Part 41 (2/2)
It was evident at a glance that he was the bearer of important, nay, even alarming, intelligence; his eye was startled and anxious, his manner full of discomposure, and without waste of a moment he opened abruptly upon the business which had brought him.
”I have come to inform your Majesty,” said he, ”that we have at last discovered the Princess Charlotte's whereabouts.”
”Oh?” said the King, excluding from his tone any indication of grat.i.tude over the too long delayed discovery. ”And pray, where is she?”
”I regret to say, sir, that her Royal Highness is at this moment in Stonewall Jail.”
”Good Heavens!” exclaimed the King, startled out of his coldness.
”Whatever took her there?”
”She was taken, sir, in a 'Molly Hold-all'[1] along with several others.
And she has been there for the last ten days.”
[Footnote 1: Jingalese equivalent for ”Black Maria.”]
”Yes, yes; but what I want to know is what has she been doing? In this country one doesn't get put into prison for nothing, I should hope.”
”The charge, sir, was for a.s.saulting the police. No doubt there has been a very regrettable mistake; there was, unquestionably, in the magistrate's court, some conflict of evidence.”
”a.s.saulting the police!” exclaimed the King petulantly.
”But what else are the police there for?--when there's trouble, I mean.
And how many of them did she a.s.sault, pray?”
”I believe only one, sir,” replied the Prime Minister; ”at least only one of them gave any evidence against her, and there were five witnesses to say that she did not a.s.sault him. The magistrate who convicted, however, accepted the constable's evidence; he is, I believe, rather hard of hearing; and I am told that he thought the witnesses in her favor were all giving evidence against her. If that is so, it sufficiently accounts for the conviction. On the other hand there can be no doubt that the Princess did intend to get arrested.”
”When did all this take place?”
”In the course of the last Chartist disturbances, three days before the rising of Parliament. Some sixty or seventy women then caused themselves to be arrested, and it seems that the Princess was one of them.”
”She must be mad!” exclaimed the King in bewilderment. ”Whatever could have induced her?”
”Was your Majesty aware that she had any leanings towards politics?”
”She has ideas,” said the King, ”like other young people; but she is generally very busy changing them; and, beyond a notion that a woman ought always to have her own way, and never be asked to do what she doesn't want to do, she----” And then it began to dawn upon him--though only darkly--what Charlotte was really after: she was demonstrating madly, extravagantly, her claim to personal freedom. And to prove how much she meant it she had gone to these wild lengths. Well might her father, in his essentially middle-aged mind, wonder what the younger generation was coming to.
”Poor dear silly child!” he exclaimed in fond irritation. ”Why ever could she not have waited?”
That was a question the Prime Minister could not answer.
”Well, well,” he went on, endeavoring to be philosophical over the business, ”she has had her lesson now; and after all there is no real harm done.”
”Your Majesty must pardon me; it has become a very serious matter,” said the Prime Minister gravely.
”Why? Who knows anything about it? Who need know? She wasn't sentenced in her own name, I suppose?”
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