Читать книгу God and the King - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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Before entering his sedan, Lord Sunderland gently bade the chairman carry him round the back ways; that strange quantity, the People, that every statesman must use, fear, and obey, was abroad, roused and dangerous to-night, and my lord's diplomacy moved delicately among high places but never came into the street to handle the crowd; he could lead, control, cajole kings and courtiers, deal with continents on paper, but he was powerless before the people, who hated him, and whom he did not trouble to understand; he was aristocrat of aristocrat.

He was now the most powerful man in the three kingdoms, and, next to Lord Jefferies, the most detested; he was the only considerable noble (the other converts, Dover and Salisbury, being mean men) who had sacrificed his religion to the bigotry of the King; many courtiers to whom all faiths were alike had rejected open apostasy, but my lord had calmly turned renegade and calmly accepted the scorn and comment cast upon his action; but he did not care to risk recognition by the People bent on celebrating a Protestant triumph.

A little before he had gone down to Westminster Hall to give that technical evidence against the bishops, without which they could not have been tried (for he was the only man who had seen Sancroft pass in to the King with the petition, and therefore the only man who could prove "publication in the county of Middlesex"), and it had taken some courage to face the storm that had greeted the King's witness.

My lord did not wish for another such reception, and: as he proceeded down the quiet dark streets he looked continuously from the window of his chair in anticipation of some noisy band of Londoners who would challenge his appearance.

And that pale gentleman who peered out on to the bonfire-lit night had soon been dragged from the shadow of the satin-lined sedan and flung down into the gutter and trampled on and murdered, as was Archbishop Sharp by the Covenanters, had he been seen and recognized by some of the bands of youths and men who marched the streets with straw Popes and cardboard devils to cast to the flames.

My lord remarked that in every window, even of the poorest houses, seven candles burned, the tallest in the centre for the Archbishop, the other six for his colleagues; my lord remarked the rockets that leapt above the houses and broke in stars against the deep blue; my lord heard, even as he passed through the quietest alleys, the continuous murmur of the People rejoicing, as one may in a backwater hear the muffled but unsubdued voice of the sea.

When he reached his own great mansion and stepped from the chair, he saw that his house also was illuminated, as was every window in the great square.

He went upstairs to a little room at the back, panelled in walnut and finely furnished, where a lady sat alone.

She was of the same type as my lord—blonde, graceful, worn, and beautiful—younger than he, but looking no less.

She was writing letters at a side table, and when he entered rose up instantly, with a little sigh of relief.

"'Tis so wild abroad to-night," she said.

The Earl laid down on the mantelshelf the overblown white rose he had brought from Whitehall, and looked at his wife.

"I see we also rejoice that the bishops are acquitted," he remarked.

"The candles, you mean? It had to be—all the windows had been broken else. They needed to call the soldiers out to protect the Chapel in Sardinia Street."

He seated himself at the centre table and pulled from his pocket several opened letters that he scattered before him; his wife came and stood opposite, and they looked at each other intently across the candles.

"What doth it mean?" she asked.

"That the King walketh blindly on to ruin," he answered concisely, with a wicked flashing glance over the correspondence before him.

"The People will not take much more?"

"No."

"Well," said Lady Sunderland restlessly, "we are safe enough."

He was turning over the papers, and now lowered his eyes to them.

"Some of your letters to my Uncle Sidney have been opened," he remarked. "This is M. Barillon his work—the King taxed me to-day with being privy to the intrigue."

"I have thought lately that we were suspected," she answered quickly. "Is this—serious?"

"No; I can do anything with the King, and he is bigot, r blind, and credulous to a monstrous degree."

"Even after to-day!" exclaimed my lady.

"He believeth the nation will never turn against him," said the Earl quietly. "He thinketh himself secure in his heir—and in the Tories."

"Not half the people will allow the child is the Queen's, though," she answered. "Even the Princess Anne maketh a jest of it with her women, and saith His Highness was smuggled into Whitehall in a warming-pan by a Jesuit father—"

"So you have also heard that news?"

"Who could help it? 'Tis common talk that 'tis but a device of the King to close the succession to the Princess Mary. And though you and I, my lord, know differently, this tale is as good as another to lead the mobile."

The Earl was slowly burning the letters before him by holding them in the flame of the wax-light of a taper-holder, and when they were curled away casting them on the floor and putting his red heel on them.

"What are these?" asked the Countess, watching him.

"Part of His Majesty's foreign correspondence, my dear, warning him to have an eye to His Highness the Stadtholder." She laughed, half nervously.

"It seemeth as if you cut away the ladder on which you stood," she said. "If the King should suspect too soon—or the Prince fail you—"

"I take the risks," said Sunderland. "I have been taking risks all my life."

"But never one so large as this, my lord."

He had burnt the last letter and extinguished the taper; he raised his face, and for all his fine dressing and careful curls he looked haggard and anxious; the gravity of his expression overcame the impression of foppery in his appearance; it was a serious man, and a man with everything at stake on a doubtful issue, who held out his hand to his wife.

She put her fingers into his palm and stood leaning against the tall back of his chair, looking down on him with those languishing eyes that had been so praised at the court of the late King, now a little marred and worn, but still brightly tender, and to my lord as lovely as when Lely had painted her beautiful among the beautiful.

"You must help me," he said, his court drawl gone, his voice sincere.

"Robert," smiled my lady, "I have been helping you ever since I met you."

"'Tis admitted," he answered; "but, sweetheart, you must help me again."

She touched lightly his thin, powdered cheek with her free hand; her smile was lovely in its tenderness.

"What is your difficulty?"

Subtle, intricate and oblique as his politics always were, crafty and cunning as were his character and his actions, with this one person whom he trusted Sunderland was succinct and direct.

"The difficulty is the Princess Mary," he answered.

"Explain," she smiled.

He raised his hand and let it fall.

"You understand already. Saying this child, this Prince of Wales, will never reign—the Princess is the heiress, and not her husband, and after her is the Princess Anne. Now it is not my design to put a woman on the throne, nor the design of England—we want the Prince, and he is third in succession—"

"But he can act for his wife—"

"His wife—there is the point. Will she, when she understandeth clearly what is afoot, support her husband, her father, or herself?"

The Countess was silent a little, then said—

"She hath no reason to love her father; he hath never sent her as much as a present since she went to The Hague, nor shown any manner of love for her."

"Yet he counteth on her loyalty as a positive thing—and hath she any cause to love her husband either?"

Lady Sunderland's smile deepened.

"Ladies will love their husbands whether they have cause or no."

The Earl looked gently cynical.

"She was a child when she was married, and the match was known to be hateful to her; she is still very young, and a Stewart. Do you not think she is like to be ambitious?"

"How can I tell? Doth it make so much difference?" He answered earnestly—

"A great difference. If there is a schism between her and the Prince his hands are hopelessly weakened, for there would be a larger party for her pretensions than for his—"

"What do you want me to do, dear heart?"

"I want a woman to manage a woman," smiled the Earl. "The Princess is seldom in touch with diplomats, and when she is—either by design or simplicity—she is very reserved."

"She is no confidante of mine," answered the Countess. "I only remember her as a lively child who wept two days to leave England, and that was ten years ago."

"Still," urged my lord, "you can find some engine to do me this great service—to discover the mind of the Princess."

Lady Sunderland paused thoughtfully.

"Do you remember Basilea Gage?" she asked at length.

"One of the maids of honour to Her Majesty when she was Duchess?"

"Yes; since married to a Frenchman who died, and now in Amsterdam—she and the Princess Royal were children together—I knew her too. Should I set her on this business?"

"Would she be apt and willing?"

"She is idle, clever, and serious—but, my dear lord, a Romanist."

The Earl laughed at his wife, who laughed back.

"Very well," he said. "I think she will be a proper person for this matter."

He put the long tips of his fingers together and reflected; he loved, of all things, oblique and crooked methods of working his difficult and secret intrigues.

When he spoke it was with clearness and decision.

"Tell this lady (what she must know already) that the King's measures in England have forced many malcontents to look abroad to the Princess Royal, the next heir, and her husband to deliver them from an odious rule; say that His Majesty, however, is confident that his daughter would never forget her obedience, and that, if it came to a crisis between her father and her husband, she would hinder the latter from any design on England and refuse her sanction to any attempt on his part to disturb His Majesty—say this requireth confirmation, and that for the ease and peace of the government (alarmed by the late refusal of Her Highness to concur in the Declaration of Indulgence) and the reassurance of the mind of the King, it would be well that we should have private knowledge of the disposition of Her Highness, which, you must say, you trust will be for the advantage of the King and his just measures."

The Countess listened attentively; she was seated now close to her husband, a pretty-looking figure in white and lavender, half concealed in the purple satin cushions of the large chair.

"I will write by the next packet," she answered simply.

"So," smiled the Earl, "we will use the zeal of a Romanist to discover the knowledge we need for Protestant ends—"

As he spoke they were interrupted by a servant in the gorgeous liveries that bore witness, like everything else in the noble mansion, both to my lord's extravagance and my lady's good management.

"Mr. Sidney was below—would his Lordship see him?"

"Go you down to him," said the Earl, looking at his wife. "You can make my excuses."

He dismissed the servant; my lady rose.

"What am I to say?" she asked, like one waiting for a lesson to be imparted.

He patted the slim white hand that rested on the polished table near his.

"Find out all you can, Anne, but be cautious—speak of our great respect for His Highness, but make no definite promises—discover how deep they go in their commerce with him."

Again they exchanged that look of perfect understanding that was more eloquent of the feeling between them than endearments or soft speeches, and the Countess went down to the lavish withdrawing-room, as fine as the chambers in Whitehall, where Mr. Sidney, uncle of my lord (but no older) waited.

They met as long friends, and with that air of gracious compliment and pleasure in each other's company which the fact of one being a beautiful woman and the other a man of famous gallantry had always given to their intercourse; if every jot of my lady's being had not been absorbed in her husband she might have been in love with Mr. Sidney, and if Mr. Sidney had not followed a fresh face every day of the year he might have found leisure to fall in love with my lady; as it was, he was very constant to her friendship, but had not, for that, forgotten the lovely creature she was, and she knew it and was pleased; in their hearts each laughed a little at the other and the situation; but my lady had the more cause to laugh, because while Mr. Sidney always dealt ingenuously with her, she was all the while using him to further her husband's policies, and there was not a pleasant word she gave him that was not paid for in information that she turned to good account.

To-day she found him less the composed gallant than usual; he seemed roused, disturbed, excited.

"The town to-day!" he exclaimed, after their first greetings. "Here is the temper of the people plainly declared at last!"

The Countess seated herself with her back to the candles on the gilt side-table and her face towards Mr. Sidney; he took his place on the wand-bottomed stool by the empty hearth, where the great brass dogs stood glimmering.

The windows were open, admitting the pleasant, intangible sense of summer and the distant changing shouts and clamour of the crowd.

With a kindly smile Lady Sunderland surveyed Henry Sidney, who without her advantage of the softening shadows showed a countenance finely lined under the thick powder he wore; man of fashion, of pleasure, attractive, mediocre in talents, supreme in manners and tact, owning no deep feelings save hatred to the King, whose intrigues had brought his brother to the block in the last reign, and a certain private loyalty to the laws and faith of England, Henry Sidney betrayed his character in every turn of his handsome face and figure. A man good-humoured, sweet-tempered but lazy, yet sometimes, as now, to be roused to the energy and daring of better men. In person he was noticeable among a court remarkable for handsome men; he had been in youth the most famous beau of his time, and still in middle age maintained that reputation.

His political achievements had not been distinguished. Sent as envoy to the States, he had so managed to ingratiate himself with the Prince of Orange as, in spite of the opposition of the English court, to be appointed commander of the English Regiment in the Dutch service, and the mouthpiece of His Highness to the English Whigs.

James, who had always disliked him, had recalled him from The Hague despite the protests of the Stadtholder, and he had found himself so out of favour with Whitehall as to deem it wiser to travel in Italy for a year, though he had never relaxed his correspondence either with the Prince or the great Protestant nobles who had been thrown into the opposition by the imprudent actions of the King.

He was in London now at some risk, as Lady Sunderland knew, and she waited rather curiously to hear what urgency had brought him back to the centre of intrigue.

His acceptance of her graceful excuses for the Earl was as formal as her offering of them; so long ago had it been understood that she was always the intermediary between her astute lord and the powerful Whig opposition of which Mr. Sidney was secretly so active a member.

"You and your friends will be glad of this," she said.

He looked at her a hesitating half second, then replied with an unusual sincerity in the tones generally so smooth and expressionless.

"Every Catholic who showeth his face is insulted, and a beadle hath been killed for endeavouring to defend a Romist chapel—the people are up at last."

"I know," she answered calmly. "I feared that my lord would not be safe returning from Whitehall."

"If they had seen him, by Heaven, he would not have been!" said Mr. Sidney. He spoke as if he understood the people's point of view. Lax and careless as he was himself, Sunderland's open and shameless apostasy roused in his mind some faint shadow of the universal hatred and scorn that all England poured on the renegade.

My lady read him perfectly; she smiled.

"How are you going to use this temper in the people?" she asked. "Is it to die out with the flames that consume the straw Popes, or is it to swell to something that may change the face of Europe?"

Mr. Sidney rose as if his restless mood could not endure his body to sit still.

"It may change the dynasty of England," he said.

My lady kept her great eyes fixed on him.

"You think so?" she responded softly.

His blonde face was strengthened into a look of resolve and triumph.

"The King hath gone too far." He spoke in an abrupt manner new to him. "No bribed electorate or packed parliament could force these measures—as we have seen to-day." There was, as he continued, an expression in his eyes that reminded the Countess of his brother Algernon, republican and patriot. "Is it not strange that he hath forgotten his father so soon, and his own early exile?" he said.

"His over-confidence playeth into your hands," she answered. He gave a soft laugh, approached her, and said, in his old caressing tones—

"Frankly, my lady—how far will the Earl go?"

"With whom?" she smiled.

"With us—the Prince of Orange and the Whigs, ay—and the honest Tories too."

She played with the tassels of the stiff cushion behind her.

"My lord hath the greatest affection and duty for His Highness, the greatest admiration for him, the greatest hopes in him—"

"Come, Madam," he responded, "we are old friends—I want to know my lord his real mind."

"I have told it you," she said, lifting candid eyes, "as far as even I know it—"

"You must know that His Highness hath in his desk letters from almost every lord in England, assuring him of admiration and respect—what was M. Dyck felt over here for—and M. Zuylestein?—we want to know what the Earl will do."

"What are the others—doing?" asked the Countess lightly. He saw the snare, and laughed.

"My hand is always for you to read, but there are others seated at this game, and I may not disclose the cards."

My lady lent forward.

"You cannot," she said, in the same almost flippant tone, "expect my lord to declare himself openly a Whig?"

"He might, though, declare himself secretly our friend."

"Perhaps," she admitted, then was silent.

Intimate as he was with the Countess, Mr. Sidney was not close with her lord, and felt more than a little puzzled by that statesman's attitude. Sunderland, he knew, was in receipt of a pension, probably a handsome pension, from France; he was loathed by the Whigs and caressed by the King; as Lord President and First Secretary he held the highest position in the Kingdom; the emoluments of his offices, with what he made by selling places, titles, pardons, and dignities, were known to be enormous; his conversion to the Church of Rome had given him almost unlimited influence over James; and his great experience, real talents, and insinuating manners made him as secure in his honours as any man could hope to be; yet through his wife he had dallied with the Whigs, written, as Sidney knew, to the Prince of Orange, and held out very distinct hopes that he would, at a crisis, help the Protestants.

Certainly he had not gone far, and it was important, almost vital, to the opposition that he should go farther, for he had it in his power to render services which no other man could; he only had the ear of James, the control of the foreign correspondence, the entire confidence of M. Barillon, and he alone was fitted to mislead the King and the Ambassador as to the schemes of their enemies, as he alone would be able to open their eyes to the full extent of the ramifications of the Protestant plots.

It was the Countess who broke the silence, and her words were what she might have chosen could she have read Mr. Sidney's thoughts.

"My lord, who is the greatest man in the kingdom, hath more to stake and lose than you Whigs who are already in disgrace with His Majesty."

"I know that very well," he answered; "but if the government fell, remember there are some who would fall with it beyond the hope of ever climbing again. One is my Lord Jefferies, another my Lord Sunderland."

She looked at him calmly.

"They are both well hated by the people," she said. "I do admit it." She leant forward in her chair. "Do you think it would be worth while for my lord to stake the great post he holdeth for the chance of safety if ..."

She hesitated, and he supplied the words.

—"if there was a revolution," he said.

"Do you talk of revolutions!" she exclaimed.

His fair face flushed.

"Listen," he answered briefly.

My lady turned her delicate head towards the window. Beyond her brocade curtains lay the dark shape of London, overhung with a glow of red that stained the summer sky. She sat silent. Mr. Sidney stood close to her, and she could hear his quick breathing; he, as she, was listening to the bells, the shouting, the crack of fireworks, now louder, now fainter, but a continuous volume of sound.

"The people—" said Mr. Sidney.

"Do they make revolutions?" she asked.

"If there is a man to guide them they do—"

"Well?"

"Before, there was Cromwell."

"And now—"

"Now there is William of Orange."

My lady rose.

"His Highness," she said quietly but firmly, "may be assured that he hath a friend, a secret friend in my lord."

Mr. Sidney looked anxiously into her eyes.

"May I rely on that?"

She smiled rather sadly.

"You, at least, can trust me."

Mr. Sidney bowed over her slender hand.

"You are a sweet friend, and a clever woman, but—"

Lady Sunderland interrupted him.

"I am sincere tonight. We see our dangers. You shall hear from me at the Hague."