The Chariot of the Sun
9781465677532
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Margaret, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India. In the Year of our Lord, 1980, and on the third day of June in that year was Margaret crowned. Three weeks before the Coronation the sun was setting over St. Michael's woods, and changed the grey walls of Ulster House to luminous orange. A purple bloom of shadow lay on the terrace, but full in the glow from the windows sat the master of the house asleep. The cane chair creaked at times under his weight as he changed dreams. Dressed in the evening costume of the period—claret-coloured broadcloth, and silk stockings, low shoes with garnet buckles, and white ruffles—he was a picture of dignified innocence and stately rest: His Grace, the Duke of Ulster, Chancellor of the federated British Empire, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, full of years, honours, and a good dinner. Close to him, in the ivy of the wall, a pair of ring-doves cooed and crooned between love and slumber. They were newly wed, and all the world was at rest. Above the cedars to the eastward a ship rose like a planet, her aeroplanes in red glory against the deeps of heaven. She swept across the south, hovered for an instant, drooped her ethereal wings, and flashed in narrowing circles downward until she fell out of the afterglow and loomed vast in the lower shadows. With feathery lightness she poised on the lawn, her gauze propellers singing themselves to sleep with the whirr of humming-birds. Then from under the gloom of her shadow came a man—a gaunt old man in a grey military cloak—who climbed the steps of the terrace and crossed the gravel space until he came in front of the lighted windows. There the man stood looking down with austere disgust upon the sleeping Chancellor. His ship had risen into the afterglow before the visitor moved a chair and sat down, still intently studying Lord Ulster's face. Under that prolonged stare, the Chancellor stirred in his sleep, and muttering to himself, awakened, lifting his heavy eyes. In the deepening shadows he saw that silent motionless figure, tried to dispel the impression with a wave of his hand, then found himself broad awake, face to face with Nicholas IV. Emperor of Russia. At once the Chancellor rose to his feet, and made his royal guest welcome with many a courteous phrase. He offered apology that his servants were all at a church concert this Sunday evening, and that neither himself nor his son had been at hand to receive the Imperial yacht with proper honours. He offered hospitality, invited his Imperial Majesty to enter the house. His words disappeared into the air, slow cold eyes followed his every movement, and the Emperor waited in freezing silence. Motionless, chilled, shocked, dismayed, the Chancellor stayed his speech.
