The Darling Strumpet (49 page)
Read The Darling Strumpet Online
Authors: Gillian Bagwell
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance, #General
“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 assured 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 arse 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 passed 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 button 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 hell 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 appetite 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 cockles 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 gods 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 assassinate 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.”
“GOD’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 pass over his face at the thought of his eldest son.
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