King John of Jingalo Part 8

"That is just where you make the mistake," retorted Max. "You and my dear mother are always ready to play the domestic game where it is not important. You allow photographs of your private life to be on sale in shop-windows; charming private details slip out in newspaper paragraphs; one of you behaves with natural and decent civility to some ordinary poor person, and news of it is immediately flashed to all the press. Two years ago, for instance, when you were triumphantly touring the United States you arrived by some accident at a place called New York; and there, early one morning, having evaded the reporters, you stood looking up at the sky-sc.r.a.pers when you trod on an errand-boy's toe, or knocked his basket out of his hand; and having done so you touched your hat and apologized--you a King to an errand-boy! And immediately all America, which yawps of equality and of one man being the equal of any other, fell rapturously in love with you! You, I daresay, have forgotten the incident?"

"Quite," said the King.

"But America remembers it. When you left, with all the locusts of the press clinging to the wheels of your chariot, they dubbed you 'conqueror of hearts'; and it was mainly because you had knocked over an errand-boy and apologized to him. Now you do these things naturally; but they are all really part of the business: your secretaries report them to the press."

"What?" exclaimed the King, startled.

"Why, of course! The errand-boy didn't know you from Adam, and no one but your private secretary was with you at the time; at least, so I gathered: it was before breakfast and you had given the detectives the slip. Well, then, merely by letting your human nature and your sense of decency have free play you help to run the monarchic system--you almost make a success of it. But you stop just where you ought to go on. You are natural--you are yourself--where there is no opposition to your being so. If you would go on being natural where there _is_ opposition--where all sorts of high social and political reasons step in and forbid--you would find yourself far more powerful than the Const.i.tution intended you to be, for you would have the people with you.

There is a mountain of sentiment ready to rush to your side if you only had the faith to call it to you. Have you not noticed, whenever a royal engagement is announced, how every paper in the land declares it to be a real genuine love-match? And you know--well, you know. I myself can remember Aunt Sophie crying her eyes out for love of the Bishop of Bogaboo whom she fell in love with at a missionary meeting and wasn't allowed to marry; and six weeks later her engagement to Prince Wolf-im-Schafs-Kleider was announced as a sudden and romantic love-match! Why, he had only been sent for to be looked at when the Bogaboo affair became dangerous; and so Aunt Sophie was coerced into that melancholy mold of a jelly which she has retained ever since.

"Now that is where my grandfather showed himself out of touch with the spirit of the age. Had he allowed Aunt Sophie to marry the Bishop and go out during the cool months of the year to teach Bogaboo ladies the use of the crinoline--it was just when crinolines were going out of fashion here, and they could have got them cheap--he would have done a most popular stroke for the monarchy."

"But you forget, my dear boy," said the King, "the Bogaboos were at that time a really dangerous tribe--they still practised cannibalism."

"Yes, they still had their natural instincts unimpaired; the Christian subst.i.tute of gin had not yet taken hold on them, and their national inst.i.tution still provided the one form of useful martyrdom that was left to us. Had Aunt Sophie, or her husband, been eaten by savages there would have been a boom in missions, and both the Church and the monarchy would have benefited enormously. Royalty must take its risks. Kings no longer ride into battle at the head of their armies: even the cadets of royalty, when they get leave to go, are kept as much out of danger as possible. But if royalty cannot lead in something more serious than the trooping of colors and the laying of foundation-stones, then royalty is no longer in the running.

"Now what you ought to do is--find out at what point it would break with all tradition for you to be really natural and think and act as an ordinary gentleman of sense and honor, and then--go and do it! The Government would roll its eyes in horror; the whole Court would be in commotion; but with the people generally you would win hands down!"

"Max, you are tempting me!" said the King.

"Sir," said his son, "I cannot express to you how great is my wish to be proud of your shoes if hereafter I have to step into them. Could you not just once, for my sake, do something that no Government would expect--just to disturb that general smugness of things which is to-day using the monarchy as its decoy?"

The King gazed upon the handsome youth with eyes of hunger and affection. "What is it that you want me to do?" he inquired.

Max held out his cigar at arm's length, looked at it reflectively, and flicked off the ash.

"Don't do that on the carpet!" said his father.

Max smiled. "That is so like you, father," he said; "yes, that is you all over. You don't like to give trouble even to the housemaid. Now when you see things going wrong you ought to give trouble--serious trouble, I mean. You ought, in vulgar phrase, to 'do a bust.'

"When I was a small boy," he went on, "I used to read fairy stories and look at pictures. And there was one that I have always remembered of a swan with a crown round its neck floating along a stream with its beak wide open, singing its last song. To me that picture has ever since represented the inst.i.tution of monarchy going to its death. The crown, too large and heavy to remain in place, has slipped down from its head and settled like a collar or yoke about its neck. Its head, in consequence, is free, and it begins to sing its 'Nunc dimittis.' The question to me is--what 'Nunc dimittis' are we going to sing? I do not know whether you ever read English poetry; but some lines of Tennyson run in my head; let me, if I can remember, repeat them now--

"'The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full, and clear; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; As when a mighty people rejoice With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold!'

"That, my dear father, is the song I wish to hear you singing--that I want to take up, I in my turn after you. I want your voice now to be awful and jubilant, and your carol to be 'free and bold' like the carol of that dying bird; and the sound of it to be like the rejoicing of a mighty people on a day of festival."

The King shook his head. "My dear boy," he said, "I don't understand poetry; I never did."

"Well," said the son, "let me interpret it then into prose. Monarchy as an inst.i.tution is dying, and it can either die in foolish decrepitude, or it can die mightily, merging itself in democracy for a final blow against bureaucratic government. All that is written in my book. That is why I am now able to express myself so well: these periods are largely a matter of quotation. The right role for monarchy to-day is, believe me, to be above all things democratic--not by truckling to the ideas of the people in power--the 'ruling cla.s.ses' as they still call themselves--but by daring to be human and natural, and to refuse absolutely to be dehumanized on the score of its high dignity and calling.

"If, for instance, I came to you to-day and said I wanted to marry one of my own nation--say even a commoner--in preference to the daughter of some foreign princeling, let me do it! It breaks with a foolish tradition--largely our own importation when, as foreigners, we were seeking to keep up our prestige--it may annoy or even embarra.s.s the Government. Well! have they not annoyed and embarra.s.sed you?"

The King nodded sympathetically, but in words hastened to correct himself. "One has often to make sacrifices in defense of an inst.i.tution," he said. "That is a duty we both owe."

"Why," inquired the Prince, "should I make sacrifices to an inst.i.tution I do not really approve? Why should I pretend to love some foreign princess if I have given my heart to one--I cannot say of my own race--for I remember that we are an importation--but of the country of my adoption? Do you really suppose that because it annoys the Prime Minister and disturbs his political calculations, an alliance within those artificially prohibited degrees imposed on royalty will lessen the influence of the Crown by a straw's weight, or quicken its demise by an hour? This country, like all civilized countries, is moving towards some form of republican government. If we are sufficiently human, if we show ourselves determined to call our souls our own--it is not merely possible, it is probable, that when the change comes we shall be called on by popular acclaim to provide the country with its first President.

If we did we could secure for that presidency a greater power and prestige than any bureaucratic government would willingly concede. It may be that the real counter-stroke to the present increase of Cabinet control can most effectively be administered by a monarch who is not too careful to preserve the outward forms of monarchy. When that is done, by you, or by me, or by one who comes after us, I am confident that there will be the sound of a people's rejoicing."

"You have strange ideas," said the King, "for one who calls himself a monarchist."

"I am a republican," said the young man.

The King stared at him as though at some strange animal. "You don't say so!" he murmured half aghast. "Supposing the Prime Minister were to find out."

"He will soon," said the Prince. "I shall be sending him a copy of my book on the day of publication."

The King shook his head warningly. Then he smiled, a shy nervous smile.

"It would be very awkward," he said slowly, "very awkward indeed, if you happened to come to the throne just now. I really don't know what Bra.s.shay would do. But it's too late for me to begin that sort of thing--far too late now."

CHAPTER V

CHURCH AND STATE

I

All this while other swan-songs were in preparation to be forced down other throats (and thence presently to be rejected); forced with that gentle air of persuasion which rears its lying front over all forms of "peaceful picketing." Starvation and stuffing were the two methods to be employed.

While the Government was picketing the King with threats of withdrawal from office, and the Labor Party the Government with threats of a national strike, the Government was preparing to picket the Bishops by a process of forcible feeding--a plethora of their own kind be thrust upon them--of their own kind but of a very different persuasion. And now at last the Bishops understood that the doubling of their dioceses was but a device of Machiavellian subtlety for the halving of their temporalities.

The Bishops had just opened their holy mouths to protest when the approach of the Jubilee festivities shut them up. The Church of Jingalo was on a tight and established footing, and had to conform to the commercial, conventional, and const.i.tutional requirements of its day; for you cannot, if you are by law established, play fast and loose with those inst.i.tutions on which a nation bases its prosperity. So even when the Government proposed the creation of demi-mondain bishops, and the setting up of what amounted to a second establishment in the upper chamber of its spiritual spouse, the outward proprieties were still observed, and the sanct.i.ties of national interests respected. It is true that the Bishop of Olde, lifting from his bed a burden of ninety years, climbed up into the central pulpit of his diocese to preach a sermon which was ecstatically applauded by all Churchmen, and committed thereafter to the keeping of a carefully selected few. It won for him the affectionate nickname of "Never-say-die" and put his followers into a hole from which they never afterwards emerged. And so the Bishops entered into the loyal silence of the Jubilee truce with a flush of conscious rect.i.tude upon their faces; while behind closed doors the Prime Minister and the Primate Archbishop of Ebury had met to talk business, to drive conditional bargains, and to kill time till such other time as seemed good to them.

They met at the town-residence of the one Bishop of the Establishment who had lent a favorable ear to the Prime Minister's proposals.

Boycotted by his brother Bishops this solitary pelican in piety was still on terms of official acquaintance with his t.i.tular head. Placing his well-stored nest at the disposal of the two combatants, he retired for a discreet week-end into the wilderness; and the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, after announcing in the press that they also had gone elsewhere, came together by appointment for the indication of ultimatums and the fixing of dates when ju-jitsu was to commence.

When the Prime Minister arrived his Grace the Primate, attended by his chaplain, was already in the house. An ecclesiastical butler carried word to the chaplain, and the chaplain carried it to the oratory.

The Archbishop finished his prayer; it served the double purpose of strengthening him in his resolve to present a firm front that for the time being could do no harm, and of keeping his opponent waiting. The effect did not quite come off. Under that enforced attendance, the Prime Minister had turned his back on the door, and wrapt in contemplation of the book-shelves stood as though unaware that the Primate had made his state entry. It was a pity that he should have missed it.

The Archbishop came into the room bearing in his hands a large Bible, subscribed for and presented to him by a general a.s.sembly of Church clergy and laity when the const.i.tutional crisis first began to loom large. It was fitting, therefore, that it should now accompany him to the field of battle. Corners of silver scrollwork, linked together by bands and clasps of the same metal, adorned its surface, and over the glowing red of its Venetian leather binding, lambs, lions, eagles, doves, and pelicans stood lucently embossed, bearing upon their well-drilled shoulders the sacred emblems and mottoes of the ecclesiastical party. More important and more central than these showed the proud heraldic bearings of the metropolitan see of Ebury, crowned with a miter which its occupant never wore, and a Cardinal's hat for which he was no longer qualified.

All these collective sources of inspiration the Archbishop bore in monstrant fashion with hands raised and crossed, and, moving to the strategic position he had previously selected, set down upon the table before him. While thus designing his way he exchanged formal salutation with his antagonist.

"And now, sir," said he, bowing himself to a seat, "now I am entirely at your disposal."

"And I at yours," said the Prime Minister.

But the Archbishop corrected him. "I am here, I take it, rather to be informed of the latest novelties in statecraft than to admit that any fresh standpoint upon our side has become possible." Slowly and solemnly he rested his hands upon the presentation volume as he spoke; across that barrier, representative of the spiritual forces at his back, his small diplomatic eyes twinkled with holy zeal. He was an impressive figure to look at, and also to hear: over six feet in height, with dark hair turned silver, of a ruddy complexion, portly without protuberance, and with a voice of modulated thunder that could fill with ease, twice in one day, even the largest of his cathedrals. As a concession to the world he wore flat side-whiskers, as a concession to the priestly office he shaved his lip. By this compromise he was able to wear a cope without offense to the Evangelicals,--his whiskers saving him from the charge of extreme views. Under his rule, largely perhaps because of those whiskers, peace had settled upon the Church; and in consequence it now presented an almost united front to its political opponents.

All his life he had been accustomed to command. Even in the nursery, as the eldest child and only son of his parents, he had ruled his five sisters with that prescriptive mastery which s.e.x and primogeniture confer. At school he had pursued his career of disciplinarian first as "dowl-master," then as captain of teams, then as prefect with powers of the rod over senior boys his superiors in weight. Continuing at the University to excel in games, he became at twenty-four a cla.s.s-master in Jingalo's most famous public school. Marrying at thirty a lady of t.i.tle, he acquired the social touch necessary for his completion, and five years later was appointed Head. Left a disconsolate widower at the age of forty-seven, he drew dignity from his domestic affliction, received a belated call to the ministry, took orders, and became Master of Pentecost, only on the distinct understanding that a bishopric of peculiar importance as a stepping-stone to higher things should be his at the next vacancy. The vacancy occurred without any undue delay; and from that bishopric, after three years of successful practice, he pa.s.sed at the age of fifty-five to the crowning grace of his present position.

Thence he was able to look back over a long vista of things successfully done and heads deferentially bowed to his sway--deans, canons, priests, sisters--a pattern training for a humble servant of that Master whose Cross, as by law established, he was now helping to bear. Even the Prime Minister, facing him with all his parliamentary majority at his back, knew him for a redoubtable opponent. This fight had long ago been foreseen by the Church party, and it was for the fighting policy he now embodied that Dr. Chantry had received nine years previously his "call"

from collegiate to sacerdotal office. A large jeweled cross gleamed upon his breast, and a violet waistcoat that b.u.t.toned out of sight betokened the impenetrable resolution of his priestly character.

"And now, sir, I am at your disposal," said he; and sat immovable while the Prime Minister spoke.