Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughter Page 0,51

wife’s bed—she was ready to believe that too. She knew that Elizabeth Villiers was William’s mistress and she tried not to believe that. Elizabeth was with her now and she was wondering whether his friendship with her would continue when they were in England.

What pleasure it would give her if she could go back to the quiet life in the Palace in the Wood, at Loo and Honselaarsdijk where William had built and planned gardens. She could visualize such a delightful existence. Planning gardens with William, listening respectfully while he talked of state affairs, playing cards in the evening or dancing. Oh, how she loved to dance, but of course there had been little dancing in Holland. Perhaps in London … but William would not want a gay court. That would be too reminiscent of her Uncles Charles and William. Never were two men less alike.

Mary would see her old friend Frances Apsley. “Aurelia” as she had called her, and “dear husband.” A foolish fantasy, but the love between them had been painfully passionate and Mary had continued to think of herself as wife to Frances even after the marriage to William. There must be no return of that when she reached England. There was no room in Mary’s life but to be a dutiful wife to one person—and that person was her own dear husband William.

She frowned thinking of Anne’s friendship with Sarah Churchill, Unwise! she thought. And I do not believe Sarah Churchill to be the best friend Anne could have.

Perhaps when they were together again she would break that dominance. Anne was like herself in that she found pleasure in these passionate friendships with her own sex. She, Mary, had grown out of that habit which was not only foolish but dangerous. Perhaps when she reached England she would not see a great deal of Frances. Now that she had such a perfect husband she had no need and no desire to have women friends and had in fact, though she would not admit that this was to protect herself, rigidly refrained from making them.

The land was in sight and she must compose herself. This was going to be one of the most difficult periods of her life. It was no normal homecoming. She was returning to England because her husband had driven her father away. She had not told William, but she had long been praying in Holland that there might be a reconciliation between her father and husband. Mary hated conflict of any sort. She knew so well what she wanted and that was to be on good terms with those about her; to chat incessantly—not of great matters, but of cards and dancing and gardens and fine needlework, although her eyes were too weak nowadays to indulge in the latter. She wanted to hear laughter about her; and although she was devout and her religion, the Protestant religion, was one of the two great passions in her life—the other being her husband—that did not mean that she did not like to be gay.

But William had frowned on levity, although now she had her special instructions not to be melancholy on arrival. He knew that she had felt melancholy when she contemplated the fate of her father; this, he had warned her, must not be shown to the English. They must not have the impression that she came among them as a penitent. She must show no grief for her father’s downfall, which he so richly deserved. She must smile and appear happy to be with them. Graciously she must accept the crown; he wanted smiles from her when she landed in England.

How strange! So often in Holland she had been forced to curb her levity; now she must feign gaiety, for the truth was that the nearer she came to England the less gay she felt. She could not get out of her mind the memory of childhood days, of her father’s coming into the nursery and picking her up, calling her his dearest daughter. She could not stop thinking of her beautiful Italian stepmother who had shown her nothing but kindness, and had laughingly called her her “Dear Lemon” because she was married to the Prince of Orange.

Instead of this she must remember her father’s follies, his promiscuity, his disgraceful rule when he had ousted Protestants from the principal posts and tried to replace them with Catholics, his cruelty after Sedgemoor, for although Jeffreys was blamed James was the King and therefore mainly