The Lonesomest Doll (1928)/Chapter 15
XV
The Return Home
The foremost horseman was one whom Clotilde did not recognize, a big, burly fellow with a kind face, who wore his sword as if it were an article to which he was little used. When the others spoke to the Queen in congratulation and affectionate homage he alone was silent. But when they came to make ready to return, he knelt at her feet and begged a word with her. “Speak,” said Clotilde, who was very weary and eager for home.
“Your Majesty, it was my little girl who brought all this trouble upon you,” he said humbly. “Nichette has told me everything, and I shall punish her to-morrow for stealing the keys,—and for all. If anything had happened to you,—oh, my Queen! What could I have done, how could I have borne it! Besides, it was fear of me which drove you away upon the wrong road. I have served you many years, though you know me not. Show me that you are not angry, that you forgive. Let me be the one to bear you home to safety, my Queen.”
He did not look terrible to Clotilde now that she saw him there in the moonlight, though his voice was gruff and his boots were big.
“You are Pierre the Porter,” she said. “I do know you. And you are Nichette’s father; she is now my best friend. You must not punish Nichette. It was not her fault. It was my own foolishness which made me afraid. I love Nichette; if you will promise me not to punish her, Pierre, you shall take me home on your horse.”
And so it was. Seated before him Clotilde the Queen rode back to her village. And Mignon, tattered and torn, was clasped tightly in her mother’s arms all the way. For had she not saved the Queen’s life, this brave and faithful little doll?
There was a crowd awaiting them at the town gate, for Captain Raoul had galloped ahead to tell the people the good news that the Queen was found and was coming back to them safe and sound. So Clotilde entered among cheers and hurrahs and the waving of torches, like a king returning from a victorious battle. In the front of the crowd, though it was long past her bedtime, was Nichette holding her mother’s hand. Her little face was eager and anxious; but when she caught sight of Clotilde sitting in front of Pierre, with Mignon fast in her arms, a smile shone out like the sun after a shower.
She broke away from her mother’s hand and ran up to her father’s horse.
“O Clotilde! O Queen!” she gasped. “Are you really safe back again? You are not hurt through my fault? Oh, I am so glad!”
Clotilde made Pierre set her down from the horse, and the two children threw their arms about each other, sobbing with excitement. How the dignified uncles and aunts of Clotilde stared in disgust and surprise at such a sight! They had come to shake hands with their niece, and to congratulate her upon her safe return in quite the proper, courtly way. But she did not seem to see them nor to care about them at all. So they stood back, wondering what it all meant. This did not seem like the same cold, quiet little Queen whom they had last seen eating her dinner in the palace hall, surrounded by her stiff servants, and with nothing childish about her. Indeed, Clotilde would never again be quite the same. But this they were to discover later, little by little, as the days went by.
“Is Mignon safe?” whispered Nichette in the Queen’s ear, while everybody stood staring at the two children. Clotilde nodded and held out the doll for answer. But when Nichette saw the tattered dress and the crownless head of the lonesomest doll, she uttered a cry.
“Oh! what has happened to her pretty robe? Where are her jewels and her crown? She does not look like a queen any more. What does it mean?”
Clotilde looked down at her own torn and tumbled dress. “Still, she looks like me, Nichette, does she not?” she asked with a tired little smile. And in a whisper she added, “I am glad of it. She is now just a real little girl doll, not too grand to play with. I shall keep her so always, and she will not need to be shut up in a box any more—she is no longer the rich handsomest doll.”
The Queen’s chariot with four white horses was waiting to carry her back to the palace, and Clotilde made Nichette get in and ride with her. “For she is my best friend, is Nichette,” she explained to the uncles and aunts who would have made some objection. But there was something new in the Queen’s look and manner which made them all willing to let her have her way, though they peeped sideways at one another and shook their heads when they found they were obliged to walk behind the chariot which held the Queen and the porter’s daughter.