Читать книгу His Royal Happiness - Sara Jeannette Duncan - Страница 4

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At the moment of Prince Alfred’s arrival at the White House, his aunt, Princess Georgina, Duchess of Altenburg, was sitting with her lady-in-waiting under an elm in a delightful corner of the gardens of Kensington Palace, talking of the visit of a European potentate to London. Ching, who was a Pekinese, was sitting there, too. Princess Georgina was the only surviving sister of the late King. A widow and childless, she had been plainly meant by heaven to be all in all to his three motherless boys, John, Victor, and Alfred. How she had fulfilled this duty the press amply testified; it was one of England’s idylls. Report made her more responsible than any other person for the marriage of the young Prince John just before he ascended the throne, which promised, heaven always helping, so happily. Among her intimates, her great present anxiety was understood to be “Victor’s affair”; but with an influence so responsible she was naturally never without an anxiety of some sort. Grave considerations, not always to be mentioned, lurked constantly behind her smile, which was otherwise cordial; and it was easy to see that her shapely white fingers held with every sagacity many strings.

It was very sweet and quiet there in the garden. The Princess was knitting. Her companion, Lady Althea Dawe, was crocheting a purple silk necktie for a brother who was fighting the Afridis elsewhere. He would wear it when he came home.

“Do listen, Princess, to that darling dove,” said Lady Althea.

“Sweet thing—here in the heart of London! How our Heavenly Father blesses us, when all is said and done. Socialism may be coming and capital may be going, but we have always the doves, Althea; let us remember that.”

The bird flew to another branch, and the eyes of the two ladies followed it with affection. Ching, too, looked up.

“Sweetheart,” commented the Princess, “Althea, feel his nose. But as to our visitors. Whatever happens, dear, I do not wish too much contact with Him at the garden party this afternoon. Last night at dinner was enough. Nothing but explanations of how absurd and ridiculous and impossible it was that the two nations should ever go to war. One could only agree, though all the time longing to say, ‘I don’t at all think so,’ as one saw quite plainly that he didn’t. Really, he put me out of temper. So patronizing. Her, if you like. But if you see me involved with Him, come up to us with a message.”

“He seems to me,” said Lady Althea boldly, “a domineering young man.”

“Was there ever a member of that Family who wasn’t? Words cannot express how thankful I am that our young people are so very different. Which reminds me, love—you must help me to contrive two words with Count Wettersee to-day.”

“The one with the bald head and curly hair round it—the almost good-looking one?” said Althea. “Oh, yes.”

“Victor’s affair seems almost, under the guidance of Providence, happily settled.” Princess Georgina again put down her knitting. “They are to meet in July. And I hope I shall like her better than I like most Russians. But there is always Alfie.”

“Dear Prince Alfred,” said Lady Althea, with suspended needles. “Yes, indeed. But isn’t it early days?”

“It is. Still, one must be thinking. You know what was nearest my heart for John once—too young then, I admitted, and, of course, when he actually fell in love in another quarter, what was there to say or do except smooth away all difficulties? But she remains. Older now. In many ways improved.”

Lady Althea’s ball of silk rolled upon the ground, and Ching twitched an ear after it. Lady Althea arrested her movement to pick it up.

“The Archduchess Sophia Ludovica!” she exclaimed.

“Sh—sh, my love! How do you know there is not a reporter behind that bush? Let us refer to her as ‘S.L.’ All the reasons, my dear Althea, which I urged in favor of S.L. with reference to my eldest nephew hold equally well in connection with my youngest.”

“I suppose they do,” murmured Lady Althea.

“Of course, she being at that time only sixteen—I meant John to wait at least two years, poor dear—nobody was actually sounded. There is every reason to believe, however, that such an arrangement would be gladly welcomed. Heinrich has more nieces than he knows what to do with.”

“I should think so indeed,” said Lady Althea.

“You know very little about it,” the Princess went on absently. “Still, I wish it could be as easily taken for granted,” she continued, “that things will be smooth on this side of the North Sea. I often feel that one couldn’t wholly count on my nephew in a matter of this kind. I’m afraid he cares very little about women—a good thing, of course, in some ways. I know you will respect my confidence, Althea—Alfred is not my favorite nephew. In a sense all are dear, but in that boy I always mistrust a hidden obstinacy, a determination to take his own line, that is almost—shall I say middle class?”

The Princess knitted with the firmness she would display toward anything of the kind.

“However,” she continued, “I don’t know why we should go to meet trouble. Yes, I must have a word with that old man. These things cannot be thought about too soon. And I should like to pour in just a drop of oil about Alfie’s American visit. In the present state of feeling between the two countries they won’t like him any better for going there—us either for sending him. They must be made to understand how absolutely non-political the visit is, in every sense of the term. I shall sum it up in two words—‘magneto-electrics.’ Alfred’s passion for such things must have reached their ears. Magneto-electrics must explain everything.”

“What a good idea,” said Lady Althea.

“And health, of course. After the terrible strain of those foolish Oxford examinations. Very modern and very regrettable, I shall always consider that idea of Honours schools. So unnecessary. I ask you, at the worst, is he likely ever to earn his living as a schoolmaster?”

“Oh, but,” deprecated Lady Althea, “one felt so proud of him! And, as all the papers said, think of the example.”

“I admit the example—if it was really needed. But was it? No, Althea. No. Not at such a cost. And the friendships—the intimate friendships he was allowed to contract there. Rhodes scholars, and such persons. Very well and very worthy, no doubt, but hardly quite—suitable, shall we say? A young man named Youghall, a Canadian, I believe, quite a bosom companion—well, you know, Althea, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but I cannot——”

“I know, dearest.”

“Nor do I altogether approve—for Alfred—of this tour. He is altogether too American in many of his ideas already. And the mind at his age is so plastic. Wiser to wait—much wiser to wait. But who listens to an old woman like me nowadays? Go he must, and go he did, a week ago last Wednesday. I said all I could.”

“Everybody listens to you, darling,” said Lady Althea.

“There is just one thing against S.L.,” meditated Princess Georgina, knitting faster than ever. “Her being sent, in that promiscuous fashion, to a boarding-school. I always remember that foolish idea of her mother’s. I wonder He allowed it, knowing what her future almost must be. However, I know her to be a good girl. Not too pretty, I confess, unless she has changed of late, but with a sound, domestic training and all the true old ideas about what a woman should do and be. Yes, it would be ideal. I said just one word to that excellent fellow Vandeleur who has gone with Alfred.”

“A charming man,” sighed Lady Althea. “Such a good appointment, and all owing to you, dearest.”

“I think so. I think so. There is no democratic nonsense about him, at all events. And it was by no means so easy to find the right person in that respect, Althea, as you might suppose.”

“No, indeed. You yourself have been in America, have you not, Princess?” said Lady Althea.

“Dear me—what memories you evoke. Yes, I have. Twenty years ago—or is it twenty-one? A slip of a girl I was, staying with my Uncle William in Ottawa. We went across to New York for some junketing, and put up with—now what was his name? A former ambassador to us here. No, it’s gone. But I remember what pains we took to be civil, and how I enjoyed it all. America is enjoyable, you know, when you are young. It would upset me now. But here’s Flack,” broke off the Princess, rolling up her work, as an elderly person with an important air appeared, and began to waddle toward them. “Mistress Flack, come to tell me it is nearly two o’clock, and time for me to wash my hands for luncheon.” With which, followed by Flack who gathered Ching in her arms, the ladies disappeared within the nearest door of the palace.

Colonel Vandeleur, C.B., had been selected to accompany Prince Alfred partly because the King immensely liked him, partly on account of his comparative youth and positive spirits, and partly again because of his American descent, which would do much, it was thought, to put the Prince in touch with what he might otherwise fail to understand, and thus help him indirectly to make himself pleasant to his hosts. The Vandeleurs had returned to England about the same time as the Astors, and apparently for much the same reasons; but the serious attractions of public duty in their readopted country had passed them by. They had been content to arrive and remain smart, wealthy people, assuming only the lighter responsibilities that attach to their class. Two of the later Vandeleurs had been masters of hounds of an historic hunt. One had raised and commanded a yeomanry regiment in Sussex, one had served on the staff of a viceroy of India; and this Colonel Adrian Vandeleur, of the 7th Home Guards, remaining a bachelor and ripening happily under the most favorable conditions, was probably the finest, roundest, best flavored fruit on the tree. Such an appointment as this with Prince Alfred would have been impossible a generation earlier. Even a generation earlier it would have been too quick a return to republican shores in circumstances so conspicuous, bearing a king’s commission, and wearing his blue ribbon of the Bath. But once again the political instinct of the royal house had perfectly asserted itself as to time, place, and susceptibilities; the moment shone bright and right; the great American nation accepted a compliment, and slapped Colonel Adrian Vandeleur on the back not without a certain pride.

The dinner that first night at the White House had been of the quietest, nobody being present except the Staff, the President, and Mrs. Phipps. Vandy had been splendid, playing up to the President, who twinkled with humor at being played up to, and said things that seemed to Prince Alfred of quite unapproachable originality. The President’s humor was of a slow, rich, dignified and unconquerable gravity, which was the first genuinely democratic product the young Englishman had encountered. Nobody in his own country had ever met him in quite that conversational spirit, and after the first moment of his immersion, when he blinked a little in the new element, he took to it cordially and with the happiest confidence. The President was a capital fellow to begin with, if one wanted to like the Americans, especially at his own dinner table; and Prince Alfred’s desire to like the Americans amounted to a romance. Mrs. Phipps, sitting beside him, felt her heart warm toward her young guest. She watched him through the evening with a moved expression; but she did not become actually motherly until next morning at breakfast, in which bacon and marmalade figured so impressively as to make a humorous reference unavoidable. Mrs. Phipps then learned what the Prince was really dying for, and her opportunity rolled out before her, from buckwheat cakes indefinitely. Nothing could be too national for Prince Alfred’s enterprise or too forgotten for Mrs. Phipps’s good will. She promised all things, in the assurance that what the chef had never heard of a certain old Sally of the household, as black as your hat, would know like her apron string. By the time hot waffles had been boldly preferred to cold toast, and the marmalade had retired before the glittering jug of maple syrup, the bond between Prince Alfred and Mrs. Phipps was complete.

“Now, Prince,” said the President in his library, removing a particularly fragrant cigar to say it, “we want to give you the very best time we can. To begin with, you might take a more comfortable chair than that—I don’t know how you came to select that chair. It’s the one I keep for the heads of deputations. If anything under a man could make his words brief and his stay short, that’s the article of furniture. But some fellows would enjoy themselves on a rack. Try this,” and, with one friendly hand, he pushed a big armchair into more conversational relation with his own.

Prince Alfred dropped into it, but did not yield himself to the deep embrace. He sat upright and square-shouldered, pulling a little fast and nervously at his cigarette, vividly attentive.

“It’s awfully good of you, Mr. President,” he said. “I hope you realize that just being here is very interesting to me.”

“We must make it so—it’s up to us to make it so,” said Mr. Phipps pleasantly, with a gesture of acknowledgment too brief for a bow, too serious for a nod, that sent his lower chin further still into his collar. “I’ve talked it over with your Embassy, and one or two fellows of our State Department, and we’ve run up a sort of programme. But it’s quite provisional—nothing in it made of reinforced concrete at all——”

“You use a lot of that, don’t you?” said Prince Alfred. “More than any country in the world. I saw the figures the other day. You invented it, too, I believe?”

“Did we? I had an idea it was French. But you may be right about that.”

“Are there any mills in Washington? I’ve seen the process at home, and I’d like to compare it.”

“Well, nothing very great. You see, this city has never made any sort of claim to industrial importance, Prince—we’ll show you all that out West. You would like a look at our Smithsonian Institute, I presume. I’ve had the curator notified to have it swept, anyhow——”

“Is it an art gallery?” asked Prince Alfred, with a slightly fallen expression.

“No. No—I sympathize with you. I’ve been dragged around Europe. No, it isn’t. It’s relics, chiefly—relics of great Americans. The clothes of Washington, the bones of the mastodon——”

“It sounds most interesting. I’ve been working lately at our last revolutionary period——”

“Cromwell?” said Mr. Phipps.

“No—Washington,” smiled Prince Alfred, and his host, having nothing quite ready, made him another bow of acknowledgment.

“Yes,” he remembered, just in time, “and with considerable credit, too.”

“Oh, precious little. I had the best historical coach in England, and I only just pulled it off.”

“I know what Oxford honors are. Your First was an achievement, Prince Alfred, to be proud of. Were any of our fellows up?”

“Two chaps, I think. Burroughs of Texas, and a fellow from New Hampshire.”

“Either of them do anything?”

“I believe Burroughs got a second. The best Americans seemed to prefer other schools this year,” Prince Alfred told him, coloring a little.

“So you beat us on our own ground,” retrieved the President, touching, with a luxurious little finger, an inch and half of cigar ash into a tray.

“It’s surprising,” his guest returned lightly, “when you look into it, how many of the decisive scenes were enacted at Westminster. However, I’ve tried as best I could to get hold of the experiment, and now I’m above all things anxious to see the result. Where shall I find it best and fullest, Mr. President? In Congress?”

“There’s Mount Vernon,” went on the President, eyeing him thoughtfully. “The home of the first man who held my office. Down the river. Most people want to see that. We have also, at Arlington, a very beautiful cemetery, where lie many of the heroes of our Civil War.

‘On Fame’s eternal camping ground

Their silent tents are spread.’

No doubt you’ve heard of it.”

“No,” said Prince Alfred honestly. “I’m afraid I hadn’t. Those are fine lines.” His face assumed a serious aspect. “I should like very much to see the cemetery,” he said.

The President laughed, with enjoyment, the laugh that need no longer be contained.

“But that was not your primary object in looking us up, Prince,” he said. “You can give us points on cemeteries, I admit, in almost any part of Europe. Well, our talk-shop is open to you. We’ve no distinguished strangers’ gallery, I’m afraid, but there’s the Diplomatic box and the Senators’ gallery, which answer the same purpose in both the House and the Senate; and our Speaker will be gratified to meet you on his own preserves any time Congress is in session. I presented him yesterday afternoon—Mr. Briscoe. Bit of a Tartar, Briscoe. It was owing to him that the last spittoon disappeared some time back from the corridors, amid bitter opposition from the West. I hope you won’t be too disappointed to find no spittoons.”

“I never could understand the objection to them,” replied Prince Alfred. “If people must spit.”

“Briscoe didn’t seem to think them nice,” said Mr. Phipps gravely, “and he had a considerable following. However, you may be right.” He touched a bell. “Just ask Mr. Austin,” he said to the boy who appeared, “to come here.”

The strong-featured and sedate-looking man who appeared was duly presented. He gave Prince Alfred over his spectacles a deferential glance, that nevertheless compared him with the value of the time he was taking up.

“What, in your opinion, Austin, is the first occasion on which the House will be doing itself credit?” asked the President.

Mr. Austin smiled.

“It depends, sir, on what you call credit,” he said. “But there’s likely to be a pretty considerable display of talent this afternoon on the Pacific Coast Defences Bill.”

“Rather soon and rather dull,” demurred Mr. Phipps, looking at Prince Alfred.

“Not a bit too soon—for me—and of the greatest interest,” responded that young man, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace with a gesture that announced him ready to start at any moment.

“All right,” said the President. “Send Calder here, Austin, and get somebody to telephone the city papers, and the Associated. We told them the Smithsonian, Queen Victoria’s statue, and the Pension Bureau, subject to change. We couldn’t possibly know that His Royal Highness would have such a strong preference for the contemporary.”

“I hope—” began the Prince.

“Quite right,” agreed the President. “I’m built that way myself.”