Queen in Waiting - Plaidy Jean. Страница 57

Even as she spoke the shouts of a Jacobite mob could be heard in the distance; but Caroline, smiling at her husband made no sign that she heard.

"At least," said the spectators, "these Germans have courage."

Caroline knew she was right to have suggested the walk in public.

As they returned to their rooms George Augustus was flushed and happy.

Z$S Queen in Waiting

"It vas good this idea of mine ... to show ourselves, eh?" Caroline was about to protest that the idea had been hers. She stopped herself in time and nodded. "An excellent idea," she agreed.

From her maids of honour Caroline learned what was going on in the streets outside the Palace. They were uneasy many of them, wondering, she knew, whether the end of the Hanoverian reign was in sight. Girls like Molly Lepel and Mary Bellenden chatted freely and in the highest of spirits. Caroline made no attempt to restrain them for she realized the importance of learning all she could.

"The Chevalier de St. George is very handsome I" sighed Mary Bellenden. "At least so IVe heard."

"A trifle melancholy, I believe," whispered her companion.

"But women love him."

"They love all Stuarts. ..."

"Different from..."

Suppressed laughter. Yes, different from the Guelphs, thought Caroline, who though none the less fond of women managed to be graceless in their manners towards them.

She called to the girls. "You speak of the Pretender," she said.

They admitted it, just a little defiantly, she thought. How many of those who now called themselves her friends, wondered Caroline, would support the Stuart if he were successful.

"I think of the battle of Oudenarde," she said.

"Oudenarde, Your Highness?"

*Yes. At this battle the Prince my husband is on the side of the English. The Pretender he fights for the French."

The girls did not answer.

"It is forgotten, you think?" asked Caroline. "I do not think so. The English are the most grateful pipples in the vorld. They do not forget their friends, I think."

"No, Your Highness," murmured Molly. "They don't forget these things."

Caroline nodded: and the girls noticed later how often she introduced Oudenarde into the conversation and the honours the Prince had won there. Others began remembering Oudenarde; and it was talked of at Court. And as what was discussed at Court spread to the streets it was soon remembered throughout the City how bravely the Prince had fought for the English at Oudenarde and that the man who now desired to be their King had fought against them.

During the vital months that followed luck proved to be on the side of the Hanoverians.

Bolingbroke, exiled from England, and therefore joining with the Stuart cause, was appalled by the character of the man who would set out to capture a kingdom. There was no fire in him; he was a pessimist through and through; and although he had made elaborate plans, first for the capture of Scotland and then that of England, his natural melancholy always overcame his belief in his success.

"The time is not yet," Bolingbroke urged him. **A rebellion now would have little hope of success."

But James, at heart feeling certain of failure, yet wanted to make the attempt. Ever since the accession to the throne of England of the Hanoverian branch of the family, messengers had been going back and forth to Scotland. The Earl of Mar assured him that the whole of the Highlands were with him; there were riots in England—and in London the Jacobites were secretly drinking his health and awaiting the signal to rise against George and acclaim James III King.

Bolingbroke continued to advise. He had recently left England; he knew the temper of the people; they were Protestant at heart; a few riots in riverside taverns did not alter that. They liked the thrill of secretly plotting against the reigning monarch but did they want a civil war? Did they want to plunge themselves into bloodshed for the sake of replacing a German by a Frenchman—for his upbringing in France had made James that in their eyes? In the place of the Maypole and the Elephant there would be James's mistresses—French, elegant and beautiful. More pleasant to look at certainly than

those German ladies, but were the English prepared to go to war for that?

James turned from Bolingbroke; he was not the man to listen to advice he did not want to take.

When Louis XIV had died they had lost their best friend, Bolingbroke pointed out.

James retorted that the French would always support him against the German, for one thing he was a Catholic and the German a Protestant. But Bolingbroke, who was unsure of the Due d'Orleans, was acting as Regent for the little Louis XV, and continued in his behef that this was not the moment to make the attempt.

Meanwhile John Erskine, Earl of Mar, a man who at the accession of George had been prepared to throw in his fortunes with that King but had not been favourably received by him, was eager to set up the standard for James in Scotland and rally the clans to his help.

Even in this fate was against the Stuart, for when Mar, with a small company of sixty men, set up the flag pole an ornament fell from the top, and the suspicious Highlanders, looking at each other gravely, declared it was an ill omen. The Stuarts were notoriously unfortunate. This poor James's father had lost a crown; even his brother, the gay and charming Charles, had had to wander in penury on the Continent of Europe for years before he attained his; and one only had to mention the name of their ill-fated father to recall how he had lost his head.

No, the Stuarts' luck had not changed; and the incident with the flagstaff was certainly an omen.

Those who had watched the moving ceremony, even as they saluted the flag when it fluttered nobly in the breeze, crossed their fingers, and wives implored their husbands to wait a wee while and not become too embroiled in the Stuart cause until the German was sent back to where he belonged.

Even so Mar marched South, and nobles and their followers joined them; and the band of sixty who had watched the planting of the flagstaff had grown to five thousand when they came marching into Perth.

Now there was alarm at the Court. Mar and his followers were preparing to march south. In London some bold men and women were actually wearing the white cockade.

Ermengarda was in despair.

"You must leave at once," she told the King. "It is unsafe for you to stay here."

But George only told her to be quiet.

"These people chop off the heads of Kings they do not want."

"Only when they can't get rid of them in any other way. They know they only have to tell me I'm to go back to Hanover and I'll go."

"Let us not wait to be sent."

"You know nothing of these matters."

"I know I fear for your safety."

George regarded her with mild affection. Dear Ermengarda! They had been together for so many years and while she loved adding to her fortunes, at the same time she had a genuine affection for him. It must be so for she could gain more by staying in England than leaving it—and she was ready to leave this country and all those new treasures which she had accumulated, for the sake of his safety.

He would never discard her; in fact he did not see her as she was now—raddled and rouged, scraggy as an old hen, her enormous red wig with its luxuriant curls slightly askew on a head that was almost bald. He saw her as the beautiful young woman she had been when he had turned to her and found her character such that he wanted in a woman.