Chapter 17

A DEED WITHOUT A NAME

I

The King and Queen sat in their state coach responding with low bows to the plaudits of the crowd. Their velvets and ermines lay heavy upon them, for although it was now November, the day was close and warm, and there seemed to be thunder in the air.

The King, in this his Jubilee year, had resumed wearing his crown on great State occasions, for he found that the people liked it. He had worn it at the Foot-washing; and every one then admitted that it gave the true symbolic touch to the whole ceremony. And now for the last time he was wearing it again.

Artistically he was right; a cocked hat, of nineteenth-century pattern, does not accord well with robes in the style of the sixteenth. In some countries that mistake is made by royalty out of compliment to the army; but if on these State occasions sartorial compliments are to be paid irrespective of the general effect, then surely your monarch should wear a wig as representative of the law, lawn-sleeves in honor of the Church, and divide the rest of his person impartially between the army, the navy, and the doctors. Thus all the great professions would receive their due recognition, and we should presently find so symbolical a combination just as harmonious and dignified, and as pregnant with meaning, as we do the heraldic quarterings by which the mixed blood of ancestry is so proudly displayed. We can get accustomed to anything if there is a good reason for it; but when we cease to be reasonable, beauty should be our only guide. In this case reason as well as beauty had induced King John of Jingalo to reject the cocked hat and to resume the crown.

The royal coach had already borne its occupants along two miles of the route; and continued exercise was making them warm.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, "it's very stuffy in here; I feel as if I were in a furnace. Why did you ask to have the windows closed, my dear?"

"It makes one feel so much safer," said the Queen, keeping her stereotyped smile, and sweeping a bow as she spoke.

"Safer from what?" Here his Majesty responded to a fresh burst of cheers.

"Accidents," replied his consort; "one never knows."

"Glass, my dear, does not protect one from the accidents of Kings. Glass can't stop bullets, you know."

"I didn't mean that sort of accident; and I wish you wouldn't talk about them just now."

"You always take out an umbrella when you don't want it to rain; and if one talks about accidents then they don't happen. At least that has always been my experience. What sort of accident do you mean?"

"Dust, and microbes, and infection, and all that sort of thing. There must be a lot of it about in so large a crowd; I wonder how many people with measles."

"What an idea!" exclaimed the King: "people with measles don't come out to see shows."

"Oh, yes, they do,--nursemaids especially. They all catch it from each other in the public parks; at least so I've been told. And whenever I see a perambulator now, I think of it."

"There are no perambulators here to-day," said the King, "so you needn't think about measles. Smallpox if you like; though it strikes me that all I have yet seen are remarkably healthy specimens--considering how many of them there are." And he bowed to the healthy specimens as he spoke.

"Very enthusiastic," murmured the Queen appreciatively.

"Yes; I wonder if presently they will be as enthusiastic about Max."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing. I was only thinking ahead, in quite a general sort of way. We seem lately to have become quite popular."

"I think we have always been."

"Yes, you have, my dear; about myself I was not so sure. Well, it's very gratifying to come upon it just now."

His Majesty felt a little guilty, for he had not yet told the Queen of what lay ahead; it was so much better that she should not know beforehand what she would never be able to understand.

Then for a while they relapsed into silence, each attending to what Charlotte would have described as their "business"--a carefully regulated succession of bows accompanied by a smile which never quite left off.

Presently the King spoke again. "By the way, where has Charlotte gone to?"

"Well, I hardly know," said the Queen. "She wrote to me from her first address--that college place; but said she was going on elsewhere, and I thought you settled that we were to leave her alone."

"I think she ought to have waited till to-morrow. As Max is away, she at least should have been here."

"So I told her; but she said she had a very particular engagement which she must keep; and I could see that, relying upon your promise, she meant to have her own way, so I said nothing."

"I hope they are going to like each other," said the King, his thoughts carrying on to the meeting which was now near.

"She and the Prince? Oh, yes, I think there's no doubt about it. Strange, wasn't it, that her running away actually pleased him?"

"I suppose it was so very unusual. We don't as a rule get people to run away from us. It's generally all the other way. Look at this crowd! I wonder how the police manage to keep them back."

Smiling and bowing, the Queen replied: "They are so well behaved; and see, how patient. Many, I daresay, have been here for hours. Doesn't that show loyalty?"

"It isn't all loyalty, my dear; they like the whole spectacle, the troops, the coach, the piebald ponies. Last night I went to look at them; four of them have been left out."

"What a strange thing to do."

"But some have to be."

"No; going to see them, I mean."

"Well, I don't know; they play a very important part in the proceedings, and in a way they are heroes, for wherever they go with us they share our danger. I heard quite a lot of interesting things about them."

At this moment they were approaching a part of the route which separated them for a while from the popular plaudits. In the forefront was a deep archway, and beyond it was a brief stretch of road shut in by hoardings and dominated by high masts of scaffolding, behind which new Government buildings were in process of erection. Across each front to left and right a few strings of bunting fluttered to give festive relief; for here there were no stands filled with spectators, no pavements lined with shouting crowds; and behind the palisades work had been knocked off for the day. The cry of the populace lulled down to a mere murmur, and the trampling of the hoofs echoed strangely as they passed under the vaulted arch and along the walled-in track with its huge baulks of timber on both sides supporting the growth of stone walls.

Ahead stood a wide gateway opening by a sharp turn into Regency Row, whose broad thoroughfare of cream-tinted façades, now bright with flags, formed an ideal rallying-ground for the sightseeing multitude.

"Now there," said the King, pointing ahead to a high triangular building facing the gates through which they were about to emerge, "there is the place that I always think a bomb might be thrown from with much certainty and effect, plump into the middle of us, just as we are turning the corner."

"I do wish you would leave off talking about such things," said the Queen reproachfully, "or wait till we are safe home again. How can I keep on smiling, if you go putting bombs into my head?"

"I was only saying, my dear----"

Suddenly, from behind, an amazing detonation seemed to strike at the smalls of their backs, throwing them half out of their seats. The glass slide upon the Queen's side of the coach ran down with a crash, and one of the large gilt baubles from its roof toppled and fell into the road. At the same instant a great blast and swirl of smoke blew by, shutting for a moment the outer world from view. Then loud cries, hullabalooings, shoutings--a scramble and clatter of hoofs as though three or four horses had gone down and were up again--a capering flash of pink silk calves--as the six footmen exploded upon from the rear sought safety in front where the eight piebald ponies were all standing on end with men hanging on to their noses. And then further disorder of a less violent kind, runnings to and fro, and from the crowd waiting ahead a vast and tumultuous cry rather jovial in its sound.

The King had risen from his seat, and trying to look out and see what was going on behind had put his head through the glass, his crown acting as a safe and effective battering ram.

"I do believe there has been an attempt," he said, drawing his head in again. "That certainly sounded like a bomb; not that I have had much experience of such things."

Then he did what he should have done at first, and let down the glass.

"I am going to faint," sighed the Queen, sinking back in her seat.

"Nonsense!" said the King sharply. "Pull yourself together, Alicia! You are not hurt."

"I think I am," she said. But the sharp tone acted as a tonic, and she settled herself comfortably in her corner and began quietly to cry.

There was still plenty of confusion going on. The piebald ponies had been brought to a standstill, and some of them were now showing temper. A voluble and excited crowd was trying to break through the police lines and grasp the whole situation at a run. Troops were coming to the rescue; horsemen from the rear dashed by. Then a staff officer galloped up to the coach window, and reining a jiggetty steed saluted with agitated air and a rather white face.

"The danger is over, your Majesty," he gasped, a little out of breath, "only a few horses are down; no one is killed."

The King nodded acceptance of the news; and as he did so noticed a tiny fleck of blood upon the officer's cheek--no more than if he had cut himself in shaving. It seemed to give the correct measure of the catastrophe, and to assure him more than words could have done that the damage was really small.

Except for that one moment when he had impulsively put his head through glass, the King had kept his wits and remained calm; and now his royal instinct told him the right thing to be done.

"If you want to manage that crowd," he said, "we had much better drive on. Until we do they may think that anything has happened. Tell them to start, and not to drive fast."

The officer went forward bearing the royal order.

"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand at mine; then nobody can have any doubt at all."

He removed some shattered glass from her lap as he spoke, and gave an encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze.

Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar. Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of cries.

Through all that vast multitude word of the outrage had sped, like a black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal procession became a triumphal progress.

II

The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly well through an ordeal that falls only to few.

And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen.

And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the Judges and the Bishops cheered too--a thing that none of them had done individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before.

Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice to the thankfulness that was felt by all.

The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving earthly circumstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did not.

The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it.

The circumstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready to make allowances, for between him and his minister the situation was somewhat embarrassing. They had parted with unreconciled views, and by no stretch of terms could their relationship any longer be regarded as friendly. All the same, on such an occasion it was incumbent upon the Prime Minister to say the correct thing, and he had said it: he had described the outrage as "a dastardly attempt," and the immunity of his sovereign as "a happy and almost miraculous escape" for which none had more reason to be thankful than himself and his colleagues; he had also said that the passionate attachment of the people of Jingalo to the person of their ruler had now been made abundantly evident, and he trusted might ever so continue.

Later in the day, when the short ceremony of Parliament's closing was over (for it was impossible under the circumstances to return to stiff formality, no one being in the mood for it), later in the day, he again presented himself, and besought a private audience. And then--while once more repeating what he had said previously, almost in the same words,--he showed that he had something very serious of which to deliver himself.

He began with a great parade of leaving the matter to the King's decision only; his duty was merely to state the case as it would strike the world.

"We are in your Majesty's hands," he said, "and I have no wish to revive a discussion in which your Majesty has by right the last word. I have only to ask whether the circumstances of the last few hours have in any way affected your Majesty's decision."

As usual this formal insistence upon his "majesty" aroused the King's distrust; with his ministers in privacy he always disliked it. But all he said was: "Why should it?"

The Prime Minister pursed his lips and elaborately paused, as though finding it difficult to express himself. Then he said--

"After an attempted assassination so nearly successful, abdication would have a different effect to what your Majesty presumably intended."

"How?" inquired the King. But though he asked he already knew; and mentally his jaw dropped, as a new apparition of failure rose up and confronted him.

"It might seem to reflect upon your Majesty's personal courage: about which, I need hardly say, I myself have no doubt whatever."

"I see," said the King. His voice sounded the depression which had again begun to overwhelm him.

"I have no wish to press your Majesty," the Premier went on; "but at the present moment we are still under orders that to-morrow the definite and irrevocable announcement is to be made public."

Again he paused; and the King did not answer him.

"I wish to ask, therefore, whether it is your Majesty's wish that the announcement of the abdication shall be postponed?"

"Yes," said the King, and his words came slow, "I suppose that it must be--as you say--postponed."

"Does your Majesty wish to suggest any later date?"

The King thought for a while before answering.

"Is there any reason that I should?" But though he thus spoke to temporize over the position in which he now found himself, he knew that his opportunity was gone never to recur.

"Merely for our own guidance," explained the Prime Minister. "There is to be a special Cabinet meeting to-night."

"What are you going to discuss?"

"Should your Majesty remain, it will be our duty to present an address of loyal congratulation immediately on the reassembling of Parliament; and that, under the new circumstances, must take place almost at once. In any event some address will, of course, have to be moved; but if what has happened to-day is followed by an abdication, then regrets and deep gratitude for all the gracious benefits of the past would have to be added, and the whole form of it most carefully weighed and considered. I may say, therefore, that we are even now awaiting your Majesty's instructions."

"And you can do nothing till I decide?"

"Nothing practical, sir."

Their eyes met with a lurking watchfulness; and it was not difficult for each to read something of the other's thought. The King knew that behind all that aspect of deference and humility lay a sense of triumph, almost malignant in its intensity. He knew that circumstances had beaten him; and that the bomb of some wretched assassin had made his abdication impossible. The Prime Minister had said that he had no wish to press him; but what a pretense and hypocrisy that was, when that very night the Cabinet would have to meet and register its decision in one of two alternative forms totally distinct. Yes; the Ministry had him now in a cleft stick; and no pressure was to be put upon him only because there was no possibility for his decision to be delayed.

Defeat, following upon the terrific events of the day, filled his brain with weariness. At the moment when he had hoped to be free of his persecutors he had come once again to a blank wall. Further progress was barred, further thinking had become useless, events must take their course; once more he felt himself the sport of fate--a mere chip floating with the stream.

"Very well, Mr. Prime Minister," he said with resignation, "the Abdication is withdrawn."

He sighed deeply; and then (when left alone to his cogitations), for such weak comfort as the mere saving of his face could lend, this thought occurred to him,--"What a good thing that I told nobody about it." Even Max did not know.

And so in the year of his Jubilee, and the plenitude of his popularity, John of Jingalo continued to reign; and was, in consequence, the most saddened and humiliated monarch who ever bowed his head under a crown and resigned his freedom to a mixed sense of duty and a fear of what people might say.