The Children's Book

“What can it be?” said Phyllis.

“Open it, please,” said Anselm Stern.

It was in parchmentlike paper, and the size of a shoe-box. Violet cut the string, Phyllis undid the paper. Hedda darted forward and took the lid from the box inside, which was very like a shoe-box if not a shoebox. She peeped in.

“There is a shoe,” she said.

Violet lifted it out.

It was a very large shoe made of stitched leather, dark russet-red, with a large tongue and a big steel buckle with a sharp spike.

Inside were what Dorothy at first took for mice. She took a step back.

“They are babies,” said Phyllis uncertainly.

The shoe was crammed full with little stuffed dolls, each with a round head, and staring beady eyes.

They wore either small lederhosen, or small enveloping aprons. Phyllis laughed uneasily. The dolls stared out. Hedda said

“It’s the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Only there’s no Woman, the children are on their own in there.”

She grabbed the shoe and held it to her chest. The other girls felt relief.

“It is a most original toy,” said Violet. “You like it?” said Herr Stern to Hedda. “It’s a bit scary. I like scary things.”

August Steyning explained that Anselm Stern was a puppetmaster. He performed enchantments with glove puppets, and with marionettes. As a surprise gift for the queen of fairytale, he said, bowing to Olive, they hoped to perform a version of Cinderella for the guests. The cast were safely enclosed in the black japanned boxes they saw. And if the curtain-raiser pleased them, he hoped they would all come next day to Nutcracker Cottage to see something more elaborate. “I say we shall perform,” he explained, “because Anselm has been instructing me in the mystery of the marionettes. I am to be Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I shall animate the Ugly Sisters.”

Olive smiled. Humphry invited them all to refreshments.

“First, food and drink. Then the performance. Then further refreshment and dancing. We have talented musicians—Geraint on the flute, Charles with the fiddle, and Tom, who does what he can with a tin whistle.”

They gathered on the lawn. Steyning, just returned from meeting Anselm Stern, had brought shocking news from London. The Liberal government had unexpectedly fallen. A routine vote on the army estimates, the supply of small arms, had unexpectedly become a Vote of Confidence. Lord Rosebery had resigned, and Lord Salisbury was now Prime Minister, until an election could be held, in the autumn.

Prosper Cain said this change might affect the Museum badly. It was still waiting for Sir Aston Webb’s winning plans for the new front and courtyard to become solid things. “We are a builders’ yard,” he complained. “This can at best delay things further.”

Basil Wellwood saw no one with whom he could discuss the effect of the events on the Stock Exchange. He thought he was amongst a curious clutch of people, all tinsel and fake gilding.

Leslie Skinner spoke in an undertone. He believed Lord Rosebery’s name had been mentioned in the sad events surrounding the recent trials. It had been rumoured that the sad death of Lord Queensberry’s eldest son—not Lord Alfred Douglas, but Lord Drumlanrig—had been not a shooting accident but an act of self-destruction, designed— they did say—to protect Lord Rosebery’s good name? And there had been concerns about this during Mr. Wilde’s unsuccessful libel suit against Lord Queensberry? Skinner had a look of pure academic enquiry. His grave face expressed a desire for precise knowledge.

Violet Grimwith made a clucking sound and gathered together those children who were listening, leading them away to taste fruit cup. Julian and Tom did not follow. Julian beckoned to Tom, and they sauntered in hearing distance behind a trestle table, sampling tartlets. It was less than a month since Wilde’s third court appearance, his second trial for indecency, after a first jury had failed to agree. Everyone discussed it endlessly. Julian, like his schoolfellows, had read the press reports. He wanted to hear. Leslie Skinner said to August Steyning that he believed he had been in court.

“I was,” said Steyning. “I was indeed. The poor man stood in need of a friendly audience. I was compelled to bear witness. It was a true tragic fall. With uncanny aspects. Did you hear the story of the palm-reader’s predictions?”

No, they all said, though Humphry at least knew the tale very well.

Steyning told them, holding out his own long, pale, exquisite hands, one after the other, in illustration.

“It was at a supper of Blanche Roosevelt. The chiromancer was in obscurity behind a curtain, and the guests thrust in their anonymous hands. The left hand, it appears, shows the destiny written in the stars, and the right hand shows what its owner will make of that destiny. Oscar’s left hand—they were much plumper than mine—showed huge, brilliant achievement and success. The right showed ruin—at a precise date. The left hand is the hand of a king, but the right that of a king who will send himself into exile. Oscar asked the precise date, was given it, and abruptly took his leave. The prophecy appears to be fulfilled.”

Skinner asked Steyning’s impression of the trial.

“He bore himself with dignity and stood like a sacrificed beast. He allowed himself to be trapped into witticism. He spoke bravely about the love that dare not speak its name. He was applauded. But it was no triumph. And his present state is desperate. They have removed his name from the theatres where his plays are performing—not for much longer, I suspect. It is said prison is killing him. He had some idea of treating it as a monastery, or Prospero’s study, but he sleeps on a board, has neither books, nor pen, nor ink, and is made to work the treadmill. His flesh is fallen into folds. He cannot sleep.”

Humphry, who moved in the world of press gossip, remarked lightly that Lord Rosebery had been sick, very sick, for months, and had suddenly recovered at the end of May. Only for his government to fall, it appeared, today. He exchanged glances with Steyning and suddenly saw Tom and Julian.

“You don’t need to stand around listening to political chatter. Go and arrange seats for the marionettes.”