Part 7

At one extremity of the garden stood the Observatory, and after duly appraising various of Peter’s neatest feats, the Count strolled away towards it. But before he could reach the Observatory, he had first to pass his swans.

They lived, with an ancient water-wheel, beneath a cupola of sun-glazed tiles, sheltered, partially, from the lake by a hedge of towering red geraniums, and the Count seldom wearied of watching these strangely gorgeous creatures as they sailed out and in through the sanguine-hued flowers. A few, with their heads sunk back beneath their wings, had retired for the night already; nevertheless, the Count paused to shake a finger at one somnolent bird, in disfavour for pecking Peter: “Jealous, doubtless of the lad’s grace,” he mused, fumbling with the key of the Observatory door.

The unrivalled instrument that the Observatory contained, whose intricate lenses were capable of drawing even the remote Summer-Palace to within an appreciable range, was, like most instruments of merit, sensitive to the manner of its manipulation; and fearing lest the inexpert tampering of a homesick housekeeper (her native village was visible in clear weather, with the aid of a glass) should break or injure the delicate lenses, the Count kept the Observatory usually under key.

But the inclination to focus the mundane and embittered features of the fanatic Countess, as she lectured her boatmen for forgetting their oars, or, being considerably superstitious, to count the moles on their united faces as an esoteric clue to the Autumn Lottery, waned a little before the mystery of the descending night.

Beneath a changing tide of deepening shadow, the lifeless valleys were mirroring to the lake the sombreness of dusk. Across the blue forlornness of the water, a swan, here and there, appeared quite violet, while coiffed in swift clinging, golden clouds, the loftiest hills alone retained the sun.

A faint nocturnal breeze, arising simultaneously with the Angelus-bell, seemed likely to relieve, at the moon’s advent, the trials to her patience of the Countess Yvorra: “who must be cursing,” the Count reflected, turning the telescope about with a sigh, to suit her sail.

Ah poignant moments when the heart stops still! Not since the hour of his exile had the Count’s been so arrested.

From the garden Peter’s voice rose questingly; but the Count was too wonder-struck, far, to heed it.

Caught in the scarlet radiance of the afterglow, the becalmed boat, for one brief and most memorable second, was his to gaze on.

In certain lands with what diplomacy falls the night, and how discreetly is the daylight gone: Those dimmer-and-dimmer, darker-and-lighter twilights of the North, so disconcerting in their playfulness, were unknown altogether in Pisuerga. There, Night pursued Day, as though she meant it. No lingering, or arctic sentiment! No concertinaishness.... Hard on the sun’s heels, pressed Night. And the wherefore of her haste; Sun-attraction? Impatience to inherit? An answer to such riddles as these may doubtless be found by turning to the scientists’ theories on Time and Relativity.

Effaced in the blue air of evening became everything, and with the darkness returned the wind.

“Sir, sir?... Ho, Hi, hiiiiiiiiiiii!!” Peter’s voice came again.

But transfixed, and loath just then for company, the Count made no reply.

A green-lanterned barge passed slowly, coming from the sea, and on the mountain-side a village light winked wanly here and there.

“Oh, why was I not _sooner_?” he murmured distractedly aloud.

* * * * *

“Oh Olga!”

“Oh Vi!”

“... I hope you’ve enough money for the boat, dear? ...?”

“...!!?”

“Tell me, Olga: Is my hat all sideways?”

“................”

The long windows of the Summer-Palace were staring white to the moon, as the Countess of Tolga, her aigrettes casting _heroic_ shadows and hugging still her heath, re-entered the Court’s precincts on the arm of her friend.

XII

One evening, as Mrs Montgomery was reading _Vanity Fair_ for the fifteenth time, there came a tap at the door. It was not the first interruption since opening the cherished green-bound book, and Mrs Montgomery seemed disinclined to stir. With the Court about to return to winter quarters, and the Summer-Palace upside down, the royal governess was still able to command her habitual British phlegm. It had been decided, moreover, that she should remain behind in the forsaken palace with the little prince, the better to “prepare” him for his forthcoming Eton exam.

Still, with disputes as to the precedence of trunks and dress-baskets simmering in the corridors without, it was easier to enjoy the Barley-sugar stick in one’s mouth, than the Novel in one’s hand.

“Thank God I’m not touchy!” Mrs Montgomery reflected, rolling her eyes lazily about the little white wainscoted room.

It was as if something of her native land had crept in through the doorway with her, so successfully had she inculcated its tendencies, or spiritual Ideals, upon everything around.

A solitary teapot, on a bracket, above the door, two _Jubilee_ plates, some peacocks’ feathers, an image of a little Fisher-boy in bathing-drawers and a broken hand;--“a work of delicate beauty!” A mezzotint: _The Coiffing of Maria_--these were some of the treasures which the room contained.

“A blessing to be sure when the Court has gone!” she reflected half-rising to drop a curtsy to Prince Olaf who had entered.

“Word from your country,” sententiously he broke out: “My brother’s betrothed! So need I go on with my preparation?”

“Put your tie straight! And just look at your socks all tumbling down. Such great jambons of knees!... What will become of you, I ask myself, when you’re a lower boy at Eton.”

“How can I be a lower boy when I’m a Prince?”

“Probably, the Rev. Ruggles-White, when you enter his House, will be able to explain.”

“I won’t be a lower boy! I will _not_!”

“Cs, Cs.”

“Damn the democracy.”

“Fie, sir.”

“Down with it.”

“For shame.”

“Revenge.”

“That will do: and now, let me hear your lessons: I should like,” Mrs Montgomery murmured, her eyes set in detachment upon the floor; “the present-indicative tense of the Verb _To be_! Adding the words, Political h-Hostess;--more for the sake of the pronunciation than for anything else.”

And after considerable persuasion, prompting, and “bribing,” with various sorts of sweets:

“I am a Political Hostess, Thou art a Political Hostess, He is a Political Hostess, We are Political Hostesses, Ye are Political Hostesses, They are Political Hostesses.”

“Very good, dear, and only one mistake. _He_ is a Political h-Hostess: Can you correct yourself? The error is so slight....”

But alas the prince was in no mood for study; and Mrs Montgomery very soon afterwards was obliged to let him go.

Moving a little anxiously about the room, her meditations turned upon the future.

With the advent of Elsie a new régime would be established: increasing Britishers would wish to visit Pisuerga; and it seemed a propitious moment to abandon teaching, and to inaugurate in Kairoulla an English hotel.

“I have no more rooms. I am quite full up!” she smiled, addressing the silver andirons in the grate.

And what a deliverance to have done with instructing unruly children, she reflected, going towards the glass mail-box attached to her vestibule door. Sometimes about this hour there would be a letter in it, but this evening there was only a picture postcard of a field mouse in a bonnet, from her old friend Mrs Bedley.

* * * * *

“We have _Valmouth_ at last,” she read, “and was it you, my dear, who asked for _The Beard Throughout the Ages_? It is in much demand, but I am keeping it back anticipating a _reply_. Several of the plates are missing I see, among them, those of the late King Edward, and of Assur Bani Pal; I only mention it, that, you may know I shan’t blame you! We are having wonderful weather, and I am keeping pretty well, although poor Mrs Barleymoon, I fear, will not see through another winter. Trusting you are benefiting by the beautiful country air: your obedient servant to command,

ANN BEDLEY.

“P.S.--_Man, and All About Him_, is rebinding. Ready I expect soon.”

* * * * *

“Ah! Cunnie, Cunnie ...?” Mrs Montgomery murmured, laying the card down near a photograph of the Court-physician with a sigh: “Ah! Arthur Amos Cuncliffe Babcock ...?” she invoked his name dulcetly in full: and as though in telepathic response, there came a tap at the door, and the doctor himself looked in.

He had been attending, it seemed, the young wife of the Comptroller of the Household at the extremity of the corridor; a creature, who, after two brief weeks of marriage, imagined herself to be in an interesting state: “_I believe baby’s coming!_” she would cry out every few hours.

“Do I intrude?” he demanded, in his forceful, virile voice, that ladies knew and liked: “pray say so if I do.”

“Does he intrude!” Mrs Montgomery flashed an arch glance towards the cornice.

“Well, and how are you keeping?” the doctor asked, dropping on to a rep causeuse that stood before the fire.

“I’m only semi-well, doctor, thanks!”

“Why, what’s the trouble?”

“You know my organism is not a very strong one, Dr Cuncliffe ...” Mrs Montgomery replied, drawing up a chair, and settling a cushion with a sigh of resignation at her back.

“Imagination!”

“If only it were!”

“Imagination,” he repeated, fixing a steady eye on the short train of her black brocaded robe that all but brushed his feet.

“If that’s your explanation for continuous broken sleep ...” she gently snapped.

“Try mescal.”

“I’m trying Dr Fritz Millar’s treatment,” the lady stated, desiring to deal a slight _scratch_ to his masculine _amour propre_.

“Millar’s an Ass.”

“I don’t agree at all!” she incisively returned, smiling covertly at his touch of pique.

“What is it?”

“Oh it’s horrid. You first of all lie down; and then you drink cold water in the sun.”

“Cold what? I never _heard_ of such a thing: It’s enough to kill you.”

Mrs Montgomery took a deep-drawn breath of languor.

“And would you care, doctor, so _very_ much if it did?” she asked, as a page made his appearance with an ice-bucket and champagne.

“To toast our young Princess!”

“Oh, oh, Dr Cuncliffe? What a wicked man you are:” And for a solemn moment their thoughts went out in unison to the sea-girt land of their birth--Barkers’, Selfridges’, Brighton-pier, the Zoological gardens on a Sunday afternoon.

“Here’s to the good old country!” the doctor quaffed.

“The Bride, and,” Mrs Montgomery raised her glass, “the Old Folks at h-home.”

“The Old Folks at home!” he vaguely echoed.

“Bollinger, you naughty man,” the lady murmured, amiably seating herself on the causeuse at his side.

“You’ll find it dull here all alone after the Court has gone,” he observed, smiling down, a little despotically, on to her bright, abundant hair.

Mrs Montgomery sipped her wine.

“When the wind goes whistling up and down under the colonnades: oh, then!” she shivered.

“You’ll wish for a fine, bold Pisuergian husband; shan’t you?” he answered, his foot drawing closer to hers.

“Often of an evening, I feel I need fostering,” she owned, glancing up yearningly into his face.

“Fostering, eh?” he chuckled, refilling with exuberance her glass.

“Why is it that wine always makes me feel _so good_?”

“Probably, because it fills you with affection for your neighbour!”

“It’s true; I feel I could be very affectionate: I’m what they call an ‘amoureuse’ I suppose, and there it is....”

There fell a busy silence between them.

“It’s almost too warm for a fire,” she murmured, repairing towards the window; “but I like to hear the crackle!”

“Company, eh?” he returned, following her (a trifle unsteadily) across the room.

“The night is so clear the moon looks to be almost transparent,” she languorously observed, with a long tugging sigh.

“And so it does,” he absently agreed.

“I adore the Pigeons in my wee court towards night, when they sink down like living sapphires upon the stones,” she sentimentally said, sighing languorously again.

“Ours,” he assured her; “since the surgery looks on to it, too....”

“Did you ever see anything so ducky-wucky, so completely twee!” she inconsequently chirruped.

“Allow me to fill this empty glass.”

“I want to go out on all that gold floating water!” she murmured listlessly, pointing towards the lake.

“Alone?”

“Drive me towards the sweet seaside,” she begged, taking appealingly his hand.

“Aggie?”

“Arthur--Arthur, for God’s sake!” she shrilled, as with something between a snarl and a roar, he impulsively whipped out the light.

“H-Help! Oh Arth----”

Thus did they celebrate the “Royal engagement.”

XIII

Behind the heavy moucharabi in the little dark shop of Haboubet of Egypt all was song, _fête_ and preparation. Additional work, had brought additional hands, and be-tarbouched boys in burnooses, and baskets of blossoms, lay strewn all over the floor.

“Sweet is the musk-rose of the Land of Punt! Sweet are the dates from Khorassân ... But bring _me_ (O wandering Djinns) the English rose, the English apple! O sweet is the land of the Princess Elsie, Sweet indeed is England----”

Bachir’s voice soared, in improvisation, to a long-drawn, strident, wail.

“Pass me the scissors, O Bachir ben Ahmed, for the love of Allah,” a young man with large lucent eyes, and an untroubled face, like a flower, exclaimed, extending a slender, keef-stained hand.

“Sidi took them,” the superintendent of the Duchess of Varna replied, turning towards an olive-skinned Armenian youth, who, seated on an empty hamper, was reading to a small, rapt group, the _Kairoulla Intelligence_ aloud.

“‘Attended by Lady Canon-of-Noon and by Lady Bertha Chamberlayne (she is a daughter of Lord Frollo’s[9]) the Princess was seen to alight from her saloon, in a _chic_ toque of primrose paille, stabbed with the quill of a nasturtium-coloured bird, and, darting forward, like the Bird of Paradise that she _is_, embraced her future Parents-in-law with considerable affection....’”

“Scissors, for the love of Allah!”

“‘And soon I heard the roll of drums! And saw the bobbing plumes in the jangling browbands of the horses: it was a moment I shall never forget. She passed ... and as our Future Sovereign turned smiling to bow her acknowledgments to the crowd, I saw a happy tear...!’”

“Ah Allah.”

“Pass me two purple pinks.”

“‘Visibly gratified at the cordial ovation to her Virgin Daughter was Queen Glory, a striking and impressive figure, all a-glitter in a splendid dark dress of nacre and nigger tissue, her many Orders of Merit almost bearing her down.’”

“Thy scissors, O Sidi, for the love of Muhammed?”

“‘It seemed as if Kairoulla had gone wild with joy. Led by the first Life-Guards and a corps of ladies of great fashion disguised as peasants, the cortège proceeded amid the whole-hearted plaudits of the people towards Constitutional Square, where, with the sweetest of smiles and thanks the princess received an exquisite sheaf of Deflas (they are the hybrids of slipper-orchids crossed with maidens-rue, and are all the mode at present), tendered her by little Paula Exelmans, the Lord Mayor’s tiny daughter. Driving on, amid showers of confetti, the procession passed up the Chausée, which presented a scene of rare animation; boys, and even quite elderly dames swarming up the trees to obtain a better view of their new Princess. But it was not until Lilianthal Street and the Cathedral Square were reached, that the climax reached its height! Here, a short standstill was called, and after an appropriate address from the Archbishop of Pisuerga, the stirring strains of the National Anthem, superbly rendered by Madame Marguerite Astorra of the State Theatre (she is in perfect voice this season), arose on the air. At that moment a black cat and its kitties rushed across the road, and I saw the Princess smile.’”

“Thy scissors, O Sidi, in the Name of the Prophet!”

“‘A touching incident,’” Sidi with equanimity pursued, “‘was just before the English Tea Rooms, where the English Colony had mustered together in force....’”

But alack for those interested. Owing to the clamour about him much of the recital was lost: “‘Cheers and tears.... ... Life’s benison.... Honiton lace.... If I live to be _forty_, it was a moment I shall never forget.... Panic ... congestion.... Police.’”

But it was scarcely needful to peruse the paper, when on the boulevards outside, the festivities were everywhere in full swing. The arrival of the princess for her wedding had brought to Kairoulla unprecedented crowds from all parts of the kingdom, as much eager to see the princess, as to catch a glimpse of the fine pack of beagles, that it was said had been brought over with her, and which had taken an half eerie hold of the public mind. Gilderoy, Beausire, Audrey, many of the dogs’ names were known pleasantly to the crowd already; and anecdotes of Audrey, picture-postcards of Audrey, were sold as rapidly almost as those even of the princess. Indeed mothers among the people had begun to threaten their disobedient offspring with Audrey, whose silky, thickset frame was supported, it appeared, daily on troublesome little boys and tiresome little girls....

“Erri, erri, get on with thy bouquet, oh Lazari Demitraki!” Bachir exclaimed in plaintive tones, addressing a blonde boy with a skin of amber, who was “charming” an earwig with a reed of grass.

“She dance the _Boussadilla_ just like in the street of Halfaouine in Gardaïa my town any Ouled Nail!” he rapturously gurgled.

“Get on with thy work, oh Lazari Demitraki,” Bachir besought him, “and leave the earwigs alone for the clients to find.”

“What with the heat, the smell of the flowers, the noise of you boys, and with filthy earwigs Boussadillaing all over one, I feel I could _swoon_,” the voice, cracked yet cloying, was Peter Passer’s.

He had come to Kairoulla for the “celebrations,” and also, perhaps, aspiring to advance his fortunes, in ways known best to himself. With Bachir, his connection dated from long ago, when as a Cathedral choir-boy it had been his habit to pin a shoulder, or bosom-blossom to his surplice, destroying it with coquettish, ring-laden fingers in the course of an anthem, and scattering the petals from the choir-loft, leaf by leaf, on to the grey heads of the monsignori below.

“Itchiata wa?” Bachir grumbled, playing his eyes distractedly around the shop. And it might have been better for the numerous orders there were to attend to had he called fewer of his acquaintance to assist him. Sunk in torpor, a cigarette smouldering at his ear, a Levantine Greek known as “Effendi darling” was listening to a dark-cheeked Tunisian engaged at the Count of Tolga’s private Hammam Baths--a young man, who, as he spoke, would make mazy gestures of the hands as though his master’s ribs, or those of some illustrious guest, lay under him. But by no means all of those assembled in the little shop, bore the seal of Islam. An American who had grown too splendid for the copper “Ganymede” or Soda-fountain of a Café bar and had taken to teaching the hectic dance-steps of his native land in the night-halls where Bachir sold, was achieving wonders with some wires and Eucharist lilies, while discussing with a shy-mannered youth the many difficulties that beset the foreigner in Kairoulla.

“Young chaps that come out here, don’t know what they’re coming to,” he sapiently remarked, using his incomparable teeth in place of scissors. “Gosh! Talk of advancement,” he growled.

“There’s few can mix as I can, yet I don’t never get no rise!” the shy youth exclaimed, producing a card that was engraved: _Harry Cummings, Salad-Dresser to the King_: “I expect I’ve arrived,” he murmured, turning to hide a modest blush towards a pale young man who looked on life through heavy horn glasses.

“Salad dressing? I’d sooner it was hair! You do get tips there anyway,” the Yankee reasoned.

“I wish _I_ were--arrived,” the young man with the glasses, by name Guy Thin, declared. He had come out but recently from England to establish a “British Grocery,” and was the owner of what is sometimes called an expensive voice, his sedulously clear articulation missing out no syllable or letter of anything he might happen to be saying, as though he were tasting each word, like the Pure tea, or the Pure marmalade, or any other of the so very Pure goods he proposed so exclusively to sell.

“If Allah wish it then you arrive,” Lazari Demitraki assured him with a dazzling smile, catching his hand in order to construe the lines.

“Finish thy bouquet, O Lazari Demitraki,” Bachir faintly moaned.

“It finished--arranged: it with Abou!” he announced, pointing to an aged negro with haunted sin-sick eyes who appeared to be making strange grimaces at the wall. A straw hat of splendid dimensions was on his head, flaunting bravely the insignia of the Firm.

But the old man seemed resolved to run no more errands:

“Nsa, nsa,” he mumbled: “Me walk enough for one day! Me no go out any more. Old Abou too tired to take another single step! As soon would me cross the street again dis night as the Sahara!...”

And it was only after the promise of a small gift of Opium that he consented to leave a débutante’s bouquet at the Théâtre Diana.[10]

“In future,” Bachir rose remarking, “I only employ the women; I keep only girls,” he repeated, for the benefit of “Effendi darling” who appeared to be attaining Nirvâna.

“And next I suppose you keep a Harem?” “Effendi darling” somnolently returned.

Most of the city shops had closed their shutters for the day, when Bachir shouldering a pannier bright with blooms, stepped with his companions forth into the street.

Along the Boulevards thousands were pressing towards the Regina Gardens to view the Fireworks, all agog to witness the pack of beagles wrought in brilliant lights due to course a stag across the sky, and which would change, if newspaper reports might be believed, at the critical moment, into “‘something of the nature of a surprise.’”

Pausing before a plate-glass window that adjoined the shop to adjust the flowing folds of his gandourah, and to hoist his flower tray to his small scornful head, Bachir allowed his auxiliaries to drift, mostly two by two, away among the crowd. Only the royal salad-dresser, Harry Cummings, expressed a demure inclination (when the pushing young grocer caressed his arm), to “be alone”; but Guy Thin, who had private designs upon him, was loath to hear of it! He wished to persuade him to buy a bottle of Vinegar from his Store, when he would print on his paper-bags _As supplied to his Majesty the King_.

“Grant us, O Allah, each good Fortunes,” Bachir beseeched, looking up through his eyelashes towards the moon, that drooped like a silver amulet in the firmament above: in the blue nocturnal air he looked like a purple poppy. “A toute à l’heure mes amis!” he murmured as he moved away.

And in the little closed shop behind the heavy moucharabi, now that they all had gone, the exhalations of the _flowers_ arose; pungent, concerted odours, expressive of natural antipathies and feuds, suave alliances, suffering, pride, and joy.... Only the shining moon through the moucharabi, illumining here a lily, there a leaf, may have guessed what they were saying:

“My wires are hurting me: my wires are hurting me.”

“I have no water. I cannot reach the water.”

“They have pushed me head down into the bottom of the bowl.”

“I’m glad I’m in a Basket! No one will hurl _me_ from a window to be bruised under foot by the callous crowd.”

“It’s uncomfy, isn’t it, without one’s roots?”

“You Weed you! You, you, you ... _buttercup_! How dare you to _an Orchid_!”

“I shouldn’t object to sharing the same water with him, dear.... Ordinary as he is! If _only_ he wouldn’t smell....”