"You're very kind," said the Duchess. "Then I will accept your hospitality for the present."
"So will I – er – your Majesty, thanks," said Lady Muscombe. "It will be something to tell Muscombe – when we're on speaking terms again."
"So very nice and friendly of you both!" said Queen Selina as she escorted them across the hall to the foot of the immense staircase. "I must apologise for asking you to come up all these steps, but there's no such thing as a lift here. The Astrologer Royal offered to try and procure us a flying carpet – but, of course, I wouldn't hear of that."
"Well," said the Duchess, as she toiled up, "this is certainly a wonderful Palace you live in – I have never seen one so splendid in my life!"
"Ah, my dear Duchess, it's much too large to be really comfortable, and all the arrangements, too, so unlike our English ways! I'm afraid I shall never get things done here according to my ideas… This is your room, dear Duchess, and yours is next, Marchioness. I will send some of my waiting-women to you with everything necessary. You will find us assembled in the Throne Room before lunch… Oh, and there's just one thing. My Court have got an impression – I'm sure I don't know why – that we're quite old friends. If you wouldn't mind – er – addressing me as 'Selina' now and then… Not at all, I assure you, I should consider it a compliment – from you… Then I shall hope to see you later on in the Throne Room… It's in the left wing, down the great corridor; you can't miss it because of the trumpeters at the doors."
After an interval the two visitors made their appearance in the Throne Room, arrayed in magnificent but rather fantastic robes of velvet and brocade with long hanging sleeves lined with ermine – a costume which suited Lady Muscombe better than the Duchess.
Queen Selina advanced to welcome them effusively. "So you've found your way here!" she said. "How very well you both look in those dresses! Most becoming, I assure you. By the bye, my dear Duchess, did you ever recover that tiara you lost in the train?"
"I never did lose it," replied the Duchess, "I believe some story got into the papers, but it was a down-right lie."
"So glad! I must tell you that I don't as a rule wear my crown at lunch, but I thought, to-day being a gala occasion – "
"Quite right!" said the Duchess. "And quite regal!"
"I could lend both of you tiaras, if it would make you feel more at your ease."
"I feel perfectly at ease as I am, thank you," replied the Duchess shortly.
"Nibbles gave me one of the family fenders," said the Marchioness, "but I never wear it – it gives me such a headache."
"Ah, dear Lady Muscombe, I can sympathise with you – but I have to put up with my headaches. I want you to come and shake hands with my husband – His Majesty, you know."
"Charmed," said the Duchess. "Is that His Majesty with the – er – auburn whiskers and moustache? I thought it must be… How d'you do, sir?"
"Thank you, your Grace, I'm very tolerably well," said King Sidney, who was not entirely at his ease in welcoming such distinguished guests – especially as he was far from clear as to how and why they came to be there. "Glad you found time to – er – look us up. Hardly had time to settle down here ourselves yet – so you must take us as you find us."
"I never expected to find you all so magnificent, I can assure you," replied the Duchess.
"Oh, well," he said, "my wife likes living in style. And of course when you are Royalties, so to speak, you've got to do the thing well."
"That is my eldest daughter, Edna, Duchess, the Princess Royal … yes, over there, with the eye-glasses. Edna, my love, come and tell her Grace how delighted you are to see her, and Lady Muscombe too."
"How do you do, my dear? You're looking well," said the complaisant old lady, preparing to embrace her hostess's daughter… "Oh, if you prefer me to kiss your hand, ma'am – "
"You shouldn't be so formal, Edna!" said her mother. "Not with such an old friend as the Duchess. This, Duchess, is my son, the Crown Prince Clarence, and here is my youngest daughter, Princess Ruby."
"I must tell you about Edna, my dear Duchess," said Queen Selina, drawing her apart after these presentations had been effected. "She has only just become engaged – to a neighbour of ours, young Count von Rubenfresser. From a merely worldly point of view she might have done much better. In fact, Prince Mirliflor of Clairdelune came here to propose to her, but she rejected him. Wouldn't hear of anyone but the Count! So as His Majesty and I do not approve of forcing our children's hearts, we have let her have her own way."
"It seems quite a romance," observed the Duchess.
"Quite. And of course the Count comes of a very old family. I forget what the original title was, but they've had Castle Drachenstolz for centuries. Such a picturesque old place! And – actually, Duchess! – Count Ruprecht has a pet dragon there – it's the only one left in Märchenland now, and as it's rather a curiosity in its way, and quite inoffensive, we see no objection to his keeping it. You will probably meet the Count to-day, he generally drives over to luncheon now – so devoted to dear Edna! And such a height, too!"
"I shall be interested to meet him," said the Duchess. "He must be rather a remarkable person."
Meanwhile Clarence was engaged in making himself agreeable to Lady Muscombe. "Funny thing, Marchioness," he remarked, "but I seem to know your face quite well."
"Perhaps you've seem me on picture-postcards," she said, "or else at the Vivacity. Before I married I was Verity Stilton, you know."
"Oh," he stammered in confusion, "I – I wasn't aware – or else – of course. Sorry!"
"Why on earth should you be? You don't suppose I'm ashamed of having been on the stage? I should soon have got to the front if I had stayed. I was offered one of the best parts in 'The Girl from Greenland,' and I threw it up to marry Muscombe. His people know perfectly well that I sacrificed my career for his sake." (It might be added that if they did not, it was no fault of Lady Muscombe's.)
"I remember you," he said. "I used to go to the Vivacity before the Mater came to the throne."
"Ah, you haven't been a Royalty long, have you? Weren't you a Wobbly-something or other before that?"
"Wibberley-Stimpson was the family name," he corrected.
"I knew it was something like that. And when you were – one of those, what did you do with yourself?"
"I was in Finance," he replied largely. "In the City, don't you know, what?"
"Really?" she drawled. "That accounts for my not remembering you. Somehow, at the Vivacity, we didn't know any City men. All this must be rather a change for you, isn't it?"
"It was a bit, at first, but we soon got into it. Except the Guv'nor, who's never taken very kindly to it – hasn't had the training, what?"
"And you have? I see. And what does a Fairy Crown Prince have to do?"
"Well," he said, "I do a lot of riding and hunting. Mostly boar about here. The Guv'nor don't ride, nor does Edna. Can't induce them to get on a horse. So I have to represent the family."
"I expect you're no end of a nut here," she said.
"Oh, really, Marchioness, you're pulling my leg!"
"Am I? I've never pulled a Fairy Prince's leg before, so it's quite a new experience for me. But one expects new experiences in Fairyland – if this really is Fairyland, which I can't quite believe!"
"Oh, it's Fairyland right enough, though, mind you, it isn't the place it was. Nothing like the magic that there used to be. Most of it died out. Still, we've got a sort of old Fairy Godmother, as part of the Palace fixtures – goes about in a car drawn by doves – give you my word she does! She has another old turn-out, with storks. We came here in that – and I expect you did."
"Yes, and I see the old gentleman over there who carried me off by main force. He doesn't look as if he was such a good hand at abductions!"
"He looks pretty much the blithering old idiot he is," said Clarence. "If I'd only known he was going to London I'd have told him to get me a few thousand cigarettes – they've none here of course. But I expect he'd only have brought 'Woodbines,' or the wrong sort anyhow!"
"Does he always bring the wrong sort?" inquired Lady Muscombe.
"Well," said Clarence, crudely enough, "he didn't make much mistake about you, Marchioness!"
"That's exactly what I expected from you!" she said. "By the way, what has become of the lovely person who was with the Duchess and me when we first woke up? I think your mother called her Hermitage. I don't see her anywhere here."
"Heritage – Lady Daphne, as we call her now. She used to be my kiddie-sister's governess."
"Oh? Well, she's quite the sweetest thing I've seen – don't you think she is, yourself?"
"Not since you came!" was his gallant reply.
"It's lucky Muscombe can't hear you paying me compliments of that sort," she said. "If he did he'd want your blood. And why isn't that Lady Daphne here? I'm dying to see her again. Duchess," she added, as the elder lady, having escaped from her hostess, came towards them, "I've been asking the Prince why that charming little Heritage creature isn't here. You would like to see her, wouldn't you?"
"Certainly," said the Duchess. "Where is she?"
"We'll ask the Court Godmother," said Clarence (it had already struck him that it might give Daphne a higher opinion of him if she could see the terms he was on with a real English Marchioness). "She'll know." But the Fairy could only say that she supposed Lady Daphne was remaining in her own rooms for some reason.
"I wish you'd get her to come down, Court Godmother," said Clarence. "These ladies would like to see her."
"I will go and fetch her myself," said the Fairy, who was pleased, in spite of herself, that her unacknowledged god-daughter should be in such request.
She found Daphne engaged in sewing the great pierced jewels in an intricate pattern on the skirt of the royal robe.
"Why, how's this?" exclaimed she. "At work! When they will be sitting down to table directly! The Prince and our two noble guests have asked me to come and see what is keeping you."
"This," said Daphne, touching the skirt on her knee. "Her Majesty has sent me up to finish it, and forbidden me to come down till it's done."
"Then," said the Fairy, "she ought to be ashamed of herself!"
"Oh, I don't mind a bit, Court Godmother. They'll bring me something to eat presently, and I'd much rather be here than have to meet that odious Count Ruprecht! Court Godmother," she added, with a little anxious line on her forehead, "I'd better tell you, though I dare say you'll think it silly – but I'm rather worried by a conversation I overheard just now between two pigeons on the roof."
"You shouldn't pay any attention to anything pigeons say – it's generally love-talk; and very foolish at that."
"They weren't making love. They were talking about the Count. The first pigeon said, 'The Count has come here again. I have just seen his big coach in the courtyard,' and the second pigeon said, 'There is nothing in that.'"
"Well, one of them had some sense, anyway!" remarked the Fairy.
"Ah, but wait. 'Indeed there is something,' said the other bird. 'There is a big sack in the coach, and I know what is inside the sack, too.' 'And what may that be?' the second one asked. 'All I can tell you,' said the first, 'is that, if the Princess only knew as much about it as I do, there wouldn't be any marriage!' They flew away after that, but I've been wondering ever since whether he mayn't have murdered somebody."
"If he had," said the Fairy, "he wouldn't be very likely to bring the body out to lunch with him. You shouldn't be so uncharitable, my child. And, as for birds, I should have thought you knew what busy-bodies they are, and what scandals they make out of nothing at all."
"Then you think it's all right?" said Daphne, relieved. "But all the same, I can't trust the Count."
"Nobody asks you to. I don't trust him myself, if it comes to that. But, whatever he may or may not be is no affair of yours or mine. Princess Edna will find out in time what a mistake she has made."
"If only she doesn't find it out too late!" said Daphne.
"She'll have herself to thank, whatever happens. I shan't interfere again. I'm tired of trying to help anyone. I never get anything but ingratitude for it."
CHAPTER XIV
BAG AND BAGGAGE
The Court Godmother returned to the Throne-room. She had not attached much importance to what Daphne had told her, but, even if she had, she would have belittled it in her extreme desire to avoid any action that might entail inconvenience to herself.
In the Throne-room, Count Rubenfresser had just been announced.
"Yes, Duchess," said Queen Selina, in answer to an astonished inquiry. "That is dear Edna's fiancé. A fine young man, is he not?"
"Heavens! I should think he was! I should call him a giant myself," replied the Duchess bluntly.
"I told you he was rather tall. I think he's grown since his engagement. How do you do, my dear Ruprecht? Come and be introduced to my old friend the Duchess of Gleneagles, who is so very anxious to make your acquaintance."
"I don't much care about knowing old women," said the Count, who had no great love for his future mother-in-law, and had become much less deferential of late.
"But this one's a Duchess, Ruprecht!" whispered the agonised Queen. "Edna, my love, perhaps you had better – " and eventually he submitted with a slight scowl to be led up and presented by his fiancée.
"I hear I am to congratulate you – er – Count Fresser," said the Duchess. "You are certainly a fortunate man to have won a Princess."
"Not more fortunate than she," he replied. "She wanted a Superman, as she calls it. I am doing all I can to become one."
"If she isn't satisfied with you as you are, she must be hard to please."
"She is satisfied enough," he said. "Now it is for her to please me. She knows that by this time – don't you, Edna?"
"Yes, Ruprecht dear, yes," said Edna, hastily. "Of course I do. This is how he's taken to bullying me, Duchess," she added lightly. "Don't you think it's too bad of him?"
"It seems a little early to begin. You shouldn't allow it."
"Oh, but I like him to!" said Edna, pressing the Count's great arm.
"In that case, my dear," said the Duchess, "you have every prospect of a happy future!"
A blast from the silver trumpets here proclaimed that luncheon was served.
"Lunch, at last, eh?" said King Sidney, bustling up to the Duchess. "Permit me to offer your Grace my arm. Clarence, my boy, you take in her ladyship here. Selina, my love, if you will lead the way with the Marshal."
The Count followed with Edna, and the Fairy Vogelflug arrived in time to bring up the rear with Princess Ruby.
"It's a most extraordinary thing," said the King, after they had sat down to lunch in the hall with the malachite columns, "a most extraordinary thing, that, when we have company like this, there should be no more than six pages to wait on us! We generally have at least a dozen. What's become of all the rest of you?" he asked a page.
"I cannot say, sire," answered the boy. "They were waiting in the courtyard to receive His Excellency the Count, but have not yet returned."
King Sidney told the Court Chamberlain to send for them at once, but the messenger returned with the information that the missing pages were nowhere to be seen.
"Must have run off before I arrived," said the Count, laughing boisterously. "Played truant, the young rascals!"
The Fairy, however, recollected Daphne's story of the sack, and was seized with suspicion. Was it possible that the royal pages – ? If so, she felt something ought to be done – though not by her. She was too cautious an old person to take unnecessary risks, and decided to employ a deputy.
"Ruby, my child," she whispered to the little Princess, who was sitting next to her, "I believe the Count has brought a present for you. It's in a sack in his coach. Ask him what it is."
"I don't want to know," objected Ruby, "I wouldn't take any present from him– except Tützi, perhaps."
"I may be wrong," said the Court Godmother, "perhaps it isn't for you after all. But I'm sure it would make him very uncomfortable if you asked him, before everybody, what he happens to have in that sack of his."
"If I was sure of that," said Ruby, "I'd ask him like a shot!"
"You may depend on it. And more than that, Lady Daphne is particularly anxious to know."
"Oh, if Miss Heritage wants me to, all right!" said Ruby. "I say, Count Rubenfresser," she called across the table, "I want to ask you something."
"If it's a riddle, little Princess," replied the Count, with his mouth full, "I give it up beforehand."
"It isn't a riddle. It's this: What have you got inside that sack?"
"Sack?" said the Count blankly. "I don't understand. I have no sack here."
"I don't mean here. I mean the sack that's inside your coach."
"Ruby, my dear," interposed her mother, "you mustn't be so inquisitive. It's very rude."
"I know he has got a sack there, Mummy," insisted Ruby, "and I do want to know what he's got in it."
"Hear me rag my precious brother-in-law," said Clarence aside to Lady Muscombe. "A sack, eh?" he said aloud. "What do you bring a sack out to lunch for – scraps?"
"For shame, Clarence!" cried Edna.
"It's not a sack, as it happens," said the Count sulkily. "It's a long bag – and what I use it for is entirely my own business."
"I don't know so much about that," retorted Clarence. "With such a lot of plate in the Palace!"
"Clarence!" cried Edna again. "This is too outrageous of you!"
"Much!" put in Lady Muscombe. "As if the Count couldn't bring his clubs with him if he's going on to golf somewhere!" she said to Clarence in an undertone. "And of course he'd want a very long case for them! You really must behave more decently!"
"I mean having this out with the beggar," he replied. "Count, her ladyship suggests that you may have golf clubs in that bag of yours. Is that so?"
"And if I have," said the Count. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Because you don't play golf. No one does here – now, and I'll take my oath you can't tell a brassey from a putter. You never owned a set of clubs in your life!"
"Really, my boy!" said King Sidney nervously. "A scene like this! Before our guests! It won't do, you know. Drop it!"
"Yes," said Lady Muscombe, laying her pretty but slightly over-manicured fingers on Clarence's sleeve. "You're only making everybody uncomfortable. Talk to me instead!"
"Presently," he said. "If you really have got golf clubs, Count, I should like to have a look at them after lunch."
"I never said I had got those things," replied the Count, with a wonderful command over his temper. "And if you want to know what is in the bag, I don't mind telling you – only a few pumpkins from my own gardens."
"You mean to say you make such pets of your bally pumpkins that you take 'em out driving with you? That's such a likely story!"
"Clarence," said the Queen, "I will not have poor Ruprecht badgered like this. If he chooses to carry pumpkins with him – as we do gold sometimes – and distribute them to deserving persons, it is so much the more to his credit."
"He'd get 'em buzzed back at his head pretty soon, if he did!" replied the impenitent Clarence. "He's not exactly the object of general adoration in these parts, as he jolly well knows… Anything upset you, Marchioness?" he inquired of Lady Muscombe, who was giggling with a quite un-peeress-like lack of restraint.
"Nothing," she said faintly. "Only the – the pumpkins. You really are rather a funny Royal Family, you know!"
"I'm sorry to make myself unpleasant, Mater," said Clarence, returning to the charge. "But I can't swallow those pumpkins. I want the sack brought in so that we can satisfy ourselves what there is in it." The Court Chamberlain, in the hope that the contents, whatever they might be, would at least serve to compromise the Count, instantly despatched one of the pages to fetch the bag.
"Baron," said the Queen angrily, "it is for Us to give orders – not you!"
"Your Majesty must pardon my presumption," he said, as the pages had already obeyed him. "I was merely carrying out the wishes of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."
"I shall die if this goes on much longer! I know I shall!" gasped Lady Muscombe.
"Ha!" cried Clarence, as the pages staggered in with a huge distended sack. "Leave it alone, I'll open it myself."
"Surely not without asking the owner's permission?" said the Duchess, who had hitherto witnessed the scene in silent and dignified amazement.
"You can open it if you like!" said the Count, with a confident smile. "And then you will see what a fuss you have made about nothing."
Clarence cut the cord, and opened the sack. The moment he did so his jaw fell. "I own up," he said. "I was wrong. They are pumpkins!"
"And if you are a gentleman, Clarence," cried Edna, "you will apologise to Ruprecht at once!"
"There may be something else underneath," he said, lifting a pumpkin suspiciously in both hands. "Hullo! My hat! What's this I've got hold of?" he exclaimed, as the vegetable suddenly developed, the moment it was clear of the sack, into one of the chubbiest of the royal pages. "Very odd!" he remarked, as he set the boy down. "Let's have the lot out." He tilted the sack, and as each pumpkin rolled out upon the sardonyx pavement, a bewildered page sprang up in its stead.
"Quite a clever trick!" said Lady Muscombe. "Even Maskelyne and Devant couldn't beat that!"
"After all, it wasn't so very much of a change!" was Ruby's comment.
"What do you boys mean by playing at being pumpkins in this way?" demanded King Sidney. "I must have an explanation of this. Speak out, one of you!"
"If it please you, sire," said the first page, sinking on one knee, "When His Excellency the Count arrived he invited us to get inside the sack, at the bottom of which he told us we should find sweetmeats. And we crawled in – and I don't remember any more till I fell out just now."
"Just count these boys, Baron, will you?" said the King. "The whole dozen correct? Good. And now, sir," he added, turning to the Count, "I should like to hear what you have got to say."
"Allow me, sire," interrupted Marshal Federhelm, as Count Ruprecht seemed content to smile blandly. "His Excellency no doubt intended to afford your Majesties a little harmless diversion."
"That was all," said the Count. "This is a magic sack which has the property of turning anything inside it into whatever its owner wishes. I thought it might amuse you."
"Liar!" struck in Clarence. "You wouldn't have said a word about it but for Ruby! You meant to take those pumpkins – I mean pages– away with you. You know you did! I don't know what the Guv'nor and Mater think of it – but I consider myself it was a confounded liberty!"
"Well, well," said the King, "it was a mistake no doubt. But there's been no harm done, so perhaps we'd better leave it at that – for the present, you know, for the present."
But the Court Chamberlain could not allow such an opportunity to escape him. "Forgive me, sire," he said eagerly, "but your 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."
