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

with disillusioned eyes. "We look like Royalties—I don't think!" he said to himself. "No wonder they've booted us out. Why, a bally rabbit-warren would!"

But this depressing reflection soon ceased to trouble him, unless it still continued to shadow his dreams.

CHAPTER XXII SQUARING ACCOUNTS

Almost simultaneously Mr. Wibberley-Stimpson and his son and daughters opened their eyes, then rubbed them, and sat up and looked about them with a bewilderment that gradually gave way to intense relief. For, although the light had faded, their surroundings were reassuringly familiar. They were in their own drawing-room at "Inglegarth." It occurred at once to most of them that they had never actually left it—an impression that was pleasantly confirmed by Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson's first remark as she awoke later.

"Why, hasn't the dinner-gong gone yet?" she inquired crossly. "Cook gets more and more unpunctual!"

"I don't think it can be eight o'clock yet, my dear," said her husband, "it's quite light still."

"Nonsense, Sidney, it must be long past dinner-time! I've been so lost in my own thoughts that somehow I——"

"Now, Mother, you know you've been asleep and only just woke up!" said Edna, from one of the chintz couches.

"Have I? Perhaps I did drop off just for a few seconds. In fact I must have done—for I begin to recollect having quite a curious dream. I dreamed that you and I, Sidney, were King and Queen of some absurd fairy Kingdom or other, and that—well, it was not at all a pleasant dream."

"It's a most singular coincidence, Selina," he said, "but I've been dreaming much the same sort of thing myself!"

The others looked at one another, but none of them ventured to express just yet what was in all their minds.

"Have you?" said his wife languidly. "I suppose it was telepathy or something of that kind. Ring for Mitchell, Clarence—I hope dinner has not been allowed to get cold. And—and Miss Heritage seems to have left the drawing-room. Run up, Ruby, and tell her to come down."

"I don't believe she's upstairs at all, mummy," said Ruby. "No, of course she can't be. We left her in the Palace—don't you remember? She's Queen now, you know?"

"Queen! Miss Heritage! Why, you don't mean to tell me you've been dreaming that too?"

"So have I, as far as that goes, mater," said Clarence. "If it was a dream, and not—not——"

"How could it be anything else? Besides, here we all are, exactly as we were!"

"We've got our cloaks and things on, though," said Ruby. "I know how it was! We've been brought here in the stork-car while we were fast asleep. We sat up ever so long waiting for it."

"It can't be! I won't believe anything so absurd. Draw the curtains, somebody, and pull up the blinds.... It's odd, but it certainly looks more like early morning than any other time. Clarence, go out and strike the gong. Perhaps the maids haven't finished dressing yet."

Clarence went out accordingly. The gong bellowed and boomed from the hall, but there was no sound of stirring above. "I say," he reported, "I've just looked into the dining-room, and all the chairs are upside down on the table. That looks rather as if we'd been away for a bit—what?"

"Clarence! You're not beginning to think that—that all that about our having been a Royal Family may be true?"

"Well, Mater," he said, "if we haven't been in Märchenland, where have we been? Oh yes, we've been Royalties right enough—and a pretty rotten job we made of it!"

At this time there was a deprecatory knock at the drawing-room door. "Mitchell!" cried her mistress, "don't you know better than to—?" However, it was not Mitchell that entered—but a person unknown—a respectable-looking elderly female, who seemed to have made a hasty toilette.

"Askin' your pardons," she said, "but if you were wishing to see the family, they're away just now."

"We are the family," replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson. "We have been—er—abroad, but have returned. And we should be glad of breakfast at once."

"I can git you a cup of tea as soon as the kittle's on the boil," she said, "but I'm only put in as caretaker like, and I've nothink in the 'ouse except bread and butter. The shops'll be opening now, so if you don't object to waiting a little, I could go out and get you a naddick and eggs and such like."

"Yes, buck up, old lady!" said Clarence, "and I say, see if you can get a Daily Mail or a paper of some sort."

"What are you so anxious to see the paper for?" inquired Edna after the caretaker had departed.

"Only wanted to know what month we're in," he said. "It would have looked so silly to ask her what day it is. We must have been—over there—a good long time."

"At least a year!" said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, no longer able to sustain the dream theory. "More. When we left it was quite early Spring—and now all the trees are out! Sidney, what will your firm say to your having been away so long without letting them know where you were?"

"I can't say, my love. I'm afraid they might make it a ground for a dissolution of partnership—unless I can give them a satisfactory explanation of my absence."

"The difficulty will be to find one!" said his wife. "As for you, Clarence, they will be too glad to see you back again at the Insurance Office to ask any questions."

"I dare say they would, Mater, only—it didn't seem worth mentioning before—but, as a matter of fact, I—er—resigned the day we left."

"Then it seems," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson bitterly, "we have been sent back here to find ourselves in comparative poverty! I hope and trust"—she felt furtively in her bead handbag before continuing more cheerfully—"that we shall be able to struggle through somehow."

She knew now that they would not be without resources. She could feel them through the handkerchief in which they had been wrapped—two pieces which she had had the presence of mind to pick up from the Halma board as she passed through Edna's and Ruby's chamber the evening before. One was carved from a ruby, the other from a diamond, and each of them was worth a small fortune. Her one regret now was that she had not pocketed several more while she was about it. But, although she would have been perfectly within her rights in doing so—for were they not her own property?—she had thought at the time that it would be risky to take any number that could be noticed. There was always the chance that Miss Heritage might count them!

However, she said nothing about this to her family just then; it would be a pleasant surprise for them later on.

"But," she continued, "I do think it might have occurred to Miss Heritage—I can't and won't call her by any other name—that, as she was known to be in my employment when we left 'Inglegarth,' our returning without her may expose us to very unpleasant remarks. People may think I've discharged her—left her stranded in foreign parts—or I don't know what!"

"That is what she calculated on, no doubt!" said Edna.

"Oh, stop it, Edna!" said her brother, "you ought to know her better than that!"

"Oh, of course she's an angel—in your estimation! But she could have saved mother from being misunderstood if she'd wanted to—and since she hasn't—well, I'll leave you to draw the obvious inference!"

Ruby, who had been roving about the room during this conversation, now broke in:

"Mummy," she cried, "there's a letter here for you, and it looks like darling Queen Daphne's writing!" And she brought it to her mother. It was enclosed in a folded square of parchment—envelopes, like other modern conveniences, being unknown in Märchenland—and fastened with the royal signet, which Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson broke with a melancholy reminiscence of the satisfaction it had given her to use the seal herself.