"Am I to be ruined for a parcel of heretics? Curse the day of my birth, curse my marriage day!"
CHAPTER VII
THE PETITION
The third day of April, which dawned over Brussels fair as refined silver, found Rénèe at her post, leaning from her narrow window, its harsh stone frame serving as a sombre setting for her face, so unconsciously beautiful and so sadly serene.
She saw the Prince ride away with his gentlemen; the long green cloak in which he was wrapped could not quite conceal the glitter of the Order of the Golden Fleece flaming on his breast.
Rénèe knew that he was going to attend the Regent in Council, for this was the day that the Confederates or Covenanters, as they were severally named, were to present their Petition to Madame Parma; and to-day, instead of going downstairs to her duties beside Anne, Rénèe put on a hood and cloak of black cloth over her white linen whimple and her dark yellow gown, and went from the palace and out through the great gates into the street.
She allowed herself this much advantage from the secret hold she had over Anne—this one day's holiday; the night before she had told her mistress of her intention, and Anne had said nothing.
It was strange to be in the streets after the long confinement in the palace and the palace gardens; it was strange to be one of the people, amidst the ordinary life of a great city, after having been so long merely part of the machinery of a princely establishment.
Rénèe received a sense of energy, of hope, of courage in thus finding herself free and one of the crowd. She wished she could learn some trade or art by which she could earn her own living; but she was too old to be taken as an apprentice, and even were she not, she had not sufficient money to keep herself while she acquired it, nor one friend or relation to whom she could appeal to help her.
No, there was no means of life open to Rénèe but the one she was following, especially in these times of ruin and panic, when so many people were out of work, and those who had money were clutching it tight.
But she was not one to be daunted even by hopeless difficulties; she asked so little of life, cared so little when it ended, that if she had been considering only herself she would have left Anne's service and tried to find another great lady to take her, or have gone as a servant into some Protestant family. But she stayed with Anne because to wait on his wife, to control her, to soften her furies, to check her excesses, was the sole poor unknown service she could render the man for whom she would have gladly done anything.