For a moment, it seemed to the King, as if the verandah, the house, the garden, and even the night sky, stood away from them, receded, and that he and Judith were alone, together, in infinite space.
The moment passed.
Judith stood up.
"Bed!" she said, speaking with the note of smiling, kindly discipline, with which she ruled the Imps, and, when she chose, even Uncle Bond and himself. "You will be able to sleep now, Alfred."
The King rose obediently to his feet to find, with a certain dull, dazed surprise, that he was stiff and sore, and hardly able to stand.
Dazed as he was, he did not fail to see the look of sharp anxiety which shone, for a moment, in Judith's eyes.
"Lean on me, old man!" she exclaimed. "You are done up. I'll see you to your room. They have been working you too hard. Do they never think of—the man—in your Service?"
She put out her arm, as she spoke, and slipped it skilfully round his shoulders.
And so, glad of Judith's support, and only restfully conscious of her nearness now, the King moved off slowly along the verandah towards the room, at the far end of the silent, darkened house, which had come to be regarded as his room, and, as such, was strictly reserved, "in perpetuity," for his use alone.
"Here you are!" Judith announced, at last, halting at the open window door of the room. "You will be able to manage by yourself now, won't you? You must sleep now, Alfred. Dreamless sleep! Every minute of it! The Imps will call you, as usual, in the morning. Good-night."
A minute or two later, the King found himself alone, inside the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, with an urgent desire for sleep rising within him.
The fresh, fragrant night air blew softly into the room, through the open window door, beyond which he could see, as he sat on the edge of the bed, the gently swaying branches of the garden trees, silhouetted against the dark blue background of the moonlit sky.
The nightingales were still singing in the garden.
Yes. He could sleep here.
The room itself invited rest, induced sleep. Plainly, although comfortably furnished, and decorated throughout in a soothing tint of grey, the room had a spaciousness, even an emptiness, which was far more to the King's taste, than the ornate fittings of that other bedroom of his in the palace, where sleep so often eluded him. Beyond the absolutely necessary furniture, there was nothing in the room, save the few essential toilet trifles which he kept there. Nothing was ever altered in, nothing was ever moved from, this room, in his absence. It had all become congenial, friendly, familiar.
The King undressed, mechanically, in the moonlight, and put on the sleeping suit which lay ready to his hand, on the bed, at his side.
Then he got into bed.
His last thought was one of gratitude to, and renewed confidence in, Judith. How she had humoured, how she had managed him, coaxing and cajoling him, as if he had been a sick child, along the shadowy road to sleep. The emotional crisis which had arisen so inexplicably between them had, as inexplicably spent its force harmlessly. Their friendship was unimpaired. Nothing was altered between them. Nothing was to be altered. Judith had emphasized that. The Imps were to wake him, in the morning, as usual. He was to see Uncle Bond. All was to be as it had always been. He was glad. He had no wish for, he shrank instinctively from the thought of, any changes, here, in Paradise.
But now he must sleep. Dreamless sleep.
And so, he fell asleep.
He slept, at once, so soundly, that he never stirred, when, in a little while, Judith slipped noiselessly into the room. Crossing to the bed, she stood, for a moment or two, looking down at him, with all the unfathomable tenderness in her dark, mysterious eyes, which she had asked him to forget, which she had made him forget.
Suddenly, she leant over the bed, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
Then she slipped quickly out of the room, once again.
CHAPTER V
twas to the sound of the patter of bare feet, on the polished floor of his bedroom, followed by suppressed gurgles of joyous laughter, that the King awoke, in the morning. Bright sunshine was streaming into the room, through the still open window door. Button and Bill, their faces rosy with health and sleep, and their hair still tousled, as it had come from their pillows, engagingly droll little figures in their diminutive sleeping suits, stood at his bedside, watching him with shining, mischievous eyes. As he sat up in bed, they flung themselves at him, with triumphant shouts, wriggling and swarming all over him, as they essayed to smother him, under his own bedclothes and pillows.
At the end of two or three hilarious, and vivid moments of mimic fight, the King brought the heavy artillery of his bolster to bear on his enemies, smiting them cunningly in the "safe places" of their wriggling, deliciously fresh little bodies, and so driving them, inch by inch, down to the foot of the bed, where, still laughing and gurgling gloriously, they rolled themselves up, to evade his blows, like a couple of young hedgehogs.
Then the King flung his bolster on to the floor, and, reaching out his arms, took his enemies captive, tucking them, one under each arm, and holding them there, kicking and protesting, but wholly willing prisoners.
Button, at this point, although suspended under the King's left arm, more or less in mid-air, contrived to wriggle his right hand free, and held it out gravely, to be shaken. On the strength of his seven years, Button had lately given up kissing in public, and begun to affect the formal manner of the man of the world, in matters of courtesy, as shrewdly observed in Uncle Bond.
"Good morning, my boy," he remarked, in Uncle Bond's blandest manner.
In order to shake Button's hand, the King was compelled to release Bill from his prison, under his right arm. Bill, whose happy fate it was to be still only five, the true golden age, had no man of the world pretensions, no sense of shame in his affections. Breaking ruthlessly into Button's formal greeting, he flung both his chubby arms round the King's neck, pulled his head down to be kissed, and then hugged him, with all the force in his lithe little body, chanting in a voice absurdly like Judith's the while—
"Diana's got a foal, all legs and stumpy tail, and a white star on its face. We're making the hay. There's a wren's nest in the garden. It's past six o'clock, and it's a lovely summer morning, and you've got to get up, Uncle Alfred."
From some dusty pigeonhole in his memory, where it had lain since his own far-away childhood, there floated out into the King's mind, a phrase, a sentence—
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
It was a phrase, a sentence, which he could trace back to the Bible lessons, which had been as faithfully and remorselessly delivered, on Sunday afternoons, in the Royal nursery, as in any other nursery of the period, when the strict discipline in such matters, derived originally from the now well-nigh forgotten Victorian era, had not been altogether relaxed. It was a phrase, a sentence, which had impressed itself upon his childish imagination, and had, for years, stood between him, and his father, the King. His father had been the Lord's Anointed. As a child he had not dared to put forth his hand to touch him! For years, he had lived in awe, almost in fear, of his own father. Perhaps this was why, even down to the day of his death, the King had always seemed to him to be a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote. Perhaps this was partly why, he himself, now that he was King, was so constantly conscious of his own intolerable isolation.
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
If Button and Bill, particularly Bill, whose chubby arms were, even now, tightening around him, knew his real identity, knew that he was the King, "the Lord's Anointed," not a fairy tale King, not a King of their own childish play, buttheKing, in whose procession they had thought Uncle Alfred might have a place, would not they live in awe of him, would not they fear him, would not the present delightful spontaneity, the fearlessness, the frank embraces, of their intercourse with him, be irreparably injured?
Yes. His decision of the night before must stand.
Button and Bill must never know, Judith and Uncle Bond must never know, his real identity.
At that moment, Judith knocked at the bedroom door.
"Good morning, Alfred. The bathroom is yours, and the Imps, if you don't mind having them with you, and letting them have a splash," she called out cheerily. "But no flood in the passage, this morning, mind! Breakfast in half an hour, on the verandah. We shall be by ourselves. Uncle Bond has had another bad night. 'Cynthia' has failed him again. He daren't face eggs and bacon in public, he says. Hurry up, Imps. Big sponge, floating soap, and bath towels, at the double."
"I'm first!" Button shrieked, making a wild dive for the door.
"I'd rather be last!" Bill explained, quite unconcerned, lingering to give the King a final hug.
"If I'm last, I shall be able to float 'Ironclad Willie,' and 'Snuffles,' shan't I? They haven't had a swim—foreverso long—poor dears."
'Ironclad Willie,' and 'Snuffles,' were a large china fish, and a small china duck, which Bill sometimes forgot, and sometimes remembered at bath time.
A hilarious, crowded, half hour followed. It was a half hour lit up, for the King, by the blended innocence and mischief which shone in the Imps' eyes, a half hour set to music for him by the Imps' gurgling chuckles, and radiant, childish laughter. First came the bathroom, where the Imps splashed and twisted in the bath, their brown, wriggling little bodies as lithe and supple as those of young eels; where Bill, lost in a huge bath towel, demanded assistance in drying all the back places and corners; where Button solemnly lathered his chin, just as Uncle Alfred lathered his chin; where Bill was, for one terrible moment, in imminent peril of his life, as he grabbed at the case of shining razors. Then came the bedroom again, where odd, queer-shaped little garments had to be turned right side out, and buttons and strings had to be fastened, and tied. Innocency, fearlessness, trust, mischief, and laughter were inextricably mingled in it all, with laughter predominating, the radiant laughter of the happy child, ignorant of evil.
All this was all as it had always been, and, for that reason, it all made a more poignant appeal, than ever before, this morning, to the King.
Breakfast was served, as Judith had promised, out on the sunlit verandah.
One glance at Judith, as he approached the breakfast table, assured the King that it was the old Judith with whom he had to deal.
Dressed in white, and as fresh and cool as the morning, Judith was already in her place, at the head of the table, hospitably entrenched behind the coffee pot.
She looked up at the King, with her customary little nod, and friendly smile.
"You slept? You are rested? It was dreamless sleep? Good boy!" she said.
And she poured out his coffee.
From that moment, they fell, easily and naturally, into their usual routine.
Intimate conversation, with the Imps at the table, was out of the question. An occasional glance, a sympathetic smile, was all that could pass between them. The King was well content to have it so. He was pleasantly conscious that the accord between them, which had been so inexplicably broken, for a time, the night before, was completely restored. Their friendship was unimpaired. Nothing else mattered. Looking at Judith, cool, competent, and self-contained, as she was, he found himself almost doubting the actuality of the emotional crisis of the night before. Had that scene in the night nursery been a dream? A mere figment of his own fevered, disordered imagination?
The birds whistled, and called cheerily from the sunlit greenness of the garden.
The Imps chattered like magpies as they attacked their porridge.
It was a merry, informal, delightfully domestic meal.
This, it seemed to the King, was his only real life. That other life of his in the palace, guarded, night and day, by the soldiery, and the police, was the illusion, was the dream.
But the meal was, inevitably, a hurried one, and it ended, abruptly, and all too soon, when Judith rose suddenly to her feet, and drove the Imps before her, along the verandah, to say good morning to Diana's foal in the paddock.
No word of farewell was spoken.
It had become an understood thing, part of the usual routine, that the King should never say good-bye.
Left alone, the King leant back in his chair, and filled, and lit, his pipe. He always lingered for awhile, beside the disordered breakfast table, on these occasions, so that he could savour to the full, the peace, the quietness, and the beauty of his surroundings. He had learnt to store up such impressions in his memory, so that he could invoke them, for his own encouragement, in his darker hours. And, it was more than probable, that if he waited a few minutes, Uncle Bond would come out to speak to him. A sentence or two, from Judith's talk the night before, recurred to him now. Uncle Bond, really worried, was a new, and strange, phenomenon. If he could cheer the little man up, as Judith had suggested, he would be glad. He owed a great deal to Uncle Bond.
A thrush, perched at the top of a tall fir tree, near the house, whistled blithely.
The minutes passed.
Uncle Bond did not come.
At last, the King glanced reluctantly at his watch. It was seven o'clock. It was time for him to go. He must be back in the palace by eight o'clock, at the latest. He stood up. Then, conscious of a keen sense of disappointment at not seeing Uncle Bond, over and above the depression which he always felt when the moment came for him to leave Paradise, he stepped down off the verandah, and moved slowly round the side of the house, through the sunlit garden, towards the garage.
He had no hope of seeing Judith, or even the Imps, again. They would stay in the paddock, or in the hayfields beyond, until he had driven away, clear of the house, and the garden.
CHAPTER VI
ncle Bond,as it proved, had been waiting for him, all the time, at the garage.
The little man had run the King's car, out of the garage, into the drive. Already seated himself in the car, he looked up, as the King approached, with a mischievous twinkle in his spectacled eyes, and a droll smile puckering his round, double-chinned, clean-shaven face.
"Good morning, my boy, I'm going to see you along the main road, for a mile or two," he announced. "I shall have to walk back. That will be good for me. Judith says I'm getting fat! Thought I was cutting you, didn't you? I thought that I'd stage a little surprise for you. Astonishment is good for the young. It is the only means we old fogies have left, nowadays, of keeping you youngsters properly humble. The Imps have taught me that! Jump in! I want to talk to you."
The King looked at the corpulent little man, and laughed.
"I was feeling absurdly disappointed, because I hadn't seen you, Uncle Bond," he confessed.
Putting on his thick leather motor coat, and adjusting his goggles, which the little man had placed in readiness for him, on the vacant seat at the steering wheel, the King got into the car, and started the engine.
"The first mile in silence!" Uncle Bond directed. "If possible I have got to assume an unaccustomed air of gravity. And drive slowly. The subtlety of that suggestion probably escapes you. A bar or two of slow music and—enter emotion! When I chuckle again, you can change your gear."
Away from the house, down the short, sunlit drive, and out into, and up, the narrow tree-shadowed lane beyond, the King drove slowly, and in silence, as the little man had directed.
All but buried under the big, black sombrero-like felt hat, which it was his whim to affect, in grotesque contrast with the light, loosely cut shooting clothes which were his habitual wear, Uncle Bond sat low down in his seat in the car, on the King's left. In spite of his invocation of gravity, gravity remained far from him. Nothing could altogether efface the mischievous twinkle which lurked in his spectacled eyes, or blot out, for long, the mocking smile which puckered his mobile lips. But the King knew Uncle Bond well enough to realize that he was unusually thoughtful. What was it Judith had said? It was almost as if Uncle Bond had something on his mind. Judith was right. The little man, clearly, at any rate, had something that he wanted to say.
It was not until the car had swung out of the lane, and headed for London, was sweeping down the broad, and, at this comparatively early hour of the morning, empty, Great North Road, that Uncle Bond spoke.
"We have not seen very much of you, lately, my boy," he remarked. "You have been busy, no doubt. In the Service, you young men are not your own masters, of course. And Judith tells me that they have even made the mistake of giving you—promotion. I have been wondering if that—promotion—is likely to make your visits to us more difficult, and so rarer? The increasing responsibility, the increasing demands on your energy, and on your time, which your—promotion—has, no doubt, brought with it, will, perhaps, interfere with your visits to us? Perhaps you will have to discontinue your visits to us, altogether, for a time?"
Although his own eyes were, of necessity, fixed on the stretch of the broad, empty, sunlit road, immediately in front of the throbbing car, the King was uncomfortably aware that Uncle Bond was watching him narrowly as he spoke. This, then, was the something that the little man had on his mind. Suspicion? Doubt? Doubt of him? Doubt of his loyalty to his friends? In spite of the little man's suave manner, and carefully chosen phrases, it seemed to the King that the inference was unmistakable. It was an astonishing inference to come from Uncle Bond. Discontinue his visits? This, when he had just been congratulating himself on the unchanged nature of his intimacy with Judith, and with the Imps, so unexpectedly, and seriously, threatened, the night before, but so thoroughly and happily, re-established, that morning. Had he not made up his mind that all was to be as it had always been? But Uncle Bond knew nothing about that, of course.
"My—promotion—will not interfere with my visits to you, and to Judith, Uncle Bond," he declared.
"You are sure of that?" Uncle Bond persisted.
"Absolutely certain," the King exclaimed, and in spite of his efforts to suppress it, a note of rising irritation sounded in his voice.
There was a momentary pause.
Then Uncle Bond chuckled.
"Change your gear, my boy. I chuckled! Change your gear," he crowed. "A mile or two of real speed will do neither you nor me, any harm, now. Did I not say—'Enter emotion!' But I did not say that it would be my emotion, did I? You are the hero of this piece. It is for you the slow music has to be played. I am only the knockabout comedian, useful for filling in the drop scenes. Or am I the heavy father? 'Pon my soul, when I come to think of it, it seems to me that I am destined to double the two parts."
He laid his hand on the King's arm.
"I like your answer, my boy. It is the answer I expected you to make. But I could not be sure. Human nature being the unaccountable thing that it is, I could not be sure. And now, I have another question to ask you. And I am the heavy father now. If only I could be grave! If your visits to us are to continue, don't you think it will be, perhaps, as well for you to be a little more careful about—the conventions, shall I say? You arrived very late, last night. Judith was alone to receive you. Such circumstances are liable to be misunderstood, don't you think? And, although we are all apt to overlook the fact, we are all—human. A wise man avoids, for his own sake, and for the sake of others—certain provocations. 'The prudent man forseeth the evil'—but the quotation would be lost on you. A text for my sermon!"
The King had, automatically, let out the car, in response to Uncle Bond's direction. He applied all his brakes, and slowed the car down again now, on his own behalf. He wanted to be able to breathe, to think.
This was the first time Uncle Bond had ever spoken to him in this way. The wonder, of course, was that he had never spoken to him, in this way, before. Did the little man know what had happened the night before? No. That was impossible. Judith would not, Judith could not, have disclosed what had happened to him. It must be his own unerring instinct, his own sure knowledge of human nature, which had prompted the little man to deliver this sermon. This sermon? This generous, kindly, tactful, whimsical reproof. How well deserved the reproof was, the events of the night before had shown.
"I am sorry, Uncle Bond. I have been very thoughtless," he said. "It will not happen again."
"Judith and I appreciate your visits, my boy," Uncle Bond continued. "It would be a matter of very great regret to—both of us—if we found that we had—to limit, in any way—the hospitality, which we have been so glad to offer you. We wish, we both wish, to maintain our present, pleasant relationship, unchanged. That is your wish, too, I think?"
The King let out the car once again. His emotions, his thoughts required, now, the relief of speed.
"Somehow, I can never bear to think of any change, where you, and Judith, and the Imps are concerned, Uncle Bond," he exclaimed. "Somehow, I can never think of you, except all together, in the surroundings you have made your own. And that is strange, you know! We are all, as you say—human. Judith—Judith is the superior of every woman I have ever met. Her place is, her place ought to be, by right, at the head of the procession. And yet, somehow, I can never see her there!"
Uncle Bond sat very still.
"At the head of the procession?" he murmured. "Is that so enviable a position, my boy? Ask the man, ask the men, you find there!"
He chuckled then unaccountably.
The King winced. It was only one of the chance flashes of cynicism, with which Uncle Bond salted his talk, of course. But how true, and apposite, to his own position, and experience, the remark was!
"And, if the head of the procession is no enviable place for a man, what would it be for a woman, for a woman with a heart?" Uncle Bond proceeded. "'Pon my soul, I am talking pure 'Cynthia'!" he exclaimed. "'Cynthia' has begun to function, at last! That last sentence was in the lazy minx's best style. Judith will have told you that 'Cynthia' has been giving me a lot of trouble lately? You have lured her back, my boy. I thank you! You always attract her. She has a weakness for handsome young men. Her heroes are always Apollos."
He half turned, in his seat, towards the King.
"My boy, I will offer you another piece of advice," he remarked. "It is a mistake I do not often make." His habits of speech were too much for him. Even now, when he was patently in earnest, the little man could not be grave. "My advice is this—never attempt to put, never think, even in your own mind, of putting Judith, at the head of any procession. It is not Judith's place. Her place is in the background, the best place, the place that the best women always choose, in life. 'Cynthia' again! Pure 'Cynthia'! Welcome, you minx! If you ever attempt to take Judith out of the background, out of the background which she has chosen for herself, you will encounter inevitable disappointment, and cause yourself, and so her, pain. And you will spoil the—friendship—between you and Judith, which I have found so much—pleasure in watching. That is not 'Cynthia.' It is myself, plain James Bond. My advice, you see, like everybody else's, is, by no means, disinterested."
The King smiled at the little man, almost in spite of himself. This was the true Uncle Bond. This was Uncle Bond's way.
"I wonder if you are right, Uncle Bond? I am afraid, my own feeling suggests, that you are," he murmured. "And yet, somehow, I am not sure—"
Unconsciously, he slowed down the car, yet once again, as he spoke. The little man had stirred thoughts in him which required deliberate, and careful, expression.
"I have not thought very much about the procession, myself, until just lately," he said. "But it seems to me, you know, that we none of us, men and women alike, have very much to do with our place in the files. I have never believed in chance. And I am not, I think, a fatalist. And yet, you know, it seems to me that the procession catches us up, and sweeps us along, at the head or the tail, as the case may be, whether we will or no. A man may be caught up, suddenly, into the procession, and swept along with it, into some position, which he never expected to fill, which he would rather not fill, but from which he seems to have no chance of escape. Has he any chance of escape? It is the procession that controls us, I think, not we who control the procession. What do you think? Can a man escape? Can any of us ever really choose our place in the files?"
Uncle Bond chuckled delightedly.
"Judith told me that they had been overworking you, my boy. Judith, as usual, was right," he remarked. "You appear to me to be in grave danger of becoming most satisfactorily morbid. Liver! Almost certainly liver! But about this procession of yours. 'Pon my soul, the figure, the fancy, is not unworthy of 'Cynthia' herself. It would make a useful purple passage. Not for serial publication, of course. We cut them out there. But we put them in again, when the time comes for the stuff to go into book form. The procession of life! Yes. The idea is quite sufficiently threadbare. The one essential, for the successful production of money-making fiction is, of course, to be threadbare. Give the public what they have had before! But you are interested in the procession, not in the literary market. Can a man, or a woman, choose their place in the files? I say 'yes!'
"Once or twice, in the life of every man and woman, I believe, come moments, when they must choose their place in the files, moments when they have to decide whether they will stay where they are, whether they will fight to hold the place they have, whether they will shoulder their way forward, or whether they will fall out, to one side, or to the rear. All my life, I have been watching the procession, my boy. That is why I have grown so fat! It is many years, now, since I decided to step out of the procession, to one side, and I have been watching it sweep past, ever since. A brave show! But we have been talking glibly of the head and the tail of the procession. Where are they? I have never found them. I have never seen them. All I have ever seen is that the procession is there, and that it moves. But, no doubt, the band is playing—somewhere—
"But you are young, and they have just given you—promotion! You are in the procession, sweeping through the market-place, with all the flags flying, and the band, as I say, playing—somewhere. But I, and Judith, we are a little to one side, in the background, watching you, in the procession, from one of the windows of the quiet, old-fashioned inn, at the corner of the market-place, the quiet, old-fashioned inn on the signboard of which is written, in letters of gold, 'Content.' Your instinct will probably, and very properly, prompt you to fight for your place in the files, when the other fellows tread too hard on your heels. But, whether you fight for your place or not, whether you come out at the head or the tail of the procession, wherever the head and tail may be, whether you step to one side, or fall out altogether, whatever happens to you, my boy, Judith and I will always be glad to welcome you to the inn at the corner, and give you a seat at our window. You will remember that?
"And what do you think of that, as a purple passage, my boy? 'Pon my soul, it seems to me, now, that 'Cynthia' is functioning, she is in quite her best vein. I must get back home with her, at once. Pull up on this side of the signpost. I must not advance a foot into Hades, this morning, or I shall lose touch with the minx. She ought to be good for five or six thousand words today. And they are badly needed. The new story is three instalments behind the time-table already. It is the villain of the new piece, who is giving us trouble. Even 'Cynthia,' herself, is tired of him, I believe. He is a sallow person, with a pair of black, bushy eyebrows, which run up and down his forehead, with a regularity which is depressing. Two or three times, in each instalment, the confounded things go up and down, like sky-rockets. He lives in a mysterious house, in one of the mean streets, in the new artistic quarter, in Brixton. The house is full of Eastern furniture, and glamour. That is threadbare enough, isn't it? And I am using back numbers of 'Punch,' for humour."
Once again, the King let out the car. He knew Uncle Bond well enough to recognize that the little man was talking extravagantly now, to hide the note of sincere personal feeling, which had sounded unmistakably in his talk of the procession, although he had been so careful to attribute it all to 'Cynthia.' It was on occasions such as this, after one of his sudden flashes of sincerity, that Uncle Bond became most outrageously flippant. Nothing but burlesque humour, and grotesque, extravagant nonsense was to be expected from him now.
At the moment, flippancy jarred on the King. His attention had been riveted by the little man's vivid, figurative talk of the procession, so peculiarly apposite, as it was, to his own position, and the assurance of unchanging friendship, with which it had ended, had moved, and humbled him. He did not deserve, in view of his concealment of his real identity, he had no right to accept, such friendship.
But Uncle Bond never did the expected thing!
Now, as the throbbing car leapt forward, and swept along the broad, sunlit road at its highest speed, the little man became suddenly silent. A new mood of abstraction seemed to fall upon him. It was almost as if he had still something on his mind, as if there was still something which he wanted to say.
Soon the Paradise-Hades signpost, to which the King himself had introduced the little man, flashed into view, on the right of the road.
The King at once pulled up the car, well on the Paradise side of the post.
Uncle Bond threw off his unusual abstraction, in a moment, and scrambled, nimbly enough, out of the car.
The little man tested the car door carefully, to make sure that he had fastened it securely behind him.
Then he looked up at the King, with an odd, provocative twinkle in his mischievous, spectacled eyes.
"If I were you, Alfred, I should fight for my place in the procession, if necessary," he remarked. "Fight for your place, if necessary, my boy! After all, you are young, and they have just given you—promotion. I have a shrewd suspicion that you would not be satisfied, for long, by the view from our window, in the quiet, old-fashioned, inn of 'Content.' You would soon want to alter the signboard inscription, I fancy. An occasional glance through the window is all very well. It is restful. It serves its purpose. But a taste for the stir the bustle, the jostling, and the dust and the clamour, in the market-place, is pretty deeply implanted in all of us. To be in the movement! It is, almost, the universal disease. A man, who is a man, a young man, wants to be in the thick of things, in the hurly-burly, in the street below. What is there for him in a window view? Fight for your place, if necessary, my boy! And, if you decide to fight, fight with a good grace, and with all your heart. It is the half-hearted men, it is the half-hearted women, who fail. The best places in the procession—whether they are at the head or the tail, and where the head and the tail are, who knows?—like the best seats at the inn windows, in the background, fall to the men, fall to the women, who know what they want, who know their own mind.
"But, now, I must walk!"
And with that, and with no other leave-taking, Uncle Bond swung round abruptly, and set off, with surprising swiftness, for so small, and so corpulent a man, straight back along the road.
Automatically, the King restarted the car.
Then he turned in his seat, to wave his hand, in farewell, to Uncle Bond.
But Uncle Bond did not look round.
The King glanced at his watch. It was already half past seven. He had a good deal of time to make up. But he could do it. He opened out the car, now, to its fullest extent. The powerful engine responded, at once, to his touch, and the car shot forward—out of Paradise into Hades!
For once the King was unconscious of this transition. He was thinking of the procession, of Uncle Bond, of Judith, and of himself; their seats at the inn window; his place in the files. Must the whole width of the market-place always lie between them? Must it always be only occasionally, and with some risk—the risk he was running now—that he stepped out of the procession, and slipped, secretly, into the quiet "inn of Content," to look through their window, to stand, for a few moments, at their side? They were in the background. He was at the head of the procession. At the head? Who knew, who could say, where the head or the tail was? Was the band playing—somewhere? He had never heard it. Would he tire of the window view—soon? Was he not tired already, of his place in the files?
Fight for his place? Must he fight? A fight was something. The other fellows were treading very hard on his heels. But was his place worth fighting for? Did he want it? He had not chosen it. It had been thrust upon him. The moments of decision, when a man had to choose his place in the files, about which Uncle Bond had spoken so confidently, had never come to him. Moments of decision? What could he, what did he, ever decide? In the very fight for his place, which was impending, he would not be allowed to commit himself. The fight would be fought for him, all around him, and he, the man most concerned, was the one man who could not, who would not be allowed, to take a side. It was all arranged for him. The old Duke of Northborough, the lightning conductor, would take the shock! And the result? Did he know what he wanted? Did he know his own mind? A half-hearted man! What a faculty Uncle Bond had for hitting on a phrase, a sentence, that stuck, that recurred. It described him. A half-hearted King. A half-hearted friend. A half-hearted—lover.
But was it altogether his fault? Was it not his position, his intolerable isolation, his responsibility, which, by a bitter paradox, was without responsibility, that had thrown his whole life out of gear, and paralysed his will? As a sailor, in his own chosen profession, with responsibility, with the command of men, he had held his own, more than held his own, with his peers. He had had his place, an honourable place, amongst men of the same seniority as himself, and the Navy took the best men, the pick of the country. Yes. He knew what he wanted now. A moment of decision. A moment in which he could be himself. A moment in which he could assert himself, assert his own individuality, recklessly, violently, prove that he was not a half-hearted man, not an automaton, not an overdressed popinjay—
At this point, the appearance of a certain amount of traffic on the road, as the car swept into the fringe of the outer suburbs, and the more careful driving which it entailed, broke the thread of the King's thoughts. The inevitable lowering of the speed of the car which followed, served to remind him anew that he still had a good deal of time to make up, thanks to his loitering with Uncle Bond, if he was to be successful in effecting his return to the palace unobserved. His rising anxiety about this now all important matter led him thenceforward to concentrate the whole of his attention on his handling of the car.
CHAPTER VII
nthe outer suburbs, milkmen, postmen, and boys delivering newspapers, were moving from door to door, in the quiet streets of villas. The tramcars, and later the buses, which the car caught up, and passed, were crowded with workmen, being carried at "Workmen's Fares." The shop fronts, in the inner suburbs, gay in the early morning sunlight, with their Coronation flags and decorations, were still all shuttered; but a thin trickle of men and women in the streets, moving in the direction of the railway stations, gave promise already of the impending rush of the business crowd. Coronation Day had come, and gone. The public holiday was over. Now there was work toward.
At the far end of Tottenham Court Road, by which broad thoroughfare he approached, as he had escaped from, the town, the King deliberately varied the route which he had followed the night before. Heading the car straight on down Charing Cross Road, through Trafalgar Square, and so into Whitehall, he turned, at last, into Victoria Street. It was by the side streets, in the vicinity of Victoria Station, that he ultimately approached the palace, and ran out into Lower Grosvenor Place. He did this to avoid the neighbourhood of the parks, and possible recognition by early morning riders, on their way to and from Rotten Row.
Lower Grosvenor Place proved, as usual, deserted. In the secluded, shut-in mews, behind the tall houses, no one, as yet, was stirring. In a very few minutes, the King had successfully garaged the car. Then he slipped hurriedly back across Grosvenor Place. The road was happily still empty, and he reached the small, green, wooden door in the palace garden wall, without encountering anything more formidable than a stray black cat. A black cat which shared his taste for night walking. A purring black cat, which rubbed its head against his legs. A black cat for luck!
Unlocking, and opening, the door, the King slipped into the palace garden.
The door swung to behind him.
All need for anxiety, for haste, and for precaution was now at an end.
It was only just eight o'clock.
Sauntering leisurely through the garden, the King reached the palace without meeting any one, on the way. Sometimes, on these occasions, he ran into gardeners, early at work, a policeman, patrolling the walks, or some member of the household staff; but such encounters never caused him any anxiety. Why should not the King take a stroll in the garden, before breakfast? Had he not been known to dive into the garden lake for an early morning swim, and had not the fact been duly recorded in all the newspapers?
He entered the palace by the door through which he had escaped the night before, and so, mounting the private staircase, which led up to his own suite of rooms, regained his dressing room, unchallenged.
The creation of a certain amount of necessary disorder in his bedroom, and a partial undressing, were the work of only a few minutes.
Then he rang his bell, for which, he was well aware, a number of the palace servants would be, already anxiously listening.
It was Smith, as the King had been at some pains to arrange, who answered this, the first summons of the official, Royal day.
"Breakfast in the garden, in half an hour, Smith," the King ordered. "See about that, at once. Then you can come back, and get my bath ready, and lay out the clothes."
Another bath was welcome, and refreshing, after the dust, and the excitement of the motor run. Smith's choice of clothes was a new, grey, lounge suit, of most satisfactory cut, and finish. At the end of the half hour which he had allowed himself, the King left the dressing room, and passed down the private staircase, out into the sunlit garden, with an excellent appetite for his second breakfast.
The breakfast table had been placed on one of the lawns, in the green shade thrown by a magnificent sycamore tree. A couple of gorgeously clad footmen were responsible for the service of the meal but they soon withdrew to a discreet distance. The unpretentious domestic life, traditional for so many years, in the palace, had made it comparatively easy for the King to reduce to a minimum the distasteful ceremony which the presence of servants adds to the simplest meal.
A few personal letters, extracted by some early rising member of his secretarial staff, from the avalanche of correspondence in the Royal post bags, had been placed, in readiness for the King, on the breakfast table. One of these letters bore the Sandringham postmark, and proved to be from his youngest sister, the Princess Elizabeth, who was still, officially, a school girl. It was a charming letter. With a frank and fearless affection, a spontaneous naïveté, that pleased the King, the young Princess wrote to offer him her congratulations on his Coronation, congratulations which, she confessed, she had been too shy to voice in public, the day before. The letter touched the King. He read it through twice, allowing his eggs and bacon, and coffee, to grow cold, while he did so. There was a note of sincere feeling, of genuine affection, of sisterly pride in him, mingled with anxiety for his welfare, in the letter, which afforded a very agreeable contrast to the subservience of the Family in general, which had so jarred upon him, at the state banquet, the night before. This sister of his seemed likely to grow up into a true woman, a loyal and affectionate woman. She reminded him, in some odd way, of Judith.
What would the future bring to this fresh, unspoilt, sister of his? "A woman, a woman with a heart, at the head of the procession." Another of Uncle Bond's phrases! What an insight the little man had into the possibilities of positions, and situations, which he could only have known in imagination, in the imagination which he wasted on the construction of his grotesquely improbable tales! He must do what he could for this fresh, unspoilt sister of his. That would be little enough in all conscience! Meanwhile he could write to her, and thank her for her letter. That was an attention which would please her.
Producing a small, morocco bound, memorandum tablet, which he always carried about with him, in his waistcoat pocket, the King made a note to remind him to write to the Princess, in one of the intervals of his busy official day.
"Write to Betty."
Then he resumed his attack on his eggs and bacon, and coffee. He did not notice that they were cold. This letter of his sister's had turned his thoughts to—the Family!
He was the Head of the Family now. Somehow, he had hardly realized the fact before. In the circumstances, it really behoved him, it would be absolutely necessary for him, to try to get to know something about the various members of the Family. His early distaste for Court life, his absorption in his own chosen profession, his frequent absences at sea, had made him, of course, little better than a stranger to the rest of the Family. And, if they knew little or nothing about him, he knew less than nothing about them. The Prince had been the only member of the Family with whom he had had any real intimacy, since the far off nursery days they had all shared together, the only link between him and the others. And now the Prince was dead.
This fresh, unspoilt sister of his would probably be worth knowing. Any girl, who recalled Judith, must be well worth knowing. And there was Lancaster! Lancaster was now, and was likely to remain, Heir Apparent. And William? William had looked a very bright, and engaging youngster, in his naval cadet's uniform, the day before. The others? The others did not matter. But Lancaster, and William, and Betty, he must get to know. And now, at the outset of their new relationship, he had a favourable opportunity to take steps in the matter, which would not recur. He could let them know that he was their brother, as well as—the King! No doubt, they had their problems, and difficulties, just as he had his. He would do what he could, to make life easy for them. After all, it was quite enough that one member of the Family, at a time, should be condemned to the intolerable isolation, and the dreary, treadmill round of the palace.
Might he not usefully begin, at once, with Lancaster? He could send a message to Lancaster, asking him to join him, at his informal lunch, at the palace, at noon. Lancaster had always seemed, to him, a dull, rather heavy, conventional, commonplace person; but there might be something human in him, after all. Perhaps, at an informal intimate encounter, he might be able to establish some contact with him, and get him to talk a little about himself. That would be interesting, and useful. Yes. Lancaster should provide his first experiment in Family research.
Picking up his memorandum tablet again, from where he had dropped it on the breakfast table, the King made another note, to remind him to send the necessary message to Lancaster during the morning.
"Send message to Lancaster."
The fact that he was not sure whether Lancaster, or even William, would still be in town, emphasized, in his own mind, his ignorance of the Family.
At this point, the gorgeously clad footmen approached the table. One of them removed the used dishes and plates. The other placed a stand of fresh fruit in front of the King.
The King selected an apple, and proceeded to munch it like any schoolboy.
It was a good apple.
After all, life had its compensations!
And, he suddenly realized now, he was beginning to take hold of his job, at last. This decision of his to tackle the Family, to get to know them personally, was his own decision. It was an expression of his own individuality, the exercise of his own will. The thought gave him a little thrill of pride, and pleasure. Perhaps, after all, there was going to be some scope, some freedom, for his own personality, in his place in the procession, more scope, more freedom than he had been inclined to think. His own shoulders, directed by his own brain, might make a difference in the jostling in the market-place. If the opportunity arose, he would put his weight into the scrimmage.
The King finished his apple, and then filled and lit his pipe.
The footmen cleared away the breakfast things.
Soothed by tobacco, and cheered by the bright morning sunlight, the King leant back in his chair.
It was another wonderful summer day. Overhead the sky was a luminous, cloudless blue. The sunlight lay golden on the green of the trees, and on the more vivid green of the lawn. The garden flower beds were gay with masses of brilliant hued blossoms. One or two birds whistled pleasantly from the neighbouring trees and bushes. A fat starling strutted about the lawn, digging for worms.
A sense of general well-being stirred in the King, a sense of well-being which surprised him, for a moment, but only for a moment. It was always so, when he had been in Paradise, with Judith. Always he returned to the palace refreshed, and strengthened, with a new zest for, with a new appreciation of, the joy of mere living. Somehow, he must see to it, that his—promotion—did not interfere with his visits to Judith, and to Uncle Bond. He must see to it—in the interest of the State! He smiled as the words occurred to him. In the interest of the State? What would his fellow victims of the State, of the people, the old Duke of Northborough, for example, say to that, if they knew? But the words were justified. It was to the interest of the State that he, the King, should obtain, from time to time, the refreshment, the renewed strength, the zest, the sense of general well-being, of which he was so pleasantly conscious now.
But, meanwhile, in the interest of the State, he must not, he could not afford to, waste any more of these golden, summer morning moments, idling here in the garden. The avalanche of correspondence in the post bags, and the official documents, and dispatches, which had accumulated, during the last day or two, owing to the special demands on his time made by the Coronation, were awaiting him in the palace. Long hours of desk work lay before him. The thought did not displease him. He was in the mood for work. Here was something he could put his weight into. Here was an opportunity for individual action, and self-expression, an opportunity for the exercise of his own judgment, driving power, decision.
Knocking out his pipe, the King stood up abruptly.
Then, whistling gaily, an indication of cheerfulness which had grown very rare with him, of late, he crossed the lawn, and re-entered the palace, on his way back to duty.
CHAPTER VIII
twas in the palace library, a large and lofty room on the ground floor, with a row of tall windows overlooking the garden, that the King spent his office hours. The library was strictly reserved for his use alone. The secretaries, who served his personal needs, were accommodated in a smaller room adjoining, which communicated with the library by folding doors. Although he was compelled to maintain, in this way, the isolation which was so little to his taste, it was characteristic of the King, in his dealings with his immediate subordinates, that he should take some pains not to appear too patently the man apart. This was the way they had taught him in the Navy. On more than one "happy ship," on which he had served, the King had learnt that, to get good work out of subordinates, it was expedient to treat them as fellow workers, and equals, as men, although graded differently in rank, for the purposes of discipline, and pay. It was in more or less mechanical application of this principle, that, still whistling gaily, he chose now, to enter the library, not directly, but through the secretaries' room adjoining.
In the airy, sunny, secretaries' room, the low murmur of talk, and the clatter of typewriters, which seem inseparable from office work, ceased abruptly. There was a general, hurried, pushing back of chairs. Then the half dozen men and women in the room rose, hastily, to their feet. They had not expected to see the King so early. After the exhausting Coronation ceremony of the day before, and the heavy demands on his strength, which the day, as a whole, had made, they had expected him to rest. And here he was, a little before his usual time, if anything, buoyant, and vigorous, and laughing goodhumouredly at their surprise and confusion, ready apparently to attack the accumulation of papers which they had waiting for him.
With a genial nod, which seemed to be directed to each man and woman present, individually, the King passed quickly through the room, into the library beyond, opening and shutting the intervening folding doors for himself, with a sailor's energy.
The secretaries, men and women alike, turned, and looked at each other, and smiled.
Although he was, of necessity, ignorant of the fact, the King had left interested, and very willing fellow workers behind him.
The library was almost too large, and too lofty a room to be comfortably habitable. Worse still, in spite of its south aspect, and its row of tall windows, the eight or nine thousand volumes, which filled the wire fronted bookcases, which ran round two sides of the room, it always seemed to the King, gave it a dead and musty air. These books were for show, not for use. No one ever took them down from the shelves. No one ever read them. The erudite, silver-haired, palace librarian, himself, was more concerned with the rarities amongst them, and with his catalogue, than with their contents. But the books, musty monuments of dead men's brains, as he regarded them, were not the King's chief complaint. A number of Family portraits, which usurped the place of the bookcases, here and there, on the lofty walls, were his real grievance. A queer feeling of antagonism had grown up between him and these portraits. They always seemed to be watching him, watching him, and disapproving of him. The mere thought of them sufficed to check his good spirits, now, as he entered the library. As he sat down at his writing table, he turned, and looked round at them defiantly.
The writing table stood as close up to the row of tall windows, on the south side of the library, as was possible. The windows, with their pleasant view of the sunlit greenness of the garden, were on the King's left, as he sat at the table. Straight in front of him were the undecorated, black oak panels of the folding doors which led into the secretaries' room. On his right on the north wall of the library, were many of the books, and three of the portraits.
First of all, there, in the corner by the folding doors, was a portrait of his grandfather, in the Coronation robes, and full regalia, which he himself had been compelled to wear, the day before; a strong, bearded man, with a masterful mouth, which was not hidden by his beard. A King. Further along, on the right, past several square yards of books, hanging immediately above the ornate, carved, marble mantelpiece, in the centre of the north wall, was a portrait of his father, in Field Marshal's uniform, with his breast covered with decorations; a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote, with a brooding light in his eyes. A King, too. Then, past more books, in the furthest corner of the room, by the door, came the portrait of his mother, a stately, commanding figure, in a wonderful, ivory satin gown, marvellously painted. A Queen. And a hard woman, hard with her children, and harder still with herself, where what she had held to be a matter of Family duty had been concerned. And, last of all, in the centre of yet more books, on the east wall, behind him, was the portrait of his brother, the dead Prince of Wales, a more human portrait this, to see which, as he sat at the writing table, he had to swing right round in his revolving chair; the Prince, in the pink coat, white cord riding breeches, and top boots, of the hunting field, which had been his favourite recreation, leaning a little forward, it seemed, and smiling out of the canvas with the smile which had won him so much, and such well deserved popularity.
All these had borne the Family burden, without complaint. All these had accepted the great responsibility of their position, without question, and even with a certain Royal pride. They had made innumerable, never ending sacrifices.
And he? An unwilling King? A half-hearted King?
No wonder they disapproved of him!
The King swung round, impatiently, in his chair, back to the writing table again.
An unwilling King, a half-hearted King, he might be; but, at any rate, he could labour. He could put his full weight into his work. He could show, in his own way, even if it was not the Family way, even if the Family disapproved of him, that he, too, was a man, that he, too, had individuality, force of character, driving power, decision—
Portfolios, and files, of confidential State documents had been arranged, in neat piles, and in a sequence which was a matter of a carefully organized routine, on the left of the writing table. On the right stood a number of shining, black japanned dispatch boxes, and one or two black leather dispatch cases, of the kind carried by the King's Messengers. The "In" boxes for correspondence, in the centre of the table, were filled with a formidable accumulation of letters. The "Out" boxes, beside them, looked, at the moment, in the brilliant, morning sunlight, emptier than emptiness.
An almost bewildering array of labour saving devices, stamping, sealing, and filing machines, completed the furnishing of the table. These, the King swept, at once, contemptuously to one side. The telephone instrument, which stood on a special shelf at his elbow, was the only labour saving device he ever used. A plain, and rather shabby fountain pen, and two or three stumps of coloured pencil, were the instruments with which he did his work. It was not until he had found these favourite weapons of attack, and placed them ready to his hand, on his right, that he set himself to deal with the accumulation of papers in front of him.
The letters in the "In" boxes were his first concern. These he had merely to approve, by transferring them to the "Out" boxes, ready for posting. It was a transfer which he could safely have made, which he very often did make, without reading a single letter. His personal correspondence was in the capable hands of Lord Blaine, who had served his father, as private secretary, for many years before him. But this morning, in his new determination to find an outlet for his own individuality, the King elected to read each of the letters through carefully. Lord Blaine had acquired a happy tact, in the course of his long experience, in answering the letters, from all sorts and conditions of people, which found their way into the Royal post bags, which was commonly considered beyond criticism.
None the less, now, as he read the letters, a conviction grew upon the King that not a few of the courtly old nobleman's phrases had become altogether stereotyped.
One letter, in particular, addressed to some humble old woman, in a provincial almshouse, congratulating her on her attainment of a centenary birthday, seemed to him far too formal. The old woman had written a quaint, and wonderfully clear letter, in her own handwriting to the King. Seizing his favourite stump of blue pencil, he added, on the spur of the moment, two or three unconventional sentences of his own, to Lord Blaine's colourless reply—
"I am writing this myself. I don't write as well as you do, do I? But I thought you might like to have my autograph as one of your hundredth birthday presents. This is how I write it—"Alfred. R.I."
"I am writing this myself. I don't write as well as you do, do I? But I thought you might like to have my autograph as one of your hundredth birthday presents. This is how I write it—
"Alfred. R.I."
Laughing softly to himself the King tossed the letter, thus amended, into one of the "Out" boxes.
The little incident served to revive his previous good spirits.
Lord Blaine would probably disapprove.
But the old woman would be pleased!
From the correspondence boxes, he turned, in due course, to the portfolios and files on the left of the table. These contained reports, and routine summaries from the various Government departments, copies of official correspondence, one or two Government publications, and certain minor Cabinet papers, and they required more concentrated attention. He had to make himself familiar with the contents of the various documents, and this involved careful reading. An abstract, or a skilful précis, prepared by his secretaries, and attached to the papers, occasionally saved his time and labour; but even these had to be read, and the reading took time. Happily, here, as before, little or no writing, on his part, was necessary. An initial, and a date, to show that he had seen the document in question, a few words of comment, or a curt request for more information, were the only demands made on his blue pencil.
Documents, and copies of correspondence, from the Foreign and Dominion Offices, held the King's attention longest. To him these were not "duty" papers, as were so many of the others. The place names, the names of the foreign diplomats, and of the Dominion statesmen, and administrators, which occurred in these papers, were familiar to him, thanks to the many ports, and countries, the many men and cities, he had seen in his varied naval service. Here and there, in these papers, a single word would shine out, at times, from the typewritten page in front of him, which conjured up, a vision, perhaps, of one of the world's most beautiful roadsteads, or a mental picture of the strong and rugged features of some man, who was a power, a living force, amongst his fellows, in the wilder places of the earth, or a vivid memory of the cool and spacious rooms of some Eastern club house where men, who lived close to the elemental facts of life, gathered to make merry, and to show unstinted hospitality to the stranger. Here he was on sure ground. Here, he knew, his comments were often of real value. He had seen the country. He had met, and talked with, the men on the spot. Frequently, his knowledge of the questions raised in these papers was quite as comprehensive, and as intimate, as that of the oldest permanent officials in Whitehall.
At the end of an hour and a half of hard and methodical work, the King became suddenly aware that he had made considerable progress in his attack on the accumulation of papers in front of him.
Leaning back in his chair he touched a bell which stood on the table beside him.
The folding doors, leading into the secretaries' room, were immediately opened, and a tall, fair, good looking young man, who was chiefly remarkable for the extreme nicety of his immaculate morning dress, entered the library, in answer to the summons.
The King indicated the now full "Out" boxes, with a gesture, which betrayed his satisfaction, and even suggested a certain boyish pride, in the visible result of his labour.
"Anything more coming in?" he enquired.
"Not at the moment, I think, sir. The Government Circulations are all unusually late this morning, sir," the tall young man replied, approaching the table, and picking up the "Out" boxes for removal to the secretaries' room.
The King was filling his pipe now. He felt that he had earned a smoke.
"Bought any cars, lately, Blunt?" he enquired, with a merry twinkle in his eyes.
He had suddenly realized that this was Geoffrey Blunt, the nominal tenant of the garage in Lower Grosvenor Place, and the nominal purchaser of the car housed there.
Geoffrey Blunt laughed, and then blushed, as he became conscious of the liberty into which the King had betrayed him.
"We must organize one of our little incognito excursions, in the near future, Blunt, I think," the King murmured, looking out through the tall windows, on his left, at the sunny, morning glory of the garden. "We will run out into the country."
At the moment, his thoughts were in Paradise. Judith and the Imps, in all probability, would be in the hayfields—
"You must be ready for a holiday, sir," Geoffrey Blunt ventured to remark. "You took us all by surprise, this morning, sir. After yesterday, we did not expect to see you, so early, this morning, sir."
"No. And that reminds me of something I wanted to say," the King replied, looking round from the windows, and speaking with a sudden, marked change of manner. "I can see by the papers which you had waiting for me, this morning, that you people have all been keeping hard at it during the last day or two. I appreciate that. Tell your colleagues, in the next room, that I expressed my appreciation. That is all now. Let me see today's Circulations, when they do arrive. I do not want to be faced with an accumulation of papers, like this morning's, again."
Flushing with pleasure at this praise, Geoffrey Blunt bowed, and withdrew, taking the "Out" boxes with him.
The King smiled to himself as he lit his pipe.
"But who is there to praise me?" he muttered.
Leaning back in his chair, for a moment or two, he gave himself up to the luxury of the true smoker's idleness.
But had there not been something that he had meant to do, in any interval of rest, like this, which might occur during the morning?
The morocco bound memorandum tablet, which he produced from his waistcoat pocket, answered the question—
"Write to Betty."
"Send message to Lancaster."
It was too late to send any message to Lancaster now. A couple of hours was not sufficient notice to give him of an invitation to lunch. He was not intimate enough with Lancaster to treat him in so offhand a manner. It would be an abuse of his new position, a tactical mistake. The lunch must be arranged for tomorrow. Crossing off his original note, he scribbled another—
Lancaster to lunch tomorrow. See him, personally, this afternoon, or this evening.
Lancaster to lunch tomorrow. See him, personally, this afternoon, or this evening.
But he could write to Betty!
Clearing a space on the writing table, by pushing to one side the less urgent documents and papers, which he had retained for subsequent attention, he picked up his fountain pen; then, when he had found, after some search, a sheet of note paper sufficiently plain and unostentatious, to suit his taste, he began to write—
Dear Betty,Your letter this morning gave me great pleasure. I do not know that there is very much pleasure in this business of being King—
Dear Betty,
Your letter this morning gave me great pleasure. I do not know that there is very much pleasure in this business of being King—
But he got no further.
The folding doors facing him were suddenly reopened.
Then there entered, not Geoffrey Blunt, nor any other member of the secretarial staff, but—the old Duke of Northborough.
The King looked up with a surprise which at once gave place to a smile of welcome. This was contrary to all etiquette. But he was glad to see the old Duke. And it was in deference to his own repeated requests on the subject that the veteran Prime Minister had lately consented to make his visits to the palace, in working hours, as informal as possible.
Putting down his pipe, and his pen, the King stood up to receive the old statesman.
The Duke, as if to atone for the abruptness of his entry, paused for a moment on the threshold of the large and lofty room, and bowed, with a slightly accentuated formality.
The folding doors behind him were closed by unseen hands.
Then he advanced, into the room, towards the King.
CHAPTER IX
nunusually tall man, and a big man, with a breadth of chest, and a pair of shoulders, which had made him conspicuous, in every assembly, from his youth up, the Duke still held himself erect, and moved in a big way. Now, as he advanced into the large and lofty room, the thought came to the King, that here was a man for whom the room was neither too large, nor too lofty. While he himself was apt to feel lost in the library, overpowered by its size, and oppressed by the weight of its inanimate objects, the Duke moved as if in his natural and fitting surroundings. The force, the vigour, of the wonderful old man at once relegated the huge room to its proper place in the background. The effect was very much as if the library had been a stage scene, in which the scenery had predominated, until this, the moment when a great actor entered, and drew all eyes.
It was characteristic of the Duke that he should be dressed with a carelessness bordering on deliberate eccentricity. The roomy, comfortable, sombre black office suit, which he was wearing, looked undeniably shabby, and hung loosely on his giant frame. His head was large. His hair, which he wore a little longer than most men, snow-white now but still abundant, was brushed back from his broad forehead in a crescent wave. His features were massive, and strongly moulded. His nose was salient, formidable, pugnacious. His mouth was wide. His lips had even more than the usual fulness common to most public speakers. But his eyes were the dominant feature of his face. His eyebrows were still black, thick, and aggressively bushy. Underneath them, his eyes shone out, luminous and a clear blue, with the peculiar, piercing, penetrative quality, which seems to endow its possessor with the power to read the secret, unspoken, thoughts of other men.
"Enter—the Duke!" the King exclaimed, with an engagingly boyish smile, as the veteran Prime Minister approached the writing table. "The Duke could not have entered at a more opportune moment. I was just taking an 'easy.' Shall we stay here, or go out into the garden, or up on to the roof?"
"We will stay here, I think, if the decision is to rest with me, sir," the Duke replied, in his sonorous, deep, and yet attractively mellow voice. "I bring news, sir. As usual, I have come to talk!"
"Good," the King exclaimed. "Allow me—"
Placing his own revolving chair in position for the Duke, a little way back from the writing table, as he spoke, he invited him to be seated, with a gesture.
Then he perched himself on the writing table, facing the old statesman.
The Duke settled himself, deliberately, in the revolving chair, swinging it round to the right, so that he could escape the brilliant, summer sunshine, which was streaming into the room, through the row of tall windows, on his left. His side face, as it was revealed now to the King, wrinkled and lined by age as it was, had the compelling, masterful appeal, the conspicuous, uncompromising strength, of an antique Roman bust.
"I had just begun a letter to my sister, the Princess Elizabeth, when you came in," the King remarked, maintaining the boyish attitude, which he could never avoid, which, somehow, he never wished to avoid, in the Duke's presence. "It suddenly occurred to me, this morning, that I am the Head of the Family now. I am a poor substitute for my immediate predecessors, I am afraid." He looked up, as he spoke, at the portraits on the opposite side of the room. "But I have decided that I must do my best in my new command."
The Duke looked up in turn. Following the King's glance, his luminous, piercing eyes rested, for a moment or two, on the portraits.
"None of your immediate predecessors were ever called upon to play so difficult a part, as you have to play, sir," he said.
Something in the Duke's manner, a note of unexpected vehemence in his sonorous voice, arrested the King's wandering attention.
His boyishness fell from him.
"What is it?" he asked. "I remember, now, you said you brought news. Is it—bad news?"
"No. It is good news, sir. I could not bring you better news," the Duke replied. "But, I am afraid, in spite of all my warnings, you are not prepared for the announcement which I have to make."
He paused there, for a moment, and looked away from the King.
"The storm, which we have been expecting, for so long, sir," he added, slowly, dwelling on each word, "is about to break."
The King started, and winced, as if he had been struck.
"The storm?" he exclaimed.
"Is about to break, sir," the Duke repeated.
There was a long, tense pause.