The Young Stagers/The Stuart Queen
VI.
THE STUART QUEEN.
"Bags—I Tablo-Weevongs to-day," quoth the Vice, as he and the President went upstairs to the portion of the Club premises devoted to Literary, Sporting, Dramatic, and Social purposes.
"Right O," acquiesced the President. "Fish out the History Pictures."
The Vice preferred Tableaux Vivants to the Legitimate Drama as there was practically nothing to remember; one merely had to pose oneself gracefully in the rôle of the represented personage, and either hold one's peace, or "gag" as the spirit moved one.
In acting, as distinct from the tableau, there is such a dreadful lot to remember, what with appropriate gestures, prescribed postures, and ordainéd words.
"Let's do the Excruciation of Mary Queen of Thcotth," suggested the Vice, as they turned over the pages of the portfolio of Historical Pictures—a valued property of the Dramatic Society of the Club.
"Nothin' doin'," replied the President tersely, in the manner of Buster.
"Why not?" inquired the Vice. "It's eathy, and it weally only wants two."
"I know what you are, with an axe," replied the President, without considering the fundamental truth that only two are really essential to an Execution. "You'd be nearly as good an Executioner as I should be a Queen."
The Vice felt his muscles.
"I could have a card-board akth," he modestly suggested. That would certainly go far to counteract his terrible strength and inflexible sense of duty as an Executioner.
"Good idea!" quoth the President. "Let's get the lid of one of Mummy's big card-board boxes. I'll soon make an axe. Or, better still, let's nail a small square of card-board to a stick. There's a big photograph without a frame in the drawing-room—it would make a jolly good axe-head—and it's not too stiff. . . ."
The photograph was unobtrusively borrowed, and put to novel uses. A low stool made an excellent block, and a rug did for the scaffold. Orders, squeaked from a back window, evoked Mowlah, who was ordered to bring a handful of hay. Little did he realise that it was for the seemly absorption of the blood of a Queen as it flowed red upon the gallows of Fotheringay Castle.
"It's straw in the picture," observed the President, "but I don't suppose Mary would have kicked up a row if they'd brought hay."
"No," agreed the Vice, "and she wouldn't care if there were a meth—afterwards."
"Besides, it wasn't her castle and furniture," added the President. "It was Elizabeth's. She'd make all the mess she could."
The block, axe, and straw-strewn scaffold being ready, the dramatis persona made their personal preparations.
The doomed Queen erected an ill-constructed "bun" of her hair on the top of her head, for the convenience of the Headsman; pinned a large Union Jack skirt-wise around her waist; and made those preparations, as to the upper portion of her person, which usually preceded the washing of her neck. Being a Queen, she placed an inverted brass bowl over the precarious "bun" by way of a crown, but experienced considerable difficulty in preventing this well-known adjunct and symbol of Royalty from tilting forward and obscuring the vision of one eye. Being thus "armed and well prepared," she sank gracefully to the ground, in the attitude depicted, and awaited the Executioner. The Executioner had done himself proud. With burnt cork he had made an excellent simulation of a mask, and had given himself the kind of beard and moustache worn by all the Best Executioners. A condemned soiled-linen bag, inverted, and provided with three holes, gave full play to his arms and head, if not to his legs. On his head he wore, by way of a Black Cap, a small milk-saucepan. It was certainly black.
The Queen bandaged her eyes—or, to be exact, one eye and a corner. She did not wholly trust the Executioner perhaps.
"There ought to be mourners about, surely, when a Queen is done in!" she observed. "Here, Venus, you lazy fat thing, come and mourn. You can do that much for your living, surely."
Venus came over, smiled foolishly, and licked the Royal nose.
"Stop it, you Ass," said the Queen. "You've got to mourn, I tell you, not giggle. Lie down, and look as though you have lost Hope or a bone or something—go on. . . ."
Venus wagged his tail and mounted the block. The Headsman's eye gleamed and he raised his axe.
"My faithful follower wishes to die for me," exclaimed the delighted Queen. "He can."
As the Executioner poised himself for the stroke, Venus saw his mistake and vacated the block.
"He has thought better of it," said the disappointed Queen.
"He's an Ath," said the equally disappointed Executioner.
"He's got to mourn, anyhow," announced the doomed Monarch, "or he'll jolly well get something to make him."
Venus turned round twice, lay down near the block, and heaved a long deep sigh.
"That's better, my faithful Rissole," commended his mistress. "I knew you could mourn if you tried."
"No—Rithole was murdered," observed the Vice. "I wemember—because I was Rithole, and Buster was the band of murderers. He couldn't be here at your funeral when he's had one of his own."
"Quite right," agreed the Queen, and quoted "‘the faithful Rissole slain'."
"He can be a Maid of Honour then," she added. "Venus, be a Maid of Honour—and try and look like one. . . . Get him that big doll's-nightdress or something. He doesn't look a bit like a Maid of Honour as he is. . . . And tie that black hair-ribbon on his tail, for mourning. . . . Now, I'm ready," and the Queen stepped on to the scaffold. Turning to the little throng of halberdiers, officers, retainers, ladies and gentleen in waiting, the Queen made her dignified farewell with the words:—
"My Lords, My Dooks, the Captive cried,
Were I but once more three,
For ten good-nights on yonder hill
To aid my caws and me,
This garment would I scatter wide
To every freeze that flows.
And once more brain a stupid queen,
And all resourceless foes.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Stuart,"
which was as near as she could remember to what she had heard Mummy read.
She then turned to the Headsman who, one regrets to relate, was spitting on his hands, the better to grip his mighty axe. (He had seen Bobball adopt that method when about to dig him a trench in the sand.) He overdid it altogether, however.
"Dirty dog!" remarked the Queen, sotto voce.
"Well—of corthe—if Your Highety wants the akth to thlip and give you a fearful wump with the back of it, I don't mind," replied the Headsman.
"You'd better not," said Mary Stuart truculently, as she knelt and placed her head upon the block, "or I shall shed tears copiously. . . . They'll be your tears."
"Kindly bleed on to that thtraw, your Liege," requested the Executioner.
"I shall bleed just where I please," replied the Queen. "I shall bleed as much as I can too, and I hope it'll squirt all over the place. I hope it'll spoil Queen Elizabeth's carpet and furniture and make a mess on the wall-paper. Perhaps that'll teach her not to be so fast. She's too fond of chopping people's heads off. You can tell her I said so. . . . So there," and the unfortunate Queen laid her head upon the block.
The Headsman struck, and for the next minute the decapitated Queen appeared to be directing a stream of blood (much as a fireman does a stream of water) in an intelligent though truncated effort to make a little go a long way, and also to cover a wide area.