of keeping any secret, and Wooden had only not spoken before because she had got used to the idea of Queen Rosebud being alive, and had not thought much about it since.

“Oh, my dear lady!” said the Lord Chancellor, before anybody could speak. “You mustn’t say a thing like that, you know. King Selim has said that Queen Rosebud is dead and of course she must be dead.”

“But she isn’t,” Wooden persisted. “Peggy has seen her.”

“Yes, I did,” said Peggy. “She is in the top story of the House of Cards. Selim and Rose had her locked up there, and they said that if she told anybody who she was they would put her in a dark dungeon. They are both very wicked.”

“Well, that’s beyond everything!” said Mrs. Winifred. “And I should like to know who Rose is, to go locking up the Queen.”

“If Waxes like to give themselves airs, that’s one thing,” said Mrs. Ida. “But for a Composition----! That’s what nobody can stand.”

“There are Compositions and Compositions,” said Mrs. Mollie. “But Rose would be a disgrace to _any_ class. She ought to be locked up herself.”

“And I think you ought to see to it, Lord Norval,” said Mrs. Jane. “According to Peggy, she has told a deliberate falsehood, and that is punishable by law, as I’ve always understood.”

They seemed to be in danger of forgetting all about Queen Rosebud in their disgust for Rose. But this brought them back to the subject.

“I quite agree with you,” said the Lord Chancellor. “It is a most disgraceful affair altogether. I shall inform his Majesty about it at once, and request him to see that Rose is properly punished. What I shall suggest is that she shall take Queen Rosebud’s place in prison. I fancy that would be rather neat, eh? I shall press the point on his Majesty.”

“But Selim is just as bad as she is,” exclaimed Peggy. “_He_ ought to be sent to prison, too. Why do you call him ‘His Majesty’? He isn’t a King at all.”

“Hush, hush, my dear young lady!” said the Lord Chancellor, much shocked. “I know you are human, and to be excused on that account, but if one of _us_ had said that, it would be punishable, you know. Selim is a King. He wears a crown. We have all seen it.”

“He is only a chess king,” said Peggy. “I meant that he isn’t King of Toyland. He can’t be, if Queen Rosebud is still alive.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, certainly,” said the Lord Chancellor, in a puzzled kind of way. “I shall have to think about it very carefully when I go home. He _says_ he’s King of Toyland. I shall get at it better when I’ve slept over it.”

“But aren’t you going to do anything now?” asked Peggy. “There’s Queen Rosebud still locked up in the House of Cards. _I_ think Captain Louisa ought to take his soldiers at once, and let her out.”

All the dolls had sat with puzzled faces, looking at Peggy and the Lord Chancellor. They had all been ready to talk a great deal, but when it came to doing something they seemed quite at a loss.

Captain Louisa started when his name was mentioned. “If it was my duty, I should do it,” he said. “I should do it very well--nobody better.”

“Well, I think it is your duty,” said Peggy. “Don’t you, Wooden?”

“Well, dear,” said Wooden, “if we all did our duty as well as Captain Louisa, we might be very proud of ourselves.”

Captain Louisa looked proudly at Peggy. “You see what she thinks of me,” he said. “And it isn’t only me either. My men would follow me anywhere.”

Mrs. Winifred rose from her seat. “I’m afraid I must say good-bye, dear Mrs. Wooden,” she said. “I am so glad you have been let out of prison. And I’m so glad that Queen Rosebud isn’t dead. Somehow, I could never feel that she was.”

All the dolls rose one after the other to say good-bye. They all said they were glad that Queen Rosebud was alive, and some of them said that she ought not to stay in prison a moment longer. But none of them seemed interested in how she was to be got out, or in what should happen afterwards, except that Mrs. Mollie said she hoped Rose would get her deserts, and Mrs. Ida said that they saw now what came of Compositions giving themselves airs. However much they seemed to be different from one another in their way of talking and looking at things, they all seemed alike in having no idea of acting for themselves. They were very nice, but Peggy thought that if she had been the Queen in prison she would hardly have felt so confident as Queen Rosebud had been of her doll subjects getting her out again.

However, the Lord Chancellor, who stayed behind, did seem to think that _something_ ought to be done, though he seemed disinclined to do it himself. “When the people get to know of this,” he said, “I’m afraid there will be trouble. The question is, how to act so as to save trouble.”

“_I_ should think the question was how to get poor Queen Rosebud out of prison as soon as possible,” said Peggy.

“Well, certainly there is that side of it,” he said. “The only thing is that if she comes out of prison and goes back to the palace, there will be two of them--a King and a Queen--and that is something that it is very difficult to know how to deal with, without a great deal of careful thought. If King Selim could marry Queen Rosebud, now! How does that strike you as a way of getting over the difficulty?”

“It doesn’t strike me at all,” said Peggy. “Selim has done a very wicked and horrible thing. Queen Rosebud was ill, and she _might_ have died, and if she had it would have been all his fault. He has told heaps of stories about her. She never told him that he was to be King after her at all. That’s one story. And he told the people she was dead. That’s another. And he has sent a lot of dolls to prison for nothing at all. He has done very wrong, and he ought to be punished.”

“That is a very eloquent speech,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Very eloquent indeed. I wish I could make one like it. But you see the trouble is that the King can do no wrong; so of course you can’t punish him.”

“But he _has_ done wrong,” said Peggy. “And he _isn’t_ the King. You keep on talking about him as if Queen Rosebud wasn’t alive. _She_ is the Queen. Selim is only a usurper.”

“I’m beginning to see it,” said the Lord Chancellor. “It’s a very subtle point, but I’m beginning to see it, or at least some of it.”

Whether he would have seen all of it in time cannot be known, for just at that moment the door was opened by the housemaid doll, and in came Colonel Jim and Teddy.

XIV

THE ESCAPE

The moment Teddy came into the room, Peggy felt that the time for action had come. And she had never felt more pleased with him than when he addressed himself straight to the Lord Chancellor, and said, “Now, then, old man, you come along with us to the House of Cards. We’re going to get the Queen out of prison, and we want you with us.”

“I’m sure I’m very glad that you propose to adopt that course,” said the Lord Chancellor, speaking quickly and nervously. “It is exactly what I should have recommended myself. But why do you want me with you? I should have thought--”

“Never mind what you would have thought,” said Teddy. “We want you with us because, now the people have found out that old Selim’s a rascal, and the Queen isn’t dead, they’ve got their dander up. They’ll have some questions to ask, and you can answer them. Colonel Jim and me will be too busy.”

This did not seem to suit the Lord Chancellor at all. He began to protest vigorously that he had had no more to do with the fraud that Selim had practised than anybody else. But Teddy cut him short. “If you won’t come of your own accord,” he said, “Colonel Jim has a couple of troopers outside who will make you. You’d like to come, too, Peggy and Wooden. We’ve brought gees for everybody. Come along quick. We don’t want to waste any time.”

He led the way downstairs, and the others followed him, Colonel Jim bringing up the rear, and keeping an eye on the Lord Chancellor to see that he did not escape.

Waiting outside the house were several horses. There was Colonel Jim’s black charger, and those of his two troopers. These were of lead. There were also some composition horses, and a couple of shaggy ponies, made of wood and covered with hair, and a beautiful cream-coloured one, with a bridle and saddle-cloth sewn with gold embroidery. They were all toy horses and ponies, but they looked splendidly alive, and Peggy was quite delighted to see that the two shaggy ponies had side-saddles, for she knew at once that one must be meant for her and one for Wooden. She loved riding, and thought it would be great fun to ride through the streets of Dolltown on a toy pony.

Wooden was not used to riding, although Peggy had sometimes put her on her rocking-horse at home, so she was not altogether without practice. But Teddy assured her that he had chosen her a very quiet pony, and she was so nice, in the way that she always did what people wanted her to, that she made no trouble about it, and got on very well when she was once helped into the saddle. Peggy felt quite at home on her pony, and patted its nice shaggy neck. She would have liked to have a gallop on it, but that would not be possible in the streets of the town. Colonel Jim and his troopers mounted their chargers, the Lord Chancellor got on to one of the composition horses, and Teddy leapt on to another straight from the ground, without using the stirrup. A royal servant-doll, dressed in scarlet and gold, led the beautiful cream-coloured pony, which was evidently meant for Queen Rosebud. It was a good idea to have a sort of little procession on horseback to take her from her prison to her royal palace again, and no doubt Teddy had thought of it, for he seemed to be the only one who really did things, while the other dolls only talked about them.

What Teddy said about the inhabitants of Dolltown being excited over what had happened was quite true. The crowd outside the gates of the terrace was larger than ever, and when Peggy and the dolls appeared amongst them on horseback there was quite a commotion. They cheered them all except the Lord Chancellor, and they were so angry with him that they would probably have pulled him off his horse if he had not been riding between the two troopers, who protected him. They seemed to have taken the affair much more seriously than the dolls who had come to visit Wooden, but then a crowd always is more excited about things than a few people, because they work each other up. Very likely, if this crowd of dolls had had to do something of their own accord, instead of shouting at those who were doing it, they would not have been very good at it. And if they _had_ pulled the Lord Chancellor off his horse, it is doubtful if they would have known what to do next.

The poor Lord Chancellor was terribly upset at the way the crowd hissed and booed at him. Peggy heard him explaining to the troopers who rode on either side of him that nobody was more surprised than he was, or more glad either, that Queen Rosebud was alive. But they took no notice of him, and the crowd went on booing and hissing all the same.