History says little about them, but there doubtless have been queens
who lacked dignity, queens with high spirits and little sense of
decorum, queens who outraged pompous chamberlains and brought shame
into the lives of stately chancellors. The behaviour of the new queen
of Salissa caused no scandal; but that was only because there was no
one in her small court who had any sense of the dignity proper to
queens. The major domo's feelings would certainly have been outraged
if he watched Queen Daisy make her first royal progress. But he was
shut up in his cabin. The other servants might have quivered with
shame and disgust if they had seen--but they saw nothing, having
turned away their eyes from beholding vanity.
After the cable had ceased rattling through the hawse hole Miss Daisy
demanded a boat. Scarcely waiting for Captain Wilson's word, Mr.
Phillips rushed to lower one. Lashings were cast loose, the boat was
swung outboard and manned with a speed which would have done credit to
a smart yacht's crew. Miss Daisy ran to her cabin. The oarsmen sat
ready to push off. Mr. Phillips stood in the stern sheets, the tiller
between his feet. Miss Daisy appeared at the top of the accommodation
ladder. She held a large parcel in her hand.
"Catch," she said to Mr. Phillips, "it's the flag."
She flung it. Mr. Phillips with a wild grab saved it from the sea.
Miss Daisy laughed joyously.
"Catch again," she said, "the palace keys."
A bunch of keys crashed on the floor boards of the boat between the
feet of the man who rowed stroke. Mr. Phillips picked them up. Miss
Daisy, disdaining a helping hand held out by Smith, skipped down the
steps; her skirt held tight in one hand she leaped into the boat.
"Quickly," she cried, "oh, quickly, quickly! Please don't be long."
"Shove off," said Mr. Phillips, "and pull like--pull like----"
"Say it," said Miss Daisy, "say it, if it will make them go quicker."
"Pull," said Mr. Phillips, "pull like--billy-o."
The men pulled. Not even the expected invocation of bloody hell would
have stirred them to greater exertions. The boat sprang forward. She
sped towards the palace. The water bubbled round her bows, swished and
foamed in the wake astern of her. Mr. Phillips brought her up
alongside a broad flight of white steps. The men clawed at the smooth
stone with their fingers. The Queen stepped ashore.
She stood on the lowest step, a figure poised for swift eager motion,
a flushed excited girl, a queen with palpitating heart and eyes full
of dancing merriment. The steps, blazing white in the sunshine, led up
to a broad platform where a tall flagstaff stood. Behind was all the
fantastic wonder of the palace, the porticoes, slender carved columns,
stone lacework of flying buttresses, spires, hollowed spaces of dark
shade, points of sparkling light, broad surfaces of dazzling
whiteness. Mr. Phillips leaped ashore and passed the Queen, bounding
up the steps to the platform. He carried in his hand the parcel which
she had flung into the boat. He reached the flagstaff. He knotted a
light line round his waist. He swarmed up the bare pole. He rove the
line through the block at the top of the staff and slid to earth
again. He bent the halyard to the flag. It ran up, a neat ball. With a
sharp chuck at the line Mr. Phillips broke it out. The Royal Standard
of Salissa fluttered in the morning breeze, pale blue, glorious.
Mr. Phillips shouted:
"Long live the Queen! long live the Queen!"
The Queen, still standing on the bottom step, gave a little cry of
delight. The men in the boat sat still, with puzzled grins on their
faces. Mr. Phillips bounded down to them, leaping the steps in threes
and fours.
"Cheer, you blighters," he said, "unless you want your silly skulls
smashed. Cheer like billy-o. Long live the Queen!"
The men scrambled to their feet and responded. Their cheers rang out.
One of them, moved to enthusiasm, seized his oar and beat the water
with the flat of the blade. Like a man with a flail he raised the oar
high and brought it down with loud smacks on the water, splashing up
sparkling drops, rocking the boat in which he stood. He was not a
native of Salissa, not a subject of the Queen, but his action
expressed the enthusiasm of devoted loyalty.
The Queen bowed, blushing, laughing, breathless with excitement.
Across the bay came the sound of shouting from the men on board the
_Ida_, ragged cheers. The steamer's syren shrieked. Mr. Donovan stood
on the bridge, the rope which controlled the syren in his hand. The
Queen waved to him. Five revolver shots rang out in quick succession.
"Good old Wilson!" said Mr. Phillips. "I wouldn't have thought he had
it in him to fire a royal salute."
He gave Captain Wilson credit which was not his due. It was Smith, the
steward, who fired the revolver. Afterwards that loyal servant excused
himself to Mr. Donovan.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "perhaps I oughtn't to have fired without
orders; but it seemed the proper thing to do, sir."
"Do you always carry a gun in your pocket?" said Mr. Donovan.
"Only when I'm among Eastern peoples, sir. It's wiser then. Not in
England, sir."
The Queen, standing radiant in the sunshine before her palace, gave
her first royal command.
"Mr. Phillips," she said, "take the keys and come along."
They ran up the steps together, past the flagstaff, crossed a space of
smooth white rock, and reached the great door which faced them. Mr.
Phillips fitted the key and flung the door wide. A gloomy cool space
lay before them. They were standing in bright sunshine and a glow of
reflected light. Their eyes failed to penetrate the darkness before
them. It was as if a thick black curtain hung inside the door. The
Queen hesitated on the threshold. Mr. Phillips entered the room. He
threw open the shutters and flung the great windows wide. Broad belts
of light crossed the room. The sunshine flooded it. The morning breeze
blew in, driving before it the heavy stagnant air.
The Queen entered.
She stood in a great hall. Round the walls hung pictures in tarnished
frames. Rich furniture, damp-stained and worm-eaten, stood stiffly
arranged as if for some great function. Only here and there was
evidence of some disorder. A table was upset near the fireplace. The
covering of a chair had been torn, and the hair stuffing of its
cushions bulged through the rent. The ashes of a wood fire and the
charred remains of half-burnt logs were on the hearth. Some papers lay
scattered on the floor near one of the windows.
The Queen, subdued, quieter, went on tip-toe round the room. She
touched the furniture and the pictures softly, as she passed them.
There was in her a feeling, half fear, half reverence, for the things
which had once belonged to the dead King Otto. Phillips, moved by an
impulse of curiosity, crossed the room to where the torn papers lay.
He stooped down and picked up some of the fragments. For the most part
they were blank. On one or two there were words in a language he did
not understand. Only one fragment interested him. It was the corner of
a torn envelope. It bore an English stamp and a London postmark.
"Your Majesty," he said.
She did not hear or did not reply. Mr. Phillips was not used to
intimate association with royal persons. He tried another form of
address. "Your Serene Highness," he said.
The Queen looked round.
"Do you mean me?" she said.
"Yes, your Excellency," said Phillips.
The Queen laughed aloud. The sound of his voice and her own, the ready
merriment of her laughter, awoke her from the fear and reverence,
scattered the vague feeling of mystery which hung over her.
"Don't you do it," she said. "I'm queen of this island right enough,
but I don't mean to spend the rest of my life walking on stilts. I'm
not that kind of queen. I'm a genuine democrat all the time. Don't you
forget that. Now call me Miss Daisy, same as you used to on board."
Mr. Phillips blushed.
"Miss Daisy," he said, "how long is it since the last king lived
here?"
"I don't know," she said, "and I don't care. Centuries and centuries,
I expect. Come and explore, I want to see the whole of the palace and
let the light and air into every room."
She had shaken off entirely all vestiges of the sense of oppression
which had come on her when she first breathed the heavy stale air of
the hall and saw it with its decayed furniture, huge and dim before
her. It was full of sunlight now and she was merry again in the
sunlight and fresh air.
She ran from room to room, pulling shutters back, flinging wide the
windows. Phillips followed her, listened to her while she planned
these for her father's rooms, those for her own, how breakfast should
be laid on summer mornings on a balcony right over the water, how
midday meals should be eaten in a shaded portico.
"And this," she said, "shall be your room, for you're to spend all
your holidays here. See, if you open the window you can take a header
right into the blue water--Oh, isn't it a beautiful colour?--and have
a morning swim."
Phillips was ready to take a header from any window at the Queen's
command. He would ask nothing better than to spend, not holidays only,
but all his days there on the island with her. If he could enter her
service--he wondered whether the Queen of Salissa would start a Royal
Navy of her own.
They passed from room to room. They ran up winding staircases and
emerged in tiny turret chambers, glass enclosed like the tops of
lighthouses. They found a roof garden set round with huge stone urns
full of dry caked earth. Once, no doubt, flowers had bloomed in them.
Flowers, so the Queen determined, should bloom in them again. They
descended to cool, spacious kitchens, to cellars where wine had been
stored. They passed through a narrow doorway and found suddenly that
the sea was lapping at their feet. They were underneath the centre of
the house. Around them were high walls. From the water itself arose
thick round pillars, supports of the vaulting on which the great hall
rested. The light, entering for the most part through the water, was
blue and faint. The stones beneath the water gleamed blue. The pillars
as they rose changed from blue to purple. The water sighed, murmured,
almost moaned. It seemed as if it tried to cling to the smooth stone
work, as if it sank back again disappointed, weary of for ever giving
kisses which were not returned. They stood in silence, looking,
listening. Then Phillips spoke. His voice sounded strangely hollow. He
sank it to a whisper.
"Miss Daisy," he said, "how long is it since the last king lived
here?"
"Why do you ask me that again?" she said. "I don't know. A hundred
years ago, perhaps. They killed him, you know. I wonder if they threw
his body into the sea there?"
"Was it last December?"
"Of course not. How can you be so silly? As if any one would kill a
king last December! They only did things like that centuries ago."
Phillips took from his pocket the torn envelope he had picked up in
the great hall.
"Look," he said, "I found that near the fireplace in the hall we went
into first."
"It's an old envelope," she said. "It must have belonged to the king
they killed. How interesting! Fancy their having had envelopes in
those days!"
"The postmark on it," he said, "is London, and the date is December
15, 1913. Some one was in the house since then, living in it."
The Queen clapped her hands.
"Oh, splendid," she said. "A mystery. It was the one thing I longed
for. A mystery, a ghost, a secret chamber and all those beautiful
things. I was quite afraid the house was too sunny for mystery until
we came down here. There might be anything here, in this blue light,
brigands or wandering spirits, or the old gods of the island. Now I
call it just perfect. Thank you so much, Mr. Phillips, for finding me
that paper. Now we can just brood on that brigand. It must have been a
brigand. Or do you think the assassins came back, driven by pangs of
conscience, to the scene of their crime, and just dropped that
envelope so as to give a clue? There always are clues, aren't there?
Oh, I am glad you found it."
As she spoke there came a thin high sound, a ghostly wail. It echoed
back from the walls, repeating itself. The sound was broken among the
pillars, came confusedly to the listening ears. The waters stirred
uneasily, sucking at the walls and the pillars with a kind of fierce
intensity. Her hand sought his arm, caught it, held it tightly.
"It's the steamer's syren," said Phillips. "They must be signalling."
She loosed her hold of his arm and turned from him.
"How can you say such a thing? Just when I thought it was the ghost of
the murdered king crying for vengeance."
"I am sure they're signalling for us," he said. "We'd better go."