A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus. Arthur Conan Doyle
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don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I have as many nerves as my neighbours.’
Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said she.
‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I know that I am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’
She laughed with shining eyes.
‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so beautiful about you.’
It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders.
‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he. ‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do? I want you to choose.’
‘I am quite happy whatever we do. I am content to sit here with you until evening.’
Her idea of a happy holiday set them both laughing.
‘Come along,’ said he, ‘we shall discuss it as we go.’
The workman’s family was still waiting, and Maude handed the child a shilling as she went out. She was so happy herself that she wanted every one else to be happy also. The people turned to look at her as she passed. With the slight flush upon her cheeks and the light in her eyes, she seemed the personification of youth, and life, and love. One tall old gentleman started as he looked, and watched her with a rapt face until she disappeared. Some cheek had flushed and some eye had brightened at his words once, and sweet old days had for an instant lived again.
‘Shall we have a cab?’
‘O Frank, we must learn to be economical. Let us walk.’
‘I can’t and won’t be economical to-day.’
‘There now! See what a bad influence I have upon you.’
‘Most demoralising! But we have not settled yet where we are to go to.’
‘What does it matter, if we are together?’
‘There is a good match at the Oval, the Australians against Surrey. Would you care to see that?’
‘Yes, dear, if you would.’
‘And there are matinées at all the theatres.’
‘You would rather be in the open air.’
‘All I want is that you should enjoy yourself.’
‘Never fear. I shall do that.’
‘Well, then, first of all I vote that we go and have some lunch.’
They started across the station yard, and passed the beautiful old stone cross. Among the hansoms and the four-wheelers, the hurrying travellers, and the lounging cabmen, there rose that lovely reconstruction of mediævalism, the pious memorial of a great Plantagenet king to his beloved wife.
‘Six hundred years ago,’ said Frank, as they paused and looked up, ‘that old stone cross was completed, with heralds and armoured knights around it to honour her whose memory was honoured by the king. Now the corduroyed porters stand where the knights stood, and the engines whistle where the heralds trumpeted, but the old cross is the same as ever in the same old place. It is a little thing of that sort which makes one realise the unbroken history of our country.’
Maude insisted upon hearing about Queen Eleanor, and Frank imparted the little that he knew as they walked out into the crowded Strand.
‘She was Edward the First’s wife, and a splendid woman. It was she, you remember, who sucked the wound when he was stabbed with a poisoned dagger. She died somewhere in the north, and he had the body carried south to bury it in Westminster Abbey. Wherever it rested for a night he built a cross, and so you have a line of crosses all down England to show where that sad journey was broken.’
They had turned down Whitehall, and passed the big cuirassiers upon their black chargers at the gate of the Horse Guards. Frank pointed to one of the windows of the old banqueting-hall.
‘You’ve seen a memorial of a queen of England,’ said he. ‘That window is the memorial of a king.’
‘Why so, Frank?’
‘I believe that it was through that window that Charles the First passed out to the scaffold when his head was cut off. It was the first time that the people had ever shown that they claimed authority over their king.’
‘Poor fellow!’ said Maude. ‘He was so handsome, and such a good husband and father.’
‘It is the good kings who may be the dangerous ones.’
‘O Frank!’
‘If a king thinks only of pleasure, then he does not interfere with matters of state. But if he is conscientious, he tries to do what he imagines to be his duty, and so he causes trouble. Look at Charles, for example. He was a very good man, and yet he caused a civil war. George the Third was a most exemplary character, but his stupidity lost us America, and nearly lost us Ireland. They were each succeeded by thoroughly bad men, who did far less harm.’
They had reached the end of Whitehall, and the splendid panorama of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament lay before them. The most stately of ancient English buildings was contrasted with the most beautiful of modern ones. How anything so graceful came to be built by this tasteless and utilitarian nation must remain a marvel to the traveller. The sun was shining upon the gold-work of the roof, and the grand towers sprang up amid the light London haze, like some gorgeous palace in a dream. It was a fit centre for the rule to whose mild sway one-fifth of the human race acquiesces—a rule upheld by so small a force that only the consent of the governed can sustain it.
Frank and Maude stood together looking up at it.
‘How beautiful it is!’ she cried. ‘How the gilding lights up the whole building!’
‘And how absurd it is not to employ it more in our gloomy London architecture!’ said Frank. ‘Imagine how grand a gilded dome of St. Paul’s would look, hanging like a rising sun over the City. But here is our restaurant, Maude, and Big Ben says that it is a quarter to two.
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