The Mouse That Roared (22 page)

Another ancestor of the Count’s, Derek of Mountjoy, had achieved immortality by informing Napoleon, on the eve of Waterloo, that any further military adventures on the part of the Emperor in Europe would bring the double-headed eagle banner of Grand Fenwick into the fray on the side of England. The shock to Bonaparte’s morale on receipt of this letter--it had been delivered by a courier from Grand Fenwick---was credited in the duchy with having contributed to the Emperor’s defeat in that engagement.

With all this and much more in mind, the Count was conscious that, through no fault of his own, he was letting his ancestors down. In the past few months he had been in the very centre of events which had shaken the whole world--events which would not only be recorded in glorious pages in the history of Grand Fenwick, but in equally glorious pages in the history of every nation of the globe. And he sensed that when that history was written, there would hardly be as much as a footnote--at best a short paragraph, perhaps with his name misspelt--recording his own part in these great affairs. The trouble, he told himself, was that diplomacy had been taken out of the hands of those who by their birth and breeding were best suited for its intricacies, and handed over to uncultured and blunt fellows like Benter and that man Tully Bascomb. There were no niceties to the game anymore, no delicate balancing and weighing of situations, no exquisite pleasure in finding exactly the right words with which to promise everything and guarantee nothing, which were the very essence of diplomatic exchanges.

All that had happened was that that fellow Tully Bascomb had threatened to blow up the whole of Europe unless an effective agreement was concluded to outlaw weapons of mass destruction. The thing was done almost before he, the Count of Mountjoy, could take a hand. That it had been done, he had to concede, was good. But that it had been done in such a boorish manner, quite without any reference to the protocol of diplomatic exchanges, shocked him beyond expression.

To save face, to secure for himself an incontestable place in history when the whole matter was written up, he needed to execute one capital stroke that would show his true genius as a statesman. And he now knew exactly what this was to be.

It assuaged his stricken ego, to some extent, that the whole plan had come to him during an unofficial and unpremeditated conversation with one of the captive New York policemen, just before the latter had been released following the signing of the peace treaty with the United States. General Snippett and the four policemen were being led from the castle of Grand Fenwick to the border to be handed over to the American consul who awaited them there. The Count of Mountjoy accompanied the little procession, and on the way, one of the policemen, exuberant perhaps at the thought of returning to his native land, had said, “That Gloriana is some dish.”

“Precisely what do you mean by that?” the Count of Mountjoy had inquired.

“A cute patoot,” replied the policeman.

“I fail to follow,” said Mountjoy.

“Look, dad,” said the policeman, “it don’t matter to you now on account of your age and you probably got a wife and kids. But that Gloriana’s a knock-out. A real honey-bun. A Cadillac with sex appeal, if you get what I mean. And one of these days some lucky jerk is going to meet her and pitch her the woo, solid gold, see? And then your little Duchess’s new address will be maybe Fifth Avenue, New York, and maybe Beverly Hills, and maybe both.”

At this point the party reached the frontier and the handing over of the prisoners was effected. The Count of Mountjoy was not quite sure he understood all that the policeman had said. But he believed he got the gist of it. And the gist of it was frightening enough. It was to the effect that a rich American was likely to court the Duchess successfully, marry her, and with that, the whole succession to the ducal chair would be imperilled and the future of the duchy as an independent state placed in hazard.

All for which they had striven would then be lost, and that very night, such was the impact of this new line of thinking upon the Count, he had sought out both Dr. Kokintz and Mr. Benter and discussed the matter with them. A plan had been devised to avert the danger--a plan, he flattered himself, which had originated with him--and he was on his way to the Duchess now to secure her agreement to it.

Well enough, he told himself as he went for his audience, for others to hold the centre of the stage and receive the applause. But it is in the behind-the-scenes manipulation that the true genius of statecraft lies. And as he thought of this, and pictured himself as the man behind the scenes, manipulating matters of the greatest moment, he felt better and held his silvery head higher and fancied that if the spirit of Disraeli were anywhere near, it would certainly be smiling with approval. Disraeli was one of his heroes.

He found Gloriana eating pomegranates in her private study in the castle. She had eaten a great number of a large supply which the American Secretary of State had had flown to her, for the husks were lying on a silver dish on the table and there was quite a mound of them.

“Don’t scold, Bobo,” she said. “They’ll spoil if I don’t eat them all in a day or two. Besides, it relaxes my nerves. I’ve been upset lately with all the delegates from all the countries coming here and having to meet them. I like the man from Saudi Arabia best. He refused to bow to me. He said it was against his religion for a man to humble himself before a woman.”

“Before such a woman as Your Grace, the act of bowing, far from humbling, elevates a man,” the Count of Mountjoy replied.

“You’re such a nice person to have around, Bobo,” Gloriana said. “Sit down and talk to me.”

He did so, and so far unbent as to accept half a pomegranate, picking the ruby beads out of it delicately with finger and thumb. He did this for a minute or two, and then putting the husk on the silver platter, and readjusting his monocle, said, “Your Grace, I have served your father for twenty years and hope that it will be the will of God that I serve you for twenty more.”

“I hope so, too,” said Gloriana warily, for she knew that when the Count of Mountjoy talked of his loyalty there was some kind of scheme coming up.

“My family,” continued the Count, “has served the rulers of Grand Fenwick ever since the duchy was founded. You will recall, Your Grace, that my ancestor, Mortimer Persimmon, was squire to Sir Roger Fenwick. And it was after the storming of the mountain on which this castle stands, when he fought side by side with Sir Roger, that he was created Count, and in honour of the day given the title of Mountjoy.”

“Yes, I know that,” said Gloriana.

“And so, it is my dearest wish that the family of Mountjoy should continue to serve the descendants of Sir Roger for all time to come. And yet, this may not come to pass.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gloriana, in some dismay. “You’re not thinking of going away?”

“No, Your Grace. The failure would not lie in my family, but in yours.”

“In mine?” exclaimed Gloriana.

“Yes,” said Mountjoy. “In yours. The matter is a delicate one, but as the oldest of your counsellors, I beg leave to mention it. To come directly to the point, Your Grace is unmarried and so has no family. The line of Fenwick is in danger of extinction.”

Gloriana blushed. “I’m not ready to think of marriage,” she said. “Besides, there’s nobody I want to marry.” This latter statement was not true, for Gloriana knew perfectly well whom she wanted to marry.

The Count of Mountjoy leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his long white fingers together and looked with a mixture of paternal fondness and judicial wisdom at his ruler. “Your Grace,” he said, “is surely not under the impression that personal affection or desire is a factor in the marriages of those into whose hands have been placed the destiny of a people. Matters of policy come before mere romance. The marriage of a ruler is a unique example of a sacrament which has, shall I say, a political instigation. I will not belittle its religious significance for a moment. Indeed, were such a marriage purely a civil ceremony, nothing more than the mere stamping of a licence and the signing of a register, it would have no great standing among the people. But its greatest purpose is temporal rather than spiritual, and I might add that the two of them are not necessarily at odds with each other.”

“When one such as yourself is wedded,” he continued, “the primary purpose is the strengthening of the line of succession. And this must be done not only with an eye to the physical health of the mate selected, but with an eye, too, to forming such a political alliance as will add to the security of the nation.”

“You sound,” said Gloriana, icily, “as if you were going to breed horses.”

“Your Grace will forgive the blundering words of an old servant who seeks merely to serve her, and his country,” the Count of Mountjoy said, lowering his head humbly.

“Bobo,” replied Gloriana, still not quite mollified, “when you make gestures like that you need an audience bigger than one. But go ahead and I will try to look at the matter impartially. I suppose what you are leading up to is that you’ve been thinking it all out very carefully, and you’ve decided who I shall marry.”

“It is my duty to think of such matters as this,” said the Count. “I have not been solitary in my thinking, but have consulted others who also serve as Your Grace’s ministers.”

“You mean Mr. Benter,” said Gloriana.

“He, and also Dr. Kokintz.”

“Dr. Kokintz? He doesn’t know about anything but birds and bombs.”

“Those, I will admit, are his specialties. But he is a man of keen observation. And all agree that the alliance which I am about to propose would be the best possible to ensure and strengthen the succession to the ducal chair of Grand Fenwick.”

“I hope,” said Gloriana warily, “that you are not going to suggest that I marry the American minister because I won’t do it. I’ve been reading about the Americans in a women’s magazine and they’re all cruel to their wives.”

“Cruel to their wives?” echoed the Count.

“Precisely. They treat them as equals. They refuse to make any decisions without consulting them. They load them up with worries they should keep to themselves. And when there isn’t enough money, they send them out to work instead of earning more by their own efforts. Some of them even make their wives work so they can go to college. They are not men at all. They are men-women. And their wives are women-men. If I am to marry, I want a husband who will be a man and let me be a woman. I’ll be able to handle him better that way.”

“We believe--Mr. Benter, Dr. Kokintz, and I--that the person selected will fill your specification completely,” Mountjoy said, somewhat smugly.

“And who is this person?”

“Tully Bascomb.”

“Tully Bascomb?” repeated Gloriana, and felt a hot blush begin to creep over her face.

“Yes. There are a number of reasons of great importance why Your Grace should seriously consider him as a husband, ignoring certain boorish characteristics of his nature which must offend those of aristocratic rearing.”

“Tully Bascomb has no boorish characteristics of which I am aware,” snapped Gloriana, quite angrily.

“It pleases me that you should say so,” said the Count, a little surprised at her tone of voice, “for that removes the one reservation to the match which I myself had. As to the reasons why he should become your consort, the first must already be apparent to you. That is his descent from Sir Roger Fenwick, the founder of our nation. I am prepared to admit that I was somewhat hasty in making the charge that Bascomb had designs upon the ducal seat of Grand Fenwick. None the less, the possibility remains that if he has no such designs now, these may appear at a later date. A young man who, contrary to instruction, wins a war against the United States is not to be trusted where ambition is concerned. United to Your Grace in matrimony, such ambitions would be automatically gratified.

“The second reason for proposing this match is that Bascomb is very popular with the people of Grand Fenwick. He could, were an election held at the present time, secure an overwhelming majority of votes. You will recall that some time ago he confessed to Your Grace that he was a politically confused man, in favour neither of democracy, Communism, or anarchy. If he were, at some later date, to stand for election, he would be returned to power heading some kind of political party which, not having been thought of before, would undoubtedly lead the nation to ruin. As co-ruler of Grand Fenwick, he would be removed from the sphere of politics and rendered harmless.”

“I’m not at all sure that Tully Bascomb will ever be rendered harmless,” Gloriana said. “But continue, have you other reasons?”

“I have, but I have already been rebuked by Your Grace with a reference to the breeding of horses, and do not feel at leave to proceed.”

“Oh,” said Gloriana. “Oh.” And that was all she said for a while, for she had a great deal to think about.

Now that it was a matter of state that she should marry Tully, she found the prospect less pleasing than when it had been quite an impossible and unformulated dream on her part. She tried to think of being constantly in his company, and first she was thrilled by the prospect and then she was frightened. Perhaps he would take objection to some of her habits or mannerisms. Perhaps he would find her dull to talk to; a poor life companion for a man who had ranged the world at will. Perhaps he would criticize her because she could not cook a meal and he could make shoes and storm cities and fell trees and fashion arrows. Perhaps there was some girl in America, or Switzerland, or France, or one of the other countries he had visited with whom he was in love--or maybe even married to already.

Thinking of these things, Gloriana felt very lonely and scared and she looked at Count Mountjoy through eyes which were suddenly those of a very small girl and said, “Bobo. Do I really have to marry him?”

The Count slowly nodded his head.

“But, Bobo. He may not want to marry me. He may not love me. He may be married to someone already. How am I to get him to ask?”

“It is not in his place to ask,” Mountjoy replied, gravely. “As ruler of Grand Fenwick, the proposal must come from you.”