Part 23 (1/2)
The rest of the play went no better. She could not find it in herself to rise to the heights of drama the part required, and felt foolish mouthing Dryden's bombastic verse.
”. . . As you are n.o.ble, sir, protect me then
From the rude outrage of insulting men.”
She noticed Louise giggle and whisper to a neighbor, hiding a smirk behind her fan. Nell had a sudden view of herself as Louise must see her-an upstart oyster wench in tawdry worn-out finery, playing at being a n.o.ble lady. A beat too late, she realized that it was her cue and came in with her line just as Hart was going on with his to cover her lapse. She was sure she had never had a more disastrous performance.
A FEW DAYS LATER, NELL SAT AT HOME WITH APHRA. DESPITE THE roaring fire, the parlor was cold, and Nell pulled her shawl tighter about her.
”Truly I don't know what to do,” she said again.
”If you want my advice, Nell, keep up with your work. Not Conquest or any of these other tragedies-you hate them and they don't suit you. Get Killigrew to revive All Mistaken. Or let me write something for you. I'd love to, you know.”
Nell turned to Aphra and squeezed her hand. ”You're too good to me.”
”It's not a question of being good to you. You're a delight onstage and my treasured friend. It would be a joy to write you a good part.”
Alone in bed that night, Nell thought about what Aphra had said. A return to a favorite part or a new one might be just the thing. But could she go back? In this last show, her fellow players had treated her with deference and even awkwardness. She was no longer the girl she had been when she first stepped onto the stage. Nor was she a lady, and she never would be. What was she then? Neither fish nor foul, she thought. Neither fish nor foul.
Rose was practical as usual.
”What do you want, Nell? To be the king's wife? Impossible. To go back to the stage? You're no longer at home there, and in any case you could never earn enough from the playhouse to live as you do now. There is no one else you care for, and if there were, how should it fall out? No man of wealth and position would marry you. And no man of our sort either, now. Could you live above a shop and bed the king's son down on a pallet? No. So where does that leave you? In the king's bed. And what did I tell you all those years ago? Get the money first. Always.”
CHARLES WAS COMING TO SUPPER FOR NELL'S TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY and was due at any moment. She surveyed the room with satisfaction. The fire crackled in the big fireplace, and she had had the table moved close to the hearth to counter the drafts. It was draped with a snowy damask cloth, and the pewter and gla.s.ses gleamed in the firelight. Candles were expensive, and she had waited until the last minute to have Bridget light them, but now they burned in brackets on the walls and on the table itself. The room looked as elegant as she could make it. And if anything was lacking, well, that was part of the point of the evening.
She heard the rumble of carriage wheels in the street below and checked her reflection in the mirror. She had taken special care over her hair and the application of color on her cheeks and lips. The candlelight gave her skin a warm glow, and she was satisfied that she looked her best.
Charles smiled down at her as he embraced her. ”You're looking very handsome tonight, Mrs. Nelly.” He pulled a small flat package from inside his coat.
”A little something in honor of your birthday. But you may not open it until after supper. And before anything else, I wish to see this son of mine.”
Little Charlie wore a fresh white gown and had fortunately managed not to soil it while waiting to make his appearance. Charles took him from Bridget's arms, and the baby reached up a small fat hand and tried to grasp Charles's mustache.
”Pluck thy father by the beard, wilt thou?” he laughed. He hefted the child in his arms. ”He's growing fast.”
AS THEY LINGERED OVER WINE, CHARLES WAS IN A GOOD HUMOR. Nell felt that the time had come to make her request, but she was afraid to ask of him so bluntly what she wanted. She found her opening when he picked up the packet he had brought and placed it before her. She hesitated, and then looked him in the face.
”I am most grateful,” she began.
”You haven't seen what it is yet,” Charles laughed.
”You're always generous and thoughtful in your gifts, Your Majesty.”
He glanced at her, surprised at her unaccustomed formality.
”You give me beautiful things, and you provide for me this house to live in, and all that it contains.”
”But?” Charles prompted.
”But I never know when your presents will come. I cannot live on silks and jewels, without I p.a.w.n them. Your son must be fed and clothed, and I am in constant doubt and anxiety about money.”
Charles was idly turning his winegla.s.s back and forth, watching the play of the firelight upon it. He looked stern, but he frequently looked so when he was merely thoughtful. Go like the bear to the stake or hang an a.r.s.e, Nell thought.
”This house is cold and drafty. I'm always in fear that your son will take cold. I do not mean to complain. I am most grateful for your protection and kindness. But I cannot go on as I am.”
A sharp gust of wind rattled the shutters and a cold breath of winter made the fire and candles gutter. Nell lifted her head to look at Charles, and his eyes met hers.
”I am your wh.o.r.e, Your Majesty. And wh.o.r.es must be paid.”
Charles looked at her in astonishment for a second, and then broke into hearty laughter.
”'Od's fis.h.!.+ And so you shall be paid, sweetheart. You're right. My son must be well cared for, and you must live in comfort. You don't ask for much, G.o.d knows. You shall have a regular allowance. Four thousand pounds a year, let us say. And a better house.”
Nell hardly dared ask, but, flush with her success so far, ventured on.
”Oh, Charles, I know the perfect house. Just down Pall Mall, with a great garden at the back, that abuts the park.”
Charles laughed again and came around the table to take Nell into his arms.
”Very well,” he said. ”It shall be so. And now, won't you open your birthday present?”
Nell did, and it took her breath away-a heavy rope of s.h.i.+mmering pearls. She was even more stunned when Buckingham told her the next day that Charles had paid four thousand pounds for them, and she knew she would never have had the courage to ask for a house if she had known what an extravagant treasure lay in the little packet.
THE HOUSE WAS A WONDER. ALL THE MORNING NELL HAD KEPT WALKING from one room to another, scarcely able to believe that it was hers for life, as Charles had said. It sat smugly on the west end of Pall Mall, its brick facade rising tall and proud three stories above the street. And seventeen fireplaces! She would no longer have to worry about little Charlie catching cold or bundle herself against the winter drafts.
She went again to the window of her bedroom and marveled at the view-St. James's Park, the palace, the river. The garden was filled with fruit trees, barren now, but before long they would be laden with blossoms, sweetening the house with their scent.
”WHY,” CHARLES RAGED, ”MUST MY BROTHER BE THE GREATEST blockhead in England?” Nell, weary of the tirade, which had broken out at intervals throughout the week, varied only by the pitch of the king's irritation, could only shake her head.
The Duke of York's wife, Anne, the daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, had died suddenly. Though outwardly the court was hushed in seemly mourning, behind closed doors there was urgent whispered speculation about who the duke would marry.
”It's the perfect chance to counter the people's fear of his being a Papist,” Charles continued. ”Every Protestant lady in England is making sheep's eyes at him, and he has no thought beyond that squinting, pale-faced trollop Catherine Sedley!”
Nell winced at the cruelty of the comment. The duke's mistress, Charles Sedley's sixteen-year-old daughter, was not a beauty, but Nell could not help remembering her as the shy little girl who had visited the house in Epsom one afternoon during her riotous summer there with the two Charlies.
”I swear by my soul,” Charles ranted, ”his mistresses are so plain, I vow his confessors must give them to him as penance.”
”He could not marry Catherine Sedley, I suppose?” Nell asked.
”No!” Charles shouted. ”He must marry well. A lady of unquestionable virtue and most certainly not a Roman Catholic. Someone who could be queen if-” He faltered to a stop, his face red, and Nell saw the despair and sadness behind the anger. ”Someone who could be queen if he is king. For it may come to that in the end.”
SHORTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF YORK, BUCKINGHAM'S mistress Anna Maria gave birth to his child, and the king stood as G.o.dfather as the baby was christened in Westminster Abbey. Despite the child's b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, Buckingham bestowed on him one of his own hereditary t.i.tles, Earl of Coventry. Nell wondered if Monmouth believed a precedent had been set.