Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [180]
She had seen Masham turn away in disgust.
And she was in such pain and often so tired. Oh dear, the happy days when she believed she had solved her difficulties by ridding herself of the Marlboroughs and enjoyed a brief return to better health, were over.
Abigail was lying in her bed. Her time would soon come, and she hoped this time it would be another boy.
It would not be long now, she was thinking … not that her child would be born, but that Oxford would go just a little too far.
The Queen had certainly been aware of his state of intoxication the last time she had seen them together. Fool! Fool! she thought; and tears came into her eyes.
She was a foolish romantic dreamer. She had allowed him to fascinate her in those days when she had been young and silly. Often now she thought of John and Sarah together. How was life with them? Did he still love his virago as tenderly now that they were together all the time in exile?
It came back to her so vividly. The house in St. Albans. The return of John. The eager manner in which he looked about him for Sarah and then … that long hungry embrace. The scamper of impatient feet; the slamming of the bedroom door; the smiles of the servants.
“He cannot wait to take off his boots.”
The great General, who was first of all the impatient lover, had, by his love for Sarah set up an impossible ideal in the heart of Abigail Hill.
Had her hatred of her cousin stemmed from her envy? Had she become what she was because of the love the Duke of Marlborough bore for his wife?
It had never changed, that love, although Sarah had done little to cherish it. She had gone her wild and wilful way; she had crashed to disaster because of her own rash foolishness and she had taken him with her. Yet, he loved her still.
That was what Abigail wanted … a love such as that. Hers was a dream of romantic love and power. There had been only one man in her life who could give her that: Robert Harley. And he had denied it. Bolingbroke? Never! She could have been his mistress for a month or so. But that was not what she sought.
Someone had come into the room.
“Samuel!” she said; and he pulled out a chair and sat by her bed.
“You are not feeling well?”
“A little tired. It is natural.”
“You do too much.”
She was impatient. “If I did not where would we be?”
He sighed. He knew that he owed everything to her; he knew too that he had failed to give her what she wanted.
“My clever Abigail.” He took her fingers and kissed them. They were limp and unresponsive.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She turned her head away. For what was he apologizing? His inadequacy?
“I must go,” she said; “the Queen needs me. I must not allow Carrots Somerset to take over all my duties.”
“Do not drive yourself too hard, my dear.”
“And if I did not … would you have your fine title? Would you have your position here at Court?”
“No,” he said. “But there are other prizes.”
She shook him off impatiently. He looked so … how could she say Complacent? Smug. Lord Masham—a man of title through his wife’s endeavours.
It was not what she wanted.
“You are going to the Queen?” he asked. “You should not walk across the courtyard in your condition. Take your chair.”
She shrugged him aside. It was years since she had taken advice from Samuel.
As she came out into the cold air, her eyes smarted with tears—tears of frustration. She was thinking of what might have been if the child she carried had been another man’s, not Samuel’s, the child of a brilliant politician who loved her as Marlborough loved his wife, with whom she could plan the future as Marlborough did with his wife.
Her vision blurred; she was not watchful of her step as one must be in the courtyard. She caught her foot in the cobbles; in a second it had twisted under her and she fell.
She lay bewildered and stunned. Then her pains began. The child was demanding to be born although its time had not yet come.
The news spread all over the Town. Lady Masham was dying. A fall in the courtyard; a premature birth;