Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (30 page)

“I should think not,” the Queen said.

The streets were quite empty, and all the shutters were closed Here and there an arrow was sticking into the walls or the doors.

“Do people never walk about the streets?” the Queen asked.

“It wouldn’t be safe when there’s a revolution on,” the beggar answered.

Just at that moment they arrived before the door of a house that, like all the rest, was closely shut up. Over the door was written —

“JAMES GRUB,

Honey-cake Maker.”

Here the beggar stopped and began to beat violently at the door with his staff.

The sound of the blows echoed along the streets, — and then from within came dismal shouts of “Murder!”

“Police!”

“Fire!”

But the beggar called back, “Nonsense, James Grubb; it’s only a lady come for some honey- cakes.”

Then, after a long while, there was a clatter of chains behind the door, and it was opened just an inch, so that the Queen could see an old man’s face peeping cautiously out at her. The sight seemed to reassure him, for he opened the door and bobbed nervously. At other times he would have bowed suavely.

“Will your ladyship be pleased to enter?” he said. “I want to shut the door; it is so dangerous to have it open with all these revolutions about.”

The Queen complied with his request, and found herself in a little dark shop, only lighted dimly through the round air-holes in the shutters.

“Give this man some honeycakes,” she said; and the honey-cake maker seemed only too delighted.

“How many shall I give him, madam?” he said.

“As many as he wants, of course,” the Queen answered sharply. —

The beggar proceeded to help himself, and made a dean sweep of all the cakes that were on the counter. There was a big hole in his coat, and into that he thrust them, so that the lining at last was quite full. The honey-cake maker was extremely pleased at the sight, for he had not expected to sell any cakes that day.

When the cakes had all disappeared there was an awkward pause.

“Now I’ll go on again,” the Queen said “But you haven’t paid,” the honey-cake maker said in some alarm.

“Pay!” said the Queen. “What do you mean?”

“Paid for the cakes, I mean,” the honey-cake maker said “I don’t understand you,” she answered “I am the Queen; I never pay for what I eat.”

“She
is
the Queen,” the beggar said; “and if you don’t take care she’ll have your head off.”

The honey-cake maker jumped back so suddenly that he sat down in a tub of honey and stuck there doubled up with his knees to his chin.

“O Lord! O Lord!” he said. “What shall I do? what shall I do? — all my cakes gone, and never to be paid!”

“You won’t want to be paid if your head’s cut off,” the beggar said.

But the Queen answered, “Nonsense. No one’s going to cut your head off; and I dare say, if you ask them at the palace, they’ll pay you, whatever it means. Just pull him out of the tub,” she continued to the beggar, for the unfortunate honey-baker, not being able to move, remained gasping in the tub.

So the beggar pulled him out, and, for all his fright, his business spirit did not desert him.

“Will your Majesty deign to sign an order for payment?” he said.

And the Queen answered, “Good gracious, no, I won’t; the ink always gets into my finger-nails.”

The honey-cake maker bowed lower still.
“
At least, your Majesty, deign to give me your signet- ring as a token.”

“Oh, I’ll give you that,” the Queen said; and she drew it from her finger.

The honey-cake maker suddenly smote his forehead with his hand, as though an idea had struck him.

“You might carry that ladder out for me,” he said to the beggar, indicating a ladder that lay along the passage wall.

The beggar did as he was asked, and placed it against the house.

“Whatever is he going to do now?” the Queen thought to herself, and, being in the street, awaited the turn of events.

Presently the honey-cake maker came out, carrying a pail of black paint and a large brush, and, thus equipped, ascended the ladder and began to paint, under the

“JAMES GRUBB, Honey-cake Maker.”

“to Her Majesty the Queen and the R—”

But he had got no further than that, when, with tumultuous shouts, a body of soldiers came rushing round a corner, and, seeing the honey-cake maker on the ladder and his door open, they at once tumbled pell-mell into the shop.

No sooner did the unfortunate maker of cakes see this, than, in his haste to descend the ladder, his foot slipped, and he came to the ground, with the paint out of the pot running dismally all over his head.

“Oh dear! oh dear!” the Queen said, and went to pick him up, when, at that moment, the soldiers having found nothing in the shop but a tub of honey and a tub of flour, came out again, not quite as fast as they had entered, until they saw the Queen, when they at once rushed to surround her, and one of them caught at her crown, and another at her bracelets, and another at her lace- handkerchief.

The Queen said, “Leave me alone, do you hear?”

But the soldiers answered, “In the Queen’s name, surrender.”

“Well, I shouldn’t surrender in any name but my own, and I shan’t surrender at all. I am the Queen.”

Whereupon the leader of the soldiers, who had not had the fortune to get at any of the Queen’s jewellery, said, “Release the lady;” and, rather crestfallen, the soldiers obeyed him.

“Oh, your Majesty,” the leader said, kneeling, “we have had such a trouble to find you. The Regent, discovering that your Majesty had left the palace, told us to follow you with all haste to provide for your safety.”

“So you provided for it by trying to rob people’s houses,” the Queen said.

And the leader answered, “Oh no, your Majesty. We feared, knowing that James Grubb is a noted rebel, that he had kidnapped your Majesty, and so were making a domiciliary search.”

“I’m not a noted rebel,” the honey-cake maker gasped. “I’m only noted for my honey-cakes.” But no one noticed his little puff.

The Queen said to the soldiers, “Well, I don’t want you. You can go; and don’t make any more domiciliary searches.”

The leader, however, answered, “Oh, but, your Majesty, domiciliary searches are most necessary in the present state of the kingdom.”

“I don’t care,” the Queen said; “I forbid you to make them. So now go away.”

“But, your Majesty,” the leader answered, “the Regent gave us orders to conduct your Majesty back to the palace. It is not constitutional.”

“I’m sure I don’t care,” the Queen answered; “I’m not going back. Good-bye.”

And she suddenly flew straight up into the air and away over the housetops, and the last sight she had of them showed them, with their faces upturned towards her, gazing in dumb astonishment, the leader still on his knees and the honey-cake maker on his back in the street.

The beggar had long since slunk round a comer and disappeared.

So the Queen rose to quite a great height in the air. “I shall go right away from the town,” she said. “The smoke is so choking up here above the roofs. However people can live down there I can’t make out.”

So she went right up into the blue sky and made her way towards where, at the skirts of the town, the mountains rose steep and frowning.

Up there, standing on the mountain’s crest, she had a glorious view of sea and sky and town and country.

The sea threw back the deep blue of the sky above, and the white wave-horses flecked its surface, and the ships passed silently far out at sea; down below her feet, it beat against the rocky base of the cliff, and in and out amongst the spray the seagulls flew like a white cloud.

The town lay in a narrow valley, broad at the sea face, and running inwards into narrowness between grey, grand hills, right to where it disappeared in the windings of the pass. Down below, in the harbour, she could see the boats getting ready for sea.

“Oh, how wonderful!” the Queen said; “and it all belongs to me — at least, so they say — though I — can’t quite see what good it does me, for I can’t be everywhere at once. And I can’t even make the hills move or the sea heave its breast; so that I can’t see that it does me any more good than any one else, because it isn’t even constitutional for me to be here. I ought to be down there in the palace garden, seeing nothing at all. However, it’s very lovely here, so I mustn’t grumble. I wonder how the bat is getting on, and the Regent, and all.”

So for a while she stayed, looking down at the town. Into the streets she could not see, for the houses stood in the way, but she could see the market-place plainly enough and the palace steps.

Presently a number of soldiers came running into the market-place, and up into the palace, and the Queen knew they had come to announce her flight And then, a few minutes after, she saw them coming rapidly out of the doors.

“Goodness me!” the Queen said, “the Regent is kicking them down the steps. I shan’t go back there again, or he might take to kicking me.”

So she set out along the hilltops, sometimes walking and sometimes flying over the valleys, so that, by the time the sun was near setting, she found herself in a great stretch of dreary uplands, with nothing like a house for miles around.

“Now, whatever shall I do?” she said. “It’s coming on quite dark, and I don’t know where I am. I’ve a good mind to lie down and go to sleep on the heather; only there might be some sort of wild animals about, and it wouldn’t be safe.”

Then the sun sank lower and lower, and the Queen began to feel a little lonely and very nervous. There was not a sound to be heard, save the roar of a brook that ran, gleaming white, among the boulders in the gloom of the valley at her feet “If I fly right up in the air again I shall be safe, at any rate,” the Queen said “I shan’t go tumbling over precipices or getting eaten up by wolves.”

So she flew right up into the upper air where she could see the sun again, and she tried to catch him up, flying fast, fast westwards. But she found that the sun went a great deal faster than she could go — for, you know, the sun goes a great deal more quickly than a train — and gradually he sank below the horizon, and the Queen was left alone with nothing but the stars to keep her company.

As you may imagine, it was not the pleasantest of feelings, that flying through the pitch-dark night, and the Queen felt continually afraid of running against something, though she was really far too high to do any such thing.

But, for all that, she had the dread constantly in her mind, until at last the moon crept silently into being above a hill, seeming like an old friend, and soon all the land below was bathed in white light. The Queen glided on; like a black cloud, she could see her shadow running along the fields below her. She watched till she grew sleepier and sleepier, and found herself nodding, to wake with a start and then fall off to sleep again; till, at last, she fell asleep for good and all, and went sailing quietly along in the white night, whilst the moon gradually mounted up straight overhead, and then sank lower and lower, and the dawn began to wash the world below her with a warmer light But the Queen slept softly on; and, indeed, never bed was softer than the air of the summer night. The sun had been up some little while when she was awakened by just touching on the top of a lofty mountain, that reached up into the sky and stopped her progress; so that, when she was fully awakened, she found herself seated on its peak.