“I’ll come too,” said Caerleon, promptly.
“No, you won’t. You are due at the Hôtel de Ville, to hear old Drakovics spout from the balcony. It would be ‘Hamlet’ with Hamlet left out if you weren’t there. Well, shall I take her a bouquet in your name? No, that would be too pronounced—might be regarded by the family as a declaration. Shall I say anything to her for you?”
“Yes; you can say that I mean to begin this very day the inquiry she suggested to me.”
“All right; nothing like setting to work at once. Now, off you go to uniform and duty. I am the best off this morning.”
Sauntering down to the hotel, Cyril came upon Louis and his father in the hall, waiting impatiently for Madame O’Malachy, who was going with them to hear the speeches in the market-place. Going up-stairs, he found Nadia in the sitting-room, arranging the flowers for the table, carefully and conscientiously, as she did everything, adding a spray here, and taking one away there, and holding up the vase to see the effect, then lifting everything out and beginning again.
Before her stood a glass in which her mother had placed carelessly two or three blossoms and a spray or two of feathery fern, which seemed to have arranged themselves, but of which the effect was perfect. By the table stood Madame O’Malachy, buttoning her long gloves and criticising freely her daughter’s work.
“You have no taste, Nadia. Surely it must be evident, even to you, that a brick is not the best model for a bouquet? Don’t pull the flowers about so much; you will ruin them, and I cannot afford any more to-day.”
“I am commissioned to say that the hothouses at the palace are at your disposal, madame, if you would honour my brother by allowing him to send you some flowers,” said Cyril, coming forward.
“His Majesty’s conduct is angelic,” returned Madame O’Malachy. “But of what use are all the flowers in Thracia if the artist’s eye for their arrangement is wanting?” She had taken the vase from Nadia and removed half its contents, then, with a twirl here and a poke there, she transformed the remainder into a thing of beauty. “I regret to perceive that the artistic instinct, the soul of poetry, is wanting in my daughter. She is very thorough, extremely conscientious, but what one may call—not heavy, that would be unkind—shall we saysolid? I am perpetually worrying myself to discover why she bears no resemblance at all to me. ‘A reversion to an earlier type,’ I suppose the scientific gentlemen would call it;Isay that she is one of the trials of my life. For me, I am not at all conscientious, I do nothing thoroughly; but I think I am not heavy?” She paused with her eyebrows uplifted in interrogation; and Cyril, though he had been reflecting what wretchedly bad form it was for a woman to try to make her daughter feel small in this way, had presence of mind enough to answer that such a word could never be mentioned in the same breath with the name of Madame O’Malachy.
“But I must hurry away,” the lady went on, “or O’Malachy will come up to look for me. I shall hear your news when I return, Milord Cyril.”
“I thinkI have one piece of news that at any rate you will like to hear,” said Cyril, as Madame O’Malachy rustled out of the room and down the corridor towards the lift.
Nadia’s grey eyes glanced towards him. “You did not come here to offer us hothouse flowers,” she remarked. “There is something else that you have to say.”
“Won’t you believe that I came to enjoy the delightful conversation of Madame and yourself?” asked Cyril, lazily, for he was in a particularly comfortable chair, and found the spectacle of Nadia’s laborious dealing with the flowers very entertaining.
“No,” she answered, bluntly, irritated by his manner.
“Well, Caerleon intends to offer your brother a commission in the palace guard. Is that important enough to satisfy you?”
“I daresay it is important, but it is not what you came to say.”
“You are a little exacting, mademoiselle. Is this what you want? My brother asked me to tell you that he proposes to begin to-day the investigation you recommended him to set on foot.”
“That is good!” she cried. “I knew I should not be disappointed in him. But you have another message still.”
“Pardon me, I have no other message, although my business with you grows, if I may say so, out of that last message.”
“Precisely, and I know what it is. You wish to say that his Majesty’s eager compliance with my wishes betokens a state of affairs which you, as a man of the world, consider highly inexpedient when it exists in connection with the King of Thracia and a penniless foreigner.”
“I had no intention of saying anything so rude; but I will own that although when Caerleon and I first had the honour of meeting your family, I saw no insuperable objection to his pleasing himself in marrying, things are different now. I blame myself very much that I did not foresee this change and try——”
“I don’t want your regrets, Lord Cyril,” interrupted Nadia. “Let us keep to the facts as they are. They are sufficiently obvious. I agree with you, that for the King to marry me would probably cost him his throne, and that is a sacrifice I could not accept.”
“I’m very glad you see it in this light,” began Cyril, rather taken aback by her coolness; but she interrupted him.
“You know quite well that I should have preferred our acquaintance to cease when we parted at Witska, and that since that could not be, I am most anxious to leave Thracia as soon as possible. I have done all I could to induce my parents to return to Janoszwar, but in vain. You must do your part. Why will you not help me? Why have you given Louis this commission, when it will only be an excuse for our remaining in the country?”
“As a delicate compliment to the future Queen of Thracia,” said Cyril, in his smoothest tones. “At least, I am sure that is the light in which Caerleon regards it.”
“He should not be so confident,” said Nadia. “Queen of Thracia you at least know that I shall never be. I expect you to help me in disappointing the King for his good. This is my plan. My parents are Scythian agents—you know that already, but I make the admission that you may have fuller right to take action”—and she laughed bitterly. “As for Louis, I don’t know whether he has accepted the commission you are offering him or not; but if he has, it is only that he may do you greater harm. He is here for the purpose of plotting against the independence of Thracia. Well, then, have us arrested to-night and conveyed to the frontier; then your anxieties may cease.”
“I beg your pardon; they would only begin,” said Cyril. “You are leaving Caerleon out of your reckoning altogether, Miss O’Malachy. Do you know, I wished most fervently as I came down here just now that I could bring myself to say that I was come to make terms with you on Caerleon’s behalf and with his knowledge. Matters would be so much easier if I could only request you in his name to leave the kingdom, and not seek to continue a friendship begun under such different circumstances. But I couldn’t make up my mind to rob the poor fellow of his character in that way, and so——”
“I should never have believed you!” cried Nadia, with flashing eyes.
“You are very flattering. But if I had assured you that it was true?”
“I should have asked the King himself.”
“Surely not?” said Cyril. “I thought that young ladies never, under any circumstances, spoke out boldly and asked for an explanation?”
“I should in such a case,” said Nadia, proudly. “I would do anything rather than believe him false and a coward.”
“Well, unfortunately, I can’t make you think that of him,” said Cyril. “I know perfectly well that if you left Bellaviste, as you propose, he would simply follow you anywhere, and insist upon your marrying him.”
“I would never do it,” said Nadia, her lips white.
“I never thought you would; but I am afraid it would move Europe to laughter to see the King of Thracia pursuing from place to place a young lady——”
“Who was the daughter of a Scythian spy!” cried Nadia, with a fierce laugh. “You are right, Lord Cyril; it would be worse than wrong, it would be ridiculous. And ridicule must never touch any one connected with Lord Cyril Mortimer; he could not endure it, all his relations must be above suspicion in that respect. Well, I will not only leave Bellaviste, but I will write to his Majesty a letter explaining my reason for doing so. Does that satisfy you?”
“But—excuse me,” said Cyril; “has my brother ever really asked you to marry him?”
“If he had, he would have received his answer already,” returned Nadia. “Most certainly he has not.”
“You really must pardon me—but do you intend to write a letter declining a proposal that has never been made to you?”
“Why not? You know, and he knows, and I know, that he loves me. Why make all this trouble? You do not wish him to write to me first? I might keep his letter, sell it to a newspaper, make it the groundwork of a scandal that would spread through Europe, who knows? Come, I will write now: you shall tell me what to say if you like.”
“Excuse me, but this will never do,” said Cyril, refusing to give way when she tried to pass him and reach the writing-table. “Do you think Caerleon would under any circumstances consent to regard a message in a letter—which was not even written in answer to one from him—as your final decision? He would see at once that there had been outside influence at work, and suspect that you had written under pressure. He must hear everything from your own lips.”
“Oh, why must you make it so hard for me? Let me write,” entreated Nadia, standing before him with clasped hands.
“It is impossible,” said Cyril, firmly. “You must see him.”
“Is it absolutely necessary? Then I suppose I must,” said Nadia, drawing a deep breath. “But remember, Lord Cyril, I will tell no lies. He shall know my reason for refusing him.”
“I thought,” said Cyril, “that young ladies considered themselves justified in telling a little fib on such occasions, such as saying that they found they did not care for their suitors in quite the right way, or something of the kind?”
“The young ladies with whom you are acquainted may tell fibs,” returned Nadia, with a cool incisiveness that reminded him of her mother, “but I do not. Does it not seem to you hard enough to have to refuse the man who loves me, that you wish me to do it by means of a lie?”
“How can you expect him to accept his dismissal if you go into details in the way you propose?” asked Cyril. “Can’t you simply refuse him without giving a reason? It is a lady’s privilege, you know.”
“That I will not do!” cried Nadia, fiercely. “He shall not be forced to think that the woman to whom he has given his love is insensible—a stone. He shall know that her suffering is at least as great as his.”
“Well, you have your own ideas as to the best way of imparting consolation, certainly,” said Cyril. “I suppose I can’t quarrel with you, so long as you do really send him off.”
“Of course I shall send him away,” said Nadia. “I have known for a week that it must be done. Bring him here, and I will tell him that I cannot marry him. Perhaps you would wish to remain in the room, so as to assure yourself that I keep faith with you?”
“Caerleon must not come here,” said Cyril, thoughtfully, disregarding the taunt. “It is most important for us to avoid notice. I must contrive a meeting for you somewhere, which may seem accidental, even if it is observed.”
“Do you wish to destroy my good name as well as your brother’s happiness, Lord Cyril?” she asked, cuttingly. Cyril made a movement of impatience.
“You are determined to put me in the wrong,” he said, facing her indignant eyes without flinching. “If you will only remember that my brother’s name would be at least as much affected as yours in such a case, you will judge me more fairly. I can assure you that the only meeting of which I was thinking was one in the intervals of a dance, or some entertainment of the kind. Surely you must see the need for secrecy? It is not merely that my brother must not marry you. He must marry some one else.”
Cyril had his revenge for all the unpleasantness of the morning, for Nadia, after one wild start, stood as if she had been turned to stone.
“Another girl?” she gasped at last. “Who is she? Do I know her? No; don’t tell me her name. I shall hear it quite soon enough, and I don’t want to hate her. Some princess? and she is to marry him?—and he is mine!”
“I am sure you must see,” Cyril went on quietly, “that both for her sake and his we must get this matter settled without any fuss.”
“If she marries him, I don’t think a little trouble would hurt her,” said Nadia, enviously.
“I hope it may be so. But you must remember that this marriage would be an arranged thing—a literalmariage de convenance, indeed. We could hardly expect her to feel towards Caerleon as—as you do, and although, if she cared for him, she might overlook even a scandal, yet if she did not, the merest whisper might turn her against him. Without considering her feelings in such a case at all, you must remember that it would be very painful indeed for Caerleon. I am sure you would not wish their married life to be unhappy.”
“If she married him for the sake of the crown, she would deserve to be unhappy,” said Nadia.
“I am afraid we must leave that to her own conscience,” said Cyril.
“Conscience!” cried Nadia, “and what of yours? If the King ever discovers what you have been doing this morning, I think—I should be almost sorry—even for you.”
“I leave myself in your hands, you see, in perfect confidence.”
“Oh yes, honour among thieves!” said Nadia, bitterly. “We are both plotting against the King, and therefore we may well keep faith with one another. Have you delivered all your messages now, Lord Cyril? If so, I must ask you to go, for I am busy. Pray ring for a waiter to attend you down-stairs.”
She gave him a distant bow, and remained standing by the table, tall and rigid, until he was out of sight, then dragged herself slowly across the corridor to her own room, groping with outspread hands as though she had been in darkness, opened the door, entered, locked it, and threw herself on the floor, a shuddering, sobbing heap.
“Quite an exciting morning!” said Cyril to himself, as he strolled back to the palace. “It’s a pity that that Nadia girl can’t be queen, after all. She is cut out for ruling a nation given to revolutions, like this one. I can fancy her facing a yelling mob without turning a hair. But melodrama in daily life is a bore. After our conversation one feels mean, somehow—rather as if one had been committing murder.”
All unconscious of what Nadia stigmatised as the plot against his happiness, Caerleon spent the morning in the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, listening, with what patience he might, to speeches of which he could not understand a word. It was his first opportunity of making the acquaintance of the other members of the Drakovics Ministry, who were on ordinary occasions rather cast into the shade by the commanding personality of their chief. The greater number of them were country gentlemen, belonging to the class of landed proprietors which formed the backbone of the nation, since each man’s tenants and villagers followed his lead in peace and war as his feudal vassals. Living in rude plenty, untouched by the influence of western luxury, on their own estates, these chieftains had found their patriotic and religious instincts outraged by the irregular life and Scythian sympathies of the late king, and they had given their support loyally to M. Drakovics at the time of the revolution, believing him to be the only man who could save the State from the various dangers which threatened it. They had accepted posts in the Administration merely in order that the prestige of their names might assist the Premier in his task, and he reciprocated the service by allowing them to remain at their ease in the country unless their presence was demanded at the capital on some important occasion, such as a parliamentary crisis; but they had rallied around him to-day in their full strength without being summoned, conspicuous in their rich national costume, magnificent with fur and gold embroideries. Caerleon they were prepared to welcome as the Premier’s choice, but their first meeting with him disposed them to take a fancy to him for his own sake; and when some one had remembered that the English were supposed to be, as a nation, lovers of sport, he received so many invitations to come and hunt various animals that he might have imagined that life in Thracia was mainly devoted to the chase.
The persons who in reality carried on the work of government were not the grey-haired chiefs who surrounded their new King, but the army of inferior officials to whom the Scythian newspapers were wont to refer scathingly as “briefless barristers and unsuccessful journalists.” They were western to a fault, wore their black broadcloth as though to the manner born, and it was easy to see that it was on them, and not on the titular heads of their departments, that M. Drakovics relied for the prosecution of his policy. Each of these men was directly responsible to him, for the nominal Ministers relied on him to tell them what papers they were to sign, and what orders they were to give, and he sent them as subordinates whom he chose. On these subordinates he could depend, for he had raised them from their original obscurity to the position they occupied at present, and all their interests were bound up with his, so that they were ready to cling to him through thick and thin. Perilous as such an autocracy may appear, the dangers which usually accompany an experiment of the kind had not as yet shown themselves in any great degree, probably owing to the common peril from Scythia which menaced ruler and ruled alike, while the administration of King Peter Franza had been so corrupt that the people hailed the present one as a foretaste of the millennium.
During the greater part of the time Caerleon found abundant interest in watching the throng around him, while the Ministers made speeches one after the other, or presented loyal addresses from the districts they represented, and the people in the market-place cheered whenever they caught an allusion to the revolution or to the new King. When this preliminary business was over, M. Drakovics came forward for the most important event of the day—the speech which was to explain the postponement of the coronation. As he proceeded, Caerleon became interested in spite of his ignorance of the language, for the Premier’s tones and gestures were almost eloquent enough to take the place of words. He had appeared hitherto as an astute politician, genuinely patriotic, no doubt, according to his lights, but not capable of any very lofty flight of imagination. But now Caerleon could wonder no longer at his power of swaying the susceptible Thracians, since he himself could feel the force of his scathing denunciation of the formerrégime, his reference to the revolution, brief yet full of meaning, his indignant declaration that to Scythia, their constant enemy, they owed the two years of uncertainty and instability which had retarded the rightful development of the country, and his joyful reminder that at last they had found a prince willing to cast in his lot with theirs, and to dare and suffer as a Thracian. When the wild outburst of cheering which followed the last sentence had ceased, M. Drakovics continued in a lower voice, charged with deep meaning. Scythian jealousy was not yet dead, Scythian enmity was not even slumbering; already had an attempt been made to prevent the ratification of the people’s choice. Be it so! Thracia was in no hurry; she would delay the ceremony of crowning her king for a while, and make more seemly preparations for conducting it with fitting splendour. Scythia had endeavoured to brand the opening of the new reign with a bad omen, by the destruction of the ancient relic which was at once the sign and the home of the nation’s faith; but Thracia would turn the omen into one of joy, for as St Peter’s chapel rose stronger and more beautiful from its ashes, so would the kingdom of Carlino rise powerful and pure from the unavoidable disorders of the revolution, and the oppression and corruption which had marked the rule of Peter Franza and Ivan Sertchaieff.
“If that man’s words are equal to his voice and manner,” said Caerleon to himself, as M. Drakovics ceased, “he must be one of the greatest orators in the world.”
More speeches from different representatives of the people followed; but at last the King was able to return to the palace, and to seek his brother in the room which M. Drakovics had recommended should be allotted to him for the performance of his duties as Caerleon’s secretary. Cyril was testing the security of the cupboards which lined the panelled walls, and he was so resolutely bent on expatiating on the business-like appearance of his surroundings that it was some time before Caerleon could put the question he was anxious to ask.
“Well, did you see her?”
“Oh, Miss O’Malachy?” asked Cyril, raising his eyebrows. “Yes, I saw her. I can’t say that she impressed me favourably. She never does, somehow.”
“Happily it’s not necessary that she should,” returned Caerleon, sharply. “When am I to see her?”
“I have been thinking about that, and I can’t find an opportunity earlier than that ball which the municipality are to give next week.”
“But how am I to speak to her when we are dancing?”
“You don’t imagine she would dance? You must sit out, of course. This is how we shall have to work it. I will ask her to sit out with me, and take her into the conservatory, or some place of that kind, where you will be waiting. Then I’ll keep guard until you have said what you want to say (I hope and trust it won’t take long), and I will convoy her back to her mother.”
“I think I am capable of doing that,” said Caerleon.
“Yes, if she accepts you; but I don’t for a moment think she will. You see what I mean, old man?—it seems rather a nasty thing to say—but I don’t believe she cares for you sufficiently. She’s as proud as Lucifer, and people are bound to say that she married you for the sake of the crown. Would she be able to stand it?”
“I believe she is sensible enough not to care what people say if she once sees that it is right to marry me. But you never have understood her. Look here, Cyril; why should we put it off so long? Let us give a ball ourselves one evening this week.”
“How can we, when you haven’t a lady at the head of affairs? You might let yourself in for most horrible awkwardness. I don’t even know whether it would be proper for Madame O’Malachy to bring her daughter. You can’t go compromising yourself in the eyes of Europe in this way. Don’t think of giving balls until you are married, unless you like to get Mrs Sadleir out from home, and introduce her as your aunt and the natural head of your establishment.”
“I’m certain she would never come,” said Caerleon, gloomily. “But after all,” and his face brightened, “perhaps it is as well to wait for a week. If I can tell Nadia that I have come to some conclusion on the question of initiating temperance legislation, it may please her, so I will set to work at once. I am going to send to England for some books I want. I don’t know whether there is anything you would like me to order for you at the same time?”
“Give me the list, and let me write,” said Cyril, quickly. “You have a secretary now, Caerleon, and you mustn’t go sending orders to tradesmen with your own royal hand. It’s making yourself too cheap.”
But writing to a London bookseller was an inconsiderable trifle compared with the work which Caerleon proceeded to undertake as a necessary consequence of his promise to Nadia. Cyril showed no inclination for the inquisitorial rambles he meditated, and he was therefore obliged to secure the services of the detective whom M. Drakovics had recommended, and who spoke English sufficiently well to be of use. Under his guidance, the King paid surprise visits to different parts of his capital at various hours of the day, mingling freely with the people who thronged thecafésand there spent their time in drinking brandy and discussing politics. It was in vain to attempt any disguise, for the Thracians knew their sovereign’s height and figure too well for anything of the kind to be successful; but they are a polite nation, and when Caerleon came among themincognito, they did not appear to recognise him, perceiving that he wished to acquaint himself with the characteristics of the national life. Perhaps they were also a little flattered by the interest he showed in their favourite pursuits, for they were always ready to talk, and through the medium of his escort he obtained a great deal of valuable information, the result of which went far to convince him that Nadia was in the right, and that temperance legislation of some kind was a crying need of the country. There seemed to be no effective restraint on the sale of spirits, and during the last two years more especially the vendors had reaped a golden harvest. The feeling of uncertainty and unrest caused by the revolution, and the delay in obtaining a king, had disposed the people to indulge in much talk and speculation on political subjects; and to enjoy this to its fullest extent, it was natural that they should resort to thecafés, where coffee proved inadequate to quench their patriotic thirst. That some change must be made in this state of affairs if the country was to prosper, Caerleon was not slow to recognise, and the wisdom of his decision was confirmed by the statistics which M. Drakovics obtained at his request from Government officers all over Thracia; so that the subject cost him much anxious thought during the week which preceded the municipal ball at the Hôtel de Ville.
For Cyril, also, this was a period not devoid of anxiety. In spite of all his precautions, the secret of Caerleon’s admiration for Nadia had become public property. The disclosure was mainly due to an American journalist who was supposed to be writing up the minor Courts of Europe for the benefit of aspiring New York belles, and who had hastened to Thracia as soon as he heard of the accession of a bachelor king, and taken up his quarters at the Hôtel Occidental. At thetable d’hôtehe fell in with the O’Malachy family, and was immediately captivated by the cosmopolitan charms of Madame O’Malachy. From her he learnt all that there was to be learnt about the new sovereign, and not improbably a good deal more; and since nothing is sacred to the New Journalist, he worked up all that he heard into what he called “A Real Royal Romance,” for the columns of the paper he represented. The details caused great excitement among the heiresses of the Fifth Avenue, and filtered gradually back, through the medium of English and Parisian newspapers, to those of Bellaviste, where M. Drakovics, after reading them, made Cyril’s life a burden to him.
“There has been frightful mismanagement somewhere!” he cried, charging into the secretary’s office on the very morning of the municipal ball, after Cyril had with difficulty restrained him hitherto from issuing edicts for the suppression of the offending newspapers and the expulsion of the American special correspondent. “This is the point to which your diplomacy has led us, milord. Here is the editor of the ‘Empire City Crier’ telegraphing to this Mr Hicks, ‘Cable immediately full particulars of Miss O’Malachy’s appearance, style of dress, taste in perfumes and bonbons. All the latest novelties here are named after her. Send any recent portraits.’ And here in Bellaviste we have the whole female population, from the wives of the Ministers to the shop-girls, crowding the street in front of the hotel to catch a glimpse of her, and insisting on dressing their hair like hers. It is intolerable!”
“It is,” assented Cyril. “But I hope this state of affairs will come to an end to-day. If it does not, I shall perceive that in some way or other you have failed to adhere to our compact. Have confidence in me, and you will see that it will be all right. Only you must be absolutely passive at the ball to-night; and if you happen to miss my brother from the room at the same time as Miss O’Malachy, merely try to cover his absence as far as possible. If you don’t, I give you fair warning, I’ll advise her to marry him.”
“Naturally I will keep to our agreement, milord,” said M. Drakovics, and went away unhappy. But Cyril was doomed not to be left in peace this morning. Another visitor was announced—this time the O’Malachy, who entered with his most military air, and with a look of repressed sadness on his face.
“Come to play the outraged parent!” groaned Cyril, mentally, and he was not mistaken. The O’Malachy refused to take a chair, and stood tall and solemn in the middle of the floor, looking at Cyril more in sorrow than in anger.
“Lord Cyrul,” he said, “I’m aware that your position and ours have changed since circumstances first introjuced us to each other. But I am still a father, with a father’s feelings, and the representatuv of the ancient kings of Leitrum is not a man that can rightly be slighted. I’d willingly have remained with me family in our modust obscurity, but we have been removed from ut by the King’s action. I am not an ambitious man, there’s no one can accuse me of thrusting me daughter upon his Majusty, but neither will I have a slur cast upon her. You know as well as I do how greatly your brother sought me daughter’s presence until a week ago. Since then he has never come near her, and people are talking. I ask you plainly, what are his Majusty’s intentions?”
“The most honourable possible,” replied Cyril, with suitable seriousness. “I may mention to you, in the strictest confidence, that my brother is hoping to propose to Miss O’Malachy at the ball to-night. Of course she will be there?”
“The last thing I heard was that she did not dance, and would not come,” said the O’Malachy, ruefully. Cyril smiled.
“I think Madame O’Malachy will be able to induce her to come, if you take them a special message from me to say that her presence is indispensable,” he said.
“Ah now, if you could write that to them in the King’s name?” suggested the O’Malachy, brightening.
“Wouldn’t you like to have it to show?” thought Cyril. Aloud he added, “I think you must know, O’Malachy, that M. Drakovics is bent upon the King’s marrying some lady belonging to a royal house. Under these circumstances, it is as well not to give him any opportunity of interfering until my brother has settled things with Miss O’Malachy. Such a paper as you propose might lead to complications with him.”
“I dislike all this secrecy greatly,” grumbled the O’Malachy. “Why would not his Majusty have given some public hint of his intentions? ’Twould have been an excellent opporchunity when he gazetted umself honorary colonel of the Carlino Regiment.”
“My dear O’Malachy, would you have him imply that your daughter was ready to jump at his offer?” asked Cyril, and he looked rather nonplussed.
“I’ll not keep you longer now,” he said, moving towards the door. “You understand, Lord Cyrul, that in case of—of an alliance between your family and mine, me wife and I would esteem ut alike our juty and our pleasure to place what little experience and influence we may possess at the disposal of his Majusty and the Thracian Government?”
“What a double-dyed old traitor he is!” thought Cyril, as he returned from seeing his visitor to the door. “I believe I should prefer his enmity to his friendship.”
And having disposed of the matter satisfactorily, he applied himself to more important business, not thinking again of the evening until it was time to dress for the ball.
Theball given by the municipality of Bellaviste at the Hôtel de Ville in honour of their new King was the grandest entertainment ever seen in the city. Every one who had the slightest claim to receive an invitation was present, with the exception of the agents representing the various Powers, and the staffs of their respective consulates, who held themselves severely aloof from a festivity of which theraison d’êtrewas the social inauguration of a sovereignty not recognised by the arbiters of European opinion. The display of Thracian costumes and Parisian toilettes was dazzling, but the observed of all observers were Madame O’Malachy and her daughter, who were by no means among the smartest people present. Mr Hicks, the American newspaper correspondent, who had attended so many society functions that he knew as much about female dress as the cleverest lady paragraphist that ever reported an aristocratic wedding, was inclined to be dissatisfied with Nadia’s appearance. There was a kind of affectation of humility, he thought, a too evident desire to emphasise the distance between Caerleon and herself, in her severely plain dress of black net, cut barely low enough to pass muster on such an occasion, and in the absence of any relief, such as might have been afforded by flowers or ornaments, that marked it. It was true that her beautiful head and shoulders appeared to derive additional grace from the simplicity of their surroundings, but there was something unsuitable about the general effect. Did the beggar-maid don her oldest rags when Cophetua came to woo her? Mr Hicks thought not. And again, why did Miss O’Malachy look so like a victim led to the sacrifice as she followed her mother into the room, and so anxious and unhappy when her eye rested on the King? Mere excitement would not account for her troubled expression, and she was sure enough of her prize not to be fearful as to the outcome of the ordeal of the evening. Could it be possible that she did not reciprocate the King’s affection? Was it—could it be—Mr Hicks ground his teeth as he intercepted a disapproving glance levelled at Nadia by Cyril, and felt for one agonised moment that he had missed the most thrilling point of his romance—was there a rivalry between the brothers?
“I call it real mean of the old lady never to have given me a hint,” he groaned, thinking of the extra columns of copy such an intimation would have supplied, but presently he grew calm again. “There’s nothing of the sort, or those two fellows couldn’t carry on as they are doing. A woman can be as sweet as possible to another when she hates her like poison; but two men can’t be easy together when they have quarrelled over a girl.”
Reassured to find that he had not let slip an opportunity of gaining information, he set himself once more to watch the glittering scene and observed that Caerleon invited Nadia to dance with him as soon as he had done his duty to the wives of the city fathers. He saw Madame O’Malachy’s thrill of anxious expectation as the King approached her, and divined instantly that the offer of such an honour was in itself equivalent to a proposal of marriage. But Nadia declined it, although her watchful mother softened the refusal by adding that she did not dance.
“He shouldn’t have come to ask her himself,” soliloquised Mr Hicks, who knew a good deal more about the etiquette proper for royalty than did most of the exalted personages at whose Courts he sojourned. “Ought to have sent his brother, or his equerry—if he has one. And she had no business to refuse, anyway. A girl that don’t dance ought not to go to Court balls.”
But although he turned away with a feeling of lordly contempt for people who could manage their affairs so badly, Mr Hicks took care not to lose sight of Nadia during the evening. More than half the programme had been gone through when he saw Cyril sauntering up to her. He also saw Nadia shiver slightly, then sit very erect, and he guessed that the fateful moment had come.
“Will you sit out this dance with me?” asked Cyril, adjusting one of his sleeve-links as he spoke. The American, watching him, thought the action a piece of aristocratic rudeness, but Cyril was merely doing his best not to look towards Madame O’Malachy. If she should gain from his face an inkling of his compact with her daughter, she was quite capable, he was sure, of making a scene in public, supposing that she judged it to be to her interest to do so, and he felt much relieved when he had succeeded in avoiding her eye, and had left her engrossed in conversation with Mr Hicks. With Nadia on his arm, he led the way to one of the smaller balconies, which were curtained off from the corridors, and decorated with plants and palms, and here he found her a seat.
“Caerleon may not be here just yet,” he said. “I saw him dancing with Madame Sertchaieff just now. He has to be civil to her, you know, as she is the War Minister’s wife.” He went on talking lightly in his ordinary tones, and did not testify any resentment when Nadia vouchsafed no answer to his cheerful commonplaces, but sat still, her rigid hands outstretched before her and locked in one another, until her face changed suddenly at the sound of a footstep without.
“I was very lucky in getting off so soon,” said a voice, and Caerleon drew back the curtain and stood before them, in all the magnificence of the full-dress uniform of the Carlino Regiment. “I caught my spur in Madame Sertchaieff’s dress,” he went on, “and tore it so badly that she had to go and get it sewn up. Now, Cyril, old man, if you will add to your kindness by making yourself scarce for a little while, I shall be much obliged.”
Resisting the temptation to give Nadia a last glance of warning, Cyril departed obediently, and mounted guard in the corridor outside with an air of philosophical calmness, which he was very far from feeling. If she should fail him now! “It would make Thracia too hot to hold me,” he mused, “for she’s bound to tell Caerleon the whole story at once,” and he shifted his position impatiently as he pictured the look of pain and aversion which the revelation would bring into Caerleon’s honest eyes. He would have been still more anxious as to the results of his diplomacy if he could have heard the words in which, without wasting time on preliminaries, his brother went straight to the matter in hand.
“I am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice for me, Nadia. Those silly women out there may think that it’s something very grand to be Queen of Thracia, but you know better, and so do I. It means isolation, and worry, and being opposed and thwarted in what you have set your heart on, and it is very likely to mean danger, perhaps death. There are not many women I could ask to share these things with me; but I think that you care for me enough to be willing to help me through it all.”
He had struck the right chord at once, and the eloquence of Nadia’s eyes encouraged him to go on.
“I know,” he said, taking her hands in his, “that it doesn’t sound the proper thing for me to throw it all on you, and ask you to take me as a charity, but it seems to appeal to you more strongly if it is put in that light. Doesn’t it signify to you at all that I care for you, Nadia? that I have loved you since the very first day I saw you? I don’t believe you realise in the least what you are to me. I wish I could make you understand how I love you. Look at me—look into my eyes, and perhaps you will see.”
But Nadia shivered, and drew her hands out of his clasp. The vehemence of his tone frightened her, and she dared not meet his eye. She could not say a word, for the lump which had suddenly risen in her throat seemed to choke her. He noticed her agitation, and tried to speak more calmly.
“I am sure you can’t possibly know,” he said, “what a revelation it is to a man who has become accustomed to look at things in an ordinary everyday way, to be brought into close contact with a woman whose sole idea is to do right. One’s courage fails sometimes, when one is alone against the world, and I want you to help me to do what ought to be done for the kingdom.”
“I can’t marry you,” gasped Nadia, looking up at him with anguished eyes; “it would not be right.”
“Not right! Why not?” he asked in astonishment.
“On account of so many things. My parents—Louis——”
“I am sure you need not trouble yourself about them,” said Caerleon, with an involuntary smile at the thought of the ease with which the O’Malachy family would almost certainly be managed. “Louis is provided for in the army, and your father and mother will give up their wandering life, and settle down quietly here.”
“But it is myself!” cried Nadia, desperately. “I am not what you want in a wife, not good enough, not—not important enough. I should do nothing but bring trouble upon you. I am afraid to marry you. I dare not do it. I will not.”
“I think you will, when you understand how much I want you,” said Caerleon, with all the spirit of his fighting forefathers roused by her opposition. “Why, I am offering you work, and you know you have often told me that it is wrong to refuse work when it comes in one’s way. You cannot tell me that you mean to cast me off because you are afraid of the silly remarks people will make?”
“Oh, why will you make me say it?” she cried, driven to bay by his tone. “I will not marry you, then, because you ought to marry a princess—some one who has been brought up to be a queen, and whose family will be a support to you in Europe. That is what you must do.”
“Nadia!” he said in astonishment, “you tell me to marry a stranger, when I love you? You can’t think that right?”
“I know,” she said, despairingly. “It all seems to me horribly, fearfully wrong, but it must be right, because it is so hard to do.”
“You are in love with martyrdom,” he said, with unwonted sternness; “but you have no right to try to sacrifice me as well as yourself.”
“Very well, say that I am in love with martyrdom, then,” she answered, drearily. “Persuade yourself that I love it better than I do you.”
“I have no doubt you do,” returned Caerleon; “but I have the misfortune to love you better than an utterly unnecessary sacrifice.”
“And I,” she said, “love you so much that for your sake I can separate myself from you for ever.”
“Is that your idea of love?” he asked bitterly, but with something of dismay in his voice.
“It is,” she answered.
“But, Nadia, this is monstrous!” he cried. “You tell me that you love me, and yet you order me to marry some one else. You must know that such a thing can’t be right. Sit down here quietly, and let us talk the matter out. I think you will see that you are cruelly unfair.”
“I daresay I should,” said Nadia, refusing to take the seat to which he tried to draw her. “I have not a doubt that you could convince me—make me yield, at any rate, since my own heart is on your side. But you will not. I know that you are stronger than I am, and you will not take an ignoble advantage of your strength to make me do what I know is wrong. Think,” as he gazed at her in silence, “how we should feel, if I married you, and our marriage plunged Thracia into misfortunes—if you were forced to abdicate.”
“I should do it with a good conscience, and go home happily with you,” returned Caerleon, with unexpected promptness. “If that’s all, I’ll abdicate now. What do I care for the kingdom? There has been nothing but worry and rumours of approaching trouble since I accepted it, and if it’s to come between you and me, I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”
“Oh no, no,” entreated Nadia, clinging to his arm as he turned towards the doorway. “Don’t talk like that! Let me believe in you still. You accepted the kingdom because it was right, for the sake of the people, and I know you will govern wisely. Don’t let me be disappointed in you. If I can give you up because it is right, you can give me up. I can bear anything if I am sure that I can trust you to go on as you have begun.”
“What can I do?” broke out Caerleon in his despair. “You do your best to break my heart, and then you expect me not even to struggle. Nadia, have you no pity? Give me some hope. Say that after a year—two years—any length of time—I may speak to you again. What is a man to do when you bring up his own sense of honour against him?”
“He must submit,” said Nadia. Caerleon stood looking at her in silence, his heart protesting wildly against the barriers she had raised between them. It was on his lips to say, “You have told me you love me, and that’s enough. Nothing shall part us.” He felt sure that his love must prevail over her scruples; she had said so herself. But she had appealed to his chivalry; how could he disappoint her? The struggle was a cruel one, and he turned away from her without a word. She saw her advantage, and went on—
“I know you will let me be proud of you still. You won’t know where I am, but I shall always watch what you are doing, and I shall feel glad to think that perhaps I have helped you—a little. And then some day you will meet some one whom it is right for you to marry, and you will remember that I wished it——”
“Are you trying to drive me mad, Nadia?” he cried, turning upon her fiercely. “If you told me you did not care for me, I could bear it better. But it makes one feel such a fool, when you have said you love me, to stand back and let you go. How can you expect it of me?”
“It is right,” she answered, slowly.
“Let me kiss you once, only once,” he entreated.
“Oh no, no, no!” she almost shrieked, feeling that her resolution must give way at the touch of his lips. “Keep your kisses for your bride!”
“I don’t think I have deserved that,” he said, bitterly. “Understand once for all, Nadia, that you need not lay the flattering unction to your soul that I shall comfort myself as you please yourself by imagining I shall do. I can’t marry you against your will, but I won’t marry any other woman. Until I met you I thought that I should never marry, and now that you won’t have me I know it. It is you or no one, and you will cheerfully sacrifice me to a fancied scruple——”
“You see that you are well rid of me,” said Nadia.
“Nonsense!” cried Caerleon. “I love you more than ever. I can’t do without you. Just think of the life to which you are condemning me. To be alone always, never to be able to get away from the glare and rush of public life, never to have any one to cheer me on, never to have a home. I thought you would have helped me. I thought you would be there to advise me when I could not see my way clearly. You always seem to be sure of the right path at once. Do you really think that marrying the Emperor of Scythia’s daughter—if I had the faintest intention of taking the advice you have been giving me to-night—would ever make up for that? I don’t mean to marry to strengthen my position in Europe. I want a wife who will look at things without fear or favour, and help me to do what is right. Isn’t this a mission for you? Tell me, my dearest, is there no chance for me?”
“None,” she answered, with difficulty, the fervency of his pleading almost destroying her power of speech. “Please, please, say no more. You cannot tell how my heart is longing to say Yes; but I dare not yield. Don’t you see that all the course of our lives has been leading up to this—to the great choice between right and wrong? It is right now to think of the kingdom, and not of ourselves, and so I can be strong to refuse you for your own sake. It is hard for you, I know, but I think it is harder for me. You can stand alone, but I—oh! I could not do it if I was not sure it was right. Never, never think that I did not love you. Please let me go.” He loosed her hands, and she drew aside the curtain and passed out, looking back at him as he stood watching her in despairing silence, then tapped Cyril on the shoulder with her fan. “Will you kindly take me back to my mother, Lord Cyril? She was intending to leave early.”
Mr Hicks, when in after days he related his impressions of the incidents of that evening, whether in conversation or in the columns of the ‘Empire City Crier,’ was wont to remark, with much originality and force, that coming events cast their shadows before them, and that there is no accounting for the sympathetic movements of certain finely constituted minds. This was his way of leading up to the striking fact that while he and Madame O’Malachy were in the midst of a pleasant chat, in which the reputations of various Thracian notabilities suffered rather severely, the lady broke off suddenly in the course of a sentence and sighed deeply. In response to his anxious inquiries, she assured him that she was not ill, but that she felt a presentiment of coming misfortune,—“and at such a time as this,” she added, “you, monsieur, as a friend of the family, will be at no loss to understand the subject of my anxiety. You will pardon a mother’s weakness, but it is hard to see two young lives wrecked by an obstinate pride. You have watched with interest the course of the attachment—the royal idyl, as I might call it—between the King and my daughter, and I know you will sympathise with me in my fear lest Nadia, in her sensitive delicacy, should have refused her lover through fear of being supposed to covet his throne.”
“And you’ll scarcely believe me,” Mr Hicks was accustomed to continue, ignorant that by means of a mirror behind him Madame O’Malachy had noticed Nadia approaching her from the other end of the room, and discerned in an instant that her companion was not Caerleon, “but the words were not out of her mouth when I saw Lord Cyril in the distance, with Miss O’Malachy on his arm as white as a sheet, and I knew her mother was right at once. No girl that had just accepted a king ever went about with a face like that.”
“Oh, Mr Hicks, do tell!” his enraptured audience would exclaim; and Mr Hicks would go on to detail how Madame O’Malachy had turned as white as her daughter on seeing her face, but had said calmly that the heat of the room was too much for Miss Nadia, and they must go home; and how she had turned to him with a sorrowful look that went to his heart, and whispered, “My kind friend, do this for us. If any one speaks to you of the matter we were discussing, let it be known that my daughter has refused his Majesty for the reason I feared.”
In fulfilling this parting request Mr Hicks, as a gallant American, and therefore a sworn servant of the fair sex, had spent the remainder of the evening, only pausing to glance at the King as he passed through the hall about half an hour later with set face and firmly closed lips on his way back to the palace, on the plea of illness. To the observer who had noted duly at the beginning of the entertainment that “his Majesty looked extremely well, and conversed affably with the different persons presented to him,” the change spoke volumes; but other people were not quite so ready to accept Madame O’Malachy’s explanation as he was. More than one of the chaperons with whom he touched on the subject gave it as her opinion that the King had informed Miss O’Malachy that he could not, consistently with his duty to the nation, marry her; and that a harrowing scene had ensued. It was extraordinary how widely it was known in the ballroom that something of the kind had occurred, and Mr Hicks found his duty of impressing Madame O’Malachy’s view of the case on his friends to be no sinecure. But he persevered, for he sympathised deeply with her in her disappointment, and he was also sorry for Nadia, who, as he rightly supposed, would have a good deal to endure from her mother on the way home. “Those outspoken, affectionate women can do an astonishing amount of reproaching when they are once worked up,” he said to himself; but he never dreamed of the storm of sarcasm and cruel invective under which Nadia was writhing at the moment.
The next day found Bellaviste society divided into two parties, one of which accepted Madame O’Malachy’s account of the events of the evening before, and believed that an insane pride had driven Nadia to refuse the King; while the other, led by Madame Sertchaieff, and relying on the authority of M. Drakovics, held that his Majesty had, more or less directly, declined to marry her. Madame Sertchaieff was the great lady of Bellaviste. As the wife of the Minister for War (the brother of the Ivan Sertchaieff who had been the last Premier of the late king), she took the lead in the society of the city, and derived no small honour from the fact that her husband was the only member of the Ministry whom M. Drakovics treated on anything approaching a footing of equality. With every desire to make the Thracian army invincible, the Premier was handicapped by an absolute ignorance of military affairs, and since General Sertchaieff had turned his back on his brother and his party to adopt the cause of the revolution, he left all the actual work of the bureau in his hands, and also consulted him frequently on the general policy of the Government. Consequently, when Madame Sertchaieff (it is needless to say that she had not been among the ladies whose eagerness to see Nadia had so deeply scandalised the Premier) averred that she had guessed, from the excitement visible in the King’s manner when he danced with her, that he was screwing up his courage to the point of formally breaking off his relations with Miss O’Malachy, and further hinted that the step had been taken on the advice and with the full approval of M. Drakovics, she carried many of her hearers with her. Curiosity was rife as to what would be the next step on either side; but on the evening after the ball the public excitement was cruelly balked by the news that the O’Malachy family, with the exception of Louis, had left the city. They were gone because it could not but be disagreeable to Miss O’Malachy to run the risk of meeting her rejected lover at every turn, said Mr Hicks and his party; because they had received a secret mandate from the police advising them to depart, said Madame Sertchaieff and her friends; because the O’Malachy and his wife, perceiving that there was no opening in Thracia for their peculiar talents, had determined to return to the service of their Scythian employers, thought Cyril.
Had Cyril possessed a conscience in good working order, it might have given him a certain amount of trouble at this time; but systematic neglect and snubbing had reduced his to a condition in which, while it prevented his full enjoyment of his achievements, it never interfered with him during their performance, nor caused him to wish that they had not succeeded. Like the British matron in “Locksley Hall,” he had amassed “a little hoard of maxims,” or perhaps it would be more correct to say impressions, during his social career, and these he employed as balm whenever his conscience gave him a feeble prick. On the subject of love and marriage these impressions were particularly vivid. Every man, Cyril considered, was bound to fall in love a greater or less number of times, and the malady was like the measles, in that some took it slightly and others severely. Marriage was one of the things which were better managed in France. Even as it was, every sensible man with a name and a possible career married with a keen eye to present and future advantage, but the alliance ought to be arranged for him as soon as he entered public life, in order to avoid wasting time in the unprofitable experiments mentioned above. Marrying for love was a folly which only the most foolhardy of men would commit, for when the love was gone—and in Cyril’s scheme of life it was bound to go very soon—where were you? Circumstances had forced him hitherto to acknowledge a possible exception in the case of his brother. It was eminently desirable that Caerleon should marry; but it was equally evident that he would not marry any one who did not captivate his fancy, and when Nadia appeared on the scene Cyril saw no invincible objection to his pleasing himself. His tastes were simple, and his income, in ordinary years, quite sufficient for his moderate wants, so that money was not a necessity; and if Nadia was not likely to achieve a success in society, Caerleon, on his side, was too much of a faddist ever to get on in Parliament, and thus it might be the most suitable thing for them to settle down at Llandiarmid and elevate the peasantry and lead the county. In this roseate view, as Cyril now ruefully perceived, his wonted foresight had been badly at fault, for he ought to have remembered the shadowy crown, the bestowal of which had since changed everything. Nadia O’Malachy as Queen of Thracia was simplyimpossible, and Caerleon ought to have seen this for himself.
“Why, if I had been in his place,” thought Cyril, forgetting that their views upon the subject were diametrically opposed, “I would have settled the matter off my own bat, and not thrown it all on the girl.”
It was in this view that, after seeing Madame O’Malachy and her daughter to their carriage on the fateful evening, he had returned to his brother, and found him still standing as Nadia had left him.
“Anything up, old man?” he inquired, sympathetically.
“She won’t have me,” responded Caerleon with a kind of dull despair.
“I thought so.” Cyril was careful not to assume a tone of superiority, which his brother might have resented under the circumstances. “Well, one doesn’t object to a spice of pride in a girl, but this is rather too much. I’m awfully——”
“It was not what you think,” Caerleon interrupted quickly. “She refused me because she thought it best—for the kingdom.”
“If only Drakovics knew how completely she agreed with him!” murmured Cyril. “But really, you know, Caerleon, such virtue is a little too bright and good for daily life. It’s convenient for the rest of us that there are people like that, though they might be rather overpowering to live with, and all we can do is to profit at their expense.”
“If you came here to rot me about her——” began Caerleon, angrily.
“I came to fetch you back to the ballroom. People are asking what has become of you.”
“Let them ask. You don’t imagine that I am going to dance again to-night?”
“I suppose you don’t mean to stay here. You had better get home. You look seedy enough for anything. I’ll end up the business for you.”
The offer was thankfully accepted, and it was late when Cyril returned to the palace; but he saw by the lights in Caerleon’s rooms that he was still awake, although a knock at the door only produced a mandate from his brother to “go to bed, and let him alone.” But Cyril did not sleep that night as soundly as a conscienceless man ought to do, and whenever he awoke he heard Caerleon tramping backwards and forwards through his series of rooms.
Thereader will without doubt expect to hear that the King appeared in public at his usual hour the next morning, bearing the traces of the night’s vigil in his haggard face and deeply lined brow; that he went through the day’s business with invincible resolution, but with an abstracted manner, the gloom of which was lightened by an occasional unconquerable sigh; and that he frequently put his hand to his forehead as though to push back the brooding weight of care which oppressed him. It is disappointing to be obliged to chronicle the fact that Caerleon made no attempt to act in this heroic but rather harrowing fashion. He did not appear at all outside his own rooms, but remained shut up in his study, where he buried himself in the piles of blue-books and parliamentary reports for which he had sent to London, growling at Cyril through the door when he besieged him in his retreat, and sending word to M. Drakovics that if he had anything special to communicate he might state his message in writing. For three days he laboured unceasingly, consulting authorities, drawing up, testing, and destroying draft schemes, guarded by the faithful Wright, who had been summoned from the stables by a sudden message from his master, and informed all comers that “’is Majesty was not to be disturbed.” The fact that he would have found great pleasure in knocking the Premier down, if he had attempted to force an entrance into the room, undoubtedly contributed to the success of his guardianship.
It happened fortunately that nothing occurred during the three days to render necessary an interview between the King and his Minister, and Cyril and M. Drakovics, giving out that Caerleon had not yet recovered from the illness which had attacked him at the ball, took things into their own hands, and got through a large amount of important business. In so far as international politics were concerned, their course lay at present chiefly in the direction of bluff, for the Powers, scarcely recovered from their surprise at Caerleon’s election, had not as yet determined upon the action to be taken in the matter. Notes and protests were flying about from cabinet to cabinet, and the papers announced daily, with awful and mysterious joy, that such and such a statesman had been closeted for over an hour with such and such a potentate, or that this great personage had visited that great personage, and that each had emerged from the interview with a clouded brow. In England, Parliament was enjoying a long recess, and the few stray politicians who were in the habit of arrogating to themselves an interest in the peace of Europe were reduced to writing frantic letters to the papers to demand that a special session should be summoned immediately for the purpose of dethroning Caerleon, or else to inquire why the Government did not at once recognise him as King of Thracia, according to the direction taken by their respective sympathies.
But Cyril’s chief concern was with less responsible individuals,—inventors who wished Caerleon to purchase the secret of their new and destructive engines of warfare, or Englishmen who were anxious either to enlist in the Thracian army or to raise a troop of irregular horse in the King’s name. To them all Cyril replied with a polite assurance that at the present moment the Thracian army was on so satisfactory a footing that his Majesty had no intention of increasing it, but that when he did so, the correspondent’s obliging offer should be borne in mind. This form of words committed Caerleon to nothing, while intimating also that although he desired peace he was prepared for war, and it was calculated to convey a gentle warning to Scythia, and to keep the rest of Europe in a state of agreeable expectancy. Cyril was not a little pleased with his own capacity for statecraft, and he did his best to raise the spirits of M. Drakovics, who was inclined to fear that the King’s persistent seclusion foreshadowed some kind ofcoup d’état, or even a determination to govern altogether without a Minister in future. Caerleon was merely working off his disappointment, Cyril assured the Premier, and he would be all right in a day or two. But even Cyril had not calculated on the manner in which his brother had employed his time in his solitude. It was brought to his knowledge at last through the medium of Wright, who on the third evening after the ball entered the smoking-room, where Cyril was sitting with M. Drakovics, and laid a large sealed envelope on the table between them.
“’Is Majesty says, my lord, will you and ’is Excellency,” with a nod in the direction of the Premier, “kindly read that, and be ready to discuss with ’im to-morrow any improvements you can suggest.”
It was with no small apprehension that Cyril and M. Drakovics, when Wright had departed, opened and read the paper. They did not quite know what they feared, but their brows grew no lighter as they advanced, and at the close Cyril summed up in a tone of utter despair—
“A strict system of licensing to be established for three years all through the kingdom, preparatory to the general adoption of a modification of the Gothenburg scheme! It is the biggest thing ever undertaken in the temperance way!”
“It is absolutely impossible,” said M. Drakovics. “It cannot be done.”
“I am very much afraid it will have to be done,” said Cyril, “if you mean to keep your king. Caerleon has always been mad on the subject of temperance. His extreme views on that question destroyed his chances of office in England, and it would be just like him to risk his crown by putting them forward now. Besides, monsieur, it is just possible he may have noticed that there is sometimes a slight confusion as to which of you is King and which is Minister, and that he means to have it cleared up.”
“It cannot be done,” repeated M. Drakovics, hopelessly, as he rose to go home, taking the paper with him; but when he met his sovereign in the morning he found that the plea of impossibility was not accepted.
“I am not King for my own pleasure, nor did I come here to rule Thracia in accordance with your ideas, M. Drakovics,” said Caerleon, “but for her own good. If I can’t do that, I had better go back to England.”
“But this legislation is undertaken so suddenly—so early in your Majesty’s reign,” objected M. Drakovics.
“Exactly. The people are well affected towards me just now, and will accept a change more readily than they would later, when things had settled down. But of course I have no intention of forcing my views on them against their will.”
“Your Majesty will listen to my advice on the subject?”
“As to the best method of introducing the scheme, certainly. I know that you agree with me as to the necessity of stringent legislation—you have said so several times. I think it will be best to bring in the measure at once as a Government bill, letting it be known at the same time that my retaining the crown depends upon its passing without delay.”
“This is interfering with the liberty of the subject with a vengeance!” said Cyril. “Are you really bent on risking your crown in this way, Caerleon?”
“I will not rule over a nation of drunkards,” returned Caerleon.
“But set to work gradually. Do things by degrees,” urged Cyril.
“And establish vested interests,” said Caerleon, quickly, “and thus have all our difficulties at home reproduced? No; things are in a state of chaos at present, and there is just this chance of bringing them into order. The more thoughtful among the people see that something must be done, and the Thracians will understand—and appreciate—a single act of authority—call it despotism if you like—better than any amount of compromises.”
“But why not go the whole hog, then, and decree prohibition right off? I know that is what you temperance fanatics are always aiming at in the far distance.”
“Because it would simply lead to the spread of smuggling and secret distilling, and an illicit traffic which the police would be bribed to condone. They would be corrupted, and the people as bad as ever. Moreover, we should need to revise our commercial treaties, especially with Pannonia, so as to forbid the importation of spirits, and this is too big a thing to be carried through in a hurry, particularly just now. And then, though you call me a fanatic, I am not so bigoted a temperance man as to feel called upon to deprive those people of alcohol for whom a moderate amount of it may be desirable, or even necessary. I merely wish to keep the younger generation from growing up with a taste for dram-drinking, and to make it impossible for men to meet at thecafésand muddle themselves with adulterated spirits as they do now.”
“But why fool about with licences at all, instead of establishing your beloved Gothenburg system at once throughout the kingdom?”
“Because our present statistics are so imperfect that we have no idea either as to the number of existing public-houses, or the proportion which would meet the actual needs of the country. At present, any man who has a front yard and a table has only to borrow a bench or two and get in a cask of spirits on credit, and there is a new dram-shop. To buy out all these fellows at once would entail an expense impossible for us to meet. In future, as you see, no further taverns are to be opened, except by permission from the central authority, while each year, by means of the sum of money I propose to appropriate for the purpose from my civil list, the rights of a certain number of existing proprietors will be compulsorily acquired. By the end of the third year we ought to have reduced the multitude of public-houses to something corresponding with the needs of the country, and then there will be a chance for the Gothenburg system. The surviving publicans, who will have been chosen for their good behaviour and careful management during the three years of probation, will have become used to State control, and will have the choice of continuing their employment as salaried servants of the State, or of being bought out at once. I know the scheme is not perfect, but it is the best I can devise with the means at our disposal. We have to deal with the Thracians as we find them.”
“Then what are the advantages you claim?”
“Restriction without confiscation, the limitation of public-houses to the smallest possible number, the placing of control in the hands of an impartial central department, with trustworthy inspectors at its command, instead of biassed local bodies, and the chance of weaning the younger generation from the drinking habits of their fathers.”
“I call it grandmotherly legislation,” murmured Cyril.
“There are worse things even than that. I am convinced that this is our one opportunity of action, while the country is in its present unsettled state. The licensing plan will be established before the people know where they are, and according to the scheme that will develop into the Gothenburg system as soon as the idea has become general. If you will be so good as to have the Bill drafted, M. Drakovics, I shall be glad to go through the several clauses with you.”
And Caerleon saw his brother and his Prime Minister retire discomfited. The die was cast. He had embarked on the course Nadia had pointed out, and begun the work to which she had urged him. At least she would know that he was doing his best. His action might be unconstitutional, but if so, that was for the people to resent. If they were wise, they would prefer to be well governed, even by a stretch of the royal prerogative, rather than continue in their present state. If they were not wise, they might seek another king.
But the Thracians proved that they were wise. Caerleon’s researches into the social life of Bellaviste, and some of his speeches to prominent persons since he had been in the city, had awakened public feeling on the subject of the drinking customs of the community. The chief desire of the people was to appear in the eyes of Europe as an enlightened nation, and it was a grievous blow for them to discover that they had struck their new King as an assemblage of drunkards. The reproach must be rolled away, and the proposal for reform was accordingly received with acclamation. M. Drakovics was sufficiently far-sighted to perceive that divided councils at this juncture would ruin the future of the kingdom without doing any good to the question, and on the principle of giving up his own way with a good grace when he surrendered it at all, he threw himself loyally into the King’s scheme, bestowed endless trouble on the drafting and details of the measure, and introduced it himself in one of his famous speeches. Nor did his pains end here. It was necessary to press the Bill through all its stages as quickly as possible, as, in spite of the enthusiasm with which it was received, a strong opposition to its provisions soon made itself felt, which gathered strength as time went on. The distillers and shopkeepers of Bellaviste, who had been among the staunchest supporters of the late king, but who had profited much by the excitement of the revolution and the thirst it engendered, were disposed to resist strenuously any interference with their thriving trade of spirit-selling. Opposed to them were the bulk of the national party, young students and politicians principally, with a sprinkling of old patriots who remembered the emancipation of Thracia from the Roumi yoke, and the simple and frugal life which had preceded the rule of the later Franzas. These men had the courage of their convictions. A temperance society, which had been founded by the wife of a former British Consul-General, and had for some time led a languishing existence in Bellaviste, took a new lease of life, and added numbers of enthusiastic converts every day to its roll. Caerleon was unanimously entreated to become the president, and consented to accept the office, whereupon a loyal member made a suggestion for a new medal bearing the King’s portrait, which was taken up with enthusiasm, and a large supply ordered. From that day forward the display of a blue ribbon, with one of these medals hanging from it, betokened the ardent Carlinist; and those English reformers who deprecate the degrading of the temperance question into a matter of party politics, would have been forced to admit that in Bellaviste to have taken the pledge was the unerring mark of a member of the national party. But in spite of the ardour of the new converts, the voting power of the liquor-sellers would have swamped the Bill in the Legislative Assembly, if M. Drakovics had not summoned to his aid in the Upper House his supporters from the provinces. The chieftains rallied around him at his call, and since they all entertained a wholesome dislike and contempt for the vices of the city, they voted with one accord for the Bill, which was passed triumphantly into law. M. Drakovics stood by it to the end without flinching; but when it had received the King’s assent, he relieved his mind in private to Cyril.