THE ATTITUDE OF THE GRAND DUKE
The baron's bitterness was deepened by this accident to his charge; and
he continued stubbornly to lay the blame of it on Pollyooly: if she had
not actually flung him into the dyke, she had led him into the marsh,
where the dyke was. Then two mornings later there came a telegram to
inform him that the Grand Duke of Lippe-Schweidnitz, on his way to
answer the letter of appeal in person, was already in London, and would
reach Pyechurch early in the afternoon. The baron was a glad man. All
the morning, reclined in his deck-chair, with eyes full of a gloating
triumph, he watched Pollyooly direct the play of the prince; and as he
watched he hummed an aria, the same aria, of Mozart. He foresaw a
speedy end to this distressing social entanglement and her evil
domination.
At lunch he informed his royal charge of the coming of his august sire,
and told him that he must stay at home to welcome him.
"I go do blay wiz Bollyooly," said his young charge stolidly.
"You vill nod go," said the baron firmly.
His young charge said no more; he only looked at his beaming preceptor
with eyes cold with the steeliest contempt. The baron failed to grasp
the purport of the look.
After lunch he had the prince carefully cleaned, and then set him in an
easy chair under his eye, to await the coming of his august sire, who
would arrive about a quarter to three. Then he walked up and down the
room working out the most effective presentation of his indictment of
Pollyooly and the social entanglement. At intervals he gesticulated
and muttered a phrase. He was making excellent progress with it and at
five and twenty minutes to three he was at the end of it. The prince
sat stolidly in the easy chair by the long windows. At twenty-four
minutes to three the baron flung out the last damning phrase (with the
appropriate splendid gesture) at his image in the looking-glass over
the mantelpiece. Then he turned to beam triumphantly on his little
charge. The easy chair was empty; the prince had gone.
With language far less sonorous, but more staccato, the baron bounced
to the window, just in time to see his little charge disappear swiftly
over the edge of the sea-wall fifty yards away. Unfortunately the
baron wore his hair too short to be able to tear handfuls of it from
his head, or he would have bereft himself of a handful or two. But
everything that language could do to ease him, language did. He must
be at home to receive his august master: etiquette demanded it
imperatively. He had no time to recover his young charge, whose
presence etiquette demanded no less imperatively. Dashed from his
height of splendid triumph, and exhausted by the fluency with which he
had dealt with the appalling situation, he sank heavily into the easy
chair, an embittered man.
He was quickly roused from his gloom by the stopping of a barouche
before the house. In it sat his august master, a splendid round figure
of a man, clad in the lightest-coloured tweeds Schweidnitz could boast,
and surmounted by the whitest of white bowlers. His large, broad,
square face ended in three well-moulded chins. In the middle of the
fine expanse of face (his was not a high forehead) was a bristling
imperial moustache, far fiercer than the baron's; above it rose a big,
thick nose. His eyes were a bright blue; and they twinkled in an
engaging fashion somewhat disappointing in a royal personage. Beside
him sat a slim, contrasting equerry.
The baron rushed forth, and after the manner of his caste, was abject
in his apologies for the absence of Prince Adalbert. . . . He had
taken every precaution. . . . All had been in vain. . . . The
infatuated unfortunate would steal away to the little she-devil-child.
"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke, who made a point of speaking English in
England; and he descended with earth-shaking majesty from the creaking
barouche.
"Ve vill go to zem," he said after testing the soil of Pyechurch with a
cautious foot to make sure that it was equal to his weight.
On the way to the sea-wall the baron poured forth his damning
indictment, disjointedly and without the fierceness of phrase and
splendour of gesture he had practised; and three times the grand duke
said, somewhat phlegmatically, the baron thought:
"Ach zo?"
They came out on to the wall just above the band of Pollyooly's
subjects, hot and excited in a game of rounders.
The quick eye of the grand duke at once espied Prince Adalbert running
to field a ball.
"Ach, he is zlimmer!" he said in a tone of satisfaction.
"Zlimmer? He is zlimmer, your Highness. Id iz zat leedle
she-devil-child. She nevare--nod nevare--leds 'im be steel. All ze
day she makes 'im roosh and roosh. He haf nevare no breath in hees
loongs--nod nevare!"
"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke calmly. "He is rooning mooch faster zan
he vas could."
"Id's zat leedle she-devil-child! She make 'im roon and roon all ze
day!" cried the baron.
"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke. "Alzo he is peenk--guite peenk."
The satisfaction in his tone had increased. He could hardly be called
a fond parent, in the matter of Adalbert; he might more truly be said
to bear with him. Indeed he had never been able to explain the boy to
his satisfaction. There was perhaps a slight physical resemblance
between Adalbert and his parents; but whereas he knew himself to be one
of the astutest princes in the German Empire and his wife to be an
uncommonly clear-witted woman, no father's partiality hid from him the
fact that Adalbert was obtuse. He was inclined to accept sadly the
theory of Professor Muller, professor of anatomy and physiology at the
University of Lippe-Schweidnitz, and court physician, that Adalbert
cast back to his great-grandfather Franz, who had been known to his
irreverent subjects as "The Dolt."
He gazed at the perspiring and excited band for a minute in silence.
Then he said:
"Wheech is ze leedle she-devil-child?"
"Zat von--zat von in ze meedle--wiz ze red 'air," said the baron.
He pointed to Pollyooly in the middle of the ring where she was acting
as pitcher, her face flushed, her eyes shining, her red hair a flying
cloud.
An immense slow smile spread over the expanse of royal face; and the
grand duke cried: "Mein Gott! Bud id is nod a child at all--zat! Id
is an anchel--a leedle anchel--Italian renascence! Is id nod,
Erkelenz?" And he turned to his slim equerry.
"Yes, Highness: authentic," said the equerry.
The Baron von Habelschwert gasped; he could not believe his ears.
The little girl, batting, whacked the ball over the prince's head.
"Run, Adalbert! Run!" shrieked Pollyooly.
"Roon, Adalbert! Der Teufel! Roon!" bellowed the grand duke.
It is hard to say whether the shriek of Pollyooly or the terrific
bellow of his august sire was the sharper spur to the prince's legs;
but he saved the rounder.
"Sblendid! 'e did not roon like an ox," said the grand duke almost
proudly. "Vhat did you write vas ze name of zat leedle anchel?"
"Bollyooly, your Highness," gasped the baron in a feverish doubt
whether he was standing on his head or his heels, for the grand duke
had heard her call the hope of the house of Lippe-Schweidnitz
"Adalbert" with his own ears!
"Bollyooly? A beautiful name!" cried the grand duke with enthusiasm.
Then came the great event of Prince Adalbert's life. The little boy
who was batting hit the ball right into his hands. He grabbed at it;
and by a miracle it stuck in his fingers.
His side leapt and shrieked as one child; and the grand duke leapt and
bellowed. The shock of his descent on the sea-wall made it quiver for
many feet round him.
He turned upon his slim equerry, seized his arm, and shook him as the
wind shakes a blade of corn.
"Did you see zat? Id is ze creeket! 'e caught 'im out," he bellowed
in stentorian tones which rang out far across the marsh. "Bollyooly
has made 'im zlim! She has made 'im roon! She has made 'im peenk!
She has taught 'im ze creeket! She shall rewarded be! I will gonfer
on 'er ze Order of Chastity of Lippe-Schweidnitz of ze zecond class!"
He loosed his slim equerry, and hammered his enormous right palm with
his huge left fist.
The slim equerry shook his head (this time without any assistance from
his august master) and said:
"She is too young, your Highness. Ze order can only be gonferred on
ladies of twenty-von or elder."
"Zen I will gonfer it on 'er when she is twenty-von! Bud I will reward
'er alzo now! Vetch 'er!" cried the grand duke.
The slim equerry went down the sea-wall across the sands to Pollyooly.
The game stopped while he conferred with her. Pollyooly looked from
him to the fine, round figure on the sea-wall; then she patted her
hair, smoothed her frock, called to her young companions that she would
be back in a minute or two, and went with the slim equerry. She was
not timid, or even shy. Her estimate of the royal family of
Lippe-Schweidnitz had been formed from her knowledge of Prince
Adalbert; and it was not a high one. That royal family left her
unimpressed and certainly unrevering. She was hardly curious about the
grand duke.
On the way to him the slim equerry asked her her name, and told her to
be sure to address the grand duke as "your Highness."
On the sea-wall he took her hand, grew rigid, saluted, and said:
"I present the Fräulein Bollyooly von Bride to your Highness."
Like the well-mannered child she was, Pollyooly dropped a curtsey.
The grand duke seized her hand, and shook it warmly, and cried:
"Mein Gott! if you were zeven--five years elder, I would keess you!
Bud id is far to sdoop. You haf done great good to my zon, ze Prince
Adalbert. You haf made him peenk--guite peenk; and you haf taught him
ze creeket. Id iz sblendid; and you moost rewarded be. Gif me my
burse, Erkelenz."
The slim equerry took a purse from his pocket and handed it to the
grand duke. The grand duke opened it, turned it upside down, poured on
to his palm eleven golden sovereigns, and pressed them with somewhat
clumsy fingers into Pollyooly's hands.
The amazed Pollyooly flushed; and her eyes shone like bright stars; the
family of Lippe-Schweidnitz rose a thousand feet in her estimation.
"Oh! Thank you, your Highness!" she gasped.
"Zere is no zanks--nod none! You haf made Adalbert peenk. You are von
sblendid anchel child. And id iz me to zank you," said the grand duke;
and very gently, for the size of his fingers, he patted her head. Then
he drew himself up and, with a splendid wave of his gigantic hand,
added:
"Und now go and blay wiz Adalbert--blay wiz him always!"