The Darling Strumpet Part 21

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

NELL WAS NOT HAPPY WITH TYRANNICK LOVE. SHE HAD BARELY been onstage over the past few months and had been longing to return, but this was another of Dryden's grand tragedies, and Valeria was the kind of serious role that always made her feel awkward. Worse, the play centered around the life of Saint Catherine and was intended as a tribute to Queen Catherine. Nell couldn't help but wonder how the queen would feel about watching her onstage, knowing how frequently the king was in her bed. And Hart, Lacy, and Mohun were wrangling with the painter Isaac Fuller about his commission to paint the elaborate scenery.

She arrived at the theater for a rehearsal a few days before the play was to open to find the greenroom abuzz. What new calamity had befallen now? she wondered.

"The queen has miscarried again," Beck Marshall hissed at her. "The king's pet fox jumped on her bed and frighted her half to death." Poor queen, Nell thought. And poor Charles, his hopes for an heir disappointed once more.

"Will the play go on?" she asked.

"Don't know," Beck said. "I reckon we'll find out soon enough."

THE PLAY DID GO ON. AND DESPITE HER MISGIVINGS, NELL THOUGHT that the first night was going well. The house was packed, with the king, queen, and half the court there, and they sat rapt while angelic Peg Hughes as Saint Catherine ascended in her bed past Isaac Fuller's painted clouds to heaven.

The play drew to its close. Nell stabbed herself and died her best stage death. She lay there trying not to breathe visibly and looking forward to the epilogue that Dryden had written for her. Hart stepped forward and declaimed the solemn final speech of the play.

"Let to the winds your golden eagles fly,

Your trumpets sound a bloodless victory:

Our arms no more let Aquileia fear

But to her gates our peaceful ensigns bear

While I mix cypress with my myrtle wreath:

Joy for your life, and mourn Valeria's death."

A funereal silence filled the theater, and Richard Bell as the lead centurion bent to lift Nell's lifeless body. But up she popped and cried, " 'Hold, are you mad, you d.a.m.ned confounded dog? I am to rise, and speak the epilogue!'" A wave of laughter went up.

She skipped forward onto the ap.r.o.n, and continued.

"I come, kind gentlemen, strange news to tell ye:

I am the ghost of poor departed Nelly.

Sweet ladies, be not frighted, I'll be civil,

I'm what I was, a little harmless devil.

For after death, we sprites have just such natures

We had, for all the world, when human creatures;

And therefore I, that was an actress here

Plays all my tricks in h.e.l.l, a goblin there.

Gallants, look to't, you say there are no sprites,

But I'll come dance about your beds at nights. . . ."

This was so much better than tragedy! Nell grinned with delight as she cried out the final lines of her speech.

"Here Nelly lies, who, though she lived a slattern,

Yet died a princess, acting in Saint Cather'n."

The crowd roared their approval, clapping and stamping, and Nell curtsied deeply to the royal box, to the pit, to the packed galleries. It was good to be back.

JAMES, DUKE OF MONMOUTH, WAS STRIKINGLY BEAUTIFUL, NELL thought. There was no doubt he was the king's son, but the full lips, fair skin, and green eyes were evidence that his mother, Lucy Walter, must have been stunning. He had an engaging charm, and Nell liked him immediately and understood why Charles adored him.

They sat in the house in Newmarket that Charles had taken for her while he was attending the races. She had met Monmouth the previous day and invited him to come to visit. He was less than a year older than she was, and she felt an affinity with him despite the vast difference of their circ.u.mstances.

"I lived with my mother in Brussels until I was nine, you know," Monmouth said, stretching his long legs out before him in their silken stockings.

"Did you know who your father was?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. Of course he had no kingdom then. But my mother always told me my father was King of England, and I told it to my friends. They laughed," he said, "as well they might, for I ran barefoot in the streets with them and looked more like a beggar than the son of a king, albeit a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I couldn't even read."

"Really?" Perhaps this not-quite-prince had more in common with Nell than she had thought.

"Not a word, nor had I need. No school for me, only drudgery at home. My mother was little better than a wh.o.r.e, you know." He said it abruptly and looked to Nell. What did she read in his eyes? Challenge? Shame? The desire for pity?

"Mine was no different," she said, and he smiled at her, a shameful secret shared and accepted.

"But still I loved her," Monmouth continued. "When I was taken from her to be sent to the queen, my grandmother, in Paris to be brought up like a gentleman, I fought like a wolf, and cried to stay with her. The king's men took me from her by a trick. I didn't know until later that she had followed and begged to see me. But they kept her away."

"How monstrous!" Nell cried. "Did they never allow you a visit?"

Monmouth shook his head. "She died. I never saw her more." Tears glistened in his eyes. Nell felt a rush of maternal affection and pulled him to her, letting his head rest on her shoulder and stroking his hair like a child's.

Fingers crept onto her bosom. Nell thrust Monmouth away and smacked his hand.

"That's the last time you'll do that, or we will not speak again. I love your father, and am for him alone. Do you understand?"

Monmouth nodded sheepishly.

"Good. I would like us to be friends."

THAT SUMMER, WITH PARLIAMENT DISMISSED, CHARLES AND THE court escaped to Windsor, and he established Nell in a house only steps from the castle gate. The ancient castle with its ponderous walls looked like the Tower, a fortress rather than a home.

"That's why I like it," Charles said. "It can be properly garrisoned." His mouth took on a grim set, and Nell thought of his father, helpless to defend himself as he was handed over to Cromwell's forces.

"But see," he said, pointing toward the royal park, "how many new trees are planted now, to replace those destroyed during the war. And how peaceful the gardens here within the walls."

NELL WAS GLAD TO HAVE ROSE'S COMPANY AGAIN WHEN THE COURT returned to town in September. Her maid Bridget brought them cakes and ale as they sat enjoying the sun in Nell's little back garden, but Nell took only a bite before pus.h.i.+ng her food aside with a grimace.

"What's the matter?" Rose asked.

"I don't know. I just don't seem to have an appet.i.te for it. My belly's a bit off."

"And how long has this been going on?"

"A few days. I feel out of sorts."

Rose looked at Nell searchingly.

"Could it be you're with child?"

She was a few days late for her courses, and now she came to think about it, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were tender, and everything about her body felt somehow different than ever before. She laughed out loud.

"Of course! What a fool I am!"

"Will the king be happy?" Rose asked.

"Yes," said Nell. "Oh, yes."

CHARLES CAUGHT NELL UP IN HIS ARMS AND STROKED HER BELLY AS though he could feel the child within her already.

"He will be beautiful," he told her. "And with your spirit, he will be loved by all."

NELL WAS SUPREMELY HAPPY OVER THE NEXT WEEKS. CHARLES'S JOY over the child seemed to bind him more closely to her. He spent most evenings and many nights with her and even conducted business from the little house in Newman's Row. The French amba.s.sador, Colbert de Croissy, seemed taken aback when he arrived as directed from the palace, but bowed low and kissed Nell's hand, and she strove to put him at his ease. She made small talk with the elegantly dressed Frenchman for a few minutes, but left him and Charles on their own when they got down to the purpose of the meeting, a treaty between England and France against Holland.