“Be hearls the biggest swells?” asked Flo.
Dick opened his eyes.
“Bless us!” he said. “Why, Flo, I’m ’shamed o’ yer hignorance. Why there’s markises, and dooks, and there’s kings and queens – all them’s bigger than hearls, Flo.”
“Is queens the biggest of all swells?” asked Flo.
“Sartinly, they be the biggest woman swells.”
“Then, Dick, I’ll s’pose to be the biggest swell, I’ll s’pose to be a queen. Find me hout a queen to take Pattern of, Dick.”
“Oh! Flo, there ain’t none yere, there be but one queen, Flo, and ’ers away, locked hup at Bucknam Palace. You can’t s’pose to be the queen, Flo, but I guess we’ll be the hearl and the hearl’s wife, and let us s’pose now as we is turnin’ in fur our dinners, and the kivers is orf the roast beef, and the taters is ’ot and mealy, and a whackin’ big puddin’ is to foller.” At this juncture, when Dick’s imagination was running riot over his supposed dinner, and Flo’s little face was raised to his with a decided gesture of dissent, a hand was laid familiarly on his shoulder, and turning quickly he discerned the smiling, mischievous face of his friend Jenks.
“Wot ails the young ’un?” said Jenks.
Dick was ashamed of his play beside his tall friend (Jenks was fourteen), and answered hastily —
“Nothing.”
But Flo replied innocently, and in an injured tone —
“I wants fur to be a queen, and there is no queens hout this arternoon fur me to take pattern of.”
The black eyes of Jenks sparkled more mischievously than ever; but he liked Flo, and knew she was fond of supposing herself a great lady.
“Look at that ’ere ’oman,” he said, pointing to a stout old lady in black velvet and white lace shawl; “s’pose you is ’er, Flo. My heyes! wot a precious big swell you would look in that ’ere gownd.”
Here Dick and Jenks both laughed uproariously, but the ambitious little Flo still answered in a fretful tone —
“I’ll not be that ’ere swell, I’ll choose to be a queen.”
“Then come along both o’ yers,” said Jenks, “and see the queen. She ’ave got to pass hout of Bucknam Palace in arf an ’our, on ’er way to Victoria Station. Come, Flo, I’ll ’old yer ’and. Come, Dick, old pal.” The children, only too delighted to be seen anywhere in Jenks’s company, followed eagerly, and led by their clever friend down several by-ways, soon found themselves in the midst of the crowd which had already collected outside Buckingham Palace gates to see the queen.
Flo was excited and trembling. Now she should behold with her own eyes the biggest swell in all the world, and for ever after in her dark Saint Giles’s cellar she could suppose, and go over in her imagination, the whole scene. No vulgar “dook” or “markis” could satisfy Flo’s ambition; when she soared she would soar high, and when she saw the queen she would really know how to act the queen to perfection.
So excited was she that she never observed that she was really alone in the crowd, that Jenks and Dick had left her side.
She was a timid child, not bold and brazen like many of her class, and had she noticed this she would have been too frightened even to look out for the greatest woman in the world. But before she had time to take in this fact there was a cheer, a glittering pageant passed before Flo’s eyes, – she had never seen the Life Guards before! – a carriage appeared amidst other carriages, a lady amidst other ladies, and some instinct told the child that this quietly-dressed, dignified woman was the queen of England. The eager crowd had pushed the little girl almost to the front, and the queen, bowing graciously on all sides, looked for an instant full at Flo.
She was probably unconscious of it, but the child was not. Her brown eyes sparkled joyfully; she had seen the queen, and the queen had seen her.
They were to meet again.
Chapter Two
A Hot Supper
When the royal carriage had passed by, the crowd immediately scattered, and then for the first time Flo perceived that she was deserted by her companions. She looked to right and left, before and behind her, but the little rough and ragged figures she sought for were nowhere visible.
She was still excited by the sight she had witnessed, and was consequently not much frightened though it did occur to her to wonder how ever she should find her way home again. She turned a few steps, – Saint James’s Park with the summer sunshine on it lay before her. She sat down on the grass, and pulled a few blades and smelt them – they were withered, trampled, and dry, but to Flo their yellow, sickly green was beautiful.
She gathered a few more blades and tucked them tenderly into the bosom of her frock – they would serve to remind her of the queen, they had sprouted and grown up within sight of the queen’s house, perhaps one day the queen had looked at them, as to-day she had looked at Flo.
The child sat for half-an-hour unperceived, and therefore undisturbed, drinking in the soft summer air, when suddenly a familiar voice sounded in her ears, and the absent figures danced before her.
“I say, Flo, would yer like somethink real, not an ony s’pose?”
Flo raised her eyes and fixed them earnestly on Dick.
“No, Dick,” she replied slowly, “there beant but one queen, and I’ve seen the queen, and she’s beautiful and good, and she looked at me, Dick, and I’m not a goin’ to take ’er place, so I’ll be the hearl’s wife please, Dick dear.”
The two boys laughed louder than ever, and then Jenks, coming forward and bowing obsequiously, said in a mock serious tone —
“Will my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, conderscend to a ’elpin’ o’ taters and beef along o’ her ’umble servants, and will she conderscend to rise orf this ’ere grass, as hotherwise the perleece might feel obligated to give ’er in charge, it being contrary to the rules, that even a hearl’s wife should make this ’ere grass ’er cushion.”
Considerably frightened, as Jenks intended she should be, Flo tumbled to her feet, and the three children walked away. Dick nudged his sister and looked intensely mysterious, his bright eyes were dancing, his shock of rough hair was pushed like a hay-stack above his forehead, his dirty freckled face was flushed. Jenks preceded the brother and sister by a few steps, getting over the ground in a light and leisurely manner, most refreshing to the eyes of Dick.
“Ain’t ’ee a mate worth ’avin’?” he whispered to Flo.
“But wot about the meat and taters?” asked Flo, who by this time was very hungry; “ain’t it nothink but another ‘s’pose’ arter all?”
“Wait and you’ll see,” replied Dick with a broad grin.
“Here we ’ere,” said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house, not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey’s, but a real and substantial eating-house nevertheless.
“Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, which shall it be? Smokin’ ’ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin’ o’ sage and onions? There, Flo,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking and looking like a different Jenks, “you ’as but to say one or t’other, so speak the word, little matey.”
Seeing that there was a genuine eating-house, and that Jenks was in earnest, Flo dropped her assumed character, and confessed that she had once tasted ’ot fat roast beef, long ago in mother’s time, but had never so much as seen roast goose; accordingly that delicacy was decided on, and Jenks having purchased a goodly portion, brought it into the outer air in a fair-sized wooden bowl,