The Vizard Mask (64 page)

'Never mind, Peg,' said Charles Hart. 'It was a fine funeral. Lord, I hope as many weepers line the streets when the Great Prompter calls me. The miles of black under overcast sky. Muffled drums. What theatre.'

'Yes,' said Penitence. 'He'd have loved it.'

On her way out Gwynn said: 'You don't want to bury yourself in the sticks. Get back on the stage, ducky. You've kept your looks and being skinny suits you.'

Rupert didn't want me to go back. She knew Nelly's reaction if she told her that, so she gave another, though equally true, excuse: 'Killigrew won't have me. The King has indicated I'm not wanted.'

Nell Gwynn was apologetic. 'He's a bit miffed about old

Rupert's will, Peg. You mightn't think it, but my Charlie's a great one for legitimate family. He'd have put poor old Catherine away and married somebody with babies in 'em years ago if he wasn't. He can't understand why Rupert left it all to you.'

'Neither can I'

Gwynn looked at her sharply: 'Oh my Gawd. Let's all enter a nunnery.' She had no time for self-doubt, in herself or others. 'He left it to you acause you made him happy. He liked fucking you. That's what it's all about, Peg. Wars and politics don't keep men warm in bed. He got good value for his money.' She patted Penitence's cheek and became brisk: 'James'll be happy enough to have you at the Duke of York's. You stay, Peg. Buy yourself a town-house and a nice young lover. You earned 'em.'

Penitence kissed her. 'I'll think about it, Nelly.'

'Well, don't think too long. Ain't either us of getting younger. And any time you want to sell Elizabeth of Bohemia's pearls I'm in the market.'

When everybody had gone, Penitence took the boys into her drawing-room, sat them down and stood by the fireplace. 'I thought we ought to discuss your future,' she said.

'Have we got one?' asked Benedick. Of the two, he was showing his grief more openly. Dudley was trying to hide his for her sake.

'Well,' she said, 'in view of the King's attitude, your advancement may be delayed. In England at any rate, and for a while.'

'I want to join the army,' Benedick said.

'You want to join any army,' pointed out Dudley.

She'd been afraid of that. And Dudley will because he thinks he ought to be military like his father.

She kept her voice mild. 'I have a suggestion. I have written to the Prince of Orange to ask if you may attend his court for a year or two. He is a relation, after all. He has written back to say he would be delighted.'

Dudley smiled for the first time since his father's death. 'Seeing the world.'

'Fighting the French.' Benedick was on his feet.

No you won't. William had written back to her: 'Had I not known of their connection with my revered late kinsman, 1 should yet welcome the two young gentlemen for your sake. Do not concern yourself, dear madam, that they shall be endangered of body or soul.'

She'd done her own checking. William's furious defence of his country had given Louis XIV pause; for a while at least the Dutch Netherlands were at peace. Reports from The Hague were of Mary's domesticity, visits to the opera and church, garden-planning, home-building.

If the boys didn't break their necks hunting — which they could do just as easily in England as in Holland - their bodies would be safe enough and their souls much safer in his care than tasting the debauchery of Whitehall.

What a fool you are, Charles Stuart, preferring dissolutes to splendid young men like mine and Rupert's.

The boys wouldn't lack money. She was going to share between them the 1,694 guineas that Rupert's iron chest had contained.

The only hesitation she felt in sending them to the Netherlands was caused by a letter in her pocket that minute. It was a polite condolence on the death of His Royal Highness, Prince Rupert. It was signed by the Viscount of Severn and Thames and its address was The Hague.

There was a lot to do. Rupert had left pensions to members of his household who were old enough to retire — and most of them were. Good positions had to be found for those who remained and who didn't want to accompany Penitence into the wilds of Somerset.

To her surprise, the Reverend Boreman and Mistress Palmer were quite prepared to be uprooted again and replanted in Somerset. Boiler, the coachman, and Johannes and Annie, the nursemaid, were also willing to go with her.

Penitence watched almost everything she'd known for the last eleven years go under the hammer during the sale of Awdes' contents. She remained dry-eyed until the last lot, an old hunting mare of Rupert's that had gone blind years ago.

Squire Brewster bid a pound and bought her. 'No, no,' he said with surprising concern for Penitence's anxiety. 'She shall live out her days in high grass. He'd have wanted it so.'

In the spring Boiler drove the last unsold coach through Awdes' gates to take the Great West Road. Inside it were Penitence, Mistress Palmer, the Reverend Boreman, Dorinda, Ruperta and Tongs. On top sat a lot of cases. Beside it ran a large black poodle.

Without anything being formally said, Dorinda had now so infiltrated the household that she and Tongs were part of it. The Huguenot apprentice was successfully running the Cock and Pie Press; MacGregor was longer and longer away in the Low Countries and Dorinda referred to him less and less often.

The arrangement suited Penitence sufficiently for her not to ask questions. Tongs and Ruperta were excellent playmates and, while Dorinda could be a screaming irritant, hers was the down-to-earth voice that saved Penitence from becoming too maudlin in her bereavement.

Behind the coach came a luggage wagon with Annie and Johannes. The outriders consisted of a large troop of the Earl of Craven's musketeers which the Earl had insisted on sending along to see her safely into Somerset: 'Suppose word got out to highwaymen that you were carrying the dear Queen's necklace, Mrs Hughes. No, no, Rupert would never forgive me.'

It seemed to Penitence that the coach would attract a good deal more attention with a troop of outriders than without them; Elizabeth of Bohemia's necklace was assuming the weight of a millstone. On the other hand, it was Ruperta's dowry.

I must find Athelzoy's secret room. Put the damn necklace in it for safety.

It struck her that she wasn't safe any more. Rupert had protected her, her child and her goods but now she could be preyed on - and not just by thieves. Already the King had shown his pique at her inheritance of his uncle's money by banning her from the stage of his theatre. He might positively punish her. Try to marry her off, perhaps. He would be unlikely to defend her against the harassment of men like Charles Sedley.

Penitence worked herself up into such a panic that she felt again, as she hadn't in years, the terror of the night when she'd been pursued along High Holborn. Once again she was a hare and any dogs who cared to were free to run her to ground. Only this time she was even more vulnerable in having a leveret. I'll turn and fight this time. They shan't hurt Ruperta.

'Told you them oysters was crapped,' Mistress Palmer shouted above the rattle of the coach.

Penitence looked across at her. 'What?'

'Them oysters. Back at that last inn. Turned you green.'

'You all right, Prinks?' asked Dorinda. 'You been snuffling.'

She was being idiotic. She wasn't that important; Rupert hadn't left her so much money that she'd automatically become prey to robbers and fortune-hunters. 'I was worrying about the necklace,' she said, 'with all these soldiers, every thief in London will have gathered I'm taking it down to the country.'

'Country?' Dorinda put her head out of the window and regarded the green view unfavourably. 'Tunbridge Wells is country. This is ballocking jungle. Any poor sod of a thief as tracks us down here is going to need a restorative. Where are we?'

'Not far now.' Dorinda was right. If she was a hare, at least she was returning to her forme. She would creep into it. Athelzoy, Rupert's last gift to her, would become a shrine to his memory and she the keeper of its flame, paying the debt she owed him with chastity, devoted motherhood and good works. Sacrificially, she stared out of the window, waiting for the coach to begin its slight climb through secret trees along a winding track

She'd forgotten the driveway that Rupert had ordered to be blazed through those secret trees. Unfinished, it cut a swathe as ugly as if a Titan had scuffed his way through her woodland to get to the house.

But as she looked up towards the Priory, Penitence fell in love all over again. Too exposed, yet built to be exposed, its square gatehouses at this remove resembled outcrops against the lovely rectangle of the hall, while the crazed, inspired

Tudor wings tipped their chimneys like hats to see her back again.

She gathered Ruperta and Tongs to her so that they could stare out. 'We're home, my pippins.' They would be safe here. Deep in Somerset where nothing ever happened. Far away from the epicentre of politics and kings and courtiers.

And at long last she could be virtuous; this was Rupert's true legacy to her, independence. Her body was her own. She didn't have to trade it for food or shelter. For her, the supreme luxury that so few women ever knew - sufficient food in the larder and solitude in her own bed.

No more loving Rupert yet dreading the moment when his ageing hands moved over her skin. Again guilt stabbed her. I didn't love him enough.

Instinctively her head turned to the north in which general direction lay the ancestral home of the Viscounts of Severn and Thames as if she would direct her decision towards it. But I shall atone. I stay faithful to his memory for ever and ever.

BOOK IV

Chapter 1

Charles II was struck by illness on 2 February 1685.

The only one of his numerous illegitimate children not called to gather about his bed was the Duke of Monmouth who had been forced into exile after the discovery of the Rye House Plot.

This latest plot had been in many ways the Whig version of the Popish Plot, except that in this case it was a real one. It was a Protestant plot within a plot. At its core was a plan for killing Charles and his brother James as they passed near Rye House, Hoddesdon, on their way back from Newmarket.

Unknowing that fanatics in the inner plot were contemplating regicide as a way of protecting the Church and liberties of England, Monmouth had nevertheless been on the fringes of the outer plot and keeping company with men who thought these things could only be saved by insurrection. Shocked, Charles had called his son 'a beast and a blockhead' and sent him away.

But the King, and especially James, Duke of York, profited from Rye House. Overnight popular feeling went Tory. The public's loyalty, which had been diminishing as Charles's reign became harsher, turned to him and against the Whigs. And he'd used it.

James, no longer seen as a would-be tyrant but as a victim, was brought back to court. The Whig Party that had called for his exclusion from the throne was all but destroyed. Those who had defamed him went to prison. Old enemies were executed. The Whiggish City of London had its franchises withdrawn. Other boroughs, where there were Whig officers and which regularly returned Whig members to Parliament, were remodelled to put Tories into the ascendancy.

Now, at the age of fifty-three and after a reign more like a twenty-five-year Bacchanalia, Charles was dying.

With considerable courage - one virtue the Stuarts never lacked - he endured four days of treatment by his doctors, who, it was said later, 'tortured him like an Indian at the stake', before death released him. It is certain that just before it did he was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

People wept in the streets when tolling bells announced the death of King Charles II but there was no outcry against the accession of King James II and James turned this equanimity to goodwill. Mary was already married to William of Orange. His second daughter, Princess Anne, was now married to the equally impeccably Protestant George of Denmark.

Thus, the English reasoned, however Catholic this new king proved himself to be, they could at least look forward to the throne passing into safe Protestant hands when he died. And he was fifty-one years old. And he couldn't be that bad, could he?

Standing in the high pulpit of St Mary's Church, Athelzoy, its vicar announced: 'I shall now read the accession speech of our new and beloved King James the Second.' He glanced nervously down for permission from a slim, middle-aged lady in a large hat sitting at the front of a crowded congregation . . .

His patron took Prince Rupert's time-piece from her pocket, polished it, shook it, read it and suggested in a clear, carrying voice: 'Perhaps only the relevant parts, Vicar.'

Very well, Your Ladyship.'

We could then dispense with a sermon.' Beside her, Sir Ostyn Edwards nodded a vigorous head.

Very well, Your Ladyship.'

Dorinda leaned over Tongs's head and hissed: 'Is he speaking English?' Dorinda had continual trouble with Somerset dialect.

'Yes. He's going to read King James's coronation speech.'

'Affie and me already heard it.'