Courting Her Highness (4 page)

“But are you not afraid …” began too-impetuous Alice.

“Afraid, my dear child. I … afraid of that … creature!”

She likes Alice’s questions, thought Abigail; she wants to talk all the time, hold the centre of the stage while we act as a chorus, to repeat what she wants repeated, to form a background for her.

“I should not think you are ever afraid of anything, Lady Marlborough,” said John sincerely.

Oh when, thought Abigail, is she going to tell me what will happen to me?

“It would take more than that Hollander to strike fear into me, I can tell you. He knows it. He works against me and against the Earl … which is what I find so hard to forgive … but his day is almost over.”

“I hope Alice will be a good laundress,” said Abigail, trying to bring the conversation back to important issues.

“I fear I shall not,” put in Alice.

“Ah!” laughed Lady Marlborough. “You’ll do well enough. When you
are given a post in a royal household you use it as a stepping stone to better things. Watch out, girl, and you will see where it will lead you.” She turned to Abigail. “And for you, I have plans.”

What thoughts could flash through the mind in a short space of time. A place at Court? She would watch illustrious people at close quarters; she would have a glimpse into matters which she believed could be of great interest to her. A place at Court, a stepping stone to better things.

“I am going to send you to St. Albans, Abigail. There you will be with my own children. You will, I am sure, make yourself useful.”

St. Albans! A poor relation in her cousin’s house! A sort of nursery maid to a family which were doubtless as arrogant as their mother.

Lucky John! Lucky Alice! Both were going to Court while Abigail was to be a poor relation, slightly higher than a chambermaid, but not much, in the house at St. Albans.

Lady Marlborough was watching her. She smiled and murmured her thanks.

Only Alice, who knew her so well, would know of the despair in her heart, and that she would guess; there was no sign of anything but abject gratitude on the plain features of Abigail Hill.

The furniture was
sold and, with the very little money it had realized between them, the three Hills left the house in which their parents had died, and set out to make their fortunes: John to school; Alice to Campden House where the Duke of Gloucester had his household; and Abigail, after saying a sad farewell to her brother and sister, to take the coach to St. Albans.

The journey was one of discomfort and alarms. There were stretches of road made notorious by the robbers who lurked there; and even if the coachman had his blunderbuss and horn of gunpowder, such precautions were known to be of little use against really desperate men.

Abigail was too much concerned with her future to worry about the dangers of the road; she was wondering what her duties at St. Albans would be, for although Lady Marlborough had hinted that she would be one of the family she did not believe this would be so. She had discovered
that there were five Churchill children and that the two elder girls, Henrietta and Anne, were older than she herself; she believed that Elizabeth the third daughter would be about two years younger, John, the only boy, three years younger, and Mary four. What could a thirteen-year-old girl do for such a family? she asked herself, for she guessed that she was being installed in the household as a poor relation who would be expected to make herself useful.

How differently Lady Marlborough must travel on her journeys from London to St. Albans! Abigail imagined her with her outriders and bodyguard of servants, all armed in preparation for encounters with highwaymen and equipped for emergencies such as ditching or breaking down. There would be running footmen too, to go ahead and announce what important people were on the way. Abigail could picture them dressed in the Marlborough livery, with their jockey caps and long staves trotting along the roads, pausing now to fortify themselves by drinking a little of the spirits they carried at the head of their staves. Oh yes, Lady Marlborough would travel in a very different way from her poor relation!

I am haunted by that woman, thought Abigail. It is unwise, because I could never be as she is and I should be grateful if now and then she reminds herself of my existence, which she will do—but only when I can be useful to her.

Then she consoled herself that Lady Marlborough would be at Court and it would be children of her own age—or thereabouts—with whom she had to deal.

Leaving the coach at St. Albans, she discovered that no one had come to meet her, but it was easy to find her way, for everyone knew the house built by the Earl of Marlborough on the site of Holywell House which had belonged to the Jennings. They still called it Holywell.

Her belongings, not amounting to much, were easily carried, and thus, quietly and discreetly, Abigail Hill found her way to her new home.

Her reception was
much as she had expected it would be.

Who was the new arrival? the servants asked. She was a member of the family but that most despised of connections—a poor relation. Her
clothes—those which were not recognized as Lady Elizabeth’s cast-offs—were shabby and much patched and darned. A very poor relation! She was to be put to useful service in the nursery. This was the command of Lady Marlborough, and those in authority would see that it would be carried out in the most humiliating way.

She was to share lessons, because Lady Marlborough could not allow a relative of hers to be uneducated. Not that Lady Marlborough had any great respect for education; her family must learn to conduct themselves as the nobility, to be able to move graciously about the Court when the time came for them to be there; but Latin and Greek, history and literature! “Bah!” Lady Marlborough had said. “Don’t talk to me of books! I know men and women and that serves me well enough.” But languages? Perhaps a little would be useful, for foreigners came to Court. Her children must be taught arithmetic; for money was important and a knowledge of the subject was necessary to deal with that indispensable asset.

The children were, as Abigail would have expected, on such an academic diet, growing up to be as worldly as their mother.

They were all good looking, having inherited the beautiful hair which was their mother’s greatest claim to beauty. It seemed too that some of them had not missed her arrogance either. Henrietta, the eldest, certainly possessed it; and in spite of her youth the same quality was apparent in nine-year-old Mary. Anne was different; she had a gentler nature; she was calm, and although a little aloof from Abigail, she made no attempt to browbeat her. Anne, although a year younger than Henrietta, seemed more mature than her sister. There was a gap of three years between Anne and eleven-year-old Elizabeth, and although the younger sister admired the elder and tried to follow her example now and then the temper would refuse to be restrained. Ten-year-old John was more like Anne. Being the only boy, he was adored by the family, and the servants said he took after his father rather than his mother.

Abigail’s room in this household was a small attic; it was a concession, she supposed that she should have one to herself and not have to share the large one with the female servants. When she stood there for the first time, looking out through the tiny window at the countryside, momentarily she felt at peace; but that was of short duration. Young Mary had come up to look for her.

“So you really are our cousin,” she said.

“I am your mother’s cousin.”

“Then you’re not ours?”

“Oh, we are connected.”

Mary wrinkled her brows and murmured: “How odd!” Then: “How are you going to make yourself useful?”

“I shall have to wait and see what is required of me.”

“But you will make yourself useful because Mamma said you would.”

Henrietta was calling: “Mary, where are you? Are you up there with Abigail Hill?”

Henrietta came into the attic and began turning over Abigail’s belongings, which were laid out on the pallet.

“Are these
all
your things?” The lips curled in that half sneer which was an absolute replica of her mother’s. “Oh, and that’s Elizabeth’s old gown. Does it fit? You are thin, Abigail Hill. And why have they put you in this attic?” She looked round it and her slightly tiptilted nose sniffed disdainfully. For a moment Abigail wondered if Henrietta thought she should have been treated more as a member of the family and was disgusted that she should have been put in an attic usually reserved for a servant.

“I think,” went on Henrietta, “that you should have a room near ours. There is a small one. It’s a powder closet, but it would serve. Then you can help us dress.”

Abigail saw the point. There would be no difficulty in making herself useful; she would be shown the way. She might be a blood relation but she had been brought into the house to earn her bread.

It would be very bitter bread, Abigail thought to herself; but she restrained her thoughts; she gave no indication of how she disliked Henrietta Churchill. She was demure, acquiescing, resigned as a poor relation should be. Even Henrietta could find no fault with that.

She had settled
into her place in the family. She took lessons with the girls; the governess looked down on her and even commented in her hearing that she had not bargained for teaching the likes of her. Abigail applied herself more earnestly to lessons than any of the Churchill children,
but she was not commended for her industry. She did not ask for praise; outwardly she appeared grateful; and perhaps when she thought of service in Lady Rivers’ household this was just preferable. For one thing she was acquiring a little more education, which was always good; and because it was a little harder to accept insults in a house full of her own family than in one where she was frankly a servant, she was learning greater endurance. She did not attempt to assert herself; meekly she accepted the fact that she was insignificant beside these flamboyant cousins; she was quiet and they were vociferous; they were physically attractive, she was not; she had little hope of bettering herself, whereas they were dazzled by the reflection of their parents’ ambition. Abigail guessed that Lady Marlborough, who had talked so frankly before the humble Hills, would have been even more open with her own family. She had spoken as though she were certainly as important as the King, if not more so; and her children, of course, would have grand titles and positions at Court bestowed on them.

There was in Holywell an atmosphere of which Abigail soon became aware. It was a marking time, a waiting for great events. Ambition was ever-present, so that it seemed to have a personality of its own. The children were always talking of what they would do when … When what? When Anne was Queen and was ruled by their mother; when their father had complete charge of the Army. To them it seemed inevitable that this would happen, but Abigail who had been born into a family which, if not affluent, was comfortably off and had seen its decline to poverty, believed that it was never wise to crow over what might be, until it was.