Виктория Холт - Courting Her Highness

“So, it is a game of patience,” she said.

“Never your greatest gift, my dearest.”

“But we shall be together.”

“Together,” he said, “playing the waiting game.”

Lord Godolphin died soon afterwards and Marlborough immediately made plans to leave the country.

Sarah quickly joined him.

Lady Masham waited for Lord Oxford to leave the Queen. She had seen him before he went into her presence; he had staggered a little and he had not bothered to change his coat on which were stains of snuff and wine.

Yet the Queen did not seem to notice the disgusting appearance of her first minister. Nor had she remarked that he was less respectful than he had once been. He must be drinking very heavily, thought Abigail.

It might be that wine dulled his perceptions. He had certainly grown very careless since taking office.

His head was full of financial schemes—so much more to his taste than war. His thoughts were mainly occupied with enlarging British Commerce and he was a governor of that great enterprise known as the “Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other Parts of America.” People had rushed to invest their money believing that they would make a fortune in a very short time. He was also involved in the slave trade which he believed could bring a great source of revenue. The word assiento was on every lip. This meant the right to provide Spanish colonies with slaves.

Lord Oxford, nodding over his wine, sleeping the sleep of intoxication every night, dreamed dreams of doing for England through commerce what Marlborough had done through war.

Abigail was pregnant once more and this brought home to her the fact that she would soon have a growing family for which to provide. Samuel would never do very much and it rested with her. Her son would be Lord Masham in due course, but she wanted to give him something more than a title.

When Lord Oxford left the Queen and she met him as if by accident, he would have bowed and passed on. She was angry although she gave no sign of it, and there was more than one reason for her emotion. What a fool he was! With all his chances, to throw them away as surely as Sarah Churchill had thrown away hers. Why was it that success corrupted? Why, when people achieved it, did they lose their sense of proportion? Why did they build an image of their importance which no one accepted but themselves? If he had been different … if he had been a warm-hearted man, capable of loving a woman—capable of loving Abigail Hill as Marlborough loved his wife—how different everything might have been!

She was angry now for frustrated hopes, for the reckless disregard for a career which together they could have made great.

“My lord …”

“Why, ’tis Lady Masham.”

“You seem surprised. It is true we do not meet as frequently as we did once.”

“Lady Masham will understand that there are many duties to claim my attention now.”

Yes, thought Abigail; and so old friends who have helped you to your place can be forgotten.

She said: “It is agreeable for your old friends to see your success.”

“I would not deprive them of their pleasure for the world.”

“I am sure you are not the man to forget old friends.”

“I regret I have little time for brooding on the past—an occupation not suited to my talents; and it is an astonishing thing how many are ready to claim old friendship now who were once on little more than nodding acquaintance with me.”

“You cannot count me among those,” retorted Abigail sharply. “And for that reason I wished to ask you for a little advice regarding some investments. I am not a rich woman.…”

Oxford waved his hand lightly. “My dear Lady Masham, I am sure that one of my secretaries will give you all the advice you need.”

He bowed; she could scarcely hold her expression until he had passed.

How dared he! After all he owed to her! In all the vast profits he had made he was not ready to give one bit of recognition.

She was a woman with children, whose future she wished to make secure. Very well, Robert Harley—Lord Oxford as he had become through her good graces—would see that if he would not have her for his friend, he could have her for his enemy.

The Queen was enjoying a return to health. Peace was at last in sight; and the Marlboroughs were abroad. It was surprising what an effect these two facts had upon her. She never ceased to marvel with her two dearest friends Lady Masham and the Duchess of Somerset.

It was exciting to hunt at Windsor, riding furiously in the chaise she had used in the past which was drawn by one horse, so that she could follow the stag as though she were actually on horseback. It was long since she had been able to enjoy that form of relaxation.

How good it was to feel well again—or almost. Her feet were swollen and sore but her dear friend’s ministrations soon soothed them; then they would settle down to gossip and cards. What pleasure! She was reminded of the old days in the green closet when Abigail Masham—who was Hill then—used to bring in Mr. Harley for their secret conferences.

Mr. Harley! There was a faintly disturbing thought. He was a little uncouth in his appearance. And last time he had come to her he had had the appearance of being intoxicated.

She would not have believed it, but she had seen the quick glance Masham had given him and then herself … as though she were wondering if she, Anne, had noticed.

Masham would be concerned, for she had always thought so highly of Lord Oxford and they were related, though obscurely.

Oh dear, Anne hoped there was not going to be trouble there, just as she had believed everything was going so well.

Such busy days! She even went to the Datchett races. These pleasures must not interfere with her state business of course; and she performed all the public duties which her rank demanded. She was seen at church; she received in her drawing room; and she ordered that an announcement should be put into the London Gazette reminding the people that she would touch people afflicted with the Evil in her palace at St. James’s; and as a result the people flocked there.

She sat benign, the mother of her people; and in the streets it was said that the bad days were over. No more war; prosperity was coming; and England was going to be merry under Good Queen Anne.

Abigail had dressed with special care to receive her visitor. She was excited. What transpired at this encounter could be very important to her. She must be wary; she must remember her rival’s downfall and never make the mistake Sarah had made of believing herself to be superior to those about her. She must never lose sight of the astuteness of her enemies, but remember she was playing a dangerous game when she set herself to teach the head of the Government a lesson.

But she had a powerful friend.

He bowed over her hand. How different from Lord Oxford. He was younger and so much more handsome. Henry St. John was a rake; he had had countless mistresses and would doubtless have countless more and could never contemplate a relationship with a woman which was not a sexual one. In his youth he had run naked through the park for a wager; and not long ago when he had become Secretary of State and had rode through the town in his carriage, the madam of one of those establishments to which he was a frequent visitor, had amused the crowd by shouting to her girls, “Five thousand a year, my beauties, and all for us!”

Now Henry St. John had become Viscount Bolingbroke but he was the same elegant, aristocratic man of pleasure who had delighted the madams of London by his extravagant patronage of their establishments.

He came to confer with Lady Masham.

He was disgruntled and made no effort to hide such an obvious fact, and as he bowed over Abigail’s hand and lifted his eyes to her small pale face; he fully understood how they might work together; Abigail was pregnant yet even at such a time he was wondering when she would become his mistress—such a consideration being automatic with him.

“So, I greet Viscount Bolingbroke,” said Abigail.

“A Viscountcy! No Earldom! Our friend—should I say our one-time friend—wants no rivals. An Earldom for him, so therefore I must be a mere Viscount.”

“I think we have been somewhat mistaken in our one-time friend.”

“He sees himself as the mighty dragon breathing fire to destroy all his enemies.”

“Rather should they be overcome by the fumes of alcohol.”

They laughed together. “Harley is a fool,” said Bolingbroke.

Abigail nodded.

“He has used us and now believes he has no need of us.”

“He will be shown his mistake,” added Abigail.

“I see,” replied Bolingbroke, “that you and I are of one mind.”

“On certain matters.”

He laid his hand on her arm. “I hope we soon may be in unison in every way.”

“That we shall take time to discover.”

Bolingbroke was a rash man. He wanted to pursue politics and women at the same time, and he was excited by Abigail because she was different from any woman he had ever known. Many would call her plain, but a woman who had gone into the arena and beaten Sarah Churchill at her own game could not be insignificant. Abigail had worked for Harley; but for her, Harley would never have been able to worm his way into the Queen’s good graces. What had she wanted from Harley? Something which he had failed to give? What a fool Harley was! He had warned him, Bolingbroke, against philandering with women; how much more dangerous to philander with the bottle. If Harley had not been such a virtuous husband, such a family man, if he had taken off a little time from virtue to understand Abigail Hill, he might not now be in the danger in which he stood. For in peril he certainly was, since his one-time friend whom he still believed to stand beside him, and the woman who had helped to bring him to power and had grown dissatisfied with him, now stood together, to teach him a lesson—a grim lesson which would bring him tottering down from greatness.

Bolingbroke would make no such mistake. He would not underestimate the powers of the Queen’s favourite woman. The Queen’s support was necessary and Abigail could bring him that.

Well, he was always ready to take on a new mistress.

Abigail was watching him covertly, reading his thoughts. Did he imagine that he only had to beckon to her? What did he think he had to offer her? His charm, his elegance, his experience? None of these she wanted.

She knew now what she longed for: devotion, adoration, fidelity, that relationship which she had seen idealized in the St. Albans House.

Was there no escaping from the Marlboroughs?

But in the meantime it would be amusing to join with Viscount Bolingbroke, for although he could never fit into her emotional life she needed his help in taking her revenge on the man who had failed her. In every way, she whispered to herself. Yes, in every way!

She smiled at Bolingbroke, as she evaded his proximity.

“We have much to discuss, my lord.”

He agreed. Business first, he thought. Pleasure later. At least there was one point on which they were in immediate agreement: the downfall of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford.

Bolingbroke planned to create a new party and place himself at its head; he was following the path which Harley had set when he had formed his party to defeat Godolphin. The Queen’s brief return to health was over. Her little fling had resulted in a return of the gout and dropsy. Her hands were swollen—all trace of the beauty of which she had once been so proud, gone; her face was patchy with erysipelas; her legs and feet so distorted that she could not walk.

She needed Masham and her dear Duchess day and night and since Masham was expecting, it meant that the Duchess was in constant attendance. Dear Duchess! To whom Anne could talk so much more intimately of the past than she could to Masham, for the Duchess had been with her long before Masham had come.

One could not expect such a noble lady to do the menial tasks which Masham still performed but Anne often found it difficult to decide which was the more important to her. But when Abigail returned she was not really in any doubt, and she understood that she had imagined she might prefer the Duchess because a pregnant woman must think primarily of the child she was going to bear. No one could administer a poultice with the same care as Masham—so that the minimum of pain went hand in hand with the maximum of benefit.