King John of Jingalo Part 41

Professor Teller's volumes of Const.i.tutional History still lay upon a retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that he had extracted with slight changes his formal p.r.o.nouncement of abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at least they should render him as his one remaining due.

And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence of the late outrage?

"Very likely," a.s.sented the King; "after all it took place on Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action.

"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my duty."

In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an att.i.tude which put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood forth to his ministers as a rigid const.i.tutional reminder; and with six volumes of the minutiae of const.i.tutional usage at his fingers' ends the amount of time he was able to waste and the amount of trouble he was able to give were simply amazing.

The Prime Minister had been quite right; the resignation of the Home Secretary caused just that flutter of unfavorable suspicion which he had expected. For some reason or another he was extremely distressed by it, and begged from his Majesty the grant of a full State pension to the retired minister. But the King would not hear of it. "It is not my duty," he said, "to grant full pensions to those who fail in their official obligations. Where I am more personally concerned I have not pressed you; I have not asked for the resignation of the Prefect of Police, though I think I might have some reason to show for it. He prevented nothing, and he has discovered nothing. Do you expect me to open Parliament for you again next week, with the same ceremony, along the same route, and at the same risk?"

He was a.s.sured that every precaution would be taken.

"I hope so," he said in the tone of one who very much doubted whether the ministerial word was now worth anything.

Under this hara.s.sing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when out of work or when on strike. And when the Address to the Throne was being moved Labor and the Women Chartists would be in renewed agitation, asking for things which would make party politics quite impossible, and which it was therefore quite impossible for party politics to grant. If the Government had not still got that thoroughly unpopular House of Bishops to sit upon and coerce, things would be looking very black indeed.

III

And meanwhile where was the Princess Charlotte? Seven horrible days had gone by; and the inner circle of the detective force had been running about in padded slippers, so to speak, giving an accurate description of a lady whose name n.o.body knew, and who had been last seen in the vicinity of a college for women. Very privately and confidentially the t.i.tled lady who was the head of that inst.i.tution had been interviewed; but her information was limited.

"She came to me only for one day," said the Princ.i.p.al, "though I thought she was intending to stay a week. I hardly know when I missed her; she had laid it down so very emphatically that she was to be left free and treated without ceremony, that really I did not trouble to look after her. Whenever she was here her Highness always mixed quite freely with the students; I know that with some of them she had made friends. They are far more likely to know what her plans were than I am."

Further inquiry in the direction thus indicated had to be carried on elsewhere, since the students had now separated for the vacation; and wherever inquiry was made the same stealthy secrecy had to be adopted; n.o.body must be allowed to suppose that the Princess Royal of Jingalo was missing. And so--on a sort of all-fours not at all conducive to speed--the quest went on.

On the fifth day, however, some relief had arrived to reduce the parental anxiety to bearable proportions. A letter, dropped from nowhere, bearing the metropolitan postmark, came to the King's hands. It gave only the barest, yet very essential information.

"Dearest papa," it ran, "I am quite well, and enjoying myself. I shall be back in a fortnight."

News of the arrival of this letter was immediately conveyed to the Constabulary Chief; and after three days of deep cogitation the absence of all reference to the outrage and to the risk run by those near and dear to her seemed to strike him as peculiar, and supplied him with what hitherto the police had lacked--a clue. And after two more days of strenuously directed search it bore fruit.

Late one afternoon the King was sitting at work in his study when his Comptroller-General entered hastily and in evident excitement; for though the King was then busily engaged in writing he presumed to interrupt, not waiting for the royal interrogating glance to give him his permission.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a tone of very urgent apology.

"Well, well?" said the King rather testily, for he did not like his writing-hour to be thus disturbed, "what is it?"

"The Prime Minister wishes to see you, sir, on a matter of extreme urgency."

The King had so long been pestered by ministers on matters which they considered urgent and which he did not, that he had little patience for such pleas, coming at the wrong time.

"What about?" he inquired curtly.

The Comptroller-General, who was supposed not to know, replied discreetly but in a tone of veiled meaning, "Something in the Home Department I believe, sir. Just now, while there is no chief secretary, the Prime Minister himself is seeing to matters."

"Dear, dear!" sighed his Majesty, "I do wish he would manage to get his urgent business done at the proper time!"

"I think, sir," said the General, "that this matter is one of sufficient importance to justify a suspension of the ordinary rules." He paused, as though about to say more, but thought better of it; after all the matter did not lie within his department.

"Very well," said the King, "let him come in, then!" And in due course the Premier entered.

It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened abruptly upon the business which had brought him.

"I have come to inform your Majesty," said he, "that we have at last discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts."

"Oh?" said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of grat.i.tude over the too long delayed discovery. "And pray, where is she?"

"I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in Stonewall Jail."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness.

"Whatever took her there?"

"She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'[1] along with several others.

And she has been there for the last ten days."

[Footnote 1: Jingalese equivalent for "Black Maria."]

"Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope."

"The charge, sir, was for a.s.saulting the police. No doubt there has been a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence."

"a.s.saulting the police!" exclaimed the King petulantly.

"But what else are the police there for?--when there's trouble, I mean.

And how many of them did she a.s.sault, pray?"

"I believe only one, sir," replied the Prime Minister; "at least only one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses to say that she did not a.s.sault him. The magistrate who convicted, however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested."

"When did all this take place?"

"In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them."

"She must be mad!" exclaimed the King in bewilderment. "Whatever could have induced her?"

"Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?"

"She has ideas," said the King, "like other young people; but she is generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she doesn't want to do, she----" And then it began to dawn upon him--though only darkly--what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger generation was coming to.

"Poor dear silly child!" he exclaimed in fond irritation. "Why ever could she not have waited?"

That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer.

"Well, well," he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the business, "she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real harm done."

"Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter," said the Prime Minister gravely.

"Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced in her own name, I suppose?"