Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [166]
Sunderland gone! Godolphin gone! The Whig administration was over. Now it remained to be seen what happened at the polls, though there could be little doubt of the result.
A Tory majority was returned to Parliament. Robert Harley was Chancellor of the Exchequer and virtually the Leader of the Government with his friend and protégé Henry St. John a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State.
This was defeat for the Churchills; and they waited in trepidation for what would happen next.
THE GOLDEN KEYS
here was no need now to show Harley up to the green closet in secret. As the Queen’s chief minister he came openly. Did she imagine it, wondered Abigail, or was he in truth slightly less affectionate towards her? Sometimes when he passed her by she would smell the wine on his breath more strong than usual. He angered her by the change in his manner; and she asked herself again and again whether had she never acquired the Queen’s favour he would have acknowledged their cousinly relationship.
He has used me, thought Abigail.
How far she had come! It was not really so many years ago when she had been almost grateful for one of the Churchill girls’ cast-off gowns. Now Samuel was a colonel. She would have a title for Samuel before long. She was carrying a child and if this child should be a boy she owed it to him to make him Lord Masham.
How ambitious one became when one moved in ambitious circles!
Robert Harley was with the Queen. She knew what he was saying. The Duchess of Marlborough had been dismissed from the Queen’s friendship, but she still retained the keys of office. Until she gave them up they could not be bestowed elsewhere. And Anne was still afraid of the Duchess, for she put off commanding their return. It was as though she could not bear to think of Sarah and wanted to pretend the woman had never existed.
But Harley was in there explaining that the Duchess must be ordered to give up her keys. And when those keys were in Anne’s possession, to whom would they be passed?
Abigail had little doubt.
The door to the Queen’s chamber was opening and Harley came out. He was smiling. Mr. Harley was very pleased with himself these days.
When Abigail approached him, he looked at her with that slightly glazed expression in his eyes. Too much drink … or mere indifference? Surely he had not been to the Queen in a state of semi-intoxication? That was absurd. Harley would never be semi-intoxicated. He was too accustomed to drink.
“It was a successful meeting?” she asked.
“Very successful.”
“And …?”
He smiled at her in that manner which was almost mocking. He was not going to confide in her.
“I shall call on Her Majesty tomorrow,” said Harley, and bowing passed on.
She looked after him, resentment rising within her. He had his place and no longer needed her help. Had she not always known? Of course. Then why should she be so angry, so hurt?
Marlborough did not know which way to turn. He felt sick with worry and frustration. He had to speak to Sarah; he had to make her understand the position in which they were placed. Sarah would not accept the truth. It had always been so. She saw herself twice the size of others, twice as powerful, twice as brilliant; and even in the face of defeat she refused to admit it.
He, the most ambitious of men, had dreamed of ruling England. That had once seemed a not impossible dream for there had been military dictators before. On the Continent he had shown his genius and his enemies trembled at his name, yet here in his own country he was faced with disaster and defeat. And the reason …? It was no use blinking the truth. Sarah.
Sarah had brought him to this. Her overbearing manner, her bluntness, her arrogance, her belief that she could behave as pleased herself to anyone on earth including the Queen. Blind Sarah, who had brought herself