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

away, for she felt that she had had as much of Mrs. Stimpson as she could stand just then.

That good lady, having partially recovered her equanimity, retreated to her husband and family.

"I've been talking it over with her Majesty, Sidney," she announced, "and she has quite brought me to see that, under the circumstances, we shall really be more comfortable in dear old England. So she has kindly arranged for us to be taken home in the car directly it gets back from Clairdelune."

"Glad to hear it, my love," said the ex-Monarch. "Personally, I much prefer 'Inglegarth' to this sort of thing."

"But I say," Clarence put in, glancing down at his fantastic attire, "I don't quite see myself going back to Gablehurst in this get up. Wish I knew what had become of the kit we came in!"

It was now the hour when the Court was accustomed to go up and change their costumes before dinner, and Daphne felt a difficulty as to the proper course to pursue with the Wibberley-Stimpsons. Could she without indelicacy invite them to sit as guests at what had lately been their own table? And yet it seemed hardly human to leave them out. She decided that the former course was on the whole less open to objection.

"I hope," she said to Mrs. Stimpson, with a touch of shyness, "that you will all give me the pleasure of dining with us this evening? You see, you must have something to eat before such a long journey."

"Your Majesty is most kind," said Mrs. Stimpson in a great flurry, "but, if you will excuse us from accepting what—no one knows better than I—is really a command, I—I really don't think we should have time to sit through a long dinner. We—we might miss the car—and besides, there's the question of dressing. If we could have a few sandwiches and a little wine in one of the vestibules while we are waiting for the car, that will be all we shall require!"

"You shall do exactly as you please about it," replied Daphne. She was greatly relieved, as one reason for her hesitation in asking them had been the dread that Mr. Stimpson might think himself called upon to make an after-dinner speech.

Her ladies-in-waiting were already in her Tiring-Chamber, highly delighted by the prospect of arraying a Queen whom, even when she had been nominally one of themselves, they had always not merely admired but adored.

It had suddenly occurred to Daphne that the Stimpson family might find themselves on their return to Gablehurst in certain difficulties against which she felt bound to do what she could to protect them.

She thought over the best means of doing this, which took so much time to carry out that the business of arraying her for her first banquet as a Royal Hostess had to be got through more hurriedly than her ladies of the Bedchamber thought at all decorous.

But she knew that Mirliflor would be well content with her, however she looked—and as a matter of fact he not only was, but had every reason to be so.

The Wibberley-Stimpsons had already ascertained that the clothes they had worn on their arrival in Märchenland had been carefully laid up in one of the Royal wardrobes, from which they were brought at their earnest request. They put them on in frantic haste, and, in deadly fear of being surprised by the Royal Household, they stole down the great Staircase to an antechamber by the Entrance Hall. There they found a table set with every description of tempting food, to which all did justice but Mrs. Stimpson, the state of whose nerves had entirely taken away her appetite. She was continually starting up and saying, "Listen! I'm sure I hear these storks!"

"You'd better eat something, Mater," Clarence said. "It's the last dinner we shall ever have in Märchenland."

"I can't," she replied, "I don't know how any of you can.... There go the silver trumpets! She's going into the Banqueting Hall now. On Prince Mirliflor's arm, most likely! How she can have the heart when she must know we are still here!"

"She did ask us to dinner, my love," Mr. Stimpson mildly reminded her.

"She had the execrable taste to do that, Sidney," replied his wife, "and I think the manner in which I declined must have been a lesson to her.... Dear me, is that car never coming?"

She said that many times during the evening, as they sat on in the ebony and ivory chamber, while the strains of music reached them faintly from the distant Ballroom.

Clarence thought gloomily of the dance on the night of the Coronation, and how his mother had forbidden him to choose Daphne as his partner. Perhaps, if he had insisted on having his own way—if he had not limited himself to a merely morganatic alliance, she might have—but it was too late to grouse about that now! He endeavoured to cheer himself by the thought that he would very soon be in a civilised land of cigarettes.

It was getting late, and the music had now ceased, from which they gathered that the Queen and Court had already retired. "She might have had the common civility to say good-bye to us!" complained Mrs. Stimpson, "but of course she is too grand now to condescend so far! Not that I have any desire to see her again. On the contrary!"

The doors of the Vestibule were thrown open here and one of the ushers announced: "Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness Prince Mirliflor."

"Coming here to triumph over us!" was Mrs. Stimpson's comment as she rose.

"We came to wish you a pleasant journey to Gablehurst," explained Daphne, as she entered, followed by Mirliflor. "I hope you won't have to wait for the car much longer, but I've told the attendants in the Hall to let you know the minute it is here."

She was looking radiantly lovely and girlish—and queenly as well, in spite of the fact that she was still uncrowned. But if she had had the right to wear her crown, she was incapable of doing so just then.

Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson made a curtsey that might have been lower if she had had any practice—but all the curtseying previously had been done to herself. "We thank your Majesty," she said. "I too hope there will be no more of this delay. I am getting worn out with all this waiting. Oh, while I think of it," she went on (the desire to be offensive overcoming any fear of the consequences), "of course we are not in a position now to give really valuable wedding presents—and I'm afraid mine must be a very humble offering, particularly as it needs repairing. However, such as it is, perhaps your Majesty will honour me by accepting it with our congratulations and very best wishes?" And she offered the jewel which she had formerly acquired from Daphne. Daphne's eyebrows contracted for an instant, but the next moment she laughed.

"I really couldn't, Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson!" she said. "You see, you have already given it to Clarence, and I mustn't deprive him of it."

"Won't you accept it from me, then?" he said awkwardly. "I—I shan't have any use for it now."

She shook her head. "You will please me so much better by keeping it," she said gently—"in memory of Märchenland."

It was true that it had once belonged to her father—the father she had never known—but then it had also belonged to Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, and Daphne was conscious now of an invincible unwillingness to accept any gift from that lady.

"I—I'd do anything to please you," said Clarence, taking the pendant from his mother and slipping it into the pocket of his dinner-jacket.

Ruby, in the white silk frock she had last worn at "Inglegarth," was clinging to Daphne. "I don't want to go back!" she wailed, "I want to stay here with you. Won't you send for me some day? Say you will; do say you will!"

Daphne stooped to caress and comfort her, and also to hide her own emotion. "I wish I could, darling," she said tenderly, "but I'm afraid, I'm afraid I mustn't make any promises that I'm not sure of being able to keep."

"Then say you will—perhaps!" entreated Ruby, but her mother promptly interposed.

"Ruby, my dear," she said, "you're forgetting how far her Majesty is now our superior. A Palace is no longer a fit place for any of us to visit, and I consider it best we should remain in future strictly in our respective spheres."

"Then I will go to mine at once," said Daphne, smiling. "Good-bye, Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson. Good-bye, Edna." She held out her hand to both of them, but they curtsied formally without offering to take it. "Good-bye, dearest little Ruby—I hope your next governess will love you nearly as much as I do—she can't quite! Good-bye, Mr. Stimpson—I think you will be rather glad to be back in the City again, won't you?"

"I shall, indeed, your Majesty," he said. "To tell you the honest truth, I don't think I was ever cut out for a monarch."

It was Clarence's turn next, and when he saw her offering him her hand with the old frank friendliness, he had a renewed sense of his own unworthiness.

"No," he said in a low voice, "you can't want to shake hands with—with such a hopeless rotter as I've been!"

"I shouldn't," she replied, "if I weren't sure that you could be something very much better if you chose. And I know you will choose."

"I will," he said, "I swear I will—if I ever get the chance!"

"Your chance will come. Quite soon, perhaps. And when it does, remember that I believe in you—and, good-bye, Clarence."

"Good-bye—Daphne," he said brokenly. As he took her hand he thought with a keen pang that he had never held it before, and never would again. And the time had been—or so at least he imagined—when he might have made that hand his own for ever!

"Good night, Mirliflor," said Daphne, as he held aside the hangings for her. "We shall meet to-morrow."

She passed into the great Hall with a dignity the more charming for being so natural and unconscious—and that was the last Clarence was ever destined to see of her.

He turned to Mirliflor, whose eyes still betrayed the pride he felt in his beloved. "I don't mind telling you, old chap—er—Prince Mirliflor, that I took to you from the start, and—as I can't be the lucky man myself, I'm jolly glad it's to be you!"

"Thank you," said Mirliflor, who was less given to florid phrases than the average Fairy Prince. "So am I."

"I dare say," Clarence went on, as he realised the contrast between his own clothes and the magnificent costume that the old Fairy had provided for her royal godson, "I dare say you're thinking we're not looking very smart?"

Mirliflor was honestly able to disclaim having any impressions on the subject.

"Well, these togs must seem a bit rummy to you—but I can assure you that, for informal occasions like the present, they're quite the right thing in England." (He had a momentary impulse to except his father's white tie, but, after all, why should he say anything about that when Mirliflor knew no better? So he decided to pass it), "Worn by the very best Society."

Mirliflor politely accepted this information, and then made his farewells. Edna's good wishes were couched in a spirit of frigid magnanimity. She had too much self-respect to let him perceive that she resented his fickleness.

They were now alone in the antechamber. From time to time Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson would rise impatiently and peer out into the vast hall, now only lit by one or two flickering cressets, to see if the stork-car had arrived—but the attendants in waiting always assured her that it had not, and, after some fussing and fretting, she lay down on a divan and fell into an uneasy slumber.

Her husband was snoring placidly; Ruby had cried herself to sleep long before; Edna had brought down her lecture-notes, and was conscientiously employing the time in polishing up her knowledge of English Literature.

Her notes on Nietzsche's philosophy had been torn out after the rupture with the Count. Somehow the Nietzschean theories did not seem to work quite well when carried into practice. But, after deciphering a very few Literature notes, Edna found herself too drowsy to continue.

Clarence remained awake longest. He had wandered restlessly out into the hall just to look at the great Staircase half lost in the gloom. Daphne had ascended it a little while since. To-morrow she would come down, fresh and radiant, to meet Mirliflor. Before long they would be married and crowned, and live happy ever after in the good old Märchenland way. Well, he wouldn't have to look on and see them doing it, which was some consolation. He went back to the antechamber and regarded the sleeping forms of his family