The Time Garden Read online

  Luckily the Natterjack proved to be in residence. It was sitting, as usual, upon the sundial. Roger wasted no precious seconds in words. Picking it up, he raced back toward the cliff, while Ann, who had got her second wind, babbled excitedly of what had happened.

  "H'insubordination!" said the Natterjack, when it heard what Eliza and Jack had done. "I am shocked and chagrined, but 'ardly surprised. Just when I 'ad worked out the 'ole problem, too!"

  "You have?" said Roger.

  "Good," said Ann. "Maybe we'll be in time to stop them, and we can all go together properly."

  But they weren't. When the cliff came into view, no one was to be seen but a chipping sparrow that was investigating the flavor of the Mixed Thyme seed and finding it to its liking (though whether or not it wished and where it went if it did do not come into this story).

  "Quick!" said Roger. "If you've figured out how to do it. Let's follow them before they get into trouble!"

  "H'it's not so h'easy as that!" said the Natterjack. "Thrown a wrench into the works properly, your clever friends 'ave, meddlin' with their nasty store-bought seed! The thyme is out of joint, Shakespeare. An' 'ighly h'uncomfortable it is for it, too! You've 'eard of someone's nose being out of joint? Well, for thyme h'it's the same principle, only more so! In the mood that garding's in, if it lets us go back now, h'it may be for the last time!"

  "I don't care!" said Roger.

  "Are you sure?" said the Natterjack. "Think! No more carefree h'adventures, no more comings an' goings through the back o' beyond at your h'own sweet will! No more frolickin' with the calendar as though it was a h'empty mockery!"

  "I don't care, either!" said Ann. "We've got to save them!"

  "Very well," said the Natterjack, and Roger thought it sounded pleased with them. "'Urry!"

  Again there was a mad dash for the thyme garden.

  "Set me down," said the Natterjack, as they came in sight of the flowery bank. It gave two hops and settled on a patch of creeping thyme with bright pink flowers. "Thymus 'erba-barona. H'otherwise known as seedcake thyme," it announced. "So called h'after the delicacy of the same name. And what could be more h'English than that?"

  "I know!" said Ann, who had once tasted that horrid concoction of sponge cake and caraway seeds. "Only the English could stand it!"

  The Natterjack looked affronted. "HT don't know what you mean, h'I'm sure!" it said, in its most British voice. "H'excellent tasty stuff, seedcake is!"

  "Ugh!" said Ann. And "Ugh!" she said again, as she whiffed the sprig Roger picked, with its aroma reminiscent of dry munchings at teatime.

  Roger opened his mouth to wish.

  "Careful!" warned the Natterjack. "'Aste makes waste, remember. What were they planning to do in London? Besides visit sundry mothers?"

  "Look at the Queen," said Roger.

  "Put that in," said the Natterjack. "Put h'everything in!"

  "Let me," said Ann. "I remember." She grasped the thyme and hurried on, running her words together in her eager heedlessness. "I wish we'd go to London and look at the Queen and see the Tower and the Nesbit children and our mothers and..."

  She paused to catch her breath before going on to say just when she wanted to see these things and under what circumstances, but the rest of her wish was left unsaid. The magic, always ready to take advantage, took it.

  The next Ann and Roger and the Natterjack knew, they were all three looking at the Queen and the Queen was looking back at them.

  But she wasn't the Queen they had expected to see, at all.

  "She's not the modern one!" whispered Ann to Roger. "She's old-fashioned. It's gone wrong again!"

  Old-fashioned was certainly what the Queen was, from her long stiff black gown to the white lace cap that covered her white hair. She was sitting on a carved rosewood chair in what seemed to be her private chamber, and looking at Roger and Ann with an expression of utter disapproval. The part of them she was looking at was their knees.

  "Very shocking," said the Queen.

  Ann and Roger looked down at themselves. And then they realized (as Jack and Eliza had before them) that all rules were broken, and there they were in whatever time they were in, still in their modem clothes, and concealment was an idle dream.

  "Not only unannounced," went on the Queen, "but unclothed! Such a thing has never happened before! I shall complain to Mr. Gladstone!"

  "I certainly should, Ma'am," said one of the two ladies-in-waiting who hovered nearby.

  "Mr. Disraeli would never have allowed it!" said the other.

  Roger knew what time it was now. "It's Queen Victoria!" he hissed at Ann. "It's the Widow of Windsor!" For he had read the poem of that name by Mr. Rudyard Kipling.

  "I am a widow," admitted the Queen, "and Windsor is one of my castles, though this is Buckingham Palace. But your tone is disrespectful, and you seem ill-nurtured."

  "Oh, Ma'am!" cried the Natterjack, giving voice suddenly. It seemed to be overcome by some strong emotion. "Oh, Ma'am, forgive these 'apless babes as know not what they do, an' 'ow should they, brought up in barbarous foreign parts an' all? H'accept the 'omage of a loyal, 'umble subjeck! God save h'our gracious Queen!" And it squatted on its back legs and assumed the nearest approach it could to a kneeling position.

  The Queen regarded it coldly, unmoved by this effusion. "Talking beasts," she said. "What will these so-called scientists think of next? And some people would call that modern progress, I suppose! As if we had not progressed quite sufficiently already! When I see what my reign has accomplished, I see no need for any further alterations whatsoever! Let well enough alone, I say!"

  "I could not agree with you more," said the first lady.

  "How true," said the second.

  "I 'umbly begs your pardon, Ma'am," said the Natterjack. "I won't say another word, swipe me bob I won't!" And it folded its lips tightly and remained in an abject crouching position before the Queen's chair. Ann thought its feelings were hurt, and gave the Queen an indignant look, but Roger was more diplomatic.

  "We won't bother you anymore, Ma'am," he said, trying to sound as respectful as possible. "We'll be going any minute. There's just one thing. Have you seen a boy and girl something like us just lately?"

  "I have never seen anything remotely like you before in my life," said the Queen, "and I hope never to again."

  "Thanks," said Roger. He turned to the others. "Wrong queen," he said.

  "Really!" said the Queen.

  "Oh, that's all right," said Roger. "It's not your fault. Maybe we'll pick them up at the next stop." He turned back to Ann. "You know, it'd be a lot simpler if you'd just wished to be with Jack and Eliza. Then we wouldn't have to keep trying all these places."

  "I don't care," said Ann. "It's more interesting this way. Looking at all the ancient sights."

  "Really!" said the Queen again.

  "Don't mention it," said Roger. "Good-bye," he added, bowing politely.

  "We had an awfully nice time," put in Ann, remembering her manners. She picked up the Natterjack. Roger took the sprig of thyme from her and rubbed it, and they all whiffed.

  The next instant three women were alone in a room in Buckingham Palace, staring at the place where two children and a talking toad had recently been.

  "We are not amused," said the Queen.

  "Neither are we," said the ladies-in-waiting.

  While the Queen and her ladies were staring at empty space, Ann and Roger and the Natterjack were staring at the Tower of London. For that had been the next thing in Ann's wish; so of course it was the next stop.

  As a tower, it was worth staring at. Its aspect was historical and its battlements were grim. In short, it was every bit of what it had been cracked up to be.

  Several yeomen of the guard stood about, looking as if they had just stepped out of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera of that name.

  "Beefeaters, they're called," said Roger.

  "They look it," said Ann.

  The Natterjack was once more stirred by emot
ion. "H'I am moved," it said, regarding the Tower. "Oh, 'istory, 'istory! 'Ow 'appy I am h'I'm a Briton!"

  There was no sign of Jack or Eliza, but otherwise the approach to the Tower was crowded with sightseers. All were in Victorian dress; so Ann and Roger knew the times had not changed. But they found that if they pressed into the thick of the crowd, no one had space enough to notice their outlandish costume.

  At the Tower gate, a tourist-guide was plying his trade.

  "Step up, step up!" he cried. "See the Trytors' Gyte. See Sir Walter Raleigh's nyme, where 'e scratched it while langrishin' in durance vile! See the cell of Lydy Jyne Gry!"

  "Ow, 'Enry, 'ow grisley!" cried a young lady in a feather boa. "Ow, I shall enjoy this!"

  All the people crowded forward, and Ann and Roger crowded with them. The magic had not provided suitable currency of the realm, but they kept close to the heels of an exceedingly sizable Victorian family, and the Victorian papa did not seem to notice that he had paid for two extra. The Natterjack, in Ann's pocket, got in free.

  The two children (and the Natterjack) followed the sightseers and the sightseers followed the guide, listening to tales of torture and anecdotes of unjust martyrdom till all history seemed a register of crimes and follies and even the Natterjack in Ann's pocket muttered "A truce to gore!" and the young lady in the feather boa said, "Ow, 'Enry, I am enjoying this!"

  It was in the seventh cell they visited that Ann suddenly had a strange prickly feeling, rather as if her fingers and toes were going to sleep, but not quite. It was more as if they were waking up. She did not want to call attention to herself by asking questions, but she was glad when the Victorian father asked the guide, "Pray, what is the history of this chamber?"

  "Not much 'istory to this 'ere," said the guide. "More for the run-o'-the-mill prisoners, it were."

  "Children, you need not make a note of this apartment," said the Victorian gentleman to his nine sons and daughters, who had their notebooks and pencils in hand. "No one of any consequence was executed from here. Where is the room where the Princes in the Tower were murdered?" And all the sightseers pushed eagerly on.

  Ann's heart had quickened at the words of the guide, and now she plucked at Roger's sleeve and gave him a significant look. As the others left the room, the two children lingered behind.

  "They've been here!" cried Ann, as soon as they were alone. "Or at least one of them has! I feel it in my bones! It's as if the room's trying to speak to me. And look!" Something had caught her eye on the far wall; now she ran to inspect it closer. Someone had scratched letters in the stone.

  "E, L, I, Z..." read Ann. There the lettering broke off, either worn away by time or because something had interrupted the writer.

  "That doesn't signify," said Roger. "There must have been dozens of different Elizabeths shut up in the Tower when you count up!"

  "No," said Ann, "it means something! I know it does! If things could go wrong for us, they could go wrong for them, couldn't they? Specially when they broke the rules that way! They prob'ly met a worse queen than we did! She prob'ly sent them to the Tower to be tortured with racks and things! Why, if all time is one, Eliza's prob'ly right here in this room right now, suffering untold agony! Only how do we get through to her?"

  "Or her through to us?" said Roger.

  Ann took the Natterjack out of her pocket, and they consulted it. It looked grave.

  "That's a 'ard trick, that one is," it said. "Still, as it's the last time, maybe h'it'll be accommodating. Rub your sprig."

  Roger rubbed, and the Natterjack muttered to itself. Ann leaned closer to overhear.

  "'Ocus pocus!" it was saying. "Come ghoulie, come ghaestie, come long-leggedy beastie! Come, come, Eliza dear, h'out of the h'everywhere into the 'ere!"

  "The nerve!" said Eliza, appearing suddenly in their midst. "What if I am long-legged? I'm a growing girl! What kept you so long?"

  "You poor thing, has it been awful?" said Ann.

  "Of course not. It's been fun!" boasted Eliza (but she was not telling the strict truth).

  So then of course Roger began scolding Eliza for spoiling everything and making it be their last time, and they all three quarreled and made up again, and told each other about their different adventures and compared queens, and what with the babble of three childish voices all raised at once, it was but a moment before the tourist-guide stuck his head in at the door.

  "Visitors are h'asked to remain in a Conducted Group," he told them sternly. "No dawdling, no 'anging be'ind, and speak only in a Low Voice." His eye fell on Eliza. "I 'aven't seen you before, Missy, That's one 'alf-price h'admission not paid for." He held out his hand. "Sixpence, please." Then he saw the Natterjack. "That beast must be taken h'out," he said. "No pets or h'infants in arms allowed." And he started for the Natterjack purposefully.

  "What'll we do?" said Ann.

  "Better go back where I came from," said Eliza. "I just remembered. We have to, anyway. We left Jack behind."

  "Rub the other way," said the Natterjack, hopping out of reach of the guide's outstretched hand. The guide heard it speak, and stepped back, turning pale.

  Roger rubbed the thyme-sprig in the opposite direction, and wished, and they all whiffed.

  The next moment the guide stood looking round an empty room. He turned even whiter, backed to the doorway, and scuttled down the corridor to re-sign his job and spend the rest of his life writing papers for the Psychical Research Society.

  Meanwhile Ann and Roger and Eliza and the Natterjack found themselves still in the same Tower cell, back in Elizabethan times. Nothing had visibly changed, save that Eliza's handwriting on the wall looked fresher, as though she had just left off writing it (as indeed she had).

  "Now to find Jack," said Ann.

  "Wait," said Roger. "Let's reconnoiter first. We don't want to waste time on any more mistakes."

  "I wish we had the old rules back," said Ann. "About people not noticing we're different."

  "It'd be even better if they didn't notice us at all," said Eliza, "and we could remain anomalous."

  "There's another thing," said Roger. "We've forgotten all about doing a good deed."

  "We don't have to, anymore," said Eliza. "It won't make any difference, if it's the last time, anyway."

  "Don't keep reminding us," said Ann.

  "I think we ought to do one, anyway," said Roger. "If it's good-bye to the magic, we might as well part friends."

  "Oh, all right," said Eliza. "I don't mind, if it comes up naturally. I'm not going out of my way, looking for one."

  "H'if you ask me," the Natterjack joined the conversation, "h'actions speak louder than words. Thyme an' tide wait for no man, and h'even last times don't last forever, you know!"

  When Roger took the thyme sprig from his pocket, it did look as if it couldn't last much longer. Its pink blossoms were faded and its leaves hung limp.

  "Oh dear," said Ann, "and we haven't come to the important part of the wish yet. About Mother!"

  But it seemed there was still life in the sprig, for when they all sniffed its caraway redolence and wished to be where Jack was, and when Roger rubbed, right away they were.

  Where Jack was turned out still to be alone with Queen Elizabeth in her council chamber. He was telling her all about the Twentieth Century, and the three children couldn't tell whether or not the magic was being helpful about children's not noticing, because they were both too absorbed to notice anything.

  "And then there's television," Jack was saying. "It's a picture that's sent for hundreds of miles, and it talks!"

  "'Sblood!" said the Queen. "What words of wisdom does it say?"

  "Oh, all kinds of things," said Jack, "and baseball games and shows."

  "Like the plays of Will Shakespeare," said the Queen.

  "Sort of," said Jack, "only different."

  "Marry come up!" said the Queen. "Truly this must be an age of marvels. No witchcraft could invent such wonders. It must verily be a fact that you and your sister c
ome from future worlds!"

  "Then let her out of the Tower!" cried Jack.

  "All in good time," said the Queen. "From what I have observed of her character, 'twill do her no harm to worry a bit longer. But now mark me. I have an idea. Is it true what she said, that I cut off Milord of Essex's head one day?"

  "I'm afraid so," said Jack.

  "Alas," said the Queen. "Poor Robin. Still if it must be, why not save time and cut it off now? Then you could stay with me and take his place as my favorite! With the help of these new inventions you tell me of, these air ships and this wireless and this speaking vision..."

  "Television," Jack interrupted.

  "Telling vision," the Queen corrected herself. "With the help of these new improvements, which you can show me how to manufacture, I can make Merrie England ruler of the world even sooner than I would have, anyway! What say you, boy?"

  Jack hesitated. The thought of being a queen's favorite was not to be sneezed at, and he liked what he had seen of the palace. Then, too, there were several teenage maids of honor about that might be pleasant to know, particularly one small blonde he had noticed, called Lady Samantha Drake. On the other hand, a queen who talked so lightly of cutting off heads did not seem to be the most comfortable kind of queen to be the favorite of. And he was not entirely sure that he could construct a really satisfactory television set out of Elizabethan raw materials.

  It was at this moment that he looked up, in the direction of Ann and Eliza and Roger and the Natterjack. And because they were all in the same magic adventure together, he saw them all quite clearly. And Ann thought that a relieved expression crossed his face.

  "I don't think it would work out," he said. "Thanks just the same."

  The Queen's eyes glittered. Too late Jack remembered about women scorned, and he thought that a queen scorned might very likely be even worse.

  "Not that it wouldn't be keen," he said quickly. "It's just that I have to get home. I've got things to do."

  "What things?" said the Queen, coldly.

  "Well," said Jack, "there's the Yacht Club race. And the Midsummer Cotillion..."