Part 10 (2/2)

We greeted one another.

”His Royal Highness the Prince wishes to speak with you!” said he with much flourish. ”He requests you will name an hour when it is convenient for you to come to the Palace.”

It was the first time the Prince had noticed me, I was highly amused, and replied:

”I can come now if His Royal Highness pleases!”

The Marshal of the Court eyed me doubtfully and hesitated. ”I can wash my hands,” said I firmly, ”and that is all; I have no clothes but what I have on.” My only other things were in the wash, and I had repaired myself so far as circ.u.mstances allowed. The Marshal of the Court returned with the message that His Royal Highness would receive me at once ”as a soldier.”

I trotted obediently off with him. We arrived at the Palace. It was a full-dress day, and the Montenegrins never let slip an occasion for peac.o.c.king. The situation pleased me immensely. The Marshal himself was in his very best white cloth coat and silken sash, gold waistcoat, and all in keeping. Another glittering functionary received me and between the two I proceeded upstairs. At the top of the flight is a large full-length looking-gla.s.s, and for the first time for four months I ”saw myself as others saw me.” Between the two towering glittering beings was a small, wiry, lean object, with flesh burnt copper-colour and garments that had never been anything to boast of, and were now long past their prime. I could have laughed aloud when I saw the Prince in full-dress with rows of medals and orders across his wide chest, awaiting me. It is a popular superst.i.tion, fostered by newspapers in the pay of modistes, that in order to get on it is necessary to spend untold sums on dress. But in truth if people really want to get something out of you they do not care what you look like. Nor will any costume in the world a.s.sist you if you have nothing to say.

The Prince conducted me to an inner room, greeted me politely, begged me to be seated and then launched into a torrent of questions about my previous years journey to Ipek. He seemed to think that my life had not been worth a para, and that the Rugova route was impossible. ”Do you know, Mademoiselle, that what you did was excessively dangerous?”

”Sire,” said I, ”it was your Montenegrins who made me do it.” He made no reply to this, but lamented that for him such a tour was out of the question. And of all things he desired to see the Patriarchia at Ipek and the Church of Dechani and the relics of the Sveti Kralj.

He had been told I had secured photographs of these places. If so, would I give him copies?

I promised to send him prints from London. He thanked me, and there was a pause. I wondered if this was what I had been summoned for, and if I now ought to go. Then Nikita looked at me and suddenly began: ”I think, Mademoiselle, that you are acquainted with my son-in-law, King Petar of Serbia.”

Dear me, thought I, this is delicate ground. ”I have not that honour, Sire,” I said. Now how far dare I go? I asked myself. Let us proceed with caution. ”I was in Serbia, Sire,” I continued boldly, ”during the lifetime of the--er--late King Alexander.” Nikita looked at me. I looked at Nikita. Then he heaved a portentous sigh, a feat for which his huge chest specially fitted him.

”A sad affair, was it not, Mademoiselle?” he asked. And he sighed again.

Now or never, thought I, is the time for kite-flying. I gazed sadly at Nikita; heaved as large a sigh as I was capable of, and said deliberately: ”Very sad, Sire--but perhaps necessary!”

The shot told. Nikita brought his hand down with a resounding smack on his blue-knickerbockered thigh and cried aloud with the greatest excitement: ”Mon Dieu, but you are right, Mademoiselle! A thousand times right! It was necessary, and it is you alone that understand.

Return, I beg you, to England. Explain it to your Foreign Office--to your politicians--to your diplomatists!” His enthusiasm was boundless and torrential. All would now be well, he a.s.sured me.

Serbia had been saved. If I would go to Belgrade all kinds of facilities would be afforded me.

I was struck dumb by my own success. A reigning Sovereign had given himself away with amazing completeness. I had but dangled the fly and the salmon had gorged it. Such a big fish, too. Nikita, filled with hopes that the result of this interview would be the resumption <of diplomatic=”” relations=”” between=”” england=”” and=”” serbia,=”” presented=”” me=”” with=”” a=”” fine=”” signed=”” photograph=”” of=”” himself,=”” summoned=”” the=”” marshal=”” of=”” the=”” court=”” and=”” instructed=”” him=”” to=”” have=”” it=”” conveyed=”” to=”” the=”” hotel.=”” it=”” was=”” not=”” etiquette,=”” it=”” appeared,=”” for=”” me=”” to=”” carry=”” such=”” a=”” burden=”” myself.=”” the=”” interview=”” was=””></of>

It was abundantly clear that, in spite of all he had said to journalists, the old man heartily approved of the manner of the death of the last of the Obrenovitches, and had been ”behind the scenes” of it.

I had many subsequent interviews with Nikita, but though I strewed many baits, never again caught him out so completely. Some people think that Foreign Affairs can be successfully carried on by Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State who speak nothing but English. I submit that the above information could never have been extracted through an interpreter. For an interpreter gives the other party time to think.

By the end of a week I was back in London. It was not quite a year since the death of Alexander. Nikita had shown plainly that he regarded the event as a very important step in Serb history. And he wanted me to go to Belgrade. But to me the situation was rather obscure. I knew Montenegro was unpopular in Serbia. Perhaps Nikita did not.

For purposes of their own the Montenegrins had risked my life --according to their own statements--by sending me to Ipek. True, I did not then set any value whatever on my life, so was not so brave by a long way as they imagined, but all the same they had had no right to do it. If I went to Belgrade at all, it should not be for an unknown purpose and as emissary of Nikita.

Meanwhile, King Petar was necessarily entirely in the hands of the Pretorian guard, which had put him on the throne and could send him after Alexander if he did not please them. They soon occupied high positions. Colonel Maschin, who had himself helped kill his sister-in-law Draga, was made head of the General Staff, and Colonel Damian Popovitch, the leader of the gang, who has since become notorious for atrocities, even in the Balkans, was given the command of the Belgrade-Danube Division, and King Petar obediently signed an amended Const.i.tution, which greatly curtailed his own power. An attempt on the part of certain officers to resist the regicides was crushed, and several were imprisoned. Serbia was, and remained, under military rule, the object of which was the reconstruction of Great Serbia. The Serbo-Bulgar question rapidly became acute. Prince Ferdinand met King Petar informally in Nish railway station. In October 1904, King Petar visited Sofia. The visit was a failure.

Prince Ferdinand was in favour of an autonomous Macedonia. The Serb Press would not hear of such a thing. Pas.h.i.+tch, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that such an autonomy would injure Serbia and be all in favour of Bulgaria. Simitch, diplomatic agent at Sofia, insisted that under such an autonomy Bulgarian annexation was concealed and should that take place, the Serbs would fight till either Serbia or Bulgaria was destroyed. Both men thus admitted that Macedonia was not Serb. But they wanted Bulgar aid to crush the Albanian, in order that Serbia might take Albanian territory. ”Heads I win; tails you lose.” Bulgaria was to gain nothing. Serbia meant to be top dog. The Serbian Press attacked Prince Nikola so violently that an indignation meeting was held at Cetinje and the populace crowded outside the palace and shouted ”Zhivio.” The tug between Petrovitch and Karageorgevitch had begun. The regicides had not ended the Obrenovitches to be baulked by the Petrovitches.

A stealthy campaign against Prince Nikola now began, which emanated from Belgrade and had, I am inclined to believe, Russian support.

A ludicrous episode was the arrival in London of Prince Albert Ghika, a Roumanian, who announced himself to the Press as a claimant to the Albanian throne, and was taken seriously even by some quite respectable journals. It was indeed bad luck for him that he timed his visit to correspond with my return from Albania, for I was able to state that, far from being accepted by the whole nation, I had never even heard his name mentioned. In a very amusing interview I had with him I ascertained that he did not know a word of the language of his adopted country. His plans were grandiose, and included Constantinople as capital. ”Pourquoi pas?” he asked. It would prevent the Great Powers from quarrelling over it, and therefore make for peace! His curled mustachios, his perfumes, his incomparable aplomb, his airs of a ”Serene Highness” formed a magnificent stock-in-trade. But even the fact that he offered me a magnificent salary to be Maid of Honour or Lady-in-Waiting (I forget which) at the Court of Albania did not persuade me to espouse his cause, which disappeared into thin air so soon as the newspapers had a fresh sensation.

Nevertheless Albert Ghika hung around the back doors of the Balkans for some time. It was only in Albania that he was unknown.

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