King John of Jingalo Part 1

King John of Jingalo.

by Laurence Housman.

CHAPTER I

A DOMESTIC INTERIOR

I

The King of Jingalo had just finished breakfast in the seclusion of the royal private apartments. Turning away from the pleasantly deranged board he took up one of the morning newspapers which lay neatly folded upon a small gilt-legged table beside him. Then he looked at his watch.

This action was characteristic of his Majesty: doing one thing always reminded him that presently he would have to be doing another.

Conscientious to a fault, he led a hara.s.sed and over-occupied life, which was not the less wearisome in its routine because no clear results ever presented themselves within his own range of vision. By an unkind stroke of fortune he had been called to the rule of a kingdom that had grown restive under the weight of too much tradition; and const.i.tutionally he was unable to let it alone. So must he now remind himself in the hour of his privacy how all too fleeting were its moments, and how soon he would have to project himself elsewhere.

Glancing across the table towards his consort he saw that she was still engrossed in the opening of her letters--large stiff envelopes, conspicuously crested, containing squarish sheets of unfolded note-paper; for it was a rule of the Court that no creased correspondence should ever solicit the attention of the royal eye, and that all letters should be written upon one side only. The Queen was very fond of receiving these s.p.a.cious missives; though they contained little of importance they came to her from half the crowned heads of Europe, as well as from the most select circle of Jingalese aristocracy.

They gave occupation to two secretaries, and were a daily reminder to her Majesty that, in her own country at any rate, she was the acknowledged leader of society.

Having looked at his watch the King said: "My dear, what are you going to do to-day?"

"Really," replied the Queen, "I don't quite know; I have not yet looked at my diary."

Her Majesty seldom did know anything of the day's program until she had consulted her secretaries, who, with dovetailing ingenuity, arranged her hours and booked to each day--often many months in advance--the engagements which lay ahead. Therein she showed a calmer and more philosophic temperament than her consort. The King always knew; every day of his life with anxious forecast he consulted his diary while shaving, and breakfasted with its troubling details fresh upon his recollection.

Having answered his inquiry the Queen relapsed into her correspondence, while the King resumed his newspaper; and the moment may be regarded as propitious for presenting the reader with a portrait of these two august personages, since so good an opportunity may not occur again. The kind of portrait we offer is, of course, of an up-to-date and biographical character, and does not limit itself to those circ.u.mstances of time and s.p.a.ce in which the commencement of this history has landed us.

So, first, we take the King,--not as we have just found him, seated at a table with chair turned sideways and features sharply illuminated by the reflected lights of the journal he holds in his hands--for thus we do not see him to advantage, and it is to advantage that we would exhibit in its externals a character of which, before we have done with it, we intend to grow fond. Time and s.p.a.ce must provide us with a broader view of him than that.

This King had been upon the throne for twenty-five years; and during that period, like a rich wine in the wood, monarchy had mellowed within him, permeating his system with its mild and slightly dry flavor; it had become as it were a habit, and he carried it quite naturally, almost unconsciously, though with just a suspicion of weight, much as a scholar carries his learning or a workman his bag of tools.

A pleasantly florid face, quaintly expressive of an importance about which its owner was undecided, imposed above a fullish waistcoat a chin which was now tending toward the slopes of middle age. The eyes were mild and vaguely speculative, the lips full and loosely formed, and when they smiled they began tentatively in a tremulous lift showing only the two upper front teeth--the smile of a woman rather than of a man. This smile--when it made, as it so often had to make, its appearance in public--was curiously suggestive of interrogation. "Am I now meant to smile?" it seemed to say. "Very good, then I will." This tentatively advanced smile of a countenance so highly exalted for others to gaze on, was peculiarly winning to those who were its recipients; it suggested a gentle character, indicating through its shyness both the giving and the receiving of a favor; and among those in personal attendance on him the King was--perhaps on account of that smile--more liked than he knew.

Servants whom the vastness of his establishments did not convert into total strangers found him a considerate master, full of a personal interest in their snug lives, and with a carefully practised memory for the numbers and names of their children; and the only complaint that even his valets had against him was that he remained his own barber and evinced a certain reluctance in casting his suits until they had begun to show a suspicion of wear. In outward relations he was a kind, touchy, companionable soul; inwardly he was one who suffered acutely from lack of companionship and conversation, not because he had not plenty of people to talk to, but because so many things came into his head that he must not say, while the correct subst.i.tutes for them only occurred to him later. And thus it came about that a good deal of his intercourse with humanity was limited to a pleasant expression of face, wearing generally, especially when it smiled, a wistful note of interrogation.

To present this face to the public in the regulation doses which were considered inducive to loyalty, he had sat thirty-nine times for his portrait to popular rather than famous painters, and to commercially successful photographers more times than any one could count. And painters and photographers alike had agreed that he was a steady and a patient sitter. They all liked him. He himself preferred the photographers; they came more often but they took less time and did not require the give-and-take of artificially made conversation. They were also more amenable to criticism, and kept behind the scenes for "touching-up" purposes wonderful anonymous artists who gave no trouble whatever, requiring no sittings and yet producing results that for tact and skill combined with accuracy could not be beaten. Occasionally, after having sat for his portrait to one of the painters, the King was advised to bestow on him a knighthood or an order. In his heart of hearts he would have much preferred knighting a photographer; but for some reason which was beyond him to discover this was not considered the correct thing, and the knighthoods went accordingly to the people who gave him the most trouble and the least satisfactory results.

It had never been the King's lot to be handsome; but now the approaches of age were giving to his countenance a dignity which in youth it had lacked. This was part and parcel of a certain mental obtuseness or obstinacy: when his Majesty did not understand, majesty became sedentary in his face. Often when it was the duty, or the device, of his ministerial advisers to confuse his mind with explanatory details about things which lay far beyond it, they would presently become aware that he did not in the least understand what they were saying, or that such understanding as he possessed at the beginning had become darkened by judicious counsel. This stage of the reasoning process was marked by a gentle access of majesty to the royal countenance; and when it appeared ministers were informed that, for the time being, their object was attained. When, however, the King did understand, or thought that he did, he was less majestic and more troublesome, and had to be circ.u.mvented in other ways; and a good deal of this history will be taken up with the circ.u.mventions practised by an astute Cabinet upon a monarch who was brought by accident to imagine that he really did understand the position of ignominy combined with responsibility in which the Const.i.tution had placed him.

II

John of Jingalo had been in harness all his life: he had never known freedom, never been left to find his own feet, never been taught to think for himself except upon conventional lines; and these had kept him from ever putting into practice the rudimental self-promptings which sometimes troubled him. He had been elaborately instructed, but not educated; his own individual character, that is to say, had not been allowed to open out; but a sort of traditional character had been slowly squeezed into him in order to fit him for that conventional acceptance of a variety of ancient inst.i.tutions (some moldering, some still vigorous) which, by a certain official and ruling cla.s.s of monetarily interested persons, was considered to be the correct const.i.tutional att.i.tude. Monarchy, that is to say, had been interpreted to him by those who sucked the greatest amount of social prestige and material benefit from its present conditions as a "going concern"; and in that imposed interpretation deportment came first, initiative last, and originality nowhere at all.

In many respects, indeed, his training had been like that of a young girl whose parents have determined, without leaving her any choice in the matter, that matrimony is to be her single aim and the sphere of the home her outward circ.u.mference. Like a young girl whose future is thus controlled he had acquired a pleasant smattering of several social accomplishments; he had learned to speak three languages with fluency, to draw, to dance, to ride, to behave under all likely circ.u.mstances with perfect correctness, and to walk down the center of a large room with apparent ease. He had been trained, for review purposes and for the final privilege of carrying a c.o.c.ked hat as well as a crown upon his coffin, in a profession which he would never be allowed to practise; and, having been "brought out" with much show and parade at an early age, had been introduced to a vast number of very important people, and dragged through a long series of social functions, which, however crowded, gave always a free floor for his feet to walk on and never presented a single back to his view. But as a result of all these crowds, with their bewildering blend of glittering toilet, deferential movement, and flattering speech, he knew no more of the inner realities of life than the young girl knows of it from a series of dances, flirtations, and afternoon teas. This polite and decorous, yet dazzling mask had been drawn between him and the actualities of existence, presenting itself to view again and again, and concealing its essential sameness in the pomp and circ.u.mstance with which it was attended. At these functions thousands of brilliant and distinguished people had bowed their well-stored brains within a few inches of his face, had exchanged with their monarch a few words of studied politeness and compliment, now and then had even laid themselves out to amuse him, but never once had they imparted to his mind an arresting or a commanding thought, never once endeavored to change any single judgment that had ever been formed for him. Not once in all the years since he came to man's estate--except occasionally with his wife and on one isolated occasion with his father--had he ever found himself involved so deeply in argument, or in any difference of opinion, as to be forced to feel himself beaten. That single discussion with his father had been closed peremptorily--parental and regal authority combining had cut it short; and as for his wife--well, she was dear, amiable, and, within her limits, sensible; but intellectually she was not his superior. Thus there had come to him a good deal of social discipline, experience of a kind, but of education in the higher intellectual sense scarcely any. He had merely been taught carefully and elaborately to take up a certain position, and in a vast number of minutely differing circ.u.mstances (mainly of social formality) to fill it or seem to fill it "as one to the manner born."

In addition he had been trained, on strictly impartial and noncommittal lines, to take an interest in politics; to have within certain narrow and prescribed limits an open mind--one, that is to say, with its orifice comfortably adapted to the stuffing process practised on kings by the great ones of the official world; and when his mind would not open in certain required directions, well, after all, it did not much matter, since in the end it made no practical difference.

Under these circ.u.mstances he would have been a mere social and official automaton had not certain defects of his character saved him. Though timid he was impulsive; he was also a little irritable, rather suspicious, and indomitably fussy in response to the call of duty.

Temper, fuss, and curiosity saved him from boredom; he was conscientiously industrious, and though there was much that he did not understand he managed to be interested in nearly everything.

In the fiftieth year of his age, this monarch, amiable, affable, and of a thoroughly deserving domestic character, was destined to be thrust into a seething whirlpool of political intrigue in which, for the first time, his conscience was to be seriously troubled over the part he was asked to play. And while that wakening of his conscience was to cause him a vast amount of trouble, it was to have as enlarging and educative an effect upon his character as her first love affair has upon a young girl. From this moment, in fact, you are to see a sh.e.l.l-bound tortoise blossom into a species of fretful porcupine, his sh.e.l.l splintering itself into points and erecting them with blundering effectiveness against his enemies. And you shall see by what unconscious and subterranean ways history gets made and written.

III

And now let us turn to the Queen. In her case less a.n.a.lysis is needed: one had only to look at her, at the genial and comfortable expression of her face, at the ample, but not too ample, lines of her person, to see that in her present high situation she both gave and found satisfaction.

She did, with ease and even with appet.i.te, that which the King, with so much anxious expenditure of nervous energy, was always trying to do--her duty. She had a position and she filled it. She was not clever, but her imperturbable common-sense made up for what she lacked intellectually.

No one, except the newspapers, would call her beautiful; but she was comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a good surface--nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your individual taste--no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history shall obstruct the view; and you may be as fond of her as you like.

The Queen was the head of Jingalese society, and of its charities as well. Her influence was enormous: at a mere word from her organizations sprang into being. Without any Acts of Parliament to control or guide them--merely at the delicately expressed wish of her Majesty--thousands of charming, wealthy, and influential women would waste spare hour upon hour and expend small fortunes of pocket-money in keeping uncomfortable things comfortably going in their accustomed grooves. It was calculated that the Queen's patronage had the immediate effect of trebling the subscription list of any charity, while the mere withdrawal of her name spelt bankruptcy. Her Majesty was patron to forty-nine charities and subscribed to all of them. For the five largest she appeared annually on a crimson-covered platform, insuring thereby a large supply of silk purses containing contributions, and a full report in the press of all the speeches. It was her rule to open two bazaars regularly each summer, to lay the foundation-stones of three churches, orphanages, or hospitals (whichever happened to require the greatest amount of money for their completion), to attend the prize-giving at the most ancient of the national charity schools, and every winter, when distress and unemployment were at their worst, to go down to the Humanitarian Army's soup-kitchen, and there taste, from a tin mug with a common pewter spoon, the soup which was made for the poor and dest.i.tute. This last performance, which took so much less time and trouble than all the rest, proved each year the most popular incident of her Majesty's useful and variegated public life, for every one felt that it provided in the nicest possible way an antidote to the advance of socialistic theories.

The papers dealt with it in leading articles; and the lucky casuals who happened to drop in on the day when her Majesty paid the surprise visit arranged for her by her secretaries would report that they had never tasted such good soup in all their born days.

It may truthfully be said that the Queen never spent an idle day, and never came to the end of one without the consciousness of having done good. All the more, therefore, is it remarkable that, as the outcome of so much benevolence and charity, the Queen knew absolutely nothing of the real needs and conditions of the people, and that she knew still less how any alterations in the laws, manners, or customs of the country could better or worsen the conditions of unemployment, sweated labor, or public morality. Her whole idea of political economy was summed up in the proposition that anything must be good for the country which was good for trade; and it may certainly be said that for the majority of trade interests she was as good as gold. Without caring too much for dress (being herself wholly devoid of personal vanity) she ordered dresses in abundance, and constantly varied the fashion, the color, and the material, because she was given to understand that change and variety stimulated trade. Her most revolutionary act had been to readopt, one fine spring morning, the ample skirt of the crinoline period in order to counteract the distress and shortage of work caused in the textile trade by the introduction and persistence of the "hobble skirt." As a consequence of this sudden disturbance of the evolutionary law governing creation in the modiste's sense of the word, there was a sharp reaction a year later, which--after the artificial stimulus of the previous season--threw more women out of employment than ever; new fancy-trades had to be learned in apprenticeships at starvation wages--with the result that wages had to be eked out in other ways. But of all this her Majesty heard nothing. It never occurred to anybody that these ultimate consequences of her amiable incentive to industry could possibly concern her; and the Queen, finding that people no longer knew how to adapt themselves to the long, full skirts of their grandmothers, accepted without demur the next wave of fashion that swept over Europe from London _via_ Paris.

The Queen never herself opened a paper. Extracts were read out to her each day by one of her ladies; these being selected by another lady appointed for the purpose as those most likely to interest the royal mind. It was made known in the press that her Majesty never read the divorce cases; neither did she read politics or the police news. No controversial side of the national life ever entered her brain--until somehow or another it was reached by the dim uproar of the Women Chartists' movement. She expressed her disapproval, and the page was turned.

Her instinctive tastes stood always as a guide for what she should be told; and experience limited her inquiry. In all her life her influence had never been used for the release of an unjustly convicted prisoner, the abatement of an inhuman sentence, or the abolition of any abuse established by law. Queens who had done these things in the past were medieval figures, and such interference was quite unsuitable for a royal consort under modern conditions. Had Philippa of Hainault lived in these more enlightened times she would have been forced to let the Burghers of Calais go hang and restrict herself to making provision for their widows and orphans; for to arrest any act of government had long since ceased to be within the functions of a queen.

Like her husband, this royal lady was surrounded by officialdom, or, rather, by its complementary and feminine appendices--the wives and daughters of the aristocracy, of politicians, of ecclesiastical and military dignitaries: these to her represented the sphere, activity, and capacity of her own s.e.x. Other women--pioneers of education and of reform, rescue-workers, organizers, writers, orators, had--the majority of them--lived and died without once coming in contact with the official leader of Jingalese womanhood; for they and their like were outside the official ranks, and stood for things combative and controversial and dangerously alive, and only a few of them had been brought to Court in their venerable old age, to be looked at as curiosities when their fighting days were over and their work done.

On the governing boards of the hospitals to which the Queen gave her patronage there was not a single woman--or a married one either; but when her Majesty visited the wards she was very nice to the nurses. She was, in fact, very nice to everybody, and everybody was very nice to her.

IV

A king and a queen take so long to describe that the reader will have almost forgotten how we left them at the breakfast table. But the Queen had her letters and the King his newspapers, and there, when we return to them in the historic present, they still are.

Yes, there they sit, an inst.i.tutional expression of the nation's general complacence with the state of civilization at which it has arrived, interpreting in decorous form the voice of the articulate majority--the inarticulate not being interpreted at all. There they sit, he with his newspapers, she with her letters: the King a little anxious and perturbed, the Queen not anxious or perturbed about anything.

She was still enjoying her superfluous correspondence, he studying in a vague distrustfulness the various organs of public opinion which lay around him, doubtful of them all, yet wishing to find one he could rely on. For now they were all very full of the approaching const.i.tutional crisis, and were adumbrating in respectful, yet slightly menacing terms, what the King himself would do in the matter. Whereas what he actually would do he had not himself the ghost of a notion,--did not yet know, in fact, what legs he had to stand on, having no information upon that point beyond what the Prime Minister had chosen to tell him.

And being puzzled he wanted to talk, yet not directly of the matter which perturbed his mind; but somehow by hearing his own voice he hoped to arrive at the popular sentiment. It was a way he had; and the Queen, who was often his audience, knew the preliminary symptoms by heart. So when presently he began crackling his newspaper and drawing a series of audible half breaths as though about to begin reading, his wife recognized the sign that here was something she must listen to. She put down her letters and attended.

"I see," said his Majesty, culling his information from the opening paragraph of a leading article, "I see that the Government is losing popularity every day. That Act they pa.s.sed last year for the reinst.i.tution of turnpikes to regulate the speed of motor-traffic is proving unpopular."

"Is it a failure, then?" inquired the Queen.

"On the contrary, it is a success. But the system was expected to pay for its upkeep by the amount of fines it brought in, whereas the result has been to make the conduct of motorists so exemplary that the measure has ceased to pay. Unable to escape detection, 'joy-riding' has become practically non-existent, motor-cars are ceasing to be used for breaches of the peace, and the trade is going down in consequence by leaps and bounds. The fact is you cannot now-a-days put a stop to any grave abuse without seriously damaging some trade-interest. If 'trade' is to decide matters it would be much better not to legislate at all."

"My dear! wouldn't that be revolutionary?" inquired the Queen.

"Keeping things as they are is not revolutionary," replied his Majesty, "though it's a hard enough thing to do now-a-days."

"But," objected his wife, "they must pa.s.s something, or else how would they earn their salaries?"

"That's it!" said the King,--"payment of members; another of those unnecessary reforms thrust on us by the example of England."

"Ah, yes!" answered his wife, feeling about for an intelligent ground of agreement, "England is so rich; she can afford it."