Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [21]
“You will find them a feckless band … given to gossip and often disrespectful to their betters. If you should hear anything interesting you should let me know at once. I like to be aware of what is being said.”
“Anything interesting …?”
“I am sure you are intelligent enough to know what would interest me. Any scrap of knowledge about the Princess or the King; or if anyone should gossip about the Earl or myself in your presence … You understand?”
“Yes, Lady Marlborough.”
“Well then, you should prepare for your journey at once. I see no reason why there should be any delay.”
Abigail went to her powder closet, dazed and bewildered. Escape from this house which she hated; and a place at Court!
But as a spy for Lady Marlborough. At least that was what Lady Marlborough expected; yet perhaps when she had her place it would not be necessary to do all that Lady Marlborough ordered. Who could say?
A few days after that interview, Lady Marlborough left St. Albans and Abigail went with her. It was pleasant to travel in such state, but more pleasant still when they reached London.
Lady Marlborough went straight to St. James’s Palace, taking Abigail with her, and very soon Abigail was being presented to the Princess.
She saw a large woman, with light brown hair and highly coloured complexion, whose expression was mild perhaps on account of her eyes, the lids of which appeared to be contracted. This gave her a helpless look. Her hands were perfectly shaped, her fingers tapering; they were very white and they attracted immediate attention, perhaps because with her sweet and gentle voice they were her only beauty.
“Your Highness,” Lady Marlborough was saying, and Abigail remembered afterwards that her tone was just as imperious in St. James’s Palace as it was in the house at St. Albans, “this is my relation. The new Mother of the Maids.”
The shortsighted eyes were turned on Abigail. The lips smiled in a very kindly fashion.
“I am pleased to see any relation of Lady Marlborough.”
“I have found places for the whole of the family,” went on Sarah, and added as though Abigail were not present: “This is the last of them. She has been making herself useful at St. Albans while she has been waiting.”
Anne nodded almost sleepily and Lady Marlborough signed to Abigail which meant she must kneel and kiss the Princess’s hands.
The beautiful hand was given her; Abigail kissed it; Lady Marlborough nodded. That was the sign for Abigail to retire. Waiting for her outside the door was a woman who would take her to the apartment she would occupy and explain her duties to her.
As she left she heard the Princess say: “Now my dear Mrs. Freeman, you must tell me all your news …”
Abigail knew that the Princess Anne had already forgotten she existed.
IN THE PRINCESS’S APARTMENTS
aving married Henrietta satisfactorily, Sarah was looking round for a suitable bridegroom for Anne. There was one family whom she considered worthy to join the triumvirate she had decided on; and that was the Spencers.
Robert Spencer, the second Earl of Sunderland, was a wily politician, a slippery statesman; Marlborough himself did not like him; Sarah had at one time hated him, had maligned him and his wife and persuaded the Princess Anne to do the same in her letters to her sister Mary when the latter was in Holland. But there could be no doubt in Sarah’s mind that Sunderland was a man they could not afford to have against them.
The Earl had a son Charles who had married Lady Arabella Cavendish some years before; shortly after Henrietta’s marriage Lady Arabella died and Charles, Sarah decided, would need a wife. Why not Anne?
The Spencers were wealthy; Charles was a Whig, it was true, and Marlborough was a Tory; but Sarah was a little more inclined to Whiggery than her husband and she did not regard this as an obstacle. Charles Spencer had already made a name for himself with his democratic notions when he had declared that he would, when the time came refuse the title of Lord and be known as Charles Spencer; he was, according to