Courting Her Highness (5 page)

Being herself Abigail soon settled into her place in the family; she was as unobtrusive as a cupboard or a table, said Anne. Nobody noticed her presence until they wanted something.

Sometimes Abigail pictured her life going on and on in this groove into which she had fallen. She had enough to eat; she had the knowledge that she was related to the Countess of Marlborough, but she had less freedom than the cook, the maids or the governess. Would it always be so?

The idea came to her that it could not go on. This was when she sat with the girls one day stitching for the poor, for Lady Marlborough had ordered that they must do this. So they sat making shapeless garments of rough material which each of them had to complete before they turned to fine needlework. As neither occupation was enjoyed by the Churchill girls
it was no more distasteful to do the rough work than the fine. Abigail, stitching diligently, had completed her garment before the others.

“Here, Abigail, do fix this miserable seam for me. It bores me.” That was Henrietta—almost a young woman now. A little fretful, feeling shut in by the quiet life of St. Albans, always dreaming of what the next weeks might bring.

“If I were not myself, do you know what I should wish to be?” demanded Henrietta.

“What?” asked Anne.

Henrietta stretched her arms about her head. “An actress,” she said.

That made Anne and Elizabeth laugh aloud, while Abigail bent over her work as though to shut herself out of the discussion.

“An actress like Anne Bracegirdle,” went on Henrietta.

“How do you know of such people?” asked Elizabeth.

“Idiot! I keep my ears open. Do you know that some of our servants have been to London and to the play?”

“How strange that they should have been and we not,” mused Elizabeth.

“Plays are for low people,” added Anne.

“Indeed they are not,” retorted Henrietta fiercely. “Queen Mary went to a play. King Charles was always there and so was King James. The King does not go but that is because he hates anything that is gay and amusing. It has nothing to do with being a King.”

“The Dutch monster!” said Elizabeth with a laugh.

So Lady Marlborough talked carelessly of the King before her children, thought Abigail, and was once more astonished that one who was so careless and so vulgar could have made such a position for herself at Court.

“Queen Mary went to a play by Dryden,” said Henrietta. “I have read it. It’s called
The Spanish Friar
. There are some passages in it that made her blush.”

“Why?” asked Elizabeth.

“Oh, be quiet. You don’t know anything. But I should like to be an actress like Betterton and Bracegirdle. I love particularly Mr. Congreve’s play the
Old Bachelor
and the
Double Dealer;
and Dryden says he is the greatest living playwright. Oh how I should love to be on the stage.”

“Mamma would never permit it,” said Elizabeth.

“She didn’t really mean it, Elizabeth.” That was Anne.

“Of course I meant that I should love to be on the stage. I should love to play wonderful parts. Beautiful women … wicked women I should like playing best. And the King would come and see me and all the nobility.”

“Perhaps some of them would want you for a mistress.”

“Anne!”

“Well, that is what happens to actresses. And, Henrietta Churchill, if you think Mamma would ever allow it to happen to you, you are mad.”

“No, I know it won’t happen, but … I wish it would.”

Anne was suddenly aware of Abigail. “You’re sitting there … quietly listening as you always do. What do you think? Would you like to be an actress?”

Henrietta burst into a loud laugh. For the thought of Abigail Hill on the stage charming Kings and Queens, and the nobility falling in love with her, was quite comic.

Elizabeth was rolling on her chair with glee; Anne could not suppress a smile; and Henrietta went on laughing. Only Abigail Hill sat quietly, plying her needle, seeming serene.

But beneath that calm there was dislike for this family which became stronger with every week she spent in their house.

Yes, it was certainly humble pie and bitter bread which was eaten at St. Albans.

When the Earl
came to St. Albans there was a change in the household. He was in some sort of disgrace, Abigail gathered, because of a plot in which his name had been mentioned; it was, as usual, a scheme to bring back James II who had fled to France when William and Mary had taken his throne.

Sir John Fenwick was executed on Tower Hill, and Marlborough had thought it wise to keep in the shadows. Hence his stay at the house.

“Now,” said the cook, “we must be careful what we serve at table for he will want to know the cost of the meat in the pie and why we did not use more pastry and less meat because he will know that the cost of one is greater than the other.”

“The meanest lord I ever worked for,” was the comment of a groom. “He’ll have us catch the last second of daylight before lighting the lanterns. Every penny counts with my lord.”

And so it seemed. His man-servant had said that he possessed only three coats and that these had to be watched carefully so that the slightest tear could be mended at once in order to preserve the life of the garment. He would walk miles through the mud when in London rather than spend the coach fare; and most extraordinary of all, his secretaries said that he never dotted his i’s because he considered it a waste of ink to do so.

Abigail wondered what he would think of her. He would not want to give her food and shelter unless she earned them. If she did not she would surely be more of a liability than a candle or a drop of ink.

She was surprised, therefore, when she met the Earl. He was tall, very well proportioned and outstandingly handsome; his hair was fair, almost the same colour as Sarah’s; his eyes, between well defined brows, were startlingly blue and his features were finely chiselled; but what was so unusual in this family was the serenity of his expression. As soon as she saw him, Abigail understood why Sarah, who seemed incapable of loving anyone but herself, loved him almost as much, and why the notorious Lady Castlemaine had jeopardized her position with the King to become his mistress. There were perhaps more handsome men, but none, Abigail was sure, who possessed such overwhelming charm. John Churchill was courteous to the meanest servant and he did so with an air of not being able to act in any other manner. There was no hint of the meanness of which Abigail had heard so much, although she was quickly to discover that it was by no means exaggerated.

He was charming to Abigail, noticing her as soon as he was in her company, enquiring if she was happy in his household as though it was a matter of concern to him. Abigail, possessing a serenity to match his own, was able to look on at herself being charmed by him and yet remain completely aloof. She wondered whether it was not in her nature to idealize any one person. Perhaps she had suffered such hardship that the prevailing need was to protect herself; and until she felt herself securely settled in life—and whoever in a changing world was ever that?—she would continue to keep one motive in mind.

All the same it was pleasant to find the Earl so different from the rest
of his family. If he thought she was a drag on the household expenses he gave no indication of this. How different from his wife!

He even had news of her brother and sister.

“Your young brother is to leave his school for a place has been found for him as page in the household of the Prince of Denmark—husband of Princess Anne,” he told her.

“But that is indeed good news!” she said, lowering her eyes. Oh, lucky John! she thought, fiercely envious for a moment, comparing this life of servitude as poor relation with the opportunities given to her brother and sister.

“He has his eyes on the Army,” went on the Earl. “He’s set on it, and if a lad wants to be a soldier, then so should he be—for such make the best soldiers. We shall see; and I promise you that if there is an opportunity later when he is older, he shall have it, if it is in my power to give it.”

“You are good, my lord.”

“The boy is my wife’s cousin, and I would do what I can for him. He’ll have to be patient though, for as yet he is only old enough for the Duke of Gloucester’s army. When your brother goes into action it should be with more than a wooden sword, eh? And that reminds me of your sister. She asked me to send a message to you. She is happy in her work, and trusts you are the same.”

He smiled at her so charmingly that she answered that she was.

She was glad that he was in the house even though it did mean that the candles were doused early and every economy must be practised. It seemed strange to Abigail that a man who, according to his wife, was a genius capable of holding the highest post in the country should be concerned about the consumption of candles; but she accepted this as one of the idiosyncrasies of the great and was thankful for his presence.

The Earl had been in the house less than a week when the Marlborough outriders arrived at the house to say that the Countess of Marlborough was on her way.

Sarah Churchill swept
into the house like a tornado—as Alice had once described her advent. Pots and pans were polished, so was
furniture; and there was a smell of baking in the kitchen. The Earl was so delighted at the prospect of seeing his wife that he did not calculate the cost of this extra activity. From a window Abigail watched him go out to greet her. She saw him take her hands, stand a little way from her as though to see her more clearly; then he clasped her in a prolonged embrace. And what would my Lady Marlborough think of that? He was crushing her head-dress but she did not seem to mind. Abigail marvelled to see them laughing together; she had never seen Lady Marlborough look at anyone else like that and would not have believed that she could.

They came in and Abigail could hear her voice penetrating the house.

“And where is my family? Why are they not here to greet me?”

But of course they were all there. They would not dream of displeasing her.

She did not ask for Abigail Hill; as Abigail guessed, she had forgotten her existence.

Lady Marlborough was
never happier than when in the company of her husband. Although she loved intrigue and to enjoy it she must live close to the Princess Anne, and if Marlborough were ever to achieve the fame which was his due he could not do so, as she would say, “in his wife’s pocket,” these brief sojourns at St. Albans with her husband and family were the happiest periods of Sarah Churchill’s life.

This time a purpose other than pleasure had brought her to St. Albans; and it was one which she would only discuss with her husband in the privacy of their bedchamber.

There she sat at her mirror and let her rich hair, which he loved so much, fall about her shoulders.

“Oh my dear Marl,” she said, “I am sick to death of this waiting. How long can he live, do you think?”

“It’s a question we have been asking ourselves for a very long time, my love.”

“H’m? Sometimes I think he goes on living just to spite us.”