Kitabı oku: «In Brief Authority», sayfa 9

CHAPTER IX
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE

King Sidney's remonstrances to Clarence on his extravagances were put in too mild a form to offend. "Perhaps I have got through rather a lot lately," the Crown Prince admitted. "Not that I spend much on myself – precious little chance in a bally place like this. It mostly goes in tips. You see, the peasants about here think anything under a purse of gold stingy. But it certainly struck me the last time I went to the Counting-house that what sacks there were looked a bit flabby. When do you expect some more in?"

"The Lord Treasurer thinks one or two may be delivered in a week or so – but we shall want considerably more than that to pay our way, and I don't see myself where it's to come from."

"I suppose," said Clarence, "it wouldn't quite do to have the gates melted down, or the thrones; but there's any amount of other gold furniture knocking about – what's the matter with coining that?"

"It did occur to me," confessed King Sidney, "but the Court Chamberlain says they're only silver gilt, and that's no good here, you know."

"Well," said Clarence, "it's pretty clear that we shall all be in the cart if we can't find some way to raise the wind."

A day or two later he burst into the Royal Parlour where his father was sitting disconsolately alone. "I've found it, Guv'nor," he announced triumphantly.

"Eh, my boy, found, what?"

"The way to raise the wind. I've been in to see little Pop-Eye —you know, the Astrologer Royal."

"Xuriel? I haven't seen him since that – er – match I played with the Marshal."

"I daresay not. The Marshal saw him, though – and he hasn't been fit to be seen in public since. Well, it seems he's been pottering away at Magic all this time on the quiet – and quite lately he's come upon an old spell-book of his father's and tried some of the formulas in it. And he's turned out one little thing that's simply it. I bought it of him on the spot. I'll have it brought in here for you to see."

When it was brought it was not much to look at, being just an ordinary round table of the plainest design.

"Ah, but you wait," said Clarence. "Just say to it 'Little table, be laid.'"

"Really, my boy," protested his father, who had evidently forgotten his Grimm's Fairy Tales, "I can't bring myself to – "

"Try it, Guv'nor – and see what happens."

"Oh well, it's all nonsense – all nonsense – but – er – 'Little table be laid.'"

Instantly the table was covered with a snowy linen cloth and laid with a daintily prepared meal for one person, including a small flagon of wine and a knife and even a two-pronged fork.

"Neat, isn't it?" remarked Clarence. "The little joker wouldn't part with it at first – afraid of getting into more hot water about it."

"I don't suppose for a moment the food's genuine," said the King. "Well," he pronounced, after trying it, "I'm bound to say it's quite tasty – really very tasty indeed. I think I'll have a little more – ate so little at lunch. The wine isn't at all bad either – sort of Moselle flavour. It would be awkward if your mother were to come in just now, eh?"

"If you've done," said Clarence, "all you've got to say is: 'Little table, be cleared.'"

The King repeated the words, and the table became bare as before.

"Highly ingenious," he said; "but all the same, my boy, considering the cuisine we have in the Palace already, it seems a waste of money to buy it."

"But there's money in it, Guv'nor – money enough to make us all millionaires if we go the right way to work it! Listen to me. Xuriel says he could easily make any quantity of these tables – produce 'em in all styles and sizes, to dine any number, if you and the Mater will only give him a free hand."

"I think you're forgetting, my boy," said King Sidney with dignity, "that there is a law – a law which your mother and I think a very wise and salutary one – against the practice of anything in the nature of – ah – Magic in our dominions."

"Oh, I know that," said Clarence. "But you can alter it easily enough, can't you?"

"No doubt we could. But why should we?"

"Do you mean to say you don't see why? And you've been a business man all your life! Of course, we shouldn't give Xuriel such a concession as this except on our own terms. He's willing to let us take two-thirds of the selling price of every table he sells. And they'll sell like hot cakes! Why, there won't be a family in all Märchenland that can afford to be without one. They'll pay any price we like to put on such an article as this. Just think of it, Dad! No expenses – no risk – and a bigger income than we could ever hope for from any bally mine. You can't let a chance like that slip through your fingers!"

"I quite see the possibilities, my boy!" said the King; "and in fact – but I can't decide one way or the other till I know what your Mother thinks of it."

Queen Selina took an unexpectedly broad-minded view of the scheme as soon as she fully understood its advantages.

"Of course," she said, "nothing would induce me to encourage any enterprise that was based on Sorcery. But the Astrologer Royal is far too respectable a little man to have anything to do with that. And these tables would be such a boon to so many hundreds! We cannot leave that out of consideration. The dear people will be so grateful to us for allowing them to be placed within the reach of the humblest. I daresay Mr. Xuriel would supply them on the hire system. And as for there being any Magic about the process – if there is, it's quite harmless, and it's much more probable that it can be accounted for by purely natural causes which unscientific persons like ourselves can't be expected to understand. After all, who really knows?"

"And who really cares?" added Clarence, "so long as the tables sell. It's lucky the Guv'nor and I have had a business training. We shall be able to check Master Xuriel's accounts – he'll do us in the eye if he can, I'll bet. We'd better start it as a private company. The Patent Self-supplying Tables Co., Limited. Under Royal Patronage, what?"

"I cannot have any in the Palace," objected the Queen. "The chefs would make such a fuss if I did. And another thing, Clarence – it mustn't on any account be known that we take a share of the profits. A Royal Family has to be so very careful that its actions are not misinterpreted."

"We'll be sleeping partners, Mater," said the Crown Prince, "and I don't fancy Master Xuriel will be such a fool as to give us away. So far as the Public'll know, we're interested in the venture on strictly philanthropic principles."

"And that will be quite true," added Queen Selina, "for I can conscientiously say that I wouldn't be connected with it if I didn't feel it was for the general advantage."

Thus was the "Patent Self-supplying Tables Co., Ltd.," founded. A large disused granary in the City was adapted as an Emporium, and the Astrologer Royal, after working day and night for a week, filled it with an extensive stock of dining-tables which were graduated to suit the needs of every class of purchaser.

As Clarence had predicted, they met with a ready sale, for, although Märchenlanders had a tradition of the existence of such tables, they had never expected to be able to procure one for themselves by cash payment.

It was obvious to all that an article which simplified housekeeping by rendering both cook and kitchen fire superfluous was cheap at almost any price, and the demand was so great that Xuriel had to work harder than ever to keep pace with it.

And everybody expressed the greatest satisfaction with the tables when delivered – except, indeed, those citizens who earned their livelihood as provision-dealers. They protested that they were being ruined by what they chose to call unfair competition, and even sent a deputation to the Palace to represent their grievances.

"Show them into the Hall of Audience," said King Sidney, when he was told of their arrival, "and tell them I will be with them presently and hear anything they may have to say."

After he had done so he addressed them in a paternal manner, but with sound common-sense. It was very unfortunate, he admitted, but it was one of these cases where a small minority had to suffer for the benefit of the community at large. As a constitutional and democratic Monarch, he could not interfere to restrict the production of articles that increased the comfort and well-being of the vast majority of his beloved subjects. The deputation had his sincere sympathy, but he could do no more than offer them his advice, which was to escape the starvation they seemed – a little unnecessarily, if he might say so – to apprehend by immediately investing their savings in these self-supplying tables. He added that, from all he could hear, he thought it very probable that the prices would go up very shortly.

The deputation then thanked him and withdrew. Such dealers as could afford the outlay followed his advice, and very soon the sacks in the Sovereign's Counting-house were fuller than ever, and all danger of a Royal bankruptcy was happily at an end, while the Family had the additional pleasure of finding themselves popular once more.

Strictly speaking, the Astrologer Royal had not been authorised to employ his occult skill in producing any objects but the self-supplying dinner-tables, though it was rumoured that his industry was not entirely confined to these. He certainly sold the Crown Prince a sword with which he could face undismayed the fiercest of bears and boars, while the old Court Chamberlain bought a silk skull-cap that he found most useful on occasions when he did not desire to attract attention. But, perhaps from unwillingness to get Xuriel into trouble, neither of them made any mention of these purchases.

Clarence should have been satisfied, for his feats in the saddle and his daring in the forest, where he slew every wild beast he encountered, had rendered him a hero in the eyes of the populace, and even of the Court. And yet he was very far from being satisfied – for what was the good of his glory if it brought him no nearer Daphne? He hoped it was making an impression, but he could not be certain, because he never succeeded in getting a moment alone with her. When she was not in attendance on his Mother she was either with Ruby or the ladies-in-waiting, or, worse still, surrounded by courtiers who had not the tact to withdraw on his appearance. And although she did not seem to show a preference for any one in particular, that did not prevent him from being furiously jealous of them all.

One afternoon Daphne received a message by one of the pages that she was wanted at once in the Hall of Audience by Princess Edna. But when she obeyed the summons the only person she found in the hall was the Crown Prince in hunting costume, with high boots and a plumed hat.

"It's all right," he called out as she hesitated, "Edna will be here directly… You look as if you didn't believe me."

"I'm afraid I don't, your Royal Highness," said Daphne.

"Don't you? Well, you're right. It was not Edna that sent for you. It was me."

"You might have sent for me in your own name, Prince Clarence."

"I daresay! And then you'd have got out of coming! I've something I particularly want to say to you. And I say —do sit down. It's like this," he proceeded, after Daphne had sat down on one of the benches, "I never seem to see anything of you now – what with all those Courtier chaps always hanging about you. I wonder you let 'em. You wouldn't if you knew as much about 'em as I do. Why, that fellow Hansmeinigel's ancestor was half a hedgehog – a beastly common ordinary hedgehog, by Gad! – and as for young Bohnenranken – "

"Your Royal Highness may spare yourself the trouble of going on," said Daphne. "I know all about their descent already – from themselves. They're not in the least ashamed of their ancestors – indeed they're very proud of them."

"More than I should be if they were mine. Anyhow, there isn't one of 'em that's fit for you to make a pal of."

"You would have more right to say that, Prince Clarence, if I had ever shown the slightest inclination to treat them as 'pals.'"

"You can look higher than bounders like them. And I must say I feel a bit hurt, that you haven't taken more notice of all I've been doing to please you. I mean, learning to ride as I've done, and leading an active life, and all that."

"I really thought your Royal Highness was doing it for your own pleasure. But of course I've noticed the change, and if I've had any share in bringing it about, I'm very glad."

"And is that all I'm to get by it? I want a lot more than that. I want you!"

"Don't be absurd, Prince Clarence," said Daphne. "You know very well you would never be allowed to marry me, even if I– "

"Oh, of course, I know that. But – but, you see, I – er – well, I wasn't thinking of marriage exactly."

"Then," said Daphne, with ominous quietness, "would your Royal Highness be good enough to explain what you were thinking of exactly?"

"Well," he said, "my idea was something more in the nature of a – what do you call it? – a morganatic alliance. Of course even that would have to be kept dark because of the Mater, but – "

Daphne rose. "Prince Clarence," she said, "is it because I have been your sister's Governess that you think you have the right to insult me like this?"

"It isn't an insult," he protested; "you don't understand. I assure you it's quite the usual thing in cases like ours. You'd be none the less thought of – rather the other way about. So why take this narrow-minded, prudish view of it? I didn't expect it – from you, you know!"

"Probably," said Daphne, "you don't expect to get your ears boxed – but you will, if you dare to say any more."

"Oh, do you think you'd better?" he asked. "I mean – smacking a Crown Prince's head – well, it's a jolly serious offence, you know – what?"

"I suppose," she said scornfully, "you think I should deserve to be executed for it."

"It would make a good 'par' in the papers," he replied, "if we had any papers here. Something of this sort: 'The execution of Lady Daphne took place yesterday in the Market Square. There was no hitch, everything, including Lady Daphne's head, going off with the greatest éclat. The Crown Prince was expected to be present, but was unavoidably detained out hunting.'… Ah, you're laughing! You're not so very angry with me after all!"

"I was," said Daphne; "but, after all, you don't know any better, and it really isn't worth while. Still, as it seems I can't expect any consideration from your Royal Highness, it will be impossible for me to remain in her Majesty's service."

He began to realise at last how deeply he had offended her, and to desire a reconciliation on almost any terms.

"No, I say," he pleaded, "don't take it like that. I – I made a mistake. I'll never do it again. I swear I won't! Now won't you stay?"

Daphne looked at him for a moment before she replied. "I wouldn't stay, Prince Clarence," she said, "if I didn't believe you really are a little sorry and ashamed of yourself. And I will only stay now on condition that you never try to speak to me again except in public."

He had a sudden sense of what this would be to him – he might almost as well lose her altogether. There was only one way of obtaining her full forgiveness and the privilege of being alone with her as often as he wished. Of course he would have to pay pretty dearly for it – but, hang it, she was worth making some sacrifice for! He might be able to get round his people after all… Yes, he'd take the plunge, whatever it cost him.

"But – but look here," he began desperately, "suppose – suppose I ask you" – he was on the point of adding, "to be my wife," when the words died on his lips as he saw that his mother had just entered the Audience Chamber. "Not now," he broke off heartily, "some other time."

Queen Selina regarded Daphne with cold displeasure for a moment or two before speaking. "I was not aware, Miss Heritage," she said, "that your duties required you to be in this part of the Palace at any time."

"I had a summons, your Majesty," explained Daphne, "which I understood was from the Princess Royal, to come to her in the Hall of Audience, or I should not be here."

"If her Royal Highness had required you at all, Miss Heritage, I think it more likely, on the whole, that she would have sent for you to my Bower, where she has been sitting with me all the afternoon. But I will find out if the message came from her."

Daphne bit her lip.

"It did not, your Majesty," she said; "I know now that it was given to me – by mistake."

"A mistake, Miss Heritage, which I trust will not happen again. And, as it is the hour when you should be in attendance on Princess Ruby, I will ask you to go to her at once."

"She wasn't to blame, Mater," said Clarence, after Daphne had left the Hall. "It was all my fault. I sent her that message."

"It's very chivalrous of you, Clarence, to take the blame on yourself," replied his Mother; "but don't imagine you can deceive me. I know very well you are much too clever and wideawake to do anything so compromising. That girl is doing her best to entrap you into some rash promise. I've suspected it for some time."

"No, I don't think so, really, Mater. Just before you came in she was asking me to promise not to speak to her again, except in public."

"And didn't you see that was just her artful way of leading you on? But of course you did! As if you could fail to see through such an obvious trick as that."

Now Clarence came to think of it, it was pretty obvious. He shuddered to remember how very nearly he had been taken in by it. But the shrewdest man is liable to lose his head for the moment. Fortunately he had recovered his in time.

"Well, Mater," he said, "I wasn't born yesterday, you know. I flatter myself I'm up to most moves on the board. And you may depend upon it if she's had any designs on me – mind you, I don't say she has– but if she has, she sees now that they'll never come to anything. She's given me up as a hopeless proposition."

This statement was inspired less by any personal conviction than by the dread that without such reassurance his anxious Mother might dismiss Daphne on the spot.

Queen Selina did not dismiss Daphne, whose powers of keeping Ruby amused and the ladies-in-waiting in good humour were too valuable to be dispensed with unless it was absolutely necessary. But she was allowed to see in many ways that she had fallen from favour. One of these was she was no longer invited to take part in the daily drives, a deprivation which would alone have consoled her for much worse penalties.

And she was freed from any further importunities from the Crown Prince, who kept his side of the compact by maintaining a cold and lofty dignity. Clarence intended this to convey that his eyes were at last open to her designs, and that it would be useless for her to seek to beguile him any longer. But as Daphne was quite guiltless of any designs at all, she was merely grateful to him for leaving her in peace.

Queen Selina generally left it to the Marshal to direct her excursions, and he always rode beside the Royal coach. One afternoon he had conducted her and her eldest daughter by a road across a fertile plain dotted with pleasant villages and isolated farmhouses, towards the outlying spurs of a range of mountains.

On one of these spurs the Queen happened to notice a large castle, whose grim-looking keep and towers were surrounded by a high and far-extending wall, while at its rear rose a frowning black crag.

"Tell me, Marshal," she said, "whose place is that, and who lives there?"

"That is Castle Drachenstolz, your Majesty," he said. "It has belonged for many centuries to a Count who chose, at some time during the previous reign, to change the original family name to that of von Rubenfresser. It's present occupant is the last of the race, the young Count Ruprecht."

"Really!" said the Queen, "considering the Count is so near a neighbour of ours, he might have had the civility to call, or at least leave cards, on us before now!"

"He would no doubt be happy to present himself at Court, Madam, if he were not under strict orders never to go outside his Castle walls."

"But why not?"

"His parents were accused, whether justly or not I cannot say, of certain malpractices, and the late King, your Majesty's gracious grandfather, ordered them both to be put to death. Burnt alive, if I remember rightly. This youth, being a mere infant at that period, was allowed to live, but in semi-confinement within his ancestral walls, with a custodian (who is now removed), and a few old family retainers, who are the only persons he has ever been permitted to see."

"And is there anything against the young Count himself?"

"Nothing whatever," replied the Marshal. "He has been brought up in the simplest manner and on the strictest principles, and by all accounts, is a most amiable and excellent young man."

"It seems rather hard that he should have been a prisoner all these years," said Princess Edna, "for no fault of his own."

"It does seem hard, your Royal Highness, and, in fact, while I was Regent I was on the point of ordering him to be allowed at large, when – when I was relieved of all responsibility. However, his lot is not a very severe one. The estate is large, and he can drive or walk anywhere within its boundaries. I understand that he spends much of his time in his kitchen garden, where he has brought the art of forcing certain vegetables to truly wonderful perfection."

The young Count did not sound from this description particularly exciting, even to Edna, but still she could not get him and his undeserved captivity out of her thoughts, and, as soon as she got back to the Palace, she attacked the King on the subject.

"It's all very well, father," she concluded indignantly, "but in these days you simply can't keep that young man shut up for life just because my great-grandfather chose to have his parents burnt alive – most likely for no reason at all."

"I don't want to keep him shut up, my dear. Never heard of him before. I am quite willing to set him free if I am satisfied that it's the right thing to do."

"Of course it's the right thing to do, Sidney," said his wife; "and, what's more, it will be very popular. Just one of these gracious little acts of clemency that go home to people's hearts. The Marshal quite agreed with me about that."

"Oh, very well," said the King, "I'll send a herald over to tell him he needn't consider himself a prisoner for the future."

"We owe him more than that, Sidney," said the Queen; "we ought at least to ask him over to lunch."

"Yes, we might do that," agreed Edna; "not that he's likely to accept."

"He cannot refuse a Royal command, my love," said her mother.

The Count did not refuse. On the appointed day Clarence and his sisters saw from one of the windows a dilapidated sable coach drawn by eight very ancient coal-black horses turn into the Courtyard.

"Only wants a few undertaker's men in weepers to be a really classy funeral!" was the Crown Prince's tribute to this equipage. "'Come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him,' as Hamlet or some other Shakespearian Johnny says, what?"

When the young Count von Rubenfresser was ushered into the Royal presence his entrance made a slight sensation. Nobody had been prepared for the fact that he was much nearer seven than six feet in height. Otherwise there was nothing alarming about him; he wore his flaxen hair rather long and arranged over the centre of his head in a sort of roll; his china-blue eyes (which Ruby said afterwards was "plain all round, like a fish's eyes") were singularly candid; he had a clear, fresh complexion, full red lips, and magnificent teeth. He wore a rich suit of sable as deep as his coach. "Magog in mourning," Clarence christened him in an undertone.

It was curious that he should have inspired Daphne at first sight with a vague repulsion, and that Ruby should have felt a similar antipathy, though, with her, it took the form of a violent fit of the giggles – but so it was. Daphne was thankful that she was able to remain at a distance from him, as she was not lunching at the Royal Table.

He was shy at first, as most persons would be if the first meal they had ever eaten away from their own home had to be consumed in the presence of Royalty, but he had been evidently trained to observe the ordinary table etiquette, and as he became more at ease he talked fluently enough, though at times with a naïveté that was almost childlike, and increased Clarence's resolve to pull his leg whenever he saw an opportunity.

"Your Majesties must pardon my asking the question," he said, in his thin, piping voice, as he helped himself to a cutlet, "but is this what is called meat?"

"So we're given to understand by the butcher, Count," replied Clarence. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because," he replied, "I've often heard of meat, but this is the first time I've ever seen it. Do you know," he went on presently, "I like meat. I shall have some more."

"I should, if I were you," advised Clarence; "it may make you grow!" which reduced Ruby to silent convulsions.

"Do you really think it will?" inquired the Count, either not noticing, or tactfully disregarding, Princess Ruby's lapse from good manners. "It might. My poor dear Father and Mother were both great meat-eaters, I believe, before they took to vegetarianism, which was quite late in life. I cannot remember seeing them, but I've always understood that they were much taller than I am."

"You don't say so," returned Clarence. "Must have been most interesting people to meet."

"They were, your Royal Highness. Though, unfortunately, I cannot speak of my own knowledge. As your Majesties may be aware, during the short time they were spared to me I was too young to appreciate their society."

"Well, well, Count," said Queen Selina, perceiving that this was delicate ground, "it's all very sad, but you must try not to think about it now. The Marshal tells me you give a great deal of your time to growing vegetables. How do tomatoes do with you?"

"I don't pay any attention to tomatoes, your Majesty," he replied, with a blush that few tomatoes could have outdone. "My efforts have been chiefly directed to pumpkins. I have reared some particularly fine ones. I am very fond of pumpkins."

"Jolly little things, ain't they?" put in Clarence. "So playful!"

"Are they?" said the Count with perfect simplicity. "I did not know that. But then I have never attempted to play with my pumpkins."

"Haven't you?" said Clarence. "Well, you get 'em to play kiss-in-the-ring with you, and you'll find out how frisky they can be!"

"I do not know anything about kissing," he confessed, "except that it is very wrong."

"Not pumpkins," said the Crown Prince. "There's no harm in that! Ask the bishop!"

"I say, old girl," he remarked to Princess Edna, after their visitor had taken his departure, "what on earth induced the Mater to tell that lanky overgrown lout we should be pleased to see him any time he cared to drop in? We shall have the beggar running in and out here like a bally rabbit, you see if we don't!"

"Not if you intend to go on insulting him, Clarence, as you did to-day at lunch," replied Edna coldly.

"Why, I was only ragging him. Who could help ragging such a champion mug as that?"

"There is more – far more – in him than you are capable of seeing, Clarence. And, even from a physical point of view, he is immeasurably your superior."

"I admit I shouldn't have a look in with him if we were both candidates for a Freak Show," he conceded. "On the other hand, no one can say I'm gone at the knees."

"It's a pity, Clarence, that you're so narrow as you are!" she said.

"D'you mean round the chest or calves?" he asked. "Because I'm quite up to the average measurements."

"I meant, so insular in your prejudices. You were almost rude to the poor Count. When he was our guest, too!"

"I expect," he said, "that if he's ever our guest again, I shall be a bit more insular. I can't stick the beggar, somehow!"