Chapter IX: Amalia of Solms

Her Highness the Dowager Princess of Orange coloured with pleasure, hastily put aside the letter she was writing, and went down to the chamber where, as she had just been told, her grandson awaited her.

It was a pouring wet day, and she had not been able to leave her elegant little residence to go into the garden which was, even at this time of the year, her delight. This had added to the weariness and monotony of her ordinary quiet life, and made the rare favour of a voluntary visit from the Prince, the only member of her family left her, and the person that she held dearest in the world, the more grateful.

The Princess was still comely, vivacious, and bright as when Prince Frederick Henry had married her, forty years ago. She was dressed with a richness and surrounded with a comfort that her straitened means made a marvel. To prevent economy from becoming meanness, and to keep luxury this side of extravagance, were her constant, almost her only, employments.

She opened the door softly and gazed at the Prince before he saw her.

The room looked on the front of the house, and was sumptuously furnished, with Persian carpets, Chinese cabinets, porcelain ornaments, carved settees and chairs, gilt and richly cushioned with stamped leather and satin.

Near the dark red silk window-curtains hung a brightly coloured parrot in an ebony ring, in front of the fire slept a white cat, on a chair near were a tambour frame and a basket of silks.

There was only one picture, a half-length portrait of William II., in armour, holding his helmet; this hung above the mantelpiece.

Cut deep into the heavy oak frame showed the motto of the house of Nassau.--

“Je sera Nassau, moi, je maintaindrai.”

Standing by the delicate-hued harpsichord that filled one corner of the room, the Prince waited. He held his whip in his hand and was frowning thoughtfully.

The Princess stepped into the chamber and closed the door with a little sound that made him turn.

“Ah, Madame, I disturb you----”

“Disturb me!” she interrupted, smiling, “it is good of you to come and see a lonely old woman.”

He came forward and would have saluted her hand, but she caught him by the shoulders and kissed him on the brow--a caress he did her the honour of enduring in silence.

“How cold you are!” she exclaimed. “Have you ridden here in this rain?”

It had been pouring all day; the question seemed to William too foolish to answer.

“And on horseback!” cried the Princess, catching sight of his whip, and wet mantle over a chair.

“You know I cannot endure a carriage, Madame.”

The Princess rang the little silver bell on her work-table.

“It is very imprudent, my dear--allow old age its liberty in saying so--you need a woman to look after you. These men would let you kill yourself and never notice it. Come to the fire,” she finished, with a pretty air of command.

William obeyed, coughing a little, which caused her to raise still further her brows and shake her head.

A servant made his appearance.

“Remove His Highness’ mantle and dry it--and--whom have you brought with you, William?”

“Mr. Bromley and a groom.”

“See His Highness’ gentleman is made comfortable, and let the horses be looked to,” said the Princess.

The man bowed low as he withdrew. The subtle air of a Court still clung round Amalia of Solms; in her own house, at least, she was treated as a sovereign Princess. William respected her for that. He found the atmosphere of her pleasant residence congenial; it was the nearest approach to home that he had ever known, and, compared with his dreary Palace at the Hague, ease, luxury, and comfort combined.

The Princess settled herself in her chair.

“I have not seen you since your visit to Middelburg. Come nearer the fire; sit down and tell me all that happened.”

She was a handsome old lady; had been of the pretty, imperious style of beauty, dark and flashing. As she leant back on her cushions now, in her yellow silk gown, with her brown eyes under her white hair and the fine lace round her head and fastened under her chin, she was a beauty still.

“You know what occurred at Middelburg, Madame,” answered William, not very warmly.

“I have had reports--letters from Mr. Bromley, to whom I am eternally grateful!--but from you nothing!”

William leant on the arm of his chair, coughed, and pushed back his curls.

His expression told the Princess that he was displeased with her. She had half expected it. Certainly she had helped concoct her grandson’s journey to Middelburg, but she had immediately thereafter been frightened and had allowed herself easily to be won by M. de Witt again to prudence--and William knew it.

Unfurling a black and glittering fan, she held it between her face and the fire, while she gave her grandson an anxious glance.

“You are angry with me, William,” she said plaintively. “You only came to see me because you wanted to scold me.”

The Prince still looked into the fire.

“Ah, me,” sighed Amalia of Solms, “I can never please you. You have no more devoted friend than I, and you do not repay me with the least regard or affection.”

The Prince answered now, in his soft voice and slow utterance--

“These reproaches, Madame, are foolish--it is I who have the grievance. Had you stood firm once I found myself in Middelburg I should find myself in a different position now.”

The Princess sat up with a helpless, appealing gesture, clasping her white hands over her heart.

“I did all I could--I solemnly notified to the Assembly that I had declared you of age--I wrote to Prince John Maurice begging him to join you----”

“He had not the courage to respond further than Bergen-op-Zoom,” interrupted William dryly.

“I know--it was not my fault--I thought that he would be a valuable ally for you----”

Again the Prince broke in--

“I think of M. de Witt, Madame--he came to you?”

“The moment he learned you were at Middelburg,” answered the Princess, with a shiver.

“What to find out or say?”

“I do not know,” the fan fluttered nervously. “It was dreadful----”

“And you were frightened--you made concessions.”

“Not one, my dear, not one!”

“M. de Witt warned you we were going too far.” William turned on her his masterful eyes.

“He was angry, of course,” said the Princess evasively.

“He told you my action had imperilled those favours already promised me--in a word, he threatened you.”

“Maybe he did--he was certainly angry,” repeated the Princess.

“And you gave way, Madame.”

“Not an inch!”

William smiled rather bitterly.

“I wish I could believe it----”

“Indeed, it is the truth.”

“It is the truth, Madame,” asserted the Prince impatiently, “that M. de Witt frightened you into losing all the ground we had gained. Of what use to me are a few plaudits in Middelburg if I lose the seat in the Council of State and the Captain Generalship?”

“You must not blame me for that,” protested the Princess. “I could not defy M. de Witt, who is, after all, our master.”

“You could have evaded him,” said William. “But no, you must meet him half-way; and, after declaring me of age, render us both foolish by waiving all discussion as to my future until I am twenty-two, the age the State appointed from the first … M. de Witt promises his friendship in four years time--and for that you retract everything----”

“Indeed no----”

But the Prince swept aside her protestations.

“You gave your consent to my remaining under the guardianship of M. de Witt, just as you put my education into the hands of the States, when they made overtures to you.”

“You have never forgiven it,” sighed Amalia of Solms, “but it was always for your good that I acted. The States took you under their protection … I could do nothing for you.”

William fixed his intense gaze on her.

“I would rather have been brought up by any poor pastor at a florin a week than by M. de Witt. You delivered me into a prison, Madame; and now, when I force the gates open, you close them on me again.”

The Princess furled her fan with a rattle of the ebony sticks.

“Indeed you wrong me--and hurt me, William.” She was flushed, distressed. “I did not dare offend M. de Witt--for your sake--it is better for you to have him as a friend than as an enemy. Where do we stand if he turns on us? The States----”

The Prince rose and leant against the mantelpiece, silencing the old lady with the manifest displeasure in his manner.

“Do not talk of the States, Madame, nor of the Republic,” he said, with a disdainful accent; “the first are not in my way, and the second is only a name. It is M. de Witt--always and only M. de Witt.”

“He is but a servant of the Government----”

“He _is_ the Government,” retorted William, “and the one man who upholds it. Has he the suffrage of the country?--or even of the Assembly?--but they agree with him and obey him because they are not strong enough to resist. I tell you, Madame, it is that one man.”

“You dislike him,” sighed the Princess, as if she found it a matter for regret.

“Dislike him!” repeated William, with a peculiar intonation. “He hath kept me out of my birthright all my life; he, and he alone, prevents me from regaining it now. He--a burgher’s son!”

The passion he put into these last words startled his grandmother. She gazed at him mutely, opening and shutting her fan in her lap.

The Prince advanced across the room, twisting his handkerchief in his fingers.

“It becomes almost more than I can endure,” he said, breathing hard. “The other day I had to bring myself to speak him fair, and he must put his hand on my shoulder--and say he pitied me--and understood--understood--me!”

“He is a good man,” said the Princess, “and of a noble intelligence. I think that he desires to do his duty by you.”

The Prince was looking, not at her, but at the portrait of his father, whose dark eyes seemed to hold a melancholy yet fiery expression.

“I think M. de Witt does his duty very well,” he answered, “but I am not a republican to second him in it. By what right does he think to bend me into a tool to aid him in his usurped dominion?”

The Princess’ eyes followed her grandson’s gaze.

“It was this spirit in your father cost our House its heritage,” she said, half fearfully.

“It was M. de Witt!” William’s eyes gleamed fiercely, “His plebeian insolence!… It becomes very difficult for me to contain myself.… My father had _his_ father jailed--into Loevenstein; I would I had _him_ there--and his stiff brother too----”

Amalia of Solms made a startled movement.

“Hush! we must wait before we can speak in such fashion.”

“I have been waiting all my life,” returned William bitterly.

“You are young enough, you can afford to bide your time.”

The Prince gave her a strange, half sad look.

“Can I so afford to wait, Madame? There is very much for me to do … perhaps not many years in which to do it.”

“What do you mean?” cried the Princess, frightened.

“Why, it is of no matter,” he answered, as if he already regretted having said so much, and he turned away abruptly and looked out of the window at the rain, the grey sky, and the dripping trees.

Amalia of Solms watched him, the old fear catching at her heart.

She had been told that it would be a miracle if he grew to manhood, as she had been assured that he would never survive his infancy. She trusted one prediction would prove as false as the other, but as she considered his frail appearance, his eyes shadowed with pain, his colourless face, his languid movements; as she recalled his incessant cough, his perpetual headaches, the horrible conviction struck her that it was impossible for him to live long. She had a vague, disquieting sense, too, of some vast, ambitious, and proud spirit contained in the delicate body. Her grandson had never made a confidant of her, but she felt he cherished designs of she knew not what magnitude, and she was troubled for the loneliness he would not allow her to share.

The tears came to her eyes as she looked at him.

He stood leaning against the window frame, one hand on his hip, his proud and commanding profile towards her; the low brow shaded by the dark hair, the pale mouth firmly set. He wore his green velvet riding-dress and a plain cravat of Frisian needlework. He had no sword, for M. de Witt held that none save a soldier should go armed.

There was recalled to the Princess Amalia the image of another young man as she had seen him in his hunting dress, eighteen years ago, the last Stadtholder, not much older than his son was now, like him in features and in pride, on the eve, he believed, of absolute power.

The Princess could remember how he had bent his whip in his hand and spoken of “these presumptuous burghers!”

A week afterwards he lay dead of the smallpox in Guelders, and the triumphant States were casting a medal to celebrate their deliverance; representing the Stadtholder as Phæton, with the motto: “_Magnis excidit ausis_.”

“By his great designs he destroyed himself.”

The Princess repeated the words to herself with a shiver, and the tears ran down her cheeks.

The parrot, turning himself in his ring, suddenly gave a loud and hoarse cry, as if tired of the silence.

William glanced up at him, then round at the Princess, who was hastily drying her eyes.

“I must be returning,” he said.

“So soon?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Such a little while, and we have talked nothing but politics--will you not stay to dinner?”

“Madame, I cannot--I am forbidden to be long abroad without M. Van Ghent,” answered William sombrely. “And since I do not choose to ask a favour or incur the suspicions of M. de Witt I am as restricted as a prisoner.”

The Princess rose, raising moist and appealing eyes.

“You only came to tell me I had angered you!” she complained.

“I came to discover what M. de Witt had said, Madame. I do not blame you; there is no use in thinking of it any more, only, I entreat you, do not see him again.”

“Since he is more than a match for me?” sighed the Princess. “Ah, you know a great deal for your age.”

She was a gracious and charming lady, she adored him, and she was his father’s mother, but she had delivered his town of Orange to the French and she had delivered him to the States General. William could not forgive these things. He had against her, also, her quarrels with the proud young mother he had worshipped, and her constant coquettings with the republican party. But he constrained himself to forbear with her now, endured her anxieties over his health, promised to write to her and send Mr. Bromley with messages; even took her caresses, let her fold her perfumed arms about him and again kiss his forehead.

She went to the window and watched him ride off through the rain; Mr. Bromley, blonde and fresh-faced, waving his hat to her. She had been told that Oliver Cromwell had said: “This William, son of the late King’s daughter, will, if he lives, be heard of.”

The words occurred to her now, with a mingling of pride and pain. She also was often lonely.

M. Simon Simonides, one of the clergy who made the pulpit the platform of opposition to the Government of John de Witt, arrived at the “Huis ten bosch” almost before the Prince had ridden out of sight under the dripping trees. He was a favourite with the Princess. Amalia of Solms, who was always served on gold plate, and the Calvinist pastor who lived on a hundred gulden a year, had much in common. She greeted him warmly, telling him that her grandson had just left.

“I would I had met him, Your Highness,” answered the pastor, deeply disappointed.

“You do not know him, of course,” she remarked.

“I know of him, Madame. M. Triglandt, at present exiled in Utrecht, hath spoken to me of him.” The old man’s countenance flushed. “I have seen His Highness’ letters, I have seen his face in church. I know him a prince in a thousand; a nature as strong, as deep, as constant as any the Lord God ever made.”