The Prince and the Pauper
of disappointment might have been observed upon my Lady Jane’s face when
she heard the splendid stripling denied admittance.
There was a pause now, a sort of waiting silence which Tom could not
understand. He glanced at Lord Hertford, who gave him a sign--but he
failed to understand that also. The ready Elizabeth came to the rescue
with her usual easy grace. She made reverence and said--
“Have we leave of the prince’s grace my brother to go?”
Tom said--
“Indeed your ladyships can have whatsoever of me they will, for the
asking; yet would I rather give them any other thing that in my poor
power lieth, than leave to take the light and blessing of their presence
hence. Give ye good den, and God be with ye!” Then he smiled inwardly
at the thought, “‘Tis not for nought I have dwelt but among princes in
my reading, and taught my tongue some slight trick of their broidered
and gracious speech withal!”
When the illustrious maidens were gone, Tom turned wearily to his
keepers and said--
“May it please your lordships to grant me leave to go into some corner
and rest me?”
Lord Hertford said--
“So please your highness, it is for you to command, it is for us to
obey. That thou should’st rest is indeed a needful thing, since thou
must journey to the city presently.”
He touched a bell, and a page appeared, who was ordered to desire the
presence of Sir William Herbert. This gentleman came straightway, and
conducted Tom to an inner apartment. Tom’s first movement there was
to reach for a cup of water; but a silk-and-velvet servitor seized it,
dropped upon one knee, and offered it to him on a golden salver.
Next the tired captive sat down and was going to take off his buskins,
timidly asking leave with his eye, but another silk-and-velvet
discomforter went down upon his knees and took the office from him. He
made two or three further efforts to help himself, but being promptly
forestalled each time, he finally gave up, with a sigh of resignation
and a murmured “Beshrew me, but I marvel they do not require to breathe
for me also!” Slippered, and wrapped in a sumptuous robe, he laid
himself down at last to rest, but not to sleep, for his head was too
full of thoughts and the room too full of people. He could not dismiss
the former, so they stayed; he did not know enough to dismiss the
latter, so they stayed also, to his vast regret--and theirs.
Tom’s departure had left his two noble guardians alone. They mused a
while, with much head-shaking and walking the floor, then Lord St. John
said--
“Plainly, what dost thou think?”
“Plainly, then, this. The King is near his end; my nephew is mad--mad
will mount the throne, and mad remain. God protect England, since she
will need it!”
“Verily it promiseth so, indeed. But . . . have you no misgivings as to
. . . as to . . .”
The speaker hesitated, and finally stopped. He evidently felt that he
was upon delicate ground. Lord Hertford stopped before him, looked into
his face with a clear, frank eye, and said--
“Speak on--there is none to hear but me. Misgivings as to what?”
“I am full loth to word the thing that is in my mind, and thou so near
to him in blood, my lord. But craving pardon if I do offend, seemeth it
not strange that madness could so change his port and manner?--not but
that his port and speech are princely still, but that they _differ_,
in one unweighty trifle or another, from what his custom was aforetime.
Seemeth it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his
father’s very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due
from such as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his
Greek and French? My lord, be not offended, but ease my mind of its
disquiet and receive my grateful thanks. It haunteth me, his saying he
was not the prince, and so--”
“Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason! Hast forgot the King’s command?
Remember I am party to thy crime if I but listen.”
St. John paled, and hastened to say--
“I was in fault, I do confess it. Betray me not, grant me this grace
out of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing
more. Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined.”
“I am content, my lord. So thou offend not again, here or in the
ears of others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken. But thou
need’st not have misgivings. He is my sister’s son; are not his voice,
his face, his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all
the odd conflicting things thou seest in him, and more. Dost not recall
how that the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his
own countenance that he had known for sixty years, and held it was
another’s; nay, even claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that
his head was made of Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none
to touch it, lest by mischance some heedless hand might shiver it? Give
thy misgivings easement, good my lord. This is the very prince--I know
him well--and soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this
in mind, and more dwell upon it than the other.”
After some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his
mistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was
thoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the
Lord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and
ward alone. He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he
thought, the more he was bothered. By-and-by he began to pace the floor
and mutter.
“Tush, he _must_ be the prince! Will any be in all the land maintain
there can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned?
And even were it so, ’twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should
cast the one into the other’s place. Nay, ’tis folly, folly, folly!”
Presently he said--
“Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you _that_ would
be natural; that would be reasonable. But lived ever an impostor yet,
who, being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince by
all, _denied_ his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? _No_! By
the soul of St. Swithin, no! This is the true prince, gone mad!”
CHAPTER VII. Tom’s first royal dinner.
Somewhat after one in the afternoon, Tom resignedly underwent the ordeal
of being dressed for dinner. He found himself as finely clothed as
before, but everything different, everything changed, from his ruff to
his stockings. He was presently conducted with much state to a spacious
and ornate apartment, where a table was already set for one. Its
furniture was all of massy gold, and beautified with designs which
well-nigh made it priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto. The
room was half-filled with noble servitors. A chaplain said grace, and
Tom was about to fall to, for hunger had long been constitutional with
him, but was interrupted by my lord the Earl of Berkeley, who fastened a
napkin about his neck; for the great post of Diaperers to the Prince
of Wales was hereditary in this nobleman’s family. Tom’s cupbearer was
present, and forestalled all his attempts to help himself to wine. The
Taster to his highness the Prince of Wales was there also, prepared to
taste any suspicious dish upon requirement, and run the risk of being
poisoned. He was only an ornamental appendage at this time, and was
seldom called upon to exercise his function; but there had been times,
not many generations past, when the office of taster had its perils,
and was not a grandeur to be desired. Why they did not use a dog or a
plumber seems strange; but all the ways of royalty are strange. My
Lord d’Arcy, First Groom of the Chamber, was there, to do goodness knows
what; but there he was--let that suffice. The Lord Chief Butler was
there, and stood behind Tom’s chair, overseeing the solemnities, under
command of the Lord Great Steward and the Lord Head Cook, who stood
near. Tom had three hundred and eighty-four servants beside these;
but they were not all in that room, of course, nor the quarter of them;
neither was Tom aware yet that they existed.
All those that were present had been well drilled within the hour to
remember that the prince was temporarily out of his head, and to be
careful to show no surprise at his vagaries. These ‘vagaries’ were
soon on exhibition before them; but they only moved their compassion and
their sorrow, not their mirth. It was a heavy affliction to them to see
the beloved prince so stricken.
Poor Tom ate with his fingers mainly; but no one smiled at it, or even
seemed to observe it. He inspected his napkin curiously, and with deep
interest, for it was of a very dainty and beautiful fabric, then said
with simplicity--
“Prithee, take it away, lest in mine unheedfulness it be soiled.”
The Hereditary Diaperer took it away with reverent manner, and without
word or protest of any sort.
Tom examined the turnips and the lettuce with interest, and asked what
they were, and if they were to be eaten; for it was only recently that
men had begun to raise these things in England in place of importing
them as luxuries from Holland. {1} His question was answered with grave
respect, and no surprise manifested. When he had finished his dessert,
he filled his pockets with nuts; but nobody appeared to be aware of it,
or disturbed by it. But the next moment he was himself disturbed by
it, and showed discomposure; for this was the only service he had been
permitted to do with his own hands during the meal, and he did not doubt
that he had done a most improper and unprincely thing. At that moment
the muscles of his nose began to twitch, and the end of that organ to
lift and wrinkle. This continued, and Tom began to evince a growing
distress. He looked appealingly, first at one and then another of the
lords about him, and tears came into his eyes. They sprang forward with
dismay in their faces, and begged to know his trouble. Tom said with
genuine anguish--
“I crave your indulgence: my nose itcheth cruelly. What is the custom
and usage in this emergence? Prithee, speed, for ’tis but a little time
that I can bear it.”
None smiled; but all were sore perplexed, and looked one to the other
in deep tribulation for counsel. But behold, here was a dead wall, and
nothing in English history to tell how to get over it. The Master of
Ceremonies was not present: there was no one who felt safe to venture
upon this uncharted sea, or risk the attempt to solve this solemn
problem. Alas! there was no Hereditary Scratcher. Meantime the tears
had overflowed their banks, and begun to trickle down Tom’s cheeks. His
twitching nose was pleading more urgently than ever for relief. At last
nature broke down the barriers of etiquette: Tom lifted up an inward
prayer for pardon if he was doing wrong, and brought relief to the
burdened hearts of his court by scratching his nose himself.
His meal being ended, a lord came and held before him a broad, shallow,
golden dish with fragrant rosewater in it, to cleanse his mouth and
fingers with; and my lord the Hereditary Diaperer stood by with a napkin
for his use. Tom gazed at the dish a puzzled moment or two, then raised
it to his lips, and gravely took a draught. Then he returned it to the
waiting lord, and said--
“Nay, it likes me not, my lord: it hath a pretty flavour, but it
wanteth strength.”
This new eccentricity of the prince’s ruined mind made all the hearts
about him ache; but the sad sight moved none to merriment.
Tom’s next unconscious blunder was to get up and leave the table
just when the chaplain had taken his stand behind his chair, and with
uplifted hands, and closed, uplifted eyes, was in the act of beginning
the blessing. Still nobody seemed to perceive that the prince had done