"I have spoken to the king concerning you, and he has decided that you are to continue to occupy, as long as you choose, your present apartment in Somerset House."
Patience read the letter sadly. She had never been blind to the queen's faults, but she had both loved and pitied her, and this farewell letter was the breaking of another link.
She folded the letter and put it with her private papers, among the things of the past.
* * * * *
Throughout the months of August and September the plague raged in London, then it gradually died out, and the court ventured to return to Hampton Court, until, in the month of December, there was so little fear of contagion that the king took up his residence again at Whitehall; and indeed all those who had left the city crowded back as thick as they had fled. The empty houses were thrown open, the grass which had grown in the streets was once more trodden under foot, and to all intents and purposes the ordinary life of the city was renewed.
It is wonderful how soon people forget, how ready everyone is to fall back into the old routine. Such was the case now. There were many empty houses. Some families had been swept clean away, and in others there were vacant chairs; but those who remained had still to live, and though hearts were sore and many longed "for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still", they had to gather up the threads of life and live their new lives, bare and empty though they seemed to them at first, until, from beneath the deep clouds which overhung them, they caught the glimpse of a silver lining.
CHAPTER XX
A Great Sea-Fight
As the plague died out in England, and life resumed its ordinary course, the war with the Dutch threatened to be more formidable than ever, for the French king made common cause with the Dutch. The great Admiral de Ruyter came out of the Texel and made straight for England with a splendid fleet of eighty-four ships. They were to be joined by the French fleet from the Mediterranean, consisting of thirty more ships.
Wholly unsuspicious of what was taking place, the English admiral, Monk, now his Grace of Albemarle, awoke one summer's morning to find to his great surprise that the Dutch fleet was lying at anchor half the channel over. Prince Rupert should have been with him, but with his usual impatience of inaction, he had steered westward with his White Squadron, therefore Albemarle had but sixty vessels, great and small, with which to face the enemy, but nevertheless, with English pluck, he gave the signal to attack.