Exit Lady Masham (17 page)

I nodded ruefully. Nothing would ever shake the Queen's opinion of the author of
A Tale of a Tub.
And then, suddenly, my heart seemed unbearably burdened. I could not tolerate the prospect of the long days at court with a hating husband and a bibulous Harley without that enlightening presence. The palace behind us seemed in that moment to shrink to the size of a doll's house and its inhabitants to so many gorgeously bedizened puppets. Even my poor beloved mistress began to fade and become dull to my mind's eye. And I? A schemer, a pusher, a nothing! Our human dignity had been only the robe in which this man had temporarily clothed us.

I gave in to my melancholy. I shed all pride. I sat down on a marble bench and sobbed unashamedly. Swift remained standing; on his face was that look of calm comprehension that bore so little sympathy.

"You have awakened me," I complained bitterly. "And now you expect me to go calmly back to sleep. As though nothing in the world had happened!"

"Would you rather I had left you sleeping?"

"Much! I had made my peace with myself. I was happy to be a spectator. I was getting through my life, which is as much as can be expected of a poor thing like me. And now nothing will ever be the same!"

"You're married to a peer of the realm. You're the intimate of a great sovereign. You have your children."

"But that great sovereign is not going to live forever! You know as well as I the state of her health. And my poor children, God help them, are Mashams. After the demise of the Queen I shall have no further voice in their upbringing. You have never seen Oates Manor in Buckinghamshire, my friend." Here I dried my eyes and made an effort to pull myself together. "That is the dismal spot where I shall be immured for life. Once the Queen is gone, Masham will have nothing more to gain from me. He will remember only my low birth—never the peerage that my favor brought him. He will go to London when he wishes, but he will never take me with him. My son will be raised to drink and hunt and carouse with his father. My daughters will be wed before they are fairly nubile to farmers so that the heir may have all."

"And how could my staying prevent that, Abigail?"

"It wouldn't. But at least I would have a richer garden of memories. I could live on that."

"I will write to you, my friend."

It was like him to give me only that. No offer of consolation, no assurance of prayers. He would not insult me by denying the accuracy of my predictions; he promised me only what he knew he could fulfill. And he has fulfilled it—faithfully. He still writes to me. It is my greatest, almost my only comfort.

"I have only one piece of advice to leave with you, Abigail. If the Queen's health continues to decline, the Jacobites will make a last-ditch effort to enlist her sympathy in favor of her brother. Always remember this: that James Stuart will never be King of this realm unless he abandons Rome, which he will never do. If he tries to usurp the crown, he will only bring useless bloodshed to this island. Her Majesty has too kind a heart to leave such a legacy to her subjects. It would be a sordid epitaph to a glorious reign."

"If there is still a task to be done, Jonathan, why don't you stay to do it?"

"Because a man has only so much usefulness behind the scenes. I've used every bit of influence I have. It's time to move on."

I rose, in despair, to go back to the palace. For I could only agree with him.

E
verything seemed to fall to pieces. Oxford and Bolingbroke, who had had, it now appeared, nothing in common but their joint resolution to be rid of Marlborough, took to snarling at each other, like two jackals over the corpse of a lion. Oxford was in favor of a conventionally negotiated peace, to be arrived at by parleys between the French and Spanish delegates and all of our allies. Bolingbroke, on the other hand, agile and undependable as ever, sought to by-pass the Dutch, the Emperor and Spain, and to negotiate directly but secretly with Versailles. He was more persuasive than Oxford, and it was his policy that won out in the council.

My old friend Harley seemed now to be suffering from a kind of moral collapse. Whether it was a belated remorse over his treatment of the great Duke or discouragement at the growing success of Bolingbroke's policies or simply the degeneration of advancing age, I could not tell, but it was only too apparent that he was becoming careless of his person, lazy in his duties and even more self-indulgent in his consumption of gin and wine. The Queen was increasingly critical of him. She complained to me that he repeated himself over and over and no longer seemed able to answer her questions. Was he senile or drunk, or both, she wanted to know? I defended him as best I could, but when she told me that he had spent one of his audiences pestering her to allow his son, who had married the only child of the Duke of Newcastle, to be heir to the latter's title, I became disgusted myself. Harley may have been my oldest friend, but our country was still at war.

It made matters worse that the Queen's health continued to decline alarmingly. She had to be hoisted into her hunting carriage in a chair specially fashioned to be pulled away when she was seated, and in Windsor she was raised from the first to the second story on a platform hauled by pulleys. I was obliged to be with her constantly now, and I could see only little of my children. It exasperated me that Oxford should add to my worries by conferring with the Queen only after he had finished a tankard of gin, but when I reproved him for this, he told me to mind my own business.

"My own business!" I retorted indignantly. "And who was it, I should like to know, who taught me to make the Queen my business!"

"The Queen is not Robert Harley, Abigail."

Things had reached such a pass between us that I was reluctant to go to his chambers at Windsor one evening when he sent me an urgent summons. But when I received a second with a "Please, Abigail!" added at the bottom, I decided to comply. I found him looking very old without his wig, and a bit shaky. He was not drunk, but there was a tumbler by his side filled with what I assumed to be gin.

"I don't suppose you've asked me here to be your drinking companion."

"Stop moralizing, Abigail, and listen to me. What is your husband up to with St. John?"

"I didn't know they were up to anything. Except the usual speculations."

"No, this is different. I'm convinced this has something to do with the succession. Something they want to persuade the Queen to do."

"Well, why don't you warn her?"

"Because she won't see me alone."

"And whose fault is that?" I exploded. "Who has been treating her audience chamber as if it were a public tavern?"

Harley's face was like a portrait overpainted with another. I thought I could make out the pink flush of indignation under the pale, puffy mask of his now habitual sadness. "There is no use our going into that now. It must wait for another time. You and I owe each other a few debts, my girl. You can pay off one of yours by keeping an eye on your husband."

"What could he and St. John be up to that's so terrible?"

"That's what I want you to find out."

"Why should Masham trust me? He knows I'm for the Queen before anyone. You and St. John used to be so close. Is there nothing left of that old friendship?"

"Bolingbroke has no friends. He trusts nobody. He would have employed a taster for his mother's milk. Oh, Abbie, I fear you have joined them!"

"Joined them? How?"

"Gone over to them. Conspired with them. Profited with them!"

"My poor old friend, you're making no sense." I glanced at the tumbler. "That wretched stuff will be the end of you."

He was moodily silent for a moment. "I meant well," he muttered. "But my means have been foul."

"If that's all you had to say, I shall leave you," I said, turning to the door. "But not to the gin, I hope. Don't forget you're to present the Prince of Savoy to Her Majesty in two hours' time."

The great Eugène, second only to Marlborough among the glorious generals of our alliance, had come to pay his respects to the Queen, and the corridors of the palace were crowded with courtiers anxious for a glimpse of him. The Queen was not feeling well, and she received him in a small parlor with only a dozen present. When Lord Oxford presented the tall, angular, olive-colored, plain gentleman in the absurdly large peruke, the Queen did him the honor of rising to her feet.

"It is not every day, Your Serene Highness," she murmured in her low, sweet voice, "that we have the honor of greeting the greatest general of Europe."

The Prince, who was nearly related to half the royalties of the continent, was not awed by a Stuart. He probably regarded his cousin-german, Mary of Modena, Anne's stepmother, as the only rightful Queen of our isle. This may have been why he now laughed, with a freedom that just missed impertinence, as he replied: "If I am that, it is Your Majesty who has made me so!"

"What does the Prince mean, Lord Oxford?" the Queen asked in a low tone, which I could just catch, turning to her First Minister.

Had Oxford been sober, he might have replied, with his usual suavity: "He means, ma'am, that a compliment from Your Majesty creates the state it confers." But instead he muttered in a thick voice: "I suppose His Highness refers to Your Majesty's dismissal of the Duke of Marlborough. He appears to believe that Your Majesty created a void in glory that a lesser rank had to fill."

The Queen looked much put out and did not address another word either to the Prince or to Oxford during the audience, which was saved only by a flattering speech offered to the Prince by Viscount Bolingbroke. When the company withdrew, the Queen signaled for me to remain. She sat for some moments in silence after we were alone. When she spoke, she did not look at me.

"Your friend Lord Oxford was impudent."

"Then he is no longer my friend, ma'am."

"Did you not think he was impudent?"

"I fear he had a glass too much wine."

"But it is impudence, is it not, to come into my presence the worse for wine?"

"Undoubtedly, ma'am."

"And it's not just today, Masham. He does it constantly now!"

I shook my head sadly. "What can have got into him, ma'am?"

"How should I know? He's always talking about honor. Does he think
I
don't care about England's honor?"

"May I inquire, ma'am, where honor is in question?"

"He maintains that the orders I have sent to the Duke of Ormonde in Flanders are a disgrace to the nation. You look mystified, Masham. Is it possible you haven't heard of the orders?" There was a note of near-hostility in the Queen's tone.

"Your Majesty assumes that I am better informed than is the case."

"Really? I thought you to be more in Lord Oxford's confidence. But anyway, Lord Bolingbroke and I have been disgusted at the endless delays of the peace negotiations. The diplomats talk while our soldiers die. So I finally told Lord Bolingbroke: 'Let us take the bull by the horns. Let us put an end to the fighting.' He agreed, and drew up the orders to be sent to the commander-in-chief. That he is immediately to cease engaging the enemy!"

I clapped my hands. "Oh, ma'am, I knew it! You are the greatest of sovereigns!"

"Well, Lord Oxford doesn't think so. We had a stormy council. He maintained that the orders amounted to a betrayal of our allies. He became so shrill that I had to shake my fan at him three times! In the end, it was decided to send the orders over the Lord Treasurer's protest, and today they have been sent."

"God be praised!" At that moment everything that I had suffered seemed repaid a hundredfold. Did Swift know? Well, he would, soon enough!

"How is one to understand a man like Oxford?" the Queen continued petulantly. "He shouts for peace, and I give him peace! What does it cost
him
? Does he have to stand up and bear the insult of the Prince of Savoy? No, I, his sovereign, must do that. That is what I do for England while my Lord Oxford sobs about honor into his jug of wine!"

I decided after I had seen the Queen that friendship required that I pay one more visit to Oxford and see if it was not too late to warn him of the reckless course on which he seemed embarked.

Y
ou are content then, Lady Masham, to see your country become a symbol of perfidy in the eyes of the civilized world!"

Lord Oxford was standing before his fireplace, his lips apart, speaking as clearly and coolly as in his best days in the House of Commons. Two hours had had the effect of completely restoring his sobriety, and I reflected that he was perhaps one of those who become inebriated on very little.

"I do not see that disengagement need be perfidy."

"When our soldiers stand by and see their former allies cut to ribbons?"

"I am a woman, like the Queen, milord. I see things more simply. I see men killing each other long after we have gained everything we sought to gain. The statesmen seem unable to put a stop to it. Very well. Like the Queen, I would simply say 'Halt!'"

Harley's lips closed in a bleak, tight line. "You have been well coached by St. John."

"Why do you attribute to him what I say? Do you assume I have no mind of my own?"

"You
had
a mind of your own, Abbie. But I very much fear you have disposed of it."

"Disposed of it?"

"Sold it!" Harley made his verb hiss, and I wondered for a moment if he were drunk after all. But then I remembered that in a court of vile tongues he might have heard something vile.

"To whom have I sold my mind? And for what price?"

"You have sold your mind to Henry St. John!
And
your soul. In return for a share of the Assiento!"

"And what, pray, is the Assiento?"

"Oh, Abbie, don't pretend to me!"

"I'm sorry, Harley. I don't know what you're talking about!"

Harley looked at first surprised and then curious. "Do you really mean to tell me that you have never heard of the Assiento, or contract?"

"Has it something to do with the peace talks?"

"It has. It's one of our conditions, though not one that we care to talk too much about. The Queen is to receive twenty-two per cent of the South Sea Company's monopoly of the slave trade between Africa and South America."