THE KING WHO
WENT ON STRIKE
BY
PEARSON CHOATE
Author of "Men Limited: An Impertinence"
"And those things do best please me
That befal preposterously."
Puck
"A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Act. III. Scene II.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1924
Copyright, 1924
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
Is it not strange so few Kings abdicate; and none yet heard of has been known to commit suicide? Fritz the First, of Prussia, alone tried it, and they cut the rope."
"The French Revolution, A History."
Part I. Book VII. Chapter XI
Thomas Carlyle
THE KING WHO WENT ON STRIKE
CHAPTER I
he King leant against the stone balustrade, which runs round the roof of Buckingham Palace, and looked about him. All around him, above him, and below him, the night was ablaze with a myriad lights. Loyal Londoners, in accordance with their custom, were closing their Coronation celebrations with illuminations, with fireworks, and with good-humoured horse-play in the crowded streets. In spite of gloomy predictions to the contrary, the proverbial Coronation weather of the last day or two had not failed. A radiant June day had given place to a wonderful June night. Here, on the palace roof, high up above the tumult and the shouting the night air was cool and fragrant. The King rested his elbows on the broad top of the carved stone balustrade. He was very weary. But he was glad to be out in the open air once again. And he was gladder still, at last, to be alone—
"A tall, fair, goodlooking young man, still in the early twenties, with an open, almost boyish face": "A young man of athletic build, clean-shaven, and very like his dead brother, the Prince, but lacking, perhaps, something of the Prince's personal distinction, and charm": "Thick, fair, curly hair, blue eyes, and a happy, smiling mouth": "A typical young English naval officer, with an eager, boyish face, unclouded, as yet, by any shadow of his high destiny"—it was in phrases such as these that the descriptive writers in the newspapers had described, more or less adequately, the new King's outward appearance. What he was inwardly, what the inner man thought, and felt, and suffered, was not within their province, or their knowledge. At the moment, his outward appearance was completed by an easy fitting, black, smoking jacket, plain evening dress trousers, and a pair of shabby dancing pumps, into which he had changed immediately after the state banquet, which had been the final ordeal of his long and exhausting official day. It was characteristic of the inner man, about whom so little was known, that he should have been thus impatient to throw off the gorgeous uniform, and the many unearned decorations, which the banquet had necessitated. It was characteristic of him, too, that he should be bareheaded, now, and drawing absently at a pipe, which he had forgotten to fill—
All the crowded events of the long, tense, and exhausting Coronation Day which was, at last, happily at an end had seemed strangely unreal to the King. The slow and stately progress to the Abbey in the morning, the huge gilt state coach, the team of cream horses, the gold-coated powdered footmen, the bodyguard of plumed Household Cavalry, the decorated streets, the crowds, the wild cheering, the thousand faces, the thousand eyes, his own mechanical bowing, his own mechanical smile; the protracted, exhausting ceremony in the Abbey, the ermine-caped peers and peeresses, the grotesque gorgeously clad officers of state, the tall figure of the venerable Archbishop with his hands raised in benediction, his own heavy royal robes, the Crown, the bursts of music and of song, the pealing bells, the brilliant uniforms of the soldiery; the streets once again, the crowds and the wild cheering, his own mechanical bowing, his own mechanical smile, the heat, the glitter and the glare, the tension, the thousand flushed curious faces, the thousand eyes, the slow movement of the coach, the secret, hidden, inward fear; the all too short rest in the afternoon, with its few minutes of troubled, nightmare sleep; the interminable state banquet in the evening, the gold plate, the uniforms, the colours, and the lights, the Family, strangely subservient, the congratulations, the speeches, the homage; the dense crowd round the palace after the banquet, his own repeated appearance at the huge, open window above the main entrance, the night air, the thousand eyes yet once again, the cheering, and the lights—all these things had been unreal, unbelievable, the bewildering phantasmagoria of a fevered dream—
Now, as he leant against the roof balustrade, the same sense of unreality which had haunted him all day was still with him.
But he compelled himself to look at the blazing illuminations, none the less.
A man could not afford to live, indefinitely, in a fevered dream.
The trees in the densely thronged Mall were hung with innumerable, coloured electric lights. A blaze of yellow, smokeless flambeaux, on the left, marked the line of Carlton House Terrace. "God Save the King," and "God Save King Alfred the Second"—house after house, in the terrace, repeated the loyal prayers in glittering letters of fire. The same devices were reproduced, in a picturesque setting of crowns and flags, on the lavishly illuminated Admiralty Arch. Beyond was the glare of Trafalgar Square, where the Nelson Column, pricked out in red, white, and blue lamps, soared aloft, a shaft of vivid colours against the dark blue of the night sky. Further away, on the right, the familiar, luminous clock face of Big Ben, which showed that it was already nearing midnight, shone out, brightly, above the golden brilliance of Whitehall. Westminster Abbey towers were touched with fire. Queen Anne's Mansion was a broad, solid wedge of blazing, various colour. Up and down the square tower of the Westminster Cathedral ran a hand of flame, writing a loyal motto, in crabbed, monkish Latin, difficult to translate. On the left, beyond the Green Park, shone the lights of Piccadilly, where the fronts of the clubs vied in patriotic radiance. From the Green Park itself, and from Hyde Park, in the distance, soared rockets, which burst into clusters of red, white, and blue stars, and showers of multi-coloured rain. The cheers of the crowds, in the parks, and in the streets, rose with the rockets, in a regular, muffled roar. Overhead, above the lights, above the rockets, a score or more of illuminated aeroplanes hummed, diving, nose-spinning, side-slipping, and looping the loop, with the agility, the grace, and the breathless swiftness of the aerial acrobats who know not fear.
"God Save the King," and "God Save King Alfred the Second."
The mere repetition of the blazing words impressed them upon the King's notice.
Their irony was his second thought.
Did the people know, the cheering people, far down below there, in the crowded parks, and illuminated streets, that, stereotyped formulae as they were, there was real need, now, for those prayers?
And, if they did know, would they care?
Save him from his enemies?
Perhaps. Almost certainly.
But from himself—an unwilling King?
A light, night breeze from the west, blew softly across the palace roof, rustling the silken folds of the Royal Standard, as it hung limply against the fifty-foot flagstaff, immediately above the King's head. With the quick, subconscious instinct of the trained sailor, he looked up to see if the flag was in order. To be "a sailor, not a Prince" had been, for years, his publicly avowed ambition, an ambition which had only recently been thwarted. His interest in this, no doubt, trivial matter of a flag was typical of the lasting impression which his long and happy years of naval service had left upon his character. In most things, small and great, the Navy had taught him, the Navy had formed him.
The flag was correct. The very knots in the rope left no loophole for criticism.
The small, gilt Royal Crown, which normally surmounted the flagstaff had been removed. In its place a large crown of coloured, electric lamps had been erected, as a finishing touch to the palace illuminations. Above the lights of this crown, the pointed shaft of the lightning conductor, which ran up the flagstaff, protruded, clearly visible against the night sky.
The lightning conductor had been left in position.
A slow smile lit up the King's face, and something of his weariness fell from him, as he saw the pointed shaft of the lightning conductor.
Here, at last, was reality, presented, paradoxically enough, in the form of an allegory, a symbol.
The words of the old Duke of Northborough came back to the King.
At the close of one of the earliest of the many, long, informal talks, in the course of which the old Duke had set himself to explain to the young and inexperienced Prince, who had been called, so unexpectedly, to the throne, a few of the more urgent problems of Government, the King had brought the veteran Prime Minister up on to the palace roof, to see the new roof garden, which was the only innovation he had made, so far, in the palace arrangements, an innovation due to his pleasant recollection of nights of shore leave spent in the roof gardens of New York, during his service with the Atlantic Fleet. The old Duke had admired the flowers, and approved the tubbed trees; then he had looked up at the flagstaff, where the Royal Standard had been flying in a noble breeze; the juxtaposition of the pointed shaft of the lightning conductor, and the Royal Crown, at the top of the flagstaff, had caught his eye; and he had called the King's attention to it, at once, with an arresting gesture.
"It is an allegory, a symbol, sir," he had said, in his vivid, forceful way. "You wear the Crown. I am the lightning conductor. It will be my duty, and the honour of my life, when the storm breaks, to take the full shock of the lightning flash, so that the Crown may remain on your head, unshaken."
There had been no need for the King to ask of what impending storm the old Duke spoke. From the first, in all his talk, the increasing menace of the world-wide revolutionary conspiracy had been the veteran statesman's most constant theme.
"In your grandfather's time revolution in England was impossible, sir. In your father's time it was possible, but unthinkable. If your brother had lived, it might have remained unthinkable for years, perhaps for the whole of his reign." "Like your father, your brother had the secret of arousing personal loyalty. The Prince smiled, and men and women loved him. For years he had been preparing himself, and consolidating his hold on the people, making ready for the struggle which he saw he must come." "It is not for me to disguise from you, sir, that your brother's death has given a new impetus to the revolutionary movement in this country. A younger son, a Prince who never expected, who was never expected, to reign—against you, sir, the international revolutionary forces feel that they have their first real chance in England. The Internationalists, and the Communists, on the Continent, and the extremists amongst our own Labour leaders, are likely to effect a working agreement. It is necessary that we should remember, that it has been by such agreements, that Europe has been swept almost clear of Kings, from end to end." "We must be prepared. We are prepared. But it is of vital importance that you, sir, should understand the position. Make no mistake, sir. They would haul down your Royal Standard, from the flagstaff here, sir, and run up their pitiable rag of a Red Flag, in its place."
A new understanding of the difficulties that his father had faced, of the heavy burden that he had borne, for so many years, without complaint, had come to the King, in recent weeks. More poignant still was the new understanding of, and the new sympathy with, his dead brother, the Prince, that the last few weeks had brought him. His father had always been remote. Between him, and his brother, the Prince, there had been real friendship, and familiar, easy intercourse, in spite of the Prince's splendid future, in spite of his own frequent absences at sea. But he had not known. He had not understood. With a sailor's contemptuous impatience in such matters, he had always turned an almost deaf ear to the Prince's talk of politics and parties. The Prince's splendid future! And he stood now, in the Prince's place.
It was the Prince who had urged him to trust, and to listen to, the old Duke.
Once again, the King stood by the bed, in his brother's room, late in the afternoon of the day, when the disease, which had stricken the Prince so inexplicably, within a few weeks of their father's death, had done its worst, and it was known that he, too, must die, die, after all, uncrowned.
Deathly white the Prince lay there, propped up in bed, with his eyes closed.
Outside the sun was setting, and the London sparrows were twittering their vesper hymn.
The blue uniformed nurse bent down over the bed, and spoke in the Prince's ear.
The Prince opened his eyes, saw him, recognized him, and smiled.
"They tell me that I have got 'the route' Alfred," he whispered painfully. "I am not afraid to die. But I would live if I could. I know, no one knows as I know, what this will mean to you. They tell me I mustn't talk. I can't talk.
"The Duke is your man. Trust the Duke! He will not fail you. He will be your sheet anchor. With the Duke to steady the ship, you will ride out the storm."
An hour later, the Prince lay dead.
The King flung up his head.
The Duke had not failed him.
Many men had mourned the Prince's death, but no man had mourned it, as had the veteran Prime Minister. Between the Duke and the Prince, it was notorious, there had been a friendship, a constant association, personal and political, closer than that between many a father and son. Politically, the Prince's death must have been a staggering blow to the Duke. And yet the wonderful old man had never faltered. Early and late, he had laboured, with inexhaustible patience, at times with a surprising freedom, and yet always with a tact which made his freedom possible, to place his unrivalled knowledge, and his ripe wisdom, untouched by party spirit, at the service of a new, a young, and an inexperienced King.
The King was not ungrateful.
Still leaning wearily as he was against the roof balustrade, he turned now, as he thought of the old Duke, and looked across the shadowed darkness of St. James's Park, at the golden glare thrown up by the illuminations in Whitehall. There, in the silent, rather comfortless, and closed in house, in Downing Street, where he had lived, with hardly a break, for so many years, his father's minister, his brother's friend, the old Duke, even now, as likely as not, was hard at work, indomitable, tireless, resourceful, sparing neither himself, nor his subordinates, so that he, the King, "a sailor, not a Prince," might reign.
Yes. The lightning conductor was in position.
He, the man who wore the Crown, must not fail.
He must not fail the Duke.
It was odd, but the thought that he might fail to support the Duke, that he might not come up to the standard which the Duke might set for him, had more weight with him, than any thought of the people, of the nation. It was an instance of the Duke's personal magnetism, of course. His personal magnetism, his dominance, had been talked about for years. Did the Duke dominate him? No. But the Duke was a living, forceful personality, a man, a strong man. The people, the nation—well, they were only phantoms; they were the thousand, flushed, curious faces; the thousand eyes; the cheering crowds, far away down there, in the darkness, in the crowded parks and illuminated streets below.
It was, in a sense, a triumph, or at least, a notable success, for the Duke, that he, the King, had been crowned; that the day had passed without hostile demonstrations, without a single regrettable incident. What reward could he give, what return could he make, to the old statesman, for his ungrudging, tireless service? The Duke was his servant. In intimate, familiar talk, he never failed to call him "sir." The Duke must be his friend. His friend? A King could have no friends. A man apart, isolated, lonely, and remote, as his father had always been, a King was condemned to live alone.
A sudden, unbearable sense of loneliness, a terror of himself, a terror of this new, isolated, remote life, in which he was to be denied even the poor palliative of friendship, swept over the King. He had longed to be alone. He had come up, out here, on to the palace roof, to be alone. He had been eager to escape from the curious faces, from the thousand eyes. But now he longed for human companionship, for human sympathy, for human hands.
"Judith!"
The name rose to the King's lips, unsought, unbidden.
Judith, tall and slender, with her deep, dark, mysterious eyes, and her crown of jet black hair; Judith, with her cheeks flushed with pleasure, her eyes aglow, and her hand stretched out to him in joyous welcome—the King saw, and felt, her bodily presence, as in a vision, and his loneliness, and his terror, his weariness, and his fever, fell from him.
He must go to Judith.
It would be dangerous. It was always dangerous. It would be more dangerous, tonight, than ever before. But he would go. He must go. All day he had smiled, and bowed, and posed, for the multitude, playing his part in the gorgeous, public pageantry, which the multitude loved, an actor playing his part, an actor, the servant of the public. Surely, now, he might wrest a few brief hours, from the night, for himself?
It was a long time, a week or more, since he had seen Judith.
A few brief hours with Judith, a few brief hours of rest, of rural peace, and quiet talk; a romp with the Imps, who would be fast asleep now, tucked up in their cots, each clutching some cherished toy, some strange, woolly animal, or some dearly prized, deadly instrument of mimic war, but who would awake, with their prattle, like the birds, at dawn; a few minutes of Uncle Bond's diverting nonsense, about the next instalment of his forthcoming serial, and the dire distresses he had invented for his latest business girl heroine—a few brief hours, so spent, would bring him back to the palace, refreshed and strengthened, ready to shoulder, once again, the heavy burden of his isolation, the heavy burden which seemed now too heavy to be borne.
Yes. Late as it was, he would go to Judith. A night visit? It would be after one o'clock in the morning, when he arrived. Would Judith mind? Surely not! Judith and he were outside conventions.
With the quick, impulsive movement of the man who puts an end to hesitation, the King swung round from the stone balustrade, crossed the roof, and so passed, without another glance at the blazing Coronation illuminations, or at the night sky, down the broad, wrought-iron staircase which led from the roof into the palace.
CHAPTER II
n the anteroom to his own newly decorated suite of rooms, the King found two of his valets still on duty. One of them was Smith, the rubicund, grizzled old sailor, who had been his servant in the Navy. Dismissing the other man with a gesture, the King beckoned to Smith, and entered his dressing room.
"I do not want to be disturbed, in the morning, until I ring my bell, Smith," he announced. "I shall probably go out into the garden for a breath of fresh air, last thing. See that the door into the garden is left open. That is all now. Good-night."
Smith withdrew, at once, with the bob of his bullet-shaped head, which was the nearest approach he could make to the bow required by etiquette.
Left alone, the King glanced round the dressing room.
Of all the rooms in the palace which he used habitually, this room had become the most distasteful to the King. The massive, old-fashioned, mahogany furniture, the heavy curtains drawn right across the windows, the thick-piled carpet, and the softly shaded lights, in the room, oppressed him, not so much because of what they were in themselves, as because of what they were associated with, already, in his own mind. It was here that he dressed for Court functions. It was here that he dressed, three or four times a day, not for his own pleasure and convenience, but "suitably for the occasion."
A masculine doll. A male mannequin. A popinjay.
But he was going to dress to please himself, now, anyway.
Moving swiftly about the room, he proceeded to ransack drawers, and to fling open wardrobe doors, as he searched for a particular blue serge suit, of which the Royal staff of valets strongly disapproved.
At last he found the suit he sought.
A few minutes later, he had effected, unaided, a complete change of toilet.
The blue serge suit, instinct with the Navy style that was so much to his mind, together with the grey felt hat, and the light dust coat, which he selected, made an odd, and subtle, difference in his appearance. Before, even in the easy undress of his smoking jacket, he had been—the King. Now he was, in every detail, merely a young naval officer in mufti, rejoicing in shore leave.
Looking at himself in the huge, full-length mirror which stood immediately in front of the heavily curtained windows, the King approved this result.
The young naval officer in mufti, who looked back at the King out of the cunningly lighted mirror, tall, fair, and clean-shaven, had retained much of the unconscious pride of youth. The face was, as yet, only lightly marked by the lines, the thoughtful frown, and the dark shadows, which are the insignia of a heavier burden, of a greater responsibility, and of a more constant anxiety, and care, than any known at sea. The mouth and chin were pronounced and firm, moulded by the habit of command. The lips were a trifle full, and not untouched by passion. A student of that facial character, which all men, princes and peasants alike, must carry about with them, wherever they go, would have said that this young man had a will of his own, which might be expressed by rash and impetuous action. The brow was broad and high. This was a young man capable of thought, and of emotion. Something of the healthy tan, which long exposure to wind and weather leaves, still lingered on the cheeks, but a slight puffiness under the tired blue eyes, told of weariness, and of flagging physical condition.
"A breath of Judith's country air will certainly do me good. It will freshen me up," the King muttered.
Swinging round from the mirror, he crossed the room, to the door, and switched off all the lights. Then he opened the door. The long corridor outside, which led from his suite of rooms to the central landing, and so to the main staircase in the palace, was still brilliantly lit. Closing the dressing room door behind him, the King slipped quickly down the corridor. Avoiding the central landing, and the main staircase, which lay to his right, he turned to the left, up a short passage, which brought him to the head of a private staircase, which was strictly reserved for his personal use. This staircase led down to the ground floor of the palace, and ended in a small, palm and orange tree decorated lounge, half vestibule, and half conservatory, which had been a favourite retreat of his father. A glass door opened out of the lounge into the palace garden. This door, as he had directed, had been left open. Quickly descending the staircase, the King passed through the lounge, out by the open door, into the garden.
A sharp glance, first to the right, and then to the left, assured him that he was unobserved. By his order, the posts of the military guard, and the beats of the police, on duty round the palace, had been altered recently, so that he could use this door untrammelled by their compliments. An unmistakable impatience with even necessary observation of his personal movements had already become known as one of the new King's most pronounced characteristics, and the military, and the police authorities, alike, had done their best to meet his wishes in the matter, although his wishes had added greatly to their difficulties.
The palace garden was full of the fragrance of the wonderful summer night. The west breeze blew softly along the paths, and rustled amongst the innumerable leaves of the overhanging trees. A few minutes of brisk walking led the King through the darkness of the shrubberies, across the deserted lawns, and past the shining, light-reflecting water of the lake, to the boundary wall at the far end of the garden.
A small, old, and formerly little used wooden door in this wall was his objective.
Lately, by his order, this door had been repainted, and fitted with a new lock. One or two members of the palace household staff were housed in Lower Grosvenor Place, the thoroughfare on to which the wall abutted. It was, ostensibly, in order that these trustworthy and discreet members of the household staff might be able to pass in and out of the door, unchallenged, and so use the short cut through the garden to the palace, that the King had considerately directed that the lock on the door should be renewed, and that new keys should be distributed.
It was one of these new keys which he now produced from his own pocket, and, after a hurried glance behind him to assure himself that he was still unobserved, fitted into the lock.
The lock worked smoothly.
The door opened inwards.
The King stepped out on to the pavement of Lower Grosvenor Place.
The door, operated by a spring, closed silently behind him.
Lower Grosvenor Place, normally a quiet and deserted thoroughfare was, tonight, for once, thronged with people. A cheering, singing rollicking crowd, the backwash of the larger crowds, which had been attracted to the palace, and to the display of fireworks in the parks, had taken possession of the roadway. For a moment, the noise of the crowd, and the lights of the street, coming so abruptly after the silence, and the secluded darkness of the garden, disconcerted the King. Next moment, smiling a little at the thought of his own bizarre position, he darted into the crowd, and began to work his way across the road.
Inevitably jostled, and pushed, by the crowd, he made slow progress.
Suddenly, his progress was arrested altogether.
A little company of West End revellers, half a dozen youthful dandies from the clubs, and as many daringly dressed women, who were moving down the centre of the road, with their arms linked, singing at the top of their voices, deliberately intercepted him, and circling swiftly round him, held him prisoner.
"Where are your colours, old man?" one of the women demanded, in an affected, provocative drawl. She was young, and, in spite of her artificial complexion, and dyed eyebrows, she still retained a suggestion of prettiness, and even of freshness. "Here! This is what you want!"
As she spoke, she caught hold of the lapel of the King's coat, and pinned to it a large rosette of red, white, and blue ribbons.
"There! That looks better," she declared. "You don't want people to think you're one of these Communist cads, and in favour of a revolution, do you?"
The King laughed merrily.
That he, the King, should be suspected of being in favour of revolution struck him as irresistibly absurd. Then the second thought which is so often nearer to the truth than the first, supervened. After all, was the idea so absurd? Was he not—an unwilling King? Had he not been increasingly conscious, of late, of a thought lurking at the back of his mind, that he, of all men, had, perhaps, least to lose, and most to gain, in the welter and chaos of revolution? What would he lose? The intolerable burden of his isolation: the responsibility, and the exacting demands of the great position, into which he had been thrust so unexpectedly, and so much against his will. What would he gain? Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! The revolutionary slogan voiced his own personal needs. His laughter died away.
Happily, a precocious, fair-haired youth, who was leaning on the shoulder of the rosette-distributing girl, broke the awkward little silence which ensued.
"Chuck it, Doris! Can't you see he's one of us?" he remarked. "He's got Navy written all over him."
And he nodded to the King, as to a brother officer.
"Mind your own business, Bobbie, and I'll mind mine," Doris drawled, unperturbed. "He's a nice boy, but he'd forgotten his rosette. No man, who isn't wearing the right colours, is going to pass me by, tonight, unchallenged."
The King pulled himself together with an effort.
"But now that I am wearing the right colours, you will let me pass?" he suggested. "I am in rather a hurry."
Bobbie promptly dragged the laughing and protesting Doris to one side, and so left the road clear for the King.
"Pass, friend!" Bobbie announced. "All's well!"
The King dived hastily, once again, into the crowd. A sudden, and curiously belated, fear of recognition, here in the immediate vicinity of the palace, lent wings to his feet. No doubt the reckless audacity of his excursion almost precluded the possibility of recognition. And yet thousands of these people had seen him, at close quarters, only a few hours ago.
So they knew about the impending storm, and they were already taking sides. He looked at the rollicking crowd which surged about him, now, with new interest. Red, white, and blue rosettes, similar to the one which was pinned to his own coat, were being worn everywhere. The right colours appeared to be popular. In the elaborate, secret, protective schemes, lettered for code purposes, in the Greek alphabet, from Alpha to Gamma, which the old Duke of Northborough had laid before him, to demonstrate the Cabinet's readiness for every eventuality, the loyalty of the people had no place. Might not that loyalty render the old Duke's schemes unnecessary? But the old Duke wanted, he seemed almost anxious, to force a fight. And the old Duke was, of course, right.
By this time, the King had succeeded in working his way across the road. He turned now, mechanically to his left, down a quiet, side street, which ended in a cul-de-sac, but afforded, on the right, an entrance to one of those odd, shut in havens of coach-houses and stables, which are to be found all over the West End of London, tucked away behind the great houses, from which they usually take their directory title, with the addition of that admirably significant word, mews. Here, in a small, lock-up garage, which he had contrived to rent in the name of a youthful member of his personal, secretarial staff, the King kept a two-seated, powerfully engined, motor car. Geoffrey Blunt, the nominal tenant of the garage, a light-hearted but discreet, cadet of a good house, had also lent his name for the purchase of the car. In recognition of Blunt's complaisance in the matter, the King had allowed him to accompany him in one or two harmless Caliph Haroun Al Raschid night interludes, in which the car had figured; but Blunt, as Vizier, had no idea that the King, his Caliph, used the car, as now, for solitary excursions.
The police constable on the beat happened to be testing, with his bull's-eye lantern in action, the fastenings of the adjacent coach-houses and stables, in the dimly lit mews, when the King arrived at the garage. Recognizing in the King, as he thought, a resident in one of the neighbouring houses, the constable saluted him respectfully, and helped him to open the garage doors, and run out the car.
"You'll find the traffic difficult tonight, sir, I'm thinking," he remarked, with a hint of a London tamed Irish brogue. "They turned the people out of the parks, when the fireworks finished, a full half hour ago, but, bless you, they are in no hurry to go home. Well, it's one night in a lifetime, as you might say, isn't it, sir? And, beyond holding up the traffic, there's no harm in the people—they're just lively, that's all. There'll be a good many of them will lie in late, when they do get to bed, in the morning, I'm thinking. But the tiredest man, in all London, this night, and in the whole Empire, too, if it comes to that, I should think must be the King himself, God bless him! Did you get a good view of him, yourself, sir? I was in duty in Whitehall for the procession, and barring a yard or two, I was as close to him then, as I am, now, to you. As fine, and upstanding a young fellow, as you could wish to see, he is, too, and as like his poor dead brother, the Prince, God rest his soul! as two peas. But he looked tired, I thought. I hope they won't work him too hard, at first. He's only a young man still, and he's got his troubles before him, they say, although to look at the people, tonight, you wouldn't think so, would you? But give him his chance, and he'll do as well as his brother, the Prince, I say, for all that he's a sailor. I'm an old Guardsman, myself, sir, the same as the Prince was, but, after all, it's time you had your turn, in the Senior Service, isn't it, sir?"
Busy putting on the thick leather motor coat, and adjusting the goggles, which he kept stored in the car, the King listened to the constable's garrulous, friendly talk with rich amusement, not untouched by a more serious interest. He almost wished that he could reveal his real identity to the man, and then shake hands with him. Surely the loyalty of the people had been underestimated? This garrulous police constable had a juster appreciation, and a more sympathetic understanding, of the difficulties and the dangers of his position, than he had ever imagined possible.
With the constable's assistance the King closed, and re-locked the garage doors. Then he slipped a handful of loose silver into the man's not too ready palm, and sprang up into his seat at the steering wheel of the car.
"Liquidate that in drinking to the King's health, constable," he directed, as he started the car. "Drink it to the frustration of all the King's enemies."
All the King's enemies? His worst enemy? Himself?
The man's reply was drowned by the throbbing beat of the powerful engine.
A moment later, the car leapt forward, out of the dimly lit mews, swung up the quiet side street, beyond, and so passed into the densely thronged roadway in Lower Grosvenor Place.
The police constable's prediction as to the difficulties of the traffic proved more than justified. In Grosvenor Place, the King found that he could only advance at a snail's pace, sounding his siren continuously. Over and over again, he had hurriedly to apply all his brakes. The crowd, singing, cheering, and rollicking, had taken complete possession of the roadway, and ignored the approach of all vehicles of whatsoever kind. Fellow motorists, in like case with himself, grinned at the King, in friendly, mutual commiseration. For his part, it was with difficulty, that he restrained his impatience, and kept his temper. He was still far too close to the palace for his peace of mind.
At Hyde Park Corner, the police, mounted and on foot, had contrived to maintain a narrow fairway, which made real, although still slow, progress through the locked traffic possible. But in Park Lane, the crowd had it all their own way again, spread out across the road, and indulging in rough horse-play, as nearly out of hand as the London crowd ever permits itself to go. Happily, by the Marble Arch, the road cleared once more. In Oxford Street, in spite of the brilliant illuminations of the famous shops and stores, and the huge crowds which they had attracted there, the King found that he could slightly increase his speed. When he swung, at last, into Tottenham Court Road, and so headed the car directly north, the traffic, by comparison with that through which he had just passed, seemed almost normal. Free now from the necessity of extra vigilance, and only occasionally called upon to sound his siren, or to apply his brakes, he was able to open out the car considerably, and settle himself more comfortably at the steering wheel.
CHAPTER III
t was a wonderful summer night. Here, as the car ran out into the quieter, less crowded, and more humbly illuminated area of the inner suburbs, the night reasserted itself. Rising late, above the roofs and twisted chimney pots, a large, round, golden moon hung low in the dark blue sky. The rush of air, stirred by the throbbing car, was cool and fresh. Naturally, and inevitably, the King's thoughts turned now, once again, to Judith.
It was on just such a wonderful summer night, as this, in early June, a year ago, that he had first seen Judith.
On that memorable night, the King had driven alone, out of London, late at night, just as he was driving now, at the end of a fortnight's leave, which he had spent incognito, in town. Soon after he had run through the fringe of the outer suburbs, which he was even then entering, with four hundred odd miles of road between him and the Naval Base in Scotland, where he was due to rejoin his ship, and with barely time to make them good, the car he was driving had developed engine trouble. A few minutes of frenzied tinkering had set the car going again, but the engine had only served to carry him well clear of the town, out into the sleeping countryside, when it had failed, once more, this time completely, and he had found himself stranded, at the side of the lonely, deserted, country road, the victim of a permanent breakdown.
The King smiled to himself, now, as he recalled his reckless, humorous appreciation of that situation. In those days, "a sailor, not a Prince," he had had a light heart. Nothing had been able to disturb his equanimity for long.
Abandoning the broken down car, almost at once, at the side of the road, he had set out, adventurously, on foot, to look for succour. The night had been, then, as now, cool, fragrant, and moonlit. Soon a narrow, winding, wooded lane, on the left of the road, had attracted him. Turning down this lane, he had followed its twisting, tree-shadowed course, for over a mile or more, until, suddenly, he had come upon the small lodge, and open carriage gate, of an isolated country house, which stood, a little back from the road, surrounded by tall trees.
The short, moonlit drive, where the rhododendron bushes and the laburnum trees were in full blossom, had led him to the front of the silent, darkened house.
The King remembered vividly the odd sense of impending romance, the little thrill of excitement, and of expectancy, with which he had rung the front door bell.
A short pause had ensued, a period of waiting.
And then he had heard a movement on his right, and he had turned, and he had seen Judith—seen Judith, for the first time.
She had slipped through the open window door, on his right, on to the verandah, which ran all round the shadowy house, and she had stood there, close beside him, tall and slender, surrounded by the ghostly white blossoms of the clematis creeper, which covered the verandah pillars and rail—Judith with her cheeks delicately flushed, her deep, dark, mysterious eyes aglow, and her wealth of jet black hair knotted loosely at her neck, Judith clad in a Japanese kimono of gorgeous colours, from under which peeped little wisps of spotless white linen, and filmy lace.
The King laughed softly to himself, as he recalled that it was he, and not Judith, who had been shy and embarrassed, that it was he, and not Judith, who had blushed and stammered—until Judith had come to his rescue, understanding and accepting his incoherent apologies and explanations, almost before he had uttered them, and taking absolute command of him, and of the whole delightfully bizarre situation from that moment—
The necessity of avoiding a couple of belated country carts, moving slowly forward towards Covent Garden, at this point, broke abruptly into the King's reverie. The powerfully engined car was running smoothly, and at a high speed now, along the level surface of one of the outer suburban tramway tracks—
It was Judith who had promptly roused old Jevons, the gardener, and sent him off, post haste, to take charge of the derelict car. It was Judith who, greatly daring, had penetrated into the jealously guarded, literary night seclusion of Uncle Bond, on the upper floor of the silent, darkened house, and had compelled the little man to leave his latest business girl heroine, in the middle of the next instalment of his new serial, although that instalment was, as usual, already overdue, and come downstairs, urbane and chuckling, his round, double-chinned, and spectacled face wreathed in smiles, to entertain an unknown, and youthful stranger, as if his midnight intrusion was the most natural thing in the world.
It was Judith, familiar with the way that they have in the Navy, who had understood, from the first, the vital necessity of his rejoining his ship in time. It was Judith who had routed out time-tables, and looked up trains, while he and Uncle Bond had smoked and discussed the situation at large, and had discovered that he still might be able to catch the Scottish Mail, at some railway junction in the Midlands, of which he had never heard.
It was Judith who had packed off the at once enthusiastic Uncle Bond to the garage to turn out his own brand new Daimler. It was Judith who had insisted that they must make a hurried, and informal, but wholly delightful picnic meal. It was Judith who had slipped out, while Uncle Bond and he ate and drank, and put his kit, which the careful Jevons had brought from the broken down car to the house for safe custody, into the Daimler. Finally, it was Judith who had given them their marching orders, and their route, and had stood on the verandah, and waved her hand to them, in friendly farewell, when Uncle Bond had started the Daimler, and the huge car had swept down the drive, out into the sleeping countryside.
Of the wild drive that had followed, half way across England, through the wonderful summer night, the King had now, as he had had at the time, only a hazy, confused impression—a hazy, confused impression of Uncle Bond, at his side, crouched over the steering wheel of the huge Daimler, driving with a reckless audacity more suited to the commander of a destroyer, or of a submarine, than to a mere retailer of grotesquely improbable tales, of Uncle Bond talking incessantly as he drove, and chuckling delightedly, as he gave a free rein to the fantastic flights of his characteristically extravagant humour.
Where, and when, he had caught the night mail, the King had still no clear idea. A blurred vision of Uncle Bond, racing at his side, down a long, dimly lit railway platform, and throwing his last portmanteau in, after him, through the window of the already moving train, was all that remained with him, of the scene at the station.
And then the train had thundered on, through the sleeping countryside, and he had been alone, at last, in the darkness, in the darkness in which, for hours, he had seen only Judith's beautiful, vivid face, while the train had thundered in his ears, only Judith's name—
By this time, the powerfully engined car had run clear of the outer suburban tramway track, and was rushing through the semi-rural area of market gardens, and scattered villas, where the town first meets, and mingles with, the country, on the north side of London. Coronation illuminations had now been left far behind. Soon even the last of the long chain of lamps provided by the public lighting system was passed. It was by the light thrown on to the road, by the glaring headlights on the throbbing car, and by the softer light of the moon, that the King had now to do his driving—
From the first he had known that Judith, and Uncle Bond, could never be as other people to him. It was this knowledge which had warned him not to betray his real identity. From the first, it had seemed of vital importance to him, that no shadow of his Royal rank should be allowed to mar the delightful spontaneity of his intercourse with these charming, unconventional people, who, looking upon him as merely a young, naval officer in trouble, had at once placed all their resources at his disposal, as if he had been an old and intimate friend. It was this knowledge which had prompted him, when he came to telegraph to Uncle Bond, to report his successful rejoining of his ship, to sign the telegram with his favourite incognito name, Alfred York. That he should have been in a position to telegraph to Uncle Bond was only one of the many lesser miracles of that wholly miraculous night. At some point in their wild drive, Uncle Bond had slipped his visiting card into his hand, and had contrived to make him understand, in spite of his dreamlike abstraction, that, while he was known to his admiring public as "Cynthia St. Claire," the notorious serial writer, he was known to his friends as plain James Bond, and that he, and his niece Judith, would be glad to hear that he had escaped a court-martial.
Looking back at it all, now, with the wonder that never failed him when he thought of Judith, it seemed to the King that the miracles of that first memorable night, twelve months ago, had merely been the prelude to a whole sequence of other, and far greater, miracles. When leave came his way once again, it had seemed only natural to him that he should run out to see Judith and Uncle Bond, to thank them for their kindness which had included the salving, and the temporary storing of the derelict car. But that Judith and Uncle Bond should have welcomed him so warmly, and pressed him to repeat his visit, whenever he happened to be passing through town, that had been—a miracle! Again, it was only natural that he should have taken advantage of their invitation, and that he should have fallen into the habit of running out to see them, whenever he could snatch a few brief hours from the exacting demands of his semi-official life. But that Judith, and Uncle Bond, should have thrown open their house to him, so soon, without question, and made their home, his home, that had been—a miracle! That he should have been able to keep his frequent visits to, and his increasing intimacy with, Judith and Uncle Bond a secret, for nearly twelve months, was a miracle. That in all that time, Judith and Uncle Bond should never have suspected his real identity, never penetrated his incognito, was a greater miracle. But that his friendship with Judith should have remained unspoilt, innocent, that was the greatest miracle of all.
It was Judith who had wrought this last, greatest miracle of all. It was Judith who had made their friendship what it was. Somehow, from the first, she seemed to have been able to shut out, or, at the worst, to ward off, from their intimacy, all dangerous provocations. It was as if she had drawn a white line round herself, even in her thoughts, past which neither he, nor she, could enter. Uncle Bond, most wise and tactful of hosts, had helped. And the Imps, Judith's boys, had helped too.
Somehow, Judith and the Imps, Button, so called because of his button mouth, and Bill, cherubic and chubby, had always been inseparably associated in his mind. Almost from the first, he must have known that Judith, young as she was, was a widow. But it was only lately that he had learnt that her husband had been a sailor like himself, a sailor who had served with distinction, and lost his life, in the Pacific War, the war which he had missed himself, to his own everlasting regret, by a few bare weeks of juniority—
By this time, the throbbing car was sweeping down the opening stretch of the Great North Road, out into the real country. More as a matter of custom, than of conscious thought, the King slowed down the car. It had become his habit on these occasions, that he should slacken his speed, when he had at last successfully escaped from the town, so that he could attune his mind to his surroundings, and savour to the full his eager anticipation of Judith's joyous welcome.
Suddenly, the ghostly, white painted figure of a signpost, for which he always kept an eye open, flashed into his view, on the left of the road.
Once, on a winter evening of fog-thickened darkness, when he had been driving out to see Judith, as he was driving now, the King had grown uncertain of his route. Coming to this signpost, he had been glad to halt, to verify his position. Clambering up the post, with the ready agility of the sailor, he had struck a match, to discover that the signpost had been used, by some unknown humorist, to perpetrate a jest, with which he had found himself in instant, serious, and wholehearted sympathy. The ordinary place names had been obliterated on the signpost fingers. In lieu of them had been painted, in rude, black letters, on the finger pointing to London, "To Hades," and, on the opposite finger, pointing north, out into the open country, "To Paradise."
The King headed the car now "To Paradise," with an uplifting of the heart, which never failed him, on this portion of the road.
A little later, he became aware that he was passing the site of his former breakdown, the breakdown which had first led him, a year ago, to Judith.
He knew then that he had run out of Middlesex into Hertfordshire.
Soon the familiar turning of the narrow, tree shadowed lane, on the left of the road, came into view. Swinging the car into the lane, the King, once again, slackened his speed. He drove now with special care. It had become part of a charming game, that he and Judith played, that he should try to drive down the lane, and up to the house, without her hearing his approach. Somehow, he hardly ever won. Somehow, Judith was always on the alert, always expecting him.
But tonight, it almost seemed, in view of the unusual lateness of his arrival, as if he might score one of his rare successes. The car ran smoothly, and all but silently, down the narrow lane. At the bottom, at the house, the carriage gate, as usual, stood wide open. In the moonlit drive, the rhododendron bushes and the laburnum trees were in full blossom, just as they had been on that memorable first night, a year ago. The King drove straight up the drive, and round the side of the silent, darkened house, to the garage beyond. The garage door, like the carriage gate, stood wide open. Here, in Paradise, apparently, there was no need to guard against motor thieves.
The King turned the car, and backed it into the garage, beside Uncle Bond's huge Daimler. The silence which followed his shutting off of the engine, was profound, the essential night silence of the country. Flinging off his thick, leather motor coat, his hat, and his goggles, he tossed them, one after the other, into the car. Then he left the garage, and moved quickly back round the side of the house, treading, whenever possible, on the grassy borders of the garden flower beds, lest the sound of his footsteps should reach Judith, and so warn her of his approach.
CHAPTER IV
n a bush, close up to the house, a nightingale was in full song. Further away, from one of the trees beyond the shadowy garden lawn, another nightingale replied. It was as if the two birds were singing against each other for mastery, pouring out, in a wild, throbbing ecstasy, the one after the other, twin cascades of lovely, liquid, matchless notes.
Judith was sitting on the moonlit verandah.
The King laughed softly to himself, when he saw her.
As usual, he had lost!
She rose to her feet, to receive him, as he approached, and so stood, tall and slender, just as she had stood on that first, memorable night, a year ago, framed in the ghostly white blossoms of the clematis creeper, which covered the verandah pillars and rail. She was wearing an evening gown of some material in white satin which had a glossy sheen that shone almost as brightly as the moonlight against the dark background of the silent house. She was bareheaded, and the light, night breeze had ruffled one or two tresses of her luxuriant jet black hair. Her beautiful, vivid face was flushed. Her deep, dark, mysterious eyes were aglow. Her lips were parted in a little smile of mingled humour and triumph.
"I knew that you would come tonight," she said.
The King stepped up on to the verandah, to her side.
"I had to come," he confessed.
"It is a long time, a week, ten days, since you were here."
"I am not my own master. I have been—very busy. They have given me—promotion!"
"The Service! Always the Service!" Judith cried.
"It is the King's Service," the King replied.
"I know! I would not have it otherwise, even if I could," Judith murmured. "I am glad, and proud, that you have been very busy; that they have given you—promotion; that you serve—the King! And, tonight, you are wearing his colours?"
As she spoke, she put out her hand, and deftly rearranged the long ribbons of the red, white, and blue rosette, which the audacious Doris had pinned to his coat, earlier in the night.
"And, tonight, I am wearing his colours," the King replied. "When the storm, that they say is coming, really breaks, the King will need all his friends."
With a quick, abrupt movement, which seemed to indicate a sudden change of mood, Judith laid her hands on his shoulders, and turned him a little to the right, so that the moonlight fell full upon his face.
"Yes. You have changed. Your—promotion—has made a difference," she murmured. "You speak gravely. You look older. You are more serious. And there are little lines, and wrinkles, and a frown there, that was never there before."
The King drew in his breath sharply.
The light pressure of Judith's hands on his shoulders, and the sudden acute sense of her nearness which it brought him, disturbed him strangely.
This was a mistake. This was dangerous. And it was unlike Judith. It was not Judith's way.
All at once Judith seemed to divine his distress.
She turned from him quickly.
"Come and see the Imps," she said, "I was just going in, to look at them, when you arrived."
Light of foot, and slender, and tall, she moved off then, on tiptoe, without waiting for him, along the shadowy verandah, towards the open window-door of the night nursery near by.
Conscious of a relief, of which he was somehow ashamed, the King followed her, obediently, on tiptoe in turn.
In the night nursery, the nightlight, which protected Button and Bill from the evil machinations of ghosts and goblins, was burning dimly, in its saucer, on the mantelpiece, but a shaft of bright moonlight revealed the two cots, at the far end of the room, in which the children lay, fast asleep, side by side. Judith was already bending over the foot of the cots, when the King entered the room. She looked round at him, finger on lip, as he approached. Button, flushed and rosy, stirred in his sleep, and flung one small arm out of bed, across the snow-white counterpane. Bill, cherubic and chubby, heroically lying on, lest he should suck, his thumb, never moved.
"They have had a wonderful day," Judith whispered. "We ran our flag up, this morning, in honour of the King, and I tried to make them understand about the Coronation. Bill wanted to know if Uncle Alfred would be in the procession! They would do nothing else for the rest of the day, but play at being King. You see, they took their crowns to bed with them."
She pointed to two crowns, crude, homemade, cardboard toys, covered with gilt and silver paper, which lay, one on each pillow, beside the sleeping children.
A strange thrill, a chill of presentiment, a sense of some impending crisis, which, it seemed, he was powerless to prevent, which he must make no attempt to prevent, ran through the King. He shivered. Then he leant over the cots, and, very carefully, lest he should wake him, picked up the crown which lay on Button's pillow.
The crude, grotesque, cardboard toy made a poignant appeal to him.
Inevitably this toy cardboard crown reminded the King of that other Crown, from which, even here in Paradise, it seemed, he could not escape, that other Crown which had been placed on his head at the climax of the long and exhausting Coronation ceremony, not many hours back. That other Crown had been heavy. This was light. That other Crown had been fashioned by cunning artists in metal, out of the enduring materials judged most precious by man. This crown had been laboriously patched together by the untried fingers of a child, out of the flimsy, worthless materials furnished by a nursery cupboard. And yet, of the two crowns, was the one more valuable, more worth possessing, than the other? Both were symbols. That other Crown was the symbol of a heavy burden, of a great responsibility. This toy crown was the symbol of a child's fertile imagination, and happy play. Both were pageantry. The one was the pageantry of a lifetime's isolation, and labour. The other was the pageantry of a child's happy play, for a single summer day.
The irony of the contrast, the irony of his own position, gripped the King, with a thrill of something akin to physical pain.
With the absurd, toy cardboard crown still in his hand, he turned, and looked at Judith.
A dimly realized, instinctive rather than conscious, desire for sympathy prompted his look.
And Judith failed him.
It was not what she did. It was not what she said. She did nothing. She said nothing. And yet, in one of those strange flashes of intuition, which come, at times, to the least sensitive of men, the King was aware that Judith was not herself; that the accord which had hitherto always existed between them was broken; and that he and she had suddenly become—antagonistic.
Judith stood with her hands resting lightly on the brass rail at the foot of Button's cot. Outwardly her attitude was wholly passive. None the less, as he gazed at her, the King's intuitive conviction of their new antagonism deepened.
An odd, tense, little pause ensued.
Then, suddenly, Judith turned, and looked at him.
A wonderful look. A look which amazed, and dumbfounded the King. A look, not of antagonism, as he had anticipated, but, welling up from the depths of her dark, mysterious eyes, a look which spoke, unmistakably, of a woman's tenderness, sympathy, surrender, love.
For a breathless moment or two, they stood thus, facing each other.
Then Judith bent down, hurriedly, over the cots once again.
"If you will go out on to the verandah, Alfred, I will join you there, in a minute or two," she said.
Her voice was husky, tremulous, low.
Mechanically, the King replaced the absurd toy cardboard crown, which he was still holding in his hand, on Button's pillow. Then, dazed, and like a man in a dream, he swung slowly round on his heel, and passed back, through the room, out to the verandah again.
The nightingales were still singing in the garden. The air was heavy with the rich scent of some night-blossoming stock, set in one of the flowerbeds immediately below the verandah rail. The moon was afloat in a little sea of luminous, billowy, drifting clouds.
The King sat down in one of the large, wicker work chairs, which always stood on the verandah.
He was glad to sit down.
He was trembling from head to foot—
It was for rest, and quiet, and peace, that he had run out to see Judith, and between them, all in a moment, they had blundered, together, into the thick of an emotional crisis.
How? Why?
It was all an inexplicable mystery to him.
Where was the white line Judith had always drawn round herself? Where was the barrier of physical reserve she had always maintained inviolable between them? From the first moment of his arrival, he realized now, in some odd way, almost in spite of herself as it were, she had been—alluring!
A strange, new Judith!
A sudden, queer feeling of resentment stirred within the King.
He had been so sure of Judith!
She had placed him in an impossible, an intolerable position.
No. That was unfair, unjust. Judith was not to blame. Judith did not know—how could she know?—the peculiar difficulties, the inexorable limitations, imposed upon him by his Royal rank. She did not know—how could she know?—that friendship was all he could accept from, all he could offer, to, any woman. To Judith, he was merely a young naval officer, whose frequent visits, whose unmistakable delight in her society, could have only one meaning.
He alone was to blame. By his own act, by his own deliberate concealment of his real identity, he had made this crisis inevitable from the first.
What attitude was he to adopt towards Judith now? Could he ignore what had happened? Could he hope that Judith would allow him to ignore what had happened? Or had the time come when he must reveal his real identity to Judith at last? Would she believe him? If she believed him, would she be able to forgive his deception? And, even if she forgave him, would not the shadow thrown by his Royal rank irretrievably injure his intimacy with her, with the Imps, and with Uncle Bond? All the spontaneity, the ease, and the naturalness of their relationship would be at an end.
No. Whatever happened he could not risk that.
Judith and Uncle Bond, were the only people he had ever known who had received him, who had accepted him, for what he was himself, the man who remained when all the adventitious trappings of Royalty had been discarded. Judith and Uncle Bond, were the only people he ever met, who treated him as an equal. As an equal? Judith, and Uncle Bond, quite rightly, often treated him as their inferior, their inferior in knowledge, in experience, in wisdom.
The King leant back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He was suddenly very weary. The reaction following all that he had been through the last twenty-four hours was heavy upon him. Difficult and dangerous moments, he realized, lay immediately in front of him. And he was in no condition to meet either difficulty or danger. What he wanted now was rest—
It was some little time before Judith reappeared on the verandah. When she did reappear she brought with her a tray on which stood decanters, and glasses, and biscuits, and fruit. A picnic meal, like the one which he had enjoyed on that first memorable night twelve months ago, had become, whenever possible, a feature of the ordinary routine of the King's visits.
Judith set down her tray on a wicker work table which stood beside the King.
The King did not look round. He could not, he dare not, face Judith.
Judith slipped behind his chair.
"I am sorry, Alfred," she said. "I blame myself. It was my fault. It ought not to have happened, tonight, of all nights. You were absolutely worn out, already, weren't you? I might, I ought to, have remembered that. I want you to forget all about it, if you can. Now, how long can you stay?"
A great wave of relief swept over the King.
Judith was herself again.
This was the old Judith.
"I shall have to leave at seven o'clock in the morning, as usual. I must be back in town by eight o'clock at the latest," he said.
"Then you must have a drink, and something to eat, at once," Judith, the old Judith, announced taking absolute command of him again, from that moment, as was her wont. "We'll stay out here, and listen to the nightingales, for half an hour, if you like. I am glad they are singing for you, tonight. And then, and then you will go straight to bed."
Drawing another chair up to the table, as she spoke, she sat down. Then she proceeded to wait upon him with the easy, unembarrassed grace which gave such an intimate charm to all her hospitality.
"Whisky and soda? And a biscuit? Or will you smoke?" she asked.
"I am too tired to smoke. I am almost too tired to drink, I think," the King murmured.
Judith looked at him keenly.
"What you want is sleep, Alfred," she said. "Drink this! It will do you good. Don't bother to talk. I'll do the talking."
The King took the glass which Judith held out to him, and drank, as he was told.
Then he leant further back still in his chair.
He had reached a point, he was suddenly conscious now, not far removed from complete exhaustion.
In a little while, Judith, as she had promised, began to talk.
"You will see Uncle Bond, in the morning, of course," she remarked. "You will do him good. He is in rather a bad way, just at present, poor old dear. The new serial seems to be giving him a lot of trouble. 'Cynthia St. Claire' isn't functioning properly, at the moment. He's locked himself up, for several nights now, without any result. He says it doesn't seem to matter how many candles he lights. 'Cynthia' still eludes him. It really is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde business with him, you know. If he is to do any work, he has to be 'Cynthia St. Claire,' and not James Bond. It is plain James Bond we prefer, of course. But it is 'Cynthia' who makes all the money, you know.
"The worst of it is, in spite of what Uncle Bond says, I am afraid it isn't all 'Cynthia's' fault this time. He's been running up to town, and knocking about the clubs, a good deal lately. That is nearly always a sign that he is trying to dodge 'Cynthia.' It is almost as if he had got something on his mind. Seeing you will do him good. He always gets what he calls a flow on, when you have been over. He wants it badly now. The new story is three instalments behind the time-table already. Part of his trouble, I think, is that he is working on a plain heroine. He does them alternately, you know. One Plain. The next Ringlets. This one, I understand, is very plain. He misses the chance, I believe, of filling in with purple passages of personal description. You have read some of Uncle Bond's stuff, haven't you? Officially, I am not allowed to. Unofficially, of course, I read every word of it I can get hold of. It's wonderful how he keeps it up, isn't it? And, every now and then, in spite of 'Cynthia,' he slips in something, without knowing it, which only James Bond could have written. All sorts of unexpected people read him, you know. He says it is the name, and not the stuff, that does the trick. I think that it is the stuff. People like romance. Uncle Bond gives it to them."
At that moment, the sleep, of which the King stood in such dire need, long overdue as it was, touched his eyelids.
Judith shot out her arm, and skilfully retrieved the half empty glass, which all but fell from his hand.
A little later, when he awoke with a start, conscious of the strange refreshment which even a moment's sleep brings, he found that Judith's hand was in his.
"It has been a wonderful summer," Judith murmured. "If the sun did not shine again, for months, we should have no right to complain. First the lilac, and the chestnuts, and the hawthorn; then the laburnum and the rhododendrons; and now the wild roses are beginning to show in the hedges. The skylarks singing at dawn; the cuckoo calling all day; the thrushes and the blackbirds whistling in the hot afternoon; and the nightingales, singing at night, as they are singing now! The bright sun in the morning, the blue sky, and the green of the trees. The haymakers at work in the fields. The whir of the haycutting machine. The Imps tumbling over each other in the hay, and calling to me. Diana's foal in the paddock, all long legs, and short tail. The wren's nest in the garden, with six little wrens in it for Jenny Wren to feed. The afternoon sunlight on the trees; Uncle Bond in the garden, chuckling over his roses; the sunset; the young rabbits, with their white bob-tails, scuttling in and out of the hedges; a patter of rain on the leaves; the breeze in the trees; the twilight; the cool of the evening; and then the blue of the night sky, the stars, and the golden moon, in a bed of billowy, drifting clouds. The scent of the hayfields, the scent of the flowers; and the nightingales singing, in the garden, as they are singing now!
"The nightingales are singing about it all. Can you hear what they say? I have been trying to put the nightingales' song into words. Listen! Those long, liquid notes—"
The night air was heavy with the scent of the night-blossoming stock, in the flowerbed, immediately below the verandah rail. The nightingales sang as if at the climax of their rivalry for mastery. A huge owl lumbered, rather than flew, across the shadowy garden.
For a moment, it seemed to the King, as if the verandah, the house, the garden, and even the night sky, stood away from them, receded, and that he and Judith were alone, together, in infinite space.
The moment passed.
Judith stood up.
"Bed!" she said, speaking with the note of smiling, kindly discipline, with which she ruled the Imps, and, when she chose, even Uncle Bond and himself. "You will be able to sleep now, Alfred."
The King rose obediently to his feet to find, with a certain dull, dazed surprise, that he was stiff and sore, and hardly able to stand.
Dazed as he was, he did not fail to see the look of sharp anxiety which shone, for a moment, in Judith's eyes.
"Lean on me, old man!" she exclaimed. "You are done up. I'll see you to your room. They have been working you too hard. Do they never think of—the man—in your Service?"
She put out her arm, as she spoke, and slipped it skilfully round his shoulders.
And so, glad of Judith's support, and only restfully conscious of her nearness now, the King moved off slowly along the verandah towards the room, at the far end of the silent, darkened house, which had come to be regarded as his room, and, as such, was strictly reserved, "in perpetuity," for his use alone.
"Here you are!" Judith announced, at last, halting at the open window door of the room. "You will be able to manage by yourself now, won't you? You must sleep now, Alfred. Dreamless sleep! Every minute of it! The Imps will call you, as usual, in the morning. Good-night."
A minute or two later, the King found himself alone, inside the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, with an urgent desire for sleep rising within him.
The fresh, fragrant night air blew softly into the room, through the open window door, beyond which he could see, as he sat on the edge of the bed, the gently swaying branches of the garden trees, silhouetted against the dark blue background of the moonlit sky.
The nightingales were still singing in the garden.
Yes. He could sleep here.
The room itself invited rest, induced sleep. Plainly, although comfortably furnished, and decorated throughout in a soothing tint of grey, the room had a spaciousness, even an emptiness, which was far more to the King's taste, than the ornate fittings of that other bedroom of his in the palace, where sleep so often eluded him. Beyond the absolutely necessary furniture, there was nothing in the room, save the few essential toilet trifles which he kept there. Nothing was ever altered in, nothing was ever moved from, this room, in his absence. It had all become congenial, friendly, familiar.
The King undressed, mechanically, in the moonlight, and put on the sleeping suit which lay ready to his hand, on the bed, at his side.
Then he got into bed.
His last thought was one of gratitude to, and renewed confidence in, Judith. How she had humoured, how she had managed him, coaxing and cajoling him, as if he had been a sick child, along the shadowy road to sleep. The emotional crisis which had arisen so inexplicably between them had, as inexplicably spent its force harmlessly. Their friendship was unimpaired. Nothing was altered between them. Nothing was to be altered. Judith had emphasized that. The Imps were to wake him, in the morning, as usual. He was to see Uncle Bond. All was to be as it had always been. He was glad. He had no wish for, he shrank instinctively from the thought of, any changes, here, in Paradise.
But now he must sleep. Dreamless sleep.
And so, he fell asleep.
He slept, at once, so soundly, that he never stirred, when, in a little while, Judith slipped noiselessly into the room. Crossing to the bed, she stood, for a moment or two, looking down at him, with all the unfathomable tenderness in her dark, mysterious eyes, which she had asked him to forget, which she had made him forget.
Suddenly, she leant over the bed, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
Then she slipped quickly out of the room, once again.
CHAPTER V
t was to the sound of the patter of bare feet, on the polished floor of his bedroom, followed by suppressed gurgles of joyous laughter, that the King awoke, in the morning. Bright sunshine was streaming into the room, through the still open window door. Button and Bill, their faces rosy with health and sleep, and their hair still tousled, as it had come from their pillows, engagingly droll little figures in their diminutive sleeping suits, stood at his bedside, watching him with shining, mischievous eyes. As he sat up in bed, they flung themselves at him, with triumphant shouts, wriggling and swarming all over him, as they essayed to smother him, under his own bedclothes and pillows.
At the end of two or three hilarious, and vivid moments of mimic fight, the King brought the heavy artillery of his bolster to bear on his enemies, smiting them cunningly in the "safe places" of their wriggling, deliciously fresh little bodies, and so driving them, inch by inch, down to the foot of the bed, where, still laughing and gurgling gloriously, they rolled themselves up, to evade his blows, like a couple of young hedgehogs.
Then the King flung his bolster on to the floor, and, reaching out his arms, took his enemies captive, tucking them, one under each arm, and holding them there, kicking and protesting, but wholly willing prisoners.
Button, at this point, although suspended under the King's left arm, more or less in mid-air, contrived to wriggle his right hand free, and held it out gravely, to be shaken. On the strength of his seven years, Button had lately given up kissing in public, and begun to affect the formal manner of the man of the world, in matters of courtesy, as shrewdly observed in Uncle Bond.
"Good morning, my boy," he remarked, in Uncle Bond's blandest manner.
In order to shake Button's hand, the King was compelled to release Bill from his prison, under his right arm. Bill, whose happy fate it was to be still only five, the true golden age, had no man of the world pretensions, no sense of shame in his affections. Breaking ruthlessly into Button's formal greeting, he flung both his chubby arms round the King's neck, pulled his head down to be kissed, and then hugged him, with all the force in his lithe little body, chanting in a voice absurdly like Judith's the while—
"Diana's got a foal, all legs and stumpy tail, and a white star on its face. We're making the hay. There's a wren's nest in the garden. It's past six o'clock, and it's a lovely summer morning, and you've got to get up, Uncle Alfred."
From some dusty pigeonhole in his memory, where it had lain since his own far-away childhood, there floated out into the King's mind, a phrase, a sentence—
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
It was a phrase, a sentence, which he could trace back to the Bible lessons, which had been as faithfully and remorselessly delivered, on Sunday afternoons, in the Royal nursery, as in any other nursery of the period, when the strict discipline in such matters, derived originally from the now well-nigh forgotten Victorian era, had not been altogether relaxed. It was a phrase, a sentence, which had impressed itself upon his childish imagination, and had, for years, stood between him, and his father, the King. His father had been the Lord's Anointed. As a child he had not dared to put forth his hand to touch him! For years, he had lived in awe, almost in fear, of his own father. Perhaps this was why, even down to the day of his death, the King had always seemed to him to be a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote. Perhaps this was partly why, he himself, now that he was King, was so constantly conscious of his own intolerable isolation.
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
If Button and Bill, particularly Bill, whose chubby arms were, even now, tightening around him, knew his real identity, knew that he was the King, "the Lord's Anointed," not a fairy tale King, not a King of their own childish play, but the King, in whose procession they had thought Uncle Alfred might have a place, would not they live in awe of him, would not they fear him, would not the present delightful spontaneity, the fearlessness, the frank embraces, of their intercourse with him, be irreparably injured?
Yes. His decision of the night before must stand.
Button and Bill must never know, Judith and Uncle Bond must never know, his real identity.