Exit Lady Masham (15 page)

At that moment I longed to return to my old position in the Queen's affections. I knew that I was giving up a unique relation, one where mistress and kitten loved each other, intensely and uncritically. No one else, I am convinced, had ever held that relation with Anne Stuart. I may even have given her a support sorely needed in her heavy duties. But there was now not only my sense of Swift's expectant eyes on me when we next should meet; there was the question whether it were not already too late to retract.
Could
I go back?

For not only was the Queen's attitude toward me changing; mine toward her was. She was already ceasing to be the kindly, sentimental, homely, confiding "aunt"; she was becoming the shrewd, suspicious, stubborn monarch, who was only too well aware that her precarious rule depended on balancing one faction against another. Oh, yes, she might care for me still, need me still, particularly as she detested new faces in her immediate circle, but her caring and needing would be more like what she had felt for my cousin. Or was even that presumptuous of me? Perhaps it was! Had there not been a line drawn between myself and the great Duchess in the Queen's reproof to me about the need for an accounting? Was it not possibly the origin of the distinction since made so implicitly in the public mind between the favorites of the first and second halves of the reign: the bossy but splendid figure of Sarah, drawn, so to speak, against a tapestried background of cannonfire and charging cavalry, and the drooping little shape of Abigail, slipping into the royal presence to take the chamber pot and lurking to purloin the royal favor? The Queen herself may have dimly subscribed to the theory that an era of pygmies had been substituted for one of giants.

These impressions, misty at the time, began their process of clarification almost immediately after the conversation above described, when the Duchess of Somerset entered the chamber with two of Her Majesty's ladies-in-waiting and formed a seated circle for the royal tea.

The Duchess leaned forward excitedly, as one burdened with a great piece of news. "I was so thrilled to hear that Your Majesty is going to make the Duke of Marlborough Captain-General for life!"

The Queen was at once her inscrutable self. "Where did you hear that, Duchess?"

"I hear it everywhere!" The Duchess clasped her hands, as if in ecstasy. "I think it so marvelously underscores the greatest relationship of our time. The general of glorious victories and the royal mistress who had the wisdom to bestow her confidence upon him. Not only for today, but for any number of tomorrows! What parallel is there for it? Elizabeth and Essex, perhaps?"

We all smiled, including the Queen, who remarked: "I hope the Duke may be spared
that
fate, Duchess."

It was impossible to know when the Duchess was serious. "Oh, dear me, she had his head off, didn't she? My ignorance of history is a scandal. Well, let us say Elizabeth and who? Drake?"

"He was a kind of pirate," I ventured. "A glorious one, but still a pirate."

"I wonder who could be spreading this report about the Captain-General," the Queen inquired.

"Why not the Captain-General's wife?" I suggested.

"Because she of all people should know it's not true, Masham!"

"Her wish, ma'am, may have sired the thought."

"Then it's not so?" the Duchess exclaimed, with exaggerated dismay. "Your Majesty has
not
given the Duke the life tenure?"

"I have not."

"But the matter is still under consideration?"

"Why do you suppose I should tell you that, Duchess?"

"Oh, no reason!" Her Grace exclaimed, seeming to clasp the reproof to her bosom as if it had been a compliment. "I had only thought that if our enemies were to know that the man whom they see as their ultimate doom had been placed in command for his lifetime, they would be less likely to give credit to rumors that we were tired of the war and anxious to conclude a dishonorable peace!"

It was hard to know what the Duchess really wanted. I suspected that she was always mentally two steps ahead of us, that she was now calculating both what she would do if the Marlboroughs prevailed and how she would cover herself if they fell.

"Isn't it also possible, Duchess," I now suggested, "that the Queen may hold a stronger hand if nobody, at home or abroad, knows what she is going to do? Of course, even if she should give the Duke his office for life, she could still take it away. But it might
look
as if she were not going to. And why should any officer of the crown wish even to look as if he possessed Her Majesty's confidence one second after he had ceased to?"

"Ah, there speaks our little Tory dove of peace!" the Duchess exclaimed, as if it were the best of jokes. "We know who has been coaching
her
!"

This was a rude thrust, but fortunately it irritated the Queen.

"I'll thank you ladies to speak no more of politics," she said gruffly. "I have enough of that in my council without its spoiling my tea."

When the ladies had been dismissed and it was time for the Queen's nap, she remarked to me with a side glance: "It may interest you to know, Masham, that the Captain-General seems to have anticipated your plans for his wife."

"Your Majesty has had a letter from Flanders?"

Those drooping eyes looked up for a second. Just for the flash of a second, but, fool that I was, I trembled. "I have had such a letter."

"May I inquire if it contains good news of the army?"

"It is not about the army. It's about the Duchess."

"Oh!"

"I don't know if Mr. Harley may have mentioned it to you, but..."

"Oh, ma'am, why should he have done so?"

The Queen stared. I had never interrupted her before. "I don't know if Mr. Harley may have mentioned it to you, but the Duke begs me not to dismiss the Duchess."

"What has made him suppose there is any likelihood of that?"

"He may have heard rumors. Everybody seems to be hearing rumors."

Her suspicions made me reckless. I began to wonder if I had anything to lose. "If I may be so bold, ma'am, it seems to me that the Captain-General should have enough to do managing his army without seeking to dictate to Your Majesty whom she may dismiss or not dismiss in her own household."

"Dictate? He didn't dictate. He pleaded." The Queen gave a slight sniff. "Rather abjectly, I thought."

I seized on this. "But is it fitting that he should write to you on the subject at all?"

"Perhaps not. But much may be forgiven a man when a beloved wife is involved. Particularly a man who risks his life daily in my service!"

All the sympathy that I could get from Swift that evening was a shrug of the shoulders and a muttered comment about the day in which Rome had not been built.

W
hen the dismissal of the great Sarah came, it arrived, like so many of Queen Anne's decisions, without any warning. I learned from Swift that the Duchess had been given ten days' notice in which to surrender the gold key of her office, and that the Duke, whose sources of information were apparently better than our own, had already arrived in court to intercede with the Queen. When I asked if the Duchess's correspondence with the Queen had been seized, Swift told me that Sarah had settled that issue by promising not to publish it. And yet the Queen had still insisted on her demission! There was an ineluctable quality about the resentment of Anne of England once it had been aroused. She might forgive a wrong; she would certainly never forget it.

For obvious reasons, it was considered wisest to keep me out of sight while the Duke was with the Queen at Windsor, but there were plenty of tongues to inform me of what went on. I blushed for our great general when I heard that he had actually gone down on his knees to the Queen, and I was almost sorry when I heard that all he had succeeded in doing was to reduce the time in which the key had to be yielded. The Queen had told the obeisant warrior that her ten stipulated days were now three!

Returning to my own apartments after the Queen's hand-washing, I was appalled to be greeted by my pale-faced chamberwoman, who stuttered out the message that the Captain-General himself was waiting for me in my parlor. I found the great man standing before the fireplace, contemplating a miniature of himself that I had never parted with.

"I have aged, Mrs. Masham," he said with a bow and a gesture toward his likeness. "You, madam, have been rejuvenated."

"Hardly, sir." Indeed, he had aged, though not much. He stood as straight as ever, and his eyes were as clear and calm and faintly amused as formerly, but there were dark lines under them, and his figure had filled out. "I am greatly honored by this visit."

"You guess its purpose?"

"Alas, does Your Grace not know that nobody can induce the Queen to change her mind, once it is made up?"

"Not even the person who helped her to make it up?"

"No! And anyway, I didn't. I'm sorry, my lord Duke, but there is nothing I can do for you."

"Would you if you could?" He actually smiled at me. "I thought we had been friends, Abigail Hill."

"How can you remind me of that," I cried in anguish, "when it was
you
who besought the Queen to dismiss me?"

"That was not personal," he replied calmly. "That was because I had reason to suspect that you were aiding Harley to undermine me in Her Majesty's favor. That you were working for the peace party."

"Actually, I wasn't.
Then.
"

"You mean you are now?"

"I think this terrible war should be ended, yes!"

"Listen to me, Abigail Hill." He stepped closer to me and fixed me with that terrifying opaque stare. "When I tell you that I am able to march to the palace of Versailles itself and dictate peace to the so-called Sun King, do you believe me? A peace that might last a hundred years?"

It was a fantastic moment. The hero of Europe was actually asking me to allow him to win the war! He went on to tell me how vital to the cause his peace of mind was, and how Sarah's temper brought her at moments to the brink of insanity. He said that he had to know, when he returned to Flanders, that he was leaving her in stable condition and that only then could he place all of his mind and energy on the rapid completion of the conflict. When, at the end of his now passionate appeal, he actually touched me, taking my hand in his, I burst into tears and pulled it away. I could not speak; I was near hysteria. I fell on the divan and covered my face.

"Go, please go, my lord!" I gasped.

"Very well. But remember, Abigail, I am trusting you!"

When I looked up, he was gone. I locked myself in my chamber and refused to see anybody. I was terrified that Swift would ask for me. I simply could not endure another scene.

I could not see the Queen until the next morning. When I brought her the silver bowl and ewer, she looked at me in mild surprise.

"You look exhausted, Masham."

"I haven't slept all night, ma'am."

"What has upset you?"

"Oh, ma'am, I've been so worried about my cousin Sarah! Do you suppose Your Majesty might reconsider her demission?"

"Reconsider it? Are you out of your mind?"

"But if the Duke takes it so to heart?"

"Then that, I fear, must be the Duke's problem."

"But will he be able to command effectively in the field?"

"Well, I should hope so!" The Queen's stare showed annoyance. "And if he cannot, I have other generals."

"But not like the Duke."

"Masham, I forbid you to say anything more on this subject!"

"Oh, ma'am, please!"

"Masham! You forget yourself. What's wrong, girl? Are you breeding again?"

When I met Swift that afternoon, in the great hall of armor, he wagged a finger at me.

"Don't you know the Queen never changes her mind? Harley and I will forgive you this once, Abbie. But only because of the abject failure of your treason. You may regain the good opinion of the angels of peace by your renewed efforts on their behalf."

"What makes you suppose I'm still willing?"

"Our hope is that your sanity will return when the mighty Duke goes back to Flanders."

He was right. It seemed that Swift was always right. Glory departed for the continent, and Abigail went back to the drab job of disparagement. But Glory, before it vanished, had to be briefly debased. I learned the sorry tale of how Duchess Sarah, at the end of the Queen's stipulated period, flung the gold key on the floor, and the victor of Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenarde had to stoop to retrieve it and carry it to his remorseless sovereign.

Sarah's fury almost reached the heights that her spouse had feared. She stripped her apartments at Windsor, Kensington and Hampton Court, tearing out the marble mantels and even the doorknobs. She bore away trunkloads of papers and files and took down from the corridors paintings and portraits that she claimed had been gifts from the Queen. And when she was gone, with all of her loot, she bombarded the royal offices with letters demanding sums, supposedly long overdue, insisting on the fulfillment of old promises allegedly made by the Queen even before her accession.

"Was ever a friend so used in the history of friendship?" the Queen complained bitterly to me. "All I ever wanted was to do things for my beloved Mrs. Freeman. But she took and took and took! There was no satisfying her with affection or gifts or trust or even admiration. She wanted my very soul, and for what? To fling it away! I must face it, Masham. She never cared for anyone but her husband. Not even for her children. John Churchill must be made of some strange substance not to have been consumed to ashes in that heat!"

"It
is
strange, ma'am," I murmured. "No other man in the world could have put up with her. She has cost him more anguish than the Sun King and all his hordes. Or was it her fire that heated the forge on which his sword was wrought?"

T
he months that followed were marked at court by the incessant maneuvering of the war and peace factions for the favor of the Queen. I had learned my lesson about being too obvious in expressing a point of view, but there were still ample occasions, when my mistress and I were alone together, for me to signify a heartfelt accord with her yearning to end the bloodshed and to echo her doubts as to the wisdom of maintaining even a successful commander in charge of a war that he prosecuted with such relentless zeal. I had resolved all of my own qualms now and docilely allowed myself to be tutored and badgered by the increasingly impatient Swift. He could not seem to endure the delay.