Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  ‘Pray, sir, pray!’ said Soranis, with a feeble, imploring gesture of his hands. ‘You forget, sir, you most unfortunately forget, that not your Royal Highness, nor myself, nor my colleagues, are free agents; the only supreme arbiter in this, as in all matters, is His Majesty the King.’

  ‘You exaggerate my father’s power, which you seem to forget is not absolute; it happily stops short of enforcing any man living into the business of tricking a nation.’

  ‘But, sir — but, sir — pardon me, you had no title to give that promise; it is invalid; it is no more than a minor’s signature to a donation.’

  ‘It is invalid if the government do not ratify it; that is, I alone am impotent to enforce your fulfilment of it. I am as impotent as the minor to whom you compare me. But there is one thing of which I am master, and that is my own life. I will not live as a liar in the sight of a multitude that trusted me. Let the body of Platon Illyris be laid in state in the Pantheon, and let his tomb be made there. It is nothing strange or wrong. He will but have his rightful place, here in the heart of Helios, beside the man to whom he gave a kingdom. What is it for you to do? Nothing. But if it be as hard as to move mountains, and to dry up seas, you will do it. I tell you I will not break my faith with the people of Helios.’

  ‘Sir, sir,’ muttered the unhappy Minister, ‘you ask of me impossibilities, you expect miracles; you must know that His Majesty, your father, will never allow the bones of the revolutionary Illyris to be laid by the hallowed dust of the Great Theodoric. It is out of all question. To speak of such a project even to His Majesty would be an outrage!’

  Othyris passed over the protest, as too puerile to call for refutation.

  ‘It is for your Excellency to make His Majesty the King understand that the will of the people in this matter must be done. You will only have to show the Red Spectre. My father does not love the Red Spectre.’

  ‘He has never quailed before its apparition, sir!’

  ‘No? Are you sure?’

  Soranis met the eyes of his visitor and did not support their inquiry very steadily.

  ‘It is impossible. It is impossible,’ he said in ever-increasing agitation. ‘Set my devotion to your House to any other test, sir!’

  ‘This, and no other,’ replied Othyris. ‘In twenty-four hours’ time let the body of Platon Illyris lie under the dome of the mausoleum.’

  Soranis shook like a leaf.

  ‘If this young man ever be king!’ he thought; he felt that if that ever came to pass, such Ministries as that of the Soranian would be things of the past. ‘His Majesty is shooting at Rodonthe,’ said Soranis helplessly.

  ‘Send to him there.’

  ‘I dare not, sir, I dare not!’

  ‘It is your duty.’

  ‘Sir, His Majesty will not be disturbed by any Minister when he is engaged in the chase.’

  ‘A Minister must disregard such orders when there is question of the public weal.’

  But Soranis was not a man to place the public weal first and the royal will second. When he ate the breast of a pheasant shot by a sovereign it seemed to him of more exquisite flavour than that of ordinary pheasants; and no doubt the public thought so too, for poulterers found it answer their purpose to ticket game exposed for sale in their shops, ‘Shot by H.M. the King.’ The nobility smiled; the populace laughed; but the middle classes purchased and ate. We know that in all lands the middle classes are the backbone, the spinal marrow, the moral and mental medulla of the nation; but the spine is a little too ready to bend. Soranis, born of them, kept their soul though he rose above their class and changed his shape.

  ‘Why not see His Majesty yourself, sir?’ he said nervously. ‘Your eloquence—’

  ‘My eloquence,’ said Othyris, ‘would but act as an irritant. My father and I are not friends.’

  Soranis gave a gesture of entreaty and pain.

  ‘Then what a task you set me, sir!’

  ‘Let me hear from you at my own residence,’ said Othyris, tired of argument; then, humbly accompanied by the Minister into the open air, he took his leave.

  Soranis returned to his library and threw himself into a deep chair, a limp, quivering, silent, helpless little figure, his grey head bowed upon his hands. He had not the slightest intention of going to Rodonthe; no one ever disturbed the King when shooting. He loved power, he loved dignities, he loved the indulgence of nepotism, the pleasures of patronage; he loved his Court dress, the insignia of great orders; he loved the deputations at railway stations, and the banquets in municipal halls; he loved the panegyrics of the home newspapers and the applause of the foreign Press; he loved the familiar intercourse with sovereigns, the smiles of royal women, the luxury of special trains, the whole atmosphere of homage of success, of ambition gratified and of far heights scaled, of lucrative investments made easy by early knowledge of coming events; and all these pleasures, the crown of life, were imperilled for him by a mad young man and a crazy crowd! Soranis, for the first time in his career, felt that the uncertainty of circumstance, and the pressure of accident, are unjust factors in the careers of successful and self-made men.

  Soranis was a great believer in soporifics, politically called trimming; he was always the advocate of middle courses, of safe concessions, of slow and careful steering of the ship of the State. The events of the morning as he understood them in outline troubled him infinitely, and the part which the Heir-Presumptive to the throne had taken troubled him still more. It would be impossible for the government to disown the act of a prince of the blood; and it seemed to him quite as impossible that the government should ratify it or that the monarch should condone it. A solution of the dilemma would have been possible to an extremely reactionist, or to a frankly revolutionary Ministry; but to his, which was a see-saw between the two, and pre-eminently conciliatory, the difficulty was overwhelming.

  Obsequious though Soranis was to Othyris, nothing would induce him to send a messenger to Rodonthe; and Othyris hesitated to send one himself, knowing that any direct communication from himself could only embitter and prejudice the cause he had under-taken to support. There was nothing to be done but to await the return of the monarch from Rodonthe; and no one knew when this would take place.

  Soranis came to the palace of Othyris two hours later after a painful period of indecision and distress.

  ‘I have decided, sir.’ said Soranis with dejection and a nervous movement of his thin small hands, ‘that I cannot take upon myself the task which you, sir, have allotted to me. I cannot in conscience recommend His Majesty to take such a course as the admittance of the remains of an Illyris to the Pantheon of this city. I dare not, sir, even broach such a subject to the King. I am unequal to all which would ensue, did I do so. I am old, I am unwell; I am wholly unable, sir, to go through such trying scenes as must ensue on such a demand. When I have audience with His Majesty I shall merely tender my resignation on the score of my health and my inability to cope with the present situation, and advise him to send for His Excellency Demetrius Kantakuzene, to whom such a mission as your Royal Highness has confided to me will probably appear at once sympathetic, and of a piece with his opinions and interests.’

  He paused, coughing to hide his emotion, for he suffered acutely.

  Adieu, veau, vache, cochon, couvée! He was more to be pitied than the girl of the fable, for he had possessed the eggs and the chickens, had killed the fat pigs and pickled them, and had cow and calf in his byre. He had enjoyed all the charms of office, and might have done so for years to come, but for the quixotic folly of a headstrong young man.

  ‘You have decided wisely, I think,’ replied Othyris coldly. ‘But in this manner much time will be lost, and time in this matter is all important. Send Kantakuzene unofficially to me to-night.’

  ‘What, sir? ‘murmured Soranis aghast. ‘To see you — before being summoned by the Crown! Such a step would be wholly without precedent, wholly unconstitutional.’

  ‘Oh, I do not mind being unconstituti
onal! ‘ said Elim, with the smile which his elder brother found so impertinent. ‘The Constitution is a rickety fabric and does not impress me!’

  ‘Oh, sir,’ exclaimed Soranis, ‘I entreat your Royal Highness to weigh what you say!’

  ‘And I entreat your Excellency to waste no more time,’ said Othyris with impatience and authority. ‘ If you desire and intend to resign as soon as my father returns, I beg of you, in some way or another, to send this, with my message to the deputy for Concordia.’

  He held out a slender key which he had taken out of his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Give him this pass-key. The trustiest of my friends will meet him and bring him to me. You will not go to him personally, no doubt. But your Excellency must send some safe and confidential person to him, for he must be here before my father’s return from Rodonthe. I pray your Excellency to lose no time. Do not force me to remind you that my honour is pledged to the people of Helios.’

  Soranis was like a tortured animal held immovable to endure electrical shocks.

  ‘I entreat your Royal Highness to reflect that you may some day be called on by Providence to rule over this realm!’ he murmured feebly.

  ‘God forbid that day should ever dawn! ‘said Othyris. ‘It is, I think, improbable that wild boars will have killed both my father and my brother this morning at Rodonthe!’

  ‘Oh, sir! How is it possible to jest?’ ejaculated Soranis. Was it possible that a scion of a reigning house could speak thus of his august relatives?

  Othyris rose with that sterner and colder look upon his face which men feared in the rare moments that it came there.

  ‘Your Excellency will pardon me if I deprive myself of the pleasure of your presence. But in this matter there is not a moment to be lost. Beg Kantakuzene to come here by the garden gates at the north side of this house as long before my father’s return as possible.’

  Soranis felt dominated and cowed; he was not brave, either morally or physically; and although he had no doubt that there was some lesion in the brain of this headstrong prince, yet that conviction only made him the more anxious to escape from the presence of Othyris. He took a formal and a humble leave, and went, taking the garden-key with him; a sad and mortified man, conscious that he might have gone on smoothly and pleasantly through various sessions, trotting round the ring in the circus of office, if Platon Illyris had died, as he should in the course of nature have died, some thirty or forty years earlier on some foreign strand of exile. The great Theodoric, the contemporary of Illyris, had died of a surfeit of oysters and red burgundy when only fifty years of age.

  Providence takes so little account of men’s appetites and digestions! It does not, indeed, seem even to have ever reckoned with them as what they are, the chief factors in the disposal of human affairs.

  In the course of an hour the garden pass-key was duly conveyed to the deputy for Concordia, who came to the postern gate of the gardens of Othyris, entered the gardens unseen, and took his way, with strict care for secrecy, to the private apartments of the King’s second son. Kantakuzene felt considerable curiosity as to the reason for his unofficial summons. He attributed it, however, to the events of the day, which he had himself followed with keen interest and considerable apprehension; knowing well that it is easier to excite a crowd than it is to control it, to set a ball rolling down a slope than to stop it.

  Even as he was ushered into the presence of Othyris, he heard the people gathered in the Square of the Dioscuri calling on the name of Elim, and making that shrill clamour which in Helianthus does service both as felicitation and as menace, as a shout of homage and a threat of vengeance.

  Kantakuzene was carefully on his guard before this unexpected summons. He did not conceal his mingled admiration and disapprobation of what had taken place at Aquilegia; it had perhaps saved the city from riot, but it had created a most difficult position for the government and the monarch.

  Kantakuzene did not lack courage, and when he thought that it was necessary to speak the truth he did so. When he found that Othyris desired him to go to the King, he said frankly: —

  ‘It would be impossible, sir. Nor would His Majesty receive me in such a capacity. He could not possibly do so. You seem to forget that I am the leader of the Opposition.’

  ‘You cannot approach him unless you are summoned?’

  ‘I cannot, of course, sir.’

  ‘Not to save the city from bloodshed?’

  ‘Such a breach of etiquette would save nothing, sir.’

  Othyris was silent. He saw that Kantakuzene was right.

  ‘What is to be done, then?’ he asked. ‘My promise must be kept in twenty-four hours. Half that time has already passed. I would write to the King, but he would not read any letter from me.’

  ‘Why, sir, did you take so brief a period?’

  ‘The people were unwilling even to give me so much as that. They desired to obtain the body of Illyris then and there, and carry it down into the city and up to the Pantheon. You must know what would have taken place if they had done so.’

  ‘But you, sir, would not have been responsible. The responsibility lay with those in power, whose duty it was to preserve order.’

  ‘And how is order always preserved? Round the coffin of the man who gained a kingdom for my race, the blood of his fellow-people would have run like water, unarmed crowds would have been cut down like grass.’

  ‘The guilt, sir, would not have been yours.’

  ‘Thirty years ago, would you not have done as I did?’

  ‘Perhaps, sir. Youth is rash.’

  ‘And age and success are selfish.’

  ‘I admire the nobility of your action, sir; but meanwhile the position you have created is most strained, most dangerous. Do you believe that His Majesty, your father, will allow the people to take Illyris to the Pantheon?’ ‘No; I do not.’

  ‘Then you are prepared to throw your life away to produce no result?’

  ‘I shall certainly keep my word in one manner or the other to the people of Helios.’

  Kantakuzene was silent.

  ‘My father fears revolution,’ added Othyris. ‘But he unfortunately believes in the superior strength of repression.’

  Kantakuzene thought, what he could not say, that the death of his second son would be more welcome than his life to the ruler of Helianthus.

  ‘Was it necessary, sir, to give such a pledge, to go to such extremes?’ he said. ‘Could you not have persuaded the people to disperse and return to their homes?’ ‘No, I could not have done so,’ replied Elim. ‘Nor did I seek to do so. They gave a tardy remembrance to the greatest man the country has ever owned, and their conscience led them aright. What! A public burial with national honours to Domitian Corvus and the hero of Argileion and of Samaris shoved under the earth in a graveyard of the poor! The instinct of the people was entirely right.’

  Kantakuzene was silent.

  He could not deny; he dared not agree. Morally, Othyris had every argument on his side; in practical politics he was hopelessly wrong. He had encouraged the populace to coerce the Crown.

  To Kantakuzene, who had been Prime Minister before, and intended to be so again, the offence seemed very great. He admired it; he understood it; his sympathies were even aroused by it; but he condemned it. In a mere demagogue it might have been praised; but in a son of the King it was a grave offence.

  Honour is a fine steed on which to excite the plaudits of a crowd; but Honour generally meets with rough and stony roads and has poison put in his drinking-water.

  Kantakuzene knew that a sharp and short repression by troops of the crowds would have been less dangerous to the peace and polity of the country than was the encouragement to rebellion given by this alliance with the people of the King’s second son.

  ‘You were with the people in the days of your youth, I am aware,’ said Elim. ‘Even now it is the people whom you represent, and in whose cause your eloquence is often heard. It is for the sake of the people, not for m
ine, that you must urge my father to accede to their just desire. If he refuse, there will be civil war in the streets in Helianthus.’

  ‘No doubt,’ thought Kantakuzene, as he remained silent; ‘and if you have tenacity of purpose, and audacity and resolve and egotism enough, it is quite possible that you may make Helianthus a republic and yourself its head.’

  ‘You must warn my father,’ said Othyris, ‘no one else will do so.’

  ‘If His Majesty summon me, I will do my best to convince him of the danger of insurrection,’ replied Kantakuzene. ‘If he do not, it will be impossible for me to go to the Soleia.’

  ‘That is understood,’ said Othyris. ‘In that event there will be bloodshed. Nothing will avert it.’ And he rose and gave his hand to Kantakuzene.

  He was tired and anxious to be alone.

  Kantakuzene returned to his own residence, which was close by; the throngs in the Square of the Dioscuri were still calling on the name of Elim. Kantakuzene was of a temperament which is happiest in perilous events, in difficult crises, in the excitement and the responsibility of complicated intrigues and obligations; he was constitutionally courageous, he loved to wrestle with men and throw them. Usually, he did throw them; and he had seldom had a fall himself.

  But his present mission was an anxiety, even a terror to him; he did not see his way clearly. Such a mission as Othyris had given him was wholly out of order, and to advise the King to open the gates of the House of the Immortals to Platon Illyris seemed to him a task of which the issue might very probably be to close on himself the gates of public life for ever and aye. He was relieved when he heard at his own house that the King had not returned from Rodonthe. The respite gave him time to reflect and to prepare for any event.

  He was aware that as a Radical leader he could not himself accept office if he were forced to oppose the desire of the people. Yet, even to him, the entrance of the bier of Illyris into the burial-place of the Immortals appeared an offence to the reigning House which it would be impossible for the head of that House to condone.