“Welcome, Sir Benjamin,” she said. “Pray give me news of Frances.”
“She is well, Your Majesty.”
“Ah!” Her relief was apparent.
He said: “I bring you this letter.”
She seized it and her eyes sought the once familiar handwriting which had meant so much to her, but this was another handwriting which she knew well.
“The Princess Anne has asked me to deliver this letter into your hands.”
So he came from Anne. Of course Anne had kept up her friendship with Frances. Anne had always had to imitate her in those days and because she had loved Frances passionately, Anne had had to do so too. And now Anne had turned to Sarah Churchill—a friendship Mary certainly did not share.
“Thank you,” she said. “I will read it at once. Pray wait a while. There is much I wish to ask you … about dear Frances.”
The letter was in Anne’s childish scrawl. Her pains had started and as she feared she was much worse than usual, she thought the Queen should come at once to Sion House.
Mary folded the letter, and put it into her pocket.
“Pray tell me of your wife,” she said. “It is long since I have seen her. She comes so little to Court. But of course now she has her family. I know how happy she must be with her children.”
Benjamin said that the children were well and that their mother was devoted to them.
“Dear Frances!” sighed Mary.
Sir Benjamin was surprised that the Queen should make him talk of Frances for he knew the contents of the letter he had brought.
Barbara Fitzharding shrugged her shoulders. “It is because
“And a mercy it is that there is someone to look after the Princess!”
“There are many of us,” Barbara pointed out.
“She needs someone whose sole care is for her. She needs affection and there are few who can give that.”
Barbara lowered her eyes. She would like to have told Sarah Churchill that she was not subtle enough; her loud voice and her loose tongue didn’t deceive anybody. Those who believed her motives were altruistic would have to be very simple indeed. But Barbara had no wish to quarrel with her, for Sarah’s behavior was just what was needed to give everything away. It would not be nearly so easy to gauge what was going on in this household but for her audible vituperations.
The midwife was with the Princess. This had been a longer labor than usual and Sarah was anxious.
She was at the bedside when the child was born.
A boy. A poor frail little boy, who breathed for a few minutes and then like so many of his predecessors, died.
Anne was propped up in her bed and when Mary saw that she was no worse than after other accouchements she was angry. A campaign, doubtless, started by Sarah Churchill, to call attention to the poor neglected Princess who had been brought to bed in Sion House instead of Whitehall or St. James’s.
All this, when the country was in danger of invasion, and sisters could not stand together!
Mary sat beside the bed and said: “I had expected to see you in worse state.”
“I have had a very bad time,” sighed Anne.
“You look a little tired, that is all.”
Anne put her kerchief to her eyes. “And I have lost my baby.”
“You have little Gloucester, so you should be thankful. You have been more fortunate than I.”
“But think how many times I have been brought to bed … only to suffer loss.”
“We must accept our fate. I have come to talk seriously to you. There should not be quarrels in families. The times are too dangerous. We should stand together. So I have made the first step toward ending our quarrel by coming to see you. You must make the next.”
“But how so?” asked Anne.
“You know what I mean. Get rid of the Marlborough woman.”
“I have never disobeyed you but in this one respect,” said Anne. “I believe that some time you will see how unreasonable it is of you to ask me to give up my greatest friend. I will not do it.”
Mary stood up. “Then I have nothing more to say to you now.”
