The Princess Sophia

by E. F. Benson

Sophia looked up.

‘Yes, I never thought of that; that will be a great advantage. Petros can constantly take my place in the Assembly, and I hope he will enjoy it more than I have done. He can see to the tobacco and potato bills during the day, and play cards in the evening. He likes detail—he told me so. He says it is only by great attention to details that anyone arrives at great results.’

‘Oh, he said that, did he?’ remarked her father, and then rejected the idea that had leaped unbidden into his mind, as out of the question. He little knew how nearly true Prince Petros’s words would prove.

Within a month from their betrothal the wedding was celebrated. Royal personages flocked from all countries to Rhodopé, and the ports of Mavromáti and Búlteck were gay with the flags of all nations. The palace at Amandos, as well as the shooting-boxes on the hills above, were filled with guests, and the odour of the wedding bake-meats was in the air. Prince Demetrius was a miracle of courtesy to his visitors, thereby doing a violence to his normal nature. But he was so uncommonly pleased at the event, that this subversion of his habits may be forgiven him. Prince Petros played his part—if indeed such a term can be applied to a gratification so sincere—to admiration, and the more open-minded of those whom Prince Demetrius had alluded to as birds of prey confessed that so amiable a paragon had no more than his deserts.

The entertainment, both of the visitors of the Prince and of the native populace, endorsed the reputation for hospitality which Rhodopé has always enjoyed. Down the sides of the square in which stood the cathedral where the wedding was to be celebrated ran immense tables at which all comers were feasted. Oxen were roasted whole in the market-place, and the cellars of the Prince poured out, like the opened sluices of a river in flood, the garnered sunshine of summers long past. Magnificent, too, were the presents of the bride and bridegroom. There were ropes of pearls, some like misty moons, some pink, some black, and of extraordinary lustre; two diamond tiaras, in the centre of one of which blazed the famous ‘Blue Wonder,’ a stone from Golconda of priceless worth; a necklace of opals set in diamonds; a ruby brooch of unmatched depth of colour, each stone being of the true pigeon’s blood; eighteen gold shoe-horns, on each of which was the Princess’s monogram and a crown in diamonds; a bezique-box of chrysoprase, with hinges and lock of gold (this was from the bridegroom to the bride); four beautiful bicycles; eight complete Louis Seize tea services, with cups of royal blue Sèvres; five gold-fitted tea-baskets for four people; and a perfect grove of gold-handled umbrellas, among which lay gold-mounted dressing-cases, like boulders in a pine-wood, and enough antique candlesticks to illuminate the whole kingdom. More curious still was a roulette-board, of which the marble was a sapphire, and all the numbers set in precious stones, and (for the folk of Rhodopé knew their beloved Princess’s tastes, and were anxious to give her presents which would certainly be useful to her) two thousand packs of picquet cards, a gift from the Board-school children of Amandos.

The cathedral—that small but exquisite building, built, it is said, on the designs of Prince Djem—was not sufficient to seat more than the invited guests of Prince Demetrius and the chief officials of the State; but outside tiers and tiers of benches had been erected in the streets, and immense wedge-shaped stands on the flat roofs of the municipal buildings which line the square. The enthusiasm was prodigious; long before the head of the procession reached the square, the shouting from the folk who lined the route from the Palace was like the roar of the sea, and when the Guards and the first of the royal carriages appeared, the people rose like one man, and every throat was loud with the Rhodopé National Anthem. Never had Prince Petros worn a more engaging smile than when, from his fine black charger, he acknowledged right and left the thunder of their welcome; never had Sophia looked more graciously magnificent than when she bowed from the carriage containing her and Prince Demetrius. The maddening music of the shouts touched her heart, and the bet that she had made with the Princess Charlotte of Roumania, that they would not reach the square under an hour from the time they left the Palace, was, even though she had won, completely effaced from her mind, and Princess Charlotte never paid.

The two left Amandos the evening after the wedding for their honeymoon, which they were to spend on Prince Demetrius’s yacht, cruising in the Mediterranean. The twelve miles of road down to Mavromáti was illuminated with Oriental gorgeousness, and a continuous torchlight procession of runners, picturesquely clothed in the national costume, accompanied them down to the sea. Every half-mile there was a fresh relay of a hundred, who ran with them their appointed course, and then, throwing their torches in the air by way of salute, gave way to the next. The port was one blaze of coloured light, and the yacht Felatrune a ship from Fairyland. Sophia, warm-hearted and impulsive, was greatly affected by the enthusiasm of the people; it was for her they had made the darkness many-coloured; it was the wishes for her happiness that turned the wonted silence of night into a chorus of sound. Once during the drive down she had touched Petros on the arm.

‘It is for me they have done this, these dear folk,’ she said.

‘Yes, darling, for us,’ said Petros; and Sophia thought, but without resentment, that there was just a touch of correction in his voice.

‘Yes, for us,’ she repeated; and her emotion almost made her feel she loved him, for the inward voice which had queried ‘Is this all?’ was answered by, ‘Is this not enough?’