The Amateur Diplomat: A Novel

by Hugh S. Eayrs; Thomas B. Costain

Anyone who knows anything about royal households knows that the first act of the day is to ring a bell which summons a retinue of maids. This is an established rule—of the novelists. But Olga did nothing of the kind. In the first place, there was no electric bell to ring, for Prince Peter's establishment, while very large and picturesque, was not fitted up with all the latest improvements; and in the second place, she would not have rung the bell had there been one. Instead, she slipped out of bed into a pair of warm, woolly slippers, ranged methodically on the floor with a precision that bespoke long practice. Then she went to the window and drew back the curtain a cautious inch or two, while she inspected the look of things outside. Satisfied on that score, she proceeded unaided with her toilet, and it was not until the really formidable problem of restoring her unruly curls to order presented itself, that a maid was summoned.

As the maid worked, she talked. Perhaps it was because she had found it necessary to talk in order to distract her royal mistress's attention from the tugs and pulls that invariably accompanied the difficult task of hair-dressing. Perhaps it was because all maids talk. The maid is generic and the Ironian type has as confirmed a failing for chatter as her sister in England or America or Thibet—if such an institution as the handmaid exists in the latter place. What is more, maids talk to princesses as well as to the daughters of brewers and tradesman and manufacturers.

The reason why so seemingly trivial a matter is mentioned here is that the chatter of Marie on this particular morning had a most far-reaching effect. If it had not so happened that Marie, who was part French and proud of it, had that morning talked to one of the coachmen in the household who had just returned from an errand to the residence on the Lodz occupied by Varden, where he had conversed with Paula, maid-in-waiting to the Baroness Draschol; and again if Paula had not overheard certain remarks between Varden and his wife, which she confided to the coachman, who in turn passed the news on to Marie; if, we repeat, any link in this chain of communication had failed, the whole future of the picturesque and warlike kingdom of Ironia might have been changed; certainly the future of one, Donald Fenton, might have been very materially altered. But all the "ifs" duly materialised, the highly interesting piece of news was handed along with the astonishing celerity with which such news travel in the under strata of society, and in due course Marie bustled into her mistress's room with the information fairly tingling the sharp end of her pert tongue. It was as though in working out a particularly intricate play, the Master Chess Player had shoved a pawn to its appointed square. It may be added that the information thus freely bandied among the servants of the two households was safe in their keeping. The Ironian in the kitchen will chatter to his fellow of what happens in the saloon above, but will suffer his tongue to be cut out before he gives anything away to the outside world.

The story that Marie had thus picked up was a more or less complete outline of the attempt made to assassinate Prince Peter early that morning and the part Fenton and Varden had played in it. With a skill that showed the buxom maid to be a diplomat of no mean order, she let a hint or two drop. The princess, her interest aroused, sharply questioned the adroit Marie and in due course got to the bottom of the maid's store of information. It may have been that, animated with the desire of your true raconteur to give the auditor the best entertainment, Marie elaborated a little on the original facts, deepening the sanguinary nature of the conflict, multiplying the number of the assailants and thereby gilding in the most vivid colours the valour of the heroic Varden and the strange "Amereecan," whose name she had forgotten but in whom Olga readily recognised the impulsive Fenton. It having been demonstrated to her satisfaction early in the recital that her father had not been injured—Marie had seen him with her own eyes several times that morning—the princess permitted her chief interest to centre on two points, viz., the handsome stranger and the identity of the woman who had been in the party. On this last point Marie, much to her sorrow, had to acknowledge a complete lack of authoritative information.

During her breakfast, which was served in a cosy boudoir overlooking the gardens, the princess was very thoughtful, and at the same time restless. She toyed with the food and surprised the attendants into a bustling efficiency of service by her petulance. She had intended to ride, but changed her mind when the word came that her favourite mount was ready. Instead, she wandered into her sitting-room and ensconced herself in a sunny window with a book and her thoughts for company. They fought it out for supremacy, but it did not take long for the book to drop into second place. It was only after staring steadily at one page for ten minutes that she became aware of the fact that she was holding the volume upside down. When she realised this, she allowed it to slip off her lap to the floor and, tucking her feet up under her on the couch, gave herself over to unrestrained introspection.

The story gleaned from the voluble Marie had given an added impetus to a natural tendency to revert to the events of the preceding evening. The attempt on the life of her father confirmed the story that Fenton had told her and brought conviction home on the score of the duplicity of Miridoff. She felt convinced now that the Canadian's version of the plot had been the truth in every respect. Thus she felt that she had done him an injustice—and the thought was a peculiarly disturbing one. A still more disturbing aspect was the matter of the future, now that she could estimate the real character of the man who might be selected as her husband. If the influence of Miridoff remained in the ascendant, she knew that nothing would dissuade the King from his determination to bring about the match. Alliances of an almost equally infamous character had been quite common incidents in the chequered history of the Balkan Kingdoms.

Had anyone been privileged to watch Olga as her mind grappled with this almost terrifying phase of the situation, it would have been seen that lines denoting determination crept into her face—evidence of a newly formed intention not meekly to accept the fate so cruelly and callously marked out for her.

There is a resiliency about the mind of the young that permits of rapid transitions of mood. The thoughts of Olga soon strayed from the grim possibilities suggested by the danger to her father and the machinations, both political and matrimonial, of Miridoff, into more pleasing channels. From every fresh topic that suggested itself, her mind went back promptly and inevitably to thoughts of Fenton, until finally she gave up all pretence and permitted her fancy to dwell with frank intentness on this interesting stranger. She admitted, to herself, the fascination she had found in him, and on analysis decided that it lay in the fact that he was absolutely different from any man she had ever met before. The type she knew, the Ironian of the upper class, was of short stature and almost Oriental swarthiness—suave, plausible, a diplomatic trickster, avaricious and limited in view-point to the traditions of his little country. Fenton had affected her much as a cool, bracing wind appeals to the jaded traveller on the desert where nothing has been encountered but fetid, almost poisonous air.

And then Fenton had dared to talk to her without any of the restrictions, the insincerities or euphemisms of courtly conversation. She went over again his daring hypothesis. Supposing she ever found the opportunity to face the realities of life, not as the princess but as Olga—the woman—what then? Could it be that what he had hinted at would actually come to pass?

Her chin found a resting-place on her arms. Her eyes were fixed with earnest intentness on the garden beneath, but they were filled with sights much less material. She saw beyond the court, beyond Ironia, a life full of all that could make life worth while—liberty, sincerity, love. She glimpsed many golden scenes from a possible future in which courts and crowns and royal pomp had no place, and from which Miridoff and her other Ironian suitors were strangely missing.