Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [34]
Was Sarah waiting for a telling moment to let fly her reproaches. No! There was one thing one could be sure of with Sarah; she was as she herself had said of a frank and free nature. She was unable to curb her feelings, particularly her anger.
If Sarah did not scold her for the words she had said in Abigail’s hearing there could be only one reason: Abigail had not told her.
How strange! She could not understand this; and her interest in the softly spoken chambermaid increased.
“Hill,” she said, some days later, “you must be very grateful to Lady Marlborough.”
“Oh yes, Madam.”
“I hear that she found your family in great distress and that she has placed your sister and brothers in good places.”
“It is true, Madam.”
“Then I suppose you feel that you must pay her back in some way.”
“I have nothing with which to pay her, Madam. I can only give her my gratitude.”
“Perhaps you feel that she is in a sense your mistress?”
Abigail’s eyes were filled with frank awe and respect. “Oh, Madam,” she said, “I have only one mistress. I do not think it would be possible for me to serve two at the same time.”
Anne nodded. Her lips framed words which she had used to Abigail several times before: “You are a good creature.”
But this time she said them with a new sincerity; and afterwards she began to look for Abigail among her women and was very contented that she should be in close attendance.
Now that her two elder daughters were so advantageously married, Sarah was becoming very interested in politics. She and her husband were often in the company of the Godolphins and she was wooing her rather difficult son-in-law, Charles Spencer. The time was fast approaching, she was sure, when Anne would be Queen of England. William simply could not live much longer; his body was a mass of disease; everyone said it was a miracle that he could have lived so long. But he seemed to have found a new reason for living since Louis XIV, his greatest enemy, had begun his plan to rule the whole of Europe. This had been made a possibility by the appointment of his grandson Philip of Anjou to the throne of Spain. If Philip could rule independently this would not be a major issue, but was le Roi Soleil the man to stand back and let that happen? No, he wanted to rule Spain, through his grandson, as well as France and that meant that the balance of European power would be in favour of the French. It was something William could not tolerate; and he was already preparing, with the aid of Austria to stand with Holland against this.
William was more at home with his armies than in the council chambers; and so was Marlborough. This war should prove a source of inspiration and profit to John Churchill; and Sarah wanted to see him exploit his talents.
If William were to die—and any normal man in his physical condition would have been dead years before—then Anne would be ruled by the Marlboroughs, for Sarah would see to that; and with his two influential sons-in-law they would be able to stand firm against any of their political enemies.
With such a dazzling prospect before her it was difficult for Sarah to listen with patience to the tittle-tattle of Anne’s conversation.
“I do declare,” she told her husband, “that I am beginning to loathe that woman.”
“For God’s sake, Sarah, have a care of what you say.”
“My dear Marl, there is no need for you to tell me how to behave. Is it not largely my doing that we are where we are today?”
Marlborough had to admit the truth of this. “But, Sarah,” he added, “when I think of your frankness I do not know why our enemies have not overthrown us long ago.”
“Old Morley knows me as I am and accepts me as such. I have always been free with her and she has raised no objection. I am not going to change now. But as I was saying she sometimes sickens me so that I feel I shall scream if she touches me. It was clever of me to give her Abigail Hill. That creature now has to do all the loathsome