Виктория Холт - Courting Her Highness

“I will leave the room,” said the Queen, rising painfully from her chair.

Sarah strode to the door and stood against it, her arms outspread, her eyes flashing.

“You will stay here until you have heard what I have to say.”

Anne’s meekness dropped from her; she drew herself to her full height and looked in cold amazement at the Duchess.

“I think Your Grace forgets she is in the presence of the Queen.”

The coldness in Anne’s face alarmed Sarah. She knew in that moment that she had failed. The horror of the situation impressed itself upon her. Everything for which she had worked was slipping away from her. And not only had she lost what she ardently desired, she had failed Marl.

Angry tears came to her eyes and in a moment she was sobbing as she never had before. It was a display of frustration and anger; the acknowledgment of defeat; she turned away and opening the door stumbled into the gallery, where she sat down and gave way to her grief.

Anne looked at the door; she could feel nothing but relief. Sarah Churchill had gone too far, but perhaps even she at last understood that their friendship was at an end.

She went to her chair and sat down thoughtfully. She would dissolve the Whig Ministry. There would be a Tory Government which would please her, for she was a Tory at heart. Mr. Harley would be at the head of her new Government and there would be no further attempts to rob her of dearest Masham.

A scratching at the door. She sighed. There was Sarah again, her face blotched with weeping, but her eyes unusually meek.

She has learned her lesson, thought Anne. She knows that I never want to see her again.

“Well, Lady Marlborough?” said Anne haughtily.

“Madam, my posts demand that I am at times in attendance on Your Majesty.”

Anne inclined her head. Yes, she thought, but we must find a means to put an end to that.

“And,” went on Sarah, “I hope that Your Majesty will have no objection to seeing me on state occasions.”

Anne inclined her head. No, she would not object to seeing Sarah on state occasions. What she would not tolerate was giving her another private interview.

“You may come to the Castle,” said the Queen coolly. “That will not disturb me.”

Sarah bowed and the Queen turned away signifying dismissal; but Sarah had never learned to control her feelings and she could not do so now. Her rage took possession of her once more, suppressing common sense.

“This is cruel,” she cried. “All our friendship forgotten for the sake of a woman whom I myself took from a broom. Everything I have done for you is thrust aside as though it had never been, and I am treated to scorn and indignity. Through the court they are whispering about me and talking of your ingratitude to me. Mrs. Morley, have you forgotten the old days?” As the Queen was silent, Sarah went on: “You will be sorry for this. You will suffer for your inhumanity.”

“That,” answered Anne, “will be my affair. Your Grace is dismissed.”

Sarah gazed in astonishment at the regal figure so different from Mrs. Morley of the past.

“I can only believe,” went on Anne, as Sarah did not move, “that Your Grace is hard of hearing. You are dismissed.”

There was nothing Sarah could do but turn away.

Anne had made up her mind that it was the last time she would ever grant Sarah Churchill a private audience.

The Queen could be stubborn, but Sarah went away planning the next stage of the campaign.

It took her some time to accept the fact that she would never be permitted to speak to the Queen again.

In his Chelsea lodgings Jonathan Swift was waiting for the arrival of an important visitor. He stared gloomily into the fire and took up his pen to write to Esther Johnson in Ireland. It was one of his pleasanter diversions. Stella, as he called her, was as devoted an admirer as his dear friend Miss Vanhomrigh, who was Vanessa to him. Irascible, gloomy, he was dissatisfied with life because a man of his genius must be forced to lend his talents to men of lesser stature for the reason that they, through birth, riches or their own personalities, had forced themselves into positions of power. He hated his poverty, his caution, his ill temper. What a comfort it would be if Stella were with him now—or perhaps Vanessa. Both adored him; both were ready to give him the adulation he desired. Neither was poor. Stella had her fifteen hundred pounds on which she had believed she could get a better return in Ireland than in England. Vanessa was closer at hand to administer comfort.

But he was born disgruntled. He would not marry because he believed he could not afford to; he could not write as he wished to write for fear of landing in the pillory as poor Defoe had. Perhaps he would not have escaped so lightly.

His great pleasure on cold nights when there was not enough fire in the grate to warm his bones and his Irish servant was more incompetent than usual, was to write to Stella. He pictured her eagerly opening his letters and reading news of the English Court which he was able to give her. All the latest gossip gleaned in the coffee houses; the fall of Viceroy Sarah; the rise of Abigail Masham. This was an excellent state of affairs, he told Stella, for he considered the Whigs to be malicious toads; and Robert Harley was his friend and therefore so was Abigail Masham. The great Duchess was in decline; the Duke might follow her. Jonathan Swift was on the side of his good friend Robert Harley for whom he now waited.

There was the knocking on the door. Swift laid down his pen while his servant let in the visitor.

He rose then to greet Robert Harley.

“Ah, my friend,” cried Robert Harley. “Great news! At last we are on the way.”

He bade Swift sit and drew a chair for himself while from his pocket he took a bottle of wine and shouted to the servant to bring glasses. Robert Harley provided his own wine for he knew that his friend Swift could not afford the quality his palate demanded.

Swift watched his benefactor as he savoured the wine which he did with relish before he spoke.

“Sarah is dismissed,” he said. “Finally. Irrevocably.”

“There remains the Duke.”

“My dear Swift, you are your gloomy self. Of course the Duke remains. The hero of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet! Let us not forget Malplaquet where the losses were so great that it could scarcely be called a victory. There is still the Duke, but, my dear fellow, we must see that it is not long before he follows his good lady.”

“The Duchess invited dismissal. She is a virago who plays into the hands of her enemy. I have heard the Duke called one of the most charming men in England and the Queen is still fond of him in spite of his wife.”

“You are a pessimist, Jonathan. There are ways and means. There are two things Marlborough loves in this life besides his military glory—Sarah and money. He’ll stand by Sarah; he’ll refuse to see she brought this on herself. That will go against him. And money? He is a very rich man. How did he become so? Well, his wife was very clever in selling places, I’ll swear. And in squeezing gifts from her loving mistress. Sarah is a rich woman in her own right. But Marlborough always knew how to feather his nest. I have my friends in every place and they have told me many interesting things. Do you know that during his office the Duke of Marlborough has put away some fifty thousand pounds. How Jonathan? How? As for my lady, she is some way behind her husband with all the royal favour she once enjoyed. Her pickings were a mere twenty-two thousand.”

“Is it possible then that they have filched this from public funds?”

“Where else?” laughed Harley.

“It’s a scandal!”

“It is certainly so. Now, it is our task to see that it is not the secret scandal it has been until now. We will make it a public scandal.”

“I see,” said Swift, “the reason for your visit here tonight.”

Marlborough, white lipped, came into the bedroom he shared with Sarah, and handed her the copy of The Examiner.

“That fellow Swift,” he said. “By God, he dips his pen in poison.”

Sarah read Swift’s article and, clenching the paper in her hand, gave vent to such a spate of fury that Marlborough was afraid for her.

“Calm yourself, my love,” he begged.

“Calm myself. When this sort of thing is being written about us. You can be calm!”

The Duke might be outwardly calm but he did not like what he read at all. He thought of the comfortable fortune he and Sarah had set aside; and it was disconcerting to see in cold print such accusations.

“We are surrounded by enemies, Sarah. We are among wolves and tigers.”

“That may be so,” retaliated Sarah, “but these wolves and tigers will find they have to deal with a lion and his lioness.”

“Caution, Sarah. Caution.”

“You have been preaching caution for years.”

“And if you had listened to my sermons, my dearest, we might not have come to this pass.”

“I have had to contend with that tiresome woman until she drove me to show what I really felt for her.”

“If you had but remembered that she was the Queen.”

“Queen! That bundle of blubber! Nay, John, if you will accept these insults, I will not.”

“Sarah, where are you going?”

“I am going to do something, John Churchill. I am going to show our enemies—be they royal Queens or paid scribblers—that it is a mistake to cross swords with Sarah Churchill and attempt to taunt the victor of Blenheim.”

“Sarah … Sarah … I beg of you.”

But she flounced away from him. Sarah was listening to no one … not even John.

Sarah unlocked the drawer and took out the letters. There was a large packet of them and she selected one at random and read it through.

Oh damning letters! Letters betraying a deep and strange affection—careless letters, the kind of letters a lover would write; and the Queen had written these to Sarah Churchill in the days of the foolish fondness Mrs. Morley had felt for Mrs. Freeman.

She took another. It had been written in the days when the Princess Anne so turned against her own father that she plotted against him with her sister Mary and Mary’s husband William. Not the sort of letters which a Queen would wish her subjects to read. And here was another—showing clearly her hatred for her own sister, then Queen Mary, and that “Dutch Abortion” her husband.

Stupid Anne, fat and foolish Queen, who was so unwise as to alienate a woman who could reveal so much.

Sarah was not going to consult with John … dearest but oh so cautious John! Sarah had done with caution.

How many times, she asked herself, have I demeaned myself … waiting in ante-rooms like a Scotchwoman trying to present a petition! How many times have I been told that Her Majesty cannot see me … and she shut away with that whey-faced Abigail Masham, tittering together, laughing because they are insulting the Duchess of Marlborough!

Sarah knew what she was going to do, and she needed no advice from anybody.

She asked Sir David Hamilton, one of the Queen’s physicians, to come to her, and when he came she greeted him graciously and bade him sit down for she wished to talk to him.

He was astonished to be thus summoned, and more so as he began to understand the reason for the invitation.

“I am at the end of my patience,” said Sarah imperiously. “I have asked for audiences with the Queen and always I am refused. I know my enemies have succeeded in working against me, but I am not a woman to accept defeat. You are in attendance upon the Queen?”

“Yes. Her Majesty is in constant need of attention.”

“So you will have no difficulty in taking a message for me.”

“I do not think Her Majesty wishes to receive …”

“She will certainly not wish to hear this message. But nevertheless I am sure she will want to know what I intend doing … before I do it.”

“I am afraid I do not understand Your Grace’s meaning.”

“It is simple. Her Majesty turns her back on me. If she continues in this attitude I shall publish all the letters she has written to me since the earliest days of our friendship. Tell her this. I think she will be prepared to go to great length to prevent this happening.”

“Your Grace cannot be serious.”

“I was never more so.”

“You are threatening the Queen.”

“No. Only threatening to publish her letters.”