Читать книгу A Crowned Queen - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 3

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The carriage from Llandiarmid Castle had been waiting for a quarter of an hour at the little country station, and the horses were beginning to toss their heads and paw the ground restlessly, to the great scandal of the coachman.

“This ’ere train of yours is late again, Mr Prodger,” he grumbled to the station-master, who was combining business with pleasure by perusing a grimy copy of a Welsh newspaper at the same time that he kept an eye on the porter who was engaged in weeding the platform flower-beds. Mr Prodger took up the challenge promptly.

“I wass sooner believe you do be early nor the train late, Mr Wright,” he responded. “’Deed and I wass.”

“Me early!” was the wrathful answer; “when ’er ladyship come round to the stables ’erself, and tell me to ’urry, because there wasn’t but barely time to meet the train, the notice was that short! No, Mr Prodger, it’s my belief as there’s been a haccident somewhere on this bloomin’ line, and a nice tale I’ll ’ave to go back and tell the Markiss and my lady.”

“There goes the signals,” put in the footman. “The train’ll be ’ere in a minute.”

“Iss, sure,” said the station-master, “the train do be oll right. She wass not have you for driver, Mr Wright, see you?”

Chuckling over this Parthian shot, Mr Prodger retired to his own domains, and Wright turned upon the footman, who had interfered so unwarrantably in the discussion.

“What are you a-doin’ of ’ere, Robert? Why ain’t you on the platform waitin’ to take ’is lordship’s things?”

“I ain’t never seen ’is lordship,” pleaded Robert. “I was waitin’ to arst you what ’e was like.”

“Oh, yes, there’s so many passengers stops ’ere,” returned his superior, with a terrific sneer. “’E’ll be lost in the crowd, ’e will.”

“But do ’e favour the Markiss?” persisted the footman.

“Well, they both ’as fair ’air and blue eyes, if you go for to call that a likeness. But you look out for a under-sized gentleman, with a ’aughty voice, and a slave-driver kind of a way with ’im. That’s Lord Cyril.”

With this graphic description to guide him, Robert ventured upon the platform, and succeeded in identifying the traveller of whom he was in search. Wright’s lips settled themselves into a peculiarly grim smile when his subordinate returned escorting a small fair man enveloped in a fur-lined overcoat—a garment which excited the somewhat derisive wonder of the loiterers around. They touched their caps as Lord Cyril passed, it is true—it was an attention they were bound to pay to the brother of “the Markiss,” but behind his back they asked one another with ill-concealed grins whether “oll the chentlemen wass wear ladies’ clooks in the furrin parts he did come from?” If Lord Cyril noticed their amusement, he heeded it no more than did the stolid German valet who followed with his bag, and it was with a pleasant smile that he looked up at Wright.

“Glad to see you again, Wright. You look as fit as ever. So you are coachman now, are you?”

“Yes, my lord—this five year.”

“Your shadow has not grown less, I see?” remarked Lord Cyril lazily.

“Well, my lord, we ain’t none of us no younger nor we used to be,” was the somewhat aggressive answer, for Wright had caught sight of a faint smile on Robert’s face. Discipline must be maintained, even in social intercourse of this kind, and the coachman bethought himself hastily of his duties. “Beg your pardon, my lord, but ’er ladyship bid me tell you as she ’ad some ladies comin’ as she couldn’t put off, and ’is lordship and Lady Philippa was gone out ridin’ before your telegram come, so she ’oped you wouldn’t take it unkind not bein’ met by none of the family.”

“Not at all. I quite understand,” said the visitor cheerfully, with his foot on the carriage-step. “It’s a pleasure to see your friendly face again, Wright. I must come and have a talk with you about old times in the harness-room one of these days.”

“Much honnered, my lord, I’m sure,” was Wright’s response, but his face betrayed small appreciation of the prospective pleasure. Robert looked at him with some timidity as he climbed to his place, and it was not until they were fairly on the road to the Castle that the question he was burning to ask escaped the footman’s lips.

“I say, Mr Wright, was that true as they was all sayin’ in the servants’-’all the night I come—about the Markiss ’avin’ been a king once, somewhere in furrin parts, I mean?”

“It’s as true as you’re settin’ there,” responded Wright solemnly, “that seven year back or thereabouts ’is lordship was as much a king as Queen Victorier is queen.” This was stretching the truth a little, but Wright paused to allow the information to sink in before he added, “I was ’is Majesty’s—I mean ’is lordship’s—’ead groom then, so I know.”

“You ain’t jokin’?” asked the bewildered Robert.

“Jokin’? Look ’ere, my lad—you ’ave cool cheek enough for the job—you ask ’is lordship ’imself whether ’e wasn’t King of Thracia for three months, and if ’e didn’t set on a throne and ’ave all the swells a-bowin’ down to ’im. ’E might ’ave married a real Princess if ’e’d liked, but she were a bad lot, and ’e knew it. Oh, there ain’t no doubt about ’is ’avin’ been King, though you mayn’t choose to believe it.”

“I ain’t a-goin’ for to contradick you, Mr Wright,” said Robert penitently. “And did Lord Cyril take on the kingdom after ’im?”

Wright snorted. “No; Lord Cyril ain’t never been King, nor won’t be,” he said. “’E was in Thracia with the Markiss, and made ’imself useful about the place—sort of general ’andy man, as you might say. Then when me and the Markiss gave up the job and come ’ome, ’e stayed on and done the same sort of business for the new King—Hotter George ’is name is.”

“But why did ’is lordship give up the job?” asked Robert, deeply interested. Wright looked mysterious.

“That were about the time as ’is lordship got married, my lad; and when there’s a lady concerned it ain’t for you nor yet for me to say why or wherefore in such a case.” This explanation did not explain much, and the impression it was calculated to convey was not by any means the correct one; but wild horses could not have dragged from Wright the confession that Lord Caerleon had left his Balkan kingdom as a prisoner, dethroned by a counterrevolution to that which had resulted in his being offered the crown. While Robert was meditating on his oracular utterance, Wright was looking ahead, and, just in time to prevent a further question which was trembling on the footman’s lips, he exclaimed—

“Why, there’s ’is lordship and Lady Phil comin’ along! You get down and ask Lord Cyril if ’e’d like to stop for them, Robert. They’ll be up with us before we get past the lodge.”

Robert obeyed, and Lord Cyril ordered him at once to wait. Stepping out of the carriage, the visitor stood watching the approaching riders, a tall man on a large chestnut horse, and a fair-haired little girl on a Shetland pony. They quickened their pace when they saw him.

“Why, Cyril, old man!” cried Lord Caerleon, “how did you get here? I thought we were not to expect you for a month or so yet?”

“I was able to get off earlier, after all. I’ll explain presently. Just now I should like to be introduced to my niece.”

“That won’t take very long. Phil, this is your uncle Cyril.”

“Do you think I’m like father, Uncle Cyril?” inquired Lady Philippa breathlessly, after bestowing a kiss on her newly found relative.

“His very image,” responded her uncle.

“Oh, I am so glad. Usk is just like mother, and it’s so much nicer to be different. Nurse is always saying we shall grow out of it, but I don’t believe we ever shall.”

“Let us walk up to the house together, Cyril,” said Lord Caerleon. “I want to ask you any number of things. Robert can lead my horse. Phil, you might ride on and tell your mother we are all right, in case she should be worrying about us.”

“Oh yes, we mustn’t let mother get worried,” said Philippa sedately, trotting her pony through the lodge-gate as she spoke.

“Has Nadia started nerves?” asked Cyril of his brother.

“Not exactly, but she gets fearfully anxious about the children and me when we are out of her sight. She does her best to hide it, but even Phil has found it out, as you see. Do you know that when that child was thrown one day when she was out riding with me, she mounted again and we rode on to Aberkerran to get her head plastered up by the doctor there, rather than frighten her mother by coming in with blood on her face? Plucky, wasn’t it?”

“Phil is a chip of the old block, I see. You look pretty flourishing, Caerleon. Any regrets for the lost kingdom?”

“None!” responded Caerleon emphatically. “If I only knew that you were safely out of it too, I should feel perfectly happy.”

“Then Otto Georg would abdicate, which would be a European calamity.”

“He certainly keeps you with him most persistently. I don’t know how he made up his mind to let you take a holiday now.”

“Well, the fact is—this mustn’t be mentioned, of course—that the domestic horizon at the Palace has been somewhat clouded of late years, and I have often thought it might conduce to peace and happiness if I took myself off for a little while; but Otto Georg has never consented to let me go before.”

“Yes, I was afraid from what the papers said that you two didn’t exactly hit it off with the Queen and her relations. What’s all the fuss about?”

“I’ll tell you about it when we have a smoke to-night. We’re too close to the Castle now.”

“Yes, and there’s Nadia waiting for us on the steps,” said Caerleon, quickening his pace.

“So she is. Why, Caerleon, your wife looks younger than when you married her! And though I never used to be able to see it, she is certainly wonderfully handsome.”

“Thanks,” said Caerleon drily. “I knew that all along.”

It seemed almost incredible to Cyril that the queenly woman who came down the steps to meet him could ever have been the girl against whose marriage with his brother he had once waged a bitter and by no means scrupulous war. Nadia Caerleon would never be one of those who take life easily; but she had lost the half-startled, half-suspicious look which had set Cyril against her at the beginning of their acquaintance, and to her natural dignity there was now added something of the repose and assurance of manner which mark the grande dame.

“I was so sorry not to be able to meet you, Cyril,” she said, as she shook hands with him, “but the Needlework Guild were holding a committee meeting here, and I could not forsake them.”

“Certainly not,” said Cyril. “I know of old that if there are two courses before you, you always make a point of choosing the one you like least.”

“I see that you have not changed at all in these seven years,” she said, smiling, as she led the way into the hall.

“Perhaps not,” said Cyril in his own mind, “but you have; or you would have hastened to assure me that I was much mistaken, and that you preferred the committee meeting.”

“You won’t be long, Carlino?” Nadia was saying to her husband. “I told the children that they might have tea with us in the hall, and they will be down very soon.”

Almost before Caerleon and Cyril had laid aside their hats and coats, the children were upon them, Philippa looking very demure in her pink dress, and holding the hand of her brother, who was a year younger than herself. Yet that the interval which had elapsed since her father had sent her on in advance had not been altogether devoted to personal adornment was evidenced when she looked up from her cake and remarked—

“What a funny man your servant is, Uncle Cyril!”

“Oh, you have discovered the taciturn Dietrich, then?” said Cyril.

“Oh yes,” put in Usk. “We went to see him unpacking your things. Nurse came to see him too, because he is a foreigner.”

“You must be rather hard up for sights here, I should imagine. Well, did you find him communicative?”

“I don’t know what that word means, Uncle Cyril.”

“Could you get him to talk to you?”

“Not very much,” said Philippa thoughtfully. “We wanted him to tell us why you had a different kind of crown on your brushes and things from what father has, and he said it was because you were a different kind of gentleman. And we knew that before.”

“Dietrich is always cautious,” said Cyril; “but his most useful characteristic is his extreme truthfulness.”

“Gratifying, no doubt,” said Caerleon; “but in what way useful?”

“Because he is the most stolid person I know. Every one who sees him jumps to the conclusion that no one could possibly be as stupid as Dietrich looks, and hence, when he tells the exact truth about my movements, they always suspect him of trying to put them off the scent for some reason or other, and they go off in the wrong direction, which is sometimes a very good thing for me.”

“Why?” asked Usk, gazing at his uncle with astonished grey eyes which were exactly like his mother’s.

“Because I don’t particularly want them to follow me about everywhere, that’s all.”

The two children meditated upon this answer for a minute or two, and then, apparently failing to arrive at any satisfactory solution, gave it up, and dragged their father to the side-table to show him a picture in one of the illustrated papers. Cyril looked after them with a smile.

“It strikes one as queer that if things had fallen out differently that little fellow would be Crown Prince of Thracia to-day, instead of Otto Georg’s son,” he remarked to his sister-in-law.

“Yes,” said Nadia, with a slight shiver. “Tell me,” she added suddenly, “do you think Carlino looks well—happy?”

“Couldn’t look better or happier, I should say,” was the reassuring answer.

“It is not about the kingdom—I know he is glad to have got rid of that—but do you think he looks like other Englishmen in his position?”

“Yes, exactly; only perhaps rather more thoroughly contented than most of them. But why do you ask?”

“It is because I am always afraid that I keep him back from the things he would naturally like to do. When he brought me here first, whenever the ladies of the neighbourhood came to call, and did not find everything just as they expected, they always said to me, ‘Oh, you are a foreigner, Lady Caerleon. Of course you would not understand.’ And I have always tried to understand, but I can’t make myself really English, and it is a comfort to know that you think I have not done him harm.”

Her face was so anxious that Cyril felt inclined to tease her by inventing some imaginary alteration in Caerleon for which to blame her, but he resisted the temptation, and remarked—

“I don’t wonder at your having felt strange at first, but no one would call you a foreigner now. You seem to have taken to your new country much more kindly than the Queen of Thracia has to hers.”

“Ah, your Queen!” said Nadia. “I wanted to ask you about her. Is she very beautiful? One cannot trust the papers.”

“Well, she has dark hair, which looks copper-coloured in the sun, and very peculiar eyes. They may be either brown or green or grey, and I have seen them appear quite blue. As for being beautiful, she might possibly be pretty if she looked pleasant, but since her marriage I have never seen her anything but decidedly cross.”

“Oh, then she is not happy, poor thing!” said Nadia pityingly. “And every one said it was a love-match!”

“Surely you didn’t believe that stereotyped lie? You must have noticed that the papers trot it out whenever a royal wedding is announced. It is simply put in as a sort of salve to the consciences of the readers. If they were told there was a ghastly tragedy going on behind all the pageantry they are admiring, it might make them feel uncomfortable for a moment, and therefore they jump joyfully at the notion that an unfortunate child of sixteen is madly in love with a blasé and unromantic German just upon fifty!”

“But you are the King’s friend, are you not? Was the poor Queen really married at sixteen?”

“She was seventeen about a month after her marriage. She is not twenty-two yet. Yes, I am the King’s friend, and I have no particular reason to like the Queen; but for all that, I can see that their marriage was a hideous mistake. It’s quite clear to any one that she is not happy, but I own that my pity is chiefly for Otto Georg. He was driven into it as much as she was; but he is not such a picturesque figure, and therefore he gets no sympathy.”

“And yet you helped to bring this marriage about!” said Nadia, looking at him in astonishment. Before he could answer, he felt a light touch on his arm, and found Philippa beside him.

“Oh, Uncle Cyril, father says if you aren’t tired we might have a game in the picture-gallery. Please, please, don’t be tired!”

“I am afraid you are bringing up your daughter to be a tyrant, Nadia,” said Cyril, as he rose, perhaps not altogether sorry to break off the conversation at this point, and no more was said on the subject of Balkan politics or of the domestic troubles of the Court of Bellaviste until the two brothers settled themselves in Caerleon’s den for a talk late at night.

“Then you like your present berth well enough to stick to it still?” said Caerleon suddenly, without leading up to the subject in any way.

“Most certainly I do; or at any rate I am not quite such a cad as to chuck it and leave poor old Otto Georg to face things alone. The first two years I was at Bellaviste we were like brothers. Everything went swimmingly, and it might be doing so still if that old owl Drakovics had not got it into his sapient head that it was time seriously to set about securing the succession to the throne.”

“But the King’s marriage was talked of from the very first,” objected Caerleon, ignoring his brother’s disrespectful reference to the great Thracian Prime Minister.

“Yes; but so long as it was only talk it didn’t matter. When Otto Georg became nervous about it, I used to comfort him with the reflection that threatened men live long. But when I caught Drakovics one day with a lot of photographs of unmarried princesses spread out on the table in front of him, I knew that he meant business.”

“And you promptly demanded to have a finger in the pie?”

“I don’t know about demanding, but I had one, naturally. It happened just then that Drakovics was nursing a grudge against the Three Powers. He was supposed to have looked with a friendly eye on the agitation which was being fomented against Roumi rule in the territory of Rhodope, and Hercynia had stirred up Pannonia and Magnagrecia to put pressure on him to disavow it. Therefore he had an idea that it would be a good thing—convey a salutary warning and so on—to score off the Three Powers by marrying Otto Georg to a princess whose sympathies were somewhat Scythian, without being dangerously so. The only difficulty was to find the lady. The most suitable of the rival beauties appeared to be the Princess Ernestine of Weldart, but he was afraid that the fortunes of her father’s family were altogether bound up with those of Scythia.”

“And then came your innings?”

“Well, I did happen to remark that the lady’s mother, who was originally a Hercynian princess, aunt or cousin or something of the Emperor, had been for years on bad terms with her husband, and would undoubtedly have brought up her daughter as a German rather than a Slav. That was one of the many useful pieces of information I picked up in that fortnight which you and I spent at Schloss Herzensruh. The Queen of Mœsia is a sister of the Prince of Weldart, you remember?”

“I really don’t; I had other things to think of at that time. You seem to have these wretched Germans at your fingers’ ends.”

“It’s my business, you see. Well, that settled matters. I undertook to bring Otto Georg up to the scratch, while Drakovics managed the necessary ceremonial details. And you know what the end was—a big wedding at Molzau, with two Emperors present and a Grand-Duke to represent the third, and royal and serene highnesses without number.”

“I know that you got into some sort of trouble on the occasion which I never could make out.”

“Not exactly trouble—just a little bother. The fact was that I found myself a fish out of water in that gorgeous company. Otto Georg insisted on my accompanying him, and tried to get me a precedence to which, being merely his secretary, I was certainly not entitled. You know the awful fuss those smaller Courts make about things of the kind. Then the Weldarts treated me with marked coldness—I have to thank the Queen of Mœsia for that, I believe—and it spread to the Hercynian people. Their attendants imitated their behaviour, and when I resented that sort of second-hand contumely, one of the Hercynian officers sent me a challenge. If I am a bit of a dab at anything, it is at fencing, as you know, and I was not surprised when I wounded him. Every one else was, though, and Sigismund of Hercynia was nearly wild on hearing that one of his officers had been beaten in sword-play by a civilian. The rest of the Hercynians got together and laid a little plot, the principal feature of which was that they should all challenge me in turn, so as to make pretty sure of finishing me off at last. Somehow it got to Otto Georg’s ears—he must have felt suspicious about my absence on the day of the duel, for we had to settle matters at a decent distance from the Court and from the festivities, and then I imagine he questioned Dietrich, who had guessed the whole affair, and disapproved of it vigorously;—and he laid it before his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Pannonia. They put their heads together and devised a plan, which they sprang on the illustrious assemblage. Otto Georg took a leaf out of the books of the Scythian Court, and invented a new portfolio for me as Minister of the Household, and the Emperor—I don’t know how he managed it—created me a Count. That settled the question of precedence for the future.”

“I am sorry you should have discarded your own English title for a Pannonian Countship,” said Caerleon.

“It is only when I am abroad. I should never dream of sporting a foreign title at home; but the courtesy designation caused endless difficulties over there, although the Germans have so many of them.”

“And after that all went merrily?”

“Well, we heard no more of the duels. But there is a black mark down against my name in Sigismund of Hercynia’s books, and when we got back to Thracia there was the piper to pay in quite a different matter. Drakovics always persists that it was my fault; but I never professed to be either a thought-reader or a prophet, and how in the world was I to guess that as soon as the wedding festivities were over, the Princess of Weldart would definitely break with her husband, and come and quarter herself upon us at Bellaviste? She said that she had kept up appearances hitherto for her daughter’s sake, but that it wasn’t necessary any longer, now that Princess Ernestine was safely married. Even granting that, Otto Georg and I couldn’t quite see why we were to be victimised instead of the Prince of Weldart; but there she was, and we had to make the best of her. She is a terrific woman—ought to have been abbess of some convent, or perhaps the head of a band of canonesses, as she is a Lutheran. At any rate, she did away with the slight hope there was that the marriage might turn out a success. The little Queen had been in abject terror of her husband at first, but she seemed to be beginning to believe that he meant to be kind to her, and then her mother arrived. It was unfortunate, too, that she arrived with a strong prejudice against your humble servant—derived from the Queen of Mœsia, of course. I should have thought that I was too lowly an individual to be honoured with such persistent enmity; but she persuaded Queen Ernestine that I was Otto Georg’s evil genius, and made her frantically jealous of my influence over him. She did not care a straw for him herself, and let him know it; but she could not bear to see that he made a friend of me.”

“But surely,” suggested Caerleon, “in such a delicate matter, the obvious thing was for you to retire?”

“That was how it struck me; but as often as I broached the subject, Otto Georg swore that if I forsook him he would abdicate. He said that Thracia would be intolerable if he was left to the tender mercies of the Queen and her mother on one side and Drakovics on the other. So I stayed on, and the Palace has been divided between two opposing parties ever since. I don’t mean to say that it’s all the Queen’s fault. Otto Georg is neither a saint nor an angel, and he has declared more than once that his wife must take the first steps in the most unmistakable way if he is ever to be reconciled with her again. She won’t do that; but once or twice she has seemed to soften a little, and I believe he might have gone in and won if it hadn’t been for that pig-headed obstinacy of his. I daren’t say much to him, for it’s a ticklish thing interfering between man and wife at the best of times; but I believe a workable compromise might have been arranged on the basis of his getting rid of me, and the Queen’s getting rid of her mother.”

“But surely the Princess is not at Bellaviste now?”

“No; she went too far when she began to interfere with Drakovics. Some time ago she took it into her head that Milénovics, our Public Works Minister, had insulted her by not turning up at a visit of inspection she made to the bridge of boats which is being constructed across the river above Bellaviste. She hadn’t given him any notice, but that didn’t signify. At any rate, she demanded of Otto Georg that he should be dismissed. I went to see Drakovics about it on the King’s behalf, and I can tell you that old man was ‘riz’ to some purpose. He refused to send any message through me, and went to the King at once with an ultimatum—either the Princess must go or the Ministry would. Otto Georg was quite satisfied to get rid of his mother-in-law; but we should have found the Queen and her mother very hard to persuade if the Powers had not stepped in. Pannonia knew that there was a good deal of discontent in Thracia already, owing to the number of Germans who have been imported to fill various offices, and that if Drakovics went, another revolution was only a matter of time. So she gave a gentle hint to Hercynia, and Sigismund brought pretty strong pressure to bear upon his aunt. He sent her an invitation to visit his Court, which was virtually a command, and she had to go. Of course she and the Queen put it all down to me, but I really can’t plead guilty in this case. One must not risk needless revolutions with a young dynasty like this of Otto Georg’s. By the bye, Caerleon, do you ever have any communication with that precious father-in-law of yours?”

“I can’t say that I have,” returned Caerleon, with some constraint in his tone. The fugitive Irish rebel of 1848, who was spending his old age as a spy in the employ of Scythia, was not a relative of whom he could reasonably be expected to be proud.

“He doesn’t apply to you for money? I had an idea—you have no house in town, and you don’t make much show here—that he might be living upon you all this time.”

“Oh no, quite the contrary. I wrote to him soon after we were married, suggesting, as delicately as I could, that he should accept a suitable income from me, and retire from the Scythian service. Nadia was extremely anxious that he should have the chance of leading a decent life for his few remaining years. But my letter was returned—not unopened, but unanswered—and since then we have heard no more of him.”

“Then he is at his old tricks again—I thought so. He has been in Thracia for some time, avowedly drinking the waters at Tatarjé. I told you that there was a good deal of discontent about, and no doubt he is doing his best to suck some advantage out of it for his employers. But I don’t believe that any section of the people would join in a plot the object of which was merely to restore Scythian supremacy, though it would not surprise me if there was another revolution the first day that they found any one to rally round. If you came to Thracia, now——”

“But how is it that the O’Malachy ventures to set foot in the country? I should have thought Drakovics would have had something to say to that.”

“Oh, he was included in the amnesty in honour of the birth of the Crown Prince. I wanted to except him, but Drakovics was particularly anxious not to give any offence to Scythia just then, and chose to think that he had probably reformed. I knew there wasn’t much chance of his having done that unless he had a comfortable livelihood secured to him, and you say you have not been permitted to be his banker.”

“No, my savings were intended for quite another purpose. Look here, Cyril, I want you to chuck this Thracian job, and settle down at home, or go abroad in the Diplomatic Service, if you prefer it. I can’t bear your being mixed up with all this shady political business, and Nadia fully agrees with me. It’s not easy to put by much in these bad times, but we have never quite lived up to our income, and I can let you have ten or fifteen thousand pounds to start on to-morrow, if you’ll only become an Englishman again instead of a hybrid cosmopolitan.”

“Do you really think me capable of sponging on you in this way?”

“Well, let us call it a loan, then. It’s all the same to me.”

“With the certainty that neither principal nor interest would ever be repaid? No, old man. I’m awfully obliged both to you and Nadia, but I won’t take your money. You will need it all in a few years, when the children’s education has to be thought of. And besides, I am spoilt for England by this time. After the life I have led these eight years, do you seriously imagine I could take a subordinate post, even in Diplomacy? You know that a good appointment would be just about as accessible as the moon to me.”

“I thought of your standing for the Aberkerran Division.”

“And getting in, of course; and spending how many years as a private member?”

“Nonsense, Cyril! With your experience, you would be a man to be reckoned with by any Government. We should see you Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in no time.”

“Under-Secretary? And with that pompous old brute the Duke spoiling everything I had on hand, and taking the credit of anything that succeeded in spite of him? Thanks, Caerleon; the House of Commons is all very well in its own little way, but it’s not big enough for me.”

“But what are you aiming at?”

“At having a hand on the reins, that’s all—but then, Europe is the coach. There’s not much show about my ambitions, but a remarkable amount of solid reality. I don’t ask for the things other people covet—money or love or pleasure—but I must be behind the scenes and pull the wires. It doesn’t matter to me whether my power is recognised by the man in the street or not, so long as I know that I have it, and can make the puppets dance.”

“And Otto Georg?” asked Caerleon drily.

“Otto Georg is a puppet for whom I have a foolish weakness. To give him and the silly little Queen a chance of composing their differences, I have sacrificed myself so far as to quit the stage for three months, in spite of his entreaties and my own better judgment. For his sake I hope he won’t command my return before the time is up, but for my own I trust he will.”

“Then you will take care of Uncle Cyril, Phil, and amuse him?”

“Oh yes, mother,” and Philippa climbed into the carriage for another kiss. “I’m going to take him all round, and explain everything.”

“Poor Uncle Cyril!” said Caerleon. “Haven’t you forgotten that he knew his way about the place a good many years before you were born, Phil?”

“Oh dear!” gasped Philippa in dismay, as she returned to the doorstep. “Did you really, Uncle Cyril?”

“I’m afraid I did once, but very likely I have forgotten half of it. We’ll see which of us remembers the stories best.”

This was a proposal entirely to Philippa’s taste, and she led her obedient uncle away as soon as the carriage had driven off. To her great distress, however, his reminiscences proved invariably to be incorrect, and frequently also to be humorous in character, a trait which jarred on her sense of fitness.

“I don’t believe you were really here when you were a little boy, Uncle Cyril,” she remarked at last, as he found her a comfortable seat on the safest portion of the wall of the ruined Abbey.

“But your father was, and we were always together until he went to school.”

“Then I can’t think,” meditatively, “why it is that you aren’t the least little bit like father. Father is so splendid and good.”

“And I am not good? Poor me!”

“I——I didn’t mean that exactly, Uncle Cyril. I meant perhaps you were good in a different way—perhaps it’s a London way. Nurse always says London is a very wicked place.”

“Thank you again, Phil! Or am I to understand that you are labouring to express the difference between the Absolute and the Relative?”

“Oh no, you don’t understand one bit. It is like the children where nurse was last, when she lived at General Clarendon’s. His grandchildren were so dreadfully good you can’t think! They never quarrelled, or did anything they liked, or wanted to do anything they were told not to, or forgot to come to have their hands washed and put on clean pinafores. Well, one day when nurse had been telling us a lot about them, Usk said all at once, ‘I don’t believe they were always as good as that. I expect you’ll tell the children where you go next how good we were.’ Wasn’t it dreadful? And nurse was so angry! She put on her spectacles and looked at Usk and said, ‘Well, my lord, at any rate I’ll take my oath that never in all my experience did I know a young gentleman stand up to me before and call me a liar to my face.’”

“We seem to be wandering a little from the point of the argument,” suggested Cyril mildly.

“Oh, but don’t you see it shows—no, I don’t mean that—I can’t think what I meant—— Oh, Uncle Cyril, there’s a telegraph-boy! Let us race and catch him before he gets to the house.”

Before Cyril could even rise from his seat, she was at the foot of the wall and running across the park at a pace which the boy, who was lounging comfortably along the drive, and displaying his interest in the natural objects on either side to the extent of throwing stones at them, made no attempt to excel or even to emulate. When Cyril came up, Philippa was in possession of the telegram, and was ordering the boy to go on to the Castle and get some bread and cheese and lemonade from the cook.

“That was a nice boy,” she remarked with much gratification, as the boy departed. “He touched his cap, and said, ‘Thank you, my lady.’ Sometimes they just race off without saying anything. But mother says we mustn’t be cross, because they haven’t had any one to teach them better.”

“As the boy is going up to the house after all, he might as well have taken the telegram,” observed her uncle.

“Oh, but Usk and I always get father’s telegrams and give them to him. Besides, it’s for you.”

“For me? Give it me at once, Phil.”

“Oh, Uncle Cyril, but you must pay the postman!” cried Philippa, in bitter reproach, holding the missive behind her. “Father always does. It’s one kiss for each letter, and two for a paper, and three for a telegram.”

Cyril made the required payment, rather perfunctorily, it must be confessed, and tore open the envelope. His face changed as he read the message, and he crumpled the paper in his hand, and thrust it into his pocket.

“Come, Phil,” he said, “we must go back to the Castle, and tell the ingenuous Teuton to pack up my things.”

“Oh, that means Dietrich!” cried Philippa delightedly. “You do call him such funny names, Uncle Cyril. But is it from the House? Father lets Usk and me have his telegrams to play post-office with when he has done with them, and they always say, ‘Division comes on to-morrow night. Expect you by morning mail.’ Is yours that kind?”

“Not quite,” said Cyril, walking on so fast that the child could scarcely keep pace with him, “but it brings me my marching orders, Phil. I must start for Thracia to-night.”