QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD
The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he
hit?"
"He has it in the body and he suffers."
The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you
see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce."
"You can do me no harm, sir. God knows if I can do you any good."
The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my
own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me."
"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we
are going now?"
"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and
die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way."
"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined
up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?"
The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that
he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy.
"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me,
where is this damned palace?"
"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please."
So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the
trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you
know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the
disinherited king.
"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies
watching for you."
"And I believe I have not thanked you."
It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to
the family of Boyce."
"I shall not forget."
"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father."
"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too
proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself."
Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he
was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy
lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the
Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he
would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for
any other in the world.
Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on
the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham,
sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not
by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden
wall upon the London side.
There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a
"Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to God nothing has
fallen out amiss?"
"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends
are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here."
Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I
feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady
much troubled for her. By God, we have left it late. And the ministers
must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We
must be swift and downright with the Council."
Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to
face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was
to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she
presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good
plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the
will to make it work.
Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy
stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a
hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As
they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation
and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham
plunged after them and wildly waved them on.
"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled.
"Oh God, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard
now," and he muttered to himself.
"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go
before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on.
Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company
below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare
nobility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no
forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach,
the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in
disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were
staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had
betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder
Lord Masham was uneasy for his head.
They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham,
brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in
a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I
believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard
another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words,
like a baby's cry or an animal's.
Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim
splendour, and as they passed the door Harry made out what that feeble
voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep
the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew
why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if
they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled.
A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire
sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was
not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid
mass. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed.
Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it
change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and
it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he
looked there came to him a sense of death.
Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich
stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her
neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings.
There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with
something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the
Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded
imperiously at Masham.
"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried.
The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and
shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be
loud," she complained.
"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it
is Prince James."
The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?"
he said heavily.
The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said,
and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like
King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why
does he come? The Council is waiting."
"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said.
"What does he say, Abbie?" the Queen turned to Lady Masham and took her
hand and fondled it feebly. "I am alone. There is none left to me. My boy
is dead. My babies--I am alone. I am alone."
"I am your brother and your King," the Pretender cried.
She fell back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble
came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to
shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a
while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap,
tap of her hand beat through the room.
Lady Masham took command. "Nay, sir, leave her. You can do no more now.
Let her be. I will handle her if I can." She rustled across the room
and struck a bell. "Masham, bring Dr. Arbuthnot. He irks her less than
the rest."
Harry followed the Pretender into the outer room, shambling
awkwardly. The progress from failure to failure dazed him. He recalled
afterwards, as many petty matters of this time stayed vivid in his
memory, a preposterous blunder into a chair. The Pretender sat down
and stretched at his ease. "We are too late, I think," he said coldly.
"It is the genius of my family." He took snuff. "You may go, if you
will, Mr. Boyce."
Harry looked up and struggled to collect himself. "Not till you are in
safety," he said, and was dully aware of some discomfort. The dying
woman, the sheer ugliness of death, the sordid emotions about her numbed
the life in him. He felt himself in a world inhuman. Yet, even
afterwards, he seems not to have discovered anything ignoble in his
admired Pretender. The blame was fate's that mocked coldly at the hopes
and affections of men.
"I am obliged, sir," said the Pretender, and so they waited together....
After a little while of gloomy silence in that bare room, Masham broke
in, beckoning and muttering: "Sir, sir, the Queen is dead."
The Pretender stood up. "_Enfin_" said he, with a shrug.