by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 3. THE QUEEN COOK
It was on a Saturday that the children made their first glorious journeyon the wishing carpet. Unless you are too young to read at all, you willknow that the next day must have been Sunday.
Sunday at 18, Camden Terrace, Camden Town, was always a very prettyday. Father always brought home flowers on Saturday, so that thebreakfast-table was extra beautiful. In November, of course, the flowerswere chrysanthemums, yellow and coppery coloured. Then there were alwayssausages on toast for breakfast, and these are rapture, after six daysof Kentish Town Road eggs at fourteen a shilling.
On this particular Sunday there were fowls for dinner, a kind of foodthat is generally kept for birthdays and grand occasions, and therewas an angel pudding, when rice and milk and oranges and white icing dotheir best to make you happy.
After dinner father was very sleepy indeed, because he had been workinghard all the week; but he did not yield to the voice that said, 'Go andhave an hour's rest.' He nursed the Lamb, who had a horrid cough thatcook said was whooping-cough as sure as eggs, and he said--
'Come along, kiddies; I've got a ripping book from the library, calledThe Golden Age, and I'll read it to you.'
Mother settled herself on the drawing-room sofa, and said she couldlisten quite nicely with her eyes shut. The Lamb snugged into the'armchair corner' of daddy's arm, and the others got into a happy heapon the hearth-rug. At first, of course, there were too many feet andknees and shoulders and elbows, but real comfort was actually settlingdown on them, and the Phoenix and the carpet were put away on the backtop shelf of their minds (beautiful things that could be taken out andplayed with later), when a surly solid knock came at the drawing-roomdoor. It opened an angry inch, and the cook's voice said, 'Please, m',may I speak to you a moment?'
Mother looked at father with a desperate expression. Then she put herpretty sparkly Sunday shoes down from the sofa, and stood up in them andsighed.
'As good fish in the sea,' said father, cheerfully, and it was not tillmuch later that the children understood what he meant.
Mother went out into the passage, which is called 'the hall', where theumbrella-stand is, and the picture of the 'Monarch of the Glen' in ayellow shining frame, with brown spots on the Monarch from the dampin the house before last, and there was cook, very red and damp in theface, and with a clean apron tied on all crooked over the dirty one thatshe had dished up those dear delightful chickens in. She stood there andshe seemed to get redder and damper, and she twisted the corner of herapron round her fingers, and she said very shortly and fiercely--
'If you please ma'am, I should wish to leave at my day month.' Motherleaned against the hatstand. The children could see her looking palethrough the crack of the door, because she had been very kind to thecook, and had given her a holiday only the day before, and it seemed sovery unkind of the cook to want to go like this, and on a Sunday too.
'Why, what's the matter?' mother said.
'It's them children,' the cook replied, and somehow the children allfelt that they had known it from the first. They did not remember havingdone anything extra wrong, but it is so frightfully easy to displease acook. 'It's them children: there's that there new carpet in their room,covered thick with mud, both sides, beastly yellow mud, and sakes aliveknows where they got it. And all that muck to clean up on a Sunday! It'snot my place, and it's not my intentions, so I don't deceive you, ma'am,and but for them limbs, which they is if ever there was, it's not a badplace, though I says it, and I wouldn't wish to leave, but--'
'I'm very sorry,' said mother, gently. 'I will speak to the children.And you had better think it over, and if you REALLY wish to go, tell meto-morrow.'
Next day mother had a quiet talk with cook, and cook said she didn'tmind if she stayed on a bit, just to see.
But meantime the question of the muddy carpet had been gone intothoroughly by father and mother. Jane's candid explanation that themud had come from the bottom of a foreign tower where there was buriedtreasure was received with such chilling disbelief that the otherslimited their defence to an expression of sorrow, and of a determination'not to do it again'. But father said (and mother agreed with him,because mothers have to agree with fathers, and not because it was herown idea) that children who coated a carpet on both sides with thickmud, and when they were asked for an explanation could only talk sillynonsense--that meant Jane's truthful statement--were not fit to have acarpet at all, and, indeed, SHOULDN'T have one for a week!
So the carpet was brushed (with tea-leaves, too) which was the onlycomfort Anthea could think of, and folded up and put away in thecupboard at the top of the stairs, and daddy put the key in his trouserspocket. 'Till Saturday,' said he.
'Never mind,' said Anthea, 'we've got the Phoenix.'
But, as it happened, they hadn't. The Phoenix was nowhere to be found,and everything had suddenly settled down from the rosy wild beauty ofmagic happenings to the common damp brownness of ordinary November lifein Camden Town--and there was the nursery floor all bare boards inthe middle and brown oilcloth round the outside, and the bareness andyellowness of the middle floor showed up the blackbeetles with terribledistinctness, when the poor things came out in the evening, as usual, totry to make friends with the children. But the children never would.
The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blueDresden bowl could hardly lighten at all. Next day the Lamb's coughwas worse. It certainly seemed very whoopy, and the doctor came in hisbrougham carriage.
Every one tried to bear up under the weight of the sorrow which it wasto know that the wishing carpet was locked up and the Phoenix mislaid. Agood deal of time was spent in looking for the Phoenix.
'It's a bird of its word,' said Anthea. 'I'm sure it's not deserted us.But you know it had a most awfully long fly from wherever it was to nearRochester and back, and I expect the poor thing's feeling tired out andwants rest. I am sure we may trust it.'
The others tried to feel sure of this, too, but it was hard.
No one could be expected to feel very kindly towards the cook, since itwas entirely through her making such a fuss about a little foreign mudthat the carpet had been taken away.
'She might have told us,' said Jane, 'and Panther and I would havecleaned it with tea-leaves.'
'She's a cantankerous cat,' said Robert.
'I shan't say what I think about her,' said Anthea, primly, 'because itwould be evil speaking, lying, and slandering.'
'It's not lying to say she's a disagreeable pig, and a beastlyblue-nosed Bozwoz,' said Cyril, who had read The Eyes of Light, andintended to talk like Tony as soon as he could teach Robert to talk likePaul.
And all the children, even Anthea, agreed that even if she wasn't ablue-nosed Bozwoz, they wished cook had never been born.
But I ask you to believe that they didn't do all the things on purposewhich so annoyed the cook during the following week, though I daresaythe things would not have happened if the cook had been a favourite.This is a mystery. Explain it if you can. The things that had happenedwere as follows:
Sunday.--Discovery of foreign mud on both sides of the carpet.
Monday.--Liquorice put on to boil with aniseed balls in a saucepan.Anthea did this, because she thought it would be good for the Lamb'scough. The whole thing forgotten, and bottom of saucepan burned out. Itwas the little saucepan lined with white that was kept for the baby'smilk.
Tuesday.--A dead mouse found in pantry. Fish-slice taken to dig gravewith. By regrettable accident fish-slice broken. Defence: 'The cookoughtn't to keep dead mice in pantries.'
Wednesday.--Chopped suet left on kitchen table. Robert added choppedsoap, but he says he thought the suet was soap too.
Thursday.--Broke the kitchen window by falling against it during aperfectly fair game of bandits in the area.
Friday.--Stopped up grating of kitchen sink with putty and filled sinkwith water to make a lake to sail paper boats in. Went away and left thetap running. Kitchen hearthrug and cook's shoes ruin
ed.
On Saturday the carpet was restored. There had been plenty of timeduring the week to decide where it should be asked to go when they didget it back.
Mother had gone over to granny's, and had not taken the Lamb because hehad a bad cough, which, cook repeatedly said, was whooping-cough as sureas eggs is eggs.
'But we'll take him out, a ducky darling,' said Anthea. 'We'll takehim somewhere where you can't have whooping-cough. Don't be so silly,Robert. If he DOES talk about it no one'll take any notice. He's alwaystalking about things he's never seen.'
So they dressed the Lamb and themselves in out-of-doors clothes, and theLamb chuckled and coughed, and laughed and coughed again, poor dear, andall the chairs and tables were moved off the carpet by the boys, whileJane nursed the Lamb, and Anthea rushed through the house in one lastwild hunt for the missing Phoenix.
'It's no use waiting for it,' she said, reappearing breathless in thebreakfast-room. 'But I know it hasn't deserted us. It's a bird of itsword.'
'Quite so,' said the gentle voice of the Phoenix from beneath the table.
Every one fell on its knees and looked up, and there was the Phoenixperched on a crossbar of wood that ran across under the table, and hadonce supported a drawer, in the happy days before the drawer had beenused as a boat, and its bottom unfortunately trodden out by Raggett'sReally Reliable School Boots on the feet of Robert.
'I've been here all the time,' said the Phoenix, yawning politelybehind its claw. 'If you wanted me you should have recited the ode ofinvocation; it's seven thousand lines long, and written in very pure andbeautiful Greek.'
'Couldn't you tell it us in English?' asked Anthea.
'It's rather long, isn't it?' said Jane, jumping the Lamb on her knee.
'Couldn't you make a short English version, like Tate and Brady?'
'Oh, come along, do,' said Robert, holding out his hand. 'Come along,good old Phoenix.'
'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix,' it corrected shyly.
'Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix, then. Come along, come along,' said Robert,impatiently, with his hand still held out.
The Phoenix fluttered at once on to his wrist.
'This amiable youth,' it said to the others, 'has miraculously been ableto put the whole meaning of the seven thousand lines of Greek invocationinto one English hexameter--a little misplaced some of the words--but--
'Oh, come along, come along, good old beautiful Phoenix!'
'Not perfect, I admit--but not bad for a boy of his age.'
'Well, now then,' said Robert, stepping back on to the carpet with thegolden Phoenix on his wrist.
'You look like the king's falconer,' said Jane, sitting down on thecarpet with the baby on her lap.
Robert tried to go on looking like it. Cyril and Anthea stood on thecarpet.
'We shall have to get back before dinner,' said Cyril, 'or cook willblow the gaff.'
'She hasn't sneaked since Sunday,' said Anthea.
'She--' Robert was beginning, when the door burst open and the cook,fierce and furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner ofthe carpet, with a broken basin in one hand and a threat in the other,which was clenched.
'Look 'ere!' she cried, 'my only basin; and what the powers am I tomake the beefsteak and kidney pudding in that your ma ordered for yourdinners? You don't deserve no dinners, so yer don't.'
'I'm awfully sorry, cook,' said Anthea gently; 'it was my fault, andI forgot to tell you about it. It got broken when we were telling ourfortunes with melted lead, you know, and I meant to tell you.'
'Meant to tell me,' replied the cook; she was red with anger, and reallyI don't wonder--'meant to tell! Well, _I_ mean to tell, too. I've heldmy tongue this week through, because the missus she said to me quietlike, "We mustn't expect old heads on young shoulders," but now I shan'thold it no longer. There was the soap you put in our pudding, and me andEliza never so much as breathed it to your ma--though well we might--andthe saucepan, and the fish-slice, and--My gracious cats alive! what 'aveyou got that blessed child dressed up in his outdoors for?'
'We aren't going to take him out,' said Anthea; 'at least--' She stoppedshort, for though they weren't going to take him out in the KentishTown Road, they certainly intended to take him elsewhere. But not at allwhere cook meant when she said 'out'. This confused the truthful Anthea.
'Out!' said the cook, 'that I'll take care you don't;' and she snatchedthe Lamb from the lap of Jane, while Anthea and Robert caught her by theskirts and apron. 'Look here,' said Cyril, in stern desperation, 'willyou go away, and make your pudding in a pie-dish, or a flower-pot, or ahot-water can, or something?'
'Not me,' said the cook, briefly; 'and leave this precious poppet foryou to give his deathercold to.'
'I warn you,' said Cyril, solemnly. 'Beware, ere yet it be too late.'
'Late yourself the little popsey-wopsey,' said the cook, with angrytenderness. 'They shan't take it out, no more they shan't. And--Wheredid you get that there yellow fowl?' She pointed to the Phoenix.
Even Anthea saw that unless the cook lost her situation the loss wouldbe theirs.
'I wish,' she said suddenly, 'we were on a sunny southern shore, wherethere can't be any whooping-cough.'
She said it through the frightened howls of the Lamb, and the sturdyscoldings of the cook, and instantly the giddy-go-round-and-falling-liftfeeling swept over the whole party, and the cook sat down flat on thecarpet, holding the screaming Lamb tight to her stout print-coveredself, and calling on St Bridget to help her. She was an Irishwoman.
The moment the tipsy-topsy-turvy feeling stopped, the cook opened hereyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took theopportunity to get the desperately howling Lamb into her own arms.
'It's all right,' she said; 'own Panther's got you. Look at the trees,and the sand, and the shells, and the great big tortoises. Oh DEAR, howhot it is!'
It certainly was; for the trusty carpet had laid itself out on asouthern shore that was sunny and no mistake, as Robert remarked. Thegreenest of green slopes led up to glorious groves where palm-trees andall the tropical flowers and fruits that you read of in Westward Ho! andFair Play were growing in rich profusion. Between the green, green slopeand the blue, blue sea lay a stretch of sand that looked like a carpetof jewelled cloth of gold, for it was not greyish as our northern sandis, but yellow and changing--opal-coloured like sunshine and rainbows.And at the very moment when the wild, whirling, blinding, deafening,tumbling upside-downness of the carpet-moving stopped, the children hadthe happiness of seeing three large live turtles waddle down to the edgeof the sea and disappear in the water. And it was hotter than you canpossibly imagine, unless you think of ovens on a baking-day.
Every one without an instant's hesitation tore off itsLondon-in-November outdoor clothes, and Anthea took off the Lamb'shighwayman blue coat and his three-cornered hat, and then his jersey,and then the Lamb himself suddenly slipped out of his little blue tightbreeches and stood up happy and hot in his little white shirt.
'I'm sure it's much warmer than the seaside in the summer,' said Anthea.'Mother always lets us go barefoot then.'
So the Lamb's shoes and socks and gaiters came off, and he stood digginghis happy naked pink toes into the golden smooth sand.
'I'm a little white duck-dickie,' said he--'a little white duck-dickiewhat swims,' and splashed quacking into a sandy pool.
'Let him,' said Anthea; 'it can't hurt him. Oh, how hot it is!'
The cook suddenly opened her eyes and screamed, shut them, screamedagain, opened her eyes once more and said--
'Why, drat my cats alive, what's all this? It's a dream, I expect.
Well, it's the best I ever dreamed. I'll look it up in the dream-bookto-morrow. Seaside and trees and a carpet to sit on. I never did!'
'Look here,' said Cyril, 'it isn't a dream; it's real.'
'Ho yes!' said the cook; 'they always says that in dreams.'
'It's REAL, I tell you,' Robert said, stamping his foot. 'I'm not goingt
o tell you how it's done, because that's our secret.' He winked heavilyat each of the others in turn. 'But you wouldn't go away and make thatpudding, so we HAD to bring you, and I hope you like it.'
'I do that, and no mistake,' said the cook unexpectedly; 'and it being adream it don't matter what I say; and I WILL say, if it's my last word,that of all the aggravating little varmints--' 'Calm yourself, my goodwoman,' said the Phoenix.
'Good woman, indeed,' said the cook; 'good woman yourself' Then shesaw who it was that had spoken. 'Well, if I ever,' said she; 'this issomething like a dream! Yellow fowls a-talking and all! I've heard ofsuch, but never did I think to see the day.'
'Well, then,' said Cyril, impatiently, 'sit here and see the day now.It's a jolly fine day. Here, you others--a council!' They walked alongthe shore till they were out of earshot of the cook, who still satgazing about her with a happy, dreamy, vacant smile.
'Look here,' said Cyril, 'we must roll the carpet up and hide it, sothat we can get at it at any moment. The Lamb can be getting rid ofhis whooping-cough all the morning, and we can look about; and if thesavages on this island are cannibals, we'll hook it, and take her back.And if not, we'll LEAVE HER HERE.'
'Is that being kind to servants and animals, like the clergyman said?'asked Jane.
'Nor she isn't kind,' retorted Cyril.
'Well--anyway,' said Anthea, 'the safest thing is to leave the carpetthere with her sitting on it. Perhaps it'll be a lesson to her, andanyway, if she thinks it's a dream it won't matter what she says whenshe gets home.'
So the extra coats and hats and mufflers were piled on the carpet. Cyrilshouldered the well and happy Lamb, the Phoenix perched on Robert'swrist, and 'the party of explorers prepared to enter the interior'.
The grassy slope was smooth, but under the trees there were tangledcreepers with bright, strange-shaped flowers, and it was not easy towalk.
'We ought to have an explorer's axe,' said Robert. 'I shall ask fatherto give me one for Christmas.'
There were curtains of creepers with scented blossoms hanging from thetrees, and brilliant birds darted about quite close to their faces.
'Now, tell me honestly,' said the Phoenix, 'are there any birds herehandsomer than I am? Don't be afraid of hurting my feelings--I'm amodest bird, I hope.'
'Not one of them,' said Robert, with conviction, 'is a patch upon you!'
'I was never a vain bird,' said the Phoenix, 'but I own that you confirmmy own impression. I will take a flight.' It circled in the air for amoment, and, returning to Robert's wrist, went on, 'There is a path tothe left.'
And there was. So now the children went on through the wood more quicklyand comfortably, the girls picking flowers and the Lamb invitingthe 'pretty dickies' to observe that he himself was a 'little whitereal-water-wet duck!'
And all this time he hadn't whooping-coughed once.
The path turned and twisted, and, always threading their way amid atangle of flowers, the children suddenly passed a corner and foundthemselves in a forest clearing, where there were a lot of pointedhuts--the huts, as they knew at once, of SAVAGES.
The boldest heart beat more quickly. Suppose they WERE cannibals. It wasa long way back to the carpet.
'Hadn't we better go back?' said Jane. 'Go NOW,' she said, and her voicetrembled a little. 'Suppose they eat us.'
'Nonsense, Pussy,' said Cyril, firmly. 'Look, there's a goat tied up.That shows they don't eat PEOPLE.'
'Let's go on and say we're missionaries,' Robert suggested.
'I shouldn't advise THAT,' said the Phoenix, very earnestly.
'Why not?'
'Well, for one thing, it isn't true,' replied the golden bird.
It was while they stood hesitating on the edge of the clearing thata tall man suddenly came out of one of the huts. He had hardly anyclothes, and his body all over was a dark and beautiful copperycolour--just like the chrysanthemums father had brought home onSaturday. In his hand he held a spear. The whites of his eyes and thewhite of his teeth were the only light things about him, except thatwhere the sun shone on his shiny brown body it looked white, too. Ifyou will look carefully at the next shiny savage you meet with next tonothing on, you will see at once--if the sun happens to be shining atthe time--that I am right about this.
The savage looked at the children. Concealment was impossible. Heuttered a shout that was more like 'Oo goggery bag-wag' than anythingelse the children had ever heard, and at once brown coppery people leaptout of every hut, and swarmed like ants about the clearing. There wasno time for discussion, and no one wanted to discuss anything, anyhow.Whether these coppery people were cannibals or not now seemed to mattervery little.
Without an instant's hesitation the four children turned and ran backalong the forest path; the only pause was Anthea's. She stood back tolet Cyril pass, because he was carrying the Lamb, who screamed withdelight. (He had not whooping-coughed a single once since the carpetlanded him on the island.)
'Gee-up, Squirrel; gee-gee,' he shouted, and Cyril did gee-up. The pathwas a shorter cut to the beach than the creeper-covered way by whichthey had come, and almost directly they saw through the trees theshining blue-and-gold-and-opal of sand and sea.
'Stick to it,' cried Cyril, breathlessly.
They did stick to it; they tore down the sands--they could hear behindthem as they ran the patter of feet which they knew, too well, werecopper-coloured.
The sands were golden and opal-coloured--and BARE. There were wreaths oftropic seaweed, there were rich tropic shells of the kind you would notbuy in the Kentish Town Road under at least fifteen pence a pair.There were turtles basking lumpily on the water's edge--but no cook, noclothes, and no carpet.
'On, on! Into the sea!' gasped Cyril. 'They MUST hate water.I've--heard--savages always--dirty.'
Their feet were splashing in the warm shallows before his breathlesswords were ended. The calm baby-waves were easy to go through. It iswarm work running for your life in the tropics, and the coolness of thewater was delicious. They were up to their arm-pits now, and Jane was upto her chin.
'Look!' said the Phoenix. 'What are they pointing at?'
The children turned; and there, a little to the west was a head--a headthey knew, with a crooked cap upon it. It was the head of the cook.
For some reason or other the savages had stopped at the water's edgeand were all talking at the top of their voices, and all were pointingcopper-coloured fingers, stiff with interest and excitement, at the headof the cook.
The children hurried towards her as quickly as the water would let them.
'What on earth did you come out here for?' Robert shouted; 'and where onearth's the carpet?'
'It's not on earth, bless you,' replied the cook, happily; 'it's UNDERME--in the water. I got a bit warm setting there in the sun, and I justsays, "I wish I was in a cold bath"--just like that--and next minutehere I was! It's all part of the dream.'
Every one at once saw how extremely fortunate it was that the carpet hadhad the sense to take the cook to the nearest and largest bath--the sea,and how terrible it would have been if the carpet had taken itself andher to the stuffy little bath-room of the house in Camden Town!
'Excuse me,' said the Phoenix's soft voice, breaking in on the generalsigh of relief, 'but I think these brown people want your cook.'
'To--to eat?' whispered Jane, as well as she could through the waterwhich the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands andfeet.
'Hardly,' rejoined the bird. 'Who wants cooks to EAT? Cooks are ENGAGED,not eaten. They wish to engage her.'
'How can you understand what they say?' asked Cyril, doubtfully.
'It's as easy as kissing your claw,' replied the bird. 'I speak andunderstand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult andunpleasing. It's quite easy, when you know how it's done. It just comesto you. I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo--thecook, I mean. You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones willnot harm you now.'
It
is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells youto. So the children at once got hold of the corners of the carpet,and, pulling it from under the cook, towed it slowly in through theshallowing water, and at last spread it on the sand. The cook, who hadfollowed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-colourednatives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fellon their faces on the rainbow-and-gold sand. The tallest savage spokein this position, which must have been very awkward for him; and Janenoticed that it took him quite a long time to get the sand out of hismouth afterwards.
'He says,' the Phoenix remarked after some time, 'that they wish toengage your cook permanently.'
'Without a character?' asked Anthea, who had heard her mother speak ofsuch things.
'They do not wish to engage her as cook, but as queen; and queens neednot have characters.'
There was a breathless pause.
'WELL,' said Cyril, 'of all the choices! But there's no accounting fortastes.'
Every one laughed at the idea of the cook's being engaged as queen; theycould not help it.
'I do not advise laughter,' warned the Phoenix, ruffling out his goldenfeathers, which were extremely wet. 'And it's not their own choice. Itseems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribethat a great queen should some day arise out of the sea with a whitecrown on her head, and--and--well, you see! There's the crown!'
It pointed its claw at cook's cap; and a very dirty cap it was, becauseit was the end of the week.
'That's the white crown,' it said; 'at least, it's nearly white--verywhite indeed compared to the colour THEY are--and anyway, it's quitewhite enough.'
Cyril addressed the cook. 'Look here!' said he, 'these brown people wantyou to be their queen. They're only savages, and they don't know anybetter. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you'll promise not tobe so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word aboutto-day, we'll take you back to Camden Town.'
'No, you don't,' said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones. 'I've alwayswanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a goodone I should make; and now I'm going to. IF it's only in a dream, it'swell worth while. And I don't go back to that nasty underground kitchen,and me blamed for everything; that I don't, not till the dream'sfinished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in myears--so I tell you.'
'Are you SURE,' Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, 'that she will bequite safe here?'
'She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,' saidthe bird, solemnly.
'There--you hear,' said Cyril. 'You're in for a precious soft thing,so mind you're a good queen, cook. It's more than you'd any right toexpect, but long may you reign.'
Some of the cook's copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forestwith long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, andhung them respectfully round the neck of their new sovereign.
'What! all them lovely bokays for me!' exclaimed the enraptured cook.'Well, this here is something LIKE a dream, I must say.'
She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones,themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuckparrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such asyou have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that thecook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shapeddrums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance gotfaster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fellon the sand tired out.
The new queen, with her white crown-cap all on one side, clapped wildly.
'Brayvo!' she cried, 'brayvo! It's better than the Albert EdwardMusic-hall in the Kentish Town Road. Go it again!'
But the Phoenix would not translate this request into thecopper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered theirbreath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and comewith them to their huts.
'The finest shall be yours, O queen,' said they.
'Well--so long!' said the cook, getting heavily on to her feet, when thePhoenix had translated this request. 'No more kitchens and attics forme, thank you. I'm off to my royal palace, I am; and I only wish thishere dream would keep on for ever and ever.'
She picked up the ends of the garlands that trailed round her feet,and the children had one last glimpse of her striped stockings and wornelastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest,surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of rejoicing as theywent.
'WELL!' said Cyril, 'I suppose she's all right, but they don't seem tocount us for much, one way or the other.'
'Oh,' said the Phoenix, 'they think you're merely dreams. The prophecysaid that the queen would arise from the waves with a white crown andsurrounded by white dream-children. That's about what they think YOUare!'
'And what about dinner?' said Robert, abruptly.
'There won't be any dinner, with no cook and no pudding-basin,' Antheareminded him; 'but there's always bread-and-butter.'
'Let's get home,' said Cyril.
The Lamb was furiously unwishful to be dressed in his warm clothesagain, but Anthea and Jane managed it, by force disguised as coaxing,and he never once whooping-coughed.
Then every one put on its own warm things and took its place on thecarpet.
A sound of uncouth singing still came from beyond the trees where thecopper-coloured natives were crooning songs of admiration and respectto their white-crowned queen. Then Anthea said 'Home,' just as duchessesand other people do to their coachmen, and the intelligent carpet inone whirling moment laid itself down in its proper place on the nurseryfloor. And at that very moment Eliza opened the door and said--
'Cook's gone! I can't find her anywhere, and there's no dinner ready.She hasn't taken her box nor yet her outdoor things. She just ran out tosee the time, I shouldn't wonder--the kitchen clock never did give hersatisfaction--and she's got run over or fell down in a fit as likelyas not. You'll have to put up with the cold bacon for your dinners; andwhat on earth you've got your outdoor things on for I don't know.And then I'll slip out and see if they know anything about her at thepolice-station.'
But nobody ever knew anything about the cook any more, except thechildren, and, later, one other person.
Mother was so upset at losing the cook, and so anxious about her, thatAnthea felt most miserable, as though she had done something very wrongindeed. She woke several times in the night, and at last decided thatshe would ask the Phoenix to let her tell her mother all about it. Butthere was no opportunity to do this next day, because the Phoenix, asusual, had gone to sleep in some out-of-the-way spot, after asking, as aspecial favour, not to be disturbed for twenty-four hours.
The Lamb never whooping-coughed once all that Sunday, and mother andfather said what good medicine it was that the doctor had given him. Butthe children knew that it was the southern shore where you can't havewhooping-cough that had cured him. The Lamb babbled of coloured sandand water, but no one took any notice of that. He often talked of thingsthat hadn't happened.
It was on Monday morning, very early indeed, that Anthea woke andsuddenly made up her mind. She crept downstairs in her night-gown (itwas very chilly), sat down on the carpet, and with a beating heartwished herself on the sunny shore where you can't have whooping-cough,and next moment there she was.
The sand was splendidly warm. She could feel it at once, even throughthe carpet. She folded the carpet, and put it over her shoulders likea shawl, for she was determined not to be parted from it for a singleinstant, no matter how hot it might be to wear.
Then trembling a little, and trying to keep up her courage by sayingover and over, 'It is my DUTY, it IS my duty,' she went up the forestpath.
'Well, here you are again,' said the cook, directly she saw Anthea.
'This dream does keep on!'
The cook was dressed in a white robe; she had no shoes and stockingsand no cap and she was sitting under a screen of palm-leaves, for it wasafternoon in
the island, and blazing hot. She wore a flower wreathon her hair, and copper-coloured boys were fanning her with peacock'sfeathers.
'They've got the cap put away,' she said. 'They seem to think a lot ofit. Never saw one before, I expect.'
'Are you happy?' asked Anthea, panting; the sight of the cook as queenquite took her breath away.
'I believe you, my dear,' said the cook, heartily. 'Nothing to do unlessyou want to. But I'm getting rested now. Tomorrow I'm going to startcleaning out my hut, if the dream keeps on, and I shall teach themcooking; they burns everything to a cinder now unless they eats it raw.'
'But can you talk to them?'
'Lor' love a duck, yes!' the happy cook-queen replied; 'it's quite easyto pick up. I always thought I should be quick at foreign languages.I've taught them to understand "dinner," and "I want a drink," and "Youleave me be," already.'
'Then you don't want anything?' Anthea asked earnestly and anxiously.
'Not me, miss; except if you'd only go away. I'm afraid of me wakingup with that bell a-going if you keep on stopping here a-talking to me.Long as this here dream keeps up I'm as happy as a queen.'
'Goodbye, then,' said Anthea, gaily, for her conscience was clear now.
She hurried into the wood, threw herself on the ground, and said'Home'--and there she was, rolled in the carpet on the nursery floor.
'SHE'S all right, anyhow,' said Anthea, and went back to bed. 'I'm gladsomebody's pleased. But mother will never believe me when I tell her.'
The story is indeed a little difficult to believe. Still, you might try.
