Chapter IX: Montigny's Wife

Count Hoogstraaten and the Baron Montigny were playing tennis in the pleasant courts of the Prince's palace gardens.

May was now fully in bloom, and at midday the sun was warm; the trees, newly covered with glossy leaves, cast a pleasant shade over the smooth lawns.

At the foot of one, a splendid beech, Montigny's wife sat on silk cushions and rugs, and resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee, looked, with a certain wistfulness, at the figure of her husband as he moved lightly to and fro after the ball.

Leaning against the tree was the Prince of Orange, and close by, on a seat shaded by a high box hedge, sat Anne, attended by Rénèe and the little German girl.

Already utterly forgetful that she was there to entertain the young bride, Anne was dozing in the sun, her head falling forward in an ugly fashion.

The Prince took no notice of her, did not even glance in her direction; he was talking earnestly with Hélène d'Espinoy, the Baroness Montigny.

This lady, though her marriage festivities had but just concluded, and she seemed a creature made for joy and carelessness, followed with an interest almost pathetic the great and terrible events in which her husband moved.

She was talking now of the field-preachings and camp-meetings which had spread with irresistible force all over the country—the answer of the heretics to the decrees of the Council of Trent.

"It is a wonderful thing, is it not, Prince," she said in her soft voice, that seemed only fitted to sing to a lute, "that people will do this for their faith? The penalty is death alike to all; yet they go, men, women, and children—risking death and torture, to stand in the fields to hear some unfrocked monk preach! Is it the Devil makes them so strong?"

"You might rather call it God," said William, looking down at her.

She lifted her face now—a delicate, rather sad face, with beautiful eyes. She fingered her ruff and eased it where it pressed against her cheek, and sighed.

"You seem dismayed, Madame," said the Prince gently.

"Yes," she answered at once. "Because my lord goes to Spain."

"He has resolved on that, then, finally?" asked William quickly.

"Yes—he and Marquis Berghen go this month." She tried to smile. "Is it not hard? I have had him so short a time."

"He might refuse to go," answered the Prince, with some eagerness.

"He is reluctant, but he has accepted," said the lady, and again her glance turned towards the tennis court. "But I," she added suddenly, "I dread that he should go to Madrid!"

"You must not fancy disaster, Madame," returned William.

"I am not foolish," she quickly defended herself. "But I know he has offended the King by refusing to enforce the Inquisition in his provinces——"

"Ah, as to that, console yourself," said the Prince. "Philip has a long arm—your husband will be as safe in Madrid as his brother is here, Madame."

"You mean neither are safe?" she asked swiftly. "But there is special danger in Spain—ah, it is to walk into the lion's mouth for a Netherlander to go to Madrid! Count Egmont will not go again."

"That will not save him if he has incurred Spanish wrath," remarked William, with a sigh.

Montigny's wife rose with an agitated movement.

"What will happen?" she asked. "_He_ will tell me nothing—Your Highness will be kinder, and tell me what will happen?"

She stood like a child before him, with her childish request on her lips and her little hands clasped on her white silk bodice.

"If I could tell!" smiled the Prince. "All is a confusion: the Regent is bewildered; she has no power to enforce her authority—the King is silent."

He did not add that he knew what was behind the King's silence: that Philip was slowly and elaborately preparing the most exact and far-reaching punishment for those who had opposed his policy in the Netherlands, and that the Duke of Alva, with an army at his back, was soon to take the place of the overwhelmed and uneasy Margaret.

To change the lady's thoughts, he reverted again to the field-preachings, to the courage of these men, who with their swords at their side went out to hear a man with a price on his head preach Jesus Christ.

Sometimes they met in barns or houses, but more often in the open fields, outside the city walls, where preaching was forbidden.

They went in hundreds, in thousands, so that sometimes the city would be empty and the hymns of Clement Marot would rise as fearlessly as if there was no Inquisition waiting for them with faggot and chain, sword and axe.

William spoke warmly and with a lively sympathy.

"The mind and the soul are not in the keeping of king nor priest—no man has a lordship over another man's conscience," he said. "All history has proved that."

Hélène d'Espinoy had never thought of this. She was sorry for all these people who had to die, so sorry she did not care to dwell on the thought, but questions of ethics were unknown to her; she only wanted peace, and her own happiness secure in a happy world.

She looked at the garden, so fresh and lovely; at the sky, so serene and soft; at the two young nobles laughing over their game; at her own luxurious apparel—and she wished, in a sad and simple way, that these things could endure and that nothing would ever come to disturb them.

"Ah, Seigneur," she said, "why cannot all men believe in the one true God?"

"Each man's God is one and true to him, Madame. The weaver of Tournay burnt to death over a slow fire for casting the wafer out of the priest's hand found his God as true as Philip finds his—for to the last he called on Him and even smiled. I wonder," added the Prince thoughtfully, "if Philip in torment would find support in his faith!"

"It is all terrible," answered Hélène d'Espinoy in a shaken voice, "and these people have power—they will fight, they will resist. It will not be so easy to subdue them."

"Easy enough for Alva," thought William. "The Duchess is only helpless because she is without money and without men."

"Easy to subdue," he repeated aloud; and went on to tell Madame Montigny of the camp-meetings at Tournay, where the Reformers were six to one against the Catholics, and when the Regent sent orders to the trained bands to arrest the worshippers, it was found that all of them—the crossbowmen of St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the sword-players of St. Christopher—were themselves heretics, who eagerly attended the preaching of Ambrose Wille, the famous disciple of John Calvin, and new come from Geneva.

"Since they are so much in earnest, these people," said Montigny's wife, "might not His Majesty allow them their faith and their preaching?"

"His Majesty will no more ever allow the preaching than the people will ever give it up; and there is the great tragedy—these few poor people and the greatest king in the world!"

Montigny now left the tennis court and came towards the two under the shadow of the beech tree.

His face, which had the dark colouring, the look of reserve and strength of his brother, Count Hoorne, but none of that nobleman's joyless gravity, flushed with a look of love as he glanced at his wife. It was to the Prince he spoke.

"Tennis is a childish sport for these open days of spring—we should be trying hound and falcons in the open campaign."

He put his arm lovingly round the Prince's shoulder and drew him aside. Hoogstraaten, the intimate friend of both, followed them.

Hélène d'Espinoy glanced round for the Princess, and Rénèe, with the watchfulness of one in charge of a puppet whose strings must be pulled at a given signal, touched her mistress on the shoulder and roused her attention.

As soon as the three young men were out of hearing of the women, Montigny left talk of hounds and falcons to speak at once of the state of things in his Stadtholdership and of the immense increase of the daring and power of the heretics. It was indeed a subject which no man, from the humblest to the highest, could long keep from his mind and lips.

Montigny was inclined to think that the Netherlanders had successfully asserted themselves; they had proved that they were too numerous to be stopped by force from exercising what religion they chose, and too courageous to be frightened by threats and punishment into abandoning their faith, and persecution for the moment had slackened. Brederode's party, "the beggars," were strong and much to the front; their Petition or Request was now before Philip. That monarch was silent—might he not be considering it reasonably?

Thus Montigny, who shared the stubborn loyalty of his brother Hoorne and the credulous optimism of Lamoral Egmont.

William saw the other side of the picture: he knew that the famous Petition and the long deliberations which had followed had only resulted in the "moderation" decree, which the people instantly named "murderation," since the only concession it made was to sometimes substitute hanging for a more horrible means of death; and this was without Philip's sanction, and only flung as a sop to the people by Margaret while she waited for her brother's instructions.

The Prince saw too that the persecutions had only slackened because the Regent found herself without men or money, and that, whenever possible, the heretic preachers were hunted down like wild beasts. Brederode might rejoice, Montigny might be hopeful, but William of Orange saw that the present lull was but the prelude to a more awful vengeance on those who disobeyed Philip than any that had yet befallen.

He knew that the Regent's attitude of moderation, her affected kindness to the nobles, her loud-voiced desire for concord and peace, was but a farce, and that probably in her secret letters she was denouncing all of them to Philip.

These things William did not say to Montigny, he had warned him so often; but he suddenly stopped in the middle of the flower garden and said earnestly—

"Do not go to Spain—it is so useless."

"You too?" cried Montigny. "All warn me—but how refuse? I have a conscience clear of disloyalty."

"That will not help you in the Escorial," said William, with some impatience.

"I have not offended His Majesty," persisted the Stadtholder of Tournay and Tournaisis.

"Ah, Baron!" cried Hoogstraaten, "you offended all Spain when you refused to burn the poor heretics!"

"I detest and spurn the Inquisition," answered Montigny warmly. "I go to Madrid to protest against it—but never, Count, have I done anything to anger Church or King."

"That is known only to Philip and to Granvelle!" said William, looking down at the bed of flowers at his feet. "Do not go—it is so useless!"

"Count Egmont failed," urged Hoogstraaten.

"I shall not be so easily caressed," returned Montigny.

"The worse for you," answered the Prince. "Those the Spanish cannot fool they will win another way. And your going is for nothing. If Philip will pay no heed to what the Regent writes, will he pay heed to what you and Berghen say? Did he pay heed to you before? Does he heed any argument?"

"I am not hopeful," admitted Montigny, with a slight sadness in his voice. "But I have been chosen, and I cannot, without disloyalty, refuse."

The Prince still stood looking down at the flowers which were gently waving their soft heavy heads together.

"Do not go," he said for the third time. "Let another man take this mission. You are young, you are just wed——"

"Give me words of good omen!" cried Montigny, with a laugh and a frown.

"Good omen!" said William firmly. "I find no words of good omen in my heart. Yet"—he sought for the same consolation which he had given Hélène d'Espinoy—"it is true that Philip can reach one here as easily as in Madrid——"

They turned now towards the house, to which the women had already gone; and presently the Montignys took their leave, he being due at his last audience with the Regent.

Hoogstraaten lingered a little after him to question the Prince anxiously.

"He is infatuate—do you think he goes into great danger?"

"I think neither he nor Berghen will return," answered William. "And I am sorry for that poor child, his wife—sorry beyond words."

He turned away quickly, then turned back again and caught Count Hoogstraaten warmly by the hand.

"_You_ will not leave me, Antony?"

"I am your poor servant always," replied the Count, with great affection; "content to be guided by you, and you alone, in all these troubles."

Then he too left. William watched his little, gallant figure ride away, and then returned to the antechamber where he had parted from Montigny and his wife.

There sat Anne in the same listless attitude in which he had left her, with her elbows propped on a table covered with a rich tapestry and her face sunk in her small, large-veined hands.

And behind her, as always, was Rénèe, motionless, like her shadow.

It was usual for the Prince to pass his wife in silence when he thus met her by chance, but now, though with an obvious effort, he came across the room.

"Madame," he said; then, "Anne."

She looked up; her sallow face flushed and she glanced down again, spreading out her hands on her skirt.

Rénèe turned to go, but the Prince said, "Stay." He stood looking at his wife in a silence that held no judgment; he gazed at her rather as if he sought to throw the protection of tenderness over her sickly unloveliness, her miserable melancholy. Always in the Prince's attitude towards his wife there had been this gentleness, which was at once gallant and touching.

"Anne, I have been wishing to speak to you."

She made no response.

"You always disliked Brussels, did you not, Madame?" he added.

"Why do you ask that?" she demanded, with instant suspicion.

"Because I find it necessary that you should go to my house at Breda," he answered kindly. "There is no need for me to keep open this mansion—few of us live in Brussels now; and when I must come, I can lodge more simply. At Breda you will be safer than here."

"Ah, this is your economy, your retrenchment!" exclaimed Anne bitterly. "Do you not think I see how miserable this establishment has become? Half the servants we had formerly, and those with worn liveries; the stables half empty, the gardens neglected, and nothing increasing but debts!"

The Princess exaggerated, but there was truth in what she said—as Rénèe knew, and as it gave her a strange pang to know.

But William answered lightly—

"I am not as rich a man as I was, Anne, and shall be, likely enough, poorer before the tale is told. But if I do not spend what I did, it is not through niggardliness, but because I may need money for other purposes than that of magnificence. You shall be well enough at Breda."

"Not the Devil and all his legions shall drag me to Breda!" answered Anne, with great violence.

"Nay, but your husband will," answered William, smiling.

His good-nature, that arose from neither weakness nor indifference, but from a warm compassion and a deep sympathy for others, never failed him; not once had Rénèe seen him angry or rude to man or animal, and towards women he was always softly gentle.

Anne seemed to recognize this quality in him; to realize that all her fret and fury might be expended in vain against his serenity. She rose and without another word or look left him.

The Prince turned to Rénèe as she was following her mistress.

"You are very faithful," he said, "and I know that you have no easy service."

In these words, in his voice and his face, she read the bitterness of his sorrow and humiliation in his wife. She noticed how tired he looked, how plain, even careless, was his dress. He was already much changed from the splendid cavalier who had mounted the stairs to greet his bride that St. Bartholomew's Day in Leipsic.

"It is my one pleasure to serve," she answered; "there is no other interest in my life."

He looked curiously at her warm beauty, on which her words seemed such a strange commentary.

"I may be called to Antwerp, where there is great trouble," he said; "in my absence speak to the Princess anent Breda—for there she must truly go, shortly."

He looked away out of the window as if he had already forgotten the waiting-woman, and Rénèe silently withdrew.