What a state of affairs! There is a serpent at our Court who is watching and waiting to destroy us. What will she do now? Of course she is planning to take the crown from William and from me … as we took it from my father.
Was it true that when such a wrongful act was committed, others planned to imitate it?
There was nothing to be done now but to summon Nottingham. He was to carry the news to George. He must tell him that there would be no sea campaign for him because it was against the orders of the King and Queen.
“The impudence! Oh, my dear Mrs. Morley and poor, poor, Mr. Morley!”
“Dear Mrs. Freeman tell me what has happened.”
Sarah told.
“Oh, the wickedness, the slyness of it! ‘Lady Marlborough, I wish you to persuade the Princess to persuade her husband … and not a word that you do so because I have asked you.’ What do you think of it!”
“They exclude us from everything. Poor George, he did so want to go to sea.”
“So he will not be allowed to. Caliban wants all the credit.”
“And to think that the Queen should try to make
“That would always be in vain.”
“I know it. I know it.”
George came into the apartment, his face bewildered like a child’s who has been ordered to stop a favorite game.
“Est-il possible?” he murmured. “Est-il possible?”
“We are not moving forward,” he said.
“I am glad you realize it,” she retorted. “Great names are not made by marking time.”
“Well, my love, we will look out for our opportunities, and when they come I am sure we can trust ourselves to seize them.”
But Sarah was going to make opportunities, not wait for them.
“Is it not a strange thing,” she said to Anne as they sat together one day, “that those who serve this King and Queen are not rewarded if they happen to be English.”
Anne agreed as she always did with Sarah.
“Poor Mr. Morley longed to serve his country,” went on Sarah, “but no! He is not allowed to.” Sarah slid over the fact that he was not an Englishman and went on quickly: “And Mr. Freeman. I am sure Mrs. Morley will agree with me that there is not a man in this country who has done as much for it as Mr. Freeman.”
“He is a great soldier and I know you are proud of him and he of you, which pleases me, for I like well to see those I love appreciated.”
“Dear Mrs. Morley, what should I do without your sympathy? I had thought that after his services Mr. Freeman would have received some decoration. He is worthy of the Garter. But my poor Freeman is too modest to think of these things. I declare he is like Morley in that. So we, my dear Mrs. Morley, must think for them.”
“What would they do without us to think for them!” sighed Anne, smiling.
“If I could see Freeman wearing the Garter I think I should be the happiest woman alive.”
Sarah glanced sideways at Anne. It had worked. A conspiratorial expression had flitted across the plump highly colored face. Anne was going to see what she could do about procuring a Garter for Mr. Freeman.
Mary shivered. That was what she feared. There were so many Jacobite plots. One never knew where they were going to spring up next; and prisoners when questioned told strange stories. She was certain that the Marlboroughs were not to be trusted. They had betrayed James and people who betray once will do so again. Mary’s nightmare was that they rose and deposed William. It would break his heart if that happened. He always seemed so indifferent to the three crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland but this was not so. He believed that in possessing them he fulfilled a destiny which he had known was his ever since the midwife at his birth had seen three circles about his head which were believed to signify a prophecy that he would one day inherit three crowns.
“Anne is very eager to get a Garter for Marlborough,” said Mary.
William frowned. “They do what they will with her. They have bewitched her.”
“It is that woman.”
“The sooner Anne rids herself of Sarah Churchill the better.”
“She never will.”
