This last point was the one on which Otillie was most solicitous. A true child of Sark, she knew all about its tides and currents, the dangers of the island channels, and the differences which a little more or less wind and sea made in the navigation of them. She could recollect one stormy winter, when a Guernsey doctor who had come over to set a broken arm was detained for three weeks on the island, in plain sight all the time of his own home in St. Peterport, but as unable to get to it as if it had been a thousand miles away!
"It would be dreadful if the Queen came and then could not get away again for three weeks!" she said to herself. "It would be awfully interesting to have her here, of course—but I don't quite know what we should do—or what she would do!" She tried to make a picture of it in her mind, but soon gave up the attempt. Provisions are scarce sometimes on Sark when the wind blows and the boats cannot get in. There would always be milk and vegetables and fruit if it were summer, and perhaps chickens enough could be collected to hold out; but there was something terrible in the idea of a queen without butcher's meat! Otillie's imagination refused to compass it!
Her very first thought when the important day dawned was the weather.
She waked with the first sunbeam and ran at once to the window. When she saw a clear sky and the sun rising out of a still sea, she gave a scream of delight.
"What is the matter?" asked Miss Niffin sleepily from the next room.
"It's good weather," replied Otillie. "We've got the most beautiful day for the Queen to come in."
Miss Niffin's only answer was a little groan. She was a small, shy person, and the idea of confronting royalty made her dreadfully nervous. "Oh, if the day were only over!" she said to herself; and she longed to plead a headache and stay in bed, but she dared not. Besides, she felt that it would be cowardly to desert her post on such an important occasion and leave Otillie alone; so she braced her mind to face the awful necessity and began to dress.
Mr. Le Breton, awakening about the same time, gave a groan a good deal like Miss Niffin's. He was a loyal subject, and felt the honor that was done him by the Queen's inviting herself to luncheon; but, all the same, invalids do not like to be put out of their way, and he, too, wished the day well done.
"Ten to one I shall be laid up for the next month to pay for it," he reflected. Then he too braced himself to the necessity and rang for hot water, determined to do his duty as a man and a Seigneur.
Otillie was perhaps the only person in the house who was really glad to have the day come. The servants were tired and fretted with a sense of responsibility. Marie had passed a dreadful night, full of dreams of failure and spoiled dishes.