Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [94]
“I should like to hear you play on the harpsichord. I have always admired your singing.”
She lifted her eyes to his and regarded him steadily for some seconds.
“You wish an audience with the Queen this afternoon?”
“An audience? That has a formal ring. I should like to be there … to talk to the Queen … soothingly … but without others present.”
Abigail’s heart began to beat faster.
“Would that be possible?” he asked.
“It might be.”
“If you suggested it to Her Majesty? That I had no tiresome business with which to weary her. Just a dish of bohea …”
“It might be possible …”
“I should esteem it a cousinly favour.”
“I will speak to Her Majesty. Present yourself and if … it is possible, you shall be invited.”
He took her hand and kissed it gallantly.
“How pleasant it is,” he said, “to have relations in high places.”
A hint of mockery? Perhaps. But his eyes were gleaming; and he was asking a favour.
She was beginning to understand something about him. He hated the Churchills—and so did she. How could one love someone who had done one so much good and never allowed one to forget it?
No wonder she was excited. She had entered into a liaison—strange and mysterious as yet—with one of the Queen’s leading ministers. She, Abigail Hill, might yet take a part in shaping her country’s destiny.
A delightful man, this Robert Harley, thought Anne. Such pleasant conversation. Hill played the harpsichord softly—a piece of Purcell’s which was among Anne’s favourites. George dozed contentedly and Mr. Harley told her what she most wanted to hear, how fortunate her dear people were to have such a monarch. In the coffee houses and taverns they talked continually of her as the Good Queen. The revival of touching for the King’s Evil had touched them deeply. Such a clever way Mr. Harley had of expressing himself. He hinted that the people of England rejoiced in their Queen and that they felt it was an act of Providence which had brought her to the throne. That was very comforting, for always at the back of her mind was the memory of her father, who had been so devoted to her, and whom she had been led to betray.
Led to betray. Mrs. Freeman had been so vehement against him, and in those days she had believed that Mrs. Freeman was always right.
Mrs. Freeman was still her very best and dearest friend, but she did spend a lot of time away from the Court. She was continually going to St. Albans and always managed to be at Windsor Lodge when the Court was not in residence. If one did not know what heavy family commitments were Mrs. Freeman’s, one would almost think she deliberately set out to avoid her poor unfortunate Morley.
How her thoughts ran on, and there was amusing Mr. Harley being so pleasant.
He had discovered he was Hill’s cousin and seemed pleased about it. She was pleased too. It was good for Hill to be connected with a family like the Harleys.
“We have something more in common, Madam, than our cousinship, and that is our desire to serve you—a desire which is unrivalled throughout your kingdom.”
What charming things he said! And when he had gone she told Hill how pleased she was to discover that she had such an exalted relative. Of course she was some distant connection of Mrs. Freeman, but Mrs. Freeman had never treated her as anything but the humblest of poor relations. Mr. Harley on the other hand had nothing but respect for her.
Anne felt a flicker of uneasiness. If Hill became too exalted, might that not alter her? Suppose she became too proud to perform the menial tasks which she now did so cheerfully? Suppose she became arrogant and demanding … like some people.
Nonsense, said the Queen to herself, that would not be my Hill!
That was the first of many meetings, and it became the accepted procedure that on those occasions when the Queen said: “No visitors,” Abigail would let in Mr. Harley and he and the Queen would chat together—not necessarily of state affairs, but now and then they crept in and Mr. Harley never made them dull or