CHAPTER IV

THE SECRET ANGUISH

In that ancient palace called Hampton Court, on the banks of the Thames, the Queen of England walked through the rooms that were rebuilding, and tried to subdue her soul to peace.

The King was at the war in Ireland, and she, with the aid of the nine councillors--men divided by personal spites and party differences--was ruling England through a bitter and desperate crisis.

Mary, a woman and utterly unused to business (though she had always taken an intelligent interest in politics), yet found all these men, on whose wisdom she was supposed to rely, peevish and silly. Marlborough was using her sister to stir up opposition against the Government,--she strongly suspected him, Godolphin, and Russell of having made their peace with King James; Caermarthen she personally disliked; the Crone and Fuller plot had proved to be a widespreading affair, in which there appeared every possibility of her uncles being involved; the country was denuded of troops, and the fleet in disorder; the treasury empty, and the French threatening the Channel.

These were the first few moments of leisure the Queen had known since her husband's departure; she was eager to have Hampton Court ready for his return, and so had come eagerly to see the progress of the rebuilding and alterations.

Here again she was met with difficulties and humiliations. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, was in want of money, the workmen were unpaid, the contractors refused to deliver any more Portland stone on credit.

Mary had no money, and knew not where to get it; she soothed Sir Christopher as best she could, and desperately resolved that these debts should be paid; the thought of them was an added vexation. She felt there was a kind of meanness in so lacking money, and that the rebuilding of Hampton Court, which had been her one pleasure, was a reproach and a mistake.

M. de Ginckle had written to her from Ireland that they were so straitened in the camp that the King had refused to sign for wine for his own table, and was drinking water with the men.

Mary thought of this passionately as she surveyed the unfinished building the grumblers declared such an unwarranted luxury, and remembered the noble fortune William had lavished on the public cause.

Under some pretence, she slipped away from her ladies and Sir Christopher, and, with a wild longing to be alone, made her way to some of the old deserted Tudor rooms of the palace, opened now for the first time for perhaps fifty years.

In the wing in which Mary found herself there were near a hundred chambers, and she, new to the palace, was soon lost in the maze of apartments.

She was wildly glad to be alone, to drop, for a moment, the mask of composed gaiety that she ever kept over her anxiety.

Door after door she opened, and room after room she traversed, until she reached a little winding stairway that led to a chamber in one of the fine red turrets with the graceful decorated chimney-stacks that Sir Christopher was so calmly destroying.

Stairway and chamber were both covered with thick white dust; the bolts on the door were rusty and loose; there was no furniture save an old rotting chest, rudely carved; but the walls were beautifully panelled with oak in a linen pattern, and the low lancet window disclosed a perfect view.

Mary went straight to it, leant her sick head against the mullions, and gazed over the fair prospect of unkept garden, field, meadow, and river, all shimmering under a July sun. The Thames showed argent gold between banks of willow and alder; stretches of daisies, buttercups, clover, and poppies reached to distant groves of elm, oak, and beech.

In the nearer glades deer wandered in and out of the sweeping shadows, and the air was soft with the whispers of the ringdove.

Such a different England this seemed from that England shown in London, so far removed from war and discord, danger and alarm.

The lonely young Queen felt her own desolation heightened by the solitude; she became almost afraid of the silence.

When she reflected that the person who was everything to her was distant, exposed to many perils, that her father was opposed to him in battle, that the great responsibility of government was intrusted to her, and that she had no one on whom she could rely or even to whom open her heart (for William Bentinck had, after all, been summoned to Holland), she felt a melancholy creep over her spirit that was near despair.

The sun was warm on the sill where her hand rested and on her cheek; she leant a little farther out of the narrow window, that had neither glass nor casement, and fixed her eyes on the pulsing flow of the river.

A little sound behind her caused her to turn quickly with a nervous start.

Before a small worm-eaten inner doorway that she had not noticed stood a comely child of five or six years, gazing at her intently. The colour fluttered into the Queen's face; they stood staring at each other--the woman and the child--as if they were both afraid.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mary coldly, after a second.

The child did not answer; he had as little expected to see this tall young lady in the fine blue gown as she had expected to see him.

"You have no business here," said Mary, in the same tone; "this is private. Go, find your people."

And she turned towards the window again so that she could not see him.

He answered now.

"I have lost my way."

"There are the stairs," said Mary, without looking round. "Go down there, and you will find your way."

There was silence, and she waited a little; then looked over her shoulder to see him still standing there, staring at her.

"Why don't you go?" she asked harshly. "You are not allowed here."

"Yes, ma'am, I am," he replied. "Father said I could go where I liked."

"Who is your father?"

The child laid a delicate finger on the smooth carving of the wall.

"He maketh--these," he explained.

"A carver," said Mary. "Is he working here?"

"Yes, ma'am. We come every day; there is another little boy--you are the mother of the other little boy?" he questioned.

"No," said Mary coldly.

"He isn't here to-day," remarked the child rather sadly. "When he is we go out, because he is a bigger boy than me. If you had been his mother I thought you might have taken me out."

"Your father can take you out."

"Father is working with Master Wren. Do you know Master Wren?"

"Yes."

"He goeth up and down in a basket outside the house. Once I went too, and he held me so tight that it hurt. He is too old to play with."

He came a little farther into the room, eying Mary wistfully. She was stately as well as tall, and the high lace commode she wore, and the stiff arrangement of her heavy curls, further added to her dignity. The child looked at her in some awe.

"Are you cross with me?" he asked gravely.

"No," answered the Queen--"no--but your father will be looking for you--best go and find him."

"I have lost my way," he said, subdued by her coldness. "I was asleep in there." He pointed to the little sunny annexe to the turret from which he had come. "I am glad I met you, ma'am."

"Why?" asked Mary.

The child smiled, in an effort to win her.

"I get frightened when I am alone," he said. "Don't you, ma'am?"

"Sometimes," answered the Queen; she bit her lip and fixed her narrowed brown eyes on the boy; he was fair, and rather delicate, and wore a shabby suit of red tabinet.

He slowly and reluctantly moved towards the narrow dark stairs.

"I wish this house was finished," he said plaintively. "It is so large. The King will live here," he added. "I saw the King talking once to Mr. Wren."

Mary gave him no encouragement to stay, but he still lingered by the rotting door, that swung back against the wall, and looked at her with wide, puzzled eyes.

"I am going now," he said at last; his hands went to his cravat, which was sadly knotted. "Would you tie this for me first? Father don't like me to look untidy."

"Come here," said Mary.

He came at once and stood before her.

"I don't think I can do it," said the Queen unsteadily.

She took hold of the scrap of cambric awkwardly, while he obediently held his head up; but her cold fingers bungled, and the bow was clumsy.

"I can't do it," she murmured.

"You are so tall, ma'am!"

She looked into his upturned face.

"Too tall to be so stupid," she answered, and untied the bow. "Have you a mother?" she asked suddenly, holding his shoulder gently.

"No, ma'am."

"Ah, poor soul!"

She spoke so sadly that he was distressed.

"What is the matter, ma'am?"

"I was thinking of what we both have missed," said Mary gently.

His bright eyes were bewildered. The Queen drew him to the old chest, seated herself there, and again tied the cravat.

"What is your name?" she asked, as she smoothed it.

"James, ma'am--it was the King his name when I was born," he added proudly.

Mary drew a quick breath.

"But you serve King William."

"I know," he answered dutifully. "He is a soldier, father saith. I would like to be a soldier, ma'am."

Mary smiled; though she had done with his cravat she still kept her hands lightly on his shoulder.

"Not a wood-carver?"

He shook his head.

"Father saith, 'Better be a soldier these days--there is no living else,'" he quoted wisely.

"There is time enough to decide," said Mary softly; her ringed right hand timidly caressed his hair, scarcely touching it. "Have you many toys?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do you care for them?"

He considered.

"Books," he said, with a little frown, "that you can tear the pictures out of--pictures of fights, ma'am--and blackamoor's teeth."

"What are they?" asked Mary, gazing earnestly at him; she spoke with a catch in her breath.

He put his hand into his pocket and produced several cowrie shells.

"There, ma'am--they come from far away." His eyes glittered. "It would be good to be a sailor, would it not, ma'am?"

"You are a grave child," said Mary; she drew him softly nearer to her, and bent her beautiful pale face near to his. "You pray for the King, do you not?"

"On Sunday, ma'am."

"Pray for him whenever you say your prayers--and for the Queen."

He nodded.

"The poor Queen!" he said.

"Why do you say that?" asked Mary, startled.

"Master Wren said those words--like that--'the poor Queen!' ma'am."

Mary stared at him intently; her arms tightened about him. Suddenly she pressed him up to her bosom, where his little head rested patiently among her thick laces.

"The poor Queen!" she whispered wildly, and drew him closer, till he was half frightened by the force of her embrace and the beating of her heart beneath his cheek.

"Oh, ma'am!" he cried, "I have even dropped the blackamoor's teeth."

She let him go, and watched him with desperate eyes while he searched and recovered the gleaming white shells from the dusty floor.

As he busily sought for one in the shadow of the chest, a soft whistle sounded twice; he sprang to his feet at once.

"That is my father--I must go now, ma'am."

The Queen held out her hands appealingly.

"Will you not kiss me?"

He came obediently and held up his unconscious face.

Mary's lips touched his brow in the saddest salute he was ever like to know. He did not offer to return it, but made a little bow, and so left her. She sat quite still, listening to the sound of his unequal footsteps departing; then she stooped and picked up the shell he had abandoned.

She fancied that it was still warm and moist from his tight clutch, and as she looked at it the tears veiled her eyes and fell on to her trembling palm.

"O God!" she cried aloud, with a passion that had slipped her control. "Ye had no right to make childless women!"

She flung the shell from her, and buried her face in her hands, while the painful sobs heaved her body.

She had not long even the comfort of lonely weeping, for the sound of voices and footsteps coming up the narrow stairs caused her to rise heavily, with a start of self-reproach.

It was her secret boast that she had not allowed a tear or a sigh to escape her in public since the King had gone. She dried her poor tired eyes hastily, and bit her lips to steady them, while she thrust her sorrows back into her heart with that placid courage that never failed her. She descended the stairs and faced the people who were, she knew, looking for her.

She was not prepared to see Lord Nottingham, whom she had left at Whitehall; the sight of him among her attendants caused her to pause at the foot of the stairs.

"You, my lord!" she cried faintly.

His dark face showed obvious relief at her appearance.

"I have been searching for Your Majesty," he said, with some reproach. "I have ridden hot after Your Majesty from London----"

"There must be grave news," said Mary, knowing that otherwise he would not have come himself.

"There is, Madam--the gravest."

Mary raised her head; she was perfectly composed.

"From--the King?" she asked.

"No, Madam."

Mary smiled superbly.

"Then it is not the worst." She was colourless to the lips, but bore herself with majesty. "What is it, my lord?"

Nottingham was always tragical in his discourse, and now his face and tone were gloomy in the extreme.

"Madam, M. de Waldeck and the allies have been defeated at Fleurus, M. de Tourville and the French fleet have been spied under full sail for the coast of Devon. There is no relying on our sailors--there is a panic in the city."

The Queen's eyes flashed with something of her husband's look when fronted with disaster.

"We will to London," she said--"there to face these misfortunes."