The Society for the Maintenance of the Public Decency has a record of long and distinguished usefulness, but never in its annals has it been moved to a more determined activity than during the week which followed this ill-starred run. The Ruling Dames or Past Grand Mistresses—I don't quite know what their true official title is—of this august body met and conferred and drank tea continually. Those who were conversant with the Society's methods made dire prophecy of a public action of an unparalleled rigour. But beyond the fact that Mrs. Arbuthnot's china-blue eyes had an inscrutable glint, and that Mrs. Catesby's Minerva-like front was as lofty and menacing as became the daughter of Jove, nothing happened during this critical period which really aspires to the dignity of history.
Three times within that fateful space the noble Master led forth his hounds; three times was it whispered confidently in my ear by my little friend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins with a piquant suggestion in her accent of her old Kentucky home, which sometimes overtakes her very charmingly in moments of acute emotion, "that if the tenderfoot from the rotunda hit the trail, Reg would take the fox-dogs home"[1]; three times did the lady in the scarlet coat do her best to override the fox-dogs in question; three times, as the veracious historian is fain to confess, nothing happened whatever. It is true that more than once the noble Master looked at the offender "as no gentleman ought to look at a lady." More than once he cursed her by all his gods, but never within her hearing. Rumour had it that he also told Fitz that if he didn't look after his wife he should give the order for the kennels. Unfortunately, Miss Laura Glendinning was the sole authority for this melodramatic statement.
However, on the evening of the seventh day the stars in their courses said their word in the matter. Doubtless the behaviour of the astral bodies was the outcome of a formally expressed wish of the Society; at least it is well known that certain of its members carry weight in heaven. Whether Mrs. Catesby and the Vicar's Wife headed a deputation to Jupiter I am not in a position to affirm. Be that as it may, on the evening of the seventh day fate issued a decree against "the circus rider from Vienna" and all her household.
Let this fell occurrence be recorded with detail. Myself and co-partner in life's felicities had had a tolerable if somewhat fatiguing day with the Crackanthorpe Hounds. We had assisted at the destruction of a couple of fur-coated members of society who had done us no harm whatever; and having exchanged the soaked, muddy and generally uncomfortable habiliments of the chase for the garb of peace, had faredtête-à-tête—Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther regaling his friends at the Hall with the light of his countenance and his post-prandial skill at snooker—with sumptuous decency upon baked meats and the good red wine.
We were in the most harmonious stage of all that this chequered existence has to offer; taking our ease in our inn while our nether limbs, whose stiffness was a not unpleasing reminiscence of the strenuous day we had spent in the saddle, toasted luxuriously before a good sea-coal fire; smoking the pipe of peace together, although this is by way of being a figure of speech, since Mrs. Arbuthnot affected a mild Turkish cigarette; comparing notes of our joint adventures by flood and field, with the natural and inevitable De Vere Vane-Anstruther note of condescension quite agreeably mitigated by one tiny liqueur glass of the 1820 brandy—a magic potion which ere now has caused the Magnificent Youth himself to abate a few feathers of his plumage. We were conducting an exhaustive inquiry into the respective merits of Pixie and Daydream, and I had been led with a charm that was irresistible into a concurrence with the sharer of my bliss that both were worth every penny of the price that had been paid for them, although I had not so much as thrown a leg over either of these quadrupeds of most distinguished ancestry.
"It is rather a lot to pay, but you can't call them dear, can you, because theydofetch such prices nowadays, don't they? And Laura is perfectly green with envy."
"I'm glad of that," said I, with undefeated optimism. "If her greenness approximates to the right shade it will match the Hunt collar. How green is she?"
"Funny old thing!" Mrs. Arbuthnot's beam was of childlike benignity. "She is not such a bad sort, really. Besides, plain people are always the nicest, aren't they, poor dears? Yes, Parkins, what is it?"
Parkins the peerless had entered the drawing-room after a discreet preliminary knock for which the circumstances really made no demand whatever. He had sidled up to his mistress, and in his mien natural reserve and a desire to dispense information were finely mingled.
"Beg pardon, ma'am, but have you seen the glare in the sky?"
"What sort of a glare, Parkins?" A lazy voice emerged from the seventh heaven of the hedonist. "Do you mean it's a what-do-you-call-it? AplanetI suppose you mean, Parkins?"
"It can hardly be acomet, ma'am," said Parkins, with his most encyclopaedic air. "It is so bright and so fixed, and it seems to be getting larger."
"So long as it isn't the end of the world," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, fondling her gold cigarette-case with a little sigh.
"It looks to me like the Castle, ma'am. It is over in that direction. I remember when the west wing was burnt twelve years ago."
"You think the Castle is on fire?" said I.
I also was in the seventh heaven of the hedonist. But gathering my faculties as resolutely as I could, I rose from the good sea-coal fire and assisted Parkins to pull aside the curtains.
"By Jove, you're right. There is a blaze somewhere, But isn't it rather near for the Castle?"
"It might be the Grange," said Parkins.
I was fain to agree that the Grange it might be. Somehow that seemed a place excellently laid for disaster. The announcement that the Grange was on fire brought Mrs. Arbuthnot to the window. Born under Mars, the star of my destiny is nothing if not a woman of action. In spite of her present rather lymphatic state she ordered the car round immediately. Within five minutes we were braving a dark and stormy December night.
The beacon growing ever brighter as we went, it did not take long to convince us that the Grange would be our destination. It is to be feared that we broke the law, for in something considerably under half an hour we had come to the home of the Fitzwarens.
A heartrending scene it was. The beautiful but always rather desolate old house, which dates from John o' Gaunt, seemed already doomed. A portion of it was even now in ruins and on all sides the flames were leaping up fiercely to the sky. Engines had not yet had time to come from Middleham, and the progress of the fire was appalling.
A number of servants and villagers had devoted themselves to the task of retrieving the furniture. On a lawn at some distance from the house an incongruous collection of articles had been laid out: a picture by Rubens side by side with a trouser-press; a piece of Sèvres cheek by jowl with a kitchen saucepan. Standing in their midst in the charge of a nurse was the small elf of four. Her eyes were sparkling and she was dancing and clapping her hands in delight at the spectacle. The nurse was in tears.
Mrs. Arbuthnot had not seen the creature before. But her instincts are swift and they are sure.
"Come with me," she said to the nurse. "Saunders will take you in the car to Dympsfield House. They will make up a bed for you in the day nursery and see that you get some warm food."
Hardly had the little girl suffered herself to be led away by the prospect of a new adventure before two men came towards the spot where I stood. They were grimy and dishevelled, and the upper part of their persons seemed to be enveloped in folds of wet blanket. They were staggering under a very large and unwieldy burden which was swathed in a material similar to that which they wore themselves.
With much care this object was deposited upon a Sheraton table, and then I found myself greeted by a familiar voice.
"Hullo, Arbuthnot! Didn't expect to see you here. Very good of you to come."
It was the voice of Fitz speaking with the almost uncannyinsoucianceof the wonderful night at Portland Place. He cast off the curious wrappings which encumbered his head, and said to his companion, who was in similar guise, "I'm afraid it has us beat. The sooner we get out of this kit the better."
There came an incoherent growl out of the folds of wet blanket.
"Why, Coverdale!" I said in astonishment.
"I think we ought to make a sporting dash for that Holbein," said the growl, becoming coherent. "That is, if you are quite sure it isn't a forgery."
"Personally I think it is," said Fitz, in his voice of unnatural calm. "But my father always believed it to be genuine."
"Better take the word of your father. Let us get at it."
It was the work of a moment to strip the wrappings off the retrieved masterpiece upon the Sheraton table.
"Can I help?" said I.
"If you want to be of use," said Fitz, "go and give the Missus a hand with the horses."
Leaving Fitz and Coverdale to make yet another entry into what seemed hardly less than a furnace of living fire, I made my way round to the stables. To approach them one had to be careful. The heat was intense; sparks and burning fragments were being flung a considerable distance by the gusts of wind, and masonry was crashing continually. The out-buildings had not yet caught, but with the wind in its present quarter it would only be the work of a few moments before they did so.
My recollection is of plunging, rearing and frightened animals, and of a commanding, all-pervading presence in their midst. Amid the throng of stable-hands, villagers, firemen and policemen who had now come upon the scene, it rose supreme, directing their energies and sustaining them with that imperious magnetism which she possessed beyond any creature I have ever seen. I heard it said afterwards that she alone had the power to induce the twelve horses to quit their loose boxes; that one by one she led them out, soothing and caressing them; and that so long as she was with them they showed comparatively little fear of the roaring furnace that was so near to them, but that no sooner were they handed over to others than they became unmanageable.
Certainly it was due to a consummate exhibition of her power that the horses were got out of their stalls without harm to themselves or to others. They were confided to the care of the friendly farmers of the neighbourhood, who, assembled in force, were working heroically to combat the flames. All night long the work of salvage went on, but in spite of all that could be done, even with the aid of numerous fire-engines from Middleham, nothing could save the old house. It burnt like tinder. By three o'clock that December morning it was a smouldering ruin, with only a few fragments of stone wall remaining.
At intervals during the night some of the Grange servants had been dispatched to Dympsfield House, with as many of the personal belongings of their master and mistress as they could collect. Our establishment is a modest one, but not for a moment did it occur to Mrs. Arbuthnot that it would be unable to offer sanctuary to those who needed it so sorely.
The fire had run its course and all were resigned to the inevitable when Mrs. Arbuthnot, without deigning to consult the nominal head of our household, made the offer of our hospitality to Fitz and his wife. At her own request she had previously forgone an introduction to "the circus rider from Vienna"; and now in these tragic December small hours she deemed such a formality to be unnecessary. Verily misfortune makes strange bedfellows!
If I must tell the truth, it surprised me to learn that the Fitzwarens had been prevailed upon to accept the hospitality of Dymspfield House. True, they were homeless; but, looking at the case impartially, it seemed to me that they had not been very generously treated by their neighbours. The foibles of "the circus rider from Vienna" had aroused a measure of covert hostility to which the most obtuse people could not have been insensible. Had the average ordinary married couple been in the case of Fitz and his wife, I do not think they would have yielded to Mrs. Arbuthnot's impulsive generosity.
The Fitzwarens, however, were far from being ordinary average people. Therefore, by a quarter to five that morning they had crossed our threshold; and as some recompense for the privations of that tragic night they were promptly regaled with a scratch meal of coffee and sandwiches.
One other individual, at his own suggestion, accompanied our guests to Dympsfield House. He was of a sinister omen, being no less a person than the Chief Constable of the county. His presence at the fire had been a matter for surprise. And when, as we were about to quit the unhappy scene, he came to me privately and said that if we could squeeze a corner for him in the car he should be glad to come with us, that surprise was not made less.
[1] In the opinion of Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins this passage fully guarantees the author's total ignorance of a very great proposition.
It was a little before six when the ladies retired in the quest of their lost repose. No sooner had they left us than we lit our pipes and drew our chairs up to the fire. In patience I awaited the riddle of the Chief Constable's presence being read to me.
"Arbuthnot,"—the great man sucked at his pipe pensively—"there are several things that Fitzwaren and I are agreed that you ought to know."
Fitz nodded his head in curt but rather sinister approval.
"Yes, tell him," he said.
"Before Fitzwaren accepted your hospitality," said the great man, "he asked my advice."
"Oh, really?" said I.
"And I think it only right to mention"—the air of the great man reminded me of my old tutor expounding a proposition in Euclid—"that it is upon my advice he has accepted it."
"I ought to feel honoured."
"Well, yes, perhaps you ought." The Chief Constable removed his pipe from his lips and tapped it upon an extremely dirty boot. "But whether you will feel honoured when you have heard all we have to say to you I am not so sure."
"Nor I," said Fitz.
"You see, Arbuthnot, we have a rather delicate problem to deal with. It is neither more nor less than the personal safety of the Princess."
"I hope," said I, "her Royal Highness will be at least as safe here as she would be anywhere else."
"That is the crux of the whole matter. Fitzwaren and I have come to the conclusion that, for the time being, the Princess will actually be safer in this house than she would be in any other."
"Really!"
"Our local police, acting in conjunction with Scotland Yard, hope to be able to ensure her safety, that is if she and her friends take reasonable care."
"You may depend upon it, Coverdale, that as far as my wife and I are concerned we shall do nothing to jeopardise it."
"That is taken for granted. But her present position is much more critical than perhaps you are aware."
"I know, of course, that Ferdinand the Twelfth is determined to have her back in Illyria."
"Yes, and further than that, the Republican Party is equally determined that she never shall go back to Illyria. The events of last night have furnished another proof of their sentiments."
"I don't understand."
"There is reason to believe that the destruction of the Grange is the work of an incendiary. That is to say, a bomb was thrown through one of the windows, as was the case at Blaenau recently. There can be no question that the object of the crime was to kill the Princess, as it was to kill the King, but in each case the business was bungled. In this instance, rather miraculously, not a soul was hurt, although the house, as you know, has been entirely destroyed. A bomb was thrown into the dining-room, but as dinner happened to be half an hour later than usual, nobody was there."
This grisly narrative gave me a sharp shock, I confess. And I must have betrayed my state of mind, for the Chief Constable favoured me with a smile of reassurance.
"Put your trust in the Middleshire police," said he, "with a little assistance from the Yard. They won't play that game twice with us, you can depend upon it. If the Yard had not been rather late with their information they would never have played it at all. Our people were actually on the way to the Grange when the outrage was committed."
For all the air of professional reassurance, the married man, the father of the family, and the county member was thoroughly alarmed.
"It is all very well, Coverdale, but what guarantee is there that even at this moment they are not dropping bombs into our bedrooms?"
"Four men in plain clothes are patrolling your park, and will continue to do so as long as the Princess remains under your roof."
It would have been ungrateful not to express relief for this official vigilance. But that it was felt in any substantial measure is more than I can affirm.
"Of course, my dear fellow," said Fitz, "now that you are in possession of all the facts of the case, you have a perfect right to withdraw the offer of your hospitality. Coverdale and I are agreed that it will do much to promote my wife's safety for the time being, because this house will be kept under continual observation. But as soon as I can make other arrangements I shall do so, of course. And if you really believe that the safety of your house and family is involved, we shall have no alternative but to go at once."
To what length ought we to carry our altruism? Here was a grave problem for the married man, the father of the family, and the county member. In spite of the opinion of the cool-headed and sagacious Coverdale, I could not allay the feeling that to harbour the "Stormy Petrel" was to incur a grave risk. But at the same time it was not in me to turn her adrift into the highways and hedges.
"Now that we have had due warning of what to expect," said Coverdale, "these gentry will not find it quite so easy to throw bombs in this country as they do in Illyria. And if I thought for one moment you were not justified in extending your hospitality to the Princess I should certainly say so."
Events are generally too strong for the humble mortals who are content to tread the path of mediocrity. We had already offered sanctuary to the Crown Princess of Illyria. A little painful reflection seemed to show that to revoke it now would be rather inhuman and rather cowardly. All the same, it was impossible to view with enthusiasm the prospect of four men in plain clothes continually patrolling the park.
"By the way," said the Chief Constable, "you will, I hope, treat this business of the bombs as strictly confidential. It won't help matters at all to find it in the morning papers."
"I appreciate that; but won't the servants be rather curious about those four sportsmen in plain clothes?"
"Ostensibly they are there to look after a gang of burglars who are expected in the neighbourhood."
"Not exactly a plausible story, I am afraid!"
"The story doesn't matter, so long as they don't suspect the truth. And as Mrs. Fitzwaren'sincognitohas been so well kept, there is no reason why they should."
So much for the latest development of this amazing situation. From the very moment the curtain had risen upon the first act of the tragi-comedy of the Fitzwarens I had seemed to be cast for the uncomfortablerôleof the weak soul in the toils of fate. From the beginning it had been contrary to the promptings of the small voice within that I had borne a part in their destinies. And here they were established under my roof, a menace to my household and the enemies of all peace of mind.
It only remained to make the best of things and to hope devoutly that Fitz would soon arrange to relieve us of the presence of the "Stormy Petrel." But in spite of all the dark knowledge it was necessary to keep locked up in one's heart, there was an aspect of the matter which was rather charming. To watch the lion and the lamb lying down together, a veritable De Vere Vane-Anstruther playing hostess to the fairequestriennefrom a continental circus was certainly pleasant.
I think it is up to me to admit that at the core Mrs. Arbuthnot is as sound as a bell. Certainly her demeanour towards her guests was faultless. Indeed, it made me feel quite proud of her to reflect that had she really known the true status of our visitor she could have done nothing more for her comfort and for that of herentourage. Her foibles were condoned and "her little foreign ways" were yielded to in the most gracious manner; and after dinner that evening it was a great moment when our distinguished guest volunteered to accompany on the piano her hostess's light contralto.
I took this to be symbolical of the complete harmony in which the day had been spent. Confirmation of this was forthcoming an hour later, when we had the drawing-room to ourselves.
"Really she is not half such a trial as I feared she would be," Mrs. Arbuthnot confessed.
"If you meet people fairly and squarely half-way," said I, in my favouriterôleof the hearthrug philosopher, "there are surprisingly few with whom you can't find something in common."
"Perhaps there is such a thing as being too fastidious."
"We are apt to draw the line a little close at times, eh?"
"Some of these Bohemians must be rather interesting in their way," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"No doubt they have some sort of a standard to which they try to conform," said I, with excellent gravity.
"Of course she is notexactlya lady. Yet in some ways she israthernice. Doesn't look at things in the way we do, of course. Awfully unconventional in some of her ideas."
"By unconventional you mean continental, I presume?"
"No, not continental exactly. At least, I was 'finished' in Dresden, but I didn't learn anything of that kind."
"Had you been 'finished' in an Austrian circus perhaps you might have done."
"I hardly think so. They don't seem to be ideas you could pick up. I should think you would have to be born with them. They seem somehow to belong to your past—to your ancestors."
"It has not occurred to me that circus-riders were troubled with ancestors."
"Hardly, perhaps, in the sense that we mean. But there is something rather fine in their way of looking at things."
"A good type of Bohemian would you say?"
"Surprisingly so in some ways. She doesn't seem to care a bit about money and she is absolutely devoted to Fitz. She doesn't seem to care a bit about jewels, either. She has got some positively gorgeous things, and if there is anything I care to have she hopes I'll take it. Of course I shall do nothing of the kind, but I should just love to have them all."
"She appears to have had her admirers in Vienna, evidently."
"That is what one can't make out. She has three tiaras, and they must be priceless."
"Nonsense,mon enfant. Even the glamour of the sawdust a thousand times reflected cannot transmute paste into the real thing."
"But the odd part of it is theyarereal. I am convinced of it; and Adèle, my maid, who was two years with dear Evelyn, is absolutely sure."
"Is it conceivable that the possessor of three diamond tiaras would choose to jump for a livelihood through a hoop in pink tights?"
"Yes, I know it's absurd. But nothing will convince me that her diamonds are not real."
"And she offered you the pick of them?"
"The pick of everything except the smallest of the three tiaras, which she thought perhaps her father might not like her to part with."
"One would have thought that he would at least have set his affections upon the largest of the three."
"Really, I can hardly swallow the circus."
"You haven't by any chance asked her the question?"
"Dear no! One wouldn't like to ask a question of that sort unless one knew her quite well. I don't think she was ever in a circus at all. Or if she was, she may have been a sort of foundling."
"Stolen by gipsies from the ancestral castle in her infancy. After all, there is nothing to prevent her father being a duke."
"I don't think it would surprise me, although, of course, she is rather odd. But then in all ways she is so different from us."
"Did you observe whether she ate with her knife and drank out of the finger-bowls?"
"Her manners are just like those of anybody else. I am asking Mary to dine here on Friday, so that she can see for herself. It is her ideas that are un-English; yet, judged by her own standard she might be considered quite nice."
"Mrs. Arbuthnot, surely a very generous admission!"
"Let us be fair to everybody. I'm not sure that one couldn't get almost to like her. There is something about her that seems to take right hold of you. Personal magnetism, I suppose."
"Or some uncomfortable Bohemian attribute? Can it be, do you suppose, that the standard the English gentlewoman likes the whole world to conform to would be none the worse for a little wider basis?"
"Don't be a goose! A person is either a lady or she isn't, but she may be frightfully entertaining and fascinating all the same."
"Yes, that has the hall-mark of truth. There are cases in history. Miss Dolly Daydream, for example, of the Frivolity Theatre."
Mrs. Arbuthnot reproved me for the levity with which I treated a grave issue. Upon the receipt of my apology she regaled me with the astounding fact that Mrs. Fitz looked down on the English.
"Is it conceivable?" said I, the picture of incredulity.
"Really and truly she does. Quite laughs at us. Says we are so stupid—sobête, that's her word. And she says we are so conceited. She seems to think we have very little education in the things that really matter."
"Is she old-fashioned enough to believe that there is anything that really matters?"
"In a way she does."
"How antediluvian! What does she believe it is that really matters?"
"She seems to think it's the soul."
"Dear me! I hope you made it clear to her that that part of the Englishman's anatomy is never mentioned in good society?"
"She knows that, I think. She says why the Romans are ashamed of it is what she can't fathom."
"She pays us the compliment of comparing us to the Romans?"
"She says we are the Romans."
"In a re-incarnation, I presume?"
"I suppose she means that—she is so awfully odd. And for the Romans to give themselves airs is too ridiculous."
"Has she no opinion of the Cæsars?"
"The Cæsars don't amount to much, in her opinion. We are going to have another lesson before long, she says, and it will be a very good thing for the world."
"If by that she means that materialism leads to acul-de-sac, and that it takes a better creed than that to raise a reptile out of the mud, perhaps we might do worse than agree with her."
"She certainly never said anything about any 'isms.' But I don't understand you anyway."
"It seems to me,mon enfant, she has had a good deal to say about the 'isms.' But then, as you say, she's so foreign. Was there anything else about her that engaged your attention?"
"Heaps of things. She is terribly superstitious, a tremendous believer in fate. She thinks everything is fore-ordained, and that the same things keep happening over again."
"Doesn't her oddness strike you as rather out of date?"
"Absurdly. But it is not so much her ideas as the way she lives up to them that makes her so different from other people. There was one thing she told me really made me laugh. She said that Nevil was her twin-soul, and that they lived in Babylon together about three thousand years ago."
"I should think that is not unlikely."
"Be serious, Odo."
"There are more things in earth and heaven, Horatia, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Go to bed like a wise child, and dream of hunting the fox, and see that this Viennese horsewoman doesn't addle that brain too much."
Mrs. Arbuthnot confessed namely that she didn't feel in the least like sleep.
"I think I'll have another cigarette," she said.
"Sitting up late and smoking to excess will destroy that magnificent De Vere Vane-Anstruther nerve."
"Goose! Yet I am not sure that this circus woman hasn't destroyed it already. Do you know, I've never been in the least afraid of anybody before, but I rather think I'm a bit afraid of her. She really is wonderfully odd."
A slight tremor seemed to invade the voice of Mrs. Arbuthnot. I was fain to believe that such a display of sensibility was extremely honourable to her. For, even judged as a mere human entity, our guest was quite apart from the ordinary, and it would have implied a measure of obtuseness not to recognise that fact.
Taking one consideration with another, I felt the hour was ripe to let Mrs. Arbuthnot into the secret. As things were going so well, it was perhaps not strictly necessary; yet at the same time I had a premonition that I should not be forgiven if the wife of my bosom was kept too long in innocence of our visitor's romantic lineage.
"That cigarette of yours," said I, "means another pipe for me, although you know quite well that it makes me so bad-tempered in the morning. But I think I ought to tell you something—that is if you will swear by all your gods not to breathe a word to a living soul, not even to Mary Catesby."
Mrs. Arbuthnot pricked up her ears properly.
"Why, of course. You mean it is something about this Mrs. Fitz? I know it."
"What do you know?"
"I can't explain it, but as soon as I spoke to her it came upon me that she was something quite deep and mysterious."
"Well, it happens that she is. Things are not always what they seem. I am going to give you a guess."
"There is something Grand-Duchessy about her. You remember that woman we met at Baden-Baden? In some ways she is rather like her."
"And do you remember your old friend the King of Illyria?—'the old johnny with the white hair,' to quote Joseph Jocelyn De Vere."
"The dear old man in the Jubilee procession?"
"The Victor of Rodova; the representative of the oldest reigning monarchy in Europe."
"Yes, yes. Such an old dear."
"Well, our friend Mrs. Fitz happens to be his only child, the Heiress Apparent to the throne of Illyria. What have you to say to that?"
For the moment Mrs. Arbuthnot had nothing at all to say, but she looked as though a feather would have knocked her over.
"It is a small world, isn't it,mon enfant?"
"It really is the oddest thing out!" Mrs. Arbuthnot's feminine organisation was quite tense. "It doesn't surprise me, and yet it is really too queer."
"Ridiculously queer that humdrum people like us should be entertaining royalties unawares."
"Not nearly so queer as that she should have married Nevil Fitzwaren. How did she come to marry him?"
"They are twin-souls who lived in Babylon three thousand years ago."
"That is merely silly."
"My authority is her Royal Highness."
"Fancy the Crown Princess of Illyria running off with a man like Fitz!"
"There is reason to suppose that he makes her happy."
"Why, one day she will be Queen of Illyria!"
"She may be or she may not."
"Well, I can't believe it anyway! There is no proof."
"There is no proof beyond herself. And I confess that to me she carries conviction."
For an instant Mrs. Arbuthnot knitted her brows in the process of thought. She then concurred with a perplexed little sigh.
"But how dreadfully awkward it will be," she said in a kind of rapture, "for poor dear Mary Catesby!"
Pledged to secrecy, Mrs. Arbuthnot earned a meed of praise for her behaviour during a crowded and glorious epoch. If you entertain the Crown Princess of an active and potent monarchy it is reasonable to expect that things will happen.
Things did happen in some profusion during the sojourn of her Royal Highness at Dympsfield House. Owing to the course taken by events which I shall have presently to narrate, that sojourn was prolonged indefinitely. The resources of our modest establishment were taxed to the uttermost, but throughout a really trying period it is due to Mrs. Arbuthnot to say that she was a model of tact, discretion, and natural goodness.
She would have been unworthy the name of woman—a title not without pretensions to honour, as sociologists inform us—had she not literally burned to communicate her knowledge of the true identity of "the circus rider from Vienna." But some compensation was culled from the fact that her co-workers in the cause of the Public Decency grew increasingly lofty in their point of view. Even the promptings of a healthy human curiosity would not permit Mrs. Catesby to eat at our board in order that she might see for herself. Mournfully that woman of an unblemished virtue shook her head over us.
"It was not kind to dear Evelyn. It was right, of course, to sympathise with the Fitzwarens in their misfortune. But the place was old, and George understood that it was covered by insurance. And fortunately all the pictures that were worth anything—and some that were not—had been saved. But to take them under one's wing as we had done was quixotic and bound to give offence. Besides, that kind of person would be quite in her element at the village inn, the Coach and Horses."
Nevertheless, Mrs. Arbuthnot bore every reproof with a stoical fortitude. What it cost her "not to give away the show," to indulge in the phrase of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere, it would be idle to estimate. But she was true to the oath she had sworn on the night of the great revelation. Not to a living soul did she yield her secret.
To Jodey himself what he was pleased to call "the royal visit" was a matter for undiluted joy. It is true that he was turned out of his bedroom, the best in the house, which commands an unrivalled view of Knollington Gorse, and had to be content with humbler quarters; but our Bayard was so perfectlyau courantwith all that had happened, even unto the presence of the four men in plain clothes in the shrubbery, that the situation was much to his taste.
When the Princess was not herself present, it pleased him to treat the whole thing as a matter for somewhat laborious satire.
"Ain't you got a bit o' red carpet and an awning for the front steps, Mops? And why don't Odo sport his order at dinner? Can't see the use, myself, in having an order if you don't sport it for royalty. Must put your best leg first. Buck up a bit, old gal, else her Royal 'Ighness will think you haven't been used to it. Anyhow, you must tell Parkins to be damn careful how he decants that '63."
In the presence of Mrs. Fitz, however, the demeanour of my relation by marriage was not unlike that of a linesman standing at attention on a field day. His deportment was so fearfully correct in every detail; his attire so extraordinarily nice—he discarded gay waistcoats and brilliant neckties as being hardly "the thing"—his hair was groomed so marvellously, and he was so overpoweringly polite that it was a source of wonder how the young fellow contrived to maintain the standard he had prescribed for himself.
It was a period of anxiety, yet it was not without its interest. In a very short time Mrs. Arbuthnot had divined theraison d'êtreof the four men in the park, but this did nothing to impair her sense of hospitality. Fitz did not favour us with much of his company except in the evening. During the day his energies were absorbed with the arrangements for the rebuilding of the Grange, and, as I gathered, with further provisions for the safety of his wife. All the same, limited as was the time at his disposal, it was our privilege to watch him sustain the domestic character.
Whatever the incongruity of their fortunes, it was clear that Fitz and his wife had a genuine devotion for one another. And in spite of their apartness and the idea they conveyed of living entirely to themselves without reference to the lives of humbler mortals, each seemed to possess a quality worthy to inspire it. In a measure I was privileged to share their confidence during the time they stayed under our roof; and it was characteristic of them both that at heart they had a rather charming and childlike frankness. Each of them revealed unexpected qualities.
I think I am entitled to say that I never shared the hostility they seemed to arouse in others. All his life long Fitz, as far as I had known him, had been condemned to play the part of the black sheep. Partly it may have been due to his habit of refusing to go with the tide; of his declared hatred of any kind of a majority. He had always been a law unto himself, and had given a very free rein to his personality. To me he had ever stood revealed as one capable of anything; of the greatest good or of the greatest evil; and to behold him now in the domestic circle, in close affinity with the magnetic being in whom the whole of his life was centred, was to find him endowed with a charm and a fascination which had no place in the nature of the Nevil Fitzwaren that was seen by the eyes of the world.
To me there was something beautiful and also a little pathetic in the relationship which seemed to exist between these two diverse souls. Their implicit faith in the rightness of each other, their sense of adequacy, was a very rare thing. So many of the ignoble things of life, questions of material expediency, of shallow prejudice, of partial judgment, they seemed to have ruled out altogether. And this could not have been otherwise if one reflected that a veritable kingdom of this world was the price that had been paid for this true fellowship.
My previous encounters with Mrs. Fitz had been of a somewhat trying nature. But on the domestic hearth she was much less formidable. The impetuous arrogance which had proved so disconcerting to everybody was not so much in evidence. Her charm seemed to become rarefied as it grew more humane. The childlike directness of her point of view began to emerge more and more and to enhance her fascination; indeed, her way of looking at things became a perpetual delight to such sophisticated minds as ours.
Her total inability to take us seriously was quite piquant. Our England and all that was in it amused her vastly. She would compare it to an enchanted land in one of Perrault's fairy-tales. But our code of life, our manners and customs, our ideals, our mechanical contrivances and, above all, our solemnity concerning them, never failed to appeal to her sense of humour.
It was my especial pleasure to converse with her after dinner. I should not say that the art of conversation was her strong point, and it was not until she had been a week in our midst that I was able to come to anything approaching close quarters with her. But it was worth making the effort to get past the barrier that was unconsciously erected by her air of disillusion, of patient, plaintive tolerance.
There was a quaint definiteness about her ideas. Touching all questions that had real significance her thinking seemed to have been done for her generations ago. All that lay outside the life of the emotions was to her the wearisome iteration of a constitutional practice, a necessary but somewhat painful part of the order of things.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about her was her humility. The pomp of kingship was to her the hollowest of all chimeras. It merely resolved itself into the guardianship of a profoundly ignorant, an undeveloped and an extremely thankless proletariat. "Hélas!poor souls, they don't know what is good," was a phrase she used with a maternal sigh. The divine right of kings was part and parcel of the cosmic order; a fact as pregnant and inviolable as the presence of the sun and the planets in the firmament. To be called to the state of kingship was an extremely honourable condition, "but you had always to be praying." It was also honourable and not so irksome to be an unregarded unit of the proletariat.
I am not sure, but I incline to the belief, that the fact that I had a seat in the House enabled her to support my curiosity with more tolerance than she might have done had I been without some sort of official sanction. She regarded me as a chosen servant ofle bon roi Edouard; either my own personal grace or that of my kindred had commended itself to the guardian of the state.
"Are not," said I, "the members of the Illyrian Parliament elected by the people?"
"Yes, my father gave the people the franchise in 1890, and the nobles have never forgiven him. So now the people choose their sixty deputies out of a list he draws up for their guidance; the lords of the land choose another sixty from among themselves; and then, as so often happens, if the two Chambers cannot agree, the King gives advice."
"The King of Illyria has heavy duties!"
"My father loves hard work."
"Are you troubled, ma'am, with a democratic movement in Illyria, as all the rest of Europe appears to be at the present time?"
The gesture of her Royal Highness was one of pity.
"Hélas, poor souls!"
It was delicate ground upon which to tread. But the fascination of such an inquiry lured me on where doubtless the canons of good taste would have had me stay.
"Would you not say, ma'am, your Republican Party was a menace to the state?"
"They don't know what is good, poor souls." Her voice was gentle. "They will have to learn."
"Will the King be the means of teaching them?"
"Hélas!he is too old. It must be left to fate. Poor souls, poor souls!"
During the sojourn of her Royal Highness at Dympsfield House, we saw a good deal of the Chief Constable of our county. In a sense he had made himself responsible for the safety of us all. His vigilance was great, and its unobtrusiveness was part of the man. No precaution was neglected which could minister to our security; and he gave his personal attention to matters of detail which less thorough-going individuals might have considered to be beneath their notice.
He was particularly insistent that the Princess should give up her hunting, and that she should confine the scope of her activities, as far as possible, to the grounds of the house. To this she was not in the least amenable. An out-and-out believer in fate, and a subscriber to the doctrine of what has to be will be, the bullets of the anarchist had no terrors for her. To Coverdale's annoyance, she continued to hunt in spite of his solemn and repeated warnings. And when he was moved to remonstrate with Fitz upon the subject, he met with the reply, "She pleases herself entirely."
"But, my dear fellow," said the Chief Constable, "surely you must know that she is exposing herself to grave risks."
"If a thing seems good to her she does it," was Fitz's unprofitable rejoinder.
The great man was frankly annoyed.
"That is very wrong, to my mind," he said with some heat. "It is unfair to those who have made themselves responsible for her safety."
"It is a question of free-will," said Fitz, "and she knows far more about that than most people. And when it comes to a matter of choosing right, she has a special faculty."
So inconclusive a reply merely ministered to the wrath of the Chief Constable, who in private complained to me bitterly.
"I wish to heaven they would quit the country," he said. "They are a source of endless worry and expense. We do all we can to help them, and I must say the Yard is wonderful, yet they can't be induced to take the most elementary precautions. I regret now, Arbuthnot, that I urged you to shelter them. I had hoped they were rational and sensible people, but I now find they are not."
"You think, Coverdale, the danger is as real as ever?"
"Frankly I do. Ferdinand the Twelfth has played it up so high in Illyria that the Republicans are determined to make an end of the monarchy."
"But didn't she renounce her right to the throne when she married Fitz?"
"In effect she may have done so, but the Illyrian law of succession will not contemplate such an act. Ferdinand makes no secret of the fact, apparently, that he will compel her to marry the Archduke Joseph, and that she must succeed to the throne."
"How is it possible for him to give effect to his will?"
"He is a strong man, and if he sets his mind upon a particular course of action few have been able to deny him."
"Then you think her marriage with Fitz is merely an episode in what is likely to be a brilliant but stormy career?"
"Always provided it is not cut short by one of those bullets it is our duty to anticipate. I can only tell you that the Foreign Office is now very anxious to get her out of the country, and that if they dared they would deport her."
"Ho, ho!"
An academic admirer of our constitutional practice, I was fain to indulge in a whistle.
"And, strictly between ourselves," said the Chief Constable, "if only the right government were in, deported she would be."
"A fine proceeding, I am bound to say, for a country with our pretensions to liberalism!"
"Under the rose, of course." The Chief Constable permitted himself a dour smile. "I daresay it would make a precedent, and yet one is not so sure about that. But one thing I am sure about, and that is that some of us are devilish unpopular in high places. They would not be averse from making things rather warm for certain individuals who shall be nameless. They are pretty well agreed that we ought to have kept our fingers out of the pie. As old L. said to me yesterday, she has got to leave the country, and the sooner she goes the better it will be for all concerned."
All this tended to bring no comfort to the married man, the father of the family, and the county member. If anything, it deepened his anxiety.
It is only just to state, however, that this feeling was not shared by Mrs. Arbuthnot. To be sure, she was not acquainted with all that happened. But as far as she was concerned the element of danger in the case was an essential and rather delightful concomitant to its romance.
The Vane-Anstruther hyper-sensitiveness to that mysterious ideal "good form" rendered it necessary that Mrs. Arbuthnot should perform a volte-face. This she proceeded to do with really amazing completeness and efficiency. No sooner was the true identity of our visitor established, than, as far as the ruler of Dympsfield House was concerned, there was an end of the circus rider from Vienna and all her works. The ingrained Vane-Anstruther reverence for royalty, due I have ever been led to believe to an uncle who held a Household appointment, received full play. The lightest whim of the Princess—except before the servants it was ever the Princess—was law.
Mrs. Arbuthnot did not go without a reward. Such an incursion did she make upon the royal regard that in a surprisingly short time she was addressed as Irene, and about the end of the first week of the visit the intelligence was confided to me that the Princess had asked to be called Sonia. Without a doubt we were living in a crowded and glorious epoch. And I do not think its glamour was in any degree impaired by the strictures of the world.
It is not too much to say that the Crackanthorpe ladies were scandalised by the open and flagrant treason of Mrs. Arbuthnot. She had taken the queen of the sawdust into the bosom of her family. Together they hunted the fox; together they overrode the Crackanthorpe Hounds. Loud and bitter were the lamentations of Mrs. Catesby. The whole county shook its head.
Mrs. Arbuthnot wore the crown of martyrdom with extraordinary grace and nerve. Her conduct in public was marked by a cynical impropriety, a flagrant audacity at which the world rubbed its eyes and wondered.
"I really believe," said Mrs. Catesby one day as together we made our way home through the January twilight, "that if Irene belonged to me I should chastise her. Can you be unaware that she allows the creature to call her by her first name? And Laura Glendinning assures me that with her own ears she heard her address her as Matilda, or whatever the name is she received in baptism."
"Yes, it's a desperate situation," I agreed, with a sigh which had perhaps a greater sincerity than it was allowed the credit.
"I hold you entirely responsible," said the Great Lady. "And so does everybody who knows the true facts of the case. That deplorable evening at the Savoy—and now you actually find her house-room in order that she may demoralise your wife! What a merciful thing it is that your dear, good, devoted mother, the most refined of women, is no longer with us! By the way, Odo, I suppose you have heard that there is some talk of asking you to resign your seat?"
"That is news to me, my dear Mary, I assure you."
"The Vicar thinks you ought. He seems to think that if you have any Christian feeling about things you will do so on your own initiative."
"It is so like the Church of England not to realise that by the time a man reaches the age of forty he has gone over to Buddha."
"I don't know in the least what you mean, but I hope it is nothing improper. But I can assure you that the Vicar's opinion is shared by others. The Castle is dreadfully wounded. Poor dear Evelyn will never forgive it—never! No more fishing in Scotland and no more shooting. At any rate, it will be a mere waste of time and money for you to stand again."
It only remained for me to agree very cordially with Mrs. Catesby, and to confess to surprise that my constituents had not made the discovery sooner.
"But," said I, cheerfully, "here we are at that fine example of late Jacobean art known as Dympsfield House. I would that I could prevail upon you, Mary, to honour our guest by drinking a cup of tea in her presence. It would be a graceful act which I am sure we should all appreciate."
"I have a conscience, Odo Arbuthnot," said the Great Lady, with a severity of mien that rendered the announcement superfluous. "Also I have some kind of a standard of morals, manners and general conduct which I strive to live up to."
At the gate I saidau revoirto the outraged matron. Having disposed of my horse, I made my way indoors. The ladies had come home in the car and were at the tea-table already. Among a number of other weaknesses which go with a strong infusion of the feminine temperament, I confess to a decided partiality for the cup which cheers yet does not inebriate.
Mrs. Arbuthnot was pouring out the tea and her Royal Highness was standing in front of the fire. She was reading a letter, and to judge by her brilliantly expressive countenance, its contents were affording a good deal of exercise for her emotions.
"I wish, Sonia, I could convert you to cream and sugar," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, declining to entrust the cup to my care, but rising importantly and personally handing it to the occupant of the hearthrug.
"Oh, no, t'ank you. Lemonà la Russe. What a people to take cream and sugar in their tea!"
She enforced her idea of the absurdity by giving Mrs. Arbuthnot a playfully affectionate pinch of the ear.
"I have a piece of news for you, my child. Now, you must not laugh."
"Oh, no, Sonia, I will not laugh."
The somewhat exaggerated note of Mrs. Arbuthnot's obedience was not unlike that of the model girl of the class being examined by the head mistress.
"Now, Irene, be quite good. Not even a smile." The Princess held up a finger of mock imperiousness. "Dis is most serious. Shall I tell you now, or shall I to-morrow tell you?"
"Oh, please, please," piped Mrs. Arbuthnot, "please tell me at once. Is it those absurd Republicans?"
"Oh no, my child; it is something much more interesting. My father is on his way to England."
In sheer exultation Mrs. Arbuthnot gave a little leap into the air.
"O-oh!" she gasped.
"Think of it, my child! The royal and august one coming to this funny little island, where everything is according to Perrault. He is coming with old Schalk."
"O-oh!" gasped Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"You don't know Schalk. Wait till you have seen Schalk and then you will die. He will kill you quite. He looks like dis, and he walks so."
Her Royal Highness made a face that was really comic and took a few steps across the carpet in imitation of Schalk going to the House of Deputies.
"Are theyreallycoming?"
"On Thursday they arrive at Southampton."
"They will go straight to Windsor, of course?"
"Oh no, my child; it is not a visit of state. It is quite a secret, what you callincognito. The king is coming to make obedient his wicked daughter.Helas!"
With tragic suddenness the Princess dropped her voice and the laughter died in her eyes. But Mrs. Arbuthnot was too far deeply engrossed in her own wild and extravagant thoughts to pay heed to the change.
"But if the King does not go to Windsor, where else can he go?" said she. "An hotel doesn't seem right, somehow, although, of course, there are some rather nice ones in London."
"I think, my child," said the Princess, "it were best that my father came to us. They have anarchists in London. Besides, I insist that you see Schalk. He will make you laugh until you shed tears."
It was as much as ever Mrs. Arbuthnot could do to keep herself in hand.
"Oh, Sonia," she cried, "do you really think the King will come to us?"
"Mais oui, certainement, that is his intention. But it is a secret, a grand secret, you must not fail to remember.Le bon roi Edouardmust not know he is in this country. His name will be Count Zhygny; and perhaps our good Odo here will be able to find him a little shooting. Hares, partridges, anything that goes on four legs will amuse him; and you must never forget, my good Odo, that he is the best player atBritchin Illyria. Now mind you don't play very high, or he will ruin you. And so will Schalk."
"I thank you, ma'am, for the information," said I, gravely.