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

"But, my dear good Marshal, that's the very last thing I desire!"

"I know, Madam, I know. But it is what he should represent to the Court and Lady Daphne, and he is more likely to do so if he believes it to be the fact. I will give him sealed instructions which he is not to open till after he is started, directing him to take her—not to Clairdelune, but to the land of her birth. Your Majesty will be good enough to write such instructions at once."

"It seems simple, and yet, Marshal, I'm not quite sure," demurred the Queen. "The Baron is an old dear, but just a bit of a chatterbox. He might let the whole thing out when he gets back!"

"He will not get back," said the Marshal. "I know a certain drug that I will administer to the storks before the journey. It is slow to act, and will not affect them until after they have reached the country that you call England. But they will never leave it again. And then it will merely be supposed that he has acted treacherously."

"I see," said Queen Selina. "Yes, I should be perfectly safe then. If there was any other way, or I didn't feel so strongly that it was really a kindness to Miss Heritage to save her from occupying a position she is so unsuited to, I really don't think I could. But I suppose I must do as you suggest."

She wrote the order, which she signed and sealed and handed to him. "I shouldn't like her to be left stranded in England without any means of support, Marshal," she said. "That would be a thing I could not reconcile to my conscience. So you will kindly see that she is supplied with a sack of gold."

"That will be a truly royal act of generosity," he said, "especially as I understand the number of sacks in your Majesty's treasury is by no means large just now."

"I was forgetting. On second thoughts, perhaps you had better make it a purse instead," she amended. "It will keep her while she is looking out for another situation."

"No doubt. And it would be wise, I think, if your Majesty would speed her departure with your good wishes in presence of the Court."

But even Queen Selina shrank from such duplicity as that. "I—I don't think I'll see her again myself," she said. "I—I'd rather not. It's most distasteful to me to have to deceive her at all, Marshal, and I shouldn't if it wasn't absolutely necessary in self-defence."

"Your Majesty has no need to assure me of that. I entirely understand," he said. "I would recommend that you send for the Baron at once, and direct him to convey Lady Daphne to Clairdelune to-morrow. Then, after I have given him the secret order, my part will be done and I shall be free to enjoy my hunting." And with that he bowed himself out.

Queen Selina followed his counsel so well that the old Court Chamberlain was completely deceived. Usurper as he now knew her to be, she was, he thought, still unaware of it, and such magnanimity to her daughter's successful rival gave him a better opinion of her. After all, he could bring himself to continue in her service, now that the Court Godmother's main object was attained. Like her, he had no wish to confess that he had been so mistaken as to saddle the Kingdom with a bogus Sovereign. So he spread the news of Lady Daphne's approaching departure with great satisfaction and the warmest eulogies of the gracious consideration Queen Selina had displayed. But even this could only partially check their disaffection, for they could not forgive her for subjecting them to the indignity of accepting a Water-nixie as their Crown Princess.

After dismissing the Baron, the Queen had felt somewhat shocked at her own talent for dissimulation. "I little thought at Gablehurst that I should ever fib like this!" she reflected. "But I wasn't a Queen then! And I can't afford to be too particular, when it's a question of keeping the Crown in the family!"

The Marshal waited until the Baron had concluded his interview with the Queen, and then visited him in his own quarters. The Court Chamberlain mentioned the instructions he had just received, and spoke in the highest terms of his Royal mistress's benevolence.

"As you say, Baron," said the Marshal, "such conduct does honour to her Majesty. She has, however, given me further instructions for you with which it is well you should be acquainted at once." And he drew out the secret order, and, after breaking the seal, presented the parchment to the Baron, who read it with honest amazement and indignation.

"I cannot believe her Majesty can have devised such wickedness!" he said. "What can be her reason—unless—unless—" and here he checked himself.

"You were about to say: Unless she knows—as you and I, my dear Baron, know beyond all doubt—that the Lady Daphne is the real Queen of Märchenland?"

"So you know that, too!" cried the Baron, recoiling in terror. "I swear to you, my lord, that I myself had no suspicion of it until it was revealed to me by the Court Godmother but two days since!"

"I accept your word for it—though whether others will do so is another matter," said the Marshal as he picked up and thrust in his doublet the document which the other had let fall. "But what I should like to know is, which of your orders you intend to execute?"

"The first, of course," exclaimed the Baron indignantly. "Lady Daphne has a higher claim to my fealty than this interloper. I shall do my duty and carry her to Clairdelune."

"You forget that Prince Mirliflor will not be there as yet to receive her. Nor is it seemly that she should quit her Kingdom without making any assertion of her claim. My plan is better than yours, Baron. Hearken: I leave the Palace to-night on the pretext of hunting in the Forest of Schlangenzweigen. I take with me a company of my own—all tried soldiers on whom I can rely. To-morrow you will set out in the car, as though to Clairdelune, and Queen Selina will naturally believe that her secret order will be obeyed. But, after having gone a certain distance, you will head your storks for the chapel of St. Morosius in the forest. There we shall be waiting to swear allegiance to our young Queen and escort her in triumph to Eswareinmal. I shall have taken measures beforehand to proclaim her title, and it is certain that the populace will rise in her favour. You cannot fail to see, my dear Baron, that your best—in fact, your only way of escaping the penalty of your folly—to call it by no harsher name—is to aid us in undoing it."

"Enough, Marshal," said the Baron, "you can count upon me."

"I am sure of it, Baron, and, as I am leaving the Palace, I will deliver the Lady Daphne into your custody. See that you say nothing to her of our scheme till the fitting moment. For the present she must be told that she is to be taken to Clairdelune. And now I must quit you, for I have much to attend to before I start, which should be within an hour. To-morrow at mid-day we shall expect you at the Chapel in the forest, and have a care for your own sake that you fail us not."

An hour later, having disposed of the business he had attended to and left everything in train for his project, he set out with a chosen band on his alleged hunting expedition. "Whether this will fall out as I calculate, or in some other way, I know not," he told himself, as they clattered out of one of the City gates and took the road to the forest of Schlangenzweigen. "But this I know—whatever happens, I shall shortly be King of Märchenland."

After he was gone the Baron began to reflect on what he had undertaken, and to feel that he would be glad of an excuse to get out of it, if he could find one. It was hardly credible that Queen Selina could have devised so treacherous a plot; it seemed far more likely that the Marshal had deceived him. After all, the secret order he had been shown might not be genuine. If it were not, the Queen was innocent, and the Baron was only too willing to leave her in peaceful permission of the throne. Before he committed himself any further he must satisfy himself on this point. His difficulty was that he could not ask her directly whether the secret order had indeed been given by her, as he might betray the Marshal, which might entail unpleasant consequences for himself. After some thought he hit upon a stratagem that was rather brilliant—for him. He obtained a private interview with the Queen, and begged her to consider whether it was altogether judicious to restore Lady Daphne to a Prince who might otherwise come forward once more as a suitor for Princess Edna. "Would it not be safer, Madam," he suggested, "to send Lady Daphne to her own country, where he would never be able to find her?"

Queen Selina was so convinced of his honesty and loyalty that she fell into his little trap without a moment's suspicion. "Now, it's really very curious you should have thought of that, my dear Baron!" she said, "very curious indeed! Because—I suppose the Marshal gave you a sealed letter from me before he left?... I thought so, and of course it isn't to be opened till after you've started. Still, I may tell you now that it contains instructions for the very identical course you suggest! I needn't say you must be careful not to mention it—but it may be a satisfaction to you to know that I've already decided on it."

"A great satisfaction indeed, your Majesty," he said, "for now my duty lies clear before me."

"And nobody, I'm sure, my dear Baron, will do it more faithfully!" was her gracious response. He proceeded to Daphne, who had heard that her Giroflé had succeeded in his attempt to rescue Edna, but knew nothing of what had happened to him afterwards. He relieved her anxiety by informing her, not only that she was to rejoin Giroflé at Clairdelune next day, but who he actually was, which last piece of information turned all her joy to dismay. Prince or no Prince, she knew that Giroflé would be true to her—but what if the King, his father, forbade him to marry anyone so far below his rank? She would have to undergo the ordeal of being presented to King Tournesol, and the thought made her heart sink with terror.

"But the Court Godmother will come with me, Baron?" she asked anxiously, only to hear why this was impossible. "Too ill even to see me!" said Daphne sadly. "And that is why her Majesty is letting me be sent to Gir—I mean, Mirliflor? It's really very good of her. I suppose, Baron, I shall be able to see her and thank her before I go?"

"Undoubtedly," he said, and, having said as much as he thought prudent, he left his prisoner to her own reflections.

Most of the Court gathered to see her off the next morning, but the only Royalty present was little Princess Ruby, who held her former Governess in close and tearful embraces. "Darling!" she said, through her sobs, "it's perfectly beastly to think you've been here all this time and I never knew it! And now you really are going and I mayn't see you for ever so long! It will be so dull, for of course I wouldn't play with the Gnomes now—even if they weren't all down with mumps. And Edna's so snappy, and Clarence is going to marry a nasty wet Water-nixie—and I wish we'd all stayed at Inglegarth, that I do!" Daphne had not heard before of Clarence's engagement and, though she naturally made no comment, she could not think he was to be congratulated on his choice. She did her best to comfort Ruby, and after taking leave of her nearly as inconsolable friends in the Household, she at length found herself seated in the car with the Baron, who had dispensed with the usual attendants. And then the Courtyard, with the mass of upturned faces and waving hands, slowly sank to the rhythmical beating of the storks' wings as they obeyed the order, "To the Palace of Clairdelune."

Clarence saw the car pass overhead from the grove in the Palace Gardens, to which he had betaken himself in his dull misery. He knew that Daphne must be on her way to rejoin her lover, and tried to console himself by the reflection that it didn't matter to