A GAME THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND
With regard to the Royal visit to the Gold Mine, it should be mentioned
that, on returning to the Palace, the Queen and Princess Ruby had met
Daphne in one of the galleries. Ruby ran to her impulsively: "Oh, Miss
Heritage!" she cried, "we've had a ripping afternoon. Such fun throwing
money to the people, and seeing them scramble for it! We saw the Gold
Mine. And all the darling little Gnomes! You _would_ have loved them! I
do wish you had come with us!"
"I fully intended to have arranged for you to do so, Miss Heritage,"
said Queen Selina, with unwonted graciousness. "But with so much to
think of----! Do you happen to know where my other ladies-in-waiting
are?... In the Tapestry Chamber? Then I must get you to show me to it,
for I don't know my way yet about this immense house.... Through here?
Yes, you will accompany me--in fact, I particularly desire you to be
present."
At her entrance the Maids of Honour all rose from their seats and made
obeisances which, but for the Court Godmother's revelations of their
ancestries, would have occasioned their Sovereign agonies of
embarrassment. But she felt she could face them now without _mauvaise
honte_, and indeed with all the assurance of superiority.
"You may sit down, _girls_," she said, and although they found it hard
to believe at first that they could be the persons thus addressed, they
sat down.
"And what are you all about?" she inquired. "Embroidery, is it? The
pattern seems rather large.... Oh, tapestry? I _see_. I prefer a bright,
cheerful paper on the walls to any tapestry myself. Only collects dust.
Now if you were to knit some warm woollen jerseys for those wretched
little Gnomes, who are really in _want_ of them, you would be doing
something useful. But that wasn't what I--ah, to be sure, I remember
now. I looked in to tell you, girls, that I have appointed Miss Heritage
here as my First Lady-in-waiting. You will be careful to address her in
future as 'Lady Daphne,' and treat her in all respects as your equal in
rank.... I don't know why you should look so surprised." (If they did,
it was merely that any such recommendation should be thought necessary.)
"Miss Heritage's parentage may, it is true, be obscure--but not more so,
from all I have been told, than that of most of your own ancestresses.
Indeed, I am much mistaken if she has not a better claim to be
considered a lady than any of them. Not that I think mere birth of any
importance myself, but I object to people giving themselves airs without
some real _ground_ for it. I am not alluding to Lady Daphne, whom I have
always found perfectly well-behaved and unpretentious."
This was not perhaps the surest way of endearing Daphne to her new
companions, but then Queen Selina was less concerned to effect that than
to make them pay for the excessive deference she had so mistakenly shown
them in the past.
However, in their simplicity it had never occurred to them that they had
any cause to be ashamed of their descent, and so they never imagined
that their Royal Mistress could insult them with it, and her shafts
missed the target.
Fortunately for Daphne, too, she was already the object of a secret
_schwärmerei_ that left no room in their sentimental bosoms for jealousy
or ill-feeling.
But, not being aware of this as yet, she was rendered only unhappy by
this sudden rise in the Royal favour. Her one consolation was the
certainty that it would not be very long before she was again in
disgrace.
On the afternoon of the day on which the State Council had been held,
the Crown Prince explored the surrounding country with a view to
selecting a golf course.
He found a district which was in every way suitable for his purpose--a
stretch of undulating land in a valley behind the plateau on which the
Palace stood, abounding in natural hazards, and affording great
facilities for artificial ones--in short, an ideal site for any links.
He began laying it out the next morning. The Gnomes were brought out of
the mine and conducted to the spot. The general idea was conveyed to a
Gnome who seemed, on the whole, less devoid of intelligence than his
fellows, and they all set to work with more activity than immediate
result. However, they seemed to take kindly to their new industry, and
Clarence was very well pleased with them. He had had no experience in
golf-architecture himself, but the nature of the ground was such that it
required but little to turn it into a very sporting course indeed, and,
if the Gnomes did not do much else, they constructed some remarkably
cunning bunkers.
While they were thus engaged he ordered several sets of clubs to be
made from rough designs of his own by a master artificer in Eswareinmal,
who carried them out with considerable skill and fidelity. The
implements he produced may not have been quite according to Club
standards, but they were fairly serviceable. The balls seemed at first
likely to be the main difficulty, but some were discovered on the
toy-stalls in the market square which, though not of rubber, were
composed of a substance that proved an admirable substitute. They were
certainly open to one objection that, in ordinary circumstances, might
have disqualified them--they cost considerably under a farthing each.
But Clarence got over that by paying a ducat apiece for them. And then,
as the work progressed but slowly, he was forced to wait with what
patience he could until the links were ready for practising on.
It does not take long for most people to get accustomed to any
surroundings, no matter how novel, and Queen Selina and her family soon
became acclimatised. Now that her household had lost their terrors for
her, she began to enjoy the sensation of being a Queen and inspiring
reverence and awe wherever she went, though she could have wished to be
the ruler of a Kingdom that was not quite so _outré_ as Märchenland.
However, she felt she must take it as it was, and in a short time she
had almost forgotten that there ever had been a period when she had not
occupied a throne.
Princess Edna, though she frequently protested that her rank had no
charms for her, was ready enough to assert it on all occasions, and
exercised authority over the unfortunate ladies-in-waiting to a degree
that might have rendered their lives a burden to them if they had been
able to take her as seriously as she did herself, which they were not.
"Mother," she remarked one day, "I've been quite shocked to find how
appallingly ignorant our Maids of Honour are. Fancy, they've never heard
of Shakespeare, or Ibsen, or Bernard Shaw, or--well, anybody!"
"My dear," said the Queen, "what can you _expect_ from such a set of
giggling, empty-headed minxes?"
"I know. Still, I feel it a duty to do what I can to improve their
minds. I shall bring down my note-book this afternoon. It's got all my
notes on those lectures on English Literature I attended last Autumn. I
thought I'd read them aloud to them. It would give them a very good
general idea of the subject. Enough, at least, to enable them to talk
about it without exposing themselves."
"I'm sure, Edna dear, it's most sweet of you to trouble about them."
"Oh, since I have to live with a Court, I must try and raise it to a
more intellectual level."
And so that afternoon, while the ladies of the Court were engaged, under
the Queen's supervision, in knitting little woollen garments of
shattering hues for the unsuspecting Gnomes, the Princess Royal produced
her note-book and read aloud extracts which gave an impressionist
bird's-eye view of English Literature from the fourteenth to the close
of the nineteenth Century.
No doubt the lecturer had given his audience credit for some previous
acquaintance with the subject, and it may be that Princess Edna's method
of note-taking had been a trifle desultory; it was certain that the
ladies-in-waiting found a difficulty in assimilating the scraps of
literary pemmican she dispensed to them.
They received with polite but languid attention such items as that:
"Shakespeare stands supreme among dramatists for consummate knowledge of
the human heart"; that: "as _Ralph Roister Doister_ is the first pure
comedy, so _The Vicar of Wakefield_ may be termed the first idyllic
English novel"; that: "while Byron possessed more intellect than
imagination, Shelley, on the contrary, was rather imaginative than
intellectual"; and even the statement that: "Browning's 'Ring and the
Book' contains upwards of twenty-one thousand lines" left them unmoved.
It is true they were more interested in hearing that it was: "after he
had come under the spell of Petrarch and Boccaccio that Chaucer produced
his wondrous Tales," but it appeared their interest was due to some
slight misapprehension. Daphne felt the fearful joy of suppressed mirth
combined with the danger of detection as she heard Edna explaining with
laborious patience that she had _not_ intended to convey that the Poet
had been afflicted by a pair of enchanters with any caudal appendages
whatever.
But the Princess Royal could not conceal her disgust when her final
extract, which was to the effect that: "during the closing decade of the
Nineteenth Century England became once more a 'nest of singing birds,'
as was apparent from the stream of fresh and melodious strains issuing
from, among other sources, 'The Bodley Head,'" was greeted with a ripple
of girlish laughter from her hearers. It seemed that this
incontrovertible statement of fact had somehow aroused reminiscences of
another head which, if fresh, had not been precisely melodious on the
luncheon board after the Coronation.
Princess Edna waited with cold dignity until the last giggle was no
longer audible before announcing that she was willing to answer any
questions they might wish to ask her. Upon which Baroness Kluge von
Bauerngrosstochterheimer begged that they might be favoured with the
outline of one of the romances written by the Poet Shakespeare, who they
had been informed by her was so unsurpassed as a story-teller.
Now Edna was undoubtedly well versed in the Literature of her native
land. She could not only have given with tolerable accuracy the names
and dates of the principal authors of each century, but a list of their
best-known works, and an estimate of the rank assigned to them by modern
criticism. She had even, impelled by an almost morbid conscientiousness,
consulted the works themselves, and could honestly assert that she had
read every single play of Shakespeare's all through, though her private
preference was for a more advanced and psychological form of drama.
And yet on this occasion she chose to parry the Baroness's very
reasonable request. "Shakespeare," she said, in her most superior tone,
"did not write romances. He wrote _plays_."
"Will your Royal Highness please," said the Baroness, "to tell us about
one of _them_?"
For the life of her Edna could not just then summon up a clear
recollection of the plot of any Shakespearian comedy or tragedy--and it
is quite possible that there are many persons as highly educated as she
who might be equally at a loss.
"With so prolific a writer as Shakespeare," she hedged, "it is difficult
to single out any particular play."
She was so plainly embarrassed that Daphne felt impelled to come to the
rescue.
"I think, Ma'am," she said, "they would like the story of _The Merchant
of Venice_!"
"I should hardly call it suitable myself to such an audience as this,"
replied Edna, who was possibly confusing it with _Othello_. "No, Miss
Heritage, I really think something less--less objectionable would
be--There's _As you like it_, now, _quite_ a pleasant play. I think I
can remember the outline of _that_. Let me see. Yes, it's about a girl
called "Rosalind," who dressed up as a boy and ran away into a forest,
where she met Ferdinand--or was it Bassanio?--anyway, the name is of no
consequence. Well, and he carved her name on all the trees, and so they
fell in love, and in the end they were married, you know."
As drama this appeared to strike the ladies-in-waiting as lacking in
incident, and the Baroness von Haulemännerschen openly declared that an
ancestress of hers who also ran away into a forest had the far more
exciting experience of being poisoned by a jealous Queen and enclosed by
dwarfs in a glass coffin.
"Oh, very well!" said Edna; "if you are going to compare your own silly
traditions with works of genius, I give you up as hopeless!"
And this was the beginning and the end of the Princess Royal's attempt
to infuse Culture into Court Circles.
She had certainly failed signally to inspire her ladies with any
enthusiasm for English Literature, though, strangely enough, Daphne
succeeded later in giving them a more favourable impression of its
quality.
Edna was, of course, incomparably more widely read, but then Daphne
knew such authors as she had read well enough to be able to give a very
full and clear account of her favourite books, and to repeat many of her
best loved poems from memory.
It is quite possible that much of the pleasure her companions took in
hearing her do so was due to her own personality. They were not, it must
be confessed, a highly intellectual or cultivated set of young women,
but one and all regarded Daphne with a whole-hearted adoration which
would have given Princess Edna, had she condescended to notice it, a
lower opinion than ever of their intelligence.
The links were at last in a sufficiently advanced stage for practice at
the first nine of the eighteen holes, and Clarence undertook to instruct
the Marshal in the mysteries of the game. The Marshal, though slightly
handicapped by insisting on playing in a breastplate and high boots, was
so much encouraged by the success which most beginners at golf
experience that he at once became an ardent votary. He tried to make
converts of the Courtiers, but they preferred to keep an open mind and
remain spectators for the present.
Prince Tapfer von Schneiderleinberg indeed went so far as to say that
golf seemed to him to be without the element of danger which all genuine
sport should possess. He modified that opinion, it is true, after
incautiously standing close behind the Marshal when he was driving off
from the tee, but it did not alter his prejudices against the game.
King Sidney practised most assiduously in private, and found he improved
in his driving under Clarence's tuition. The Gnomes had been established
in a kind of compound near the links, but their unfortunate tendency to
bolt with the club-bags and purloin every ball they found rather
impaired their usefulness as caddies. Marshal Federhelm treated his with
regrettable inhumanity.
There was still a good deal of "ground under repair" on the course, but
the day was drawing near when the links could be formally opened. The
Marshal was anxious to celebrate the occasion by challenging his Royal
Master to play him a single, a challenge which was conveyed through the
Crown Prince.
"Well, what do _you_ think, my boy," asked King Sidney. "Can I beat
him?"
"I think you ought to, Guv'nor. He fancies himself at it--but he's
pretty rotten."
"In that case, you can tell him I accept," said the King.
But on the morning before the day, Clarence, after watching his parent
top and slice and foozle through a whole round without intermission,
became less sanguine.
"I tell you what it is, Guv'nor," he said, frankly, "the Marshal's been
shaping a bit better these last few days, and it's my belief he can give
you a stroke a hole and win easy."
"After all," said the King, "I'm not sure there isn't a certain loss of
dignity--playing with my own subject, don't you know."
"It won't do to let him lick you, certainly," agreed Clarence.
"Quite so, my boy, quite so. I was thinking--I might be prevented by
sudden business--I could go and sit with the Council, you know."
"He'd only want you to fix another day for playing him. It's no use,
Guv'nor, you can't get out of it now. Perhaps you'd do better if you
played with a different sort of ball. I must see if I can't get you one
or two."
And that evening he brought his father half a dozen. "They're specially
marked," he said, "so you can't make a mistake over them, and I fancy
you'll find they travel better than any of the Marshal's."
"You've got those golf balls I gave you?" he asked the King at breakfast
next morning. "Mind you don't forget to take 'em."
"I shan't forget, my boy. But what I'm most troubled about is my
swing--there's something wrong with it, only I can't find out what."
"I think it a great pity myself," said Queen Selina, "that you ever
agreed to play this match at all. If you are beaten it will certainly
lower your prestige. But I am sure the dear Marshal has too much tact
not to let you win."
"Don't you worry, Mater," said Clarence. "The Guv'nor's going to win on
his own, hands down!"
"I sincerely hope so. It will be a sad blow to the Throne if he does
_not_."
These remarks did not help much to steady King Sidney's nerves when he
met the Marshal on the links, where, as Monarch, he naturally had the
honour. A large crowd of onlookers from the Court had collected, and the
players had decided to dispense with caddies under the circumstances.
The first hole was only about a hundred and sixty yards; a deep gully
lay between, and on either side of the approach were beds of tall
rushes.
King Sidney addressed his ball for some time in agonising indecision
before he finally drove off. A cloud of sand rose; the ball was nowhere
to be seen, and, taught by experience, he looked behind for it.
"Jolly good shot!" cried Clarence. "Right on the green!"
"Is it, my boy?" said the King. "I can't see it there myself."
"No more can I," Clarence owned, "but I bet you what you like you're on
the pretty, anyway. Your drive, Marshal."
The Marshal smote a mighty blow, and his ball likewise vanished.
Clarence was of opinion that it had gone over the boundary, but the
Marshal was so certain that it was on the green that he declined to
search for it.
"Funny," said Clarence disappointedly, as they neared the pin, "I don't
see your ball anywhere, Pater. Nor yet the Marshal's."
"I fancy mine isn't very far away, my boy," said the King hopefully.
One of the Courtiers who had gone to the hole, called out to say that he
could see a ball marked with a Royal Crown wedged in by the pin.
"By George, Guv'nor!" cried Clarence, "you've holed it in one!"
"Ah," said King Sidney, "I _thought_ I'd got the right direction."
But the next moment both of them were depressed by the announcement that
the Marshal's ball had also landed in the hole. The Courtier had
naturally mentioned his Sovereign's achievement first, but there could
be no possible doubt that the Marshal had succeeded in equalling it.
To have holed out at a hundred and sixty yards is not by any means an
unprecedented feat, but that two players should have done it in
succession was at least a rather remarkable coincidence. It was a severe
disappointment to the King, who had serious doubts of his own ability to
repeat such a performance.
The next hole was a long one, some six hundred yards, over undulating
land with patches of bog; the green was on a hillock protected by
artfully devised bunkers, and the approach was full of difficulties.
The Marshal was given the honour, and, as before, none could follow the
flight of his ball, though he declared with the greatest confidence that
it was straight for the green. King Sidney's drive did not look very
promising, but Clarence assured him that it was probably a longer one
than he thought.
But neither player could locate his ball as they trudged on, and, though
it seemed unlikely that either could have reached the green, they did
not stop to search on the way to it. Still, when they arrived there each
of them was obviously astonished by the discovery that the other had
holed out once more. Even had the distance been less, it seemed to them
that this was stretching the long arm of coincidence almost too far, but
they did not say so; in fact, they both thought it wiser to abstain from
any comment at all. The next hole was some three hundred and fifty
yards, with several extremely tricky hazards, but, contrary to all
reasonable expectations, both King Sidney and the Marshal distinguished
themselves by doing it in one.
At this the King felt bound to make some comment. "Very even game this,
Marshal, so far," he said.
"Very even indeed, Sire!" said the Marshal curtly, and turned aside to
curse under his breath.
However, after they had played the fourth and fifth holes with precisely
the same result, King Sidney became suspicious. "Clarence, my boy," he
said, taking him aside. "It strikes me there's something rather odd
about his play. I can't understand it!"
"_I_ can," said Clarence; "it's plain enough. Haven't you noticed he's
been using a mashie--the _same_ mashie every time? Well, he's bribed or
bullied that pop-eyed little swine of an Astrologer to enchant it for
him--that's what _he's_ done!"
"What a confounded low, ungentlemanly trick!" spluttered King Sidney in
high indignation. "Just when I was beginning to find my form at last,
too! I shall decline to go on with the match. And what's more, when we
_do_ get a Golf Club started, I'll have him blackballed for it!"
"I wouldn't make a row about it if I were you," advised Clarence.
"Not make a row? When he's taking an unfair advantage of me by using
this infernal Magic?--which is unlawful, by Gad, don't you forget
_that_! Why shouldn't I denounce such trickery?"
"Because," said the Crown Prince, "he might say something disagreeable
about it being a case of Pot and Kettle, don't you know."
"Let him!" cried the King. "Let him! I defy him to prove that I've had
anything done to _my_ clubs!"
"Not the clubs," said Clarence; "it's those balls I gave you. I hadn't
meant to tell you, but p'raps I'd better now. I paid that little sweep
to put a spell on 'em. Of course I'd no idea he'd go and overdo it like
this. If he'd been anything of a Golfer he'd have known most of these
holes couldn't be done under three or four. And now he's given you both
away, blast him!"
"It--it's _most_ unfortunate!" said King Sidney. "I--I don't quite see
what to do about it."
"Simple enough," said his son, "pretend not to notice anything and play
it out."
"I suppose I must, my boy, I suppose I must. But I know I shan't play so
well after this--it's quite put me off my game!"
"No, it hasn't, Guv'nor. You'll play up all right, at least if Xuriel
knows his job."
Xuriel apparently did know his job, for the King's ball continued to be
as foozle-proof as the Marshal's mashie.
It would be tedious to describe any further holes. When a bewitched
mashie is pitted against an enchanted ball, there can obviously be none
of the alternations and vicissitudes of Fortune which constitute the
charm of Golf.
When they were at the turn, having halved every hole up to the ninth,
the Marshal had had enough of it. "We are too well matched, Sire," he
said, "and to proceed would only be to waste your Majesty's time, which
is of far more value than my own."
"H'm, well, perhaps we'd better call it a draw and have done with it,"
said the King.
The Court had witnessed the game without excitement or astonishment.
They saw no particular reason why the balls should fail to reach the
hole in one stroke, and did not care in the least whether they failed or
not. The only impressions they received were that Golf was too
monotonous and too easy a pastime to have any attractions for them, and
that nothing should induce them to indulge in it against such
invincible champions as his Majesty and the Ex-Regent.
"I must say, my boy," said the King to his son, as they walked back to
the Palace together, "I wish you hadn't gone to that magician fellow. It
makes it so very awkward for _me_."
"It would have been a jolly sight more awkward if I hadn't. Just think
of the licking you'd have had, what?"
"Yes, yes--but there's your Mother. She's so set against Magic of any
kind. I really don't know what I'm to say to her."
"Well," said Clarence, "I should hope, Guv'nor, you wouldn't be such a
jay as to say anything."
"It might be only distressing her unnecessarily," said the King.
"Sidney!" exclaimed the Queen when they met, "I can see by your face
that you've been beaten after all!"
"Not at all, my love, not at all. Far from it!"
"Then you've won?"
"Well--er--not exactly _won_, my dear. We--we finished up all square."
"Considering how long you've been learning, that's as bad as if you'd
lost. Now, mind what I say, Sidney, you must never attempt to play golf
again after this. I cannot have you making yourself ridiculous!"
"I think you're right, my dear," he said meekly. "In fact, I had already
decided to give it up."
Clarence clung to his Golf as long as he could, but he found it dreary
work going round the course alone. None of the Courtiers could be
induced to learn the game, and he felt a natural reluctance to take on
the Marshal as an antagonist, even if the latter had continued to be
keen. But he had conceived a strong distaste for the game, and it was
rumoured that there had been a stormy interview between him and the
Astrologer Royal, who kept his bed for several days afterwards.
And Clarence, as the Yellow Gnomes were impossible as caddies, had to
carry his own clubs, which he particularly detested. So in course of
time he ceased to visit the links, and thus deprived himself of his only
form of open-air exercise.
There was nothing much for him to do, except to lounge and loaf
aimlessly about the Palace, with a depressed suspicion that he was not
inspiring the full amount of respect that was due to his position as
Crown Prince. It would have been a distraction to make advances to
Daphne, but, after his somewhat cavalier treatment of her at the Ball,
he could not be sure how they would be received. Moreover, either by her
own management or his Royal Mother's, he was never given a chance of
seeing her except in public.
He found a resource in gambling with the gentlemen of the Royal
Household. They played for high stakes, but no higher, seeing that he
could replenish his purse as often as it was emptied, than he could well
afford. His visits to the sacks of gold in the King's Counting-house
became more and more frequent, but he would have derived more enjoyment
from cards if he had won occasionally.
One afternoon when, the usual card-players being absent on some hunting
expedition, he was left to his own devices, he wandered forlornly
through a suite of empty halls till he drifted out upon a balcony that
overlooked the Palace gardens.
And then, as he stepped through the window, his heart gave a sudden
leap. At the corner of the balcony he had just recognised Daphne. She
was quite alone, and he recognised that the opportunity, half-feared,
half-desired, had come at last.