CHAPTER X
CHARLOTTE PATACAKE ASTONISHES THE CRITICS
The Lady Belvane sits in her garden. She is very happy. An enormous quill-pen, taken from a former favourite goose and coloured red, is in her right hand. The hair of her dark head, held on one side, touches the paper whereon she writes, and her little tongue peeps out between her red lips. Her left hand taps the table—one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two. She is composing.
Wonderful woman!
You remember that scene with the Princess Hyacinth? "I feel we want a little outside help in our affairs." A fortnight of suspense before Prince Udo arrived. What had the ring done to him? At the best, even if there would be no Udo at all to interfere, nevertheless she knew that she had lost her footing at the Palace. She and the Princess would now be open enemies. At the worst—those magic rings were so untrustworthy!—a Prince, still powerful, and now seriously annoyed, might be leagued against her.
Yet she composed.
And what is she writing? She is entering for the competition in connection with the Encouragement of Literature Scheme: the last scheme which the Princess had signed.
I like to think of her peacefully writing at a time when her whole future hung in the balance. Roger sneers at her. "Even now," he says, "she was hoping to wring a last bag-full of gold from her wretched country." I deny emphatically that she was doing anything of the sort. She was entering for a duly authorised competition under the pen-name of Charlotte Patacake. The fact that the Countess Belvane, according to the provisions of the scheme, was sole judge of the competition, is beside the point. Belvane's opinion of Charlotte Patacake's poetry was utterly sincere, and uninfluenced in any way by monetary considerations. If Patacake were rewarded the first prize it would be because Belvane honestly thought she was worth it.
One other fact by way of defence against Roger's slanders. As judge, Belvane had chosen the subject of the prize poems. Now Belvane and Patacake both excelled in the lighter forms of lyrical verse; yet the subject of the poem was to be epic. "The Barodo-Euralian War"—no less. How many modern writers would be as fair?
"THE BARODO-EURALIAN WAR."