Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughter Page 0,65
he was eating.”
“Of course he did not care. He only wanted to keep them from you.”
“I hate him!” said Anne vehemently.
“Oh, dear Mrs. Morley, he will not always be with us. Let us think of the bright future when he is gone. That will be the greatest day of my life when we crown Queen Anne.”
It was pleasant to contemplate but Anne’s mind was still clouded with the thought of green peas.
Sarah saw this and had the gardens and forcing houses searched in the hope of finding some that might be found and cooked for the Princess; but none were to be had.
Anne could only ease her disappointed palate by going over and over the list of his sins with Sarah, and from that day she hated him and was ready to follow wholeheartedly in any scheme against him.
AT THE PLAYHOUSE
arah Churchill, thought Elizabeth Villiers, had become one of the most important figures at Court and all because she had so fascinated the Princess Anne that she was allowed to manage her affairs completely. With anyone but Anne, Sarah would have had to use more subtle methods; that domineering know-all attitude would have had to be considerably subdued. But Anne was a stupid woman with an unnatural passion for the friend who was unlike her in every way. Sarah was not exactly beautiful, but was handsome with her magnificent fair hair and her extraordinary vitality. Anne had been pretty enough in an insipid way, but she was growing so fat that she looked much older than her years and of course the perpetual pregnancies had not helped her. She had turned to Sarah as one who was her opposite in every way; and even in their childhood days the sisters had had a great fondness for members of their own sex.
Sarah Churchill would have to be watched carefully.
Elizabeth Villiers’s own methods were quite different from Sarah’s; and yet there was a similarity, for as Sarah wished to influence Anne, so Elizabeth wished to influence William.
It had been a remarkable achievement to retain his attention all these years; he was a cold man, but between them there was a relationship which was enduring; they needed each other and to be the woman in William’s life who could give him exactly what he needed was a tribute to her brilliance.
She had wondered what her position would be in the household when she had accompanied Mary, as a reluctant bride, to Holland, for Mary had little love for her. They had spent much of their childhood together, but she had never been one of Mary’s selected friends. And then … she had seen the possibilities with William; and miraculously she had succeeded with him.
She must be ever watchful of rivals though; not that Mary was a rival. She would never be afraid of the Queen who was so quick to agree with her husband in every way—even though on one occasion she had, during William’s absence, sent her, Elizabeth, out of Holland with a letter addressed to the King, her father, asking him to keep her enemy there. Elizabeth had had some difficulty in returning to Holland, but she had; and after her spurt of independent action Mary had become the docile wife again.
Yet she need not be fearful of Mary when she was looking for a rival in William’s affection; she knew full well where the danger lay.
It was with Bentinck, William’s devoted friend and Elizabeth’s own brother-in-law, for he had married her sister Anne who had died just before they left Holland.
Elizabeth remembered now that deathbed scene with Mary attempting to reconcile the sisters. How characteristic of Mary, who must have everything comfortably rounded off.
Anne had been as docile a wife to Bentinck as Mary was to William—for in a way Bentinck and William were two of a kind, though Bentinck had a charm which William lacked; he was more polished in manners, more displomatic in his relations with others, but perhaps he could not afford to be as brusque as William was.
Two of a kind! thought Elizabeth; and women were not of great importance to either.
Bentinck had never been a great friend of Elizabeth’s; he had even pretended to be sorry for the Queen and had on one occasion dared criticize William for his treatment of Mary; that had meant a rift in that passionate friendship which had not lasted it was true; but it had been an attack on her, Elizabeth Villiers, the King’s mistress.