Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Every one without an instant’s hesitation tore off its London-in-November outdoor clothes, and Anthea took off the Lamb’s highwayman blue coat and his three-cornered hat, and then his jersey, and then the Lamb himself suddenly slipped out of his little blue tight breeches 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 digging his happy naked pink toes into the golden smooth sand.

  ‘I’m a little white duck-dickie,’ said he—’a little white duck-dickie what 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, screamed again, 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-book to-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 going to tell you how it’s done, because that’s our secret.’ He winked heavily at each of the others in turn. ‘But you wouldn’t go away and make that pudding, 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 a dream 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 good woman,’ said the Phoenix.

  ‘Good woman, indeed,’ said the cook; ‘good woman yourself’ Then she saw who it was that had spoken. ‘Well, if I ever,’ said she; ‘this is something like a dream! Yellow fowls a-talking and all! I’ve heard of such, 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 along the shore till they were out of earshot of the cook, who still sat gazing about her with a happy, dreamy, vacant smile.

  ‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘we must roll the carpet up and hide it, so that we can get at it at any moment. The Lamb can be getting rid of his whooping-cough all the morning, and we can look about; and if the savages 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 carpet there with her sitting on it. Perhaps it’ll be a lesson to her, and anyway, if she thinks it’s a dream it won’t matter what she says when she gets home.’

  So the extra coats and hats and mufflers were piled on the carpet. Cyril shouldered the well and happy Lamb, the Phoenix perched on Robert’s wrist, and ‘the party of explorers prepared to enter the interior’.

  The grassy slope was smooth, but under the trees there were tangled creepers with bright, strange-shaped flowers, and it was not easy to walk.

  ‘We ought to have an explorer’s axe,’ said Robert. ‘I shall ask father to give me one for Christmas.’

  There were curtains of creepers with scented blossoms hanging from the trees, and brilliant birds darted about quite close to their faces.

  ‘Now, tell me honestly,’ said the Phoenix, ‘are there any birds here handsomer than I am? Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings — I’m a modest 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 confirm my own impression. I will take a flight.’ It circled in the air for a moment, and, returning to Robert’s wrist, went on, ‘There is a path to the left.’

  And there was. So now the children went on through the wood more quickly and comfortably, the girls picking flowers and the Lamb inviting the ‘pretty dickies’ to observe that he himself was a ‘little white real-water-wet duck!’

  And all this time he hadn’t whooping-coughed once.

  The path turned and twisted, and, always threading their way amid a tangle of flowers, the children suddenly passed a corner and found themselves in a forest clearing, where there were a lot of pointed huts — the huts, as they knew at once, of SAVAGES.

  The boldest heart beat more quickly. Suppose they WERE cannibals. It was a long way back to the carpet.

  ‘Hadn’t we better go back?’ said Jane. ‘Go NOW,’ she said, and her voice trembled 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 that a tall man suddenly came out of one of the huts. He had hardly any clothes, and his body all over was a dark and beautiful coppery colour — just like the chrysanthemums father had brought home on Saturday. In his hand he held a spear. The whites of his eyes and the white of his teeth were the only light things about him, except that where the sun shone on his shiny brown body it looked white, too. If you will look carefully at the next shiny savage you meet with next to nothing on, you will see at once — if the sun happens to be shining at the time — that I am right about this.

  The savage looked at the children. Concealment was impossible. He uttered a shout that was more like ‘Oo goggery bag-wag’ than anything else the children had ever heard, and at once brown coppery people leapt out of every hut, and swarmed like ants about the clearing. There was no time for discussion, and no one wanted to discuss anything, anyhow. Whether these coppery people were cannibals or not now seemed to matter very little.

  Without an instant’s hesitation the four children turned and ran back along the forest path; the only pause was Anthea’s. She stood back to let Cyril pass, because he was carrying the Lamb, who screamed with delight. (He had not whooping-coughed a single once since the carpet landed him on the island.)

  ‘Gee-up, Squirrel; gee-gee,’ he shouted, and Cyril did gee-up. The path was a shorter cut to the beach than the creeper-covered way by which they had come, and almost directly they saw through the trees the shining 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 behind them as they ran the patter of feet which they knew, too well, were copper-coloured.

  The sands were golden and opal-coloured — and BARE. There were wreaths of tropic seaweed, there were rich tropic shells of the kind you would not buy 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, no clothes, 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 breathless words were ended. The calm baby-waves were easy to go through. It is warm work running for your life in the tropics, and the coolness of the water was delicious. They were up to their arm-pits now, and Jane was up to 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 head they knew, with a crooked cap upon it. It was the head of the cook.

  For some reason or other t
he savages had stopped at the water’s edge and were all talking at the top of their voices, and all were pointing copper-coloured fingers, stiff with interest and excitement, at the head of 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 on earth’s the carpet?’

  ‘It’s not on earth, bless you,’ replied the cook, happily; ‘it’s UNDER ME — in the water. I got a bit warm setting there in the sun, and I just says, “I wish I was in a cold bath” — just like that — and next minute here I was! It’s all part of the dream.’

  Every one at once saw how extremely fortunate it was that the carpet had had 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 and her to the stuffy little bath-room of the house in Camden Town!

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the Phoenix’s soft voice, breaking in on the general sigh of relief, ‘but I think these brown people want your cook.’

  ‘To — to eat?’ whispered Jane, as well as she could through the water which the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands and feet.

  ‘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 and understand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult and unpleasing. It’s quite easy, when you know how it’s done. It just comes to you. I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo — the cook, I mean. You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones will not harm you now.’

  It is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells you to. 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 the shallowing water, and at last spread it on the sand. The cook, who had followed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-coloured natives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fell on their faces on the rainbow-and-gold sand. The tallest savage spoke in this position, which must have been very awkward for him; and Jane noticed that it took him quite a long time to get the sand out of his mouth afterwards.

  ‘He says,’ the Phoenix remarked after some time, ‘that they wish to engage your cook permanently.’

  ‘Without a character?’ asked Anthea, who had heard her mother speak of such things.

  ‘They do not wish to engage her as cook, but as queen; and queens need not have characters.’

  There was a breathless pause.

  ‘WELL,’ said Cyril, ‘of all the choices! But there’s no accounting for tastes.’

  Every one laughed at the idea of the cook’s being engaged as queen; they could not help it.

  ‘I do not advise laughter,’ warned the Phoenix, ruffling out his golden feathers, which were extremely wet. ‘And it’s not their own choice. It seems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribe that a great queen should some day arise out of the sea with a white crown 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, because it was the end of the week.

  ‘That’s the white crown,’ it said; ‘at least, it’s nearly white — very white indeed compared to the colour THEY are — and anyway, it’s quite white enough.’

  Cyril addressed the cook. ‘Look here!’ said he, ‘these brown people want you to be their queen. They’re only savages, and they don’t know any better. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you’ll promise not to be so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word about to-day, we’ll take you back to Camden Town.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones. ‘I’ve always wanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a good one I should make; and now I’m going to. IF it’s only in a dream, it’s well 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’s finished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in my ears — so I tell you.’

  ‘Are you SURE,’ Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, ‘that she will be quite safe here?’

  ‘She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,’ said the 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 to expect, but long may you reign.’

  Some of the cook’s copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forest with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, and hung 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 stuck parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such as you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shaped drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell on 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 Edward Music-hall in the Kentish Town Road. Go it again!’

  But the Phoenix would not translate this request into the copper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered their breath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and come with 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 the Phoenix had translated this request. ‘No more kitchens and attics for me, thank you. I’m off to my royal palace, I am; and I only wish this here 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 worn elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest, surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of rejoicing as they went.

  ‘WELL!’ said Cyril, ‘I suppose she’s all right, but they don’t seem to count us for much, one way or the other.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Phoenix, ‘they think you’re merely dreams. The prophecy said that the queen would arise from the waves with a white crown and surrounded by white dream-children. That’s about what they think YOU are!’

  ‘And what about dinner?’ said Robert, abruptly.

  ‘There won’t be any dinner, with no cook and no pudding-basin,’ Anthea reminded 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 clothes again, 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 the carpet.

  A sound of uncouth singing still came from beyond the trees where the copper-coloured natives were crooning songs of admiration and respect to their white-crowned queen. Then Anthea said ‘Home,’ just as duchesses and other people do to their coachmen, and the intelligent carpet in one whirling moment laid itself down in its proper place on the nursery floor. 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 to see the time, I shouldn’t wonder — the kitchen clock never did give her satisfaction — and she’
s got run over or fell down in a fit as likely as not. You’ll have to put up with the cold bacon for your dinners; and what 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 the police-station.’

  But nobody ever knew anything about the cook any more, except the children, and, later, one other person.

  Mother was so upset at losing the cook, and so anxious about her, that Anthea felt most miserable, as though she had done something very wrong indeed. She woke several times in the night, and at last decided that she would ask the Phoenix to let her tell her mother all about it. But there was no opportunity to do this next day, because the Phoenix, as usual, had gone to sleep in some out-of-the-way spot, after asking, as a special favour, not to be disturbed for twenty-four hours.

  The Lamb never whooping-coughed once all that Sunday, and mother and father said what good medicine it was that the doctor had given him. But the children knew that it was the southern shore where you can’t have whooping-cough that had cured him. The Lamb babbled of coloured sand and water, but no one took any notice of that. He often talked of things that hadn’t happened.

  It was on Monday morning, very early indeed, that Anthea woke and suddenly made up her mind. She crept downstairs in her night-gown (it was very chilly), sat down on the carpet, and with a beating heart wished herself on the sunny shore where you can’t have whooping-cough, and next moment there she was.