II
The King had caught sight in the newspaper of something which annoyed him very much; annoyed him all the more because it seemed to betoken that the moment his abdication was withdrawn the old ministerial encroachments on the royal prerogative had begun again.
"We are officially informed," so ran the paragraph, "that the Minister of the Interior has advised his Majesty to grant a reprieve to the three strike leaders now lying under sentence of death for their part in the recent riots and police murders. It is understood that the sentences will be commuted to penal servitude for life."
And this was the first the King had heard of it!
He sent at once for the Home Minister; and within an hour that great official stood before him.
"Mr. Secretary," said the King sharply, as he laid the offending paragraph before him, "since when, may I ask, has the Crown's prerogative of mercy become the perquisite of the Home Office?"
"I do not think, sir," submitted the Secretary with all outward humility, "that any such change has come about. In this case the circumstances were special and very urgent."
"Why, then, was I not consulted?"
"There was hardly time, your Majesty."
"I was here."
"I apprehended that the recent event—so very upsetting to your Majesty——"
"Come, come," interjected the King, "if I was able to read my speech immediately after it—as I did—I was quite able to attend to other business as well; and you ought to have known it."
The King did not thus usually speak to one of his ministers; but, having just had to face so heavy a defeat of his plans for honorable retirement, he was the more bent on asserting himself.
"Your Majesty will pardon me, it had to be issued to the press without a moment's delay. We had received information which made the matter of great urgency."
"I will hear your explanation," said the King coldly; and the Secretary went on.
"You are doubtless aware, sir, that about these sentences there has been a very considerable agitation among the workers; and the utter failure of the strike has not improved matters."
"I am aware of that," said the King.
"It had always been my intention, as soon as the march of strikers had been dispersed in an orderly manner, to recommend the exercise of the royal clemency. It was in fact merely a matter of hours, when circumstances forestalled us. The session closed before any of the strike marchers could arrive upon the scene; and then came the event which diverted popular attention. It was for that reason, I presume, that only yesterday certain of the men's leaders made very inflammatory speeches—of a kind which it would be extremely difficult for the authorities to overlook or make any appearance of yielding to. One speech in particular, calling upon the hangman to refuse to perform his duty and threatening his life if he did so, was of a peculiarly seditious character; for I need hardly point out that if that functionary is not protected in the fulfilment of his official duties the downfall of law and order has begun. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to forestall any reports of that speech in the metropolitan press. For a few hours we were able to keep back the news; your Majesty's clemency was announced in the late issues of all the evening papers, and the 'Don't Hang' speech was not reported till this morning; and thus, coming after the event, has fallen comparatively flat. I think that now your Majesty will understand the position."
The Secretary had finished.
"And that is your explanation?" queried the King.
The minister bowed.
"I have to say that it does not satisfy me."
The minister lifted sad eyebrows, but did not speak.
"You tell me that for many days this recommendation of mercy has been your fixed intention. Why, then, did you not consult me? Why did you assume that, at a moment's notice, I should be able to fall in with your suggestion; why, even, that I should think the dispersal of certain riotous assemblies a convenient signal for the exercise of the royal prerogative?"
"I have merely followed, sir, the ordinary course of procedure observed in my department."
"Until, being unexpectedly pressed for time, you departed from it. After all the telephone was between us; I was here. I might not have agreed: but at least I should have been consulted!"
The minister pursed his lips; to this sort of hectoring he had really nothing to say. It did not comport with his official dignity.
The King rose. "Mr. Secretary, as I have already said, your explanation does not satisfy me. I shall communicate my sentiments to the Prime Minister."
His Majesty did not extend his hand; but by a motion of the head showed that the interview was over; and there was nothing left for the Minister of the Interior to do but retire from the room.
And the next day he retired from office; for though the Prime Minister urged many things in his defense, and more particularly the misapprehension which his present retirement might cause, the King remained obdurate; he was bent upon making an example. In the great political game he had miscalculated and lamentably failed, but red-tape was still his cherished possession; and you can do a good deal with red-tape when you have an unquestioned authority to fall back upon. Professor Teller's volumes of Constitutional History still lay upon a retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that he had extracted with slight changes his formal pronouncement of abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at least they should render him as his one remaining due.
And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence of the late outrage?
"Very likely," assented the King; "after all it took place on Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action.
"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my duty."
In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an attitude which put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood forth to his ministers as a rigid constitutional reminder; and with six volumes of the minutiæ of constitutional usage at his fingers' ends the amount of time he was able to waste and the amount of trouble he was able to give were simply amazing.
The Prime Minister had been quite right; the resignation of the Home Secretary caused just that flutter of unfavorable suspicion which he had expected. For some reason or another he was extremely distressed by it, and begged from his Majesty the grant of a full State pension to the retired minister. But the King would not hear of it. "It is not my duty," he said, "to grant full pensions to those who fail in their official obligations. Where I am more personally concerned I have not pressed you; I have not asked for the resignation of the Prefect of Police, though I think I might have some reason to show for it. He prevented nothing, and he has discovered nothing. Do you expect me to open Parliament for you again next week, with the same ceremony, along the same route, and at the same risk?"
He was assured that every precaution would be taken.
"I hope so," he said in the tone of one who very much doubted whether the ministerial word was now worth anything.
Under this harassing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when out of work or when on strike. And when the Address to the Throne was being moved Labor and the Women Chartists would be in renewed agitation, asking for things which would make party politics quite impossible, and which it was therefore quite impossible for party politics to grant. If the Government had not still got that thoroughly unpopular House of Bishops to sit upon and coerce, things would be looking very black indeed.
III
And meanwhile where was the Princess Charlotte? Seven horrible days had gone by; and the inner circle of the detective force had been running about in padded slippers, so to speak, giving an accurate description of a lady whose name nobody knew, and who had been last seen in the vicinity of a college for women. Very privately and confidentially the titled lady who was the head of that institution had been interviewed; but her information was limited.
"She came to me only for one day," said the Principal, "though I thought she was intending to stay a week. I hardly know when I missed her; she had laid it down so very emphatically that she was to be left free and treated without ceremony, that really I did not trouble to look after her. Whenever she was here her Highness always mixed quite freely with the students; I know that with some of them she had made friends. They are far more likely to know what her plans were than I am."
Further inquiry in the direction thus indicated had to be carried on elsewhere, since the students had now separated for the vacation; and wherever inquiry was made the same stealthy secrecy had to be adopted; nobody must be allowed to suppose that the Princess Royal of Jingalo was missing. And so—on a sort of all-fours not at all conducive to speed—the quest went on.
On the fifth day, however, some relief had arrived to reduce the parental anxiety to bearable proportions. A letter, dropped from nowhere, bearing the metropolitan postmark, came to the King's hands. It gave only the barest, yet very essential information.
"Dearest papa," it ran, "I am quite well, and enjoying myself. I shall be back in a fortnight."
News of the arrival of this letter was immediately conveyed to the Constabulary Chief; and after three days of deep cogitation the absence of all reference to the outrage and to the risk run by those near and dear to her seemed to strike him as peculiar, and supplied him with what hitherto the police had lacked—a clue. And after two more days of strenuously directed search it bore fruit.
Late one afternoon the King was sitting at work in his study when his Comptroller-General entered hastily and in evident excitement; for though the King was then busily engaged in writing he presumed to interrupt, not waiting for the royal interrogating glance to give him his permission.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a tone of very urgent apology.
"Well, well?" said the King rather testily, for he did not like his writing-hour to be thus disturbed, "what is it?"
"The Prime Minister wishes to see you, sir, on a matter of extreme urgency."
The King had so long been pestered by ministers on matters which they considered urgent and which he did not, that he had little patience for such pleas, coming at the wrong time.
"What about?" he inquired curtly.
The Comptroller-General, who was supposed not to know, replied discreetly but in a tone of veiled meaning, "Something in the Home Department I believe, sir. Just now, while there is no chief secretary, the Prime Minister himself is seeing to matters."
"Dear, dear!" sighed his Majesty, "I do wish he would manage to get his urgent business done at the proper time!"
"I think, sir," said the General, "that this matter is one of sufficient importance to justify a suspension of the ordinary rules." He paused, as though about to say more, but thought better of it; after all the matter did not lie within his department.
"Very well," said the King, "let him come in, then!" And in due course the Premier entered.
It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened abruptly upon the business which had brought him.
"I have come to inform your Majesty," said he, "that we have at last discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts."
"Oh?" said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of gratitude over the too long delayed discovery. "And pray, where is she?"
"I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in Stonewall Jail."
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness. "Whatever took her there?"
"She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'[1] along with several others. And she has been there for the last ten days."
"Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope."
"The charge, sir, was for assaulting the police. No doubt there has been a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence."
"Assaulting the police!" exclaimed the King petulantly.
"But what else are the police there for?—when there's trouble, I mean. And how many of them did she assault, pray?"
"I believe only one, sir," replied the Prime Minister; "at least only one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses to say that she did not assault him. The magistrate who convicted, however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested."
"When did all this take place?"
"In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them."
"She must be mad!" exclaimed the King in bewilderment. "Whatever could have induced her?"
"Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?"
"She has ideas," said the King, "like other young people; but she is generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she doesn't want to do, she——" And then it began to dawn upon him—though only darkly—what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger generation was coming to.
"Poor dear silly child!" he exclaimed in fond irritation. "Why ever could she not have waited?"
That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer.
"Well, well," he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the business, "she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real harm done."
"Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter," said the Prime Minister gravely.
"Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced in her own name, I suppose?"
"Certainly not, sir; had she been recognized the thing could never have happened. She must to some extent have altered her dress and her appearance: as to that I have no particulars. The name she actually went in under was Ann Juggins."
"Preposterous!" exclaimed the King. "And supposing that were to come out!"
"That is the trouble, sir. Without the full and immediate exercise of your authority, I fear it may. As a matter of fact, that is why she still remains where we found her."
"Oh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the King. "You don't come for my authority in cases of this kind. Let her out, let her out! and say nothing more about it!"
"The Prefect, sir, has already been to see her, and she refuses to be let out; that is to say, declares that if she is not allowed to serve her full sentence she will make the whole of the affair public."
"Public?"
"Name and all. There was her ultimatum; she made a special point of it. Her Highness seems somehow to be aware that the name is an impossible one, a weapon against which no Government department could stand. The word 'Juggins,'—only think, sir, what it means! Here we have a ridiculous, a most lamentable blunder committed by the police, sufficient of itself to cause us the gravest embarrassment; and then to have on the top of it all this name with its ridiculous association rising up to confound us. We should go down as 'the Juggins Cabinet'; the word would be cried after us by every errand-boy in the street—the Government would become impossible."
The King did his best to conceal his delight at the predicament in which Charlotte's escapade had, by the confession of its Chief, placed the Cabinet. This tyrannical Government, in spite of its large majority, its strong party organization, and its bureaucratic powers, was unable to stand up against ridicule; a mere breath, and all its false pretensions to dignity would be exposed, and its dry bones, speciously clad in strong armor, would rattle down into the dust.
And if he chose to use this knowledge suddenly gained, what a power it would give him! Yes; he had only to send for Charlotte and bid her cry 'Juggins,' and that which, with so many months of anxious toil and with threat of abdication, he had failed to bring about, would immediately accomplish itself in other ways. But unfortunately the King was a man of scrupulous conscience, and was bound by his ideas of what became a monarch and a gentleman. He may have been quite mistaken in regarding as unclean the weapon with which Heaven had supplied him; but as he did so regard it, one must reluctantly admit that he was right to throw it aside.
"Well," he said, when the Prime Minister had finished, "she must be made not to tell, that's all!"
"I fear, sir, she is very determined."
"Determined to do what?"
"To serve out her sentence."
The King sat and thought for a while. He knew his Charlotte better than the police did; and, besides that, during the past week he had quite made up his mind that the Prefect of Police was in some matters a blunderer. "I wonder how he tried to get her out," he meditated aloud. "Did she send me any message?"
"Nothing direct, sir, that I know of; but I take it that her ultimatum was also directed against any possible action on the part of your Majesty. She was quite determined to do her full time; said indeed that you had promised her a fortnight. What that may mean, I do not know."
"Oh, really!" cried the King, "the folly of the official mind is past all believing,—especially when it concentrates itself in the police force! Let somebody go to that poor child and tell her that her father and mother have had a bomb thrown at them, and are trying to recover themselves in the grief caused by her absence! And then unchain her (you keep them in chains, I suppose?), open the door of her prison, and see how she'll run! And tell the Prefect," he added, "that I cannot present him with my compliments."
The King was quite right. In case Charlotte should refuse to believe the official word, she was shown a newspaper with lurid illustrations; and within an hour's time she was back at the palace, weeping, holding her father and mother alternately in her arms, and scolding them for all the world as though they had been guilty of outrageous behavior, and not she.
And, after all, it was a very good way of getting over the preliminaries of a rather awkward meeting.