In Brief Authority Part 12

"It would be very disagreeable for me, your Royal Highness!"

"Oh, well," he said, "I'll go and ask her."

As Daphne had antic.i.p.ated, Queen Selina's refusal was most emphatic.

"You ought to know, Clarence, that it's utterly out of the question!"

she said. "And I'm surprised at Miss Heritage having the presumption to expect it."

"She didn't, Mater. She said I'd better ask you first."

"Then it seems she has a better sense of her position than you have of yours, Clarence. I'm told you have been seen walking about with a disgusting pipe in your mouth, and that several people were remarking on it. Now you are actually proposing to make yourself conspicuous by dancing at a State Ball with your sister's companion! I have always credited you with being a man of the world--but if _this_ is the way you are going on----!"

He felt the sting of so unwonted a rebuke. "I daresay you're right, Mater," he acknowledged. "I'll be more careful after this."

"I hope you will, I'm sure. As Crown Prince you mustn't _think_ of any partner under the rank of Baroness. Ask one of the Princesses first, or you'll give _more_ offence."

"Right-oh!" was all he said, and, feeling that it would be awkward to make any explanation or excuses to Daphne, he solved the difficulty by avoiding her for the rest of the evening.

Princess Goldernenfingerleinigen, a prepossessing but not very forthcoming damsel, enjoyed the distinction of being commanded by the Crown Prince as his first partner.

He had had no experience in conversing with Princesses, and she did not exert herself either to put him more at his ease or prevent him from losing himself frequently in the mazes of the dance. Once or twice he was oppressed by a painful suspicion that he had seen her making a little grimace of self-pity at the Countess Gansehirtin. But elaborately engraved mirrors are not very trustworthy, and he might have been mistaken. Still, he was thankful when the dance, in which he was conscious of having done himself so little credit, came to an end.

"Edna, old girl," he remarked subsequently to the Princess Royal, "I call this a rotten ball. Can't stick dancing with any more of these Princesses!"

Princess Edna, it appeared, had been no more favourably impressed by the Courtiers.

"They've simply _no_ conversation," she complained, "and no ideas about any serious subjects!"

"No, _I_'ve noticed that," he said; "and they think they're the only people who can dance! I tell you what--you and I'll show 'em how we do the Tango. That'll make 'em open their eyes!"

It did. As has already been said, both he and Edna, as persons who could not afford to be out of the movement, had taken lessons that winter in the recent importation from dubious Argentine dancing-saloons. They danced it now with conscientious care, Prince Clarence exhibiting as much _abandon_ as a man could who was dancing with his sister.

But the Court were not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the performance. They evidently considered it not only uncouth and undignified, but more than a little improper, and their general att.i.tude conveyed that the couple were committing one of those temporary indiscretions which it was not only etiquette but charity to pa.s.s over in silence.

"Capital!" said King Sidney, clapping his hands at the conclusion.

"Uncommonly well they dance together, eh, my dear--never seen them do it before."

"And you will never see them do it again, Sidney," replied the Queen; "for I'm much mistaken if they haven't broken up the Ball!"

She was not very far wrong, for although, after some minutes of awestruck silence, dancing was resumed, it was carried on with a restraint and gloom that soon decided the Royal Family to retire from the Ball Room.

The Queen forbore from expressing her sentiments just then either to her son or daughter, with the latter of whom, indeed, she seldom, if ever, ventured to find fault. But she felt that her first evening in the Palace had not been a brilliant success.

This feeling impelled her to be more ingratiating than ever to her ladies of the Bedchamber, whose services in disrobing her she was compelled to accept, though under protest.

"So _much_ obliged!" she said, as they finally withdrew with glacial ceremony. "Quite ashamed to have troubled you, really! Good-night, dear Princess, _good_-night. We shall breakfast at 8.30. But _en famille_, you know--quite _en famille_--so don't _dream_ of coming down!"

"I hope, Sidney," she began later, as he joined her in the Royal Bedchamber, "I hope you have treated the gentlemen who undressed you with proper consideration. It is _so_ important.... Good gracious!

What's that you've got on? A night-cap?"

"Those--er--n.o.blemen seemed to consider it the correct thing, my love, and they've put me on this night-gown, too."

"I see they have. Embroidered all over with impossible animals. You look a perfect _sight_ in it!"

"I'm told they're--er--hippogriffs, my dear, the--ah--Royal Crest or emblem or something. I should have much preferred pyjamas myself. But it seems they are not procurable here."

"Everything in this country is in a disgracefully backward state!"

declared the Queen; "and I can see I shall have hard work to bring it up to my ideas of what is proper. I shall _begin_ by putting that old Mrs.

Fogleplug in her proper place."

"I should be careful, my dear," advised King Sidney. "After all, you know, she's by way of being a Fairy."

"So she _says_! But, Fairy or no Fairy, she's much too familiar. And if she cannot conform to my rules, she will have to go, that's all."

"Well, my dear, I daresay when you put it to her like that," began the King, who had by this time succeeded in clambering into the immense bed, and whose head was already buried in an enormous pillow. "As I was saying," he continued hazily, "put it to her in--in that way, and--and--no doubt ... very probably ... no reason to suppose ...

any...." But here his voice sank into an unintelligible murmur, until it rose presently into his first, but not by any means last, snore in the character of monarch.

CHAPTER VI

CARES OF STATE

Queen Selina was as good as her word. The first thing after breakfast the next morning she retired to her Bower, and sent a summons to the Court G.o.dmother, desiring her immediate attendance. King Sidney was engaged in interviewing the Lord Treasurer on the subject of the Royal revenue. The Crown Prince and Princess Edna were strolling on the terrace, and Daphne had discovered the board and pieces of a game something between Chess and Halma, the rules of which she and Princess Ruby were learning under the instruction of the Countess von Haulemannerschen. So that the Queen, having taken care not to disturb any of her ladies-in-waiting, could count upon being able to deal faithfully with the obnoxious old Fairy without fear of interruption.

"Well, my dear," began the latter, as soon as she appeared, "I hope you pa.s.sed a comfortable night?"

"I don't know when I pa.s.sed a _more_ uncomfortable one, Mrs. Fogleplug.

That is _one_ of the things I wished to speak to you about. After being accustomed as I have to a spring mattress, all those great feather beds made it simply impossible to get a wink of sleep!"

"That," said the Fairy, "is one of the penalties of being of the blood Royal. An ancestress of yours slept in that very bed, my dear, ages ago, before even _I_ can remember--or I should rather say she _tried_ to sleep, but could not, owing to a pea that had somehow got under the lowest feather-bed of all. It was certainly very careless if the pea has never been removed."

"It would also show, Mrs. Fogleplug, that during all those ages the bed can never have been properly aired. I should have thought it would have been _your_ business to see to that."

"Then you would be entirely mistaken, my dear, for it is not. And, as I notice that you find a difficulty in p.r.o.nouncing my name correctly, I may suggest that it would be simpler in future to call me by my proper t.i.tle, which is, 'High Court G.o.dmother,' or 'Court G.o.dmother,' if you prefer it."

"And while we are on the subject of t.i.tles," said Queen Selina, "_I_ may mention that it is customary to address a Queen as 'Your Majesty,' and not as 'my dear.'"

"It has always been my habit with Sovereigns, and I have never heard it objected to till now."

"Well, _I_ object to it. But--and this is what I sent for you about--there are other matters I object to even more. I intend to regulate my household on a thoroughly modern and English system, and I cannot have any member of it careering about in the air in outlandish cars drawn by birds. If you _must_ have a conveyance you must be content with a brougham or a victoria, for I shall insist on your putting down both those bird-cars."

"You seem to forget that, but for one of them, you would never have come into your Kingdom!"

"That may or may not be. At any rate there is no further necessity for them, and--well, it just comes to this, Madam, either they go or you do."

The old Fairy's eyes smouldered with anger, and her nut-cracker mouth and chin champed for a few seconds before she replied.