The announcement that Ferdinand the Twelfth, accompanied by his famous minister, Baron von Schalk, was on his way to this country and that he was coming straight to Dympsfield House can only be described as a blow to one confirmed in the habit of mediocrity. Had I had only myself to consult in the matter, I should have urged, with all the vigour of which my nature is capable, that it would be quite impossible for us to put them up. The lack of accommodation that was afforded by our modest establishment; the obscurity of our social state; our radical unfitness for the honour that was to be thrust upon us; all these disabilities and many another surged through my brain, while I laved my tired limbs and struggled into a "boiled" shirt, and tied my "white tie for royalty" in accordance with the sumptuary decree of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere. So acute, indeed, became the conviction that something must be done to turn the tide of events that I was fain to go next door to Fitz. That worthy was in the act of brushing his hair.

"You've heard the news, I suppose?" said I, and as I spoke I caught a glimpse of my own gloomy and shirt-sleeved apparition in a looking-glass.

"What news, old son?" said the Man of Destiny, negligently shaking something out of a bottle on to his scalp. "Not been shootin' at Sonia, have they? Police are devilish vigilant. I'm hanged if we haven't had a couple of mounted detectives with us all day. They rode like it, anyway."

"Do you mean to say you haven't heard?" said I, positively hating the man for his coolness. "Hasn't the Princess told you that her father is on his way to this country, and that he is coming straight to us?"

Fitz laid down his hair-brushes and turned round to face me.

"Get out!" he said. "Ferdinand coming here!"

"Yes; she had a letter this evening to that effect."

Fitz betrayed astonishment. And under the mask of his habitual indifference I thought he also betrayed something else.

"That poisonous old swine coming here!" he muttered.

"Yes; he is coming with Baron von Schalk."

"They generally hunt in couples. He never goes anywhere without his familiar. But I don't like your news at all."

"I like the news as little as you do," said I. "Really, we can hardly do with them here."

Fitz stroked his chin pensively, and then shook his head.

"It looks as though we shall have to put up with them, I'm afraid. If they are really on the way, I don't quite see how we can shirk them. Ferdinand is coming as a private person, I presume?"

"So I gather. But what do you suppose is his motive in making this sudden pilgrimage to see his daughter?"

Fitz did not answer the question immediately.

"It admits of only one explanation," he said at last. "His other scheme having failed, he has the audacity to take the thing in hand himself. But that is his way. Whatever may be thought of his policy and the style in which it is carried out, it can't be denied that he is a very remarkable man. But I wish to God he would keep away from England!"

The son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth ended with an abrupt outburst. Evidently the prospect of coming to grips with his august relation was not to be viewed lightly.

"But it hardly seems right," he said, "for him to take pot-luck at the Coach and Horses. I shall be immensely grateful, Arbuthnot, if you will put him up here, and of course it is quite understood that I stand the shot."

"The question of the shot, my dear fellow, doesn't enter into the case at all. But, you see, we are just simple, ordinary folk, and we are not quite up to this sort of thing; and then again, our accommodation is limited."

"Oh, that will be all right. If you can squeeze in Ferdinand and old Schalk here, their people can stay in the village."

I am not often troubled by anything in the nature of an inspiration, but desperation has been known to quicken the most lethargic minds.

"By Jove," said I, "there's Brasset. He is mounted on a far better scale than we are. The very man! I'm sure, if the matter were mentioned to him, he would feel himself highly honoured."

"Yes," said Fitz, "it is not half a bad idea. I will mention it to Sonia."

"Of course, my dear fellow," I explained, "you understand that my wife and I immensely appreciate the honour of entertaining the King of Illyria, and if we only had more resources we should be only too grateful for the chance. I hope you will make that quite clear to the Princess."

Solemnly enough the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth promised that this should be done, and I descended to the drawing-room in a more equable frame of mind. I was able to eat my dinner in the happy belief that my inspiration had solved an acute and oppressive difficulty. Emboldened by this reflection and sustained by a sense of danger overpast, I even went to the length of attempting to pave the way for the reception of the happy solution.

"By the way," I ventured to announce to Mrs. Arbuthnot at the other end of the table, "Mr. Fitzwaren has suggested that perhaps it would be more convenient for Count Zhygny and his friend the Baron if Lord Brasset entertained them at the Hall. This seems a most happy suggestion, and I am quite sure that Lord Brasset will consider it a very great honour."

Before I had come to the end of this carefully phrased, and, as I hoped, eminently diplomatic speech, a silent but furious signal was dispatched by wireless telegraphy across the whole length of the table. A frown of portentous dimension clouded the brow of Mrs. Arbuthnot as she turned ruthlessly to the picture of amused cynicism who sat beside her.

"Really, Mr. Fitzwaren," said she, "that is nonsense. His Maj – I mean to say, Count Thingamy has expressed a gracious desire to come here, and of course, as I have no need to say, we should be the last people in the world not to respect it. We shall only feel too proud and honoured, and the longer he stays with us the more proud and the more honoured we shall feel."

"Quite so, quite so," said I, hurriedly. "Those are exactly my views; that goes without saying, of course. But at the same time, Mr. Fitzwaren agrees with me that the accommodation at the Hall is far superior to any that we have it in our power to offer."

"I didn't say that exactly, old son." Fitz turned the tail of an amused eye upon his hostess. "I rather think that is one of the things that ought to be expressed differently. Rather open to misconstruction, as the old lady said when something went wrong with the airship."

"Irene quite understands what I mean," said I, with the valour of the entirely desperate. "The Hall, don't you know, is one of the show places of the country – ceilings by Verrio, and so on. Then, of course, Brasset's a peer, and, as it were, marked out by predestination to do the honours to Count Zhygny."

There was the imperious upraising of a jewelled paw, in company with a flash of eyes across the rose-bowl in the centre of the table. I was reminded of the lady in Meredith whose aspect spat.

"You are talking sheer nonsense, Odo. Your father is coming here, isn't he, Sonia dear? It is all arranged, and there will be heaps of room. Lucinda will go to Yorkshire to see her Granny; and Jodey can go to the Coach and Horses; and you, Odo, can sleep over the stables, and I am sure that Mr. Fitzwaren won't mind giving up the nicest bedroom to his Maj – I should say, Count von Thingamy. You won't, now will you, Mr. Fitzwaren?"

"I am yours to command, Mrs. Arbuthnot," said Mr. Fitzwaren, with his chin pinned down to the front of his shirt, and gazing straight before him with his smiling but sardonic eye. "And if there is anything I can do to add to the comfort of the Count, I need hardly say that I shall be most happy."

"There!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, triumphantly. "Not another word, please, else Sonia will think we don't deserve such an honour."

Her Royal Highness regaled us all with a benevolent flash of her wonderful teeth.

As one in the coils of fate, I had to submit with the best grace I could to its decree. So far was the sharer of my joys and the participator in my sorrows from viewing the prospect of the royal coming with disfavour, that she might be said to revel in it. There was a fire in her eye, a lightness in her step; the mere thought of the glamour that was so soon to invest her household served to envelop her in an atmosphere of mental and moral elevation that can only be described as lyrical.

Later in the evening I received a Caudle lecture upon my absence of tact. "What possessed you, Odo, to talk at dinner in that way! I don't know what dear Sonia must have felt, I'm sure. One would really think, to hear you, that we positively didn't want to entertain the King."

"Let us assume, mon enfant," said the desperate I, "in a purely academic spirit, that almost inconceivable hypothesis."

"Really, Odo, there are times when you seem to take a pride in being bourgeois."

"In this instance, my child, the indictment justifies itself. All the same, we are what we are; it is hardly kind to hold any man responsible for his antecedents."

"Don't think for a moment that I blame you because your grandfather was in trade; although, of course, trade was not so respectable then as it is now. Why I blame you, Odo, is because you don't always make the best of yourself. That was almost the only thing dearest Mama had against you. Now, for the love of goodness, let us hear no more about the King going to the Hall to stay with Reggie Brasset!"

CHAPTER XXI
THE EXPECTED GUEST

In the face of this manifesto by the powers, there was only one course to adopt. That course was submission. Fitz, while professing to sympathise with my embarrassment, was too cynical to help me much. The hospitality of the Hall might be more regal in its character, but then, if the august visitor came to us, think what a snug family party we should be!

The King was due at Southampton that day week, and his dutiful son-in-law proposed to meet him there. In spite of his casual and nonchalant airs, he had an inborn instinct for behaving well on great occasions. Ferdinand the Twelfth having affirmed his determination to visit our shores, it seemed to Fitz that it behoved all concerned to make the best of a bad business. It was a sad bore that he should have decided to do any such thing, but at the same time it might prove an amusing and possibly an instructive experience to have the victor of Rodova dwelling among us in Middleshire.

For Mrs. Arbuthnot these were great days. Almost the first thing she did was to borrow an under-footman from Yorkshire. She also provoked a state of anarchy in the kitchen by engaging for a fortnight a cordon bleu lately in the service of a nobleman. Our much-maligned and occasionally inebriated household goddess was fairly good for plain dishes, but certainly not for such as were to be set before a king. Upon inquiry of his daughter as to what dishes would make the best appeal to the royal palate, the Princess was fain to declare that if the victor of Rodova might be said to have a weakness for anything in particular it was for tomatoes.

It was my privilege to be present when, one morning at breakfast, the mandate was issued to Joseph Jocelyn De Vere that for the time being it was necessary that he should seek other quarters.

"I am really so sorry," said his sister in a birdlike voice, "I am really so dreadfully sorry. But what can we do? Two rather important members of the Illyrian Cabinet are coming from Blaenau to see dear Sonia, and of course it is only right that we should put them up."

"That is what all that talk about Count This and Baron That amounts to, is it?" said the young fellow, coolly. "Well, now, Mops, you don't suppose I am going to put myself to the trouble of clearin' out for a couple of bally foreigners, do you? This box suits me very well, and the Coach and Horses is quite a second-rate sort of pub."

"You can have your meals here, of course, but it would hardly be right to send foreigners of distinction to the village inn."

"Foreigners of distinction! Why, it would take the King himself to uproot me."

Such a moment was too much for Mrs. Arbuthnot's dramatic sense.

"Well, it so happens," said she, with a carefully calculated unconcern, "it is the King himself."

Jodey laid down his coffee-cup.

"Tell that to the Marines!" said he.

"If you don't believe me, you had better ask Sonia. Of course, it is a tremendous secret. The visit is a strictly private one, and his Majesty's incognito must be rigidly preserved."

"I should rather think so," said the sceptical youth. "I expect Fitz is pulling your leg."

"Oh no, he isn't," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "Why should he, pray? The King arrives at Southampton on Thursday, and Nevil will meet him there. His Chancellor, Baron von Schalk, accompanies him, and they are coming straight to us."

"If it don't beat cock-fightin'!"

"It is really quite natural that the dear old King should wish to see his daughter," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with pensive dignity.

But it is only fair to Mrs. Arbuthnot to say that her dramatic announcement had wrought sensibly upon her brother.

"I suppose there is no help for it," he said, cheerfully. "I expect I shall have to clear out. But I daresay Brasset will find me a crib if I explain how it is."

"There must be not a word of explanation to anybody," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with an official air. "Not a soul must know it is the King."

"Brasset will be all right. He's an awfully diplomatic beggar; been an attaché at Paris, and so on. You can trust him to keep a secret."

Mrs. Arbuthnot pondered. The gravity of her mien was enormous.

"Well, if you tell Reggie Brasset, you must give me your word of honour that you positively won't speak of it to another living being. Strictly incog., you know, and if it got out there might be serious international complications. Of course I had to write and tell Mama, else she would never have let me have Thomas. Besides, she is consulting Uncle Harry upon one or two points of etiquette."

"Oh, is she! Evidently going to be a devilish well-kept secret this is!"

"I should think it is. Why, I haven't even told Mary Catesby, yet I suppose I shall have to, because she is frightfully well up in that sort of thing."

"If you don't disdain a word of advice from a lowly quarter," said I, modestly, "you will leave Mary Catesby out of your calculations."

My only guerdon was the flash of an imperious china-blue eye. Other reward there was none.

"Seems to me," said Jodey, "we had better have Brasset to dine with us pretty often. You will want somebody to talk to the old buffer. I'm not much of a hand at conversation myself."

"No, Joseph," I ventured to remark, "but you are good and brave and modest. How goes the ballad that Irene so charmingly discourses? 'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever.'"

I desisted, for from two points of the compass a double-distilled Vane-Anstruther gaze was trained upon me. My relation by marriage drank his coffee and fished out a vile old pipe, and lit it amid the most magniloquent silence to which I have ever been a contributor.

But events were moving apace. The passing of each day brought us sensibly nearer the all-important event. With advice and aid from her Royal Highness, Mrs. Arbuthnot proceeded to set her house in order with no uncertainty. The King liked a room with a south aspect, it appeared, and a bath-room leading out of his dressing-room. By a special dispensation of providence these things happened to be forthcoming. Red was the predominant hue of the carpet and bed-hangings in the chamber of state. The picturesque fancy occurred to Mrs. Arbuthnot that purple would be more appropriate. Her Royal Highness thought it really didn't matter, but Joseph Jocelyn De Vere, who was called in to arbitrate, concurred with Mrs. Arbuthnot. The bill from Waring's was £65 12s. 9d. less five per cent. discount for cash.

On the morning of Wednesday a paper of instructions arrived from Uncle Harry via Doughty Bridge, Yorks. It seemed to attach chief significance to the wine, which should be of the best quality and abundant in quantity. Deponent adjured his niece to be especially careful about the madeira, as all the royalties he had had the honour to meet at table were extremely partial to that beverage. "I am sending a case of ours in the care of Thomas, unknown to your father," was interspersed in the form of a note in the maternal hand. In effect, Uncle Harry's instructions might be said to resolve themselves into as much madeira and as little fuss as possible.

Fitz also was not inactive. He had accepted the impending visit of his father-in-law, wholly distasteful to him as there was reason to believe it was, in quite the temper of the philosopher. Since the King's enemies were so rife in our part of the world, the first thing he did was to take the Chief Constable into his confidence. He then went up to town, spent two hours in Whitehall at the feet of more than one Gamaliel, called upon the General Manager of the Great Mid-Western Railway and arranged for a special train to be run through from Southampton to Middleham, and rounded up his day with the purchase of a new silk hat at Scott's.

The historic Thursday came at last, and shortly after seven A.M. Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren set forth to Southampton, arrayed in a very smart Newmarket coat, patent leather boots and his new silk hat. Even when I had witnessed his setting out in the full panoply of war, I could hardly realise that we were on the threshold of so high an occasion. I hope I do not attach an undue importance to the kings of the earth. But even an insignificant unit of a constitutional country, with perhaps something of a slight personal bias in the direction of democracy, could not allay a thrill of lively anticipation of what the day would bring forth.

According to the journals of the age, Ferdinand the Twelfth stood for an advanced type of despot. His word was law in Illyria. I spent half my morning in the hunting up and perusal of a recent number of one of the magazines, in which appeared a character-study of this famous man by one who claimed to know him intimately. Therein he figured as a benevolent reactionary; as one who in the fullest sense of the term believed himself to be the father of his people. He dispensed justice alike to the rich and the poor; but whether he was right or whether he was wrong, he allowed no appeal from his verdicts.

In the opinion of the writer of the article, the King of Illyria was one of the strongest men of his epoch. Poised as he had been all his life on the crater of a volcano, which issued continual threats of eruption, he had abated no point of his public or domestic policy in response to the rumblings below. He believed himself to possess an infallible knowledge of that which was good for his people, and he was prone to dispense his universal panacea in liberal doses. Yet he differed fundamentally from other potentates of a similar faith, as, for instance, his Russian nephew and his Turkish and Persian contemporaries, inasmuch as he had faith in the essential virtue of his subjects.

In spite of the fact that the modern distemper of anarchy had infected his kingdom, and had led to three cowardly attempts on his life, Ferdinand the Twelfth had furnished a convincing proof of his strength of character by declining to saddle his people with the responsibility of what he chose to consider as isolated acts of fanaticism. From the earliest times any individual or body of freemen of the Kingdom of Illyria had enjoyed the right of personal access to their sovereign. He was ready to give them advice in the most commonplace affairs. In many ways he was more like an enlightened friend and neighbour of liberal views than a despotic ruler whose word was law. It was said that he would advise a working-man about the choice of a calling for his son, or he would fix the amount of a daughter's dowry. "To take the King's opinion" had become a proverbial phrase throughout the land; and it was said that in the case of two farmers haggling over the price of a horse, whenever the phrase was used it received a literal interpretation.

The consequence of this accessibility was an abundant popularity among all classes in the state. In living up to the letter of the truly royal tradition that every Illyrian enjoyed the King's friendship, he had conserved his power, and in spite of many a sinister growl in consequence of severe taxation and many flagrant abuses of authority, the volcano had remained inactive throughout a long and not inglorious reign. His campaign in the 'sixties against the might of Austria, culminating in the historic day of Rodova, had been a wonder for wise men, and had only been rendered possible by the almost superstitious faith of all classes of a comparatively small community.

In his final survey of the character and attainments of one of the most significant figures of the age, the writer of the article indulged in the prophecy that with Ferdinand the Twelfth a symbol of true kingship would pass away. The forces of modernism were too strong in Illyria, as elsewhere in Europe, to be held longer at bay. It was only by a miracle that the doors of the historic castle at Blaenau had been barred against them so long. Only an extraordinary personal power and an unflinching strength of will had kept them unforced. For none could deny that the sublime example of trusting all men and fearing none had gone hand in hand with the gravest abuses; yet, whatever was their nature, it could at least be said that they owed their origin to no ignoble source. A king in every true essential, Ferdinand the Twelfth had the defects of his qualities. The standard of well-being in Illyria was high, but it was by no means widely dispersed. As is the case within the borders of all despotisms, the rich were the rich and the poor were the poor in Illyria. In many respects the condition of the people recalled that of France before the Revolution; and it would be a source of surprise to none who were in a position to observe the present situation if, at the eleventh hour, the fate of Louis XVI overtook this present uncommonly able and uncommonly misguided ruler.

By the light of what this day was to bring forth, I made an anxious study of this document. If I cannot say that I derived reassurance from it, at least it did nothing to diminish my curiosity. It was to be our privilege to entertain a type of true kingliness under our roof. If one of those culinary disasters occurred to which even the best regulated households are susceptible, and we were constrained to offer burnt soup or an underdone cutlet to the father of his people, it was to be hoped that his trembling host and hostess would not have to forfeit their heads.

As far as the King's daughter was concerned, it had seemed to us that the announcement of his coming had brought unhappiness. Her alert, half-humorous, half-malicious interest in everything around her which made her charm, had seemed to give place to the brooding preoccupation of one who felt a deep distrust of coming events. In particular I thought this was shown in her relation to her small daughter.

Prior to the receipt of the King's letter, Mrs. Fitz had shown no undue devotion to this piece of mischief incarnate who answered to the name of Marie, who defied her governess, bullied the servants and the domestic pets, and who fiercely contended in season and out with Miss Lucinda, a milder and more legitimate household despot. But by the time we had come to this historic Thursday, it was as though her mother could not bear this elf out of her sight. It was, of course, natural that she should ardently wish that Marie should behave nicely to her Grandpapa, but there was something almost tragic in this new anxiety concerning her. There could be no doubt its root struck deep.

To those who understood her ways and moods, it was clear that something weighed upon her heavily. It was even in the expression of her face; there was a strange decline of her vivacity, and a slackening of interest in the things around her. By the time Thursday came she seemed most unhappy.

The Crackanthorpe had no fixture for that day, and in the light of after events, perhaps, it had been well if they had. All the morning she was curiously silent and distraite. She divided most of her time between the stables and the society of her horses and the nursery and the society of her singularly wilful and intractable daughter. At luncheon she refused every dish, contenting herself with a glass of water and a piece of dry toast. Not a word did she speak until near the end of the meal, when quite suddenly she clasped her hands to her head, and exclaimed in a deep guttural voice, hardly recognisable as her own —

"I t'ink I will go mad!"

There was something indescribably tragic in the exclamation. I rose and withdrew from the room, and made a sign to the servants to follow. Mrs. Arbuthnot was left alone with the unhappy lady, and as I went out I remarked to her that I was going into the library.

About ten minutes afterwards, Irene came to me there. She was looking pale and anxious and not a little alarmed.

"She is suffering dreadfully, poor thing," she said, not without a suspicion of tears. "She is almost out of her reason, and she is making a frantic effort to control herself."

"Can you gather what the trouble is?"

"She has a terrible fear of something. What it is I don't know. She keeps talking in Illyrian."

"Is it her father's coming?"

"Yes, it has upset her dreadfully."

"Is she afraid of him?"

"Yes, pathetically afraid. But there is also something else she fears."

"I suppose she is thinking of her husband and her child?"

"Yes, poor soul! How I wish we could help her!"

"It is not easy to help the children of destiny."

"Never until now have I realised what a dreadful life it is these people lead. She is suffering terribly. Do you know of anybody who understands the stars?"

"The stars!"

"Yes, she says she wants to know what the stars are doing. It is ridiculous superstition, of course, and I told her so. But she shook her head in the oddest way, and she looked so tragic and unhappy that she nearly made me cry."

"Isn't there an astrologer in Bond Street? But it's a hundred to one he's a charlatan."

"They all are, of course."

"The Princess doesn't appear to think so. And there is my cracked old Uncle Theodore who lives in Bryanston Square. He is supposed to be no end of an authority upon the stars."

"Well, it is utterly ridiculous, but I am afraid nothing can be done with her until she has consulted somebody. Give her your Uncle Theodore's address and let her catch the 2.20 to town, and she will be back before the King comes."

"She can't go alone. In her present state of mind somebody must be with her. Can't you persuade her to wait until she has seen her father?"

"She is suffering so much that it would be a mercy to relieve the strain in any way."

"Very well, I will take her to see old Theodore. I will send him a wire to tell him that a lady is coming to consult him about the stars; and also I had better telephone to Coverdale to let him know what's happening. It is hardly wise to go to London without an escort. Then there is the monarch to be arranged for. But Fitz will wire the authorities direct from Southampton the approximate time of his arrival."

Luckily Coverdale was at the Sessions Hall. But when I informed him of the Princess's sudden determination to go to town by the 2.20 he very nearly fused the wires. "How the blank did she suppose that with her blank father due at Middleham at 6.50 the Middleshire Constabulary could arrange for her to go gallivanting to the blank metropolis that blank afternoon?" Without venturing in any way to enlighten the official nescience or to mitigate its temperature, I attempted with infinite tact and patience to explain, yet withholding all reference to the stars as I did so, that in the circumstances there was no help for it. This being a matter upon which the Princess had fully made up her mind, it behoved the Middleshire Constabulary to defer to her wishes with the best possible grace.

"Well, my friend," said the Chief Constable, "let me tell you, you are running a devil of a risk. But I shall communicate with Scotland Yard, and ask them to look after you. Still, as the King arrives this evening, the four men you have with you had better remain on duty at the house. And," concluded the head of the Middleshire Constabulary, "I would to God the whole blank, blank crowd – !!"

A married man, a father of a family, and a county member somewhat hurriedly replaced the receiver.