THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE
It was past two o'clock when the partie was 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 so bourgeois."
"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 as hauteur.
It was our first impasse in 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 are you doing 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 appear bourgeois. 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 be bourgeois in 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 his nom 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 English Times there, 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 English Times! 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 English Times, 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.