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 – noblemen 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 Godmother, 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 Haulemännerschen. 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 passed a comfortable night?"
"I don't know when I passed 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 pronouncing my name correctly, I may suggest that it would be simpler in future to call me by my proper title, which is, 'High Court Godmother,' or 'Court Godmother,' if you prefer it."
"And while we are on the subject of titles," 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.
"I have occupied rooms in this Palace – when not at the Palace of Clairdelune – for over a century and a half, and I have no intention of giving them up. I shall also continue to use the vehicles which I find most convenient."
"Oh?" said the Queen, "will you? We shall see about that!"
"We shall," the Court Godmother retorted. "I don't think you quite realise yet whom you have to deal with. I may be getting on in years, but both here and at Clairdelune I am accustomed to being treated with more deference and respect than you seem disposed to pay me. You see, they know that, although I have not used the full powers I possess as a Fairy for many years past, I have not lost them altogether. I might see fit to employ them once more – on any person who was rash enough to incur my displeasure. And ingratitude and pride are the failings which I always made it my particular business to correct. You would find it more to your advantage to be on good terms with me." There was no mistaking the veiled threat, and Queen Selina no longer doubted the Fairy's abilities to carry it out. She was worsted, and her only course was to give in gracefully.
"My dear Court Godmother!" she cried, "you quite misunderstood me! I'd no wish to interfere with any of your habits – not in the very slightest degree. All I meant was that, perhaps, at your age, a more ordinary carriage than your present ones might be – er —safer, you know!"
"I am quite capable of looking after my own safety, thank you. But, though you are our beloved Prince's daughter, you have been brought up in ignorance of the ways of this country, so I am the more willing to overlook treatment to which I feel sure I shall not have to draw your attention again. And now, as we quite understand one another, my dear, we will say no more about it. By the way, I hear you haven't sent for any of your ladies-in-waiting this morning. How is that?"
"I – I didn't quite like to, Court Godmother. We're – well, hardly intimate as yet. They are so reserved and distant – especially that Princess Rapunzelhauser. But, of course, she comes of a very high family."
"She is descended from the famous Rapunzel, whose story is no doubt familiar to you… No? Well, her father was a poor cottager who was caught by an old witch stealing radishes from her garden. She let him off on condition that he gave up to her the child his wife was expecting. Rapunzel was the child, and in due time was claimed by the witch, who shut her up in a lofty tower. However, she had the most wonderful hair, so long that when she let it down from the top window it touched the ground, and so thick that the Prince whom she subsequently married was able to climb up by it, and make love to her."
"Now you mention it, I have some faint recollection – and so Princess Rapunzelhauser is descended from her! Well, that would account for – but Princess Goldenenfinger – something, now, she does look as if she had some good blood in her veins."
"The best in Märchenland. An ancestor of hers was King of one of the smaller