The Light Heart (11 page)

Dinah’s assignment for that evening was less irksome than most. There was a new military attaché at the German
Embassy
who was known to be very much in the Ambassador’s confidence—a Prince whose name carried the significant
zu
which meant that the family still occupied the original estates from which the title came, instead of the
von
which might be landless. His father in Germany was a Serene Highness, very old and in poor health, and Prince Conrad was likely at any time to be called home to assume his hereditary dignities and responsibilities. Meanwhile he enjoyed himself in London, seemed to be possessed of unlimited spending money, had an almost perfect command of English and an almost fatal way with women. He had had a wife once somewhere in the past, a twice-hyphenated German princess, but she had died childless. It was well on
the cards that Prince Conrad would marry again.

Bracken’s Dinah looked very fragile and harmless, waltzing with him—dove to his eagle. He was tall and magnificently built, and perhaps because his mother had been a Polish countess famous for her beauty, he had not the usual Prussian look, except for the monocle, rimless and without a cord, fixed permanently in his right eye, his erect military bearing, and his rather parade-ground style on the dance-floor. He was
clean-shaven
, with a high forehead from which the dark straight hair
was receding a little; his eyes were piercing and deeply set, with the Polish melancholy in their thin, curving lids; his nose was big and bold, and his mouth was strong, full, and well-modelled above a brutal chin. He wore the spectacular uniform of a senior Hussar regiment in the German Army—black, braided in silver, with the slung pelisse or jacket, very tight trousers, and polished Hessian boots. He looked, Phoebe thought
enviously
for he did not ask her to dance, like something out of
The
Prisoner
of
Zend
a.

“Dinah’s got him hooked, I can tell,” said Bracken, with a chortle, as they circled the floor together towards the middle of the evening in the Prince’s wake. “He’s chatting away like mad, and she’s got on
her aren’t-you-clever-I-never-
know-what
-it’s-all-about expression. And then she’ll recite to me everything he says, before we go to bed to-night.”

But what the Prince was saying to Dinah at that precise moment was, “Tell me, please, who is the young lady in blue who is dancing with Captain Laverham?”

It was Rosalind, of course, looking like an angel in shaded layers of
blue chiffon, with deep vertical tucks at her
miraculous
waist and a bodice cut well down off her slender shoulders. Her dark cloudy hair was massed around her little head, her big, engaging mouth was smiling, and she danced without seeming to touch the floor.

“Will you present me?” inquired His Highness, and Dinah thought, Oh, Lord, Mam
ma
will approve of this!

Unwillingly when the dance ended she crossed the floor with him to where Rosalind and Charles had paused, and made the introduction. Prince Conrad bowed from the waist and kissed Rosalind’s hand, and asked for a dance. She gave him an extra which came later in the evening, Dinah’s next partner came up, the Prince bowed again and strode away towards the buffet.

“Fee, fi, fo,
f
um!
” said Rosalind irrepressibly, almost before he was out of earshot. “Shall I be safe, do you think?”

“Unless he wants a war here and now, you will be,” said
Charles, rather through his teeth, and Rosalind cried, “Charles, I forbid you to say ‘war’ again! It seems as though I hear nothing else these days! The war is over, hadn’t you heard, and there is not going to be another one!”

“You forbid that too, I suppose,” said Charles, smiling down at her with visible affection.

“The King will forbid it!” said Rosalind confidently. “If he doesn’t know how to handle Uncle Willy I don’t know who does!”

“Who, indeed?” murmured Charles, and Dinah said, looking as though butter wouldn’t melt—

“Prince Conrad has just been telling me how it is naturally to the interest of Germany to behave towards England with the respect which is demanded by the dictates of international courtesy.” Her delicate echo of the almost imperceptible accent brought laughter from her hearers.

“In other words, please don’t take any notice of anything Willy says when he makes a speech, because the rest of Germany isn’t responsible for him,” said Charles ironically. “They do hate it, though, that we won the war in South Africa with a volunteer Army and Navy!”

“Now, stop it, Charles, do stop!” Rosalind commanded. “You have got a perfect bee in your bonnet about Germany, and Bracken always makes you worse! I won’t listen to you!” She danced away from him with a new partner, and made a little face at him over her shoulder as other couples swirled in between them.

Rosalind was an accomplished pianist, and with more study and practice might have equalled almost any professional on the concert stage, and her mamma always saw to it that she was given an opportunity to play at the houses of their friends. Virginia called it putting Rosalind on the block, but no one could resist hearing her if they got the chance. Rosalind herself loved to play, and always performed without
selfconsciousness
and with a childlike, touching docility when it was required of her.

She and Prince Conrad were drinking hock cup together near the buffet when she was summoned to the piano, and he walked along beside her, saying, “You do this often—play for all these people?”

“Oh, yes—they seem to like it and it doesn’t hurt me,” she assured him casually.

“But—excuse me—you are very good-natured. In Germany if we wished for a pianist at a gathering of this kind we should have a paid entertainer.”

“Well, these people are all our friends, you know,” she reminded him. “Three or four in Mamma’s drawing-room at tea time, or fifty couples here to-night, what does it matter so long as they like my music?”

“You will play, no doubt, some German tunes?” he
suggested
, and Rosalind, who had intended Chopin but never played from notes, cast round hastily in her memory.

“Very well—Beethoven,” she agreed, and added with her gay good will towards everyone, “To please you!”

Prince Conrad gave her a gallant smile, and escorted her all the way to the piano, where Lady Shadwell stood awaiting them.

“His Highness thinks I should be paid for this,” said Rosalind to her hostess. “You may expect a thumping bill in tomorrow’s post!”

“Miss Norton-Leigh is pleased to make fun of me,” said His Highness gravely. “I am not yet entirely acquainted with your English procedure.”

“She’s always so generous,” Lady Shadwell remarked
imperturbably
. “And Queen’s Hall would be lucky to get her.”

“I am sure,” said His Highness, and composed himself near the piano to listen.

It was Virginia’s habit when she was in Town on a Sunday during the Season to give little luncheon parties where she served champagne and the events of the past week were discussed without reservation.

On the Sunday after Lady Shadwell’s ball the Chetwynds
were among those invited to Hill Street, and almost before the greetings were spoken Penelope said, “Do tell us what
happened
Friday night, it’s all over Town that Rosalind
Norton-Leigh
took the German Embassy single-handed!”

“Oh, you mean Prince Conrad,” said Dinah thoughtfully, and added, “It wasn’t quite as bad as that.”

“And Prince with a
zu!
”
cried Penelope. “Mam
ma
must
be pleased!”

Dinah said, “Don’t, darling, you make my blood run cold,” and, “He doesn’t seem to have that effect on most people!” Penelope assured her shrewdly. “I hear he’s most frightfully distinguished-looking, hasn’t got a straight back to his head and doesn’t wear his hair
en
brosse,
has pots of money and hardly any accent, and will be a Serene Highness when his father dies, which will be any day now—and he’s supposed to be a great chum of Bracken’s.”

“That last is a slight exaggeration,” said Bracken judiciously. “I admit I have a sneaking liking for the fellow—he hasn’t got most of the more obnoxious shortcomings of his race. To see anyone I care a hoot for marry him—that would be a different thing altogether.”

“But surely even Mam
ma
wouldn’t encourage anything like that!” said Archie in an appalled sort of way.

“Wouldn’t she
just!
”
said Penelope.

“Well, then, Rosalind wouldn’t have anything to do with it,” said Archie. “She’s got too much sense.”

“Aren’t you all rushing things a bit?” Tommy put in sanely. “The fellow seems simply to have been taken with a pretty girl—she
is
a dashed pretty girl. But she hasn’t got sixpence of her own, and she’s no match for one of those stiff-necked Embassy nabobs.”

“I think it’s time we changed the subject,” Virginia began, and just then the door opened to admit another guest.

“Prince Conrad zu Polkwitz-Heidersdorf,” said the butler, and Virginia went forward in the graceful pose of a woman who knows she is going to have her hand kissed.

London
Autumn,
1902

A
T
BRACKEN’S request, Virginia had placed His
Highness
between herself and Dinah at luncheon—what
is
Bracken after, she wondered with one corner of her busy hostess’s brain—gun calibres—North Sea fortifications—invasion
manœuvres
—it would all be Greek to Dinah, and anyway the man would never
tell
her—what does Bracken
expect?

Not even Dinah knew. She merely memorized Prince
Conrad
’s conversation when she had led it by some casual reference to the outlook in South Africa now that peace had come, or the presence of Kruger as a welcome guest in Europe, or the anti-German movement in Poland, or the activities of the
Pan-Germans
in Austria, or the troublous state of the chronic Balkans, or the recent long-distance interchange of acrimonious comment between the German Chancellor in Berlin and the British Foreign Secretary at Birmingham—the last having brought forth the pacific remarks she had quoted at Lady Shadwell’s ball. The new German Ambassador’s policy seemed all friendliness, and a hint appeared to have been given from high places that the German Press was to moderate its rancour against England. Dinah was aware that in Bracken’s viewpoint the reckless attacks on England in German newspapers, quite
unrestrained by the laws of libel or Prince Conrad’s rules of international courtesy, were part of a deliberate plan to create a permanent anti-British feeling in Germany, so that the German nation might be ready to enter into some co-ordinated plan of future conflict with England—just as soon as the
German
fleet was big enough. Germans did not love England as a rival to their own ambitions of colonial expansion. And it was a fact, said Bracken, that the German colonies were so far not remarkably worth fighting to extend or even to keep—which was due in part to the secondary fact that Germans who colonized preferred to go anywhere but to lands where they would find the already too familiar German official.

Prince Conrad looked almost as impressive in his correct morning clothes as in full dress uniform at the ball, and his manners were good, if his sense of humour was practically
nonexistent
. The light, running banter of Virginia’s luncheon table, often carrying what might sound to an outsider like downright deliberate rudeness, seemed more than once to perplex him under his highly collected, affable exterior. Archie and Bracken perpetually scored off each other with all the affection in the world, egged on by their laughing wives, who sometimes changed sides just to make it harder. Tommy and Penelope Chetwynd always wrangled happily about
everything
under the sun, made fun of each other, called each other liar and wench and traitor and thief—it was part of their youthful game of being in love with each other. And Lady Shadwell, who had come with Charles Laverham, sat on them all with matchless irony whenever she felt like it. And yet nobody took offence.

Prince Conrad’s melancholy dark eyes followed the
uninhibited
laughter from face to face around the long table. Already there were grounds for half a dozen student duels in any self-respecting society which had not run hopelessly to seed. He was surprised—and interested—to observe also that the Americans had no self-respect either. One had assumed
since the affair in Cuba, and events in the Philippines, that they might be made of sterner stuff. It was plain, however, that their womenfolk had no reverence for them. He turned to the American journalist’s pretty English wife, placed on his right hand by the thoughtfulness of his hostess. He had hoped, of course, for little Miss Norton-Leigh, for he had taken the trouble to ascertain that these people were among her closest friends. Her absence was not mentioned or explained. He accepted it philosophically, and met Dinah Murray’s innocent upturned gaze with an encouraging smile.

Towards the end of the meal, Bracken, whose subconscious eye was always on Dinah when she was pumping them for him, became aware by a kind of wireless telegraphy that she had struck some kind of bonanza. He saw her ask a quick, concerned question, saw Prince Conrad’s grave confirmatory nod, saw Dinah’s swift glance round the table as though she looked to see if anyone had overheard. And then, reading her lips, he saw her say, “May I tell them?” The Prince gave his consent with a small, almost disinterested shrug. Then Dinah’s eyes met her husband’s across the low centrepiece of flowers.

“The King is ill,” she said, and somehow the quiet words carried to the corners of the room so that all other talk ceased.

There was a second’s polite incredulity, while everyone realized the source of her information.

“He was at Aldershot last night,” Bracken said then.

“He is still there,” said Prince Conrad, almost indifferently. “But he was unable to attend Church Parade this morning.”

“B-but what ails him?” blurted Virginia.

“The usual thing with him—a chill.” And after the slightest pause for his effect, Prince Conrad added gently, “The Queen will take the march-past tomorrow—alone.”

“You mean it’s
serious?”
gasped Penelope.

“These things are always likely to be serious with him. His chest is weak, as everyone knows.”

Their minds all darted the same way—towards the succession.
The Prince of Wales, long accustomed to deputize and represent, was more than adequate to fill his father’s place when the time came.

“It would be a great pity,” Prince Conrad continued with every appearance of resignation to the inevitable, “if the Coronation arrangements should have to be postponed—or cancelled.”

If the phrase had been in his vocabulary he could have
congratulated
himself then that he had got right in amongst them that time. They were like a dozen heedless, hoydenish children come suddenly upon disaster to one of their number.

“He always rallies,” Archie reassured them at once. “There will be a powerful incentive to quick recovery, don’t forget. He must have been looking forward to this month’s ceremonies a very long time.”

“Yes, he is turning sixty-one,” Prince Conrad reminded them sympathetically.

They rose from the table soon afterwards in a much subdued mood, and began to break up in desultory talk in the
drawing-room
. Just as Prince Conrad was taking his leave Bracken was called away to the telephone. He returned, very poker-faced, to find His Highness gone. A little ring of strained, silent people awaited him.

“A rumour of the King’s illness has just been confirmed,” Bracken told them quietly. “All his public engagements are being cancelled several days ahead.”

There was a long, taut silence. Then—

“But how did the blighter
know?
”
demanded Archie, and his eyes sought Bracken’s.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it,” said Bracken. “How they know everything. Almost before it happens.”

S
O
P
HOEBE
didn’t see the King at Ascot, though she wore her white spotted muslin trimmed with lace and pink chiffon roses
appliqué,
and her toque was made of pink roses and osprey. Oliver came back from Yorkshire in time to accompany them on the opening day, and turned out like the rest of the men in their party in morning clothes and a grey topper, which consoled Phoebe in some degree. They all went down in a coach, which was great fun, but left her no opportunity for so much as a word alone with him.

The Queen made the semi-State entrance down the course in a carriage which also contained the Prince and Princess of Wales and the venerable Duke of Cambridge. Even on Gold Cup Day, the nineteenth of June, the King was prevented by the advice of his physicians from enjoying his favourite sport. People counted off the days on their fingers till the
twenty-sixth
, and remained hopeful. He had still a week to go.

On the twenty-third their Majesties returned to Buckingham Palace, driving in an open landau from Paddington Station, escorted by a party of the Blues
en
cuirassier.
The King looked pinched and ill, but he raised his hat and smiled at his welcome from the crowd which paused to see him pass, and everybody drew a long breath and said There,
that’s
all right.

The following morning, while a little group of
holiday-minded
people were clustered round the gates of the Palace to see the foreign envoys drive in for their official reception, a bulletin was posted on the railings, which was read with rapidly spreading consternation:
The
King
is
suffering
from
perityphlitis.
His
condition
on
Saturday
was
so
satisfactory
that
it
was
hoped
that
with
care
His
Majesty
would
be
able
to
go
through
the
Coronation
Ceremony.
On
Monday
evening
a
recrudescence
became
manifest,
rendering
a
surgical
operation
necessary.
The names of four famous physicians were signed.

Bracken received the news promptly from Fleet Street where the words:
The
King
seriously
ill
—
Coronation
postponed
had been
hastily printed in pen and ink on sheets of paper and posted up in the windows of newspaper offices, in front of which people stood staring, rooted to the pavement. He went straight down to the Mall, accompanied by Phoebe and Dinah who pinned on the first hats they came to, caught up boas, parasols, and gloves, and begged to go with him. The crowd in front of the Palace had grown enormously, and the carriages of the special ambassadors and princely representatives in their gorgeous uniforms were still arriving to attend a ceremony which could not take place. The official announcement that the Coronation had been indefinitely postponed had now gone up as well.

Bracken, with a white-faced, speechless girl on each arm, circulated among the orderly, almost silent throng which waited patiently, faithfully, for any more crumbs of
information
which might be forthcoming. He was looking and listening, but never taking notes, for his early reporter’s training under Cabot Murray had made him practically independent of the grubby bit of paper and pencil stub of the journalistic
profession
. Never write it down, his father used to hammer home. As soon as they see a pencil they will dry up on you. Look them in the eye and remember.

So Bracken was looking them in the eye, and saw tears more than once. People he knew turned up in the crowd, conversed briefly, shook their heads ruefully, agreed that it certainly didn’t look too good, and drifted away, late to their
engagements
. People he didn’t know allowed themselves to be drawn into conversation. The King was never spoken of by name or title.
He
, they said, often without the
h
, and it was spelled with a capital letter.

At two p.m. a second bulletin told them that the operation had been successful, but that it must be some time before the King could be pronounced out of danger, and a few people turned away with thoughts of lunch. Many of them stayed, and many more came, and were still there at six and even at eleven-thirty p.m., when new bulletins reported progress, less pain, and the taking of a little nourishment.

Some of the scaffolding and decorations came down at once—in St. James’s Street the overhead floral festoons were
dismantled
that same afternoon, while in other streets the erection of stands went on for hours after the news was known. Months of preparation involving the dislocation of every aspect of business in London had suddenly come to nothing. Bracken and the two girls stayed in the streets all day, lunching briefly at Gunter’s on food which might have been sawdust, and going out again to watch and listen and wonder. They went to Westminster and learned that Crown officials had been just putting the finishing touches to the arrangements in the Abbey when the message from the Palace came. A full choral rehearsal of the Coronation music was just beginning, and everything came to a stop among the swathed ceremonial chairs and canvas-covered carpets while the announcement was read. The Coronation Litany was then intoned by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the blessing was pronounced by the Dean of
Westminster
, the choir and orchestra were dismissed, and the Abbey was solemnly locked up in charge of the Earl Marshal until further notice.

For the next three days and nights the anxious crowd lingered around the Palace gates until the small hours, reading and discussing the latest bulletin, and newspaper men were grimly reminded of the death watch outside the high grey house at Osborne only eighteen months ago, while the old Queen was dying—and of
the winter dawn which showed the flag-staff bearing the Royal Standard at half-mast. Then it was
announced
that the King was making satisfactory progress and the bulletins were cut down to one a day.

The Queen and the Royal Family deputized and filled in and carried on, and the visiting Continental Royalties and
representatives
called at the Palace, paid respects, left messages, and by the twenty-fifth most of them had departed from London. Some of the decorations were still to be seen, wilting in the weather which was mostly vile. Virginia objected volubly to a rather pompous statement by Cardinal Vaughan to the effect
that “the finger of God has appeared in the midst of national rejoicing,” and declared that it was most unfair always to blame God for everything that went wrong, it made Him such a spoil-sport, and besides it was so obviously the finger of Somebody Else.

On
the day when the King ought to have been driving triumphantly through his capital, the military camps in
Kensington
Gardens for the accommodation of the troops which were to have kept the streets along the route were breaking up, and the Army Service Corps wagons were trundling the paraphernalia away to the railway stations. In place of the crowning at Westminster, a service of intercession for the King’s recovery took place at St. Paul’s—and similar services were held by the Catholics at St. Ethclreda’s, the Jews at Bevis Marks Synagogue, and the gorgeous East Indians with their carpets spread in the field at Fulham.