A CROWNED QUEEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, my lord—this five year.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“His very image,” responded her uncle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Could you get him to talk to you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And then came your innings?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And after that all went merrily?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But what are you aiming at?”

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

“And Otto Georg?” asked Caerleon drily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And I am not good? Poor me!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For me? Give it me at once, Phil.”

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER II.
IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH.

“Why, Cyril, what’s the matter?” cried Caerleon, as he jumped out of the carriage to find his brother standing on the doorstep, equipped for a journey. Cyril answered by another question.

“Can you let me have the dogcart to drive into Aberkerran at once? I must catch the mail to-night for town, and get the Flushing boat in the morning.”

“But are you going back to Thracia so soon?” asked Nadia in astonishment. “Have they sent for you?”

“Yes; I have had a telegram. The King is dangerously ill, and wants me. I have sent Dietrich on with the luggage, Caerleon; but I thought that if I just stayed to say good-bye to you all, the dogcart would take me into Aberkerran in time to save the train.”

“I’ll drive you myself,” said Caerleon. “Send round the dogcart at once, Wright,” he added to the coachman.

“But have you really been able to get everything packed?” asked Nadia. “Can’t we help you at all?”

“Oh, mother, I helped!” cried Philippa. “Uncle Cyril got his things out, and I folded them up, and Dietrich put them in. They’re all done, and Uncle Cyril said I was a great help.”

Clearly there was nothing left to do, and Philippa relieved the tension of the situation by spinning round wildly on one foot, while her father changed his coat, and her uncle, dissembling his impatience admirably, thanked his sister-in-law for her hospitality. There was little time for farewells when the dogcart came round; but the children did their best to make up for this by standing at the door and waving their hands until the traveller was out of sight. When he was at length released from looking back and answering their signals, Cyril turned to his brother.

“We shall do it all right at this pace, old man.”

“Yes; the roads are capital this evening. Have you any idea as to what’s wrong with Otto Georg?”

“I should fear it is an old trouble from which he has suffered more than once. It began with some injury he received in the Franco-Prussian war, and they say that each time it recurs there is less hope of his getting over it.”

“Was the telegram from the Queen?”

“You don’t imagine she would send for me, even though he was dying? No; it is from his valet.”

“How are things settled in case anything happens to him?”

“By the Constitution the Queen is appointed regent, until the Crown Prince is sixteen. She loses the position if she remarries, and her second husband is debarred from holding any public office whatever in the kingdom. Of course the provision was intended to prevent her marrying a foreign prince and investing him with sovereign power.”

“Of course; very good idea. I’m glad the Constitution recognises the Queen’s rights so far as it does. One would have thought Drakovics might kick against taking orders from a woman.”

“Well, naturally he never expected anything of this kind to happen, at any rate so soon. The Constitution had to contain provisions in view of all emergencies, and he borrowed from somewhere or other what seemed the most equitable and prudent course in such a case. But if things go badly with Otto Georg, I am afraid we have hard times before us.”

“In view of the Queen’s youth and inexperience, you mean?”

“Not that merely. The worst thing is that she is so desperately unpopular.”

“Unpopular? A pretty woman, who has given the Thracians an heir to the throne?”

“That is the sole redeeming feature about her, and she has spoiled the effect of it by insisting that the child shall be brought up as a Lutheran. When Drakovics first thought of her as a wife for the King, his hope was that, being partly of Scythian blood, she would be willing to acquiesce in her children’s growing up in the Orthodox Church. But he had to give it up, for she insisted on a special protective clause in the marriage-contract. Otto Georg didn’t care a rap about it either way, and I daresay she wouldn’t have thought of the matter if her mother had not put her up to it.”

“But you don’t blame the unfortunate girl for wishing her children to be of the same faith as herself?” asked Caerleon warmly.

“I don’t blame her, if she feels strongly on the subject; but I do say that it’s a pity, for such a concession would have conciliated the people and attached them to the dynasty more than anything. Then the Queen shares in the unpopularity of her mother, who considered the Thracians a set of savages when she came among them, and let them see it. Together they have done their best to make the Court a third-rate copy of the minor German ones. The national costume, which is distinctly fetching, and very dear to the people, was tabooed altogether, and the use of the Thracian language frowned upon. No one need expect to enjoy the Queen’s favour, or rather the Princess’s, for that was more important, unless they got their clothes from Vienna, and their conversation from Berlin. The mountain chiefs wouldn’t stand it. They didn’t want to learn German, and the new etiquette disgusted them, and they were very angry at the slights cast upon their nationality. The result is that they never come near the Court unless they are absolutely obliged.”

“The Queen must be mad,” said Caerleon. “She is alienating the very men who keep Otto Georg on the throne.”

“Just so; and she has alienated the lower classes long ago by her lack of the bourgeois virtues. They see that she and Otto Georg don’t get on, and they put it all down to her. Then, at the time of the marriage, some wiseacre made researches into the Weldart family history, and put it about that some remote ancestress of Princess Ernestine’s had at one time or another been a Jewess. Our people detest the Jews, as you know, and now that the Queen is unpopular, their favourite nickname for her is ‘the Jewess.’”

“The poor little woman seems to have a fine stock of blunders and other crimes to live down,” said Caerleon meditatively. “Can’t say I think your prospects in Thracia are roseate, Cyril; but I daresay there’s good stuff in her, and trouble may bring it out. After all, you must acknowledge that she has had rather a bad time of it since her marriage.”

“Her own fault altogether. She should have accepted her destiny like a sensible girl, and Otto Georg would have made her an excellent husband. Princesses are born merely to be married to foreign potentates, and feelings don’t come into the matter at all. Hearts are almost as much of a nuisance in politics as consciences are. Both have a detestable habit of upsetting a statesman’s calculations.”

“Stuff!” said Caerleon. “Wait until it’s your turn.”

“I have escaped it a good long time at present. I don’t think, Caerleon, that you ever yet saw me rush into a foolish thing blindfold, and I have no intention whatever of walking into one with my eyes open. If I ever fall in love, it will be in such a quarter as to advance my material interests very largely.”

“All right; we shall see. I shall be satisfied if it only brings you home from Thracia. But in any case you know that there is always a welcome for you at Llandiarmid.”

“Thanks, old man. I’m sorry I can’t say the same to you about Thracia. The farther you keep from Bellaviste for the present the wiser it will be for your own sake, and the better I shall be pleased.”

They were rattling down Aberkerran High Street as Cyril said this, and as the dogcart drew up outside the station the impassive Dietrich advanced to meet his master.

“Excellency,” he said, with a military salute, for he had served in the Hercynian army, and could not succeed in emancipating himself from the methods of address thus learned, “the train is on the point of departure, and although I have warned the officials that it must not start without your lordship, they are swearing that they will not delay it longer for the Queen Victoria herself.”

“Then I haven’t a moment!” cried Cyril, breaking into the valet’s deliberate German phrases. “Good-bye, Caerleon; give my love to Nadia and the children. I’ll come back soon, and finish my visit properly.”

He grasped his brother’s hand, and rushed into the station, followed by Dietrich, who had already secured his ticket, reaching the platform just in time to enter a carriage as the train was moving off. Settling himself comfortably in a corner seat, he tried hard to banish thought and devote himself to his cigar; but even the best-trained mind will sometimes revolt against a policy of abstraction, and Cyril’s was by no means proof against the excitement of the crisis which he foresaw to be imminent. From the evening papers, which he obtained as the train approached London, he learned that King Otto Georg had been thrown from his horse during a review, and that the fall had brought on a return of the old malady. A specialist had been summoned from Vienna, and M. Drakovics was in constant attendance at the Palace, since a change for the worse in the King’s condition might occur at any moment. On reaching London, Cyril received a telegram from M. Drakovics himself, which had been addressed in the first instance to Llandiarmid, and was forwarded thence by Caerleon, mentioning merely the fact of the King’s illness, and entreating him to hasten back to Thracia. Since he was already travelling as fast as express trains could carry him, he was unable to make any further effort in this direction; and although he found a certain amount of satisfaction during the earlier stages of his journey in planning to save time by means of short cuts and curtailed halts, this resource was exhausted before very long. He was conscious of a disinclination, very unusual with him, to distract his thoughts by reading, or by entering into conversation with his fellow-passengers, and he found himself, therefore, reduced to considering in all possible lights a prospect which was far from being a pleasing one. The papers, Belgian, German, and Austrian, which he obtained in the course of his journey, all told the same tale, that the King was still alive, but could not be expected to recover, while his sufferings were so great that he was kept almost continuously under the influence of opiates. The future looked very black, and Cyril could not decide whether it was blacker in his own case or in that of the kingdom. When the Queen found herself in possession of the reins of power, there was little hope that she would accept the assistance either of M. Drakovics or of himself in the duties of government, and he began to wonder whether it would not be the more dignified course to resign office immediately on the King’s death, instead of waiting to be dismissed. But if Thracia were deprived at once of King and Premier, and handed over to the tender mercies of an incapable and unpopular regent, she would scarcely succeed in weathering the political storm which would ensue, and another revolution would mean almost certainly the outbreak of a European war. To forsake his post now was not to be thought of.

“Otto Georg may have been able to leave some message for me,” said Cyril to himself, as he left the train at Bellaviste, “giving an idea of his views under the circumstances; but if he hasn’t, I’ll stick to office for his sake until I’m turned out, and try to keep baby Michael on the throne. We are bound to fail, I suppose, and I shall risk my reputation as a statesman, but one must be ready to run some risks for a friend.”

Learning from the railway officials, who greeted him respectfully, that the King was still living, he drove straight to the Palace, intending to go to his own rooms and don his Ministerial uniform at once, so as to be ready in case of a summons to the sick-room. Passing along the corridor, however, he found himself suddenly face to face with the little Crown Prince and his English nurse. Mrs Jones was a sister of Wright, the Llandiarmid coachman, although she had enjoyed greater educational advantages, and she owed her position to the recommendation of Lady Caerleon, for which reason she regarded Cyril with marked favour and deference, while waging a chronic warfare with the other officials belonging to the Palace. On this occasion she stopped him to inquire after the health of the family at Llandiarmid, while the little Prince, his face still wet with tears, made unavailing efforts to climb into his arms.

“It is the Herr Graf!” he cried, in his baby German, burying his face in Cyril’s fur cuff. “Come and play wild beasts, Herr Graf. Papa is ill, and can’t walk about, but you can put that fur thing over your head, and roar.”

“Not now, Prinzchen,” said Cyril, dexterously disencumbering himself of the coat, in which Prince Michael proceeded immediately to envelop his own small person. “We might disturb the poor papa.”

“Bless his little heart!” said Mrs Jones, wiping her eyes; “how should he understand that his poor pa is struck for death?”

“The King is dying, then,” asked Cyril anxiously.

“I wouldn’t go for to speak not positively, my lord, which ain’t my place; but if ever I see death written upon a gentleman’s face, I see it upon the King’s just now. And there wasn’t scarcely a dry eye in the room, to see this pore lamb a-strokin’ his father’s forehead, and cryin’ because he wasn’t able to play with him.”

“Has Count Mortimer arrived yet?” asked another voice, and the King’s valet, mounting the stairs, uttered an exclamation of relief as he caught sight of Cyril. “His Majesty begged that your Excellency would come to him as soon as you reached the Palace,” he added.

“I will merely change my clothes, and wait upon his Majesty in a few minutes,” said Cyril, turning into a side-corridor, but the man stopped him.

“His Majesty entreated that you would lose no time, but come to him at once, Excellency. His Excellency the Premier is not in attendance upon his Majesty at this moment.”

“I see,” said Cyril. “I will come.”

Before he could do more than make a hasty attempt to remove from his attire some portion of the dust of his long journey, they were in the King’s anteroom, and pausing before the inner door, he had a momentary glimpse of the doctors gathered round the bed on which his friend lay. The Queen was sitting beside her husband, the stony pallor of her tired young face thrown into relief by the rich brocade of the curtains behind her, and Cyril wondered whether it was merely a sense of duty, or the workings of a late remorse, which kept her at her post.

“Will your Majesty graciously drink this?” one of the doctors was saying, as he held a glass to the King’s lips; “it will ease the pain.”

“Narcotics again!” groaned the dying man wearily, “and I have told you that I wish to keep my brain clear for the present. I think I heard some one come in. Has Count Mortimer arrived yet?”

“His Excellency is here, sir,” said one of the attendants.

“Then tell him to come to me at once. And leave the room, all of you. I will not take the dose at present, doctor.”

“Your Majesty will permit me to remain with you?” asked the Vienna doctor, noticing the sudden strength in the King’s voice, and anticipating a reaction.

“In the anteroom, doctor, if you please. I wish to be alone with Count Mortimer. What! must I command twice?”

“You certainly need not command twice,” said the Queen, rising from her seat with tears of mortification in her eyes, and following the discomfited doctors. “I regret to have trespassed upon the privacy of your Majesty and Count Mortimer.”

“Stay, madame!” cried the King. “Ernestine, remain where you are, I entreat you. You must know with what anxiety I have watched for Count Mortimer’s arrival; surely you cannot object to my making known to him in your presence my dying wishes?”

“Forgive me,” said the Queen, returning to her place, her voice softening. “I thought you wished me to leave you. It was a mistake.”

“It has all been a series of mistakes, I fear,” said the King, laying his hand on that of his wife. “I have not made you happy, Nestchen.”

“I wish I had been a better wife to you,” the Queen whispered painfully, and Cyril bent forward to examine with extreme care some minute detail of the painting he had been contemplating since his entrance into the room.

“It was not your fault,” the King went on. “You should be a child still—and now I must leave you to guard our son’s throne for him. You are very young—very inexperienced—to undertake such a heavy charge.”

“Don’t let that trouble you,” she said, trying to comfort him. “Is he not my son? His kingdom must be my constant care.”

“But how will you take care of it, poor child? What do you know of pitting Pannonia against Hercynia, and playing them both off against Scythia and Neustria? Can you hide your personal feelings under a veil of official friendliness? Why, Nestchen, you will be at enmity with half Europe in a week!”

“I will do my best,” she said in a low voice; “and there is M. Drakovics to help——”

“Drakovics lives for Thracia. The country is safe enough under his guardianship; but he would sacrifice Michael and his interests without a moment’s compunction if he thought another form of government would be more for the benefit of the kingdom.”

“But what are we to do, then?” asked the Queen, with keen anxiety in her voice.

“I cannot tell, unless you will accept as an adviser the man who has been a friend and counsellor to me since I first came to Thracia.”

“You mean Count Mortimer?” asked the Queen, with a gasp.

“I mean my friend Mortimer, to whose honour I could leave you and the child without a fear. But if you will not trust him, Ernestine, I cannot ask him to expose himself to insult by remaining here.”

“I—I will listen to his advice,” she said at last.

“But will you take it when it is given? I cannot die happy unless you and Michael are confided to his care. I should know then that you were safe as long as he was—and there is no man in Europe who is more successful in getting out of difficulties,” and the King laughed faintly as he gazed at his wife. She had released herself from his grasp, and her hands were clasped on her breast as though she were forcing down the feelings which rose within her. Cyril could read in her tear-filled eyes the story of her contest with herself. “You have come between my husband and me,” they seemed to say to him; “you have tried to turn his heart against me,—and now he expects me to trust you.” Unjust as the silent accusation was, the Queen’s agony forbade him to defend himself, and he stood mute, while she, with quivering lips and heaving breast, struggled to speak.

“Can I trust you?” burst from her at last, as her glance met his.

“Before God you can,” he answered. “Bad I may be, but I am not the man to deceive a dying friend, or to injure that friend’s wife and child.”

“Otto, I will trust him,” said the Queen hoarsely, laying her hand in her husband’s. He held it out to Cyril, who stooped and kissed it. He felt her draw back suddenly with an involuntary shudder as his fingers touched hers, then her hand lay cold and nerveless in his. She might overlook the past, but she was not likely to forget it.

“You have removed my chief anxiety, Mortimer,” said the dying King, grasping Cyril’s hand feebly. “I know now that you will watch over my boy and advise his mother, and that so far as it is in your power, you will be his friend as you have been mine.”

“I will,” said Cyril.

“I will thank you with my dying breath,” said the King, with fresh vigour. “You have outdone to-day all your previous kindness to me. Faithful friend that you have been, I can never reward you—all that I can do is to load you with fresh burdens. But I am keeping you standing here, although you are overcome with fatigue. We grow inconsiderate when our friends serve us too well. Go and rest, Mortimer. Send those doctors back as you pass through the anteroom, and they shall try whether they can ease this wretched pain a little. I am tired as well as you. We will both rest, and I will send for you when I wake.”

“Auf wiedersehen, sir!” said Cyril, touching the King’s hand with his lips. He bowed to the Queen as he went out, but she took no notice of him. When he entered, he had seen her give a little start of contemptuous disgust at the sight of his tweed suit and travel-stained appearance, but now she was sitting with her dark eyes staring into the distance, and her hands lying loosely clasped on her lap. Her face was that of a proud woman whose pride had been utterly and forcibly broken, and who was wondering dumbly what further blows fate could have in store for her.

“What can one do with her?” he asked himself in despair. “She will never forgive the humiliation of to-day.”

He passed out, giving the King’s message to the doctors as he went, and they returned into the sick-room, much incensed by their long exclusion. Cyril went on to his own rooms, where Dietrich had prepared a meal for him, and where he took a bath and donned his uniform, so as to be ready in case of a sudden summons from the King. He had intended to sit up and read; but he was worn out by the hurry and anxiety of his long journey, and lay down on a couch for a few minutes’ sleep. The sleep lasted for some hours instead of a few minutes, and Cyril only woke to find M. Drakovics standing beside him with a lugubrious face.

“How is the King?” he asked, starting up.

“The King is well,” was the answer; “but his name is Michael.”

“Otto Georg dead!—and I was never summoned?”

“He was not conscious at the end. When he passed away he was still under the influence of the opiate. I hear you saw him?”

“Yes; he had several charges to give me. I am glad I arrived in time. But here is the beginning of our troubles, Drakovics, since little Michael is King and the Queen is regent.”

“And not only that. See here. This is from our agent in the duchy of Lucernebourg.” He handed Cyril a telegram, partly written in cipher, but easily read by any one who knew the secret.

“‘The Princess of Weldart was ordered last week by her physicians to spend the winter in the South of France. She bade farewell two days ago to the Hercynian Imperial family, and arrived here yesterday en route for the Riviera; but instead of continuing her journey thither, left almost immediately for Switzerland. I discovered through one of her attendants that she is travelling incognito to Thracia by way of Switzerland and Vienna.’”

“Then we shall have her here—how soon?” asked Cyril.

“The telegram was despatched yesterday, but for some reason or other only reached Bellaviste this morning. I was here, and it was not delivered to me until I returned to my office. I should say that she would arrive on the frontier early to-morrow morning.”

“She must be met,” said Cyril, standing up. “I had better go, I suppose. There is a fearful amount to arrange, of course; but I can put things in train before I start, and anything is better than allowing her to begin with a moral victory.”

“You think that she will gain a further grievance if she is permitted to reach the capital unescorted?”

“I don’t care about that, but I can see that she thinks she will catch us napping. A little object-lesson at once will make our task easier in future.”

“Good,” said M. Drakovics; “but you cannot go alone. A military escort would be out of the question under the mournful circumstances, and also in view of the fact that the Princess is travelling incognito. One of the ladies must go, of course, but we cannot trouble the Queen to choose her. You had better apply to Baroness von Hilfenstein.”

“I shall take Stefanovics, and the Baroness had better send Madame Stefanovics as the lady-in-waiting. Then she can watch for a good opportunity for telling the Queen of the arrangements.”

Baroness von Hilfenstein, the Queen’s mistress of the robes, was a lady of vast experience and great resolution, but the news which Cyril had to communicate struck her as little less than appalling. She knew something already of the difficulties by which the Ministers would find themselves confronted under the new régime, and she foresaw that these would be intensified tenfold by the arrival of the Queen’s mother. The Baroness was herself a native of Weldart, and felt towards the Princess not merely the dislike entertained by the subjects of the smaller German States towards the Hercynian Imperial house, but also a lively disgust and contempt of a more personal nature, as for a woman who had taken all Europe into her confidence in her domestic squabbles, thus causing a fierce light, which it could ill bear, to beat upon the throne of Weldart. In spite of her dislike, however, she acquiesced heartily in Cyril’s proposal as to the expediency of greeting the Princess with such ceremonial observances as would be best calculated to disarm her hostility, and requested Madame Stefanovics, the wife of the Grand Chamberlain, to hold herself in readiness to proceed to the frontier that evening in company with her husband and Count Mortimer. In the meantime, she obtained the Queen’s assent to the arrangements, together with a letter to her mother, of which Cyril was to be the bearer, and armed with which he joined his travelling companions when the hour came for their departure. Their special train accomplished the journey to the frontier station of Witska in good time, and they reached their destination some two hours before the Princess’s train was due. Madame Stefanovics was made comfortable in the waiting-room for a short rest, with all the rugs belonging to the party, while her husband and Cyril walked up and down the platform in the twilight, keeping a bright look-out for the train and smoking busily to keep themselves warm.

So convinced were the two watchers that the Princess would outwit them if she could, that they did not dare to rest, lest she should become aware of their presence and contrive to slip past without giving them a chance of joining her party; and they felt it wise to keep a strict watch on the telegraph office, lest an attempt should be made to send her a message which might enable her to give orders that the train should pass through the station without stopping. But their efforts were crowned with success, and after all their anxious forebodings it was with a grim satisfaction that they beheld the astonishment of the Princess’s equerry, whom they confronted suddenly when he was preparing to stretch his legs by a hurried walk up and down while the train waited.

“What in the world are you doing here?” he asked, with difficulty composing his face into a decorously mournful expression. “We are incog., you know.”

“I know you would like to be,” said Cyril, “but you are not. Is her Highness awake yet?” glancing towards the Princess’s saloon.

“Sure to be. You had better come and be presented, I suppose. Don’t blame me if her Highness is not exactly pleased to see you.”

They went towards the royal saloon, but the Princess was ready for them. As they approached, the door was flung open, and she appeared on the step.

“Are you here to stop me, Count?” she demanded of Cyril. “If that is your intention, let me tell you that no power on earth will keep a mother from her daughter’s side at such a time of sorrow.”

“On the contrary, madame,” said Cyril, bowing, “I am here to greet your Royal Highness in the Queen’s name, and to hand you a letter from her Majesty,” and he presented it as he spoke.

“I think I scored there,” he said to himself, when the Princess had accepted the letter, and invited Madame Stefanovics into the saloon with her, leaving the chamberlain and Cyril to travel with the equerry, “and it’s always well to begin a war with a small victory; but if I had the honour of the personal acquaintance of an Anarchist or two, I fear some accident would have happened to this train between Lucernebourg and Witska.”

CHAPTER III.
THE BATTLE OF THE CREEDS.

The whole of the next fortnight was occupied by the mournful and protracted ceremonies accompanying the funeral of King Otto Georg. Cyril and M. Drakovics lived in a perpetual whirl. The royal and noble personages who came from the different Courts of Europe to represent their respective sovereigns on the occasion must be received, lodged, and entertained, and the deputations of country people and citizens of provincial towns must find their duties mapped out and a programme arranged for them. There were jealousies, and disputes about precedence, and squabbles between grandees of different nationalities to be settled or concealed, just as though the illustrious throng had come together with the view of deciding the social status of its various members, and not to deplore the fact that the sceptre of Thracia had passed into the uncertain grasp of a child of three.

All was over at length. The crowds of peasants who thronged into Bellaviste had taken their last look at the face of Otto Georg as he lay in state in the cathedral, and the splendid coffin had been conveyed to the vaults in which the bodies of the first two Kings of Thracia, Alexander Franza the Patriot, and his son Peter I., were already resting. The royal and noble personages were taking their leave, escorted to the station or to the frontier by military officers or Court officials according to their degree, and the country-people were returning to their villages, full of vague memories of vast crowds surging along the steep streets and into the cathedral, of black draperies everywhere, of great wax candles and much holy water, and of the dead King lying cold and still on the tall catafalque with its velvet hangings.

The two Ministers on whom had rested the chief anxiety and responsibility for the whole ceremonial were now able to take time to breathe once more, and to turn their thoughts to political matters, which had not stood still in other countries, in spite of the Truce of God in Thracia itself. Since the day of the King’s death, they had been compelled to act entirely on their own judgment, for no opportunity of seeing the Queen had been vouchsafed to them. It was true that she and her mother, shrouded from head to foot in long veils of crape, had taken part in some of the ceremonies connected with the funeral; but if the Ministers ventured to approach the royal apartments with the view of obtaining an audience, they were always received either by the Princess of Weldart or by Baroness von Hilfenstein, who procured the Queen’s signature to documents which were absolutely indispensable, and consulted her as to alterations in the programme drawn up and submitted by Cyril. It was not to be expected that this seclusion could be maintained now that the funeral ceremonies were over, and Cyril and M. Drakovics accepted with satisfaction an intimation that the Queen would receive them on the following morning.

“This is a critical moment,” said the Premier to his colleague, as they stood waiting in the room which had served as the late King’s study. “The whole future history of Thracia may be said to depend upon the course of this interview.”

“That sounds terrifically solemn,” returned Cyril, with the levity which M. Drakovics always found very trying in him. “What has precipitated matters to such an extent this morning?”

“It will be necessary,” said M. Drakovics slowly, “to make the Queen understand that in spite of her position as regent, the country is to be governed by the advice of her Ministers.”

“Which means you,” said Cyril. “But doesn’t it strike you that you are showing your hand a little too plainly? Surely an announcement of that kind is likely to make the Queen look out for a more complaisant set of Ministers?”

“I think not,” said M. Drakovics. “The Queen will not—I might say cannot—dismiss me. I am indispensable.”

“It must be very gratifying for you to feel assured of that; but suppose the Queen decides to try the experiment?”

“In that case,” replied the Premier darkly, “I should still do my best—within certain limits, of course—to preserve the throne to Otto Georg’s son, but there would inevitably be a change in the regency.”

“And in ceasing to be Premier you would merely become regent?”

“I do not say so. I remark simply that Thracia would part with a dozen queens before seeing me dismissed. No; the Queen can do me no harm, but unless she understands that fact at once, she may give me a good deal of trouble. Therefore she must be made to understand it.”

“You never pretended to be a knight-errant, did you?” asked Cyril lazily. “A business-like statesman with somewhat oriental ideas about women—that’s more like you, isn’t it?”

M. Drakovics glanced sharply at his subordinate; but the entrance of the Queen at the moment prevented his offering any answer to the question. Ernestine looked very small and pale in her deep mourning, with the heavy crape veil, which it was de rigueur for her to wear, falling to the ground behind her. Her aspect stirred in Cyril something of indignation, a very unwonted feeling with him, against M. Drakovics, who could talk so calmly of bullying this poor little woman into submission to himself. But this was not a time for indulging in sentiment, and as the Queen and M. Drakovics plunged into the neglected business of the past fortnight, he began to hope that the interview might end without any actual awkwardness. But when the Queen had given the necessary authorisation to the steps which the Premier had been obliged to take, and the list of matters to be discussed at the meeting of the Privy Council on the morrow had been agreed to, and it was Cyril’s turn to present his report and request directions for the future, M. Drakovics seized his opportunity.

“Her Highness will remain with your Majesty for the present?” he asked suddenly, when Cyril was detailing the arrangements made in connection with the visit of the Princess of Weldart. The Queen’s face flushed.

“My mother is good enough to promise to stay here with me until her physicians refuse to allow her to remain longer,” she replied, with a touch of defiance in her tone. “Is there anything extraordinary in that?”

“What could be more natural, madame?”

“My mother is endangering her own health by coming to Thracia at this season,” the Queen went on warmly; “but she refuses to forsake me in my bereavement.”

“Her Royal Highness’s visit is entirely of a personal and private character, madame, if I may presume to ask?”

A Crowned Queen: The Romance of a Minister of State

A CROWNED QUEEN

CONTENTS.

A CROWNED QUEEN.

CHAPTER I.AN INTERRUPTED HOLIDAY.

CHAPTER II.IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH.

CHAPTER III.THE BATTLE OF THE CREEDS.

CHAPTER I.
AN INTERRUPTED HOLIDAY.

CHAPTER II.
IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH.

CHAPTER III.
THE BATTLE OF THE CREEDS.