Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken

Is it your pleasure that—that he should be invited in?"
    "What's your mind on this, Battersea?" the king asked Simon. "Shall we see the man? Although he's a cousin—of a sort—he's no freend of mine; he's aye been hand in glove with my cousin George of Hanover, that dee'd this week. Maybe now puir Georgie is nae mair, the margrave has decidit tae cut his losses and make freends with the conquering side."
    "I think it would be sensible to see him, sir," Simon agreed. "Then perhaps we can discover what is in his mind."
    This, though, he thought a few minutes later, would be no easy task. He had never met a person whose mind was so wholly concealed from other people as the smiling margrave. The latter professed unbounded delight and amazement at finding the king in Bakerloo House.
    "What a joyfully fortunate chance. What a surpassing pleasure! What an enchanting surprise! You might think I had been inspired! Why not drop in on those charming Bat-terseas, thought I, for I happened to be driving through Chelsea, and I have so long wished to make your acquaintance, my dear duke. I heard so much about you from that delightful Sir Percy Tipstaff, now—alas!—drowned beneath the gliding tide of the Thames—"
    "Will you take tea, your excellency?" suggested Simon.
    "Why, thank you, my dear duke—perhaps if you had anything a touch stronger: a mouthful of Canary—cognac—aquavit—or any such thing..."
    While Simon gave orders to Tarrant, the king very civilly condoled with the margrave on the death of Prince George of Hanover; and Eisengrim, quite as politely and very much more effusively, expressed sympathy with his majesty on the loss of his four friends.
    "Well, well, we must support each other, my dear sir, that is all we can do!" He sighed. "Perhaps a memorial service for all of them together in St. Paul's Cathedral—would that be a good scheme, what do you think?"
    But the king said, in a rather constrained tone, that the cathedral was not, after the regrettable mishap at the coronation, when it had tilted sideways, yet in a fit state for large public services; he did not think this would be a possibility.
    "No, no, of course you are right, my dear sir," exclaimed the margrave. "Our grief must be a private affair, we must shed our tears in seclusion. I stand corrected." And he pulled out a large white handkerchief, embroidered with a gold hammer, and delicately dabbed at the corners of his eyes.
    Simon found himself uncomfortable in the presence of this large, self-possessed, genial person.... He could not like the margrave. And he wondered why the man kept watching the king, all the time, so very closely and attentively, listened so extremely hard whenever the king said anything. He paid little attention to Simon; none at all to Podge, who had withdrawn, bashfully, to a distant corner of the room. For some reason he reminded Simon of a cat, head thrust forward, alertly keeping watch by the entrance to a mouse hole.
    "I am cognizant that in the past," went on the margrave, after a good deal more eye dabbing and sighing, "—in the past our beloved Prince George did not always—His interests were not quite identical with those of your majesty, or your majesty's father before you."
    "Ye could say so," agreed the king. "Indeed the callant
was forever plotting to hist my dad off the throne of England and set himself upon it."
    "But now he and his plans alike are laid to rest! And it is my devout hope, your grace, that all such small past differences shall be forgotten in the happy, happy sunshine of your majesty's new administration?"
    "Tush!" said his majesty. "For my part 'tis all water under the bridge.
De mortuis,
and so forth, since the puir deil is dead and gone, I'll not be girning against him, providit his followers will be content to hold their peace and rest quiet in their hames from this day on."
    And he gave the margrave a fairly sharp look which the latter parried with one of smiling, bland amiability.
    "My