CHAPTER VII
THE SILENT WOOD
Mary answered simply, but with a dreadful force of emotion--
"You will go?"
He replied to her tone more than to her words.
"Nay, I must." He pressed the fingers lying cold under his. "Do thouforgive me, but I must."
"Oh, God pity me!" cried Mary.
The Prince flushed.
"There is no other way to preserve Christendom," he said; "if I do nottake this step there is a life's work wasted, and we are no better thanwe were in '72."
"I know," she answered hastily. "I know--but--oh, that our duty hadlain another way! Yet I will not be weak; if I cannot help I will nothinder."
She bit her lip to keep back tears, it seemed, and smiled valiantly.
"Tell me all that Mr. Herbert said," she asked.
He broke out at that.
"These foreigners! That black-avised stalwart thinketh of nothing buthis own interest. He cometh here, in his feeble disguise, like a boyplaying at a game, and, by Heaven, 'tis the manner they all take itin----"
"You must not call them foreigners," said Mary, in a quick distress;"your mother's people and mine----"
The Prince lifted his hand from hers, and let it fall impatiently.
"Foreigners to me! Once I may have felt that tie, but now I dislikethem when they flatter and when they sneer." He changed abruptly to atenderer tone. "What had you to say to me?"
"Nothing," she answered, "of importance beside this news; only that anold schoolfellow of mine--a meddling Papist--(God forgive me, but Iliked her not) sought to sound me to-day, set on by M. D'Avaux, who mustguess something--but what is that beside this?"
She pointed piteously to the letters.
"They have committed themselves now, these gentlemen," remarked William,with a certain grim satisfaction. "They can scarcely go back on theirwritten word, even these weathercocks of Englishmen."
"They want you to go--this year?" She could not keep a certain energyof fear from her tone.
"Before the parliament is called in the autumn," he said concisely.
Mary rose abruptly and crossed to the window. The rustle of her stiffgown made a noticeable sound in the stillness, which was deep andintense--the inner stillness of the house set in the outer stillness ofthe wood. The glance of the Prince followed her. He stood silent.
"There must be difficulties." She spoke without looking round.
"Difficulties! Ah yes, and these English do not guess one-half ofthem."
She made no reply. Her head bent and her fingers fumbled at the latch,which she presently undid, and a great breath of cool air, pure, withthe perfume of a hundred trees, swept into the room.
The wood was motionless, the boughs dark against a lighter sky; one ortwo stars pulsed secretively through and above the leafage, for all thesummer night they had a cold look, as if they circled in far-off frozenlatitudes.
Mary knew and loved the wood so well that she was sensitive to thosesubtle changes in it which were like moods in a human being; to-night,unseen, shadowed like the thought of coming trouble, it seemed to hersad, mysterious, and lonely, as the image of retreating happiness.
She rested her head against the mullions, and presently put her hands upto her face. Her husband, who had stood without a movement by the tablewatching her, at this crossed over to her side.
"I would to God," he said with energy, "that this could be helped. Iwould the scandal of a break with your father could be avoided. But hehath had every chance to be my friend and ally--you must admit, Mary,that he hath had every chance."
The few words conveyed to the Princess his meaning. She knew that hereferred to his long uphill struggle, lasting close on twenty years, toinduce England to shake off the yoke of France, and, in taking herproper place among nations, restore the balance of power in Europe.Throughout the years of the disgraceful reign of his Uncle Charles,William had never swerved from his policy of endeavouring to detach himfrom France, for it was very evident that but little headway could bemade against Louis while England was in his pay. When James had come tothe throne, the Stadtholder, with the utmost patience, had changed histactics to please the new King, and had, as he said, given him everychance to put himself at the head of the inevitable conflict betweenFrance and Europe, which must shortly take place.
Mary knew this; she knew how reluctantly her husband would employ forceagainst so near a kinsman, how unwillingly he would leave Holland, howmuch long experience had taught him to mistrust the levity of theEnglish, even those most professedly friendly to him, and she was awarethat only a tremendous need could force him to this tremendousresolution, which was at once more daring and more necessary than anyman could realize save himself.
In her heart she blamed her father most bitterly for forcing on themthis hateful expedient; but would not say so, nor open her heart at allon that matter, lest her lips said more than her conscience couldapprove.
So to this remark that she so perfectly understood she replied nothing,and did not move her hands from her face.
The Prince spoke again rapidly.
"Everything is strained to breaking-point, and he who strikes the firstblow will have the advantage. If I go into the fight again without thehelp of England, I am no better than a man fighting with tied hands----"
He paused, and added with vigour--
"We cannot do it alone. We must have England."
It was what he had said sixteen years ago in '72, and the years had madethe need more, not less, imperative. He continued, as if he justifiedhimself to that still figure of his wife, with her hands before herface.
"I am forced to this decision. No consideration of justice, ofambition, nay, even of diplomacy or good sense, can move His Majesty tobreak off with France; his insults to the liberty of England areincredible. He hath done all he can to thwart, cross, and hamper me.And now is the moment when we must try conclusions."
The Princess's white brocade shivered with her trembling.
"I know," she murmured--"I know."
But she was weeping, and the tears ran down through her fingers.
The Prince was at a loss to know why she was so distressed. She had longbeen involved with him in the growing rupture with her father, to whomno affection or respect bound her, but the mere name of duty, and latelyshe had been well aware that the actions of the King were driving thePrince into open opposition.
He looked at her, rather pale, and frowned.
"You think of your father..." he said, ... "your father..."
Mary, who knew that tears vexed him, endeavoured to check her sobbing;but she could not control her voice to speak.
"I am indeed unfortunate," added the Prince rather grimly, "that to dowhat I must do I am under the necessity of the scandal of a breach in myown family."
She answered faintly, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes--
"God forgive me, I did not think of His Majesty."
"Of what, then?"
There was the slightest pause, and then she answered steadily, stillstaring out at the dark wood--
"Of--ourselves. Of the great change this will make--success orfailure."
The Prince was silent.
"I have been," continued Mary, very low, "so happy here--in the lifemost suited to me, in this dear country, where every one is so good asto love me a little."
The candlelight glimmered in the little braid of pearls in her hair andflowed in lines of light down her thick satin gown, showed, too, hercheek colourless and glistening with tears.
The Prince, standing close to her, with his back to the window, watched,but neither spoke nor moved.
"It is nigh ten years," she said, "since you went to the war ... and nowthe peace will be broken again.... And I know not how I can well bearit if you leave me."
The Prince was still silent, and studied her dimly seen face (for herback was to the light) with what was almost
a passionate attention.
"I am a poor creature," she added, with a kind of desperate contempt forherself, "to think of my wretched self at such a juncture; what are myown melancholies compared to what you must undergo? Yet, humanlyspeaking, I have no courage to face this crisis ... that my fathershould be guilty of such a horrible crime against Church and State, andyou bound by your duty to oppose him by force----"
"It had to be," said the Prince sombrely. "This rupture was inevitablefrom the first, though I tried to deny it to myself. But in my heart Iknew, yea, ever since '72, that England would never get herself out ofthis tangle from within."
"But it is hard," replied Mary; "even though I know the hand of God init----"
She turned her eyes, tearless now, but moist and misty, on her husband,and added simply--
"If you knew how happy I have been here you would understand how I dreadthe mere chance of leaving it----"
"I shall return," he answered. "It is not possible nor wishful that Ishould dethrone the King; but I will get such a handle to Englishaffairs that they will never league with France again; and thou--thouneedest not leave The Hague for an hour."
"There is the least of my troubles disposed of," she answered sadly."For you forget how your poor wife loves you, and how the thoughts ofthe manifold perils, and your own rash temper that will not regarddangers, will put me into a fright which will come between me and GodHimself."
The tears gushed up again, but she checked them, dabbing her eyes with adamp handkerchief, while she exclaimed on the gasp of a tremblinglaugh--
"If I cry any more I shall be blind for a week!"
The Prince put his hand on her shoulder.
"'Tis a silly to spend tears for me," he said, "who will go into no moredangers than I have ever been used to, and who only taketh the commonrisk of common men----" He paused a moment, then added abruptly--
"Yet God He knoweth these tears of thine are all I have in the world formy solace, and I was one of Fortune her favourites, child, to have youto my wife."
His hand fell from her white sleeves, and she caught it between hers sothat the rings he wore pressed into her palms.
"Only love and pity me a little," she said, "and I can bear anything.For surely I only live to serve you."
A pause fell, more hushed than common silence; they stood side by sidelooking out on to the wood, now sad and dark, which had surrounded alltheir united lives.
Mary was in that mood which takes refuge from the real facts in symbol.She did not look back on her life, but on the history of the wood sinceshe had known it; radiant in summer, complaining in the wind, silent inthe rain, bare and bright and wonderful amid the snow, flushed withloveliness in the spring. She thought that this pageant had ended forher, that though the wood might bloom and change she would never see itagain after these leaves fell; she had been haunted, though nottroubled, all her life by the presentiment of an early death, and nowthis feeling, which she had never imparted to any, became one with thefeeling that the wood was passing, ending for her, and that all thethousand little joys and fears associated with the trees, the flowers,the sunshine, and the snow, were fading and perishing to a mere memory.
Her fingers tightened on the Prince's hand.
"'Tis such a beautiful night," she said in a strange voice; "it makethme feel I must die."
He, who all his life had lived on the verge of death, smiled to hearthese words uttered by blooming youth.
"You," he said calmly, "have no need to think of that for many a year.Death and you! Come, you have stared too long into the dark."
Reluctantly she let his hand free, and latched the window with somethingof a shiver, but smiled too at the same time, in a breathless way.
"What will you do now?" she asked.
The Prince went to the table and snuffed the candles with the shiningbrass snuffers, and the flames rose up still and pointed.
"I have sent for M. Dyckfelt and M. Fagel," he answered, and seatedhimself on one of the stiff walnut chairs. His face was bloodless underthe tan of his outdoor life. The excitement that had shown when Mr.Herbert left had utterly gone; he was composed, even sombre andmelancholy, and his thoughts were not to be guessed by his countenance.
Mary looked at him with an almost terrified longing for him to disclosehis mind, to some way speak to her, but he seemed every second to sinkdeeper into a silence that was beyond her meddling.
She moved about the room softly, picked up her sewing from a cabinet inthe corner, and began disentangling the coloured cottons that had beenhastily flung together.
The Prince looked round at her suddenly.
"Have you seen Dr. Burnet of late?" he asked.
"Yes--he came yesterday when you were out hunting."
"Well," said William, "not a word of this to him--I would not trust himwith anything I would not say before my coachman."
Mary smiled; she shared her husband's dislike to the officious, bustlingclergyman who considered himself so indispensable to the Protestantcause, and who was tolerated for the real use he had been to the Prince.
"Can you not trust my discretion?" she asked.
He gave her a brilliant smile.
"Why, I think you are a fair Politic, after all----"
The usher, entering to say that the Grand Pensionary and M. Dyckfeltwere without, interrupted him, and the Princess, pale and grave again,said hastily--
"I will go--but I shall be in the withdrawing-room when they havegone----"
She waited till William had dismissed the usher, then added, in atremble--
"--You will let me know what you have decided? I could not sleep else,"she added piteously.
He held out his hand and drew her up to him.
"Child," he said earnestly, "'tis already decided; 'tis only the meansto be discussed--and those thou shalt hear at once."
He patted her hand and let her go. With a kind of wild gaiety shecaught up her sewing silks. She was laughing, but it was a laughtermore desperate than her gravity. She did not look at the Prince again,but hurried from the room, a gleam of satins in the sombre setting.
The Prince looked after her, then picked up the two letters fromEngland.
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