Читать книгу William, by the Grace of God - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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Slowly they rode together through the pine forest; the rain fell steadily yet gently, there was a faint warmth in the air like the first beginning of the beautiful heat of summer; here and there fresh green tipped the winter darkness of the trees.

They rode with a certain leisure as people who are at no haste to be at their journey's end. To the woman it was an episode of pure happiness in a life that had always been unhappy, to the man it was a pleasant interlude in a life of stress and turmoil unutterable; he rode his shabby hack and she the borrowed horse from the inn; their wet cloaks clung about them and the moisture dripped from their felt hats; the woman's heart glowed with a joy that made the grey afternoon as radiant to her as a midsummer noonday, her mind admitted nothing beyond the fact that they were riding alone together. It seemed incredible after all these years of patience, of abnegations, of dreams.

"You think often of the Netherlands?" asked the Prince.

"Often," she said. "I have wondered if I am ever to return to my unfortunate country—believe me I would go," she added, "if my going was of the least service, but I have always been one of the useless."

"We are all useless compared with our tasks," said the Prince gravely. "I feel myself a handful of dust before the wind, a straw before the tide."

"You are the guiding star of a whole nation," said Rénée le Meuny, "the hope of a Faith—the solace of a Cause." He smiled, turning on her his sad eyes.

"You are good to think that of me—it is their own courage guides and supports the Netherlanders, not II am a man who set himself against great odds and who has failed."

"But who is not defeated, Highness."

"No, not defeated," he assented quietly. "I have yet my brain, my two hands, the name—a name something loved—nothing else."

She looked at him; under the broad brim of his hat his dark face showed pale; the exact fine features had changed since the day she had seen him first; the day when he had mounted the stairs of Leipsic town hall to greet his bride, Anne of Saxony—the smooth olive cheek was hollowed, the brilliant eyes shadowed, in the thick close chestnut locks the white hairs were sprinkled; he looked infinitely tired, and there was great sadness in the resolute lines of his full lips.

Rénée remembered—remembered days of pomp and magnificence and this man moving through them, courted, beloved, and serene, a Prince, a Grandee of Spain, the greatest man in the Netherlands.

And the years between then and now were not so many, and yet she, his wife's waiting-woman, who had courtesied from his path with awe, had met him, a forlorn and penniless exile in a wayside inn, and they were riding together as equals.

Equals—her heart trembled at the word; she knew it was but another dream, that he would always remain a sovereign Prince and she a humble commoner, yet for the moment it was a dream with the semblance of reality; at least all outward sign of difference was done away with, they rode together as fellow exiles, as two of the same country and the same faith—as mere man and woman. And his wife was no longer between them; the worthless, faithless, wanton woman whom Rénée had laboured so long and patiently to save, was repudiated at last, insane in the care of her own kinsfolk.

"If we could ride for ever," thought Rénée, "if the world would stop about us and we could ride on like this through all eternity."

The rain ceased and the light of sunset showed in a faint blur through the straight dark stems of the trees, a pale saffron glow diffused itself through the wood, an indistinct gleam of sunshine quivered along the ground.

"Afterwards," said the Prince, looking at his companion, "when I am again lost in my obscure wanderings, I shall remember this ride very pleasantly."

She turned her glance to her gauntleted hands so slackly holding the reins.

"Count Louis is in health?" she asked. "He is so much spoken of at Heidelberg."

A look of tenderness softened the Prince's face at mention of his younger brother.

"Louis is well and gay," he answered. "His bright spirits help us all to have confidence in our desperate cause."

Rénée recalled her first meeting with Count Louis—the idle young gallant—she remembered too how she had despised him for his air of foppery—how he had shamed her judgment. She had also felt some contempt for the handsome gorgeous Prince of Orange and his political marriage, but that Rénée had now forgotten utterly.

"You remember the days in Brussels?" smiled the Prince, "the feasts, the tourneys—poor wild Brederode—Hoogstraaten—Egmount, Hoorne—my brother Adolphus—Bergen, Floris Montmorency all dead!—dead as the ashes of those festal fires, Mademoiselle."

Rénée shuddered.

"How will Philip answer to God for all these lives, all those other lives, obscure, miserable as these were great?"

He glanced at her still with that wistful smile about his lips.

"Philip? He has pleased his God and knows no other." Rénée was puzzled.

"But there surely is Judgment for such a man?"

"Who knows?" said William calmly. "Judgment is not in our hands, Mademoiselle, we perform our little task while we can and when our day is done—good night! So much to do, so little time to do it in!"

"You do not hate Philip?" she asked as the Calvinist had asked.

"I have hated him. These last years I have got beyond hate—and beyond despair. Mademoiselle, I have been very much in the depths—I have seen grief and sorrow very close. I have been in those places where a man leaves his life or his passions. I lived. I think there was nothing left of what I used to be but a certain faith in human endeavour, a certain hope in the triumph of this world's better things—even against a Philip."

She was silent, overwhelmed that he should thus speak to her.

"So I have hope, even for the Netherlands," continued the Prince. "So I have faith—even in the coming of that time when there shall be no one creed tryannizing over another creed. Even in that I have faith—but one can do so little—only all of us doing something may bring nearer the day of deliverance. So little!" he repeated softly, "to serve the truth as we see it—God as we know Him—justice as it is revealed to us—so little!"

"This from your Highness—who has done everything!"

"Lost everything. The two strangers I parted from just now spoke of my name and failure—coupled the words together!"

But as he spoke he smiled and his eyes were serene.

Rénée thought of all he had endured—defeat, humiliation, contempt, the endless endeavour, the slow patience, the vast energy, the indomitable resource that had again and again been wasted in a fruitless task.

"You will achieve," she said in a low voice, "such as your Highness always achieve."

"If I could do only a little," he answered quietly. "Lately I have been afraid they would kill me before I could do anything at all."

"Kill you?" she stammered.

"Philip thinks me of some importance still," he answered simply, with a little smile. "I am on the list of those he considers dangerous—the list on which he put Hoorne and Egmont."

"They—try to assassinate you?"

"Persistently. Philip has not forgotten that I escaped the net that caught the others."

Rénée's face quivered, she looked away.

"God would not let you be killed," she said. "Too many need your Highness."

He did not answer this; he too had his faith, but it was not so simple as hers; he did not think that Heaven had given him any special mission or would afford him any special protection; to him Eternal Truth and Eternal Justice were throned high above the mud and blood of the present strife, nor did he believe that his endeavours would be even noticed by that Vastness men called God; so far he was a fatalist, and to this point the Calvinist religion, that it had become most expedient for him to embrace, was congenial to him; but had it not been a matter of political wisdom he would not have joined any particular sect; narrowness was hateful to him and the very essence of the cause for which he had given everything was liberty of conscience.

They came out from the pine forest on to the high road; dusk was closing in and before them gleamed the lights in the windows of Heidelberg Castle.

As the Prince saw the Castle before him, his expression subtly changed; the moment of softness passed; like a shadow the reserved look of the man of great affairs, of one engaged in perilous causes and burdened with heavy secrets, came over his face.

"The Elector is at home?" he asked, and Rénée saw that he had already put her from his thoughts and was considering how this chance visit he had been persuaded into might be turned into political account.

"Yes, Monseigneur," she answered, instantly subduing herself to his service, "he will be most honoured at your Highness's coming."

"A pity," observed William, "that he is not so powerful as he is well meaning."

"He is very generous," said Rénée, loyal to the man whose little Court had sheltered her and so many of her co-religionists. "He does not refuse his protection to the most destitute and insignificant. The Electress, too, is wide in charity."

"Mademoiselle de Montpensier is with her?" asked the Prince.

"Yes, Highness. I am her particular attendant. At some peril to themselves their Highnesses shelter this lady, who fled from France to them—Monseigneur knows the story?"

"Of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the abbess of Jouane?" smiled William, then added with a sudden gravity, "I do not know why I smile, her action showed great courage in the lady."

"Such courage, Monseigneur, for one enclosed in a convent since she was a child of eleven!" said Rénée eagerly, "but she is brave, the Princess, and strong."

"Such women are needed in these times," answered William. "Mademoiselle should marry and comfort some weary man."

Rénée knew that there had been long and persistent talk of a union between William's brother, Louis of Nassau, and Charlotte de Montpensier and she thought that it was to this that he alluded.

"The Electress is eager for such a marriage," she said, "but the Princess is dowerless; her father will give her nothing, and her sister, Madame de Bouillon, cannot."

"Many a man will wed without a dower now as many a woman without an establishment—your little princess will find her mate—she looks a woman for a home."

Rénée was startled.

"Your Highness has seen her?" she exclaimed.

"Once. When I first came to France." He dismissed the subject with a certain abruptness. "We are almost at the Castle, Mademoiselle. I trust your good offices," he added with a very winning courtesy, "to assure my welcome."

"Your Highness humbles me," breathed Rénée. This meeting with the Prince had changed everything for her, so suddenly, so utterly, that she was giddy with it.

In the courtyard he helped her to dismount; and held her gloved hand for a moment after she was standing beside him.

"I thank you for a pleasurable hour, Mademoiselle," he said, and his voice had a quality of gratitude as if he had not been lately used to such sympathy as she had offered him.

She turned towards the Castle entrance, and the Prince, taking off his shabby hat and shaking the water from the brim, followed her.

An officer standing in the hall stared curiously at the slim shabby man behind Rénée.

"The Elector!" she asked.

"His Highness"—he began.

As he spoke Frederic himself came down the wide stairs; beside his stern martial figure was the slender one of the young Count Christopher.

Rénée turned to them.

"Messieurs, I bring you a very notable guest."

"In very notable attire," added William, and he laughed. The Elector came swiftly down the stairs, his face coloured with pleasure. He put his hands on the Prince's shoulders and kissed him on either cheek.

Rénée sped past them, up the stairs and to the apartments of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.

"Mademoiselle," said Rénée breathlessly, "he is here!"

"Who is here, my dear?" asked the Princess. "Your knight at last? I thought that you must have one, Rénée."

Rénée turned away; her lips trembled, her throat was dry and she could not speak.

Charlotte de Bourbon did, not lift her eyes from her work.

This Princess, daughter of the proud Duc de Montpensier, who had been forced by her parents into a cloister at the age of eleven, who had taken her vows under protest, and abandoned her position as abbess in one of the most princely and wealthy establishments in France, to fly into the Palatinate and embrace the Reformed Faith, was a slight fair girl of no great appearance of energy or force of character.

Her features were small, her hair soft and fine, the chin was a little heavy, the eyes dark blue, her manner was one of, above all, serenity. She wore a puce-coloured gown and a falling ruff of delicate muslin covered with needlework.

"Who is he?" she asked again without looking up. "The Prince of Orange, Mademoiselle," answered Rénée quickly.

Now Charlotte dropped her work.

"The Prince of Orange!"

"Yes, Mademoiselle, he is now in the castle."

"Secretly—in disguise?"

"Yes, I left him with the Elector."

Charlotte looked thoughtful; Rénée, who believed the common rumour that the Princess was interested in and would eventually marry Louis of Nassau, remarked, timidly.

"His Highness spoke of his brother—Count Louis, who is safe and well."

Charlotte glanced at her calmly; the serenity that had enabled Mademoiselle de Montpensier to support with dignity so many years of conventual life was always apparent in her demeanour, and Rénée, at least, had never seen any of the spirit that had urged her to break her enforced vows and escape her convent; there still seemed much of the abbess in Charlotte, the dignity of one trained to command, the poise of one who is remote from the world and impervious to worldly troubles.

"Do you think that I am so eager for news of Count Louis?" she asked pleasantly.

"Yes," said Rénée frankly; she was as intimate with the Princess as any woman, but Charlotte had a quality of elusive remoteness difficult to the warm and impulsive nature of the Fleming.

"You listen to gossip," smiled the Princess gently, "but I shall be glad to meet the Prince. He has been wonderful. I believe he will do something yet, even against Alva."

"He has given all he has," answered Rénée. "Everything—you cannot imagine how great and splendid he was, how magnificent—and now—like a beggar—lonely."

"You speak with great enthusiasm," said Charlotte, looking up. "You knew him very well?"

It was in Rénée's heart and almost on her lips to disclose her long-kept secret—"I love him," but something in the utter gentle calm of the Princess checked her; she kept a stern rein over her agitation and answered quietly.

"When I was with his wife I saw much of His Highness."

"Where is his wife?" asked Charlotte; the disastrous ending of the Prince's marriage was a thing hushed and mysterious; these two had never spoken of it before.

"I believe she may be at Dillenburg in the custody of Count John," said Rénée. "Count Louis told me that the Prince had repudiated her and that the Elector of Saxony was to take her back. She is mad."

"Poor wretch!" murmured Charlotte.

Rénée flushed.

"There is no need to pity her, Mademoiselle, she made the Prince's life a humiliation and a misery. I knew her as few others could and there was no good in her. And when the trouble came she deserted him—and—and stooped to another man."

"I know," said the Princess, "therefore I say, 'poor wretch!' Do you not pity such as these, Rénée?

"Nay—at least for her I had no pity."

Charlotte was silent.

"And now the Prince is free," added Rénée. "Free? He considers himself free?"

"He is now a Protestant, and Protestant Divines have freed him from a union the woman trampled on."

Charlotte said no more; she folded away her silks and ribbons into a cedar-wood box.

The rain had begun again, heavy drops splashed down the wide chimney on to the log fire, a high wind shook the window behind the heavy curtain.