CHAPTER VII

THE SHADOW

Mr. Matthew Prior, Private Secretary to the Earl of Portland, was enjoying the winter sunshine in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace.

It was the year 1694, and near Christmas. Many vast events had taken place since the young poet had been first introduced to the Court by my Lord Dorset--plots, counter-plots, change of ministers, of parliaments, the defeat of Landen and Steinkirk, the great victory at La Hogue, the loss of the Smyrna Fleet, four bloody campaigns, four winters of gloom, depression, and internal convulsion, and still, as by a kind of miracle, the two lonely princes ruling England maintained their station and kept their faces calmly to their enemies.

Mr. Prior was a grateful soul; he adored the King and worshipped the Queen; he had berhymed both copiously, and was ever ready to use his sword or his wit in their behalf. The last of the King's unending differences with the Parliament was on the matter of the Triennial Bill, and Mr. Prior had his tablets on his knee and his pencil in his hand.

He was engaged in composing a pamphlet in defence of His Majesty's action in firmly refusing to curtail the regal authority by passing an Act that permitted no parliament to sit longer than three years.

But it was cold, and the neat little secretary found his fingers too stiff to write. He returned his papers to his pocket, rose, and walked on briskly.

Both palace and grounds were now very noble, being designed closely after the King's house at Loo: trees, thirty-five years old, had been transplanted either side of a wide canal that had been cut opposite the Palace; beds were shaped, walks laid down, shrubs cut after the Dutch style; every endeavour had been used to make the place as much like Holland as possible. Even now, in mid-winter, topiary art had preserved monstrous box hedges and bushes in the shape of windmills, birds, and animals.

The day was cloudy, but the sun streamed through in a fine gold light on the splendid front of the Palace, still unfinished but very imposing.

Mr. Prior turned to the left, where was the privy garden directly beneath the royal apartments, and the covered walk where the Queen would sit in summer with her ladies, sewing and reading. There, too, was a small sunk Dutch garden, with a fountain in the centre and tiled paths, bare now of everything save a few evergreens, but in the spring a mass of blooms from Holland.

Here walked two ladies and a gentleman, all muffled in furs, and talking together with some earnestness.

Mr. Prior took off his hat; he recognized the Queen, his patron, the Earl of Portland, and Lady Temple. He was passing respectfully on when Mary called to him.

He came up to her, and she paused to speak to him.

"My lord tells me you are just returned from The Hague?" questioned Mary.

"Yes, Madam."

"I envy you," said the Queen wistfully; "it is, Mr. Prior, such a dream with me to see The Hague again."

The ardent little poet thought he had never seen her look so beautiful. There was an almost unnatural lustre in her eyes, an almost unnatural brightness on her lip and cheek; the fresh wind had stirred the auburn hair from her brow, and the fitful sunlight touched it to sparkles of red gold.

"The Hague liveth only in hopes of one day seeing Your Majesty," he answered. "You are most extraordinarily beloved there, Madam."

"They were always very good to me," said Mary simply. "I still feel an exile here--but you must not breathe that, Mr. Prior," she added almost instantly.

"Are you returning to Holland?"

"Very soon, Madam."

"Well," smiled Mary, "I hope that when next I see you it may be at my house in The Hague--for I have good hopes that I may be free to go there soon. Let me at least flatter myself so."

She dismissed him kindly and continued her walk, keeping her gloved hand affectionately on Lady Temple's arm.

"What is this of the Duke of Leeds?" she asked Portland.

"They say he is to be impeached in the new Parliament, Madam, for taking money from the East India Company."

Mary frowned.

"That is a hit at me," added Portland calmly.

"And at the King," she said proudly. "There is no end to the spite of these people. Heard you also that Sir John Dalrymple must go for the Glencoe affair?"

"If the Parliament had their way, it would be his head and not his place he lost."

"It seemeth to have been a cruel thing," said Mary, "if it is true? But I am sorry for the Duke of Leeds (Danby he always is to me) for he has been a faithful servant."

"The King would like to employ Sunderland, who lieth quiet at Althorp," said Portland, with some bitterness. "A villain if there ever was one!"

Mary glanced at him anxiously.

"The King doth not love Sunderland," she said, "but might find him useful."

"Will he persuade His Majesty to pass the Triennial Bill?" asked Lady Temple.

"No man can do that," answered the Queen. "If any could have done it, it would have been your lord, a year ago--but nothing will move the King once his mind is resolved." She laughed, and added, "You both have known him longer than I have--tell me if you ever knew him change his decision?"

"Never," said Portland. "When he was a child he was immovable."

"Sir William hath wasted eloquence on him more than once," smiled Lady Temple.

The sun had suddenly gone in, and a greyness overspread the gardens.

"Let us go in," said Mary.

They entered the Palace by the private door that led to the King's apartments. Portland prepared to leave for Whitehall, where His Majesty stayed to open the Parliament, and the two ladies went to the Queen's great gallery, that was fine and beautifully furnished, though but ill heated by the one fireplace where the pine logs blazed.

They joined the little company gathered about the fire and protected by tall lacquer and silk screens.

Mary took off her furs and drew close to the flames. She was shivering violently.

"The room is too large," she said, "but a noble apartment, is it not?"

She had taken great pride in furnishing Hampton Court and Kensington House, and in introducing and making fashionable the arts and crafts of Holland--the pottery, the brass-ware, the painted wood, and wrought silver.

The ladies answered in eager praises. The Queen's modest court now consisted of a set of gentle ladies, Dutch and English, who were her constant companions; their piety, their charity, their blameless lives, their industry with the needle, made them utterly different to the ladies of the two last reigns, and set an example which had made soberness fashionable, at least in many homes; for Mary had won England as, many years before, she had won her husband, and was now nearly as beloved in London as at The Hague--at least among the common people.

One fashion she set was a rage through the country--this was the collecting of strange and monstrous pieces of old china.

Above the yellow brocade chair where she now sat was a shelf laden with vases and figures of extraordinary shapes and violent colours. Mary loved them all; she looked up at them with a little smile, then took up the book from which she had been reading to her ladies, but dropped it on to her lap, and sat with an air of lassitude, gazing into the flames.

"The truth is," she said, "I have a great headache, and have had one this three days past."

"It is the wind," answered Lady Nottingham.

Mary shivered.

"I have taken cold, I think," she remarked. She laughed; she was more than usual gay.

She was expecting the King in a few days, and, for the moment, the troubles and difficulties had a little cleared from his path. For the first time since the war began the last campaign had decided in favour of the allies; the weight of England was beginning to tell in the balance. Mary could not forget that; it coloured her days with pleasure.

"I think the ball will be popular," she continued irrelevantly; "every one seemeth very pleased----"

"What is the date, Madam?" asked Lady Temple.

"The twenty-eighth--about a week from now," answered Mary. "I am to have a new dress!" She laughed again; she seemed, for her, to be very excited. "I shall put it on presently, and you must judge of it."

She leant back in her chair, and was suddenly silent. The short day was darkening; sullen crimson, presaging rain, burnt fitfully in the west, and a gloomy brightness reflected through the windows of the great gallery, and struck changeful colour from the mother-of-pearl figures on the black china screens.

Mary coughed and shivered. She turned to Madame Nienhuys.

"When is your cousin coming to Court?" she asked.

"Not yet, Madam. I had a letter from The Hague yesterday from her mother saying she would send her in the spring."

"Why not sooner?" asked the Queen.

"She saith she is frightened by the reports of the plague in London."

"They say it is worse this year," assented Mary. "And the smallpox."

"And the smallpox, Madam. But it is foolish of my cousin to be so timid."

"Yes," said Mary gravely; "since timidity will save no one. God doth His will, despite our fears."

She opened the work-table beside her and took out a chair-cover she was working with a design of birds and flowers on a black ground. She made a languid attempt to thread the needle, then dropped the sewing as she had the book.

"I will try that gown on," she said, "and then we will make tea in the little antechamber--this is so large."

The ladies rose with a pretty rustle of skirts, folded up their work, and followed Mary through Sir Christopher's noble apartments to her chamber, which was very exactly furnished but cold.

On the canopied bed of blue and yellow damask lay the Queen's new gown, and two sewing-girls sat on low stools and stitched the lace into the sleeves.

At Mary's approach they rose silently.

"How cold it is!" shivered Mary. "Put me down a grumbler, but we had warmer houses at The Hague."

"But the dress is beautiful!" cried Lady Nottingham, and the five ladies gathered about the bed with exclamations of admiration.

It was of white velvet, embroidered with little wreaths of coloured silk flowers opening over a silver petticoat trimmed with flounces of lace. The sewing-maidens eyed it shyly, and blushed at the compliments bestowed.

"I must dance in that," smiled Mary. "Dancing used to be one of my prettiest pleasures, as you may remember, my Lady Temple!"

"Will Your Majesty try it on?" asked Basilea de Marsac.

"Yes," laughed Mary, "the sewing-girls will help me; get you into the other room and make the tea----"

The ladies trooped off, and the two sempstresses timidly helped Mary out of her brown velvet and laced her into the state dress.

A fire was burning, and the Queen stood between it and the bed, facing the long glass mirror above the mantelshelf that was crowded with china grotesques. As they pinned, arranged, and draped the rich silk about her, Mary felt a sudden great fatigue; her limbs were heavy beneath her, and she gave a little sigh of weariness.

The dress was cut very low, and one sleeve was yet unfinished, so her shoulders and left arm were bare save for her shift, and, as she moved for her skirt to be adjusted, that slipped. The Queen noticed this in the mirror, and put up her right hand to draw it up, when suddenly a deep shiver ran through her. She stepped back, clutching the dress together on her shoulder.

"It is too dark to see," she said levelly. "There is a silver lamp in my cabinet--will you fetch that?"

The sewing-girls looked surprised. The light still held, and there were candles in the room; but they left at once, with respectful courtesies.

The instant they had gone the Queen sprang to the door and locked it, then went back to the bed and leant heavily against the post nearest the fire.

She felt sick and weak; her head was giddy.

"Be quiet--be quiet," she said aloud, and pressed her clenched knuckles against her leaping heart.

Only for a second did this weakness endure. She returned to the glass and turned her chemise down; there she saw again what had made her send the sewing-girls away--a large purple patch on the white flesh, unmistakable.

For an instant she stood gazing, then sat down in the majestic arm-chair beside the bed. There was another test she knew of--she winced from applying it, yet presently rose and took from a side-table near the tall clock a rat-tailed spoon she used for rose-water.

She put the bowl of this far back into her mouth, and then withdrew it; the silver was covered with bright blood.

Footsteps sounded without. Mary flung the spoon on to the fire and softly unlocked the door.

The sempstresses entered with the silver lamp, dutifully lit and placed it on the mantelshelf.

Mary stood holding her garments tightly together on her breast.

"Have you ever had the smallpox?" she asked gently.

They both answered together.

"Yes, Your Majesty; but not the black smallpox, an it please Your Majesty."

Mary looked into their fair, undisfigured faces.

"No," she answered; "the black smallpox is ever fatal, is it not----"

"They say so, Your Majesty," said the elder girl, pinning up the lace on the silver underskirt. "And there is a deal of it in London now, Your Majesty."

Mary made no reply. They finished with the dress and left her, having laced her into the brown velvet.

The Queen put out the silver lamp and went into the antechamber where the ladies were chattering over the tea Lady Temple was making in a Burmese silver urn.

Mary seated herself near the fire.

"We will go to Kensington House to-morrow," she said. Then, noticing Lady Temple's look of surprise, she added, with a slight tremor in her voice, "I have a fancy to be near the King."