CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT ENTERPRISE

All difficulties were overcome. Louis, angry at the English King's rejection of his advices, and perhaps hoping that his great enemy would run on disaster in his audacious undertaking, or perhaps believing that it was now too late in the year for any such expedition, had suddenly diverted his troops into Germany, where in a few days he had taken every fort along the Rhine; successes celebrated with great pomp in Paris, but worthless indeed to Louis should William accomplish what he was now free to attempt, and bring England out of her shackles into the alliance against France.

The Prince's preparations were complete; his Declaration had been published and circulated in England by the arts of his friends, his ships and troops were ready, even to the embarking of the soldiery, and he himself had to-day taken his farewell audience of the States; for now the south-west wind had changed, and the great fleet gathered at Goree was free to sail.

Mary, in the chilly autumn garden of the 'huis ten bosch,' waited his return. Four times a day she went to public prayers, but not all her ardent faith could quell the tumult in her soul; her anxieties were not to be repressed, even at the communion table, which added to her distress, her self-reproach, her uneasiness.

She walked up and down the bare alleys, the hard gravel paths, with a quick step, between the newly-turned flower-beds, the late yellowing plants, and stiff evergreens.

The violet St. Michael's daisies were brown and withered on their stems, the last roses had fallen, and the carp been removed from the fish basin, where the water lay frost-bound under a thin covering of ice; there was no sun to cast a shadow from the finger of the grey sundial, and the sky was obscured with low, floating, changing clouds; a little wind brought the salt pure air from the sea-coast and stirred Mary's bright locks inside her miniver hood.

As she was pacing her most familiar and beloved walk, the little alley at the end of the garden, sheltered by interlacing trees now bare, the sound of a footstep brought her to turn with a glad expectancy.

But it was not the Prince, only M. Auverqueverque, a noble who had long been his friend, and who had saved his life amid the bloody steppes of St. Denis, and for this reason always high in Mary's regard.

"Do you come from the States, sir?" she asked wistfully, speaking in English, for her Dutch was still very indifferent, and she was shy of using it save on a necessity.

"Yes, Madam, and I left His Highness conversing with M. Fagel and M. Heinsius."

The Princess stood still. Her loose velvet coat, of a bright blue colour, served to accentuate the pallor of her face, which was worn and strained in expression; her eyes were reddened with recent weeping, and narrowed with a look of trouble.

"There was no opposition to him--now, I think," she said, with a sudden smile.

"Madam--none; there was great enthusiasm and great grief at the going of His Highness," answered M. Auverqueverque warmly. "He alone was unmoved--I would you could have heard his words, Madam--'I have had no thought,' he said, 'since I did undertake this position I hold, save for the good of the States, and I do take God to witness that, if I have erred, it hath been because I am human, and not through lack of affection for, or care of, this country. Now, going to make the endeavour to be of service to our common faith, I do commend to your care and guardianship all that I hold dear--these States and my wife'--and at this they were stirred to tears, Madam, for there was not one who could not remember what he had brought them through."

Mary was silent; she pressed her handkerchief to her lips and looked towards the house. M. Auverqueverque regarded her tenderly.

"The States professed great devotion to Your Highness," he said, "and spoke from their hearts."

"I do thank you," she answered, in a very low tone. "Will you not come into the house?"

He followed her across the bare garden, and there was nothing said between them, each being deeply engaged with different thoughts on the same subject.

As they neared the villa, one of the gentlemen of the Princess's household came to meet them and acquainted Mary that a lady who besought her charity implored her for an immediate audience.

The Princess was well used to these applications. Out of her meagre allowance she contrived to greatly assuage the sufferings of the distressed refugees at The Hague, and this liberality of hers being known, she received more petitions than she could at all comply with, which was a source of great distress to her gentle heart.

"Alas!" she said; "I have already a great list of persons unsatisfied, and worthy cases, too; but it is more than I dare put before His Highness in this present juncture----"

"This seemeth, Your Highness, a gentlewoman of the better sort, English, and most earnest for speech with you."

"I can but see her," answered Mary quickly. "Only I trust she will not raise her hopes of what I can do for her. M. Auverqueverque, forgive me."

With a little curtsy to that gentleman she entered the house.

"Where is this gentlewoman?"

In her withdrawing room, she was told, and there Mary proceeded, without ceremony, still wearing her cloak.

The small but handsome room held a pleasant sense of comfort in contrast to the dead grey weather without. A great log fire cast a glittering light over the dark furniture, and in the full glow of it stood a tall lady wrapped in a crimson mantle that half disclosed an embroidered sacque, and wearing, twisted round her head and shoulders, a fine Eastern scarf embroidered in many colours; she was much older than Mary, and looked fatigued to illness; her large fair eyes were heavily shadowed and her mouth strained, but her appearance was one of great beauty.

When the Princess entered she made a little deprecating, half-expectant movement forward, as if hoping for recognition; but she was utterly strange to Mary, who looked at her in some embarrassment, seeing at once that this was no ordinary supplicant.

The strange lady gazed at her sadly.

"Ten years have changed you to beauty and me to age, Highness," she said, in a voice of singular sweetness. "You have forgotten me. And I should scarcely have known Your Highness."

"Indeed," answered Mary, a little bewildered, "I cannot recall you. But I do perceive that you are my countrywoman; perhaps I knew you at Whitehall?"

"It was there we met, Madam,--and of late we have corresponded----"

"Why, who are you, Madam?"

The elder lady cast herself to her knees before the Princess, and answered with some wildness--

"I am the unfortunate wife of my Lord Sunderland!"

"My Lady Sunderland! Madam, you must not kneel. Oh, what hath passed in England to bring you here?"

Mary impetuously raised the Countess, who kissed her hands in a kind of frantic entreaty.

"Where is the Earl?" cried Mary, with a flush of agitation.

"He hath fled," whispered Lady Sunderland, "to Amsterdam, where he is in hiding. We have lost everything--everything; his life was in danger; there was no man in all the ministry hated like my lord----"

The painful colour burnt in Mary's cheek.

"His Majesty discovered--the intrigues--with us?" she asked.

"No--else it had been Tower Hill; but the Catholics undermined him--my lord could not hold his own--he was dismissed all his offices, and when the Prince his Declaration was spread abroad, there rose such a spirit in the nation that we were no longer safe, and while we could, we fled."

Mary took a quick step across the room and laid her trembling hand on Lady Sunderland's arm.

"The King--knoweth?" she asked.

"The last dispatch of M. D'Albeville told him, and he was struck silent with dismay."

"Alas! alas!" was wrung from Mary, "that this should have had to be! It is my father, Madam, and I do a bitter thing against him----"

She sank into the great walnut chair by the fire, and the ready tears overbrimmed and ran down her white cheeks.

"Your Highness hath a patriotic public duty to perform," said Lady Sunderland. "And must not think of this----"

"No," answered Mary unsteadily, "no;" she stretched out her hand and drew the other woman towards her; "but you--you have taken a strange part, my lady----"

"My lord," said the Countess earnestly, "hath served His Highness to his own extreme peril, and now I am come to plead a pardon for him from you----"

"But you yourself," urged Mary; "what have you felt towards these affairs?"

She rose, still holding the fluttering hand of Lady Sunderland, and looked steadily into her eyes.

"I have done as my lord directed," was the answer. "I have served him all my life. I shall serve him--always."

Mary dropped her hand. The thought that stirred her was that she could not judge, since that same unquestioning devotion ruled her life too.

"My lord his services," she said faintly, "are not such as the Prince can with honour reward."

"Nor," answered my lady with some pride, "such as he can with honour ignore----"

"He is apostate," said Mary; "that cannot be forgiven."

"It can be pardoned."

"What would you, Madam? The Earl is no subject of the Prince."

"He is his supplicant--as I am; he might have gone to France, but he hath put himself at the mercy of His Highness."

"The Prince is ever generous," answered Mary, "but what he can do here I know not."

She drew away a little from the Countess, for in her thoughts were rising the remembrances of all the ignoble parts my lord had played, and the ill reports she had received of him and his wife from her sister, the Princess Anne.

"You must see the Prince," she said, something coldly.

Lady Sunderland was quick to notice this change of manner.

"I am a woman in bitter trouble," she answered. "I stand before you no better than a beggar. If it were not that I might still be of use to my lord, I would pray to die."

"You are very weary," said Mary, with instant kindness. She drew her to seat herself on the long brocade couch--"Poor soul, I doubt that you are very sad!"

Lady Sunderland looked at her wildly, then burst into anguished tears.

"Ah, Madam!" cried Mary, bending over her, "I do beseech you take comfort."

The Countess kept her face hidden, and her bowed shoulders heaved.

"Nothing shall happen to the Earl, I dare swear."

Lady Sunderland looked up.

"Forgive me. I have not wept for so long. My son, my eldest son, is recently dead in Paris in an obscure duel--I hoped so much from him--once. Dead! Indeed I know not what I say."

Mary shuddered. She recalled the Lady Sunderland of former days--brilliant, ambitious, superbly happy--a woman she herself had looked up to with a half awe as a personification of all the allurement of that splendid life she had left so early; she thought of all the unscrupulous intrigues, bargains, deceits, buyings and sellings this lady had helped her shameless husband with; the extraordinary double game they had played so long and successfully. But looking at this, the sudden end, penniless, bereaved exile, she felt no scorn, only a great pity; for the Countess had been faithful, and Mary thought that a great virtue in a woman.

"I did not know that of Lord Spencer," she said gently. "I am very sorry; it is sad for you."

The Countess dried her eyes swiftly.

"I do not know why I should weep for him," she answered half fiercely; "he went near to break my heart. He was what they call worthless."

She paused, and Mary stood silent; she was not unaware that the sharpest prick to Lord Sunderland's magnificence had ever been that poor useless rake, his son, nor ignorant of the Countess's long endeavour to make some show before the world in this matter, and now that broken pride opened its heart to her, a stranger, the sadness of it held her mute.

Lady Sunderland's wet strained eyes looked past the fireglow to the bare boughs and cloudy heavens framed in the tall window.

"It is much better that he is gone," she continued. "Yet--last night I went on the deck of the packet and it was all so dark and cold, not a star, and the waves sounding, but not to be seen, and I remembered how little he was once, and how warm in my arms, and then methought he was somewhere crying for me in the chill blackness ... abroad--in a poor lodging with no friend."

She wrung her hands together with irrepressible horror.

"My God!" she cried, "there's a way to die!"

Mary caught her arm.

"You must not think of it like that; there is another side to it--God is very merciful, I know nothing--but in heaven there is great pity for all of us."

The Countess turned and stared at her a moment, with her handkerchief to her lips, then said unsteadily--

"I never meant to speak like this--but Your Highness is so gentle----"

Mary smiled.

"I must carry you to my Lady Argyll, Lady Balcarres that was, who is here with her daughters----"

She turned swiftly, for the door opened, and a familiar voice behind her said eagerly her name--"Marie, Marie----"

It was the Prince; as he entered he paused, seeing the Countess, who had instantly risen.

"Lady Sunderland!" he exclaimed, before Mary could speak, and stood amazed.

They had last seen each other on the occasion of the Prince's last visit to England, and though he knew her at once he found her considerably changed.

"The Earl hath fallen?" he added swiftly.

Lady Sunderland was mistress of herself immediately on his appearance. By force of her long training she fell into the same manner she would have used to him at Whitehall or Windsor; she gave him a great courtly curtsy.

"The Earl is a refugee at Amsterdam, Your Highness," she said, "and I am here beseeching charity."

"Ah." William drew a quick breath. "I thought my lord was safe enough--the King discovered him?"

"No, sir, the Catholics unseated him."

The Prince crossed slowly to the fire.

"So," he said slowly--"well, Madam, the Earl is safe in Amsterdam, and the Princess will make you welcome."

A flush of reviving hope kindled the refugee's pale cheek.

"We are assured of the gracious protection of Your Highness?" she asked ardently.

"My lord hath done me considerable service," answered William. "But, Madam, he is not loved by those English I have about me now." He smiled dryly. "Yet, if he will lie quiet awhile--I am not ungrateful----"

"It is all we ask," said Lady Sunderland warmly. "My lord wisheth only to live in quiet obscurity unless he can serve Your Highness--some way----"

William gave her a keen look.

"I hardly think," he answered, "that M. de Sunderland is fitted for quiet obscurity--but perhaps he will endure it a little while. I leave for Helvoetsluys to-morrow."

"God bless this noble enterprise Your Highness hath on hand!" cried the Countess fervently. "Could you see the crowds waiting outside Whitehall and a-studying the weather-cock and praying for a Protestant wind you would be heartened further in your daring!"

The Prince took a swift look at his wife, who stood with averted face by the window.

"The King--how took he the news?" he asked.

"I heard that he was all bewildered (being then deeply engaged in the Cologne dispute and thinking nothing of this, like a man besotted) and would not part with the Declaration of Your Highness, but carried it about with him re-reading it--then he called the bishops to ask if they had put their hands to the invitation, and they gave him no--after which he made all manner of concessions, like one in a panic fear----"

"Concessions?" interrupted the Prince.

"Sir, he gave back the charter to the city with due solemnity, and their privileges to the fellows of Oxford and Cambridge, and there was held an inquiry into the birth of the Prince of Wales--all of which but wasted the dignity of His Majesty and brought more ridicule than respect--for all are equally eager for Your Highness, and these concessions come too late."

"Too late, indeed," said William quietly. "I hope this week to be in England. How came you across, Madam? I have stopped the packet service lest they carry too sure advices of what we do here----"

Lady Sunderland smiled sadly.

"In a little owler, sir, we slipped off from Margate sands, and the weather was so terrible we were like to have been whelmed by the overtopping waves; yet we gained Maaslandsluys, and from there my lord went on to Amsterdam----"

"He was wise," said the Prince, "not to come to The Hague."

Lady Sunderland looked at Mary, who had stood motionless so long.

"Your Highness--may I not retire? I have taken too much of your time----"

The Princess turned about with a little start.

"Where are you lodging?" she asked.

"With one Madame de Marsac--known, I think, to Your Highness----"

"You must stay with me," answered Mary warmly, yet with a curious absent air of distraction. "I will take you to the other English ladies----"

She looked at her husband.

"I shall come back," she said. He gave a little nod which cut short the graceful gratitude of the Countess, and the two ladies left.

Now he was alone he seated himself near to the fire with that air of utter fatigue that was like apathy and seemed at times, when he was out of the sight of men, to overwhelm his great spirit.

He sat quite still, gazing into the fire from under drooping lids, and when Mary softly returned he did not move.

She slipped behind his chair and took the stool the opposite side of the hearth; she had put off her cloak; the firelight touched her brown dress and brown hair to a beautiful ruby warmth and gave a false rosiness to her pale face.

"I am grieved for Lady Sunderland," she said.

The Prince answered absently.

"Ah yes--I believe she is a knave like him--but they are clever, and he at least hath some root of patriotism in him."

"Yet I am sorry that you must use such people."

He made no reply, but continued to gaze sadly and sternly into the fire.

Mary gave a little shudder.

"I cannot believe that to-morrow we go to Helvoetsluys----"

Her voice broke, and she steadied it hastily.

"The States are coming also, are they not, to see your departure?"

"They are paying me that compliment," he answered indifferently.

"What chance will your poor wife have to speak to you then--amid that pomp----"

He sat up and looked at her with instant attention.

"Have you something that you wish to say to me, Marie?"

"Yes," she said earnestly. "I do desire to ask you--for your own sake--to see that no harm happeneth to--my father."

Now she had spoken she sat very pale and distressed, but fixing him with her soft brown eyes ardently.

He flushed, and seemed much moved.

"That you should need to ask----" he began, then checked himself. "I promise," he said.

"For your own dear sake," she cried, "forgive me for speaking of this--but let people know you would not have him hurt----"

He gazed at her intently.

"This is hard for you," he replied. "I could not go without your sanction and your help----"

He broke off again. Speech, which had always seemed inadequate to him, now seemed to merely travesty his feelings.

She too was silent; she had lowered her eyes and seemed to be thinking deeply. The Prince studied her with an almost painful intensity.

She was so lovely, so gracious, so sweet, so high souled ... he remembered how he had disliked and despised her, treated her with neglect, then indifference, made no effort to please or win her; and yet she, during the ten years of their marriage, had never from the first failed in obedience, sweetness, self-abnegation, nor once faltered from a passionate devotion to his interests, an unchanging belief in him, and now, for him, she was doing violence to her own heart and setting herself in active opposition against her father, a tremendous thing for such a nature to bring itself to. As he gazed at her fair youth, pale with anxiety for him, he felt she was the greatest triumph of his life, and her love an undeserved miracle.

And there came to his mind a certain conversation that he had had with Sir William Temple in a sunny garden at Nymwegen before his marriage. He remembered that the Englishman had smiled at his scornful talk of the Princess, and had said--"Do not despise good women because there are so many of them----"

Mary suddenly moved and rose. The sun had parted the loose clouds and a fine ray fell through the tall window and shone in her bright hair and satin skirt. His thoughts were scattered by her movement; he rose also.

She smiled at him.

"How kind you are to me," she said, trembling, and very low.

"Dear God!" he exclaimed softly, as if he was mocked. "In what way?"

"In giving me so much more of your company of late," answered Mary simply.

The Prince looked at her strangely.

"Women are wonderful," he said humbly.