CHAPTER IX
N unusually tall man, and a big man, with a breadth of chest, and a pair of shoulders, which had made him conspicuous, in every assembly, from his youth up, the Duke still held himself erect, and moved in a big way. Now, as he advanced into the large and lofty room, the thought came to the King, that here was a man for whom the room was neither too large, nor too lofty. While he himself was apt to feel lost in the library, overpowered by its size, and oppressed by the weight of its inanimate objects, the Duke moved as if in his natural and fitting surroundings. The force, the vigour, of the wonderful old man at once relegated the huge room to its proper place in the background. The effect was very much as if the library had been a stage scene, in which the scenery had predominated, until this, the moment when a great actor entered, and drew all eyes.
It was characteristic of the Duke that he should be dressed with a carelessness bordering on deliberate eccentricity. The roomy, comfortable, sombre black office suit, which he was wearing, looked undeniably shabby, and hung loosely on his giant frame. His head was large. His hair, which he wore a little longer than most men, snow-white now but still abundant, was brushed back from his broad forehead in a crescent wave. His features were massive, and strongly moulded. His nose was salient, formidable, pugnacious. His mouth was wide. His lips had even more than the usual fulness common to most public speakers. But his eyes were the dominant feature of his face. His eyebrows were still black, thick, and aggressively bushy. Underneath them, his eyes shone out, luminous and a clear blue, with the peculiar, piercing, penetrative quality, which seems to endow its possessor with the power to read the secret, unspoken, thoughts of other men.
"Enter—the Duke!" the King exclaimed, with an engagingly boyish smile, as the veteran Prime Minister approached the writing table. "The Duke could not have entered at a more opportune moment. I was just taking an 'easy.' Shall we stay here, or go out into the garden, or up on to the roof?"
"We will stay here, I think, if the decision is to rest with me, sir," the Duke replied, in his sonorous, deep, and yet attractively mellow voice. "I bring news, sir. As usual, I have come to talk!"
"Good," the King exclaimed. "Allow me—"
Placing his own revolving chair in position for the Duke, a little way back from the writing table, as he spoke, he invited him to be seated, with a gesture.
Then he perched himself on the writing table, facing the old statesman.
The Duke settled himself, deliberately, in the revolving chair, swinging it round to the right, so that he could escape the brilliant, summer sunshine, which was streaming into the room, through the row of tall windows, on his left. His side face, as it was revealed now to the King, wrinkled and lined by age as it was, had the compelling, masterful appeal, the conspicuous, uncompromising strength, of an antique Roman bust.
"I had just begun a letter to my sister, the Princess Elizabeth, when you came in," the King remarked, maintaining the boyish attitude, which he could never avoid, which, somehow, he never wished to avoid, in the Duke's presence. "It suddenly occurred to me, this morning, that I am the Head of the Family now. I am a poor substitute for my immediate predecessors, I am afraid." He looked up, as he spoke, at the portraits on the opposite side of the room. "But I have decided that I must do my best in my new command.”
The Duke looked up in turn. Following the King's glance, his luminous, piercing eyes rested, for a moment or two, on the portraits.
"None of your immediate predecessors were ever called upon to play so difficult a part, as you have to play, sir," he said.
Something in the Duke's manner, a note of unexpected vehemence in his sonorous voice, arrested the King's wandering attention.
His boyishness fell from him.
"What is it?" he asked. "I remember, now, you said you brought news. Is it—bad news?"
"No. It is good news, sir. I could not bring you better news," the Duke replied. "But, I am afraid, in spite of all my warnings, you are not prepared for the announcement which I have to make."
He paused there, for a moment, and looked away from the King.
"The storm, which we have been expecting, for so long, sir," he added, slowly, dwelling on each word, "is about to break."
The King started, and winced, as if he had been struck.
"The storm?" he exclaimed.
"Is about to break, sir," the Duke repeated.
There was a long, tense pause.
Then, suddenly, the King laughed, a bitter, ironic laugh.
"I have been a fool," he exclaimed. "In my mind, the glass was 'Set Fair.' I had—forgotten—the storm! I was going to take hold of my job. I was going to put my full weight into my work. I was even going to cultivate the Family, as I was telling you—"
He checked himself abruptly.
"What is going to happen?" he asked.
The Duke drew out his watch, an old-fashioned, gold-cased, half hunter, and looked at it judicially.
"It is now nearly eleven o'clock. In an hour's time, at twelve noon precisely, a universal, lightning strike will take effect, throughout the length and breadth of the country, sir," he replied. "All the public services will cease to run. The individual workman, no matter where, or how, he is employed, as the clock strikes twelve, will lay down his tools, put on his coat, and leave his work. Such a strike is no new thing, you will say. But this is no ordinary strike, sir. Although whole sections of trades unionists, up and down the country, we have good ground to believe, have no very clear idea, why they are striking, although many of their local leaders appear to have been deceived into the belief that the strike has been called for purely industrial reasons, we have indubitable evidence that it is designed as a first step in the long delayed conspiracy to secure the political ascendency of the proletariat. A little company of revolutionary extremists have, at last, captured the labour machine, sir. It is they who are behind this strike. Behind them, I need hardly tell you, are the Internationalists, and the Communists, on the Continent, ready, and eager, to supply arms, ammunition, and money, if the opportunity arises, on a lavish scale.
"Although we have been expecting the storm for so long, this strike form, which it has taken, I may confess to you, sir, has come to us as something of a surprise. The strike leaders, I surmise, are relying, very largely, on that surprise effect, for their success. They imagine, they hope, no doubt, that they will find the Government, elated and thrown off their guard by the success of the Coronation, unprepared; that, in the chaos, which they believe must ensue, the whole nation will be at their mercy; that, having demonstrated their power, they will be able to dictate their own terms. What those terms would be, sir, there can be no question. Internationalism. Communism. A Republic. That persistent delusion of the fanatic, and the unpractical idealist—the Perfect State. Armed revolt was their original plan, sir. Thanks to the vigilance of our Secret Service Agents, that contingency has, I believe, been obviated. But the Red Flag is still their symbol, sir. In the absence of arms, a bloodless revolution appears now to be their final, desperate dream. They will have a rude awakening, sir. In less than twenty-four hours they will be—crushed!
"You will remember the alternative, protective schemes, for use in the event of a national emergency, which I had the honour to lay before you, for your consideration, a few weeks ago, sir? One of those schemes, the 'Gamma' scheme, is already in force. At a full meeting of the Cabinet, held in Downing Street, this morning, sir, the immediate operation of the 'Gamma' scheme, and the declaration of Martial Law, on which it is based, were unanimously approved. The military, and the naval authorities are already making their dispositions. By this time, the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Channel Fleets, will be concentrating. The closing of all the ports, and the blockade of the whole coast line, provided for in the scheme, will follow automatically. The military authorities, you will remember, are to take over the control of the railways, aviation centres, and telegraphic and wireless stations, and support, and reinforce, the police, as required. The Home Secretary assures me that the police can be relied upon implicitly to do their duty. The Chief of the General Staff declares that the Army, regrettably small as it is, is sufficient to meet all the demands which are likely to be made upon it. Of the Navy, there is no need for me to speak to you, sir. In the circumstances, I feel justified in assuring you, that we have the situation well in hand."
The Duke stood up. To him, the orator, the practised debater, speech always came more easily, and naturally, when he was on his feet. He turned now, and faced the King, towering head and shoulders above him, a formidable, and dominating figure. When he spoke again, there was an abrupt, compelling, personal note in his sonorous voice.
"I want you to leave the palace, sir. I want you to remove the Court, at once, into the country," he said. "Do not misunderstand me, sir. I do not believe that your person is in any danger. I do not anticipate, as I have already indicated, that we shall be called upon to meet armed revolt. In any case, Londoners are proverbially loyal. But there will be rioting, and window smashing, in places, no doubt. Something of the sort may be attempted, here, at the palace. In the circumstances, it will be as well, that you should be elsewhere.
"In urging you to leave the palace, and to remove the Court into the country, I have, too, another, and a more important motive, sir," he continued. "It is, of course, a fundamental condition, a constitutional truism, of our democratic monarchy, that the King must take no side. How far that consideration must govern the King's actions, when his own position is directly attacked, is a question which, I imagine, very few of our leading jurists would care to be called upon to decide! But I attach the very greatest importance to the preservation of your absolute neutrality, in the present crisis, sir. When the impending storm has spent its force, and the danger, such as it is, has subsided, there will be a considerable body of people, up and down the country, who will contend that the Government have acted precipitately, unconstitutionally, and with wholly unnecessary violence. In meeting such criticism, I wish to be able to emphasize the fact that the Government have acted throughout on their own responsibility, on my responsibility, without any reference to you at all, sir. I do not propose to advance, on your behalf, the time-honoured excuse that His Majesty accepted the advice tendered to him by his advisers. I propose to emphasize the fact that you at once removed the Court into the country, and took no part whatever in the suppression of the rebellion. In the result, your position will be maintained inviolate, but you will not share in the unpopularity, and the odium, which a demonstration of strength inevitably, and invariably, evokes. This is why I said that you have a more difficult part to play than any of your immediate predecessors were ever called upon to play, sir. Although the battle is joined, and you are so intimately concerned with its result, you will have to stand on one side, and take no part in the conflict. And you are a young man, and a high spirited young man. You will resent your neutrality.
"But I am the lightning conductor, sir! It is my duty, as I see it, and I regard it as the honour of my life, to take the full shock of the lightning flash, so that the Crown may remain on your head unshaken. And the Crown will not only remain on your head unshaken. It will be more firmly fixed there than before. In twenty-four, or forty-eight, hours, at the most, sir, you will be more surely established on the throne than any of your immediate predecessors.
"That is why I said, at the outset, that this is good news which I have brought you, sir; that I could not bring you better news. This is good news, sir. Never have I dared to hope that the battle, which we have been expecting so long, would be joined, at a time, and on ground, so wholly favourable to the forces of law and order. I have no doubt of the adequacy, and the smooth working of the 'Gamma' scheme, in the existing crisis, sir. It will be many years, probably the whole of your reign, perhaps a generation, before the revolutionary extremists in this country recover from the overwhelming disaster towards which they are rushing at this moment."
It was then, and not until then, that the King slipped down from his perch on the writing table to his feet.
Instinctively, he turned to the row of tall windows, on his right.
He wanted light. He wanted air.
Outside, in the palace garden, the brilliant morning sunshine lay golden on the green of the grass, and on the darker green of the trees.
The whistling of a thrush, perched on a tree near the windows, seemed stridently audible.
Behind him, beside the writing table, the Duke stood, motionless, silent, expectant.
The magnetism for which the veteran Prime Minister was notorious, the magnetism which he seemed to be able to invoke at will, had not failed him, whilst he talked. For the time being, he had completely dominated the King. But now, the King's own personality reasserted itself, with all the force of a recoil.
A bitter realization of his own impotence, of his own insignificance, was the King's first personal thought.
It was to be as he had feared, as he had always known, it would be.
The battle was joined, the fight for his place in the procession was about to begin, in the market-place, and he, the man most concerned, was the one man who could not take a side.
The Duke had gone out of his way to emphasize that fact.
"I attach the very greatest importance to the preservation of your absolute neutrality in the present crisis, sir."
Neutrality! The most contemptible part a live man could play.
"Fight for your place in the procession, Alfred."
He was not to be allowed to fight.
The decision whether he should fight for his place, step to one side, or fall out, altogether, to the rear, had been taken out of his hands.
The desire for self-assertion, for self-expression, which he had felt, so strongly, only an hour or two previously, flamed up, hotly, anew, within the King. An unwilling King, a half-hearted King, he might be; but to be a nonentity, a man of no account—
The very workman, the individual workman, who—in less than an hour now—as the clock struck twelve, would lay down his tools, put on his coat, and leave his work, was of more account than he was!
Ignorant, and deceived, as he might be, the individual workman, in striking, would be asserting himself, expressing himself.
And he?
He could not even strike!
If only he could have gone on strike!
The fantastic idea caught the King's fevered fancy. It was in tune with the bitter, wilful, rebellious mood which had swept over him. He could not resist the temptation of giving it ironic expression.
"It seems to me, if there is one man, in the whole country, who would be justified in striking, in leaving his work, I am that man!" he exclaimed. "I never wanted, I never expected to have to fill—my present command. To be 'a sailor, not a Prince,' was always my idea. Do people, do these people, who are coming out on strike, and hope to run up the Red Flag, imagine that I get any pleasure, that I get anything but weariness, out of—my place in the procession? If I followed my own wishes now—I should strike, too! I should be the reddest revolutionary of them all. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity is their war cry, isn't it? Those are the very things I want!"
The Duke smiled grimly.
"Where will you remove the Court, sir?" he asked. "To Windsor? Or to Sandringham?"
The King began to drum, impatiently, with his fingers, on the window pane.
The Duke's pointed impenetrability, his persistence, irritated him, at the moment, almost beyond his endurance.
Of course he would have to do as the Duke wished. The Duke was the lightning conductor. He would have to fall in with the Duke's suggestions. His suggestions? His orders! And yet—
Windsor? Sandringham?
Windsor and Sandringham were merely alternative cells in the same intolerable prison house!
Perhaps it was the blithe whistling of the thrush perched on the tree near the windows; perhaps it was the sunlit peace of the palace garden—whatever the cause, the King thought, suddenly, and irrelevantly, of Paradise.
And then the irrelevance of his thought disappeared.
A man was talking beside him.
It was not the Duke.
It was Uncle Bond.
"Whether you fight for your place or not, whether you come out at the head, or the tail, of the procession, wherever the head and the tail may be, whether you step to one side, or fall out altogether, whatever happens to you, my boy, Judith and I, will always be glad to welcome you to the inn at the corner, and give you a seat at our window. You will remember that!"
A thrill of exultation ran through the King.
Here, surely, was an opening, an opportunity, for the self-assertion, the self-expression, which he so ardently desired!
Where should he go, now that the time had come for him to step out of the procession, but into Paradise, to Judith and to Uncle Bond, to stand beside them, at their window, in the old inn, at the corner of the market-place, the old inn, on the signboard of which was written in letters of gold "Content"?
If he must seek a rural retreat, an asylum, a city of refuge, what better retreat could he have than Judith's and Uncle Bond's oasis, in Paradise, where no strangers ever came?
In this matter, at any rate, he could assert himself.
In this matter, at any rate, he would have his own way.
Swinging round from the windows, he fronted the Duke, flushed with excitement wholly defiant.
"I will leave the palace, at once, as you wish," he announced. "I have no alternative, of course. I recognize that. But I shall leave the Court behind, too! Neither Windsor, nor Sandringham, attract me. I begin to feel the need of—a holiday. I shall run out into the country. I have—friends in the country."
He laughed recklessly.
"This is my way of going on strike!"
An odd, dancing light, which almost suggested a suddenly awakened sense of humour, shone, for a moment, in the Duke's luminous, piercing eyes.
But he pursed up his lips doubtfully, "It is a private, incognito visit, that you are suggesting, I take it, sir?" he remarked. "In the present crisis, such a visit would involve—serious risks. But, I am bound to confess, that it would not be without—compensating advantages!" His grim smile returned. "No one would know where you were. And your departure from the palace, which must not be delayed, would attract little or no attention. If you left the Court behind you, as you propose, you would merely take one or two members of the household staff with you, I presume?"
"I shall take nobody with me. I shall go by myself," the King declared.
Yes. In this matter, at any rate, he would have his own way.
The Duke shot one of his keen, searching glances at the King. Then he swung round on his heel, and paced slowly down the whole length of the library.
The King watched him, fascinated, curious, exalted.
At the far end of the room, the Duke paused, turned, and retraced his steps.
His first words, as he halted, once again, beside the writing table absolutely took the King's breath away.
"I shall offer no opposition whatever to your reckless little excursion, sir," he said. "I surprise you, sir? I hoped to surprise you! But this is no time, there is no time, for—explanations. Reckless as your proposal is, the more I think about it, the more conscious I become of its many advantages. But, with your permission, sir, I will attach two conditions to your—holiday." Again he smiled grimly. "In the first place, I must know where you are going, so that I can communicate with you, at once, when the need arises. In the second place I will ask you to honour me with an undertaking that you will remain in your rural retreat, until I have communicated with you."
The King could hardly believe his own ears. That the Duke should accept, should even express a guarded approval of his rebellion—that was what his reckless proposal amounted to!—was wholly unbelievable. It could not be true!
A sudden sense of unreality, the consciousness, which had been so frequently with him, of late, here in the palace, that he was living in a dream, a wild, grotesque, nightmare dream, swept over the King.
Of all the unreal scenes in his dream, this surely, was the most unreal!
He had expected opposition, and argument. What he had wanted, he realized now, was opposition and argument—
But he had gone too far to withdraw. And he had no wish to withdraw. At any rate he would see Judith. He would see Uncle Bond. He would be—in Paradise—
Without speaking, words at the moment, were quite beyond him, the King drew up his revolving chair to the writing table, once again, and sat down. Picking up the sheet of note-paper on which he had begun to write to his sister—how long ago that seemed!—he tore off the unused half of the paper, crumpling the other half up in his hand. Then he found his pen, and wrote—
"James Bond Esq.,
Mymm's Manor,
Mymm's Valley,
Mymms,
Hertfordshire."
Turning in his chair, he handed the half sheet of paper to the Duke.
"That will be my address. I shall stay there," he said.
The Duke glanced at the paper, and then folded it up neatly, and slipped it into his pocket.
"You have no time to lose, sir," he said. "It is already nearly half past eleven. Within half an hour, just before noon, all civilian traffic, in and out of London, will cease. The police, and the military will be in control in the streets. Barriers will be erected on all the roads. Only Government traffic will be allowed to pass. You have time to get away, but only just time."
The King sprang up to his feet, and darted across the room. He was, all at once, wild to get away, wild to get away from the Duke, from the palace, from himself, from this unreal, grotesque, nightmare life of his—
But, half way across the room, he paused, and swung round, and faced the Duke yet once again.
A sudden, belated twinge of compunction, a whisper of the conscience which he had all this time been defying, had impelled him to think of the Duke.
"Am I letting you down, Duke?" he exclaimed impulsively. "After—all you have done for me—I wouldn't let you down for worlds!"
A smile, in which there was no trace of grimness, lit up the old Duke's rugged, massive features.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "You are not letting me down, sir. You can enjoy your—reckless little excursion—with an easy mind. But I did not like, and I do not like, your use of that ill-omened word 'strike,' sir,—even in jest! Remembering the language of the Service, in which, like you, I had the honour to be trained, I prefer to say that you are—proceeding on short leave of absence, shall we say, sir? It will only be a short leave of absence, sir. Twenty-four, or forty-eight, hours, at the most. You will do well, I think, sir, to remember that!"
Incredible as the whole scene was, there could be no doubt about the old statesman's entire sincerity. The King's last fear, his last scruple fell from him. In his relief he laughed aloud, lightheartedly.
"Call it whatever you like, Duke," he exclaimed. "But, for me, it is—my way of going on strike!"
And with that, he turned, and darted out of the room.
Left alone, the Duke remained motionless, for a minute or two. The smile, which the King's impulsive ingenuousness had evoked, still lingered on his lips; but his piercing eyes were clouded now, and heavy with thought.
Suddenly he turned to the writing table, and, picking up the telephone instrument, took down the receiver.
The whole manner of the man changed with this decisive little action.
There was a curt, commanding, masterful ring in his sonorous voice, as he gave his directions to the operator at the palace exchange.
"The Duke of Northborough is speaking. I want Scotland Yard, and the War Office, at once, in that order. You will give me 'priority.' Shut out all other calls."