Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [86]
“We can pray, Madam.”
Pray! Dear, good, pious creature. It was comforting to be with her.
Anne was at Windsor and Sarah in London during that hot August. The tension was too great, Sarah told herself, for her to be able to endure Anne’s inanities at this time. It was better therefore that they should be apart and she could trust Abigail Hill to do what was necessary.
She longed for news of John. She was even a little remorseful that, the last time they had been together, she had been so cruel to him. Now that his enemies were preparing to tear him apart she wanted the whole world to know—but most of all John—that she was beside him and would defend him with her life.
What was happening on the Continent? The rumours grew daily. Godolphin was no comfort. Spineless fool! thought Sarah. It was being said that John had disobeyed instructions. Whose? Those who did not know what warfare meant? Those who stayed behind in London and told the greatest general in the world how the war should be run? And they were waiting for disaster. Almost hoping for disaster, not caring if they saw the downfall of England as long as it brought with it the downfall of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.
Occasionally letters reached her, but she knew that for every one she received there were two or perhaps more that went astray. John was marching through Germany; he had told her that the weather was alternately uncomfortably hot or, almost worse still, very wet. She knew from the scrappiness of his letters that he was often apprehensive and she wished that she could be with him to encourage him.
It was the twenty-first of August and there had been no news for some time; tension was growing; she was afraid every time a servant knocked at her door that ill news was being brought to her. She, who never found it easy to remain calm, was now overwrought. She bullied her servants and any members of her family who came near her; it was her only way of releasing her feelings.
And on that day the news came. It began with a scratching on her door.
“Yes, what is it?” cried Sarah, her voice almost shrill.
“A gentleman to see Your Grace. He says he is Colonel Parke.”
Colonel Parke! John’s aide-de-camp. Sarah cried: “Bring him to me. No … I’ll go to him.”
She was running down the stairs and there he was—travel-stained and weary, holding out a letter to her.
“From the Duke,” she cried and snatched it.
August 13th, 1704.
“I have not time to say more, but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know her Army has had a glorious victory. Monsieur Talland and two other Generals are in my coach and I am following the rest: the bearer, my aide-de-camp Colonel Parke, will give her an account of what has passed. I shall do it in a day or two by another more at large.
Marlborough.”
Sarah read the note through and read it through again. No loving message. No word of tenderness. Then she realized that the battle had just been over when he had written that note—it was scrawled on a bill of tavern expenses—and that he had bidden Colonel Parke ride with all speed to her. It had taken a week for the Colonel to reach her.
“The Duke has been victorious,” she cried.
“Yes, Madam, and he wrote first to you. He spread the only paper he could lay hands on on his saddle and wrote. Then he said: ‘Carry that to the Duchess with all speed.’ ”
“To me first …” she said. “Tell me the name of this battle.”
“It was the battle of Blenheim, Your Grace, and it is one of the greatest victories of all time.”
“Blenheim,” she repeated. “Now,” she went on briskly. “This note must be carried to the Queen with all speed. You must take it, Colonel Parke. But stay a short while for refreshment. You need it. Then be off.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Sarah herself ordered the refreshment and was with the Colonel while he ate and drank, plying him with questions.
And all the time she was thinking, “A great victory. And I am the first to receive the news. This will be a slap