In Brief Authority by F. Anstey (different ereaders .TXT) 📗

blink, "an under-gardener—what!"

"I'm bound to say—" began the King, when the Queen interrupted:

"You are bound to say that you'll keep your promise, Sidney, and that is enough till the dear fellow comes to claim his reward."

It was the Marshal whose superfluous zeal led him to order Giroflé to be stopped and brought into the Royal presence as soon as he arrived at the Palace.

The Royal Family, with the Court Godmother, the Baron, and other members of the Household, had assembled in the Throne Room when the Marshal entered, leading the reluctant Giroflé, acutely conscious of looking his very worst. After him came some men-at-arms, who carried the dragon's still terrific head, with those of the Count and Xuriel, as trophies of the hero's exploit.

They caused a general but by no means unpleasant shudder to run through the beholders.

"Your Majesties," said the ex-Regent, "I have the honour to present the gallant youth who has nobly earned even such a prize as the hand of her Royal Highness."

"But—but," stammered Queen Selina, "this isn't—there's not the least resemblance! Baron, Baron, what did you mean by telling me that the Prince——?"

"I—I must have been misinformed, your Majesty," said the Court Chamberlain, having no better explanation to offer.

"You should be more careful about what you tell Us, Baron," said the Queen. "And, really, there was no need to bring those dreadful heads into our Throne Room, making all that horrible mess! It's a piece of bad taste which, perhaps—in an under gardener—please have them removed directly. Well, young man," she continued to the indignant Mirliflor, who, it need not be said, had nothing to do with the gruesome introduction of the heads, "I'm sure we are all very much obliged to you—very much obliged indeed. If you hadn't come forward as you did, it's dreadful to think what might have happened. And, though it seems you did take the liberty of borrowing the Crown Prince's sword without permission, we are the last to blame you for that. We think you are entitled to be very handsomely rewarded. But if you're expecting our daughter, the Princess Edna's hand, I think your own good sense——"

"Yes, yes," said the King; "mustn't open your mouth too wide, you know. There's a limit to all things! And a round sum of money with which you could start in business and marry some nice little woman in your own class of life would be far more useful to you."

"I ask for no reward," said Giroflé. "And the hand of a Princess is an honour to which I do not aspire, since I am already affianced!"

"That," replied the Queen, "is very satisfactory. We shall certainly send the young person a wedding-present. Who is she? One of the Royal kitchen-maids, I presume?"

"She was in your Majesty's service as a lady-in-waiting," he said, "and her name is Daphne."

"Oh," said Queen Selina. "Really? Miss Heritage? Well, you are to be congratulated, I'm sure."

"But, Mater," said Clarence, "it can't be her! I thought you'd had her sent home?"

"I had made arrangements for her return, Clarence, but it seems to have been postponed for some reason—luckily, as things have turned out. She has been given rooms in a pavilion behind the Palace Gardens, where no doubt she managed to become acquainted with this young man."

"And he may take it," said the Fairy, "that the Lady Daphne is at liberty to depart with him at once?"

"Certainly," said the Queen. "It is hardly, perhaps—but Miss Heritage is no doubt right in accepting the first offer she receives."

"Quite," said Princess Edna, "though it seems odd—even for a Governess—to think of marrying a gardener! But I'm sure I wish her every happiness."

There is no doubt that the Court Godmother should have been content with this, but her anger and disgust were too much for her discretion. She could not resist the temptation to humiliate and confound these upstarts by a sensational stroke, whatever it cost her.

"Perhaps," she said, "the Lady Daphne has made a wiser choice than any of you may imagine." With this, after muttering an incantation, she touched Giroflé with her crutch-handled staff, and in his stead Prince Mirliflor stood revealed in rich and splendid attire before them all.

The Queen was electrified for a moment, as were Edna and most present. But as soon as the shock had passed she cried: "This is a surprise! But, my dear Prince Mirliflor, why—why didn't you tell us who you were before? You see, we couldn't possibly——!"

"It was really too naughty of you to play us such a trick, Prince!" said Edna, "when, as you might have known——!"

"Never mind!" purred the Queen, "we'll forgive him—won't we, Edna?"

"Of course you only said that about Miss Heritage to tease us?" said Edna, who really believed it was so.

"I said but the truth, Princess," he replied. "She has promised to be my wife."

"And the match," put in the triumphant Fairy, addressing Queen Selina, "already has your sanction!"

"Oh," said the Queen, "but that was before—I think," she went on with a forced smile of much sweetness—"I think you and I, my dear Court Godmother, must have a little talk over this in private before I can make up my mind what I ought to do. Perhaps you will be kind enough to follow me to my Cabinet? Excuse my deserting you for a little while, my dear Mirliflor. I shall leave you to Edna, who, I know, is dying to express all the gratitude and admiration she feels."

And she swept with great stateliness out of the Throne Room towards her Cabinet, the Court Godmother following with a presentiment that her pet scheme was about to encounter some opposition, and no very definite idea how to meet it.

But that it must and should be overcome somehow she was thoroughly determined.

It should be mentioned here that, shortly after his transformation, Mirliflor found inside his rich doublet something which proved to be the Chamberlain's cap. He was about to return it, but the Baron showed so little desire to receive his property in public that the Prince decided to keep it until a better opportunity presented itself. And then he forgot all about it, for which, as things turned out, both had reason to be thankful afterwards.

CHAPTER XVIII A PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT

"Well, my dear Court Godmother," began the Queen, as she sank on an ivory and cloth-of-gold settee in her private Cabinet, and cooled her somewhat heated face with a jewelled ostrich-feathered fan, "I had better tell you frankly that I think both you and that designing little adventuress have behaved in a very underhand way in this business—a way that I naturally resent. Mirliflor, as you very well know, came here on darling Edna's account, and you deliberately threw that Miss Heritage in his way—I haven't the least doubt you told her who he really was!"

"That," said the Fairy, "is just what I did not do. It was part of the test I put to her. She still has no idea that he is more than a student."

"Well, you egged her on to set her cap at him, and if he cares for her at all it can be no more than a passing fancy. I cannot be a party to letting the poor, dear young fellow be entrapped into a mésalliance to please you, and I shall see that she is sent back to England at once, as, but for you, she would have been long before this."

"I don't want to lose my temper with you if I can help it," said the Fairy, with an ominous flush on her peaked old nose, "because I've been through a good deal as it is this morning, and I'm feeling very far from well in consequence. But you had better understand that Lady Daphne is not going to be sent back to England—she is going with Mirliflor and me to Clairdelune, and we shall start immediately."

"You are at liberty to go where you please, but Miss Heritage will certainly not leave the Palace except to return to her own country."

"And I tell you I intend to take her to Clairdelune with me, and you are powerless to prevent it."

"Indeed?" said the Queen, in high wrath. "Answer me this: Am I Queen of Märchenland, or am I not?"

"You are not!" retorted the Fairy, before she could prevent herself, for the opening was really too tempting. She had not meant to go so far, but, having started, she proceeded to enlighten the Queen as to her title, and the very slender evidence on which it was based.

"I don't believe a single word of it!" declared Queen Selina, as defiantly as if this were the fact. "It's a wicked plot to set up my own governess as a pretender, but there's a very short way of settling that! I shall send for the Marshal"—and she made a movement towards a handbell of exquisitely engraved crystal with a sapphire tongue. "I shall tell him what you have dared to say, and have you and that wretched girl arrested as traitors!"

The Fairy shook with mingled fury and fear, for she saw too late that she had made a wrong move. "Before you do that, listen to me," she said. "All I have said is true, and you know it is true, but it was you who forced me to say it, and I am willing to be silent so long as you permit me to convey Lady Daphne to Clairdelune. As she has no suspicion of her claims to the throne, you need have no fear that she will assert them."

"I can't trust either of you—you are much too dangerous," said the Queen, and she rang the bell.

"You had better take my warning," said the Fairy, her wrinkled mouth working with passion. "Old as I am, I have some powers left that you little suspect. Scarce an hour ago I changed myself into a pool and Lady Daphne into a cypress" (she naturally omitted to add how narrowly they had escaped having to remain so indefinitely), "and by aid of the same spell I could transform you to a shape which—which you will discover after I have caused you to assume it. And it is a shape that you will not like!"

"Pooh!" said the Queen, on whom the re-integration of the under-gardener into Mirliflor seemed to have left little impression. "Either you're trying to frighten me or you're crazy. Whichever it is, you ought to be put under restraint—and I shall see to it that you are!"

"After that I'll do what I threatened!" snarled the Court Godmother. "It may kill me—but I don't care—I'll do it!" And she mouthed words of mystic sound and import, though her jaw trembled so violently that she could scarcely pronounce them. "Now," she concluded, pointing her crutch at the Queen's breast, "become—become a——!"

But what the Queen was to become never transpired, for before the infuriated Fairy could manage to name it her features suddenly became contorted, the stick fell from her hand, and she sank down in a heap just as the attendants entered in answer to the Royal summons.

"I'm afraid," said Queen Selina, "that the Court Godmother has fainted. I daresay it's nothing serious, still one of you had better bring the Royal Apothecary at once. Be careful to keep it from the Court, as I wish to avoid unnecessary alarm." The others endeavoured to restore the afflicted Fairy, but, though still alive, she was in some kind of cataleptic condition which was beyond the ordinary remedies. The Court Apothecary arrived and applied blisters without result, and finally gave it as his opinion that, while she might survive for some time, she would in all probability never speak again.

So Queen Selina ordered her to be removed to her apartments, and the fact that she was indisposed to be suppressed for the present, after which she left her Cabinet, feeling that Providence had been more than usually judicious. Her next step was to send for the Marshal and instruct him to remove Daphne from the Pavilion to a chamber in one of the Palace towers, where she was to remain a prisoner under his guardianship. "It's only for a short time, Marshal," she said. "And of course you will see that Miss Heritage is made thoroughly comfortable."

And then, the ground having been thus cleared, she returned to the Throne Room. "Just a moment or two, my dear Mirliflor," she said suavely, "if Edna can spare you," and she drew him aside. "Well," she began, "I've been telling the dear old Court Godmother the difficulty I am in. You see, I would willingly recognise this engagement of yours—whatever I may think about it—if I only could. But really, you know, I can't possibly allow you to take Miss Heritage away until I am satisfied that your dear Father approves of her as a daughter-in-law.