Plaidy, Jean - Royal Sisters - The Story of the Daughters of James II

But she had changed since the days when she had been a weeping bride. She had come to love William, to think only of William’s good and William’s desires, and to make them her own.

She had wanted the perfect marriage and she assured herself she had found it. Oh, she would be ready to admit that others might not realize the worth of William. He was a great leader, a great hero; and if he was at times brusque—even uncouth—that was because he hated hypocrisy and pretence of any sort; also he suffered acutely and that everyone knew could make the temper short. William was the most wonderful man in the world; the perfect husband, and Mary would not allow herself to think otherwise.

Obediently she had hated her father when William wished her to although James had always been kind to her; sometimes now she remembered those occasions when he had taken her on his knee and made her talk to the people who came to see him on business, declaring that she understood all that was said. She had believed the evil reports she had heard of him; and when Anne and others had told her of the wicked lengths to which he was ready to go to bring Catholicism back to England—even so far as to introduce a spurious baby in a warming-pan into his 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 responsible; she must not forget the wickedness of the warming-pan incident. It was thoughts of Sedgemoor which hardened her heart; it had always been so. After that William had had little difficulty in turning her against her father. When she thought of Jemmy, holding her hand in the dance, his dark eyes aflame with … not passionate love, but could she say passionate friendship? … when she thought of that charming head being severed from that handsome body, at the command of her father, then she could hate him. James, Duke of Monmouth, the most handsome man in the world (for admirable as William was even she could not call him handsome) had come to The Hague, had danced as only he could dance, had taught her to skate … and those had been days which seemed apart from all others. But Jemmy was dead and James had killed him.

My father killed Jemmy. That was what she had to keep saying; and then a fierce anger destroyed her calmness and she knew that she would walk into the palace where her father and stepmother had recently lived and she could laugh and be gay and say to herself: He deserves his misery … for what he did to beautiful Jemmy.

“Your Highness, we should be preparing to land.”

Elizabeth Villiers stood beside her, smiling her discreet smile, those peculiar eyes, with what some called a squint, downcast.

Mary bowed her head and wondered whether when they stepped ashore William would be more aware of Elizabeth than of her. Oh, no, he would be watching his wife, making sure that her expression was what he had commanded it to be, that she gave no sign of uneasiness because she was coming to take her father’s crown. Matters of state would come before any mistress.

But Elizabeth was there and Mary believed in that moment that she always would be. Why? she asked herself passionately. What can she give that I cannot? But who could probe the strange powers of attraction?

A crowd was gathered at the landing stairs, but William was not among them. That was characteristic. He could make no gracious gestures. He would wait and receive her formally at the Palace of Whitehall, to remind her perhaps that although she was the Queen of England, he was the King.

Elizabeth had slipped the cloak from her shoulders and handed it to a page; it seemed to weigh the boy down so voluminous was it with its hanging sleeves and its vivid orange color. The people wanted to see her and she was a handsome sight, for she would have been a very beautiful woman had she not grown so fat. She removed her hood that they might see her face and she stood, tall, stately, and smiling. Her bodice, low cut partly exposing a magnificent bosom, was draped with fine muslin looped with pearls; beneath her purple velvet gown was an orange petticoat which, as she lifted her skirts, showed its flamboyantly symbolic color. Her dark hair was piled high and adorned with agraffes of pearls and ribbons in the same color as the petticoat. She was a magnificent sight: a queen in her glory. Those watching thought: She will be decorative enough to make up for dull William.