Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [182]
Samuel put his head close to hers. “I hear that you wish the child to be called Robert,” he said.
“Robert!” Her voice sounded scornful. “No … I want him to be called Samuel.”
He was pleased, she sensed it.
“Samuel Masham,” she repeated, “after his father.”
Sarah was homesick. It was distressing to see poor Marl eagerly reading his letters from home, thinking as she did every day of the meadows about Holywell, the forests at Windsor, the greenness of England, the sound of English tongues.
She was not patient in exile. She was critical of the weather, scenery and people.
“Oh,” she would continually cry, “it is not as it is in England.”
It was comforting though to be with Marl for his health was not good and he needed attention; he was as homesick as she was, although not as bitter, yet, as she herself conceded having more reason to be.
It was she who ranted on about the ungrateful country which had benefited from his victories and then had turned its back on him.
Abroad they had more respect for Marlborough than they had had in England. They remembered him as the great commander here. Prince Eugene had visited them in Frankfurt for the express purpose of seeing the Duke and doing him honour which, declared Sarah grimly, was more than his Queen had done him.
There could not be enough news from home for Sarah. She laughed grimly when she heard how fond the Queen was of the Duchess of Somerset.
“I am pleased,” she said, “that she has a friend nearer her own rank than some I could name.”
Never did a day pass without her mentioning Abigail. She told everyone with whom she conversed how she had taken the wretched creature from a broom, and how ungrateful the whole family were.
There was John Hill, brother to the Creature, whom she had found as a ragged boy, clothed and fed and sent to school. And she had prevailed upon my lord Marlborough to give the lad a place in his Army which he had done, against his judgment. And how had John Hill repaid such benevolence? When wicked charges were brought against the Duke of Marlborough, he had risen from a sick bed in order to go and vote against him.
“There is gratitude for you!” cried Sarah. “Did you ever hear the like?” She would talk of how she had devoted her life to an ungrateful monarch; how she had sat for hours listening to banalities which had nearly driven her mad—all this she had done and what was the result? She was thrown aside for a chambermaid. Lord Marlborough had won honour and glory for his country; he was the saviour of England and what was his reward? Exile! He had been promised a palace, which was to be built at Woodstock and to be named after the greatest victory of all time: Blenheim. And what had happened? A fool named Vanbrugh—with whom she would never agree—had been allowed to plan it; and the money which had been promised had not been supplied. On and on she raved about the ungrateful country to which she longed to return.
“Better a cottage in England,” she would say sometimes, “than a palace anywhere else in the world.”
And her longing for home was like a physical pain.
She knew of the conflict which was raging there and longed to join in, partly because she liked to be at the heart of any conflict, partly because what happened after the death of Anne could be of such vital importance to her and her husband.
She had news of the efforts the Pretender’s friends were making to bring him to the throne and she and John spent many anxious hours discussing whether it was possible to swerve their devotion which had up till that time been given to Hanover. In fact he was in communication with Hanover at that time and was making plans as to what action he should take, should the Queen die suddenly.
It was disconcerting. Abigail Masham was a Jacobite and she would have every opportunity, fumed Sarah, for pouring poison into that stupid ear. Moreover, the