one evening, as mrs montgomery was reading vanity fair for the fifteenth time, there came a tap at the door. it was not the first interruption since opening the cherished green-bound book, and mrs montgomery seemed disinclined to stir. with the court about to return to winter quarters, and the summer-palace upside down, the royal governess was still able to command her habitual british phlegm. it had been decided, moreover, that she should remain behind in the forsaken palace with the little prince, the better to “prepare” him for his forthcoming eton exam.
still, with disputes as to the precedence of trunks and dress-baskets simmering in the corridors without, it was easier to enjoy the barley-sugar stick in one’s mouth, than the novel in one’s hand.
“thank god i’m not touchy!” mrs 171 montgomery reflected, rolling her eyes lazily about the little white wainscoted room.
it was as if something of her native land had crept in through the doorway with her, so successfully had she inculcated its tendencies, or spiritual ideals, upon everything around.
a solitary teapot, on a bracket, above the door, two jubilee plates, some peacocks’ feathers, an image of a little fisher-boy in bathing-drawers and a broken hand;—“a work of delicate beauty!” a mezzotint: the coiffing of maria—these were some of the treasures which the room contained.
“a blessing to be sure when the court has gone!” she reflected half-rising to drop a curtsy to prince olaf who had entered.
“word from your country,” sententiously he broke out: “my brother’s betrothed! so need i go on with my preparation?”
“put your tie straight! and just look at your socks all tumbling down. such great jambons of knees!... what will become of you, i ask myself, when you’re a lower boy at eton.” 172
“how can i be a lower boy when i’m a prince?”
“probably, the rev. ruggles-white, when you enter his house, will be able to explain.”
“i won’t be a lower boy! i will not!”
“cs, cs.”
“damn the democracy.”
“fie, sir.”
“down with it.”
“for shame.”
“revenge.”
“that will do: and now, let me hear your lessons: i should like,” mrs montgomery murmured, her eyes set in detachment upon the floor; “the present-indicative tense of the verb to be! adding the words, political h-hostess;—more for the sake of the pronunciation than for anything else.”
and after considerable persuasion, prompting, and “bribing,” with various sorts of sweets:
“i am a political hostess,
thou art a political hostess,
173
he is a political hostess,
we are political hostesses,
ye are political hostesses,
they are political hostesses.”
“very good, dear, and only one mistake. he is a political h-hostess: can you correct yourself? the error is so slight....”
but alas the prince was in no mood for study; and mrs montgomery very soon afterwards was obliged to let him go.
moving a little anxiously about the room, her meditations turned upon the future.
with the advent of elsie a new régime would be established: increasing britishers would wish to visit pisuerga; and it seemed a propitious moment to abandon teaching, and to inaugurate in kairoulla an english hotel.
“i have no more rooms. i am quite full up!” she smiled, addressing the silver andirons in the grate.
and what a deliverance to have done with instructing unruly children, she 174 reflected, going towards the glass mail-box attached to her vestibule door. sometimes about this hour there would be a letter in it, but this evening there was only a picture postcard of a field mouse in a bonnet, from her old friend mrs bedley.
“we have valmouth at last,” she read, “and was it you, my dear, who asked for the beard throughout the ages? it is in much demand, but i am keeping it back anticipating a reply. several of the plates are missing i see, among them, those of the late king edward, and of assur bani pal; i only mention it, that, you may know i shan’t blame you! we are having wonderful weather, and i am keeping pretty well, although poor mrs barleymoon, i fear, will not see through another winter. trusting you are benefiting by the beautiful country air: your obedient servant to command,
ann bedley.
“p.s.—man, and all about him, is rebinding. ready i expect soon.”
“ah! cunnie, cunnie ...?” mrs montgomery murmured, laying the card 175 down near a photograph of the court-physician with a sigh: “ah! arthur amos cuncliffe babcock ...?” she invoked his name dulcetly in full: and as though in telepathic response, there came a tap at the door, and the doctor himself looked in.
he had been attending, it seemed, the young wife of the comptroller of the household at the extremity of the corridor; a creature, who, after two brief weeks of marriage, imagined herself to be in an interesting state: “i believe baby’s coming!” she would cry out every few hours.
“do i intrude?” he demanded, in his forceful, virile voice, that ladies knew and liked: “pray say so if i do.”
“does he intrude!” mrs montgomery flashed an arch glance towards the cornice.
“well, and how are you keeping?” the doctor asked, dropping on to a rep causeuse that stood before the fire.
“i’m only semi-well, doctor, thanks!”
“why, what’s the trouble?”
“you know my organism is not a very strong one, dr cuncliffe ...” mrs montgomery replied, drawing up a chair, and 176 settling a cushion with a sigh of resignation at her back.
“imagination!”
“if only it were!”
“imagination,” he repeated, fixing a steady eye on the short train of her black brocaded robe that all but brushed his feet.
“if that’s your explanation for continuous broken sleep ...” she gently snapped.
“try mescal.”
“i’m trying dr fritz millar’s treatment,” the lady stated, desiring to deal a slight scratch to his masculine amour propre.
“millar’s an ass.”
“i don’t agree at all!” she incisively returned, smiling covertly at his touch of pique.
“what is it?”
“oh it’s horrid. you first of all lie down; and then you drink cold water in the sun.”
“cold what? i never heard of such a thing: it’s enough to kill you.”
mrs montgomery took a deep-drawn breath of languor. 177
“and would you care, doctor, so very much if it did?” she asked, as a page made his appearance with an ice-bucket and champagne.
“to toast our young princess!”
“oh, oh, dr cuncliffe? what a wicked man you are:” and for a solemn moment their thoughts went out in unison to the sea-girt land of their birth—barkers’, selfridges’, brighton-pier, the zoological gardens on a sunday afternoon.
“here’s to the good old country!” the doctor quaffed.
“the bride, and,” mrs montgomery raised her glass, “the old folks at h-home.”
“the old folks at home!” he vaguely echoed.
“bollinger, you naughty man,” the lady murmured, amiably seating herself on the causeuse at his side.
“you’ll find it dull here all alone after the court has gone,” he observed, smiling down, a little despotically, on to her bright, abundant hair.
mrs montgomery sipped her wine.
“when the wind goes whistling up and 178 down under the colonnades: oh, then!” she shivered.
“you’ll wish for a fine, bold pisuergian husband; shan’t you?” he answered, his foot drawing closer to hers.
“often of an evening, i feel i need fostering,” she owned, glancing up yearningly into his face.
“fostering, eh?” he chuckled, refilling with exuberance her glass.
“why is it that wine always makes me feel so good?”
“probably, because it fills you with affection for your neighbour!”
“it’s true; i feel i could be very affectionate: i’m what they call an ‘amoureuse’ i suppose, and there it is....”
there fell a busy silence between them.
“it’s almost too warm for a fire,” she murmured, repairing towards the window; “but i like to hear the crackle!”
“company, eh?” he returned, following her (a trifle unsteadily) across the room.
“the night is so clear the moon looks to be almost transparent,” she languorously observed, with a long tugging sigh. 179
“and so it does,” he absently agreed.
“i adore the pigeons in my wee court towards night, when they sink down like living sapphires upon the stones,” she sentimentally said, sighing languorously again.
“ours,” he assured her; “since the surgery looks on to it, too....”
“did you ever see anything so ducky-wucky, so completely twee!” she inconsequently chirruped.
“allow me to fill this empty glass.”
“i want to go out on all that gold floating water!” she murmured listlessly, pointing towards the lake.
“alone?”
“drive me towards the sweet seaside,” she begged, taking appealingly his hand.
“aggie?”
“arthur—arthur, for god’s sake!” she shrilled, as with something between a snarl and a roar, he impulsively whipped out the light.
“h-help! oh arth——”
thus did they celebrate the “royal engagement.”
