Chapter 3. I Acquire A Kingdom

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER III. I ACQUIRE A KINGDOM

"_Gloucester_.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is't not the king?"

"_Lear_.
Ay, every inch a king."

---King Lear.

From our lodgings, which were in Bond Street, we sallied forth next morning to view the town; my father leading us first by way of St. James's and across the Park to the Abbey, and on the way holding discourse to which I recalled myself with difficulty from London's shows and wonders--his Majesty's tall guards at the palace gates, the gorgeous promenaders in the Mall, the swans and wild fowl on the lake.

"I wish you to remark, my dear child," said he, "that between a capital and solitude there is no third choice; nor, I would add, can a mind extract the best of solitude unless it bring urbanity to the wilderness. Your rustic is no philosopher, and your provincial townsman is the devil: if you would meditate in Arden, your company must be the Duke, Jaques, Touchstone--courtiers all--or, again, Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, if you would catch the very mood of the forest. I tell you this, child, that you may not be misled by my example (which has a reason of its own and, I trust, an excuse) into shunning your destiny though it lead and keep you in cities and among crowds; for we have it on the word of no less busy a man than the Emperor Marcus Aurelius that to seek out private retiring-rooms for the soul such as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains, is but a mistaken simplicity, seeing that at what time soever a man will it is in his power to retire into himself and be at rest, dwelling within the walls of a city as in a shepherd's fold of the mountain. So also the sainted Juan de Avila tells us that a man who trusts in God may, if he take pains, recollect God in streets and public places better than will a hermit in his cell; and the excellent Archbishop of Cambrai, writing to the Countess of Gramont, counselled her to practise recollection and give a quiet thought to God at dinner times in a lull of the conversation, or again when she was driving or dressing or having her hair arranged; these hindrances (said he) profited more than any _engouement_ of devotion.

"But," he went on, "to bear yourself rightly in a crowd you must study how one crowd differs from another, and how in one city you may have that great orderly movement of life (whether of business or of pleasure) which is the surrounding joy of princes in their palaces, and an insensate mob, which is the most brutal and vilest aspect of man. For as in a thronged street you may learn the high meaning of citizenship, so in a mob you may unlearn all that makes a man dignified. Yet even the mob you should study in a capital, as Shakespeare did in his 'Julius Caesar' and 'Coriolanus;' for only so can you know it in its quiddity. I conjure you, child, to get your sense of men from their capital cities."

He had something to tell of almost every great house we passed. He seemed--he that had saluted no one as we crossed the Mall, saluted of none--to walk this quarter of London with a proprietary tread; and by and by, coming to the river, he waved an arm and broke into panegyric.

"Other capitals have had their turn, and others will overtake and outstrip her; but where is one in these times to compare with London? Where in Europe will you see streets so well ordered, squares so spacious, houses so comfortable, yet elegant, as in this mile east and south of Hyde Park? Where such solid, self-respecting wealth as in our City? Where such merchant-princes and adventurers as your Whittingtons and Greshams? Where half its commerce? and where a commerce touched with one tithe of its imagination? Where such a river, for trade as for pageants? On what other shore two buildings side by side so famous, the one for just laws, civil security, liberty with obedience, the other for heroic virtues resumed, with their propagating dust, into the faith which sowed all and, having reaped, renews?"

In the Abbey--where my Uncle Gervase was forced to withdraw behind a pillar and rub Billy Priske's neck, which by this time had a crick in it--my father's voice, as he moved from tomb to tomb, deepened to a regal solemnity. He repeated Beaumont's great lines--

"Mortality, behold and fear!
What a change of flesh is here!"

laying a hand on my shoulder the while; and in the action I understood that this and all his previous discourse was addressed to me with a purpose, and that somehow our visit to London had to do with that purpose.

"Here they lie had realms and lands
Who now want strength to stir their hands;
Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust
They preach 'In greatness is no trust' . . .
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings. . . ."

I must have fallen a-wondering while he quoted in a low sonorous voice, like a last echo of the great organ, rolling among the arches; for as it ceased I came to myself with a start and found his eyes searching me; also his hold on my shoulder had stiffened, and he held me from him at arm's length.

"And yet," said he, as if to himself, "this dust is the strongest man can build with; and we must build in our generation--quickly, trusting in the young firm flesh; yes, quickly--and trusting--though we know what its end must be."

These last words he muttered, and afterwards seemed to fall into a meditation, which lasted until we found ourselves outside the Abbey and in the light again.

From Westminster we took boat to Blackfriars, and, landing there, walked up through the crowded traffic to a gateway opening into Clement's Inn. I did not know its name at the time, nor did I regard the place as we entered, being yet fascinated with the sight of Temple Bar and of the heads of four traitors above it on poles, blackening in the sun; but within the courtyard we turned to the right and mounted a staircase to the head of the second flight and to a closed door on which my father knocked. A clerk opened, and presently we passed through an office into a well-sized room where, from amid a pile of books, a grave little man rose, reached for his wig, and, having adjusted it, bowed to us.

"Good morning! Good morning, gentlemen! Ah--er--Sir John Constantine, I believe?"

My father bowed. "At your service, Mr. Knox. You received my letter, then? Let me present my brother-in-law and man of affairs, Mr. Gervase Arundel, who will discuss with you the main part of our business; also my son here, about whom I wrote to you."

"Eh? Eh?" Mr. Knox, after bowing to my uncle, put on his spectacles, took them off, wiped them, put them on again, and regarded me benevolently. "Eh? so this is the boy--h'm--Jasper, I believe?"

"Prosper," my father corrected.

"Ah, to be sure--Prosper--and I hope he will, I'm sure." Mr. Knox chuckled at his mild little witticism and twinkled at me jocosely. "Your letter, Sir John? Yes, to be sure, I received it. What you propose is practicable, though irregular."

"Irregular?"

"Not legally irregular--oh no, not in the least. Legally the thing's as simple as A B C. The man has only to take the benefit of the Act of Insolvency, assign his estate to his creditors, and then-- supposing that they are agreed--"

"There can be no question of their agreement or disagreement. His creditors do not exist. As I told you, I have paid them off, bought up all their debts, and the yes or no rests with me alone."

"Quite so; I was merely putting it as the Act directs. Very well then, supposing _you_ agree, nothing more is necessary than an appearance--a purely formal appearance--at the Old Bailey, and your unfortunate friend--"

"Pardon me," my father put in; "he is not my friend."

"Eh?" . . . Mr. Knox removed his spectacles, breathed on them, and rubbed them, while he regarded my father with a bewildered air. "You'll excuse me . . . but I must own myself entirely puzzled. Even for a friend's sake, as I was about to protest, your conduct, sir, would be Quixotic; yes, yes, Quixotic in the highest degree, the amount being (as you might say) princely, and the security--" Mr. Knox paused and expressed his opinion of the security by a pitying smile. "But if," he resumed, "this man be not even your friend, then, my dear sir, I can merely wonder."

For a moment my father seemed about to argue with him, but checked himself.

"None the less the man is very far from being my friend," he answered quietly.

"But surely--surely, sir, you cannot be doing this in any hope to recover what he already owes you! That were indeed to throw the helve after the hatchet. Nay, sir, it were madness--stark madness!"

My father glanced at my uncle Gervase, who stood pulling his lip; then, with an abrupt motion, he turned on Mr. Knox again.

"You have seen him? You delivered my letter?"

"I did."

"What was his answer?"

Mr. Knox shrugged his shoulders. "He jumped at it, of course."

"And the boy, here! What did he say about the boy?"

"Well, to speak truth, Sir John, he seemed passably amused by the whole business. The fact is, prison has broken him up. A fine figure he must have been in his time, but a costly one to maintain . . . as tall as yourself, Sir John, if not taller; and florid, as one may say; the sort of man that must have exercise and space and a crowd to admire him, not to mention wine and meats and female society. The Fleet has broken down all that. Even with liberty I wouldn't promise him another year of life; and, unless I'm mistaken, he knows his case. A rare actor, too! It wouldn't surprise me if he'd even deceived himself. But the mask's off. Your offer overjoyed him; that goes without saying. In spite of all your past generosity, this new offer obviously struck him for the moment as too good to be true. But I cannot say, Sir John, that he made any serious effort to keep up the imposture or pretend that the security which he can offer is more than a sentimental one. Not to put too fine a point on it, he ordered in a couple of bottles of wine at my expense, and over the second I left him laughing."

My father frowned. "And yet this man, Mr. Knox, is an anointed king."

"Of Corsica!" Mr. Knox shrugged his shoulders. "You may take my word for it, he's an anointed actor."

"One can visit him, I suppose?"

"At the most the turnkey will expect five shillings. Oh dear me yes! For a crowned head he's accessible."

My father took me by the arm. "Come along, then, child. And you, Gervase, get your business through with Mr. Knox and follow us, if you can, in half an hour. You"--he turned to Billy Priske--"had best come with us. 'Tis possible I may need you all for witnesses."

He walked me out and downstairs and through the lodge gateway; and so under Temple Bar again and down Fleet Street through the throng; till near the foot of it, turning up a side street out of the noise, we found ourselves in face of a gateway which could only belong to a prison. The gate itself stood open, but the passage led to an iron-barred door, and in the passage--which was cool but indescribably noisome--a couple of children were playing marbles, with half a dozen turnkeys looking on and (I believe) betting on the game.

My father sniffed the air in the passage and turned to me.

"Gaol-fever," he announced. "Please God, child, we won't be in it long."

He rescued Billy from the two urchins who had dropped their game to pinch his calves, and addressed a word to one of the turnkeys, at the same time passing a coin. The fellow looked at it and touched his hat.

"Second court, first floor, number thirty-seven." He opened a wicket in the gate. "This way, please, and sharp to the left."

The narrow court into which we descended by a short flight of steps was, as I remember, empty; but passing under an archway and through a kind of tunnel we entered a larger one crowded with men, some gathered in groups, others pacing singly and dejectedly, the most of them slowly too, with bowed heads, but three or four with fierce strides as if in haste to keep an appointment. One of them, coming abreast of us as the turnkey led us off to a staircase on the left, halted, drew himself up, stared at us for a moment with vacant eyes, and hurried by; yet before we mounted the stairs I saw him reach the farther wall, wheel, and come as hastily striding back.

The stairway led to a filthy corridor, pierced on the left with a row of tiny windows looking on the first and empty courtyard; and on the right with a close row of doors, the most of which stood open and gave glimpses of foul disordered beds, broken meats, and barred windows crusted with London grime. The smell was pestilential. Our turnkey rapped on one of the closed doors, and half-flung, half-kicked it open; for a box had been set against it on the inside.

"Visitors for the Baron!" he announced, and stood aside to let us enter. My father had ordered Billy to wait below. We two passed in together.

Now, my father, as I have said, was tall; yet it seemed to me that the man who greeted us was taller, as he rose from the bed and stood between us and the barred dirty window. By little and little I made out that he wore an orange-coloured dressing-gown, and on his head a Turk's fez; that he had pushed back a table at which, seated on the bed, he had been writing; and that on the sill of the closed window behind him stood a geranium-plant, dry with dust and withering in the stagnant air of the room. But as yet, since he rose with his back to the little light, I could not make out his features. I marked, however, that he shook from head to foot.

My father bowed--a very reverent and stately bow it was too--regarded him for a moment, and, taking a pace backward to the door, called after the retreating turnkey, to whom he addressed some order in a tone to me inaudible.

"You are welcome, Sir John," said the prisoner, as my father faced him again; "though to my shame I cannot offer you hospitality." He said it in English, with a thick and almost guttural foreign accent, and his voice shook over the words.

"I have made bold, sire, to order the remedy."

"'Sire!'" the prisoner took him up with a flash of spirit. "You have many rights over me, Sir John, but none to mock me, I think."

"As you have no right to hold me capable of it, in such a place as this," answered my father. "I addressed you in terms which my errand proves to be sincere. This is my son Prosper, of whom I wrote."

"To be sure--to be sure." The prisoner turned to me and looked me over--I am bound to say with no very great curiosity, and sideways, in the half light, I had a better glimpse of his features, which were bold and handsome, but dreadfully emaciated. He seemed to lose the thread of his speech, and his hands strayed towards the table as if in search of something. "Ah yes, the boy," said he, vaguely.

The turnkey entering just then with two bottles of wine, my father took one from him and filled an empty glass that stood on the table. The prisoner's fingers closed over it.

"I have much to drown," he explained, as, having gulped down the wine, he refilled his glass at once, knocking the bottle-neck on its rim in his clattering haste. "Excuse me; you'll find another glass in the cupboard behind you. . . . Yes, yes, we were talking of the boy. . . . Are you filled? . . . We'll drink to his health!"

"To your health, Prosper," said my father, gravely, and drank.

"But, see here--I received your letter right enough, and it sounds too good to be true. Only "--and into the man's eyes there crept a sudden cunning--"I don't understand what you want of me."

"You may think it much or little; but all we want--or, rather, all my boy wants--is your blessing."

"So I gathered; and that's funny, by God! _My_ blessing--mine--and here!" He flung out a hand. "I've had some strange requests in my time; but, damn me, if I reckoned that any man any longer wanted my blessing."

"My son does, though; and even such a blessing as your own son would need, if you had one. You understand?"--for the prisoner's eyes had wandered to the barred window--"I mean the blessing of Theodore the First."

"You are a strange fellow, John Constantine," was the answer, in a weary, almost pettish tone. "God knows I have more reason to be grateful to you than to any man alive--"

"But you find it hard? Then give it over. You may do it with the lighter heart since gratitude from you would be offensive to me."

"If you played for this--worthless prize as it is--from the beginning--"

Again my father took him up; and, this time, sternly. "You know perfectly well that I never played for this from the beginning; nor had ever dreamed of it while there was a chance that you--or _she_-- might leave a child. I will trouble you--" My father checked himself. "Your pardon, I am speaking roughly. I will beg you, sire, to remember first, that you claimed and received my poor help while there was yet a likelihood of your having children, before your wife left you, and a good year before I myself married or dreamed of marrying. I will beg you further to remember that no payment of what you owed to me was ever enforced, and that the creditors who sent you and have kept you here are commercial persons with whom I had nothing to do; whose names until the other day were strange to me. _Now_ I will admit that I play for a kingdom."

"You really think it worth while?" The prisoner, who had stood all this time blinking at the window, his hands in the pockets of his dirty dressing-gown, turned again to question him.

"I do."

"But listen a moment. I have had too many favours from you, and I don't want another under false pretences. You may call it a too-late repentance, but the fact remains that I don't. Liberty?"--he stretched out both gaunt arms, far beyond the sleeves of his gown, till they seemed to measure the room and to thrust its walls wide. "Even with a week to live I would buy it dear--you don't know, John Constantine, how you tempt me--but not at that price."

"Your title is good. I will take the risk."

"How good or how bad my title is, you know. 'Tis the inheritance against which I warn you."

"I take the risk," my father repeated, "if you will sign."

The prisoner shrugged his shoulders and helped himself to another glassful.

"We must have witnesses," said my father, "Have you a clergyman in this den?"

"To be sure we have. The chaplain, we call him Figg--Jonathan Figg's his name; the Reverend Jonathan Figg, B.A., of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge; a good fellow and a moderately hard drinker. He spends the best part of his morning marrying up thieves and sailors to trulls; but he's usually leaving church about this time, if a messenger can catch him before he's off to breakfast with 'em. Half an hour hence he'll be too drunk to sign his name."

"Prosper"--my father swung round on me--"run you down to Billy and take him off to search for this clergyman. If on your way you meet with your uncle and Mr. Knox, say that we shall require them, too, as witnesses."

I ran down to the courtyard, but no Billy could I see; only the dejected groups of prisoners, and among them the one I had marked before, still fiercely striding, and still, at the wall, returning upon his track. I hurried out to the gate, and there, to my amazement, found Billy in the clutches of a strapping impudent wench and surrounded by a ring of turnkeys, who were splitting their sides with laughter.

"I won't!" he was crying. "I'm a married man, I tell 'ee, and the father of twelve!"

"Oh, Billy!" I cried, aghast at the lie.

"There was no other way, lad. For the Lord's sake fetch Squire to deliver me?"

Before I could answer or ask what was happening, the damsel rounded on me.

"Boy," she demanded, "is this man deceiving me?"

"As for that, ma'am," I answered, "I cannot say. But that he's a bachelor I believe; and that he hates women I have his word over and over."

"Then he shall marry me or fight me," she answered very coolly, and began to strip off her short bodice.

"There's twelve o'clock," announced one of the turnkeys, as the first stroke sounded from the clock above us over the prison gateway. "Too late to be married to-day; so a fight it is."

"A ring! a ring!" cried the others.

I looked in Billy's face, and in all my life (as I have since often reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free--and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were. How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white favour pinned to his breast.

"Hey? What's to do--what's to do!" inquired Mr. Knox.

The clergyman thrust past him with a "Pardon me, sir," and addressed the woman. "What's the matter, Nan? Is the bridegroom fighting shy?"

"Please your reverence, he tells me he's the father of twelve."

"H'm." The priest cocked his head on one side. "You find that an impediment?"

"_And_ a married man, your reverence."

"Then he has the laughing side of you, this time," said his reverence, promptly, and took snuff. "Tut, tut, woman--down with your fists, button up your bodice, and take disappointment with a better grace. Come, no nonsense, or you'll start me asking what's become of the last man I married ye to."

"Sir," interposed my uncle, "I know not the head or tail of this quarrel. But this man Priske is my brother's servant, and if he told the lady what she alleges, for the credit of the family I must correct him. In sober truth he's a bachelor, and no more the father of twelve than I am."

This address, delivered with entire simplicity, set the whole company gasping. Most of all it seemed to astonish the woman, who could not be expected to know that my uncle's chivalry accepted all her sex, the lowest with the highest, in the image in which God made it and without defacement.

The priest was the first to recover himself. "My good sir," said he, "your man may be the father of twelve or the father of lies; but I'll not marry him after stroke of noon, for that's my rule. Moreover"-- he swept a hand towards the bridal party behind him--"these turtles have invited me to eat roast duck and green peas with 'em, and I hate my gravy cold."

"Ay, sir?" asked my uncle. "Do you tell me that folks marry and give in marriage within this dreadful place?"

"Now and then, sir; and in the liberties and purlieus thereof with a proclivity that would astonish you; which, since I cannot hinder it, I sanctify. My name is Figg, sir--Jonathan Figg; and my office, Chaplain of the Fleet."

"And if it please you, sir," I put in, "my father has sent me in search of you, to beg that you will come to him at once."

"And you have heard me say, young sir, that I marry no man after stroke of noon; no, nor will visit him sick unless he be in _articulo mortis_."

"But my father neither wants to be married, sir, nor is he sick at all. I believe it is some matter of witnessing an oath."

"Hath he better than roast duck and green peas to offer, hey? No? Then tell him he may come and witness _my_ oath, that I'll see him first to Jericho."

"Whereby, if I mistake not," said Mr. Knox, quietly, "your pocket will continue light of two guineas; and I may add, from what I know of Sir John Constantine, that he is quite capable, if he receive such an answer, of having your blood in a bottle."

"'Sir John Constantine?' did I hear you say. _Sir_ John Constantine?'" queried the Reverend Mr. Figg, with a complete change of manner. "That's _quite_ another thing! Anything to oblige Sir John Constantine, I'm sure--"

"Do you know him?" asked my uncle.

"Well--er--no; I can't honestly declare that I _know_ him; but, of course, one knows _of_ him--that is to say, I understand him to be a gentleman of title; a knight at least."

"Yes," my uncle answered, "he is at least that. What a very extraordinary person!" he added in a wondering aside.

Oddly enough, as we were leaving, I heard the woman Nan say pretty much the same of my uncle. She added that she had a great mind to kiss him.

We found my father and the prisoner seated with the bottle between them on the rickety liquor-stained table. Yet--as I remember the scene now--not all the squalor of the room could efface or diminish the majesty of their two figures. They sat like two tall old kings, eye to eye, not friends, or reconciled only in this last and lonely hour by meditation on man's common fate. If I cannot make you understand this, what follows will seem to you absurd, though indeed at the time it was not so.

My father rose as we entered. "Here is the boy returned," said he; "and here are the witnesses."

The prisoner rose also. "I did not catch his name, or else I have forgotten it," he said, fixing his eyes on me and motioning me to step forward; which I did. His eyes--which before had seemed to me shifty--were straight now and commanding, yet benevolent.

"His name is Prosper; in full, John Prosper Camilio Paleologus. Never more than one of us wears the surname of Constantine, and he not until he succeeds as head of our house."

"One name is enough for a king." The prisoner motioned again with his hand. "Kneel, boy," my father commanded, and I knelt.

"I ask you, gentlemen," said the prisoner, facing them and lifting his voice, "to hear and remember what I shall say; to witness and remember what I shall do; and by signature to attest what I shall presently write. I say, then, that I, Theodore, was on the fifteenth of April, twenty years ago, by the united voice of the people of Corsica, made King of that island and placed in possession of its revenues and chief dignities. I declare, as God may punish me if I lie, that by no act of mine or of my people of Corsica has that election been annulled, forfeited, or invalidated; that its revenues are to-day rightfully mine to receive and bequeath, as its dignities are to-day rightfully mine to enjoy or abdicate to an heir of my own choosing. I declare further that, failing male issue of my own body, I resign herewith and abdicate both rank and revenue in favour of this boy, Prosper Paleologus, son of Constantine, and heir in descent of Constantine last Emperor of Constantinople. I lay my hands on him in your presence and bless him. In your presence I raise him and salute him on both cheeks, naming him my son of choice and my successor, Prosper I., King of the Commonwealth of Corsica. I call on you all to attest this act with your names, and all necessary writings confirming it; and I beseech you all to pray with me that he may come to the full inheritance of his kingdom, and thrive therein as he shall justly and righteously administer it. God save King Prosper!"

At the conclusion of this speech, admirably delivered, I--standing with bent head as he had raised me, and with both cheeks tingling from his salutation--heard my father's voice say sonorously, "Amen!" and another--I think the parson's--break into something like a chuckle. But my uncle must have put out a hand threatening his weasand, for the sound very suddenly gave place to silence; and the next voice I heard was Mr. Knox's.

"May I suggest that we seat ourselves and examine the papers?" said Mr. Knox.

"One moment." King Theodore stepped to the cupboard and drew out a bundle in a blue-and-white checked kerchief, and a smaller one in brown paper. The kerchief, having been laid on the table and unwrapped, disclosed a fantastic piece of ironwork in the shape of a crown, set with stones of which the preciousness was concealed by a plentiful layer of dust. He lifted this, set it on my head for a moment, and, replacing it on the table, took up the brown-paper parcel.

"This," said he, "contains the Great Seal. To whose keeping "--he turned to my father--"am I to entrust them, Sir John?"

My father nodded towards Billy Priske, who stepped forward and tucked both parcels under his arm, while Mr. Knox spread his papers on the table.

We walked back to our lodgings that afternoon, with Billy Priske behind us bearing in his pocket the Great Seal and under his arm, in a checked kerchief, the Iron Crown of Corsica.

Two mornings later we took horse and set our faces westward again; and thus ended my brief first visit to London. Billy Priske carried the sacred parcel on the saddle before him; and my uncle, riding beside him, spent no small part of the way in an exhortation against lying in general, and particularly against the sin of laying false claim to the paternity of twelve children.

Now, so shaken was Billy by his one adventure in London that until we had passed the tenth milestone he seemed content enough to be rated. I believe that as, for the remainder of his stay in London, he had never strayed beyond sight, so even yet he took comfort and security from my uncle's voice; "since," said he, quoting a Cornish proverb, "'tis better be rated by your own than mated with a stranger." But, by-and-by, taking courage to protest that a lie might on occasion be pardonable and even necessary, he drew my father into the discussion.

"This difficulty of Billy's," interposed my father, "was in some sort anticipated by Plato, who instanced that a madman with a knife in his hand might inquire of you to direct him which way had been taken by the victim he proposed to murder. He posits it as a nice point. Should one answer truthfully, or deceive?"

"For my part," answered my uncle, "I should knock him down." _

Read next: Chapter 4. Long Vacation

Read previous: Chapter 2. I Ride On A Pilgrimage

Table of content of Sir John Constantine


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book