matters at this Court? Have you not seen the manner in which he treats her? My daughter will always be a good daughter to me—but how I distrust her husband!”
“You are a little better now, James?”
He nodded. “The pain is subsiding. For a moment I thought this was the end of me.”
“My poor, poor James.”
“Ah, you have been a good wife to me. You have given me our dear Isabella.”
“And I shall give you sons one day, James.”
“If that hope is to be realized,” he said, smiling wryly, “I do not think we should spend another day at The Hague. If I am well enough we shall leave in the morning.”
“We cannot go back to England, James. Where can we go?”
His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Exiles!” he said. “Behold the heir of England who has no lodging but that which is grudged him. No, my dear wife, we cannot return to England and if we value our lives we cannot stay at The Hague. We will go to Brussels for a while and there await events.”
In the morning the Duke of York was sufficiently recovered for a journey. With his wife and a few friends he set out for Brussels.
To be an exile! To know that in one’s own country one was not wanted. It was enough to make the gayest of men melancholy; James was scarcely the gayest.
In Brussels he dreamed of home. Mary Beatrice did her best to console him—and herself, with the reminder that at least he was separated from some of his mistresses, but she was certain that it would not take him long to fill those vacancies. It was a pity he could not find men to support him as easily as he found women to share his bed.
Mary Beatrice loved him dearly and to her he was always tender. Like Anne Hyde she found him a good husband apart from this failing—which was, alas, the cardinal sin of marriage. He himself deplored it, but found temptation irresistible. Poor James! He could not help failing in everything he did.
Mary Beatrice longed for the company of her enchanting little daughter Isabella, the only child who had survived and had now lived three years. Such an adorable creature, a delight not only in herself but because she was a symbol that Mary Beatrice could have healthy children, a promise that one day she would have a son.
If her stepdaughter Anne could have accompanied them she would have enjoyed those days in Brussels more; and of course she saw nothing now of dear Lemon; in any case she was worried about this stepdaughter, because William was not pleasant to James and it seemed that Mary was a little cowed by him.
A not very happy state of affairs for James—with Monmouth setting himself up in opposition to his uncle, ostentatiously calling himself the Protestant Duke, William of Orange an ungracious host, and all the enemies at home! Just when Mary Beatrice was beginning to be happy and to love England all these troubles were rising round her.
“If,” she told her husband, “I could only have little Isabella with me, I could I think be more reconciled.”
James clenched his fists and cried: “Why should we endure this? Why should we be cut off from home and family? I shall write to my brother without delay. I am going to tell him that since we are to stay here we must have our children with us.”
“They may allow Isabella to come. But will they allow Anne?”
“I will promise not to contaminate my own daughter,” retorted James bitterly.
He went to his table and wrote such an impassioned appeal to his brother that in a short time news came to them that the Princesses Anne and Isabella with suitable attendants were on their way to Brussels.
The Princess of Orange was suffering so acutely from the ague that her father was summoned to her bedside at The Hague.
James went at once and there was no doubt that his presence comforted Mary. When she heard that Anne and Isabella were on their way she was delighted and her determination to get well quickly was so beneficial that in a short time she had left her bed.
But relations between the Prince of Orange and his father-in-law were as uneasy as before and James declared his intention of returning to Brussels. Mary said that when her sister and half-sister arrived they must be her guests and William made no objection.
There followed a few happy weeks.