A LITTLE DIPLOMACY
The announcement that Ferdinand the Twelfth, accompanied by his famous
minister, Baron von Schalk, was on his way to this country and that he
was coming straight to Dympsfield House can only be described as a blow
to one confirmed in the habit of mediocrity. Had I had only myself to
consult in the matter, I should have urged, with all the vigour of
which my nature is capable, that it would be quite impossible for us to
put them up. The lack of accommodation that was afforded by our modest
establishment; the obscurity of our social state; our radical unfitness
for the honour that was to be thrust upon us; all these disabilities
and many another surged through my brain, while I laved my tired limbs
and struggled into a "boiled" shirt, and tied my "white tie for
royalty" in accordance with the sumptuary decree of Joseph Jocelyn De
Vere. So acute, indeed, became the conviction that something must be
done to turn the tide of events that I was fain to go next door to
Fitz. That worthy was in the act of brushing his hair.
"You've heard the news, I suppose?" said I, and as I spoke I caught a
glimpse of my own gloomy and shirt-sleeved apparition in a
looking-glass.
"What news, old son?" said the Man of Destiny, negligently shaking
something out of a bottle on to his scalp. "Not been shootin' at
Sonia, have they? Police are devilish vigilant. I'm hanged if we
haven't had a couple of mounted detectives with us all day. They rode
like it, anyway."
"Do you mean to say you haven't heard?" said I, positively hating the
man for his coolness. "Hasn't the Princess told you that her father is
on his way to this country, and that he is coming straight to us?"
Fitz laid down his hair-brushes and turned round to face me.
"Get out!" he said. "Ferdinand coming here!"
"Yes; she had a letter this evening to that effect."
Fitz betrayed astonishment. And under the mask of his habitual
indifference I thought he also betrayed something else.
"That poisonous old swine coming here!" he muttered.
"Yes; he is coming with Baron von Schalk."
"They generally hunt in couples. He never goes anywhere without his
familiar. But I don't like your news at all."
"I like the news as little as you do," said I. "Really, we can hardly
do with them here."
Fitz stroked his chin pensively, and then shook his head.
"It looks as though we shall have to put up with them, I'm afraid. If
they are really on the way, I don't quite see how we can shirk them.
Ferdinand is coming as a private person, I presume?"
"So I gather. But what do you suppose is his motive in making this
sudden pilgrimage to see his daughter?"
Fitz did not answer the question immediately.
"It admits of only one explanation," he said at last. "His other
scheme having failed, he has the audacity to take the thing in hand
himself. But that is his way. Whatever may be thought of his policy
and the style in which it is carried out, it can't be denied that he is
a very remarkable man. But I wish to God he would keep away from
England!"
The son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth ended with an abrupt outburst.
Evidently the prospect of coming to grips with his august relation was
not to be viewed lightly.
"But it hardly seems right," he said, "for him to take pot-luck at the
Coach and Horses. I shall be immensely grateful, Arbuthnot, if you
will put him up here, and of course it is quite understood that I stand
the shot."
"The question of the shot, my dear fellow, doesn't enter into the case
at all. But, you see, we are just simple, ordinary folk, and we are
not quite up to this sort of thing; and then again, our accommodation
is limited."
"Oh, that will be all right. If you can squeeze in Ferdinand and old
Schalk here, their people can stay in the village."
I am not often troubled by anything in the nature of an inspiration,
but desperation has been known to quicken the most lethargic minds.
"By Jove," said I, "there's Brasset. He is mounted on a far better
scale than we are. The very man! I'm sure, if the matter were
mentioned to him, he would feel himself highly honoured."
"Yes," said Fitz, "it is not half a bad idea. I will mention it to
Sonia."
"Of course, my dear fellow," I explained, "you understand that my wife
and I immensely appreciate the honour of entertaining the King of
Illyria, and if we only had more resources we should be only too
grateful for the chance. I hope you will make that quite clear to the
Princess."
Solemnly enough the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth promised that
this should be done, and I descended to the drawing-room in a more
equable frame of mind. I was able to eat my dinner in the happy belief
that my inspiration had solved an acute and oppressive difficulty.
Emboldened by this reflection and sustained by a sense of danger
overpast, I even went to the length of attempting to pave the way for
the reception of the happy solution.
"By the way," I ventured to announce to Mrs. Arbuthnot at the other end
of the table, "Mr. Fitzwaren has suggested that perhaps it would be
more convenient for Count Zhygny and his friend the Baron if Lord
Brasset entertained them at the Hall. This seems a most happy
suggestion, and I am quite sure that Lord Brasset will consider it a
very great honour."
Before I had come to the end of this carefully phrased, and, as I
hoped, eminently diplomatic speech, a silent but furious signal was
dispatched by wireless telegraphy across the whole length of the table.
A frown of portentous dimension clouded the brow of Mrs. Arbuthnot as
she turned ruthlessly to the picture of amused cynicism who sat beside
her.
"Really, Mr. Fitzwaren," said she, "that is nonsense. His Maj--I mean
to say, Count Thingamy has expressed a gracious desire to come here,
and of course, as I have no need to say, we should be the last people
in the world not to respect it. We shall only feel too _proud_ and
_honoured_, and the longer he stays with us the more _proud_ and the
more _honoured_ we shall feel."
"Quite so, quite so," said I, hurriedly. "Those are exactly my views;
that goes without saying, of course. But at the same time, Mr.
Fitzwaren agrees with me that the accommodation at the Hall is far
superior to any that we have it in our power to offer."
"I didn't say that exactly, old son." Fitz turned the tail of an
amused eye upon his hostess. "I rather think that is one of the things
that ought to be expressed differently. Rather open to
misconstruction, as the old lady said when something went wrong with
the airship."
"Irene quite understands what I mean," said I, with the valour of the
entirely desperate. "The Hall, don't you know, is one of the show
places of the country--ceilings by Verrio, and so on. Then, of course,
Brasset's a peer, and, as it were, marked out by predestination to do
the honours to Count Zhygny."
There was the imperious upraising of a jewelled paw, in company with a
flash of eyes across the rose-bowl in the centre of the table. I was
reminded of the lady in Meredith whose aspect spat.
"You are talking sheer nonsense, Odo. Your father is coming here,
isn't he, Sonia dear? It is all arranged, and there will be heaps of
room. Lucinda will go to Yorkshire to see her Granny; and Jodey can go
to the Coach and Horses; and you, Odo, can sleep over the stables, and
I am sure that Mr. Fitzwaren won't mind giving up the nicest bedroom to
his Maj--I should say, Count von Thingamy. You won't, now will you,
Mr. Fitzwaren?"
"I am yours to command, Mrs. Arbuthnot," said Mr. Fitzwaren, with his
chin pinned down to the front of his shirt, and gazing straight before
him with his smiling but sardonic eye. "And if there is anything I can
do to add to the comfort of the Count, I need hardly say that I shall
be most happy."
"There!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, triumphantly. "Not another word, please,
else Sonia will think we don't deserve such an honour."
Her Royal Highness regaled us all with a benevolent flash of her
wonderful teeth.
As one in the coils of fate, I had to submit with the best grace I
could to its decree. So far was the sharer of my joys and the
participator in my sorrows from viewing the prospect of the royal
coming with disfavour, that she might be said to revel in it. There
was a fire in her eye, a lightness in her step; the mere thought of the
glamour that was so soon to invest her household served to envelop her
in an atmosphere of mental and moral elevation that can only be
described as lyrical.
Later in the evening I received a Caudle lecture upon my absence of
tact. "What possessed you, Odo, to talk at dinner in that way! I
don't know what dear Sonia must have felt, I'm sure. One would really
think, to hear you, that we positively didn't want to entertain the
King."
"Let us assume, _mon enfant_," said the desperate I, "in a purely
academic spirit, that almost inconceivable hypothesis."
"Really, Odo, there are times when you seem to take a pride in being
_bourgeois_."
"In this instance, my child, the indictment justifies itself. All the
same, we are what we are; it is hardly kind to hold any man responsible
for his antecedents."
"Don't think for a moment that I blame you because your grandfather was
in trade; although, of course, trade was not so respectable then as it
is now. Why I blame you, Odo, is because you don't always make the
best of yourself. That was almost the only thing dearest Mama had
against you. Now, for the love of goodness, let us hear no more about
the King going to the Hall to stay with Reggie Brasset!"