CHAPTER XXVIII

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A silence of acute embarrassment was happily broken by Mr. Marks. Saluting, he said:

“If Hi may make so bold before ’Is ’Ighness—there’ll be no ’oldin’ Mrs. Marks w’en she hears of ’Is ’Ighness a-jumpin’ on my ’ead, she bein’ hambitious.”

Mrs. Witherby, who felt dissatisfied with the opportunities accorded her hitherto for impressing His Highness with her character as a gentlewoman all Roseborough delighted to honour, settled herself fussily in her chair and began to discourse, with an air of one who has dwelt much, if not in palaces, at least around the corner.

“Your Highness of course is only on a little incognito journey—I presume, to study the conditions of humbler folk. Your Highness will shortly return to his throne, with all its royal splendours?”

He bowed, and in a manner more royally aloof than he had used before—a manner that proclaimed the crowned Ruler—he condescended to converse with her.

“We left our throne somewhat suddenly, because our royal splendours had rather wearied us. Conceive, my dear madam, of having one’s every step attended by a score of uniformed menials. Conceive of the infinite ceremony of—let us say—boot-lacing, under the royal system. Contrast it with the ease and privacy with which you, for instance, draw on your fine prunella boots. You are alone. You sit. There is the difficult stoop to bring the boot and the foot into friendly focus. Then the valiant tussle, the gasp, perhaps the stitch in the side—if the weather is warm, the drop of moisture—and the thing is accomplished.”

Mrs. Witherby twitched as if she were about to protest sharply, but a cold, lofty look and gesture restrained her.

“If Hi may make so bold as to s’y so, ’Is ’Ighness is a wonderful ’and to describe things. Hi can see ’er doin’ of it,” Officer Marks snickered reverentially, “beggin’ ’Is ’Ighness’s pardon.”

The prince, regardless of the lady’s bristles, elucidated further:

“Whereas, with us, the matter is not so simple. Conceive of a half battalion in livery to find the boots—under the regulations of the Secret Service Department. Two detectives to unravel the laces. Two gentlemen, from the Interstate Commission of Harmony-Producers, to bring the royal feet and royal boots into juxtaposition. Four to incase the feet in the boots. And, say, half a dozen more to attend to lacing and polishing. So with everything. An army of chemists to test one’s toilet waters and perfumes every time one desires a sniff—for fear some anarchist spy may have dropped poison into them. It becomes irksome. And, at times, we steal forth secretly, climb the palace palings, leap across the orchard, open the front gate of our kingdom and stroll forth, incognito—as you see.”

Corinne gasped “Isn’t it thrilling?”

“Oh, yes,” Rosamond breathed.

Mrs. Witherby was anxious to retrieve herself, feeling that her first essay had not resulted greatly to her honour. She smiled respectfully and began again.

“I hope Your Highness will not think me impertinent—but is Your Highness not related to most of the crowned heads of Europe?”

“You perceive resemblances?”

“Oh, strong ones!” She tossed her head, delighted with herself for this show of intelligence. “Particularly to the Czar of Russia—and the King of Spain. Also Emperor William—about the eyes. Those are the royalties who are most often photographed in the papers. But I daresay Your Highness resembles all the others, too. I believe you are all related? One hears that said.”

“We sprang from a common parent, madam.”

Mr. Marks looked about, proudly, and said:Hi think ’e looks like the King of Hengland.” After a brief pause, he added patronizingly, “though the hothers is well enough in their way.”

“I trust Your Highness does not find us deficient in etiquette,” said Mrs. Witherby. “My late husband’s mother once knew a London lady who had been to Court.”

“Oh mamma, I’m sure His Highness doesn’t care about etiquette, or he wouldn’t run away incog,” Corinne expostulated.

“Every Court has its rules of etiquette, my dear, and even royalty must conform to them.”

Corinne looked disappointed.

“Oh, does Your Highness have to do just so—as we do?”

He gave her an affectionate, whimsical glance, and said:

“Yes; but when I put on my crown and climb upon my throne, I write my own rules of Just So. And, what is more, I make everyone conform to them. It is not difficult. Because, when they once understand, they wish to conform; and no other rules will do for them at all.”

“They must be wonderful laws that people want to keep,” Mabel thought.

Rosamond, asking for more fairy tales, said:

“Oh, won’t Your Highness tell us about your country?” He took her hands lightly, smiling into her eager eyes:

“‘Prince, Prince, how does your garden grow?’ It is a great thing to be the prince of one’s own little country. There are no prisons; because there are no criminals. That is because everything is freely given. Our financial rating is according to what a man has given.” He looked pointedly at the heiress of the Mearely fortune, and added, “No one is proud of being merely rich.” She blushed faintly and looked down, accepting the suggested rebuke. His regard, with its whimsical seriousness—its blend of humorous comprehension, and confident love, of human nature—sought Mabel’s, next. “There are no poor; because they have learned to love while they serve—and that makes them rich.” He looked at Howard and perhaps he, too, recognized the “product of a bloodless, stagnant village”—blind only because it had not been shown light; for there was no sting in his words: “Love is valued above everything. The love of a girl’s heart is more precious to her lover than much gold.” The lovers’ fingers tightened on each other’s. “And no one frowns on young chatterboxes or says ‘hush! hush!’”

“Oh—h,” Corinne sighed again in ecstasy.

“There are no gossips in my country. That is because every child is taught to recite, in its cradle, the articles of the country’s Constitution. Every infant can say ‘Oo—goo-goo—goog-ly’—which, when translated, means ‘Mind your own business!’” Mrs. Witherby became as flustered as if everyone in Roseborough did not know (from hearing her oft asseverate it) how she despised gossip. The Prince continued: “Observance of this one law has given perfect domestic, social, religious, political, and international harmony.”

There was silence for some time after this, while the younger folk, at least, tried to visualize a country where all these things were true. Even Mr. Marks was in dreamland, absent-mindedly chewing his hat-brim and spuffing out the straw chips.

“Hit must be a ’appy neighbour’ood,” he said at last, plaintively. His Highness gave him a merry look over his shoulder.

“It is,” he said. “All the police are sergeants. They have no weapons. But the government supplies them with a new cherry ribbon for their watchfobs every Sunday.”

Marks saluted, grinning bashfully.

“Oh, tell some more,” Corinne urged. “Please Prince, tell some more—about you.”

“Yes,” Rosamond echoed. “Tell some more about you.”

“About me?” He looked past the little group, whose limited and selfish ideas of human joy and the means to happiness had brought them into Villa Rose to know envy and suspicion and to call one another names; and he saw the river and its valley painted by the dawn. Earth and sky were agleam with the fires that precede the rising sun. The rhythms of earth’s beauty, flowing to meet and heal the human need, came to his ear in the lilt of a verse such as a child’s lips might shape, as it went dancing, barefoot, through the radiant valley.

“I? Why I am....”

I am Prince of the Nameless Land.
I have set my throne on the azure steep,
And rimmed it round with a starry band,
For the hearts that stray and the eyes that weep.
Faith rears my walls o’er a garden slope;
My dreams are camped on the hills of Hope;
White stone is my castle crest.
Peace is my sentry and Mirth my guard,
My gates are wide and my doors unbarred
For the feet of the human guest.
Joy is my sceptre, and Tenderness
The crown on my august brow;
The ring on my finger is Gratitude
To God, who has sealed my vow,
And set his song in my waiting lips,
His love in my writing hand.
And made me Lord of the Things Men Dream—
The Prince of their Nameless Land!

The rosy glow from the sky stole into the room; and, to the Nature-man and song-maker, it came like music. So Love had come to him there: at last, the song with words, fitting the measures of its plain telling to the old rhythms of his daily faith and desire. She—the woman—was the gift to him of all the dawns he had watched alone.

A crashing of hoofs on the hill-road called the singer and his companions back to Roseborough.

“What rapid riding!” Mrs. Witherby exclaimed. She went to the verandah, followed by Howard. “Can it be someone coming here?”

“Oh dear!” Corinne sighed. “Roseborough will never see a night like this again.”

The prince turned to her abruptly.

“What did you say?”

She looked at him, in surprise at his tone.

“I said we’d never have another wonderful night like this in Roseborough.”

“In Roseborough?” he repeated, plainly astonished. “This—this is not Roseborough?”

“But certainly it is,” Rosamond answered. “I told you so.”

“You told me it was Something Vale. Roseborough!” He stared at her, blankly. “I’ve been wondering for hours how a house in Something Vale could look down on just the same bit of the river. How is it that you...? Really,”—he looked in amazement from one to the other—“you know, it’s very odd to find that I have really been here all the time!” “Quite so,” Howard replied, kindly. To Mrs. Witherby he whispered, tapping his brow significantly. “Charming fellow—His Highness—but touched.”

“Oh yes!” She agreed, excitedly. “Of course, I saw that at once. But royalty is, you know. They’re all insane. I’ve always heard that.”

The galloping pounded into the driveway and up to the verandah.

“It’s Dr. Frei,” Howard said.

Frei strode rapidly across the porch, his gaze seeking Rosamond. He wore a long, black, military cloak and a soft black hat. As he swept off his hat, and let the cloak fall back from his arm, he suggested a staff-officer in uniform. A sword-glance was flashed in scathing contempt over all but Mrs. Mearely and the prince. These two were exempt from his anger, because he could feel nothing but tenderness for Rosamond; and the prince he had not yet perceived. That distinguished personage had caught sight of Frei on the verandah and immediately hidden himself behind the door.

“Rosamond!” He called her name feelingly and made his way rapidly to her. He kissed her hand. “Fear no longer. I am here.”

“Ah, you have heard of the excitement,” Mrs. Witherby began.

He silenced her with a gesture so commanding, that she continued to stare at his hand for several seconds afterward. His eyes blazed, his whole body quivered with the excess of his emotion.

“Yes! I have heard it! First from Herr Ruggle, of the telegraph, when together we reach for our milk pails on the back of the porch. Then from Dr. Wells. Finally from everybody! I have heard how this beautiful Rosamond, of Roseborough, has been suspected, maligned; her reputation slandered, ruined—criticizedcriticized”—he hissed out the word with uncontrollable fury—“by you—and you—and you,” snapping his fingers right and left. “Yes, criticized! and why? why?” Glaring, he paused for emphasis. “Because a gentleman calls upon her, at his convenience! What is more natural?” scornfully. “Two—three o’clock in the morning—these are not your hours for visiting? No! I can believe that!” with seething contempt. “With you—with you—it must be just so. Bah! With me, if I am wakeful and I wish to visit some friend at three o’clock in the morning, immediately I ring my bell, I wake everybody, I am dressed, I demand the carriage or the automobile, or the aeroplane, and I go to visit my friend. I wish to visit, and I visit! What is more natural? Does the clock rule the inclinations or the reputations? Absurdity!”

While he drew breath, Rosamond said quickly:

“They know now. It’s all explained.” “Certainly. I have come to make the explanation. For your sake only. I detest criticism. I do nothing for people who criticize. If I can make great trouble for them, I do so. Always. But for you, whose heart is torn, bleeding, from their criticisms, I make the great sacrifice. I renounce my incognito. I take you under my protection.”

The word “incognito” is an unusual one to hear bandied about in a peaceful village like Roseborough, and would be sure to produce its effect at any time; but hardly such an effect as was produced by Dr. Frei’s use of it now. Everyone stared at him, then at one another and back at him; that is, everyone but Mrs. Mearely, who had long ago convinced herself that Dr. Frei was some noted violin virtuoso who had come to peaceful Roseborough to recover his health.

His manner changed. The feverish excitement of the furious avenger (on critics) faded. With lifted head—yet not assertively lifted, but held high with an hereditary and inbred dignity—and the quiet accents of habitual and unquestioned authority, he said:

“I am Adam, Prince of Woodseweedsetisky.” He pronounced it as if it were written Vode-s’-vade-s’-teesky.

There is a common phrase for describing a blank silence after a shock; “one could have heard a pin drop.” In the silence that filled Villa Rose, one could feel the temperature drop. In time, Rosamond found her faculties of speech.

“Er—er—it’s very good of you, Dr. Frei, to attempt this—er—masquerade for my sake. But my reputation has already been saved—by Prince Adam of—Woodse....”

“Vode-s’-vade-s’-teesky.”

“Ye—es. The real Prince Adam is here.” She looked about for her prince.

“Hi found ’im. ’Ere’s ’Is ’Ighness—’idin’ up ’ere.”

His Highness, the Vagabond, perforce stepped out of his concealment into Dr. Frei’s ken. He bowed to him ceremoniously, respectfully, yet with a sparkle of mirth in his eye.

“This is Prince Adam,” Mrs. Mearely said.

“At your service,” he said, to Frei.

“Ach! no! This is too much!” Frei stormed at him. “The fountain! You criticized me because the water did not arrive to spout. I put you in the prison and now you come out and say you are me. Oh no! You are not me. Who you are, I forget. I purposely forget, because you are of no importance whatever. But you are not me.” He stopped, breathing heavily and glaring.

“This needs clearing up,” Mrs. Witherby said. She looked at Mrs. Mearely and her vagabond, and said it very positively. As if in answer, the thickset figure of Teodor Carl Peter Lassanavatiewicz stumbled across the porch and into the room. He burst into sobs at the near view of his Sovereign. He rushed to Frei, fell on his knees—despite the wound he groaned at—and kissed his hands.

Ach! Ich habe Sie gefunden. It is thou. All night have I in the wet grass and hard roads waited. But I have fallen asleep.” He caught sight of the vagabond and exploded, in angry astonishment, “Der Anarchist! der Teufel!

Frei, deeply moved, looked down upon him.

“Ah—is it thou, my faithful Teodor?” Emotionally, with wet eyes, he indicated the kneeling figure to the silent group in Villa Rose. “Always he is searching the world for me! Ah—ah—so faithful! Faithful Teodor.” He observed a white linen strip about the faithful one’s nether limb. “You are wounded?” he cried, in dismay.

Indignation sounded through the kneeling man’s sobs.

“I—I have been abominably—execrably wounded in the leg.”

“Ah—ah! Poor Teodor.”

“You will go home with me? You will at last marry the Princess Olga, who adores you?”

“Yes, yes,” soothingly. “We will go home. We will marry her.” He sighed. “She will say she adores me. She has been well brought up.” He turned his attention once more to Roseborough and the present. “Farewell,” he said—his expression was grieved and disdainful—“I go—without regrets. Here, where I thought was my journey’s end, I have heard most cruel criticism. It is the world. Everywhere the same. I go back to my own country, where I can put the critics in the prison!”

The vagabond asked meekly:

“If Your Highness will be so kind as to introduce me and vouch for my respectability—for Mrs. Mearely’s sake....”

Prince Adam bent upon him imperious looks of intense dislike.

“For Mrs. Mearely, nothing is needed. You—and you”—pointing at the offenders, chief of whom he rightly considered to be Mrs. Witherby—“destroyed her reputation. But I have given her a new one. She needs no more. Now, those, who absurdly criticized her, are at her feet in apologies. They will humble themselves before her always.”

“Nay, Your Highness,” replied the vagabond, who had read the signs more clearly. In spite of himself, the whimsical strain came uppermost. “Here also, water will not run uphill—not even to oblige a prince.”

“I say, I do not know you!” Prince Adam thundered, “You are an anarchist and a critic. From you I have received this false tale of a place where ‘all hearts are tender and sincere.’ Roseborough! Ah! bah! You are my evil genius. I repudiate you. Before all, I say I do not know this man.”

He took Rosamond’s hand and, with profound reverence, kissed it. “Rosamond,” he repeated her name feelingly, “I cannot take you where I am going. Besides, now I shall marry Princess Olga, and it is even possible she would not wish you to be with me. You will remain forever in my memory—my one true dream, the perfect melody I heard but could not keep. Farewell.”

He saluted the others distantly. “Madame. Ladies. Herr Howard.” He marched out with swift step, but stopped suddenly on the verandah, remembering the wounded Lassanavatiewicz limping behind. “Come, my Teodor. Come my Teodor. Ah—ah—so faithful.” He put his arm about his Teodor’s shoulder an instant, as the latter lifted his bandaged leg over the threshold, an act of condescension which caused Lassanavatiewicz to weep devotedly. Prince Adam crossed the verandah and passed from view without a backward glance.

Mr. Marks, alone of those in the living room of Villa Rose, had comments to make immediately, and his were personal. He was divided between pleasure at having actually hit Lassanavatiewicz and chagrin at having only grazed him. “That’s wot ’appens w’en foreigners goes hup against Henglish guns,” he said proudly; and, at once, added disappointedly. “But Hi do wish my aim was better. Hi do wish that.”

Thought in Roseborough usually moved like molasses below zero, even when Roseborough had not been up all night. It should have been easy, otherwise, for Mrs. Witherby or Mrs. Mearely to identify the pseudo prince from some of the phrases in the real prince’s tirade against him. One or two phrases uttered by Prince Adam, however, could not make Mrs. Mearely forget that she had been deceived; nor could they enlighten Mrs. Witherby, who found it more enjoyable to revive all her old suspicions—which dated, and gathered momentum from the absence of Amanda, Jemima and Blake, and the simultaneous appearance of the rose-and-silver gown. She recalled the sly jibes she had been obliged to bear submissively rather than offend Royalty, and her temper flew to the masthead like a regatta display—all primary colours, and chiefly red. She hurled her fury first upon the vagabond:

“Oh, the miserable upstart! The thief! The villain! As to you, Mrs. Mearely, let us see if you’ll hold your head high in Roseborough after the tale I’ll tell. You’ll make a fool of me, will you, with your ‘prince’? Oh, indeed! Let me tell you, you’ll never have a reputation again. I know you. Trying to escape with such tales. You villain! You counterfeiter! Oh! When I think how I’ve scraped and kow-towed to you!” She concluded with a direct attack upon the mock prince, even as she had begun.

’Im thinkin’ ’e looks like the King of Hengland!” Officer Marks was bellicose about that delusion. “’E’s a himpostor!”

The vagabond was prevented from offering a third interpretation of himself by Mrs. Lee’s advent. She came in, all tender distress, and put her arms about Rosamond as if to protect something precious to herself.

“Oh, my dear. You are all right, unhurt? Susannah Potts stopped just now, and told me of your fright—the excitement—and, oh, such a tale! She was on her way to do a day’s cleaning at the Kilroys, and saw me in my garden, and told me that Maria had sat up in a bedquilt all night at the telephone, and had rung your number twenty-nine times! When one has no telephone one misses a great deal. But you should have sent someone to wake me. It was just your sweet thoughtfulness, not to break an old woman’s sleep.” She patted Rosamond’s cheek.

The vagabond had watched her, from the moment of her appearance, with affectionate eyes. He stepped forward now. Sixteen years had changed him—turned a long, slender boy into a compact broad-shouldered man, written in his face much more than the simple tales of the First Primer. Had they met on the road, she might not have known him. It was not his outward person that she recognized now; but she knew that attitude of head held forward and bent in humility; hands thrust deep into coat pockets, and black eyes, apparently downcast, but in reality gleaming through half-closed lids, while he mutely asked pardon for some outrageous prank, and at the same time flashed the impudent news that he would not undo it if he could, no, not for a wilderness of monkeys.

“Who was the dreadful man,” Mrs. Lee was asking when she caught sight of him. “Why—who—who? Jack! Jack, my dear boy—Oh, my dear boy.” She went to him with open arms and embraced him and crooned over him.

“Yes, Mother Lee. I’m home again.” He kissed her cheek. “But you didn’t tell me that you don’t live here any more! So it was I, Mother Lee. I was the tramp.”

“Oh Jack!” she laughed happily, though her eyes were wet. “And then you told some story and kept it up. Just the same, naughty Jack.” She held his arm in hers as she beamed delightedly at the others. “So now you all know one another, and I needn’t make any introductions. And see how wonderfully it came about, too—just as I longed to have it, Mrs. Mearely! My Jack and Roseborough met without knowing that they were Jack Falcon and Roseborough, and so they found out each other’s true selves at once. How beautiful!”

She was leaning to gaze into his face with loving look, and so did not see that everyone, but Corinne, sought some spot for view where eyes would not be encountered. Constable Marks, having no cause for moral sensitiveness, put his battered straw hat on and took it off again in punctilious greeting to the new arrival.

“Hi’m ’appy to welcome you ’ome, Sir. Hi’ll be goin’ along, now, to tell Mrs. Marks as ’ow Hi was almost the first to greet you. She halways ’as a ’ankerin’ to see me prominent.” He drew out his watch. “Nigh on my breakfast time.”

“Good day, sergeant,” Falcon called after him, good humouredly. Constable Halfred Marks grinned sheepishly and departed.

Presently Mabel gave words to the thought in everyone’s mind, but Mrs. Lee’s and Corinne’s. She said:

“And we’ve all got to live here knowing each other!”

“Won’t that be wholesome?” Falcon said cheerily.

Corinne could contain herself no longer.

“Oh Goody! Oh, to think the prince is going to stay in Roseborough! Prince Falcon! And, oh, Mrs. Lee, Mabel’s going to marry Mr. Howard—at last!”

“Oh, how glad I am!” Mrs. Lee embraced Mabel. “Two dear young people. Such an unselfish girl, always labouring for dear aunt Emma and Corinne. How often I’ve prayed, ‘May that sweet, unselfish girl get a good husband.’” She shook hands with Howard.

“I—I didn’t know anybody ever noticed me,” Mabel answered, with quivering lip.

“How glad our dear Mrs. Witherby must be. I know what joy she feels. She is always more interested in others than in her own affairs.”

Mrs. Witherby hunted for her handkerchief, sniffling with unexpected emotion, and faltered:

“Her father was my favourite brother—my favourite.”

“And now you’ll all meet at breakfast as dear friends, and not strangers. But that is the spirit of Roseborough. Jack, perhaps you’ll find that all your wandering has only led you safely home. Somewhere, dear boy, even you must find your end-of-journeying. You remember the words: ‘Dear Roseborough, to every seeker of harmony thou art his end-of-journeying; to every wanderer, his home’?”

“My ‘end-of-journeying’!” he repeated, and looked at Rosamond, who had stolen away from the room to the verandah. The golden light of the risen sun filled the open spaces of the garden and sought for chinks and window holes in the great elms, through which to send its warm yellow shafts into Villa Rose. Falcon went out to the railing, and looked down. The sun was splashing all the hillside with glory; and the river flowed like golden glass.

Mrs. Witherby was repeating something she had evolved, at last, as the perfect explanation of “all our little mistakes last night.”

“If only it hadn’t happened in the night! I’m sure I would never have thought—I’m the last person to.... But when things happen in the night!”

Mrs. Lee had joined her boy on the verandah. She pointed to the sunlight that now burst through the elms in a dozen places.

“But the night is past,” she said comfortingly.

Rosamond, lifting her face to let the midsummer morning sky shower its splendour on her, echoed softly:

“Yes—the night is past.”

Falcon turned to her. He heard the secret call in her low note, the human undertone of the high wind-swung song of the nests.

Their eyes met. Their youth—and the joy and the hope of it—leaped in them, and they smiled wonderingly at each other. With a buoyant, compelling movement Falcon went to her, under her golden leaf-laced veil of sun, and gripped her hand in the firm, warm clasp of a comrade who has sought long and will never let go of the mate he has found.

“Night is past—Good-morning, Rosamond!”

They laughed for sheer gladness.

THE END


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