Exit Lady Masham by Louis Auchincloss

Author:Louis Auchincloss [Auchincloss, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780395343883
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1983-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

10

Masham had not attempted to conceal his disappointment that our second child was also a girl. It did not seem to me a matter of very grave consequence that we should still lack an heir for a baronetcy that he had still not inherited. I was always to love my children equally, even after I had sons. What concerned me principally was avoiding another pregnancy, and I exaggerated to my too-amorous spouse the ailments that had followed my delivery. It did not improve his temper.

"Harley thinks you're indulging yourself," he reproved me. I was sitting up in bed in the handsome bedchamber of the apartments at Kensington that the Queen had provided for us and which were now the permanent home for our babes. Masham had spent the night with his father in Kent and had just arrived back in town. "He says you are leaving the Queen to the mercy of the Duchess while you loll in bed and drink chocolate I"

"I wish Harley had had to bear two children in under a year!"

"Well, I've got a bit of news that should get you up, my girl. The Duke of Marlborough himself is demanding that the Queen dismiss you."

"What are you saying?" I cried.

Masham, delighted to have made such an effect, handed me a letter from Harley. As I read it I seemed to feel my heart contract; my shoulders twitched, as with a sudden chill. Harley had written that the Earl of Sunderland was telling everyone that his father-in-law, the Duke, had suggested to the Queen that he could not continue his burdensome duties abroad if she persisted in keeping as her intimate advisor a creature of Harley's who was known to be inimical to his conduct of the war!

"I shall send the Queen my resignation today!" I cried, throwing my head back on the pillow. When Masham tried to console me, alarmed at the violence of my reaction, I waved him away. Only when I screamed at him did he finally abandon the chamber.

How could I fight the whole world? While only the Duchess and her clique pursued me, I could find the courage to resist, exhausted and harassed as I was. There was enough spite in her to pump spirit into the most abject opponent. Sarah would kick her toppled victim until in sheer agony and despair he rose to fight back. But the Duke, the glorious Duke? He who, with the coolness of Hannibal and the courage of Alexander, risked his life daily to lead his battalions against the mightiest army of Europe! And who had proved that a mightier existed, forged, trained and commanded by his own genius! How could I live with the hideous idea, even if it were false as hell, that a bedchamberwoman with a red nose was impeding the greatest soldier in English history from marching to Versailles itself to dictate peace to old Louis, cowering in his gilded saloon!

No, I had to find a way out, to beg my

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