Part 8

“Oh, I don’t know.” For some reason the Maid of Honor was blushing.

“Nobody would, unless it were one’s butler. It’s being such a temptation to anarchists; and no well-brought-up person likes to be a temptation--or admits that he likes it.”

“And you confess he is marvelously handsome,” urged the little old Lady-in-Waiting slyly, “you acknowledge yourself, Ermyntrude, that he fills his position with distinction; never looks scared, I mean, and that’s _so_ hard for a king. You said just now, you know--you called him----”

“I called him a handsome effigy!” The Maid of Honor rose to her feet sharply. “And that’s quite all he is. Oh, I don’t ask that he shall do anything so wonderful,” she defended, catching up his pet spaniel, and pulling its ears with a mixture of affection and intense impatience, “I don’t ask that he shall ride to wars, or build huge palaces, or squander fortunes over pageantry. I ask simply that he show some signs of humanness, that he be a _man_, any sort of a man, anything rather than a dummy! Why, if Ja--if the Prince were to grow like him ...!”

“But”--the Fool began to look worried. He rubbed his pumps together till they creaked.

“Other kings manage it,” went on the Maid of Honor accusingly; “they have their personalities, their special diets, their favorite spa; they invent a cravat or a new kind of soup, and it’s all very well. But he--he doesn’t do one thing that’s _different_. It’s the Queen who reigns, you know. It’s she” (was it a note of bitterness in the little Maid’s voice?) “who has been straining every nerve to promote this marriage of the Crown Prince with that Franconia girl. But he--he’s such a piece of passivity, he won’t even say yes or no to the idea. All he has energy to do, this whole month since I came to court, is to avoid quarrelling. Any lazy person can do that.”

“But, _my dear_----”

“Oh”--the Maid of Honor heeded nothing but her own rising indignation--“if he’d only get some spite in him, and quarrel like the--like everything--why, it would be splendid! He’d be sublime! And if he’d be wicked--you know what I mean, real, antique, Francis the First, Henry the Eighth _wicked_--oh, then he’d immortalize himself. When one’s genuinely wicked, one’s never forgotten, eh?” She turned confidently to the Fool.

“Um-m. Not if one has a clever press-agent: biographer, that is to say. However,” and, for a Fool, his voice grew quite gentle, “I am afraid that Richard will never be so very wicked. You know he--he has loved a woman.”

The Maid of Honor laughed.

“He has _loved_ a woman,” emphasized the Fool, “and for a man, especially for a king, that is a very rare experience.”

“It was before Ermyntrude was born,” reminded the little old Lady-in-Waiting, softly; and her pretty, faded eyes lost themselves in the sunset. “Before even your mother came to be Mistress of the Robes to his mother, my dear,” she drew the girl down beside her on the ancient settle, “when I myself was a slip of a girl in the Palace at Camelot, and the young Prince Richard barely through with his examinations. He used to talk to me--ah, yes” (she sighed a little sadly) “then he was not so quiet; he used to talk. And one day--it was in the summer, and yes, in this very rose-garden--we had come up from Camelot for some tournament--one day he told me he was in love. ‘Her name’s Rosemary, Guarda,’ he said, ‘and her father is just a professor at the University’ (the little Maid winced). ‘Oh, Guarda, I _am_ glad I don’t have to succeed--think, Guarda! I couldn’t marry Rosemary!’ And” (the sun or something had got into the little old lady’s eyes, so that she had to put up her hand to shield them) “just six months after that--one month before he was going to marry Rosemary--the Crown Prince died, and then his father, the old King; and now”--the fragile old hand fell back into the Lady Guarda’s lap, with a limp little gesture of finality--“Richard is married to a Princess. Perhaps that is why he is no more than a King!”

“Yes”--the Maid of Honor’s voice sounded strangely subdued--“perhaps that is why. See, they are coming out from vespers--shall we walk as far as the gates, Lady Guarda?”

And as the two swept their soft trains down the fragrant allée, out of the dim grey cloisters came a monarch and his court--a splendid panoply of vivid color, mellowed by the dying sun, which cast its tenderness over all the vast old garden, but lingered on the handsome impassive features of the Man Who Came First--a handsome effigy.

“A mere bundle of robes----?” wondered his Fool--who knew him best.

* * * * *

“I know all that you say.” The King rose a trifle wearily, regarding his councillors with that mixture of gentleness and pity which seemed to shut him from them, from every one, like a beautiful stiff hedge. “Our relation with Franconia is, truly, very delicate: the two most prominent world powers ... and then the peculiar situation in the Colonies ... yes, for the best interests of the State, I grant you, even, His Royal Highness should make this alliance. But, milords,” his smile upon them was grave though very sweet, “there are things greater than the State.”

“That is a terrible thing for your Majesty to say,” pronounced his minister severely.

“All true things are terrible--especially beautiful true things. Milords, I will announce my decision at the State banquet to-morrow night. It is, as you know, His Royal Highness’ birthday to-morrow--his eighteenth birthday. Yes, yes, you all are right, he is getting to be a man. A man!--or rather a king. Between the two words, milords, a tremendous gulf is fixed. But I will detain you no longer, gentlemen; I desire an hour or two alone before retiring. Sir Estes, pray send my Fool into the garden--er, not now, you understand, but in half an hour. Yes, thank you, that will be quite soon enough.” And the royal mannequin watched his courtiers disappear into the Palace, always with that gentle, commiserating smile upon his lips.

Then, with a brief sigh that might have meant almost anything, or nothing, he sank down on to the old garden seat, and lit his strange long pipe. The garden was very still, in the pale mystery of the moonlight, very still, and very empty. The King from his shadowy corner gazed past its loveliness at the great palace unbelievingly: it was not a real Palace, there was no real Court inside. Only the exquisite soft arches of the cloister were real, and the long sweep of the old steps, down which he had stolen to meet--he drew in his breath sharply. Yes, the steps, and the grand towering oaks, and the beckoning green vistas, luring one into their ever-vanishing embrace, promising one at the end surely some sweet, half-forgotten memory of childhood. Why, one’s first kite had flirted away down that leafy winding lane; and, yes! at the end of this, that wretched pony had tumbled one’s enraged manhood off its seat--at the resentful age of four. Then that other: it was there as far as the bend in the trees that one’s mother had walked with one, that day of departure for the University. A Queen she was, to be sure, but--marvelously!--one’s wonderful mother as well. And “I’m so glad you don’t have to succeed, Dick,” she had whispered against his cheek, starting guiltily at her own words: “I--I want you to be just a man, you know. A man, with all a man’s pleasures, and burdens, and hobbies, and--and loves, dear. You don’t have to be superb, thank God! you can be just a commonplace man. Ah, Dick, that’s the greatest privilege in the world!”

The King flung his pipe away abruptly. She was dead now. And he----“She was right,” he muttered harshly, beginning to stride up and down, “that’s the greatest privilege in the world. But I----”

“You are alone out here, my dear?” The voice that came to him from a balcony above was as coldly sweet as the moon’s own rays.

“I am alone,” he answered mechanically.

A stately figure trailed down the winding stair and joined him, directing his steps to that corner of the garden that was farthest from the Palace. “Some one has told me that our son--that John will soon come to you with a most unreasonable request. I beg of you, Richard, do not grant it. It has to do with the announcement to be made to-morrow night.”

“The announcement? Why I----”

“You understand me, I am sure.” The cold voice lowered cautiously. “It is imperative that nothing shall be done to mar my plan for adjusting our relations with Franconia; I am only more and more regretful that you have kept the matter of John’s alliance with the Princess Royal pending for so long a time.”

“I have not yet consented----”

“You have not consented to discuss the question formally with the Franconian ambassador”--in the smooth voice an element of irritation was rising--“nor to have him present at the banquet to-morrow night; when, very firmly, you will announce your desire, your _earnest_ desire that the alliance should take place. And listen to me, Richard--you remember that this is the last resort: you have admitted everything else has been tried, and to no purpose, in this situation with Franconia. Now it lies with you. Hitherto, you have refused to discuss the subject of John’s betrothal, even with the family, or your ministers. In this I do not say you have been wrong. It has doubtless been as well to keep the matter quiet until we could learn that the suggestion would be welcomed by Franconia. Now that we are assured of that, however--well, you will make the informal announcement to-morrow night. You know, Richard, where John is concerned, you are apt to be over-lenient. And some one told me----”

“I understand you, Alix.” He understood, too, that when she said over-lenient, she meant weak; no one appreciated the fact that the Queen reigned, more intelligently than did the King. “I could wish, however, that ‘some one’ was not always telling you things about John. It looks--you will pardon me--unpleasantly like spying.”

“One cannot sacrifice the State to looks,” returned the Queen coolly. “If you will insist on forgetting your duty to your people, Richard, somebody must remember it for you. You are not just a plain, ordinary person, you know.” And she swept back up the stair again, and into the Palace.

“Oh, God, if I only were!” groaned the King, turning on his heel with a sudden fierceness very foreign to a mere mannequin. Then he saw his Fool standing there.

“A fine night,” observed the King formally.

“It would be if it were raining, your Majesty,” replied the Fool.

“If it were _raining_?”

“Yes, your Majesty. When it rains, so many things can happen. One slips, one slides, one tumbles into a puddle: there are all sorts of possibilities. While a fine night--is just a fine night, that’s all. Most distressingly ordinary. Before I was a fool----”

“What were you?” interrupted the King.

“A very wise man, my liege. You see, I have changed but little; except that when I was a wise man, I did not enjoy knowing myself to be a fool; whereas now it gives me the subtlest sort of pleasure, knowing how very wise I really am. All a matter of placing oneself, Sire; a matter of light and shade; and if one has the true artistic eye----”

“Do you think that one is then competent to place others?” asked the King abruptly.

The Fool stopped twirling his bauble (his boutonnière, I mean, of course). “One is never competent,” he said slowly, “one is only less stupid than before. One’s sense of values is in better equilibrium. With your Majesty, for instance----”

“Yes?” The King bent toward him eagerly.

“The King can do no wrong,” began his Fool pompously. “Which is only another way of saying that the King is left no chance to do anything but right. He is not an ordinary person.”

“He is,” contradicted the King calmly. “At least he is going to be. Your next King, my dear Fool, is to be just an ordinary person!”

Limply the Fool leaned against a balustrade. “Your Majesty is _too_ exotic in his fancies--quite too exotic,” he protested feebly. “I beg your Majesty to allow me to retire: I am so truly a fool that a joke quite unnerves me. Besides, His Royal Highness is coming--see, yonder he is--an idea, smiling at a makeshift! I beg leave to take the makeshift within the Palace, Sire.”

“So then, Father!”--one felt with a thrill the onslaught of Youth--“you have been railing at the world, with the help of that soberest man at Court. Fie upon you! And you, sir, off with you! I will not have my father’s Fool turn him into an old sobersides!” The young Prince ran lightly down the steps from the terrace and came laughing to the King’s side.

“I suppose I should have said ‘your Majesty’ before him,” he apologized, locking arms with his father, as the Fool vanished within; “Mother told me only this morning that I did not sufficiently realize the respect due you as a monarch. But how can I? Why, we’ve always been such pals, eh, Father? And if ever I’m a king and have children--well, I’ll try to make them forget I’m a king, that’s all.”

“Have I made you forget it?” asked the King wistfully. “Do I seem to you just--just your father, Jack--you know what I mean, just an ordinary man?”

“You seem”--his son regarded him half puzzled--“an ordinary man? Well, no, Father. Of course, you’re keen for sport, as keen as I am; and then in your heart you’ve that passion for the flute--ah, yes, you have! You needn’t shake your head: you know you’d pawn the Palace if only you could play the flute. But something’s always hindering you. I suppose something always hinders a king, Father?” The King’s own wistfulness had crept into the young voice.

The King cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it does,” he acknowledged, looking away from the boy, and up at the balcony--so cold and white in the moon’s radiance. “I--but come, let’s walk. You were saying----”

“There’s something I’ve got to ask you.” The Prince walked a little faster. “You must know what it is, Father--they’ve all talked so much about it. And last night at the Masque Ermyntrude whispered to me that it was no use at all, asking you--that Mother had arranged everything, and you would never go against Mother. But, somehow, because you _aren’t_ just an ordinary man, because you’ve always been different to me from the rest of the world, I made up my mind to ask you. You see, it’s--it’s about this marriage.” For the moment the young Prince looked a good deal more than eighteen. “I haven’t said anything up till now--I’ve always known, of course, that being a king made a difference, that it meant one could never do as one liked, you know; so when Mother and all of them first talked about the Princess--all along, in fact--I didn’t say anything. Oh, I understood”--and for the first time in his life the King saw bitterness in his son’s face--“an alliance with Franconia is essential; my tutor’s told me of it many times: he’s prepared me very cleverly. But, Father, I don’t want to make an alliance. I want to marry a woman.”

The King stopped walking. They were just at the foot of the steps where he had used to meet--“I see,” he said gently.

“I’ve tried to go through with it”--the boy’s voice grew more and more unsteady--“since Mother told me how much it would mean to all the millions of our people I’ve nerved myself up to it; and I told myself again and again that, as Ermyntrude says, a man who’s got to be a king has no right to any feelings. That he must be just a dummy, to support the prestige and ambitions of his subjects. His subjects!” The Prince’s laugh was not a pleasant thing to hear. “Oh, I wonder that you don’t see the screaming satire of it, Father--even though you are a king.”

The King looked at him strangely. “I was not always a king,” he said; and again his glance strayed down the dim green vistas with their whimsical shadows. At the end of each vista it was black now. “When I was your age, Jack, I had no idea that I ever would be King. But--but I want to ask _you_ something: if the country were to go to war, and a good man was needed to lead the troops, would you go? Understand me: even though there was every probability of your being killed, though you had one chance in a thousand, or say no chance at all--and--you were also just about to marry--a woman. Would you go?”

“I”--the boy drew a long breath. “But of course I’d go. You know that, Father.”

“Then--the country _is_ at war; for a great nation, the subtlest, deadliest kind of war, John: with international opinion. It does need a leader. The King, you see”--the even voice never wavered--“is just a dummy--no more than the King. And I’m very much afraid that the leader will have to be killed, at least all but the mere blood and bones and breath of him: and those amount to so little, don’t they? Yes, yes; they amount to so little. Well! so this some one must sacrifice himself. We’ve tried everything, we’ve come dangerously near showing ourselves abject, in this adjustment with Franconia: at least, so the queen tells me. There is left just this way out, the alliance, I mean, and ... some one must sacrifice himself. Who do you think will do it, John?” Under the cold stone balcony, the King stretched his hand toward the Crown Prince. Did he congratulate himself that for once he was not being over-lenient?

“Very well, your Majesty.” There was no doubt as to its being the Crown Prince who spoke. At the same time his hand as it met the King’s was the hand of a subject. “I will do it. You will, I suppose, make the formal announcement to the Court to-morrow night? I will be prepared, sir. Good-night.”

“Good-night.” An infinite sadness was in the King’s eyes as once more he turned about to pace up and down, alone.

The alliance, then, was assured. The Queen and all her ministers--far more than his--would be satisfied. He supposed it was a very satisfactory piece of business. But--he wondered suddenly--would the next King be just an ordinary person?

“Jack.” Some one was calling softly. “Jack, are you there?” The moon had gone down; it was very dark in the vast old garden. But through the blackness one could see a dainty figure, like an adorable phantom image, poised uncertainly, just _at the top of the steps_. “It’s so dark, I can’t see you, Jack”--the little laugh held a note of the piteous. “And I daresay it’s the last time I shall see you, isn’t it? For of course he wouldn’t listen to you. He--he’s such a _real_ king, isn’t he?” For a moment longer she stood there, the beseeching, fairy thing; then with a quick sob of disappointment, she fled.

But the half-concealed impatience of her last speech had told the King that it was the little Maid of Honor, Ermyntrude. Ah--he remembered: she had come to Court not so long ago, just a month--after her father died. Her father was--why should it seem suddenly so significant?--a professor at the University; a very learned man. Her mother, a Princess, had broken rank to marry him. Women did those things.

A professor at the University! And “It’s the last time I shall see you, isn’t it?” Who was it standing there at the top of the steps? Standing there for the last time, piteously brave, with that heartbreaking little laugh in her voice. The King dashed his hand across his eyes. “Rosemary!” he called yearningly; and fled after her up the steps.

* * * * *

The great banquet hall was hushed. The minstrels had put away their songs, and the Court sat quiet. Only the Fool played with his gardenia: he whispered to some one that nothing gave him confidence like appearing trivial.

“Milords, Ladies of the Court, and our distinguished guests”--as the King raised his handsome face to the colonial Princes, one saw that it was very pale--as pale as that of the Crown Prince, who sat at his right.

“The King is but just beginning to be alive to the privileges of his position. You know how in olden times, and in these modern reckless days as well, monarchs have sacrificed thousands--lives, ducats, principalities even, for the sake of some passing fancy--some hobby, perhaps, that wanted gratifying. And no one has dared to say them nay. Milords, I have been up to this time a very lenient sovereign” (the Queen was tapping her slipper nervously); “I have been content to be just an ordinary King!” He looked from one to the other of the company whimsically. “Emperors have given away continents; great lords have sold their every slave--all for the sake of a whim. And so now, milords, I intend to gratify a little notion of my own. It has long been the custom to betroth the Crown Prince on His Highness’ birthday. His Highness grows to manhood, he attains his majority, and voila! One picks him a bride! Quite suitable; _quite_ suitable.” (The Queen was breathing more freely. The Crown Prince sat with his young face half shaded. The whole Court held its breath with attention; particularly the Fool, who was watching his master with a new concentration.)

“Very good. The King has taken the fancy--oh, a very flighty fancy no doubt, milords--to present the Crown Prince and his affections to er--some one quite unexpected--some one whom the King shall choose on the ah--spur of the moment, you understand. It lends more excitement to a game, to cast the die quite on the spur of the moment, eh?” (By this time the Queen was beside herself; while the Prince had half risen, in his indignation.)

“So--let me see--I assure you, milords”--and the King’s voice had never been so lightly gay, his face so gravely sweet--“I assure you this moment is worth all the monotony of Kingship, yes, though that monotony had lasted a thousand dreary years!--this moment on which one stakes his all: his destiny, his country, his lands beyond the seas--for the sake of one glorious, mad whim! I bestow the hand of Prince John upon which one? Let us say the littlest--she who sits yonder in the corner--what, not _crying_? There’ll be plenty of time for that when you’re Queen, my dear. Come bring her forward, your Highness, and let all men see whom the King has chosen to carry out his one wild madness. Your name is----? Ermyntrude! Milords, I pledge you Ermyntrude, your future Queen, the daughter of a Princess, and” (for the first time the King’s voice faltered) “of a professor at the University. Ermyntrude!”

“And so he’s no more than a King?” The Fool was asking the Maid of Honor a moment later--and for a Fool, his voice was beautiful.

The Maid of Honor’s lovely, vivid little face was like a drenched spring flower--all the more radiant for its tears. “No--no more than a King? Oh!” she caught the velvet sleeve impetuously. “Oh, Fool, you’re his best friend--you’re his Fool, so you know him best--could any one, I ask you could _any one_ be more than the King!”

* * * * *

But why, asks the Child (the Child we all are, when it comes to a story), why was the King so wonderful? Was it because he was one of our Plain People?

And the story-teller turns back over the pages wistfully--on each of them, for her, is written a little of the great tragedy and great sublimity of Life. “It was because he couldn’t be one” (she says finally), “because he couldn’t be a Plain Person; but had nevertheless the supreme courage to demand for his son what he could never have for himself. And I think, in the power to make this subtlest of sacrifices, every man is King; and every King that divinely privileged creature: a Plain Man.”

IX

LUCIA--A MERE WIFE

“I’ve come,” said Lucia, “for a very long visit.”

Something in the weary little sigh with which she threw herself down on the sofa, made her mother look up, arrested.

“You--you don’t mean that you aren’t happy, my dear?” she asked uncertainly.

Lucia gave a faint smile. “At least I’m not unhappy. I wish” (with sudden vehemence) “I were. I wish----”

Mrs. Loring took an apprehensive step towards her.

“There, mother, it’s all right. I’m a little tired, and--and unstrung with seeing you again, that’s all. It’s all right.”