Pleased to Meet You/Chapter 6
The special agent, after careful study of Karl's lists, thought that the 1865 cognac should be tested first. It proved to be of the finest possible bouquet, gentle, mellow, and volatile.
"I am greatly relieved," he said graciously. "To tell the truth, I had feared that during the confusions of reconstruction things might have been allowed to run down. I express my personal satisfaction' that the wine-steward is worthy of Farniente traditions." He dismissed Karl, who departed beaming.
"It is unfortunate," he added, "that there does not seem to be a cocktail shaker anywhere in the palace. I shall have to give the butler a lesson in the mixing of cocktails. I know, from experience in Paris and Geneva, how useful they are in coming to an understanding with American diplomats. However, we can go into these matters more fully by and bye."
The President had by this time recovered some of his naturally sanguine spirits. He mentioned the onion soup problem to his advisor, who promised to arrange everything.
"Herr President," he said, "you can repose the most perfect confidence in me. Imagine me a kind of Colonel House, taciturn, farseeing and discreet. In fact you may call me Colonel, if you will. It adds to the dignity of the situation."
"My daughter and I shall be disappointed if you do not stay to dinner, Colonel."
"With pleasure. There is much to be attended to. To-morrow I will assure myself that the car is in proper order for your use and that the driver understands what routes are to be followed when you go through the city. The Department of Public Safety was often very anxious during the reign of the Grand Duke. He went about with such reckless freedom, drinking at cafes, meeting ladies for supper—you will not compel me to elaborate the theme. It would be undesirable for your chauffeur to drive across wide open spaces, where bullets—but let's not be alarmist. It is only that I am personally responsible to the Department."
"Nonsense!" cried Nyla, giving her father a hug. "No one would want to hurt my adorable Daddy."
"Alas, Fräulein, the payment of the war debts implies heavy taxation; and heavy taxation always means a certain amount of gunning for statesmen."
"There's rather a nasty place in the Red Room," said Guadeloupe nervously. "A window where people used to hide and shoot at the Duke. You might have a look at it." He crossed to the mantel and studied the bullet holes in the panelling. He was relieved to see them well above the level of his head.
"These medieval houses are just full of hiding places," remarked Cointreau.
Herr Guadeloupe excused himself to go and unpack his official papers. Nyla was a little uncertain whether she was in the position of the visitor's hostess or not, but his easy frankness made embarrassment impossible.
"Come," he suggested, "let's have a look round, What a stunning old place it is. This ballroom floor—perfect for dancing! We must have a little music presently. And the terrace—delightful place to cool off between dances. Something green, I was thinking"
"Something green?" Nyla did not quite follow the quick transitions of the special agent's mind; but she understood, of course, that men accustomed to dispatch complicated international business would live at a speedier tempo than the simple libertads of a rustic republic.
"For your frock. Something green, of an airy floating nature, and the stockings that are so popular in Parisjust now—thecolour of Camembert cheese—would be the very thing for dancing. A few Chinese lanterns, not too many, strung here on the terrace. And by Jove, how well a canoe would go on the moat."
Nyla was wondering, a little uncomfortably, whether her quite modest wardrobe was chic enough to satisfy the exacting tastes of this connoisseur of modes. She was a charming figure as she sat on the old stone balustrade that bounded the terrace. The still water beneath reflected the pointed towers of Farniente and the great chestnut trees in the park.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I don't think I have anything in green. You are a most versatile person. Do you undertake the millinery details for all the new republics?"
Her touch of irony, if it was irony, did not at all abash Cointreau. His enthusiasm was irresistible.
"Few of the republics, Fräulein, have such reasons for enlisting one's codperation."
"I had no idea the League was so far-reaching in its organization."
"We try to give Service. You see, we've learned a great deal from the American experts who come to Geneva, One of the things Illyria needs just now is Publicity. We'll get some good photographs into the American Sunday papers, first thing you know the tourists will be coming here in crowds. That'll be good for trade. You see, your father will be busy with parliamentary affairs, he can't possibly think of all these other things. I want to help him all I can.—And help you too, Fräulein," he added. "Even in palaces young women may get bored. Sometimes you may feel like slipping away to the cinema. We can go to see Douglas Fairbanks together."
Nyla was enchanted. The arrival of this attractive, experienced and sophisticated gentleman, so eager to assume responsibilities, seemed to puff away the secret anxieties she had felt as to life at Farniente.
"I do want Daddy to be a successful President," she said with girlish earnestness. "It's a terribly hard job. Of course his opponents in parliament are frightfully jealous, they'd do anything to spoil his record. He's so wonderfully simple and honest, he only thinks of the good of the country."
"Now don't you worry a bit," he reassured her. "We're all going to have a gorgeous time. You know, that lawn in front of the house would be just the place for some of the old Mlyrian folk dances. I dare say we could get the chambermaids to put on their peasant costume and hop about. It would be just the thing to amuse any busybodies that float in from the Great Powers. Take their minds off the poor old florin."
A dim far-away pulsation had been softly discernible in the summer air; now, from the direction of the Pannonia Platz a burst of shrill music was unmistakable. It came nearer and resolved itself into the anthem of the Illyrian Republic. A young radical poet had sat up all night, during the recent Revolution, to put new ejaculations to an old national air. As a republican hymn it was completely successful, one verse extolled Democracy, one Freedom, and one the Proletariat (a difficult word to find rhymes for). A parliamentary committee had expunged the stanza levelled against Foreign Capital, which was considered tactless under the circumstances; otherwise the lyric had gone through with acclaim, and was now being sung on all possible occasions.
"Oh!" exclaimed Nyla, "it must be the Demonstration. Daddy thought he'd escaped it by coming early, but they've followed him here. His supporters, and the interviewers from the Labour papers. He was hoping they wouldn't come until he'd got a little bit settled. If those people from the New Freedom and the Folkvoice find him surrounded by uniformed flunkeys I'm sure it'll be bad for politics."
"Quick!" cried Cointreau, his eyes bright with excitement. "This is important. Hurry upstairs, tell your father to put on his old clothes. Get that housekeeper person, what's her name, Innsbruck, to call the maids together and have them wear their native duds. I'll tell Romsteck to roll out a barrel of beer on the lawn. I'll keep the crowd amused at the front steps until your father's ready. Tell him to bring his pipe. Hurry!"
With a flutter of skirts Nyla fled across the terrace.
Herr Romsteck, already sufficiently agitated by the events of the day, was in the hall wondering if the parade now advancing down the avenue of limes presaged another coup d'état. In the days of the Grand Duke gatherings of the rabble never approached nearer than the tall iron grille on the Pannonia Platz. The music sounded louder and louder, green and white flags fluttered above the throng. He looked anxiously at the cheerful envoy from Geneva, who strolled in from the salon, smiling genially. Romsteck could not account for the presence of this unexplained visitor, but he recognized the manners of one accustomed to command.
"Romsteck," said Cointreau, "this is a jocund moment."
"Jocund, sir? It looks like another revolution."
"A great proletarian celebration. The innocent high spirits for which Illyria was famous in the old days. Do you dance?"
"Dance?" ejaculated the major domo, horrified at such flippancy. "Not in public, sir; far from it, sir."
"But you shall," said Cointreau firmly. "We shall all dance. It is important to impress the populace with our democratic simplicity. Geneva and the Great Powers expect it of us. For the sake of European concord, old son, you must lay aside that priestly dignity. We will have folk-dancing on the lawn, and you and Frau Innsbruck shall lead the revels."
Romsteck's orderly little world seemed to be turning topsy-turvy. He gazed inhospitably at the plebeian crowd already pressing into the sacred courtyard. They marched orderly and with respectful mien, an honest bourgeois procession, but now the band broke out again and the windows quivered.
"Get busy," ordered Cointreau. "Hop to it, or you lose your job. Have the cellar-man broach a cask of beer by the front steps. Tell the footmen to take off their coats and appear in breeches, with coloured kerchiefs. Come and tell me when the President's ready, before he shows himself, so I can introduce him properly."
Cointreau's first words, as he stood on the front steps and gestured for silence, were a masterpiece of demagogic skill.
"Citizens," he said, "the President of the Republic"
Cheers.
"Will greet you himself"
Loud Cheers.
"As soon as he has finished his onion soup."
Terrific enthusiasm. The crowd enjoyed the allusion, flags waved, the bass drum was pounded, men shouted, women huzzaed, children squeaked.
"It would not be like Herr Guadeloupe to alter the established simplicity of his life because his fellow-citizens have put him here at Farniente to represent the Republic. He asks me to tell you that he wants this little celebration to be in the true Illyrian style. There will be cookies for the young, beer for the thirsty, and our old Illyrian folkdances on the lawn."
In all its long history Farniente had never witnessed a more cordial scene. Slopes of westering sunshine poured across the mossy roof of the palace, gilding the increasing crowd that came curiously hurrying down the avenue. Dogs barked and frolicked on the outskirts. Sentries laid down their arms and fraternized with the mob. Romsteck, in the worried conviction that all this meant insurrection unless the throng was pacified, hurried out the beer and produced baskets of pretzels and cakes from his secret stores. The Illyrian instinct for popular merrymaking, long repressed during days of disastrous war and political uncertainty, now blossomed in bright flower.
Cointreau kept the crowd together by a few cheerful and patriotic remarks until, just at the psychological moment, Herr Guadeloupe appeared, wearing a knickerbocker suit and puffing his pipe. The people shouted applause. Cointreau, taking a mouth organ from his pocket, led the band in another explosion of the national hymn. Guadeloupe, flushed with emotion, made a brief speech which was exactly the right sort of thing. His old knickerbockers and the pipe warm in his hand lent him that ease of mind so necessary to the political orator. By the time he had finished, each of his hearers felt that it was by personal favour of the Deity that he had been born an Illyrian. The cheers were deafening and the barrel of beer was unbunged. The corps of maids, charming in short green kilts and red jackets, bare knees and white stockings, filed demurely from the service wing. The special agent, still playing the mouth-organ, seized Nyla as his partner and led off a foursome country dance with Romsteck and Frau Innsbruck. These worthies perspired with embarrassment and began the measure with stiff clumsiness, but. Cointreau's mouth organ and his comic zeal warmed them somewhat. The spectators, at first respectfully puzzled, gradually began to applaud. Then Innsbruck, slipping on a juicy bit of turf, fell rump-flat. The populace yelled and the ice was broken. Chambermaids, footmen, and the citizens themselves, joined in. A dozen different groups of dancers were formed, the band struck up peasant airs and yodels familiar to all, and the President himself, seizing a stout matron, capered with gusto.
Colonel Cointreau circulated helpfully in the gay rout. The humorous cantata of his mouth-organ was heard wherever the mirth was thickest. Evidently his severe life as an international negotiator had not dimmed a simple human relish for comely females; he was seen footing an intricate morris with Lorli, Nyla's pretty tirewoman; he lined up the chambermaids to be photographed, amid much laughter and broad jest, himself slipping modestly away whenever a lens was pointed in his direction. When in the unusual exertion Frau Innsbruck burst some private reef-points and ruptured a garter, the Colonel was first to seize the tensile fragment and hail it as a tender trophy. It was so long since Frau Innsbruck's garter had had any publicity or been the object of competition or saltatorial strain that the housekeeper went moist and ruddy with pleased confusion.
"It's easy to see he's a real aristocrat," she confided to Romsteck as they withdrew from active participation. "He's as lively as the Grand Duke. I wish he were President." She had a vague feeling that with so sportive a person around there might, even in a Republic, be some chance for the winsome intrigue that makes life tolerable to females. Even the scandalized Romsteck, gazing where Geneva's expert was now astride the beer-keg, hastening the flow by mouth organ madrigals, had to admit that the Colonel had done much to enliven the party.
The President also was not far from the beer, cheerfully engrossed in talk with the reporters, who wore the specially professional look of those who approve what they have seen and are getting ready to write a favourable story for the papers. Nyla, seeing her father's air of satisfaction, was thoroughly happy. The Colonel insisted on dancing repeatedly; in these country measures he was agile rather than practiced, but there was a pleasant quaintness in his figures and he had a piquant habit of uttering enigmatic phrases.
"Never go in for politics without a mouth organ and a pair of rubber heels," was one of these.
"Rubber heels?" she inquired, the next time the pattern of the dance brought them together for a few moments.
"An American invention," he replied. "Very useful for statesmen."
Presently they retired to a corner of the lawn overlooking the water. From a distance they watched the crowd now beginning to disperse, Herr Guadeloupe gaily shaking hands, the enthusiastic citizens breaking out into little ripples of cheering.
"I don't know how to thank you, Colonel."
"You don't need to call me Colonel," he replied. "I just suggested that for your father."
"What shall I call you, then?"
"Let's wait and see. Something may suggest itself. You can begin with Gene, if you like. Short for Geneva."
"You've given Daddy a wonderful send-off," she said. "I don't know what he'll do when you go back to the League."
"Oh, I shan't go back. They expect me to stay here and keep an eye on things.—On people, too," he added, looking at her with cheerful admiration. "I have quite an eye for the picturesque."
"Are you really an Illyrian?" she asked. "You're so different. Your accent"
"I've been a great deal abroad."
There was a brief silence.
"You know," he said, "I had intended simply to make a daily inspection, to make sure that everything was O. K. But I can see that the situation is unusual. I believe it would be wiser to take up quarters right here in the palace. Then I should be on hand in case—well, in case I could be useful. Suppose you fell into the moat, for instance. The Department of Public Safety has to guard against all sorts of possibilities."
"But I can swim. Besides, I don't believe it's deep."
"We'll go out one of these days and see. There's an old punt down there that'd do for a canoe."
He vaulted lightly to a seat on the licheny old bastion and played a gay little strain on his mouth organ.
"We might compose a moating song," he reflected. "Something like this."
He improvised a few insinuating bars.
"A new kind of sea chantey, the moating song. Sentimental ditty: If you and I were moating, Beneath the old château—" He paused, hunting a rhyme. "Let's see, boating, coating, doting"
"And idling there and floating," she suggested.
"Good girl! Say, you're a poet. And idling there and floating In our petit bateau"
"We'd drift about, not noting"
"The taxes and the voting"
"For pleasures beyond quoting"
"Just you and I would know," he finished with delight. "Great stuff! We could write a new anthem for the Republic that'd beat that other one all hollow. Now let's get the music right."
"You said I ought to dress for dinner. I'd better go and see if I've got anything to wear that you'd approve of. And if you're going to stay, how about your luggage?"
"Bless you," he said calmly, "it's here. I brought it with me. Tell old Rumpsteak to pick me out a nice room without any eastern windows. I hate to be waked up by the sun in my eyes."
The small wheedle of the mouth organ sounded gaily behind her as she walked across the lawn. The Colonel was perfecting his Moating Song.