CHAPTER XIII.
NO sooner had the Crown Princess formally departed from Grachidichika than, leaving the procession, she slipped back, accompanied by Daffodil, for a quiet chat and a cup of five o’clock meadow‐sweet water with her mother. The old lady was talkative, and Daffodil was surprised to find what full intelligence she possessed of everybody’s affairs in Croäxaxica.
“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 page: 163 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 page: 164 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.
page: 165“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 page: 166 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 page: 167 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.”
page: 168“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 page: 169 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 page: 170 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.
page: 171“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‐ page: 172 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 page: 173 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 page: 174 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.”
page: 175“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 page: 176 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.
