Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [60]
She went to the Queen.
“You see, Mrs. Morley, how wise I was to refuse the Dukedom in the first place. I know Mr. Freeman has no wish to accept so called honours when they are so grudgingly given. If he had taken my advice he would never have accepted the title. But now it is done … and here he is—the man who brought honour to his country, a Duke without the means to keep up his rank. A pretty state of affairs! A pretty example of a country’s ingratitude! I said to Mr. Freeman: It is folly to take this from a country who so clearly does not wish to honour you … rather to humiliate you.”
“My dear, dear Mrs. Freeman, this is most distressing. You shall have two thousand from my privy purse. No one shall know of it. It shall be a secret between us.…”
“Mrs. Morley should know that Mrs. Freeman could not easily be persuaded to enter into secret bargains.…”
She could not be comforted, and when she left the Queen was trembling and in tears.
Abigail came to her and bathed her forehead.
“There, Madam.” Anne accepted the brandy. “Would Your Majesty wish me to play a little on the harpsichord?”
“No, Hill. Just sit beside me. Your presence comforts me.”
Abigail took the trembling hand in hers and the Queen smiled at her.
“It seems peaceful now, Hill. Let us talk for a while and later perhaps when I am sleepy you will play me to sleep.”
Sarah stormed back to Marlborough.
“She is ready to pay us two thousand from the privy purse,” she said. “What’s the use of that?”
John shook his head. “We couldn’t take it, Sarah. It could be embarrassing if it leaked out that we were being supplied in this way. But there is something else. I’ve a letter here from Sidney Godolphin. He writes from Newmarket.”
“Newmarket. I should have thought he might have been in London. Here is the Government treating you in this churlish way and he is at Newmarket if you please.”
“Our John is with him.”
“Our John! But why is he not at Cambridge?”
“There’s smallpox in Cambridge.”
Sarah turned pale. “John?”
“He’s all right. Sidney thought it better for him to leave Cambridge and go to stay at Newmarket. The air there is fresh and good. But I was a little uneasy.”
Smallpox! The dreaded scourge. Sarah could not bear to think of it having come near her only son.
“Perhaps he should come home,” she said.
“Sidney says he’s very well. I thought you might write to him and tell him that you are no longer displeased with him.”
“But I am still displeased with him.”
“He wrote to me asking me to plead with you on his behalf.”
“Then he should have written to me himself.”
“Sarah!” Marlborough laid his hand on her arm and gave her that sweet smile which never failed to charm. “I know you love him dearly—as you do the whole family, but could you not show it a little now and then?”
“Are you telling me how to treat my son, John Churchill!”
“Our son,” he reminded her.
She laughed. “We’ll have him home. I do not care that he should be near a pox-laden atmosphere.”
“Write to him and tell him he is forgiven.”
“No. He must write to me first. And what of this matter of our income …”
He laid his hands on her shoulders and drew her towards him.
“That is a matter which will, I doubt not, in time work out to our advantage … my Duchess.”
Anne was determined that her dear Mrs. Freeman should happily accept the new honour and Sarah had no intention of standing in her way. It was certainly gratifying to be Her Grace, and she derived great pleasure from referring to Marl as The Duke.
With the coming of spring he would set out once more on his campaigns and the separations would begin again. “How I wish that you had chosen to become a statesman instead of a soldier!” she would exclaim angrily.
Christmas was just over and young John had written to his father to tell him that he was leaving the Godolphins to return to Cambridge.
“I trust,” said Sarah grimly, “that there he will learn some sense.”
It was in January when she had news from Cambridge.
When she read the letter which was from her son’s tutor she was silent, and those