The Darling Strumpet Part 32

Potevine, her London upholsterer, had been busy for weeks with his crew, hanging panels of tapestry, laying carpets, painting and staining and furnishing. Antonio Verrio, the Italian painter who had done so much work on the castle's restoration over the past few years and was in such high demand, had put off all other work and was even now turning the ceilings into sweeping scenes of nymphs and cherubs.

At the thought of the cherubs, Nell's heart lurched, Jemmy's angelic face and chubby baby form drifting once more to her mind. She looked out the window of her bedroom, her soul calmed as always by the sight of the royal parkland rolling off into the distance, the verdant scene giving off a sense of harmony that soothed her. Charles was finding his peace that day in fishing, as he did so frequently that he worried his doctors. He had shrugged them off the day before, despite their tutting that he would fish on a day when a dog would not be abroad.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Nell turned with irritation. Why couldn't she be left to herself for a few minutes?

"Madam." Bridget's voice was tentative, strained. "I'm sorry, madam. There's a messenger just come from town. The Earl of Rochester is dead."

NELL LAY STARING INTO THE DARK. THE FUNERAL HAD BEEN ALMOST more than she could bear, but at least there had been company there, sound and noise. Now she was alone. Flashes of memory kept flaming into her mind. Rochester's laugh, as he pulled her on top of him in bed, crying "Come, the dragon upon St. George now!" The feel of his hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his fingers on her nipples squeezing fiery desire into her. His lazy smile at her from the pit as she met his eyes during some prologue delivered long ago. The sneer that tried but could not quite cover the pain that lay beneath.

And now he was gone. Poor Johnny. A satyr, a wizard, a scholar, a dangerous h.e.l.lion, and a lost little boy. All perished from the earth. And gone to where? To somewhere he had found peace, Nell hoped. She tried to pray. But gave up. Surely any G.o.d who could hold his place in the heavens would laugh at any prayer from a wh.o.r.e for the soul of a libertine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

THROUGHOUT THE FALL AND WINTER, THE DRUMBEATS OF TROUBLE grew louder again. There were increasingly strident calls for Charles to exclude his brother James from the succession, and after an exhausting series of skirmishes with Shaftesbury and his party, and with a new infusion of money from France, he prorogued Parliament in January and announced that the new Parliament would be summoned in March in Oxford, that bastion of royalist support that had been his father's headquarters during the war.

Oxford welcomed the king with open arms, and Nell's spirits were buoyed to see the cheering crowds that lined the roads as the royal cavalcade entered the town and to hear the cries of "G.o.d save the king!" and the bells ringing in celebration. People pressed forward, straining for a glimpse of the king. One burly man, waving his hat in the air, bellowed, "Let the king live, and the devil hang up all Roundheads!"

At Nell's side, Charles smiled broadly, leaning out the window to wave, and she had a vision of him as a ship in full sail with the wind at his back, not battling head down into a storm as he had done for so long.

Shaftesbury bl.u.s.tered into town and holed up at Balliol College. With his arrival, and the antic.i.p.ation of the renewed fight over the Exclusion Bill, came restive crowds of partisans. Proponents of both sides stalked the town, wearing the red ribbons of the royalist Tories or the violet of the rebellious Whiggamors. Shouting matches and scuffles broke out. The Duke of Monmouth moved through the streets in a sedan chair, preceded by a band of ruffians with leaden flails, daring anyone to make trouble. Louise came, and set up a rival camp to Nell's.

Oxford took on a carnival atmosphere. Ballad singers and the sellers of broadsheets drew raucous crowds, pressing to buy the latest parody, which presented Nell and Louise as battling little dogs, Tutty and Snapshort, snarling and tussling over the favors of the king and trying who should wield the greater influence. Nell laughed it off when Buckingham read it to her.

"You know I have never tried to meddle in all that, which is why Charles finds my company a pleasure instead of a burden. That broadsheet that was put around lately got it right: "All matters of state from her soul she does hate

And leaves to the politic b.i.t.c.hes.

The wh.o.r.e's in the right, for 'tis her delight

To be scratching just where it itches."

Charles was determined to enjoy himself in the fortnight before Parliament met. Nell accompanied him hawking on Burford Downs, and to the racing-the contest for the King's Plate had been moved from Newmarket. Many of Charles's racehorses had been brought there, and gentlemen from around the country had sent theirs. The players of the Theatre Royal descended, and put on Tamerlaine the Great at Christ Church. Charles strode into the great hall with Nell on one arm and Louise on the other.

As Nell's coach made its way back to her lodgings after the play, its progress became slower and she could hear the voices of an angry crowd.

"Here, give way!" The coachman's raised voice was hoa.r.s.e with anger, tinged with a note of panic. The shouts grew louder and closer, and the coach lurched to a halt.

"Wh.o.r.e!"

"Filthy jade!"

"Get you back to France, you impertinent Popish piece!"

Nell thrust aside the leather covering from the window and ducked back, just missing a hurled piece of what smelled to be dog s.h.i.t.

They think I'm Louise, she realized. And they'll kill me without realizing their mistake. She stood so that she could lean her head and shoulders out the narrow window of the coach and raised her voice to be heard above the mob.

"Pray, good people, be civil! I am the Protestant wh.o.r.e!"

After a moment of confused babble, a laugh went up, and then a cheer.

"It's Nelly! Our la.s.s! Make way!"

Nell waved, smiling, as the crowds parted to let her pa.s.s, and the coach lurched forward. She found she was shaking and hoped despite herself that Louise had arrived safely back from the theater.

CHARLES OPENED PARLIAMENT ON THE TWENTY-FIRST OF MARCH. The Commons convened at the Geometry School, and that night he returned to Nell with a grimly smug smile on his face.

"How did it go?" she ventured.

"Splendidly. They set up a caterwauling-'No Papist! No York!' Shaftesbury had the audacity to demand that Monmouth be made legitimate. I met their cries with what is only the truth-that the legitimacy of the crown is their only guarantee of freedom. But I a.s.sured them that though James would succeed me, he would be king in name only."

Nell was astonished and looked closely at Charles's guarded face.

"And do you mean to make it so?"

"They're looking for a fight. They'll get one, too, for they have pushed too far. Parliament will meet, as planned. But I will not lie down like the vile dog they take me for, but stand like a lion against them. And when we are done here in Oxford, Parliament will not meet again as long as I sit on the throne. And we'll see whose a.r.s.e is blackest come judgment day."

A week later came the day appointed for the introduction of the third Exclusion Bill. Charles walked to the convening of the House of Lords in Christ Church Hall. Behind him by a few paces followed a sedan chair, with no occupant visible. The king took his place among the Lords and ordered that the members of the Commons be called from where they had gathered at the Sheldonian Theatre. Then he retired to a back room.

There was a gasp as the first members pa.s.sed through the narrow entrance into the hall, and curses and shoves as the first ranks of them staggered to a halt where they stood and those behind stumbled on the steps. The king sat enthroned, resplendent in full regalia-velvet and ermine robe, crowned and armed with his truncheonlike gold scepter. The members had no choice now but to come forward into the room and to bow before their monarch. The silence roared.

The king spoke.

"All the world may see to what a point we are come, that we are not like to have a good end when the divisions at the beginning are such. You had better have one king than five hundred." Not a b.u.t.ton could have dropped but the sound of it would have echoed in the room.

"Lord Chancellor." Charles's voice rose, as that of a commander on the battlefield. "I hereby command you that this Parliament is now dissolved."

He stood and made his way through the rows of men, still bent in helpless obeisance, and swept from the room, the doors booming shut behind him.

CHARLES SWUNG NELL INTO HIS ARMS AND ONTO THE BED.

"Pernicious dogs, I have sent them to the kennel. I'll go to h.e.l.l and back on my knees before I summon them again, and I'll be troubled with them no more. Come, wench! What's for supper? I have suddenly a great appet.i.te upon me. Supper, bed, and then to Windsor."

NELL AND CHARLES JOURNEYED BACK TO LONDON FROM WINDSOR in August. As usual, the court composer Henry Purcell had composed a song to celebrate the return of the monarch. This one, "Swifter, Isis, Swifter Flow," was a flowery appeal to the river to bear its royal burden speedily to the capital, and Nell thought with irony that the trip would be shortened if they could only sit down and be home instead of having to listen to the singers. But finally it was over, and king and court straggled into the palace to settle down once more, with the sense of battle-weary survivors.

NELL WAS GLAD TO BE BACK IN LONDON NEAR HER FRIENDS AFTER the long summer, and she found it comforting to be sitting with John Lacy in his house near the theater. She had spent so many happy hours there as he taught her for the stage, and the books on their shelf, his parts carefully stowed in pigeonholes above the desk, the sunlight spilling across the carpet made her feel safe and at home. She smiled at him and took his hand across the little table.

"You look tired, John."

He nodded. "Aye. I keep wondering why I haven't the energy I used to, and realizing with surprise that it's because I'm old. Sixty. What an age. Everything about me aches and creaks."

"Do you miss being on the stage?" Nell wondered.

"I miss the old days," Lacy said. "Playing with Charlie Hart and Mick Mohun and Wat Clun and Kate Corey. But these last years I've found little pleasure in the theater. Too much squabbling among the company and with Killigrew, too much of a struggle to fill the playhouse, too many worries over money. When Hart said he was calling it a day it seemed time for me to go, too. It's not like it was when you were with us."

"I don't think I'd relish it myself, now," said Nell. "The women's roles they're writing now call for nothing more than baring your bosom and being subjected to torture, rape, and terror. And all in verse. Not like Florimel and Mirida. There was joy in those parts. Did you hear about poor Betsy Knepp, by the way? Died in childbirth with Joe Haines's child."

"I did. Another stab to the heart. Oh, Nell, it's good to see you," Lacy smiled. "Tell me something good, something pleasant to warm the c.o.c.kles of an old man's heart. How is your young Charlie?"

Nell beamed. "I'm that proud of him, John. He's being brought up as a true gentleman. I'm trying, leastways. Otway got one of the maids with child, same as Fleetwood Sheppard did, so now I've to find someone else to teach Charlie. Serves me right for letting Rochester pick his tutors."

"Are you happy?" Lacy asked. "Does the king care for you well?"

"He does. He told me he'd give me as much of Sherwood Forest as I could ride around before breakfast." Nell laughed. "It was more than I could do, but he gave me Bestwood Park-used to belong to Edward the Third, you know. The old lad must be rolling in his grave. And he's given me more land around Burford House."

"Quite the wealthy lady," Lacy laughed.

"Never as wealthy as Louise, though. And no matter how much I get, my expenses always seem to outstrip my revenue. But I haven't taken to highway robbery yet."

When Nell took her leave, Lacy hugged her to him and then stepped back to study her face.

" 'He falls to such perusal of my face as he would draw it,' " Nell quoted.

"Just taking a careful look. So that I can have your smile firm in my memory."

"No need for that," Nell said, kissing him. "I'll see you soon." But she turned to look up at Lacy watching from the window and waved before she stepped into her sedan chair, and when news of his death came only a fortnight later, she wondered if he had felt the shadow creeping up on him and had known he would not see her face again.

HART CAME TO VISIT NELL A FEW MONTHS AFTER LACY'S DEATH.

"You look as tired as I feel, my Hart," she smiled, offering him a cup of chocolate.

"And you look as beautiful as always," he said, wincing as he propped his leg on a footstool, and fondling Tutty, who snuffled his hand in search of treats.

"What's the new news?" Nell asked.

"None good," Hart shook his head. "I fear the end of the King's Company has come. There's been so much strife, and the money troubles just get worse and worse. Davenant's son will take over, and run both companies as one. It's been coming for a long time, but still it hurts like the loss of an old friend."

"And will it harm you?" Nell asked.

"No," Hart said. "I can live on my pension, and I still have money put by from the good days."

"What of the playhouse?" Nell asked.

"Oh, they'll use it." Hart shrugged. "Charlie Davenant says he'll use Dorset Gardens for operas and such, and Bridges Street for the plays that don't need such grand effects."

"Our plays," Nell said.

"Yes," Hart agreed. "Our plays. The ones that needed only Hart and Nell to make the people crowd the pit, not G.o.ds on clouds and flaming castles."

"It was a grand time," Nell said, taking his hand. "And I'll always be grateful to you for it."

That night she cried, recalling her first thrilling day selling oranges, her hopes and dreams, her friendships with Betsy Knepp and Kate Corey, Wat Clun and Lacy and so many others now gone. After Hart and Mohun had gone from the stage, the last of the other old actors had retired, exhausted and disheartened. And now the King's Company was no more, and the world of the theater she had known was vanished, as surely as if it had been swept into the sea.

THE COURT'S SPRINGTIME RETREAT TO NEWMARKET IN 1683 WAS not a restful one for Nell. Word came in March that Tom Killigrew had died. She fretted about whether to return to London for the funeral, but the path was made clear when Charles's Newmarket house caught fire three days later. No one was killed or seriously injured, but the house was severely damaged.

"Let's just creep quietly back to London," Charles said. "We'll go to Killigrew's funeral. I'm tired anyway. The house will be repaired by the fall, and we'll have a better time then." He looked worn out, and Nell worried about him, but was glad of the chance to honor Killigrew and see old friends from the playhouse once more.

It was only when they had been back in London for a day or two that they learned that the early departure from Newmarket had likely saved Charles's life and that of the Duke of York.

"The plotters knew when the court would leave," Buckingham told Nell. "They were lying in wait at Rye House, which stands at a narrow point on the Newmarket Road, and planned to a.s.sa.s.sinate the king and duke as they made their way to London."

"Who is it now? Not more Papists hiding in the closets?"

"No," said Buckingham. "It's worse this time. It looks as if the Duke of Monmouth may have been involved."

"G.o.d'S BLOOD, WHY CAN THE BLOCKHEAD NEVER LEARN?" CHARLES roared. "He will not be king! I have told him so flat-out-to think of it no more-and now this!" He slumped into a chair, his anger depleted, and Nell saw that he was near tears. She knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers.

"Jemmy is a fool. But he loves you. I'm quite sure he would have nothing to do with a plot to kill you."

"Then where is he? If he's innocent, why has he fled when the conspiracy is discovered?"

"He's afraid," Nell said. And so was she. There was nothing ambiguous in the plot that had been uncovered to kill the king and the Duke of York and put Monmouth on the throne. It was true that Monmouth loved Charles. But for the first time, she wondered if it was possible that his ambitions had been whipped to such a frenzy that they would eclipse his loyalty to his father.

THE MOOD IN LONDON WAS UGLY. FEAR AND ANGER FUELED THE swiftness with which the conspirators were convicted, and even the preparations for the wedding of the Duke of York's daughter Anne to Prince George of Denmark and the gathering of Europe's royalty for the occasion did not slow the dispensing of brutal justice. The executions took place the day after the wedding, and Charles fled to Windsor, once more seeking to find peace there from thoughts of blood and danger.

Nell's anguish over Charles's pain and her fear of where Monmouth's folly would lead him added to her sense that the world had slipped sideways somehow and would not soon right itself.

BY AUGUST, MONMOUTH HAD SWORN HIS LOYALTY TO CHARLES AND begged forgiveness, and this day, as Nell rode with Charles to view the new palace being built at Winchester, he was in better spirits than she had seen him in months. The midday sunlight slanted across the red bricks marking out the foundations. Sir Christopher Wren reined up beside Charles, smiling at the king's evident satisfaction.

"The hunting house will be finished by next autumn, Your Majesty, in time for you to enjoy some sport before winter."

"What do you think, Nelly?" Charles asked, turning to her.

"I think that anything that will make you take your ease is a very good thing," she said, trying to keep her horse from dancing in circles. "You work too hard, and are too much among people you dislike."

"That's the idea of this place," Charles laughed, "isn't it, Wren? Far enough from London that I can escape, and room enough only for those I want with me. Perhaps we can spend next Christmas here, everyone's getting along so well. You and Louise, the queen, as many of the children as will come. Perhaps I can even persuade Monmouth to join us." Nell saw the hope behind his eyes, the shadow pa.s.s over his face at the thought of his eldest son.