Abigail's Cousin (32 page)

"It doth put
me in mind of ye cockfight yesterday when ye victim suffered a gash
in ye neck. It started bleeding and ye other cock pecked and pecked
ye wound until I begged ye owner to stop ye fight."

Masham
grinned: "But that was a cockfight, ma'am. Can you imagine what
would happen were they hens!"

Anne said
triumphntly: "Aye, I can for that is how Mrs Freeman pecks at me.
Look at this!" She hands Masham an envelope indicating she should
remove the letter therein and having done so, the queen invited her
to read it. As Masham looked at her and hesitated, Anne insisted:
"Read it aloud, Masham, go on it's not a state paper. It is a peck
from Mrs Freeman."

Masham does so
and starts to read: "Narrative to Mrs Morley dated this 29th of
October, 1709."

"Carry on!"
urged the queen and Masham obeyed:

"I find by
your last letter that there is an expedient." The queen sighed with
exasperation: "Try ye next paragraph."

"It has lately come to my knowledge,"
Masham reads, "that the royal seamstress, Mistress Anne Rainsford
is near unto death and as her place be in the disposal of my
office
as much as a
footman be in the Duke of Somerset's."

Anne interrupted to say petulantly:
"Except ye duke wou
ld
not concern himself with such trifles, but madam..." She stopped
conscious of a slight incivility on her lips and addressing Masham
directly said:

"Enough, it
doth behove me Masham to endeavour to do something for poor
mistress Rainsford. Perhaps we can avert ye teasing and tormenting
from our mutual friend. Pray Masham, visit ye sick lady on my
account and dispense some physick."

Masham aware
of the benefit to Mistress Rainsford from the disagreements between
her cousin and the queen shrugged mentally though did not show any
sign of feeling, simply saying:

"Whatever can
be done will be done, ma'am."

Anne looked at
her servant. There were tears in her eyes. She said: "I was
thinking of my poor George and the physick you gave him to ease his
suffering." Masham smiled back remembering this patient and his
words. She said: "Do you recall his last words to you, ma'am. You
are vun of ze rulers of ze world, sweetheart."

It hit a vital
spot and the queen choked, but then looked up at Masham, joy in her
eyes for her servant had captured the exact style and delivery of
her late husband, the broken English adding to the pathos. The
queen gushed: "You were near him too, Masham, were you not? As I
recall you slept on a palette in ye ante-room so you could hear his
slightest cry in ye night. I must to ye closet. Pray make some tea,
enough for ye both of us."

Servant and
queen depart from the queen's drawing room just as the sun breaks
through clouds and illumines a cornice enriched with crowned
monograms entwined with foliage after a design from Inigo Jones,
long deceased, whose influence permeated country houses and palaces
a century after his death.

Anne is the
first to return sitting down at her writing table and as Masham
re-enters, Anne calls out to her: "What a lovely aroma in ye privy
Masham. I fancy I knew all your fragrances from herbs and wild
flowers but this one had me foxed."

"Me too,
ma'am, when first I caught its aroma in far off Hereford where
Samuel and I, if you remember, spent the first days of our
honeymoon. Essence of pine with a tincture of hibiscus courtesy of
someone whose name I dare not mention, have not dared mention till
now."

Masham
stopped, excusing herself, as she could hear her kettle blowing off
steam and quickly departed. A few minutes later she was back to the
impatient sound of her mistress' voice:

"Afore you
entered my service Masham, it were a trial to visit ye privy, but
no more. You have chased ye bad odours away."

Masham said
nothing, busy with the crockery and preparation for tea pouring.
She placed the queen's best chinaware cup and saucer down. The
steam lifted from the cup and rose in the air, and the queen
watched it, then turned to Masham taking her place and said,
cryptically:

"I have been
thinking long on that gentleman whose name you have not mentioned.
You chased ye bad odours away and I wonder whether our nameless
gentleman might help chase mine enemies away. When next you see
him, remember me to him."

Masham said:
"I could bring him up the back stairs ma'am. Nobody need know. We
could devise a cant name for him."

"What be that pla
nt placed in ye linen, Masham?"

She heard and
took the queen's change of topic in her stride and answered:
"Lavender, ma'am. Excepting clothes and then it be pastilles of
camphor to keep away the moths."

Anne mused:
"Indeed he could keep away ye warmongers." Then louder to Masham
asked: "I wonder how my sister fared. Did she have such
things?"

"Her family
had to do much darning, ma'am. That I do know."

"That would
explain ye holes in her stockings. In case you be taken from me
Masham, tell me some remedies. When I recover from ye Grippe what
be ye physick against a cough?"

"Syrup of
coltsfoot, ma'am. It will soothe a sore throat."

Anne mused:
"He might soothe my sore ministers." Louder to her servant: "And
mayhaps after dinner I have an upset stomach."

"Camomile tea
ma'am settles it betimes. Or perhaps extract of white willow.
Mayhaps I should show you ma'am where I keep them."

"He might show
me what to do." Anne mused, but aloud to Masham:

"Are all grown
in ye neighbourhood?"

"Yes, indeed,
ma'am. According to Culpeper, a noted apothecary, people suffer,
even die, for want of a herb in their own garden."

Anne mused to
herself sipping the cooler tea, "I am suffering for want of him."
Then aloud to Masham: "Oh! What if Lady Charlotte fails to
appear?"

"Essence of
Pasque, ma'am. You had it once remember!"

"But longing;
what is ye physick for longing?"

Masham was
suddenly bold. She said firmly: "Nothing, ma'am, except..."

"Except what,
Masham?"

"Except to
substitute one longing with another."

Anne was
intrigued: "With another?"

"What do you
long for most, ma'am?"

"I long for
peace, Masham. That was my George's wish too. But what use longing
when I can do nothing." She looked at her servant. Her servant saw
a sad woman, not a queen at that moment, who muttered ruefully:

"I must be
guided by my ministers."

"When I was
last in Oxford, ma'am, a certain gentleman showed me a plant in his
garden. He called it his peace plant. He would be pleased to show
it to you too, ma'am."

"Would he
advise me how to plant it? How to train it to grow straight. How to
deal with ye weeds which want to strangle it."

"He could do all these things, ma'am, and
more.
.."

"I cannot
visit Oxford. Would he advise me here? Write and tell him your aunt
would like a peace plant very much and entreat him to visit as soon
as possible. Will you do it today, Masham?"

"Of course,
ma'am."

"Oh, Masham,
Masham, I am sick to heart. In a few days, in ye Parliament I must
read a speech in thanksgiving for ye victory of Malplaquet. But I
tell you if this be victory, I pray God we never suffer a
defeat."

"My brother
wrote me ma'am that it was held a victory because the English
suffered far fewer killed than our Dutch allies."

"Is he
safe?"

"Yes ma'am,
safe to fight another day."

"That other
day Masham, we must endeavour to postpone. For- ever if we can. God
willing - and your gardener to help me"

"Mayhaps,
ma'am, this day in a twelvemonth, the peace-plant will be growing
in our garden."

"Not only
growing Masham but thriving, and ye weeds sent packing." Anne
looked at her servant with a serious, nay severe expression. She
said:

"But one thing
to remember Masham."

Abigail was
alert wandering what her mistress would tax her with and
tremulously said: "What is that, ma'am?"

"Make sure
your gardener does what all the servants do, humm!" Masham looked
pale until the queen broke into a smile and said:

"He must use
ye backstairs. Now pour me another cup of ye excellent Indian
tea."

The year is 1709 and it is April Fools Day
and just as well for the tom-foolery about to take place in the
Kit-Cat Club, a meeting place for Whig supporters who gather there
to gossip about politics, the War, the going rate for prostitutes,
perhaps, as there are only men drinking the favourite tipple of the
age, coffee. The women's petition against coffee is just a memory
remonstrating as they did against the 'grand inconveniences
accruing to their SEX from the excessive use of that enfeebling
liquor.' The only woman present is she serving behind the counter
although from pictures of the coffee house of the day, the typical
female looks of a bulk and constitution well able to cope with
testosterone-fuelled ribaldries flying around. Most places seem,
even a hundred years following its introduction into London, to be
houses adapted for the purpose possessing for the most part long
tables, side-by-side, and wooden benches though the rooms were
well-lit by the tall Tudor windows newly fitted with glass supplied
from manufactories set up by Huguenot craftsmen after their
expulsion from France in
1685.

As they become
more and more frequented by gentlemen of status, some landlords
provided tables in corners, often lit with candles or, at request,
cubicles where a few friends could enjoy a coffee in an atmosphere
of confidence and conviviality. In one such cubicle a single candle
illumines a table and its flickering flame lights up a gentleman's
face as he addresses one his companion. Charles Spencer, earl of
Sunderland, declaims:

"I am sure
Louis will sign the peace terms uncle judging by the tenor of his
letters intercepted by our friend." He was talking to Lord Sidney
Godolphin who asked: "Have you any idea of the identity of our
friend?" receiving the reply: "Apart from the fact that he holds a
position at the court of Versailles, I am not privy to his name,
rank or even nationality. These are all deemed so secret that few
people know. I wonder indeed whether the duke knows. Such is the
secrecy surrounding room 99."

After that
little speech, Spencer sat back in his chair sipping the black
liquid which was cool enough now to sip without blowing. Over the
rim of his bowl he looked at Godolphin and felt a great compassion
as he realised how aged and wan he appeared. His eyes were closed
and he opened them to stare fixedly at his nephew and said
matter-of-factly:

"When the
rooms were numbered, the digits, 99, were left out deliberately on
account of some superstition. How can this be?" He leaned across
saying huskily: "If the room does not exist, perhaps your
mysterious friend does not either."

"Oh, he exists
all right," said Spencer with assurance though he was taken aback
by the vehemence of his uncle's next question:

"To whom was
Louis writing?"

Spencer knew
the answer but hesitated to reply unsure whether diplomatic rules
permitted him, and Godolphin, a diplomat since Spencer was in
knee-high breeches, noticed, but did not change his expression as
his nephew finally answered:

"The letter is addressed to his
Excellency, the marquis de Torcy at the Hague. He is Louis'
plenipotentiary amb
assador to the States-General."

"Did the Sun-King convey any other
thoughts of moment?" said Godolphin stifling a yawn and Spencer
tried to make the information he held as vital as
p
ossible. He told his
companion:

"The king
complained of the cost of the war in strange terms. He mentioned
unfamiliar weights of bullion that have had to be turned into coin
to pay for supplies. His message to Torcy was that if the war does
not end soon, the Palace of Versailles will look as bare as an
English manor house."

Suddenly
feeling dry Spencer stopped and lifted his bowl to sip at the cool
black liquid and hearing nothing from his uncle gently placed the
bowl on the table before him and continued with a suddenly
thought-of question:

"How do we bring the war to a
co
nclusion, uncle? Do we
want to?"

Godolphin said
flatly: "Louis is feeling the pinch, it would seem, but to answer
your question, Charles, both France and Spain must agree to meet
our demands. Reasonable demands which took us to war in the first
place."

"Being out of
the way for some little time, uncle, would you refresh my memory
concerning these demands?"

Godolphin gave
a half-smile as without effort he put his thoughts into words:

"Louis must
renounce any claim to the throne of Spain for himself or his
offspring. It is so simple."

"Ah, yes, I
remember. Even simpler to say: No Peace without Spain."

Godolphin hurumphed, then said
reprovingly: "Her majesty does not like that expression, nephew. I
would appreciate your not using it in her presence. Not that you
would, or have
."

Spencer made a
mental note as he asked: "Who, do the Allies wish, should be the
king of Spain, uncle?"

"Charles of
Austria would be the nominal king of Spain." answered Godolphin
musing a while before continuing, "I might have said Spain and the
Spanish empire, but as you know, its empire is somewhat
reduced."

Spencer
chuckled: "You mean that England's empire has become markedly
greater as a result. But what of Flanders?"