“Yes,” said the Queen, “I do bid people put what they have to say in writing, when I have a mind to it.”
“I have nothing to say, Madam,” replied the Duchess, “upon the subject that is so uneasy to you. That person (Lady Masham) is not, that I know of, at all concerned in the account that I would give you.”
“You can put it into writing,” reiterated the Queen, who, desirous at any cost of avoiding a quarrel, which, from the temper of her quondam favourite, seemed inevitable, repeated the same words several times, purposely interrupting the Duchess, who was already beginning to defend herself.
In spite of the Queen’s injunctions, Sarah continued to affirm that she was no more capable of making such disrespectful mention of her Majesty than she was of killing her own children, to which Anne coolly remarked, “There are, doubtless, many lies told on ‘both sides.’”
During a whole hour, nevertheless, the Duchess strove to establish her innocence by protestations or prayers. But the Queen’s heart was irrevocably closed. Desirous of terminating an interview that grew more and more embarrassing, and remembering the scene in St. Paul’s, when her Mistress of the Robes had told her to be silent and make no answer, and that lately, in writing to her, the Duchess had said that she required no answer, or that she would not trouble the Queen to give her one, Anne said, “You did not require an answer from me, and I will give you none.” This frigid resistance exasperated the Duchess, who, astounded to find herself caught in her own trap, and taken at her word, declared, of course, that the phrase was not intended to imply what it did; but the Queen, she says, repeated it again and again, “without ever receding.”
The Duchess protesting that her only design was to clear herself, the Queen repeated over and over again, “You desired no answer, and shall have none.”
The angry but still politic Sarah next passed from prayers to reproaches. “I will leave the room,” said Anne, with dignity.
“I then begged to know if her Majesty would tell me some other time.”
“You desired no answer, and you shall have none.”
On hearing these words, which left no further hope, the Duchess burst into tears; then, as though ashamed of her weakness, she withdrew into the gallery to suppress her passionate fit of weeping. Returning after the lapse of a few minutes, she tried a last and decisive application: