Courting Her Highness Part 23

She looked startled and he went on, "I have a matter to discuss with you which I think will be of great interest ... to us both."

"Why ... yes," she murmured.

"I will wait in the ante-room. Come when you can."

Shortly afterwards she made her way there to find him patiently waiting for her.

"I knew you would come," he said, his voice warm and friendly.

"You said you had a matter to discuss."

"Yes, I have made a very pleasing discovery."

"About ... me?"

"You and myself. We are cousins."

"Cousins! Is it indeed so?"

"You are in the same relations.h.i.+p to me as you are to the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough. Your father was my cousin."

"Mr. Harley, is it really so?"

He laughed. "You seem more surprised than pleased. But I can prove it to you."

"But of course I am honoured to be so ... so well connected."

"It was your name that caught my attention. Abigail is my mother's name. It is a popular name in our family."

"It is scarcely unusual."

"But that was what interested me and then ... I discovered the connection. I was ... delighted, and I could not refrain from telling you so."

"It is a pleasure for me," said Abigail, "but for you ..."

"You are indeed as modest as I have always heard you are. There is one thing I wished to say to you and it is this: Cousins should meet now and then, should they not? A relations.h.i.+p is a bond. Do you agree? I hope therefore that we shall meet often in Her Majesty's green closet."

"I am sure Her Majesty will be pleased to see you at any time."

"And you too?"

"I, of a certainty," said Abigail with a blush.

She went back to the Queen a little bewildered but pleased. What exalted relatives she possessed! And how much more charming was Mr. Harley than the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough. He talked to her as though she were a friend-not, as the d.u.c.h.ess did, like a poor relation only fitted to be a glorified servant.

Abigail was excited. Why, she asked herself, had Mr. Harley seemed so pleased by the relations.h.i.+p? He was not a young man to be easily excited. He was a very ambitious middle-aged one.

A thought came to her. Could it possibly be that Robert Harley, one of the leading politicians, believed the acquaintance of a chambermaid was worth cultivating?

What did Harley want? Abigail was no fool. He wanted a closer relations.h.i.+p with the Queen and he believed he could reach it through his cousin. People were noticing the Queen's fondness for her. This must be the case. It had come to Robert Harley's ears, and because of it he was proud to recognize his cousin.

For, pondered Abigail, I have been his cousin for a very long time, but it is only now that he has taken the trouble to find out.

She could think of nothing else but Harley's pleasure in his discovery, the courteous manner in which he had spoken to her.

I am important, thought Abigail. Not only to fetch and carry for the Queen, but for the influence I can have with her. I am becoming a little like my cousin Sarah.

What if one day I should be in Sarah's position?

Samuel Masham noticed the change in Abigail.

"Something has happened," he said when she joined him in the ante-room after the Queen and her husband had retired for the night. "You are different."

Did she then betray her feelings, Abigail wondered, she who had always prided herself on so successfully hiding them. She studied Samuel shrewdly. They were very close friends; he sought her company whenever possible and she trusted him as she did few people.

"Nothing has happened," she told him. "I have, though, discovered a new cousin."

"Who is that?" asked Samuel sharply.

"Mr. Harley."

"The Secretary of State?"

"Yes, he asked to speak to me and then told me he had discovered the relations.h.i.+p. He seemed very pleased about it. I have been wondering why."

"People are beginning to appreciate you, Abigail. I was afraid ..."

"Yes, of what were you afraid?"

"That perhaps ... someone was paying court to you ... and you were rather pleased about it."

"No, no one is paying court to me, Samuel."

"You are wrong, Abigail," he told her vehemently. "It is what I have been doing for a long time."

She lifted her green eyes to his. "But, Samuel ..."

"I think we could be very happy together, Abigail."

"You mean ..."

"I mean in marriage."

Marriage! She considered it. The Prince's page and the Queen's chambermaid. Their children growing up at Court. She remembered the marriages of the Churchill girls and how Anne had presented them all with handsome dowries. They would make good marriages ... if their parents were important at Court. No, not their parents. It would be their mother, for Samuel would never be important. Perhaps he knew it. Perhaps that was why he admired her. If she married Samuel-and if she were to have a husband it would have to be Samuel, for who else would want to marry her?-she would guide his destiny as well as her own, as well as their children.

And the Queen was fond of her. Not as fond as she was of Sarah Churchill, of course; but the Queen was capable of great fondness for her female friends. People were noticing.... That was what she kept coming back to. Robert Harley was anxious to claim her as cousin because people were noticing her, Abigail Hill.

"Well, Abigail," he said. "You don't hate me, do you?"

"No, Samuel. You know I'm very fond of you."

"Fond enough for marriage?"

"I'd like to think about it."

He was contented. Samuel would be easily contented.

What an exciting life was opening out for Abigail Hill! She was asked in marriage-which was something she had once thought would never happen to her. More than that, ambitious men sought her friends.h.i.+p-because of the influence they believed her to hold with the Queen.

"Good day to you, cousin."

She was in the garden and she could have sworn he had waylaid her.

"Good day to you ... cousin."

"You hesitate."

"It is a somewhat distant relations.h.i.+p. You were my father's cousin."

"Well, that makes me yours of a sort, and as I told you once before I am as nearly related to you as the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough. Though I promise you I shall not attempt to treat you with the scorn I have seen her give you."

Abigail said: "I was a poor relation."

"My lady was not always so rich; but she knew how to feather the nest, eh?"

"She is, I am sure, very clever."

"At feathering nests? But there are times when I think the lady is but one half as clever as she believes herself to be, and do you know, little cousin, it is a very dangerous thing to do to overestimate one's brilliance."

"I am convinced of it."

"There may come the day when the Queen of Bedchamber loses her crown."

"That is scarcely likely to be permitted."

"The improbability often becomes the possible. You would be surprised how often!"

"And you would be pleased to see it."

"I did not say so, cousin. But I should always be pleased to see merit rewarded. Pray tell me, will the Queen be receiving in the green closet today?"

"I believe she will."

"And who is to be there?"

"The Queen will be alone with the Prince. She did not sleep well, so I shall play to her on the harpsichord and perhaps sing a little."

"I should like to hear you play on the harpsichord. I have always admired your singing."

She lifted her eyes to his and regarded him steadily for some seconds.

"You wish an audience with the Queen this afternoon?"

"An audience? That has a formal ring. I should like to be there ... to talk to the Queen ... soothingly ... but without others present."

Abigail's heart began to beat faster.

"Would that be possible?" he asked.

"It might be."

"If you suggested it to Her Majesty? That I had no tiresome business with which to weary her. Just a dish of bohea ..."

"It might be possible ..."

"I should esteem it a cousinly favour."

"I will speak to Her Majesty. Present yourself and if ... it is possible, you shall be invited."

He took her hand and kissed it gallantly.

"How pleasant it is," he said, "to have relations in high places."

A hint of mockery? Perhaps. But his eyes were gleaming; and he was asking a favour.

She was beginning to understand something about him. He hated the Churchills-and so did she. How could one love someone who had done one so much good and never allowed one to forget it?

No wonder she was excited. She had entered into a liaison-strange and mysterious as yet-with one of the Queen's leading ministers. She, Abigail Hill, might yet take a part in shaping her country's destiny.

A delightful man, this Robert Harley, thought Anne. Such pleasant conversation. Hill played the harpsichord softly-a piece of Purcell's which was among Anne's favourites. George dozed contentedly and Mr. Harley told her what she most wanted to hear, how fortunate her dear people were to have such a monarch. In the coffee houses and taverns they talked continually of her as the Good Queen. The revival of touching for the King's Evil had touched them deeply. Such a clever way Mr. Harley had of expressing himself. He hinted that the people of England rejoiced in their Queen and that they felt it was an act of Providence which had brought her to the throne. That was very comforting, for always at the back of her mind was the memory of her father, who had been so devoted to her, and whom she had been led to betray.

Led to betray. Mrs. Freeman had been so vehement against him, and in those days she had believed that Mrs. Freeman was always right.

Mrs. Freeman was still her very best and dearest friend, but she did spend a lot of time away from the Court. She was continually going to St. Albans and always managed to be at Windsor Lodge when the Court was not in residence. If one did not know what heavy family commitments were Mrs. Freeman's, one would almost think she deliberately set out to avoid her poor unfortunate Morley.

How her thoughts ran on, and there was amusing Mr. Harley being so pleasant.

He had discovered he was Hill's cousin and seemed pleased about it. She was pleased too. It was good for Hill to be connected with a family like the Harleys.

"We have something more in common, Madam, than our cousins.h.i.+p, and that is our desire to serve you-a desire which is unrivalled throughout your kingdom."

What charming things he said! And when he had gone she told Hill how pleased she was to discover that she had such an exalted relative. Of course she was some distant connection of Mrs. Freeman, but Mrs. Freeman had never treated her as anything but the humblest of poor relations. Mr. Harley on the other hand had nothing but respect for her.

Anne felt a flicker of uneasiness. If Hill became too exalted, might that not alter her? Suppose she became too proud to perform the menial tasks which she now did so cheerfully? Suppose she became arrogant and demanding ... like some people.

Nonsense, said the Queen to herself, that would not be my Hill!

That was the first of many meetings, and it became the accepted procedure that on those occasions when the Queen said: "No visitors," Abigail would let in Mr. Harley and he and the Queen would chat together-not necessarily of state affairs, but now and then they crept in and Mr. Harley never made them dull or boring. He explained everything so perfectly and was never arrogant or obscure. Secretly Anne much preferred him to Sidney G.o.dolphin, who was so cold and formal in spite of his timidity and desire to please. Mr. Harley amused one and laughed at people in the nicest possible way so that one could not help joining in the fun.