Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman

I

‘Is she coming?’ asked the Queen, in a frightened whisper.

She sat in a great chair in her private rooms at Kensington Palace, her feet propped on a rest, her full but not uncomely face flushed crimson with agitation. Beside her, quaking, stood Abigail Masham, pale with the sickly sallowness of ill health, with a face so unattractive that very few would care to study it for the sake of comprehending what lay beneath the homely features and air of dejected spinsterhood which belied her married state. Even her dress had a mortified appearance, and it was clear that Mrs. Masham, in her comparatively lowly position of Queen’s chamberwoman, stood studiously aside from any rivalries with the gayer, greater officeholders with whom her work must bring her in contact. Nothing could be humbler than her appearance and manner. The world let it go at that.

She had been preferred to her appointment, such as it was, by that haughty termagant, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, her own cousin, who had preceded her in it in long-ago days she wished forgotten. The Queen and the Duchess were still Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman to each other — those delightfully intimate names, chosen in the gushing, flushing time of youth when the two ladies could scarcely draw a breath apart. The Princess Anne had not felt it to be a condescension then. No, ‘t was a blessed privilege; and her friend accepted it with the frankness which suited her character.

But now that Mrs. Morley was comfortably settled in what her Mrs. Freeman irreverently called her ‘post’ as Queen of England, the long slow ease of the Palace days and the dull slow ease of Mrs. Morley palled on Mrs. Freeman’s fiery adventurous spirit and fretted it almost to madness. The great appointments and emoluments of herself and her Churchill, averaging over £90,000 a year of public money, not to mention lands and houses to swell their gains, wore well and very well, and it was pleasant to look back and reflect upon her own ability and genius for intrigue, backed by her husband’s. It had raised her ‘from poverty and from the dust,’as she owned. But yet, now that all was won, the Queen her crowned slave forevermore, the reins of the kingdom securely in her hands and those of dependent ministers, she could look back sometimes with a sigh to the days of clashing danger, when they had plotted with Anne and Mary and William of Orange to oust James the Second from the throne, to stigmatize his heir as spurious and a mere pretender; and later, infuriated by his harsh ingratitude for services bought and paid for, to fight the astute Oranger himself with his own weapons, holding on, dodging, lying, intriguing for and against the man until a blessed asthma slew him, and the crown was safely fixed on the head of Anne, their tool.

It was very difficult, nay, impossible for the adventurous Duchess to settle down to the long yawning games of basset which her supervision of the royal lady demanded, and the dull slow tittle-tattle which solaced the royal leisure between the businesses of basset and eating.

But it was necessary. A queen is a bird for the plucking, and there were others about the court who loved the warmth and downiness of those feathers as well as she of Marlborough. Suppose the crowned slave were supported and encouraged to slip her hands from the handcuffs! The redhaired Duchess of Somerset was ever on the watch.

But one happy day a happy thought illumined the Marlborough mind. Why not place the servile and downtrodden Abigail Hill, her cousin and nursery maid, about the Queen as general observer and listener on the Marlborough behalf, while she herself took a little leisure, married her daughters, counted her money, surveyed her demesnes, and so forth?

Mrs. Freeman, when her mind was thoroughly made up, and not till then, consulted her Duke’s placid good sense.

‘I see not how you could do better!’ says the military genius who won battles for the Queen at his Sarah’s behest, and would have sold them at the same to King James in France with equal celerity — in such awe and tenderness did he hold the lady who blessed his arms.

‘Well, but it needs consideration,’ says Madam, tossing. '’T is the last thing I would risk with a woman of any attractions or ambitions. But sure, the most Mrs. Abigail could hope would be a snug little pension to comfort her old age, and ‘t will ensure that; whereas, did she remain in our service (and now the girls are wed and to be wed I have no use for her), we could not turn her on the world with nothing when she gets past her work — ‘t would be remarked.’

‘You say very truc, my dear,’ replies the Duke.

‘She has no attractions,’ pursues the Duchess, ‘either of mind or person. With that red nose in her lemon face the creature is human, but no more, and as to ability — her parts are beneath contempt. But she hath just the creeping intelligence would make her a good listener and reporter. She is contrived by nature for the place I design.’

‘Indeed, you describe her to the life, my heart,’ says the Duke, beholding his mate with admiration.

He had been a gay man in his youth. His first step on the ladder had been with the aid of King Charles the Second’s infamous Duchess of Cleveland, and he took his full share of the riotous living of the times. But no saint, no martyr, could be more faithful to his principles than the great Marlborough to his Duchess. Not only did he love her, but he was truly sensible of her energy of resentment, and, having so much battle abroad, perhaps set too much store on peace at home, having early learnt the lesson that, the road to peace was unconditional surrender.

‘I could wish,’ says the Duchess, wielding an angry fan, ‘that you would counsel me, instead of perpetually agreeing! Do you or don’t you perceive any danger in appointing Abigail to be about that woman?’

The Duke composed his clear, handsome features to a very serious air.

‘Why, as to that, my dear, we don’t in war time appoint a man to spy upon the enemy until we have made trial of his honesty. And even then ‘t is the devil to the ace of trumps that he betrays you. ‘T is the maxim of my life to trust no one — excepting, indeed, your beloved self. And you know nothing of Abigail but her slavish curtsey when she gets her wages. I fear ‘t is dangerous at best.’

‘Lord, was ever a woman so used!' cries she, gathering fury. ‘You treat me like a fool, first agreeing, as if you gave comfits to a child, and then imposing your notions on a woman that made you what you are. What do you know of Anne and what suits her ? Let me tell you, you would have been dismissed from your command twenty times over but for your despised, forgotten wife, toiling day in and out to endure the dullest woman God ever created (and that’s saying much) while you pranced about at the head of the army. Oh yes — Lord, don’t I know it! — the parade and show for men, the drudgery for women. And now I propose to take a little case —’

She walked the room violently, her blue eyes darting fire. A daughter came and peeped in at the door with something to say, but fled precipitate on hearing the rattle of hail and thunder. The Duke sat looking with melancholy sweetness at his raging wife. ‘ T was the poor man’s only weapon and his best stroke of conjugal wisdom.

‘But I shall take my way,’ cries the Duchess, ‘and set a fool to guard a fool, while I have the respite you grudge me. And if — ‘

‘My dear, I kiss your hands and defer entirely to your judgment. ‘T is a woman’s matter —’

‘ ‘T is n’t! ‘T is an affair of State, else why do I take your opinion?’

‘ ‘T is indeed an affair of State,’ says the Duke gravely, ‘and who so fit as yourself to deal with it? You see me entirely convinced. You are in the right of it.’

Thus Abigail Hill, later Abigail Masham, was appointed to be about Her Majesty in a menial capacity. A trifle, but to shake the kingdom later, in the amazing decrees of fate.

II

We return to the Queen in her anteroom and Abigail beside her watching the door.

‘ You ‘re sure’t is she? ‘says the Queen, clutching the arms of her chair.

‘Why, Madam, Mrs. Abrahal saw her coach come down by the orangery from the Gravel Pits.’

But before the Queen could reply there was a rushing noise in the antechamber, the page’s timid knock, the door flung wide, and there entered Her Majesty’s Mistress of the Robes, the Duchess of Marlborough.

Handsome still in middle life, still golden-locked and blue-eyed, the Duchess was a sight to see. She wore a gown of rich brocaded silk, distended to its utmost by a vast hoop, and on her hair, drest very high, a fly-cap of rich lace. And in the wind of her flouncing the hoop swayed tempestuous, the wings of the cap flew backward, and the low-cut stiff bodice disclosed a finely shaped bosom tinged with scarlet from haste and rage. The page shrank back from the menace of her fan as she billowed past him on her hurricane way, and left the lady unannounced.

The Duchess dropped the most abbreviated curtsey ever seen in the presence of royalty and plumped herself into a chair (a long-accorded right), fanning furiously. Abigail stood mute behind the Queen, with eyes dropped, not daring to retire without signal given.

' ‘T was my privilege, in days I could name, to be private with Mrs. Morley whenever I desired it, Madam, and though I don’t give myself a parcel of airs like some that have less right, I think I may claim it still.’

The Queen over her shoulder threw a glance at Abigail, which said, ‘For pity’s sake, go!’ and the woman, with the lowliest of curtseys to either lady, glided stealthily away.

‘Will not my Mrs. Freeman be persuaded to a little refreshment? A cup of chocolate?’

‘Nothing, Madam. The business I have come for can’t be muddled with chocolate and follies. I don’t think at this time of day you need proof of the sincerity of my heart, and so what I shall say may be taken for truth. Is that creature gone?’ She threw an angry glance about her.

The Queen, uncertain from what quarter the storm was to burst, sat mute as a fish.

‘I have it from a sure hand, Madam, that you’ve degraded yourself to receiving a miniature of your reputed brother, the Pretender, from France, and you was observed to shed tears over it. And I have to say that, if so, ‘t is a very strange business and most ungrateful to your friends that set the crown on your head and keep it there, and can only be attributed to some backstairs influence I’ve suspected for a long time but was far from willing to credit.'

She tossed her head like a war horse in concluding her oration, and paused for the usual obsequious reply.

Dead silence.

‘I should scarce suppose it necessary to recall to Mrs. Morley the pains that was took by Mr. and Mrs. Freeman and others, too devoted for all the gratitude they ever got, to prove the fraud that was put upon the nation at his birth, for sure ‘t is plain that, had n’t the people believed themselves deceived, he had been took from his ill-judging father and brought up a Protestant and set on the throne when the old King was driven out, in which case’t is plain Mrs. Morley had never been Queen of England. And now, at this time of day to be crying over his picture! I can assure Mrs. Morley’t is very ill-taken by those that have a right to feel it most.’

The expression of dull suffering on the Queen’s face had no appeal to the furious Sarah, whose words were winged by many other wraths beside the portrait. The very sight of Abigail Masham drove her frantic, so strongly did she suspect that under the stealthy quiet was something stirring that as yet all her bitter suspicions could not capture.

‘Won’t Your Majesty favour me with a reply? ‘T is sure the least I’ve a right to expect after my long years of sincere service.’

It was always extremely difficult for the Queen to collect her ideas, and her power of expression was limited, but in the working of her face it could be read that speech was near. When it came, ‘t was extremely surprising. She fixed dull eyes on the Duchess.

‘Do you believe in the judgments of God? ‘ said she.

It took a moment for the Duchess to digest this astonishing question. So long a moment passed that it was repeated, and she then flung up her head and charged with all her spears. Attack was always her strategy while the foe was developing his plans and the issue doubtful.

‘Why, I hope I’ve done nothing to cause my principles to be suspected. Madam. I’ve been a churchwoman all my days and may flatter myself with having done the Church some service in the bishops I’ve assisted Your Majesty to appoint, not to mention the livings. So I own myself at a loss when questioned in such a surprising manner. I fear I’ve forgot my Catechism, however,’ flinging up her head, ‘if that’s your meaning.’

The slow Queen pursued her way as slowly as if she had not heard.

‘Did you believe the Prince was spurious? The warming-pan story was for the people. Did you believe it? Did I?’

Her voice was sunk to a whisper and her furtive eye glanced apprehensively about the room, now darkening with the snow outside. A fire flickered shadows into all the corners of the immensely high room. The snow had drifted in soft white billows on the window sills. Something in the scene, the voice, the face scarce distinct in the firelight, struck the Duchess with a kind of dread very new to her.

‘You wished me and others to believe it; you wished to believe it yourself: and what then, Madam?’

There was silence, broken only by the soft crackling of the fire, like a living presence in the room. Was the strange ferment in the Queen’s stagnant, mind settling down? No, she spoke again.

‘When that miniature came and Masham unwrapt it —’

‘Masham!’ almost screamed the Duchess. ‘ What business —'

‘And Masham unwrapt it, do you know what I thought? I thought’t was a portrait of my own lost son — my Gloucester. So great was the likeness.’

Another silence.

‘Do you wonder my tears fell on it?’ added the Queen.

The silence continued. ‘T was an extraordinary hush. The room was far removed from the world’s noises and might have been a brooding-place of quiet. Two large tears gathered in the Queen’s eyes and spilt down her cheeks, gleaming in the firelight. She did not dry them. The Duchess’s face was like flint.

At last the Queen spoke.

‘Who can comprehend the world? ‘T is so strange; ‘t is beyond me. While you struggle for a thing ‘t is worth heaven and earth: when you get it — Lord help us!’

‘Mrs. Morley’s philosophies are no doubt very high and mighty, but for my part I prefer common-sense,’ retorted Mrs. Freeman. ‘You designed the good of the nation, which was not to be served by a Catholic King, and you have it. And if you wanted your own with it — ‘t was lucky the two went hand in hand.'

Suddenly the Queen said, in a voice most strangely moved and shaken, ‘If there was only in the world one good man, one honest man I could open my soul to and have his counsel —’

‘There’s Dr. Swift,’ interrupted the Duchess, with a grin ill concealed in the firelight.

The Queen never heeded.

‘But they lie and flatter, and would sell their souls — as we sold ours.’

‘Sold my soul, Madam? I know nothing of yours and am not answerable; but give me leave to say I took what you told me of your observations on the late Queen Mary Beatrice’s condition as true, and a mother like yourself should be able to be easy on such points. You told me she was expecting no child, and if you were right the boy was spurious and introduced to defraud the nation, as was said at the time. If fault there was, I disown it and — ‘

But the Queen never heeded. It was not her habit to argue with the Duchess nor any. She had not the brain, nor yet the tongue. But, dominated by a single idea, she must speak after her own fashion.

‘First, when my sister Mary had no children, I was glad, for if she had borne children to the Prince of Orange I and mine were cut off from the throne, and I had my boy, my Gloucester, though all my others were dead — so many of them, and dead!’

‘ ‘T was a fortunate circumstance indeed Queen Mary had no children,’ says Mrs. Freeman pertly, ‘and one we knew how to be thankful for.’

‘And then, after her death, my Gloucester died. My only child. And ‘t was then first I began to see and to be frightened.’

‘Frightened at what, Madam, and how? Sure this is mere midsummer madness, and is far abroad from what I wished to say — that if the Cabinet hears of Your Majesty weeping and lamenting over the Pretender’s portrait ‘t is enough to make a serious disaffection. Sure things are ticklish enough in the country without folly to make them worse!’

She could not see the Queen’s face now, the snow and the coming night had so darkened the windows. The dull slow voice continued without either let or animation.

‘And then your son died. Your only one.’

‘’T was a very great affliction, but one I flatter myself I knew how to support sensibly. And what then, Madam? ‘

The voice dropped, almost whispered.

‘Must it not have a meaning that my sister Mary, a young healthy woman once or twice in a situation to have children, bore no child, and I — of all mine, not one left — not one, God help me! And your only boy laid in the dust also —’

‘We are all liable to these accidents of Providence, Madam,’says the Duchess tartly. ‘And why it pleases you to scratch them up, God only knows, but —’

‘And the boy we ruined lives and is the idol of all that know him. I ask you again, do you believe in the judgments of God?’

The Duchess rose.

‘For my part, Madam, I see no good in mixing sentiment with business, nor never did, and since you choose to dwell on a subject so displeasant I take leave to go. But I would have you remember that, what with all the Jacks [Jacobites] in the country, ‘t is a most unsuitable time to be hankering and slobbering over the Pretender’s picture.

T’ is but yesterday, I’m told, a set of verses was slipt into Lord Treasurer’s portfolio — I brought a couple to read you, and sure ‘t is well seen in them what suspicion gains ground. Will you hear?’

She unfolded a paper and read aloud to the Queen: —

' “Strange news, strange news, the Jacks of the city Have got,”cried Joan, “but we mind not tales: That our good Queen, through marvellous pity, Will leave her Crown to the Prince of Wales.”

‘You see, Madam. Sure, no further need to insist on common-sense when the rabble takes to such balladmongering as this. If it comes to be believed you favour the Pretender, your crown is not worth a puff of thistledown. You would be in the Tower in a month and dead in three. Ask the Duke else. “The Prince of Wales,” they call him. Lord save us!'

The Queen had sunk her face in her hand, her elbow resting on her armed chair. She did not raise it, but answered heavily.

‘God knows you’re right. ‘T is a part of the doom that nothing can be undone. A woman must sit by and see her work unroll itself, and the faults she thought so little cover heaven and darken earth like thunderclouds. I ‘ve no more to say. You can go.’

‘ But I’ve more to say, and of consequence, or I’m not like to trouble Mrs. Morley with it, ‘ says the Duchess, standing boldly before her mistress. ‘I would have Mrs. Morley, for her own good, know that the Cabinet is secretly far from easy at the creeping false upstart Masham, and her influence on Your Majesty’s opinions. ‘T is known that Mr. Harley’s Jacobite correspondence and interest at court is managed by this woman, which sure must appear the blackest treachery to your Ministers, and talk of the Queen’s intrigues runs far and wide.’

Silence, the Queen cowering into her visibly shaking hand. The Duchess judged best to soften her tone a little.

‘’T is known Harley and Masham are in the Prince of Wales’s interest, and, naturally, any that associates with them is blamed. But I know Mrs. Morley’s intentions are good, whatever her errors, and to let her run on in so many mistakes that must draw her into great misfortunes at last is just as if one should see a friend’s house afire and let them be burnt in their beds without waking them only because they don’t desire to be disturbed. This is the very case of Mrs. Morley — nothing seems agreeable to her now but what comes from the artifices of one reported to have a great talent that way. And there’s another thing I would say — I’m aware that that person is trespassing on my rights and has ordered a bottle of wine sent daily to Mrs. Abrahal the laundress because she’s sick, forsooth! What right has Your Majesty to give my rights to a fawning worm like Masham?’ And so forth, shrill with fury, storming until the lacqueys outside pricked their ears, laughing.

The Queen struggled to her feet, trembling, to leave the room. The Duchess set her back to the door.

‘You shall hear me out, for that’s the least favour you can do me for having set the crown on your head and kept it there. And when I have said my say I care not if I never see you again, Madam.’

For an hour she raged; then silence, a sweep, a rustle, a door flung open and shut, and the Fury was gone, leaving a dead silence behind her.

III

It was indeed very true that Abigail’s influence was now supreme, and the greatest in the kingdom must humour her exactly as they once had humoured Mrs. Freeman, her kinswoman. But this the Queen dreaded above all things to be known.

She sat alone in the dusk, thinking slow, bitter thoughts. Her fear of the Duchess haunted her night and day. And there was a deeper fear. Her father, King James, had from his deathbed written her a letter of which every word was fixed on the tablets of her memory, commanding her to repair the sin committed and to restore the crown to her half-brother, the Prince of Wales, or, if that were impossible, to make him her heir. And it was very true that, encouraged by Mrs. Masham, who was the mouthpiece of the friends of the exiled family, the unfortunate Queen was dallying with the thought of atonement in a way that should cost her as little as possible.

But her fear of God was less than her fear of the terrible Duchess. Therefore she did not long give way to sorrow, but wiped the tears from her eyes, rang for candles, and with a trembling hand, much enfeebled by the ailments which had reduced her, a woman in her forties, to the infirmities of old age, penned the following: —

My dear Mrs. Freeman, I cannot go to bed without renewing the request I have often made that you would banish all unkind and unjust thoughts of your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley. I saw by the glimpse I had of you that you were full of ‘em. Indeed, I do not deserve ‘em, and if you could see my heart you would find it as sincere, as tender and passionately fond of yon as ever, and as truly sensible of your kindness in telling me your mind freely upon all occasions. Nothing shall ever alter me. Though we have the misfortune to differ in some things, I will ever be the same to my dear, dear Mrs. Freeman, whom I do assure once more I am more tenderly and sincerely hers than it is possible ever to express.

She sat awhile, reading this over slowly, and then, ringing, desired Mrs. Masham’s attendance.

As the famous Abigail came gliding in with her fawning curtsey, the first impression was the extreme gentleness of voice and manner which had made her society such a refuge to the Queen from the coarse, screaming tyrannies of the Duchess. Her tones were a melting music.

’Your Majesty appears exhausted. A cup of broth — indeed, I am certain you need sustenance.’

Kneeling, she offered it, coaxing her mistress with little strips of toasted bread, delicately dipped in the cup. Her presence was infinitely restful and grateful, and a heavy sigh or two disburdened the Queen’s overcharged bosom.

‘She was like a tigress let loose!’ she said at last. ‘What I ever saw in her! An awful woman! But I believed she loved me. I think, in spite of all her fury, she loves me still. ‘T is that makes me stomach her insolences.’

Abigail shook her head gently.

‘I wish I could think it, Madam. Her Grace is my kinswoman, and to her I owe my first happy relief from misery. But Your Majesty is a better reader of character than your humble servant: there’s an incident, long in my heart — if I had the courage to relate it. And perhaps ‘t is time I laid it before you. I could wish Your Majesty’s opinion upon it. Still — I hesitate. I would not wrong Her Grace.’

The Queen raised her heavy person languidly in her chair.

‘What is it? If the Duchess differs with me in every point under the sun,

’t is no news, though I had best hear. Lord, how should any man or woman desire the crown! It passes my comprehension. Trouble and care and fear for daily and nightly attendants. What is it, Masham ? Is it the bishopric of Carlisle?’

Mrs. Masham laid aside the cup and touched her fingers delicately with her handkerchief.

‘No, Madam, a private affair. But, on second thoughts, perhaps best forgotten. God knows, I would not injure Her Grace, for all her haughtiness to me.’

‘Speak!’ said Her Majesty, in the peremptory tone she never dared use to her tyrant. ‘Be seated, and speak.’

Abigail drew a stool near the royal feet and settled down upon it, noiseless, looking down modestly upon the hands, now gloved, folded in her lap.

'’T was some months since, Madam, at St. James’s, I was in attendance upon your toilet, when Your Majesty observed you had no gloves on and desired me to fetch them from the next room, where you remembered you had left them on the table. I hurried to the place, and there found Her Grace sitting reading a letter, but the gloves were not in sight, for she had picked them up by accident and put them on. I curtseyed with all my duty and submissively mentioned that she had by mistake put on Your Majesty’s gloves. “All,”cries she, “have I put on anything that has touched the odious hands of that disagreeable woman!” And, pulling the gloves off, she threw them violently on the ground for me to pick up, crying, “Take them away!” Madam, I would not have dared report such an insult, but if Your Majesty commands me —’

The demure voice ceased, with an apology in the fall of it, and she never lifted her lashes to see the Queen go pale as death.

‘That story is true, for a part I heard through the door, but not all. Merciful God, the dupe I have been! And see how she has feathered her nest, she and her worthless husband — and all wrung from my foolish tenderness. Political differences one might forgive, but such loathsome vile blackness of heart never.’

‘’T would make a crocodile sick,’ said Mrs. Masham, wiping a tear. ‘I thought so before, and scarce dared think it, but Your Majesty confirms me.’

‘And to think,’ cries the Queen, for once almost eloquent, ‘that I opened my heart to her but now [Mrs. Masham started], declaring to her my remorse for — for — but no matter, for what can and shall be undone — and she mocked me, with a heart of marble and a face of brass! And I writ this letter to placate her, but I destroy it here and now —’

She made as if to grasp it for destruction, but Masham clasped her hands.

‘Madam, how just, how noble is Your Majesty’s wrath! My humble ignorance may guess the subject of your discourse, but sure, to offend the Duchess now, while her Cabinet is so powerful — what does Your Majesty’s wisdom judge?’

‘ Read the letter,’ says the Queen, pushing it toward her. ‘But sure it turns my stomach that ever I could write it.’

On her knees Masham read the letter. Her opaque eyes brightened as she looked upward.

‘Sure none but Your Majesty’s wisdom could have wrote what will so perfectly lull and deceive the Duchess, while our preparations go forward for the act of justice to her victim that will set your name forever among the stars as a great and generous princess. ‘T is perfection’s self, I protest, and the sooner in her hands the better.’

‘Then despatch it!’ cries the angry Queen. ‘And may it deceive her as she has so grossly and long deceived her indulgent mistress.’

The letter reassured the Duchess, who despised the ‘godly praying idiot,’ as she was at that moment becalling Her Majesty, with all her might. The Duke, with his usual solid calm, reviewing the conversation as she described it, was less confident.

‘The letter is sealed, but not wafered, says His Grace. ‘ ‘T is therefore certain that it has been through other hands than the Queen’s — we may well suppose Mrs. Abigail’s. Was I you, my love, I would not wholly trust to its obsequious tone, but would moderate my own to the Queen. ‘T is Abigail’s submissiveness wins her, whereas now she never speaks to you freely and you gain no ground. A moderation of tone — ‘

‘And am I to be tutored at this time of day as to how to control that fool? And by you, that benefits all through by my management? Manage the godly praying idiot yourself, if you know better. Fear or flattery is the only weapon to control her, and it shall never be said I bended my pride to flatter a fool, though for the good of the country and your own [furiously] I consented to drive her. Anyway, this letter shows I have her still where she should be — at my feet.’

‘My dear, you have done so well for the nation and ourselves, as dictator, that I have no more to say, ‘ replies the Duke with his good-humoured smile. ‘Therefore, have it your own way, and blame not me if Masham worsts you. After all, we can make our own peace with the exiled family any time we will. I have always kept an iron warm in the fire at St. Germain’s, and your own sister’s in their ragged court. And I have not judged it politic to offend the Hanoverian family neither, for who can say how the balance may dip? But keep well with the Queen.’

For all answer, his consort sprang on him in a transport of fury and boxed His Grace’s ears with such fine ringing boxes as proved her sincerely in earnest. He endured with perfect patience for a moment, his periwig perhaps protecting his ears somewhat, then captured the hands and kissed her.

’My dear, is this the way to treat your lover?’ says he tenderly. ‘My body you are welcome to injure, but would you wound my heart?’

Clasping the hands in one of his, he pulled open the bosom of his fine worked shirt and disclosed a small case she knew well — its contents a lovely tress of spun gold from her own head.

‘ ‘T is my talisman,’ says he, ‘for all the wounds your little tongue has given me, or even the little hand I love. But spare the heart it guards, for indeed ‘t is true to my wife.’

She dragged her hands away and, covering her face, burst into a raging flood of tears. Indeed she knew well he loved her, though even of that she sometimes made a grievance.

IV

Henceforward, like a coral insect toiling beneath the ocean, Masham built, aided by the unseen hands and intellects of many who fain would see the Stuarts restored, and flattered Queen Anne’s hopes of atonement at such small cost to herself as the rich man’s legacy to charities passed over in life. Thus her mind fastened on the hope to leave the crown to her half-brother at her death and away from the Electoral family of Hanover, whom she hated. And ‘t was bound up with her own soul’s salvation in her remorse, for she knew, none better, that the story of the infant introduced into Queen Mary Beatrice’s bedchamber in a warming-pan was false as Hell. Too late she saw that though it was needful to exile the King and Prince for their religious opinions, if so the nation would have it, to brand them as the liars, perjurers, cheats they were not was a devil’s weapon used politically. It stung — it stung. And now, to repair it, she would do another wrong — restore the lad, with his religion the British people would have none of, to heal the hurt in her own soul. She would plunge the three kingdoms into civil war lest she should burn in Hell.

O God, the weariness unspeakable of such thoughts as these night and day, and the weary crown to crush a woman into the very dust of humiliation! The quarrels of her Cabinet and the Marlboroughs, the intrigues, the base, sly plotting and buying and selling. Better a squire’s lady in the quiet villages she had seen long ago when she fled from meeting her ruined father. Better death itself, so only it would bring quiet.

Meanwhile, very slowly and with extreme caution, the Marlborough family were undermined, with the aid of the ancient nobility of England, to whom these upstarts were abhorrent. Their Cabinet was ousted. Place after place melted from their grasp.

The Duke modestly desired to remain General for life of the Queen’s Armies. ‘T was denied with such tenderness as might become an assent. The Duchess was compelled to relinquish her position as Mistress of the Robes — and of the Queen who wore them. But all done with extremest care and courtesy until it came to the last pinch.

Lord save us! With what inward joy and scarce-concealed chuckles did all but the Marlborough junta watch this gradual disintegration of an influence that heretofore wholly overshadowed the Queen and the world!

The Duke, trembling, well aware that Masham was delicately fanning the spark of the Queen’s courage, dared to beseech moderation from his Duchess, but in vain. Meet gentleness with gentleness, he softly entreated his lady. Gentleness! Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Could the Duchess believe the day possible when she could not terrify Mrs. Morley into servile submission?

She flew to Kensington Palace in such a blaze as might have scattered flames in her train, only to find the sovereign heavy, obstinate, tutored into perfect immobility, intractable as a marble image. ‘T is said that against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain. ‘T is indeed a panoply of proof, and baffled the charging Duchess at least.

‘I think there is nothing you can have to say but you may write it,’ says the Queen.

‘Won’t Your Majesty [no longer Mrs. Morley!] give me leave to tell it you?’

' Whatever you have to say, you may write it.’

‘ I believe Your Majesty never did so hard a thing to anybody as refuse to hear them speak — even the meanest person that ever desired it!’

‘Yes, I do bid people put what they have to say in writing when I have a mind to it.’

‘I have nothing to say, Madam, on the subject that is so uneasy to you. That person, Masham, is not concerned in the account I would give you, which I can’t be quiet till I have told you.’

‘You may put it into writing.’

The mere threat of disquietude had driven the Queen before to cringing; now the Duchess surged against rock.

Suddenly she broke loose. She forgot her husband’s counsel. She screamed, she raged, she taunted. Bitternesses, cruelties, flowed torrential from her lips.

‘I will leave the room,’ said the Queen, and put her hand on the bell to ring for assistance.

In their last interview the subject had set her back to the door and forced her sovereign to hear her at the risk of fisticuffs. Now, to her own consternation, the Duchess’s wrath broke in rout. She burst into stormy tears and fled, conquered, to the long gallery where she strove to staunch the tears she could not control, a sorry spectacle for passing giggling pages and waiting women, all lightfoot to trip with the news to Masham. ‘T was unbearable. One more dying effort.

Returning, all bewept, to the royal cabinet, she broke forth once more. Raving recrimination. She was sure Her Majesty ‘would suffer for her inhumanity.’

‘That will be to myself,’ replied the Queen stolidly, and closed the door on her friend and the last conversation they ever had together.

One may picture the pale Masham hiding in the background, too politic to triumph openly, greeting the fallen foe with her most obsequious curtsey as they passed in the long gallery.

A last frantic attempt the once-favourite made, in writing, to retrieve her empire — an all but incredible letter. The Duke would have stopped it had he dared.

There was something very unusual in the manner of the last conversation I had with Your Majesty, in your declaring you would give no answer to whatsoever I said, and in the disorder that appeared by your turning from the candle. I can’t but think you are ashamed of the company you generally have, and sensible of the ill consequences of having such a favourite and of the reflections that are made over all the town about it. If there can be a pleasure in anything one is ashamed to own (for which I have no taste), I am sure you will pay very dear for it. I never heard of any Prince that kept little company that was not unfortunate. I beg you, Madam, for your own sake, to think what the world must say upon your showing your real confidence and kindness to Mrs. Masham, her sister, and a Scotch doctor, and others one is ashamed to name, and, in short, to anyone that will make court to her, who must always be contemptible wretches, since they can condescend to such lowness in order to compass their ends with Your Majesty.

The sighing Duke dared not even say ‘ I told you so, ‘ when dead silence greeted this firebrand.

The Duchess threatened to publish the Queen’s intimate letters. The Queen demanded the gold keys of her office and ordered the Duke to procure them from his tigress. She seized and flung them savagely at his head and he crawled with them to the Queen, gentle and touching in his submissiveness to the last. ‘T was all over and no help for it, he thought. His Duchess thought otherwise.

But a thing stranger than strange happened when the indomitable Duchess returned for the last time to the charge. She arrived at the palace and sent in her name. Answer: ‘Her Majesty is indisposed.’ Pale and furious, she retreated to the long gallery to consider her plan of attack, and presently stole up to the door of the Queen’s room and scratched softly — royal doors being amenable to scratching rather than knocking. Masham opened it, curtseying to the ground.

‘I beg ten thousand pardons, Your Grace, but Her Majesty’s so unwell that Dr. Arbuthnot orders perfect quiet and only the lower sort about her that she won’t talk with.’

‘Then I shall wait in the long gallery to be at hand. My anxiety won’t allow me to depart and my office forbids it.

I shall wait if it was a month, and probably Her Majesty will see me later.’

It would not have been well to remind the Duchess that she no longer held office, and Abigail only sighed meekly as Her Grace added: ‘I shall scratch every two hours to know how she does.’

The door closed softly and Sarah of Marlborough, going along the gallery, sat herself in one of the deep windowseats looking out into the ghostly trees seen only by snow-light and a veiled moon. The page in waiting had fallen asleep at the far end and was lost in flickering shadows, and by order of Dr. Arbuthnot the gallery was empty.

She was not accessible to the influences of nature and stared unseeing into the white night, her mind raging through the humiliating scenes of the day. But Lord, how quiet ‘t was, she thought presently. All in the palace asleep like the child’s fairy tale, and what a sleeping beauty would the Queen be on her pillow! That thought tickled her to a bitter smile. But how quiet! The snow drifted down like silence shed from clouds of peace. The trees were ermined with cold whiteness — the earth muted and lost. She had never sat alone in the night before — her life brimmed with noise, bustle, and intrigue. Plotting — plotting and nothing else. Now how still the snow eddied across the windows in its own ghost-light. Insensibly the tossing waves of her mind calmed, and she laid her chin on her folded arms on the window sill, looking out as time stole by.

Did she sleep? Certainly a chilly torpor crept over her, the numbing frost-sleep in her brain. But dimly she saw on the terrace what the sentries must have been drunk or drowsy to permit—a man standing and looking up at the Queen’s windows. And was she herself drowsy that she did not rush to call assistance? He looked up in fixed immobility, holding by the hand a very little boy, who gazed as fixedly as he. His face was in profile, but his figure and attitude seemed perfectly familiar and filled her with a vague tremor of anxiety. She sat erect now, leaning on her elbows and watching. It was observable that the snow was above the child’s ankles and feathering on his bare head. Somewhere deep down below the crust of iron the Duchess had a touch of the mother, and it pricked her to see the fair head and the snow settling on it, though the child himself could not have been more quiet had he lain beneath the grass with the snow mounding above him. But the young man must have felt it, for he stooped and lifted him into his arms for shelter, the little head pillowed on his arm. The two resumed their watch.

The Duchess pressed her face against the pane. She wanted more light to be certain, but yet — No, no! Impossible madness! The snow must have got into her brain. It could never be — and yet! The moon held on her way, sickly and weary, and for an instant the light was on the child’s face and she saw.

It was the Queen’s son, the little Gloucester, her dead hope, the last and dearest. But — he, so strictly guarded, out in the night and snow? She had thought him dead — No, she must have dreamed that. Dreamed that he was laid away, sealed and coffined in the splendid glooms of the Seventh Henry’s chapel at Westminster. He was here, looking up at his mother’s window. Here. A nightmare horror seized her for the first time in her life. She struggled to rise and could not, to shriek and had no breath; would have fled and could only cling staring to the window; her whole being, sight. And who held him clasped in strong arms? Who stood looking down upon him with infinite tenderness? Had the worlds of dead and living broken bounds to mix in that breathless stillness ? For she knew — she knew! The light fell in a shaft on their faces now as from the Queen’s uncurtained window, and it was the Queen’s young brother, the man she herself had helped to ruin, the young Pretender, inheritor of all the sorrows of his unhappy line — James Stuart. The little king that should have been, with the king never to be! Something broke in the woman’s brain. Her head slipped down on her arms. She had fainted.

Abigail, hearing no scratch, looked out at the appointed time, fearing some strategic entry. The long gallery was still as death. She stole back to the Queen.

‘She’s gone. We’ve tired her out, Your Majesty.’

‘Then give me some chocolate and get to bed. I shall sleep now.’

The Duchess told that story to two persons only. One, her Duke. He laughed. What dream more natural after late events? The other, a bishop who shall be nameless. Did she need ghostly counsel? She received it.

‘Such dreams, Madam, were vouchsafed to godly persons in times past for their encouragement and edification, and sure ‘t is a reward of my Lady Duchess’s great services to the Church in the appointment of bishops and other such faithful servants of God. And if I am not mistook it had also a political significance, for what more natural than that the child should attempt to warn the mother against a weakness of affection to her brother (if brother he were) that should plunge the country in the horrors of civil war. This vision should be carried to the Queen.’

She fixed him with her eye.

‘And the Pretender, my lord?’

‘There Your Grace must have been mistook. The Pretender is a living man; the child is dead. There were no footsteps on the snow when you enquired next day. I should omit the Pretender. It would naturally be the child’s guardian angel if such are permitted to our faith. Her Majesty ails, and mention of that young man might unsettle her.’

The Duchess went to court and demanded to see Her Majesty on a matter of life and death. She was refused. The Queen preferred either to that meeting. There the matter ended and Her Grace’s power with it.

She sat no more in the long gallery.

V

St. Germain’s and the Pretender thrilled as the Queen’s infirmities increased and she passed more and more securely into the downy keeping of Masham — now Lady Masham and a peeress. But there was an honesty in Abigail which Sarah lacked, and her down was kept to soften the Queen’s hard lot and not to feather her own nest. She had a human heart beneath her stiff stomacher and pitied the poor lady.

But Death, who did not favour the Pretender, was a better plotter than any of them and got his own way in the end, after his ancient habit. One would think that for the sake of a Queen’s atonement he might have delayed until her party’s plan was made and the train laid for the lighting.

Not he! He struck Her Majesty down with as little consideration as if she had been Mrs. Abrahal, her laundress. She was found one day standing in the Presence Chamber in the Palace — she who could not move her heavy person without assistance! Alone — staring at the great clock, dead silent. How had she got there? Did she see the hands slowing to the stop? None knows, nor ever will. But when Mrs. Danvers screamed out at the terrifying sight, half thinking it a spectre, the Queen turned, staring still, but at Death himself — so said the woman later. And so they carried her away to her deathbed.

There she lay moaning: ‘Oh, my brother! Oh, my poor brother! What will become of you?’ — him she had ruined with a lie. Once she rallied for a mysterious word with the Bishop of London, who left her grave-faced, declaring: ‘Madam, I will obey your command. I will declare your mind though it cost me my head.’

She sighed, relieved, yet apparently the head outweighed obedience, for that message was either not given or unheeded. ‘Authority forgets a dying king,’ and if a woman would atone she must not leave it to others.

So for a day or two her breath fluttered and a stupor took her faculties, and the Jacobites hoped and feared as Masham reported the slow, inevitable end.

‘She dies from the feet upward.’ ‘She’s half dead already. I’ll die for her if she lives four-and-twenty hours.’ ‘’T is all over. The cause is lost.’

And still the Queen moaned for her brother, and still the Jacobite nobles held distracted counsel without the courage either to strike a bold blow or to scatter and flee, and as Masham glided to and from the deathbed it seemed the very world stood still to see what would be.

But on the Sunday morning, when the world moved again to its pains and pleasures, something else had stopped that would go no more while the world lasted. And Masham was a mere waiting woman once more and of no consequence to any but herself, and Marlborough was writing obsequious letters to Hanover and the Duchess triumphing. For the Pretender’s hopes had blown away like smoke from the Kensington chimneys, and so dissolved and vanished forever. The game was won and lost.

Queen Anne is dead.