Part 52 (2/2)

Nor did she neglect her grandchildren. They were now growing up and much entertainment took place at her various houses. It was amusing to act plays-for the Duke loved to watch his grandchildren performing, and they played for his benefit All for Love and Tamerlane.

Even so she must expurgate the plays before she allowed the children to perform them.

”I will allow no bawdy words to be spoken in my house,” she warned them. ”And I shall have no unseemly fondling and embracing in my house even though you tell me it comes in the play.”

So they argued together and often the sound of high words would come to the Duke's ears as he sat in his chair. There must be these quarrels wherever Sarah was, and he had to accept this. It was part of her nature. And he would rather hear her voice raised in anger than not hear it at all.

She was alternately triumphant because of some conquest over an enemy or wildly vituperative. She would not have a friend left in the world, he feared, when he was dead. She quarrelled incessantly; her two daughters were on bad terms with her; this upset her but she could not curb her violent tongue-and nor could they; moreover they were not of an age now to fear her. She had her favourites among her grandchildren but there was trouble with them too-and there would be more as they grew up.

She was as fond of money as he was. He wondered if he had taught her that. They were rich and growing richer. When the South Sea Bubble exploded Sarah was one of the few who sold out in time. While others lamented that ruin had come upon them Sarah was boasting that out of her adventure in speculation she had made 100,000. Yes, they were rich now, but that could not make Sarah happy.

She lived in constant anxiety for John and although her a.s.siduous care for him was such a comfort to him, even he, who loved her devotedly, was made uncomfortable by her. If she disagreed with doctors she would threaten to pull off their wigs and drive them from the apartment. They were incompetent ninnies, she told them, when she fancied that John did not respond to their medicines.

Her daughter Henrietta, Lady G.o.dolphin, and Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Montague-neither of them having the sweet tempers of Elizabeth and Anne-decided that they would no longer allow her to bully them and made a point of visiting their father when Sarah was not at home.

John reasoned with them; their mother would be hurt, he pointed out.

”Dearest father,” replied Henrietta, ”it is no use. We are not children any longer and we will not be treated as such.”

”Your mother has nothing but your good at heart.”

Mary kissed him. ”You are the sweetest man on earth and where she is concerned the blindest. She makes it so unpleasant for us that frankly we have no wish to be with her.”

But seeing how such remarks distressed him they allowed him to tell them how good their mother was, while they promised that they would try to understand her.

But even for his sake they could not tolerate her interference in their lives and whenever they were with her flew into rages almost as violent as hers.

The Duke was aware of the atmosphere of his home and thought how characteristic of his life it had become. He had married the woman he loved and his love for her had been like a thread of gold running through the dark web of his life; she was with him now at the end which he knew could not be far off and her devotion and care for him was all he could have asked; and yet there must be this continual strife in his home-and not only in his home but in all his affairs. The building of Blenheim, the dismissal of Vanbrugh, the trouble with Cadogan ... the quarrels with Sunderland.... But these belonged to Sarah and wherever she was there would be tempest.

As he sat in his chair he would hear the sound of family quarrels. Sarah's shrill voice arguing with her daughters or expressing her contempt for her grandchildren. Lady Dye seemed the only one who was not at some time or other in the cloud of Sarah's displeasure.

As the spring of the year 1772 pa.s.sed into summer John felt himself growing weaker and tried to keep this from Sarah. His tenderness for her was as great as it had been in the days of their courts.h.i.+p and his greatest concern now that he knew death to be near was for her future. He knew that he had held her back from even greater recklessness; he admired her; she was in his eyes brilliant, but he could not be blind to the fact that she made trouble for herself and everyone around her.

Without him to restrain her what would become of her? Her daughters could help her-if they would. But she would never accept help from them; nor did they love her sufficiently to give it.

Whenever they came to see him he would turn the conversation to their mother; he tried hard to make them see her virtues.

”You have the best mother in the world,” he told them.

Mary, the franker of the two, replied that they had the best of fathers and that was all they could expect.

Their love for him pleased him but he would have transferred that devotion to Sarah if he could have done so.

He sighed. His daughters were as strong-willed as their mother-or almost; and he knew that he was too tired and sick to attempt to bring peace between them.

He would lie in his chair listening to Sarah discussing his case with Sir Samuel Garth, a doctor whom she respected, or sneering at Dr. Mead, whose methods she described as useless; he knew that there was trouble about a rumour concerning Sarah's support of the Pretender; she would always have her enemies. It was very troubling and, most of all, the knowledge that he could do nothing about it.

It was June and from his window in Windsor Lodge he could see the green of the forest and hear the bird song. Everything fresh and renewed, and he so old and tired! He was seventy-two. A good age for a man who had lived such a life as his; and something told him that the end was very close.

Sarah found him lying on his bed and she knew the worst.

”John, my dearest love,” she whispered.

And he looked at her unable to speak but the devotion of a lifetime was in his eyes.

”What shall I do without him?” she murmured.

Then she was all briskness. Send for Garth. Where was that fool Mead? The Duke had had another stroke.

Henrietta and Mary came and waited in an ante-room, and Sarah left the sickroom while they were there.

”We want no quarrels over his death-bed,” said Sarah.

It was too late for him now to plead with them; he was failing fast. His daughters took their last farewell of him and Sarah came to be with him to the very end, which was what he would wish.

On the 16th June in the year 1722 the great Duke of Marlborough died.

He lay in state at Marlborough House and was later buried with military honours in Westminster Abbey.

Sarah gratified at the honours done him, for none, as she repeated frequently, deserved them more, faced the world with a defiant glare, but inwardly she felt that her life was over, for what could it mean to her without him?

The news of Marlborough's death came to Langley Marsh bringing back old memories.

The affairs of the Marlboroughs were often discussed at the table when guests were invited. Abigail would amuse the company with stories of Sarah's antics; but as the years pa.s.sed they seemed more like her imaginings of some fict.i.tious creature than truth. But when news of Sarah's latest adventures came, Abigail realized that she had not exaggerated.

Now the Duke was dead, and Sarah would no longer be supported by that wonderful devotion on which Abigail had built an ideal. Sarah had lost her most precious possession, and Abigail could even feel sorry for her.

She ceased to think of Harley now who, when he had been taken from his prison in the Tower and faced his judges, had been acquitted, though forbidden to come to Court or to go to the House of Lords. This meant that he was cut off from any hope of continuing his political career and pa.s.sed into obscurity.

She occasionally heard stories of Bolingbroke, how he had married his French mistress, after the death of his wife and continued to live in France.

So they, who had been so close once, were widely separated to live lives of their own.

She was content with hers.

It was two years after the death of Marlborough when news reached her of Robert Harley's death. He was at his house in Albemarle Street when he had been taken ill.

Memories came flooding back as they did when such events occurred. John, her brother, who had been a constant visitor to them since they had lived at Langley Marsh, kept talking of the past.

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