Courting Her Highness Page 3

  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.

  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.