• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The news of Marlborough’s death came to Langley Marsh bringing back old memories.

The affairs of the Marlboroughs were often discussed at the table when guests were invited. Abigail would amuse the company with stories of Sarah’s antics; but as the years passed they seemed more like her imaginings of some fictitious creature than truth. But when news of Sarah’s latest adventures came, Abigail realized that she had not exaggerated.

Now the Duke was dead, and Sarah would no longer be supported by that wonderful devotion on which Abigail had built an ideal. Sarah had lost her most precious possession, and Abigail could even feel sorry for her.

She ceased to think of Harley now who, when he had been taken from his prison in the Tower and faced his judges, had been acquitted, though forbidden to come to Court or to go to the House of Lords. This meant that he was cut off from any hope of continuing his political career and passed into obscurity.

She occasionally heard stories of Bolingbroke, how he had married his French mistress, after the death of his wife and continued to live in France.

So they, who had been so close once, were widely separated to live lives of their own.

She was content with hers.

It was two years after the death of Marlborough when news reached her of Robert Harley’s death. He was at his house in Albemarle Street when he had been taken ill.

Memories came flooding back as they did when such events occurred. John, her brother, who had been a constant visitor to them since they had lived at Langley Marsh, kept talking of the past.

“It brings it all back,” he said. “It’s odd how you forget … until something like this happens.”

But John forgot more easily; he went off riding with young Samuel who was a favourite with him and was doubtless telling him stories of the old days when he had a command in the Army, and how he had lost it when the Germans came. Abigail remembered how she had fought for John against Marlborough—and lost. It was natural that when Anne was dead and Marlborough high in favour that John should lose his command.

But he was reconciled. He was not rich but he had a comfortable income and that would go to young Samuel in due course.

But as Abigail went about her duties she was thinking of the house in Albemarle Street and how she had gone there in secret to warn, to advise … and to hope.

She thought of Harley often during the months that followed, asking herself whether she would ever be completely rid of this nostalgia for the past which was like a physical pain. But when in October of that year her youngest daughter Elizabeth, who was only fifteen, was taken ill, she nursed her night and day and all past longings were obliterated in fear for the present.

Elizabeth died; and Abigail’s grief overwhelmed her; but it taught her one thing: her life, her emotions, her loyalties were there in Langley Marsh.

Sarah had not realized, until she lost him, how deeply she had loved her husband. He had been the one to show affection; she had accepted it as her right; she had stood fiercely by him, she had schemed for his sake; but only now did she know how much she needed him.

There was no one in the world who could take his place. The Earl of Coningsby tried. He was a man she and John had known for many years and six months after the funeral he wrote to Sarah offering her marriage.

Sarah read his letters through with astonishment. That anyone could think to take the place of Marl—and so soon! But she wrote to him gently, declining.

It was shortly afterwards that she received another proposal. This amused her because it came from the Duke of Somerset, whose wife had been that lady who had shared the Queen’s favour with Abigail Hill. Moreover, the Duke was a man obsessed by his nobility; he was known as the Proud Duke and some of the court wits had said that his pride in his birth amounted almost to mental derangement. Of course he was one of the premier dukes, sharing