CHAPTER XVII

FAREWELL TO HOLLAND

Soon after the Groote Kerk had struck midnight, one of the Princess's Dutch ladies came to the chamber of her mistress with the news that letters from England had come, it being the command of Mary that she should always be roused, whatever the hour, when the mail arrived.

She came out now, in her undress--a muslin nightshift with an overgown of laycock, and with her hair, which was one of her principal beauties, freed from the stiff dressing of the day and hanging about her shoulders--into the little anteroom of her bedchamber, where the candles had been hastily lit and the tiled stove that burnt day and night stirred and replenished.

There were two letters. She had no eyes save for that addressed in the large careless hand of the Prince, and tore it open standing under the branched sconce, where the newly-lit candles gave a yet feeble light from hard wax and stiff wick, while the Dutch lady, excited and silent, opened the front of the stove and poked the bright sea coals.

The Princess, who had waited long for this letter, owing to the ice-blocked river, was sharply disappointed at the briefness of it; the Prince requested her to make ready to come at once to England, as her presence was desired by the Convention, told her what to say to the States, and remarked that the hunting at Windsor was poor indeed compared to that of Guelders.

Mary laid the letter down.

"I must go to England, Wendela," she said to her lady; then sat silent a little, while the candles burnt up to a steady glow that filled the room with a fluttering light of gold.

"Is my Lady Sunderland abed?" asked Mary presently.

"No, Madam; she was playing cards when I came up."

"Will you send her to me, Wendela?"

The lady left the room and Mary noticed the other letter, which she had completely forgotten. She took it up and observed that the writing was strange; she broke the seals and drew nearer the candles, for her eyes, never strong, were now blurred by recent tears.

The first words, after the preamble of compliments, took her with amazement. She glanced quickly to the signature, which was that of Lord Danby, then read the letter word for word, while her colour rose and her breath came sharply.

When she had finished, with an involuntary passionate gesture and an involuntary passionate exclamation, she dashed the letter down on the lacquer bureau.

Lady Sunderland, at this moment entering, beheld an expression on the face of the Princess which she had never thought to see there--an expression of sparkling anger.

"Ill news from England, Highness?" she asked swiftly.

"The worst news in the world for me," answered Mary. Then she cried, "This is what M. D'Avaux meant!"

The Countess raised her beautiful eyes. She was very fair in rose-pink silk and lace, her appearance gave no indication of misfortune, but in her heart was always the sharp knowledge that she was an exile playing a game, the stake of which was the greatness, perhaps the life, of her husband.

"What news, Highness?" she questioned gently.

Mary was too inflamed to be reserved, and, despite the vast difference in their natures, a great closeness had sprung up between her and the Countess during these weeks of waiting.

"They wish to make me Queen," she said, with quivering lips, "to the exclusion of the Prince. My Lord Danby, whom I never liked, is leading a party in the Convention, and he saith will have his way----"

Lady Sunderland was startled.

"What doth His Highness say?"

"Nothing of that matter--how should he? But he would never take that place that would be dependent on my courtesy--he!" She laughed hysterically. "What doth my lord mean?--what can he think of me? I, Queen, and the Prince overlooked?--am I not his wife? And they know my mind. I told Dr. Burnet, when he meddled in this matter, that I had sworn obedience to the Prince and meant to keep those vows----"

She paused, breathless and very angry; her usual vivacity had changed to a blazing passion that reminded Lady Sunderland of those rare occasions when His late Majesty had been roused.

"My lord meant to serve you," she said.

"To serve me!" repeated Mary, "when he is endeavouring to stir up this division between me and the Prince--making our interests different----"

"You are nearer the throne, Highness----"

Mary interrupted impatiently--

"What is that compared to what the Prince hath done for England? Can they think," she added, with a break in her voice, "that I would have done this--gone against--His Majesty--for a crown--for anything save my duty to my husband? What must _he_ think of me--these miserable intrigues----"

She flung herself into the red brocade chair in front of the cabinet, and caught up the offending letter.

"Yet," she continued, with a flash of triumph, "this will give me a chance to show them--where my duty lieth----"

She took up her pen, and Lady Sunderland came quickly to the desk.

"What do you mean to do?" she asked curiously.

"I shall write to my lord, tell him my deep anger, and send his letter and a copy of mine to the Prince."

Lady Sunderland laid her hand gently on Mary's shoulder.

"Think a little----"

Mary lifted flashing eyes.

"Why should I think?"

"This is a crown you put aside so lightly!"

The Princess smiled wistfully.

"I should be a poor fool to risk what I have for a triple crown!"

"Still--wait--see," urged the Countess; "'tis the crown of England that my lord offereth----"

"Do you think that anything to me compared to the regard of the Prince?" asked Mary passionately. "I thought that you would understand. Can you picture him as my pensioner--him! It is laughable, when my whole life hath been one submission to his will. Oh, you must see that he is everything in the world to me ... I have no one else----" She continued speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, as was her fashion when greatly moved. "At first I thought he would never care, but now he doth; but he is not meek, and I might lose it all--all this happiness that hath been so long a-coming. Oh, I will write such a letter to my lord!"

"You sacrifice a good deal for the Prince," said the Countess half sadly.

"Why," answered Mary, "this is easier than going against my father, and giving the world cause to scorn me as an unnatural daughter----"

Her lips quivered, but she set them proudly.

"I have talked enough on this matter, God forgive me, but I was angered by this lord's impertinence."

The Countess made some movement to speak, but Mary checked her.

"No more of this, my Lady Sunderland," she said firmly. She took a sheet of paper from the bureau and began to write.

Lady Sunderland moved to the stove and watched her intently and with some curiosity. The wife of my late Lord President was tolerably well informed in English politics, and knew that the Tories would rather have the daughter than the nephew of the Stewarts on the throne, and that the great bulk of the general nobility would rather have a woman like the Princess than a man like the Prince to rule them.

She did not doubt that Mary, with her nearer claim, her English name and blood, would readily be accepted by the English as Queen, and that the nation would be glad to retain the services of her husband at the price of some title, such as Duke of Gloucester--which had been proposed for him before--and whatever dignity Mary chose to confer on him. She certainly thought that this scheme, pleasing as it might be to Whig and Tory, showed a lack of observation of character on the part of the originator, my Lord Danby; Lord Sunderland had always declared that it was the Prince they needed, not his wife, and that they would never obtain him save for the highest price--the crown.

Yet the Countess, standing in this little room, watching Mary writing with the candlelight over her bright hair and white garments, seeing her calmly enclose to the Prince Lord Danby's letter and a copy of her answer, could not help some wonder that this young woman--a Stewart, and born to power and gaiety--should so lightly and scornfully put aside a crown--the crown of England.

When Mary had finished her letters and sealed them, she rose and came also to the stove. She looked very grave.

"The Prince saith not one word of our losses," she remarked--"Madame Bentinck, I mean, and M. Fagel, yet both must have touched him nearly. I am sorry for M. Bentinck, who hath had no time to grieve."

"What will happen in England now, Highness?" asked the Countess, thinking of the Earl.

"I suppose," said Mary, breathing quickly, "they will offer the Prince the throne ... he commandeth my presence in England ... I must leave Holland----"

"You love the country?"

"Better than my own. I was not made for great affairs. I love this quiet life--my houses here, the people..."

She broke off quickly.

"What will you do, Madam?"

Lady Sunderland indeed wondered.

"Go join my lord in Amsterdam," she answered half recklessly. "An exile remains an exile."

"The Prince," said Mary gravely, "hath some debt to my lord. He never forgetteth his friends--or those who serve him."

"I thank you for that much comfort, Madam."

"You must return to England--to Althorp," continued the Princess gently; "you have done nothing that you should stay abroad----"

Lady Sunderland shook her head.

"What is Althorp to me, God help me! I think my home is in Amsterdam--I shall go there when Your Highness leaveth for England."

Mary put her cool hand over the slim fingers of the Countess that rested on the back of the high walnut chair.

"Are you going with Basilea de Marsac?"

"Yes; she is a good soul."

"A Catholic," said Mary, with a little frown; "but I like her too--better than I did----"

"She hath become very devoted to Your Highness; she is very lonely."

"What was her husband?"

Lady Sunderland smiled.

"An incident."

Mary smiled too, then moved back to the bureau.

"I must get back to bed; I have a sore throat which I must nurse." She coughed, and moistened her lips. "I am as hoarse as a town-crier." She laughed again unsteadily and rang the silver bell before her. "I never pass a winter without a swelled face or a sore throat."

The Dutch waiting lady entered, and Mary gave her the letters.

"See that they go at the earliest--and, Wendela, you look tired, get to bed immediately."

With no more than this she sent off her refusal of three kingdoms. When they were alone again she rose and suddenly embraced Lady Sunderland.

"Do you think I shall come back to Holland?" she asked under her breath.

"Why--surely----"

"Ah, I know not." She loosened her arms and sank on to the stool near the stove. "Sometimes I feel as if the sands were running out of me. You know," she smiled wistfully, "I have an unfortunate name; the last Mary Stewart, the Prince his mother, was not thirty when she died--of smallpox."

She was silent, and something in her manner held Lady Sunderland silent too.

"A terrible thing to die of," added Mary, after a little. "I often think of it; when you are young it must be hard, humanly speaking, but God knoweth best."

"I wonder why you think of that now?" asked Lady Sunderland gently.

"I wonder! We must go to bed ... this is marvellous news we have had to-night ... to know that I must sail when the ice breaketh ... good night, my Lady Sunderland."

The Countess took her leave and Mary put out the candles, which left the room only illumed by the steady glow from the white, hot heart of the open stove.

Mary drew the curtains from the tall window and looked out.

It was a clear frosty night, utterly silent; the motionless branches of the trees crossed and interlaced into a dense blackness, through which the stars glimmered suddenly, and suddenly seemed to disappear.

The chimes of the Groote Kerk struck the half-hour, and the echoes dwelt in the silence tremblingly.

Mary dropped the curtain and walked about the room a little. Then she went to the still open desk and took up the remaining letter--that of the Prince.

With it in her hand she stood thoughtful, thinking of her father in France, of all the extraordinary changes and chances which had brought her to this situation, face to face with a dreaded difference from anything she had known.

She went on her knees presently, and rested her head against the stool, worked by her own fingers in a design of beads and wool, and put the letter against her cheek, and desperately tried to pray and forget earthly matters.

But ever between her and peace rose the angry, tragic face of her father and the stern face of her husband confronting each other, and a background of other faces--the mocking, jeering faces of the world--scorning her as one who had wronged her father through lust of earthly greatness.