Tales of two people

I

THE Great Ones of the Earth do not come our way much down at Southam Parva. Our Member’s wife is an “Honourable,” and most of us, in referring to her, make express mention of that rank; moreover she comes very seldom. In the main our lot lies among the undistinguished, and our table of precedence is employed in determining the dividing lines between “Esquire,” “Mr,” and plain “John Jones” – a humble, though no doubt a subtle, inquiry into the gradations of Society. So I must confess to feeling a thrill when I read Mrs Thistleton’s invitation to dinner at the Manor. Thistleton is lord of the manor – by purchase, not by inheritance – and lives in the old house, proceeding every day to town, where he has a fine practice as a solicitor (Bowes, Thistleton, & Kent) in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Mrs Thistleton and the children (there are eight, ranging from Tom, nineteen, to Molly, seven, so that the practice needs to be fine), are, however, quite country folk. Indeed, Mrs Thistleton comes of a county family – in a county situated, I must not say judiciously but perhaps luckily, at the other end of England from ours; distance prevents cavil in such matters, and, practically speaking, Mrs Thistleton can say what she pleases about her parental stock, besides exhibiting some highly respectable coat-of-armoured silver to back her discreet vaunts. Mrs Thistleton is always discreet; indeed, she is, in my opinion, a woman of considerable talent, and the way in which she dealt with the Princess – with the problem of the Princess – confirmed the idea I had of her.

The mention of the Princess brings me back to the card of invitation, though I must add, in a minor digression, that the Thistletons are the only people in Southam Parva who employ printed cards of invitation – the rest of us would not get through a hundred in a lifetime, and therefore write notes. The invitation card, then, sent to me by Mrs Thistleton was headed as follows: – “To have the honour of meeting Her Royal Highness the Princess Vera of Boravia.” Subsequent knowledge taught me that the “Royal” was an embellishment of Mrs Thistleton’s – justifiable for aught I know, since the Princess had legitimate pretensions to the throne, though her immediate line was not at this time in occupation of it – but never employed by the Princess herself. However, I think Mrs Thistleton was quite right to do the thing handsomely, and I should have gone even without the “Royal,” so there was no real deception. All of us who were invited went: the Rector and his wife, the Doctor and his wife, old Mrs Marsfold (the Major-General had, unfortunately, died the year before), Miss Dunlop (of the Elms), and Charley Miles (of the Stock Exchange).

From what I have said already it will be evident that I am no authority, yet I feel safe in declaring that never was etiquette more elaborately observed at any party – I don’t care where. One of Thistleton’s clients was old Lord Ogleferry, and at Lord Ogleferry’s he had once met a real princess (I apologise to Princess Vera for stumbling, in my insular way, into this invidious distinction, but, after all, Boravia is not a first-class Power). Everything that Lord and Lady Ogleferry had done and caused to be done for the real – the British – princess, Thistleton and Mrs Thistleton did and caused to be done for Princess Vera; uncomfortable things some of them seemed to me to be, but Thistleton, over the wine after dinner, told us that they were perfectly correct. He also threw light on the Princess’s visit. She had come to him as a client, wishing him to recover for her, not, as Charley Miles flippantly whispered to me, the throne of Boravia by force of arms, but a considerable private fortune at present impounded – or sequestrated, as Thistleton preferred to call it – by the de facto monarch of Boravia. “It’s the case of the Orleans Princes over again,” Thistleton observed, as he plied a dignified toothpick in such decent obscurity as his napkin afforded. This parallel with the Orleans Princes impressed us much – without, perhaps, illuminating all of us in an equal degree; and we felt that Charley betrayed a mercantile attitude of mind when he asked briefly —

“What’s the figure?”

“Upwards of two million francs,” answered Thistleton.

I think we all wished we had pencil and paper; the Rector scribbled on the menu – I saw him do it – and got the translation approximately accurate. Imagination was left to play with the “upwards.”

“How much would you take for it – cash?” asked sceptical Charley.

“The matter is hardly as simple as that,” said Thistleton, with a slight frown; and he added gravely: “We mustn’t stay here any longer.”

So we went upstairs, where Her Royal Highness sat in state, and we all had a word with her. She spoke just a little English, with a pretty, outlandish accent, but was not at all at home in the language. When my turn came – and it came last – I ventured to reply to her first question in French, which I daresay was a gross breach of etiquette. None the less, she was visibly relieved; indeed she smiled for the first time and chatted away for a few minutes quite merrily. Then Thistleton terminated my audience. He used precisely this expression. “I’m afraid I must terminate your audience,” he said. Against any less impressive formula I might have rebelled; because I liked the Princess.

And what was she like? Very small, very slight, about half the size of bouncing Bessie Thistleton, though Bessie was not yet seventeen, and the Princess, as I suppose, nineteen or twenty. Her face was pale, rather thin, a pretty oval in shape; her nose was a trifle turned up, she had plentiful black hair and large dark eyes. In fact, she was a pretty timid little lady, sadly frightened of us all, and most of all of Mrs Thistleton. I don’t wonder at that; I’m rather frightened of Mrs Thistleton myself.

Before I went, I tried to get some more information out of my hostess, but mystery reigned. Mrs Thistleton would not tell me how the Princess had come to put her affairs in Thistleton’s hands, who had sent her to him, or how he was supposed to be going to get two million francs out of the de facto King of Boravia. All she said was that Her Royal Highness had graciously consented to pay them a visit of a very few days.

“Very few days indeed,” she repeated impressively.

“Of course,” I nodded with a sagacious air. Probably Her Royal Highness was due at Windsor the day after to-morrow; at any rate, that was the sort of impression Mrs Thistleton gave.

“I wonder if the money’s genuine!” said Charley Miles as we walked home.

“Is she genuine herself?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a girl corresponding to her description, anyhow. I went to the club to-day and looked her up. Ought to be Queen, too, if she ’ad ’er rights. (Here he was quoting). Oh yes, she’s all correct. But I wouldn’t care to say as much for the fortune. Wonder if old Thistleton’s taken it up on commission!”

“I hope she’ll get it. I liked the little thing, didn’t you, Charley?”

He cocked his hat rather more on one side and smiled; he is a good-natured young man, and no fool in his own business. “Yes, I did,” he answered. “And what the dickens must she have thought of us?”

I couldn’t reply to that, though I entertained the private opinion that I, at least, had made a good impression.

So much for the introduction of the Princess. And now comes, of necessity, a gap in my story; for the next day I went to Switzerland on my annual holiday, and was absent from Southam Parva for two full months. Not seeing the English papers during most of that period, I was unable to learn whether Her Royal Highness Princess Vera of Boravia had proceeded from the Manor House, Southam Parva, to the Castle, Windsor, or anywhere else.

II

SHE had not, as a fact – and a fact which came to my knowledge even before I reached my own threshold. I stepped into the train at Liverpool Street, fat, brown, and still knickerbockered. In one corner of the carriage sat Thistleton, in another Charley Miles.

“Not seen you for a day or two, old chap,” said the latter genially.

I nodded and sat down opposite Thistleton, who welcomed my reappearance in a few well-chosen words. I reciprocated his civility with inquiries after his family, and finally, before taking up my paper, I added —

“And your distinguished visitor? The charming Princess? Have you any news of her?”

At the same moment I happened to catch Charley’s eye. It was cocked at me in a distinctly satirical manner. For an instant I feared that the Princess had run off with the spoons, or annexed Mrs Thistleton’s garnets (we all knew them) to enrich the Boravian diadem. But after the briefest pause – which was a pause, all the same – Thistleton answered —

“She is still with us, and very well indeed, thank you.”

He cleared his throat, opened The Globe, and said no more. Charley’s eye drew me with an irresistible attraction; it was still cocked at me over the top of the Evening News. But he made no remark, so I fell back on my own organ of opinion, and silence was unbroken until we had passed the station immediately before Beechington – we alight (as the Company puts it) at Beechington for Southam Parva. Then, when there were just three minutes left, Thistleton glanced at Charley, saw that he was busy with his paper (the “racing” corner unless I’m mistaken), leant forward and tapped my knee with his gold eyeglasses. I started slightly and accorded him my attention. There seemed to be a little embarrassment in his manner.

“By the way, Tregaskis,” he said, “you remember I told you that I was engaged on certain – er – delicate negotiations on behalf of our guest?”

I nodded. “About Her Royal Highness’s private fortune?”

He nodded. “They involve,” he proceeded, “approaches to the present King in – er – an amicable spirit – more or less amicable. We have thought it well that for the present – provisionally and without prejudice – Her Highness should employ a designation to which her claim is absolutely beyond dispute. By a disuse – temporary, perhaps – of her proper style, she may smooth certain – er – susceptibilities, and so render my task easier and give us a better prospect of success. Our guest now prefers to be known as the Countess Vera von Friedenburg.”

I nodded again – it was the only safe thing to do. Thistleton said no more, save to express a hope (as he got into his waggonette) that they would see me soon at the Manor. Charley and I started together to walk the long mile from Beechington Station to Southam Parva; the cart was to bring my luggage. We had covered some half of the distance when Charley pushed his hat well over his left ear and ejaculated —

“Rum go, ain’t it, Treg? What do you make of it?”

“Her being still here, you mean?”

“Yes; and the business about her name. For a fortnight she was Her Royal Highness. Then she was Her Highness for three weeks. And for the last three she’s been Countess Vera von Friedenburg!”

“Thistleton gave what appeared to me an admirable reason.”

“I don’t believe he’ll get a sou, not if he offered to endorse the cheque ‘Sarah Smith.’ Is it likely they’d part?” By “they,” I understood him to mean the Court of Boravia.

“I’m sorry for her, then.”

“So am I, and for old Thistleton too. He’s out of pocket, I expect, besides losing his comm. And there she is!”

“The Princess?”

“The Countess, you mean.” His smile was sardonic.

“Yes, there she is,” I agreed, not very hopefully however.

“Rum go!” he added, just as he had begun, and then fell to whistling the ditty of the hour. He made only one more remark, and that fell from him just as we parted.

“Ta-ta, Treg,” said he. “Old Thistles (he had an objectionable habit of abbreviating names) has got a tidy practice; but there are a good many mouths to fill, eh? And no comm.! Ta-ta!”

Was it really as bad as that? The thought made me uncomfortable. Poor girl! The title that had filled our mouths would not fill hers. And her descent in rank had been remarkable and rapid. Her fall in public esteem had, as I soon found, kept pace with it. The word as to her style of address had gone round. She was “Countess Vera” now. Mrs Marsfold said: “Poor Countess Vera.” Miss Dunlop’s accent was less charitable: “Susan Thistleton’s Countess” was her form of expression, and beneath it lay an undoubted sneer at the Princess’s pretensions. Boravia, too, was spoken of with scant respect. “Really a barbarous place, I’m told,” said the Rector. “They call their kings kings; but of course – !” He shrugged his shoulders, without, however, indicating what title the Boravians might, in accordance with British standards, appropriate to the person who had the doubtful good fortune of ruling over them. In fact, they – and I don’t know that I am altogether entitled to except myself – all felt a little hot when they remembered the high-mightiness of that dinner-party.

I took advantage of Thistleton’s kind intimation and called on his wife. It was a fine autumn afternoon, and while we sat in the drawing-room and talked, I looked through the open windows on to the lawn. Countess Vera sat there, surrounded by the four youngest Thistleton children – Gladys, Myra, Molly, and the boy Evanstone (Mrs Thistleton was a Miss Evanstone). The Countess and the children all held books in their hands, and snatches of the French tongue fell on my ear from time to time.

“It’s really very perplexing,” said Mrs Thistleton, “and it’s difficult to do the right thing. I’m sure you credit us with wanting to do the right thing, Mr Tregaskis?”

“I’m sure you’d do the right and the kind thing.”

“The money she brought over is quite exhausted. Mr Thistleton has spent a considerable sum in getting up her case and presenting it to the Boravian Court. His efforts meet with no attention – indeed with absolute contempt.”

“They’re not afraid of her?”

“Not in the least. And here she is – literally without a farthing! And hardly a gown to her back – at least, hardly one suitable for – ” She broke off, ending: “But what do you know about gowns?”

“Rather a remarkable situation for a princess!”

“If she would let us beg for her, even! The Government might do something. But she won’t hear of it. Then she says she’ll go. Where to? What can she do? If she won’t beg, she’d starve. We can’t let her starve, can we? But times aren’t good, and – Oh, well, I must give you some tea. Would you mind ringing?”

I obeyed. Merry laughs came from the children on the lawn.

“The kids seem to like her,” said I, for want of better consolation.

“She’s very nice to them. She’s helping them with their French.” She caught me looking at her and blushed a little. I had not seen Mrs Thistleton blush before. Suddenly the plan came before my eyes. There was no need to blush for it; it seemed to me rather great – rather great, perhaps, on both sides, but greater on Mrs Thistleton’s. “It gives her a sense of – of doing something in return, I suppose,” Mrs Thistleton went on.

The maid brought in tea.

“Is nursery tea ready?” Mrs Thistleton asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then send the children upstairs and tell the Countess that tea is here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Soon the Countess came – as small, as slight, as dark as ever, even more timid. I rose as she entered; she bowed nervously, and, going to the table, busied herself with making the tea. Mrs Thistleton lay back in her arm-chair.

“Sit down, Mr Tregaskis,” she said. “You like making tea for us, don’t you, Countess?”

“Yes, Mrs Thistleton, thank you,” said Countess Vera von Friedenburg.

But I didn’t sit down – I couldn’t do it. I leant against the table and looked an ass all the time she made tea.

III

THE next chapter, or division, or what you will, of this small history may be very short. I write it with two objects, which seem to me to justify its appearance, in spite of its fragmentary character. In the first place, it serves to exhibit the final stage of the descent of the Princess – the logical conclusion of the process which was begun when Thistleton dropped “Royal” from between “Her” and “Highness” in the train from Liverpool Street to Beechington. In the second place, it exhibits Mrs Thistleton’s good sense and fine feeling for the suitability of things. You couldn’t have princesses – nay, nor countesses – about the house in that sort of position. It would have been absurd.

So here it is. I seldom give even small dinner-parties; such gatherings annoy my cook. But about a month after my return, I got leave to have four or five friends, and I bade to my board the Rector and his wife and Mr and Mrs Thistleton. If for no other reason than to “balance,” I said in my note to Mrs Thistleton that I should be exceedingly pleased if Countess Vera von Friedenburg would do me the honour of accompanying them. Perhaps that was a mistake in taste. I meant no harm, and I don’t think that Mrs Thistleton intended to rebuke me; though she did, I imagine, mean to convey to me a necessary intimation.

“Dear Mr Tregaskis,” she wrote, “Mr Thistleton and I are delighted to accept your very kind invitation, and we shall be charmed, as always, to meet our dear Rector and Mrs Carr. I am told to thank you very sincerely for your kind invitation to our young friend, but Fräulein Friedenburg agrees with me in thinking that during my absence she had better stay with the children. Yours very sincerely,

Fräulein Friedenburg! Even her particle – her last particle – of nobility gone! Fräulein Friedenburg! Her Royal Highness – ! Let us forget – let us and all Southam Parva forget!

It was not unkind of Mrs Thistleton. It was right and suitable. Who should not come out to dinner, but stay and mind the children? Who save Fräulein – Fräulein Friedenburg? It would have been a ludicrous position for Her Royal Highness Princess Vera of Boravia. Leave it to Fräulein Friedenburg!

So, as Fräulein Friedenburg, she passed into our ordinary lives, and out of our ordinary thoughts, as is the way with things when they become familiar. Mrs Thistleton’s courage and talent had saved the situation – and her own face. The Princess was forgotten, and the Thistletons’ nursery governess little heeded. Who does heed a nursery governess much?

But one night, as I turned over the atlas looking for something else, I came on the map of Boravia and saw the city of Friedenburg set astride the great river, dominating the kingdom, a sentinel at the outposts of Western Europe. If Divine Right were not out of fashion, the key of that citadel should have been in the hand which ruled exercise-books for the Thistleton children. For a few moments after that I went on thinking about the nursery governess.