“That is as you wish, Mynheer,” answered William. He had a voice naturally changeful and musical, but, like his eyes and his movements, it was controlled to a cold expressionlessness.
“I hope that it will also be your wish,” said M. de Witt, “when I tell you that it is of the affairs of Holland I desire to speak.”
“I am always at the disposal of Their High Mightinesses,” replied William, with the slightest inflection of sarcasm.
John de Witt made an open gesture with his fine right hand as if to sweep aside all formality and convention.
“It must not be like this between us, Highness,” he said, with great gentle sweetness. “Of late you have met me somewhat coldly. Why?”
William sat up slowly, his eyes were averted.
“I have often assured you, Mynheer,” he answered, “of my duty and affection. Have Their High Mightinesses anything to complain of?”
Again there was that faint stress on the pompous title.
M. de Witt regarded him steadily.
“I spoke for myself, Highness, thinking that the services I have rendered you, the affection I have always felt for you might have kept me some place in your esteem.”
Still the Prince would not answer the appeal in the words, even by raising his eyes.
“I have always striven,” he said, “to express my gratitude to you, Mynheer, for your constant care.”
There was a look almost of wonder on the noble face of M. de Witt, as if he could hardly credit the unmoved composure of this boy.
“I have not come, Highness, to exchange with you the language of diplomacy,” he said.
William looked up now.
“It is the only language I have had the chance to learn, Mynheer.”
John de Witt gazed at him gently and sadly.
“I have never taught you anything but frankness, Highness—I have deserved both your trust and your affection. It has been my dearest wish, my most cherished hope, that I might educate you to become my friend, my ally in the government of the United Provinces.”
The Prince made the slightest movement and again averted his eyes.
“You are no child now,” continued M. de Witt; “and must fairly well understand your position … and mine.”
“I understand both, Mynheer,” answered William.
“You have been educated as a citizen of Holland, and it is to the citizen of Holland that I have come to speak to-day.” M. de Witt paused a moment. He was slightly flushed, and his voice was full of emotion. “I have striven to make you worthy of your grandfather and of that ancestor of yours who secured us our liberty, and it is my wish to obtain for you those dignities that are the heritage of your House—all that are compatible with the safety of this Republic.”
William, still looking away, spoke slowly—
“The Republic has nothing to fear from me, Mynheer. I, surely, am of but little account in the State.”
M. de Witt was observing him very closely.
“You have the name, Highness,” he said; “you must know that. And it is a power, you must know that also. You are the heir of the family that once ruled Holland, and you are used as the rallying point of all the malcontents.”
William glanced up with a curious, intense expression.
“You speak very frankly, Mynheer.”
“I have no object to serve by dissimulation,” answered John de Witt. “I come to you single-mindedly. I can claim to have always spoken openly to you, Highness, since you first were of an age to understand these matters.”
He paused, bending his eyes on the Prince. His manner and speech were weighty. His entire thought, his entire energy seemed concentrated on what he said; as if he, the great and lofty statesman, strove by sheer force of strength of character to overwhelm, rouse, and conquer the impassive youth before him.
“Openly I spoke to you once before, Highness. When Their High Mightinesses passed the Perpetual Edict I told you that we abolished the office of the Stadtholder out of regard for the liberty of the country. I assured you of my friendship—but I told you plainly that we would risk no recurrence of 1650.”
The Prince coughed slightly and lowered his eyes.
“I remember, Mynheer, very well.”
“And now, again, I have to speak of the safety of the United Provinces, Highness.”
William answered without moving—
“What have I to do, Mynheer, with the safety of the State?”
“I will make that clear to you,” said John de Witt gravely. “I cannot tell how much you know of what this party does in your name; I refuse to believe that you encourage them——”
“Could I have been more dutiful to the State, more quiet than I have been?” interrupted William. He gave no sign of any feeling or agitation save that the wild-rose colour of delicate health had deepened in his thin cheeks.
“You have been too quiet,” answered the Grand Pensionary. “I want you to act, Highness.”
He waited a second, but the Prince did not speak.
“I am greatly troubled,” continued M. de Witt, with a stately simplicity, “by these men who strive to hinder and oppose the Government. You know their names, Count Frederick William, M. Beverningh, M. Zuylestein, M. Fagel——”
“None of these are my friends save M. Zuylestein,” returned the Prince; “and you have good cause to know, Mynheer, that I see nothing of him——”
“M. Zuylestein left your service because I doubted his loyalty to the Republic,” said John de Witt sternly; “and now he works discord in Zeeland. And for the others, whether you know it or not, they traffic in your name, Highness.”
“In what manner, Mynheer?”
“In what manner?—they meddle with France and England, they sow dissension in the town councils, in the Assembly itself; they riot in the street—I think that you must know it, Highness.… Every reasonable concession hath been made, but no reasonable concession will content them. It was agreed that the question of the Captain-Generalship, of the seat in the Council of State, should be postponed until you were of age; they agitate for these honours now—you must know this also, Highness.”
The Prince glanced at him sideways, then looked very quickly down again.
“In Zeeland, where you are premier noble, your partisans make the excuse of your titles of Ter Veere and Flushing to demand your appearance in their council now they consider you of age.” And for the third time he added—“You must know this, Highness.”
He paused impressively, and his eyes were dark and ardently commanding on the Prince.
William put his hand to his brow as if he made a mechanical movement to ease a constant pain there.
“What do you wish me to do?” he asked quietly.
M. de Witt answered at once—
“I want you to disown this party—they may act without your sanction, they cannot act in face of your disapproval—I want you as an ally, as a friend——”
“I am powerless as either, Mynheer,” returned the Prince; “and,” he suddenly turned his wonderful eyes on the Grand Pensionary, “since you designate these you speak of as my friends, to what in me do you appeal to act against them?”
There was a flash of imperiousness in his tone new to M. de Witt. It was almost the manner of a king to a subject; it gave the Grand Pensionary the bewildered sense that he, with twenty years’ experience of affairs and the management of men, was not equal to this boy whom he had seen grow up, whom he had himself educated.
“I appeal to you as a citizen of the Republic,” he said. “I have not brought you up to put yourself before your country—” he hesitated a moment before continuing, “I have always thought you of too great a nature to prefer the phantom of personal aggrandisement to the good of the Commonwealth——”
It seemed as if, on an impulse, William was about to speak, but he checked himself, and M. de Witt went on—
“Will you let yourself, Highness, be used to stir up faction in the State?—will you be an instrument in the hands of ambitious place-seekers?”
“I cannot help my birth, Mynheer,” answered the Prince, “nor prevent the people from using my name.”
He had not lowered his clear, brilliant glance, and the two pairs of eyes met across the small, firelit room. John de Witt’s met a fathomless, inscrutable look, and a horrible mistrust of this too composed youth crept into his mind—a distrust he had known before and always fought against and dismissed—
But William of Orange was the nephew of Charles of England and the cousin of Louis of France.
“I believe France meditates the destruction of the United Provinces,” De Witt said suddenly. “Colbert envies our commerce and King Louis is mad for conquest.… I do not trust England.”
The Prince, never altering his easy attitude, nor changing the level tones of his voice, nor in any way taking heed of the feeling that surged behind de Witt’s words, put his hand slowly to his breast, where, in the pocket of his black waistcoat, lay the letter wrapped in Florent Van Mander’s handkerchief.
“What has this to do with the object of your coming, Mynheer?” he asked.
The Grand Pensionary found the almost unnatural composure and control of this boy agitating him; the colour came into his face.
“France might seize any pretext,” he said. “Any pretext—if we are to stand we must be united——”
William slightly raised his fine red brows.
“So distinguished a statesman as yourself, Mynheer—will know how to meet any misfortune that threatens you.”
M. de Witt regarded him earnestly. Had he failed—had the royal breed been too powerful for all his careful training? He thought he traced in the commanding eyes and curved mouth of the Prince the arrogance, the hauteur of regal blood, not so easy to quench or overcome—had he failed?… Many had foretold he would. Had he undertaken too confidently the task of making into a staunch, loyal republican the heir of the oldest House in Europe, the son of a man who had risked all in an attempt at sovereign power and of a woman too proud to speak to a commoner.…
“You speak as if with hate of me,” he said, and there was a half sad confession of failure in the words. “But for Holland—you love Holland?”
William was leaning against the side of his chair, resting his hand on the arm of it.
“Both you and my country, Mynheer,” he replied, “have my duty and my affection; my position makes me powerless to help either.…”
M. de Witt gave him a flashing glance.
“You can serve your country, Highness, by withdrawing from all association with these noisy partisans of yours—by letting it be known that you do not desire to be regarded as the Prince of Orange, heir to an extinct office, but as a citizen of the United Provinces.”
The Prince coughed, and again put his hand to his head. The delicate colour had faded from his face, he was pale to the lips.
“You best qualify yourself for the offices that may one day be yours by quiet study and severe application,” continued M. de Witt. “Not by endeavouring to thrust yourself (upon the selfish suggestions of sordid ambition) into power for which your youth renders you unfit, and into places from which the law debars you.”
William gave one of his rare, slow smiles; it seemed to rob the Grand Pensionary’s speech of half its weight and meaning.
“My docility hath not deserved this, Mynheer,” he said. “Half the people at the Hague would not know me if they saw me, and you accuse me of endeavouring to win the suffrage of the mob——”
“No,” interrupted De Witt. “No.…”
“You accuse me,” continued William, “of selfish ambition.… I have not lifted a finger to alter my position—I have always been the humble servant of yourself, Mynheer, and Their High Mightinesses.”
“This is evasion,” said the Grand Pensionary in a mournful anger. “I came to Your Highness with an appeal—will you work with me or no?”
“I am always at your service,” answered the Prince.
It seemed that in no way could M. de Witt break through this even, immovable courtesy. His anger began to rise against a nature that could turn to him this hard reserve. He recalled his patient services, his honest attempt to win the Prince, his frankness towards the Orange party, his loyal endeavour that his young ward should not suffer for the misfortune of his House, his eagerness to establish a friendship with the Prince so that one day they might work together for the good of the land. Now it would seem all this had largely been in vain. The first time he put it to the issue he found that he dealt with intractable, unyielding, perhaps treacherous, material … treacherous—that stinging thought, not to be banished, roused him almost unbearably.
“You shut me out of your confidence, Highness,” he said. “You will neither trust me nor be frank with me.… I do not know what policy you pursue, nor whose advice you follow in refusing to treat me as what I have ever endeavoured to be—your friend.… I do not know, I say, your counsellors, but I think they advise you ill.…”
“I follow mine own counsels, Mynheer.”
John de Witt rose; the firelight cast the leaping shadow of his tall, stately figure upon the wall behind him.
“I have been very patient,”—his voice was strong, full of emotion,—“but I have the dignity of the Republic to consider … and if I thought——”
He caught himself up. The Prince raised his eyes, and their expression goaded de Witt.
“What did Buat die for?” he asked.
William answered calmly—
“For selling the secrets of Holland to France.”
“For betraying his country, Highness; and he was of the Orange party. Madame Buat is one of their most active agents now. But I have had enough of it … if you dare——”
The Prince sprang lightly to his feet.
“—If you dare, Highness,” repeated De Witt sternly, “the Republic will know how to act.”
“Mynheer de Witt,” said William in a stifled voice, “what do you mean?”
“Have you dealings with your uncle Charles Stewart? Are you secretly tampering with the agents of France?” demanded the Grand Pensionary. “There is my meaning.”
He paused. The Prince did not alter the hard quiet of his manner, though his great eyes showed a tumult of feeling.
“What right have you to ask that of me?” he demanded.
The words were a challenge, as such M. de Witt answered them.
“Your father sought foreign aid when he attempted the liberties of Holland——”
Like a sword swiftly unsheathed the Prince’s passion slipped his control—
“I will not hear of my father from you, Mynheer,” he cried. “For what he did I have paid … and for your insults——” His words were checked in a fit of coughing that shook his frail frame, he had to support himself against the back of the chair. This evidence of the ill health that decided many doctors in declaring he could not live long instantly softened the noble heart of John de Witt, touched also by the Prince’s quick anger.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I had no right—I ask your pardon, Highness.”
William sank into his chair, pulled out his handkerchief and pressed it to his lips; he still coughed a little.
“Forgive me,” he answered, quiet again, but breathing with difficulty. “I forgot myself.… I have taken so much,” he added, “I might well have taken that. But it is not often, Mynheer, that I fail to recognise your position and … mine.”
The words hurt M. de Witt.
“I would not be your master but your friend,” he said eagerly. “Trust me and I will do more for you than these ill-judged factions.…”
William looked round; his face was colourless, and he held himself as if exhausted.
“Mynheer,” he said, speaking with something of an effort, “I do not know why you think I am occupied in stirring up sedition in the State. You know how I spend every moment of my time; I have no opportunity nor—desire. I am your very good friend and the servant of Their Noble Mightinesses.… I have, obviously, no influence with the party that you speak of. As for my uncle and my cousin of France, they do not make me their confidant … not counting me, doubtless, of sufficient importance.”
John de Witt looked him in the eyes with a deep, questioning glance.
“Have I satisfied you, Mynheer?” asked the Prince courteously.
The Grand Pensionary could press no further. He was half baffled, half angered; yet he found himself remembering that this Prince, who was behaving so like a veteran diplomat, was in fact only a boy, often ill and lonely.
“I came with no suspicions,” he said. “Only to put before you, Highness, something of the state of the Republic and to ask your help——”
“If I can ever be of service I shall be glad,” answered William. He looked up, and added abruptly, “Mynheer de Witt, might Mynheer Cornelius Triglandt come back?—I would rather have him for my chaplain than any man I know.”
M. de Witt was taken by surprise, but he had his reply ready.
“M. Triglandt was removed from your person for the same reason as M. Zuylestein,” he said gently. “He hath an unruly tongue and a heart disloyal to the Republic. Their High Mightinesses could not allow his return. If you esteemed him, I am sorry.”
William was silent.
The Grand Pensionary glanced at the bronze clock on the mantelshelf.
“I have outstayed my time—I am due, Highness, at the Binnenhof.”
The Prince rose.
“Next time,” continued M. de Witt, “I will examine you in your studies. Till then I commend what I have said to your consideration.… Think of them always, Highness, as the words of a sincere friend.”
“I am grateful, Mynheer.”
The Grand Pensionary went to the door, and there hesitated.
“Believe me,” he said, looking back, “in the matter of Mynheer Triglandt I would gladly pleasure you … it is the will of the States.”
William bent his head.
John de Witt opened the door in silence and was gone.
The Prince remained by the table; a long breath escaped him and a bright look shone under his heavy lids. He cried to himself in the words used by the great Philip to his ancestor—
“Not the States, but you! you!”
Then he sank into the chair again, resting his elbow on the table and his head in his hand, while he drew from his pocket the letter given him by Florent Van Mander. He looked at the writing and the seals, then replaced it in his waistcoat.
He coughed slightly and glanced towards the door which had closed on the Grand Pensionary.
“Not the States,” he repeated, “but you, Mynheer de Witt, you!”
CHAPTER IV
M. DE WITT’S SECRETARY
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.
CHAPTER V
THE CHALLENGE
A bar of sunshine fell across the quiet room in the Binnenhof, but it did not touch John de Witt, from head to foot he was in shadow.
The French Ambassador had just left him—a duel of words, an exchange of courtesies; through the formalities one sentence of de Pomponne had leapt.
“If the Prince of Orange gave the signal for a restoration … what would rise to answer it?”
“He will never give that signal,” de Witt had answered, and he believed it.
Yet strange it was for him, First Minister of a Republic almost his creation, to reflect upon this fact—the people of that Republic clamoured for the heir of the House that had threatened to set its heel on them.
He moved half restlessly in his chair. If William were indeed working secretly to undermine him he might find his labour of twenty years gone for nothing, and live yet to see his country under foreign dominion.
He rose and went to the window. The Hall of the Knights showed its painted and pointed shutters against a faint blue sky; the trees in the courtyard of the Binnenhof were shedding their leaves, caught by the wind and whirled in eddies that rose a little way then sank again to the ground.
The sunlight fell now directly on the face of John de Witt. It revealed how grey he was growing round the temples, how weary and lined were his eyes.
He was still standing by the window when a tall soldier entered.
“Ah, M. de Montbas!” the Grand Pensionary turned. “I desired to see you about these riots in Zeeland and Groningen.”
“You wished me to go there, Mynheer, I think your letter said.”
The speaker was a sallow, sickly looking man, with lank hair and dark, unhappy eyes.
“To Groningen—yes.”
M. de Witt returned to his seat in the shadow.
“I fear that we have been too lenient,” he continued; “the Government must make some show of strength.”
“That is only wise,” answered the Count de Montbas; “and should, Mynheer, have been done before.”
“It has never been my policy to use force where persuasion might prevail,” said M. de Witt. “When one is adamant in great things one may be careless in little,—these rioters are mostly ignorant people——”
“They are encouraged by the Prince of Orange,” put in de Montbas quickly.
“There I think you are wrong,” returned the Grand Pensionary quietly. He knew that ill feeling existed between the House of Orange and M. de Montbas, whose father, an exiled Frenchman, had offered his services to the late Stadtholder only to have them refused.
M. de Montbas gave a half-nervous laugh.
“You are too confident, Mynheer.”
The Grand Pensionary ignored the remark and touched a bell upon his table.
“I will read you the report of the disturbances in Zeeland and Goeree,” he said.
It was Florent Van Mander who entered with the papers. M. de Witt bade him stay, and he went quietly to the back of the room and waited, observing, with cruel precision, the two men before him.
He had heard a good deal of M. de Montbas, one of the staunchest republicans in the army of the United Provinces, and the man whom the Grand Pensionary always put forward in opposition to the Prince of Orange as candidate for the post of Captain General, a position that he now, at least nominally, held.
Florent saw a dark, gloomy-featured man, stooping in the shoulders and awkward in bearing, yet with a certain elegance of manner; a man who talked in a nervous and disjointed fashion, and fidgeted with the tassels on his military gloves.
His black-and-silver uniform, with the embroidered baldric and heavy sword, sat badly on him. Florent found him neither attractive nor calculated to inspire confidence, and wondered at the Grand Pensionary’s choice of a general. Glancing away, he studied M. de Witt himself.
Behind the desk where the Grand Pensionary sat hung a dark yet bright picture of fruit and flowers, and against this the brown hair and pale face of John de Witt were thrown into relief.
Pale certainly, even above his white, falling collar and black dress, but of a strength not to be mistaken and a power not to be ignored.
Florent listened to the conversation between these two with an expressionless face but inward interest, for they had begun to discuss the Prince of Orange.
“He is not at the Hague to-day,” M. de Witt was saying. “M. Van Ghent is in Guelders, and His Highness wrote to me requesting permission to try some hawks and hounds sent him by the King of England—for that purpose he hath gone to Breda.”
“What quarry does he hunt at Breda?” asked M. de Montbas, and it seemed to Florent that he spoke like a man afraid.
The Grand Pensionary smiled.
“What should he hunt but herons, Mynheer?—you are too suspicious.”
“By Heaven! I would not have let him go.”
M. de Witt turned over the reports brought him by Florent.
“He hath gone, Count, nor will he return till to-night. To-morrow I will, as you urge me, again see him on the subject of these disturbances.”
“And also concerning his party in the Assembly,” added Montbas, “who hamper us at every step——”
“He has no power with them.”
“I do not know—they use his name——”
“And would do that whether he would or no——”
“And the Princess Amalia,” interrupted M. de Montbas. “Look to her—she is ever intriguing.”
“I know; yet it is to little purpose,—at heart she is afraid of us.”
“But she will serve her grandson’s cause—and by any means—if she have but the chance.”
“I might see her also,” mused M. de Witt. “I know she is timid——”
The door was opened, and M. Van Ouvenaller took a few steps into the room.
“A man hath just ridden up to the Binnenhof, Mynheer, who earnestly desires to see you,” said the secretary. “His name is Captain Van Haren, of the garrison at Vlaardingen.”
The Grand Pensionary did not know the name.
“Nay, I cannot see him now,” he answered, “his business must wait; nor should you have broken in upon us with this, Van Ouvenaller.”
“Mynheer,” answered the secretary, colouring, “this man says he bears a letter from the Prince of Orange.”
“From the Prince of Orange!” cried de Montbas, rising.
“I beseech you,” breathed John de Witt, giving him a quick look; then he turned to Van Ouvenaller, “Admit this Captain Van Haren.”
Florent felt his pulses throbbing, his blood stirring. He advanced a little farther into the room, glancing furtively from the agitated countenance of the Count de Montbas to the composed features of John de Witt.
Captain Van Haren entered, a stout and stolid soldier, muddy and wet.
“You are unknown to me, Mynheer,” said the Grand Pensionary quietly.
“I am the commander of the garrison at Vlaardingen on the Maas, Mynheer. His Highness the Prince of Orange rested there this morning—he dispatched me with this letter.”
“The Prince at Vlaardingen!” cried M. de Montbas, and rapidly flushed and rapidly paled again.
For the second time the Grand Pensionary checked him with a look, holding out his hand for the letter. Without lowering his eyes to it he spoke—
“What took the Prince to Vlaardingen?”
“He was on his way to Bergen-op-Zoom they said, Mynheer.”
“He goes to Zeeland?” questioned de Witt, and his eyes narrowed.
“I think so, Mynheer.”
A fierce exclamation broke from de Montbas, but John de Witt in silence tore the seals of the letter.
It was headed—