The Darling Strumpet (45 page)

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Authors: Gillian Bagwell

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance, #General

BOOK: The Darling Strumpet
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“What is it, Tom?” she begged him. “For the love of heaven, what noise is that?”
“Cats, madam. Live cats put inside, to make it more real-like, do you see, when the whoreson Pope is burning.”
 
 
 
CHRISTMAS CAME, BUT DID NOTHING TO QUELL THE TORRENT OF PANIC, terror, and recrimination. There had been three eclipses of the sun and two of the moon that year, bad portents, and all were anxious to see the end of 1678. On the second-to-last night of the year, Charles supped with Nell. He drank heavily and though he attempted good humor for the sake of the boys, Nell could see that his bleak mood infected his very soul.
“Come to bed,” she cajoled after the boys had gone to sleep, her fingers working at the knots in his neck. “Put it all out of your mind, until tomorrow at least.”
“You’re right, sweetheart,” he muttered, downing the last of his wine and staggering to his feet. “Come and see can you not make me forget what a hell has come to me here on earth.” He pulled her to him, his mouth on hers hard and insistent, as though he could lose himself within her.
A heavy knock sounded at the door. Charles and Nell froze as Groundes’s footsteps hurried through the hallway. Charles relaxed only fractionally when they heard Buckingham’s voice.
“Come in, George,” he called.
Buckingham entered, his face set as though against a coming storm.
“Your Majesty. Sorry, Nell, it couldn’t wait.”
“What now?” Charles’s voice was weary beyond Nell’s believing, and she hovered at his side.
“The whispers have become shouts. Shaftesbury is claiming that the queen is involved in the conspiracy and has tried to poison you, and he is demanding that she be banished from court.”
There was a moment’s pause, pregnant with pent-up energy as the instant before a clap of thunder, and then Charles kicked over the chair from which he had risen, picked it up, and hurled it into the fireplace, shattering its legs and making it prey to the voracious flames that instantly danced up the cane seat.
“No! No, no, by God and all that’s holy, no! I have banished Papists from Parliament and from London and kept them barred up at home like common thieves. I have cast out my own brother from the Privy Council and the Foreign Affairs Council, I have watched while they hounded poor Louise in terror from her home, I have stood by while that wretched whoremaster Montagu stirs the Commons to bay for Danby’s blood. I have agreed to subject all to oaths of supremacy and to speak against their own conscience for fear of their lives. I have sent men to their deaths. I have smiled while the dogs have sought to make me disband the army and put the militia under their control, putting myself at their mercy as did my father, but by Satan’s thunderous ass, this is a step too far!”
Nell had never seen Buckingham at a loss for words, but he appeared so now in the face of Charles’s wrath, and they exchanged a hasty glance of horrified amazement as Charles paused for breath.
“No,” he repeated. “No.” He grasped Buckingham by the front of his coat and pulled him close.
“Hie you back to those bastards. Tell them that from this moment, Parliament is no more. It is prorogued. Until the pleasure of the king should be otherwise. Tell them that. And tell them to get them home to their wives and beds, and God help them if they but cross my shadow once the New Year is come.”
 
 
 
JANUARY CAME AND THE SPECTER OF REBELLION, CHAOS, AND MURDER still stalked the land. Three conspirators were hanged, and then three more. Louise, in an effort to mitigate the rising hatred against her, had dismissed her Catholic servants. But at the Duke’s Theatre, she was booed so ferociously that she retreated in terror before the play began, then fled to France. Charles sent the Duke of York away for a three-year term as high commissioner of Scotland, both fearing for his safety and hoping his absence might help to quell the storm.
Public opinion stood against Parliament, and Charles’s minister Lord Danby persuaded him to dissolve it and to hold new elections, hoping that a more malleable and friendly house might result.
“Perhaps,” he said, glancing nervously at the king, “there may be a chance, can we but find men to stand who will defeat those now in power.”
Charles emitted a bitter laugh. “A dog would be elected,” he said, “if it stood against a courtier.”
But the new house that assembled in early March was, if anything, more hostile. Charles’s new and expanded council, designed to keep his enemies within view, wrangled and hissed in contention and resentment. Charles refused to receive Buckingham or his letters.
“Why should I?” he retorted to Nell’s expressions of dismay. “He supported the election of men who would cut my throat. I must look to myself now, and trust none.”
Parliament focused its rage on Danby, furious that he had succeeded in excluding the Duke of York from the act barring Catholics from official positions, and resentful at the marriage of his daughter to the king’s son by Catherine Pegge, called Don Carlo. His downfall came when Ralph Montagu, ambassador to France, revealed Danby’s intrigues with the French king, Louis, nearly implicating Charles himself.
Danby resigned and, heeding Charles’s warning, fled to avoid arrest. But he could not run forever and the king could do little to protect him; in April Danby surrendered. A flood of Papists were removed from their positions at court. Summer came, with the execution of five Jesuit priests convicted of treason, but still there was no sense of calm or resolution. Nell had never seen Charles so grim faced and exhausted.
“Let us to Windsor,” he said. “I can stomach no more of this blood.”
 
 
 
WINDSOR WAS AN OASIS OF GREEN AND PEACE. THE HUNDREDS OF trees that Charles had had planted when he came to the throne had grown tall and strong, and the old trees, pruned and well tended now, had regained their health and strength. Nell held Charles’s arm as they walked in silence through the royal park, the whisper of the summer breeze in the leaves like the distant sound of water. The boys ran ahead, the pack of spaniels tumbling around them.
“You need a proper house here,” Charles said. “That little place is not enough now that the boys are so big. Hard to believe that Charlie’s nine, and little Jemmy nearly eight, isn’t it? You shall have the new house near the church. And the continuation of your five thousand pounds a year.”
 
NELL LOVED HER HOUSE IN PALL MALL, BUT THE NEW HOUSE IN WINDSOR was truly grand. It stood near the castle, three stories of rich red brick, surrounded by gardens and orchards, with the royal mews between it and the town. She stood looking out a window on the third story. The royal park stretched away to the south and east, and to the west lay the river, meandering through the countrywide toward London. There was more than enough room for her growing household—the boys, their tutors and nurses, the dogs and the ponies, and the small army of servants she now employed.
Charles came to her side.
“I’ve always loved this view. When I was a boy I liked to think that I was Robin Hood and the park was Sherwood Forest.”
“And did you rob from the rich and give to the poor?”
“I tried. I took George’s favorite ball and gave it to one of the stable boys, but George found me out and pummeled me.” Nell laughed, imagining the youthful Buckingham administering a brotherly beating to the heir to the throne.
“I told him he’d be sorry when I was king,” Charles said, “but that threat never seemed to have much effect on George.”
 
 
 
APHRA VISITED NELL AT WINDSOR. SHE WAS POPULAR WITH CHARLIE and Jemmy, and after they had made their bows to her, they hovered impatiently on either side of her while Nell showed her the house. When the tour had stretched to ten minutes, Charlie could stand it no more.
“Come and see our ponies, I pray you!” he cried.
“Fie,” Nell scolded him. “Let poor Mrs. Behn have some refreshment first.”
“It’s fine, Nell,” Aphra laughed. “Come, boys, let us see these noble beasts of yours.” The boys each took hold of one of her hands and tugged her out to the stables, chattering happily over each other, Nell following in their wake.
“Fine animals,” Aphra pronounced solemnly, “and I doubt not but what you are both very fine riders.” The boys squirmed happily at the praise and raced off to find the groom while Nell and Aphra retired inside.
“It’s a truly beautiful house, Nell,” Aphra said, turning to admire the grand hall. “You well deserve such a place of peace and sanctuary.”
“I need it, too,” Nell said. “The world has had a sight more ups and downs this year than is comfortable. I’m so glad you’re here. As much as I like men, I don’t get enough of the company of women. I miss Betsy Knepp. She’s left her husband and gone to Edinburgh, you know, with some of the other players.”
They sat, turning their attention to the tea and cakes that Bridget had brought in.
“I’ve brought you a copy of
The Feigned Courtesan
,” Aphra said. “Just printed. Would you like me to read you the dedication?”
“I am doubly honored,” Nell said. “First that you think well enough of me to do me the kindness of dedicating the play to me, and second that you offer to read it to me in your own dear voice, so that I can hold the happy memory of it in my head.”
The dedication was long, and by the time Aphra had finished reading, Nell was in tears.
“You are too kind, really, Aphra,” she said. “I shall have to get it all by memory, so that when I am feeling lower than a pauper’s grave I can remind myself that you have regard for me, if no one else does.”
“Surely you don’t doubt how many people love you?”
“I do,” Nell said, looking down at her hands. “It’s a fault, I know, but I do.”
“Then remember just this much,” Aphra said, “ ‘You never appear but you gladden the hearts of all that have the happy fortune to see you, as if you were made on purpose to put the whole world in a good humor.’ ”
“Oh, Aphra,” Nell said. “Truly more praise than I deserve.”
Nell and Aphra looked up as Bridget bustled in, her face red.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Nelly, but Joe says there’s a messenger at the door. From your mother’s house, and asking to speak with you urgent.”
 
 
 
NELL STARED AT THE LUMPEN MASS OF WET CLOTHES, THE STARK white face tinged with blue, the unblinking eyes filmed over with the glaze of death.
Alas, then she is drowned.
The line from
Hamlet
floated into her mind, though there was nothing poetic about the sodden corpse on the table, the earthly remains of her mother, Eleanor Gwynn.
“She was drunk?” she asked, and the constable looked at his feet.
“So it would appear, madam. A bottle of brandy lay broken on the bank of the stream.”
“And when did they find her?”
“About six of the morning, madam. She was last seen at supper, and it seems likely she slipped in the dark last night.”
Nell thought of her mother, floundering in the black water, her tangled skirts weighing her down.
Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like a while they bore her up
… .
Why did such poetry come to mind, Nell wondered in some back region of her brain. Had Ophelia looked even thus
?
Her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch … to muddy death.
Nell turned to the man, who stood a few steps off, head bowed.
“See to having her made ready, please, and bring her to town.” She handed him a purse and turned back to the sunlight.
 
 
 
ELEANOR’S BODY WAS LAID OUT IN HER BEDROOM AT THE HOUSE ON Pall Mall, and Nell and Rose sat up with her on the night before the funeral.
“I can scarce believe she’s gone,” Rose said again.
“Nor I,” Nell agreed. “She looks so small, doesn’t she?”
“Aye. It was all the battle in her made her seem so big to us, I reckon.”

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