For Every King There Is A Queen Part 2

The bright full moon of three days hence shone down on the gardens and old stone chapel of Tremorden Castle. Isabel, opening the heavy wooden door, led her sisters out into the gardens, calling for their father.
"Papa!" they cried. They had gone in to his study to kiss him goodnight, only to find that he was not in his usual armchair by the fire. Worried, they had instantly taken up candles and begun their search for him.
"Papa!" they cried again, the wind fluttering the hems of their white nightgowns as they ran frantically through the gardens and courtyard, searching for him.
"He's in the chapel!" Charlotte cried and as they hurried nearer, they could hear the sounds of their father sobbing. They gathered around him and comforted him, saying, "Oh, dry the glistening tear that dews that martial cheek; thy loving children hear, in them thy comfort seek. With sympathetic care their arms around thee creep, for oh, they cannot bear to see their father weep!"
Lucy nudged Mabel and she looked up to see her Frederic hovering awkwardly at the entrance to the ruined chapel. Mabel went to him and took his hands in hers.
"Oh, Frederic, cannot you, in the calm excellence of your wisdom, reconcile it with your conscience to say something that will ease my father's sorrow?" she pleaded.
"What?" he asked, looking baffled.
She sighed, before elucidating, "Can't you cheer him up?"
"Oh, I will try, dear Mabel." He said, looking to their weeping father, "But why does he sit here, night after night, in this draughty old ruin?"
"Why do I sit here?" the general cried, rising to his feet. His daughters fluttered worriedly around him as he took a wobbly step foreword. "Oh, Frederic, Frederic! In order to escape from the pirates' clutches, I described myself as an orphan; and, heaven help me, I am no orphan!"
"Be comforted." Frederic said soothingly as the sisters embraced their father, "Had you not acted as you did, these reckless men would assuredly have called in the nearest clergyman, and have married your large family on the spot." The girls looked to each other is dismay, then hugged their father even tighter, as if to assure themselves that the pirates had not, indeed, carried them off to be wed.
"I thank you for your proffered solace, but it is unavailing." The Major-General sighed, freeing himself from the arms of his loving daughters, "I assure you, Frederic, that such is the anguish and remorse I feel at the abominable falsehood by which I escaped these easily deluded pirates, that I would go to their simple-minded chief this very night and confess all, did I not fear that the consequences would be most disastrous to myself." He straightened and pulled slightly at the collar of his dressing gown, re-arranging it with the crisp discipline of a military man, "At what time does your expedition march against these scoundrels?"
Kate squeezed Isabel's hand pointedly, lest she speak out against the plan to which the two men had agreed. Edith rested her hand on Isabel's shoulder, the rebellious gleam in their auburn-haired sister's eyes faded, and she sighed unhappily.
"At eleven, and before midnight I hope to have atoned for my involuntary association with the pestilent scourges by sweeping them from the face of the earth!" Frederic cried, unsheathing his sword and slashing it through the air to make his point. "And then, dear Mabel, you will be mine."
Isabel tried to step foreword and speak out against this plan, but Charlotte stepped in front of her and hugged her. Instantly, Isabel's shoulders slumped in defeat and her arms went around her youngest sister. She could never resist Charlotte, none of them could.
"Are your devoted followers at hand?" The Major-General inquired of his future son-in-law.
"They are, they only wait my orders." Frederic nodded, sheathing his sword.
"Then, Frederic, let your escort lion-hearted be summoned to receive a General's blessing," Major-General Stanley said crisply, standing at attention, "Ere they depart upon their dread adventure."
"Dear sir, they come." Frederic said pointing to where the line of policemen was advancing through the trees that lined the drive. The girls huddled together before the door to the castle, whispering to each other, as the officers approached.
"When the foeman bares his steel," the sergeant in the lead declared, "We uncomfortable feel, and we find the wisest thing, is to slap our chests and sing. For when threatened with emeutes, and your heart is in your boots, there is nothing brings it round like the trumpet's martial sound!"
"Go, ye heroes, go to glory, though you die in combat gory, ye shall live in song and story. Go to immortality!" Mabel exclaimed, ignoring the way the policemen were quivering with every word that left her mouth, "Go to death, and go to slaughter; die, and every Cornish daughter with her tears your grave shall water. Go, ye heroes, go and die!"
"Go, ye heroes, go and die!" the girls repeated, wondering if this was the best way to encourage the trembling officers.
"Though to us it's evident," the sergeant giggled nervously, "These attentions are well meant, such expressions don't appear calculated men to cheer, who are going to meet their fate in a highly nervous state. Still to us it's evident these attentions are well meant."
"Go and do your best endeavour," Edith cried, smiling encouragingly, "and before all links we sever, we will say farewell for ever. Go to glory and the grave!"
"Go to glory and the grave!" the sisters shouted merrily, "For your foes are fierce and ruthless, false, unmerciful, and truthless; Young and tender, old and toothless, all in vain their mercy crave."
"We observe too great a stress, on the risks that on us press, and of reference a lack to our chance of coming back." The sergeant stuttered, his hands shaking and his men quaking in their boots, "Still, perhaps it would be wise not to carp or criticise, for it's very evident these attentions are well meant."
"Yes, perhaps it would be wise not to carp or criticise, for it's very evident these attentions are well meant." The girls mused to each other, considering their choice of words.
"For it's very evident these attentions are well meant." His men nodded, trying to convince themselves.
"Go, ye heroes, go to glory, though you die in combat gory, ye shall live in song and story. Go to immortality!" the sisters cried, attempting to fortify the officers' frayed nerves, "Go to death, and go to slaughter; die, and every Cornish daughter with her tears your grave shall water. Go, ye heroes, go and die!"
"When the foeman bares his steel," the policemen said at the same time, "We uncomfortable feel, and we find the wisest thing, is to slap our chests and sing. For when threatened with emeutes, and your heart is in your boots, there is nothing brings it round like the trumpet's martial sound!"
"Away, away!" the general commanded.
"Yes, yes, we go!" the officers declared, without moving from their spot.
"These pirates slay!" the general continued, "Then do not stay." The officers nodded in agreement, and yet still did not move, prompting the general to bark, "Then why this delay?"
"All right, we go!" The officers said, taking a couple steps foreword, then stopping again, "Yes, foreword on the foe!"
"Yes, but you don't go!" the general snapped irritably.
"We go, we go!" the officers said, taking another couple steps foreword, "Yes, foreword on the foe!"
"You're still here!" the Major-General bellowed, before turning to his daughter, "Mabel, they're still here!"
"At last they really go!" the sisters exclaimed thankfully as the policemen marched away. The Major-General shepherded his daughters back inside the castle and Mabel clasped her locket around Frederic's neck before following her father inside the castle. Major-General Stanley kissed his daughters goodnight and sent them up the stairs to their rooms for the night. Most of the girls shared rooms with one or two of their sisters, but Isabel had pleaded with her father until he had allowed her a room all to herself. It was her practise to stay up very late into the night, reading by candlelight and she did not wish to inconvenience any of her sisters by keeping the lights on when they were trying to sleep. She had claimed for her own the small room that faced the sea and, when she opened the window, the sea breeze brought the wild scent of the saltwater in to fill the room.
This night, Isabel had chosen Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She seated herself on the small bay window seat, leaned against the cushions, tucked her feet up underneath her skirt, and read. She was a fast reader and quickly read through the first five chapters in almost no time at all. The breeze fluttered the soft white chiffon drapes and she looked out across the moonlit waters.
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw movement in the chapel, but when she did not see it again, she merely dismissed it. Three chapters later, she heard voices down below and, recognizing the voice of the sergeant, ignored them, even as they exclaimed, "When a felon's not engaged in his employment or maturing his felonious little plans, his capacity for innocent enjoyment is just as great as any honest man's. Our feelings we with difficulty smother when constabulary duty's to be done. Ah, take one consideration with another, a policeman's lot is not a happy one."
However, when a familiar voice shouted, "With cat-like tread upon our prey we steal; in silence dread our cautious way we feel. No sound at all, we never speak a word, a fly's foot-fall would be distinctly heard!" The book resting in her lap tumbled to the floor with a thump as she leaned out the window. She blinked in the salty wind that blew her loose hair back away from her face and saw the pirates advancing on the castle, led by the Pirate King.
"Come, friends, who plough the sea!" he bellowed, "Truce to navigation, take another station. Let's vary piracee with a little burglaree!"
But, before she could cry out a warning to her sisters, she saw a momentary pool of golden light spill across the stones and her father step out into the courtyard. The pirates hid themselves, but stealthily crept after him, following her father as he strolled out to the gardens.
Isabel suddenly remembered how to move and threw on her chiffon peignoir as she raced out of her room. Throwing open the door across from hers; she shook her sister's shoulder.
"Edith!" she cried, "Edith, wake up!"
Edith groaned and rolled over. Isabel ran over to Kate, "Kate! Wake up, wake up!"
"What is it, Issy?" Kate murmured, swatting her hands away.
"Papa's gone outside again!" Isabel said, shaking her sister's shoulder determinedly, "Without his dressing gown!"
"What?" Edith was sitting up, rubbing her eyes, "Papa's outside again."
"Without a dressing gown or a candle." Isabel insisted, "Help me get the other girls up!" Edith and Kate got out of their beds and pulled on their peignoirs and soon all the girls were awake. They checked every room in the house, looking for their father then, grabbing his dressing gown and candles, ventured outside, calling for him.
"Papa?" they cried worriedly, "Papa!"
"There he is!" Mabel cried, pointing. They hurried to him and he beamed when he saw his daughters.
"Now what is this, and what is that, and why does father leave his rest at such a time of night as this, so very incompletely dressed?" The girls fussed about him, tying him into his dressing gown, and he patted them each on the cheek even as they scolded him, "Dear father is, and always was, the most methodical of men! It's his invariable rule to go to bed at half-past ten. What strange occurrence can it be that calls dear father from his rest at such a time of night as this, so very incompletely dressed?"
"Foreword, my men!" The Pirate King commanded, springing out from the bushes, followed by his crew, "And seize that General there!"
"The pirates! The pirates! Oh, despair!" the girls shrieked, backing hurriedly away from the armed men.
"Yes, we're the pirates, so despair!" The pirated leered at them. Isabel glared defiantly back at the Pirate King as Charlotte and Kate and half of her other sisters held on to her for protection and the King only smirked as he brandished his sword.
"Frederic here! Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!" the general called out to the youth, who looked very conflicted, "Summon your men and effect their capture!"
"Frederic, save us!" Mabel pleaded, racing to him.
"Beautiful Mabel," he wept as the pirates pulled him away from her, "I would if I could, but I am not able!"
"He is telling the truth, he is not able!" the pirates sneered triumphantly as she backed away from them. The Pirate King leveled his sword at the unprotected chest of Major-General Stanley and the girls gasped in fear.
"With base deceit you worked upon our feelings!" the King snarled angrily, "Revenge is sweet, and flavours all our dealings! With courage rare and resolution manly, for death prepare, unhappy General Stanley."
The girls cried out in dismay and Mabel leaped in front of her father as the King prepared to strike him down.
"Is he to die, unshriven – unannealed?" She cried wildly.
"Oh, spare him!" the sisters pleaded, falling to their knees. The Pirate King lowered his sword slightly, looking uneasily at the lovely maidens who knelt at his feet.
"Will no one in his cause a weapon wield?" Mabel called plaintively.
"Oh, spare him!" her sisters implored the King, tears glittering in their eyes. The light of the candle shone on Isabel's porcelain cheek, giving her fair face a slight golden glow. Alone of her sisters, her eyes were dry, and she did not beg the King so much as command him to spare her precious father.
"Yes, we are here, though hitherto concealed!" the policemen shouted, springing up from their hiding places, startling the pirates.
"Oh, rapture!" the girls cried, rising to their feet.
"So to Constabulary, pirates yield!" the policemen demanded.
"Oh, rapture!" the girls cried again, all except for Isabel who was looking directly at the Pirate King. The policemen advanced on the pirates, and the Major-General took the opportunity to shepherd his daughters back toward the castle. They fled into the safety of their home and their father was about to close the door when he spotted Isabel lingering by the fountain.
"Isabel!" he called, "Come inside!"
She looked up at him and he saw in her face the same stubborn cast that his parents had deplored in him as a child. Her eyes gleamed slightly and her mouth was set in an unyielding line.
"Isabel, don't you dare!" he commanded, "Come inside at once!"
"No!" she cried and, lifting the skirts of her nightgown, she ran down the lane, following the policemen and the pirates.
"Isabel!" her sisters cried, following her. "Isabel!"
The Major-General had no choice but to follow his daughters as they chased their strong-willed sister. Isabel led them into the town square where they found the fight already finished, with the policemen lying prostrate on the cobblestones at the pirates' feet. The girls skidded to a stop on the steps of the church and watched, with bated breath, as the Sergeant pushed himself to his feet and faced the Pirate King.
"To gain a brief advantage you've contrived," he said bravely, "but your proud triumph will not be long-lived."
"Don't say you're orphans, for we know that game!" The King threatened.
"On your allegiance we've a stronger claim," the sergeant insisted, "we charge you yield!" The pirates laughed and the Sergeant repeated himself stubbornly, "We charge you yield, in Queen Victoria's name!"
The townspeople bowed and curtsied before the statue of the Queen, which decorated the center of the square. The Pirate King looked around at the policemen and murmured, "You do?"
His eyes found Isabel, who was still standing. Blinking, startled, she inhaled sharply, her eyes dancing between him and the statue of the Queen, and she slowly sank into a nervous curtsy as the other policemen rose to their feet and accepted the offered swords from the humbled pirates.
"We do." They said and the pirates fell to their knees.
"We yield at once, with humbled mien," they declared solemnly, "because, with all our faults, we love our Queen."
"Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen." The policemen sobbed into their handkerchiefs as the Pirate King bowed his head respectfully.
"Yes, yes, with all their faults, they love their Queen!" the townsfolk and the girls exclaimed joyously. The pirates stood and were immediately seized by the policemen.
"Away with them," the Major-General commanded, "and place them at the bar!" As the officers began leading the pirates away, Isabel pushed through her sisters and grabbed hold of her father's arm.
"Papa, please!" she pleaded, but he shook her off him and held up his hand for silence.
"No, Isabel!" he snapped and she took a step back, looking chagrined.
"One moment!" an elderly woman in pirate's garb called to the general, "Let me tell you who they are. They are no members of the common throng; they are all noblemen who have gone wrong."
"They are all noblemen who have done wrong!" the townsfolk repeated, awed. The pirates turned back around, clasped their hands behind their backs and gave perfect, chivalrous bows to the sisters, who were blushing and whispering to each other. Their father spluttered for a moment at this new information before surrendering his incredulity for respect at the lords before him.
"No Englishman unmoved that statement hears, because, with all our faults, we love our House of Peers." He clasped the hand of the Pirate King in his own and shook it heartily, "I pray you, pardon me, ex-Pirate King! Peers will be peers, and youth will have its fling. Resume your ranks and legislative duties, and take my daughters, all of whom are beauties." The girls clapped for joy and the ex-pirates each held out a hand for their new brides-to-be, who rushed to them. The Pirate King bowed gallantly to Isabel, but she only watched him warily. Now that she was face to face with him, all thoughts left her mind and she suddenly became very shy.
"At length we are provided with unusual facility," the pirate woman observed, "to change piratic crime for dignified respectability."
"Combined, I needn't say with the unparalleled felicity," the Pirate King said, inching slowly towards Isabel and offering her a pretty bouquet of white flowers, "of what we have been longing for; unbounded domesticity." She slowly reached out to take the flowers, but he didn't let them go. Instead, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her against him.
"Tomorrow morning, early, we will quickly be parsonified," Mabel smiled up at her Frederic.
"Hymeneally coupled," he replied, kissing her hand, "conjugally matrimonified."
"And this shall be accomplished," the Sergeant said, tipping his hat to the pirate woman, "by the doctor of divinity who happily resides in the immediate vicinity."
"Who happily resides in the immediate vicinity!" everyone repeated, the newly found couples lost in each other's eyes.
"For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury," the general chuckled, clapping his hands together happily, "has only been brought down to the beginning of the century, but still, in giving of my daughters, eight, or nine, or ten in all, I've shown myself the model of a modern Major-General!"
"But still, in giving of his daughters, eight, or nine, or ten in all, he's shown himself the model of a modern Major-General!" everyone repeated, the girls bouncing slightly with their excitement. The Pirate King wrapped his arm more securely about Isabel's waist and, blushing slightly, she turned her face away to watch Mabel who was climbing the small steps to the plinth upon which sat the statue of the Queen.
"Poor wandering ones!" she said sweetly, "Though ye have surely strayed, take heart of grace, your steps retrace, poor wandering ones! Poor wandering ones! If such poor love as ours can help you find true peace of mind, why, take it, it is yours!"
While she was speaking, the Pirate King had slowly taken Isabel's hand in his and raised it to his lips. She suddenly forgot how to breathe and felt her knees start to go weak. It was only his strong arm around her that kept her on her feet and he chuckled in her ear. Suddenly, her father pulled her away form the Pirate King and she and Mabel laughed together while Frederic and the Pirate King exchanged impatient glances.
"Take heart," the happy couples said to each other, "Fair days will shine! Take heart, take ours!"
Finally losing patience, the Pirate King seized Isabel around the waist and dipped her as he had dipped Charlotte the day they had first landed on the sandy shore of the secret cove. For a heartbeat, she looked up at him, caught by surprise, then he pressed his mouth down on hers and she forgot everything aside from the feel of his lips against hers. He pulled her up, but she refused to break away. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled herself closer to him, putting every ounce of boldness she had into their embrace. He responded enthusiastically and finally, when she could hold her breath for no longer, she broke away.
Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were flushed, and he was looking at her as though he had never seen a woman before. She tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded, still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the power of their kiss.
"Well, then…" she managed faintly, nodding slightly, "….see you at the altar." And, turning away, she fanned herself slightly as her breathing slowly returned to normal. She joined her sisters on the walk back to Tremorden Castle and left the men to compare their future brides with those of their comrades, for the girls were doing the same.