The Vizard Mask (42 page)

As they stepped out into the sunshine and St James's Park, Hart said: 'How do you feel now, young Peg?'

'Official.' It was a delicious sensation, as if she'd been a thing of two dimensions and, pop, expanded into three.

Two pubescent girls spied her from under the limes and came rushing up, dragging their father with them. 'Oh Mrs Hughes, we saw you ... indeed, we did, but yesterday. In The Great Favourite.'

Their father swept off his hat: 'These chits of mine try to say, ma'am, that at last we have seen nobility tread England's boards again. We thank you.'

Penitence bowed.

'Bribed,' said Lacy as they walked on. The others nodded sadly.

Penitence examined her fingernails. 'Nobility,' she sighed. 'What a shame more of us don't have it.'

Kynaston stared around him: 'And this whippersnapper, this ungrateful weanling, this serpent's tooth, now expects us to treat her.'

'Let's go to Potiphar's for one,' said Becky Marshall.

'Let's stay in the park,' said Lacy, careful with his money, 'I'll stand her a milk.'

'Let's go to Gwynn's house,' said Knipp, 'and the King can stand us all a wine.'

It was a little early. As Lacy pointed out: 'Better not catch him with his breeches down.'

It was no hardship to saunter along the lake edge and watch the ducks and pelicans. Penitence had a moment of guilt that she was not spending this free time with Benedick - she was kept so hard at it nowadays learning scripts for productions which frequently only lasted a night before being replaced by another that the words she most often addressed to him were 'Run away and play, darling. Mother's busy.' As for the others at the Cock and Pie, virtually her only intercourse with them took place if they came backstage after the performance and walked her home.

Why shouldn't I have some pleasure? This had become another standard phrase. For all its work and tensions, King's was like some marvellous pantry to which she had been given the freedom after a lifetime of starvation. Moments like this, relaxed in lovely surroundings among peers whose creativity she respected as they respected hers, whose shop talk was of consuming interest, were addictive candied cherries.

They were in their playground. In the City, among nouveau riche financiers and merchants, they were less inclined to display themselves, especially the actors when identifiable in livery. There the old Puritan ethic was still in evidence and they could be subject to abuse from citizens who objected to the more risque plays, or even the occasional handful of horse manure thrown by a prudish apprentice. Here, among the parks, palaces and gardens of the old money, they were surrounded by their audience.

Though even here, she noticed, her companions were keeping a look-out and not just in order to acknowledge the salutes of their adorers. They were still vulnerable to the fury of a wronged husband or wife, or even some rake who had been pilloried by one of the wits' plays or prologues, and who blamed the actor who spoke the offence rather than the author. Last week Hart had been nearly run through by an inflamed fop who'd recognized his own posturing in a prologue written by Howard.

They wandered on to where the milkmaid was calling as her cows grazed around her. 'Ah,' Lacy said to her, 'sweet child, whose breath is your own and scents all year long of June, like a new-mown haycock.'

'Just tell us how many you want,' said the milkmaid, wearily.

'Seven,' said Lacy.

They sat down on a bench while the maid squatted, put her large, red hands round an udder's teats and squirted them towards the pail.

'I'm sorry the King didn't attend the inauguration, Peg,' said Kynaston. 'He was there for mine.'

'Ah,' said Becky Marshall, 'but you didn't refuse the King's invitation to bed beforehand.'

'He never asked.' Kynaston fluttered his eyelashes, and turned on Penitence. 'You didn't. Did you?'

'She cocking well did,' said Knipp. 'Chiffinch came into the green room yesterday and put it to her.'

'I didn't know who he was,' explained Penitence. At first he'd been just another among the hot-eyed, well-dressed men who crowded into the actresses' tiring-room after a performance. 'I didn't know he was the King's pimp. It was so ... oblique.' Her voice became lofty: 'His Majesty had enjoyed my interpretation, and should I wish to avail myself of the Privy Stair at any time, His Majesty would be graciously pleased.'

'Stupid colonial, she didn't know what the Privy Stair was,' crowed Anne Marshall, kicking her legs in the air at her amusement. 'She thought she was being given the freedom of the royal water closet next time she was in Whitehall.'

Kynaston clapped his hands over his mouth.

'What did you say?' breathed Hart.

Penitence grimaced. 'I said, thank you, but I usually went before I left home.'

Amid whoops of joy, the milkmaid shoved a tray holding seven beakers at Lacy. 'Tenpence ha'penny,' she said. 'And I ain't got change.'

Wiping his eyes, Lacy counted out the coins. 'Whatever became of the Arcadian spirit?' he asked.

'Never touch it,' said the milkmaid, and whacked the leader of her herd on its rump to discourage its interest in Knipp's flowered hat.

'Will Old Rowley be cross?' asked Penitence. It worried her slightly. She was making a good story out of the incident, but she'd quickly realized who Chiffinch was that evening, and what he was asking. Appearing to misunderstand had seemed the best way of avoiding a situation she had no intention of getting into. She wanted to make a career from acting, not whoring.

'Nah,' said Knipp. 'He's been turned down before. Frances Stewart insisted on keeping her cherry and turned him down in public.'

'I don't know, Peg,' said Lacy, 'he's my king and I love him and-he-died-and-then-she-died, but odd things happen when he's insulted. Look at poor Coventry's nose.'

A shudder ran round the group; mutilation of their looks was the players' nightmare. Coventry's had come about from a debate in the House of Commons when a member, trying to avert a tax on playhouses, had pointed out what pleasure the King derived from the theatre. 'From the actors? Or the actresses?' Sir John Coventry had asked. Next day, walking in the park, he'd been waylaid by ruffians and had his nose slit.

'Come along, my little republican,' said Kynaston. Wiping off their milky moustaches, the King's servants strolled on, twitting Penitence for her lack of patriotism. 'Would you have gone up the Privy Stair?' she enquired of Becky Marshall.

'I wasn't asked.'

'But would you have?' She didn't regret turning down the King's offer — she'd have felt more of a whore in the King's bed than on the blankets of Newgate's condemned cell or even than she did on Killigrew's couch - but until Chiffinch had bowed and gone she hadn't realized the enormity of what she'd done and its possible consequences. And though the actors were teasing, she sensed surprise that she priced her tarnished virtue so high.

'No,' said Marshall.'Why?' Penitence was comforted but curious. Unlike her sister, Becky had gravitas. While Anne took lovers, all of them rich and generous, the younger Marshall accepted gifts without giving more than her company at dinner in return and made it clear that only those prepared to make an honourable offer need apply.

Marshall slowed her walk so that the two of them fell behind. 'Like you, 1 don't believe in absolute monarchy — in bed or out.' She dropped her voice. 'One doesn't bruit it about, but Stephen Marshall was our father's cousin.'

'Presbyterian Stephen Marshall?' Penitence was impressed. In Massachusetts the Reverend Marshall's reputation for saintli- ness was high. Under the Commonwealth his bones had been interred with honour in Westminster Abbey. They'd been thrown out after Charles's restoration. It was strange to discover an actress related to such a Nonconformist divine.

Stranger still, Becky said: 'My father followed him into the Presbyterian Church, but, of course, the Conventicles Act has stopped him preaching.' She smiled. 'He has no high regard for his daughters' honour, but he might be comforted to hear we both draw the line at sleeping with a Papist like Rowley.'

'Is the King a Papist?' The word still vibrated with Puritan abhorrence.

'Oh yes,' said Becky Marshall, calmly. She nodded to the others ahead. 'Though you wouldn't get our friends there to believe it.'

They were walking along a narrow path edged by the canal on one side and pollarded willows on the other. A little way beyond the trees a coach had drawn up. As they passed it they saw its driver's seat was empty and its curtains drawn. Marshall was saying how dangerous it was to leave horses unattended when the coach door opened and two men jumped down. Penitence just had time to recognize Sir Hugh Middle- ton before both men grabbed her and began dragging her towards the coach where a third man was holding open the door. She screamed.

Marshall was running after them, shouting for help. One of the captors had to release his hold to fend her off, and Penitence managed to get her arm round a tree trunk. Her face scraped against bark as they pulled her away, wrenching her arm, but the delay had given the players time to reach her. She had a confused impression of the actors, swords drawn, in approved fencing positions encircling her and Middleton, who was clutching the back of her dress, shouting: The slut's mine. I adore her.'

'Let her go.'

The other man released her and ran back to the coach. Penitence kicked backwards, connecting her brand-new high heel with Middleton's shin. His hand tore her dress as he let it go and began hopping, rubbing his leg. 'She's mine. I want her.'

Lacy, recognizing farce when he saw it, sheathed his sword. 'Get back in the coach, Sir Hugh, there's a good lad.'

Middleton's face crumpled and he dithered his hands, like a frustrated baby. 'But I want her.'

'Not today.' Kynaston and Hart marched him back to his coach, watched it pull away, then bowed gracefully to a crowd that had hurried up to watch.

It had turned into a performance and Penitence, shaking, responded to it by bewailing her torn dress and ruined hat as if they were her grievance. In a way they were; she still owed dressmaker and milliner £20. But the true shock was not so much the assault as the words Middleton had been hissing at her as he'd dragged her away, protesting his adoration with vituperation so violent it had been like the snarls of a predator with a rabbit in its jaws. Knipp had been right. We are prey.

Knipp and Anne Marshall exclaimed over her grazed face. It was Becky who insisted that something be done. She was furious. 'What are we? Animals?' she raved. 'All we do is try to earn a living, and they think they can snatch us up like stray dogs. This isn't the first time. And what about that fop who nearly raped Knipp in the tiring-room the other night? Where's the King? I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.'

'It's not his fault Middleton's a lunatic,' said Kynaston, reasonably.

We're under his protection, he can damned well protect us. Where is he?'

It was easy enough to find him; Charles II was the most accessible of kings. The first person they asked directed them to Pall Mall. A crowd hid him, but as they came up it emitted an admiring 'ooh' at a ball which curved into the air above its heads and through one of the loops hanging from the gibbetlike poles along the course that was out of the actors' view. Suddenly it scattered as a less well-directed ball went skywards. Determinedly, Marshall led her force into the gap.

Penitence held back; reaction was making her feel sick. She could hear Marshall's voice expostulating and the news being passed around the spectators. Becky meant well, but she wished she wouldn't fuss. She didn't want to be drawn to the King's attention.

A very tall shadow blocked out the sun. 'Mrs Hughes. Allow me.' A hand under her elbow led her to the shade of an oak tree. The figure beside her took off its coat, folded it neatly and put it on the ground. Gratefully, Penitence sank on to it.

'You're hurt, ma'am. Allow me to fetch a doctor.'

The voice was deep and prim. The face high above her was unmistakably a Stuart's, the same swarthiness, same jawline, cleft chin and dark eyes. Only the mouth was distinctive, being thinner and less sensuous than the King's and more intelligent than James's. Below the hairline of his periwig an old scar formed an ugly dent of puckered skin. This man was even taller than the royal brothers, about six foot four, had seen more years and, from the look of him, had liked them less, but at the moment he was registering an almost nervous concern. 'A restorative, ma'am. At least permit me to fetch a restorative.'

'Thank you, sir. It's nothing.'

'It was a foul assault so I have just heard. But give the word, ma'am, and I'll horsewhip the varlet into the next country.' It was said with an energy which sent a thrush in the branches above his head flying to a quieter perch.

'You are kind, sir.' She smiled in real appreciation. 'But I think His Majesty is being asked to take action. I'm one of his players.'

'Indeed. I had the privilege to see your Desdemona but last week.'

That's who he was. It had been an occasion when the house was exceptionally well ordered and Hart had explained: 'Prince Rupert's in the audience. The stinkards daren't misbehave while Rupert's around.' The romance still attached to the name of Charles I's great cavalry general had sent twitters of expectation round the tiring-room, but the Prince had disappointed them by merely sending his compliments. Penitence, too, had been curious to see the commander who'd written the news of her father's death to her mother with such courtesy.

Now here he was, an ageing, embittered-looking hawk of a man and, at the moment, ill-at-ease. There was a silence.

'I prefer Shakespeare to the taradiddle they put on nowadays,' said Prince Rupert.

'We're performing Hamlet next week,' she told him.

'With yourself as Ophelia?'

'Yes.'

'I shall be in attendance.'

There was another silence and they both studied a herd of deer grazing nearby. It was a relief when the crowd by the pell-mell course opened to let a group of courtiers, led by the King, walk in her direction.