In Brief Authority, F. Anstey [latest novels to read .txt] 📗

Majesties are evidently unacquainted with his Excellency's family history. The motive for his indiscretion will perhaps be better understood when I mention that his parents' title was formerly Bubenfresser, and that they were executed by command of the late King as being notorious ogres."

"So that was his game, was it?" cried Clarence. "Bagged our pages, meaning to gobble 'em up when he got 'em home! Am I to have an Ogre for a brother-in-law?"

At this there was a general cry of horror.

"Marshal," said the King, "you must have known all about this—and you gave that fellow an excellent character!"

"I had no reason to believe otherwise, sire," replied the ex-Regent smoothly. "He had been brought up as a strict vegetarian, and I cannot think that, if he had not acquired a taste for meat at your Majesty's table, he would ever have developed these—er—hereditary proclivities."

"He hasn't developed them!" declared Edna. "It's false! Ruprecht, deny it! Tell them you are no Ogre!"

"Really, ma'am," said the Duchess to Queen Selina, "I must ask your permission to leave the table. I don't feel as if I ought to be present at a family dispute of this intimate nature."

"Pray don't go, my dear Duchess!" the Queen implored her. "Not till you've heard what the Count has to say."

The Count rose and folded his arms in proud defiance. "I'm not an Ogre," he said sulkily.

"I knew it—I knew it!" cried Edna. "Appearances were against him, that's all!"

"Not an Ogre yet," went on the Count. "But I hope to be one as soon as I get the chance."

"No, no, Ruprecht!" protested Edna. "You don't mean it—you know you don't!"

"What!" said the Count, scowling at her. "Are you going to turn round on me like this, after encouraging me as you did?"

"You will not find it easy to persuade me," said the Duchess, "that the Princess would ever have urged you to become an Ogre."

"Urged him, indeed!" cried Edna wildly. "I had no suspicion—I never said a single word that could possibly——"

"Didn't you say I was to follow the teachings of your great master with the name I never can pronounce?" he demanded. "Didn't you tell me to make my own morality and obey my own instincts, without caring what people thought or what suffering I inflicted? You know you did! And that's all I've done. My instincts told me that those pages were my natural provender. I had a perfect right to take them if I could. The only people who would condemn me would be just those average conventional persons for whom you have such a contempt. I expected better things from you!"

"I cannot sit here another moment," declared the Duchess, rising. "It is making me positively ill!"

"And me!" added Lady Muscombe. "I've been on the point of fainting several times. I must say," she told Clarence, "this is quite the weirdest lunch I ever sat through!"

"We will all leave, Duchess," said the Queen. "I assure you I entirely share your sentiments, and perhaps by this time even Edna——"

"I loathe him, Mother!" she said, shuddering; "I only hope I shall never see his face again!"

"You hear that, sir?" said King Sidney, with more firmness than he usually showed. "And, as the Princess Edna—er—voices the general feeling, perhaps you'll see the propriety of getting out of this at once?"

"It seems to me," said the Count, "that you are all making a great fuss about nothing. If I'd eaten any of your pages I could understand it. But I haven't—I never got the chance."

"Thanks to Clarence!" put in Queen Selina. "He saved the poor boys!"

"It was Miss Heritage, really, Mummy!" corrected Ruby jealously. "She wanted to know about the sack, or I shouldn't have asked."

"Miss Heritage!" muttered Edna. "Ah! I might have known it!"

"Now just you be off to that castle of yours," said the King, addressing the discomfited but quite unrepentant Ogre. "And mind you keep inside it for the future. You will see that he does that, Marshal? I don't want any scandal about this business, but if I have any more trouble from you, I shall be forced—well, to take some very strong measures."

"I'm just going," said the Ogre calmly. "May I have my bag?"

"Confound your impudence, no!" returned the King, "I shall have the beastly thing destroyed."

"Then I think you ought to give me back some of the money I paid for it," said the Ogre. "I bought it from Master Xuriel, and I know you get two-thirds the price of any article he sells. He told me so."

"You—you infamous scoundrel!" cried King Sidney, turning extremely red, perhaps with anger. "Marshal, see this ruffian off the premises—and look here, just send for that rascally astrologer, will you? I'll make short work of him!"

"Farewell, then, to your Majesties," said the Ogre, with a jaunty wave of his big hand. "And farewell to you, Princess Edna. If I have not been as much of a Superman as I could wish, you may still find that I have profited by your teachings."

The old Court Chamberlain's chest gave a loud crack as the Count swaggered out.

"Thank goodness he's gone!" said Queen Selina. "Really, my dear Duchess, and you, dear Lady Muscombe, I simply can't say how distressed I am that anything so unpleasant should have occurred while you were under our roof. I do hope you won't blame me. I always disliked the Count myself—but I should never have dreamed of asking him to meet you if I had known the sort of person he really was!"

"Indeed, Ma'am," said the Duchess, "I can quite believe that."

"And, after all," said Lady Muscombe languidly, "I dare say there are lots of people in town—in houses where they don't keep a page, I mean—who'd be glad enough to get him to come and dine. Society is so much less exclusive than it used to be."

"That," remarked the Duchess, "entirely depends on what you mean by 'Society.' And now, Ma'am," she continued to her hostess, "as the birds—I think you mentioned that they were storks—which brought us here should be rested by this time, I shall be obliged if you will order the car to take me back as soon as I have changed my dress."

"And me, too, if you don't mind," said Lady Muscombe. "I must get home before Nibbles does."

"Oh, but you mustn't leave us so soon!" protested Queen Selina in dismay. "To come all this way for such a miserable little visit!"

"A flying visit, let us call it," said the Duchess. "But, candidly, this country of yours doesn't suit me. I don't feel safe with characters such as Ogres and Giants and Dragons about."

"But I assure your Grace there are very very few—hardly any, in fact!"

"There are more than my nerves can stand," said the Duchess, firmly, and Queen Selina, though deeply mortified by her guests' eagerness to go, found that she could no longer detain them.

The Court Chamberlain and his attendants brought the stork car to the palace door by the time the visitors had resumed their former costumes.

"Good-bye, dear Duchess!" said the Queen. "So charmed to have seen you, even for so short a time. I hope some day you will come again."

"I think it improbable," was the grim reply. "And if you'll allow me to say so, Ma'am, when I do stay anywhere, I prefer a house where I can be sure of the sort of people I am likely to meet."

"I say, Marchioness," cried Clarence, as he joined them on the steps, "you're not really going, are you? I wish you'd stay on a bit. We were getting on thundering well together, you and I!"

"Very sad, isn't it?" she answered, with a charming but slightly mocking grimace. "But Nibbles wouldn't like me to stop here philandering with Fairy Princes—even if they aren't quite the real thing. Good-bye, Ma'am," she added, with a gay little nod, as she stepped into the car, where the Duchess was already seated. "Thanks so much for having me! It's a wonderful house to stay in—and a most interesting experience."

"I have an impression," said the Duchess drowsily, "that I shall wake up presently and find all this has been a dream. I trust so, but, if not, would you mind telling this elderly gentleman to set me down in some unfrequented part—not Stratford Place, where I should attract more attention than is at all desirable."

"That's a good idea, Duchess!" said Lady Muscombe. "He can drop us on Clapham Common, and we can share a taxi home."

Queen Selina kissed her hand affectionately to them both as the storks spread their great wings and the car slowly rose. But her salute was not returned—principally for the reason that both ladies had already closed their eyes in slumber.

"And we might have made those two women our friends for life!" she lamented, as she went indoors. "I hope, Edna, my love, you see now what comes of getting your own way?"

"If I have been mistaken for once," said Edna, in a spiritless tone, "you needn't rub it in, Mother. I can't imagine now what I could ever have seen in that detestable creature."

"Nor I—especially as you could see nothing in Prince Mirliflor, who really was—no, my dear, I'm only speaking for your good. If I was sure you regretted your treatment of him, I might perhaps find some way——"

"I dare say I should act differently if he asked me again. But he won't. This dreadful story is sure to get round to him somehow. Of course I'm glad Ruprecht has been found out in time. But he need not have been exposed so publicly! I do resent that. And you heard what Ruby said? Miss Heritage was at the bottom of it. She deliberately planned this to humiliate me! And if you have the smallest consideration for me, Mother, you will forbid her to appear at Court after this."

"I'm afraid she is a designing young person," admitted the Queen, "and I have thought more than once lately of sending her home to England."

"Then do it, Mother. If you don't, I shall simply refuse to appear in public myself, sooner than meet her."

"She shall go, my dear. I'll see the Court Godmother about it at once. And don't let yourself get too downhearted over the other affair—Prince Mirliflor, I mean. I've great hopes we can put that right."

"I've just left poor darling Edna," she began, as soon as she found the Fairy alone; "all this has been a terrible shock to her, as you may imagine. But it seems I was right in thinking she never really cared for that unspeakable man. He terrified her into accepting him. And, between ourselves, Godmother, I fancy that, if you could induce Prince Mirliflor to come forward again, he would not be sent away a second time."

"So I should imagine, myself," said the Fairy drily. "But, as it happens, owing to the result of my previous efforts, I have lost all influence with Mirliflor. He and I have fallen out."

"But you could easily make it up with him. You might say she was really in love with him from the first, only she wished to put him to the proof—something of that sort. Tell him how delighted we should all be to see him again. There's another little matter I wished to speak to you about. Edna has taken the strongest dislike to that Miss Heritage, who I must say has acted most unwarrantably. I have made up my mind to part with her, and I thought, if you would arrange to have her taken back to England as soon as the car returns to-morrow——"

"Stop," said the Fairy, "I must have time to think over that." She had, it is true, renounced all further interference in anybody's affairs, but habit was too strong for her. Her old brain was busying itself once more with the scheme she had abandoned—a scheme that would certainly not be assisted by Daphne's expulsion from Märchenland. So she temporised.

"Yes," she said at last, "I quite see from what you tell me, that Lady Daphne cannot remain at Court any longer. The difficulty is that I can't send her back to England just yet. My storks will not be fit for so long a flight again for a fortnight at the very least. I'm not going to have them killed on her account. I could do this for you. I could establish her in a little pavilion in a distant part of the palace grounds and keep her there, under my own eyes, till the storks are ready for another journey. It's a very secluded place—almost a wilderness—and none of the Court ever go near it."

"That seems an excellent plan," said the Queen. "But I shouldn't care for them to know that she is a prisoner. They had better be told that she