by Jane Yolen
“What you will, ma’am,” he said.
“I will be an empress.” She smiled down at him. “But I will not ask to be higher, not like the foolish old woman in the story Albert used to tell the children.”
“I can make you an empress, ma’am,” he said. “But will you allow me one question?”
“Of course I will allow it.”
Still kneeling, he asked, “What story, ma’am?” He wondered if he would ever understand this woman.
“She wanted to be God,” the queen mused.
“Why would anyone want to be God?” he asked. “It’s a terrible occupation.”
“Ah—that is two questions, dear man. And that I will not allow.” But she was joking, he could tell. There was a coy smile hesitating at the corners of her mouth.
He felt he was back in familiar territory and grinned at her.
“I will make you empress of India, ma’am,” he said. “It will be the jewel in your crown.” He dismissed the toad out of mind. It was as if the toad had never happened. “Forti nihil difficle.”
“Nothing is difficult to the strong. That will be a fine start,” she answered. “Now get off your knees, man, we have work to do.”
The queen looked at Disraeli, at his sweet curls, his liquid eyes. She thought that she liked him best of any of her prime ministers. And if he did somehow manage to make her empress of India, pushing it through a recalcitrant House of Commons, why she was certain that she could find him his just reward.
He has, she thought, a most original mind. Funny, I have only now noticed. It’s just like Albert’s, if a tiny bit more . . . more . . .
She could not think what, until finally it came to her . . . more Jewish.
That made her laugh.
And he, standing up at last, laughed, too, though whether he quite understood the joke was another matter altogether.
Author’s Note: In 1876, Disraeli did make Victoria empress of India, and India became known as the Jewel in the Crown. She conferred upon him the title of first earl of Beaconsfield that same year, a title he held until his death five years later, though in private she called him “Dizzy.” As he lay dying, Victoria asked to come and see him. But he wrote back saying, “No, it is better not.” To his secretary he said, “She would only ask me to take a note to Albert.” When he died, Victoria sent a wreath “ from his grateful and affectionate Sovereign and friend, Victoria R.I.,” the “I” standing for India. She lived for twenty more years after Disraeli, and never forgot him. If that odd friendship came out of mutual admiration, mutual interests, or magic, it is not for me to say. I only speculate. —JY
The Gift of the Magicians, With Apologies to You Know Who
One gold coin with the face of George II on it, whoever he was. Three copper pennies. And a crimped tin thing stamped with a fleur-de-lis. That was all.
Beauty stared down at it. The trouble with running a large house this far out in the country, even with magical help, was that there was never any real spending money. Except for what might be found in the odd theatrical trunk, in the secret desk drawer, and at the bottom of the pond every spring when it was drained. Three times she had counted: one gold, three coppers, one tin. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing for her to do but flop down on the Victorian sofa, the hard one with the mahogany armrests, and howl. So she did. She howled as she had heard him howl, and wept and pounded the armrests for good measure. It made her feel ever so much better. Except for her hands, which now hurt abominably. But that’s the trouble with Victorian sofas. Whatever they were.
The whole house was similarly accoutered: Federal, Empire, Art Deco, Louis Quinze. With tags on each explaining the name period. Names about which she knew nothing, but which the house had conjured up out of the past, present, and future. None of it was comfortable, though clearly all of it—according to the tags—was expensive. She longed for the simpler days at home with Papa and her sisters, when even a penniless Christmas after dear Papa had lost all his money meant pleasant afternoons in the kitchen baking presents for the neighbors.
Now, of course, she had no neighbors. And her housemate was used to so much better than her meager kitchen skills could offer. Even if the magical help would let her into the kitchen, which they—it or whatever—would not do.
She finished her cry, left off the howling, and went down the long hallway to her room. There she found her powder and puffs repaired the damage to her complexion speedily. He liked her bright and simple and smelling of herself, and magical cosmetics could do such wonders for even the sallowest of skins.
Then she looked into the far-seeing mirror—there were no windows in the house—and saw her old gray cat Miaou walking on a gray fence in her gray backyard. It made her homesick all over again, even though dear Papa was now so poor, and she had only one gold, three coppers, one tin with which to buy Beast a present for Christmas.
She blinked and wished, and the mirror became only a mirror again, and she stared at her reflection. She thought long and hard and pulled down her red hair, letting it fall to its full length, just slightly above her knees.
Now there were two things in that great magical house far out in the country in which both she and the Beast took great pride. One was Beast’s gold watch, because it was his link with the real past, not the magical, made-up past. The watch had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before him, though everything else had been wiped away in the spell. The other thing was Beauty’s hair, for, despite her name, it was the only thing beautiful about her. Had Rapunzel lived across the way instead of in the next kingdom, with her handsome but remarkably stupid husband, Beauty would have worn her hair down at every opportunity just to depreciate Her Majesty’s gifts.
So now Beauty’s hair fell over her shoulders and down past her waist, almost to her knees, rippling and shining like a cascade of red waters. There was a magical hush in the room, and she smiled to herself at it, a little shyly, a little proudly. The house admired her hair almost as much as Beast did. Then she bound it all up again, sighing because she knew what she had to do.
A disguise. She needed a disguise. She would go into town—a two-day walk, a one-day ride; but with magic, only a short, if bumpy, ten minutes away—in disguise. She opened the closet and wished very hard. On went the old brown leather bomber jacket. The leather outback hat. She took a second to tear off the price tags. Tucking the silk bodice into the leather pants, she ran her hands down her legs. Boots! She would need boots. She wished again. The thigh-high leather boots were a fine touch. Checking in the mirror, she saw only her gray cat.
“Pooh!” she said to the mirror. Miaou looked up startled, saw nothing, moved on.
With a brilliant sparkle in her eyes, she went out of the bedroom, down the stairs, across the wide expanse of lawn, toward the gate.
At the gate, she twisted her ring twice. (“Once for home, twice for town, three times for return,” Beast had drummed into her when she had first been his guest. Never mind the hair. The ring was her most precious possession.)
Ten bumpy minutes later, she landed in the main street of the town.
As her red hair was tucked up into the outback hat, no one recognized her. Or if they did, they only bowed. No one called her by name. This was a town used to disguised gentry. She walked up and down the street for a few minutes, screwing up her courage. Then she stopped by a sign that read madame suz: hair goods and gone tomorrow.
Beauty ran up the steep flight of stairs and collected herself.
Madame Suzzane was squatting on a stool behind a large wooden counter. She was a big woman, white and round and graying at the edges, like a particularly dangerous mushroom.
“Will you buy my hair?” Beauty asked.
“Take off that silly hat first. Where’d you get it?” Her voice had a mushroomy sound to it, soft and spongy.
“In a catalog,” Beauty said.
“Never heard of it.”
The hat came off. Do
wn rippled the red cascade.
“Nah—can’t use red. Drug on the market. Besides, if . . . He . . . knew.” If anything, Madame Suzzane turned whiter, grayer.
“But I have nothing else to sell.” Beauty’s eyes grew wider, weepy.
“What about that ring?” Madame Suzzane asked, pointing.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars,” said Madame Suzzane, adding a bit for inflation. And for the danger.
Beauty pulled the ring off her finger, forgetting everything in her eagerness to buy a gift for Beast. “Quickly, before I change my mind.”
She ran down the stairs, simultaneously binding up her hair again and shoving it back under the hat. The street seemed much longer and much more filled with shops now that she had money in her hands. Real money. Not the gold coin, copper pennies, and crimped tin thing in her pocket.
The next two hours raced by as she ransacked the stores looking for a present for Beast and, not unexpectedly, finding a thing or two for herself: some nail polish in the latest color from the Isles, a faux-pearl necklace with a delicious rhinestone clasp, the most delicate china faun cavorting with three shepherdesses in rosebud-pink gowns, and a painting of a jester so cleverly limned on black velvet that would fit right over her poster bed.
And then she found Beast’s present at last, a perfect tortoiseshell comb for his mane, set with little battery-driven (whatever that was) lights that winked on and off and on again. She had considered a fob for his grandfather’s watch, but the ones she saw were all much too expensive. And besides, the old fob that came with the watch was still in good shape, for something old. And she doubted whether he’d have been willing to part with it anyway. Just like Beast, preferring the old to the new, preferring the rough to the smooth, preferring her to . . . to . . . to someone like Rapunzel.
Then, with all her goodies packed carefully in a string bag purchased with the last of her dollars, she was ready to go.
Only, of course, she hadn’t the ring anymore. And no one would take the gold coin or the copper pennies or the crimped tin thing for a carriage and horse and driver to get her back. Not even with her promise made, cross her heart, to fill their pockets with jewels once they got to Beast’s house. And the horse she was forced to purchase with the gold and copper and tin crimped thing began coughing at the edge of town, and broke down completely somewhere in the woods to the north. So she had to walk after all, all through the night frightened at every fluttering leaf, at every silent-winged owl, at all the beeps and cheeps and chirps and growls along the way.
Near dawn on Christmas Day, Beast found her wandering alone, smelling of sweat and fear and the leather bomber jacket and leather hat and leather boots and the polished nails. Not smelling like Beauty at all.
So of course he ate her, Christmas being a tough hunting day, since every baby animal and every plump child was tucked up at home waiting for dawn and all their presents.
And when he’d finished, he opened the string bag. The only thing he saved was the comb.
Beauty was right. It was perfect.
Rabbit Hole
The rabbit hole had been there from the first, though everything else had changed.
Especially me, thought Alice, smoothing down her skirt and tucking the shirtwaist back in. She straightened the diamond ring on her left hand, which had a tendency to slip around now that she had lost so much weight. It was certainly going to be more difficult falling down the hole at eighty than it had been at eight. For one thing, the speed would no longer be exhilarating. She knew better now. For another, she feared her legs might not be up to the landing, especially after the operation on her hip.
Still, she wanted a bit of magic back in her life before she died and the doctor, bless him, thought she might go at any time. “Consider that you have had more than your share of years already,” he had said. He’d never been a tactful man, though she appreciated his bluntness in this particular instance.
So she had sneaked away from her grandniece, set as a keeper over her, and, still a bit unsteady with the cane, had come back to the meadow where it had all begun.
The tree her sister Edith and she had been reading under when that first adventure started had long been felled after a lightning strike. Council houses now took up most of the open space: tan-faced two-story buildings alike as cereal boxes. But the rabbit hole was still there, as she had known it would be, in the middle of the little green park set aside for pensioners. She opened the gate and lurked around. No one else was in the park, which pleased her. It would have been difficult explaining just exactly what it was she planned to do.
Closing the gate behind her, she went over to the hole and sat down beside it. It was a smallish hole, ringed round with spikey brown grass. The grass was wet with dew but she didn’t mind. If the trip down the hole didn’t kill her outright, magic would dry off her skirts. Either way . . . she thought . . . either way . . .
She wondered if she should wait for the rabbit, but he was at least as old as she. If rabbits even lived that long. She should have looked that up before coming. Her late husband, Reggie, had been a biologist manqué and she knew for certain that several volumes on rabbits could be found in his vast library, a great many of them, she was sure, in French. He loved reading French. It was his only odd habit. But the white rabbit might just be late; it had always been late before. As a child she had thought that both an annoying and an endearing quality. Now she simply suspected the rabbit had had a mistress somewhere for, as she recalled, he always had a disheveled and uncomfortable look whenever they met, as if just rumpling out of bed and embarrassed lest anyone know. Especially a child. She’d certainly seen that look on any number of faces at the endless house parties she and Reggie had gone to when they were first married.
She didn’t think she had time enough now to waste waiting for the rabbit to show up, though as a child she’d a necessary long patience. Those had been the days of posing endlessly for artists and amateur photographers, which took a great deal of time. She’d learned to play games in her head, cruel games some of them had been. And silly. As often as not the men she posed for were the main characters in the games, but in such odd and often bestial incarnations: griffins, mock turtles, great fuzzy-footed caterpillars. And rabbits. What hadn’t she imagined! Mr. Dodgson hadn’t been the only one who wanted her for a model, though she never understood why. She’d been quite plain as a child, with a straight-haired simplicity her mother insisted upon. That awful fringe across her forehead; those eyebrows, pronounced and arched. A good characteristic in a woman but awful, she thought consideringly, in a child. In all the photographs she seemed to be staring out insolently, as if daring the photographer to take a good picture. What could Mr. Dodgson have been thinking?
And then there’d been that terrible painter, Sir William Blake Richmond, for whom she’d spent hours kneeling by Lorina’s side in the Llandudno sands for a portrait Father never even hung in the house. Though years later, she recalled suddenly, Lorina—who’d really never had very much art sense—displayed it without apology in her sunny apartment. The Ghastlies, Father had called that painting, remarking how awful his beautiful girls looked in it. And they had: stiff and uncharming. Like old ladies, really, not young girls. The sand had hurt her knee, the sun had been too hot, and Sir William an utter fool. They’d nicknamed him “Poormond” as a joke. It was her art tutor’s idea, actually—Mr. Ruskin. A poor nickname and a poor joke as well, she thought.
Leaning over, she peered down into the hole and thought she saw the beginnings of the shelving that lined the sides, though the first time she’d dropped down the hole it had gone—she seemed to remember dimly—straight like a tunnel for some time. Marmalade, she thought suddenly. That had been on the shelves. The good old-fashioned hand-made orange stuff that her governess, Miss Prickett, had insisted on, not the manufact
ured kind you get in the stores today. She could almost taste it, the wonderful bits of candied rind that stuck between your teeth. Of course, that was when I had all my own.
She sat a bit longer remembering the maps and pictures hung upon pegs that had been scattered between the shelves; and the books—had there been books or was she misremembering? And then, when she was almost afraid of actually doing it, she lowered herself feet first into the suddenly expanding hole.
And fell.
Down, down, down.
As if accommodating to her age, the hole let her fall slowly, majestically, turning over only once or twice on the way. A queen, she thought, would fall this way. Though she had no title, much as Reggie had longed to be on the Honors List. And then she remembered that in Wonderland she was queen. With that thought there was a sudden deliberate heaviness atop her head. It took all the strength she could muster to reach up as she fell, but she just managed. Sure enough, a crown, bulky and solid, was sitting upon her head.
She fell slowly enough that she could adjust her glasses to see onto the shelves, and so that her skirts never ruffled more than a quarter inch above her knees. They were good knees, or at least handsome knees, still. She’d many compliments on them over the years. Reggie, of course, had adored them. She often wondered if that was why she had married him, all those compliments. He’d stopped them once they were safely wed. The crown prince himself—and Dickie Mountbatten, too—had remarked on her knees and her ankles, too. Of course that was when knees and ankles had been in fashion. It was all breast and thigh now. Like, she thought, grocery chickens. She giggled, thinking of herself on a store shelf, in among the poultry. As if responding to her giddy mood, the crown sat more heavily on her head.
“Oh, dear,” she said aloud. “We are not to be amused.” The giggles stopped.
As she continued falling, she named the things on the shelves to herself: several marmalade jars; a picnic basket from Fortnum & Mason; a tartan lap robe like the one her nanny used to wrap around her on country weekends; a set of ivory fish tile counters; a velvet box with a mourning brooch in which a lock of hair, as pale as that of her own dear dead boys’, was twisted under glass; a miniature portrait of the late queen she was sure she’d last seen at a house party at Scone, back in the days before it had become a tourist attraction.