The Vizard Mask (54 page)

'He's off the booze. He's respectable. We're getting married.' She cocked her head to listen to her own words: 'I'm going to be a married woman.'

Penitence said: 'Congratulations. He's a good man.' Is he a good man? To judge from what he was printing, his politics had become revolutionary. She was ashamed she knew him so little.

'He'll do, Prinks.' Dorinda was smiling wryly; they both knew they weren't talking about love. 'He's trustworthy. He'll look after us, the sprog and me. Whore like I was, I'm lucky to get him.'

'He's lucky to get you.' Penitence was working herself up into anger again. 'And you make sure he doesn't drag you into the Tower.' She nodded towards the proofs. 'Who's commissioning all this rabble-rousing?' It was too much of a coincidence that every client wanted the Cock and Pie Press to print anti-Papism. There was organization here. MacGregor was working for somebody, a group.

Dorinda nearly answered. 'It's -' She stopped. 'You just never listened to him, Prinks. He's a political little bugger, is our Donal. Comes of being Scotch. Something to do with all them "C"s.'

'Seas?'

'Letter "C". All them "C"s up in Scotland. Conventiclers, Covenanters, Clans. He's tried to explain 'em but I can't understand half what he says. All I know is, Scotch religious quarrels make ours sound like a ballocking madrigal. The government there don't just ban Dissenters, they hunt 'em down and cut their tripes out. His family's Dissenters. Some of his cousins got rounded up the other day, taken to Edinburgh and booted.'

'Booted?'

'It's a torture. They put their feet in an iron boot and hammer in wedges.' She leaned forward belligerently. 'And your ballocking Duke of York there, apparently, watching like it was entertainment.'

'He's not my Duke.'

'He's your Rupert's ballocking cousin.'

'I don't believe it. James is too stupid to be cruel.'

Dorinda sneered. 'You're too close to the treacle, Prinks. But MacGregor believes it. And I believe MacGregor. He says William ought to succeed because James ain't fit to rule and I agree with him.'

Penitence was confused. 'William?'

'The Dutcher. The prissy little bugger we met that day at Newmarket. Of Orange.'

Light began to dawn. 'Is that why MacGregor's gone to Holland? He's working for Prince William? All this is to get William on the throne?' She was too concerned now to feel angry. 'You listen to me, Dorry. He's got to stop it. MacGregor is not to use the Cock and Pie Press for this. I don't care if James lopped his mother's legs off, I won't have it. He's to leave politics alone, it's too dangerous. For me and you. We've got babies to consider. I'm not having mine born in the Tower.'

Dorinda bridled but it was obvious that she had been conscious of the risk MacGregor ran of offending the King to the point where it was dangerous. Penitence's alarm infected her into promising to tell MacGregor that they must revert to printing more normal commissions. 'But he's a stubborn little bugger, Prinks. You don't know him.'

Thinking, as she walked from the Cock and Pie to the theatre that afternoon, of the position he had put her in — owning a press which was advocating a policy which not only her lover but her king would regard as treason — Penitence had to agree that indeed she did not know MacGregor.

She'd begun to wish she never had.

By Act IV, Scene ii Rupert was still not in the theatre. She

knew it with the tiny remnant of awareness she kept for the audience. It wasn't like him to be late. The friend he was bringing must have delayed him.

'Swear thou art honest,' raved Othello.

'Heaven doth truly know it.'

'Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.'

As Aphra had predicted it was a poor house, but the play's spell had gripped it. She felt its nerves with hers. Hart pulled her to him, rocking in agony, and went into his affliction speech.

As he put his hands round her face — 'Turn thy complexion there' — she registered that Rupert was standing in the auditorium doorway, another figure behind him.

'By heaven, you do me wrong.'

'Are you not a strumpet?'

'No,' she told him, 'as I am a Christian:

If to preserve this vessel for my lord

From any other foul unlawful touch

Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.'

Rupert had moved towards the boxes. His companion stood where he was, his face to the stage.

'What! not a whore?'

'Nnnno. A-as I shall b-b-umm-bb ... as I shall b-bb-b—'

Othello grabbed her to him again so that his mouth was by her ear. 'What's the matter, Peg?'

'As I sh-shall b-b-b .. .'

'As-I-shall-be-saved,' came John Downes's prompt.

She didn't hear it. There'd been a change of pressure in her ears, a sensation resembling deafness. Somewhere there was an audience and poor Hart subsidizing Shakespeare with frenetic fill-ins of his own, but she stood outside time, opposite the figure in the doorway. Perspective was altering the distance between them as if they were being blown towards each other, like ships on a collision course.

'What!' roared Hart. 'Do I hear you say you are not a whore?' He pulled her to him once more. 'For Christ's sake, Peg, say something.'

The line was out there. Desperately, she hooked herself on to it. 'No, as I shall be saved', and heard Hart continue in relief: 'Is it possible?'

She threw back her head. 'Oh, heaven forgive us.'

As they changed in the tiring-room after the play was over, Becky Marshall said: 'I've seen you give performances, Peg, but tonight's topped them all. You were magnificent. Win a pair of gloves.'

'Two pairs,' agreed Anne. 'What happened in Act IV, Scene ii, though? I thought you were going to die. Hart nearly did.'

'I was distracted.'

'Funny thing,' said Becky, 'so was I, when I came on just after. A man in the doorway reminded me of Henry King. Do you remember Henry, Peg? No, he was before your time.'

Hart came in. 'Marvellous, my dear. Truly a performance to make the gods applaud.' He was exultant. 'Wasted on that pitiful crowd, of course, but we had them in the palm of our hand. Did I notice the teeniest lapse of concentration in Act IV, Scene ii? We nearly lost them, dear. I thought we were going to get goosed.'

'I'm sorry, Charlie.'

'Never mind, never mind. Your good Rupert has given me a benefit purse that will do much for my retirement, like the true prince he is. He asks me to tell you he awaits you in his chariot.'

Outside in Drury Lane the carriage lamps shone fuzzily through a cold drizzle. Boiler was holding open the door.

Rupert's hands grasped hers as she got in. 'My dear girl, what a performance. Always you have moved me, but tonight as never before.'

He made the introductions between Penitence and the dark figure in the corner of the carriage. 'The Viscount is an old friend. He has been abroad for many years on the King's business, and I fear his health has suffered for it. He protests he will go to an inn tonight, but I have overridden him and said Hammersmith air and my lady will make him well.' He was delighted at what he'd done: 'My stratagem surprised him. You did not know until tonight that my lady and England's finest actress were one and the same, did you, Viscount?'

'I didn't,' said the voice of Henry King.

'And what do you say to it?'

'I congratulate Mrs Hughes on her performance.'

The journey passed in Rupert's triumphantly gloomy summation of the state of England. When an answer couldn't be avoided, the Viscount of Severn and Thames gave it, shortly. His voice was tired.

Penitence didn't speak at all. In four miles she had only one coherent thought: Thank God Benedick isn't home.

Chapter 3

Peter stood between the Corinthian pillars, the open doors behind him casting a wide path of light up the steps. 'Welcome home, Your Royal Highness. Welcome home, Your Ladyship.'

'Thank you, Peter.'

'Hello, Peter,' said the Viscount.

For the first time since she'd known him, the major-domo showed emotion: 'Lord, Lord be praised. This is good times come again, Lord.'

For some reason it seemed a terrible thing that Peter knew and loved him. Her anger activated her legs sufficiently to cross the great black and white floor of Awdes' entrance hall and mount the staircase to the Long Gallery at speed ahead of him.

Like a good hostess, but without looking at him, she opened the door of the main guest apartments and said: 'I hope you will be comfortable, my lord. I shall send the housekeeper to make sure you have all you require.' He bowed. She curtseyed and left.

In her room, she went to her looking-glass, wondering if she'd aged, wondering if the force of anger she felt would splinter the glass; the face of a hag stared back at her. How dare he come back. How dare he. How dare he know Rupert and Peter and re-enter her temperate, equable life where, if there was no passion, neither was there pain. Why isn't he dead? How dare he not be dead. Where had he been these thirteen years? And what did she care where the hell he'd been?

I don't. She collected herself, pulled back her shoulders and folded her hands in her lap, controlling her breathing. There was no necessity for this turbulence. He was a man she'd known long ago, and that was all he was. True, he was the father of her son, but he was not aware that he was, nor was anyone else except Dorinda, Aphra, MacGregor and ... Oh God, Mistress Palmer. She had a nightmare vision of Henry King and the former Rookery laundress meeting on Awdes' stairs.

It won't happen. Palmer was usually in bed by this time of night. I'll see it doesn't happen. Nothing will happen - nor should it. Two people who were once acquainted have encountered each other again by chance, that was all it was.

But if that was all it was, why this fury that suffused her even to the tips of her hair? You left me. You thought I was a whore and you left me. Because of you I brought up a baby alone. Because of you I became the whore you thought me.

For sure, he had never intended to re-enter her life. When she'd seen him in the theatre doorway, when he'd seen her on the stage, the shock had been mutual, she could tell from the way he'd stood ...

The outline of his head should not have been so familiar after all this time, she should not have been able to tell the set of his shoulders from all the other pairs of shoulders in the theatre .. . God, God, what a mess.

A knock on the door made her tense. It was Rupert. 'You look tired, my dear. I apologize for inflicting a guest on you tonight, but Torrington deserves well of us. I don't doubt that later he will tell us all he has been through.'

She nodded. 'Rupert.'

He turned back. 'My dear?'

'I have something for you.'

Smiling, he said: 'Another birthday present?'

'In a way.' She went to the chest where she kept her old beaded satchel and took out the letter she'd found in Her Ladyship's box. 'I think you'll recognize the writing.'

'What's this?' He took it to the candelabra and read it, holding it at arm's length. 'And how did my lady come by this?'

'You wrote it to my mother. Captain Hoy was my father.'

He folded the letter with great care and put it down. 'I remember Hoy. A good man and a brave soldier. He had a stutter.' He took her in his arms. 'Why didn't you tell me before?'

'I don't know. Tonight seemed appropriate. I wanted you to know that we've always been connected. We always will be.'

'My dear, my very dear.' He kissed her, then became brisk. 'We'll speak more of this. But for now, shall we go down?'

At dinner Peter hovered, ensuring that the guest, who hardly touched them, was served enormous portions. Penitence found this irritating almost to screaming point, though she didn't know why, any more than she knew why tonight of all nights she had told Rupert about her father, except that he had suddenly seemed so vulnerable that she'd wanted to make him a gift of reassurance.

For that matter, she wasn't sure why she hadn't told him before. Ferhaps it was because he'd been so careful never to enquire into her past that it had taken on an aspect of forbidden territory and his questions might have led to the fact that she had spent two years of it in a brothel. It would hurt him, even while he accepted her explanation that she had not been one of its whores.

Something you never believed, Henry King. For the first time that night she looked straight at the Viscount Severn and Thames.

For the first time the Viscount looked back at her. And you still don't, God damn you to hell. The Viscount was smiling and, with her capacity to understand him still alarmingly alive, she knew he, too, was angry. And, damn him, proprietorial.

Bad health, not age, made him appear older than the intervening years warranted. His skin was near yellow and his eyes bloodshot. But, apart from a touch of grey in his hair, he looked as he always did, damn him again.

Talking happily, Rupert ate his way through the interminable courses with an appetite ensured by the Stuart immunity to weight. It was Peter who picked up unease from hers and the actor's silence. He paced softly from Henry King's side of the table to hers to watch their faces. Time to put on the mask. 'And how did you and my lord first encounter each other. Viscount?'

It was Rupert who answered. 'In Ireland, it was. The wicked year of '49. Anthony here was a sprog not sixteen year old and sent like a parcel by his father that he shouldn't be raised in a regicide country. I took him aboard the Antelope. The Antelope, good little ship. Remember her, Anthony?'

Very well, Highness. I remember Her Majesty pawning her jewels to buy her ordnance.' The Viscount nodded towards Penitence. 'I am happy to see the pearls at least were redeemed.'

Penitence put her hand to her throat. The pearls had belonged to Rupert's mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and were so magnificent that only Rupert's insistence overcame her terror of wearing them.

Rupert beamed. 'Her Majesty would have been happy to see them inherited by such beauty. By God, we had to pawn our eye-teeth to sail at all, and we did so as much to provide our living as to fight the King's enemies. The Cavalier fleet we called ourselves, though others provided less flattering epithets — "buccaneers" was one.' He smiled. 'And not without some justification. If we needed to refit, we first had to capture some passing ship and sell her, like damned corsairs, though I trust we eschewed those rogues' cruelty.'