Mrs. Fitz

The Fitzwarens, however, were far from being ordinary average people. Therefore, by a quarter to five that morning they had crossed our threshold; and as some recompense for the privations of that tragic night they were promptly regaled with a scratch meal of coffee and sandwiches.

One other individual, at his own suggestion, accompanied our guests to Dympsfield House. He was of a sinister omen, being no less a person than the Chief Constable of the county. His presence at the fire had been a matter for surprise. And when, as we were about to quit the unhappy scene, he came to me privately and said that if we could squeeze a corner for him in the car he should be glad to come with us, that surprise was not made less.

CHAPTER XVIII

MRS. ARBUTHNOT BEGINS TO TAKE NOTICE

It was a little before six when the ladies retired in the quest of their lost repose. No sooner had they left us than we lit our pipes and drew our chairs up to the fire. In patience I awaited the riddle of the Chief Constable's presence being read to me.

"Arbuthnot," – the great man sucked at his pipe pensively – "there are several things that Fitzwaren and I are agreed that you ought to know."

Fitz nodded his head in curt but rather sinister approval.

"Yes, tell him," he said.

"Before Fitzwaren accepted your hospitality," said the great man, "he asked my advice."

"Oh, really?" said I.

"And I think it only right to mention" – the air of the great man reminded me of my old tutor expounding a proposition in Euclid – "that it is upon my advice he has accepted it."

"I ought to feel honoured."

"Well, yes, perhaps you ought." The Chief Constable removed his pipe from his lips and tapped it upon an extremely dirty boot. "But whether you will feel honoured when you have heard all we have to say to you I am not so sure."

"Nor I," said Fitz.

"You see, Arbuthnot, we have a rather delicate problem to deal with. It is neither more nor less than the personal safety of the Princess."

"I hope," said I, "her Royal Highness will be at least as safe here as she would be anywhere else."

"That is the crux of the whole matter. Fitzwaren and I have come to the conclusion that, for the time being, the Princess will actually be safer in this house than she would be in any other."

"Really!"

"Our local police, acting in conjunction with Scotland Yard, hope to be able to ensure her safety, that is if she and her friends take reasonable care."

"You may depend upon it, Coverdale, that as far as my wife and I are concerned we shall do nothing to jeopardise it."

"That is taken for granted. But her present position is much more critical than perhaps you are aware."

"I know, of course, that Ferdinand the Twelfth is determined to have her back in Illyria."

"Yes, and further than that, the Republican Party is equally determined that she never shall go back to Illyria. The events of last night have furnished another proof of their sentiments."

"I don't understand."

"There is reason to believe that the destruction of the Grange is the work of an incendiary. That is to say, a bomb was thrown through one of the windows, as was the case at Blaenau recently. There can be no question that the object of the crime was to kill the Princess, as it was to kill the King, but in each case the business was bungled. In this instance, rather miraculously, not a soul was hurt, although the house, as you know, has been entirely destroyed. A bomb was thrown into the dining-room, but as dinner happened to be half an hour later than usual, nobody was there."

This grisly narrative gave me a sharp shock, I confess. And I must have betrayed my state of mind, for the Chief Constable favoured me with a smile of reassurance.

"Put your trust in the Middleshire police," said he, "with a little assistance from the Yard. They won't play that game twice with us, you can depend upon it. If the Yard had not been rather late with their information they would never have played it at all. Our people were actually on the way to the Grange when the outrage was committed."

For all the air of professional reassurance, the married man, the father of the family, and the county member was thoroughly alarmed.

"It is all very well, Coverdale, but what guarantee is there that even at this moment they are not dropping bombs into our bedrooms?"

"Four men in plain clothes are patrolling your park, and will continue to do so as long as the Princess remains under your roof."

It would have been ungrateful not to express relief for this official vigilance. But that it was felt in any substantial measure is more than I can affirm.

"Of course, my dear fellow," said Fitz, "now that you are in possession of all the facts of the case, you have a perfect right to withdraw the offer of your hospitality. Coverdale and I are agreed that it will do much to promote my wife's safety for the time being, because this house will be kept under continual observation. But as soon as I can make other arrangements I shall do so, of course. And if you really believe that the safety of your house and family is involved, we shall have no alternative but to go at once."

To what length ought we to carry our altruism? Here was a grave problem for the married man, the father of the family, and the county member. In spite of the opinion of the cool-headed and sagacious Coverdale, I could not allay the feeling that to harbour the "Stormy Petrel" was to incur a grave risk. But at the same time it was not in me to turn her adrift into the highways and hedges.

"Now that we have had due warning of what to expect," said Coverdale, "these gentry will not find it quite so easy to throw bombs in this country as they do in Illyria. And if I thought for one moment you were not justified in extending your hospitality to the Princess I should certainly say so."

Events are generally too strong for the humble mortals who are content to tread the path of mediocrity. We had already offered sanctuary to the Crown Princess of Illyria. A little painful reflection seemed to show that to revoke it now would be rather inhuman and rather cowardly. All the same, it was impossible to view with enthusiasm the prospect of four men in plain clothes continually patrolling the park.

"By the way," said the Chief Constable, "you will, I hope, treat this business of the bombs as strictly confidential. It won't help matters at all to find it in the morning papers."

"I appreciate that; but won't the servants be rather curious about those four sportsmen in plain clothes?"

"Ostensibly they are there to look after a gang of burglars who are expected in the neighbourhood."

"Not exactly a plausible story, I am afraid!"

"The story doesn't matter, so long as they don't suspect the truth. And as Mrs. Fitzwaren's incognito has been so well kept, there is no reason why they should."

So much for the latest development of this amazing situation. From the very moment the curtain had risen upon the first act of the tragi-comedy of the Fitzwarens I had seemed to be cast for the uncomfortable rôle of the weak soul in the toils of fate. From the beginning it had been contrary to the promptings of the small voice within that I had borne a part in their destinies. And here they were established under my roof, a menace to my household and the enemies of all peace of mind.

It only remained to make the best of things and to hope devoutly that Fitz would soon arrange to relieve us of the presence of the "Stormy Petrel." But in spite of all the dark knowledge it was necessary to keep locked up in one's heart, there was an aspect of the matter which was rather charming. To watch the lion and the lamb lying down together, a veritable De Vere Vane-Anstruther playing hostess to the fair equestrienne from a continental circus was certainly pleasant.

I think it is up to me to admit that at the core Mrs. Arbuthnot is as sound as a bell. Certainly her demeanour towards her guests was faultless. Indeed, it made me feel quite proud of her to reflect that had she really known the true status of our visitor she could have done nothing more for her comfort and for that of her entourage. Her foibles were condoned and "her little foreign ways" were yielded to in the most gracious manner; and after dinner that evening it was a great moment when our distinguished guest volunteered to accompany on the piano her hostess's light contralto.

I took this to be symbolical of the complete harmony in which the day had been spent. Confirmation of this was forthcoming an hour later, when we had the drawing-room to ourselves.

"Really she is not half such a trial as I feared she would be," Mrs. Arbuthnot confessed.

"If you meet people fairly and squarely half-way," said I, in my favourite rôle of the hearthrug philosopher, "there are surprisingly few with whom you can't find something in common."

"Perhaps there is such a thing as being too fastidious."

"We are apt to draw the line a little close at times, eh?"

"Some of these Bohemians must be rather interesting in their way," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"No doubt they have some sort of a standard to which they try to conform," said I, with excellent gravity.

"Of course she is not exactly a lady. Yet in some ways she is rather nice. Doesn't look at things in the way we do, of course. Awfully unconventional in some of her ideas."

"By unconventional you mean continental, I presume?"

"No, not continental exactly. At least, I was 'finished' in Dresden, but I didn't learn anything of that kind."

"Had you been 'finished' in an Austrian circus perhaps you might have done."

"I hardly think so. They don't seem to be ideas you could pick up. I should think you would have to be born with them. They seem somehow to belong to your past – to your ancestors."

"It has not occurred to me that circus-riders were troubled with ancestors."

"Hardly, perhaps, in the sense that we mean. But there is something rather fine in their way of looking at things."

"A good type of Bohemian would you say?"

"Surprisingly so in some ways. She doesn't seem to care a bit about money and she is absolutely devoted to Fitz. She doesn't seem to care a bit about jewels, either. She has got some positively gorgeous things, and if there is anything I care to have she hopes I'll take it. Of course I shall do nothing of the kind, but I should just love to have them all."

"She appears to have had her admirers in Vienna, evidently."

"That is what one can't make out. She has three tiaras, and they must be priceless."

"Nonsense, mon enfant. Even the glamour of the sawdust a thousand times reflected cannot transmute paste into the real thing."

"But the odd part of it is they are real. I am convinced of it; and Adèle, my maid, who was two years with dear Evelyn, is absolutely sure."

"Is it conceivable that the possessor of three diamond tiaras would choose to jump for a livelihood through a hoop in pink tights?"

"Yes, I know it's absurd. But nothing will convince me that her diamonds are not real."

"And she offered you the pick of them?"

"The pick of everything except the smallest of the three tiaras, which she thought perhaps her father might not like her to part with."

"One would have thought that he would at least have set his affections upon the largest of the three."

"Really, I can hardly swallow the circus."

"You haven't by any chance asked her the question?"

"Dear no! One wouldn't like to ask a question of that sort unless one knew her quite well. I don't think she was ever in a circus at all. Or if she was, she may have been a sort of foundling."

"Stolen by gipsies from the ancestral castle in her infancy. After all, there is nothing to prevent her father being a duke."

"I don't think it would surprise me, although, of course, she is rather odd. But then in all ways she is so different from us."

"Did you observe whether she ate with her knife and drank out of the finger-bowls?"

"Her manners are just like those of anybody else. I am asking Mary to dine here on Friday, so that she can see for herself. It is her ideas that are un-English; yet, judged by her own standard she might be considered quite nice."

"Mrs. Arbuthnot, surely a very generous admission!"

"Let us be fair to everybody. I'm not sure that one couldn't get almost to like her. There is something about her that seems to take right hold of you. Personal magnetism, I suppose."

"Or some uncomfortable Bohemian attribute? Can it be, do you suppose, that the standard the English gentlewoman likes the whole world to conform to would be none the worse for a little wider basis?"

"Don't be a goose! A person is either a lady or she isn't, but she may be frightfully entertaining and fascinating all the same."

"Yes, that has the hall-mark of truth. There are cases in history. Miss Dolly Daydream, for example, of the Frivolity Theatre."

Mrs. Arbuthnot reproved me for the levity with which I treated a grave issue. Upon the receipt of my apology she regaled me with the astounding fact that Mrs. Fitz looked down on the English.

"Is it conceivable?" said I, the picture of incredulity.

"Really and truly she does. Quite laughs at us. Says we are so stupid – so bête, that's her word. And she says we are so conceited. She seems to think we have very little education in the things that really matter."

"Is she old-fashioned enough to believe that there is anything that really matters?"

"In a way she does."

"How antediluvian! What does she believe it is that really matters?"

"She seems to think it's the soul."

"Dear me! I hope you made it clear to her that that part of the Englishman's anatomy is never mentioned in good society?"

"She knows that, I think. She says why the Romans are ashamed of it is what she can't fathom."

"She pays us the compliment of comparing us to the Romans?"

"She says we are the Romans."

"In a re-incarnation, I presume?"

"I suppose she means that – she is so awfully odd. And for the Romans to give themselves airs is too ridiculous."

"Has she no opinion of the Cæsars?"

"The Cæsars don't amount to much, in her opinion. We are going to have another lesson before long, she says, and it will be a very good thing for the world."

"If by that she means that materialism leads to a cul-de-sac, and that it takes a better creed than that to raise a reptile out of the mud, perhaps we might do worse than agree with her."

"She certainly never said anything about any 'isms.' But I don't understand you anyway."

"It seems to me, mon enfant, she has had a good deal to say about the 'isms.' But then, as you say, she's so foreign. Was there anything else about her that engaged your attention?"

"Heaps of things. She is terribly superstitious, a tremendous believer in fate. She thinks everything is fore-ordained, and that the same things keep happening over again."

"Doesn't her oddness strike you as rather out of date?"

"Absurdly. But it is not so much her ideas as the way she lives up to them that makes her so different from other people. There was one thing she told me really made me laugh. She said that Nevil was her twin-soul, and that they lived in Babylon together about three thousand years ago."

"I should think that is not unlikely."

"Be serious, Odo."

"There are more things in earth and heaven, Horatia, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Go to bed like a wise child, and dream of hunting the fox, and see that this Viennese horsewoman doesn't addle that brain too much."

Mrs. Arbuthnot confessed namely that she didn't feel in the least like sleep.

"I think I'll have another cigarette," she said.

"Sitting up late and smoking to excess will destroy that magnificent De Vere Vane-Anstruther nerve."

"Goose! Yet I am not sure that this circus woman hasn't destroyed it already. Do you know, I've never been in the least afraid of anybody before, but I rather think I'm a bit afraid of her. She really is wonderfully odd."

A slight tremor seemed to invade the voice of Mrs. Arbuthnot. I was fain to believe that such a display of sensibility was extremely honourable to her. For, even judged as a mere human entity, our guest was quite apart from the ordinary, and it would have implied a measure of obtuseness not to recognise that fact.

Taking one consideration with another, I felt the hour was ripe to let Mrs. Arbuthnot into the secret. As things were going so well, it was perhaps not strictly necessary; yet at the same time I had a premonition that I should not be forgiven if the wife of my bosom was kept too long in innocence of our visitor's romantic lineage.

"That cigarette of yours," said I, "means another pipe for me, although you know quite well that it makes me so bad-tempered in the morning. But I think I ought to tell you something – that is if you will swear by all your gods not to breathe a word to a living soul, not even to Mary Catesby."

Mrs. Arbuthnot pricked up her ears properly.

"Why, of course. You mean it is something about this Mrs. Fitz? I know it."

"What do you know?"

"I can't explain it, but as soon as I spoke to her it came upon me that she was something quite deep and mysterious."

"Well, it happens that she is. Things are not always what they seem. I am going to give you a guess."

"There is something Grand-Duchessy about her. You remember that woman we met at Baden-Baden? In some ways she is rather like her."

"And do you remember your old friend the King of Illyria? – 'the old johnny with the white hair,' to quote Joseph Jocelyn De Vere."

"The dear old man in the Jubilee procession?"

"The Victor of Rodova; the representative of the oldest reigning monarchy in Europe."

"Yes, yes. Such an old dear."

"Well, our friend Mrs. Fitz happens to be his only child, the Heiress Apparent to the throne of Illyria. What have you to say to that?"

For the moment Mrs. Arbuthnot had nothing at all to say, but she looked as though a feather would have knocked her over.

"It is a small world, isn't it, mon enfant?"

"It really is the oddest thing out!" Mrs. Arbuthnot's feminine organisation was quite tense. "It doesn't surprise me, and yet it is really too queer."

"Ridiculously queer that humdrum people like us should be entertaining royalties unawares."

"Not nearly so queer as that she should have married Nevil Fitzwaren. How did she come to marry him?"

"They are twin-souls who lived in Babylon three thousand years ago."

"That is merely silly."

"My authority is her Royal Highness."

"Fancy the Crown Princess of Illyria running off with a man like Fitz!"

"There is reason to suppose that he makes her happy."

"Why, one day she will be Queen of Illyria!"

"She may be or she may not."

"Well, I can't believe it anyway! There is no proof."

"There is no proof beyond herself. And I confess that to me she carries conviction."

For an instant Mrs. Arbuthnot knitted her brows in the process of thought. She then concurred with a perplexed little sigh.

"But how dreadfully awkward it will be," she said in a kind of rapture, "for poor dear Mary Catesby!"

CHAPTER XIX

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS RECEIVES A LETTER

Pledged to secrecy, Mrs. Arbuthnot earned a meed of praise for her behaviour during a crowded and glorious epoch. If you entertain the Crown Princess of an active and potent monarchy it is reasonable to expect that things will happen.

Things did happen in some profusion during the sojourn of her Royal Highness at Dympsfield House. Owing to the course taken by events which I shall have presently to narrate, that sojourn was prolonged indefinitely. The resources of our modest establishment were taxed to the uttermost, but throughout a really trying period it is due to Mrs. Arbuthnot to say that she was a model of tact, discretion, and natural goodness.

She would have been unworthy the name of woman – a title not without pretensions to honour, as sociologists inform us – had she not literally burned to communicate her knowledge of the true identity of "the circus rider from Vienna." But some compensation was culled from the fact that her co-workers in the cause of the Public Decency grew increasingly lofty in their point of view. Even the promptings of a healthy human curiosity would not permit Mrs. Catesby to eat at our board in order that she might see for herself. Mournfully that woman of an unblemished virtue shook her head over us.

"It was not kind to dear Evelyn. It was right, of course, to sympathise with the Fitzwarens in their misfortune. But the place was old, and George understood that it was covered by insurance. And fortunately all the pictures that were worth anything – and some that were not – had been saved. But to take them under one's wing as we had done was quixotic and bound to give offence. Besides, that kind of person would be quite in her element at the village inn, the Coach and Horses."

Nevertheless, Mrs. Arbuthnot bore every reproof with a stoical fortitude. What it cost her "not to give away the show," to indulge in the phrase of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere, it would be idle to estimate. But she was true to the oath she had sworn on the night of the great revelation. Not to a living soul did she yield her secret.

To Jodey himself what he was pleased to call "the royal visit" was a matter for undiluted joy. It is true that he was turned out of his bedroom, the best in the house, which commands an unrivalled view of Knollington Gorse, and had to be content with humbler quarters; but our Bayard was so perfectly au courant with all that had happened, even unto the presence of the four men in plain clothes in the shrubbery, that the situation was much to his taste.

When the Princess was not herself present, it pleased him to treat the whole thing as a matter for somewhat laborious satire.

"Ain't you got a bit o' red carpet and an awning for the front steps, Mops? And why don't Odo sport his order at dinner? Can't see the use, myself, in having an order if you don't sport it for royalty. Must put your best leg first. Buck up a bit, old gal, else her Royal 'Ighness will think you haven't been used to it. Anyhow, you must tell Parkins to be damn careful how he decants that '63."

In the presence of Mrs. Fitz, however, the demeanour of my relation by marriage was not unlike that of a linesman standing at attention on a field day. His deportment was so fearfully correct in every detail; his attire so extraordinarily nice – he discarded gay waistcoats and brilliant neckties as being hardly "the thing" – his hair was groomed so marvellously, and he was so overpoweringly polite that it was a source of wonder how the young fellow contrived to maintain the standard he had prescribed for himself.

It was a period of anxiety, yet it was not without its interest. In a very short time Mrs. Arbuthnot had divined the raison d'être of the four men in the park, but this did nothing to impair her sense of hospitality. Fitz did not favour us with much of his company except in the evening. During the day his energies were absorbed with the arrangements for the rebuilding of the Grange, and, as I gathered, with further provisions for the safety of his wife. All the same, limited as was the time at his disposal, it was our privilege to watch him sustain the domestic character.

Whatever the incongruity of their fortunes, it was clear that Fitz and his wife had a genuine devotion for one another. And in spite of their apartness and the idea they conveyed of living entirely to themselves without reference to the lives of humbler mortals, each seemed to possess a quality worthy to inspire it. In a measure I was privileged to share their confidence during the time they stayed under our roof; and it was characteristic of them both that at heart they had a rather charming and childlike frankness. Each of them revealed unexpected qualities.

I think I am entitled to say that I never shared the hostility they seemed to arouse in others. All his life long Fitz, as far as I had known him, had been condemned to play the part of the black sheep. Partly it may have been due to his habit of refusing to go with the tide; of his declared hatred of any kind of a majority. He had always been a law unto himself, and had given a very free rein to his personality. To me he had ever stood revealed as one capable of anything; of the greatest good or of the greatest evil; and to behold him now in the domestic circle, in close affinity with the magnetic being in whom the whole of his life was centred, was to find him endowed with a charm and a fascination which had no place in the nature of the Nevil Fitzwaren that was seen by the eyes of the world.