Читать книгу His Royal Happiness - Sara Jeannette Duncan - Страница 6

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It was altogether unprecedented, a royal visitor in Washington in June. As a rule, no president would be there for him to visit, no Congress sitting for him to attend. Prince Alfred declared himself lucky, and behaved as if he thought so.

“Exactly as he is about everything,” Colonel Vandeleur confided to them. “Mad keen to see the works”; and his perspiring hosts, feeling a little guilty about the temperature, were glad of the reassurance.

“We hope you will be able to support it, but we can’t expect you to like it,” said the President, privately very well aware that his young guest was liking every minute of it, liking it tremendously, and in no mood to listen to Colonel Vandeleur’s hints that a day or two dropped off the end of the visit would be quite understood in the light of the daily temperatures. The President, with Congress, as it were, in his pocket and a world of interesting information at the touch of a button, could enjoy a little insincerity in talking that way; it was Mrs. Phipps and Major Calder who really meant it. Dinners and lunches were inevitable; people had to dine and lunch whatever the thermometer said, and, as we know, Mrs. Phipps had thrown in breakfast, so far as she was concerned personally. She had moments under the electric fan of feeling she could do no more. Nothing, in all their perplexities, had been more debated than the dance. Were there, to begin with, people enough? Resident Washington had fled in all directions. Would any proportion of it, at a card, flee back again? Where were the wives of the Cabinet and the Senate—not many, rest assured, like heroic Mrs. Phipps, at their post. Where were the Embassies? At summer quarters, largely on leave, certainly empty, except for Prince Alfred’s own and poor dear Lady Pak, of all charm. Then the heat. Could anybody, would anybody dance, though the ballroom were turned into a cave of the winds with fans? Major Calder was inclined to think they could and would. Major Calder was optimistic all through—offered personally to bear the responsibility.

Major Calder went into committee with Hilary, whom the President called always his extra-A.D.C., and they invited the views of Captain Howard, of the Embassy concerned, who declared that in his experience the sun never rose on the British dominions except to the tune of dance music, even in the tropics, and so put them on their mettle. There was also the question as to where else the Prince would have an opportunity of seeing the flower of American society engaged in its favorite pastime. His itinerary excluded summer resorts; he was understood to be too much in earnest about the most profitable use of his time. Anything, of course, might happen in the West, but was it wholly desirable that the Prince’s ideas of American society should be left to form in those free areas? Moreover, nowhere after this could such an entertainment bear the stamp and seal of the official sample. To these deliberations, Hilary contributed the conviction that the most distinguished, the most desirable people within any reasonable radius would not only come but pant to be asked.

“They’ll make a lofty duty of it,” she said. “They’ll fly by night to be here. Neither sun-stroke nor self-sacrifice will count. They’ll be here.”

Hilary, as usual, carried the day. It wasn’t to be anything so unreasonable as a ball, but it was to be a dance, an “At Home, Dancing.” Mrs. Phipps agreed with misgivings, but she did agree to an “At Home, Dancing.” London, following with interest in the thick of its own season, never realized how sporting she was; and Prince Alfred, when he heard of it, noted it among the delightful fixtures that would have to be got through, and never once thought, after the manner of his race, about the disabilities of the weather.

Nor, apparently, did anybody else, judging by the desire for invitations. Major Calder declared himself to have been the center of an intrigue that stretched for three hundred miles to every point of the compass, to say nothing of Mount Kisco, Tuxedo and New York. Ordinary members of Congress produced wives and daughters from incredible distances, and were very firm about them, while, as Hilary had prophesied, there were miraculously almost too many of the people one really wanted. The New York papers added columns to the excitement under headings like “Say, Are You Asked to the Ball?” and gave long accounts of the proposed decorations, the supper, the number of electric fans that would whirl, and tons of ice that would melt in service of the occasion. Mrs. Phipps saw with indignation that she was to wear a “robe” of cloudiest silk muslin specially designed and embroidered in gold with the American eagle, and was not allowed to contradict it except at meals—“Because,” said the President, “perhaps you ought to.” His Royal Highness, it was understood, would appear in the ordinary evening, dress of an English gentleman, wearing his decorations—a plausible assumption which the event was equally to disprove. To Colonel Vandeleur’s astonishment, Prince Alfred came to him with an idea about his clothes. This was most unexpected in the Prince. In the words of his impressed valet, Catkin, he had never hitherto been known to do more than put on what was put out, and would hardly be aware whether he was wearing a Norfolk coat or a dinner-jacket. Prince Alfred sprung his clothes upon his equerry at the last moment. Colonel Vandeleur was at a loss what to say, and finally consulted the President, in an interview of serious and ceremonious doubt.

“I didn’t know he had it with him,” said the Colonel with a furrowed forehead. “But, having expressed the wish——”

“Exactly,” said the President, and rang for Major Calder, who contributed another anxious brow, and suggested telephoning the State Department, where there was a man who certainly knew. Had Vandeleur consulted Pakenham? Oh, as to the Embassy—Prince Alfred’s lightest wish—naturally, must be law to them all. Then, if Colonel Vandeleur really wished an opinion, they would with pleasure telephone the State Department.

There authority found no precedent, though a search at the other end was audible.

“But why not? It’s a kind thought,” enunciated the receiver in the hand of Major Calder.

“It occurs to me,” said President Phipps, as they settled it, “that some little interest should be expressed in my clothes. But it seems to be taken for granted that I shall appear in the creation I looked so charming in last time.”

It was Major Calder who told Hilary, shortly after the presidential party entered the ballroom after dinner, what Prince Alfred was wearing. She asked him, with deep and natural interest, the uniform was so extremely becoming. The dark green shoulders were so broad, the dark head above them so erectly held, the hilt and scabbard so unexpected an incident in the ordinary evening dress of an English gentleman.

“It’s the Imperial Rifles,” Calder told her. “That’s his regiment, but he’s wearing the uniform to-night because it was once ours—the Royal Americans they were, and never came back to be disbanded. The regiment sort of belonged over here in the seventeen seventies, and for to-night, out of compliment to us, he’s a Royal American—without prejudice to the Imperial Rifles.”

“Oh,” said Hilary, watching the slender figure bend to the first presentations. “Oh——”

Her hand, as she stood looking, slipped over her heart, which was beating with a sudden sense of wild romance——

“Nobody knows,” Major Calder was saying, “whether he had any earthly right to do it. Vandy thinks he’s mad and certain to get into trouble at home over it. But I’m here for you, Miss Hilary. It’s as much as my place is worth if you don’t make your bow among the first twenty. The President as good as told me so. Think of those dependent on me, and come.”

“Not yet,” said Hilary. “Please, not yet. Later on, Major Calder. Please, later on.”

“The first twenty, or I’m fired. Have pity, Miss Hilary. Think of my aged mother.”

“There is your aged mother looking for you,” she told him, indicating a jeweled, portly and radiant lady in full sail toward them; and when Calder turned again from the maternal greeting, Hilary was gone. In and out she went among groups that looked at her with the admiring recognition that acknowledges itself unknown, passing here and there one that accosted and would have detained her. She laughed and went by, pretending a purpose. Her face had happy intention in it; her eyes searched; as an intimate of the house, she might well be carrying out some commission or some quest. And all to cover an exquisite sudden commotion, an unaccountable impulse to fly. At the opposite end of the room she paused beside a garlanded pillar and looked back, very lovely, very undecided, mysteriously, helplessly near to the tears of pure excitement. A kind, dull face surged out of the crowd toward her, Betty Carroll’s. Wasn’t it wonderfully cool after all! Such a lucky drop in the temperature since yesterday, and why wasn’t Hilary dancing this first extra? Would Betty sit it out with her? Betty couldn’t believe her ears—they would be raided—but wouldn’t she just! How darling of Hilary! Here behind the palm?

“... And do you know, honey, what the angel has got on? ...”