CHAPTER VI
The Donovans started for Salissa within three weeks of the completion of the sale of the island. This was a remarkable achievement, and the whole credit is due to the amazing energy of Miss Daisy. She was all eagerness to enter into the possession of her kingdom; but she had no idea of going to an unknown island without proper supplies. She bought furniture for her house. King Konrad Karl was of opinion that there must be furniture in it. The Prime Minister, the Commander-in-Chief and the Admiral had almost certainly carried off any jewellery or plate there might have been, after the assassination of the late king. Tables, chairs, carpets and beds, they must, he thought, have left behind, because the Megalian Navy was not big enough to carry very much cargo. But Miss Daisy took no risks. She bought everything necessary for a house of moderate size, and had the packing cases put into the hold of the Ida.
She gave large orders for every kind of portable provisions. She entrusted a wine merchant with the duty of stocking the royal cellars. Certain dressmakers—eight, I believe—were kept busy. The new queen did not actually purchase royal robes; but she got every other kind of clothes from the most fantastic teagowns to severe costumes designed for mountaineering. There might be a mountain in Salissa. The Queen liked to be prepared for it if it were there.
She engaged a staff of servants, hitting on twenty as a suitable number for the household of a queen of a small state. The chief of this band was a dignified man who had once been butler to a duke. Miss Daisy gave him the title of major domo, and provided him with a thick gold chain to hang round his neck. There were alterations to be made in the Ida, a steamer not originally intended to carry passengers. These were left to Steinwitz; but Miss Daisy managed to run down every day to see that the work was being done as quickly as possible. She had interviews with Captain Wilson, who commanded the Ida, and Mr. Maurice Phillips, the first officer. She asked them both to dinner. Captain Wilson, a Scot, was taciturn and suspicious. He regarded the job before him as an objectionable kind of practical joke, likely, before it was over, to impair his natural dignity. Mr. Phillips was filled with delight at the prospect. He was a young man with curly fair hair and cheerful eyes.
The start might have been made in even less than three weeks, if it had not been for the Heralds’ Office. Miss Daisy wanted a banner to hoist over the royal palace in Salissa. She consulted Gorman, and gathered from what he told her that heralds are experts in designing banners. She found her way to the office and explained what she wanted to a suave, but rather anæmic young gentleman who talked about quarterings. Miss Daisy was not to be cowed by jargon.
“Put in any quarterings you fancy,” she said. “I’m not particular. If ghules, argents and ramparts are extra, I am prepared to pay. But don’t you meditate too much on the unforgotten glories of the past. Get a move on.”
That it appeared was the one thing the Heralds’ Office could not do. Miss Daisy stormed at its doors. She telephoned at short intervals all day. She even tried to persuade her father to take part in the persecution. But Mr. Donovan was too wise.
“There are things,” he said, “which cannot be done. No man living, not even a railway boss—can speed up a state department.”
“Any firm in New York,” said Miss Daisy, “would have sent in designs for a dozen banners in half the time that young man in the Heraldry Office has been thinking about one.”
“Heralds,” said Mr. Donovan, “are mediæval. If they laid hold on the idea of an automobile and went in for speed, they’d lose grip on the science of heraldry.”