Виктория Холт - Courting Her Highness

“Why has this ill fortune come to us!” she demanded. “What have we done to deserve it? I thought I had endured all the ill fortune in the world when I lost my only son. And now … two daughters … my best loved daughters …”

She stormed through the house, one moment harrying her servants for incompetence, the next shutting herself into her room to throw herself on to her bed and give way to her grief.

Anne had been the sweetest member of the household; she had been the peacemaker—and in that family they had needed one. Sarah had loved her dearly because she never argued as her eldest Henrietta and her youngest Mary did; Anne would smile when she disagreed and bow her head, while she kept firmly to her opinions. She had been lovely—a daughter to be proud of. Marl had been against her marriage with Charles Spencer. Dear Marl, the most ambitious man alive and the most sentimental. He had feared that Charles Spencer, who had become Lord Sunderland on his father’s death, was not good enough for their Anne although he was one of the richest men in the country. But she, Sarah, had had her way and the marriage had taken place. Not that she had ever liked Sunderland. Dearest Anne! She had been one of the beauties of the Court—for she surpassed her sisters, and Marl used to say that she and Elizabeth were the ones who rivalled their mother for beauty, although even they could not quite equal her. The Little Whig they called her and the Whigs had toasted her in their coffee houses. And now she was dead.

“My only son, my two daughters!” moaned Sarah. “Why should I have to suffer like this.”

Marl had tried to comfort her. “We still have Henrietta and Mary.”

A hollow comfort! Henrietta and Mary had always gone their own way. Their wills were almost as strong as Sarah’s and they could not be together for long without quarrelling. Those two left out of her family of five! It was heartbreaking.

There seemed nothing to live for. Even the days when they were wandering about the Continent were better than this.

Sarah stormed into the bedroom she shared with John and found him sitting in his chair. He did not look up when she entered and she cried: “We’ll have to go to Court. We can’t stay here grieving for the rest of our lives. German George will have to be made to understand what he owes to you. What’s the matter. Are you struck dumb. Marl. Marl!”

She went to him and the thought came to her in that moment: Why did I think I had reached the ultimate suffering. Then I had Marl, and while I have him I still have what I need to make life worth living.

“John,” she cried. “Dearest …”

But he did not answer; he could only look at her with dull, bewildered eyes.

She ran screaming from the room, summoning the servants. “Send for doctors. At once! At once! My lord Marlborough is taken ill.”

It was said that the shock of Lady Sunderland’s death, following so close on that of Lady Bridgewater, had brought on the Duke of Marlborough’s stroke.

When she realized that although he had lost the power of speech and it was obvious that he could not clearly grasp what was going on about him, he could still recover, Sarah threw off her grief for her daughters and set about nursing him, giving to the task all that energy which she had previously squandered on quarrels.

Nothing in that household was allowed to interfere with the Duke’s recovery. Sarah was supreme in the sickroom. She insisted that Dr. Garth—a local doctor—take up residence in the house that he might be called to attend the Duke at any time of the night and day.

The Duke must be kept alive, and it seemed that none dared disobey Sarah—not even the Duke, for he clung to life with a tenacity which surprised everyone, including the doctors.

“You will recover, John,” Sarah told her husband. “My dearest, you must recover. We have been together so long. How could we be separated now?”

That was one thing he seemed to understand and each day there was an improvement. His powers of speech began to return and Dr. Garth said his recovery was a near-miracle.

While Sarah was nursing John she received a letter from the Earl of Sunderland in which he said his wife had written to him when she knew she was dying and he enclosed the letter, for it concerned Sarah.

“Pray get my mother, the Duchess of Marlborough, to take care of the children, for to be left to servants is very bad for them and a man can’t take care of little children as a woman can. For the love she has for me and the duty I shall ever show her, I hope she will do it and be very kind to you who was dearer to me than my life.”

When Sarah read this letter she took it to her private sitting room and wept over it.

Then she took it to John and sitting by his chair told him what it contained. He understood and nodded his head.

“It will be good for you, Sarah,” he said in his slow and painful way.

And she wept afresh—quiet tears unlike those she usually shed.

“I shall write at once to Sunderland,” she said. “We will have the children here as soon as it can be arranged. There is Elizabeth’s girl, too. Perhaps I should bring her here. As my poor darling Anne has said: It is not good for children to be left to the care of servants.”

John understood. He seemed happier than he had for a long time.

This was Sarah’s new life—far from Court intrigues; a sick husband to nurse; a houseful of grandchildren to care for.

In the Manor of Langley Marsh Lady Masham had become the gracious chatelaine. Samuel was an ideal lord of the manor; gentle, kindly, he quickly became popular with his tenants, who knew in the neighbourhood that they must not be deceived by the quiet manner of Lady Masham; she it was who ruled the household.

She entertained frequently, yet she appeared to enjoy the simpler pursuits of the country. Her still room occupied some part of her time, and there was also the governing of the servants, the planning of dinner parties and of course, the bringing up of her children. When her son George died she was stricken with grief but she still had her Samuel, named after his father, and there was another son Francis to replace the one she had lost. She had her daughter Anne and looked forward to having more children.

She was avidly interested in the news from Court but she saw it all from a long distance and with each passing month her nostalgia grew less, and there were days when she never thought for a moment of the intimacies of the green closet; she sometimes poured the bohea tea without hearing the echo of a beautiful voice murmuring: “Dear Hill … or dear Masham … you always make it just as I like it.”

Those days were over but they had led to the present, and she must never allow the glory of Court power to obscure the degrading beginning. Abigail, Lady Masham, had come a long way from poverty and indignity and she was not the sort to forget it.

Samuel understood, perhaps more than she had believed he could; he was gentle and unobtrusive.

There came a time when she was restless; this was when she heard that Robert Harley, Lord Oxford was to be impeached for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours.

Unlike Bolingbroke he had not fled the country. He had stood firm and she was glad that he had. Yet she hoped that he would not be found guilty. What had he done?

She waited for news with trepidation. Samuel knew it. He was watchful of her during that time—watchful and full of tact.

“They cannot call him a criminal for pursuing a policy of which they don’t approve,” pointed out Samuel.

“They will have other charges to bring,” answered Abigail.

And so they had. They accused him of helping the Pretender to which he replied that everything he had done had been sanctioned by the Queen.

But with the fears of rebellion and so much political activity, the Harley affair seemed unimportant. It was shelved and he was left a prisoner in the Tower for two years.

Often Abigail in her comfortable bed would think of him in his prison in the Tower. Then she became pregnant again and his image grew faint.

“You need not think,” Samuel told her, “that you could be involved in his affairs.”

“I am not afraid,” she answered.

And strangely enough she believed Samuel understood that her preoccupation with Harley’s affairs was not due to a fear of being accused with him. It was some subtle connection, some vague relationship between them which she was striving to forget.

Sarah was making a busy life. The houses at St. Albans and Windsor as well as Marlborough House in London were always full of young people, and she was already planning grand marriages for her grandchildren. John’s health was a continual anxiety, for shortly after the first stroke he had another which was even more severe than the first, and yet Sarah nursed him through it. He found it difficult now to speak but he still clung to life. He must, Sarah told him, for what would she do without him?

He would sit in his chair and listen to the talk of his grandchildren whom he loved as devotedly as they did him. Sarah never had their affection. They were afraid of her. The only one to whom she showed real tenderness was Anne’s youngest Diana, whom she called Lady Dye. Lady Dye was her favourite and reminded Sarah frequently of her mother; moreover, the child had her mother’s temperament which made it so much easier for them to get on together. This was particularly noticeable because Lady Dye’s elder sister, Anne, had a touch of Sarah’s temper. This was certain to make for trouble and it was not possible to have such a temper duplicated in one household, so Lady Anne Spencer was sent away when her father married again.