In Brief Authority Part 4

"The other young lady," corrected Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "is merely my daughter Ruby's governess--Miss Heritage. But if you like to find a place for her as one of my ladies of honour or something, I have no objection to her accepting a part," she added, reflecting that Miss Heritage's manners and appearance would add to the family importance, while it would be a comfort to have an attendant who could not give herself such airs as might a girl belonging to a county family.

"Naturally," said Treuherz, inclining himself again. "Any member of your Majesty's household you desire to bring."

"Very well; I suppose, Miss Heritage, you have no objection? Then you will accompany us, please. And now, Mr. Troitz, about when shall we be wanted?"

"When?" he replied. "But now! At once. Already I have the car waiting!"

"Now?" exclaimed Clarence; "rum time to rehea.r.s.e--what?"

"Who said anything about rehearsing, Clarence?" said his mother impatiently. "It's necessary for them to see us and talk over the arrangements. It's not likely to take long."

"But it'll do later, my love," put in Mr. Stimpson, who did not like the idea of turning out without his dinner. "Fact is, Mr. Troitz, we were just about to sit down to dinner. Why not keep the car waiting a bit and join us? No ceremony, you know--just as you _are_!"

"Sire, I regret that it is impossible," he said. "I have undertaken to convey you with all possible speed. If we delay I cannot answer for what may happen."

"You hear what Mr. Troitz says, Sidney," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, alarmed at the idea of another being chosen in her absence. "What _does_ it matter if we do dine a little late? Children, we must go and put on our things at once--your warmest cloaks, mind--we're sure to find it cold motoring. Sidney and Clarence, you had better get your coats on--we shall be down directly."

Mr. Treuherz and the heralds stood at attention in the hall. While Clarence and his father struggled into their great-coats, neither of them in a very good temper, Mr. Stimpson being annoyed at postponing his dinner for what he called "tomfoolery," and Clarence secretly sulky because his parent could not be induced to see the propriety of going up to change his tie.

"I haven't _yet_ made out, Mother," said Edna, as they came downstairs, "exactly where we're going to--or what we're expected to do when we get there."

"It will either be The Hermitage--Lady Harriet's, you know--or Mr.

Troitz's country house, wherever _that_ is. And, of course, the Committee require to know what times will suit us for rehearsing."

"I wish you'd settle it all without _me_," complained Edna. "I'd much rather stay at home, and run over my lecture notes.... Well, if I must come, I shall bring my note-book with me in case I'm bored." And she ran into the drawing-room, and came back with the note-book, rather as an emblem of her own intellectual superiority than with any intention of referring to it. However, as will be found later, the ma.n.u.script proved to be of some service in the future.

Daphne and Ruby were the last to join the party in the hall, Ruby wildly excited at the unexpected jaunt and the prospects of not going to bed till ever so late, and Daphne, though a little doubtful whether Mrs.

Stimpson was quite justified in bringing her, inclined to welcome almost any change from the evening _routine_ of "Inglegarth." And then, after Mrs. Stimpson had given some hurried instructions to the hopelessly mystified Mitch.e.l.l, the whole family issued out of the Queen Anne porch, and were conducted by Treuherz, who, to their intense confusion, insisted on walking backwards to the car, while the heralds performed another flourish on their silver trumpets. It was pitch-dark when they had got to the asphalt pavement outside their gates, but they could just make out the contours of the car in the light that streamed across the hedge to the stained gla.s.s front-door.

"Jolly queer-looking car," said Clarence. It was certainly unusually large, and seemed to have somewhat fantastic lines and decorations.

"Oh, never mind about the car!" cried Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, who was inside it already, a vague, bundled-up shape in the gloom. "It's part of the Pageant, of course! Get in, Clarence, get in! We're late as it is!

and if there's a thing I detest, it's keeping people waiting!"

"All right, Mater!" said Clarence, clambering in. "I can't make out what the d.i.c.kens they've done with the bonnet--but we seem to be moving, what?"

Slowly the car had begun to glide along the road. Mr. Treuherz was seated in front, probably at the steering-wheel, though none was visible. The heralds sat in the rear, and the car was of such a size that there was abundant room for the family in the centre. Some yards ahead they heard a curious dry rustle and clatter, and could distinguish a confused grey ma.s.s of forms that seemed to be clearing the way for them, though whether they were human beings it was not possible to tell till they pa.s.sed a lighted street-lamp.

"Why, goodness gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "they look like--like _ostriches_!"

She was mistaken here, because they were merely storks, but, before she could identify them more correctly, they all suddenly rose in the air with a whirr like that of a hundred spinning looms--and the car rose with them.

"Stop!" screamed Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "Sidney, tell Mr. Troitz to stop! I _insist_ on knowing where we are being taken to!"

Treuherz glanced over his shoulder. "Where should I conduct your Majesties," he said, "but to your own Kingdom of Marchenland?"

Mrs. Stimpson and her husband would no doubt have protested, demanded explanations, insisted upon being put down at once, had they been able; but, whether it was that the car had some peculiarly soporific tendency, or whether it was merely the sudden swift rush through the upper air, a torpor had already fallen on the whole Stimpson family. It was even questionable if they remained long enough awake to hear their destination.

Daphne, for some reason, did not fall asleep till later. She lay back in her luxuriously cus.h.i.+oned seat, watching the birds as they flew, spread out in a wide fan against the dusky blue evening sky. Gablehurst, with its scattered lights, artistic villa-residences, and prosaic railway station--its valley and common and wooded hills, were far below and soon left behind at an ever increasing distance. But she did not feel in the least afraid. It was odd, but, after the first surprise, she had lost all sense of strangeness in a situation so foreign to all her previous experience.

"So we're being taken to Marchenland," she was thinking. "That's the same as Fairyland, practically. At least it's where all the things they call Fairy stories really happened, and--_why_ I can't imagine--but Mr.

and Mrs. Stimpson have been chosen King and Queen! And the poor dear things have no idea of it yet! Oh, I wonder" (and here, no doubt, the little creases came into her cheeks again, for she laughed softly to herself), "I _wonder_ what they'll say or do when they find out!" And while Daphne was still wondering, her eyelids closed gently, and she, too, was sleeping soundly.

CHAPTER III

FINE FEATHERS

Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson was the first of her party to recover consciousness. When she did, she was greatly surprised to find that it was broad daylight, and that she was lying on a gra.s.sy slope, behind which was a forest of huge pines. Close beside her were the rec.u.mbent forms of her husband and family, which led her to the natural conclusion that the car must have met with an accident.

"Sidney!" she cried, shaking him by the shoulder. "Speak to me!

You're--you're not _seriously_ hurt, are you?"

"Eh, what?" he replied sleepily, and evidently imagining that he was comfortably in bed at home; "all right, my dear, all right! I'll get up and bring in the tea-tray presently. Lots of time.... Why, hullo!" he exclaimed, after being shaken once more, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. "How do we all come to be _here_?"

The others were awake by this time. "And now we're here," put in Clarence, "where _are_ we, eh, Mater?"

"It is no use asking _me_, Clarence. I know no more than you do. The last thing I remember was our all getting into the car to go and see the Pageant Committee. I've a vague recollection of ostriches--but no, I must have been dreaming _them_. However, the car seems to have upset somehow, only I don't see it about anywhere."

"No," said Mr. Stimpson, "or old Thingumagig, or those fellows with the trumpets either."

"Dumped us down here, and gone off with the car," said Clarence. "Looks as if we'd been the victims of a practical joke, what?"

"They would never dare to do that!" said his Mother. "I expect they have missed their way in the dark. Very careless of them. I don't know what Lady Harriet and the Committee will think of me. They'll probably ask somebody else to take the part of Queen before we can get there--for I'm sure we must be a good hundred miles away from Gablehurst!"

"The Baron said that he was taking us to Marchenland, Mrs. Stimpson,"

said Daphne; "and I'm _almost_ sure that that is where we really are."

"And where may Marchenland be?" inquired Mrs. Stimpson sharply. "I never heard of it myself."

"Well," said Daphne, "it's another name for--for Fairyland, you know."

"Fairyland indeed!" replied Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson with some irritation. "You will find it difficult to persuade me to believe that I am in _Fairyland_, Miss Heritage! To begin with, there is no such place, and if there was, perhaps you will kindly tell me how we could possibly have got to it?"

"Through the air," explained Daphne patiently. "That car was drawn by _storks_, you see--not ostriches."

"When you have _quite_ woke up, Miss Heritage," said Mrs. Stimpson, "you will realise what nonsense you are talking."

"Whatever this place is," said Clarence, "it don't look English, somehow, to _me_. I mean to say--that town over there--what?" He pointed across the wide plain to a cl.u.s.ter of towers, spires, gables, and pinnacles which glittered and gleamed faintly through the s.h.i.+mmering morning haze.

"It certainly has rather a Continental appearance," observed his father.

"If it has," said Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "it is only some buildings or scenery or something they have run up for the Pageant. So we haven't been taken in the wrong direction after all."

"_I_ believe, Mummy," chirped Ruby, "Miss Heritage is right, and this _is_ Fairyland."