Rewards and Fairies. Rudyard Kipling
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with a grin.
‘Well, it’s our own Kingdom – not counting you, of course.’
‘That’s rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.’
‘What about?’ said Dan cautiously.
‘Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She knows about Kingdoms.’
There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look in the least as if she motored.
Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, deep, slow, billowy one.
‘Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,’ she said, ‘I can do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.’ She turned sharply on staring Dan. ‘What’s in your head, lad? Manners?’
‘I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,’ he answered.
She laughed a rather shrill laugh. ‘You’re a courtier already. Do you know anything of dances, wench – or Queen, must I say?’
‘I’ve had some lessons, but I can’t really dance a bit,’ said Una.
‘You should learn then.’ The lady moved forward as though she would teach her at once.‘It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies time to think how she shall win or – lose. A woman can only work in man’s playtime. Heigho!’ She sat down on the bank.
Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung his sorrowful head over the fence.
‘A pleasant Kingdom,’ said the lady, looking round. ‘Well enclosed. And how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?’
Una did not quite understand. ‘We don’t play that,’ she said.
‘Play?’ The lady threw up her hands and laughed.
‘We have it for our own, together,’ Dan explained.
‘And d’you never quarrel, young Burleigh?’
‘Sometimes, but then we don’t tell.’
The lady nodded. ‘I’ve no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm is small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For example’ – she pointed to Middenboro – ‘yonder old horse, with the face of a Spanish friar – does he never break in?’
‘He can’t. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,’ said Una, ‘and we let Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.’
The lady laughed like a man. ‘I see! Hobden catches conies – rabbits – for himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of his coney-catching?’
‘We never ask,’ said Una. ‘Hobden’s a particular friend of ours.’
‘Hoity-toity!’ the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. ‘But I forget. It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked ’em no questions either.’
‘Was she trying to grow flowers?’ said Una.
‘No, trees – perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.’ The lady leaned her head on her hand.
‘They do if you don’t look after them. We’ve got a few. Would you like to see? I’ll fetch you some.’ Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’ she said. ‘They’re Virginia stock.’
‘Virginia?’ said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask.
‘Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?’
‘Not herself – but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or to plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.’
‘And was she?’ said Dan cheerfully.
‘Quien sabe? (who knows?) But at least, while her men toiled abroad she toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.’
‘And what was she called?’
‘Gloriana – Belphœbe – Elizabeth of England.’ Her voice changed at each word.
‘You mean Queen Bess?’ The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan.
‘You name her lightly enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?’ said she.
‘Well, I – I’ve seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall House – down the road, you know. They’re in a glass case – awfully tiny things.’
‘Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!’ she laughed. ‘You are a courtier too soon.’
‘But they are,’ Dan insisted. ‘As little as dolls’ shoes. Did you really know her well?’
‘Well. She was a – woman. I’ve been at her Court all my life. Yes, I remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. They say she danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the price of a pair of old shoes – hey?’
She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its broad flashing buckle.
‘You’ve heard of Philip of Spain – long-suffering Philip,’ she said, her eyes still on the shining stones. ‘Faith, what some men will endure at some women’s hands passes belief! If I had been a man, and a woman had played with me as Elizabeth played with Philip, I would have – ’ She nipped off one of the Virginia stocks and held it up between finger and thumb. ‘But for all that’ – she began to strip the leaves one by one – ’they say – and I am persuaded – that Philip loved her.’ She tossed her head sideways.
‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Una.
‘The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!’ She swept the flowers from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that the wind chased through the wood.
‘I should like to know about the shoes,’ said Dan.
‘So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. ‘Twill be as good as a play.’
‘We’ve never been to a play,’ said Una.
The lady looked at her and laughed. ‘I’ll make one for you. Watch! You are to imagine that she – Gloriana, Belphœbe, Elizabeth – has gone on a progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic), and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village – what was its name?’ She pushed Puck with her foot.
‘Norgem,’ he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam.
‘Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I’d made ’em in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.’
‘You whipped?’ said Dan.
‘Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship, makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus’ – (the lady yawned) – ‘Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and yet be dog-wearied of ’em in body and mind – and so sits down’ – her skirts foamed about her as she sat – ’to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here for her sins she is waited upon by – What were the young cockerels’ names that served Gloriana at table?’
‘Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,’ Puck began.
She held up her long jewelled hand. ‘Spare the rest! They were the best blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes and plates. Wherefore’ – she looked funnily over her shoulder – ‘you are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or devotion, spatter it