The Princess was very busy for some time after this. Her bargain with M. Drakovics for the piece of land at Praka was duly approved by her husband (a mere form this) and ratified, and then came the business of the building of the villa. What with interviews with architects and contractors and her own passion for overlooking the progress of affairs and paying surprise visits to the workmen, it is not astonishing that the Princess of Dardania spent a good deal of time in Thracia during the next year. To a lady of her mental and bodily activity, it was a mere trifle to undertake the eighteen hours’ journey from Bashi Konak to Bellaviste, run down to Praka and inspect the building operations, and return home to take her part in a Court festivity; but she felt it necessary to apologise for her restlessness to the Queen.
“You know,” she said, “some one must see that things are properly done, and Alexis cannot endure to be dragged away from his hunting and his model farm. He is quite an Englishman in that respect. I feel dreadfully ashamed to make your house an inn in this way, Ernestine; but I can’t resist having a peep at you and the boy, and the children always give me so many messages for Michael. You must return the compliment when the villa is built. I shall expect you almost to live with me in the summer.”
Ernestine saw her come and go with a vague feeling of alarm. It seemed to her as though Ottilie now regarded Michael as her property, held in trust for Lida, and that these frequent visits were merely excuses for seeing that he was being brought up according to her wishes. There was now an effectual barrier between Cyril and the Queen on the subject of her son’s education, and neither of them alluded to it. Ernestine ought to have been satisfied; but she was not. She felt as though it would have been safer to have Cyril as her confidant in the matter than her cousin. It so happened that an invitation to Scythia for the whole princely family prevented them from occupying the Villa Dardanica during the first summer after its erection, and, encouraged by her temporary emancipation from the Princess’s guardianship, Ernestine herself suggested to Cyril that the changes which he had proposed in the King’s surroundings should be carried into effect at once, although the child was still only six years old. But the opportunity had gone by. The Estimates for the year had been passed without making the necessary provision for the change, other employment had been found for the elderly officer selected as the King’s governor, and nothing more could be done until the pupil attained the age of seven.
The next year, therefore, the change took place. Mrs Jones returned to England with a pension and the proud consciousness of duty done, Fräulein von Staubach resumed her old post of lectrice (the Queen hated reading aloud), a learned young Lutheran “candidate of theology” was imported to replace the venerable Herr Batzen, and King Michael contrived to learn much at the same time the necessity for outward obedience to his military tutor and the delights of tyrannising over his regiment of boys. His life was not a very arduous one, for it did not take long for his instructors to discover that his Majesty had ruled his own immediate circle so completely that it was impossible without an undignified and generally unsuccessful struggle to make him do anything that he did not wish to do. It might even be said that he had succeeded in discovering a royal road to learning, for his natural precocity and his strongly developed imitative faculty combined to enable him to pick up knowledge, whether it was of a desirable character or the reverse, with extraordinary facility.
In spite of this fairly easy life, however, the Princess of Dardania discovered that her future son-in-law was overworked. Not content with carrying him off to Praka for his summer holidays and inviting him to Bashi Konak to spend Christmas, she gave him instructions to let her know whenever his surroundings bored him or he felt that a change from his lessons would be desirable, and an invitation immediately followed. His mother protested, but in vain. If King Michael wished to stay with his cousins, stay with them he would, and Ernestine did not at first perceive that while she represented to her son law and order, the Princess and her family were becoming more and more closely identified in his mind with liking and liberty. The Court at Bellaviste was dull—none knew it better then Ernestine—but the Princess of Dardania dispensed on all but State occasions with the strict etiquette which Baroness von Hilfenstein imposed on all who came beneath her sway. In his capital the young King was necessarily surrounded by attendants and tutors, but the one condition of his visiting his cousins was that he should bring with him only the minimum number of servants and no one in authority. Again his mother remonstrated, but this time the Princess was her opponent, pointing out the benefit to the boy’s health of the freer life, the advantage to him of leading the happy outdoor life of her own boys with their father, and the humanising influences of the constant society of the Princesses Bettine and Lida. Ernestine was worsted at every point, but it was the knowledge that her boy’s wishes pointed in the same direction that induced her to submit.
“Ernestine,” said Cyril to her once, “that boy of yours is being weaned away from us. He had far rather be with your cousin and her family than here.”
“Oh, do you think so?” asked the Queen, with a sharp pang at her heart, for she had been cherishing the belief that the change which was so sadly evident to herself was invisible to others. “But it is natural that he should like to be with other young people, and he is so fond of them all.”
“He is fonder of your cousin than any of them. I hear that he sits listening to her for hours together as she talks. My dear Ernestine, is it a matter of indifference to you that another woman is stealing your son’s heart from you?”
It was a cruel question, but he was anxious to arouse her to a perception of the greatness of the emergency. She grew whiter as she answered.
“Should I make things any better by trying to detach him from his chosen friends? No; at least I am happy while he is happy.”