Exit Lady Masham

by Louis Auchincloss

  The Queen did not so much as nod or stir as I went through the whole sorry tale of her mother’s seduction, the secret marriage that had followed the discovery of her pregnancy, the fury of Lord Clarendon, more loyal to the crown than to his own progeny, who had implored Charles II, now back on his throne, to annul the marriage and fling his daughter in the Tower, and, finally, the benign mercy of the King, who had insisted that his backsliding brother should publicly re-wed the mother of his child and make her officially Duchess of York.

  “All I have ventured to hope is that Your Majesty might show some of the same compassion that filled the breast of her royal uncle. I have always believed that Your Majesty resembled him more than she did the other Stuarts.” I was being obvious in my flattery, for it was known that the Queen liked to have attributed to herself any part of the famed charm and wit of Charles II, but I had to take the risk. “It was perhaps because King Charles had himself prevailed over so many of our sex that he had learned to tolerate our frailty.”

  “Which my father never did!” the Queen exclaimed suddenly, and I was at once silent. She went on now, in a reflective monotone:

  “And yet he had as many mistresses as my uncle. But my father’s were always ugly. Uncle Charles used to say that he must have chosen them as a penance. Oh, Hill, I fear my father was a hard man! I used to be appalled at the tortures that he allowed the Scots to inflict on their dissenters, when we lived in the north. And as for the horrors that followed the suppression of poor Monmouth’s rebellion … well, they were beyond words. Some people think it must be great to be a queen, but I think you, Hill, have a sense of what pain and soreness it can bring. Why did they want my father to marry a princess and not a commoner? I’ll tell you why! Because if a monarch is not to be bowed to the ground with the sadness of his task—all the horrible wars, like this one we’re now in, and all the bloody executions—he must have royal blood, which means coldness to human agony. Yes, it is true! It is my Hyde blood that is my undoing, that makes me wring my hands over the war and the woes of man, like Uncle Charles, whom people so carelessly called the ‘merry monarch.’” The Queen paused now and then announced suddenly: “We will see Mr. Masham, Hill. Send for him.”

  “Right now, ma’am?”

  “Right now. You need a husband, my girl!”

  When Masham had been summoned, and he and I were standing together before the Queen’s chair, I had to admire his composure. As I had no idea what tack my mistress would take, he could not have, either. And yet he had the confidence to contemplate majesty with smiling eyes!

  “Hill has informed me of her condition, Mr. Masham,” the Queen began gravely. “It is not one in which I care to find the women of my bedchamber. Are you prepared to do the honorable thing?”

  “With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am! And may I express my deepest regret that the fruit of our mutual ardor, if I may take the liberty of putting it so, should have caused any concern to Your Majesty’s peace of mind?”

  I found this both vulgar and impudent, but the Queen did not seem to mind. “All’s well that ends well, Mr. Masham,” she said complacently. “The ceremony had better be secret so that gossips will not be able to calculate the months. We shall attend as witness.”

  I fell upon my knees. Masham merely bowed low.

  “May I inquire, ma’am, if Mr. Harley has spoken in my behalf?” he asked.

  “He has.” Masham did not know the meaning of those lowered eyelids, or he would not have persisted.

  “And has Your Majesty seen fit to consider his petition with any favor?”

  “No, Mr. Masham, I have not. Your conduct to Mrs. Hill may be deemed a fault that marriage will rectify. There is no occasion for reward, beyond the happy possession of a worthy spouse.”

  Masham’s smile became even brighter. “Perhaps Your Majesty has not been apprised of my circumstances. I am in no position, alas, to afford a wife.”

  “You should have considered that before you became so intimate with Mrs. Hill, sir. Future promotion will depend on how you treat her.”

  “And if I decline the honor, ma’am?”

  “Then I am afraid we shall be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you at court. There are islands, however, in the New World where my officers can usefully serve.”

  Could the great Queen Elizabeth have put it better? Masham, to do him justice, took his licking like a man.

  “Your Majesty’s favor is all the dowry I shall need,” he said, with another deep bow. “May we have Your Majesty’s permission to marry tomorrow? If it will not inconvenience Your Majesty to attend a ceremony at so short a notice?”

  “That will do very well, Mr. Masham. We observe that you are a man of good sense. So you may profit by one more piece of good counsel. We do not wish to see lugubrious countenances in our presence. If Mrs. Hill’s mood is a happy one, your fortunes will prosper. You have a vested interest in the contentedness of your spouse, sir!”

  The royal nod indicated that the audience was over, and Masham could only bow and depart. His sharp quick glance at me indicated that I was to accompany him, but I decided that the time had come to make abundantly clear to my future life companion just where my first duty lay and would continue to lie. I remained with my mistress.

  ***

  When I went the next morning to Harley’s apartments I found my “betrothed” there before me. He took not the slightest notice of me as I entered, but continued to pace up and down the chamber as he excitedly talked. Harley, relaxed and bald, without his wig, was sitting by the fire, puffing at his long clay pipe and smiling in the amiable fashion with which he was wont to meet the troubles of others. He silently waved a hand toward the chair that I should take, as if I were a latecomer to an amusing play.

  “I’m tied up like a cow for a rutting bull!” Masham was almost shouting. “I’m trussed and garroted! All that little jade has to do is dab an ink patch on her temple and tell Great Anna that I smote her. And then, thank you very much, poor Sam here will be dispatched to some hellhole of a Carib isle to sweat out his days overseeing a troop of blackamoors. Was ever a man so had? Why, if the new Mistress Masham so much as sighs in the royal presence, she will be asked: ‘What has the fiend been doing to my little dove?’”

  “You’re like Bertram in All’s Well,” Harley observed with equanimity, and I remembered that the Queen herself had referred to this title of Mr. Shakespeare’s.

  “I’m telling you I bleed to death, and you talk of Bertram! Who’s Bertram? Some literary character, I suppose. Do you live in books, Harley?”

  “He’s the hero of one of Mr. Shakespeare’s comedies,” Harley replied, unruffled. “Helena is the poor cousin who loves him, but who cannot look so high. However, when she cures the King of France of his fistula, she is rewarded by being allowed her pick of the royal knights for a husband. She chooses Bertram, of course, but he protests to the King that she is not his equal.”

  “And the King lets him off? It’s easy to see he didn’t have a queen to deal with!”

  “On the contrary, the King commands him to marry her. Bertram can avoid his fate only by stealing off to the wars.” Here Harley winked at me. “We shall have Sam in Flanders yet, Abigail.”

  “I may well come to it! Think of it! To marry a chambermaid! And why? Has she cured the Queen of a fistula?”

  “She’s cured her of something just as bad: ennui. Sam, you’re making a great fuss over nothing. If your name is ever in the history books, it will be as Abigail’s husband. When will you learn, my lad, that in the game of power it’s not title that counts, but proximity to the royal ear?”

  “But the Queen doesn’t govern. You should know that. Doesn’t everyone say she’s putty in the hands of her ministers?”

  Masham came over to Harley now and straddled a chair, leaning over its back to face his interlocutor. I reflected sourly what a poor creature I was about to marry. His present indignation was as feigned as his erstwhile ardor; he had no passions at all, only
a mild acquisitiveness. If Harley could convince him that I was an asset in disguise, he might very well prove an amicable if uninteresting spouse. But, oh, my dear mistress, my afflicted, worried sovereign, with what greatness of heart had she intervened to save her servant 1 As my mind rocked back and forth between Masham and my liege lady, I wondered if I should ever love any person, even the babe beginning in me, as I was now learning to love Queen Anne.

  “Many bigger men than you have made that mistake about Anne Stuart,” Harley expounded patiently. “Take it from me that, in the last ditch, she has a will of iron. She can be pushed just so far, kicked just so hard, and then, bang, you find that your foot is shattered. There are many great peers, many great Whig lords, but don’t forget it is she who prorogues or dissolves Parliament and she who picks and discharges her ministers. She could reduce the great Marlborough to a simple ensign tomorrow. She could…”

  “Don’t forget what happened to her father!”

  “And don’t you talk treason, my friend! King James used his power stupidly. But he had it to misuse; that’s my point. His daughter isn’t going to make that mistake. In fact, she isn’t going to make any mistakes. She bides her time. Bide along with your wife-to-be, Sam, and you may yet see great things.”

  “Great things for whom?”

  “Great things for all of us.”

  “Give me one instance.”

  “Come, doubting Thomas, you must learn some faith! But, anyway, how else can you play your hand? The Queen wants the marriage; it would be folly to refuse her. If you perform it in a sullen fashion, you will lose all credit with her. Therefore be cheerful! Act as though it were the highest honor in the land to marry a woman of her bedchamber, and…”

  “And?”

  “And who knows? You may yet be a peer.”

  Masham turned and bowed to me. “Greetings, Lady Masham!” he exclaimed mockingly.

  But at least he was smiling now; I was to wed, it seemed, an easygoing man. Love? Of course he did not love me. He would never love any woman. After all, did I love him? I might deem myself fortunate to have a father for my unborn child. I think it was at that moment that I had my first premonition of what my matrimonial life would be: Masham would keep me always pregnant to show the world that I belonged to him. And that as soon as I began to swell he would desert my bed for any other that was offered. As Harley had said, he was one of those males that can mate at any time with any female. There are worse husbands. At least he has never beaten me, and if he ever reads these pages, it will be too late.

  7

  Masham and I were married in Dr. Arbuthnot’s apartments in St. James’s Palace in the presence of the good doctor and his wife, my sister Alice (whom I had now established in the royal household), Mrs. Danvers and the Queen. None of us wore a wedding garment, and the ceremony took place in an almost conspiratorial silence and haste. Dean Thompson, who officiated, started reading the service as soon as my mistress, assisted by her trusty companion, Danvers, had hobbled through the doorway to take her seat in the armchair by the improvised altar. The moment he had delivered the benediction, the Queen rose, embraced me and took her leave. Masham, mollified by the royal presence, was an almost passionate lover that night.

  The next day my duties were resumed in normal fashion, and the Queen made no comment on what had happened. My husband and I continued to dwell apart, but as the Prince’s apartments adjoined the Queen’s, visitations were easily arranged and, at least in the first months of my pregnancy, were frequent. Nobody need have learned of the marriage until my condition betrayed it, had not the Queen’s wedding gift of two hundred pounds showed up on the household accounts and attracted the immediate attention of the Duchess of Marlborough, as dutiful to the royal finances as she was negligent of the royal person.

  I was informed of this by the Queen herself. She seemed upset when I came to her chamber that morning and pulled me close to her when I knelt to tie her slipper.

  “The Duchess knows about your wedding. She found my gift in the accounts and challenged me about it. You should have heard her! I might have been a housemaid caught with her hand in the till. When I told her what it was for, she really burst out. Why had you not come to her first? I told her I had advised you to.”

  This was not true, but was it up to me to contradict the Queen? I nodded.

  “Shall I go to her, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Right now, I think. But aren’t you scared, child?”

  “How can I be scared when I married with Your Majesty’s blessing? What can the Duchess do to me?”

  “She can make a great racket.”

  “I shall survive it.”

  I curtsied and took my leave. But my heart failed me for a moment when I faced the Duchess, magnificent in blue, seated on a divan of white damask in her apartment. Her tone was loud and harsh as she fixed her lustrous eyes on me.

  “Well, Mistress Abigail! Is this the way you treat your nearest kin? By letting your cousin Sarah, who rescued you from penury and an early grave, learn that you have taken a husband by reading of the Queen’s gift?”

  “I crave your pardon, Cousin. I wanted you to be the first to know…”

  “And not the last, miss!”

  “I wanted you to be the first, but I lacked the courage to intrude my little news on the attention of one who must bear the world on her shoulders. And when the deed was done, I was so terrified at not having told you, I resolved to keep it a secret!”

  The Duchess appeared to consider my excuse. For a moment I almost hoped that she would accept it. But this hope blew away with her next response.

  “Surely you know me better than that. Have you ever seen me neglect the least of my duties because of greater responsibilities?”

  “I dared not think that I was one of your duties, Duchess.”

  “You are my kin. Did you think I might disapprove your choice?”

  “I thought it possible.”

  “It was more than possible. I do disapprove it. Very much. Was Masham a man to wed the cousin of Lord Marlborough’s wife?”

  “I hadn’t presumed so to think of myself.”

  “Well, you may be sure Masham had!” The Duchess’s laugh was half snort, half cackle. “You may be sure he saw the Captain-General behind the red nose of the bedchamberwoman!”

  I flushed. Even from her I had not been prepared for such rudeness. “Mr. Masham is a worthy man,” I murmured.

  “A worthy man to smirk at the Prince’s jokes. And to skip to open a door for his betters!”

  “Cousin, you are severe!”

  “Do you think I don’t know the man? You’ve picked an ass!”

  I had to take a deep breath to guard my temper. “It was not in my sphere to look higher. Mr. Masham is all I want.”

  “Well, even if your aim is as lowly as you say, I’m surprised that his is. What made him take you so poor? Are you pregnant?”

  “And if I were,” I retorted, frankly angry now, “how would that have aided me? Had I a father to protect my honor and march a man to the altar? Had I anyone but a cousin who insults and reviles me?”

  “You had your bully of a brother Jack. He’s quick enough to quarrel. I don’t suppose your gallant would have relished that. Masham’s sword, I daresay, is more for show than use.”

  It was now that I made my mistake. It was not like me to be indiscreet, but, really, her arrogance was more than flesh and blood could bear! That she, married to the greatest soldier in Europe, should jeer at my husband’s courage! Were no insects too small for her treading heels?

  “Do you really think, Duchess,” I demanded in a cooler tone, “that if mine had been the forced match you suppose, the Queen would have honored us with her presence?”

  Well, if I was an insect, at least I had stung! Sarah made no effort to conceal her astonishment. “The Queen was there? The Queen went to your wedding!”

  “There were only six persons present. It was at Dr. Arbuthnot’s apartments at Saint James’s.
”

  “And the Queen went without letting me know! Are you trying to tell me, Mistress Masham, that you have supplanted me in Her Majesty’s affections?”

  In my embarrassment and confusion I failed to sense the heavy sarcasm of her tone. “Oh, I’m sure Her Majesty will always be kind to you!” I exclaimed.

  “Kind to me!” The Duchess rose, dark of countenance. For a few moments she seemed actually unable to speak.

  “Get out of this chamber!” she shouted at last, and I fled before the tempest.

  8

  A week later I was seated by the Queen in her drawing room at Hampton Court. Her armchair had been pulled up before the bay window so that she had a full view of the great fountain, which was in full play. Never had I been more conscious of the contrast between the monarch and the woman. My poor mistress was having bad twinges of gout. One of her feet rested on a footstool, tied up in a poultice, and she clasped a dirty damp bandage in her right hand. Her robe was loose and stained in front from saliva that she had just coughed up, and her face was red and mottled. It was almost impossible to keep her clean. But on the ceiling, over her chair, she was painted, erect, majestic, on a throne floating amid clouds, adored by the Graces, attended by the Muses, a bright sword held upright in one hand, the scales of justice dangling from the other, while at her feet a cornucopia spilled out the riches of her realms.

  “The Duchess is very wrathful,” she said in her flat tone. “She wants me to dismiss you. I asked what you had done. She said you had been guilty of the basest ingratitude. That you owed her the smock on your back; nay, your very life.”

  “It is true, ma’am.”

  “Then you have been ungrateful?”