A LITTLE DIPLOMACY
The announcement that Ferdinand the Twelfth, accompanied by his famous minister, Baron von Schalk, was on his way to this country and that he was coming straight to Dympsfield House can only be described as a blow to one confirmed in the habit of mediocrity. Had I had only myself to consult in the matter, I should have urged, with all the vigour of which my nature is capable, that it would be quite impossible for us to put them up. The lack of accommodation that was afforded by our modest establishment; the obscurity of our social state; our radical unfitness for the honour that was to be thrust upon us; all these disabilities and many another surged through my brain, while I laved my tired limbs and struggled into a "boiled" shirt, and tied my "white tie for royalty" in accordance with the sumptuary decree of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere. So acute, indeed, became the conviction that something must be done to turn the tide of events that I was fain to go next door to Fitz. That worthy was in the act of brushing his hair.
"You've heard the news, I suppose?" said I, and as I spoke I caught a glimpse of my own gloomy and shirt-sleeved apparition in a looking-glass.
"What news, old son?" said the Man of Destiny, negligently shaking something out of a bottle on to his scalp. "Not been shootin' at Sonia, have they? Police are devilish vigilant. I'm hanged if we haven't had a couple of mounted detectives with us all day. They rode like it, anyway."
"Do you mean to say you haven't heard?" said I, positively hating the man for his coolness. "Hasn't the Princess told you that her father is on his way to this country, and that he is coming straight to us?"
Fitz laid down his hair-brushes and turned round to face me.
"Get out!" he said. "Ferdinand coming here!"
"Yes; she had a letter this evening to that effect."
Fitz betrayed astonishment. And under the mask of his habitual indifference I thought he also betrayed something else.
"That poisonous old swine coming here!" he muttered.
"Yes; he is coming with Baron von Schalk."
"They generally hunt in couples. He never goes anywhere without his familiar. But I don't like your news at all."
"I like the news as little as you do," said I. "Really, we can hardly do with them here."
Fitz stroked his chin pensively, and then shook his head.
"It looks as though we shall have to put up with them, I'm afraid. If they are really on the way, I don't quite see how we can shirk them. Ferdinand is coming as a private person, I presume?"
"So I gather. But what do you suppose is his motive in making this sudden pilgrimage to see his daughter?"
Fitz did not answer the question immediately.
"It admits of only one explanation," he said at last. "His other scheme having failed, he has the audacity to take the thing in hand himself. But that is his way. Whatever may be thought of his policy and the style in which it is carried out, it can't be denied that he is a very remarkable man. But I wish to God he would keep away from England!"
The son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth ended with an abrupt outburst. Evidently the prospect of coming to grips with his august relation was not to be viewed lightly.
"But it hardly seems right," he said, "for him to take pot-luck at the Coach and Horses. I shall be immensely grateful, Arbuthnot, if you will put him up here, and of course it is quite understood that I stand the shot."
"The question of the shot, my dear fellow, doesn't enter into the case at all. But, you see, we are just simple, ordinary folk, and we are not quite up to this sort of thing; and then again, our accommodation is limited."
"Oh, that will be all right. If you can squeeze in Ferdinand and old Schalk here, their people can stay in the village."
I am not often troubled by anything in the nature of an inspiration, but desperation has been known to quicken the most lethargic minds.
"By Jove," said I, "there's Brasset. He is mounted on a far better scale than we are. The very man! I'm sure, if the matter were mentioned to him, he would feel himself highly honoured."
"Yes," said Fitz, "it is not half a bad idea. I will mention it to Sonia."
"Of course, my dear fellow," I explained, "you understand that my wife and I immensely appreciate the honour of entertaining the King of Illyria, and if we only had more resources we should be only too grateful for the chance. I hope you will make that quite clear to the Princess."
Solemnly enough the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth promised that this should be done, and I descended to the drawing-room in a more equable frame of mind. I was able to eat my dinner in the happy belief that my inspiration had solved an acute and oppressive difficulty. Emboldened by this reflection and sustained by a sense of danger overpast, I even went to the length of attempting to pave the way for the reception of the happy solution.
"By the way," I ventured to announce to Mrs. Arbuthnot at the other end of the table, "Mr. Fitzwaren has suggested that perhaps it would be more convenient for Count Zhygny and his friend the Baron if Lord Brasset entertained them at the Hall. This seems a most happy suggestion, and I am quite sure that Lord Brasset will consider it a very great honour."
Before I had come to the end of this carefully phrased, and, as I hoped, eminently diplomatic speech, a silent but furious signal was dispatched by wireless telegraphy across the whole length of the table. A frown of portentous dimension clouded the brow of Mrs. Arbuthnot as she turned ruthlessly to the picture of amused cynicism who sat beside her.
"Really, Mr. Fitzwaren," said she, "that is nonsense. His Maj—I mean to say, Count Thingamy has expressed a gracious desire to come here, and of course, as I have no need to say, we should be the last people in the world not to respect it. We shall only feel too proud and honoured, and the longer he stays with us the more proud and the more honoured we shall feel."
"Quite so, quite so," said I, hurriedly. "Those are exactly my views; that goes without saying, of course. But at the same time, Mr. Fitzwaren agrees with me that the accommodation at the Hall is far superior to any that we have it in our power to offer."
"I didn't say that exactly, old son." Fitz turned the tail of an amused eye upon his hostess. "I rather think that is one of the things that ought to be expressed differently. Rather open to misconstruction, as the old lady said when something went wrong with the airship."
"Irene quite understands what I mean," said I, with the valour of the entirely desperate. "The Hall, don't you know, is one of the show places of the country—ceilings by Verrio, and so on. Then, of course, Brasset's a peer, and, as it were, marked out by predestination to do the honours to Count Zhygny."
There was the imperious upraising of a jewelled paw, in company with a flash of eyes across the rose-bowl in the centre of the table. I was reminded of the lady in Meredith whose aspect spat.
"You are talking sheer nonsense, Odo. Your father is coming here, isn't he, Sonia dear? It is all arranged, and there will be heaps of room. Lucinda will go to Yorkshire to see her Granny; and Jodey can go to the Coach and Horses; and you, Odo, can sleep over the stables, and I am sure that Mr. Fitzwaren won't mind giving up the nicest bedroom to his Maj—I should say, Count von Thingamy. You won't, now will you, Mr. Fitzwaren?"
"I am yours to command, Mrs. Arbuthnot," said Mr. Fitzwaren, with his chin pinned down to the front of his shirt, and gazing straight before him with his smiling but sardonic eye. "And if there is anything I can do to add to the comfort of the Count, I need hardly say that I shall be most happy."
"There!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, triumphantly. "Not another word, please, else Sonia will think we don't deserve such an honour."
Her Royal Highness regaled us all with a benevolent flash of her wonderful teeth.
As one in the coils of fate, I had to submit with the best grace I could to its decree. So far was the sharer of my joys and the participator in my sorrows from viewing the prospect of the royal coming with disfavour, that she might be said to revel in it. There was a fire in her eye, a lightness in her step; the mere thought of the glamour that was so soon to invest her household served to envelop her in an atmosphere of mental and moral elevation that can only be described as lyrical.
Later in the evening I received a Caudle lecture upon my absence of tact. "What possessed you, Odo, to talk at dinner in that way! I don't know what dear Sonia must have felt, I'm sure. One would really think, to hear you, that we positively didn't want to entertain the King."
"Let us assume, mon enfant," said the desperate I, "in a purely academic spirit, that almost inconceivable hypothesis."
"Really, Odo, there are times when you seem to take a pride in being bourgeois."
"In this instance, my child, the indictment justifies itself. All the same, we are what we are; it is hardly kind to hold any man responsible for his antecedents."
"Don't think for a moment that I blame you because your grandfather was in trade; although, of course, trade was not so respectable then as it is now. Why I blame you, Odo, is because you don't always make the best of yourself. That was almost the only thing dearest Mama had against you. Now, for the love of goodness, let us hear no more about the King going to the Hall to stay with Reggie Brasset!"