Rodney Stone, Arthur Conan Doyle [the best books of all time .TXT] 📗

isn’t a professional on the road that can handle either his tongue or his ribbons better; but his wife, Lady Letty, is his match with the one or the other.”

“It was dreadful to hear her,” said I.

“Oh, it’s her eccentricity.  We all have them; and she amuses the Prince.  Now, nephew, keep close at my elbow, and have your eyes open and your mouth shut.”

Two lines of magnificent red and gold footmen who guarded the door bowed deeply as my uncle and I passed between them, he with his head in the air and a manner as if he entered into his own, whilst I tried to look assured, though my heart was beating thin and fast.  Within there was a high and large hall, ornamented with Eastern decorations, which harmonized with the domes and minarets of the exterior.  A number of people were moving quietly about, forming into groups and whispering to each other.  One of these, a short, burly, red-faced man, full of fuss and self-importance, came hurrying up to my uncle.

“I have de goot news, Sir Charles,” said he, sinking his voice as one who speaks of weighty measures.  “Es ist vollendet—dat is, I have it at last thoroughly done.”

“Well, serve it hot,” said my uncle, coldly, “and see that the sauces are a little better than when last I dined at Carlton House.”

“Ah, mine Gott, you tink I talk of de cuisine.  It is de affair of de Prince dat I speak of.  Dat is one little vol-au-vent dat is worth one hundred tousand pound.  Ten per cent., and double to be repaid when de Royal pappa die.  Alles ist fertig.  Goldshmidt of de Hague have took it up, and de Dutch public has subscribe de money.”

“God help the Dutch public!” muttered my uncle, as the fat little man bustled off with his news to some new-comer.  “That’s the Prince’s famous cook, nephew.  He has not his equal in England for a filet sauté aux champignons.  He manages his master’s money affairs.”

“The cook!” I exclaimed, in bewilderment.

“You look surprised, nephew.”

“I should have thought that some respectable banking firm—”

My uncle inclined his lips to my ear.

“No respectable house would touch them,” he whispered.  “Ah, Mellish, is the Prince within?”

“In the private saloon, Sir Charles,” said the gentleman addressed.

“Any one with him?”

“Sheridan and Francis.  He said he expected you.”

“Then we shall go through.”

I followed him through the strangest succession of rooms, full of curious barbaric splendour which impressed me as being very rich and wonderful, though perhaps I should think differently now.  Gold and scarlet in arabesque designs gleamed upon the walls, with gilt dragons and monsters writhing along cornices and out of corners.  Look where I would, on panel or ceiling, a score of mirrors flashed back the picture of the tall, proud, white-faced man, and the youth who walked so demurely at his elbow.  Finally, a footman opened a door, and we found ourselves in the Prince’s own private apartment.

Two gentlemen were lounging in a very easy fashion upon luxurious fauteuils at the further end of the room and a third stood between them, his thick, well-formed legs somewhat apart and his hands clasped behind him.  The sun was shining in upon them through a side-window, and I can see the three faces now—one in the dusk, one in the light, and one cut across by the shadow.  Of those at the sides, I recall the reddish nose and dark, flashing eyes of the one, and the hard, austere face of the other, with the high coat-collars and many-wreathed cravats.  These I took in at a glance, but it was upon the man in the centre that my gaze was fixed, for this I knew must be the Prince of Wales.

George was then in his forty-first year, and with the help of his tailor and his hairdresser, he might have passed as somewhat less.  The sight of him put me at my ease, for he was a merry-looking man, handsome too in a portly, full-blooded way, with laughing eyes and pouting, sensitive lips.  His nose was turned upwards, which increased the good-humoured effect of his countenance at the expense of its dignity.  His cheeks were pale and sodden, like those of a man who lived too well and took too little exercise.  He was dressed in a single-breasted black coat buttoned up, a pair of leather pantaloons stretched tightly across his broad thighs, polished Hessian boots, and a huge white neckcloth.

“Halloa, Tregellis!” he cried, in the cheeriest fashion, as my uncle crossed the threshold, and then suddenly the smile faded from his face, and his eyes gleamed with resentment.  “What the deuce is this?” he shouted, angrily.

A thrill of fear passed through me as I thought that it was my appearance which had produced this outburst.  But his eyes were gazing past us, and glancing round we saw that a man in a brown coat and scratch wig had followed so closely at our heels, that the footmen had let him pass under the impression that he was of our party.  His face was very red, and the folded blue paper which he carried in his hand shook and crackled in his excitement.

“Why, it’s Vuillamy, the furniture man,” cried the Prince.  “What, am I to be dunned in my own private room?  Where’s Mellish?  Where’s Townshend?  What the deuce is Tom Tring doing?”

“I wouldn’t have intruded, your Royal Highness, but I must have the money—or even a thousand on account would do.”

“Must have it, must you, Vuillamy?  That’s a fine word to use.  I pay my debts in my own time, and I’m not to be bullied.  Turn him out, footman!  Take him away!”

“If I don’t get it by Monday, I shall be in your papa’s Bench,” wailed the little man, and as the footman led him out we could hear him, amidst shouts of laughter, still protesting that he would wind up in “papa’s Bench.”

“That’s the very place for a furniture man,” said the man with the red nose.

“It should be the longest bench in the world, Sherry,” answered the Prince, “for a good many of his subjects will want seats on it.  Very glad to see you back, Tregellis, but you must really be more careful what you bring in upon your skirts.  It was only yesterday that we had an infernal Dutchman here howling about some arrears of interest and the deuce knows what.  ‘My good fellow,’ said I, ‘as long as the Commons starve me, I have to starve you,’ and so the matter ended.”

“I think, sir, that the Commons would respond now if the matter were fairly put before them by Charlie Fox or myself,” said Sheridan.

The Prince burst out against the Commons with an energy of hatred that one would scarce expect from that chubby, good-humoured face.

“Why, curse them!” he cried.  “After all their preaching and throwing my father’s model life, as they called it, in my teeth, they had to pay his debts to the tune of nearly a million, whilst I can’t get a hundred thousand out of them.  And look at all they’ve done for my brothers!  York is Commander-in-Chief.  Clarence is Admiral.  What am I?  Colonel of a damned dragoon regiment under the orders of my own younger brother.  It’s my mother that’s at the bottom of it all.  She always tried to hold me back.  But what’s this you’ve brought, Tregellis, eh?”

My uncle put his hand on my sleeve and led me forward.

“This is my sister’s son, sir; Rodney Stone by name,” said he.  “He is coming with me to London, and I thought it right to begin by presenting him to your Royal Highness.”

“Quite right!  Quite right!” said the Prince, with a good-natured smile, patting me in a friendly way upon the shoulder.  “Is your mother living?”

“Yes, sir,” said I.

“If you are a good son to her you will never go wrong.  And, mark my words, Mr. Rodney Stone, you should honour the King, love your country, and uphold the glorious British Constitution.”

When I thought of the energy with which he had just been cursing the House of Commons, I could scarce keep from smiling, and I saw Sheridan put his hand up to his lips.

“You have only to do this, to show a regard for your word, and to keep out of debt in order to insure a happy and respected life.  What is your father, Mr. Stone?  Royal Navy!  Well, it is a glorious service.  I have had a touch of it myself.  Did I ever tell you how we laid aboard the French sloop of war Minerve—hey, Tregellis?”

“No, sir,” said my uncle.  Sheridan and Francis exchanged glances behind the Prince’s back.

“She was flying her tricolour out there within sight of my pavilion windows.  Never saw such monstrous impudence in my life!  It would take a man of less mettle than me to stand it.  Out I went in my little cock-boat—you know my sixty-ton yawl, Charlie?—with two four-pounders on each side, and a six-pounder in the bows.”

“Well, sir!  Well, sir!  And what then, sir?” cried Francis, who appeared to be an irascible, rough-tongued man.

“You will permit me to tell the story in my own way, Sir Philip,” said the Prince, with dignity.  “I was about to say that our metal was so light that I give you my word, gentlemen, that I carried my port broadside in one coat pocket, and my starboard in the other.  Up we came to the big Frenchman, took her fire, and scraped the paint off her before we let drive.  But it was no use.  By George, gentlemen, our balls just stuck in her timbers like stones in a mud wall.  She had her nettings up, but we scrambled aboard, and at it we went hammer and anvil.  It was a sharp twenty minutes, but we beat her people down below, made the hatches fast on them, and towed her into Seaham.  Surely you were with us, Sherry?”

“I was in London at the time,” said Sheridan, gravely.

“You can vouch for it, Francis!”

“I can vouch to having heard your Highness tell the story.”

“It was a rough little bit of cutlass and pistol work.  But, for my own part, I like the rapier.  It’s a gentleman’s weapon.  You heard of my bout with the Chevalier d’Eon?  I had him at my sword-point for forty minutes at Angelo’s.  He was one of the best blades in Europe, but I was a little too supple in the wrist for him.  ‘I thank God there was a button on your Highness’s foil,’ said he, when we had finished our breather.  By the way, you’re a bit of a duellist yourself, Tregellis.  How often have you been out?”

“I used to go when I needed exercise,” said my uncle, carelessly.  “But I have taken to tennis now instead.  A painful incident happened the last time that I was out, and it sickened me of it.”

“You killed your man—?”

“No, no, sir, it was worse than that.  I had a coat that Weston has never equalled.  To say that it fitted me is not to express it.  It was me—like the hide on a horse.  I’ve had sixty from him since, but he could never approach it.  The sit of the collar brought tears into my eyes, sir, when first I saw it; and as to the waist—”

“But the duel, Tregellis!” cried the Prince.

“Well, sir, I wore it at the duel, like the thoughtless fool that I was.  It was Major Hunter, of the Guards, with whom I had had a little tracasserie, because I hinted that he should not come into Brookes’s smelling of the stables.  I fired first, and missed.  He fired, and I shrieked in despair.  ‘He’s hit!  A surgeon!  A surgeon!’ they cried.  ‘A tailor!  A tailor!’ said I, for there was a double hole through the tails of my masterpiece.  No, it was past all repair.  You may laugh, sir, but I’ll never see the like of it again.”

I had seated myself on a settee in the corner, upon the Prince’s invitation, and very glad I was to remain quiet and unnoticed, listening to the talk of these men.  It was all in the same extravagant vein, garnished with many senseless oaths; but I observed this difference, that, whereas my uncle and Sheridan had something of humour in their exaggeration, Francis tended always to ill-nature, and the Prince to self-glorification.  Finally, the conversation turned to music—I am not sure that my uncle did not artfully bring it there, and the Prince, hearing from him of my tastes, would have it that I should then and there sit down at the wonderful little piano, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which stood in the corner, and play him the accompaniment to his song.  It was called, as I remember, “The Briton Conquers but to Save,” and he rolled it out in a very fair bass voice, the others joining in the chorus, and clapping vigorously when he finished.

“Bravo, Mr. Stone!” said he.  “You have an excellent touch; and I know what I am talking about when I speak of music.  Cramer, of the Opera, said only the other day