His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto was in
disgrace.
He had risen at six, bathed, dressed, and gone to Mass, in disgrace.
He had breakfasted at seven-thirty on fruit, cereal, and one egg, in
disgrace. He had gone to his study at eight o’clock for lessons, in
disgrace. A long line of tutors came and went all morning, and he worked
diligently, but he was still in disgrace. All morning long and in the
intervals between tutors he had tried to catch Miss Braithwaite’s eye.
Except for the most ordinary civilities, she had refused to look in his
direction. She was correcting an essay in English on Mr. Gladstone,
with a blue pencil, and putting in blue commas every here and there. The
Crown Prince was amazingly weak in commas. When she was all through, she
piled the sheets together and wrote a word on the first page. It might
have been “good.” On the other hand, it could easily have been “poor.”
The motions of the hand are similar.
At last; in desperation, the Crown Prince deliberately broke off the
point of his pencil, and went to the desk where Miss Braithwaite sat,
monarch of the American pencil-sharpener which was the beloved of his
heart.
“Again!” said Miss Braithwaite shortly. And raised her eyebrows.
“It’s a very soft pencil,” explained the Crown Prince. “When I press
down on it, it--it busts.”
“It what?”
“It busts--breaks.” Evidently the English people were not familiar with
this new and fascinating American word.
He cast a casual glance toward Mr. Gladstone. The word was certainly
“poor.” Suddenly a sense of injustice began to rise in him. He had
worked rather hard over Mr. Gladstone. He had done so because he knew
that Miss Braithwaite considered him the greatest man since Jesus
Christ, and even the Christ had not written “The Influence of Authority
in Matters of Opinion.”
The injustice went to his eyes and made him blink. He had apologized for
yesterday, and explained fully. It was not fair. As to commas, anybody
could put in enough commas.
The French tutor was standing near a photograph of Hedwig, and
pretending not to look at it. Prince Ferdinand William Otto had a
suspicion that the tutor was in love with Hedwig. On one occasion, when
she had entered unexpectedly, he had certainly given out the sentence,
“Ce dragon etait le vieux serpent, la princesse,” instead of “Ce dragon
etait le vieux serpent, le roi.”
Prince Ferdinand William Otto did not like the French tutor. His being
silly about Hedwig was not the reason. Even Nikky had that trouble,
and once, when they were all riding together, had said, “Canter on the
snaffle, trot on the curb,” when he meant exactly the opposite. It was
not that. Part of it was because of his legs, which were inclined to
knock at the knees. Mostly it was his eyes, which protruded. “When he
reads my French exercises,” he complained once to Hedwig, “he waves them
around like an ant’s.”
He and Hedwig usually spoke English together. Like most royalties, they
had been raised on languages. It was as much as one’s brains were worth,
sometimes, to try to follow them as they leaped from grammar to grammar.
“Like an aunt’s?” inquired Hedwig, mystified.
“An ant’s. They have eyes on the ends of their feelers, you know.”
But Miss Braithwaite, overhearing, had said that ants have no eyes at
all. She had no imagination.
His taste of liberty had spoiled the Crown Prince for work. Instead of
conjugating a French verb, he made a sketch of the Scenic Railway. He
drew the little car, and two heads looking over the edge, with a sort of
porcupine effect of hairs standing straight up.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite sternly.
Miss Braithwaite did not say “sir” to him or “Your Royal Highness,” like
the tutors. She had taken him from the arms of his mother when he was a
baby, and had taught a succession of nurses how to fix his bottles,
and made them raise the windows when he slept--which was heresy in that
country, and was brought up for discussion in the Parliament. When it
came time for his first tooth, and he was wickedly fretful, and the
doctors had a consultation over him, it was Miss Braithwaite who had
ignored everything they said, and rubbed the tooth through with her
silver thimble. Boiled first, of course.
And when one has cut a Royal Highness’s first tooth, and broken him of
sucking his thumb, and held a cold buttered knife against his bruises
to prevent their discoloring, one does get out of the way of being very
formal with him.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite sternly.
So he went to work in earnest. He worked at a big desk, which had been
his father’s. As a matter of fact, everything in the room was too big
for him. It had not occurred to any one to make any concessions to his
size. He went through life, one may say, with his legs dangling, or
standing on tiptoe to see things.
The suite had been his father’s before him. Even the heavy old rug had
been worn shabby by the scuffing of his father’s feet. On the wall there
hung a picture his father had drawn. It was of a yacht in full sail.
Prince Hubert had been fifteen when he drew it, and was contemplating
abandoning his princely career and running away to be a pirate. As a
matter of fact, the yacht boasted the black flag, as Otto knew quite
well. Nikky had discover it. But none of the grown-ups had recognized
the damning fact. Nikky was not, strictly speaking a grown-up.
The sun came through the deep embrasures of the window and set Prince
Ferdinand William Otto’s feet to wriggling. It penetrated the gloomy
fastnesses of the old room and showed its dingy furniture, its great
desk, its dark velvet portieres, and the old cabinet in which the
Crown Prince kept his toys on the top shelf. He had arranged them there
himself, the ones he was fondest of in the front row, so he could look
up and see them; a drum which he still dearly loved, but which made
Miss Braithwaite’s headache; a locomotive with a broken spring; a
steam-engine which Hedwig had given him, but which the King considered
dangerous, and which had never, therefore, had its baptism of fire; and
a dilapidated and lop-eared cloth dog.
He was exceedingly fond of the dog. For quite a long time he had taken
it to bed with him at night, and put its head on his pillow. It was the
most comforting thing, when the lights were all out. Until he was seven
he had been allowed a bit of glimmer, a tiny wick floating in a silver
dish of lard-oil, for a night-light. But after his eighth birthday that
had been done away with, Miss Braithwaite considering it babyish.
The sun shone in on the substantial but cheerless room; on the picture
of the Duchess Hedwig, untouched by tragedy or grief; on the heavy,
paneled old doors through which, once on a time, Prince Hubert had made
his joyous exits into a world that had so early cast him out; on his
swords, crossed over the fireplace; his light rapier, his heavy cavalry
saber; on the bright head of his little son, around whom already so many
plots and counterplots were centering.
The Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto found the sun unsettling.
Besides, he hated verbs. Nouns were different. One could do something
with nouns, although even they had a way of having genders. Into
his head popped a recollection of a delightful pastime of the day
before--nothing more nor less than flipping paper wads at the guard on
the Scenic Railway as the car went past him.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto tore off the corner of a piece of paper,
chewed it deliberately, rounded and hardened it with his royal fingers,
and aimed it at M. Puaux. It struck him in the eye.
Instantly things happened. M. Puaux yelled, and clapped a hand to his
eye. Miss Braithwaite rose. His Royal Highness wrote a rather shaky
French verb, with the wrong termination. And on to this scene came Nikky
for the riding-lesson. Nikky, smiling and tidy, and very shiny as to
riding-boots and things, and wearing white kid gloves. Every one about
a palace wears white kid gloves, except the royalties themselves. It is
extremely expensive.
Nikky surveyed the scene. He had, of course, bowed inside the door, and
all that sort of thing. But Nikky was an informal person, and was quite
apt to bow deeply before his future sovereign, and then poke him in the
chest.
“Well!” said Nikky.
“Good-morning,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, in a small and
nervous voice.
“Nothing wrong, is there?” demanded Nikky.
M. Puaux got out his handkerchief and said nothing violently.
“Otto!” said Miss Braithwaite. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” He looked about. He was quite convinced that M. Puaux was
what Bobby would have termed a poor sport, and had not played the game
fairly. The guard at the railway, he felt, would not have yelled and
wept. “Oh, well, I threw a piece of paper. That’s all. I didn’t think it
would hurt.”
Miss Braithwaite rose and glanced at the carpet. But Nikky was quick.
Quick and understanding. He put his shiny foot over the paper wad.
“Paper!” said Miss Braithwaite. “Why did you throw paper? And at M.
Puaux?”
“I--just felt like throwing something,” explained His Royal Highness. “I
guess it’s the sun, or something.”
Nikky dropped his glove, and miraculously, when he had picked it up the
little wad was gone.
“For throwing paper, five marks,” said Miss Braithwaite, and put it down
in the book she carried in her pocket. It was rather an awful book.
On Saturdays the King looked it over, and demanded explanations. “For
untidy nails, five marks! A gentleman never has untidy nails, Otto. For
objecting to winter flannels, two marks. Humph! For pocketing sugar from
the tea-tray, ten marks! Humph! For lack of attention during religious
instruction, five marks. Ten off for the sugar, and only five for
inattention to religious instruction! What have you to say, sir?”
Prince Ferdinand William Otto looked at Nikky and Nikky looked back.
Then Ferdinand William Otto’s left eyelid drooped. Nikky was astounded.
How was he to know the treasury of strange things that the Crown Prince
had tapped the previous afternoon? But, after a glance around the room,
Nikky’s eyelid drooped also. He slid the paper wad into his pocket.
“I am afraid His Royal Highness has hurt your eye, M. Puaux,” said Miss
Braithwaite. Not with sympathy. She hated tutors.
“Not at all,” said the unhappy young man, testing the eye to discover if
he could see through it. “I am sure His Royal Highness meant no harm.”
M. Puaux went out, with his handkerchief to his eye. He turned at the
door and bowed, but as no one was paying any attention to him, he made
two bows. One was to Hedwig’s picture.
While Oskar, his valet, put the Crown Prince into riding-clothes, Nikky
and Miss Braithwaite had a talk. Nikky was the only person to whom Miss
Braithwaite really unbent. Once he had written to a friend of his in
China, and secured for her a large box of the best China tea. Miss
Braithwaite only brewed it when the Archduchess made one of her rare
visits to the Crown Prince’s apartment.
But just now their talk was very serious. It began by Nikky’s stating
that she was likely to see him a great deal now, and he hoped she would
not find him in the way. He had been made aide-de-camp to the Crown
Prince, vice Count Lussin, who had resigned on account of illness,
having been roused at daybreak out of a healthy sleep to do it.
Not that Nikky said just that. What he really observed was: “The King
sent for me last night, Miss Braithwaite, and--and asked me to hang
around.”
Thus Nikky, of his sacred trust! None the less sacred to him, either,
that he spoke lightly. He glanced up at the crossed swords, and his eyes
were hard.
And Miss Braithwaite knew. She reached over and put a hand on his arm.
“You and I,” she said. “Out of all the people in this palace, only you
and I! The Archduchess hates him. I see it in her eyes. She can never
forgive him for keeping the throne from Hedwig. The Court? Do they
ever think of the boy, except to dread his minority, with Mettlich in
control? A long period of mourning, a regency, no balls, no gayety that
is all they think of. And whom can we trust? The very guards down below,
the sentries at our doors, how do we know they are loyal?”
“The people love him,” said Nikky doggedly.
“The people! Sheep. I do not trust the people. I do not trust any one. I
watch, but what can I do? The very food we eat--”
“He is coming,” said Nikky softly. And fell to whistling under his
breath.
Together Nikky and Prince Ferdinand William Otto went out and down the
great marble staircase. Sentries saluted. Two flunkies in scarlet
and gold threw open the doors. A stray dog that had wandered into the
courtyard watched them gravely.
“I wish,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, “that I might have a dog.”
“A dog! Why?”
“Well, it would be company. Dogs are very friendly. Yesterday I met a
boy who has a dog. It sleeps on his bed at night.”
“You have a good many things, you know,” Nikky argued. “You’ve got a
dozen horses, for one thing.”
“But a dog’s different.” He felt the difference, but he could not put
it into words. “And I’d rather have only one horse. I’d get better
acquainted with it.”
Nikky looked back. Although it had been the boast of the royal family
for a century that it could go about unattended, that its only danger
was from the overzeal of the people in showing their loyalty, not since
the death of Prince Hubert had this been true in fact. No guards or
soldiers accompanied them, but the secret police were always near at
hand. So Nikky looked, made sure that a man in civilian clothing
was close at their heels, and led the way across the Square to the
riding-school.
A small crowd lined up and watched the passing of the little Prince. As
he passed, men lifted their hats and women bowed. He smiled right and
left, and, took two short steps to one of Nikky’s long ones.
“I have a great many friends,” he said with a sigh of content, as they
neared the riding-school. “I suppose I don’t really need a dog.”
“Look here,” said Nikky, after a pause. He was not very quick in
thinking things out. He placed, as a fact, more reliance on his right
arm than on his brain. But once he had thought a thing out, it
stuck. “Look here, Highness, you didn’t treat your friends very well
yesterday.”
“I know;” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto meekly. But Prince
Ferdinand William Otto had thought out a defense. “I got back all right,
didn’t I?” He considered. “It was worth it. A policeman shook me!”
“Which policeman?” demanded Nikky in a terrible tone, and in his fury
quite forgot the ragging he had prepared for Otto.
“I think I’ll not tell you, if you don’t mind. And I bought a fig lady.
I’ve saved the legs for you.”
Fortune smiled on Nikky that day. Had, indeed, been smiling daily for
some three weeks. Singularly enough, the Princess Hedwig, who had been
placed on a pony at the early age of two, and who had been wont to boast
that she could ride any horse in her grandfather’s stables, was taking
riding-lessons. From twelve to one--which was, also singularly, the time
Prince Ferdinand William Otto and Nikky rode in the ring--the Princess
Hedwig rode also. Rode divinely. Rode saucily. Rode, when Nikky was
ahead, tenderly.
To tell the truth, Prince Ferdinand William Otto rather hoped, this
morning, that Hedwig would not be there. There was a difference in Nikky
when Hedwig was around. When she was not there he would do all sorts
of things, like jumping on his horse while it was going, and riding
backward in the saddle, and so on. He had once even tried jumping on his
horse as it galloped past him, and missed, and had been awfully ashamed
about it. But when Hedwig was there, there was no skylarking. They
rode around, and the riding-master put up jumps and they took them. And
finally Hedwig would get tired, and ask Nikky please to be amusing while
she rested. And he would not be amusing at all. The Crown Prince felt
that she never really saw Nikky at his best.
Hedwig was there. She had on a new habit, and a gardenia in her
buttonhole, and she gave Nikky her hand to kiss, but only nodded to the
Crown Prince.
“Hello, Otto!” she said. “I thought you’d have a ball and chain on your
leg to-day.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” said Prince Ferdinand William
Otto, staring at the nets habit. “But yours look rather queer.”
Hedwig flushed. The truth was that she was wearing, for the first time,
a cross-saddle habit of coat and trousers. And coat and trousers were
forbidden to the royal women. She eyed Otto with defiance, and turned an
appealing glance to Nikky. But her voice was very dignified.
“I bought them myself,” she said. “I consider it a perfectly modest
costume, and much safer than the other.”
“It is quite lovely--on you, Highness,” said Nikky.
In a stiff chair at the edge of the ring Hedwig’s lady in waiting sat
resignedly. She was an elderly woman, and did not ride. Just now she
was absorbed in wondering what would happen to her when the Archduchess
discovered this new freak of Hedwig’s. Perhaps she would better ask
permission to go into retreat for a time. The Archduchess, who had no
religion herself, approved of it in others. She took a soft rubber from
her pocket, and tried to erase a spot from her white kid gloves.
The discovery that Hedwig had two perfectly good legs rather astounded
Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He felt something like consternation.
“I’ve never seen any one else dressed like that,” he observed, as the
horses were brought up.
Hedwig colored again. She looked like an absurdly pretty boy. “Don’t be
a silly,” she replied, rather sharply. “Every one does it, except here,
where old fossils refuse to think that anything new can be proper.
If you’re going to be that sort of a king when you grow up, I’ll go
somewhere else to live.”
Nikky looked gloomy. The prospect, although remote, was dreary. But,
as the horses were led out, and he helped Hedwig to her saddle, he
brightened. After all, the future was the future, and now was now.
“Catch me!” said Hedwig, and dug her royal heels into her horse’s
flanks. The Crown Prince climbed into his saddle and followed. They were
off.
The riding-school had been built for officers of the army, but was now
used by the Court only. Here the King had ridden as a lad with young
Mettlich, his close friend even then. The favorite mare of his later
years, now old and almost blind, still had a stall in the adjacent royal
stables. One of the King’s last excursions abroad had been to visit her.
Overhead, up a great runway, were the state chariots, gilt coaches of
inconceivable weight, traveling carriages of the post-chaise periods,
sleighs in which four horses drove abreast, their panels painted by the
great artists of the time; and one plain little vehicle, very shabby, in
which the royal children of long ago had fled from a Karnian invasion.
In one corner, black and gold and forbidding, was the imposing hearse in
which the dead sovereigns of the country were taken to their long sleep
in the vaults under the cathedral. Good, bad, and indifferent, one after
the other, as their hour came, they had taken this last journey in the
old catafalque, and had joined their forbears. Many they had been: men
of iron, men of blood, men of flesh, men of water. And now they lay in
stone crypts, and of all the line only two remained.
One and all, the royal vehicles were shrouded in sheets, except on one
day of each month when the sheets were removed and the public admitted.
But on that morning the great hearse was uncovered, and two men were
working, one at the upholstery, which he was brushing. The other was
carefully oiling the wood of the body. Save for them, the wide and dusky
loft was empty.
One was a boy, newly come from the country. The other was an elderly
man. It was he who oiled.
“Many a king has this carried,” said the man. “My father, who was here
before me, oiled it for the last one.”
“May it be long before it carries another!” commented the boy fervently.
“It will not be long. The old King fails hourly. And this happening of
yesterday--”
“What happened yesterday?” queried the boy.
“It was a matter of the Crown Prince.”
“Was he ill?”
“He ran away,” said the man shortly.
“Ran away?” The boy stopped his dusting, and stared, open-mouthed.
“Aye, ran away. Grew weary of back-bending, perhaps. I do not know. I do
not believe in kings.”
“Not believe in kings?” The boy stopped his brushing.
“You do, of course,” sneered the man. “Because a thing is, it is right.
But I think. I use my brains. I reason. And I do not believe in kings.”
Up the runway came sounds from the ring, the thudding of hoofs, followed
by a child’s shrill, joyous laughter. The man scowled.
“Listen!” he said. “We labor and they play.”
“It has always been so. I do not begrudge happiness.”
But the man was not listening.
“I do not believe in kings,” he said sullenly.