“Me? O, my Good God, what is this! Me, poor sinner, know where your
sister is, my Lord King? Why, spare me! spare me, God of Hosts! Why,
you've only got to ask yourself the question--”
“Listen to me, Frankl”, said Hogarth, bending his blazing brow low over
the Jew: “I have searched for that woman through the world, and have not
found her. All the time, mind you, I felt convinced that you know where
she is; and you may wonder why--years ago--I did not have you seized.
I will tell you why: it was because I had a sort of instinct that God,
whom I serve continually with tears and prayers, would not fail in
His day to show me her face: and to-day you are here. Do you suppose,
Frankl, that you will go away without telling me where she is? And in
order to hurry you, listen to what I say to your warders--”
He touched a button in the balustrade, and to the warders said: “If at
any time this man should demand pencil and paper, supply them, and take
to your Admiral what he writes. To-day his food shall be fare from your
own table; to-morrow three loaves and water; from the third day one loaf
and water; till further orders”.
Up shot Frankl's shivering arms, while Hogarth, training his ermines and
purples, paced away.
That was on the day following the Manifesto.
XL
THE WEDDING
By the time Frankl's three loaves had become one, that amazement with
which men received the Manifesto had commenced to give place to more
coherent impressions.
He was not a “Monster”! that was the first realization--no pirate, nor
lurid Anti-Christ, nor vainglorious Caesar! And in two days, the first
astonishment over, there arose a noise in the world: for the Lord of the
Sea had given to the nations one month only in which to do that thing:
and the peoples took passionately to meetings.
In England Land Leagues, Chambers of Agriculture, Restoration Leagues,
Nationalization Leagues, many Leagues, were organizing furiously,
stretching the right arm of oratory; deputations, petitions in wagons,
demonstrations _en bloc_, party cannonades, racket heaven-high.
Sir Moses Cohen, the Jew-Liberal Leader, appealing to the strongest
prejudice in Englishmen, spoke one night at Newcastle of “the
interference of a foreign prince in the affairs of Britain”; used the
word: “_Never!_”, and on this cry secured an enormous following: so
that, within a week, he was instrumental in forming the formidable
League of Resistance--destined to prove so tragic for Hogarth, and for
England.
It was in the midst of this world-turmoil that--on the third day--the
marriage-morning of Miss Cecil Stickney dawned; and that same evening
Rebekah Frankl, convalescent from influenza, was seated over a bedroom
fire in Hanover Square, a cashmire round her shoulders, her sickness
cured by herbs, her physician then hobbling with a stick down the
stairs--Estrella of Lisbon--her back almost horizontal now with age.
And as Rebekah mused there, two newsboys below, whose shouts pursued
each other, went proclaiming through November gloom as it were the day
of doom, crying, even in that uproar of Europe, a private event:
MARRIAGE OF
LORD ALFRED COWERN
AND MISS CECIL STICKNEY
APPALLING TRAGEDY
And soon a girl ran in, gasping: “Miss Frankl!--this is too awful--your
father--”
The news, having been flashed to Paris by Mackay-Bennett cable, now
appeared in detail after the _New York Herald's_ French edition, and
Rebekah's eyes ran wildly over details as to the “bevy of beauty”,
daughters of “the Thirty-four”, and the church of waiting ladies, the
carpeted path between palms and exotics, and how the ticket-holders
heard the organ tell the Cantilenet Nuptiale and Bennett's Minuet; and
then the multitudinous stir: behold the bridegroom cometh!--the little
necessary bridegroom of no importance, and then the white entry of bride
and bridal train, while the choir knelt to sing “O Perfect Love”.
Perfect love, however, was hardly the order of that day, but rather
perfect hate: for in Madison Square--the church being at the upper end
of Fifth Avenue--a mob was being harangued on the subject of this very
wedding: and when they heard and realized the thing that was being done
before their eyes they were swept as by a wind of fire, and under its
impulse set out like some swollen Rhone with a rushing sound to pounce
upon the church, full of perfect hate: and the choir sang “O perfect
love”.
What happened now was described as a nightmare. The same elemental
instincts of the Stone Age which had exhibited themselves in the
$500-worth of food wrought in another form, but with no less savagery,
in assassins as in victims: and a massacre ensued, bride and bridegroom
passing away like bubbles, of “the Thirty-four” five only escaping. The
report ended with the words: “The ringleaders have been arrested; quiet
reigns through the city”; then a list of the guests, with asterisks
indicating those killed.
Rebekah searched for her father's name, and when she became certain that
it was not there, her lips moved in thanksgiving.
But since Frankl was not at the wedding, where, then, was Frankl? She
counted the days on her fingers: he could not have been late.
Unless there had been an accident to his ship....
Her brows knit a little; she peered into the fire: and thought of the
_Boodah_....
It was possible that when her father's steamer stopped to pay sea-rent,
Hogarth might have heard, and seized him. That notion occurred to her.
And at once it threw her into an extraordinary fever, her bosom swelling
like elastic in her heavings to catch breath, though she did not realize
the wild thought that was working up to birth within her. She rose and
paced, furiously fast.
If he was in the hands of Hogarth?
“He is a British subject”, she muttered: “Hogarth has not the
right...Oh, he has not the right...!”
She was fearfully agitated! something fighting up and up within her,
stifling her, working to burst into birth; she flung the cashmire
from her shoulders, her bosom rowing like two oarsmen. “Because we are
Jews...!” she went.
“If he _dared_ do that--!”
What then? Say! Rebekah!
“I would go to him myself--”
All at once that thought was born, and she stood shockingly naked to
her own eyes, her hands rushing to cover a face washed in shame. “But,
surely”, she whispered, “I could never be so _bold_, good Heavens? Why,
Never! Never--!”
However, an hour later, with flaming eyes, she was writing a letter to
Frankl's manager.
XLI
THE VISIT
Frankl's Bank was scanning the agents' yacht-lists for her, when Sir
Moses Cohen, who was closely associated with Frankl, placed his own
three-master at her disposal; and she set out from Bristol, with her
being three Jewish ladies, Frankl's manager, and a snuffy Portuguese
rabbi who resembled a Rembrandt portrait.
It was late at night, and Hogarth, who had lately acquired a passion for
those Mathematics which touch upon Mysticism, was bent over Quaternions
and the quirks of [Proofers note: checkmark symbol] (--i) in an alcove
of his _Boodah_ suite hardly fourteen feet square, cosy, rosy, and
homely: he sitting at a sofa-head, and, lying on the sofa, Loveday, his
head on Hogarth's thigh, escaped from office and frockcoat, in happy
shirt-sleeves, between sleeping and waking.
Hogarth was interrupted by a telephone bell.
“Well?” he answered.
“My Lord King”, from Quilter-Beckett, “Frankl has handed to his warder
something written: will your Lordship's Majesty see it now?”
“Yes!” Then: “John! Frankl has yielded!”
Up Loveday started with “Thank God!” while Hogarth: “When does my yacht
arrive?”
“At midnight”--from Quilter-Beckett.
“She starts back immediately for England with me and Mr. Loveday”.
Now an officer entered to present an envelope, and the two looked
together over these words:
“Your Lordship's Majesty's sister, Margaret Hogarth, is at No. 11,
Market Street, Edgware Road, London. She goes under the name of Rachel
Oppenheimer, I don't know why. As God is my witness, I repent in ashes.
Won't your Lordship's Majesty have mercy on a worm of the earth? I am
an old man, getting on, and starved to madness. The ever devoted slave,
from this day forth, of my Lord King.
“BARUGH FRANKL”.
Hogarth 'phoned up: “Give Frankl food now, and put him where it is not
cold....” and to Loveday he said, “Well, you see, she is there: 'No. 11,
Market Street'. And under the name of--what? 'Rachel Oppenheimer'...John
Loveday, do you fathom the meaning of that?”
“No--don't bother me about meanings, but shout, like her, 'O Happy Day!'
I say, Richard, you remember that singing? how we would hear her from
the forge? All day, washing, cooking--melodious soul! There was 'O Happy
Day', and there was--By God, how charmingly holy! how English! And,
Richard, you remember--?”
Another telephone bell: Hogarth turned to hear.
“Just arrived in the yacht, _Tyre_, my Lord King”, said
Quilter-Beckett's voice, “four Jewish ladies, a Jewish gentleman, and a
rabbi, who request early audience to-morrow; they lie-to, and have sent
a boat--”
“Rubbish! I shall not be here to-morrow, and even if I was--Who are
they? By the way, no sign of the yacht?”
“Not yet. They are Miss Frankl--”
“Who?”
“Miss Rebekah Frankl--”
“God”, went Hogarth faintly, stabbed to the heart.
“Miss Agnes Friedrich, Mrs.--”
But the rest fell upon ears deaf as death, the teeth of Hogarth now
chattering as with cold, that haggard, gaunt yellow, which was his
pallor, overspreading his face. So long was he speechless, that
Quilter-Beckett asked: “Are you there, my Lord King?”
“Quilter-Beckett!”
“Yes, my Lord King?”
“Will you go _yourself_--for me--to them? _Make_ them sleep here, will
you? This is most urgent, I assure you. And go quick, will you?”
That night did not the Lord of the Sea sleep: she under his roof...
Nor did he go that night to find Margaret--nor the next day, nor the
next, though Loveday chafed: for, gyrating through the giddy air of a
galaxy where Margaret was not, he forgot her.
XLII
REBEKAH TELLS
At that time Hogarth, personally, was in close relation with the score
of Embassies that inhabited the belly of the _Boodah_, these intriguing
incessantly for half-hours at his ear, and in communication, meanwhile,
with their Governments through O'Hara's _Mahomet_: so that Hogarth had
to get up early, and his mornings sweated with audience and negotiation.
The German and Russian Emperors, with the Prince of Wales (then
virtually Regent), had hurriedly met at Vienna--presumably for the
discussion of the Manifesto; and immediately after it, the Prince, who
had the reputation of being one of the most tactful of men-of-the-world,
took a step which hinted that the Royal House, as often before, meant to
come to the rescue of the country which loved it however the politicians
might bungle: Hogarth was invited to accept the Garter.
He accepted: and the ceremony in the _Boodah_ was witnessed, as it were,
by Europe, King-at-Arms in a new tabard, with his suite, going to invest
him, taking the Statute of the Chapter, with the Great Seal of England,
and a set of habiliments--white-silk stockings, gold sword Spanish hat,
stars, gloves. And the effect was speedy, the other rulers, dumbfounded
before, said now: “England will comply with the Manifesto; and, if
before us, the taxed sea opens to her....Yield, moreover, we must: let
us make haste!”
But to consent was one thing: the _how_ another: the mere suspicion of
the willingness of Kaiser or Tsar shook their thrones. Whereupon Russia
said to Hogarth: “Recently dispossessed, they cling dyingly now to their
lands, so I will _buy_ the land from them, and _you_ will lend me the
money”; to which Hogarth virtually replied: “It is too childish to talk
of buying part of a heavenly body from a Russian: have you no sense of
humour? You may give the Russian 'nobles' some money, if that pleases
you: but without my help. If His Majesty the Tsar is more afraid of them
than of me, my only way will be to prove myself more truly terrible than
they”.
But high words hurl down no hundred-headed hydra: in France--fast,
faster--with dizzy vertigo--millions were forming themselves into secret
societies, while in England was One only--but stronger than the many of
France.
By the date of Rebekah's pilgrimage Hogarth had so far failed and
yielded, as almost to decide that from the _Boodah_ nothing could be
done, unless he went to the extent of ruining and starving. The other
alternative was the fixing upon one nation, becoming its recognized
ruler, and there furnishing an example both of _modus operandi_, and
of a subsequent state of happiness, which others could not long refrain
from imitating.
But this modification was still in the air; and, meanwhile, he listened,
weighed, revolved: using men, impressing, convincing, extracting for his
use the wisdom of their experience, estimating the exact pressure of the
Time, the _timbre_ of its roar.
So on the morning after Rebekah's arrival his Gold Stick became his
rack from the moment of the bow from the throne till noon: name after
name--cordons, orders, gold-lace, sashes, stars, tiaras; till enter the
four Jewesses, the bank-manager, the rabbi, Hogarth's pallor showing
up his three moles and nose-freckles, adding a glare to his eyes, he
suffering from the runaway drumming of his heart.
The ladies stoop through curtseys; the men do reverence; Hogarth bows.
There like a Begum of Bhopal stood Rebekah, floridly reflected in the
glassy floor, sallow under the eyes, smiling at him, he at her; and very
quickly now, she once in his sight, he recovered comparative calm, and
the strength of his heart.
“Your first visit to the _Boodah_, I think?”--looking at her.
“Yes, my Lord King”--curtseying.
“Do you like her?”
“Why, yes: she is solid, and mighty, and rich. In my own, and the
name of my friends, I beg to thank your Lordship's Majesty for your
Lordship's Majesty's kind and good hospitality to us”.
“Humbugging little beggar”, thought Hogarth, his mind slowly gathering
tone, but rushing meanwhile into a species of frivolous assurance after
those agitations, his hands still cold.
“Well”, he said, “but you have not seen her! I think I know her fairly
well, and I propose to be myself your guide, if that will interest
you--”
The Rabbi spoke with trembling voice: “It is gracious, my Lord King.
We are here, however, humbly to present an urgent petition to your
Lordship's Majesty. Baruch Frankl, at present a prisoner in the
_Boodah_, a man no longer young, and habituated to comfort--”
“Stay”, interrupted Hogarth: “if you have a petition the day and hour
must be arranged by negotiation between yourself and my Chamberlain. But
surely, meantime, I may consider you my guest? Miss Frankl and I--have
met--in the world. Come, ladies--come, sirs--say yes!”
Rebekah, standing averted, flashed a look at him, reading his heart, and
Jews and Jewesses laid heads together, whispering a little, until the
Rabbi said, bowing: “We bend to your Lordship's Majesty's most gracious
will”.
“Agreed, then, sir. We might now see the _Boodah_, and if you will
luncheon with me--Mr. Chamberlain! direct Admiral Quilter-Beckett to
meet me at once in the north corridor”.
He rose, master of his limbs now, descended, unrobed in an alcove, and
in a corridor above the circular stair came upon Quilter-Beckett, who,
acting as guide, Rebekah's hand now resting on Hogarth's arm, led them
about the _Boodah_, now walking, now slipping in little trains over
eighty-foot rails, rolled in one heat, laid down the vanishing length
of dim-lit corridors floored with white tiles, their frieze of majolica,
with rows of ceramics; and they saw the armouries, piles of rifles,
cutlasses, pistols; ferneries grown by electric light; great
cold-storage rooms that struck a chill, for preserving meats, butter,
fruit; the doctors' _environ_, the dispensary, and roomy hospital;
watched from a railing the working engines that fixed the _Boodah's_
position, Hogarth here saying: “There you have a menagerie of
gnome-land: observe those two black beetles, sedately nodding; and there
is daddy-longlegs, working his legs gymnastically; and the three pairs
of gallant grey stallions, galloping grandly neck to neck; and those two
ridiculous beings, rubbing their palms together, round and round: each
preoccupied, comically solemn, busied about its own quaint affairs--like
a varied gnomeland”.
And Rebekah said in a meek tone, like the hen submitting: “Yes, I see
now you say it, my Lord King”.
Up stairs and down, round semicircles, up lifts, through nooks,
corridors: saw the guns, and how by hydraulics everything was done--the
hoisting of ammunition, loading, training: guns intact, guns wrecked by
the Dreadnoughts; and shimmering kitchens, which reeked a smell of heat,
and the dairy-maids, and the line of kine, and the row of prison-doors,
and the mechanism of ventilation, fans and blowers, the drainage-system,
and the dynamos for lighting, for supplying power to motors, for
heating, and for shimmering forth rich in the search-lights; and the
central ballroom, the clothes store, the original one-ninety-sixth
model, the Ambassador-region, the steaming laundry, and the roof, where
Rebekah saw her initials on the breeze, and the vertical pop-guns under
shields for dealing with aeroplane attack, and the cream theatre, and
the paymaster's suite, and the bunkers, the Government-offices,
and the tax-receiving rooms, the telephone system, and the
lady-telegraphists--till all were tired, though half had not been
seen. They luncheoned together; in the early afternoon there was an
Investiture, and she was there; for “five-o'clock” there was a Gounod
concert in the theatre, and she sat in his box; at night the Bulgarian
Ambassador gave a ball, and she danced a gavotte with him.
When they parted a dying wind sighed his name: “_Hogarth_...”; and when
Loveday before sleeping happened to ask: “When do we set out for London,
Richard?” Hogarth with a laugh turned upon him, replying: “When do we
set out for Arcturus and the Pleiades? Do give one time to look round
him!”
The next morning Rebekah, led forward from a semicircle of courtiers by
a backing Silver Stick, approached within four feet of the Throne, and
after the protracted humiliation of her curtsey, said ruefully: “Our
party have failed, my Lord King, to obtain audience for our humble
petition till after four days”.
“Is that too long?”
“We could not wait beyond to-night. Our good Rabbi, and my father's
Manager--both must hurry back, and we others with them. This being so,
_I_ appeal to Your Lordship's Majesty “.
“A _personal_ appeal?”
“Yes”--poutingly.
“Then, I grant an audience”.
“Where?”
“Here”.
“Who will be here?”
“Why--you and I.”
“_No_”--very low, with pressed lips.
“I am so sorry”, says he: “it is the only chance I shall have; not for
long--a few minutes--I am so busy. Otherwise, you will have to stay four
days--and your poor father suffering--”
She seemed unsure now, and his hands in the uncertainty of that moment
were moist like melting ice.
“So, then, you accept”, said he: “a little audience--you grant me? Or
rather, I grant you”.
“When, my Lord King?”
“At three--No, what folly! At four. Will you? At four? And here? Say at
four”.
He spoke leaning keenly forward; and she, with a curtsey of
acquiescence, retired.
They were near again, and yet far, in the _salle à manger_ at luncheon,
a function of a hundred guests at small tables, with more of orchestra
than of talk; and even as Hogarth and his train entered, and the crowd
rose, she saw his eyes, by some power, prowl and find her.
Afterwards there were two hours to wait.
Such a heat of haste now possessed them both! Hogarth locked himself
from his attendants into his bed-chamber, and, tumbling a chaos of
clothes and uniforms upon the carpet, stumbled bitterly among them,
hunting for a cravat whose effect he remembered; wished at the mirror
that he had no moles and nose-freckles, or that his father had turned
him out rather less black; and anon a delicious chill pang of mingled
sugar and peppermint would gash his heart at the thought: “_she
consented!_” He broke glass, dropped his watch to fragments, hissing
“damn the thing!”; and about half-past three the hands of Rebekah,
too, in _her_ locked closet, were like the scattering sirocco among
powder-boxes brushes, jewel-cases, and toilet-toys. What a hot haste
was here! She too much blued her eyes, and bruised the skin in wiping,
intense the contest between poudre blanche and poudre Rachel, violette
and germandrée, she manoeuvring among mirrors to catch each angle of
view, but with a blind impatience; and, if she wanted something, she
tripped running, breathless: such a disease of flurry, an eruption
and conflagration of haste--for nothing; yet, all the while, with a
miserable sub-feeling of the penal creeping of time.
At four Hogarth in the Throne-room alone was now afraid that he would
not be able to utter a syllable, and wished that she would not come;
then, in a minute, began to fear that she would not, and wondered
whether he was not a deluded fool ever to have dreamed it, he walking
quick, or anon listening like a thief in that half-dark: for few lights
were shining, the hall like the after-flush of sunset just before the
dark.
At four past four he was aware of a rustling train's rush down the
steps, and now was like a man with his neck on the block, awaiting the
axe. A moment afterwards she was before him, and two moments afterwards
he was collected and hot, and a man again.
“_Dear_”, he whispered at her ear, leading her by the hand to an ottoman
in a near alcove.
She, in self-defence, was repellent, breathlessly saying with galloping
haste: “No--I will not sit: you sit, and I will stand here: do as I say,
Hogarth--or I repent and go: I know you, and you know me--or you should.
Our talk must be short. You say _dear_ to me: that is very gentle, my
friend; but it was not to bandy such words that I am here--alone--with
you and your strength--Hogarth. I come as a suppliant, to implore
you--firstly for the man who is my father--and secondly for yourself, to
warn you. You are said to be about to become the sovereign of England--”
“_I_ am?”--starting where he sat obediently before her, surprised
that she should utter the purpose then forming in his mind: “witch--of
Endor!”
“_I_ am not the witch, but an old lady in whose predictions many Jews
believe, who prophesies the return of the Jews to Palestine--through
you. Be that as it may, if it is so that you are about to meddle
with the institutions of England, oh beware, the resistence will be
terrible!”
“With respect to England I am omnipotent”.
“Yes, you can starve it, but _will_ you? You won't. And listen to your
friend: there is now in London a society, enormously powerful I believe,
sworn to your destruction”.
“What can they do--assassinate me?”
“Ah! who knows?”
“That would be too childish: I have sown my seed in Time, and it will
grow: two thousand little lords could hardly obliterate the ploughing of
my wrist. But you know this?”
“Richard, my father is of them”.
“Ha!--I forgive him: his daughter seems to be on the other side--”
“Richard, you would not touch my hand? Ah, my friend, I warn you--!
Now--you have agitated--I have been ill--my father is of them. And who
is one of the closest associates of my father--?”
“Who?”
“The person known as Admiral Donald, whom _I_ know very well to be
Monsignor O'Hara. I think you might have been more--recondite--in your
choice of an admiral, Richard!”
“Ah?--you surprise me”.
“But why? You once sent that man to me as a notebearer: certainly, a
singular selection. You must have known that he had been a convict--”
“I thought him innocent then!”
“But you know now--?”
“Yes”.
“And is it not extraordinary that your ensign bears my initials, while
this man is one of your commanders?”
“I confess that I do not see the point--”
“Then you cannot know, I suppose, that it was against _me_ that his
offence was directed”.
Hogarth's left lid lowered....
“But my complaint is of the present: are you not aware of the scandal
which the _Mahomet_ is now creating in the world?”
“Scandal?”