When the old man returned with this sustenance for the material state, I was moved to inquire how it was that such an intellectual rawhead and bloodybones as this too-assiduous diver into the sunless sea of the occult should subscribe to a journal of such a texture and complexion.
"Is it, Peacock, do you suppose, that, like Francis the first Lord Verulam, he would take all knowledge for his province?"
"He goes racing, sir," said Peacock, not without a suggestion of pride. "And, what is more, sir, he wins so much money that none of the bookmakers will have anything to do with him these days if they can help it. Why, do you know, sir, he has given me the name of the winner of the Derby three years running a whole fortnight before the race."
"Did you reconcile it with your conscience, Peacock, to back the horse?"
"Not the first time, sir, because, you see, I was hardly convinced it would win. It was a new fad with him then. But when I found it did win, and he gave me the tip the next year, it seemed to be flying in the face of providence, as it were, to throw away the chance, so I had on a sovereign and won nine pounds ten."
"And the third time, Peacock?"
"The third time, sir, I made it five and I won forty. And if I can stand his goings on, sir, until next Epsom week, and he gives me the tip again, I intend to put on all my savings."
I had scarcely the heart to ask the old fellow what his conscience had to say in the matter. Doubtless it was one of those organisms that only responded to the call of the higher metaphysics. It was a patrician conscience, no doubt, which only concerned itself with the ultimate.
Anyhow, before I could gratify my curiosity on this point, the re-emergence of my Uncle Theodore saved his retainer from an inquiry. A glance at my watch convinced me that we had not a moment to lose if we were to catch the 5.28 from the Grand Central station.
Uncle Theodore took an almost paternal leave of his visitor. He conducted her to the taxicab which awaited us; and in a voice of gentleness, of winning deference, he bade her God-speed. When she offered him her hand, as it seemed almost timidly, he pressed it to his lips.
"Fear nothing," I heard him say under his breath softly, and I thought the unhappy lady smiled wanly with her great gaunt eyes.
As I was about to enter the cab, Theodore placed his hand on my shoulder.
"Look after her, my dear boy." His voice had the fervour of a benediction.
My companion appeared to have shed much of her distraction in the course of her interview with the weird inhabitant of Bryanston Square. The sovereignty of the soul seemed once more in her keeping. No longer did she convey the impression of one passing through an insupportable mental crisis. Whatever fate had in store for her, it was as though she had strength to endure it.
It was in the nature of a race against time to the Grand Central station. I had promised the driver of our taxi a substantial guerdon if he caught the train. Undoubtedly he did his best, but fate decreed that he was not to earn it. An anxious study of my watch revealed the issue to be still in the balance; but just as it began to seem that we were gaining a little on the clock, there came a sharp report, followed by an almost simultaneous crash of glass, and then a confused succession of happenings.
Our vehicle stopped abruptly; a brief interval of nothingness seemed to intervene; and the next thing of which I was cognisant was that the lights had gone out and that a man with a pale face and a straw-coloured moustache was looking in at us through the window.
"Hope you are not hurt, sir." The voice sounded remote, but I could detect its note of anxiety. "Is the lady all right?"
Somewhat dazed, almost as if I were passing through a dream, I heard the voice of my companion speaking with calmness and reassurance. Then I heard the voice of the man again:
"I am afraid your Royal Highness will have to go on in another taxi."
And then the door opened, and I got out unsteadily and found myself in the midst of much traffic and a press of people. I then grew conscious that some of these had a way with them, and that they were directing things with a sort of calm officiousness.
My dazed senses welcomed the helmet of a policeman.
"Call a taxi, please," said I, addressing him in a voice that somehow did not seem to belong to me. "Must catch the 5.28 Grand Central, whatever happens. Will give you my card."
As I spoke I turned to help my companion out of the vehicle, and in the act nearly measured my length on the kerb. Strong and sympathetic hands seemed to come about me, and again the voice of the man with the straw-coloured moustache sounded in my ear, decisive but kindly and respectful.
"There is a doctor across the road, sir. Can you walk, sir? Lean your weight on me."
"5.28 Grand Central," was my incoherent, almost involuntary rejoinder. "The Princess."
"Yes, yes, sir," said the voice of my friend in need breaking in again on my senses. "The Princess will be all right with us."
Almost as if by magic a passage was made for us through the whirlpool of traffic. We seemed to be in the middle of a street that appeared quite familiar, and policemen and extremely efficient persons in dark overcoats seemed to abound.
"The Princess," I continued to mutter vaguely at intervals.
"I am with you," said a low and calm voice at my side.
She was helping my unknown friend to support me across the road. By some subtle means her nearness seemed to brace and stimulate my faculties.
"I fear we shall not catch the 5.28, ma'am," I said.
"Whatdoesit matter?" The tone of her voice seemed to give me strength and capacity.
A few yards away, down a side street, was the house of a doctor. It seemed but a very little while before I was in a cosy, well-lighted room, with a fire burning cheerfully, and a tall, genial individual with a red head and a Scotch accent was talking to me and holding me by the arm.
"Pray sit down, madam," I heard him say in his pleasant brogue. "I hope you are none the worse for your accident?"
"Not at all, t'ank you," replied my companion in a cordial tone; and then the man who had taken charge of me was heard to say to a colleague who had followed us into the house, "Perhaps the Doctor will allow you to use his telephone, Mr. Johnson. Ring up the Superintendent and then go and see what Inspector Mottrom is doing."
The Doctor gave me a bottle to sniff, and then for the first time I realised that I had an intolerable stinging in the arm. I glanced at it and saw that the sleeve of my coat was soaked with blood.
"If you will come into the surgery," said the Doctor, following the direction of my glance, "we will have a look at it. A breakage of glass, apparently."
"Yes," said my friend in need, who was evidently a Scotland Yard inspector, answering for me promptly, "the cab was pretty well smashed up." Then he added in an undertone for my private ear, "Don't mention the shots, sir. I am going to telephone to the railway people to arrange for a special train as soon as you are ready to go on. I think it will be safer, and two of our inspectors will accompany the train."
"Thank you very much indeed," I said, gratefully.
Never until that moment had I fully realised the organised efficiency of the Metropolitan Police.
As soon as I entered the surgery I came perilously near to a fall on the carpet, somewhat to my disgust, for I appeared to have sustained no injury beyond the damage to my arm. Further recourse, however, to the smelling-bottle defeated this temporary weakness.
After traversing the injured member with light and deft fingers, the Doctor procured a bowl of warm water, a sponge and a pair of scissors. He cut away the sleeve of the overcoat, then of the coat and the shirt, revealing a state of things at which I had no wish to look. After the application of an antiseptic in warm water he was able to give an opinion.
"I am afraid," he said, "this is not the work of glass." He worked over the quivering flesh with a finger. "A bullet has been at work here. It has glanced along the lower arm apparently, but it does not appear to have lodged in it. An incised wound. There may be a fracture. Can you move your arm in this way?"
With this request I was able somewhat painfully to comply.
"That is good," said the Doctor. "No fracture."
It was surprising how soon and how readily the injured member yielded to the deft skill of this good Samaritan. Twenty minutes of assiduous treatment, which, however, was fraught with some pain, as it included the operation of stitching, did much not only for the damaged limb but also for its owner. By that time I seemed to have quite overcome the shock of these events; and with my arm encased in bandages and resting in a black silk handkerchief, and the good Doctor having lent me an overcoat to replace my own mutilated one, I was given a pretty stiff brandy-and-soda and pronounced fit to travel.
"It is undoubtedly the work of a bullet," said the Doctor at the end of his labours. "But I suppose it is no business of mine. If I am not mistaken, the men who brought you here are Scotland Yard detectives."
I smiled at the Doctor's perspicacity and asked him to be good enough to take a card out of my cigar-case.
"Some day, perhaps, I shall be able to explain to you what the accident really was and how it came to happen. In the meantime I cannot do more than thank you most sincerely for all that you have done for me."
There and then I took leave of this true friend, and with a sense of devout thankfulness that I was no worse off than I was, continued the journey to the Grand Central station. When at last we came to that well-known terminus the great clock over the entrance was pointing to five minutes past six.
Our arrival there seemed an event of some importance, to judge by the demeanour of a number of people who appeared to take an interest in it. Indeed, so much respectful attention did it excite that it seemed to be rather in the nature of an anti-climax to have to pay our Jehu.
As soon as we had entered the booking-hall no less a personage than the station-master, frock-coated and gold-laced, came up to us and took off his hat.
"Train ready to start, sir, as soon as her Royal Highness desires. Platform No. 5. This way, sir, if you will kindly follow me."
We passed along to Platform No. 5, engaging as we did so the good-humoured interest of the British Public. Here a special saloon was awaiting us, also a carriage for the accommodation of our friends from Scotland Yard. By a quarter past six we had started on our journey.
My companion had borne all our vicissitudesen routefrom Bryanston Square with the greatest fortitude and composure. It was no new experience for her chequered life to be exposed to the bullets of the assassin. This latest effort of the King's enemies she appeared to regard with stoical indifference. Even in the shock of the calamity itself she did not lose her self-possession. And through all our tribulations her attitude of maternal solicitude was charmingly sincere.
As I came to regard her from the opposite corner in our special saloon, it was clear that a great change had been wrought in her by the visit to the magician of Bryanston Square. It was a change wholly for the better. In lieu of the overwrought intensity which had been so painful for her friends to notice, was that calm and assured outlook upon the world of men and things which had ever been her predominant characteristic in so far as we had known her.
"Irene will scold me dreadfully," she said, "for bringing you home like this."
"Surely it is the reverse of the case, ma'am. Instead of me looking after you, I really don't know what I should have done without your help."
"My poor Odo, you won't be able to hunt for a month at least."
"Perhaps it is for the best. I shall have more time to think about the dragon of socialism which is threatening to devour us all."
"Even here you have that disease"—there was a half-humorous lift of the royal eyebrow—"even in this quaint place. Why, it is a disease that is spreading all over the world. If only the dear people would understand that it was never intended that they should think for themselves; that it is so much wiser, so much less expensive, so much more profitable in every way that they should have those who are used to policy to think for them! How can Jacques Bonhomme, dear, good, ignorant, stupid fellow, know what is good for him, what is good for his country, what is good for Europe, what is good for the whole world!"
"The trouble, ma'am, as far as this island is concerned, is that our Jacques is becoming such a shrewd, sensible personage, who is learning to go about with his eyes uncommonly wide open."
"Ants and bees and dogs and horses, my good Odo, are shrewd and sensible enough, but Jacques must learn to keep his place. Everything is good in its degree, but I cannot believe that a watchmaker is fitted to wind up the clock of state any more than a common soldier is fitted to win the day of Rodova."
"Ah, the day of Rodova! I wonder if we shall find the Victor waiting for us when we get back to Dympsfield House."
I thought a faint cloud passed over the brows of my companion.
"Mais, oui," she said in a soft, low tone. "I wonder. And old Schalk. He is such a character. You will die when you see Schalk."
"A very able minister, is he not, ma'am?"
"Like all things, my good Odo," said her Royal Highness, "Schalk is good in his degree. He has his virtue. He is learned in the law, for instance, but there are times when, like poor Jacques Bonhomme, Schalk would aspire to take more on his shoulders than nature intended they should bear. But there, do not let us complain about Schalk. He is the faithful servant of an august master; do not let us blame him if he grows old and difficult. I once had a hound that grew like Schalk. In the end I had to destroy the honest creature, but of course that is not to say my father will destroy Schalk."
"Quite so, ma'am," said I, with a grave appreciation of the fine distinction that it might please his Majesty to draw in the case of Baron von Schalk.
I relapsed into reverie. What kind of a man was this celebrated sovereign? How would he harmonise with the humble middle-class English setting to which he was on the point of confiding himself? At this stage it was vain to repine, but as I reclined on the cushions of our royal saloon, with my arm throbbing intolerably and my temples too, what would I not have given to be through with the onerous duty of entertaining such a guest!
As thus I sat with our train proceeding full steam ahead to Middleham, my nerves began to rise up in mutiny. Why, oh, why! had I not been firmer? What could a comparative child, without the slightest experience of any walk of life save her own extremely circumscribed one, know of the exigencies of such a situation? How could she appreciate all that was involved in it? A kind of mental nausea came upon me when I realised that I had allowed myself to become responsible for the personal safety and the general well-being of the King of Illyria during his sojourn in England.
The anxieties in which his daughter had involved us were severe enough, but in the case of her father they seemed a hundred times more complex. Certainly they were far too much to ask of any private individual in the middle station of life. It was in vain that I invoked an incipient sense of humour. Sitting alone with a Crown Princess in a special train, with a bullet wound in your arm, is not apparently an ideal situation in which to exercise it. I might laugh as much as I liked at poor George Dandin himself. His embarrassments in the pass to which his wife's infatuation for realms beyond their own had brought him might be truly comic, but the married man, the father of the family, and the county member was quite unable, in his present shattered condition, to accept them with the detachment due to the true Olympian laughter.
Not to put too fine a point upon the matter, the married man, the father of the family, and the county member was in an enfeebled mental, physical and moral state when our special made its first stop. With a startled abruptness I emerged from my unpleasant speculations. Could we be at Middleham already? Hardly, for according to my watch it was only ten minutes past seven. I let down the window and found that it was Risborough.
In about a minute the guard of the train, the local station-master, and the two detectives who were accompanying us as far as Middleham, came to the door of the carriage.
"Extremely sorry, sir," said the station-master, "but you won't be able to go beyond Blakiston. There's been a terrible accident to the 5.28."
My heart gave a kind of dull thump at this announcement.
"The driver ran right through Blankhampton with all the signals against him. The train has been smashed up to matchwood."
"My God!"
The station-master dropped his voice.
"The full number of casualties has not yet been ascertained, sir, but at least half the passengers are killed or injured."
"How ghastly!"
"Awful, sir, awful. It is the worst accident we have ever had on the Grand Central system."
"Poor souls, poor souls!" said my companion. "God rest them!"
"We haven't had a really bad accident for twenty-two years. But this breaks our record with a vengeance. I can't think what the poor chap was doing. As good a driver as we've got, to go and do a thing like that——"
The station-master, a venerable and grizzled man with a stern, heavily lined face, suddenly lost his voice.
"Fate," said my companion with a sombre smile. "Who shall explain the workings of destiny?"
Who, indeed! Had it not been for the bullets of the would-be assassin we should, in all probability, at that moment have been both among the dead. What, after all, does our human foresight matter in the sum of things? All the same, I could not help recalling with a sense of wonder my Uncle Theodore's anxiety that we should not travel by the ill-fated 5.28.
"You will be able to go on as far as Blakiston," said the station-master, "and the Company has arranged for motor cars to meet the train to take you on to Middleham."
"What is the distance from Blakiston to Middleham?"
"About eighteen miles."
When the train went forward the current of my thoughts was altered completely. My former speculations seemed mean beyond comparison with such an event as this. Who shall read the ways of providence? A flesh wound in the arm and a late dinner were a small price to pay after all.
Upon arriving at Blakiston we found two motor cars awaiting us: one for the Princess, the other for our escort. A consultation with the chauffeurs disclosed the fact that by proceeding direct homeviaParlow and Little Basing instead of by way of Middleham, a matter of seven miles would be saved. Therefore, after a wire had been sent to Middleham to inform our people of this change of route, we entered upon the final stage of our adventurous journey.
In spite of the fact that we exposed ourselves to the charge of driving recklessly, even if not to the actual danger of the public, our destination was reached without further mishap. By twenty-five minutes to nine we had turned in at the lodge gates of Dympsfield House. All the windows of that abode were a blaze of light. Doubtless the royal guest had arrived and, let us hope, was enjoying his dinner.
However, no sooner had we entered the house than we were met by Mrs. Arbuthnot. She was dressed for a gala night, verydécolletéein her best gown, carrying a great quantity of sail in the way of jewels—jewels were being worn that year—and with a coiffure that absolutely baffles the pen of the conscientious historian. But, alas! Mrs. Arbuthnot was on the verge of tears.
His Majesty had not arrived, and the dinner was spoiling.
"No news of the King?" I asked, keeping well in the background, for I had no wish for Mrs. Arbuthnot to observe my condition prematurely.
"Nevil said in his telegram that he would be here about a quarter past seven, and it is now five minutes past nine," said Mrs. Arbuthnot tearfully.
"Five-and-twenty minutes to nine,mon enfant, according to Greenwich," said I, as reassuringly as the circumstances permitted. "Your clock is wrong by half an hour. But there has been a bad accident at Blankhampton. Would they come by Blankhampton? If they did, that would be bound to delay them."
"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "If anything has happened to the King! And oh, Sonia dear, how late you are!" she added reproachfully. "I was getting so horribly nervous about you. And you not here to present me or anything! But now you've come it is all right. Just be a dear and have a look at the table before you go up to dress."
The Princess, however, had scarcely had time to yield to Mrs. Arbuthnot's suggestion, and I was in the act of walking upstairs in a state of uncomfortable anxiety in regard to the operation of changing my clothes, when from the vicinity of the hall door there came the sounds of fresh arrivals. I hurried to it, to be greeted immediately by the voice of Fitz.
"Rather late," he said with that air of languor which afflicted him on great occasions. "Line blocked at Blankhampton. Devil of a smash. Tiresome cross-country journey, but we've turned up at last."
"Safe and sound, I hope?"
"Right as rain."
As we walked together down the front steps to the open door of the car that stood at the bottom in the darkness, I was conscious that my pulse was a thought too rapid for a tacit subscriber to the theory of democracy. I held the door while an enormous figure of a man disengaged himself slowly, and not without difficulty, from the interior.
I made a somewhat lower bow than the Englishman in general permits himself. A smiling and subtle visage, at once handsome and venerable, was promptly turned upon me, and I found myself exchanging a cordial and powerful grip of the hand.
Ferdinand the Twelfth ascended the front steps in the charge of his son-in-law, while I held the door for the second occupant of the car to alight. I made an obeisance only a shade less in depth than the one I had bestowed upon the Sovereign. Baron von Schalk was small and dapper, with a face full of intelligence and not unlike that of a bird of prey. As we exchanged bows, it seemed that every line of it, and there were many, was eloquent of power.
"I hope the journey has not tired his Majesty?" I ventured to say. "It must have been very tedious."
Baron von Schalk smiled passively, made a deep guttural noise and answered in very tolerable English, "On the contrary, most interesting. The King never tires himself."
At the top of the steps, framed in a glow of soft light from within, were Mrs. Arbuthnot and the Princess. Standing side by side, they appeared to be vying with one another in the depth and grace of their curtseys. No sooner had the King ascended to them than he took a hand of each in his own and led them into the hall, as though they had been a pair of his small grandchildren. There was a spontaneity about the action which was charming.
Half an hour later we were assembled in the drawing-room. The King promptly offered his arm to his hostess, and led the way in the direction of her unfortunate meal. His daughter placed her hand very lightly upon the arm of the Chancellor, directing an arch look over her shoulder at me as she did so, as if she would say, "There is no help for it!"
Fitz and I, walking side by side, brought up the rear of the procession. The Man of Destiny had a very fell visage.
"What have you done to your arm?" he asked.
"Got smashed up in a taxi this afternoon."
"Where?"
"Oxford Street, I believe."
"What were you doing there?"
"The Princess had important business in town, and I went with her."
"Important business in town! She never said a word to me about it. Was she in the accident too?"
"Yes, but luckily she didn't get a scratch. And of course this is only a slight superficial wound."
The slight superficial wound did its best to contradict me by throbbing vilely.
Ferdinand the Twelfth sat on the right of his hostess, his Chancellor on her left. It is the due, I think, of our recent and temporarily imported culinary artist, lately in the service of a nobleman, to say that he had done extremely well in trying circumstances. There is no sauce like hunger, of course, but it was observed that the King ate heartily, and, although verging upon the statutory term of human life, seemed not one penny the worse for his long and trying journey.
He spoke English with an agreeable fluency. Not only did he know this country very well indeed, but we gathered that he was accustomed to find it pleasant. Seen across a dinner-table it was clear that his portraits had not in the least exaggerated his natural picturesqueness. It was a noble, leonine head, a thing of power and virility, framed with a mane of white hair. His eyes were heavy-lidded, but deep-seeing and almost uncomfortably direct and penetrating in their gaze; yet where one might have expected calculation and cold detachment there was an impenetrable veil of kindliness which served to obscure the elemental forces which must have lurked beneath.
There were tomatoes among thehors-d'oeuvres, and there were tomatoes in the soup. When the Victor of Rodova made a significant departure from the custom of our land by smacking his lips and astonishing the impassive Parkins by saying, "Make my compliments to dechefupon hisconsommé; I will haf more," his hostess hoisted the ensign of the rose, and her Royal Highness beamed upon her.
"There, Irene! what did I not tell you, my child?" she exclaimed triumphantly.
"Oliver has a devil of a twist upon him, evidently," murmured the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth, in an aside to his host of such deplorable banality that an apology is offered for its appearance in these pages. "I wish it would choke the old swine."
"On the contrary, he seems a quite kindly and paternal old gentleman."
"Ha, you don't know him!"
I admitted that I did not and that I looked forward to our better acquaintance.
The hostess and her humble coadjutor in the things of this life felt it to be a supreme moment in the progress of the feast when the royal lips were brought to the brink of the paternal madeira which had reached us so opportunely, if so illicitly, from Doughty Bridge, Yorks. But our suspense was resolved at once. The Victor of Rodova raised his glass to his hostess with the most benignant glance in the world, and for the second time Mrs. Arbuthnot hoisted the ensign of the rose.
Certainly the royal expansion had a charm that was all its own. Being called for the first time to my present exalted plane of social intercourse, I had had no opportunity of observing anything quite like it, other than in the manners of Fitz and his wife which had proved such a scandal to our neighbourhood. But the Victor of Rodova was so spontaneous in his actions and so unstudied in his gestures, and he appeared to wear his heart on his sleeve with such a childlike facility, that to one nurtured in our insular mode of self-repression it was as good as a play to be in his company.
One thing was clear. From the first it was plain that Mrs. Arbuthnot had achieved a great personal triumph. And in the particular circumstances of the case I am constrained to append the courtier-like phrase, "nor was it to be wondered at." Speaking out of a moderately full knowledge of the subject in all its chameleon-like range of vicissitude, from grave to gay, from lively to severe, in gowns by Worth, in frocks by Paquin, in costumes by Redfern, in nondescript creations by "the woman who makes things for Mama," I had never seen the subject in question keyed up to quite this degree of allure. Mrs. Arbuthnot was magnificent.
The King beamed upon her and she beamed upon the King. More than once he pledged her in the paternal madeira; and before the modest feast had run its course Fitz gave me a stealthy kick on the shin.
"Tell her to keep her door locked to-night," he said in one of his sinister asides.
The bluntness of the words was most uncomfortable, but there was no reason to doubt their sincerity. It was a piece of advice at which one so incorrigiblybourgeoisas its recipient might have taken offence. That he did not do so should be counted to him, upon due reflection, as the expression of some remote strain of a more azure tint!
"I know the King's majesty only too well," said the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth.
When the ladies had left us, the King talked in the friendliest manner and always with that engaging simplicity that was so unstudied and so charming. He was curious to know what I had done to my arm, and when I told him he inquired minutely as to the nature of the wound, and gave me advice as to its treatment. This piece of consideration recalled the magazine article I had lately studied. Here seemed a practical illustration of the fact that in a literal sense he was the father of his people.
"You must show it to me to-morrow," he said. "And I will give you some ointment I always carry, made by my own chemist to my own prescription. Schalk laughs at my chemistry, but that's because he's jealous. I will apply it for you, and in three days you will see the difference. What are you laughing at, Schalk?"
"A man may laugh at his thoughts, sir, may he not?" said Schalk, with a dour smile.
"Not in the presence of the little father, Schalk, unless he shares them with the little father. What are you laughing at? But there, since you bungled that treaty with the wily Teuton your thoughts are not of much consequence. You know I don't care a doit for your thoughts, Schalk, since you went to Berlin. The thoughts of Schalk, forsooth! The wine is with you, you rascal. Remember that in England it is not considered to be good breeding to get drunk before your King."
"In Illyria, sir, that is always held to be impossible," said Schalk.
Ferdinand the Twelfth indulged in a guffaw.
"Good for you, impious one! Nay, fill up your glass before you pass it, and keep out your long nose, else our English friends will think we have no manners in Illyria."
When it pleases a monarch to unbend, the laughter his sallies evoke may seem overmuch for his wit. But it is an excellent custom to laugh heartily at the humour of kings. Ferdinand the Twelfth, in spite of his long journey, was in a very gracious mood and indulged us with many sallies at the expense of his Chancellor. Baron von Schalk, however, was well able to defend himself. It must be allowed, I think, that the royal wit was neither very refined nor very courteous. Rough and primitive, it had something of a Gargantuan savour. But his own deep-voiced appreciation of it was a perpetual feast. He also told one or two stories of a true Rabelaisian cast. They were told with an immense gusto, and he led the laughter himself with a whole-heartedness which was quite Homeric. Before the bottle the Victor of Rodova was magnificent company. It was impossible not to respond to his unaffected, if extremely catholic, good-humour.
When we joined the ladies we found them playing a game of patience. The Father of his People immediately carried a chair to the side of Mrs. Arbuthnot, sat beside her and offered pertinent help in the arrangement of her cards. "But this game is only fit for people like Schalk," he declared. "Britch is the game we play in Illyria."
Interpreting such a remark as being in the nature of a command, the hostess swept her cards together, and imperiously ordered her spouse to get the bridge markers.
"How shall we play, sir?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Togezzer, madame, you and I," said the King, with an air of homage, "ifyou please. I can see you play well."
"Oh, sir!" said Madame, for the third time hoisting the ensign of the rose. "How can you possibly know that?"
"Infallible signs, milady," said the King, laughing. "Trust an old soldier to read the signs. First, your ears, if I may say so. They have shape and position, just like my own. That means a well-balanced mind. And that dainty head,c'est magnifique! What intellect behind that forehead! Now give me your hand—the left one."
Milady gave the King a much bejewelled paw.
"Ouf!" said he, "what ambition! You will never hesitate to callsans atout. The heart-line is very good, also. There will be no other partner for Ferdinand. Schalk can have whom he pleases."
It pleased Baron von Schalk to choose her Royal Highness, and a very interesting game began.
"We must take care, milady," said Ferdinand the Twelfth, "we simple children of nature. I expect they will cheat us horribly. Schalk has very little in the way of a conscience, and nothing delights Sonia so much as to overreach a confiding parent."
As he spoke it pleased this simple child of nature to revoke in a very flagrant and palpable manner.
"No diamonds, partner?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"None whatever," said the King, blandly. "I think a small deuce will take that trick, eh, Schalk?"
"So it appears, sir," said the long-suffering Chancellor.
I was led aside by the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth.
"If you watch this game, old son," said he, "you will gain an insight into the monarchical basis of the constitution of Illyria. Let us watch what the plausible old ruffian does with the nine of diamonds."
Happily the game was not being played for money. But it was characteristic of the Illyrian ruler, that in even the simple matter of a game at cards he was incapable of conducting it other than in a manner peculiarly his own.
It was past two o'clock when thepartiewas dissolved. No sooner had our guests retired to their repose than Mrs. Arbuthnot turned enthusiastically to her lord.
"What a perfectly lovely old man! Such charm, such distinction; so kind, so unaffected, and oh, so simple! There is something in being a king, after all."
"Things are not always what they seem,mon enfant," I remarked uneasily.
"He is a perfect old darling."
"He is one of the deepest men in Europe, as all the world knows."
"He is a dear."
"Personally, I have no wish to meet him in a lonely lane on a dark night, if I should happen to have anything upon me that I cared to lose."
"Why, goose, you are jealous!"
"Put not your trust in princes, my child." And, reluctantly enough, I confided Fitz's piece of advice.
Howbeit, I was more than half prepared for Mrs. Arbuthnot's queenlike indignation.
"What do you mean, Odo?" said she, majestically. The outraged delicacy of a De Vere Vane-Anstruther is a very majestic thing.
"Either you promise, or I don't sleep over the stables."
"This is all the doing of Fitz! He has an insane prejudice."
"Fitz is a very shrewd fellow, and he knows our guest rather better than either of us. You must not forget that kings are kings in Illyria."
"I don't understand."
"You must promise, even if you don't."
"I shall do nothing of the kind. It is a humiliating suggestion. Besides, it is all sobourgeois."
"I was waiting for that. But, whatever it is, I have quite made up my mind. Either you promise, or I don't sleep over the stables."
"Then I refuse; absolutely and unconditionally I refuse," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with what can only be described ashauteur.
It was our firstimpassein the course of six years of double harness. I have never disguised from myself that I am a weak mortal. Mrs. Arbuthnot has never disguised it from me either. The habit of yielding more or less gracefully to the imperious will of the superior half of my entity had become second nature. But there was a voice within that would not have me give way.
"Absolutely and unconditionally! I consider it odious. And why should you insult me in this manner——"
The star of my destiny was rising to the heights of the tragedy queen.
"If you would only make the effort to understand, my child," I said patiently, "what is implied in your own admission that there is something in being a king, after all!"
"You are insanely jealous. He is a perfect dear, and he is old enough to be one's grandfather."
For once, however, I was adamant. Together we ascended the stairs; together we entered her ladyship's chamber. There was not adequate accommodation for the two of us. The best rooms had been placed at the disposal of Fitz and his wife, and of the King and his Chancellor. Leading out of this apartment, however, was a small dressing-room with a sofa in it. I opened the door and, as I did so, delivered my final ultimatum.
"Irene, you will either do as you are asked, else I spend the rest of the night in there."
"Pray do as, you choose." Mrs. Arbuthnot was pale with indignation. "But I shall not lock the door."
"So be it."
Leaving the door of the dressing-room slightly ajar, I lay down on the sofa just as I was, and composed myself for slumber as well as an entirely ridiculous situation would permit. Precisely how it had come about it was hard to determine, but I was prepared to inflict upon my overwrought self, for the events of that long day had been many and remarkable, a still further amount of bodily discomfort. But Fitz's hint had overthrown a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, whatever the sense of humour had to say about it all.
In the process of time I forgot sufficiently the dull tumult of my brain and the throbbing of my arm for my jaded nerves to be lulled into an uneasy doze. How long I had been oblivious of my surroundings I do not know, but quite suddenly a cry seemed to break in upon my senses. I awoke with a start.
The room was in total darkness save for a thread of light which came through the partially open door of the adjoining chamber. But sounds and a voice proceeded from it.
I rose from my sofa and listened at the threshold.
"Little milady, little Irene."
The pleading accents were familiar, and paternal. I pushed open the door and entered the room. A distracted vision with streaming hair and in a white nightgown was sitting up in bed; while candle in hand a magnificent figure in a blue silk Oriental robe over a brilliant yellow sleeping-suit was confronting her.
"Little milady. Little Irene."
I fumbled for the knob of the electric light, found it and turned it up.
I was face to face with a subtle and smiling visage. There was astonishment in it, it is true, but it was also full of humour and benevolence.
"Why, my friend," said Ferdinand the Twelfth in his most paternal manner, "pray what areyoudoing here?"
I confess that I could find no answer to the royal inquiry.
In the circumstances it was not easy to know what reply to make. Indeed so completely was I taken aback that I could not find a word to say. Coolly enough the King stood regarding me with that bland and subtle countenance. But as those smiling eyes measured me they gave me "to think." I carried one arm in a sling, I was without a weapon, and the Father of his People was a man of exceptional physical power.
As a measure of precaution, I reached pensively for the poker.
A transitory gleam flitted across the King's face, but the royal countenance was still urbane.
"Madame should have locked her door," he said, with an air of humorous reproach. "Dat is a good custom we haf in Illyria."
"Your Majesty must forgive us," said I, without permitting my glance to stray towards the half-terrified vision that was so near to me, "if we appearbourgeois. The fact is, we are not so familiar as we should like to be with the usages of the great world."
The King laughed heartily.
"There is nothing to forgive, my good friend," he said with an air of splendid magnanimity. "But Madame should certainly have locked her door. However, let us not bear malice."
With a superbly graceful gesture, in which the paternal and the humorous were delightfully mingled, the King withdrew.
Horror and incredulity contended in the eyes of Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I did not think well to spare her the reverberation of my triumph.
"There is something in being a king, after all,mon enfant."
Mrs. Arbuthnot was only able to gasp.
"Do not let us blame him; he is the Father of his People. But apparently it would seem that that which may bebourgeoisin the eyes of the matrons of the Crackanthorpe Hunt is really the highest breeding in Illyria."
Thereupon I laid down the poker as pensively as I had taken it up, sought to compose the star of my destiny, who was beginning to weep softly, and bade her good morning.
Outside the door I lingered a moment to hear the key click in the lock in the most unmistakable manner.
With the aid of a candle I made my way to my temporary quarters over the stables. The hour was a quarter to five. Little time was left for further repose, but it was used to such advantage that it was not without difficulty that my servant was able to rouse me at a quarter to eight. By the time I was putting the finishing touches to my toilet I was informed that Count Zhygny was below, inspecting the horses.
Count Zhygny, to give our illustrious guest hisnom de guerre, which, like nearly all Illyrian proper names, it is well not to attempt to pronounce as it is spelt, was stroking the fetlocks of Daydream with an air of knowingness when I joined him. Dressed in a suit of tweeds and a green felt hat, he looked the picture of restless energy. Seen in the light of day he was far older than he had appeared the previous night. Hollows were revealed in his cheeks, and there were pouches under his eyes. His hands shook and his brow had many lines, but every one of his many inches was instinct with a natural force.
His greeting was frank and hearty and as cordial as you please. There was not a trace of resentment or embarrassment. But, from the manly ease of his bearing, it was abundantly clear that the king could do no wrong.
He linked his arm through mine, and together we strolled in to breakfast. At the sideboard I helped him to bacon and tomatoes, and Mrs. Arbuthnot gave him coffee.
The manner of "little milady" was perhaps a thought constrained when she received his Majesty's matutinal greeting. To encourage her he pinched her ear playfully.
Mrs. Fitz did not grace this movable feast, and Fitz and the Chancellor were rather late.
"You have taken a long time over your devotions, Schalk," said the King. "I am glad it does not cost me these pains to keep on good terms with heaven."
"I also, sir," said Schalk drily.
"I see you have the EnglishTimesthere, Schalk. What is the news this morning?"
The Chancellor adjusted a pair of gold pince-nez and began to read aloud from that organ of opinion.
"'Blaenau, Wednesday evening. The Illyrian Land Bill was read a second time in the House of Deputies this afternoon.'"
"Ha, that is important," said the King, laughing. "What a well-informed journal is the EnglishTimes! Do you approve of the Illyrian Land Bill, Schalk?"
"Since I had the honour of drafting it, sir, to your dictation, I cannot do less than endorse it."
"And read a second time already, says the EnglishTimes, in the House of Deputies. I always say they have some of the best minds of the kingdom in the Lower House."
"Trust them to know what is good for themselves," said Schalk sourly.
It was tolerably clear, from the Chancellor's manner, that his royal master was enjoying a little private baiting.
"Why, Schalk," he said, "I believe you are still harping on Clause Three."
"I have never reverted, sir, from my original view," said the Chancellor, "that under Clause Three the peasantry is getting far more than is good for it. I have always felt, sir, as you are aware, that this is a concession to the pestilential agrarian agitator, and I feel sure the First Chamber will proclaim this opinion also."
"Well, well, Schalk," said the King cheerfully, "is it not the function of the First Chamber to disagree with the Second, and what is the Little Father for except to soothe their quarrels by flattering both and agreeing with neither?"
"Your Majesty is pleased to speak in riddles," said the Chancellor, with gravity.
"What a cardinal you would have made, Schalk!" said his master. "But if you have really made up your mind about Clause Three, we must look at it again. I agree with you that it is not good for growing children to eat all the cake. We must keep a little for their elders, because they like cake too, it appears."
"Everyone is fond of cake," said the Chancellor sententiously, "but there is never quite enough to go round, unfortunately."
"That is a happy phrase of Schalk's," said the King, making the conversation general with his amused air; "'the pestilential agrarian agitator.' Have you that kind of animal in England?"
"We are infested with him, sir," said the member for the Uppingdon Division of Middleshire, the owner of a modest thousand or so of acres. "The people for the land, and the land for the people! The country reeks of it."
"It is the same everywhere," said the King. "A great world movement is upon us. The wise can detect the voice of the future in the cry of the people, but there are some who stuff wool in their ears, eh, Schalk?"
Ferdinand the Twelfth assumed a port of indulgent sagacity. This half-serious, half-bantering fragment of his discourse, and half a dozen in a similar tenor to which it was my privilege to listen, seemed to establish one fact clearly. It was that the King was not the slave of his ministers. He was a man with a keen outlook upon his time, deliberately unprogressive, not in response to the reactionary forces by which he was surrounded, but because he held that it was not good for the world to go too fast.
His article of faith was simple enough, and in his conduct he did not hesitate to embody it. He conceived it to be the highest good for every people to have a king; a wise, patient and beneficent law-giver to correct the excesses of faction; one to stand at the helm to steer the ship of state through troubled waters.
Whether his conception of the monarchical condition was right or wrong, he was able to enforce it with all the weight of his personality. He believed profoundly in the divine right. In the assurance of his own infallibility he seemed to admit no limit to his own freedom of action.
He believed that the future of his country was in his hands. It was in order to conserve it that he had come to England in this singular and unexpected manner. Having chosen a Royal Consort for his only daughter, she whose act of revolt was but a manifestation of sovereignty carried to a higher power, he was prepared come what may to enforce his will.
All through this little history I have tried to show how comedy strove with tragedy as the play was unfolded. The spectators were never quite sure which way the cat would jump. Infinite opportunity for laughter was provided, but underneath this merriment lay that which was too deep for tears. Viewed upon the surface, the precipitation into our midst of such an elemental figure as Ferdinand the Twelfth was food for an inextinguishable jest, but the reverse of the medal must not be overlooked.
Every hour the King spent under our roof was a slow-drawn torture for Fitz and his wife. Holding the romantic belief that they were twin-souls whom destiny had linked irrevocably together, they were everything to one another. But running counter to this faith were those incalculable hereditary forces which the King with incomparable power and address was marshalling against it.
Now was the time for the Princess to yield. In his own person the King had come to demand of her that once and for all she should take up the burden of her heritage. If now she declined to heed, the days of the Monarchy were numbered.
It was only too clear to us onlookers that a terrible contest was being waged. In two or three brief days the Princess seemed worn to a shadow; the look of wildness was again in her eyes: her whole bearing confessed an overwhelming mental stress.
Fitz also suffered greatly. And his travail was not rendered less by the fact that Ferdinand did not scruple to make a personal appeal.
About the third night of his ordeal, Fitz accompanied me to my quarters over the stables.
"Arbuthnot," he said, sinking into a chair, "I have been thinking this thing out as well as I can with the help of Ferdinand, and he has made me see that my rights in the matter are not quite what I thought they were. I do not complain. He has talked to me as a father might to a son, and he has brought me to see that our position in the sight of God may not be quite what we judged it to be."
I was hardly prepared for such a speech on the lips of Fitz. That it should fall from them so simply gave me an enlarged idea of the forces that were being brought to bear upon him.