Part 16 (1/2)

You know when royal persons died their bodies used to be carried through the streets for the people to see. But later they stopped that practice and effigies of wax were borne instead. And these are some of the effigies. Queen Elizabeth is there--”

”Oh, do let's go,” cried Nancy.

It ended, therefore, by their accepting the invitation with much pleasure, and presently they found themselves with the English girl and the older woman, who was called ”Fraulein Bloch,” and a verger, in a room over an ancient chapel. Here were laid out in state the waxen effigies of Queen Elizabeth, Charles II., William III. and Queen Mary, his wife, and Queen Anne. Certainly there was something very weird and ghastly about these wax images of kings and queens dead and gone, in all their royal regalia, crowded into gla.s.s cases around the wall. There was a battered old wax-doll likeness of the great Queen Elizabeth arrayed in faded finery, and an apathetic Charles in blue and red velvet robes trimmed with real point lace.

William and Mary were leaning up against each other sociably and lovingly in a case all by themselves; and close by was a large, heavy Queen Anne, an elaborate curly wig on her head and on her face a haughty fixed stare.

Whether it was the sight of all this past glory now so crumpled and faded, or whether it was that our tourists had eaten nothing since breakfast, it is hard to say. The Motor Maids always blamed what happened on the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond. At any rate, Mary Price was standing just in front of that grotesque effigy, which was dressed in the very robes she had worn in life at the coronation of Queen Anne,-and by her side perched a stuffed parrot, said to have lived with her forty years,-when the young girl suddenly turned very pale and slipped down to the floor. So quietly did she fall that the others, who were viewing a jaunty effigy of Admiral Nelson, did not notice the little gray figure lying in a heap on the chapel floor.

It was growing late and the verger reminded them that they must be leaving before closing time. Laughing and talking softly together, they filed slowly out of the gloomy old place and the door was locked. And there all the time lay little Mary, as pale and stark as any of the wax kings and queens in the gla.s.s cases above her.

It all came back to them afterward like a curious dream, how they happened not to miss their friend even when they had returned to the church. In a remote corner somewhere a service was evidently being held.

The sound of the organ and of boys chanting floated to them. Following their new friend and Fraulein Bloch, they presently entered the chapel and joined a few scattered wors.h.i.+ppers kneeling at their devotions.

It was Billie who first noticed Mary's absence, and she was rather surprised, because Mary was more religious than the others and loved these ceremonious services.

”Perhaps she is snooping about in some of the tombs,” she thought, and, whispering a word to Miss Campbell, she slipped out of the chapel and began a search for her friend. But Mary was nowhere in sight in the vast, dim place, and, with a somewhat anxious feeling, Billie hastened to join the others, who had now left the chapel and were waiting for her.

”Where is Mary?” she demanded.

But no one had seen Mary. No one could remember to have seen her for a long time. Miss Campbell was not as uneasy as Billie. She was sure that Mary could take care of herself. She was a reliable little thing and knew the address. If she had lost them, the child knew just what to do,-take a hansom and drive straight to their lodgings.

”I dislig to alarb de ladies,” here put in Fraulein Bloch, ”bud de young lady might be by dat room loged.”

”What!” cried Miss Helen; ”locked in the room with all those horrible wax figures that look like corpses! Oh, heavens, where is a guide?

Suppose the child has been left in that dreadful place? It's enough to make her go mad.”

Filled with alarm, they hastened to find a verger, but there was no one about. Finally they discovered a very old man with a big bunch of keys.

”Come with us at once to the room with the wax effigies,” cried Miss Campbell. ”A young girl has been locked in there by mistake.”

”Have you a permit, Madam?”

”Permit! Permit!” cried the distracted woman. ”Do you think I care for permits when one of my children is locked up in a roomful of dead kings and queens and parrots? Go instantly and get the key.”

”It is against the rules, Madam.”

Their new friend, whose name they still did not know, now drew the old man aside and spoke to him in a low voice. Then a most remarkable change came over his aged face.

”The ladies will please follow,” he said with cringing politeness, as he selected a key on the bunch and led the way to the distant chapel where the wax figures were kept.

It was all over very quickly now, but the girls never forgot the picture their friend made when the door was opened. She was kneeling on the floor in a pale shaft of light, the only one in all that gloomy place.

”Mary, my darling,” cried poor Miss Campbell, hastening to her, ”were you terribly frightened?”

Mary did not reply at first. She seemed startled by the sudden entrance of her rescuers. She told them afterward that the silence of the chapel was so deep it seemed to have entered into her very soul, and after the first few dreadful moments of her return to consciousness, when she found she had been left behind, she had not been frightened, only overwhelmed and pressed down by the weight of the vast quietude. And Mary was silent now, as her friends gathered around her and helped her to rise.

”I am quite well,” she kept repeating with a faint little smile.