councillors with that mixture of gentleness and pity which seemed to
shut him from them, from every one, like a beautiful stiff hedge. “Our
relation with Franconia is, truly, very delicate: the two most prominent
world powers ... and then the peculiar situation in the Colonies ...
yes, for the best interests of the State, I grant you, even, His Royal
Highness should make this alliance. But, milords,” his smile upon them
was grave though very sweet, “there are things greater than the State.”
“That is a terrible thing for your Majesty to say,” pronounced his
minister severely.
“All true things are terrible--especially beautiful true things.
Milords, I will announce my decision at the State banquet to-morrow
night. It is, as you know, His Royal Highness’ birthday to-morrow--his
eighteenth birthday. Yes, yes, you all are right, he is getting to be a
man. A man!--or rather a king. Between the two words, milords, a
tremendous gulf is fixed. But I will detain you no longer, gentlemen; I
desire an hour or two alone before retiring. Sir Estes, pray send my
Fool into the garden--er, not now, you understand, but in half an hour.
Yes, thank you, that will be quite soon enough.” And the royal mannequin
watched his courtiers disappear into the Palace, always with that
gentle, commiserating smile upon his lips.
Then, with a brief sigh that might have meant almost anything, or
nothing, he sank down on to the old garden seat, and lit his strange
long pipe. The garden was very still, in the pale mystery of the
moonlight, very still, and very empty. The King from his shadowy corner
gazed past its loveliness at the great palace unbelievingly: it was not
a real Palace, there was no real Court inside. Only the exquisite soft
arches of the cloister were real, and the long sweep of the old steps,
down which he had stolen to meet--he drew in his breath sharply. Yes,
the steps, and the grand towering oaks, and the beckoning green vistas,
luring one into their ever-vanishing embrace, promising one at the end
surely some sweet, half-forgotten memory of childhood. Why, one’s first
kite had flirted away down that leafy winding lane; and, yes! at the end
of this, that wretched pony had tumbled one’s enraged manhood off its
seat--at the resentful age of four. Then that other: it was there as far
as the bend in the trees that one’s mother had walked with one, that day
of departure for the University. A Queen she was, to be sure,
but--marvelously!--one’s wonderful mother as well. And “I’m so glad you
don’t have to succeed, Dick,” she had whispered against his cheek,
starting guiltily at her own words: “I--I want you to be just a man, you
know. A man, with all a man’s pleasures, and burdens, and hobbies,
and--and loves, dear. You don’t have to be superb, thank God! you can be
just a commonplace man. Ah, Dick, that’s the greatest privilege in the
world!”
The King flung his pipe away abruptly. She was dead now. And he----“She
was right,” he muttered harshly, beginning to stride up and down,
“that’s the greatest privilege in the world. But I----”
“You are alone out here, my dear?” The voice that came to him from a
balcony above was as coldly sweet as the moon’s own rays.
“I am alone,” he answered mechanically.
A stately figure trailed down the winding stair and joined him,
directing his steps to that corner of the garden that was farthest from
the Palace. “Some one has told me that our son--that John will soon come
to you with a most unreasonable request. I beg of you, Richard, do not
grant it. It has to do with the announcement to be made to-morrow
night.”
“The announcement? Why I----”
“You understand me, I am sure.” The cold voice lowered cautiously. “It
is imperative that nothing shall be done to mar my plan for adjusting
our relations with Franconia; I am only more and more regretful that you
have kept the matter of John’s alliance with the Princess Royal pending
for so long a time.”
“I have not yet consented----”
“You have not consented to discuss the question formally with the
Franconian ambassador”--in the smooth voice an element of irritation was
rising--“nor to have him present at the banquet to-morrow night; when,
very firmly, you will announce your desire, your _earnest_ desire that
the alliance should take place. And listen to me, Richard--you remember
that this is the last resort: you have admitted everything else has been
tried, and to no purpose, in this situation with Franconia. Now it lies
with you. Hitherto, you have refused to discuss the subject of John’s
betrothal, even with the family, or your ministers. In this I do not say
you have been wrong. It has doubtless been as well to keep the matter
quiet until we could learn that the suggestion would be welcomed by
Franconia. Now that we are assured of that, however--well, you will make
the informal announcement to-morrow night. You know, Richard, where John
is concerned, you are apt to be over-lenient. And some one told me----”
“I understand you, Alix.” He understood, too, that when she said
over-lenient, she meant weak; no one appreciated the fact that the Queen
reigned, more intelligently than did the King. “I could wish, however,
that ‘some one’ was not always telling you things about John. It
looks--you will pardon me--unpleasantly like spying.”
“One cannot sacrifice the State to looks,” returned the Queen coolly.
“If you will insist on forgetting your duty to your people, Richard,
somebody must remember it for you. You are not just a plain, ordinary
person, you know.” And she swept back up the stair again, and into the
Palace.
“Oh, God, if I only were!” groaned the King, turning on his heel with a
sudden fierceness very foreign to a mere mannequin. Then he saw his Fool
standing there.
“A fine night,” observed the King formally.
“It would be if it were raining, your Majesty,” replied the Fool.
“If it were _raining_?”
“Yes, your Majesty. When it rains, so many things can happen. One slips,
one slides, one tumbles into a puddle: there are all sorts of
possibilities. While a fine night--is just a fine night, that’s all.
Most distressingly ordinary. Before I was a fool----”
“What were you?” interrupted the King.
“A very wise man, my liege. You see, I have changed but little; except
that when I was a wise man, I did not enjoy knowing myself to be a fool;
whereas now it gives me the subtlest sort of pleasure, knowing how very
wise I really am. All a matter of placing oneself, Sire; a matter of
light and shade; and if one has the true artistic eye----”
“Do you think that one is then competent to place others?” asked the
King abruptly.
The Fool stopped twirling his bauble (his boutonnière, I mean, of
course). “One is never competent,” he said slowly, “one is only less
stupid than before. One’s sense of values is in better equilibrium. With
your Majesty, for instance----”
“Yes?” The King bent toward him eagerly.
“The King can do no wrong,” began his Fool pompously. “Which is only
another way of saying that the King is left no chance to do anything but
right. He is not an ordinary person.”
“He is,” contradicted the King calmly. “At least he is going to be. Your
next King, my dear Fool, is to be just an ordinary person!”
Limply the Fool leaned against a balustrade. “Your Majesty is _too_
exotic in his fancies--quite too exotic,” he protested feebly. “I beg
your Majesty to allow me to retire: I am so truly a fool that a joke
quite unnerves me. Besides, His Royal Highness is coming--see, yonder
he is--an idea, smiling at a makeshift! I beg leave to take the
makeshift within the Palace, Sire.”
“So then, Father!”--one felt with a thrill the onslaught of Youth--“you
have been railing at the world, with the help of that soberest man at
Court. Fie upon you! And you, sir, off with you! I will not have my
father’s Fool turn him into an old sobersides!” The young Prince ran
lightly down the steps from the terrace and came laughing to the King’s
side.
“I suppose I should have said ‘your Majesty’ before him,” he apologized,
locking arms with his father, as the Fool vanished within; “Mother told
me only this morning that I did not sufficiently realize the respect due
you as a monarch. But how can I? Why, we’ve always been such pals, eh,
Father? And if ever I’m a king and have children--well, I’ll try to make
them forget I’m a king, that’s all.”
“Have I made you forget it?” asked the King wistfully. “Do I seem to you
just--just your father, Jack--you know what I mean, just an ordinary
man?”
“You seem”--his son regarded him half puzzled--“an ordinary man? Well,
no, Father. Of course, you’re keen for sport, as keen as I am; and then
in your heart you’ve that passion for the flute--ah, yes, you have! You
needn’t shake your head: you know you’d pawn the Palace if only you
could play the flute. But something’s always hindering you. I suppose
something always hinders a king, Father?” The King’s own wistfulness had
crept into the young voice.
The King cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it does,” he acknowledged,
looking away from the boy, and up at the balcony--so cold and white in
the moon’s radiance. “I--but come, let’s walk. You were saying----”
“There’s something I’ve got to ask you.” The Prince walked a little
faster. “You must know what it is, Father--they’ve all talked so much
about it. And last night at the Masque Ermyntrude whispered to me that
it was no use at all, asking you--that Mother had arranged everything,
and you would never go against Mother. But, somehow, because you
_aren’t_ just an ordinary man, because you’ve always been different to
me from the rest of the world, I made up my mind to ask you. You see,
it’s--it’s about this marriage.” For the moment the young Prince looked
a good deal more than eighteen. “I haven’t said anything up till
now--I’ve always known, of course, that being a king made a difference,
that it meant one could never do as one liked, you know; so when Mother
and all of them first talked about the Princess--all along, in fact--I
didn’t say anything. Oh, I understood”--and for the first time in his
life the King saw bitterness in his son’s face--“an alliance with
Franconia is essential; my tutor’s told me of it many times: he’s
prepared me very cleverly. But, Father, I don’t want to make an
alliance. I want to marry a woman.”
The King stopped walking. They were just at the foot of the steps where
he had used to meet--“I see,” he said gently.
“I’ve tried to go through with it”--the boy’s voice grew more and more
unsteady--“since Mother told me how much it would mean to all the
millions of our people I’ve nerved myself up to it; and I told myself
again and again that, as Ermyntrude says, a man who’s got to be a king
has no right to any feelings. That he must be just a dummy, to support
the prestige and ambitions of his subjects. His subjects!” The Prince’s
laugh was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Oh, I wonder that you don’t see
the screaming satire of it, Father--even though you are a king.”
The King looked at him strangely. “I was not always a king,” he said;
and again his glance strayed down the dim green vistas with their
whimsical shadows. At the end of each vista it was black now. “When I
was your age, Jack, I had no idea that I ever would be King. But--but I
want to ask _you_ something: if the country were to go to war, and a
good man was needed to lead the troops, would you go? Understand me:
even though there was every probability of your being killed, though you
had one chance in a thousand, or say no chance at all--and--you were
also just about to marry--a woman. Would you go?”
“I”--the boy drew a long breath. “But of course I’d go. You know that,
Father.”
“Then--the country _is_ at war; for a great nation, the subtlest,
deadliest kind of war, John: with international opinion. It does need a
leader. The King, you see”--the even voice never wavered--“is just a
dummy--no more than the King. And I’m very much afraid that the leader
will have to be killed, at least all but the mere blood and bones and
breath of him: and those amount to so little, don’t they? Yes, yes; they
amount to so little. Well! so this some one must sacrifice himself.
We’ve tried everything, we’ve come dangerously near showing ourselves
abject, in this adjustment with Franconia: at least, so the queen tells
me. There is left just this way out, the alliance, I mean, and ... some
one must sacrifice himself. Who do you think will do it, John?” Under
the cold stone balcony, the King stretched his hand toward the Crown
Prince. Did he congratulate himself that for once he was not being
over-lenient?
“Very well, your Majesty.” There was no doubt as to its being the Crown
Prince who spoke. At the same time his hand as it met the King’s was the
hand of a subject. “I will do it. You will, I suppose, make the formal
announcement to the Court to-morrow night? I will be prepared, sir.
Good-night.”
“Good-night.” An infinite sadness was in the King’s eyes as once more he
turned about to pace up and down, alone.
The alliance, then, was assured. The Queen and all her ministers--far
more than his--would be satisfied. He supposed it was a very
satisfactory piece of business. But--he wondered suddenly--would the
next King be just an ordinary person?
“Jack.” Some one was calling softly. “Jack, are you there?” The moon had
gone down; it was very dark in the vast old garden. But through the
blackness one could see a dainty figure, like an adorable phantom image,
poised uncertainly, just _at the top of the steps_. “It’s so dark, I
can’t see you, Jack”--the little laugh held a note of the piteous. “And
I daresay it’s the last time I shall see you, isn’t it? For of course he
wouldn’t listen to you. He--he’s such a _real_ king, isn’t he?” For a
moment longer she stood there, the beseeching, fairy thing; then with a
quick sob of disappointment, she fled.
But the half-concealed impatience of her last speech had told the King
that it was the little Maid of Honor, Ermyntrude. Ah--he remembered: she
had come to Court not so long ago, just a month--after her father died.
Her father was--why should it seem suddenly so significant?--a professor
at the University; a very learned man. Her mother, a Princess, had
broken rank to marry him. Women did those things.
A professor at the University! And “It’s the last time I shall see you,
isn’t it?” Who was it standing there at the top of the steps? Standing
there for the last time, piteously brave, with that heartbreaking little
laugh in her voice. The King dashed his hand across his eyes.
“Rosemary!” he called yearningly; and fled after her up the steps.
* * * * *
The great banquet hall was hushed. The minstrels had put away their
songs, and the Court sat quiet. Only the Fool played with his gardenia:
he whispered to some one that nothing gave him confidence like appearing
trivial.
“Milords, Ladies of the Court, and our distinguished guests”--as the
King raised his handsome face to the colonial Princes, one saw that it
was very pale--as pale as that of the Crown Prince, who sat at his
right.
“The King is but just beginning to be alive to the privileges of his
position. You know how in olden times, and in these modern reckless days
as well, monarchs have sacrificed thousands--lives, ducats,
principalities even, for the sake of some passing fancy--some hobby,
perhaps, that wanted gratifying. And no one has dared to say them nay.
Milords, I have been up to this time a very lenient sovereign” (the
Queen was tapping her slipper nervously); “I have been content to be
just an ordinary King!” He looked from one to the other of the company
whimsically. “Emperors have given away continents; great lords have sold
their every slave--all for the sake of a whim. And so now, milords, I
intend to gratify a little notion of my own. It has long been the custom
to betroth the Crown Prince on His Highness’ birthday. His Highness
grows to manhood, he attains his majority, and voila! One picks him a
bride! Quite suitable; _quite_ suitable.” (The Queen was breathing more
freely. The Crown Prince sat with his young face half shaded. The whole
Court held its breath with attention; particularly the Fool, who was
watching his master with a new concentration.)
“Very good. The King has taken the fancy--oh, a very flighty fancy no
doubt, milords--to present the Crown Prince and his affections to
er--some one quite unexpected--some one whom the King shall choose on
the ah--spur of the moment, you understand. It lends more excitement to
a game, to cast the die quite on the spur of the moment, eh?” (By this
time the Queen was beside herself; while the Prince had half risen, in
his indignation.)
“So--let me see--I assure you, milords”--and the King’s voice had never
been so lightly gay, his face so gravely sweet--“I assure you this
moment is worth all the monotony of Kingship, yes, though that monotony
had lasted a thousand dreary years!--this moment on which one stakes his
all: his destiny, his country, his lands beyond the seas--for the sake
of one glorious, mad whim! I bestow the hand of Prince John upon which
one? Let us say the littlest--she who sits yonder in the corner--what,
not _crying_? There’ll be plenty of time for that when you’re Queen, my
dear. Come bring her forward, your Highness, and let all men see whom
the King has chosen to carry out his one wild madness. Your name is----?
Ermyntrude! Milords, I pledge you Ermyntrude, your future Queen, the
daughter of a Princess, and” (for the first time the King’s voice
faltered) “of a professor at the University. Ermyntrude!”
“And so he’s no more than a King?” The Fool was asking the Maid of Honor
a moment later--and for a Fool, his voice was beautiful.
The Maid of Honor’s lovely, vivid little face was like a drenched spring
flower--all the more radiant for its tears. “No--no more than a King?
Oh!” she caught the velvet sleeve impetuously. “Oh, Fool, you’re his
best friend--you’re his Fool, so you know him best--could any one, I ask
you could _any one_ be more than the King!”
* * * * *
But why, asks the Child (the Child we all are, when it comes to a
story), why was the King so wonderful? Was it because he was one of our
Plain People?
And the story-teller turns back over the pages wistfully--on each of
them, for her, is written a little of the great tragedy and great
sublimity of Life. “It was because he couldn’t be one” (she says
finally), “because he couldn’t be a Plain Person; but had nevertheless
the supreme courage to demand for his son what he could never have for
himself. And I think, in the power to make this subtlest of sacrifices,
every man is King; and every King that divinely privileged creature: a
Plain Man.”
IX
LUCIA--A MERE WIFE
“I’ve come,” said Lucia, “for a very long visit.”
Something in the weary little sigh with which she threw herself down on
the sofa, made her mother look up, arrested.
“You--you don’t mean that you aren’t happy, my dear?” she asked
uncertainly.
Lucia gave a faint smile. “At least I’m not unhappy. I wish” (with
sudden vehemence) “I were. I wish----”
Mrs. Loring took an apprehensive step towards her.
“There, mother, it’s all right. I’m a little tired, and--and unstrung
with seeing you again, that’s all. It’s all right.”
“But my dear, I’m afraid that is just what it isn’t. I----”
“Yes, really! It’s only that I--I’ve always been a little over-balanced,
you know, if such a state were possible. And it is,” tensely, “outside
of mathematics.”
Mrs. Loring--whose intimacy with mathematics was fleeting--looked at her
daughter anxiously. “Just what do you mean, Lucy? There, my dear--throw
your coat off. And your hat--so! Jacqueline will unpack you while we
have our tea. Tell me what you mean--over-balanced?” She inclined her
well-dressed head vaguely.
“I mean,” said Lucia, pressing back against a nest of cushions, “just
that. All my life I’ve seen things evenly, mother: in parallel rows,
that always tallied. When you sent me to finishing-school, I hated it;
but I put up with the two years’ boredom without complaint, because I
realized it was making valuable friends for me. When I took up drawing,
later, I did it because I knew that on the other side of the hard work
and cruel discouragement in getting started, would lie a hobby--and a
profitable one--in which I might bury myself at any time, and with
absorbing interest. And when I married----”
“Yes?” Mrs. Loring sat forward a little.
“You thought I never would marry, didn’t you, mother darling?” with a
brief laugh. “I was afraid of marriage, rather. But when John came, and
I thought I cared enough and--well, it seemed to me that if I went into
the thing with no illusions, I couldn’t lose any. That if I got married,
just because I wanted to,--if I expected nothing, at least I couldn’t
get less.”
“Lucy,” put in her mother uncomfortably, “you think too much. You always
did. Cream, my dear?”
“Please. I said, when I came in, I’d come for a very long visit.”
“Isn’t John Gwynne a good husband?” demanded Mrs. Loring. “Is there
anything----?”
“Oh, nothing--nothing. Our life is as even as the lines in my
account-book. That,” said Lucia in a low voice, “is what I simply can’t
stand; what I had to get away from.”
“But--but, my dear, it doesn’t sound very serious. Really, you know, it
doesn’t!”
“I know it doesn’t--perhaps it isn’t. Only to me”--Lucia’s fingers
closed dangerously over the fragile cup-handle--“it was growing
unbearable! I had to get away.”
“Yes, yes, dear. And you were right to come to me. I was delighted when
your wire arrived--quite delighted,” said Mrs. Loring quickly. “But what
about Tommy?”
“Tommy’s away at school,” said his mother, sipping her tea with a
pretense of tranquillity. “We decided to send him to military school
this year, you know, as he’s nine. He left yesterday. That gave me my
opportunity to come to you. Oh, mother, I snatched at it!”
“Yes, dear--yes,” Mrs. Loring leaned over to pat her hand. She had
certainly not known Lucy was so nervous! “And I’ll let the Granvilles
and Ada Barker and the Temple girls know you’re here, and we’ll have a
gay little visit,” she added cheerfully. “The longer the better, Lucy!”
“Dear mother!” murmured Lucia. “Though I would rather not do a lot of
social things--I really would, mother. I’m--I believe I’m rather tired.
And John said”--she checked herself swiftly.
“Yes? What did John say?”
“A stupid married woman’s habit I’ve fallen into! What he said was ‘do
get rested.’ What he should have said----”
“Lucia,” interrupted her mother, “I was married to your father only four
years, but ‘what he should have said’ never happened. I wouldn’t let it
happen.”
“He should have said ‘I shall miss you,’” murmured Lucia stubbornly.
“That’s one of the things, mother: I’m taken--and let go--so for
granted!”
Mrs. Loring looked at her judiciously. “You’re a very pretty woman,”
said she. “Even excepting your hair, you’d be striking. And” (running
her left hand through its ripples) “it seems to me your hair’s blacker
than ever. Doesn’t John think so?”
“John--is occupied more with Consolidated Iron than he is with my hair.
Nonsense, mother! Why be tragic about it? John is kind, I’m contented.
Why” (lightly) “should I go into heroics because our romance is not so
gossamer but that I can pull it to pieces and put it together again? I’m
thirty-two. Yet”--she added, laying down her cup--“I seem as greedy for
romance as a débutante in the first season. I,” reminiscently, “was
rather a nice débutante, eh, mummy?”
“You were delicious!” said Mrs. Loring with enthusiasm. “Ambrose
Fayerweather was saying only yesterday”----
“Does Mr. Fayerweather still call here?”
Mrs. Loring’s smooth cheeks flushed. “He is a very old friend,” said
she, busy with the cream jug. “And he says the girls these last few
years can’t”----
“Hold a candle to those a dozen years ago,” finished Lucia.
“Why, yes! How did you know?”
“He’s said it to me--and other old _galants_--every time I’ve seen him
in the last decade. Well, mummy! I’m going up to lie down for a little.
I hope,” wistfully, “I haven’t blued you up, dear? I’m afraid I’m
rather”----
“You’re in need of rest!” replied Mrs. Loring briskly. “Run along and
get it, my dear. John said the right thing, after all!”
She smiled brightly at her daughter; but when Lucia had reached the
landing, stood gazing after her. “She thinks too much,” said her mother
with a sigh; “it’s a bad habit for a woman.”