II
Bad-as-Bad had now been in the enjoyment of its Jingalese visitors for over a month. The town prided itself on knowing how to behave to royalty; and every day when the King went down to take the waters, or strolled in the municipal gardens, people pretended not to look at him; and only when he was not actually there did the conductor of the famous band, in the ranks of which operatic first-fiddles kept themselves in practice during their summer holidays—only then did the conductor throw out a delicate compliment, for chance ear-shot, by performing, with variations such as were heard nowhere else, the National Anthem of Jingalo. But each day the musical program was submitted for his Majesty's approval; and if he or the Queen made any suggestion—as it was always hoped they would—then so surely as they approached the kiosk the strains of that particular selection were heard, telling them that Bad-as-Bad was always in attendance upon their wishes, always anxious to give them pleasure, always appreciative of their presence in its midst.
Every day the King paid for his six glasses of water at the fountain-head; every day he bought a buttonhole from the pretty flower-seller in peasant costume who was not herself a peasant at all; every day he bought a Jingalese newspaper at the garden kiosk, and sat under the shade of the trees reading it; and nobody, looking at him, would know that even there he was assiduously followed, ringed round and watched by six detectives, nor could they have any idea how carefully the bona fides of each newly arrived visitor was examined, inquired into, and verified all the way back along the route from place of arrival to place of origin; nay, how thoroughly the luggage of any who were in the least suspicious was searched behind their backs in order to discover whether they had any political opinions likely to prove dangerous to a King taking his holiday.
When the Queen drove out little girls sometimes threw flowers into her carriage, but never often enough to make it a nuisance or to seem mechanical; and when they happened to be very small the Queen would stop and ask them their name and their age and how many brothers and sisters they had; and then a silver coin would pass to the hands of the patient little sentinel. And when the Queen had driven on, a large she-bear or elder sister would come out of the wood and devour it. But everybody would hear about the domestic inquiries and the gift, and would say what a really nice lady the Queen was. That is always the great surprise of the common people when they meet royalty.
But what pleased the inhabitants of Bad-as-Bad most of all was when the Queen came out and sat upon her balcony in the cool of the evening and knitted,—doing it, as someone who watched her through opera-glasses was able to affirm, in the German manner. It was even asserted that she could turn a heel and narrow at the toes without either looking or interrupting the flow of her conversation; and we who have had the cobbling habits of a king of Montenegro held up to us for admiration, must we not think that this also was a most queenly act and an example to all haus-fraus?
Princess Charlotte (the reason for whose being with her parents on this occasion was beginning to leak out) was more elusive in her habits and was seldom on view. She never took the waters, nor sat in the balcony to listen to the band; but kept unheard-of hours—early in the morning, late in the evening—slipping out by back ways and going off on long day expeditions with only one of her ladies. One day she even got lost and spent the night at a hill-chalet. On a lake she had been seen rowing: some said that far out from shore she had actually bathed, but that was not possible; probably she had only fallen in.
The Queen kept what count of her she could, and now and then would counsel moderation, or would try to impose it by getting some of the more elderly gentlemen-in-waiting to join her expeditions. They came home limping and exhausted; in her pursuit of health and vigor Charlotte was ruthless.
"They shouldn't come," she said. "If they do, and find it too much for them, they can sit down at the boundaries and wait for us."
And so she went her own way quite happily, till suddenly there came an upheaval and all semblance of moderation was thrown aside. The cause of this upset was the calculated indiscretion of a Berlin newspaper which had caught Charlotte's eye. There set forth was the story of her ascent of the Rathhaus spire, there also the local custom with its meaning carefully explained, there pointed inquiry as to its particular application if certain rumors were true; and then followed the circumstantial evidence.
The Princess flamed into her mother's presence, paper in hand. "Is this true?" she demanded.
"Dear, dear," said the Queen, having read no further than the preliminary anecdote; "well, you shouldn't do such things!" Then she came upon commentary and surmise, with dates, chapter, and verse. It did not amount to very much, but such facts as there were to go upon were insidiously underlined, and the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser was named.
"Oh, dear," she complained, "I do wish these papers would not be so previous and officious and meddlesome and pretending to know so much."
"But is it true?" demanded Charlotte.
"Is what true?"
"Is it true that you have brought me here to meet him; that we have been waiting for him to come; that some one has sent him my photograph and that he——Oh, it is unbearable!" She broke off and snatched at the offending paper, that she might once more sear her vision with its triangular allusions.
"You oughtn't to read such tittle-tattle!" said her mother. "Why can't you leave the papers alone?"
It was nothing much in itself, the usual coinage of the society journalist intelligently anticipating events. It pointed with sleek pleasantry to the fact that the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, returning to his inheritance after long exile, would find greeting awaiting him from a royal house which had apparently been very anxious to make his acquaintance. Then followed an account of the visit and prolonged sojourn at Bad-as-Bad of the royal family of Jingalo; the beauty of the Princess was spoken of, her accomplishments, her exploits in climbing and walking; it was rumored that even in South America her photograph had been seen and admired. It was known that the Prince had arrived unexpectedly at his port of departure, and finding a boat on the point of sailing had gone on board. Was it the knowledge that only till a certain date——? The rest we need not set down here. As though it would help her to blot out the record with its attendant circumstances, Princess Charlotte tore the paper into little pieces.
"My dear, don't be so violent!" said the Queen.
"I have been brought here so that he may come and look at me!" cried the Princess, white with wrath. The Queen took up her knitting.
"Nothing of the sort; you were brought here to be with us and to be kept out of mischief."
"Why are we staying a fortnight longer than we intended to?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'we'; I intended to stay till your father had completed his cure. This year it has taken longer."
"It hasn't! He is putting on weight again; only yesterday he told me so. You can't get more cured when that has begun, because it means that you are acclimatized."
"It's no use your talking as if you were a medical authority, my dear, and offering your advice, for we shan't take it."
Charlotte opened her mouth and bottled a breath before she next spoke.
"Who sent him my photograph?"
"Gracious me, child, anybody can get your photograph. Isn't it in all the shop-windows?"
"Not in South America."
"Oh, yes; they are getting quite civilized over there now."
Charlotte struck at a venture.
"You sent it; you know you did! Yes, and then he sent you that thing of himself."
"My dear Charlotte," said the Queen composedly, "you needn't get excited; these little exchanges do sometimes happen quite naturally in the course of correspondence, and I have a great deal of correspondence as you know. Now do forget everything that foolish newspaper has been saying, and look at the thing sensibly. Isn't it my duty to give you every chance of meeting those—those whom it is suitable for you to meet? Are you always going to begin by saying you won't know people?"
"Begin what?" Charlotte shot the question; the Queen turned it aside and went on.
"Now here is a case: this young man who has been away three years among savages—I wonder he wasn't eaten by them—running into all sorts of dangers and doing a lot of foolish brave things that he needn't have done; and then his uncle, the Prince, dying behind his back and everything left to a regency waiting his return. Isn't it quite natural, seeing how things are, that he should be wishing to settle down? Now I am going to be quite frank with you. He has seen your photograph, I know; but I didn't send it to him, and he didn't send me his. We heard that he intended coming to see us—to Jingalo, I mean—and after that I got it; as a matter of fact his aunt, the Margravine, sent it to me; and I, in exchange, sent her yours."
"Ah! so that was why she came to see us directly we got here, and why she looked at me so, and kept asking me so many questions about myself. I couldn't understand it at the time—her being so curious. But you knew, yes, you knew!"
"Well, what if I did?"
"Oh!" cried the Princess, "why, why was I born?"
And then her indignation broke loose, and she became, as the Queen afterwards remarked to her husband when describing the scene, "most unreasonable, and more violent than any one could believe."
After about ten minutes of it her Majesty rose quietly from her chair and rang the bell.
III
A message came to the King that her Majesty wished to see him.
When he arrived in the Queen's boudoir he found his wife sitting in all her accustomed composure; and yet somehow the scene suggested disturbance. Away from her mother at the furthest window stood Charlotte, a charmingly disheveled figure; flushed and bright-eyed she was looking out over the Platz and mopping vehemently at her nose with a handkerchief.
"Don't do that there!" remarked the Queen, "any one might see you."
"Why shouldn't they? They'd only think that I had a cold."
"It isn't the time of the year for colds. Either leave off, or come away from the window."
"There, you see!" cried Charlotte, stung to fresh exasperation, "I can't even stand where I like now!"
"What is the matter?" inquired the King.
"Tell your father what you have been saying," said the Queen, finding it better that the culprit herself should explain.
"I don't know what I've been saying."
"I should think not; it didn't sound like it. Now that you've got both parents to listen to you, talk to them and tell them your mind."
This threw Charlotte into a fresh paroxysm. "Oh, why did I ever have parents?" she cried.
"Yes, that appears to be the trouble," said the Queen. "John, this is a revolting daughter. I've heard of them, and now I've got the thing brought home to me. Look at her!"
"What are you revolting about, my dear?" inquired the King kindly.
"Everything!" exclaimed Charlotte.
"Quite true," said the Queen, "everything."
"Well, begin at the beginning." And Charlotte screwed herself up to speak.
"I came to talk to mamma about something," she said, "something that mattered very much. I suppose you know about it too."
The Queen gave her husband an informing look.
"And what do you think she did?" Charlotte continued. "First she told me not to be foolish; and after that, to everything I said she went on—just as if she didn't hear me—knitting, knitting!"
"She says," interrupted the Queen, "that she is not going to marry anybody, and particularly not the Prince, because she hates him. I say how can she know when she hasn't seen him."
"I won't marry him!" cried Charlotte, "I've seen his photograph."
"Yes, and you liked it," said her mother. This did not improve matters.
"But nobody is forcing you to marry him," said the King. "I don't know why it has even been mentioned." And, seeking a clue, he cast a troubled glance at the Queen.
"It's in all the papers!" retorted Charlotte, indulging in poetic license. "And you know it! Yes, he is coming here to look at me, to see if he likes me, and to see if I can pretend to like him. But I won't be looked at, it's an indignity I won't stand. I'll not even see him!"
"But why ever not?" exclaimed her father.
Charlotte wriggled with impatience.
"Oh, can't you see? Supposing he comes and does look at me; and then goes away without—without caring!—That's what you are asking me to put up with. For me to know, and for him to know, and for him to know that I know! How would you like it yourself?"
"I tell her she is very ridiculous," said the Queen. "A Princess can't marry a mushroom. Does she want to fall in love with her eyes shut. Something has to be done beforehand, or we should never be anywhere——"
"I don't want to be anywhere," said the Princess.
"Outside a lunatic asylum," said her mother, completing the sentence.
"My dear child," put in the King, "don't you see that nothing is really settled—and will not be until you agree to it?"
"Then why did you ever tell him anything about it? Why couldn't we have just met? It's this picking of us out beforehand behind our backs, and then telling us of it; that's what I can't stand!"
"My dear, nobody is forcing you," repeated the King persuasively.
"Then I won't see him."
"I tell her she must," remarked the Queen in a tone of comfortable finality.
"Mamma, will you stop knitting!" cried Charlotte. "You treat me as if I were an insect!"
"You have got the brains of one," retorted her mother. "John, will you please speak to her? Perhaps you can understand what it all means; I can't. She has been talking Greek to me—something or other about the Trojans."
"Yes; the Trojan women," corrected Charlotte.
"She says she's like one of them!"
"So I am."
"I don't know which one, you mentioned so many."
"All of them. Yes, papa, they had to go and live with foreigners—men they had never seen."
"Don't say 'live with'; it's an objectionable term."
"Die with them, then: some did! One of them killed a king in his bath; at least his wife did, but it's all the same."
"Yes; she began quoting some verses to me about that bath affair," said the Queen. "And I must say they didn't sound to me quite decent."
Charlotte was quite ready to repeat it.
"Oh, don't quote poetry to me!" begged the King. "I don't understand it."
"And I try not to," said the Queen. So Charlotte's quotation was ruled out of the discussion.
"Don't you think, my dear," persuaded her father, "that meeting him here, as it just so happens, will seem sufficiently accidental?"
"Not after we've waited for him all this time; not after I climbed up that spire and threw my cap at him without knowing it," said the Princess. "Oh, you don't know what that paper has been saying!" And she pointed to the bits.
The King stooped and began gathering them up.
"It's all nonsense, John," said the Queen. "Don't indulge her by paying any attention."
And at that renewed proof of her mother's imperviousness of mind Princess Charlotte ran out of the room.
"Leave her alone!" remarked the Queen, sure of her own sagacity, "she'll calm down. My belief is that she really likes him. I saw her looking at his photograph; it wasn't only once, either."