King John of Jingalo Part 7

"Ah!" said the King. "Thank you, my dear, that is what I wanted to know."

He went on to the Queen's apartments, and Princess Charlotte stood looking after him. "Poor dear!" she said to herself. She was sorry for him too--very sorry just now; for she had a secret growing within her somewhere between heart and head which, if he knew of it--and some day he would have to know of it--would cause him a great deal of worry.

This young woman with her growing secret was at that time twenty-three.

II

The Princess Charlotte had a way of drawing in a breath as if to speak, and then bottling it. This little performance was at times very telling in its effect--it spoke volumes: it told of a long training in self-repression which still did not come quite naturally: it told of inward combustion, of a tightly cornered but still independent mind.

Ladies-in-waiting had seen the Princess run out of her mother's presence to tabber her feet on the inlaid floor of the corridor, thence to return smooth, sweet-tempered, and amiable; for between Charlotte and the Queen there were temperamental differences which had to declare themselves or find safety through emergency exits.

The Princess had no such difficulties with her father, for imperturbability was not one of his characteristics, and imperturbability was the one quality in a parent which the Princess simply could not stand; it made her feel powerless; and to feel powerless toward one's intellectual inferiors is, to certain temperaments, maddening. Charlotte had long since been brought to recognize that her mother, in her own dear way, was quite hopeless: but she was able with astonis.h.i.+ng ease to get upon her father's nerves and to trouble his conscience; for while the Queen remained impervious to all influences outside the conventions of her training and her habits, the King was as open to new scruples of conscience as a sieve is to the wind--fresh ideas rattled in his head like green peas in a cullender--when he shook his head it seemed to shake them about, and all the larger ones came uppermost; and the Princess Charlotte had in recent years acquired a habit of entangling her father, with the most engaging simplicity, in moral problems for which const.i.tutional monarchy could find no answer.

She was evidently interested in politics, and when of late the King, wis.h.i.+ng to check so dangerous a tendency, had sought to know the reason why, she had answered with perfect frankness: "Max says" (for to her, also, Max, the man born to inaction, had been talking), "Max says he is not sure if he means to come to the throne. If he doesn't, it is just as well I should know something of the business."

The young lady had a most disrespectful way of talking about the monarchy as "the business," and did not say it as if in joke.

"Are you going to business to-day, papa?" was actually the phrase uttered in all seriousness, which had met him one of the days when he went down to open Parliament. But though she spoke thus gracelessly of an important State function she attended it herself with grace, and behaved well.

The Princess Charlotte had learned many things alien to her nature; but she had never learned that correct.i.tude of deportment which is supposed to accompany all those born in the regal purple from the cradle to the grave. She subst.i.tuted for it, however, something much more individual and charming. Tall and abundantly alive, she moved in soft rushes rather quicker than a walk; and her manner of swimming down a room, with swift invisible run of feet, and just three long undulating bows on the top of all--those three doing duty for so many--was a sight on the decorum of which Court opinion was sharply divided. Yet every one admitted that though she might lack convention or anything in the least resembling "the grand manner"--she had a style of her own; many also--even those who disapproved--admitted her charm. As she talked to her chosen intimates, her two hands would go out in quick bird-like gestures of momentary contact, while her brightly moving face gave a constant invitation to the free entry of her thoughts. Barriers she had none. A dangerous young person for getting her own way; for in the process she often got not only her own but other people's as well.

At the moment when she makes her introductory bow from the pages of this history her main and consuming desire was to secure the ordering of her own dresses; and to obtain that preliminary measure of independence for the expression of her own character she was prepared, in the face of maternal opposition, to go to considerable lengths.

The King when he met her in the corridor was, as we have said, preoccupied with affairs of State. But his preoccupation was partly put on with intent for the concealment of other thoughts. The sight of his daughter at that moment, embarra.s.sed him--gave him, indeed, almost a sense of guilt, for he held in his hand a letter from the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser accepting the circuitously worded proposal, with all its delicate adumbrations of yet other proposals to follow, that he should visit the Jingalese Court early in the ensuing year--immediately, that is to say, upon his return from South America; and though in his reply the veiled object of that visit was not mentioned there was a touch here and there of compliment, of warmth, of a wish that the date were not so far off, which indicated "a coming on disposition."

And so, under the bright eyes of his daughter, the King was conscious of a sense of guilt, in that he was concealing from her something in which her future was very greatly concerned. It seemed hardly fair thus to be pus.h.i.+ng matters on without letting her know: and yet--what else could he do? So, covering his affectionate embarra.s.sment in inquiries about himself, he shuffled past; and when he had gone a little further, turned to take another look at her, and found, startled, that she too was looking at him. There, at opposite ends of the long corridor, father and daughter stood interrogatively at gaze, each feeling a little guilty, each wondering what, at the denouement, the other would say. Then the charming Charlotte blew him a kiss from her hand, and his Majesty did likewise; and, off to the fulfilment of her destiny went the Princess; and off to his fulfilment of her destiny went he; each quite sure in their two different ways that they knew what was best for her.

III

The King found the Queen at her knitting, very placid and contented and well pleased with herself, for she had just been giving Charlotte a mild talking to. Charlotte had come home with adjectives in her mouth of which the Queen did not approve, and with enthusiasms that went riotously beyond bounds. She had talked of some Professor's translation of a Greek play as "glorious"; and of the play itself--a play all about expatriated women who, their proper husbands having been killed in a siege, were forced to accept at the hands of their enemies husbands of a less proper kind--she had talked of that play as "the most immense, immortal, and modern thing in all drama."

"I told her," said the Queen, "that she was talking about what she didn't understand; but she answered that she had seen it three times.

_I_ said, that to go and see the same play three times--especially a play with murders in it--showed a morbid taste. She didn't seem to mind: 'Then I _am_ morbid,' was her reply. And when I said, 'That comes of making friends with these intellectual women,' she only laughed at me. I shan't let her go again, it is doing her harm; she has far too many ideas, far too many: and where she picks them all up I'm sure I don't know; she doesn't get them from me!"

And then the conversation--though Charlotte remained its subject--took another turn, for the King put into his wife's hand the letter he had received from the Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser, and immediately her comments began.

"He writes a nice hand," she said, "and expresses himself very well.

Speaks of writing a book on his travels; he must be clever. Well, at all events, it's very evident that he means to come, and wants to. We must ask him to send his photograph. I think, my dear, we have made a very good choice, and Charlotte may consider herself very fortunate. But what a pity he's not coming sooner. Well, Charlotte must wait, that's all!"

And so in her own mind the matter was settled, and only the usual details waited to be arranged. She handed the letter back to him.

"Of course," she said, "before he comes Charlotte must have a bigger allowance." She became meditative. "By the way, you had better leave it in my hands; don't give it to Charlotte herself. She wheedles you, I know; but she has ideas about dress which I am not going to encourage; she makes herself far too noticeable as it is. Somebody has been talking to her about 'national costume' and the folly of fas.h.i.+ons; and she actually said just now that she wanted to have some kind of dress that she could wear three years running! I told her that fas.h.i.+ons were made to be followed, and that it was her duty to follow them. Oh, she was quite sweet about it, and said she supposed I knew best, which of course is true. But she had a sort of 'I'll ask papa' look in her eyes that made me suspicious. She went out just before you came."

"I met her," observed the King.

"And she said nothing?"

"Not a word about her dress allowance."

"Ah, that's all right, then: she takes what I tell her sometimes." Then with a quick glance the Queen asked abruptly: "Have you seen Max?"

"I fancy I may be seeing him this evening," returned the King casually, for he wished to conceal even from his wife the importance he had begun to attach to his son's visits.

"Something is happening," said the Queen pointedly; "at least, so I am informed. That--that person I told you about--she isn't there now."

"However do you come to know that?" inquired the King, surprised; but his question was ignored.

"She has gone abroad," went on his informant. "Had you said anything to Max?"

"I did speak to him."

"Then it seems to have had its effect."

The King very much doubted whether the effect was any of his doing; but he held his peace.

"Now we must find somebody for him," continued the dear lady, covering the past in a tone of charitable allowance.

"I think that Max will find somebody for himself."

But this was not to her taste at all. "How can he," she objected, "unless we send him abroad? I'm sure there's n.o.body here."

But the King had come recently to know more about Max than his wife did.

"Max will find somebody for himself," he repeated; "and if he thinks it worth while, he will go all round the world on a wild goose chase to look for her."

IV

Could the King only have known it, Max had already found his choice nearer home. His domestic arrangements having been temporarily disturbed by a certain lady's departure to visit her son on his estates, he had gone off on a spurt of social curiosity to inspect the slums of his father's capital, and on the third day of his investigation had spied, under a nursing sister's habit, and above a gentle breast bearing an ivory cross, the face of his dreams. Having taken scientific steps to discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted earth--had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made him pay the price for his intrusion by setting him there and then to work of a kind he had never tackled before.

Who she was, and all the sacred dance that she led him on holy feet, before she gave him that reward which was his due, will be told in the later pages of this history. For the present Max had hardly any idea how pure and deep a Jordan he was about to be dipped in, or how thorough a scrubbing he himself was to receive. His voice was still like the rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental liberties wherein he ranged at large in any way diminished or disturbed.

When they had settled down to their talk, the King confidentially broached the proposed visit of the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser and its intended significance. Max did not seem particularly impressed.

"What does Charlotte say about it?" he inquired casually.

"Charlotte does not say anything. How should she? She does not yet know."

Max smiled. "It will be time, then, to talk about it when she does."

"But there is really n.o.body else; and Charlotte must marry somebody."

"Has she said so?" inquired Max. "My own impression is that she will have to get through at least one good healthy love affair of her own before she settles down to anything you or the Courts of Europe can provide. After that--if you let her plunge deep enough--you won't have any trouble; she will marry anything you offer. Of course, if you really believed in monarchy as a principle, and not as a mere expedient--a divine inst.i.tution, and not as the last ditch in which the old cla.s.s-barriers have to be maintained--you would let her marry any one she chose. It would do the monarchy no harm, and might do it good."

The King shook his head. "It's no use talking like that," said he. "We are not free, any of us. The more other ranks of society have become mixed, commercially mixed--for you know it is money that has done it--the more we must maintain ours. Royalty must not barter itself away."

"But you _do_ barter it," said Max, "for rank if not for gold. And the one is really as base as the other. The great game for royalty to play now-a-days is courageous domesticity."

"There are limits," replied his father. "We must maintain our position."