Читать книгу I Will Maintain - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 7

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Florent Van Mander sat at his desk by the open window and looked out on to the garden of M. de Witt.

The mysterious, damp, and misty days of autumn had set in. Thin sea vapours blew from morning till night across the Hague; the sunshine was faint as if it came from a great distance.

No fire burnt in the library, but the secretary had quietly set the window open, heedless of the chilly air.

For M. de Witt was walking in the garden talking to his brother, M. Cornelius de Witt, Ruard of Putten, who had come up to-day from Dordt, and Florent was listening to their conversation as it came clearly through the tranquil stillness.

“If you do not send more troops, brother,” the Ruard was saying, “I think Zeeland will get beyond all management. Count Tilly would be the man to quiet them.”

“I cannot spare Tilly from the Hague,” answered the softer voice of the Grand Pensionary. “And I have written to the burgomaster of Middelburg.”

“You hold the reins too gently,” returned Cornelius de Witt. “I think the Prince is in touch with these agitators in Zeeland——”

“It is hardly possible … he is kept too close.…”

“You should keep him closer. Are you sure of those about him?”

“They are of mine own choice—even to his gentlemen.”

“Well,” said the Ruard grimly, “he may have corrupted them.”

Florent leant forward cautiously. The brothers had halted close to the window. The Grand Pensionary’s back was towards him, but he could see the fine, rugged face of the Ruard, frowning now, and shaded by the great black beaver he wore.

“I have his assurance of loyalty,” said John de Witt. “I do not think he is of a nature to be false … he is quiet——”

“Take care he be not as cunning as he is quiet.”

“I have no right to think it,” answered the Grand Pensionary.

There was impatience in his brother’s reply.

“You have always been too just … the time has gone past for concessions.…”

They moved on slowly; Van Mander could hear their footsteps on the gravel but not what they said.

He had had his dismissal for the day; probably M. de Witt thought he had already gone. He locked his desk and put on his hat and cloak, then softly shut the window.

Before he left the building he went upstairs to M. de Witt’s private cabinet to return some papers he had copied for M. Van den Bosch, the head secretary, who, in company with the two confidential clerks, M. Bacherus and M. Van Ouvenaller, always sat there.

Van Mander returned to the hall with a dislike of these busy, quiet, dry men so intent on serving their master—machines he called them, what could they ever hope to rise to?—and they had all the secrets of M. de Witt in their hands.

There would be a game worth playing supposing that he possessed the keys of those desks. But they never entrusted him with anything of importance—save yesterday when he had carried the red velvet bag——

His mind leapt back to the letter he had given the Prince. He stepped out of John de Witt’s pink brick house into the sea-mist that was increasing as the sun set, and turned in the direction of the Nieuwe Kerk which lay towards the gates.

The vapour rested lightly on the water of the Vyver, and clung to the yellowing chestnut trees that surrounded it; beyond rose the straight walls of the Binnenhof, dimly seen, looming darkly from the mist.

Florent crossed the empty Plaats. Before him the threatening lines of the blunt roof of the Gevangenpoort, the prison gate, seemed to spring from out the fast thickening fog as if they were shaped from dark clouds and had no foundation on the earth. One barred window showed in the gloomy structure, and above it the flag of the Republic glimpsed through the obscurity.

Florent passed under the low, deep arch and came out into the Buitenhof. The soldiers on duty here, the few passers-by, seemed unreal and remote, so wrapped about and mysterious were they rendered by the damp, encroaching mist.

Florent was impressed, subdued by the silent, all-pervading personality of the town wearing the sea-fog like a veil over her ancient glories—like a veil of mourning, maybe, for her coming downfall. All the splendour of the Seven Provinces, all their strength, their endurance, their simplicity, their heroism were symbolised in these buildings, rising staunch and heavy through the sad, dripping fog. The gables and turrets of the Hall of the Knights; the tourelles and pale brick of the Binnenhof, with the bright painted shutters faintly showing, and here and there a light gleaming at a window; and above all the great tower of the Groote Kerk rising through the fog that the sea, ever beating on the shores and dykes of Holland with a persistent and sinister purpose, sends rolling drearily over the land it cannot yet reclaim.

Florent traversed the courts of the Binnenhof, and entered the Spuistraat, where the street-lamps and the lights in the shops cast faint haloes on the mist; here he followed the canal that led to the Nieuwe Kerk.

Crossing the bridge, under which slow barges passed winding along the grey water, through the grey land towards Ryswysk, he circled the clumsy, grim church, and discovered behind it, at the corner of Bezemstraat, the Nieuwe Doelen.

There in the quiet, plain back parlour of the inn he found Hyacinthe St. Croix.

Florent greeted him with his habitual brevity and went to the fire. He was chilled, his garments damp; even here the mist had penetrated, and filled the room with a salt sense of wet and cold.

St. Croix ordered dinner and, leaning back, surveyed his company.

Florent looked up suddenly. The firelight stained his linen collar, his pale face, to ruddiness.

“I delivered your letter.”

The Frenchman answered, not allowing himself to show any satisfaction—

“I thought you would.”

Florent was silent a while, rubbing his hands together over the blaze.

“How do you hope to receive an answer?” he said at last.

“If the Prince wishes to send one he will contrive it.”

Florent started at that.

“We are quite safe here,” remarked St. Croix easily. “This is M. le Marquis’ house.”

“Ah!” Florent glanced round the small, neat room, with the herbs hanging from the beams, the blue-and-white pottery, the shining brass,—an inn room like a hundred others. “M. le Marquis does it very well,” he said.

“Naturally,” smiled St. Croix. “What was your opinion of the Prince?” he added.

Florent ignored the question.

“I was wondering,” he said slowly, “how the Prince could communicate with any one—he is kept marvellously close.”

St. Croix shrugged his shoulders.

“I said he would contrive,—I think he is as clever as M. de Witt.”

Florent reflected on the words he had heard the Grand Pensionary use that evening to his brother.

“Those about him are all of M. de Witt’s choosing,” he said.

“The Prince might win some—one of them.”

Florent looked up quickly.

“Do you imagine him the sort of man to win—devotion?”

“I do not know. What is your opinion?”

Florent smiled rather sourly.

“I suppose some would serve him from policy, because they saw a restoration,” he answered; “but he is greatly beloved in Holland.”

“He has done nothing to win the suffrage of the people.”

“No,” said Florent; “he has done nothing.”

“It is the name,” resumed St. Croix lightly, “and the prestige of the House of Orange.”

Supper was brought in, and more candles. Florent crossed to the window.

Outside the mist was rolling past like waves, white and curling. The sound of the struggling, large poles could be heard through it; the noise of the wet mast striking the wet deck as it was lowered to pass under the bridge, and the men’s voices, shouting to each other, hoarse, remote.

Florent glanced askance over his shoulder at St. Croix. A man who was despising him, no doubt, as one of a fallen race; anticipating the time when the King of France would be master of Holland—the dictator of Europe. He began to find that he hated St. Croix, and that he was angry with himself for being there, playing into the Frenchman’s hands.

He thought of the quiet, worn men in M. de Witt’s Cabinet whom he had, at the moment, so despised. Now he was ready to wish his hands as clean as theirs. He resented the look of insolent superiority he thought to read in the powdered face of Hyacinthe St. Croix.

But the Frenchman spoke pleasantly—

“Will you not come to dinner?”

Florent silently complied. He found that the little inn, supported by the pay of M. le Marquis de Pomponne, provided of the best; food and wine were both better than he was accustomed to. This further set him against St. Croix, who was buying him in this paltry way as surely as was William of Orange being bought by the power and wealth of France and England.

“What was in that letter I delivered?” he demanded suddenly.

Hyacinthe St. Croix gave answer with a fine appearance of frankness—

“You have heard of the feeling in Zeeland?—His Highness is its premier noble, and, now that he is in his eighteenth year, the people consider him of age—and desire him to take his seat in the Council there——”

“M. de Witt would never allow it.”

“Mon Dieu, no, M. de Witt would never allow it—but it is possible that Monseigneur the Prince might act without permission.”

“Ah!” said Florent. He leant back, his hand round his wineglass, his eyes fixed across the candles’ shine on the Frenchman’s face. “And M. le Marquis would help him in this?”

“Making of it a challenge, the glove thrown down,” assented Hyacinthe St. Croix. “It would be a bold move for His Highness to make. If he once outwits M. de Witt he opens his eyes for always, and there can be no more confidence between them; yet maybe he would hazard it——”

“Under the protection of France,” interrupted Florent.

“You wonder we think it worth while,” returned St. Croix quickly, “but there are many reasons.… This young man is His Majesty’s cousin, and M. de Louvois sees how good use may be made of him. He is already of some influence in the State, and his party grows.”

“M. de Pomponne is ready to help him to raise revolt in Middelburg?”

“Yes.”

“Is M. Temple in this?” asked Florent abruptly.

St. Croix smiled.

“He is like M. de Witt, hopelessly honest.”

Florent emptied his glass slowly.

“We have made overtures to the Princess of Orange, but she is old and cautious,” continued St. Croix. “Also to M. de Zuylestein and Prince John Maurice. The letter you passed to Monseigneur the Prince contained an offer on the part of M. le Marquis to connive at his escape to Middelburg.”

“How could it be done?” mused Florent.

“M. le Marquis could accomplish it—M. Van Ghent is away——”

Florent looked up sharply.

“Yes, he left on a visit to his estate in Guelders to-day. The Prince hath then thrown in his lot with you—” he added, “put himself under the protection of France?”

“Mon Dieu, what else is there for him to do?”

Florent pushed back his chair. He had eaten very little, nor did St. Croix press it, though he had dined well himself after an indifferent, easy fashion that nettled his guest.

“Ugh! this mist of yours,” shivered the Frenchman suddenly glancing about the room. “Nothing will keep it out—how much of it do you have?”

“I am new to the Hague, but there is plenty of it, until we get the frosts—then too, sometimes.”

St. Croix made a wry face.

“I would the Holy Virgin had placed my talents elsewhere. Here there is nothing wherewith to amuse one’s self save the contemplation of Dutch virtue and the effort to avoid rheumatism. How do you endure it, my friend?”

“By being Dutch,” answered Florent, gazing at him steadily. “You speak very plainly to me—I am Dutch.”

St. Croix laughed.

“You think me overbold. But I tell you this, my master is more powerful in the Seven Provinces than any Dutchman—as you are ambitious you had best not offend him.”

So, they threatened—they felt themselves strong enough for that.

“I have my own interests at heart,” commented Florent dryly, after a pause. “I see that the Orange party is the one to serve.… I shall serve it, knowing quite well, M. St. Croix, that it is another name for France.”

The Frenchman blinked his fair eyes.

“His Highness may be called the lever with which His Majesty will heave the United Provinces on to the map of France,” he remarked.

“You seem very sure of him,” said Florent, “and I believe that you are right. But … it is curious in all the discussions concerning this Prince, whose name we all use alike to serve our ends—among all the factions that clamour for William of Orange—is there never one to think of him as other than the tool of France? Does it never enter the thoughts of any that he might prove as honest as M. de Witt—as faithful to his country?”

“This is not an age of heroes,” smiled St. Croix; and added, half insolently, “Do you regret the fact, Monsieur?”

“M. de Witt is a hero.”

“M. de Witt is a saint and a fool,” replied the Frenchman. “And the Prince of Orange is neither.”

“Some must believe in him.…”

“As an instrument to gratify their ambition. M. Beverningh, M. de Zuylestein, and Prince John Maurice believe in him certainly—after that fashion.”

“I do not mean them—but these people in the street—Jacob Van der Graef——”

“A silly young man,” remarked St. Croix, lighting his pipe. “Yes, perhaps those people do believe in the glory of the old dynasty. But things have changed since the days of William the Taciturn; as I say, there are no heroes nowadays.”

Florent suddenly shrugged his shoulders.

“These are foolish matters for us to be discussing. You know where my interests lie, Monsieur; and,” he added, with a strange note of defiance, “you have pointed out that safety also rests with my silence. You need not fear that I should betray you to M. de Witt, or be over faithful to him. I, at least, am not a fool.”

“I think you are shrewd enough,” answered St. Croix, “and I have trusted you with a delicate matter. The way to your fortune is plain: for the present, stay where you are, keep quiet and docile to M. de Witt.”

Florent smiled.

“He is not difficult to fool,” he said grimly, “—M. de Witt.”

“No,” assented St. Croix, lazily watching his rings of smoke; “but he is difficult to lie to.”

Florent was silent; a dusky colour flushed into his cheeks.

“M. le Marquis,” continued the Frenchman, “hath told me that he finds the Grand Pensionary more troublesome to deal with than any clever rogue.”

“Yet he is simple, credulous,” said Florent. “See, in this matter of the Prince, how he trusts him.”

“He hath his own wisdom,” answered St. Croix; “but his day is over.”

He looked shrewdly at the young secretary, and added—

“I must bring you to speech of M. le Marquis.”

Florent made no answer; he rose.

“You are going?” asked St. Croix, leaning indolently on the table.

“I have some work to do—M. de Witt must not find me amiss.”

It was not the truth; the secretary’s duties ended when he quitted the Grand Pensionary’s house, but St. Croix accepted the excuse.

“You will hear from me again in a day or so,” he said. “The lodgings in the Kerkestraat will always find you?”

“Yes.”

Florent picked up his hat and cloak from the bench that ran round the wall and turned to leave.

“I shall keep my eyes and ears alert,” he said. “Good-night.”

“Good-night,” nodded St. Croix. “A sullen brute,” he thought as the door closed on Florent. “But these Dutchmen,”—he shrugged his shoulders,—“one must use them as one finds them.…”

Florent Van Mander cared nothing what impression he had made; his one desire was to get away, to be alone. He welcomed the cold white fog after the brightly lit parlour and the intolerable Frenchman sitting there over his wine. He hated it and all it symbolised; hated it so suddenly and so bitterly that he could not have stayed a second longer in the company of the man whom, for his own ends, he was serving.

Such emotions were quite new to him; he could not understand them. He had always despised people who allowed sentiment to interfere with ambition. One could not be great by following a falling cause.… What should it matter to him, a diplomat, whether he was paid by England or France or Holland, so he achieved his aim?

Fortune was not attained by sitting in M. de Witt’s Cabinet, like M. Van den Bosch; and the Grand Pensionary had not inspired Florent with any great enthusiasm or admiration. He had judged him coldly, seen failure ahead of him, and decided not to entangle his fortunes with the Republican Government. But nevertheless he felt this strange wrath, and distaste, against himself and what he did. It was as if something had suddenly touched and aroused feelings that lay so deep he did not know till now that he possessed them.

The Seven Provinces an appanage of France—they who had been the richest nation in Europe——

Florent checked his thoughts, wondering what had put into his mind—this folly.

Almost he imagined that the brief moment in which he had looked into the eyes of William of Orange had awakened him to this uneasy questioning. Yet that made double folly, since the Prince himself was but the tool of France, intriguing with de Pomponne—truckling to Louis.…

He had walked through the mist, along the Spuistraat, with no thought of his destination, but when he reached the Binnenhof he pulled himself up and stopped.

The lamps showing at intervals on their red posts displayed the fog in great pale circles, but their light did not penetrate far, and Florent realised that he began to take note of what he was doing in a thick, hurrying darkness of vapour no moon could pierce. The canal had ceased, and he knew that he must be by the Binnenhof. No one seemed abroad; the fog gave the effect of complete isolation.

Keeping close to the stone wall of the building, he made his way through the black arch of the Gevangenpoort on to the Plaats.

Here the closer-set street lights revealed the railings encircling the Vyver. Florent followed them a little way, then, gathering his cloak closely round him, paused and looked down on to the water, an abyss of fathomless darkness which, where the feeble rays of the lamp struck it, revealed billows of curling mist, which seemed to be sucked down into measureless depths of obscurity.

Florent leant against the railing, as completely shut away from the world as if in a secret chamber. All ordinary sights and sounds had receded, vanished; he could not even discern the lights in the Binnenhof or Maritshuis. His hair was wet his hat limp with damp; beads of moisture clung to his heavy frieze cloak, he could feel the water trickling under his collar, and there was a salt taste on his lips. He stood quite still watching the twisting, striving thickness of vapour disclosed by the beams of the lamp. Then suddenly a light was flashed over him, and a voice, conveying a slightly foreign accent, spoke in a low tone close beside him—

“Are you Mynheer Van Mander, clerk to M. de Witt?”

Florent lifted eyes startled from absorbed contemplation. He saw, through the curtain of the filmy mist, the figure of a man, wearing, like himself, a heavy mantle, and carrying a lantern.

“I am sure that you are,” the speaker continued. “I have been following you a considerable time.”

“For what purpose?” asked Florent.

The stranger, who had loomed up so quietly out of the fog, came a little nearer.

“You were at the Palace yesterday?”

Florent turned to face him.

“Yes.”

The other raised his lantern.

“I am Bromley,” he said simply,—“Matthew Bromley, the Prince’s gentleman, and I have come to give you the answer to the letter that you delivered to His Highness.”

Florent bent his brows on him. As far as he could see anything he saw a tall man with a fair, handsome face showing under the broad-brimmed hat.

“Will you hand this to the person who entrusted you to deliver that letter?”

Florent took the packet held out to him.

“If His Highness has servants as devoted as you appear, Mynheer,” he said, “you might have conveyed the letter in the first instance.”

And he remembered how St. Croix had lamented that he had now no ally in the Prince’s household.

“The paper is unsealed,” answered Matthew Bromley, “and I think it is His Highness’ wish that you read it.”

“Read it!” echoed Florent.

The mist seemed to be lifting, blowing in long trails, rapidly, to extinction. The Prince’s gentleman hung his lantern on the fence.

“You can read it here and now,” he said.

Florent glanced up from the still folded paper.

“You are English?”

“Yes, I am English,” answered Bromley.

Florent gazed at him keenly.

“You know something of the Prince’s affairs,—do you know why he wishes to make a confidant of me? Why I am to read this?”

Their voices were low and guarded; between them hurried the long veils of fog, blurring the street-lamp and the light of the lantern, in which their figures loomed indistinctly.

“You were aware what M. de Pomponne’s message contained?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore the Prince wishes you to know his answer.”

The lights in the Binnenhof, in the Maritshuis, began to be visible; sparks of yellow showed, too, in the windows of the houses in the Kneuterdyk Avenue; a cold wind was rising. Florent shivered; with chilled, damp fingers he took the paper from its cover and, bending towards the light, looked at it. The signature caught his eye first.

“This is M. de Pomponne’s letter!” he cried.

“It is also the Prince’s answer,” returned Mr. Bromley. “You may show it to M. de Witt—if you will.”

A swift excitement shook Florent.

“Then … what dealings has he—the Prince—with France?”

“You may imagine—he returns M. de Pomponne’s letter.”

“He is subservient to M. de Witt—he will not go to Middelburg——?”

“He will do nothing under the protection of M. de Pomponne.”

The gentle radiance of a young moon conquered the vanishing mist. Florent saw the shapes of the trees on the Vyverberg, the outlines of the Binnenhof, and the tourelles of the Gevangenpoort rising against a clear sky.

“This is a rebuke to me,” he said.

“You may take it so,” replied Mr. Bromley.

“I am not in the pay of the French,” said Florent, instantly aware this man could ruin him with his master, “though I suppose the Prince thinks so,—I work for my own ends, serving no party,” he added defiantly.

“The Prince has not thought of you at all, Mynheer, save to desire you to know he hath no secret dealings with M. de Pomponne. You will return that letter?”

“Yes,” said Florent, concealing it. He thought, grimly, that he had no choice.

“Then, good-night, Mynheer.” Mr. Bromley saluted gravely, took his now useless lantern from the fence and extinguished it.

Florent’s pulses were beating quickly; he was bewildered, confounded. There were many things he longed to ask the Prince’s gentleman, and not one that he could bring over his tongue. He stood foolishly watching Mr. Bromley disappear through the arch of the Gevangenpoort.

What game was the Prince playing? Was this a pose to deceive him, the secretary of M. de Witt, or did William really prefer the Grand Pensionary for a master rather than France?

Or perhaps he is merely timid, reflected Florent, crushing scornfully down the rush of pride and unreasonable exaltation he had sustained at the wild idea that the Prince was actually spurning M. de Pomponne.

He stared at the dark, tranquil waters of the Vyver, revealed now in the faint moonshine.

A boy, he sneered to himself, would he possess the wit and courage to undertake unaided this flight to Middelburg? No, he had always shown caution—he would remain under the wing of M. de Witt.

Yet Florent found himself pondering over the devotion of Matthew Bromley to his master—Bromley also had once been M. de Witt’s man.