Виктория Холт - Courting Her Highness

“I am sure you will do me credit.” She turned to Alice. “And I have an excellent opportunity for you. There is a vacancy in the household of the little Duke of Gloucester for a laundress.”

“A laundress!” gasped Alice.

“A laundress in the household of the young Duke is a post greatly coveted, I do assure you,” said Lady Marlborough acidly.

“My sister is overcome by your ladyship’s generosity,” said Abigail, impatient to know her own fate. “She is young and finds it difficult to express her gratitude.”

Lady Marlborough was soothed. “And grateful she should be, for the young Duke will be the heir to the throne as soon as Dutch William goes where he should have gone these many years. How he lingers on! He’s been dying ever since I saw him, and it was Mary who went first. I could never abide her, but for that Dutch Abortion …”

Alice gave a slight nervous giggle; John looked interested, and although Abigail’s expression did not change she was thinking: How indiscreet she is! How vulgar. And how odd that indiscretion and vulgarity should have brought her such high rewards!

“You may smile,” went on Lady Marlborough, “but that is one of the names Mrs. Morley and I use for him. Mrs. Morley is Anne … the Princess, you know. She would have us dispense with formality when we are together and she herself gave us the names of Mrs. Freeman—which is mine—and Mrs. Morley which is hers. Caliban! The Dutch Monster! That is how we speak of His Majesty.”

“But are you not afraid …” began too-impetuous Alice.

“Afraid, my dear child. I … afraid of that … creature!”

She likes Alice’s questions, thought Abigail; she wants to talk all the time, hold the centre of the stage while we act as a chorus, to repeat what she wants repeated, to form a background for her.

“I should not think you are ever afraid of anything, Lady Marlborough,” said John sincerely.

Oh when, thought Abigail, is she going to tell me what will happen to me?

“It would take more than that Hollander to strike fear into me, I can tell you. He knows it. He works against me and against the Earl … which is what I find so hard to forgive … but his day is almost over.”

“I hope Alice will be a good laundress,” said Abigail, trying to bring the conversation back to important issues.

“I fear I shall not,” put in Alice.

“Ah!” laughed Lady Marlborough. “You’ll do well enough. When you are given a post in a royal household you use it as a stepping stone to better things. Watch out, girl, and you will see where it will lead you.” She turned to Abigail. “And for you, I have plans.”

What thoughts could flash through the mind in a short space of time. A place at Court? She would watch illustrious people at close quarters; she would have a glimpse into matters which she believed could be of great interest to her. A place at Court, a stepping stone to better things.

“I am going to send you to St. Albans, Abigail. There you will be with my own children. You will, I am sure, make yourself useful.”

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.