CONSPIRATORS.
"The gods preserve your majesty."
By the force of circumstances, and Captain Pertinax's ingenious idea of
red-handed justice, the Chancellor was sitting interned in his own
official residence. For a man like Turbo to fail is very hard. Failure
was a thing of which he had little experience. Yet now he was obliged to
confess that his elaborate manoeuvre had not succeeded. True, it had
been so far successful as to irrevocably ruin Mlle de Tricotrin's
chances of the throne. On that side the King was firmly blockaded in his
bachelordom. But the rest of the operation was a disaster.
It was certainly nothing but a piece of pure ill-luck that had upset the
strategist's calculations; but Turbo held that a man should be master of
his fate, and leave no room for fortune to interfere either one way or
the other. In the present case fortune might easily have been held at a
distance. He ought to have remembered the gendarmes, and fortune would
not have deprived him of half the battle.
Indeed, it was more than half that had been lost. Not only had he failed
to secure Penelophon for himself, but he had allowed her to come into
the King's possession. So far from finally shutting off his sovereign
from matrimony, he had actually hastened his approach to it. His idea
that Kophetua intended to marry the beggar-maid, in order to secure the
continuance of his reign, became more pronounced than ever. It was an
eventuality which he had long foreseen. He had taken unsparing pains to
prevent it. His whole powers, as a man and a politician, had been
directed to keeping Penelophon away from Kophetua, and the only result
had been to place the girl in his very arms. Something, he felt, must be
done, or his ruin was complete. After what had occurred his favour in
the King's eyes was gone for ever. He was a disgraced minister, whom
nothing but a revolution could set on high again. Could he only stay the
King's marriage a few months more, the revolution would come by peaceful
process of law, otherwise his fall was complete, or a more violent
course must be taken.
Into the midst of the Chancellor's perplexity broke M. de Tricotrin. By
this time the Marquis had ascertained approximately what had occurred in
the morning. The news of the palace was that General Dolabella and an
officer of gendarmes had presented a report to the King, which had led
to a scene between his majesty and the Chancellor, resulting in the
latter being confined to his residence in deep disgrace. This violent
splash in the quiet waters of Oneirian politics was generally said, by
well-informed persons of unimpeachable authority, to be due to a
difference of opinion as to the course to be taken with the beggars, but
M. de Tricotrin knew better. From what the Queen-mother had told him,
and the facts within his own knowledge, he had now no doubt that the
King had got wind of their little plot, and had ordered a party of
gendarmes to frustrate it as quietly as possible, and he more than ever
felt that an interview with the Chancellor was necessary to establish
his own fidelity to the infamous bargain, and to concert measures for
the future.
"I thought your excellency would have something to say to me after this
disaster," said the Marquis, as soon as the two old schemers were alone.
"Yes?" said Turbo warily.
"You have an accusation to make, no doubt," said the Marquis.
"None in the world," answered Turbo; "why should I?"
"Then whom do you blame for the unfortunate intervention of the
gendarmes?"
"I blame no one. They were there at my suggestion."
"Upon my word, Chancellor," said the Marquis, astounded at Turbo's cool
admission. "I must congratulate you upon the _sang-froid_ with which you
speak of your infamies."
"I do not understand you, Marquis," answered Turbo.
"The word is plain enough. What you confess is an infamy. It is an
infamy to enter into an arrangement to further my daughter's marriage,
and deliberately to frustrate it by making an exposure of us to his
Majesty, and providing him with a consolation. It is clever; but, I
repeat, it is an infamy."
"My dear Marquis," cried Turbo, almost with enthusiasm, "I see we shall
work together admirably. Your suspicions do you infinite credit. They
display in you possibilities of unscrupulous intrigue such as I myself
have not yet attained. I have still to reach the point at which I could
even suspect a man of the admirable insensibility of which you are so
flattering as to accuse me. I bow to you as a master. To conceive such
ingenious treachery belongs only to a master."
"Then you withdraw the confession you just made."
"I wish that I could, Marquis," said Turbo. "For it was a confession of
stupidity;" and with that the Chancellor explained to M. de Tricotrin
how the presence of the gendarmes was a mere accident, for which no one
was to blame but himself.
"Well," said M. de Tricotrin, when Turbo had done, "you must permit me
to apologise for the unwarranted accusation I made."
"Not at all," answered Turbo. "It was a compliment I value highly."
"Then at least let me offer you my commiseration," said De Tricotrin,
"upon the loss of all you hoped to gain. But I trust it is only
temporary. I am happy to announce to you that I have discovered the
retreat of your little friend, and, no doubt, can put you in the way of
recovering her, when it may be done with safety;" and M. de Tricotrin
explained in detail to the Chancellor the Queen-mother's move.
"I am delighted," concluded the Marquis, "to be able to announce to you
so excellent a piece of fortune."
"I regret, Marquis," answered Turbo, "that I cannot share your delight."
"But surely," replied the Frenchman, "it is an extraordinary piece of
good fortune."
"I do not deny it," said Turbo; "but I am accustomed to look with
suspicion on any position, however attractive, which is founded on
fortune. Nothing is stable without a substructure of sagacious purpose.
For a position to be in any way modified by fortune is for me merely
evidence of defective calculation. In the present case the danger is
obvious."
"Why so?" asked the Marquis.
"You see," pursued Turbo, "another piece of fortune may at any moment
put the King in possession of the information we enjoy. A pursuit and
recapture will ensue, and our Quixote will have fattened his folly with
another ration of romance. Your unhappy daughter's supplanter will then
be on the steps of the throne."
"Then what do you propose?" said De Tricotrin. "To recapture the girl
yourself, I presume?"
"Precisely," answered Turbo. "The thing is easily done. I will send
officers to watch the players. They will be instructed to take advantage
of any disorderly conduct to arrest the whole company as vagabonds, and
convey them to the capital. Disorder amongst such people is easily
fomented. I apprehend no difficulty or even delay."
"But how can you arrange this delicate mission," objected the Marquis,
"while you are under arrest?"
"To-morrow," said Turbo, "I propose to submit unconditionally to the
King's terms, and I shall be free. It will be unpleasant, but under the
new aspect of affairs there is no other course open. I must absolutely
be at liberty to act at the present crisis."
The Chancellor's evident anxiety to get the beggar-maid back to the
capital began once more to arouse M. de Tricotrin's suspicion. His
doubts as to the loyalty of his ally began to recur to him. His own idea
was that at present Penelophon was much better where she was. He
objected to the Chancellor's plan, but it was not his habit to insist on
real objections. There was a crudeness about honesty which jarred on the
old diplomatist's sense of refinement. He loved always to mask his
position with minor obstructions.
"You seem, Chancellor," he began, "to over-estimate the danger we are to
apprehend from this beggar. It is impossible to conceive that the King
seriously means to marry her."
"I quite agree with you, Marquis," answered Turbo. "He had no such
intention. Till this morning the danger was shadowy. But now it is
different. In his present state of mind he is capable of any
indiscretion. I cannot exaggerate to you the intensity of the shock
which he received at the discovery of your daughter's implication in our
disgrace."
"What!" cried the Marquis, surprised into an unwonted show of feeling.
"The discovery of my daughter's complicity? What do you mean?"
"Did you not know?" said Turbo, with an affectation of tender concern.
"Really this is most painful. I imagined you knew all, and envied you
your calmness. You see it was that unlucky note. The girl did not
deliver it, and so it came into the King's hands through the police."
"Oh, it is that which has alarmed you," said the Marquis, in a tone of
great relief. "I am happy, then, to reassure you. Believe me, there was
nothing compromising in that. I was careful that the letter should be
but a blank sheet of paper."
"Then what is the meaning of this?" said Turbo, handing Mlle de
Tricotrin's note to her father. M. de Tricotrin read it through. Then he
set his teeth, and hissed out between them, "Sink the little fool!" and
many other like exclamations that were only fit for Turbo's ears.
As soon as the ebullition which Turbo's announcement produced in the
Marquis had a little subsided, and while his spirits were still hot, the
Chancellor proceeded to throw in, in the guise of consolation, the
ingredients which he considered necessary to convert the Frenchman's
state of mind into a mixture that would minister to his own disease.
"And, after all, Marquis," said Turbo, at last, "perhaps you have lost
nothing. I begin to think you had gained nothing, and had nothing to
lose. I am inclined to believe the King is a deeper politician than we
thought. Some of us are old hands, but I believe he has been laughing at
us all along. He amused us with your daughter, and Penelophon, and this
Herculean notion of his of cleansing his Augean stables. But my
experience of this morning has opened my eyes. He is a man, and not the
decrepit boy I took him for. The spirit of his race is alive in him. It
has burst into sudden vigour. He begins to itch for power like his
fathers, and he means to grip it in spite of the law. He means to have
it, and throw us all over,--you and me and Mlle Héloise, who have sinned
in his eyes beyond redemption. That is why his calmness and obstinacy
are so unassailable. That is what this concentration of the gendarmerie
means. I tell you, Marquis, as sure as there is an earth beneath, our
little Kophetua contemplates a _coup d'état_."
"But this is astounding!" cried the revolutionary statesman, with the
air of one who smells the battle afar off.
"It _is_ astounding, Marquis," replied Turbo, "and we must not rely
entirely on the correctness of our view. It is possible he may still be
halting between the revolutionary and constitutional course. He may,
even at the last moment, retreat by abdication. Meanwhile, we must
prepare for every eventuality. Our first step will be for you as
satisfactory as it is obvious. We must at once bring to bear the whole
pressure of the political combination which you have so cleverly framed,
in order to drive the King into a marriage with your daughter."
"But is there the slightest chance of success?" said the Marquis.
"I think so," answered Turbo, who knew perfectly well the attempt was
hopeless, and therefore safe as far as he was concerned. "The party you
have gathered at your back is stronger than anything he has met with
before. Its influence is incalculable."
"But if we fail!"
"It will at any rate force his hand. We shall know what to do next.
Meanwhile, I should value your opinion and assistance in the elaboration
of various methods of proceeding upon which I am engaged in view of the
possible crisis. A marriage with the beggar, or an attempt at a _coup
d'état_, must be met----"
"With revolution," broke in the delighted Frenchman, with impressive
solemnity of voice and manner.
"Precisely,--with revolution," answered the Chancellor. "It remains but
to settle the details to our mutual satisfaction, and we cannot begin
too soon. With your experience of these matters, my dear Marquis, our
success is assured."
"You flatter me," answered M. de Tricotrin. "Permit me to say it is for
such a coadjutor as you that my experience has waited. We are necessary
to each other, you and I. Let us recognise the fact, and nothing is
impossible."
The two old hands set to their work. All night long they sat, drawing up
memoranda, consulting official lists, marking the names of those whom
they intended to employ, and devising bribes for the doubtful. Like
sober men of business they devoured the work, and sketched out with
official brevity and distinctness the plan of operation. What these
designs were it is premature to inquire now. Before long they were made
patent to every one. Suffice it for the time that when the grey light of
morning broke, M. de Tricotrin went quietly forth from Turbo's garden,
wearing on his face an expression which he felt would not have disgraced
Cassius as he left the orchard of Brutus.
Several similar meetings followed in quick succession, and began to make
themselves felt. Turbo made his peace with the King, and was continued
in office in order that Mlle de Tricotrin's sin might not be blazoned to
the world. The whole affair, in fact, was hushed up, and the Chancellor
left free to work his tools.
As the day for the meeting of Parliament drew near, Kophetua began to be
aware that every one was taking an unaccountable interest in his
marriage. Petitions came up from the country. Gentlemen and ladies of
both parties, whether Kallist or Agathist, seemed to want to talk of
nothing else. Every subject he started in the Council seemed to
transform itself into the same haunting shape.
Parliament met, and General Dolabella, amidst indescribable excitement,
was elected Speaker according to the original arrangement on which M. de
Tricotrin's coalition was founded. Then the pressure redoubled. The
Kallikagathists joined with quiet dignity the general movement, and were
heard to say, with an air of noble patronage, that it was at last a
great fact. In tones of reserved intensity, so characteristic of the
inflexible bigotry of those who believe they are nothing if not
open-minded, the Kallikagathist party assured themselves that further
resistance from the King was impossible. The party of order, the party
of moderation, the party of intelligence, had triumphed at last. At
length, by the unostentatious use of reason and common-sense, they had
drawn the extremists together, and a coalition was standing before the
King demanding his marriage with the lady who embodied the principles of
everybody and everything. It was no longer the voice of party that
spoke. It was the harmonious flood in which the voice of party was
drowned. It was the holy voice of compromise.
At last things came to a crisis. An address was moved urging the King to
marry the woman of the people's choice. A lengthened debate took place,
but only upon its wording. The Kallist amendments, dictated by Turbo,
were almost indecent in their plain speaking. A coaxing and apologetic
obscurity was the tone of those which the Queen-mother approved for the
Agathists. Eventually the spirit of compromise, which presided over the
assembly in the person of its new Speaker, triumphed over every
difficulty, and the address was passed in a form which was a masterpiece
of inconsistency. Kallist violence and Agathist weakness were there in
glaring contrast. The insolence of the one was only enhanced by its
proximity to the servility of the other. Nothing could have been better
calculated to offend the King or impress him with a sense of the
perplexity of his position and the malicious origin of the cross-bred
coalition which confronted him.
At no time was Kophetua a man to bear pressure patiently if he was
conscious of it, and his present state of mind was one of universal
defiance. The shock which Mlle de Tricotrin's heartless perfidy had
produced upon him had been at least as acute as Turbo imagined. Till he
had quarrelled with her at Count Kora's rout he hardly knew how much she
had been to him. Till then he had not recognised how he craved for a
woman to love, and how nearly she was fitted to satisfy his hunger. He
began to see how dull his life would be again without her. The one
imploring look she had given him as she passed beneath his window had
turned his contempt into pity. The beauty, the tenderness, the
self-abasing resignation of that lovely vision had done its work, and at
last a great resistless love had filled every chamber of his soul.
Then fell, sudden as the hand of death, the crushing revelation of her
guilt. It was as though he had gathered the luscious fruit of the Tree
of Life and found it ashes between his teeth. The first shock past, he
turned, as men will in such a case, to find comfort in the light of
another's eyes. He turned to Penelophon, where he saw the very
antithesis of her in whom he was deceived. The passion that was aroused
in him must find a resting-place. So violently did his noble nature
revolt from its fallen idol that it was only in the opposite extreme of
womanhood it felt it could be at peace.
Prepared to risk all, he was going forth to seek her when they told him
she was gone. At first none could say whither, but soon there were some
who whispered she had run away to the strolling players, and were
careful that the whisper should reach Kophetua's ears. Such folk had an
evil reputation enough in Oneiria, and in his despair the heart-broken
King cried out that she was as bad as the rest. There was now none good;
no, not one. There was nothing in life but loneliness, and no weapon to
battle with it but defiance.
He laughed to himself to think how wasted were the efforts he felt
pressing about him, how utterly they mistook him to think he would bend
to force. He laughed till he wearied of the sport, and the last stroke
angered him. The address he saw as a ridiculous insult, and was resolved
to have no more. Once or twice before, when he had been over-worried on
the marriage question, he had made an end by a simple manoeuvre, and he
was determined to repeat it now.
So when General Dolabella attended with a deputation to receive the
King's answer to the address of his faithful Parliament, there was no
one to receive him but the Chancellor. Turbo briefly announced that the
King had left that morning for his hunting-tower in the mountains, and
handed Mr. Speaker an order for the prorogation of the House.