THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE
It was past two o'clock when the _partie_ was dissolved. No sooner had
our guests retired to their repose than Mrs. Arbuthnot turned
enthusiastically to her lord.
"What a perfectly lovely old man! Such charm, such distinction; so
kind, so unaffected, and oh, so simple! There is something in being a
king, after all."
"Things are not always what they seem, _mon enfant_," I remarked
uneasily.
"He is a perfect old darling."
"He is one of the deepest men in Europe, as all the world knows."
"He is a dear."
"Personally, I have no wish to meet him in a lonely lane on a dark
night, if I should happen to have anything upon me that I cared to
lose."
"Why, goose, you are jealous!"
"Put not your trust in princes, my child." And, reluctantly enough, I
confided Fitz's piece of advice.
Howbeit, I was more than half prepared for Mrs. Arbuthnot's queenlike
indignation.
"What do you mean, Odo?" said she, majestically. The outraged delicacy
of a De Vere Vane-Anstruther is a very majestic thing.
"Either you promise, or I don't sleep over the stables."
"This is all the doing of Fitz! He has an insane prejudice."
"Fitz is a very shrewd fellow, and he knows our guest rather better
than either of us. You must not forget that kings are kings in
Illyria."
"I don't understand."
"You must promise, even if you don't."
"I shall do nothing of the kind. It is a humiliating suggestion.
Besides, it is all so _bourgeois_."
"I was waiting for that. But, whatever it is, I have quite made up my
mind. Either you promise, or I don't sleep over the stables."
"Then I refuse; absolutely and unconditionally I refuse," said Mrs.
Arbuthnot, with what can only be described as _hauteur_.
It was our first _impasse_ in the course of six years of double
harness. I have never disguised from myself that I am a weak mortal.
Mrs. Arbuthnot has never disguised it from me either. The habit of
yielding more or less gracefully to the imperious will of the superior
half of my entity had become second nature. But there was a voice
within that would not have me give way.
"Absolutely and unconditionally! I consider it odious. And why should
you insult me in this manner----"
The star of my destiny was rising to the heights of the tragedy queen.
"If you would only make the effort to understand, my child," I said
patiently, "what is implied in your own admission that there is
something in being a king, after all!"
"You are insanely jealous. He is a perfect dear, and he is old enough
to be one's grandfather."
For once, however, I was adamant. Together we ascended the stairs;
together we entered her ladyship's chamber. There was not adequate
accommodation for the two of us. The best rooms had been placed at the
disposal of Fitz and his wife, and of the King and his Chancellor.
Leading out of this apartment, however, was a small dressing-room with
a sofa in it. I opened the door and, as I did so, delivered my final
ultimatum.
"Irene, you will either do as you are asked, else I spend the rest of
the night in there."
"Pray do as, you choose." Mrs. Arbuthnot was pale with indignation.
"But I shall not lock the door."
"So be it."
Leaving the door of the dressing-room slightly ajar, I lay down on the
sofa just as I was, and composed myself for slumber as well as an
entirely ridiculous situation would permit. Precisely how it had come
about it was hard to determine, but I was prepared to inflict upon my
overwrought self, for the events of that long day had been many and
remarkable, a still further amount of bodily discomfort. But Fitz's
hint had overthrown a married man, a father of a family, and a county
member, whatever the sense of humour had to say about it all.
In the process of time I forgot sufficiently the dull tumult of my
brain and the throbbing of my arm for my jaded nerves to be lulled into
an uneasy doze. How long I had been oblivious of my surroundings I do
not know, but quite suddenly a cry seemed to break in upon my senses.
I awoke with a start.
The room was in total darkness save for a thread of light which came
through the partially open door of the adjoining chamber. But sounds
and a voice proceeded from it.
I rose from my sofa and listened at the threshold.
"Little milady, little Irene."
The pleading accents were familiar, and paternal. I pushed open the
door and entered the room. A distracted vision with streaming hair and
in a white nightgown was sitting up in bed; while candle in hand a
magnificent figure in a blue silk Oriental robe over a brilliant yellow
sleeping-suit was confronting her.
"Little milady. Little Irene."
I fumbled for the knob of the electric light, found it and turned it up.
I was face to face with a subtle and smiling visage. There was
astonishment in it, it is true, but it was also full of humour and
benevolence.
"Why, my friend," said Ferdinand the Twelfth in his most paternal
manner, "pray what are _you_ doing here?"
I confess that I could find no answer to the royal inquiry.
In the circumstances it was not easy to know what reply to make.
Indeed so completely was I taken aback that I could not find a word to
say. Coolly enough the King stood regarding me with that bland and
subtle countenance. But as those smiling eyes measured me they gave me
"to think." I carried one arm in a sling, I was without a weapon, and
the Father of his People was a man of exceptional physical power.
As a measure of precaution, I reached pensively for the poker.
A transitory gleam flitted across the King's face, but the royal
countenance was still urbane.
"Madame should have locked her door," he said, with an air of humorous
reproach. "Dat is a good custom we haf in Illyria."
"Your Majesty must forgive us," said I, without permitting my glance to
stray towards the half-terrified vision that was so near to me, "if we
appear _bourgeois_. The fact is, we are not so familiar as we should
like to be with the usages of the great world."
The King laughed heartily.
"There is nothing to forgive, my good friend," he said with an air of
splendid magnanimity. "But Madame should certainly have locked her
door. However, let us not bear malice."
With a superbly graceful gesture, in which the paternal and the
humorous were delightfully mingled, the King withdrew.
Horror and incredulity contended in the eyes of Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I
did not think well to spare her the reverberation of my triumph.
"There is something in being a king, after all, _mon enfant_."
Mrs. Arbuthnot was only able to gasp.
"Do not let us blame him; he is the Father of his People. But
apparently it would seem that that which may be _bourgeois_ in the eyes
of the matrons of the Crackanthorpe Hunt is really the highest breeding
in Illyria."
Thereupon I laid down the poker as pensively as I had taken it up,
sought to compose the star of my destiny, who was beginning to weep
softly, and bade her good morning.
Outside the door I lingered a moment to hear the key click in the lock
in the most unmistakable manner.
With the aid of a candle I made my way to my temporary quarters over
the stables. The hour was a quarter to five. Little time was left for
further repose, but it was used to such advantage that it was not
without difficulty that my servant was able to rouse me at a quarter to
eight. By the time I was putting the finishing touches to my toilet I
was informed that Count Zhygny was below, inspecting the horses.
Count Zhygny, to give our illustrious guest his _nom de guerre_, which,
like nearly all Illyrian proper names, it is well not to attempt to
pronounce as it is spelt, was stroking the fetlocks of Daydream with an
air of knowingness when I joined him. Dressed in a suit of tweeds and
a green felt hat, he looked the picture of restless energy. Seen in
the light of day he was far older than he had appeared the previous
night. Hollows were revealed in his cheeks, and there were pouches
under his eyes. His hands shook and his brow had many lines, but every
one of his many inches was instinct with a natural force.
His greeting was frank and hearty and as cordial as you please. There
was not a trace of resentment or embarrassment. But, from the manly
ease of his bearing, it was abundantly clear that the king could do no
wrong.
He linked his arm through mine, and together we strolled in to
breakfast. At the sideboard I helped him to bacon and tomatoes, and
Mrs. Arbuthnot gave him coffee.
The manner of "little milady" was perhaps a thought constrained when
she received his Majesty's matutinal greeting. To encourage her he
pinched her ear playfully.
Mrs. Fitz did not grace this movable feast, and Fitz and the Chancellor
were rather late.
"You have taken a long time over your devotions, Schalk," said the
King. "I am glad it does not cost me these pains to keep on good terms
with heaven."
"I also, sir," said Schalk drily.
"I see you have the English _Times_ there, Schalk. What is the news
this morning?"
The Chancellor adjusted a pair of gold pince-nez and began to read
aloud from that organ of opinion.
"'Blaenau, Wednesday evening. The Illyrian Land Bill was read a second
time in the House of Deputies this afternoon.'"
"Ha, that is important," said the King, laughing. "What a
well-informed journal is the English _Times_! Do you approve of the
Illyrian Land Bill, Schalk?"
"Since I had the honour of drafting it, sir, to your dictation, I
cannot do less than endorse it."
"And read a second time already, says the English _Times_, in the House
of Deputies. I always say they have some of the best minds of the
kingdom in the Lower House."
"Trust them to know what is good for themselves," said Schalk sourly.
It was tolerably clear, from the Chancellor's manner, that his royal
master was enjoying a little private baiting.
"Why, Schalk," he said, "I believe you are still harping on Clause
Three."
"I have never reverted, sir, from my original view," said the
Chancellor, "that under Clause Three the peasantry is getting far more
than is good for it. I have always felt, sir, as you are aware, that
this is a concession to the pestilential agrarian agitator, and I feel
sure the First Chamber will proclaim this opinion also."
"Well, well, Schalk," said the King cheerfully, "is it not the function
of the First Chamber to disagree with the Second, and what is the
Little Father for except to soothe their quarrels by flattering both
and agreeing with neither?"
"Your Majesty is pleased to speak in riddles," said the Chancellor,
with gravity.
"What a cardinal you would have made, Schalk!" said his master. "But
if you have really made up your mind about Clause Three, we must look
at it again. I agree with you that it is not good for growing children
to eat all the cake. We must keep a little for their elders, because
they like cake too, it appears."
"Everyone is fond of cake," said the Chancellor sententiously, "but
there is never quite enough to go round, unfortunately."
"That is a happy phrase of Schalk's," said the King, making the
conversation general with his amused air; "'the pestilential agrarian
agitator.' Have you that kind of animal in England?"
"We are infested with him, sir," said the member for the Uppingdon
Division of Middleshire, the owner of a modest thousand or so of acres.
"The people for the land, and the land for the people! The country
reeks of it."
"It is the same everywhere," said the King. "A great world movement is
upon us. The wise can detect the voice of the future in the cry of the
people, but there are some who stuff wool in their ears, eh, Schalk?"
Ferdinand the Twelfth assumed a port of indulgent sagacity. This
half-serious, half-bantering fragment of his discourse, and half a
dozen in a similar tenor to which it was my privilege to listen, seemed
to establish one fact clearly. It was that the King was not the slave
of his ministers. He was a man with a keen outlook upon his time,
deliberately unprogressive, not in response to the reactionary forces
by which he was surrounded, but because he held that it was not good
for the world to go too fast.
His article of faith was simple enough, and in his conduct he did not
hesitate to embody it. He conceived it to be the highest good for
every people to have a king; a wise, patient and beneficent law-giver
to correct the excesses of faction; one to stand at the helm to steer
the ship of state through troubled waters.
Whether his conception of the monarchical condition was right or wrong,
he was able to enforce it with all the weight of his personality. He
believed profoundly in the divine right. In the assurance of his own
infallibility he seemed to admit no limit to his own freedom of action.
He believed that the future of his country was in his hands. It was in
order to conserve it that he had come to England in this singular and
unexpected manner. Having chosen a Royal Consort for his only
daughter, she whose act of revolt was but a manifestation of
sovereignty carried to a higher power, he was prepared come what may to
enforce his will.
All through this little history I have tried to show how comedy strove
with tragedy as the play was unfolded. The spectators were never quite
sure which way the cat would jump. Infinite opportunity for laughter
was provided, but underneath this merriment lay that which was too deep
for tears. Viewed upon the surface, the precipitation into our midst
of such an elemental figure as Ferdinand the Twelfth was food for an
inextinguishable jest, but the reverse of the medal must not be
overlooked.
Every hour the King spent under our roof was a slow-drawn torture for
Fitz and his wife. Holding the romantic belief that they were
twin-souls whom destiny had linked irrevocably together, they were
everything to one another. But running counter to this faith were
those incalculable hereditary forces which the King with incomparable
power and address was marshalling against it.
Now was the time for the Princess to yield. In his own person the King
had come to demand of her that once and for all she should take up the
burden of her heritage. If now she declined to heed, the days of the
Monarchy were numbered.
It was only too clear to us onlookers that a terrible contest was being
waged. In two or three brief days the Princess seemed worn to a
shadow; the look of wildness was again in her eyes: her whole bearing
confessed an overwhelming mental stress.
Fitz also suffered greatly. And his travail was not rendered less by
the fact that Ferdinand did not scruple to make a personal appeal.
About the third night of his ordeal, Fitz accompanied me to my quarters
over the stables.
"Arbuthnot," he said, sinking into a chair, "I have been thinking this
thing out as well as I can with the help of Ferdinand, and he has made
me see that my rights in the matter are not quite what I thought they
were. I do not complain. He has talked to me as a father might to a
son, and he has brought me to see that our position in the sight of God
may not be quite what we judged it to be."
I was hardly prepared for such a speech on the lips of Fitz. That it
should fall from them so simply gave me an enlarged idea of the forces
that were being brought to bear upon him.