Courting Her Highness

THE JEALOUS DUCHESS

All through the spring John was making preparations for his campaign.

“I have done with sieges and petty battles,” he told Sarah. “Now the time has come to settle the fate of Europe.”

“I long for the time,” Sarah told him, “when your battles are over and you come home to enjoy your deserts.”

“Sometimes,” he answered passionately, “I think I would give up ambition … everything … for the sake of a life we could share together.”

Gratifying, thought Sarah, but impossible. It was because of his ambition that she loved him.

She spent a great deal of time with him at St. Albans, for, as she said, I can safely leave Hill to look after the Queen. But there were frequent interruptions to their idyl when Marlborough must be in London; and often on this occasion she remained waiting for his return.

She saw a great deal of her daughters, particularly Henrietta and Anne, for she looked upon their husbands as her creatures who must, since they were politicians, take their orders from her. Francis Godolphin, Member for Helston, was a mild man, and under the thumb of his wife, and although Henrietta was inclined to be truculent with her mother, there had been no open quarrel. Sunderland who, since his father’s death had inherited the title as well as vast wealth, was a different matter. He it was who had voted against Prince George’s annuity which, in Sarah’s mind, was a foolish thing to do for it brought no gain to the family and at the same time antagonized both the Prince and the Queen. He was a rash man and notoriously quick-tempered. Anne, his wife, was one of the gentlest of the Churchill girls, and unlike her mother avoided rather than made quarrels. But there was constant friction between Sunderland and Sarah.

It was while Sarah was visiting the Sunderlands that the Earl made some references to Marlborough’s visits to London. He smiled as he did so and this Sarah passed, but when she heard Sunderland in conversation with one of his guests beneath her window she listened in horror.

“You can scarcely blame my father-in-law. He must have some respite from that tongue.”

“I thought it was impossible for a man of his nature to remain a virtuous husband. Why, before Sarah got her talons into him he was one of the biggest rakes in Town.”

Sunderland’s burst of laughter maddened Sarah, but she had to go on listening.

“He braved the King of England when he slept with Barbara Castlemaine, so why shouldn’t he brave Sarah for this woman. I hear she is very attractive … kind and gentle. A change. A man must have variety. But after Hurricane Sarah the most blatant fishwife would seem like a soft breeze.”

Sarah could bear no more; she leaned out of the window.

“What wicked scandal is this.”

They were silent for a few seconds.

“I am sorry Your Grace overheard us,” said Sunderland, then, sardonically, caring for nothing, “We were discussing the news from London.”

“The news from London! I’d like to hear more of such news. And where you heard it.”

She came down to the gardens to find Sunderland alone—his friend having fled. Not many would care to face Sarah in such a mood.

“Now, young man, what is all this.”

Sunderland tried to remind her by his haughty demeanour that as the son of a great family he was in no mood to be so addressed by her, for Duchess though she might be, her background was not to be compared with his.

“Don’t prevaricate,” cried Sarah, her rage blinding her to everything else. “I want the truth from you or you’ll be sorry.”

“The truth, Madam? Who knows the truth of these affairs but those who participate in them? You have come to the wrong man. I am sure the Duke can tell you far more of this matter than I. Why not ask him?”

Why not? Sarah was going to lose no time. She was going straight to John Churchill to tell him that the tricks he got up to before his marriage could not be played now. Or if they were, that was the end of his life with her.

She raged up and down the room. In vain did he try to comfort her. “Sarah, there is no other woman.”

“And what of this story of Sunderland’s?”

“It is a lie.”

“I am not certain of that.”

“Then you don’t know me. How could it possibly be?”

“It could possibly be in the past, John Churchill. A fine fool you must have looked leaping out of Castlemaine’s window—naked! A fine sight indeed. And the King laughing at you from the window, insulting you, calling out that you were only earning your living.”

He was stricken. The story was one he had hoped was forgotten. Now she was recalling it and giving it more lurid details than it had possessed in reality.

“And,” she shrieked, “getting paid for your attentions. Five thousand pounds for serving in the bed of the King’s mistress. You must have been most worthy, for you have to admit your price was high.”

He took her by the shoulders and shook her, but it was no use. She was deeply wounded; she was filled with rage; and Sarah loved her rage; she loved to flagellate it into wilder and wilder fury, and at this moment she loved that fury more than she loved John Churchill.

“Listen to me, Sarah,” he said.

“I want no lies.”

“There is no need to tell lies.”

“So now you are going to say that you were never Barbara Castlemaine’s lover.”

“I was going to say no such thing. What happened before we married is past and done with. It is what happens now that is important. I tell you I have always been faithful to you. These are lies you have heard. Sunderland told you, you say. I wish we had never allowed that marriage. I shall never forgive him for this.”

“He only repeated what he heard and it is right that I should know.”

“There is no truth in this. You must believe me. You must.”

But Sarah was not going to be placated. She had been jolted out of her complacent belief. She paced the apartment like a madwoman and when John tried to embrace her, she cried out: “Don’t dare touch me, John Churchill. I’ll never share your bed again. So you had better find yourself more women. One will not be enough for such as you.”

There was nothing to be done with Sarah in such a mood.

Soon John would leave for the battlefield and Sarah still refused to speak to him. No matter how he pleaded, how much he begged to be allowed to explain, she would not listen.

John’s only way of communicating with her was by means of letters. At first she refused to read them, but she thrust them into a drawer, knowing that she would do so later.

John could not understand this change in her. She had always been forceful and naturally was angry when Sunderland had told his lies, but he was bewildered by her refusal to listen to him. He was innocent. He wanted no one but Sarah; he was as completely fascinated by her now as he had been in the days of their courtship and early marriage. And she would not listen to him!

Sarah was a little astonished at herself. Deep in her heart she did not believe in this scandal. There was always scandal concerning people in high places. To be successful was to create envy; and no one in England could have more enemies than Sarah Churchill. She made little attempt to keep her friends and none to lose her enemies. She was married to the war hero who adored her. Her successful marriage was the envy of all those who had failed to achieve such an ideal partnership. Therefore it was natural enough that those who had failed should seek to besmirch that which they could not emulate. In vain did John try to make her see this.

The truth was that Sarah had recently lost her son and almost immediately afterwards became pregnant. Unfortunately this had ended in miscarriage, and the realization had come to Sarah that she was forty-five years old. She had no son. Would she ever have one now? She felt herself ageing; the change of life was upon her. The faint depression which had been with her since her miscarriage was affected by the gossip she had heard from Sunderland and John’s infidelity had not seemed the impossibility it would have, a little earlier.

She stayed at St. Albans nursing her misery. Henrietta showing quite clearly that she no longer cared for her mother’s opinion; Mary hating her because she had prevented that ridiculous romance; young Blandford dead. Anne and Elizabeth were pleasant creatures but Anne was married to the hateful Sunderland and who knew what he would do. And soon her beloved John would have left England and, since the death of Blandford, she had begun to wonder what greater blow could strike her. There was only one: the death of John himself. And now … there was this horrible gossip about him and the unknown woman.

She read one of the letters he had written:

“As for your suspicion of me as to this woman, that will vanish, but it can never go out of my mind the opinion you must have of me, after my solemn protesting and swearing, that it did not gain any belief with you. This thought has made me take no rest this night and will forever make me unhappy.”

The relationship was no longer perfect. This would always be between them. And worse still, she could not let herself believe that her dearest Marl still loved her.

“He must hate me,” she told herself, “because I stand between him and … that woman!”

Again he wrote to her:

“When I swear to you as I do that I love you, it is not dissembling. As I know your temper, I am very sensible that what I say signified nothing. However, I can forbear repeating what I said yesterday, which is that I have never sent to her in my life, and may my happiness in the other world as well as this depend upon the truth of this.”

It is true, she told herself. There could not be anyone else. Yet the scandals of him in his youth were true enough. He had been a philanderer then.

He was begging her to come back to him. He was reminding her that the time was short and that he could not long delay his departure. She must come back to him, live with him as his wife, believe in him.

“If the thought of the children that we have had, or aught else that has ever been dear to us, can oblige you to be so goodnatured as not to leave my bed for the remaining time, I shall take it kindly to my dying day, and do most faithfully promise you that I will take the first opportunity of leaving England, and assure you that you may rest quiet that from that time you shall never more be troubled with my hated sight. My heart is so full that if I do not vent this truth it will break, which is that I do from my soul curse that hour in which I gave my poor dear child to a man that has made me of all mankind the most unhappiest.”

When Sarah read that letter she was shaken. What was happening to them, they who had been so close, so happy all these years? She was wrong, of course she was wrong; but it was not easy for Sarah to admit that she was wrong.

Bed! she grumbled. Bed! That’s all he thinks of!

But she went to him and said: “You are my husband and I shall accompany you to Harwich to bid you farewell.”

He was pathetically eager to accept her on any grounds, but she refused to rid herself of her suspicions. She wrote an angry letter which she gave him on parting, but as she stood watching the ship disappear she was overcome by a longing for him; and with a return of that feeling which she had experienced she knew that the charge against him was false, that he loved her as wholeheartedly as she loved him; and that a madness had come to her, perhaps because she loved him so deeply, so possessively, that the very thought that he could prefer someone else drove her to fury.

There was only one thing to do and that was sit down and write the truth to him.

She had been foolish. She loved him. What madness was it that made them believe they could ever be parted or their interests be divided. She would come out to him, that she might be beside him, for the children were settled now—with the exception of Mary who was well looked after in her Court post—and she need not consider their welfare but her own inclination.

When John read the letter he was overcome with joy.

The nightmare was past. They were together in spirit again. Life was good again, intensely worth living.

He thanked her for her dear letter; he would read it again and again. She had preserved his quiet and made him believe in his life once more. There must never again be trouble between them, for there was no happiness for him without her and he dared hope that there was none for her without him.

Sarah now settled down to await his return.